What is Digg?360 Comments
- DiggerA, on 06/15/2008, -9/+197The dumbing down of america in full force
- bonk2k, on 06/15/2008, -10/+138How about sports?
- Turbojugend27, on 06/15/2008, -3/+108Unlimited money for war, yet very tight budgets for education. Makes total sense.
- theaceoffire, on 06/15/2008, -1/+91In my country, 80% of the class have to wait for 3% of the class to freaking catch up to what is going on, every class period.
Our "required reading" has dropped in complexity, the tests have gotten easier, and we are being trained to take said tests rather than for life. - alapoet, on 06/15/2008, -6/+92That's really unfortunate, and completely counterproductive, from any rational standpoint.
- kc23266, on 06/15/2008, -7/+68We could start by eliminating useless things like Student Council and proms.
- Maynza, on 06/15/2008, -15/+67I never understood gifted programs anyway, if a child is ahead of the rest of their class why not just move them ahead a grade?
I say this as someone who was both in gifted classes and skipped ahead a grade.
I do agree though that there is plenty of money to be had by spending less on the sports teams. In highschool we had all brand new football gear/fields every year but they couldn't even afford new biology books. - magamiako, on 06/15/2008, -3/+54Maynza:
There are lots of reasons not to do this, particularly is that it doesn't really help them later on in life to be this way. For one, if they skip ahead a grade, they're younger than everyone. Now not only do you possibly have to deal with bullying, but the bullies are older and more developed than you are physically.
Also, a lot of American Education builds on skills learned earlier on. "Gifted" students (I was one, by the way) while we learned quickly, you still can't completely ignore the fact that if you never learn it at all it may become detrimental in the future.
You could say the above statement could be countered with studying over the summer, but do you think I or any other kid would want to do "school" over the summer break? You've got to be kidding me! - inactive, on 06/15/2008, -2/+53it's really a shame because I truly think almost all of the low achieving pupils can't be helped. I say this because I was one of those low achieving pupils. I didn't care about school, I was more interested in doing fun stuff after school. I did just barely enough to graduate high school.
It wasn't until I got out of high school and worked ***** jobs for a few years that I realized I really ***** up. I smartened up and went back to school, got my high school grades up and I am going to college for engineering this fall.
To hold back the gifted students who do care is tragic in every sense of the word. I guess it will help a select few though, my best-friend from my child hood was a terrible student, was in the slow class and everything. He moved away, got help from his new school, became an an honor student and is entering veterinary school this fall. - belcorriko, on 06/15/2008, -1/+48From Harrison Bergeron, "The year was 2081, and everyone was finally equal."
This is just how it starts... - larryk12308, on 06/15/2008, -4/+49"No child left behind"
Another reason to hate the Bush administration. - Rabbittt, on 06/15/2008, -2/+46In a crunch like you're talking about, the first things that should go are frills like extracurricular activities, athletics, and vocational studies.. Lots could (and should) be on the chopping block before academics..
- akifbayram, on 06/15/2008, -4/+43Obese > Stupid
- inactive, on 06/15/2008, -2/+40Federal mandates seem to bring everything down to the lowest common denominator. Is this desirable?
- amida, on 06/15/2008, -3/+40"''Rural districts like us, we've been *literally* bleeding to death,' said Gary Tyrrell, assistant superintendent of the Mountain Grove School District...."
I don't find this quote very promising for the educational standards there. - RockSlice, on 06/15/2008, -1/+38Because "gifted" (ie smarter) children don't aren't just at a higher learning level, they learn faster, and even a higher grade will leave them bored and frustrated. It just might take them longer.
There's also the issue of putting the children in the company of the older, bigger bullies.
The really sad thing about this is that instead of nurturing the brightest minds of the next generation, they'll be restless in class, diagnosed with ADD, and medicated down to the learning speed of the rest of the students.
I count myself extremely lucky that my parents never looked to medication to solve my lack of attention. They (and great teachers I'm really thankful for) worked to keep me engaged. - theoriginalaks, on 06/15/2008, -4/+37Prom is an excellent tradition, but yes, the student council is worthless. My school has elaborate speeches on giant screen's for people running for student council, I have always wanted to run just so I could thank the Devil for helping me win. (because as in everything else, people ALWAYS thank God or Jesus for helping them win)
Jesus is a flip-flopper who can not decide who to back, the Devil will give you his 100% support. - Rodalli, on 06/15/2008, -1/+32Best part of the article:
''People say, 'These kids are smart. They're going to make it anyway,' '' Ms. Groves said. But experts say that gifted children can easily grow bored and alienated. ''These are the kids who are either going to turn out to be nuclear scientists or Unabombers,'' said Ms. Groves, who now teaches high school remedial students at the vocational school. ''It all depends on which way they're led.''
