What is wrong with US schools?

Great Debates
1

Everywhere you look (especially around election time) there are people shouting about “failed public schools” and offering various systems of fixing that.

Why, if our schools truely are failing, is that so? Is it bad teachers? Not enough money? low parent involvement? Why? In order for one of these programs to fix the problem we need to know what the problem is and how it came about. I’d like to define exactly what is wrong with out schools, so that we can get a clearer idea of how to fix them.

Personally, I’d venture to say that I dont think the problem is as large and universal as it sounds. Yes, there are major problems in some places. But, a lot of the time, a public education is still a decent education.

I think economics is a major area. I’m not just talking about shcool funding either. Some people, because of their socio-economic posision, are never given a chance to see the value of an education. If all you see around you is poverty and the local drug lord is the richest guy on the block, your going to see an eduaction as irrelevent. Add this to parents that dont make and effort to be involved in their childrens school and you have a recipe for failure. I am not saying that no one EVER breaks out of that, but it is much harder and they face more blocks. And I cant for the life of me figure out why schools get different amounts of funding (bonds are differnt, but not property tax). Why should I, in a low income area, go to a school with signifigantly less money than Bob in a high income area?

Second, people dont want to teach. Who wants low pay, long hours, no respect and no major chances for advancement when you can walk out of college in less time with a degree in computer science and make twice as much money? There is only so high we can raise saleries, but we can make teaching more attractive to people. Perhaps we can offer money for college for people that promise to teach afterwards, much like the military (I know there are programs to help pay off loans, but none of that is upfront). Perhaps that way there will be a kind of “poverty draft” for teachers. More people from low income areas can get an education and pass that on trough teacheing.

Finally, I think we dont offer enought diversity of education. Everyone learns a different way, and I think more charter schools and in-school programs can adress that. But those programs would have to be carefully implemented to make sure it was accessable to all.

2

I agree that the US public education system isn’t the horrid wreck that some claim it is. It is, IMHO, pretty darned bad though, at least from what I’ve seen of it.

I think one of the major problems is the information that is taught (or not taught). How many people recieved any sort of critical thinking class in their entire time in the public education system?

On the other hand, how many people had to take Phy-Ed?

Also, how many people here were actually taught about evolution in school? I live in Minnesota (not exactly the Bible belt) and yet I didn’t hear a word about evolution in school until college.

While how something is taught and who teaches it are both important, I think what is taught is at least as important.

3

Evolution is such a important thing to learn for the real world.

Personally I think that we should restrict the teachers less and remove most of the power of the school board. Because everything ive ever heard about school boards doing stuff is bad. They are way too impersonal. More money is not the issue because where I live the teachers are paid the lowest of just about anywhere in the country and they make average wages for only half a year of work.

4

[slight hijack]

What was wrong with the school system 30 years ago? Were any changes made since then needed? There is always mention of test scores constantly dropping.

[end of slight hijack]

5

Objective testing of schools is relatively recent, isn’t it? I know IQ tests have been around for a long while, and they used to have the IOWA test when I was a kid, but I thought using standardized tests to rate different schools had always been voluntary until the pushes of more recent years. I’m not terribly well informed on this subject though, so please correct me if that’s wrong.

I feel priviliged to have first learned about evolution in eighth grade, at a Catholic school, from a nun no less. She did a fair job of it, too. She even, in response to my question about how this fit in with the Genesis stuff we were learning in religion class said that I’d have to look at both and make up my own mind. It was exactly the right thing to say, especially to me.

I, too think the schools are underrated, usually for political purposes. There was a Scientific American article…um,last year maybe? Sometime not too long ago anyway, and it gave the actual rankings of different countries on that international standardized test for high schoolers, together with the error bars (which are pretty damn broad). Conclusion: the U.S. isn’t number one, but we’re really no worse than average for western industrialized nations. Of course we WANT to be number one, so maybe average is a “disaster” of a sort, but it’s not as bad as we’re usually told, either. Another surprising thing in that article was that, while American kids drop behind other nations by the end of high school, college education is SO available and common here that we make up for it somewhat later on. In fact, adult Americans scored higher in scientific literacy than nearly every other western country! Certainly a counterintuitive result for a lot of posters here, I’m sure. Maybe Europeans just hide their idiocy better, without actually eradicating it?

