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People on the right have already come to grips with that fact. It is people on the left whose fantasy worldview prevents them from seeing outside their little box of racism and wealthy greed as the source for any societal problems. They blame those two things for just about everything wrong with anything. Crime, drug use, illegitimate birth rates, global warming, terrorism, education, income gaps, whatever. You name it, and they will link it to racism and Republican greed. That's the only way they can continue their failed policies year after year without having to acknowledge the failures of those policies. They need a scapegoat so they don't have to face the facts that their cherished philosophy of taxing the rich and giving to the poor, no matter how well intentioned, simply does not work.
Yes, some on the right and even a tiny minority on the left are well aware of the reasons for the education problems we have in America. But those are not the voices that we hear. No mainstream politician or pundit will even touch the subject. And if they do, their careers are destroyed.
I constantly see others talking about good schools and bad schools without addressing what makes schools good and bad. It's the demographics. It always is. The pattern exists all across the country. Even all across the world. And nowhere on this planet has a solution to the gap been found, which would lead most reasonable people to conclude that the gap can't be closed.
Each state produces reports on their state testing with demographic breakdown.
And it's always the same pattern.
Scores highest to lowest: Asians-Whites-Hispanic-Blacks
Hispanic scores are higher than those of Blacks but not by much.
There is a bigger gap though between scores of Whites and Hispanics.
As Hispanics increase the scores will reflect that.
Asians represent a small minority in these reports. Their scores are well into the 90% and above range of passing.
Yes, this pattern exists in every school district in the country. On every standardized test that has ever been created, this pattern arises again and again. You would think that this would lead to some very obvious conclusions, but in the political and social climate of today, we aren't supposed to notice these things.
Yes, this pattern exists in every school district in the country. On every standardized test that has ever been created, this pattern arises again and again. You would think that this would lead to some very obvious conclusions, but in the political and social climate of today, we aren't supposed to notice these things.
None of the media ever report it.
And those that do voice it are labeled racist and discriminating against minorities.
They blame the "gap" on money, teachers, etc.
I teach in rural schools where everyone goes to a single school..wealthy, poor, etc.
And the scores still show the same pattern.
When you get to bigger districts with multiple schools the pattern is even more pronounced because families with money will move into the neighborhoods that feed to the better schools. That's when you hear school A doesn't get the same as school B.
If a teacher is trained K-5, then they are qualified to teach those 6 grades.
4th and 5th grades have dedicated Math/ELA teachers, PE teachers, music teachers.
It's also just starting in 3rd grade as well.
No longer do kids in K-5 have the same teacher all day long.
They move classes throughout the day because now you have content specific teachers in K-5.
One of my certs is Math 4-8. I can only teach Math in 4th and 5th grade.
I'm not "highly qualified" to teach anything else in those grades.
4th and 5th grades have dedicated Math/ELA teachers, PE teachers, music teachers.
It's also just starting in 3rd grade as well.
No longer do kids in K-5 have the same teacher all day long.
They move classes throughout the day because now you have content specific teachers in K-5.
One of my certs is Math 4-8. I can only teach Math in 4th and 5th grade.
I'm not "highly qualified" to teach anything else in those grades.
Well I have seen it done and it works well, it is a system we should be doing if we want to fix our education system. If not, then we can keep doing what we are doing.
Well I have seen it done and it works well, it is a system we should be doing if we want to fix our education system. If not, then we can keep doing what we are doing.
Well we are. It's BAU with the proverbial call of "If we just had more money."
Well we are. It's BAU with the proverbial call of "If we just had more money."
and that is a big part of the problem with government involved in the system, especially the feds. there is a constant call for more money, but when that money comes, most of it is absorbed by the administration, and little trickles down to the schools themselves where the money is needed.
change the tax code. Do not give parents exemptions and deductions per dependent as they are growing.
Give it to them , retroactively, when the kids have completed , at minimum, some post secondary education or training.
Sorry, Bob, but that is retarded.
If you want to do something constructive, then allow the deductions, but step-decrease them over time so that in the child's 13th Year the deduction is $0.
