What is the best way to improve America's shitty education?

[Darth Wong]

In Japan today, 70% of students attend private schools called juku because of the perceived low quality of public schools. Since they are still required to attend public schools, they attend school from 7 am to 10 pm, beginning in elementary school. Often they do not get to sleep until 1 am, meaning they have at best 5 hours of sleep per night, including weekends. According to Americans who have taught there, the Japanese word to best describe their educational process is kurushime - torture.

Please list your sources. My cousin-in-law (assuming that's the proper term for my wife's cousin) worked in Japan as a teacher and reported NOTHING like what you're describing.

South Korean families will spend 20-30% of their income on private tutors. School weeks of 80 hours are not uncommon. Is all this worth an 18% difference in math and 11% in science? Can we afford to remove all vestiges of individuality and social ability just to raise a few test scores?

I smell a false dilemma fallacy.

[The Dark]

In Japan today, 70% of students attend private schools called juku because of the perceived low quality of public schools. Since they are still required to attend public schools, they attend school from 7 am to 10 pm, beginning in elementary school. Often they do not get to sleep until 1 am, meaning they have at best 5 hours of sleep per night, including weekends. According to Americans who have taught there, the Japanese word to best describe their educational process is kurushime - torture.

Please list your sources. My cousin-in-law (assuming that's the proper term for my wife's cousin) worked in Japan as a teacher and reported NOTHING like what you're describing.

Sorry, was using the Sixth Annual Bracey Report at http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/bracey.htm .

South Korean families will spend 20-30% of their income on private tutors. School weeks of 80 hours are not uncommon. Is all this worth an 18% difference in math and 11% in science? Can we afford to remove all vestiges of individuality and social ability just to raise a few test scores?

I smell a false dilemma fallacy.[/quote]I was just pointing out that there is such a thing as taking it too far. I agree that we need to revamp the education system; I'm just concerned that some people want to take it too far. People complained about the education system in the 50s and it seems to have produced relatively intelligent people. The last sentence probably was going a bit far, but I stand by the first three.

[Darth Wong]

Sorry, was using the Sixth Annual Bracey Report at http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/bracey.htm .

My God, that is the most bullshit-filled article I've seen in a long time. They cite the widespread use of "cram schools" and then they take the worst-case scenarios for kids who are pushing themselves too hard and generalize on that basis. Yes, there are so-called "cram schools" where people can go to receive extra education in an attempt to get a leg up. But not every kid puts in the same hours, or did that not occur to you? We also have private tutors and institutions like "Kumon" here in North America, in case you hadn't noticed. And guess what: they operate after school! And look at this quote from your link:

Jordan cites one girl who says she studies 80 hours a week.

You used that as the basis of a hasty generalization to say that all of the kids in Japan are doing this! What the fuck is it with some people and their desire to bullshit in order to defend the school system?

I have relatives whose kids go to Asian schools. My parents went to Asian schools. These stories are bullshit; they are taking the worst-case overachievers and producing hasty generalizations because the article you cited is a defensive attempt on the part of American educators to defend their track record by bashing everyone else. I can't believe you fell for this shit.

[jaeger115]

A comment on teacher's unions:

Last Jan. 14th, my high school and all Washington State schools shut down for one day as most of the state's teachers went to protest low wages in Olympia. We the students just stayed home.

[Master of Ossus]

Having worked in the American educational system, I found it to be highly flawed and inefficient. I am kind of a radical in terms of the reforms that I wanted to institute, but I think that in an ideal America, schools would operate as follows:

