When did American Public Schools start to go down hill? (med school, wage)

[gardener34]

"But nowadays, isn't ADD/ADHD overdiagnosed in children who are just being...children? The diagnosis 40 years ago might have been..."that's just the way kids are"?"

I would say no - I know and know of more aspergers and autistic kids than we ever saw growing up... it is a disease that is definitely on the rise for unknown reasons. And if you have EVER been around these kids for any length of time, you will know it is not just - "kids being kids". Although there are differing degrees of autism though, for sure.

[InformedConsent]

Public schools started to go downhill when they stopped grouping by skill/performance level, started putting students who were several years (or more) apart in competency level together in the same class, and started expecting the teacher to be everything to everybody in the mixed-level class all at the same time.
The Other Crisis in American Education - 91.11 (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/educatio/singalf.htm - broken link)

There's a school in Maryland that's bucking the mixed-ability classes trend, with very good results for all groups.
Montgomery School's New Take On Ability Grouping Yields Results

Rock View Elementary's subgroup results 2003 vs. 2007:
Remarkable Results

[TouchOfWhimsy]

I don't know the "whens," but I do know when standardized testing became the measuring stick for "success" in school, we took a huge step backwards. Instead of learning HOW to learn, kids are being forcefed junk that they'll never need to know again, to prove a point and pass a test. It's absurd.

Honestly, I think other problems center around parents: when both parents work and kids go from before school care, to school, to after school care, to McDonald's for dinner, then have to cram in homework, bathing, etc before bed, just to do it all agian in the morning, who is raising these children?? It's not mom and dad, that's for sure. It's whoever they hire at the school/childcare agency for the before and after school care, and ONE teacher in a room of 20-30 children. Then the parents try to make up for it by scheduling "quality time" on the weekends along with lots of gifts and treats and other crap to satisfy their guilt... it's a lose-lose situation, but no one wants to hear it, because after all, in today's society, both parents *need* to work to pay for their houses and cars and credit cards, right? Unfortunately, between behavior problems in the classroom, drugging many of the children for learning differences (not counting the very few children who truly benefit from the drugs), not enough supervision (I'm sorry, but a 1:30 or even 1:20 ratio of adults to kids is not acceptable), and parental guilt causing permissive parenting, the kids are coming out last.

[janthony76]

I haven't read the whole post but I can tell from experience the no child left behind have left many special education childern behind. Our school just won the blue ribbion award for excellance and this is the same school who has fought me every step of the way to keep my daughter in the least restrictive environment. They have pushed the childern who can not perform as well on the standarized testing to be held back or moved to a boces classroom where their scores don't count. Do a search for Eggert Elem. in Orchard Park, NY they look wonderful because they skew the numbers.

[Donna7]

Originally Posted by questioner2

Everyone I talk about tells me how terrible the public schools are now a days. They tell me "in their day" our public education system was much better. The kids minded their teachers, people paid attention in class and the quality of instruction was much better.

If you are a baby boomer or older, do you think the school you went to "in your day" is better than what your kids have today?

If this is the case then there must of been a glory day in America's history when schools were great. In what era was our public education system in good shape?

Everyone thinks that they are the better generation, the greater generation, and some even label themselves "The greatest generation". I am 45 years old, I don't know that the school I went to was "better" than what my kids have now. I do know that the kids today are stressed in ways that perhaps the previous generations were not. We have so much technology coming to kids, delivering everything under the sun, we have parents working 2 and 3 jobs in order to keep a family afloat, and teachers end up many times being the parent as well as the teacher. We have severe budget constraints constantly, everywhere. I pay NO attention to those who constantly belittle the youth of our country, the teachers that are GREAT, who give their heart and time to teach our kids. I support them. I don't care what was yesterday. We have only today and the future. Too much negativity, too much blame, too much "the sky is falling" mantra.

[Lincolnian]

Public education problems cannot be solved in isolation from larger societal problems.

No government program is a substitute for a strong, loving, family.

