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The short video was somewhat distressing to view, as it confirms why the majority of this country thinks the Federal Reserve is actually an entity of the Federal government.
What can be done to improve critical and independent thinking skills in our taxpayer funded facilities?.
I have a dear friend who barely graduated HS, having been diagnosed ADD.
10 years later, she now owns and operates 2 successful businesses; employing college students majoring in industrial psychology.
She thinks I'm the smarter of us, yet at her age I was working for someone else; not making a whole lot of $$ either.
And I graduated private school with an A- average, her a C-.
The first steps would be to start teaching valuable real-world skills and stop fixating on indoctrinating students with useless information that will never be used in the real-world.
With 22 years of teaching HS science under my belt, I have a take on what's wrong. There are many factors involved, but the single biggest improvement would be:
End the high stakes standardized testing program that is the be-all and end-all in evaluating public schools.
The damage done by this program is deep, broad, but not irreversible.
The first steps would be to start teaching valuable real-world skills and stop fixating on indoctrinating students with useless information that will never be used in the real-world.
You mean like Shakespeare and the Punic Wars and Plato and so forth? Yeah, what can you do with that stuff? I mean, you can look most of that stuff up on your phone if you need it.
With 22 years of teaching HS science under my belt, I have a take on what's wrong. There are many factors involved, but the single biggest improvement would be:
End the high stakes standardized testing program that is the be-all and end-all in evaluating public schools.
The damage done by this program is deep, broad, but not irreversible.
I also teach. This common complaint is a cop-out and a way to evade the larger issues that contribute to the failure of public education.
Too many standardized tests? Sure. Is a high-stakes, standardized test necessary? Of course, and it should be the largest criterion for measuring how a school is doing. What would you replace it with? Graduation rates? Percentage of students going to "college?" Those are a joke. Anyone in the system understands the games that are played with those numbers.
One of the real problems in public education is the general unwillingness to consider the possibility that we - teachers, administrators - are not all that great. Your school is probably like mine. Administrators and teachers alike are liable to comment on "what a great staff we have here." Probably not. Half of us are below average. I live with that fear about everyday I walk through those doors. Our school scores certainly suggest that and those tests that everyone loves to denigrate are pretty accurate in measuring how well our students are learning, or not learning, the things they're supposed to know by this point.
One of the real problems in public education is the general unwillingness to consider the possibility that we - teachers, administrators - are not all that great. Your school is probably like mine. Administrators and teachers alike are liable to comment on "what a great staff we have here." Probably not. Half of us are below average. I live with that fear about everyday I walk through those doors. Our school scores certainly suggest that and those tests that everyone loves to denigrate are pretty accurate in measuring how well our students are learning, or not learning, the things they're supposed to know by this point.
Even my private education failed to teach me how to stay out of debt via commodities.
It certainly was not found in any of my economic textbooks.
I taught history at a young age, and only now am I learning of some important omissions from the very materials I was using. Wars in particular, as their history is recorded by the winning side.
There are many reasons why the system is flawed, government, teaching colleges, funding, teachers and professors. I hated learning math, until it was taught to me by an engineer; who made it interesting and practical.
You mean like Shakespeare and the Punic Wars and Plato and so forth? Yeah, what can you do with that stuff? I mean, you can look most of that stuff up on your phone if you need it.
In any case, being an American nowadays is about the toys you own and play with.
You mean like Shakespeare and the Punic Wars and Plato and so forth? Yeah, what can you do with that stuff? I mean, you can look most of that stuff up on your phone if you need it.
All of that learning is part of teaching you how to think. Far too many people today don't want to think.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CortezC
Here is the main problem with America's public education system:
If the nation’s public schools had actually declined in quality, this slide in public perception would be warranted. In fact, it might be perceived as a healthy democratic response indicative of engaged citizens.
Yet evidence does not support such a view.
Although comprehensive standardized testing did not begin until the passage of No Child Left Behind, the federal government has been tracking student performance for half a century through the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
The NAEP is not taken by every student or given every year. And, like other standardized tests, it is fairly narrow in what it measures — focusing chiefly on basic academic skills and processes. Still, NAEP results over the past several decades are hardly illustrative of a decline in school quality. In both reading and math, and across all three age groups — 9-year-olds, 13-year-olds, and 17-year-olds — scores are higher today than they were in the early 1970s.
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