NAOS
Well-Known Member
I'll be interested to see that, too.
But maybe everybody knows how sensitive you are to teasing.... and they'll just pass. I guess we'll see.
Education
- Thread starter Stoked
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But maybe everybody knows how sensitive you are to teasing.... and they'll just pass. I guess we'll see.
OK, where in my post did I say ANYTHING about LIMITING a student's choices? I favor INCREASING the choices we offer to include a choice to include more options to choose some level of vocational/technical course work. There also should be good choices for continuing adult ed for those who may not be ready to go the 4-year degree route at age 17-18 but are ready for it a couple years later.
I feel that my local high school is starting to do a better job in offering a wider variety of vo/tech courses and our local community college has expanded its offerings as well for both vo/tec and college prep courses. These are very good trends in my opinion.
Students are still required to take 4 years (8 semesters) of English/Language arts, plus a minimum of 6 semesters (3 yrs) of Mathematics, 6 semesters of Science, 5 semesters (2 yrs plus 1 additional semester or more) of History/Social Sciences (plus a few other requirements in Computer Literacy, Fine Arts, and Applied/Technical Arts) so all students are still getting a good basic education. That still leaves room for those who are interested to take additional classes in courses such as TV/Film production, Automotive technology, Digital this-that-and the next thing, Entrepreneurship, Cooking/Hospitality services, and various CAD/CAM courses.
RJF
Well-Known Member
Sorry to be the Debbie Downer with this quote but I think it still rings very true.
But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting ****ed by a system that threw them overboard 30 ****ing years ago.
You know what they want? Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly ******** jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.”
George Carlin
But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting ****ed by a system that threw them overboard 30 ****ing years ago.
You know what they want? Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly ******** jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.”
George Carlin
Joe Bagadonuts
Well-Known Member
How do families purchase their children;s educations right now? Do they write out a check to the school or is the education just "given" to them? The difference with vouchers would be that if the parents are dissatisfied with the education their children are getting they can spend their voucher elsewhere. It might not work perfectly in every situation, but in some instances it would introduce competition into the education marketplace, and I see that as a good thing.
One of my daughters had a 2nd grade teacher who absolutely sucked. I was not the only parent who felt that way. The school principal told us there was nothing he could do and he had to put her somewhere. He said that he could not fire her. Under that scenario I could have told him that I would enroll my child elsewhere (meaning that the money allocated to her would move as well) and he could decide whether the loss of my daughter (and probably a lot of other kids) was worth continuing to keep the terrible teacher on his staff.
fishonjazz
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Ya right now education is free. I'm just shocked that you wouldn't want to change that if you could change education going forward. That seems anti capitalist.
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I apologize for misunderstanding.
It sounds like already are plenty of of options. So, when you said, " am a big proponent of vocational/technical education at the high school level - less insistence that a college prep educational path to a four-year (or more) degree is the best course for everyone", what type of change would that imply?
So someone with say 4 kids in public education has no ideas how to fix a problem? Or has a right to an opinion? Or the right to express it? Like nothing that person says is valid?
What if that person has successfully run a business for many years? Like they can’t see anything wrong with the education system and voice that?
That may be the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.
Super easy to find educators pissed about the education system.
Also this you aren’t one so you can’t have an opinion is frankly silly.
You’re not a professional in the economic industry (banker, accountant, stock broker...) so stop talking about its problems.
gandalfe
Well-Known Member
So.... Betsy Devos.
I don't like that over the years it has changed more and more to teaching programs and not teaching students. There is a low floor of what needs to be taught, and a low ceiling of what is allowed to be taught. How things are taught is different than parents have learned it, so helping kids learn is way more time consuming than it used to be. It's not about getting to a right answer as much as doing it their way. Many students are bored out of their minds, but they rarely have options that allow them to learn at their pace or help them learn in areas they are interested in. Many students learn in different ways as their minds think differently, yet most classes have a "my way or the highway" style of "learning and teaching".
