Dumbing Down America: The Decline of Education in the US.

[Ghostmcghosty]

The question is: What do you do about it?

We spend so much money on it, yet it's worse than other nation's schools who spend far less on it?

How is that possible? What's causing it?

Throwing money will not solve this. As it stands now, you could redesign the way schools work and wind up spending less.

For example: Rather than cram everything on a kids plate in one school year and ignore teachers and students telling you they have no time to help those who fall back, why not structure school so kids don't waste time doing subjects they excel at?

If your child is in 5'th grade but reads at a college level, what good is reading some Goosebumps book gonna do for them? That portion of study should be shortened, and more time should be put on the math.

You don't even need to perfectly tune it to all students. Just have three tracks.

Skilled readers and writers.
Skilled mathematicians and sciences.
??? Make up another track.

Skilled readers will spend more time on their weaker subjects.
Skilled Mathematicians the same. They will spend more time writing and reading and communicating.

That is just a spitball idea off the top of my head with absolutely no research at all, but I am sure that it beats the current system we have. And that is sad.

[Lenonis]

School funding is the smallest part of the problem.

I don't know if I'd call it the smallest part of the problem -- but certainly there are significant issues as well.

But school funding is arguably one of the easiest to fix.

[Seranthor]

I'm looking for a scenario in which we're not expecting thirteen-year olds to raise children by themselves. A scenario in which we don't encourage irresponsible behavior by incentivizing it. A scenario in which we don't perpetuate poverty through failed attempts at prohibition. A scenario in which we don't happily spend $40,000 a year to incarcerate someone, but balk at allowing someone that makes more than $1,600 a year to access Medicaid.

There's quite a long way between helping rebuild struggling communities with an eye toward them being self-sustaining and going down the rabbit hole into a dystopian future.

While we agree on the problem, the solution isn't government control... Why? because an educated populace is going to be more questioning of their government and less likely to submit to government control. A government's first priority is to ensure their continued existence by any means necessary, and they currently ensure that existence by encouraging and incentivizing irresponsible behavior.

[Dundebuns]

You increase the gap, then make the people at the bottom as stupid as possible. That way they'll be grateful to be poor and stupid.

[Kelathos]

"The United States consistently spends far more money per school age student than any other country in the world"
We do the same for healthcare.
Must be a common problem throughout the nation.

[Pterodactylus]

We should get more creationists on various school boards so we can get rid of teaching climate change and evolution. Many people are saying teaching these ideas is part of the homosexual agenda.

[Zomis]

I blame the unions.

I had an high school teacher who talked about how 9/11 is Bush's fault and how her husband almost died trying to save people from the twin towers as he was a firefighter. I don't think we did anything in that class but talk about Bush and maybe read the newspaper for 20 minutes before she went on her rampage.

Doesn't shock me one bit.

[Theodarzna]

"The United States consistently spends far more money per school age student than any other country in the world"
We do the same for healthcare.
Must be a common problem throughout the nation.

The problem is we expect every teacher to be some miracle worker who can be a surrogate parent, guidance councilor, friend, mentor, psychologist, security personnel and Educator all for lack luster pay.

More over we as a nation are unclear what schools are even for, so its somewhat difficult to set policy for education when we really don't have a clue what its good for.

Finally, there is the issue of solidarity. Policy makers kids go to private schools, so they aren't invested in some other persons kids future.

[bergmann620]

While we agree on the problem, the solution isn't government control...

It's not government control- at least no more than our current 'Department of Family Services' setup.

because an educated populace is going to be more questioning of their government and less likely to submit to government control.

An educated populace wouldn't be losing their children due to negligence.

[Deleted]

First, I'm not american so I only have a very general knowledge how things currently are.
So from what i know you don't have a centralized institution that says "in grade 8 you need to learn YXZ" but instead some wierd centralzed tests done by a private company.

Firstly a standard needs to be set across the nation. Unless you are from a prestigious private school your grade should have the same worth as someone on the other side of the states. I had generally 2 big tests per semester which made up half the grade and several smaller ones, some of which weren't direct tests and made up the rest. The tests were mostly written by the teachers and to some degree used again later because the stuff you learn at school generally doesn't change much. For the US the big tests could be centralized with the set requirements in mind. You'd also need to have these tests checked by actual teachers beforehand because I heard some wierdness about them.
If some school scores especially low you'd need to check things there. If astudent had a bad grade in one of those tests the parent had to sign it so he was at least informed that the kid didn't do well. Part oif this is obvously someones parent giving a fuck at which point the school can't do that much more.

