<p>I am always perplexed when I read articles/threads such as these because my own experience with American education is the opposite of what is apparently the current state of affairs.(Sorry, I didn't read the linked article in post #1 because it is 65 pages) My children's public school education seems light years ahead of where mine was, and I see international students clamoring to take part in our educational system, both at the public school elementary level and at our colleges/universities.</p>
<p>"The lack of parenting ability nowadays is laughable."</p>
<p>The school district where I work was quite popular and many moved here for the good schools. It went sharply down hill over a period of about three years. I saw parents switching to private schools or moving to other districts. This district was hit by a wave of immigrants requiring the district to make a radical shift of resources.</p>
<p>I think that parenting ability, income and even the number of children play a part in the quality of schools. If your district's average cost is $10K and you move into a small house with property taxes of $5K with four kids, you're effectively getting subsidized to the effect of $35,000. If a lot of people do this, then either total property taxes have to go up or the average expenditures have to go down. If you're in a district that can't absorb higher property taxes, then you have to cut spending. Of course many states do have state aid but money is an issue.</p>
<p>And there are districts where it seems that even huge amounts of money doesn't match good parents and a good family. I think that the educational experiments in New Jersey decades ago were a good demonstration of that.</p>
<p>The solution I see is to get better parents.</p>
<p>Bay - couldn't agree with you more.... I have also read studies that indicate that while most Americans believe that our public school system is a shambles, most think their own kids' school is a good one. Figure that one out.
My kids have been blessed to have attended a fine school district for all of their 13 years of public school. I also pay through the nose in property tax. Still cheaper than private school though.</p>
<p>BCEagle - what I see around her is when the immigrants move in, the middle class families move out or move their kids to private school - long before the shift in resources takes place. The prejudicial attitude is troubling and apparently "socially acceptable".</p>
<p>
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The solution I see is to get better parents.
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<p>There should be a market for this!:) Parents can use new technology to have "better" children; but what about children having "better" parents? We should coin a new word as the antonym of "eugenics."</p>
<p>[There should be a market for this! Parents can use new technology to have "better" children; but what about children having "better" parents? We should coin a new word as the antonym of "eugenics."]</p>
<p>Educating the parents on parenting may ultimately require fewer resources than trying to educate the kids without a parental support structure.</p>
<p>soozie-I understand. I really do.</p>
<p>But perhaps one of my largest pet peeves is when people complain and complain about how terrible __________ is, but have never and are not planning on doing anything to try and change _____________.</p>
<p>Now, I respect what xiggi is doing. But it also REALLY bothers me when people base their view of an entire complex problem on what the media says and on their limited experience. Believe it or not, there are a LOT of public schools that are doing things right and trying to improve. I happened to attend one of them. </p>
<p>Could we still use revisions? Of course. No school is perfect. But to demand that things go from bad to good overnight with no help from the parents is just plain ignorant.</p>
<p>To follow up on a point I made in another thread: one aspect that always gets left out of the equation in all the hand-wringing about the failure of our educational system is the <em>free will</em> of the kids themselves. Imo, our schools have become so adept at making excuses and hand-holding, the kids have learned early on that they don't have to take responsibility for their own success/failure. The message is there for any kid early on that the way to succeed in this country is through education and hard work--IF they want to hear it. For the most part our schools are more than willing to teach any kid that <em>chooses</em> to be taught. I think that if our educational institutions returned to their original purpose - academics - and stopped acting as social service agencies, more kids who are truly desiring of an education would be able to get one.</p>
<p>^ Completely agree with this. However, in addition to this very important point, I feel that academic program is inadequate. It is very sad when Honors students in college decided to change their pre-med major because they cannot be successful in their FIRST biology class in college or to hear the same from those who wanted to become engineers and stumble in first semester of math class. I feel very sorry for dreams not coming true for these very hard working kids because HS failed to give them sufficient knowledge base to be successful at ANY major in college.</p>
