I went to what could almost be classified as inner city schools for about three years (first two years of middle, and freshman high school). I also went to a suburb high school for three years. Both are equally bad. The difference is that suburb schools have very clean, well groomed, and high tech classrooms in which to avoid teaching. Now, none of the schools that I have been to were as bad as the one that Divemaster describes. But they certainly teach to the test (many teachers actually pass out the test to students as “study guides”. Another fun thing is to tell the kids, “this is hard and you won’t understand it, so don’t worry when it doesn’t make any sense.” That’s my pet peeve. These factors plus things like completion grades (where you get credit just for doing it, regardless of whether you get every answer wrong), test corrections (when you get a test back after it’s been graded and you get to change all of your wrong answers (by using your book/notes/friends) for partial credit), and social promotion all create an atmoshpere where you really don’t have to learn anything to graduate.
Divemaster is right. And it’s an institutionally structured machine to set kids up to fail.
It’s set up to set SOME kids up to fail. If anyone really believes we have a level playing field, and our wonderful public education system gives everybody the same chances…well, read it and weep.
What real chances do the kids have who get shoved into this mess? Makes the drop out rate look not only understandable, but sensible. Those kids know, KNOW, that they were brushed off and thrown away from the very beginning. The real heroes are the teachers who quietly work against the system to teach, to pass knowledge along to kids. It shouldn’t be nearly this rough or stupid or obscene, should it? No wonder being a mule for a drug dealer looks good, and teachers sound stupid. The kids know that they never stood a good chance. One honest teacher trying to work coverty against their own system, or some good money in an openly dishonest system where at least the rules are laid out? What choice would you make?
You know what’s really obscene? Forget sex, forget all that glitzy stuff; think about the sheer human waste, think about good hearts, brains and lives that are being thrown away. That is my definition of obscenity.
Then think about all the warm fuzzies from all the politicians, from all parties, who are “for education”. Forget the patter and the posing. Look at bucks, results and real reform. Not much, huh? Well, until it happens, we’ll keep throwing kids away and teachers like Divemaster’s mom will keep trying to work, against the system, to teach kids.
(And Divemaster, protect your mom. The world loves whistleblowers. They so conveniently stand up so they can get shot, politicians can pontificate and get votes, and the irritant is removed. And nothing changes.)
For the rest, read Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol. He’s a teacher who went public by writing. The book was the first to make the cover of Newsweek, with a message to read it. That was two “education presidents ago”.
I guess not enough of us read it.
Mad as hell and not apologizing,
Veb
Boy, I gotta say (if someone hasn’t, already), that this thread gets my vote for the All-time Scariest, Most Troubling Thread. I just have to be thankful I was educated in the 60s, when the biggest controversy (IIRC) was New Math (managed to escape most of that) and busing for integration (that, too).
It seems to me (in light of these things) that the best course of action for any kid who really wants to get a useful education is to drop out, go to the local ‘learning center’ and take GED instruction instead of high school and then hang at the local library seeking answers to all your favorite questions, as well as more questions to ask. I say this because my SO just (within the last two months) finally got her GED at 38, and it instantly had a dramatic, positive effect on her life. She’d been self-supporting since she was thirteen, but only in a variety of fairly menial occupations like short-order waitress, unskilled factory worker, domestic maintenance. Two days later a local grocery called her (after the high school graduate they’d previously hired goofed off/up for a week) and hired her as a meat cutter, with those all-important health and pension benefits. It unquestionably helped that she’s always been a voracious reader, but her mathephobia was her stumbling block.
From what I saw of her textbooks, the GED is no walk in the garden.
Sorry if this has been a bit of chest-beating, but damn it makes me feel proud to know such a gal . . .
Especially when her 13-year-old daughter gets harassed by another girl at school for being the friend of a third girl, and a teacher tells her,“Well, maybe you shouldn’t be friends with {the third girl} and then {the first girl} would leave you alone!”
Can you believe that shit?
TVeblen
I agree. Look for the bucks. Too many people who claim to support education balk at any suggestion of paying for it. They have plenty of excuses to draw on. One public administration(!) professor I had was always citing vague statistics he had, saying that funding levels had nothing to do with educational results. I asked, “Don’t class sizes have a lot to do with results? And don’t small classes cost more? More teachers and all that?”
His reply, “Yeah, but there’s no guarantee school district spend money to hire more teachers. They’ll probably just spend it on driver’s ed and all that.” I gave up.
I just think there needs to be a real willingness to pay taxes to hire teachers to reduce class sizes. If that willingness isn’t there, we’re all marching happily towards a collapes of literacy and our civilization.
But it’s true, we need a lot more than funding, like a willingness to teach.