1. Students would, after Middle School/Jr. High, be given an aptitude test. The results from this test would give students the opportunity to go to a boarding school that specialized in their areas of interest. The higher the score, the greater the number and quality of schools open to the student. These schools would operate with between 300 and 1250 kids, and would be designed to focus on the students' particular areas of interest while giving them a general background in other fields. The schools would be tied together in such a way so as to accomodate transfers from other schools, as student interests change, but would attempt to retain the core students who show the greatest promise in their fields.
2. Other students would be educated much the same way that they are now, except that all standardized tests would be established by the state, and designed to test students on the material that they ALREADY learn, instead of giving the perception to teachers that they must teach to the tests.
3. Special Education fields receive severe cutbacks in the public schooling system, and are instead used to fund schools themselves to attract quality teachers from other fields.
4. We don't need MORE teachers, we need BETTER teachers. A strong teacher can teach classes with 40+ students. Thus, greater emphasis should be placed on attracting skilled instructors from the private sector with higher wages and greater benefits than on hiring MORE teachers for the same price.
5. Additional funding is to be provided to the high-end students, who study advanced classes.
6. Administration staff should be scaled back. Most HS's in America have an administrator for every 8-12 teachers. That is unreasonable. A single Principal and two VP's are necessary for a school of 750 students, with one or two secretaries.
7. Counseling services should be provided in greater quantities.
8. Teachers and other staff members would operate under a meritocracy, as opposed to a seniority scale. Excellent staff members would be afforded the choice classes and privileges, encouraging competition and strong curriculums.
9. Homework should be limited in each class to ensure that students be given (including long-term projects) no more than three hours per week, with the time for projects being the total time required divided by the number of weeks granted.
10. Greater emphasis should be placed on cross-communication between different branches of teachers. In one school in my district, a teacher from the Math Department and one from the History or the Science Department (I can't actually remember) came to blows over a PARKING space. For the entire YEAR, the two departments never talked to each other, and when they both received some new teachers who were unfamiliar with the feud the next year, those teachers were ostracized for their attempts to talk things over with each other by both sides. Such incidents should not occur, and in fact the teachers and staff should attempt to communicate so as to prevent unusually large stress on students for more than one week at a time.

[jaeger115]

*snip*

I didn't know the American system was THAT inefficient! Reminds me of my other deaf friends who go to another high school with a full deaf-program. Their interpreters were state-hired, and sometimes they ACTUALLY controlled what the kids picked for their schedules just because this or that class was easier to interpret for!! Ohh, just thinking about that pisses me off!

[Master of Ossus]

Break the teachers' unions.

Those really pissed me off, too. In the district I used to work in, the process for firing a teacher was as follows:

1. An administrator MUST sit in the class room for EVERY SCHOOL DAY for five WEEKS. That administrator must then fill out an evaluation of the teacher every single day to the teachers union.
2. The administrator must then submit a conclusion paper within five business days of the completion of the examination. The paper is to include a detailed analysis of the methods used by the teacher in the classroom, explaining why he/she was ineffective as a teacher.
3. It is then up to the TEACHER'S UNION to decide if and how the teacher is to be terminated. The Union can prevent the firing of a teacher if the administration refused to pay the teacher's salary for the next two years in a buy-out, but could also simply terminate the instructor.

Now, obviously if you have an administrator sitting in on your classes every day for a month, the teacher's going to notice it. I imagine that the kids ALSO notice it, and understand what's going on. That is a serious conflict of interest for everyone involved. Moreover, I can't believe that the teacher's union is the final arbiter on what action, if any, should be taken against a teacher. When I was there, the union never had a disagreement with the administration about whether or not to fire a teacher, but they did disagree once on the manner in which the teacher was to be terminated (this process occurred exactly THREE TIMES in my four years).

While I don't think that completely eliminating teacher's unions would work particularly well, I do think that there should be steps to ensure that the unions are highly limited in their powers. It should be within the rights of a teacher's union to strike, but it should NOT be within their rights to determine how and if an instructor should be fired. Their contract agreements also hurt education in general, because they prevent exceptions from being made for extraordinary individuals.

[Darth Wong]

Interesting stuff.

1. Students would, after Middle School/Jr. High, be given an aptitude test. The results from this test would give students the opportunity to go to a boarding school that specialized in their areas of interest. The higher the score, the greater the number and quality of schools open to the student. These schools would operate with between 300 and 1250 kids, and would be designed to focus on the students' particular areas of interest while giving them a general background in other fields. The schools would be tied together in such a way so as to accomodate transfers from other schools, as student interests change, but would attempt to retain the core students who show the greatest promise in their fields.

That would be quite a large change. I would start by simply not making high school a sure thing. If there were a realistic chance of actually FLUNKING high school, that might inspite a bit more fear and seriousness in the students. Get rid of ridiculous coddling measures like allowing students to retake failed courses and "upgrade" their marks after the fact; they can retake but only to move to the next level, not to revise their marks (maybe this doesn't happen in all schools, but I know it happens in some).

