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(1) Discipline in the classroom.
(2) Excellent instruction in English (grammar, writing skills, etc.).
(3) More excellent mathematics instructors placed in both rural and urban settings.
(4) 24/7 access to more computer interactive academic exercises in the development of advanced skills in both areas.
(5) Place students in classrooms with their intellectual peers.
(6) Students with persistent behavioral problems need both therapy and vocations.
* There are far too many unqualified teachers in urban settings instructing mathematics to quite capable students.
Virtually the entire US K-12 public school system.
The dumbing-down began 50+ years ago as intentional 'social engineering' with the goal of creating more equal outcomes and greater social cohesion. Naturally, neither of the desired goals were achieved, and now we just have a colossal societal disaster of epic proportions.
A college professor has done the research, and tells us what has happened and why...
Quote:
"While students in the bottom quartile have shown slow but steady improvement since the 1960s, average test scores have nonetheless gone down, primarily because of the performance of those in the top quartile. This "highest cohort of achievers," Rudman writes, has shown "the greatest declines across a variety of subjects as well as across age-level groups." Analysts have also found "a substantial drop among those children in the middle range of achievement"
...The contrast was stark: schools that had "severely declining test scores" had "moved determinedly toward heterogeneous grouping" (that is, mixed students of differing ability levels in the same classes), while the "schools who have maintained good SAT [Stanford Achievement Test, for grades K-12] scores" tended "to prefer homogeneous grouping [ability/skill-level grouping, aka tracking]."
If attaining educational excellence is this simple, why have these high-quality schools become so rare? The answer lies in the cultural ferment of the 1960s.
THE INCUBUS OF THE SIXTIES
In every conceivable fashion the reigning ethos of those times was hostile to excellence in education. Individual achievement fell under intense suspicion, as did attempts to maintain standards. Discriminating among students on the basis of ability or performance was branded "elitist." Educational gurus of the day called for essentially nonacademic schools, whose main purpose would be to build habits of social cooperation and equality rather than to train the mind."
(1) Discipline in the classroom.
(2) Excellent instruction in English (grammar, writing skills, etc.).
(3) More excellent mathematics instructors placed in both rural and urban settings.
(4) 24/7 access to more computer interactive academic exercises in the development of advanced skills in both areas.
(5) Place students in classrooms with their intellectual peers.
(6) Students with persistent behavioral problems need both therapy and vocations.
* There are far too many unqualified teachers in urban settings instructing mathematics to quite capable students.
(7) Be excellent to each other.
(8) Party on, Dudes!
Agreed if you put Einsteins son with a poor family that barely holds a grasp of the English language themselves and can't afford a computer in their house, do you expect Einstein son to suddenly speak like a college educated professor by middle school, because of genes. He might go out of his way to get educated but he would not have the same advantages of parents who were educated. On the other hand if you have a poor kid from a low IQ family at birth be raised by a wealthy family that invests hours a day into his education and helps him with everything possible do you think his IQ would suddenly force him to stop school and dropout successfully?
FWIW all known IQ genes are located on the X Chromosomes - which is also why males have higher IQ variation than women.
Einstein's son wouldn't have higher IQ genes unless his mother had higher IQ genes.
(1) Discipline in the classroom.
(2) Excellent instruction in English (grammar, writing skills, etc.).
(3) More excellent mathematics instructors placed in both rural and urban settings.
(4) 24/7 access to more computer interactive academic exercises in the development of advanced skills in both areas.
(5) Place students in classrooms with their intellectual peers.
(6) Students with persistent behavioral problems need both therapy and vocations.
* There are far too many unqualified teachers in urban settings instructing mathematics to quite capable students.
Many liberals claim that if we don't lower teacher basic skills certification tests on math, literacy, and writing in the name of social justice, that it is racist as certain demographics don't pass the test at high enough rates.
The motivation is to get more minority role models in the classroom, but it arguably hurts minority groups as you have teachers who then lack basic skills teaching kids.
There seems to be a cognitive dissonance amongst some liberals who want to improve US education, bring up scores, but have less competent teachers.
This is why the US should put more emphasis on vocational training and apprenticeship programs. Many kids are not interested in book learning or have no aptitude for it. They need to develop what skills they have so they can make decent livings.
When BMW opened a plant in SC they found there were not enough trained workers. They had to set up their own apprenticeship program to build a skilled workforce. That plant has become very successful and its employees earn a good wage.
The problem, which is obvious, is that the demographic which is doing poorly on the ACT would gravitate to or be be dumped into voc ed. This has always been the case in America. Why skills training works in Germany and not here is beyond me but I can't believe we can't make it work.
Colleges probably would not be too happy with their roles being scaled back since they have a vested interest in the current system. In fact they are the current system. Their resistance may be too strong to overcome.
(1) Discipline in the classroom.
(2) Excellent instruction in English (grammar, writing skills, etc.).
(3) More excellent mathematics instructors placed in both rural and urban settings.
(4) 24/7 access to more computer interactive academic exercises in the development of advanced skills in both areas.
(5) Place students in classrooms with their intellectual peers.
(6) Students with persistent behavioral problems need both therapy and vocations.
* There are far too many unqualified teachers in urban settings instructing mathematics to quite capable students.
Without parental involvement all the above will fail.
There's no evidence that it will. That's just your conjecture based on wishful thinking. Low income/low IQ parents aren't going to read to their children more especially when they don't read to themselves. Are we going to go into their homes and make them be better parents to their children? No. So we could try to do it through the government. Oh, we already tried that. It's called Head Start. It didn't work. The children didn't perform any better. They actually performed worse.
We could take away poor children from the parents and raise them by wealthy parents. Sounds like a drastic measure, but that wouldn't work either. Adoption studies have already shown that it doesn't work.
The achievement gap can't be closed unless we start altering people genetically.
They should probably do more adoption studies then. I was adopted. My birth family was dirt poor and education was not something they cared about. My adopted family was upper middle class. I did well in school not because I was read to at an early age, I didn't get adopted until 4 1/2, but because when I did get adopted, my parents encouraged reading right out of the gate. And I did. I read voraciously. Still do. It's one of my favorite things to do, along with gaming. No matter how many times I got in trouble, got grounded, got things taken away, never once was reading taken from me. I always had that to escape to when I wanted.
I've now met my siblings...my biological siblings, I mean. They aren't entirely stupid, but they are not all that intelligent, either. Environment absolutely plays a huge part.
Without parental involvement all the above will fail.
How do you get parental involvement if they are unwilling to get involved?
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