In the US Education needs to be nationalized. That would help with a lot of the problems of discrepency in funding/ curriculum/ administration- which pretty much sums up the problems in public schools today.
If parents don’t take an active role in their child’s education, no amount of funding or small class sizes or national standards will help.
Talk to your kids, talk to their teachers. If you find something you don’t like complain. Complain to the teachers, principals, school board and other parents.
Where I live school boards are elected in off-year low turnout elections. An energized opposition can bring change because a small change in vote patterns can swing these elections.
I have a first grade son, and you can bet your ass I talk him to every day about what went in his school.
I have two primary school students in my family. Both my wife and I are very involved in their education and volunteer at their school. We’ve been very lucky in that the two schools we’ve attended – one urban, semi-inner city, one rural – have been very good. The teachers, the parents and the administrators have all worked hard to do their best for the students. So while I have no doubt that the horror stories herein are true, I don’t think they are a universal condition. There are good schools out there. Unfortunately, they aren’t available to everyone.
All I can suggest is that parents should get involved with their schools and with their kids education. If parents devoted the interest and eneregy to academics that they do to atheletics, we’d see a drastic improvement in our schools.
Sorry, I can’t agree with federalizing our schools. I have much less faith in the federal government’s ability and efficiency than the earlier poster does. I think all that would result in the lowest common demoninator.
Melatonin: Nationalization won’t help. It’s not funding\curriculum\administration that we need. It’s not even smaller class sizes. It’s teachers that care, that haven’t been hardened by bad experiences. I take it back, we DO need funding. Funding for teachers who don’t get paid enough. Who wants to do any job well if they don’t get paid enogh? Should we expect them to put up with brats for 30K a year? No. If we paid teachers more then we would see better education levels.
“There are many sweeping generalizations that are always true” -Space Ghost
Yes, I suppose federalization won’t solve ALL the problems of our schools, but it would help with a few of them, including that oh-so prominent funding problem.
One of my biggest problems in school was moving a lot, however. In two and a half years of highschool, I switched schools something like nine times. (I’m not going to deny that I was removed/advised/expelled on a couple of occasions, but that’s not the biggest issue here.) The problem I encountered on each of these moves was that each new school would completely alter my academic schedule to fit in with their curriculum. One month I would be reading Oedepus Rex (sp) and the next I’d find myself in remedial 9th grade English. Freshmen year I took Biology, but moved across the country for Sophomore year to a school district that decided that, since I’d taken a higher-level (than standard curriculum) science class the previous year, I should be sent back to take the prerequisite course (which I’d done in 8th grade) that year. 10 weeks into the term, they realized this was a mistake and tranferred me to AP Chemistry, where I was given a book, told to read the first 12 chapters and find myself a lab partner. Needless to say, it didn’t work out so well. When I moved back to the original school district over winter break, I was placed in a school that did not have chemistry, thus I founf myself in some ridiculous class called *Earth Science." I failed tenth grade.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg, but I think we can all put on our imagining caps and draw our own conclusions as to what the iceberg looks like. The iceberg is a great big diploma factory: when it comes down to it, that’s all most of our highschools are. And many of the administrators of these schools are concerned primarily with getting students to fit in SOMEWHERE (without any squeaking, please) on the conveyer belt as quickly as they possibly can.
They are not at all concerned with hearing some kid in combat boots tell them, “Just because I did Trig instead of pre-Algebra last year doesn’t mean I need to go back now and make up for it.” Hmmm, maybe if I had been wearing sandals, or something like that. . .
One of my Superheros would have to be the teacher at Westbury High School who snuck (you read that right) me into her IB English class. See, she had to sneak me into the class because this particular crack-headed school district would not permit students to take some classes at sub-grade level and others at supra-grade level.
Pretty much every public school system is screwed up in it’s own way, but it would be nice if we could normalize this somehow so punk kids like (I was) would know how to cover themselves when being tossed from school to school. So that schools would not have such an easy time ‘losing’ records and psychically removing ‘off-record’ students from their institutions. Oh, I could go on and on.
Let’s just say I haven’t gone on this particular rampage in quite some time, but back then (at the age of 15) I had pretty clearly formulated the argument that the root of much evil in the schools lays in no one knowing or understanding what anyone else is doing with the kids.
Now I understand that the vast majority of teenagers are, in fact, cynics. But I still think it’s pretty screwy that I saw so clearly at such a young age that School- the primary institutional contact of all young people- had no control over nor support for me. I saw this as a result of School’s inability to teach me anything from week to week, inability to understand that I had learned something last term, in a different place, and now it was time for me to learn yet something more, even if that would put my schedule out of sync with the other 2,000 first semester sophomores.