2. Other students would be educated much the same way that they are now, except that all standardized tests would be established by the state, and designed to test students on the material that they ALREADY learn, instead of giving the perception to teachers that they must teach to the tests.

Teachers would still teach to the tests. Standardized tests are OK, but ultimately quite deceptive. Any multiple-choice tests is a crapshoot IMHO. What they should be doing is having roving checkup teams that go from school to school, randomly taking kids from various classrooms and administering face-to-face evaluations of their scholastic aptitude, with realistic questions and answers instead of multiple-choice test forms. That way, you can tell how the kids are doing and whether they're really getting it, instead of just memorizing bullshit for standardized tests.

3. Special Education fields receive severe cutbacks in the public schooling system, and are instead used to fund schools themselves to attract quality teachers from other fields.
4. We don't need MORE teachers, we need BETTER teachers. A strong teacher can teach classes with 40+ students. Thus, greater emphasis should be placed on attracting skilled instructors from the private sector with higher wages and greater benefits than on hiring MORE teachers for the same price.
5. Additional funding is to be provided to the high-end students, who study advanced classes.
6. Administration staff should be scaled back. Most HS's in America have an administrator for every 8-12 teachers. That is unreasonable. A single Principal and two VP's are necessary for a school of 750 students, with one or two secretaries.
7. Counseling services should be provided in greater quantities.
8. Teachers and other staff members would operate under a meritocracy, as opposed to a seniority scale. Excellent staff members would be afforded the choice classes and privileges, encouraging competition and strong curriculums.

Can't argue with any of those.

9. Homework should be limited in each class to ensure that students be given (including long-term projects) no more than three hours per week, with the time for projects being the total time required divided by the number of weeks granted.

How would a reduced homework load help anything? It's the quality of homework rather than quantity which I'm concerned about. Too many teachers think that mindless, repetitive drills are an effective teaching method.

10. Greater emphasis should be placed on cross-communication between different branches of teachers. In one school in my district, a teacher from the Math Department and one from the History or the Science Department (I can't actually remember) came to blows over a PARKING space. For the entire YEAR, the two departments never talked to each other, and when they both received some new teachers who were unfamiliar with the feud the next year, those teachers were ostracized for their attempts to talk things over with each other by both sides. Such incidents should not occur, and in fact the teachers and staff should attempt to communicate so as to prevent unusually large stress on students for more than one week at a time.

That is mismanagement, plain and simple. In a well-run private company, the manager's job would be to eliminate that kind of bullshit and discipline the offenders if necessary.

[The Dark]

Sorry, was using the Sixth Annual Bracey Report at http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/bracey.htm .

My God, that is the most bullshit-filled article I've seen in a long time. They cite the widespread use of "cram schools" and then they take the worst-case scenarios for kids who are pushing themselves too hard and generalize on that basis. Yes, there are so-called "cram schools" where people can go to receive extra education in an attempt to get a leg up. But not every kid puts in the same hours, or did that not occur to you? We also have private tutors and institutions like "Kumon" here in North America, in case you hadn't noticed. And guess what: they operate after school!

I actually didn't know that. I never looked for tutoring, so I don't know what exists in America. I suppose there probably are some students in America who have the same problem; I merely don't know any of them.

And look at this quote from your link:

Jordan cites one girl who says she studies 80 hours a week.

You used that as the basis of a hasty generalization to say that all of the kids in Japan are doing this! What the fuck is it with some people and their desire to bullshit in order to defend the school system?

Whoa, I didn't say all, I said it wasn't uncommon. Rereading, I'll admit I accidentally combined the 70% who attend juku and the 80 hour school week. That was a mistake, I concede the point. (And it was Korea, not Japan, but that's nitpicking).

I have relatives whose kids go to Asian schools. My parents went to Asian schools. These stories are bullshit; they are taking the worst-case overachievers and producing hasty generalizations because the article you cited is a defensive attempt on the part of American educators to defend their track record by bashing everyone else. I can't believe you fell for this shit.