<p>HisGraceFillsMe: While it can be frustrating to see people complain, sometimes no action temporarily is the best course of action. Going to your local school and shouting at a few parents isn't going to change the system. Going door to door and trying to teach people about better parenting isn't going to help. Our problem is a lot deeper, and people need to think very carefully about how they are going to tackle the issue. Why do you think people spend hundreds of millions of dollars campaigning for presidency? People see right away the big ways in which we can change the entire system.</p>
<p>Mammall, respectfully disagreee. Daycare is a very small part of the problem. You have entire suburbs of middle class kids who are socialized NOT to "work well with others", i.e. need one- on- one accomocations for virtually everything including private taxis to school ( a kid on my block with asthma... he can't take a school bus but he can play softball and traveling soccer?); pull out instruction, private tutoring or shadowing all at the taxpayers expense....based on some sketchy diagnosis of a "learning condition with no known etiology" leaving the budget for actual instruction in the district in tatters.... and you're blaming daycare???</p>
<p>The social contract is broken; parents don't believe they have an obligation to make a bowl of oatmeal in the morning let alone show up for parent teacher conferences; special ed and special interests have trashed the public schools; the unions have opted for a strategy of preserving the maximum number of jobs at the expense of teacher quality; the teacher training institutions have consistently backed "pedagogy" as a licensing criteria over subject matter expertise... I could go on for pages.</p>
<p>However, these threads always amuse me. We've got parents who can post for weeks about the unfairness of William's financial aid policies (boo hoo... kid had to settle for Emory or Michigan instead) who don't give a rat's %^& about the millions of people in this country who read at a 6 grade level after graduating HS. It's an interesting juxtaposition. Much easier to complain about the lottery aspect of HYP admissions than to actually care about education.</p>
<p>Xiggi- I don't mean you. Admire your ability to keep a level head about you!</p>
<p>There are an awful lot of vague generalizations being thrown around here. There are multiple reaons for the decline in US public education on the K-12 level. That is not to say that blossom and others might have first-hand experience with particular abuses, incompetencies, and disordered priorities in their own schools & districts. However, in general it can & should be said that public education has become far too broad in what it has tacitly accepted as its mission. Perhaps, blossom, that’s part of what mammall meant by her short comment – not that daycare is evil but by the following:</p>
<p>(1) Institutional education on the K-3 level is about 1/5 of what a child needs to know to do well in school, and has always been. That’s because of the time factor involved in a 3-6 hour learning day, the curriculum covered (& not covered), and the repetition/extension of learning which is necessary for learning to take root. That is why the First Educators are always called parents. </p>
<p>On the pre-K level, institutional learning/care is about 1/6 to 1/8 of what the child needs to know to prepare the child adequately for success in school. I’m talking merely about reading readiness skills and the close relationships with significant others which foster the rapid & eager learning of those skills. When an educated mother brings to our center, a 5-yr-old who has no developmental delay or physical impairment but who can barely hold a writing instrument of any kind or size, who has never been directly taught simple things such as letters, numbers, etc., someone is not doing the job that nature intended her to do. Not a job for professional eduators: a job for mothers and fathers around the globe prior to school entrance.</p>
<p>(2) Institutional education on the 4th-6th grade level is about 1/2 of what a child needs for efficient retention. On the 7th-8th grade levels, it’s about ¾. (etc.) At every level along the educational timeline, both direct and indirect parental contribution is anywhere from moderately influential to critical & decisive. This is not a new or reconfigured reality. The foundation of public K-12 education in this country has presumed a level of parental extension of that education which is not necessarily assumed around the globe. It was true in the 1950’s; it’s true today. Unlike in many other countries, we do not have an “academy” model here, even in <em>public</em> high schools. One could argue that we should, but we don’t. The only exceptions on the elementary school level would be immersion charter schools such as the KIPP model with hours from 7:30 – 5:00 pm, and on the high school level possibly some boarding schools. (So clearly with the latter we've taken it out of the public arena.)</p>
