School Reform ftw?
 

Link

No Child Left Behind is really working...

I was never a fan of the public school system. It seemed that you could never get a good education if you wanted it, there was little if any incentive to advance, and if ONE person was dumb, the entire class suffered for it.

I've been decently smart and able to crunch numbers but I would have loved to experiment with a Montessori style system or something to allow me to look into various topics of interest, not pigeon hole me into what someone else wanted me to learn.

The results of this type of teaching are rather telling.

Granted, the article seems to skew for a racial relationship, but the rest is interesting to look at. You can read about how the most counterproductive methods of teaching are employed for the poorest of children.

We are getting dumber here in the US, folks. It just took a generation or two.

"But Jagos", the public yells, "change is haaarrd."

But yeah, you and I have agreed that education needs reform pretty bad. And I'm hardly the person to ask. I tutor at a sylvan and most of the standard curriculum sounds fairly similar, but the best results I get are from teaching students to look for information themselves and explain what they've learned to me in their own words.

I can't really speak on the disparity between inner city and suburbs though, I only see whiny suburban kids who's parents are making them go to get better test scores.

I would say that there's two things we need to do.

One, Change the education paradigm

Two, find ways to engage kids that isn't coming off authoritarian.

aww I was hoping this was about them implementing change :(

Personally I think biggest flaw in our education is it teaches generalization when we live in a world of specialists. Why am I being held back for failing history when I love math? I often hear the counter "well child might need it later on" to which I just think. Really? You think this student, who is bad at, and does not enjoy history, will suddenly decide to pursue a career that requires it? Of course not we go into fields that we enjoy because we are motivated to study more in it.

Besides this would not force you to omit classes. Just say if you are horrible at something, and it wont help you, you dont have to take it
how about this idea?

Something like this for number two?

Edit: AEEEERRRROOOOZZZZ!!!!!!!!

Edit x 2 COMBO: Aeroz jumping in on me with the Extra Creditz is what I get for watching that video. Now that it's done though, if no one's going to say "Education is best the way it is now, and here's why." The best use for this thread might be to talk about ways to foster divergent thinking. Both for kids in the system now, and for those of us who are "veterans" of it. Here's a start maybe.

History mainly US history is required because it's necessary in order to become a US citizen in the first place.

If not required, it gives law enforcement more of an excuse to deport that random minority guy/gal just for not knowing a little American history without even bothering to notice he/she was born on US soil in a US hospital like his/her parents before them.

I'd think we can all agree that atleast a basic knowledge of all fields is a good thing to have.

Maybe you guys could take some cues from the finnish school system since it's supposedly one of the best in the world.

If we knew the advantages or disadvantages of other school systems, it might make sense to implement them. Right now, I just see our education system as more of a "factory standard". Put kids in, the output is that they'll be good worker bees that don't think outside of what may apply in a factory line.

Well, if you want standardized test scores to go up, which is really the only benchmark to measure performance created by No Child Left Behind, the best way to do that is rote memorization and repetitive practice of concepts. Which is exactly what they've been doing for the past 200 years of education. The current environment of "reform" is not conducive to educational reform at all.

Students in urban schools underperform on standardized tests for some pretty obvious reasons: packed classrooms (30-40 students in a single classroom), low funding, poor environments that are not conducive to academic performance, etc. etc. None of which you can "fix" by making the teacher do this or that or the other thing. You can have the most well-thought out, creative lesson plans delivered by the most talented teacher and you will still have lower test scores than if you had created a proper educational environment.

It is difficult to have an open, explorative, Montessori-education in an urban classroom simply because urban schools are underequipped to even have a "standard", rote memorization and repetitive practice education, let alone something more conducive to a balanced and successful life.

EDIT: Actually, this is the main point I wanted to make: no educational reform plan by any politician has ever attempted to prescribe teaching strategies that will lead to the results they want, they have simply said "get these results" and left educators to wallow around trying to achieve them using every strategy they can think of, which when the result is "high test scores" falls back to rote memorization, seatwork, and repetitive practice, because that gets you high test scores.

I mean, do people in this country think that Chinese children achieved higher test scores than the U.S. through some secret, magic teaching strategy? If it were, they would observe the Chinese system and make our system more like it. They achieved higher test scores by having long-ass school days of rote memorization, seatwork, and repetitive practice, probably backed up by a culture that puts emphasis on performing well at those things. There is no magic to high test scores, if that is the result you wish to achieve. It is quite obvious how to do it.

The problem of course is that the strategies to achieve high test scores are not conducive to success in the real world. That's the point the politicians have completely missed. By and large Chinese students are not more successful than American students. BUT they had higher test scores and China is an "economic powerhouse" through its ability to exploit its workers in sweatshops, so American students are "falling behind" and so America is "falling behind" even though there is no actual proof of this.

You're asking politicians to think...

That is not in all of the lobbying donations they're given. :p