Fine, fine. No more subjective American sites. Even Korea worries about Japan, though. Have you heard the Japanese educator's phrase "753"? It represents the 70% of high school students who cannot keep up with lessons, the 50% of middle school, and the 30% of primary school, as reported at http://www.kofo.or.kr/koreafocus/content.asp?no=682 by Professor Nam Kyong Huei.

According to http://ydpuim.peacenet.or.kr/kw14/KTU.html , the Korean teachers worry that their students learn rote memorization rather than the ability to think creatively, are overtested, and are in classes that are too large.

Looking at the actual TIMSS report (it's an American site, but one reporting objective fact), the nations cranking out the best mathematicians also seem to be creating the ones who like math the least. The numbers at http://timss.bc.edu/timss1999b/mathbenc ... p_4_4.html state that "the United States did not vay much from the international average" of students who rated math positively (37% international average). Japan and Korea, however, scored lowest, at 9%.

Now, I understand none of this means that they're necessarily wrong, it's just something I don't want my children going through. We've pretty much gotten off-topic with this, and I'm perfectly willing to let you have the last rebuttal against these sites. I'll stick to analyzing just the American school system from here on out.

[jaeger115]

Interesting stuff.
Quote:
1. Students would, after Middle School/Jr. High, be given an aptitude test. The results from this test would give students the opportunity to go to a boarding school that specialized in their areas of interest. The higher the score, the greater the number and quality of schools open to the student. These schools would operate with between 300 and 1250 kids, and would be designed to focus on the students' particular areas of interest while giving them a general background in other fields. The schools would be tied together in such a way so as to accomodate transfers from other schools, as student interests change, but would attempt to retain the core students who show the greatest promise in their fields.

That would be quite a large change. I would start by simply not making high school a sure thing. If there were a realistic chance of actually FLUNKING high school, that might inspite a bit more fear and seriousness in the students. Get rid of ridiculous coddling measures like allowing students to retake failed courses and "upgrade" their marks after the fact; they can retake but only to move to the next level, not to revise their marks (maybe this doesn't happen in all schools, but I know it happens in some).
Quote:
2. Other students would be educated much the same way that they are now, except that all standardized tests would be established by the state, and designed to test students on the material that they ALREADY learn, instead of giving the perception to teachers that they must teach to the tests.

Teachers would still teach to the tests. Standardized tests are OK, but ultimately quite deceptive. Any multiple-choice tests is a crapshoot IMHO. What they should be doing is having roving checkup teams that go from school to school, randomly taking kids from various classrooms and administering face-to-face evaluations of their scholastic aptitude, with realistic questions and answers instead of multiple-choice test forms. That way, you can tell how the kids are doing and whether they're really getting it, instead of just memorizing bullshit for standardized tests.
Quote:
3. Special Education fields receive severe cutbacks in the public schooling system, and are instead used to fund schools themselves to attract quality teachers from other fields.
4. We don't need MORE teachers, we need BETTER teachers. A strong teacher can teach classes with 40+ students. Thus, greater emphasis should be placed on attracting skilled instructors from the private sector with higher wages and greater benefits than on hiring MORE teachers for the same price.
5. Additional funding is to be provided to the high-end students, who study advanced classes.
6. Administration staff should be scaled back. Most HS's in America have an administrator for every 8-12 teachers. That is unreasonable. A single Principal and two VP's are necessary for a school of 750 students, with one or two secretaries.
7. Counseling services should be provided in greater quantities.
8. Teachers and other staff members would operate under a meritocracy, as opposed to a seniority scale. Excellent staff members would be afforded the choice classes and privileges, encouraging competition and strong curriculums.

Can't argue with any of those.
Quote:
9. Homework should be limited in each class to ensure that students be given (including long-term projects) no more than three hours per week, with the time for projects being the total time required divided by the number of weeks granted.

How would a reduced homework load help anything? It's the quality of homework rather than quantity which I'm concerned about. Too many teachers think that mindless, repetitive drills are an effective teaching method.
Quote:
10. Greater emphasis should be placed on cross-communication between different branches of teachers. In one school in my district, a teacher from the Math Department and one from the History or the Science Department (I can't actually remember) came to blows over a PARKING space. For the entire YEAR, the two departments never talked to each other, and when they both received some new teachers who were unfamiliar with the feud the next year, those teachers were ostracized for their attempts to talk things over with each other by both sides. Such incidents should not occur, and in fact the teachers and staff should attempt to communicate so as to prevent unusually large stress on students for more than one week at a time.

