posted on July 16, 2001 05:17:37 AM
This is actualy an interesting topic when not peppered with insults towards another person. In order to get past those insults, I thought perhaps a new topic where education could be discussed without mention of that other person.
posted on July 16, 2001 08:33:46 AM
The inequality of public education is simple enough to help solve. Instead of local taxes going to fund local schools, taxes would go into a general state education fund and the fund would be distributed throughout the state on a student basis. That way, each school would receive equal funding based upon the number of students that they have attending. The way that it is now, richer districts pay more in taxes and their schools are top-notch; whereas poor districts are often woefully underfunded.
I realize that this one solution won't fix the entire problem of inequality of public education, but it would be a giant first-step towards equality in public education.
posted on July 16, 2001 09:00:16 AMThis is actualy an interesting topic when not peppered with insults towards another person. In order to get past those insults, I thought perhaps a new topic where education could be discussed without mention of that other person.
HITS
"Education": 1
"An/other person": 2
I'm not only not going to think about pink elephants, I'm not going to mention pink elephants. Especially on this thread. Mentioning those animals might derail the topic. And I don't want anyone else to think about or mention them, either. In case you forget about what you're not supposed to talk about, here's some help. Once you've remembered, forget it.
posted on July 16, 2001 09:00:36 AM
Our public schools receive funds from the state and the local governments. Would they be banned from using local funding? What if parents in wealthier districts decided to get together and fund a new gymnasium for their students' school or buy computers for the classrooms? Then what?
posted on July 16, 2001 09:31:11 AM
Here's an article I found interesting in Sunday's online Macon (Ga) Telegraph edition, about a school in Pennsylvania's examination of racial disparity in their district, and thoughts from others. It doesn't have answers, but it does have a lot of good questions and observations.
It also has, from Bush of all people, a mention of "the soft bigotry of lowered expectations."
posted on July 16, 2001 09:44:27 AM
Uh-huh. Can spell. How about teachers that can spell. This guy obviously can't, and that's my point. He's a teacher. He can't spell. How about teachers that can? I think that might help a little. Perhaps you don't.
posted on July 16, 2001 09:51:55 AM"What if parents in wealthier districts decided to get together and fund a new gymnasium for their students' school or buy computers for the classrooms?"
As I said, my suggestion would not automatically create equality in the classrooms. I imagine that if everyone was taxed at the same rate for state school funding, all students would receive the same education.
What I can't understand is if it is so important for our schools to have computers in them, why should it be left up to parents to make donations to the local schools? Why not tax everyone a teeny-tiny bit more and purchase computers for every student's desk in the state system?
One idea of how both of those ideas could work is like the local high school program here just outside of Portland proper. I used to repair and upgrade computers and of course, you end up getting everyone's older, used parts stacked in boxes and on pallets. I learned that a local high school has an excellant training program for the kids. This program teaches them to build, maintain, repair, and upgrade computers. They take in donations of used computers and parts throughout the year. These parts would be sorted out and tested to see if they were any good. The good parts were used by the students to build workable computers and then these computers are distributed through-out the school system. Parts that do not work are sent to special recycling places and they get scrap-prices for the junk.
So why not have high schools do the same thing in each school district in the state?
posted on July 16, 2001 09:58:55 AMHow about teachers that can spell?
If only it were that simple.
I think it's important to see the problem of incompetent teachers as other than monolithic. At least two broad categories exist:
-Good schools with an odd bad teacher protected by tenure.
-Bad schools
Bad schools have mostly bad teachers. I'll say it again. When you find a bad school, you find a whole school full of bad teachers and bad administrators.
The primary reason why bad schools end up with a high percentage of incompetent teachers is because they've run off the competent ones.
Factors:
-tolerating disruptive and threatening behavior by students
-a competent teacher in an otherwise failing school is a threat to a lot of people in that school. A lot of direct pressure is likely to be applied to such a teacher to move on.
-teachers and administrators who feel that the real problem lies in society, not in their particular school.
These things are coupled of course with a government restricted choice of sending one's kids to that school, unless you're rich. They're guaranteed a customer base, no matter how badly they fail.
=========
I'm all for competent teachers, and in favor of getting rid of incompetent ones. I'm not at all sure that testing is the way to fix the problem, however. It might help in the tenured incompetent case, but I don't believe that's the core problem.
posted on July 16, 2001 10:12:21 AM
Borillar, your idea about repairing and using computers is a good one. What about Latin teachers,soccer teams,equipment for science labs,etc?
