American education system - your solutions

[Zenin]

It's funny how private schools put out better test scores than the socialist... ahem, sorry, the public schools do.

Privatize the school system.

do you think its funny that families with money (or more importantly families that feel putting large amounts of money toward schooling) have children that do better in school? makes 100% sense to me regardless of the quality of the school.

think about all the other generalities you can make about people that go to private school (social status, wealth, housing location, number of parents), and think how many of them correlate higher test scores.

back on topic...
i made it through public schools and i do pretty bad at memorizing things, everything i did well in math/science etc are things that can be reasoned, that's how my brain works. so i agree with you (but may have a biased view) that schools in general put too much value on memorizing things.

however, there are a lot of jobs where having large amounts of memorized data available in your head can be a huge asset (doctor, lawyer, etc)

i think the key is that different people learn different ways, and value different kinds of knowledge. ideally everyone gets a customized education.

speaking of that, just saw this TED on my flight last night... super interesting about alternative learning styles.
bah... its not letting me post a link cuz i'm too much of a lurker (low post count) search for "TED 2011 salman khan" or figure out how to make this into a link...

link => youtube/watch?v=nTFEUsudhfs

[Liliyah]

I went to a private school for my school time (not in America though) and my teachers were a lot better then some I had in college. I can only imagine how they are in public schools. Even if your study morale is low you know that your parents pay big money for you to go to that school so you better do well. In a public school you dont have that kind of pressure.

There are other factors in the high performance of private school students as well, such as:
- admissions standards
- parent involvment
- socio-economic status



Anyway, part of me wishes that schools would ditch the tracking bullshit they've got going on. Yeah, de-tracking generally means that us high achievers don't reach as high as we would with tracking, but hey, learning the tough shit is what college is for. If you de-track, the lower-performing students generally rise up a bit.
Then again, I was one of those high-track students and can't imagine going through school doing simple honors-level work.

[Notalent]

Or they choke on tests. Or they get bored and let their mind wander. I also destroyed any standardized tests I was given, but that didn't stop me from realizing how incredibly stupid the very idea that everyone can learn in the same ways and at the same pace is. I also considered dropping out of high school because I pretty much just stopped learning anything of real life value. Not because I was stupid, but because I had either learned everything they had to teach or the teachers were horribly incompetent at their jobs.

All they teach now are "standards." They no longer teach anyone to prepare for life, just to prepare for more tests.

How does this change my statement that standardized testing doesn't favor those who think in a very strict confined manner? I worked everything out usually by ruling out what answers it COULD NOT BE rather then actually solving the problems, cut each questions time required in half usually, if I couldn't use that method I often resulted to deductive logic or dart board solution solving (try a number see if it works, see how close you are, try a new number). Standardized tests aren't the problem, the problem is schools don't encourage people to actually be intelligent, they encourage people to be sheep, the methods I used were clever, fast, and effective...they also got me kicked out of the advanced courses regardless of how effective they were because it wasn't "using the formula".

[the kins man]

and yet, America has the best universities in the world.. and it's not even close..

And what are you basing this off of? I happen to know of several amazing schools throughout Europe that would shame most of the schools from the US. Now, if you said "the US had the highest saturation of good universities in the world" that would be a more realistic statement. Granted, we do have quite a few of the best, but you used it in too narrow of a form

[ThePalidius]

and yet, America has the best universities in the world.. and it's not even close..

thats because universities usually fall closer into the classical educational model i talked about in my earlier post.
the problem is our high schools do not employ the classical 7 liberal arts method of education resulting in overall lower standards, limiting students in ability. it has to start when the kids are young. teaching the trivium first, saving the heavier quadrivium for typical high school age, leading into college level education.

[Tigercat]

The main problem is that the educational system is designed for the workforce of 20years ago. When people could be expected to have a modicum of education, and be hireable for jobs that payed a decent wage. But with the decimation of the manufacturing sector from outsourcing, the only kinda of jobs left are service, administrative, and niche technical jobs. With most students out of high school only qualified to fill service jobs. (telemarketing, front desk, cleaning svc. etc. )

To fix this, we have to do the following:
1. Change the school year. It's based on the agrarian calendar which is useless, unless you live in Ohio or Kansas. It doesn't really apply to the rest of the country. It should be two terms, evenly divided with two major breaks, one for Christmas/Hanukkah, and a small summer break.

2. Math and Science education must be paramount above all others, with fully half their education devoted to it, instead of them being added to an already crowded schedule. English, History, Music, Art, Gym. Those need to be secondary, and with the exception of English, they should be limited to student that just cannot keep up with Math/Science.

3. Which leads me to... Grade level admissions exams. No more coasting on generous teachers. If you want to advance a grade, you must prove that you know the material.

4. Some schools offer a study period... which in practical terms is a free period to goof-off. That should be replaced with an "independent study" period, where the student is required to study any material independently, with the teacher acting solely as an advisor. The difference is that at the end of the semester, they'd be required to submit some form of work. (report or project) This would teach students how to learn on their own time, instead of waiting for teacher to spoon-feed them information.