That is mismanagement, plain and simple. In a well-run private company, the manager's job would be to eliminate that kind of bullshit and discipline the offenders if necessary.

Any chance of it passing? I doubt it.

[The Dark]

1. Students would, after Middle School/Jr. High, be given an aptitude test. The results from this test would give students the opportunity to go to a boarding school that specialized in their areas of interest. The higher the score, the greater the number and quality of schools open to the student. These schools would operate with between 300 and 1250 kids, and would be designed to focus on the students' particular areas of interest while giving them a general background in other fields. The schools would be tied together in such a way so as to accomodate transfers from other schools, as student interests change, but would attempt to retain the core students who show the greatest promise in their fields.

I'm not sure how effective that would be. My high school tried to do something similar, splitting into four different "academies" based on what the student wanted to do. It lasted precisely three years before colleges started asking us to stop doing that because they got students without the proper educational rounding. Besides, how many people know what they want to do right after middle school? I know only three people who have stuck with the same plan from 8th grade, and two of those are to become housewives. The last one's going Air Force, and he's just dead set on doing that. Everyone else I know changed at least once in high school.

2. Other students would be educated much the same way that they are now, except that all standardized tests would be established by the state, and designed to test students on the material that they ALREADY learn, instead of giving the perception to teachers that they must teach to the tests.

Wouldn't work. Teachers will always be judged on how their students do on standarized testing, and will thus teach to the test. Happened on the FCAT and HSCT even when no funding were attached to them. Standarized testing makes sure everyone is taught at the same level of mediocrity.

3. Special Education fields receive severe cutbacks in the public schooling system, and are instead used to fund schools themselves to attract quality teachers from other fields.

I agree somewhat, in that public schools are not the place for uneducable children to be. The educable learning impaired should be aided as much as possible, so that they may become contributing members of society.

4. We don't need MORE teachers, we need BETTER teachers. A strong teacher can teach classes with 40+ students. Thus, greater emphasis should be placed on attracting skilled instructors from the private sector with higher wages and greater benefits than on hiring MORE teachers for the same price.

I agree that we need better teachers, but we also need more. Many students (myself included) don't learn well in large classroom environments. My GPA was a full point higher in classes with under 30 students than in those with 35 or more. And before anyone asks about degrees, one of the ones I did poorly in was taught by a man with a Doctorate in the field. The others all had Master's degrees.

5. Additional funding is to be provided to the high-end students, who study advanced classes.
6. Administration staff should be scaled back. Most HS's in America have an administrator for every 8-12 teachers. That is unreasonable. A single Principal and two VP's are necessary for a school of 750 students, with one or two secretaries.
7. Counseling services should be provided in greater quantities.
8. Teachers and other staff members would operate under a meritocracy, as opposed to a seniority scale. Excellent staff members would be afforded the choice classes and privileges, encouraging competition and strong curriculums.

No argument with these except on figuring a way to measure the meritocracy.

9. Homework should be limited in each class to ensure that students be given (including long-term projects) no more than three hours per week, with the time for projects being the total time required divided by the number of weeks granted.

I never had a problem with homework through grade school. I'll admit I read faster than most, but I'm also easily distracted, yet I never found myself having more than an hour a night. Even if that's tripled, the average high school student should finish their homework by 7 (assuming the school gets out at 3:15 like those in my home county and they ride the bus half an hour to get home). The problem, as DW said, is teachers who assign trees worth of worksheets as homework. It doesn't really teach anything.

10. Greater emphasis should be placed on cross-communication between different branches of teachers. In one school in my district, a teacher from the Math Department and one from the History or the Science Department (I can't actually remember) came to blows over a PARKING space. For the entire YEAR, the two departments never talked to each other, and when they both received some new teachers who were unfamiliar with the feud the next year, those teachers were ostracized for their attempts to talk things over with each other by both sides. Such incidents should not occur, and in fact the teachers and staff should attempt to communicate so as to prevent unusually large stress on students for more than one week at a time.