The smal tests would be in the hands of the respective teachers. I had sometimes simple things like a participation note for simply raising your hand and answering questions or a number of questions at the beginning of class about some recent stuff and three of those were put together and graded as a small test. You could hand it in if you wanted or were simply chosen randomly. The other tests would depend on what exactly the teacher did so far and could also be some presentation. Subjectivity was also involved in non-mathsy classes in that your essay may be slightly better graded (b- to b or so) if you were actively participating and hard-working.

With that there is also the problem off classsize I heard somethign about a size of 30+ being normal which is way too much for the teacher. I think the ideal is something between 10 and 15, so a good compromise would be to aim at around 20. The teacher would be able to grade the tests properly and maybe even help some students if he/she notices something where a student is especially bad. I had one teacher that always nagged a friend with good grades about being sloppy, always having tiny mistakes, until he got annoyed enough and did things properly.

Occasional, like once a year parents were also invited to school to talk with the homeroomteacher. He/she would talk about more general stuff like a kid sucking/being great at a specific subject or always being noisy. You were handed a slip that had to be signed by the parent which you had to give back. Again this involves your parents giving a fuck.

Doing more things at the school itself, like the typical sports-festival instead of normal classes is nice too. In general somewhat school-related side activities, even just being part of a club can help since you most likely don't do anything dangerous due to a somewhat controlled environment while having fun. If it's properly provided by the school you might also start to hate school less. Even something like a cooking class could work.

I believe that is pretty much all you can do from the schools side.
The other problem is I believe more culturally. This is just anecdotal but it seems that asians are more hardworking than other people when it comes to simple learning while black people don't give a fuck. Whites seem somewhere in the middle. This problem seems to be also a result of the parents different expectations and behaviour.
If this is true then it should be openly said without fearing backlash, but it probably won't since people are idiots.

[haxartus]

But I had to learn things of questionable use such as an entire year of math that is only usable in a few very specific and very advanced fields.

Actually math is the most important subject by far. Not only it teaches you to think, but it is the key to one of the highest paid jobs. It's also the easiest, it requires almost no memorization whatsoever. Medical students, for example, are required to memorize thousands of pages of textbooks, while in the advanced math courses you are not required to memorize formulas, you just need to be able to use them.
Of course, if your dream is to flip burgers, then you don't need math, but you don't need anything else either...

[Xeones]

Actually math is the most important subject by far. Not only it teaches you to think, but it is the key to one of the highest paid jobs. It's also the easiest, it requires almost no memorization whatsoever. Medical students, for example, are required to memorize thousands of pages of textbooks, while in the advanced math courses you are not required to memorize formulas, you just need to be able to use them.
Of course, if your dream is to flip burgers, then you don't need math, but you don't need anything else either...

I'm thinking specifically of Algebra 2 where we learned things like imaginary numbers and 3D graphing that have little practical use unless you plan on going to NASA or something and my teacher was entirely unqualified to teach. I got a D in Algebra 2 and had to take a shitty remedial math class my 12th grade year instead of something useful because every time anyone in my class (including me) asked our Algebra 2 teacher to teach us she simply pulled out the book and copied the examples onto the board and quoted the book word for word to us. She never exhibited that she understood the content and never elaborated beyond what was in the book.

When I later went to community college I had to take the math that wasn't worth credit to catch up, at that point I had a teacher who made his own problems and could answer questions and I learned it. So I know it was the teacher I had in high school that was at fault for at least half the class failing.

If we can't get teachers who are able to teach the things we don't need to know why is it a required class?

The most advanced math I ever needed to know for work is basic calculation and 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, and 128.

[GennGreymane]

The topic is false on its' face, considering we have a higher percentage of students graduating college than ever before, and we have the highest literacy rates we've ever had, even as single parent statistics across all races continue to climb at an alarming rate.

The only reason it costs as much as it does to educate kids in the U.S. is because so many of our children require teachers to spend time and money as parents to these children, as well.

Look at private schools- they spend less per student, and even pay their teachers less on average, but students do better and teachers are more satisfied. Why? Because a parent that is paying tuition out of pocket has bought in and gives a shit about education, and thus sends their children to school ready to learn.

Of course, at the end of the day, we are setting this whole cycle in motion by not shutting down the cycle of poverty. We'd rather let people fail so we can feel better about our minimal success than behave like an actual community and try and raise everyone up.

Don't forget that many private schools receive federal funding too.