From that point on, they can take 50% of the original 1st Year deduction upon a declaration of "no tax-payer harm."
No honor system here...parents will have to get certification from the State that their child was neither arrested nor convicted of an adult crime as a juvenile.
Once the child is arrested or convicted of an adult crime, the parents can never take a deduction again.
I would also extend that to the children of children, meaning that if your child is under 18 and a parent, then you get no tax deduction.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bobtn
Given the $300 median wage gap b/w college and high school grads, and no doubt some gap for post secondary training completed, they would now have provided the ROI for the nation to have earned the credits for raising them correctly.
That fails due to the Laws of Economics.
Was there always a wage gap?
No, there wasn't. And while it might appear that there is a wage gap now, you cannot prove or guarantee that such a wage gap will exist in the Future.
Your ROI on an MBA is $0.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rbohm
if you REALLY want to improve education in this country, then get the federal government COMPLETELY out of the education system in this country. its the feds that keep pushing the social programs on education. leave education to the states where it belongs.
Amen, brother.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Valley Native
I would definitely agree. That's why many fiscal conservatives and Libertarians (Steve Forbes and Michael Badnarik to name two) advocate a flat tax in which everybody pays the same rate,...
Right...because we all know the United States is the same size as Iceland with a population of 479,000.
A city in the US could levy a Flat Tax and it might actually be fair, and everyone might actually pay the same rate.
There are a several hundred counties in the United States that could levy a Flat Tax, and it might actually be fair, and everyone might actually pay the same rate.
There are only a few States that could enact a Flat Tax that would be even remotely fair....Hawaii, Vermont, New Hampshire and Connecticut.
You might want to remind the Libertarian morons that the United States is a federal republic that is extraordinarily diverse in terms of space, geography, topography, geology, climate, hydrology, economics and demographics...to name but a few.
I tell you what......you Libertarian freaks go ahead and help the Left-Wing control-freaks create the Ultimate Uniformly Utopian State, and then you can have your stupid Flat Tax nonsense.
If you actually care about education in America, a teacher needs to teach a student more than just a year. Students should be with the same teacher for several years so that the teachers can best monitor a student's progression.
Okay.
I would accept that. It is in keeping with Mastery Teaching pedagogy.
In Mastery Teaching, a student stays with a task until the task is mastered. After the task is mastered, only then does the student move onto the next task.
So the student masters decimals, before moving onto fractions, or if for this student, learning fractions first may be easier, so they master fractions before moving onto decimals.
You could have teachers with cohorts. You follow?
When I was at TRADOC and we were doing the AirLand Battle 2000 doctrines, we studied cohorts in Roman legions. Roman citizens and slaves trained together as a cohort, and then were sent to be attached to a unit as a cohort. They trained together, fought together and died together. If the cohort got decimated, they'd disband it, reassigning the survivors to other cohorts.
The training cadre followed the cohort. We adopted that in principle for Combat Arms units to enhance cohesiveness.
You could do that in education, with teachers taking on student cohorts and teaching them for the first 6 years. If you got rid of the unions, you could implement Mastery Teaching and teachers being so familiar with the students in their cohorts would be able to better assist the student in mastering tasks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Supachai
Another idea to fix education that is not supported by the facts. America's issues with education have to do with the fact that America's demographics are rapidly changing.
No, they aren't.
Ever since primary school education became compulsory, you had students from broken families; students who were adopted; who were orphaned; who were neglected; whose parents were gambling addicts; whose parents were alcoholics; whose parents were physically abusive; whose parents were psychologically abusive; whose parents were drug addicts.....opium in the late 1800s and early 1900s through about the 1930s, and always heroin addicts, and pill poppers and dope smokers, and now meth heads and crack heads and more heroin users, plus even more dope smokers.
There's nothing new to see here.
What is different now is the style of education: education has taken a back-seat to social welfare.
As soon as you abandon social welfare and return to the task of teaching and education, you'll see results.
Pedagogically....
Mircea
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