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There is ONE Thing we know that would improve K-12 education immensely. It's been documented and proven. It also lowers risk factors for poverty, use of social services, and crime rates.
0-5 education. Free Preschool available to all. Parent education free to all. Too many parents can't or won't provide the early childhood education critical to normal development. People don't read to their kids from birth. They don't take them to storytime at the library, they don't read to themselves for recreation or growth. they don't SPEAK to their children enough for kids to build the vocabulary need for a successful life. and the cycle perpetuates.
Some states are working on this...but those in power ignore it over and over and over again.
It is obscene that we do not teach financial literacy. Before they turn 16, kids should understand legitimate investment, taxation, saving for the future, compound interest, and our predatory student loan industry.
First off, according to the Forbes article, 19 states DO teach financial literacy/personal finance. Secondly, as many have said over and over, this stuff is taught, just not always under that term. If you teach this stuff before it has any relevance whatsoever, it will not be retained. Also, investing has changed so much since I was 16 and trying to avoid the Black Plague, it isn't funny. Save for the future when they're making minimum wage? Why? They can use that money now, and learn how to use money.
A lot of people on this forum have agendas-STEM, physics before biology, the Arts, finance, party planning (yes, that was brought up!), etc.
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Originally Posted by Scooby Snacks
#1. Betsy DeVos getting fired/resigning.
#2. more parental involvement. Many parents believe that it is the teacher/school's responsibility to do all of the teaching. The parents should play an active role as well.
#3. Adopt year round schooling. Before parents attack this idea, there are a lot of persuasive arguments in favor of it. The three month school vacation was originally implemented when America was an agrarian society and children were needed to help out around the farm when the harvest chores were most demanding.
Since then, we have completely changed as a nation, and year round school has shown to increase student retention of the information they learned the previous year and an increased likelihood of staying in school. They still get several three week breaks, instead of the one three month break.
I do know that simply throwing more money at our educational woes (and Texas has many) has not fixed our horrible school system. We need to get to the root of the problems and address them.
I'm not a parent. I'm a taxpayer, an involved aunt, and a college and grad school grad, but this is what I've believe would help a lot.
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Originally Posted by gentlearts
I disagree on a few points.
1. The fact that the union is against the changes proposed by Betsy DeVos, makes me very interested in seeing the changes she proposes. I think the teachers unions are self serving, and the current methods, which they've had decades to fix, are not working. To be in favor of the status quo, to me, is ignorant. People are scared of change, but sometimes you need to rip off the bandaid.
3.Year round school is only favored by working parents who don't want to find a babysitter for their kids. It's a bad idea. Children need to have downtime. They aren't robots.
Teachers unions have their good and bad points. Kids in unionized states tend to do better on national tests.
2. Parental involvement is fine, but needs to be stressed early on. Also, some parents just cannot volunteer in the schools, etc. I was just talking to a teacher friend the other day. She works in special ed in a low-income district. She said the parents who are each working two jobs are the least of her concerns, that those parents have a good work ethic and help their kids. The parent-bashing on this forum is horrendous, and it's apparently a problem everywhere. We discussed this just a little while back.
3. People who think year-round schools are only favored by working parents who don't want to find a babysitter for their kids is untrue and another slap at parents. (See above about working parents.) To say that shows you don't understand how year-round schools work. Several districts here in Colorado have/have had year round schools. For the most part, the parents, students and teachers liked them. Generally YRS was done in periods of rapid growth where the building of schools couldn't keep up with the increasing number of students. This: http://www.cherrycreekschools.org/Ca...20Calendar.pdf is a pretty common YR calendar. You will notice the common break times, and that one track (B) fairly closely resembles the traditional track. Note that all tracks have some time off in the summer, and all tracks have time off between sessions. This is, in fact, a more efficient use of school buildings than having them all empty for 10+ weeks in the summer.
Sorry, meant to respond to this earlier. Simple supply and demand. Physics is hard. Fewer people get it. Schools are competing with industry for those few. AIP Statistical Research Center Typical Starting Salaries shows the gap between a BS in Physics who goes into teaching vs going into a STEM position earns in starting salary. If you want to compete for the good ones, you have to be willing to pay them competitively. Biology is just less competitive so they command less on the market. And so on to Education majors are a dime a dozen.