When you suggest that everyone be taxed at the same rate, do you mean the same percentage or a flat dollar amount(x dollars)? An increase of $200 a year in taxes may be a drop in the bucket to me, but a large increase to someone else. A 1% increase may get even more money from me, but may be tougher still for others.
What will politicians do? Their wealthier constituents(and campaign contributors) want better schools and may be willing to spend the money necessary to get them. Perhaps the majority of the taxpayers are already strapped and don't want higher taxws. Who decides?
posted on July 16, 2001 10:46:59 AM
Good questions, ideas, and comments. I can't participate in this discussion until later today but look forward to joining in.
posted on July 16, 2001 01:00:49 PM
Some things that don't take money are: teaching the basics and parental involvement.
I think things got derailed in the lower grades over 20 years ago. Years ago, my much younger cousin showed us his "reading" homework. They were teaching him to recognize words. No "sounding it out," no phonetics - just to recognize whole words. Instinctively I thought this was wrong.
A friend of mine wanted to have her daughter left back because she was just getting too far behind. The school discouraged it because it would hurt her confidence... hmm... and being the stupidest kid in class wouldn't?
Better training of teachers. A friend of mine studied to become a teacher. Middle school (that's what we used to call junior high, right?). I asked her how much math she had to take, and all she had to take was basic math for teachers. And she was glad because she'd hated algebra. I really was pretty shocked.
I really don't think money is the only issue. Up until high school, my family was pretty poor, and the public schools I went to showed it. But I learned to read and I learned math. When you think about it, if you have those two basic skills, you can have the crappiest teachers, and still figure out how to learn what you want to know.
Also, the whole notion of a "teaching credential," to me is a waste. Wouldn't we be better served if our teachers had a base of knowledge in one discipline and then took a semester of whatever to learn how to deal with kids? We insult teachers by dumbing down their profession, and we cheat kids.
Parental involvement is tougher these days because both parents often work. And sadly, many people with young children come from a school system that started to deteriorate when they were in school. So the cycle worsens.
If we are going to pour money on the situation, I'd like to see it go to grades K-4. I honestly believe that if you don't get them by the time they're nine, you've probably lost them. No matter what color they are.
posted on July 16, 2001 01:16:04 PM
"If we are going to pour money on the situation, I'd like to see it go to grades K-4. I honestly believe that if you don't get them by the time they're nine, you've probably lost them."
How true. If kids can't read and add by the time they finish 3rd grade, they have no business being promoted. They should either be placed in special ed classes or held back until they learn. To simply pass them along in the system does nothing for them.
posted on July 16, 2001 01:19:42 PM"High-level courses dominated by whites, low-level courses by blacks --- such scenes are not unique to Cheltenham but are repeated in school districts nationwide. They illustrate one of the most vexing, and so far intractable, problems in American education: The racial achievement gap."
The above was taken from the article linked by donny. It is something I have personally observed since 1979 when my son started in the public school system of Texas.
He was placed in a "gifted/talented" program and I was at first quite proud that someone besides me had recognized my "baby" was quite "bright"! I soon learned the truth. He was getting the same quality of education that MY generation had gotten more than 10 years before as standard! Those that were not in such a program were getting a lowered quality of education. I asked why and was given many reasons. Some students came from non-english speaking families (they always had in our community-we are predominately Hispanic) or they came from families where education had not really been a priority so they had not been encouraged at an early age or they came from very poor families that couldn't afford to spend time or money on "pre-school" activities. All of which I cannot argue are not true.
The solution???? For our district it was just lower the requirements and take those who had already been taught, a little and place them in "special" programs. Often these so-called "gifted" students (at least in our schools)were segregated from the other children. Why? Well, according to just about everyone I spoke to: they were special afterall!
Another observation: Our school district saw a dramatic increase in Vietnamese students about 20 years ago. Many started in the public schools not knowing how to speak, much less read or write, English. In a very short time these students were making the "A" honor rolls! I had a young man working for me who had arrived here at age 10. He had a great difficulty speaking English. He told me he had to "translate" everything in his head before he spoke and that was hard. He was very bright and was in the top 1/4 of his class. He worked for me his senior year and his 1st and last semester in college! He left our school believing he was well above the norm. He had the grades to prove it. He didn't score real high on the SAT but well enough to go on to college. He choose a community college within a 2hour drive. He was very determined. He soon became discouraged because he couldn't seem to please his English instructor. No matter what he did, he was given an F. He asked me if I could look over his work and tell him what the problem was. I did and I was shocked....He had no capitalization, no punctuation and often made plurals out of words such as them (thems). I pointed that out and he was genuinely confused. Nobody had every told him that was very important before. They just graded his papers, gave him an A, and told him the paper was very good! He was robbed of an education! Concessions were made that in the long run rendered his public education useless.
