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That is a pretty atrocious waste of money, however; be wary of assuming that it happens in all districts or all systems. Some schools certainly need reforms, but it would be unwise to target public schools as a whole as many are quite good if you want examples I have listed a few in previous posts and there are certainly more.
A few to some public schools are good, not many. Nationwide, public school student achievement is actually much lower than most people think. Each state's education officials establish their own state standards, commission/construct their own tests, and set their own 'passing' scores. This has resulted in manipulations that make it look like public schools are educating our children, when in reality the majority of students in many states are far below acceptable levels of proficiency. In some cases, there's as much as a 70 percentage point difference in proficiency levels between state achievement tests and the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) tests. Not one state listed in the chart below educates even half of their students to grade-level proficiency on the NAEP.
If you want to see your (or any other) state's reported proficiency level vs. the NAEP proficiency level (to see if your public schools are being honest about providing an adequate education), check here: NAEP Researchcenter - NAEP and State Equivalent Percent Table
For each grade level, the first column lists the percentage of students scoring as proficient (meets or exceeds state standards) on the state test; the second column lists the percentage of students scoring as proficient on the NAEP (National test).
Keep in mind that these comparisons were made after NCLB was enacted, when schools knew that they had to improve their academic performance - and they're still educating less than half of the nation's public school students to grade-level proficiency.
Although it may suprise some, I disagree with the proposition. I think that schools designed or operated in a poor way squelch debate, critical thinking and/or scientific inquiry. Such schools are those that destroy the ability to think. Public schools do not have a corner on this nefarious market. In fact, I think that many do an excellent job at critical thinking. That said, there are plenty of public schools that do a lousy job. These poorly conceived public schools join poorly-designed private, charter/magnet, and home schools as contrary to American Enlightenment thinking.
Note, there are far too many threads asking the wrong question for the right reasons. Seeking the best school for their children, people are asking whether the best schools are private, public, public charter/magnet, or homeschools. Great objective, bad question. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence both to support each form of schooling and to demand further scrutiny over the assumed superiority that is claimed. Pride in one's chosen model has seemed to bring out the "fascist school patriot."
The solution? Parents & students: DO YOUR DUE DILIGENCE!! Find the educational environment that best suits your child given the full set of options you face and can afford. Don't be naive and fall victom to the siren's song of advocates with vested interests. If you do so, you may find not only a diversity of decisions, but that the optimal educational environment might change over a student's lifetime. You want to be able to say, "my child went to a school that transformed his thinking."
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Last edited by Sandpointian; 04-04-2009 at 03:23 PM..
A few to some public schools are good, not many. Nationwide, public school student achievement is actually much lower than most people think. Each state's education officials establish their own state standards, commission/construct their own tests, and set their own 'passing' scores. This has resulted in manipulations that make it look like public schools are educating our children, when in reality the majority of students in many states are far below acceptable levels of proficiency. In some cases, there's as much as a 70 percentage point difference in proficiency levels between state achievement tests and the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) tests. Not one state listed in the chart below educates even half of their students to grade-level proficiency on the NAEP.
If you want to see your (or any other) state's reported proficiency level vs. the NAEP proficiency level (to see if your public schools are being honest about providing an adequate education), check here: NAEP Researchcenter - NAEP and State Equivalent Percent Table
For each grade level, the first column lists the percentage of students scoring as proficient (meets or exceeds state standards) on the state test; the second column lists the percentage of students scoring as proficient on the NAEP (National test).
Keep in mind that these comparisons were made after NCLB was enacted, when schools knew that they had to improve their academic performance - and they're still educating less than half of the nation's public school students to grade-level proficiency.
I think that NCLB is why those problems exist. Part of the reason for this is because NCLB was based on what was referred to as the Texas education miracle, which was based on schools going to the lowest common denominator and sugar coating drop out rates. When NCLB was introduced there were similar incentives for states to dumb down tests. The more you pigeon hole, dumb down and give everyone a trophy for trying etc. the more money you get despite the fact it hampers students abilities to learn more useful material. In addition to lowering proficiency standards NCLB punished school that did improve substantially by setting the bar so insanely high that despite the fact that they were quality schools they received poor reviews because they could not repeat gains in improvement, after all it is difficult to continually up a 95% proficiency rate, in good schools, even with easy tests. On top of that NCLB pushes teaching to the test which is crap because it prevents schools from passing on useful information all year because they are teaching people, both gifted and challenged the same useless crap to pass an easy test designed to make state legislators feel good about themselves. NCLB was why I voted for Howard Dean in the 2004 primaries because of his stance on repealing it. With that said I think NCLB is more of a problem of Washington's imposing unfunded mandates on the states than it is schools on a local level, but it is a huge part of the problem.
