Anybody wonder why kids can't read in public schools?

[HappyTexan]

Originally Posted by randomparent

They do not. Do yours?

My issue with the incredibly inflammatory post that started this "debate" is its sweeping generalization that kids enrolled in public schools cannot read. That kind of statement is easy to refute. Plenty of children attending public schools can and do read well, mine included. Furthermore, my children are tackling and mastering material a full two-to-three years earlier than I did forty years ago, especially in math and science. Stoichiometry for freshmen, anyone? Now I'm not suggesting that there isn't room for improvement, but I grow weary of hyperbole. Last time I checked high school language arts classes still require Dickens, Shakespeare, Hawthorne, & Conrad, just like the ones I took in the long ago dark ages.

No my son went to an upper middle class public HS.
But I do teach and tutor in Title 1, low performing, high at risk schools.

And they are night and day.
And yes, believe it or not, there are children attending these schools that can barely read.
But if they are retained the school loses money.

Sure they require that reading but did you know that now they do it via "auditory books" ?
It's starts in 8th grade. I watched the students dozing off while the recording "read the book out loud".
One set of books so no one can take them home or read them outside of class.

[InformedConsent]

Originally Posted by ray1945

Severely dumbed-down? Seriously??

Yes, and that's been true for decades.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/08/us...ills.html?_r=0

[randomparent]

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

No my son went to an upper middle class public HS.
But I do teach and tutor in Title 1, low performing, high at risk schools.

And they are night and day.
And yes, believe it or not, there are children attending these schools that can barely read.
But if they are retained the school loses money.

Sure they require that reading but did you know that now they do it via "auditory books" ?
It's starts in 8th grade. I watched the students dozing off while the recording "read the book out loud".
One set of books so no one can take them home or read them outside of class.

Granted, but do you consider those kids reflective of the whole of public education, as the OP implies? I don't! I recognize that public schools serve children whose abilities are all over the map. That's what drives me absolutely insane when I read posts like that which kicked off this thread. The OP posits that public school children cannot read, a statement that is not only inappropriately inflammatory but patently untrue. Some public school children cannot read, for reasons that probably have much more to do with the situation outside the classroom than within, while others are thriving. But rather than addressing this disparity, people like the OP would like to paint the entire system as non-functional, and if he can manage to disparage teachers in the process, all the better.

[tulani]

Originally Posted by InformedConsent

Exactly!

MUCH more on that, here:
The Other Crisis in American Education - The Atlantic

The college professor author and the studies he cites have tracked the problem down to U.S. schools' curricula backing away from academically challenging material and embracing more inclusive feel-good politically correct curricula, and the fact that classes are much less frequently grouped by skill/ability level which by necessity of getting the entire class to make academic progress, dumbs down the top and the middle.

Thanks for the article. It is long, but worth reading.

I am so thankful that I went to school in Massachusetts through 9th grade. I learned so much, especially in regards to English and reading.
When I started school in AZ I was way ahead of my peers in a lot of things.

One thing that always makes me laugh (at their stupidity) is that my AZ high school did not recognize that Civics and Hygiene are the same exact subjects as Free Enterprise and Health. I took the first two courses as a 9th grader in jr high, and was forced to take the latter two in order to graduate.

(I freely admit I hated both Civics and Free Enterprise and got a D in both classes. The only Ds I ever received in school. I failed a class in 8th grade, but that is another story. )

My favorite class in high school was called "Novel Now". Our grade totally depended upon how many books we wanted to read. We had a list of books we could choose from, each was assigned so many points. We had to accumulate so many points to get an A, B, C.... During the first class the teacher handed out papers that asked us what we wanted for a grade. It wasn't a "written in stone" deal, but he did expect us to work towards whatever goal we set. I was actually surprised even then (75-76) that some students chose to get grades of C or D.
Once we finished a book we let the teacher know. Then we sat with him and discussed the book. His questions and our answers let him know if we read the book and retained what we read. It was actually a thrill to be able to discuss these books with someone who also read and enjoyed them.

I read Exodus that year and it still lives in my memory.

I really do not remember reading too many of the classics for school. I read some of them for pleasure, but there are too many to list that I haven't read. I don't feel like I have missed anything by not reading all the classics.

I think students need to read some classics and a lot of current novels (as long as they are well written!!!) But what I really think students should read is books they love - FOR PLEASURE. Like my Novel Now class, let students pick what they want to read from a long list and they will choose books that "speak to them".

We can't let book reading become a thing of the past.

[Torpedos]

We are a dumb nation.