Comments on: Our public education system is broken. . .

By: skip

skip — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:48:41 +0000

Good subject – If you read ‘Outliers’ By Gladwell, it goes into the differences between Western Education and Eastern Education. He isn’t exactly conservative, but it’s a great read. It tries to answer why Asian students are so much better at math and science than Americans. (at least the perception). It also tries to answer why ‘rich kids’ in good areas have a better education than ‘poor’ kids. To boil it down the answer is not money. It is proven that more dollars spend will not effect the test scores. When school is out for the summer ‘rich parents’ take thier kids to the museums and buy them books to read. For the most part, they stay engaged during the break. In most of Asia, they don’t even take a summer break. Poor kids get to relax and play – IE lapse in stimulation. Thier parents don’t have the resources to stimulate them. In fact, it goes on to make the case that Humans don’t need 3 months ‘off’ for resting and that is a western idea that really slows retention.

The bottom line is that school should be hard and it should be more like the real working world – long hours (8-5)and fewer breaks. I guess that means we need to pay teachers more, but I’m sure we can save the money spent from fighting teenage crime. More time in school means less time for kids to make stupid mistakes, right?

By: Nelson

Nelson — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:39:21 +0000

+1 Brewdog. Plus, this was a telephone survey, with the correct answer chosen by pushing a number button. If that was me, I’d have just pushed one button ten times and hung up.

By: Brewdog

Brewdog — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:54:49 +0000

Every time one of these “survey” stories comes up, I think back to my own experience in high school (I’m 42). We would get asked to take surveys, and I for one would resent the waste of my time. Since I went to school in Northern Virginia, we had surveys coming in from government agencies, universities, etc.

My favorite was one having to do with drugs. The grad student running the survey made the mistake of leaving us alone while we filled out the forms. We conspired to say we were taking every drug on the list, and then to add a few more. I’m sure the results showed that 75 percent of the class was addicted to Demerol and smoked a bale of pot per day.

If I had been given a waste-of-my-time survey asking “Who was the first president of the United States?” I would probably have written: “Your Mom.”

If you’re looking at who-knows-what numbers and it’s a survey, not a test score, I don’t buy into it. There’s no incentive to answer the question correctly, so some of the dumb kids maybe don’t know and many of the smart kids don’t care enough to give a right answer. They don’t have any skin in the game, so why play?

By: 77% Oklahoma High School Students Can’t Name 1st President?

77% Oklahoma High School Students Can’t Name 1st President? — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:28:16 +0000

[...] meme is spreading through the blogosphere with the consensus being that our education system is failing and our students are dumber than a bag of [...]

By: Brian

Brian — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 03:19:53 +0000

Moreso than just public v private. I think that in the USA in general, children of successful parents are successful in school, regardless of what school they go to.

There are plenty of *GREAT* public schools in Dallas. Highland Park, the plano schools, southlake.

However, as you noted, there are also plenty of terrible public schools in Dallas.

The great public schools, the great private schools all have a majority of upper middle class parents. That is the only common thread I can see.

There must be a solution to remedy this though. In other countries like you said, there isn’t such a huge divide between upper class students and the lower class. Maybe it has something to do with college in other countries being free or at least much cheaper than it is in the USA so that the dream of college is much more attainable? But I doubt that is the whole reason or even 10% of the reason.

I would like to see much more experimentation with public education so hopefully we can find something that works!.

By: Viral Nurse

Viral Nurse — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 03:02:27 +0000

I agree, costs for education have skyrocketed; and the value hasn’t gone up. Kids join gangs when they can’t get their head wrapped around the schoolwork. So, they lose interest and skip school, and the schools don’t keep an eye on everyone.

I remember only a few years ago a young Mexican boy was skipping school quite a bit, and a few of us told the parents, and it didn’t seem to make a difference. Then one day, I injured myself and was home from work recovering, and it was then that lent itself to tutoring this boy, and coming to find out that he just needed that little bit more of attention, and his life turned around. The school was amazed an honored him for work well done when he graduated from elementary school. He is doing really well in his first year of high school.

My injury was a torn meniscus, and that healed. One day I was walking near the school, and the principle saw me, and stopped to ask if I would volunteer to tutor more children, and I said that I would see if ever there would be time again. Since I work most of the time.

It would be wonderful if people who are out of work, or their hours are cut, or if they ever thought about volunteering…the schools are a great place to perform that task. It changes lives!

Thank you