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In this day and age I would wager a good percent of those are self inflicted. In other words they never applied themselves and the system passed them anyway.
In this day and age I would wager a good percent of those are self inflicted. In other words they never applied themselves and the system passed them anyway.
I wouldn't be too sure about that. In too many cases, the problem is the low-quality education students are getting in our public schools. In Chicago, parents push, plot, and try to bribe their kids' way into the best private, parochial, and public schools. Parents face cut-throat competition -- for kindergarten -- chicagotribune.com
Parents want public schools to provide the high-level academic preparation colleges and universities say that students need to enroll in college level courses, but the public schools can't seem to deliver that no matter how much money taxpayers dump into the system.
This is a hot button issue for me; we're wasting an incredible amount of potential because our public school systems have lost their academic focus. I don't believe that 80% of our public school students aren't college material - they're just getting very short-changed by our public school systems.
Last edited by InformedConsent; 02-27-2008 at 06:30 AM..
Reason: Added last sentence
IMHO - A major factor in the success or failure of a student to learn is the other children in the classroom. It only takes one ignorant jerk to disrupt the learning process and public schools no longer have any way to eliminate the jerks. I think that public schools, like private schools, should be able to segregate the disruptive students into "special" classes (I do not mean vocational classes, that I think everyone should take, but endless babysitting sessions) and/or just throw them out.
Educating the next generation to be able to find and think about society, economics and politics well enough to make really informed decisions is vital to maintaining our Republic. Unfortunately too many would be totalitarians do not want a thoughtful population but want a propagandized heard that they can lead, with the rest of the lemmings, over the cliff for the benefit of the connected and corrupt few.
I also believe that the public education system should be extended to provide a very low cost way of educating every citizen to the limit of their, not the system's, abilities. But then I am considered a liberal, socialist, left wing, and egalitarian dreamer. Actually I see myself as a very conservative constitutionalist Republican that believes in pay as you go government, progressive taxation, individual freedom, countervailing tariffs, controlling corporations to prevent market distortions and public services that reduce the advantage of picking the right family to be born into. I am completely opposed to collusion between business and the government for the benefit of the business world because that collusion leads directly to a dictatorship of the corrupt, by the corrupt and of the corrupt.
Teaching children to be alert, aware and distrusting skeptics serves to disrupt the fascist dreams of men who would be Kings and businessmen that have stolen the market for their own profit.
And this classic example of Illinois educrats' ability to discourage educational methods that work...
"An English focus for Spanish-speaking pupils lifted scores but could cost $175,000 in funding"
"The State Board of Education initially lauded Diamond Lake for the academic gains made by its bilingual pupils, then discovered the change in how the district was teaching them and suspended funding."
"You would think the state would be asking how we are achieving what we are achieving versus withholding our money." - Roger Prosise, Diamond Lake District 76 superintendent
Sounds like there is a "native language" component. IMHO students that are not taught or do not learn English as their primary language are being short changed by the schools.
State school boards are responding to a huge amount of pressure to keep minority group's language and culture intact in order to allow the minority leaders to continue their oppression of "their" people. The "leaders" include businessmen, politicians, priests and criminals.
In reality that has equated to lower the standards so that no child is left behind.
Teach to the lowest common denominator and everyone passes.
Many teachers have no choice in this matter as it is a government mandate and funding is tied to this.
Maybe it would help if school administrators and teachers thought long and hard about out how to provide targeted, intensive instruction to raise struggling students' achievement without putting everyone else's education on hold - as is the current practice.
After all, we don't clothe a size 12, 11, 10, or 9 child in a size 6 wardrobe, nor do we expect a child who wears a size 5 shoe to wear size 12 sneakers.
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