I am lucky. I am lucky that when I dropped out of school, I lived in a state that permits 16 year olds to take the GED. I am lucky I had the brains to get the scores and the parents with the pockets to pay the tuition so that I could go to college. I am lucky that I got to be the only 16 yr old blond freshman at the frat parties. . .
Probably most of all I am lucky that I was cynical enough at 15 to figure out that the school and the governments they ooze from are WAY more screwed up than me. See, I have a lot of friends who weren’t that cynical. They sell you your gas. Me? I teach your children.
Here we go again. . .
I think the call for ‘more funding’ is good in theory, but not how it is being applied. Any extra money rarely makes it to the teacher and classroom level.
For those of you in lottery states, how much better are the schools? When my home state (Louisiana) had the lottery vote, people were promised new millions for education. So how much improved are Louisiana’s schools in the last 10 years? They still battle it out with Mississippi for the bottom spot.
What we do get is more administrators (which judging from my mom’s experience is a major source of the problem). We get more counselors to help the children when they fail or get frustrated with school. The teacher’s unions may get more money from various sources, but that goes to politics and working to keep bad teachers tenured (among other things).
Money goes to implementation of more new teaching “theories” rather than the basics. Should kids have to pay for testing out some of the ridiculous ideas in the schools now? What do we tell them after 10 years, when the new method turns out to be crap? Oops, sorry?
I live in Michigan, a “lottery state.” I can say this…I don’t know where the money is going, but it sure as hell isn’t going to the schools.
Generally the lottery monies dogo to education.
Then the legislature says “The schools got $1.4 billion from the lottery? Let’s reduce the education money from the General Fund by $1.4 billion.”
Ohio played that game. The initial Lotto was “for education” (but they “forgot” to write that part into the law). A few years later, one of our grandstanding legislators (while out of office, briefly) decided to make political capital by claiming that the evil state had stolen the money that he had promised tothe schools. He got a “Lotto money is earmarked for education” referendum going. It passed. He got elected again. The legislature reduced the General Funds money for education. (I didn’t pay attention to his vote; I can’t vote in his district.) What a farce.
Tom~
Amazing. I’m speechless.
In Tennessee, we don’t have a lottery. (We’re working on it.) What we do have is something called the “path system”. Upon entrance into high school, a student must choose a path (University, Technical, or Dual) that will determine what classes are required for graduation, as well as what the student wants to do with their life. When I say “required to graduate”, I mean that in the most literal sense. Our principal has told us repeatedly that we will not walk across that stage in May unless we have passed the right classes.
Just in case you were wondering, the University path requires:
4 English credits,
3 math (up to and including Algebra 2),
3 science (2 lab sciences),
3 social studies (World Geography or History, US History, Econ., Gov’t.),
1 wellness (PE or ROTC),
2 foreign language,
1 fine art (I failed that on purpose),
and 4 elective courses.
We have to pass these in four years, or else.
The path system above is statewide. Locally, we have (thanks to one Jesse Register, who truly is Satan, IMHO) a system of standards and benchmarks called, jokingly enough, “Success For All Students”. This basically outlines the entire curriculum in one huge manual. For every class. In every grade.
Conclusion: If you want academics, move down to Hamilton County, TN. (Graduation: It’s not just a good idea; it’s the law. 
)
“Of course, that’s just my opinion; I could be wrong.”–Dennis Miller
For some reason, this makes me want to be a teacher more than ever.
Veni, Vidi, Visa … I came, I saw, I bought.
This is upsetting.
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tomndebb is/are right. Lotteries are a scam. The legislatures just lop off whatever the lottery take is from the budget.
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Unfortunately, DIVEMASTER’s right too–more money would never get to the classroom anyway. Spending per pupil in US public school systems is well on par with the rest of the world…even in inner-city schools. So a funding increase would go…where? the district & local beauracracy? Which brings up…
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Federalization. Could we really have a national curriculum? With a country as diverse and decentralized as ours, would this work? Never mind that it reeks of statist European thinking; i.e. every kid should read the same book, at the same time, everywhere. Sounds like a good idea until you start asking who decides what gets read. That’s a big respoinsibility to put in the hands of the Dept. of Education.
Anyway, scary thread. I’m tempted to say. ‘Thank God I went to private school,’ but the public schools in my neighborhood were pretty good. BTW, I don’t want to start a whole vouchers argument here, but why is it that the Catholic and parochial schools in these neighborhoods are the ones providing kids not just a safe haven, but a real education. I’m not necessarily anti-public school, but what could they learn from the private schools in these areas? Surely something.