I don't have the time to get into this whole thing right now, but I will say that encouraging any student that likes art, music, history or anything that would be considered gym to purposefully underperform on math and science is a *terrible* idea

[Blastit]

I go to private school. The difference between my private school and the local public schools is at my private schools the honor students from public schools fail. My school requires 5 more credits than the public schools do and we are required to take 4 different electives or we can graduate

[Iron Dome]

The main problem is that the educational system is designed for the workforce of 20years ago. When people could be expected to have a modicum of education, and be hireable for jobs that payed a decent wage. But with the decimation of the manufacturing sector from outsourcing, the only kinda of jobs left are service, administrative, and niche technical jobs. With most students out of high school only qualified to fill service jobs. (telemarketing, front desk, cleaning svc. etc. )

To fix this, we have to do the following:
1. Change the school year. It's based on the agrarian calendar which is useless, unless you live in Ohio or Kansas. It doesn't really apply to the rest of the country. It should be two terms, evenly divided with two major breaks, one for Christmas/Hanukkah, and a small summer break.

2. Math and Science education must be paramount above all others, with fully half their education devoted to it, instead of them being added to an already crowded schedule. English, History, Music, Art, Gym. Those need to be secondary, and with the exception of English, they should be limited to student that just cannot keep up with Math/Science.

3. Which leads me to... Grade level admissions exams. No more coasting on generous teachers. If you want to advance a grade, you must prove that you know the material.

4. Some schools offer a study period... which in practical terms is a free period to goof-off. That should be replaced with an "independent study" period, where the student is required to study any material independently, with the teacher acting solely as an advisor. The difference is that at the end of the semester, they'd be required to submit some form of work. (report or project) This would teach students how to learn on their own time, instead of waiting for teacher to spoon-feed them information.

While i don't agree with everythhing you said to change, i agree with your introduction statement. Heck, 40 years ago, people had to find the cube root by hand of numbers like 378. Because they didn't have calculators.

and yet, America has the best universities in the world.. and it's not even close..

What are you saying? Because America has Harvard and other ivy leagues? Wake up, there are colleges in Europe and Israel that are better than Harvard and have a better success rate.

[Liliyah]

4. Some schools offer a study period... which in practical terms is a free period to goof-off. That should be replaced with an "independent study" period, where the student is required to study any material independently, with the teacher acting solely as an advisor. The difference is that at the end of the semester, they'd be required to submit some form of work. (report or project) This would teach students how to learn on their own time, instead of waiting for teacher to spoon-feed them information.

Some people, like me, can't really do independent study. ADD = I need some structure.
My school system didn't offer a free period or independent study, not formally at least. Instead, what we did was get teachers to approve us as "office aides" our Senior year and claim us as their personal aide. Most people still used it to goof of, but a few of us used it to do productive things. I worked on the yearbook production(as editor in chief) and did other publication design work under my advisor's guidance.

[Blastit]

While i don't agree with everythhing you said to change, i agree with your introduction statement. Heck, 40 years ago, people had to find the cube root by hand of numbers like 378. Because they didn't have calculators.


What are you saying? Because America has Harvard and other ivy leagues? Wake up, there are colleges in Europe and Israel that are better than Harvard and have a better success rate.

40 years ago calculators existed. 40 years ago computers existed. 40 years ago cars existed. they werent as good but they existed.

[apepi]

4. Some schools offer a study period... which in practical terms is a free period to goof-off. That should be replaced with an "independent study" period, where the student is required to study any material independently, with the teacher acting solely as an advisor. The difference is that at the end of the semester, they'd be required to submit some form of work. (report or project) This would teach students how to learn on their own time, instead of waiting for teacher to spoon-feed them information.

I love this idea, just let education ring:}

[babyback]

and yet, America has the best universities in the world.. and it's not even close..

Woah hold your horses right there.

Yes you have the most famous schools and probably the richest aswell. I'd like to see facts on american universities beeing better then anyone else. Please include all colleges then, not only Harvard, Yale etc. I want to see the community ones there aswell.

[Iron Dome]

40 years ago calculators existed. 40 years ago computers existed. 40 years ago cars existed. they werent as good but they existed.

50 years ago? I've seen tests from a few decades ago, regents i mean, and they had to do this stuff without calculators.

[Loaf]

I also destroyed any and all tests I took(standardized or otherwise) but I dropped out. Not because of bad grades or anything, but because when I was 16 I began going through some major depression and never felt like going to school. Plus it doesn't help that after my depression hit, I moved back to my hometown after not going to school the rest of the previous year after the first month, and the school system there ignored my last full year(all a's and b's) and put me in all remedial classes with the stupid gangsta kids(yes they were all your stereotypical talked liked dis and dressed like rappers gangsta kids.)

After going to about a week or so in that, I just said fuck it, never went back to school and just recently(at 20 1/2) I finally got out of my depression fully and am going to be taking my GED soon hopefully and get my life back on track.

[Notalent]

While i don't agree with everythhing you said to change, i agree with your introduction statement. Heck, 40 years ago, people had to find the cube root by hand of numbers like 378. Because they didn't have calculators.