You can't base it off of number of graduates in a field. If that were the case you would pay the education majors the most, as there are far less of them than bio majors.
You have to look at numbers of qualified applicants for each position. In our STEM district, there is no difference between the number of qualified applicants for general bio, chem and physics positions. Hardest to fill, are those seeking qualified teachers with backgrounds in specific fields, like biotechnology.
That being said, it is foolish to decide to pay people more based on what classes they teach. Too many other variables.
While I agree that understanding is critical as one goes along in math, people first need to know the foundation to build that understanding from. Common Core, at least as we have seen, builds a pretty shaky foundation and starts building a skyscraper from there. As parents we don't want that skyscraper to fall on our kids. It creates complexity where there should be none by taking the equivalent of four left turns to go straight. Tried to help my son with it and couldn't. Oh, I could solve the problems using simple math, but could not by any stretch set up and solve the CC way.
I understand your desire to wait for the research, but remember, these are our kids. We can't afford to sacrifice a generation's math skills while educators tinker. You get it wrong, you can't go back and fix it. There's already been too much tinkering with math education over the last few decades. This is a case where if it's not broke, don't fix it.
Except we have been getting it wrong. For a long time. One of the only areas where we truly struggle as a nation (when controlling for SES) is math. Rote memorization, as evidenced by the examples given, does not give students the foundation to understand higher math. I see it all the time, even in my school. Kids can rattle of math facts all day long, but a large proportion of kids (even in our gifted program) struggle with manipulating simple equations, like the density formula. They lack the foundation to know why, D= M/V is also V=M/D. A disproportionate number of our student come from a particular private school (and we have many private schools which send kids) which uses a math program, similar to the common core, based on how math is taught in some parts of Asia. Starting them with learning what multiplication actually means, rather than just being able to "do" it those kids are also wildly over represented in our multivariable classes. They excel at the higher math, in large part due to their stronger foundation in what math actually is. And it is not arithmetic.
First off, according to the Forbes article, 19 states DO teach financial literacy/personal finance. Secondly, as many have said over and over, this stuff is taught, just not always under that term. If you teach this stuff before it has any relevance whatsoever, it will not be retained. Also, investing has changed so much since I was 16 and trying to avoid the Black Plague, it isn't funny. Save for the future when they're making minimum wage? Why? They can use that money now, and learn how to use money.
Just to be clear here, on "the Forbes article" is this the same article I posted that you immediately tried to disqualify while also proving you never even read it? That Forbes article? Thats your basis for making an argument now?
Secondly, in regards to teaching before it has relevance thats your opinion that its not relevant. But its also not necessarily true. How many kids do you know that are VERY young who get cash for birthday and holiday gifts? Do you not want them to be able to understand and ask questions and connect the dots that they can save that money and make more with it by introducing simple concepts around saving a certain % of what you get and seeing it earn interest? I think my niece was about 5 years old when she started to understand that all of those "papers" in her birthday card had different values.
On one hand you are partially right that plenty has changed about investing, but the same can be said for science yet we still teach that. On the other hand you are way off base because basic fundamentals (which is what has been suggested is the basis to be taught) have hardly changed at all. Things like dividend paying stocks, interest earning bonds, CDs, savings accounts, checking accounts, retirement accounts have all functioned in a relatively static way for decades if not over a century, minus some changes to the legal landscape, but their functions as financial tools are etched in the basics of personal finance.
As for minimum wage jobs, yes, save for the future, why in the world is that bad? As you say "learn how to use money" why doesn't that include learning how to save it? Learning how to use money certainly doens't mean spend every penny that comes in. If a kid making minimum wage lives at home with the parents its a great opportunity to learn to save x% of their pay check, its not life changing, but its habit forming which is incredibly important for the long term. Heck, the job I had at the end of HS and into college even gave part time employees a stock purchase program as well as a matching 401k plan, yeah thats rare, but lets not just discount all of these things as being useless. Even if they don't have immediate access to some of them, all of the concepts are incredibly valuable.
Interesting, you want to use the lame cop out of being a strawman, but you also want to claim that 2/3 of your students test out of a topic that half the American public cant pass a basic multiple choice quiz on? That math doesn't add up. What are they testing out of, give me specific topics that they are demonstrating this knowledge of.
