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Its not that I don't agree or that I think that anything you wrote is incorrect. IMHO I believe that we need to focus on the way the schools are administered and hold administrations accountable for how prepared students are to accomplish their intended goals after graduation.
FWIW.
Accountable for what ?
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.
Kids are dropping out at the legal age to drop out.
teen pregnancy? I thought we were passing out condoms in jr high????????????? hows that working??
Teen pregnancy is at all times lows for every single ethnicity. Rates now are less than 1/3rd what they were in the 1950s. This is the fewest number of teen mothers in the US population since 1946 (when the teenage population was ~40% of the current teen population).
Looks like passing out condoms in junior high worked very well. The only way we could go lower is to have another world war with a draft.
Teen pregnancy is at all times lows for every single ethnicity. Rates now are less than 1/3rd what they were in the 1950s. This is the fewest number of teen mothers in the US population since 1946 (when the teenage population was ~40% of the current teen population).
Looks like passing out condoms in junior high worked very well. The only way we could go lower is to have another world war with a draft.
The US is #1 among first world nations for teen pregnancies.
The US is #2 among first world nations for abortions.
This is from UN statistics.
Compared to other first world nations, the US still has a way to go.
Accountable for what ?
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.
Kids are dropping out at the legal age to drop out.
Why not hold their parents accountable ?
Ever really talk to those kids who drop out....and I mean really talk TO them or WITH them...not down to them or AT them? The kids who are dropping out are not all intellectual losers, impaired or socially bereft. A HUGE number of those kids feel personally betrayed by the b...s... they were handed about what Education is and what its role is in a person's life.
Chicago has an over-50% drop-out rate for Blacks and the same for Hispanics. Whats the response---that they are ALL just losers!!?? I have news. The Educational system is failing in the US and the main reason its failing is because noone has figured out how to make incompetent administrators competent or get rid of them!! These people are NOT worried about Education as much as they are worried about keep their jobs. Thats why the city of Chicago can switch Administrators for its system any time it wants and plug somebody ELSE in there. Its the administrative equivalent to "musical chairs". Think I'm kidding look what happened when Mayor Emmanuel stood-up to the Unions about Education....and he is arguably anybody's worse nightmare as a foe!! The School administration is entrenched and is carefully culivating ITS side of the fief while the Union takes care of ITS side. Don't believe all the crap about them being at odds....they are simply different sides of the same greedy coin.
Yes.... the parents have a role...but they are NOT the problem.
BTW: Lets please not start on that crap about teenage pregnancy. Yes, its an issue....but it is NOT a defining problem. Since it is emotionally charged, though, its a real popular technique for distracting from the real issue.
Accountable for what ?
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.
Kids are dropping out at the legal age to drop out.
Why not hold their parents accountable ?
They are dropping out because their Education GOES no where and directs them no where. It requires them to be at a location for 6 or 7 hours a day....and for what?
BTW: Did you know that the "Miscellaneous Expenditures" area of the Illinois Education Budget is the only area that is not required accountable. Ever wonder how rich schools can spend 100-s of thousands of dollars on sprucing-up their PE dept and Football field while poor schools can't get their windows or ceilings fixed? Ever wonder why there are still Chicago schools without AC? (Have you ever tried to do ANYTHING....ANYTHING at all in a classroom whose ambient temperature is only a few degerees less than the Summer temperature outside the classroom!! I guaren--G D-tee you that the Principals office is AC'd!! ) How about this....
With no money for special intervention Behavior Disordered students as well as students with all sorts of learning disabilities don't get the help that their counterparts in the Collar Counties around Chicago get. As a result the Disruptive students are in the same classrooms with the mainstream and act-out, disrupt and otherwise hobble the class. And parents that DO intervene are told there is no money....by the same administrators who enjoy their regular promotions and pay increases regardless. But after the complaints you KNOW where that administrator is headed for...... he's got places to go and things to do....a VERY busy man!! Right.
Do you even have ANY IDEA what the HELL you are talking about?????
1. Workers/employees everywhere are more and more likely to be part of a dual-earner family (as opposed to the "breadwinner-homemaker" model).
2. In the workplace, workloads are becoming heavier, which means increasingly overwhelmed parents, increasingly torn between conflicting obligations.
3. Families have less and less community or extended-family support, as they become more mobile and nomadic in search of that "next job", which is supposed to follow the one that was just laid-off.