Alienating an intelligent person can be dangerous. They WILL find ways to entertain themselves and make themselves relevant to their world if they're not given opportunities to reach their potential in a positive way. - magamiako, on 06/15/2008, -6/+37Then all the yuppies will cry that our kids will become even more obese!
- Stavrosian, on 06/15/2008, -0/+29"Literally" has to be the most misused word in the English language today.
- LuxFX, on 06/15/2008, -3/+32Forget student council and proms. You could start by eliminating extracurricular sports. But noooo... There's no way a school would drop sports, which helps prepare 0.001% of all students for later in life, because it brings in money to the school. Instead they'll start dropping the education programs that would give students a leg up before entering college.
I heard a quote once, can't remember who said it: (paraphrase) "If pharmaceutical and medical research companies courted students in the same way that sports teams do, offering fame and $20 million contracts, we would have cured cancer ten years ago." - kc23266, on 06/15/2008, -1/+27Agreed with everything except vocational. Not everyone is going to be a college graduate (no matter what NCLB says). We need our mechanics and pre-school aides too.
- 47f0, on 06/15/2008, -0/+26We cut gifted programs, music and phys-ed while retaining one of the most top-heavy school administrations of any country. No one else spends the percentage we do on school boards and administration costs.
It's not about the money - it's about spending the money stupidly. - tegulizard13, on 06/15/2008, -0/+25I had been in a gifted program since the 4th grade here in Rockford, Illinois, and graduated from the program in 2007. Before I graduated, the district went to hell, and I witnessed many of the great teachers of the program, who were also wonderful AP teachers, leave. I was in the middle of the wave, the physics teacher and the calculus teacher left the year before I had them, and the Econ, Psych, Chemistry, English/Latin, and History/Social Sciences teachers left soon after I graduated (1 or two years after). I was able to watch this crippling process, and fully expect my high school to be audited within the next 3 or 4 years.
- inactive, on 06/15/2008, -0/+24True. How many kids can add, subtract, multiple, and divide WITHOUT a calculator? How many kids can spell without a word processor spell check?
Computers are simply a tool to make life easier. But, if the kids don't understand the basic math and science behind the programs that are running, who cares if they can use a computer?
This is why so many teenagers working a register freeze and look stupid when you give pay for your food using a certain combination of dollars and cents. They have never been taught to think away from a computer or cash register with nice, little pictures on it. - kc23266, on 06/15/2008, -0/+24Actually, it teaches them how to be self-important ***** who want to see their name and face posted everywhere. Very few of them are members because they want to do any good. It's all politics.
- jetblackstrat, on 06/15/2008, -0/+23It has been in full force for some time now, as apparently the article was published on March 4th 2004.
Which just makes it all that much sadder as I'm sure this has only gotten worse. - inactive, on 06/15/2008, -1/+22Why do they piss so much cash away?
Look at china, india and russia. They
pump out engineers for a pittance
compaired to us - Stavrosian, on 06/15/2008, -0/+21In my country, I had to spend half my time in school sat around bored out of my mind waiting for the topic to move on to something which I and many others around me didn't already understand completely.
- GordonClass, on 06/15/2008, -5/+26Without the bottom 3% where would the next far right come from?
- priegog, on 06/15/2008, -0/+21No, but how about they stop trying to raise lazy-ass kids' grades? Your grades should be YOUR responsibility, not the goverments (provided you are given a good enough education in the first place). The no child left behind program has caused a lot of unnecesary damage to schools, that could easily be dealt with.
- inactive, on 06/15/2008, -0/+20A lot of kids have, in effect, already dropped out but still attend school. These kids don't care. They are just going through to motions and doing the bare minimum to graduate. They are physically there but their minds are constantly elsewhere.
- LuxFX, on 06/15/2008, -1/+21Gifted programs don't teach the next grade level material, they teach different material outside the scope of the schools normal syllabus.
- masamunecyrus, on 06/15/2008, -0/+19Tell that to No Child Left Behind.
- gozman, on 06/15/2008, -0/+19We're Screwed...(this is my concluding comment but if I put it at the bottom, my other comments probably wouldn't be read)
I work as an administrator in a school that has a gifted population as high as 37% in a single grade level(identified gifted in at least 1 subject.) We are also fairly cash strapped district as far as revenue from the state and local school levies. The community is very wealthy as far as income and property values go but also very reluctant to pass school tax issues(I don't entirely blame them; they are well educated people and this is unquestionably the biggest tax they actually get to vote on).