Sounds like a weak central authority at that school. The principal should be removed and replaced with someone who can keep juvenile fights out of the supposed adults at the school.

[Master of Ossus]

Interesting stuff.That would be quite a large change. I would start by simply not making high school a sure thing. If there were a realistic chance of actually FLUNKING high school, that might inspite a bit more fear and seriousness in the students. Get rid of ridiculous coddling measures like allowing students to retake failed courses and "upgrade" their marks after the fact; they can retake but only to move to the next level, not to revise their marks (maybe this doesn't happen in all schools, but I know it happens in some).

True. This solution would have the added benefit of eliminating students who do not WISH to perform, or have additional issues that are affecting their lives.

Teachers would still teach to the tests. Standardized tests are OK, but ultimately quite deceptive. Any multiple-choice tests is a crapshoot IMHO. What they should be doing is having roving checkup teams that go from school to school, randomly taking kids from various classrooms and administering face-to-face evaluations of their scholastic aptitude, with realistic questions and answers instead of multiple-choice test forms. That way, you can tell how the kids are doing and whether they're really getting it, instead of just memorizing bullshit for standardized tests.

Actually, this is one of the few things I think that my district did REALLY well. What we did was have every student in every grade take a writing competency test to a prompt that was administered in class. Their essays were then read by their teachers, who gave them a 1-6 score (0 was only possible if the student failed to answer or wrote something off-topic), with a 3.5 necessary to prove competency. Two teachers would then grade the papers, with a third teacher reviewing the paper ONLY in the case that the teachers disagreed by more than one (that's pretty unusual--a 6 is a spectacular essay and a four is a grade-level paper). If the student failed (about 10% did), they were removed and transfered to remedial English classes.

The History and Math departments did similar evaluations of all the incoming students to determine eligibility for accelerated courses. The tests in History were usually six hour exams spread over three days, with the first day being a writing exercise comparing some different societies that the students had studied in the past, the second day presenting a new civilization or culture to the student and asking them to extrapolate based on the data and information they were given to explain the fundamental differences between that culture and our own, and the third day spent on an essay that usually talked about the importance of history. The essays were all evaluated by a panel of two history and one English staff members, and the top X percent were sent off to the appropriate classes.

The Math department was a little different, in that it analyzed a multiple-choice test, weighted to be worth twenty percent of the total exam score. Twenty percent would be based on the recommendations of a current Math teacher, forty percent on the student's Math grades throughout school, and twenty percent based on the student's ability to analyze different data given to them, and draw mathematical conclusions from that data in an essay.

9. Homework should be limited in each class to ensure that students be given (including long-term projects) no more than three hours per week, with the time for projects being the total time required divided by the number of weeks granted.

How would a reduced homework load help anything? It's the quality of homework rather than quantity which I'm concerned about. Too many teachers think that mindless, repetitive drills are an effective teaching method.

It would primarily help students deal with burn-out. Three hours is a hell of a lot to do every single week for a HS student who also has six other classes to deal with, and some of them have jobs. That rule is primarily there to prevent teachers from hitting their students with three hours in a NIGHT, which led to some health and psychological problems, in my experience.

That is mismanagement, plain and simple. In a well-run private company, the manager's job would be to eliminate that kind of bullshit and discipline the offenders if necessary.

I agree that it is mismanagement, however cross-communication between different departments is obviously a factor affecting student performance. It doesn't do much good for an English teacher to be talking about the historical context in which a novel was written before the history department teaches that part of history to the students, and it does no good for an Economics instructor to explain to students about the derivative of supply and demand curves if the Calculus classes haven't gotten there, yet. While most of the time, the benefits would be less immediate and obvious, I'm convinced that if the different departments were to have a better way of coordinating lesson plans on a bi-weekly or monthly basis, it would help to get the lessons of BOTH classes across to students more effectively.

[The_Nice_Guy]

To expand on my earlier comment regarding teacher's unions, there is a massive surplus of English and History teachers, at least in my country and probably in yours. One of the reasons for this is that English and History are ridiculously easy to take in university as compared to, say, science or engineering. Science and Engineering grads, therefore, expect more money than an English or History major if they're going to teach. But do they get it? Of course not, because the teacher's union regulates pay by seniority.