Gateway, I’m in full agreement with you on most issues, but I think you miss the point that the major advantage private schools have over public is just that: they’re private, so they don’t have to take the ‘problem students’ that the public schools are so often stuck with, which is why (although lately I’ve been starting to wonder) I’m generally against a voucher system which would only end up with a public school system with even less money to deal with a student constituency composed predominately of the learning disabled, the delinquent, the underfed/inattentive, the emotionally disturbed, and the intellectually deficient. I also think, in the case of parochial schools, that it comes too close to knocking a hod of bricks from the wall of church/state separation.
Now, a voucher system for public schools, in which parents could decide for themselves which school within a particular city or county they wanted to send their kid (and his/her voucher) to, with entry determined solely on a first come/first served basis for the first year – I see no real problem with that. Perhaps what we’re already flagellating in the vicinity of the shrubbery about (“Hey!” he thinks to himself – “it does pay to increase my wordpower!”) is that we should re-organize high schools nationwide to operate more like universities.
Yeah, tomndebb are right – same damn thing happened in KY after our lottery went through.
What some of these posts have left me wondering about, though, is – just what the hell is a principal really for, anyway? Excuse me (as a famous communicator was oft wont to preface his remarks), but the main impression I’ve always garnered from these people (with exceptions, of course) is that their primary function is to hagride good teachers, run interference for the others, try to intimidate students with the audacity to think/speak for themselves, and generally behave like the commanding general of Camp Browbeat. Couldn’t a committee of teachers, meeting for a half hour each day or so, make administrative decisions a lot better? Or even a ‘rotating principality’, with the teachers taking turns. Just a thought . . . and I do have them, from time to time.
As the parent of a public high school sophomore, I wonder, too, what a principal’s job is. As far as I can see they direct traffic at the beginning and end of the day. I guess they fill out paperwork. I’ve never seen much evidence that they actually monitor teachers or confront problem teachers. Sometimes they deal with problem students although now counselors do this mostly.
One of the problems that is going to have to be dealt with eventually is the reliance on local property taxes to fund schools. You simply cannot have equitable funding if you do this. Rural, low population areas and some inner cities are shortchanged every time. Wealthy suburbs have good support and better schools.
I don’t think that vouchers would drain money from the public school system. I mean, if 10% of the kids leave the system, and take 10% of the funding with them, the amount spent per remaining student doesn’t change.
In fact, I think $/student comes out to be between $7000 to $9000/year (it may be higher), so providing a $1500 to $3000 voucher is actually a net gain for the government if the kid leaves the public school system.
What vouchers can do, of course, it take control away from city and state school systems and put into the hands of the parents. The educational establishment, including the teacher’s unions, absolutely hates having to give up control or choices to parents. It’s a very paternalistic attitude: “We know what’s best for your kids, not you. We can educate them just fine.”
I think, in many cases, they can’t. A lot of inner city parents think the same way. The segment of our society most in favor of vouchers is urban minority parents (not the so-called minority ‘leadership’ who has sold out to special interests).
IMO, much (though certainly not all) of the resistance to vouchers is from suburban and private school parents who don’t want those inner city kids contaminating their “good” schools. This may be a bit harsh, but as you’ve probably noticed, I have very strong feelings on giving these kids a chance. If we don’t, then we as a society will continue to pay for the crime, joblessness, and despair that grips our inner cities. And can we continue to afford that cost?
Man how I did not want to start a vouchers debate. They tend to get nasty, and a lot of people are really dogmatic. I’m surprised some furious public school administrator hasn’t chimed in to rebut. Interestingly, the most adament voucher opponent I know is sending his kid to a private Jewish school.
DIF-- Taking ‘problem kids’ is but one of the restrictions placed on public schools. School administrators are encumbered by any number of mandates and regulations. Not only do they have to take delinquints, but also the disabled, non-English speakers, homeless, etc. And this is in addition to all the mandates for meals, testing, curriculum, and so forth. My point was that school administrators always pose it as a question of money, and it never is. The question is what could public schools, even with their restrictions, learn from private schools. Again, surely something. Uniforms?
I was wondering…I read somwhere that education was practically universal before the public school system was instituted and that government mandated education only came along with all the social reforms at the beginning of the century. We have these to thank for our current educational bureaucracy. Any truth to this?
>>I don’t think that vouchers would drain money from the public school system. I mean, if 10% of the kids leave the system, and take 10% of the funding with them, the amount spent per remaining student doesn’t change.
You’re assuming that the money is distributed evenly and spent only on students. If 10% of the $$$ spent on each student is spent on something that all students share (repairs, new classrooms, kiln, etc…) then it makes a huge difference.