Common Core - Thoughts? (graduate, public schools, math, history)
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I'm completely against national standards. Education should be responsive to parents, and parents are local. The federal government has never helped or fixed anything. Quite the contrary.
I'm completely against national standards. Education should be responsive to parents, and parents are local. The federal government has never helped or fixed anything. Quite the contrary.
To say that education should be responsive to parents assumes that parents are intelligent rational human beings. Many children are growing up in environments of abuse and neglect that have existed for multiple generations. We have some communities where an elected school board doesn't have the intellectual capacity to run a school district adequately.
What I like best about have 50 different state educational systems is it allows states to experiment with different approaches. We just need a way to adequately evaluate the success or failure of the different approaches, and which doesn't interfere with the educational process that it is designed to assess.
To say that education should be responsive to parents assumes that parents are intelligent rational human beings. Many children are growing up in environments of abuse and neglect that have existed for multiple generations. We have some communities where an elected school board doesn't have the intellectual capacity to run a school district adequately.
What I like best about have 50 different state educational systems is it allows states to experiment with different approaches. We just need a way to adequately evaluate the success or failure of the different approaches, and which doesn't interfere with the educational process that it is designed to assess.
That abuse and neglect is a direct result of the Great Society's "war on poverty"....which we have certainly not won. We have to hold parents accountable for their kids' education.
That abuse and neglect is a direct result of the Great Society's "war on poverty"....which we have certainly not won. We have to hold parents accountable for their kids' education.
Nothing significantly changes if you only put pressure on educators.
So again, give me one way that you hold parents accountable?
You can wish all you want for two parent families that read to their children, care about their education, help with their homework, and provide a warm and nuturing environment. Unfortunately, that is not reality in today's environment. A large percentage of children today live in two different households based on custody arrangements. One or both parents suffer from alcohol or drug abuse, which may have affected the mental development of the child. One or both parents are unemployed. The parents may have had a poor education and are unable to help children with their homework. The parents don't understand what a good education is and are quick to blame the school if the student has difficulty in the classroom. The parents won't show up for parent teacher conferences and won't return phone calls. An exageration? No, this is a very common situation in today's classroom and most teachers have at least several examples and for some it applies to the majority of their classes. So please tell me how you hold the parents accountable.
So again, give me one way that you hold parents accountable?
You can wish all you want for two parent families that read to their children, care about their education, help with their homework, and provide a warm and nuturing environment. Unfortunately, that is not reality in today's environment. A large percentage of children today live in two different households based on custody arrangements. One or both parents suffer from alcohol or drug abuse, which may have affected the mental development of the child. One or both parents are unemployed. The parents may have had a poor education and are unable to help children with their homework. The parents don't understand what a good education is and are quick to blame the school if the student has difficulty in the classroom. The parents won't show up for parent teacher conferences and won't return phone calls. An exageration? No, this is a very common situation in today's classroom and most teachers have at least several examples and for some it applies to the majority of their classes. So please tell me how you hold the parents accountable.
Maybe you don't hold parents accountable (though certain charter schools do make them sign contracts). But you certainly don't hold those factors against educators.
Maybe you don't hold parents accountable (though certain charter schools do make them sign contracts). But you certainly don't hold those factors against educators.
I agree there is only so much the teacher can be responsible for.
Charter schools do not have to take a student or if they do, they don't have to keep them. The contract says the charter school can expel the student for certain infraction. The public school becomes the school of last resort. Their only option for problem students are alternative programs and schools. My local district has at least four different options for alternative programs.
There are proposals in PA to consolidate its 501 school systems along County lines similar to MD or VA. There is a lot of pushback about it echoing the local control aspect.
One variable is that one system can be very good/well funded while the adjoining district is not. Also playing into this is that many districts cross County lines.
Having experience here in MD I can attest that a larger system is not really that cost effective, at least the one I work for is not.
Personally I'm very skeptical of Common Core, particularly when noting some of the forces behind it (not just state educational leaders but also textbook companies, testing companies, etc.). Further I'm not sure I like the idea of one-size fits all for every state. I guess for Math and Language Arts the idea is somewhat more palatable, but it will never, ever fly for social studies or science.
Overall I also have a problem with more Federal government intrusion into something (education) that is Constitutionally supposed to be the purview of the states. There's something that doesn't sit right with me when these standards are supposed to be voluntary but the Federal government is twisting state's arms by withholding funding. I like what I heard a leader in Virginia say which, to paraphrase, was that whatever amount of money the government gives to fund these changes isn't going to cover all of the mandates that come along with it, and states are going to have to spend out-of-pocket for everything that is unfunded.
In regards to the teacher evaluations based on testing, this is quite problematic on a number of levels, perhaps the most important being that it isn't supported by research. Such a system is going to be very discouraging to a lot of good teachers/potential teachers and it's going to make filling positions in urban schools/districts difficult in the years ahead.
I don't know what you mean by the bold, particularly in regards to science. Are the laws of science different in different locales? If you're referring to evolution, IIRC, it wasn't really discussed when my kids took science classes in high school. Is history different in different places?
Quote:
Originally Posted by villageidiot1
I live in Pennsylvania and have had the opportunity to meet and talk to a lot of teachers. The ones who discuss politics are overwhelmingly conservative Republicans.
How localized do you want education control to be? Too many school board members have single agendas. They want to fire the football coach, keep a local elementary school open or micromanage a construction project. I get a kick out of reading local school board minutes and seeing debate about approving which new textbook should be purchased.
How much of a difference is there between managing education at the state or federal level? The problem is when both try to manage it.
I agree.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Everdeen
Here it is the other way around. In fact, I have noticed that republicans tend not to speak up for fear of being ostracized. I'm not republican, but do hold some conservative ideals. I do not discuss politics at work.
Well, how big and far remove do you want it to be? I mean, why stop at the federal level? We could make it world wide, right?
Personally, I think that a district should be no larger than one high school and its feeders. Let the local community decide what is best for their community. At least if something is wrong, you have chance of making a change.
Yeah, you get people that are on a power trip and want to micro manage, but they do that at the federal level, too. I don't know how to get rid of that.
That would not work in most large cities. Denver has 22 high schools all of which have 400-500 students, plus some charters. It would also not work well in many rural areas, particularly in the spread out western US. In the metro Denver area, Douglas County and Jefferson County have county-wide school districts. While both are more suburban than rural now, they began as rural districts that could combine resources better as single districts, rather than a bunch of small districts.
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