I can't believe my country(Singapore!) has the exact opposite problem. We are so short on english teachers that my scholarship officer encouraged me, a chemistry student, to take another major in english. As though I don't have enough on my plate as it is.

And yes, I can say english and history are definitely easier than the sciences. However, the pay grades for teachers are not based on subjects taught, but rather on qualifications and performance. The local teachers' union is practically a government mouthpiece, so whatever the ministry of education wants, the teacher's union will assist.

I have relatives whose kids go to Asian schools. My parents went to Asian schools. These stories are bullshit; they are taking the worst-case overachievers and producing hasty generalizations because the article you cited is a defensive attempt on the part of American educators to defend their track record by bashing everyone else. I can't believe you fell for this shit.

I am in an Asian school, and I can tell you flat out there are grains of truth in those stories. The Singaporean Parliament recently had a debate on the education system and whether kids were being pushed too hard, too fast. That this issue was raised in government at all is pretty significant.

And test scores are not the end-all-and-be-all. Here's a link.
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/educat ... 04,00.html?

As for aptitude tests and the like(we call it streaming), it's certainly a very efficient way of enduring that most students are educated as far as they can/are willing to go.

The Nice Guy

[Master of Ossus]

Oh, about determining meritocracy, believe me--it's pretty easy for everyone to tell who the best teachers are in the different departments. I guess if there were really problems dealing with this, they could ask for student polls or similar, but it was always clear who the strong teachers were at my school--even if they worked in other departments.

[Darth Wong]

I am in an Asian school, and I can tell you flat out there are grains of truth in those stories.

There's always a grain of truth; you can't simply outright lie in a document like that and get away with it. But it's distorted and exaggerated.

[Uraniun235]

Part of the problem with saying "schools need to be reformed" is that there is no grand American school system applied all the nation over... I've heard horror stories about other high schools (like the teachers coming to blows over a parking space...) that are, frankly, incomprehensible to me.

Some schools are doing well and some are failing miserably; I think a more appropriate stance would be to target the ones that are failing.

[Sonnenburg]

The founding fathers (since we're discussing US education) disagreed on all kinds of details of how the country should be run, but one point they all agreed upon was the need for public education. Their belief was that to resist tyranny you need an educated populace. Jefferson listed those points in his work for Virginia's public education.
1. "To give every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business;
2. To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts, and accounts, in writing;
3. To improve, by reading, his morals and faculties;
4. To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either;
5. To know his rights; to exercize with order and justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor, and judgment;
6. And, in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed."

In keeping with this idea, I think the curricullum needs to be reworked to include:
-Critical Thinking
-Problem Solving
-Law

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

The founding fathers (since we're discussing US education) disagreed on all kinds of details of how the country should be run, but one point they all agreed upon was the need for public education. Their belief was that to resist tyranny you need an educated populace. Jefferson listed those points in his work for Virginia's public education.
1. "To give every citizen the information he needs for the transaction of his own business;
2. To enable him to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts, and accounts, in writing;
3. To improve, by reading, his morals and faculties;
4. To understand his duties to his neighbors and country, and to discharge with competence the functions confided to him by either;
5. To know his rights; to exercize with order and justice those he retains; to choose with discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice their conduct with diligence, with candor, and judgment;
6. And, in general, to observe with intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he shall be placed."

In keeping with this idea, I think the curricullum needs to be reworked to include:
-Critical Thinking
-Problem Solving
-Law

That's a really good Jefferson quote. Where'd you get it?

[RedImperator]

In my experience, there are two kinds of teachers (in the United States, anyway). There are the relative few who teach because they want to teach. Generarally, they know their subjects, and more to the point, they do their utmost to teach their students. They are also the ones who end up getting frustrated early in their careers with tyrannical administrators, boneheaded school boards, twink parents who drag their lawyers out from under their rocks every time Junior gets a C-, twiddledick parents who can't be bothered to care if junior's grades are so bad his GPA slips into negative numbers, PC race baiters who want Tom Sawyer banned because it has the word "nigger" in it, lint-headed Bible suckers who want Genesis taught in biology, state education officials who didn't quite make the cut for the Motor Vehicles Division passing down idiot proclamations from On High, childless yuppies and senior citizens who've let that "Greatest Generation" claptrap go to their heads who'd rather see the school sell the cheerleaders into the white slave trade before they spend another quarter-cent on the dollar in school taxes, fascist coaches who demand Tim Testiclebrain get an "A" because he's needed in the big game against Pig Dicker High this weekend, yogurt brained colleagues who run screaming to the union every time competence testing is mentioned, and students who just plain don't give a shit. There's more, but I've run out of amusingly insulting adjectives. Oh, and considering the amount of training the competent teachers usually need (especially the math and science teachers), they're grossly underpaid. These teachers often find themselves burning out within five years of getting their certification. A lot of them quit to get jobs at the college level, or else decide flipping burgers is a better career move for them.