I don't teach economics. I teach a different dual enrollment class. BTW, as demonstrated by the use of the term "atypical" I clearly acknowledge my students are unusual. You do know what atypical means right?
The class they test out of is the DE version of economics for non-business major so it is both macro and micro. Go look up the equivalent class at your own community college.
Roles at various times: Parent, Teacher, Administrator, Affiliated Education Professional
1) Bring back meaningful Vocational Education and stop the nonsense that every child should go to college. We do kids a huge disservice that ends up making them feel like failures and denies them a meaningful, dignified career.
2) Sorry, know it's not popular to say so, but tracking needs to make a come back. And while I am making myself unpopular and a subject of scorn for being an awful human, let's throw in the granddaddy, we need to have a very serious national discussion about the purpose and meaning of "free appropriate education and "least restrictive environment." The needs of the few have to be balanced with the needs of the many, right now they are superseding them.
3) Put the bulk of the responsibility for learning and behavior back where it belongs, on students and parents. No, teachers should not get a free pass but right now we are teaching kids that others owe them success and that is not reality. Students whose behavior is a detriment to others need to be removed from regular classes much sooner and put in smaller classes that focus on successful behavior.
This. Along with many other things that have been mentioned too. But first and foremost, bring back DISCIPLINE.
Discipline has become an ugly word. We were not even allowed to use the word; we had to say "classroom management." It starts in the home, so parents need to stop the permissiveness and coddling and learn to say "no."
You can throw any amount of money at a school system but when you have unruly, undisciplined kids coming to school, it disrupts the entire class and learning cannot take place. You can't have kids swearing at the teacher and getting away with it, climbing all over the desks or throwing books. These kids didn't learn respect or proper behavior at home, they can't control themselves, and consequently, they are in no position to sit down and learn.
Kids like this ruin the educational experience for everyone. When I had parent volunteers, they would often tell me how upset they were that their (well-behaved) child was being influenced by these out-of-control kids.
Back when I first started teaching, I was amazed at the difference in achievement between the teachers who were strict and made the kids sit down and keep quiet and the teachers who allowed the kids to yell and climb on desks. The well behaved kids had learned to control themselves and to attend to their work.
These days there are lawsuits if the teacher tries to discipline (bad word) a kid. A teacher writes up a kid, the principal calls the parents in, the parents say it's the teacher's fault and threaten to sue! I saw a teacher get fired for this. It has to stop. Teachers should be allowed to maintain a good learning environment in the classroom and also, the kids who absolutely cannot control themselves, should be sent to some other sort of school--boot camp? That may sound too extreme but when you can walk into a public school and see utter chaos and no learning taking place, something needs to be done.
Experience--former first grade teacher, former middle school librarian and from a family of teachers.
#3. Adopt year round schooling. Before parents attack this idea, there are a lot of persuasive arguments in favor of it. The three month school vacation was originally implemented when America was an agrarian society and children were needed to help out around the farm when the harvest chores were most demanding.
Since then, we have completely changed as a nation, and year round school has shown to increase student retention of the information they learned the previous year and an increased likelihood of staying in school. They still get several three week breaks, instead of the one three month break.
.
Just wanted to point out that while oft quoted, the three month summer is not an agrarian schedule. The time off needed in an agrarian society would be a few weeks in spring during planting season, a couple weeks during summer harvest, and a few weeks again in fall harvest. My objection to year round school is two fold. First kids need time to learn other things in life beyond what is taught in school, including just plain free time. That doesn't happen during a couple week intersession. A constant academic run is not going to give the brain needed downtime to let the internal processes work. Second, a year around schedule plays havoc with just about everything else a family wants to do. We're in a close to year round schedule here and it's been a constant battle to find family time. It's amazing how much time we got back when just one kid went to college and returned to the normal summer off schedule.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Katarina Witt
...
A lot of people on this forum have agendas-STEM, physics before biology, the Arts, finance, party planning (yes, that was brought up!), etc.
I'm not sure if you are intentionally misreading or what, but as I've answered before, I didn't say "physics before biology." I said to get good people to enter teaching, you have to pay them competitively to what the market will pay for their skills elsewhere. Supply and demand.