<p>(3) The academic value of institutional time has been eroded by non-academic agendas, especially on the elementary level. A multitude of social and political additions & even priorities have crowded out the primary intellectual task of the school, leaving less than the above fractional amounts for academic learning. Whether it’s “conflict resolution classes” or multicultural instruction not related to the social studies curriculum or “service learning” which <em>replaces</em>, during school hours, core subjects – the hours are further compromised. The educational and political establishment are to be blamed for this, not parents. Those in the power seat set the prioriites.</p>
<p>(4) We live in an impatient, sound-bite culture characterized by a preference for rapid information. It has affected how young people are learning – not always for the better, and unfortunately it has affected how & what is being taught. There is no excuse for the latter, but I do see it daily in my job as an educator rescuing those who are reasonably well off economically but underperforming in school. I see how it has reduced & eliminated many steps in learning, many subjects, skills, & how cognitive longevity has been largely taken out of the educational equation. There are exceptions among teachers young & old who have a traditional orientation or a careful & thorough style, but they are rare. Again I blame the educational establishment for giving in to the prevailing popular preferences – carving away the curriculum to please what they assume the adult public wants and what the student public sometimes states.</p>
<p>(5) The unwritten job description of public classroom teachers has been enlarged & even redefined, at least in my State. Teachers are now secondary providers of judicial mandates, psychiatric intervention, social service needs such as family crisis intervention & economic needs (including food), and primary parental nurturing & discipline. </p>
<p>(6) Teacher training has unfortunately, in some locations, been modified & diluted to adjust to these reconfigured expectations. If anything, actually, there is <em>less</em> an emphasis on classical pedagogy, more an emphasis on social & political constructs in that training.</p>
<p>(7) Massive mainstreaming of students not prepared to learn independently within the age range & expected preparation of the class. Accompanying that is parallel lack of resources to manage the resulting variety of needs, levels in that classroom. (Actually, blossom, having a shadow aide facilitates the learning for the otherwise neglected portion of the class. In my state, a student with Asperger's or a student with PTSD or any number of clinical syndromes, can dominate a teacher's energy to the exclusion of every other student, unless the student in question does have a shadow aide. Usually the parent is not required to accept the shadow aide, if offered. Often such parents do not, fearing that supposedly it will "stigmatize" the child -- as if the uncontrolled behavior is not already a stigma, & a greater one. In one such case I saw recently, the school succeeded in requiring a shadow aide only after a full 2 wasted years had resulted in the mainstreamed child absorbing & derailing 90% of the teachers' energy. Then it was deemed justified to require the aide.) (!)</p>
<p>What are some of the things that you like about the policies proposed by Obama and McCain to fix the problems facing our educational system?</p>
<p>Shadow aide??? Schools down here wouldn't think to cough up the money for one if you demand it. Local school district actually spends more money on litigation than special ed for autism. Nope, the autistic kid who has high intellegence but is unable to manage the social environment of a classroom is left to become a discipline problem and when s/he cannot manage the bookwork gets bumped down continually until the kid is in the classroom with the kids whose parents are completely disconnected.</p>
<p>Different experience, same result.</p>
<p>McCain is pretty vague on education. I think that it was a blank spot on his website until only recently. Obama has a bunch of bullet points. Both support NCLB which hasn't worked very well. Obama wants to add dollars but isn't specific. One thing about Obama's bullets: he calls for a bunch of programs but doesn't make demands on parents who have to be part of the solution - replacing parents in the educational process is incredibly pricey. I look at the amount of work that parents do here at CC and I don't believe that you can replicate this amount of effort, concern and interest only via programs.</p>
<p>I don't know that I necessarily like the idea of institutionalized care from birth either. Does this really work?</p>