Having said that, as a teacher of 14 years, there has been a steady decline in the socialization component of education each year.

This is exasperated by the fact that many schools have eliminated opportunities for kids to be kids and learn to interact in a variety of settings iand arrangements due to the strong need to demonstrate that as many as possible can show a certain level of achievement via scoring on a standardized state test used to compare school districts and subgroups of students primarily to monetize the value of a community in terms of home prices (IMHO).

Increasing Federal presence in education decisions has hamstrung many communities causing them to abandon traditional programs that better met the unique needs of those children who lived within that community.

When I taught elementary school, grade 2, my students had opportunities to listen as I read to them and share their connections to the story. We had show-and-tell experiences which gave the children opportunities to share something that was important to them while building their confidence in speaking in front of a group, answering questions, and developing articulation.

Children worked at various paces on morning work that was outlined on the chalk board. Copying spelling words, important information, etc.

We went outside on nice days and walked the perimeter of the school yard or even walked to an adjacent marsh and looked at plants, flowers, rocks and other items we were studying in science and touched them, held them, and saw how they worked together to make up the ecosystem we had read about.

I taught the students how to play whiffle ball and then stepped back to let them negotiate how the rules would be enforced so that the game could remain fair without an adult having to lord over them and constantly tell them what to do.

Some days when the kids were highly interested and motivated to engage in learning about a particular topic in reading or math I would extend the time on that topic to fill that need without fear of compromising my daily pacing guide.

Interestingly, I never felt rushed to meet my curriculum objectives and often covered the essential items much quicker than is possible today on a much less flexible, highly analyzed test-based environment.

We no longer have show-and-tell, morning meetings, recess, the ability to go outside without filling out numerous forms and taking a walk without permission slips with clearly-defined objectives and curricular standards.

Kids don't have the opportunity to interact in different settings and groups the way they did before and many elementary schools are putting the pressure on kids in Kindergarten to learn how to read and write in a test format so that they are "ready" for subsequent grades. No more time to learn how to share toys, stories, develop listening and observation skills, and role play social interactions..

Is it any wonder why behavior problems are growing by leaps and bounds especially since the destruction of the typical American is not there for too many kids to fill this loss?

People need to stop blaming teachers and "schools" and have honest discussions and force policy changes that meet the needs of all types of students not just focusing on preparing students to be good test takers geared primarily toward admission to college.

I hope that students in the plains states especially are learning how to be good farmers if they are interested in farming because we all need to eat! If they can't write a persuasive essay in 7th grade that will score an 8 on a holistic rubric I don't want them held back from pursuing their personal interest in a Vocational Agricultural program because a language arts specialist feels they are not prepared for the 8th grade due to their lack of persuasive prowess in writing.

[InformedConsent]

Originally Posted by Lincolnian

People need to stop blaming teachers and "schools" and have honest discussions and force policy changes that meet the needs of all types of students not just focusing on preparing students to be good test takers geared primarily toward admission to college.

That may be what some think, but those sectors which employ high school grads are very unhappy with how poorly prepared their new hires are coming out of high school.

I'm sorry if this offends some, but schools need to start facing up to the reality of what employers of entry level, high school grads are saying about high school grads' lack of basic skills.

--- Bison Gear, a manufacturing company with 220 employees, has joined with other manufacturers and educational leaders to form a 12-week work-training program to address the shortage of qualified entry-level workers in manufacturing.

"It's a challenge for us to find workers with the basic skill set we're looking for," said Sylvia Wetzel, who runs the program. "We spoke with other manufacturers and they had the same concerns.

"We're more than willing to do on-the-job technical training, but we're talking about ground-zero knowledge, like passing an eighth-grade math test," Wetzel said. More and more, studies show, the same skills necessary for college readiness are the skills workers need to earn a living wage. College and workplace standards are very similar.There were always people who thought, especially in the old manufacturing towns, that there were factories you could go to if you weren't ready for college, and that's no longer the case. --- Daily Hearld. Nov. 25, 2007

I hope that students in the plains states especially are learning how to be good farmers if they are interested in farming because we all need to eat!