We spend $1600 less per student than the state average and if our next tax issue fails again, we should be approaching $2000 less than the state average average within a year. We have 60+ employees in Special Education and just 5 providing and coordinating Gifted Services. Federal Laws REQUIRE we fully serve the Special Ed Students, but require very little for the gifted students(which are solidly 30% of our entire student population as a whole.)
The two areas that are most heavily impacted(have really lean budgets and minimal staff) and thus receiving the least $$ and attention because of the very tight income situation is Gifted(5 employees) and Technology(4 employees) all for 5300 students in 2008...
If you were to be an evil mastermind and trying to find a way to sabotage America's competitiveness in the future, this plan would be an extremely effective one; predict what impact the scenario above means for America 10-15 years from now in being creative and innovative in the world's markets. A great deal of what is happening in America's public schools is due to Federal mandates(laws created and passed by the the Congress in Washington or by Supreme Court Decisions.)
Thus the 60 employees in Special Ed when 14% of the students require Special Education and 5 employees in gifted when 30% are already identified as gifted.
We're Screwed... - Brian48216, on 06/15/2008, -0/+19You wanna improve education? Start changing society. While there's no doubt that I think we should be increasing funding to our schools and not firing off the retard teachers,
it's also a lot of retard parenting that's the problem. - inactive, on 06/15/2008, -0/+17On paper, yes. In reality, no. I've never seen student leaders hanging out and being social with ALL the students. They simply congregate amongst the popular types.
And leadership skills? Please. Leadership is all about getting people to do things, and want to do things, because you believe it is the best thing to do. How can anyone do this is they only hang out with people like themselves (per above)? - Metasquares, on 06/15/2008, -0/+17Not to mention that, although gifted (enough) children tend to exhibit a great capability for independent learning, a lack of an appropriately challenging education is a severe attenuation of their potential. It's hard learning everything yourself, and at some point you begin to ask the world "Why are you making this so difficult for me?"
- spiphy, on 06/15/2008, -5/+22They have already eliminated general education. This is a public school we are talking about.
- Stavrosian, on 06/15/2008, -0/+17Bully for you, and of course parents should try to take an active role in their child's development, but it doesn't excuse schools from their responsibility to challenge their students academically.
- Panthersong, on 06/15/2008, -0/+17I did the same with my kids at home -- even taught (as a volunteer) at their school to provide subjects they weren't getting due to budget cuts. Unless you home school your daughter completely, however, she will still have to sit in a classroom and be bored to death while the teacher tries to leave no child behind, no matter how slow that child is, and she will be teased for being bright and will perhaps grow to hate school because it's so boring. Having classes for bright kids that allow them to excel and grow together isn't a "nice to have" -- it's a must have. Let's educate our best and brightest first, and hope the rest can keep up.
- Acglaphotis, on 06/15/2008, -2/+19I don't think he knows what literal means.
- freezeout, on 06/15/2008, -1/+17one day in Iraq = $200 million
that would pretty much cover all 50 states - only1earth, on 06/15/2008, -0/+16Our nation's future depends on having well educated students. What are we to become without a good education?
- inactive, on 06/15/2008, -2/+17No, but don't tell the big government types that (both Democrat and Republican).
This is the problem with one-size-fits-all government programs at the federal level. And this is why the Founding Fathers made sure that the federal government would only involve itself in a few programs and nothing else. All else, per the 10th Amendment, is reserved for the States to do as they see fit.
...but, like I said, don't tell the big government politicians that. - wrathchilde, on 06/15/2008, -1/+16"US" versus "THEM" is not the concept on which this nation was founded. The primary objective of public education is to provide the basic capability to participate in, and contribute to, society. Language is the most fundamental skill required to do so.
Many of our ancestors, five generations for me, came here without the necessary language skills. It is truly disappointing that my generation would turn its back on the people who will make the future. - Rodalli, on 06/15/2008, -1/+16Please don't push her too hard. Don't be that parent.
- spdorsey, on 06/15/2008, -4/+18My daughter is starting school next year. I plan to spend time with her every day to make sure that she is ahead of her class and to help her have the advantages she needs to get into a good high school or university when the time comes.
I don't need the state or my local school district to give my kids advanced classes or programs because I'll take on the responsibility myself. I think that is my duty as a parent. I wish more parents thought this way. It would help the kids far more than an "advanced program" could. - kc23266, on 06/15/2008, -0/+14Literally!
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