I worked with him, but not being "trained", I really wasn't sure how to start him from scratch, which is what he needed. He only went the one semester to college. He than went to a trade school. He had wanted to be a teacher, he is now a hair stylist! Of course, he apparently was gifted and now owns several hairstyle salons in pricey areas of a large city and makes more than any teacher from around here. He has already bought his Mom and Dad a brand new house AND a new truck AND he drives a new car every year and owns several "homes" of his own! So, at the risk of starting another "argument"...his "lack" of education does not really seem to have hampered him unless you recognize it's not his first choice of careers and he's "sense of failure" has actually been what has motivated him to suceed. I get the impression even today, that he is not really OK with his life.
The last thing I have noticed. Many of the "new" teachers of today, are products of the "current" educational system. How long will it be before mediocre is all that is available?
What is the solution? I don't think we can ignore the fact that, in the beginning anyway, there are those that will start out with unequal footing. How do we even it out?
I think it smacks of prejudice to simply accept that non-english speaking, or poor, or non-white children or NOT capable of learning just as much as the middle-upper class, predominately white, english speaking children of our country.
posted on July 16, 2001 01:31:13 PM
While I have a moment, I will tell one of my pet peeves in education.
Who the heck thought up this sum of the front digit math. Makes me so mad to see teachers confusing children. Here are kids in grades K-3 just learning 'real math' and the system says they have to learn sum of the front digit math. I finally figured out that the only use it has is to confuse people as to real numbers so that when the government says they are spending 1.9 billion on toilet seats and 2.99 billion on sink handles, that people will say wow they only spent 3 billion dollars instead of realizing that it is actually closer to 5 billion. The new math is only of by 2 billion, so what?? Argggg...stupid math.
Another example out of a true math work book.
Jan has 199 marbles
Steve has 395 marbles
Sue has 278 marbles
Jeff has 187 marbles
Using front digits how many marbles do they have total.
posted on July 16, 2001 02:18:11 PM
I am very happy to say I have no idea how this front number stuff works. If it truly
leads to the conclusions you cite it would not even be a help in making a household
budget or deciding what to buy on a grocery shopping trip.
I also learned to read phonetically because English writing is a code for speech
sounds. It is not a language of symbols like Chinese.
posted on July 16, 2001 03:26:31 PM
Sulyn1950, thank you for taking the time to read the article I provided a link to, and for your thoughts and observations on what the article calls "the soft bigotry of lowered expectations."
It's funny. The title of this thread is about "Educational inequality." I assume that means inequality along racial lines, but the title doesn't say that explicitly. Not only that, but by the very first post, inequality isn't even mentioned anymore, merely "education." Explicitly forbidden is mention of "that other person," and now Inside has wandered off into some peculiar math example that has nothing to do, that I can see, with inequality in education, racial or otherwise.
Sorry if my front end digit math is a tangent you did not like. Just a pet peeve of mine which affects every child of every color. I finally found a minute between end of auction notices and decided to rant about it.
I ready your link and agreed with most of it. I think there is a lower expectation for children along racial lines.
How do you feel about year end testing and retention if certain educational standards for all children are not met?
Blew my mind when I first learned of that new way of doing math. I told the local schools I didn't think children should be taught it, but they said it was on the national standardized tests and so they had to teach it or it would lower the school's grades and funding would be lost? Does that sound like a good enough reason to spend hours teaching a worthless concept?
"What is the solution? I don't think we can ignore the fact that, in the beginning anyway, there are those that will start out with unequal footing. How do we even it out?"
That is the million dollar question. At least around here children are divided up so that there are equal numbers of children in each class. So many along racial lines, so many along sex lines, so many along economic lines and so many along grade lines. That way all the classes will be evenly mixed and everyone will in theory receive an equal education. Problem is that if the teacher teaches for the brightest kids the middle road kids and slower kids lose out. If you teach to the slower kids, the middle road kids are not challenged and the brightest kids are bored silly. If you teach the middle road kids, the brightest are not challenged and the slowest struggle yet never catch up. So what to do?
This is especially a tough question when it comes to non-english speaking children. Do you hold them back until they learn English or do you pass them along as they learn English and forget about all the hours they sat in some classes with no idea what was being taught?
You asked, "What if parents in wealthier districts decided to get together and fund a new gymnasium for their students' school or buy computers for the classrooms? Then what?"
