<p>Anyone else feel like high school educations are getting dumbed down more and more every year? Maybe it's just because I'm in Texas =-|</p>
<p>I think the gap between the educated and the uneducated is getting bigger (pretty sure I've seen some recent studies that suggest this too). "Regular" high school classes seem like they should be taught to middle schoolers.</p>
<p>But then again I guess I probably value education more than "average."</p>
<p>Eh?</p>
<p>It is dumbed down. Sad thing is... it needs to be, or most kids in my school wouldn't even follow. Who to begin the blame game on? The parents that couldn't properly care for the children due to socio-economic reasons, or the elementary schools that failed to educate the kids who came to the schools without a family environment conducive to learning?</p>
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Maybe it's just because I'm in Texas =-|
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<p>I'm in Texas, and unfortunately, I agree. </p>
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I think the gap between the educated and the uneducated is getting bigger (pretty sure I've seen some recent studies that suggest this too).
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<p>The majority of Texas public schools simply don't have the resources to succeed academically, but the few really great public schools all seem to be located in areas with more affluent residents, but that's not a surprise. This is a REALLY big problem here, and in the rest of the country.</p>
<p>I agree, I live in Texas also. My school, I can't speak for other schools, are focusing more on the kids who don't want to be in school, rather than the kids who are there and willing to succeed. They focus mainly on passing the TAKS, and next year there is a possibility of losing many of the AP classes due to budget cuts....</p>
<p>Ack! I'm glad to be leaving, but sad for my friends who are stuck in an unfortunate situation because the school cares more about passing TAKS than passing life...</p>
<p>Same here. I'm also from Texas and the school's excessive obsession with TAKS is really hurting students.</p>
<p>I did, though, fight for more rigorous courses (more really the value of a non-TAKS education) last year for the entire district. At least there's some progress. Our school had 10 AP courses last year. We're now up to 12, and I think the schedule may have 14 next year. Cutting AP courses is pretty bad....</p>
<p>I think my school has pretty decent academics. I think the school day is pretty long, and our school is thinking of adding another period to the school day-- seminar. The majority of the class focuses on how to pass the TAKS. I mean, it isn't THAT difficult that we need to spend the whole class period practicing it... But, I guess they just want us to pass the test so the faculty can keep their jobs.</p>
<p>What time do you guys get out of school? & what's your school name, if you don't mind sharing, or PM me.</p>
<p>I guess TAKS is like the Texas test for graduation? Here (in Ohio) we have the OGT, but none of my teachers spend any time on it. They know it's incredibly easy, everyone passes. It's more of a waste of time than anything else. They even tell us not to answer OGT questions the way we would for them because graders will be confused by the complexity or not see, outright, the simple answers they're looking for and mark it wrong.
I go to a pretty good public school (We're somewhere between 30 and 60 in the top 100) but we're definitely not in an affluent area. It's funny though, when we try to get the suburban kids to come to our school for games or the like. They're all terrified that we live in the "ghetto" and think that if they come here they'll be murdered or something.</p>
<p>This is happening to every single public school in this nation. All thanks to outcome based education. </p>
<p>I would recommend everyone to read "Dumbing down our kids" by Charles Sykes; it's a very comprehensive and well written book detailing our country's descent into mediocrity- both academically and morally.</p>
<p>My math class is packed with low-performing students. The average calc test score hovers around a 60. So what does my teacher do? He gives multiple quizzes prior to the exam, each containing five horrifically simple questions; if you do well, the number of points you get on that quiz is added to your exam score as extra credit. Hence, our average skyrockets because kids are flunking the slightly more difficult exams but their failure is cushioned by their quiz grades. In the end, the under-achievers are seemingly more competent numerically, and they pass the class feeling good about themselves despite the fact that they still can't tell the difference between a degree and a radian. </p>
<p>This needs to be stopped.</p>
