What is Digg?262 Comments
- GregR, on 10/12/2007, -13/+140The parents are the biggest problem. They want the kids baby sat and don't want to have to deal with their child's education or problems that arise from that.
- tnerb, on 10/12/2007, -19/+110unions for the most part have long out lived their useful life.
- Paktu, on 10/12/2007, -12/+97You can blame a lot of different things, but it really is the fault of the teachers' unions. For decades, they have been lobbying to prevent school choice. Open up public schools to competition (like in Belgium) and our schools will become top notch.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+71Not only that, but the teachers' unions have locked the teaching profession down to only people who have teaching certificates granted to them by universities. This allows sub-par teachers that barely passed their exams and have lousy teaching skills into the market and practically guarantees them jobs while people with vast ammounts of real-world experience in their chosen professions are barred from passing that knowledge along to our children just because the professional in question doesn't have said teaching certificate.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -15/+77Very true. In Asian cultures (Chinese, Indian, etc), the many parents play an active role in their child's development, always after them to get good grades.
In America, college is like 90210.......just one big frat party with beer and girls, and cramming for tests the day before. - tnerb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+45proper parenting + teachers who give a ***** = better education
- tnerb, on 10/12/2007, -4/+45and it gets even worse, in my home province of Ontario. They tried in institute mandatory teacher testing to keep the standards higher. The legislation got squashed by a premier with a teacher for a wife...
I can name several (i know you all can as well) teachers that barely know proper English grammar. - BluesX, on 10/12/2007, -1/+38I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. -- Mark Twain
- bjsiders, on 10/12/2007, -2/+35I was married to a teacher for years, and I attended many functions with both my ex-wife and the other teachers at her school. Here is what I learned: (1) Teachers mostly hate teaching and mostly hate kids and mostly hate their jobs (2) The pay system encouraged lazy cookie-cutter lessons and a hands-off approach (3) Innovation and dedication are not rewarded. Only tenure. (4) Teachers celebrate snow days WAY MORE than kids do. (5) Elementary school math teachers do not know what a real number is, do not know what a rational number is, do not know what an iirational number is, do not know that pi is irrational and thus 22/7ths cannot possibly be its true value, and are teaching kids all these things despite not knowing any of it themselves.
- Bioshocker, on 10/12/2007, -1/+33The biggest thing that gets me about schooling today is this idea that everyone is of the same ability and it's just a failing of the schooling process when their results don't reflect that.
The best way to get the most out of kids is to put them in a class with people of a similar standard and encourage the natural instinct of competition.
The idea that you can just mix the brightest with the dumbest and expect them to do their best in a competitive vacuum is just utter *****. The brightest get lazy and the dumbest get disillusioned, even with the best teachers and the most money in the world. - danielwsmithee, on 10/12/2007, -5/+36Yes it is the teachers' unions that are destroying our educational system. There was a large battle in Mass. recently between the Governor and the extremely powerful teachers' unions. I was very impressed by Romney's willingness to stand up and say the hard things that needed to be said. My wife is just starting a teaching career in Colorado.
The teachers' unions have large control here on the Colorado department of education. It took her over a year to cut through the bureaucracy to get her license. They now require all new teachers to have a temporary license that can only be used in a district funded training program. The district won't pay for the program so they just ignore new applicants. It is nothing more then a way for a teachers' union to eliminate competition in the work the place and guarantee their own jobs. - ConceptJunkie, on 10/12/2007, -3/+32texpundit:
Not only that, but many of us with lots of real world experience who would love to teach would have to take a massive pay cut in order to do so. - bw10009, on 10/12/2007, -3/+31It's not parents. It's the entire culture. We here in the US worship the stupid and embrace the vapid. Being intelligent, rational, and kind are all symbols of weakness. Physical power or beauty are the only virtues.
- JoeCool1986, on 10/12/2007, -4/+30Oh man, I was homeschooled up until highschool and everyday I love that fact a little more. If you guys still think that homeschooling is for weirdos or religious cults, think again, because it works. I wouldn't recommend homeschooling your kids through highschool though unless your kids have a very strong social network, lots of neighborhood friends, and activities. But until highschool, it worked like a charm for my two sisters and me. We're all three in college now (well, one is working right now and isn't in school) and we're flying through with great grades. And we don't have many social problems either. At least, I don't think we do. I DO get on digg a lot though. ;)
- MicrowavedH2o, on 10/12/2007, -6/+32Yes, the problems begin at home. The parents (do not want to be)/(are not) involved in their child's education. How can a child focus at school when their mom has been out partying all night and gives potato chips for breakfast? Then, the job falls onto the schools to educate, as well as instill personal skills, behavior, and character. Due to the incompetency of many school boards, large class sizes, and children that get no help at home, the school is not successful at this, and the companies have to do it as the uneducated population enters the workforce. As a person who has worked in fast food, you would be amazed as to what training is involved before someone can work there and how little some people know-- addition and subtraction skills for working the register and making change, reading instructions on how to filter fryer grease, using cup measures and following basic recipes...