...
3. People who think year-round schools are only favored by working parents who don't want to find a babysitter for their kids is untrue and another slap at parents. (See above about working parents.) To say that shows you don't understand how year-round schools work. Several districts here in Colorado have/have had year round schools. For the most part, the parents, students and teachers liked them. Generally YRS was done in periods of rapid growth where the building of schools couldn't keep up with the increasing number of students. This: http://www.cherrycreekschools.org/Ca...20Calendar.pdf is a pretty common YR calendar. You will notice the common break times, and that one track (B) fairly closely resembles the traditional track. Note that all tracks have some time off in the summer, and all tracks have time off between sessions. This is, in fact, a more efficient use of school buildings than having them all empty for 10+ weeks in the summer.
We've talked this point before. Don't assume what you have there is what is done elsewhere. Our area (not technically year round but close to it) went to the much earlier start date to get more butts in seat time before the standardized tests hit in April in response to NCLB in the early 2000s. Had nothing to do with growth or building utilization. And break times are not common. So kids in one school are on break while their friends or siblings in another are still in. And I'm not saying every school does it this way either. Just would really like to get you to acknowledge that there is not a one size fits all solution and what works in Denver doesn't necessarily work elsewhere.
I don't teach economics. I teach a different dual enrollment class. BTW, as demonstrated by the use of the term "atypical" I clearly acknowledge my students are unusual. You do know what atypical means right?
The class they test out of is the DE version of economics for non-business major so it is both macro and micro. Go look up the equivalent class at your own community college.
Unless I missed it somewhere in this thread, you only now in this post introduced the term "atypical" to describe your particular scenario, which thank you for your concern but yes, I know what it means and had you used it previously (again unless I missed it) maybe I would have given you a pass on your claim.
With that said though, there is still a clear void of basic investment and economic education being provided to our children when only 18% of HS students are capable of passing a simple assessment on the topic. This is very scary and sad that we want to set people up for failure in such a critically important part of their life. Not to mention, its a key area of knowledge to build a foundation on for 1000s of different jobs in the business world, so again, the value here is just as important as most of the STEM areas we put such a high value on.
Yeah, thanks. I already called myself out on my mistake and explained it here:
Now, the 2/3 number in my post that you just quoted has nothing to do with any of that. Its a claim by someone else saying her students place out at a rate of 2/3 or 66%.
And yes, I most certainly can argue with someone claiming with no proof that 2/3 (66%) of their students place out of something that only 57% of the adult population has a grasp on at the most basic level. I can do this for two reasons, first being critical thinking, because god forbid I use logic to determine something, regardless of your ridiculous "crystal ball" claims. Critical thinking =/= crystal ball. And secondly, the article that you were so busy ignoring/trashing says:
So yeah, 18% of US HS students cant pass a basic financial literacy assessment, yet I'm supposed to just suck it up and swallow a claim with no evidence that this person makes that 66% of her students are so well versed in the topic that they test out of having to take it? Ridiculous all 'round but nice try.
Oh dear. I said my student were "atypical" in the same post you are complaining about.
Here let me define that for you:
a·typ·i·cal
ˌāˈtipək(ə)l/
adjective
not representative of a type, group, or class.
Even at the gifted STEM school these are the "try hards". This year I have almost 25 seniors, eight of which did not test out of econ. There are 65ish seniors, and 30 of them in total tested out. So nearly half. And they are "well versed" through studying AS I STATED BEFORE.
Please read for comprehension.
I was not attempting to disprove your point above, I am sure that when you look at the general public that is true, my point is, and remains, that when you give children options, instead of making things they can do on their own mandatory, they have more by in to their educations. Based on your reasoning, my students should be forced to take a year long class to meet a requirement they were able to meet on their own over a summer. Those kids interests and career goals are better served by allowing them the opportunity to test out of an introductory econ class, and choosing to pursue classes that interest them such as other college level science classes. This is representative of why mandatory classes kill interest. If a student is interested in economics, making them take four years of lock step, bio, chem, physics, AP is just as drive killing. Let those kids choose from any two science classes (and more than just CP classes) and then take econ electives. Likewise for any academic interest. The only class I would mandate for all 4 years is English, but not necessarily the four CP progression we have now.
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