<p>epiphany- you should get a Nobel prize for having articulated the situation so well. The only addition I can make is that in my district, teacher's are not the secondary providers of all the other psycho-social needs- in many cases they are the primary ones. I have a lot of friends who are teachers of both mainstream and special ed kids- the amount of time they spend on "case management" (Legal, psychiatric, risk management, and yes, trouble-shooting with the WIC and food stamps bureacracy on behalf of their students) is eye-popping. So I ask, "well how can the kid learn to read if you, the reading teacher, spend most of your day on the phone with social workers?" and the answer is, "I can't get fired.... so I make my own job description, which for this particular kid means making sure he gets dinner every day (school provides breakfast and lunch).</p>
<p>I'm not knocking it- it's a noble way to spend your day, but it sure makes me laugh when I read about NCLB.</p>
<p>And to your point about the shadow aide- agree with you when it's educationally necessary. The kid in my neighborhood with the shadow has CP; is off the charts intellectually with no diagnosed learning needs. The parents sued the district and finally won- they believe in getting every accomodation available whether or not it's appropriate for their child (who walks unassisted... with a moderate limp, is able to take gym classes and play after school sports.)</p>
<p>Overall, I agree with post 55. I've said elsewhere (1, 2 years ago on CC) that improving adult education is key in situations which are so compromised. (True of many low-income households -- including non-immigrants -- in which the parent or parents has the functional equivalent of a 3rd-4th grade education.) Where an experiment was tried recenty in the rural south -- a reading program directed at deprived youngsters whose parents had little or ineffecive education themselves -- extremely little progress was made by the students. This was despite the very professional training, dedication of a team of teachers & directors who absolutely knew what they were doing, & were doing it in spades. It was the fact that Daddy had none. The program director has since decided to direct more effort (& funds) toward parental education.</p>
<p>I do see the value in merit pay as an reward for outcomes. The problem is that outcomes are not necessarily measured or measurable immediately. (When students come to us for remediation, it is generally not a problem that began this year or last, but the result of a failure in teaching 3-4 years ago, accompanied by lack of parental awareness of what the students were not being taught, & how they were not being taught.) For the latter I do not blame the parents, but it unfortunately is a reality, and often more so for foreigners/recent immigrants who assume that the educational establishment will notice such unacceptable gaps before they do, & address them vigorously. (Wrong.)</p>
<p>I agree with you, blossom: in my district, too, they're the primary providers. I was speaking conservatively. Overtly, they are taught/assumed to be secondary providers. Covertly or accidentally, they are in fact too often primary providers.</p>
<p>Thanks for your kind words. In turn, I will grant the Nobel prize for wussism, if there's such a word, to the teacher's unions to signing on to such a perversion of roles (by silence), and the prize for masochism to the teachers who contract to do it. It's the reason I am no longer in the public classroom per se.</p>
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<p>I've said elsewhere ... that improving adult education is key in situations which are so compromised.</p>
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<p>I didn't mention that here as I already said something to that effect on another post ("we need are better parents"). Thanks for the research evidence.</p>
<p>When my district coughs up ONE PENNY for gifted education, vs the ten million to educate a few children in 'out of district' placements, then we will be moving in the right direction.</p>
<p>Right now, children are in private 24/7 residential placements, with goals no more lofty than learning to take a daily shower, or tying shoes. The school systems, and we as taxpayers, support this. Some of these placements cost $100K or more a year. The towns and cities are not able to pay for these absurd placements, and buy books and paper. Books and paper have to go, because of the IDEA mandate. It's the law, but too bad that personnel and materials and programs need to be cut in absolutely every other area.</p>
<p>And gifted children do not get a penny of additional funding for their "special needs".</p>
<p>I don't see this as a parenting problem. I see it as a funding problem, and the federal mandates have made it such that identifying students with any sort of learning need (whether it is real or bogus), is just about the only way to get any sort of small class, individualized instruction, etc. So, people are unscrupulous in their search for "professionals" to diagnose their children and get these extra services, which the rest of us pay for. So goes the inequality in the schools, which is only getting worse.</p>