The other type of teacher becomes a teacher by default. Typically, they had planned on being a lawyer, an engineer, a scientist, etc. but since they were in the bottom 10% of their graduating class, Harvard Law and MIT (also, Big Bill's Bottom Dollar Discount Taxidermy and Law Academy) wiped their ass with their admissions application, they needed to find SOMETHING to justify the amount of money their parents spent putting them through college. The teaching profession is so shorthanded (for the reasons listed above) that schools will take these bozos in. Being a tenured high school teacher is the perfect career for these wastes of carbon, because as of now, there's no accountability for anything short of fucking a student under the teacher's lounge lunch table, and no way to measure output as long as there's not an excessive number of either A's or F's.

There's actually a third type. These are the ones who realize they're incompetent ahead of time and so they major in education at the undergraduate level. Once they graduate and get certified, the description is basically the same as for those in the paragraph above. At Villanova (my college), education majors are required to take perhaps 20 credits in the subject they plan to teach, out of 120 needed to graduate. I myself plan on being a teacher (I obviously count myself in the first group, or I wouldn't be admitting that), but I've spent my undergraduate time studying the subject I want to teach and taken NO classes in education (I'm a double major and I don't have any room for them).

How do you fix the American education system? Beats the shit out of me. Everybody's got such a vested interest in the current debacle that they're willing to let the kids continue to be morons. So long as American companies can continue to lure foreign talent in with big fat American paychecks with nice reasonable American taxes (from a foreigner's point of view, anyway), it's not a big enough crisis for the people in charge to bother with (yammering about education in election years most certainly does not count). And frankly, the politicians probably would prefer a nation of nitwits. Nitwits don't vote, and low voter turnout favors Republicans, and the nitwits who do vote vote Democratic, to judge by the sort of Democrats who get elected and interviewees on MTV's "Rock the Vote". Plus nitwits demand lots of stuff from the government for free, which expands government power, and find me a politician who's not in favor of that.

From one of my very first posts. It still stands.

[Wicked Pilot]

I would like to say that changing the nation's schools into something better is quite unrealistic. A more obtainable goal would be to change the schools in your local district. Schools are an incredibly large and ineffecient machine. They almost certainly cannot be fixed from the top, only from the bottom.

[Sonnenburg]

That's a really good Jefferson quote. Where'd you get it?

The Jefferson Image in the American Mind by Merrell D. Peterson

[Illuminatus Primus]

Break the teachers' unions.

Amen Wong.

[Illuminatus Primus]

How would a reduced homework load help anything? It's the quality of homework rather than quantity which I'm concerned about. Too many teachers think that mindless, repetitive drills are an effective teaching method.

It would primarily help students deal with burn-out. Three hours is a hell of a lot to do every single week for a HS student who also has six other classes to deal with, and some of them have jobs. That rule is primarily there to prevent teachers from hitting their students with three hours in a NIGHT, which led to some health and psychological problems, in my experience.

*chuckles*

IB specializes in rote memorization AND in 3 hours a night homework crap.

Oh how I cherish those thoughts.

[Raoul Duke, Jr.]

Make 4 Years of Logic the requirement, Not Four Years of English
(Though you can keep that too)

Exactly fuckin-A right. And it isn't as if this would really be difficult to accomplish, would it? So why hasn't it been done?

[Howedar]

With respect to your people's opinions, I definately disagree that a good teacher can necessarily successfully teach a class of 40 students. It depends on the class. Some classes simply require a lot of inidividual instruction, and having over about 25 students just doesn't work.