6

The biggest problem we have with public education is that it is being run by politicians and not educators.

Needs2know

7

Many people want to teach (I for one, keep considering it).
Teachers in my town are paid surprisingly well…comparable to many high-tech jobs.
Teaching is one of the most-respected professions (aside from students’ opinions, that is).
Not everyone is skilled in computer programming.

Word!

8

I think one thing that is wrong with public education is the breakdown in discipline. It is very difficult to get rid of an unruly child and that makes it hard to teach the children who want to learn. Ask any teacher and they will tell you they spend 80% of their time on the troublemakers. Also if the good kids see the bad kids getting away with their behavior it reduces the incentives to follow the rules. This is a reflection of a general trend in society but is felt very sharply at the schools.
Another reason is that some parents are not on the side of the school anymore. The parents tell the kids “Don’t let anyone mess with you.” and that means other students, teachers, and administrators. This means that no matter how wrong the kid is he can count on his parents showing up at school and raising cain if the school tries to discipline him. Add to that administrators whose mission is to not get sued and you have students in class who should not be there and every student who is in a class with them suffers.
Another reason is the lack of quality teacher preparation. Education majors generally do not have to take as many hard courses so they do not get the preparation they need academically. In addition to this they are not taught how to teach. Ask a teacher if their course work prepared them to be a teacher and the most common response is “Well, the student teaching was really helpful” They have to learn on the job and that takes time.
Another problem is that there is no differentiation between good and bad teachers. Pay is determined by seniority only so the best teacher in the school is paid the same as the worst teacher in the school if they were hired at the same time. Also there is no advancement for the good teachers so what incentive is it to be a good teacher, no extra pay, no promotions, and plenty of extra work.
This post is entirely to long already so I will stop with that.

9

I’d like to address this point. Teachers generally major in “education,” or take enough of an education curriculum to receive a certificate. While I think this could be acceptable at the lower grade levels, I find it woefully inadequate for high school.

For example, would you rather your 10th grader be taught by a biology major, or an “education” major? Most schools won’t even look at you as a potential teacher if you approach them with a specialized degree.

Take me, for instance. After I completed my Master’s degree, I wasn’t in a position (for personal reasons) to cast my net upon the employment waters of the US. So, I went to the local public school system to apply. As is common with many public schools, science teachers are usually in short supply.

So, here I come with a M.S. in biology, over two years of teaching at the university and community college level, and they tell me I am not qualified to teach biology because I do not have an “education” major or certificate. “Well, how long would it take me to get a certificate.” About 2 years. Yeah, right! Either you want someone who knows a bit about a subject, or you want a babysitter.

Another personal example is my stepfather. Now, my stepdad is a kind man. He’s a very nice guy and loves to help kids. He was hired to teach junior high science classes, which is a total joke. My stepdad knows next to nothing about the subject he is teaching. On numerous occasions he calls me with the most fundamental of questions. Like, “So, what’s a phylum again?” He has a lot of fun teaching, but I submit to you that he, like many teachers, does not have the specific qualifications necessary to impart solid knowledge to students. Another recent thread provided an example of a physics teacher who exhibited totally inadequate knowledge of physics. Yet he was hired. Wanna bet what would have happened if a professional physicist had applied for that position?

I have a copy of Thomas Sowell’s Inside American Education at home. I remember reading how surveys have indicated that university “education” departments are filled with people who have fallen into it as a last resort. Standards are lower and subject matter is not taught to the level of a major. Basically, that a college of education is a sieve that filters out qualified students and traps the dregs.

Of course I realize that there are many, many good, intelligent, and dedicated teachers. That quite a few people actively seek an degree in education and do not just happen to find themselves there after bailing out of a major program. The impression that I get is that these wonderful teachers are greatly outnumbered by people like my stepdad or the “physics” teacher mentioned above.