That's just a start for me. I don't like much that is going on in most schools these days, and I don't like many of the different problems that have to be faced when going the charter school route most of the time. I feel like I'm stuck in an education system with serious flaws from K-Grad School. There are good things too, but they don't weigh enough.
My #1 and 2 things are I want teachers to be able to teach students and I want students/parents to have options to choose from.
There, I dumped all of that with absolutely zero solutions. Are there any? I'm not sure there are without trashing the whole system.
That's just a start for me. I don't like much that is going on in most schools these days, and I don't like many of the different problems that have to be faced when going the charter school route most of the time. I feel like I'm stuck in an education system with serious flaws from K-Grad School. There are good things too, but they don't weigh enough.
My #1 and 2 things are I want teachers to be able to teach students and I want students/parents to have options to choose from.
There, I dumped all of that with absolutely zero solutions. Are there any? I'm not sure there are without trashing the whole system.
Didn't Corbin basically say this to the fans. None of you are professional basketball players or coaches so you know nothing.
It turns out we were right.
idestroyedthetoilet
Well-Known Member
You can have an opinion and voice it all you want. I have an opinion too, and most likely wont care about yours. I've heard the complaints my entire life how the system is a broken failure and we're going down the toilet. And yet the country still manages to stay on the cutting edge. I'll hear the same complaining for the rest of my life and we will still somehow stay on the cutting edge. So, I don't care for every average Joe's opinion on how to fix it. Why take exception that I don't care to hear it and prefer to leave it in the hands of the many professionals? It's not like I'm in here criticizing anyone's ideas.
The Thriller
Well-Known Member
Have any of you read the book “The World’s Smartest Kids”? It’s a real eye opener on what other countries do in public education. It’s interesting to compare what we do to Poland, Finland, or South Korea.
One thing to keep in mind, it’s difficult to get an apples to apples (test) comparison across different nations. The test typically used to measure our education system against the world is the PISA test. However, this test doesn’t provide researchers with reliable data as there are many ways to “rig” the test. For example, China administers the test to affluent students in Shanghai, an urban setting. This skews the data in their favor. While the United States might administer it scattered between affluent/non-affluent urban and rural students, which may give us a more accurate picture of how well our education system is running but when used as a comparison against (cheating) countries, makes us look worse. The test is administered every 3 years, so it can provide us with a good feel for trends. often the results are used as a political football by politicians from both sides. Info about PISA:
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25299445
One thing to keep in mind, it’s difficult to get an apples to apples (test) comparison across different nations. The test typically used to measure our education system against the world is the PISA test. However, this test doesn’t provide researchers with reliable data as there are many ways to “rig” the test. For example, China administers the test to affluent students in Shanghai, an urban setting. This skews the data in their favor. While the United States might administer it scattered between affluent/non-affluent urban and rural students, which may give us a more accurate picture of how well our education system is running but when used as a comparison against (cheating) countries, makes us look worse. The test is administered every 3 years, so it can provide us with a good feel for trends. often the results are used as a political football by politicians from both sides. Info about PISA:
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25299445
Sorry, but this isn’t cutting edge.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/15/u-s-students-internationally-math-science/
i thought the real idea behind vouchers was to transfer money out of the public system and into the private system?
The Thriller
Well-Known Member
Education has been used as political football for ages. It really wasn't until Sputnik that our nation (Eisenhower) really began to push for all students under the age of 18 to attend (and graduate) from high school. Regan's administration (for political reasons) put out the dubious "Nation at Risk" report; whose findings have mostly been debunked since. But hey, it served its purpose! It hurt unions, started the charter school movement, and helped funnel millions to private interests.
Educators were never consulted about George W Bush's No Child Left Behind. Teacher unions warned that this program was going to be a waste of time for students and teachers and would hinder the education process than help. They were right. It was never properly funded, which really only set up urban and poverty stricken schools up for failure.
Common Core, while a somewhat decent idea of each state agreeing on common standards and assessments to help students acquire a set standard of knowledge and skills, doesn't exactly work in practice. Yeah yeah, we all know about the "new math" that no one can understand. While this gets the most attention, the dirty little secret about Common Core, ESPECIALLY in Utah, is that many affluent students with involved parents will opt-out of the testing associated with Common Core. This drives school scores down, thus skewing the data against Utah schools, educators, and our entire system.