On a side note: It seems Massachusetts, Hawaii, and Wyoming are at least being honest, even if they are not the best, with their state tests as they are about par with NAEP good on them.
That is a pretty atrocious waste of money, however; be wary of assuming that it happens in all districts or all systems. Some schools certainly need reforms, but it would be unwise to target public schools as a whole as many are quite good if you want examples I have listed a few in previous posts and there are certainly more.
I think that NCLB is why those problems exist. Part of the reason for this is because NCLB was based on what was referred to as the Texas education miracle, which was based on schools going to the lowest common denominator and sugar coating drop out rates. When NCLB was introduced there were similar incentives for states to dumb down tests. The more you pigeon hole, dumb down and give everyone a trophy for trying etc. the more money you get despite the fact it hampers students abilities to learn more useful material. In addition to lowering proficiency standards NCLB punished school that did improve substantially by setting the bar so insanely high that despite the fact that they were quality schools they received poor reviews because they could not repeat gains in improvement, after all it is difficult to continually up a 95% proficiency rate, in good schools, even with easy tests. On top of that NCLB pushes teaching to the test which is crap because it prevents schools from passing on useful information all year because they are teaching people, both gifted and challenged the same useless crap to pass an easy test designed to make state legislators feel good about themselves. NCLB was why I voted for Howard Dean in the 2004 primaries because of his stance on repealing it. With that said I think NCLB is more of a problem of Washington's imposing unfunded mandates on the states than it is schools on a local level, but it is a huge part of the problem.
On a side note: It seems Massachusetts, Hawaii, and Wyoming are at least being honest, even if they are not the best, with their state tests as they are about par with NAEP good on them.
What makes you think schools can pass on useful information when so many fail so miserably at teaching students to pass ridiculously easy tests?
What makes you think schools can pass on useful information when so many fail so miserably at teaching students to pass ridiculously easy tests?
Most states had reasonable pass rates in the 60-80+% range for their state tests, which they teach to. Now some students just cannot or do not perform or are failed by their schools which, among other things, make up the remaining 40%-5% (from the NAEP table you cited) in most cases. With that said if teachers had more of a free hand to teach stuff like logic, and budgeting rather then having to teach X is to Y as W is to J or type in sequence ABC in your calculator I think we might be able to better address some of the concerns of the OP.
Most states had reasonable pass rates in the 60-80+% range for their state tests, which they teach to. Now some students just cannot or do not perform or are failed by their schools which, among other things, make up the remaining 40%-5% (from the NAEP table you cited) in most cases. With that said if teachers had more of a free hand to teach stuff like logic, and budgeting rather then having to teach X is to Y as W is to J or type in sequence ABC in your calculator I think we might be able to better address some of the concerns of the OP.
How are schools going to teach logic and budgeting to students when they can't even teach the majority of their students to a bare minimum acceptable skill level in the basics of reading and math?
I feel that schools are “lousy” because there is not enough competition. In most work places, you can be replaced in a blink of an eye. If you see a new employee working just a little bit harder, you work harder to keep your spot. I don’t think that teaching should be on such a tenure basis. I think that teachers should be given online learnings anytime there is new information out there. I think that there should be random checks, so many per state, where random teacher’s knowledge is tested. If they fail, they should be demoted, moved out and the next eager person who wants to work hard to keep that spot to take their place.I think that there should be online forums for every school district where parents and teachers alike can interact. If they’re at home with basic knowledge of a disturbing situation that has occurred at school, they can go on and ask more about it. How many parents had red flags about teachers but just have not been able to see the full scale of what the teacher is doing? What a great way to help parents get involved without having to take days off work, day care for younger siblings, time away from homework, or family time to do so.I think that there are untapped resources that schools could be tapping into. Lets look at our oldest population, the ones enjoying retirement in our communities just itching for something to do. Set up volunteer programs where they can come into the schools and help with the lower grade levels. They could be immensely helpful with early literacy, handwritting, and students who might need a little extra help in other subjects. This would be a great answer to large classroom sizes without having to hire more teachers.
How are schools going to teach logic and budgeting to students when they can't even teach the majority of their students to a bare minimum acceptable skill level in the basics of reading and math?
That may be however, if something is not being taught how can you expect children to learn it? The reason most state test pass rates are high compared to NAEP is because state tests need to be passed where as NAEP is icing on the cake. Therefore if ones only goal as a school is to pass state tests in order to avoid funding loss and potential administrative restructuring all the time will be spend teaching to the state test while subjects covered by the NAEP may receive less attention because they are seen as tertiary. The problem is that with high stakes testing teachers often do not teach to the class, or to the individual students or even to what they feel will best prepare them, but in many cases they teach to a test and that is all.
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