What are you saying? Because America has Harvard and other ivy leagues? Wake up, there are colleges in Europe and Israel that are better than Harvard and have a better success rate.

This line right here is part of what I hate about the arguments that we get in these kind of discussions. Success does not mean better, it should not mean better, and it must not mean better. Schools should be set up to help kids succeed in the next level of schooling, they should be set up to encourage the growth of intelligence and evolution of a persons mind, so that they can succeed in life or help improve society as a whole one day. Too many students are trained to be literal calculators who follow formulas that deprive them of the ability to think outside the box or make intelligent decisions when put into complex situations, and its sickening. Encourage kids to try new things and allow them to focus on what they want as long as they are good at it. Stop trying to create a standardized person who can boost success rates.

[Iron Dome]

4. Some schools offer a study period... which in practical terms is a free period to goof-off. That should be replaced with an "independent study" period, where the student is required to study any material independently, with the teacher acting solely as an advisor. The difference is that at the end of the semester, they'd be required to submit some form of work. (report or project) This would teach students how to learn on their own time, instead of waiting for teacher to spoon-feed them information.

Yeah, my school offered so many independent studies. Thing was, it wasn't a period to do it. It was on your own. We met about once every two weeks with the teacher just to review the material, but that was it. BUT, we had homework and projects, which is what you said. In my sophomore year, I took 2 independent courses (AP World and AP Psych) and 12 regular classes, as well as a bunch of extracurriculars. I don't regret it.

[Iron Dome]

This line right here is part of what I hate about the arguments that we get in these kind of discussions. Success does not mean better, it should not mean better, and it must not mean better. Schools should be set up to help kids succeed in the next level, they should be set up to encourage the growth of intelligence and evolution of a persons mind. Too many students are trained to be literal calculators who follow formulas that deprive them of the ability to think outside the box or make intelligent decisions when put into complex situations, and its sickening. Encourage kids to try new things and allow them to focus on what they want as long as they are good at it. Stop trying to create a standardized person who can boost success rates.

You specifically wrote you don't want kids to just punch #s into a calculator and not know what the hell they're doing, which is what i wrote...

[Liliyah]

Yes you have the most famous schools and probably the richest aswell.

I don't know. I think that Oxford and Cambridge are just as famous as say... Harvard and Yale.

[Lefeng]

I am a teacher. My mother is a retired teacher. My grandmother is also a retired teacher. My father has a teaching degree that has gone unused. My uncle was a teacher, then a school administrator. My aunt is also a teacher. We kind of have a tradition going and we all talk often about education. There are two glaring problems with the education system and if these two problems were addressed, the other problems would begin to fix themselves.

1). The most damning problem with public schools is American culture in general. The average American family does not place a high value in education, for various reasons. Mostly, the fault comes from more and more students coming from single-parent families where the parent must work one or more full time jobs to support their families. Hence, there is no education happening at home which is where education should BEGIN. Further, those students have such wrecked home lives that they receive no parenting and teachers must fill in the gaps there as well as teaching their subjects. I find myself doing much more of this than just 10 years ago.

2). Dwindling financial support for education coming from state and federal sources. We are being told to improve instruction but we must do so with less and less funding. Not only can we not afford supplies for our classrooms, schools are trying to get by with less and less staff, meaning class sizes are growing at an alarming rate. We're being told that our current system is outdated and that we're turning out too many students with "cookie cutter" education. THE TEACHERS AGREE! But what can we do when we have 30 students at a time and it's simply not possible to give each one the attention they need to develop curiosity and problem-solving skills? Throwing money at the problem obviously won't make it go away but at least give us a fighting chance!

[Iron Dome]

I am a teacher. My mother is a retired teacher. My grandmother is also a retired teacher. My father has a teaching degree that has gone unused. My uncle was a teacher, then a school administrator. My aunt is also a teacher. We kind of have a tradition going and we all talk often about education. There are two glaring problems with the education system and if these two problems were addressed, the other problems would begin to fix themselves.

1). The most damning problem with public schools is American culture in general. The average American family does not place a high value in education, for various reasons. Mostly, the fault comes from more and more students coming from single-parent families where the parent must work one or more full time jobs to support their families. Hense, there is no education happening at home which is where education should BEGIN. Further, those students have such wrecked home lives that they receive no parenting and teachers must fill in the gaps there as well as teaching their subjects. I find myself doing much more of this than just 10 years ago.

2). Dwindling financial support for education coming from state and federal sources. We are being told to improve instruction but we must do so with less and less funding. Not only can we not afford supplies for our classrooms, schools are trying to get by with less and less staff, meaning class sizes are growing at an alarming rate. We're being told that our current system is outdated and that we're turning out too many students with "cookie cutter" education. THE TEACHERS AGREE! But what can we do when we have 30 students at a time and it's simply not possible to give each one the attention they need to develop curiosity and problem-solving skills? Throwing money at the problem obviously won't make it go away but at least give us a fighting chance!

Wait, so your family are teachers? Lol jk

Yeah, i completely agree with those points.