'"High schools are the downfall of American school reform," said Jack Jennings,...'
WSJ: Scores Stagnate at High Schools (via Newsalert):
New data show that fewer than 25% of 2010 graduates who took the ACT college-entrance exam possessed the academic skills necessary to pass entry-level courses, despite modest gains in college-readiness among U.S high-school students in the last few years.
posted by Helen at 9:02 AM
15 Comments:
Generally speaking, high school sucks. Its collective values are subjugation by authority and stamping out those who don't conform.
Adolescent children are stuffed together and made to do makework simulacra instead of spending time with mentors and adults and apprenticing towards adult skills.
The best and brightest can't get their needs met and are under social pressure from both teachers and peers to dumb themselves down.
Don't even get me started on the statistical profile of the teachers themselves.
TO: Dr. Helen, et al.
RE: I See THIS, All the Time....
....on a citizens oversight commission I sit on.
They continually hammer the local university rep on the graduation, i.e., drop-out, rate at his institution while the local school district rep is continually giving cheerful reports on what a great job they're doing.
Next time I see such action, I'm going to go into medium-hover mode and start asking penetrating questions of the local school district rep.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Education makes a people easy to lead but difficult to drive. Easy to motivate but impossible to enslave.]
P.S. That must include education in the use of weapons.
After all, you cannot defeat a tyrant with mere words alone.
TO: Topher
RE: I Have to Ask
Generally speaking, high school sucks. Its collective values are subjugation by authority and stamping out those who don't conform.
Adolescent children are stuffed together and made to do makework simulacra instead of spending time with mentors and adults and apprenticing towards adult skills. -- Topher
When did YOU graduate from high school?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Education: Replacing an empty mind with an open one.]
P.S. Or so it was in the 1960s.....]
Complaining about the academics in high school is like complaining about water on the decks of the Titanic - it misses the point of where the problems start.
The kids I see in 7th and 8th grade are ones who have never learned the basics. They come in as kindergartners who don't know what a number is or what a letter is. They are then handed to teachers who are forced by district fiat to replace real math and English curricula with one piece of "reform" flotsam after another, with dire consequences for those who dare deviate. Many of these are so scripted, they actually tell teachers what to say and when.
Meanwhile, those pushing these idiotic curricula get to say that they are "research-based", since so few have the background necessary to recognize how shoddy that research is. Meanwhile, they sit back and blame teachers for their own messes. It's the equivalent of replacing your plumber's wrench with a zucchini and then blaming him for not fixing your pipes properly.
While teachers are handed students who are 5 years below grade level, any attempt to actually give out the grades the kids have earned is rewarded by a stream of screaming parents saying "My kid always had good grades before he came here! What are you doing wrong?!?"
Why do we put up with this again?
This book pretty much explains it all.
http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/
What Obi said...all explained and documented in The Schools We Need and Why We Don't Have Them by Ed Hirsch.
The problem I see is parents and trustees sign off on this "reform" crap because they really believe somehow a new approach will make math and writing "fun" and "more relevant to everyday life." After all, I sucked in math too...they think to themselves. They really think they're helping.
The last thing I wanted as a student was a dumbed-down subject with a changed name (like "history" to "social studies" in the 1950s) that had anything remotely to do with my miserable "everyday" life.
"The kids I see in 7th and 8th grade are ones who have never learned the basics. They come in as kindergartners who don't know what a number is or what a letter is."
These kids have been cursed by their parents. They will go to prison or have children before they are 20. They will be addicts. They will need the government to take care of them for their entire lives.
And there is nothing the school can do about it. It is a cultural death cult.
The only thing that would change this horrid process is to stop paying poor, single women to have them.
Trey
Carol, I do not think the problem is kids who care about math and science. I think the problem is parents who do not care about their child's education, who see no point in their children being responsible and self-sufficient. The parents who cannot be bothered to fix their children breakfast. These people are ruining the country for those of us who are responsible.
Trey
The kids I see in 7th and 8th grade are ones who have never learned the basics. They come in as kindergartners who don't know what a number is or what a letter is. They are then handed to teachers who are forced by district fiat to replace real math and English curricula with one piece of "reform" flotsam after another, with dire consequences for those who dare deviate. Many of these are so scripted, they actually tell teachers what to say and when.
Back when I was an undergrad, I was a math/science major who thought teaching would be a good way to make a living. (OK, that was a long time ago). To prepare for that, I started taking some of the required courses for a teaching certificate. Most of them were pure pap. Some of my classmates were education majors destined for elementary school classrooms. I asked some of them how many math classes they'd taken. The typical answer was on the lines of, "Oh, the absolute minimum! I hate math!"
Admittedly, a lot of the problem is caused by parents who do nothing to help their children learn even before they get to school. However, if the kids get elementary teachers who hate math, how likely is it they'll be good at math themselves. No matter how much the teacher tries to mask her feelings, the kids will pick up on her attitude pretty quickly. By the time they get to middle school, many of them are a lost cause unless a truly exceptional teacher manages to break through to them.
As for many of the so-called education reforms, I blame that in part on the "publish or perish" mentality at so many universities. Think about how hard it must be to write another paper on the topic, "Phonics still works" and get it published. No, they'll come up with some education fad to be "new." Unfortunately, those fads not only end up being drivel, but expensive drivel that can damage children's educations.
Works? WORKS? Phonics ruined my spelling forever.
Of course they are. Highschools today have been transmogrified into institutions of social welfare instead of actual learning. Coupled with the unionist/government patronage cable, you have a perfect storm of miasmic outcomes. It's a new world and any of those students or teachers that want to be free of it will be clawed down into the mediocrity soup.
I have this sneaking suspicion that it's because while pretty much any citizen possesses the skills that we are seeking to convey to elementary school students... most teachers simply don't have the educational background (in subjects) to teach even at the highschool level.
I can distinctly remember many events like the time I was sent to the deans office because I had brought in documentation to demonstrate to the biology teacher that energy was in fact *not* destroyed. I seem to recall the wisdom of the dean was 'it doesn't matter what is true, all that matters is what the teacher wants to hear'.
http://www.the-spearhead.com/2010/08/18/patty-murray-facing-serious-challenge/#comment-37966
"I can distinctly remember many events like the time I was sent to the deans office because I had brought in documentation to demonstrate to the biology teacher that energy was in fact *not* destroyed. "
This is the stuff that drives me out of my mind. I had a lot of good teachers, but I had a few bad ones who were on a serious power trip and were so insecure they felt the need to bully kids who were smarter than they were rather than admit they were stupid.
That's what we get when we demand teachers get a worthless M.Ed. instead of a real degree in some academic discipline they can then impart to children.
The intense bias against non-
"educator" people is disgusting, especially in science and technology where (a) American kids need to learn it to be competitive and (b) even a credible teaching curriculum cannot possibly stay on top of. Plenty of STEM people are ready to get into it and mentor kids, or even teach themselves, but they'll be damned if some administrator or teacher's union is going to look down their noses at an educated, successful businessman or scientist.
They might not have the skills, but I'll bet they have GREAT self-esteem!!!
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