<p>I think you're right, especially when comparing us to certain European and Asian countries.</p>
<p>At my school, academically, it is staying strong. However, it is always the whites and the asians who take the AP and honors classes. Since my school is a public school, it receives very little funding. (At my school, its 50% white, 40% Mexicans,9% asians,1% blacks).</p>
<p>At the private school couple cities away, they have a brand new building which contains a pool inside the gym. Like the basketball floor slides over the pool. It's cool. however that school is like 75% white and their family income is twice as my city's average.</p>
<p>P-s, I am saying random stuff</p>
<p>I hate PSSAs (PA grad/NCLB test). They've re-normed it since I took them last in eighth grade. They are now, in eleventh grade, virtually the same level of difficulty as they were in eighth. One of the passages in the reading section was about how to pack a suitcase. Literally. On an unrelated note, the math dept. at our school with the exclusion of the calc and stats teacher is awful. People come into pre-calc not knowing how to use fractions. Its ridiculous, all this hand-holding has to stop.</p>
<p>Yeah and although some schools may test really well and seem to have good students - that doesn't necessarily mean they're EFFICIENT. The students that go there probably have a good family life and parents that care about their education; these student would do well wherever they go to school.</p>
<p>It's Bush's stupid No Child Left Behind plan. Good in principle, but in order to have everyone pass you need to dumb down schools to a level easy enough for the very bottom kids to do well, which in turn hinders the advancement of the upper level kids.</p>
<p>He ****ed everyone over.</p>
<p>Even before we had budget cuts, my school "dumbed down" with really irresponsible AP schedules and lame pre-reqs to get graduated</p>
<p>Haha, there's this one guy at our school who barely attends class, but he has one of the highest weighted GPAs of the last few years and over 19 AP exams taken (all 5s). When a teacher asked where he was, we told him that he was at home, getting a real education.</p>
<p>Yeah, we have those really stupid standardized testing that we have to do for the state but only the regular classes focus on passing those. My AP/Honors teachers don't waste any time on it because they know it's kinda a joke.
@Millancad--Hahahhah. Yeah our AP English teacher told us to just write straightforward answers that just gets right to the point because they might get confused. So we all wrote like 3 sentence answers that answered the question--nothing more. All the other kids wrote like a page blabbering about everything they knew.</p>
<p>Thankfully, we don't have as many of those tests anymore. It's mostly the younger kids who have to take them. Although they did add a 11th grade Literacy test, which is pretty retarded. They just add more tests each year..</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure the school gets money for good AP exam grades so we focus on that a lot more than those standardized tests that makes sure we are literate and whatnot. But ....sadly, in my public school it's like 80% or so white and all the kids in AP classes are either Asian or white. I rarely have more than 1 Hispanic or African American kid in my AP classes..</p>
<p>I think its getting dumbed down, watered down, how ever you want to put it. I live in Idaho and I can relate. My school is trying to 'officially ban the R word (retard)' </p>
<p>OK I understand that to some the 'R' word can be offensive, but that is taking the first amendment right away and people need to just get over it. What do you think the real world is like, candy, butterflies and unicorns? </p>
<p>They promote mediocrity in my school. They give the athletics programs at least %50 of the funds each year yet my texts books date back to the 80s and 90s. </p>
<p>The debate team doesn't get recognized, neither do any of the clubs or bands. Yet they have an 'inclusion revolution' That BS just got started to make people feel good and because the Special Olympics were here. </p>
<p>One of my teachers didn't even know what ironic meant. She taught English.</p>
<p>No offense, but the best schools are in the Northeast down to Virginia. The rest I've heard are really suffering, especially in Florida.</p>
<p>Public education in texas seriously does suck. I go to a Title I high school and the kids don't give a flip about college. On the day of the PSAT, kids showed up and were like, "hey you got a pencil? what we taking this test for?" It's so depressing. =/ And the teachers focus wayy too much on TAKS and the "counselors" don't seem to know the first thing about helping students who want to go to selective universities.</p>
<p>maybe they should separate smart kids and dumb kids into different schools like they do in china</p>