4. All the while, the educational establishment is increasingly pushing the "parental involvement" paradigm, pointing at parents who are not "involved enough" ...as if the aforementioned workloads and general support problems did not even exist; as if everyone lived comfortable, upper-middle class lifestyles with volunteeristas moms-at-home who can easily exchange the chores of the typical 50's housewife for plenty of time to be "involved" in their children's education...just the way the educational establishment requests it! Yey!
5. Teachers are more likely to be held accountable for students' various shortcomings/deficits, whether that is less-than-great genetics, less-than-resourceful/available parents, less-than-great-home-environment, less-than-awesome-advantages at home.
Parents, remember: teachers cannot magically make your less-than-naturally-endowed or less- than-family-privileged child be exactly like those who are just that, as cruel as this reality is.
Talk about the absurdity of a program like "No-Child-Left-Behind", when you fail to accompany it with a program called "No-Family-Left-Behind". They are both equally hard to implement in reality.
Teachers, remember: parents cannot magically become so "parentally involved in their children's education" that they will make all students easy-to-teach for you. It's called work-family conflicts, having to work several jobs, having to put food on the table after work, not living in the "housewife" era anymore. This is a huge issue in today's day and age ... and sometimes the educational establishment acts as if they'd never heard of overwhelming parental workloads when they keep pushing this absurd "school-family partnership" paradigm.
Last time I checked, employers expected me to compete with, and provide the same top-notch products as those colleagues of mine who have zero children at home and who spend most of their time becoming professionally fabulous...as opposed to "parentally involved in their child's education"; and in my line of work, the vast majority either do not have children or their children were well out of the house by the time they got into this line of work.
One way or another, parents everywhere face increasingly oppressive expectations and workloads in the workplace.
Both parents and teachers are under terrible pressures from Powers-That-Be who do nothing but pit these two groups against each other, Lord forbid should anyone look in the direction of where THE REAL problem is coming from; which would be way at the top.
You don't think that parents in Japan, China, India have the same problems and probably even more? Kids must feel that doing well in school is not a choice. It's expected. And, so it should be. If he doesn't get the point, his kids will, when they are on some form of government welfare all their lives and the amount of that keeps getting cut back. The future looks bleak for all of us, but kids who don't try now in schools are facing a living hell in their future.
A lot of parents should not be having kids. We are not animals that can breed and just forget about them. It is a very long maturation period. It takes good planning for the future when making the decision whether or not to have children. You have no one to blame but yourself, usually.
Teen pregnancy is at all times lows for every single ethnicity. Rates now are less than 1/3rd what they were in the 1950s. This is the fewest number of teen mothers in the US population since 1946 (when the teenage population was ~40% of the current teen population).
Looks like passing out condoms in junior high worked very well. The only way we could go lower is to have another world war with a draft.
Oh, really? I heard that more black girls are completing high school and college now than ever before. It is an all time low for teen pregnancy in the black community.
I heard just the opposite of Mexicans, however.
Young Mexican girls who are in school are supposedly having children in ever increasing numbers.
But maybe that is wrong.
It was a discussion on another thread, I think.
I hope it;s wrong.
It seems as though 'the system' always needs someone on the bottom, doesn't it?
There are a multitude of reasons. However, one major factor IMHO is the drive for homogeneity in education geared toward college-prep. The national testing movement and migration away from in-school vocational and trade programs has left many students with the interest, aptitude, and motivation with an unfulfilled need. They feel that they don't fit into the education model offered to them and their lack of success in a program that doesn't match their strengths eventually discourages them enough to drop out. A family structure where parents/siblings have not succeeded in school reinforces these feelings of personal academic inadequacy.
As an educator teaching math, I am keenly aware of the feelings at-risk students are experiencing. The new Common Core is extremely difficult for many students who are at different developmental levels in mathematics. CC problem solving is highly conceptual/and reading-dependent. Many of the students are operating at a more basic and literal/sequential level and lag in reading comprehension for a variety of reasons. I fear that the lack of flexibility tied to testing will result in more students dropping out in the future as opposed to less.
Oh, really? I heard that more black girls are completing high school and college now than ever before. It is an all time low for teen pregnancy in the black community.
I heard just the opposite of Mexicans, however.
Young Mexican girls who are in school are supposedly having children in ever increasing numbers.
But maybe that is wrong.
It was a discussion on another thread, I think.
I hope it;s wrong.
It seems as though 'the system' always needs someone on the bottom, doesn't it?
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