Remember, as I said earlier, the problems I am referring to manifest themselves more when it comes to specific upper level courses as opposed to elementary school. Until this problem is addressed, I feel that high schoolers will continue to be short-changed in subject matter learning.

10

This morning Mrs. Kunilou had to be at school early for a meeting with a parent. Nothing unusual about that, but this is the third time this meeting has been scheduled. The first two times the parent simply didn’t show up – and she lives 5 minutes away from the school.

Mrs. Kunilou has been a teacher for 30 years. Over that time she has seen a stready erosion of respect for the education process, and for teachers. Parents have threatened to “get her” if she disciplines their children, she has been called names by parents and children. On top of that, she spends more time on paperwork and meetings than she does actually working with her students.

Yes, she does buy her own supplies because otherwise “the kids simply wouldn’t have them.” She has also taken my clothes and given them to a student who was too poor to have a winter coat. After 30 years in teaching, she’s worked her way up to a decent salary – not great, but decent. But she’s at the top of the salary scale, which means she won’t get any more, unless the board votes a cost of living bump, which they usually don’t.

So what’s wrong with public schools? I think they’re expected to be all things to all people. Parents demand that they teach everything from sex ed to drug awareness, while other parents demand that they go back to basics, while other parents demand that they teach critical thinking. Some people want more early childhood programs, while others want to cut the school day for younger students, so they can spend more time at home. The administration, the board and the parents pay lip-service to teachers, but don’t support them. The law requires that procedures and practices and policies and contracts be documented, then people complain about bureaucracy. People want their children prepared as well as a European or Asian school would do, but they absolutely refuse to submit to the early-age segmentation that those schools use to separate the college-bound students from the ones who will be shuffled off to vocational education. Everybody says more homework and a longer school year would help, but students complain that they have to work and fall asleep in class. Handicapped students need more attention, but there’s no money to hire more staff, so other students wind up getting less attention. And for a sizable number of kids with screwed up families, school is the one stable thing in their lives.

So schools wind up trying to strike some sort of balance. They have to adopt a middle course, which is acceptable to no one.

11

I salute you Ms. Kunilou. It is people like you who are the reason that when the system works it works well. Thank you.

Needs2know

12

There is no clear answer. Teaching is not glamourous, does not pay well, and involves long hours and twisted politics.

kunilou thank you for that post. My best friend teaches bilingual pre-k at one of the poorer schools in Austin, Texas. She has been teaching for 5 years. She makes (with her extra stipend for bilingual certification) around $31,000 a year after the last raise they were granted. It had been 2 years since her last pay raise. In most jobs a person is evaluated at least yearly - not in AISD. She works 50-60 hours a week at a minimum - meetings (faculty, parent, etc), committees, keeping her classroom up, writing lesson plans, etc. She spends most of that salary on supplies for her classroom, as very little is provided by the school. Keep in mind that the cost of living is high in Austin. She pays over $600/month for her 1 bedroom apartment, not to mention the high price of groceries and utilities (it’s summer 8 months of the year there). Most of her paycheck is eaten up by the teacher union dues she pays each month which will ensure that she is defended if some parent should slap a lawsuit on her. She teaches at a year-round school where she teaches for 3 months and has a 2 week break between sessions. During these breaks there are inter-session classes she can teach - which she usually ends up teaching to make a little extra money. She is also paying off her student loans - which run her about $350 a month. She’s already checked into getting her loans forgiven for teaching, but didn’t qualify - she would have to teach in an area that desperately needs teachers. (haha)

Many of her students aren’t fully potty trained when they start school. Many have parents that don’t read to them because they can’t read themselves. Some children in her class are the offspring of illegal aliens - which at times creates a whole host of other problems.