Farming is a lot more complicated than many think it is.
Impact

I wish schools and educators would stop making excuses and start preparing students for the challenges they will be facing in today's real world.

The fact that there are successful schools in challenging socioeconomic environments proves that there are ways to adequately prepare our children for jobs or college. Study what those schools are doing to achieve their successes. Emulate those schools. How hard is that? Why are there so many protests about doing what has proven to be successful at pulling everyone up to higher levels of achievement?

To our public education systems in general - Stop making excuses. Stop shooting the (NCLB) messenger. Start doing a better job of preparing our children to face the demands of the real world.

[Lincolnian]

Do you think there is a connection between moving away from traditional educational programs which focused on social AND academic skills versus today's methods?

Not all the things being given priority in the state standards are necessarily manifested in the real world.

Like a job, education has to match the abilities, interests, and motivations of the learner. Build a connection to that ability, interest, or motivation and it has a much better chance of being internalized, retained, and developed into a work ethic.

This is not dumbing down a curriculum it is creating a drive for accomplishment. America has always been the world leader in productivity despite performing below many nations on formal tests. The key difference has always been that Americans continue to pursue training, education, and experiences necessary to be successful in their chosen field.

This issue is a far more complex one than can be addressed from the outside. Schools across the country struggle to get any real involvement from the parents in addressing the issues.

60,000 people in my city and maybe 2 or 3 a month show up at the BOE meetings who don't have to be there. After elementary school it is nearly impossible to get more than 10 to 20 parents out of 1000 to come to a PTA meeting and far fewer to join an educational discussion forum.

The same problem applies to municipal involvement. People don't want to run for open municipal seats or go to regular monthly meetings because they feel that their voice doesn't matter. Some of this is due to "structural turnoffs" such as lack of back and forth dialog and others have to do with extremely "political behavior" by the elected officials on even the most basic decisions that makes these meetings last several hours.

[InformedConsent]

Originally Posted by Lincolnian

Do you think there is a connection between moving away from traditional educational programs which focused on social AND academic skills versus today's methods?

Schools moved away from a focus on academics a long time ago.

Many parents, college officials, and employers bemoan the significant declines in high school grads' basic skill and knowledge levels, even among the top quartile of students.

The Other Crisis in American Education - 91.11 (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/educatio/singalf.htm - broken link)

The Quiet Crisis: Education's Perfect Storm

This issue is a far more complex one than can be addressed from the outside. Schools across the country struggle to get any real involvement from the parents in addressing the issues.

60,000 people in my city and maybe 2 or 3 a month show up at the BOE meetings who don't have to be there. After elementary school it is nearly impossible to get more than 10 to 20 parents out of 1000 to come to a PTA meeting and far fewer to join an educational discussion forum.

And how many parents complain that their school boards and school administration won't listen to parents who want a good education for their children? How many parents complain that they have little to no say in the decisions their school districts make about curriculum and pedagogy? Parents are giving up on our public school systems because our public schools are not responsive to what parents', college officials', and employers' know are the educational needs of our country's children. By inflexibly clinging to theoretical educational ideology and pedagogy that produces poor results, schools are driving parents, college officials, and employers away. That shouldn't come as a surprise.

[TouchOfWhimsy]

And how many parents complain that their school boards and school administration won't listen to parents who want a good education for their children? How many parents complain that they have little to no say in the decisions their school districts make about curriculum and pedagogy? Parents are giving up on our public school systems because our public schools are not responsive to what parents', college officials', and employers' know are the educational needs of our country's children.

I think that this is key. If parents are not happy with the status quo, then they need to DO something about it, not just complain and threaten to do something about it. What can they do? Pull their kids out of public schools if they are sub par. Only when the government realizes that parents are serious about taking responsibility for what their kids are learning and doing will parents begin to be taken seriously.