I would think that if banned from funding "special" projects, wealthier parents would simply build more private schools.
posted on July 16, 2001 04:30:54 PM
jlpiece and all others who have discussed the teacher's lack of ability,
What is really scary is that with the current shortage of teachers there is a big push to certify new teachers with only minimal education/training. Seems they need bodies to babysit!
posted on July 16, 2001 04:36:31 PM
I agree, inside. Then we're back to inequitable funding. It's not as simple as the state giving all schools equal funding per student. Those parents who can afford to will upgrade their children's schools or send the kids to private schools - in most instances.
posted on July 16, 2001 04:37:50 PM
Well, donny it is a problem that has been around at least since 1979.
Also, I have found many that don't see it as a real issue. I have even had some point out that there would be no way to even the scales, so to speak, if conscessions weren't made to allow for social/economic and racial/cultural differences.
I remember in the 80's quite a deal was made about allowing "minorities" to be taught courses (such as English) in a manner that would allow for their cultural "differences".
I said "hogwash" then, and I say it now. These are not necessarily children who can't compete with upper-class, usually but not necessarily "white", kido's due to lack of "intelligence". We insist on allowing children to "embrace" their "differences" even at the risk of turning them into "second class" citizens for their whole lives, rather than run the risk of being called "bigots" for wanting to erase a childs "heritage". I come from a line of people who lived in the hills and could not read or write and some might even think speak English! Luckily for me, my teachers in school decided to erase my "heritage"! I am not ashamed of where I come from, but I am glad I did not have to stay! Times were different than. Today, I am afraid I would be allowed to remain "culturally intact" especially if I wasn't "white"!
If you have 3 people apply for the same job and 1 has a very good command of the written and spoken language of English, while the other 2 don't, which will more likely get the job?
When, I made a comment to our school board that if my child was a minority and the school chose to lower their expectations for my child, I would call it "discrimination"!
They just re-stated their position. There were barriers that prevented an equal education to all students. Some were language barriers, some were economic barriers, which whether we liked it or not, usually included race. There were those that had taught their children to love to read, by taking time to read them books on a daily basis. There were children whose parents had taken the time to teach them to count, all their colors, their ABC's and such as that. So these children came to the school already ahead of those who didn't have that same benefit!
Now, this might hold up if it wasn't for such Federal programs as "Headstart"! This program is suppose to be designed for children who haven't had the above priviledges (whether they be pink, purple or dotted). It starts at age 4. It has been around for more than a decade. It doesn't seem to have helped much. Perhaps there should be daycare programs for the socially, economically or racial "challenged" (used for lack of a better word) children who do not have the benefit of a parent or parents who can or will encourage the childs developement at the all important pre-three time in their lives.
I know a speech therapist who maintains that language arts is the key to everything. If a child cannot verbalize "adequately" by age 3, they usually never "catch up" in school! She thinks all children should be tested by age 3 to determine their level of developement and then they should be placed in programs that will bring them up to speed in areas they show weakness.
How can a child who has never heard English spoken in their home be expected to compete with a child that has always spoken English?
Perhaps our schools should require those that have English as their primary language be required to be instructed in a "second" language from the get-go. Maybe that would help level the field???
Those that did well (from both sides and all languages) could then go on the those so-called "special" or "gifted/talented" programs! The other's would just have to work a little harder and be encouraged to do so and be provided workable programs with tutors!
posted on July 16, 2001 04:47:18 PM
Headstart is a joke. From what I understand the classrooms can not even display the entire alphabet as a whole. Seems it might overwhelm some children. Only one letter at the time can be displayed in the room. There can be no "directed" activites. For example you can give a child paper and paint but you can not say "draw me a picture of a tree". Lots of silly rules like this. Plus you can not discipline a child. Children entering kindergarted from headstart are more likely to have problems adapting to school and learning than those who come straight from home or babysitters. JMHO from experience.
posted on July 16, 2001 04:50:47 PMBorillar:As I said, my suggestion would not automatically create equality in the classrooms. I imagine that if everyone was taxed at the same rate for state school funding, all students would receive the same education.
Actually, as things stand now, it still would *not* mean receiving the same education. The US does not have a standardized, country-wide curriculum--despite the "standardized testing" we hear so much of now. Unlike a country like Japan, where there is a single country-wide curriculum, here every school district chooses its own textbooks & makes its own plans.
posted on July 16, 2001 04:51:37 PM
Before someone thinks by discipline I mean beating a child, headstart does not allow time-outs, sitting in corner, lectures, with-holding of rewards... If a child will not behave you are supposed to re-direct their attention elsewhere. I've seen several bright four year olds play this game to the hilt. Imagine their suprise when upon entering kindergarten they are made to sit out recess for pouring paint on the floor!