As for my high school experience in a Texas public school compared to my high school experience in a Louisiana public school, I actually would rate the LA school much higher than the TX school. (And everyone knows how the LA schools are rated.) My peers in the LA high school in non-honors classes actually had a better education than my peers in honor classes at the TX high school. And we were supposedly in a really good school district in TX. Hmmm. The difference: the LA high school was smaller. Teachers really knew the kids - there was a lower teacher to student ratio. The teachers in the LA high school (for the most part) really knew their subject matter AND knew how to teach. In the TX school I had a physics teacher who knew her subject matter well, but couldn’t teach it to her students. She just didn’t have that teaching “gift”. We all ended up at the tutorials with the other physics teacher who could convey the information to us so that we understood what was going on. So teachers need to know their subject matter AND be able to convey it to students.

I had an excellent teacher in the third grade when I lived in Michigan. His name was Mr. Hoover and he made coming to school an adventure. He only taught one year. The next year he was laid off because school funding was cut andhe didn’t have tenure and. It’s a shame he didn’t have the opportunity to enrich the lives of other children.

I considered becoming a teacher when I was in college. In fact, that’s what I always wanted to do. I got my BA in English and then worked on my certification. The more education classes I took, the more disgusted I became. The bureaucracy of the education system repulsed me the most. So, I dropped out.

In one of the presidential debates, ol’ dubya mentioned Texas education and standardized testing in reading for children in grades K-2. Anyone who knows anything about reading comprehension (or even how children’s brains work & evolve) knows that most children can’t really read until they’re in the third grade. Just another example of politics ruling the classroom. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

My son will be a year old next month and I am already worried about finding a good school for him. I may just have to buckle down and send him to a well researched private school - or move to another state! If I wasn’t a single parent and able to swing it, I’d home school him for the first few years at least.

13

I think it has to do with the shift towards self-esteem. Over the past decade, there’s been this focus on instilling self-esteem in American children. That feeling good about one’s self and one’s accomplishments should be the underlying goal, no matter the outcome of the performance.

This is the problem right here – the self esteem issue.

Too many children are taught that it’s “okay to fail” as long as they “gave it their best shot.” So, here we have students turning out substandard work, and feeling good about it. Of course, they don’t know it’s substandard, because their teacher praises them.

So, in the grand scheme of things, we have students doing halfass work (unbeknownst to them) and thinking that it’s okay because they gave it their best shot. Moreover, not only do we see bloated self-esteem, but the deterioration in the level of teaching.

Specifically, the textbooks. The books are written for a target grade level, but distributed to a grade higher than that of the book. For instance, there may be a group of 8th graders who are reading a 6th grade level history book. But, of course, the teacher probably tells them that the book is at a 9th or 10th grade level.

14

I attended my neighborhood public school for kindergarten and first grade. In the beginning of second grade, I was recommended for testing to enter a “gifted” program in a different school, and was transferred shortly therafter.

The curricula included Latin through eighth grade, logic & philosophy, and critical thinking courses. Not all of the teachers were phenomenal, but all were competent.

Upon graduation from grammar school, I attended my neighborhood public high school (I scored well on all standardized tests, but I never applied to any gifted-type high schools, mainly because I procrastinated - not so bright, huh). General classes were way overcrowded - 35-40 students per - and honors/AP classes were sparsely attended. Half of the student population didn’t speak English well (and their parents were often completely uninvolved because of the language difficulties); many students had behavioral problems and learning disabilities; gangs, while controlled, were omnipresent. I had a couple of blatantly racist teachers (the student body was largely Hispanic). One business education teacher actually told my class, “Well, you’d better listen up, since none of you are going to become doctors or lawyers or anything.” Many of the teachers of general courses were pitiably incompetent, disinterested, and bitter. On the other hand, the teachers of the AP/honors classes were without exception far more knowledgeable and involved with their students.