Legally, according to the legislature, SAGE scores can not be used on a student's grade. So students literally have zero incentive to actually try on the test. This has led to many teachers becoming frustrated with the test as their evaluations (up until about 2017-2018) and their school's grade (up until 2018) could be determined by students who would begin the SAGE and quickly finish it without actually trying. I mean, I don't blame them. If you're going to make me take a test that takes hours to complete, you better make it worth something. Right? So many of the poor scores we saw as a state were not necessarily indicative of poor teachers, stupid kids, or messed up schools.
Since then, we've made some improvements.
Utah is no longer "grading" schools anymore nor is the SAGE used on teacher evaluations. So it's less publicly embarrassing. However, according to state code R277-404-6, schools still cannot use student data on these tests to figure into grades. You can tell this is one of my pet peeves with this... So how can we really consider the data gained by state testing to be reliable when (a) The most affluent and involved opt-out and (b) students literally have zero incentive to try?
Schools that consistently score poorly on standardized end of year tests can still be shut down by the state. The new test replacing SAGE, for those of you wondering, is called RISE (for grades below 9), ASPIRE (for grades 9-10), and grades 11-12 will see no change as they've always just used the ACT.
Educators were never consulted about George W Bush's No Child Left Behind. Teacher unions warned that this program was going to be a waste of time for students and teachers and would hinder the education process than help. They were right. It was never properly funded, which really only set up urban and poverty stricken schools up for failure.
Common Core, while a somewhat decent idea of each state agreeing on common standards and assessments to help students acquire a set standard of knowledge and skills, doesn't exactly work in practice. Yeah yeah, we all know about the "new math" that no one can understand. While this gets the most attention, the dirty little secret about Common Core, ESPECIALLY in Utah, is that many affluent students with involved parents will opt-out of the testing associated with Common Core. This drives school scores down, thus skewing the data against Utah schools, educators, and our entire system.
Legally, according to the legislature, SAGE scores can not be used on a student's grade. So students literally have zero incentive to actually try on the test. This has led to many teachers becoming frustrated with the test as their evaluations (up until about 2017-2018) and their school's grade (up until 2018) could be determined by students who would begin the SAGE and quickly finish it without actually trying. I mean, I don't blame them. If you're going to make me take a test that takes hours to complete, you better make it worth something. Right? So many of the poor scores we saw as a state were not necessarily indicative of poor teachers, stupid kids, or messed up schools.
Since then, we've made some improvements.
Utah is no longer "grading" schools anymore nor is the SAGE used on teacher evaluations. So it's less publicly embarrassing. However, according to state code R277-404-6, schools still cannot use student data on these tests to figure into grades. You can tell this is one of my pet peeves with this... So how can we really consider the data gained by state testing to be reliable when (a) The most affluent and involved opt-out and (b) students literally have zero incentive to try?
Schools that consistently score poorly on standardized end of year tests can still be shut down by the state. The new test replacing SAGE, for those of you wondering, is called RISE (for grades below 9), ASPIRE (for grades 9-10), and grades 11-12 will see no change as they've always just used the ACT.
yep, read it a couple years ago - I'd first heard the author interviewed on NPR, that piqued my interest in the book. A good read - and a good book group discussion book.
The Thriller
Well-Known Member
This is what they've proven to do.
You're being too nice. Vouchers, when available, have proven to have a negative effect. From Louisiana, Wisconsin, Florida, and Michigan, all four of these states have extensive voucher programs and all the research I've seen hasn't been good for the DeVos crowd. Vouchers are just a nice way of religious white people segregating themselves from "those other types of kids" and exploiting minority parents wanting the best for their children.
To some degree, many of these programs have been added in the last two or three years. And there's room for more.
And there needs to be better acceptance among parents (and school guidance counselors) that vo/tech training is a viable option. There's still a lot of pushback from some in the community against putting resources into anything other than AP level courses.