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Absolutely... Its one of the main reasons I ended up NOT going into teaching. "Differentiating" seems to be a core principle in teaching these days and I was just philisophically opposed to it and to many other principles that made me roll my eyes:
Test Corrections? - ie. That a student can go back and essentially get a second crack at test questions that they missed and improve their grade.
Minimum score 50? - ie. That no matter what, the worst score a kid can get on an assignment is a 50.
Just couldn't do it... I don't subscribe to any of it...
There are few original ideas in education. These policies are pervasive.
Similar to test correction are retake policies. Often a student asks to take a retest and doesn't even know which test they want to retake. It is quite telling as to how much they have studied for it and how well they are going to do on the retest.
My children's school tried this two years ago. Grades dropped throughout the district. Many students approached taking the actual test like spinning the wheel to see where their score would land because they knew they could always take the retest. They dropped that policy the next year.
The minimum 50 score is very popular too. If often results in many students doing next to nothing for the majority of the term. Nothing (50) + Nothing (50) + Nothing (50) + Fair (75) + Fair (75) = 60 Average = Pass.
There are few original ideas in education. These policies are pervasive.
Similar to test correction are retake policies. Often a student asks to take a retest and doesn't even know which test they want to retake. It is quite telling as to how much they have studied for it and how well they are going to do on the retest.
My children's school tried this two years ago. Grades dropped throughout the district. Many students approached taking the actual test like spinning the wheel to see where their score would land because they knew they could always take the retest. They dropped that policy the next year.
The minimum 50 score is very popular too. If often results in many students doing next to nothing for the majority of the term. Nothing (50) + Nothing (50) + Nothing (50) + Fair (75) + Fair (75) = 60 Average = Pass.
I saw the same thing in the charter school I worked in. Students didn't study for the first test because they could always retake it and we all know what happpens as time passes after something it taught. Retakes were, usually, worse than the original score.
It seems that the education system in the USA is broken. Yes, it's broken. But my concern is: Why isn't the government doing anything about it?
This is not a rant, but more of a concern.
Schools in the USA are broken because they are known to serve as 'prisons' where students are yelled at, unfairly punished, and restricted to do physical and emotional things such as using the restroom or eating.
The USA government apparently doesn't give no flying nose horn about this and just letting schools be as useless as a day treatment.
They were pretty illogical to make school the In loco parentis of students. This means that they think that teachers are the student's parents while they are in school JUST because they're adults.
School is also known to be a free, mandatory, babysitting service where students are forced to learn useless subjects and if they don't do what they're teacher say, they are scolded and punished.
First off, just because the teachers and administrators are put in charge of the students does NOT mean they are their parents or guardian. They don't need to act like a parent, they just need to act like a teacher. It's okay to take privilages away from them, give them detention, or yell at them like a responsible person would do. But that does not mean teachers have to be their parents.
Teachers are not special, not superior, and not any better than students. They have never made it illegal to make stupid and pointless school rules or made a list of technical rights student has. Not even my school distruct did this, (except made a students bill of rights).
Then, they don't give no crap about how useless the subjects are. I mean, the subject itself may not be useless. But there are some lessons associated with Math, History, Social Studies, Reading, and Science students don't need. They don't seem to be attempting to fix the education system.
It's bad enough Barrack Obama attempted to extend the school year (LOL WUT), thinking students will behave better and turn in more work. No, there is ways to fix the education system and get students to do their work without extending the school year or day. Extending it will just make it worse.
So can someone tell me: Why isn't the federal government doing ANYTHING to try to fix the education system? Again, this is NOT a rant, but more of a concern.
Read the Constitution.
BTW....the fact that you (and millions of others) don't know that the federal government has absolutely no constitutional authority to be involved in education is why our educational system is a mess.
BTW....the fact that you (and millions of others) don't know that the federal government has absolutely no constitutional authority to be involved in education is why our educational system is a mess.
Guess the politicians didn't read this paragraph of the Constitution, eh?
BTW....the fact that you (and millions of others) don't know that the federal government has absolutely no constitutional authority to be involved in education is why our educational system is a mess.
But when they wave that green ($$$$) to the schools then it becomes OK.
The schools get caught up in it and depend on those Fed dollars and start to do whatever it takes to continue to receive those Fed dollars.
BTW....the fact that you (and millions of others) don't know that the federal government has absolutely no constitutional authority to be involved in education is why our educational system is a mess.
It's because we expect a lot from a system that was set up to give a little. Everyone wants to be smart now, it's just not possible. We need to get over that first and it won't seem as bad. Not everyone is made to be a lawyer, doctor or scientist. Could anyone be one of these if they devoted their time to it? Yes, but and this is a large but, part of the gift you have when you make it into one of these positions is the gift of willingly spending your time to do it. It's those who make it big, the rest do not. It's a pretty big part of the equation a lot of people miss. What they miss about it is not everybody, actually, very few, have the capability to attend to themselves as needed.
Nobody is to blame, the problem is everyone pointing fingers because they don't want it to be their fault. It just IS. We are all made up differently.
If you mass produced anything, people, pens, you'd only get a few perfect pens or people.
One day they will make a pill no doubt that enables us all to feel the self motivation, but until then, well, we just have to do the best we can do, stop blaming schools, teachers, parents and the kids themselves and just be happy with what we do get out of it. We need to stop taking it so hard. The depressed kids, teachers and parents are a waste.
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