What this told me was this:

  1. Teachers are only human. They give what they get. I can’t imagine a more difficult task than trying to teach students who don’t want to be there, who are disinterested and disaffected, who learn from their parents that being smart and wanting to learn is uncool.
  2. The resources have to be there. Sure, I don’t need to have a 3-D interactive program to learn about the rainforest, but it sure helps, and it pulls in the kids that might not want to learn otherwise. And who the hell can learn anything when the pull-down maps are from 1963, the heating system coughs out smog, the halls smell like piss, and there aren’t enough desks?
  3. Parents make a crucial difference. My parents were never the PTA-going type, but it was always clear in my house that academic performance was very important, and that being smart and educated was necessary to keep up. This attitude was all that kept me going when I was made fun of for being a nerd. I was also taught to respect authority until I was old enough to to something about it - even when the authority was composed of fucking boneheads. That plus the sweet, sweet knowledge that I would be able to buy and sell their asses in ten years.

Now I have child, a first-grader. I didn’t buy into the private-school bullshit, because it’s important to me that my son learn what it’s like to deal with all races, all creeds, all intelligence levels, all socio-economic strata. Plus, I’m agnostic, so religious schools are out of the question. But I did get him into a magnet school, and have been thrilled with the results. The teachers have (so far) been wonderful, the curriculum is challenging, and the student mix is excellent. He couldn’t be happier with it, and neither could I.

Despite all of the problems, I think it’s still possible to get a solid education in the public schools. It’s up to the student and his parents to get the best out of it.

15

i think a major problem is not setting and EXPLAINING some priorities to the information/knowledge being taught. it is not all equally important.

my pet peeve is personal finance/economics.

my senior year i went to a major book store and was examining books in the financial section trying to figure out which were any good. i wondered why the nitwits that ran the catholic school i attended considered 4 years of english literature so important and taught nothing about money. the most important thing i learned from high school was accidental. i arranged to take an optional computer course during one summer at another school. we had to write a fortran program that printed amortization schedules. that is how i first learned what a house REALLY COST. 2.5 times the price and 22 years to get 50% equity.

we now have banks sending credit cards to college freshman and parents are bailing out the kids that don’t understand the finance charges. if they are smart enough to go to college they should be smart enough to understand it, IF ONLY THE EDUCATORS HAD BRAINS ENOUGH TO TEACH IT.

Dal Timgar

16

Dal, my kids textbooks do have examples in them about interest rates, balancing checkbooks, etc.

Of course, some parents object because it’s not “the basics” – multiplication tables, how to bisect an angle, etc.

17

I suspect one major culprit is standardized testing. I won’t say it’s responsible for ALL the problems in our educational system, but it’s often compounded them.

My composition students (college freshmen) have all passed the standardized writing test here in North Carolina. In other words, they all know how to write a five-paragraph essay. They certainly should, because they spent their last two years of high school writing five-paragraph essays in preparation for the test. When I had them write autobiographies for their first homework assignment, at least two of them contrived to turn their lives into five-paragraph essays. I still don’t know how they did that.

They will never, of course, need to write a five-paragraph essay in college, and they haven’t been taught the most basic skills they will need. Most of them haven’t written an original analytical paper, learned how to evaluate a source for a research paper, or compiled a bibliography … heck, half of them didn’t know that bibliographical entries were supposed to be in alphabetical order. Worse yet, they think good writing begins and ends with proper spelling and grammar, because that’s what the test stresses. It has not occurred to them that people write to communicate something, so they miss the most glaring errors in logic. (One student turned in an essay on cloning that had God creating Adam and Eve in one paragraph and the human race evolving through genetic mutation in the next. For goodness’ sake, pick one or the other!)

Standardized testing measures the most superficial skills in the discipline – spelling, speed reading, coming up with plausible-sounding language under pressure. It doesn’t, and probably can’t, measure genuine writing ability. It certainly doesn’t reward creativity or critical thinking – if anything, it penalizes students for over-analyzing or thinking out of the box. Since most teachers here in North Carolina have their hands full just teaching kids to pass the test, these other skills don’t get taught at all. The students are totally lost when they start college and find that filling in the blanks and coming up with the expected answers just won’t cut it. I’ve had to spend most of the first semester UNTEACHING them, and I suspect some of them never will get it – the habit of seeing everything as a multiple-choice test is too ingrained.

(Wow, that was a long and tangential rant, but so are most of the posts in this thread – I’ll stop now and let the rest of you get back to your pet jeremiads.)