- tidu, on 10/12/2007, -6/+31I think the big problem with this is that it's just the snowball effect. Kids that go throughout school without motivation stay unmovitvated, their parents just get used to it, it rubs off onto other kids in the class and soon enough most kids (and even teachers) just don't care anymore. I live in middle-class suburbs outisde Philadelphia, and my high school doesn't have air conditioning. This pretty much means to all the kids that the work stops when it gets hot in May.
The less and less kids want to learn, the less and less teachers want to have to deal with them. And the more and more it takes to get them back on track. - Paktu, on 10/12/2007, -3/+25The problem with America isn't stupidity. It's complacency, as you have just demonstrated.
- Paktu, on 10/12/2007, -2/+24Apparently, you can't find any holes in his arguments, so you resort to childish name calling. Good job!
- pile0nades, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21@Malshew: "Are teachers are paid sh*t compared to other nations."
I can tell. - FTLJohnson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19@topher06
OR: You create an environment where intelligent kids are bored and held back. They are placed in an evironment with students who don't care about learning, and care only about partying, bullying, and later possibly alcohol and drugs.
Underachieving kids however, are also affected by this mixed environment becuase they don't get the attention they need, and if they are developmentally challenged or have a learning disability they simple feel inadeqate and stupid.
Community leaders are not forged in public schools. Many of our community leaders are homeschooled or are dropouts... and a MAJORITY of our political leaders CERTAINLY went to private schools. How does that mesh with what you are saying? - armbar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20Even if he's a sensationalist, at least he's pointing out serious problems in the American education systems. Regardless of the messenger, the point stands.
- dclowd9901, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20"The parents are the biggest problem. They want the kids baby sat and don't want to have to deal with their child's education or problems that arise from that."
I disagree to an extent. Yes, parents are lazy, and aren't interacting with their kids, but that program made a great point about allowing a student to choose which school they would like to go to. If there's anything I've learned about the world in my short stint here, it's that competition is better for the customer. - RadiantBeing, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18If they can't challenge the arguements with facts and honest debate, they inevitably reach for the ad hominems.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18Schools should be doing MUCH better considering the enormous amount of funding they get. However, the problem still sits with the parents and the general culture which appreciates stupidity and popularity over anything else.
The woman in the video mentioned at the front of the segment "My son is 18 and he can't read".
Well, who's ***** fault is _that_?! What kind of idiot lets their kid spend 18 years not knowing how to read? My mother took time to read to me EVERY night an I was reading before I even started attending school. By fifth grade, I had the tested reading comprehension and spelling ability of a third year college student (I believe this was the Peabody test or something).
I attended an average school district. I did not come from a wealthy family (in fact, I never knew my real dad, was abused like crazy by my step dad and came from what was essentially far BELOW poverty). I was forced to spend almost all of my time in a sport I hated and even though every day I was scared and nervous and having a difficult time focusing on school (because I was more concerned about what I would have to endure back at home), I still excelled.
So please, for *****'s sake, tell me how a parent can honestly sit there and blame a SCHOOL for not teaching her kid to read in 18 years? Get off your ***** ass, watch a little less television and get involved in educating your child. Blaming the school 18 years later doesn't help a god damn person. Whether it should have been the school's responsibility or not doesn't change the fact that your kid can't read.
I actually atttended a fairly sucky school and even I as a kid recognized that if I just went with whatever the school was offering me, I would never make it in life. I knew they should have been doing more and expecting more from me and providing more chances and a better education for me, but they weren't. And a much as I might bitch and moan about that, bitching and moaning will never make things right. So I had to suck it up at twelve years old and start thinking about how I would improve my own life on my own, regardless of who else did what and who else failed me.
Life is NOT fair. You can do two things about it. You can spend your energy bitching about how life isn't fair and be where you are today ten years from now -- or you can take responsibility and accept that - fair or not - only you can and will look out for you.
I think we teach children (and they become parents with this mindset later in life) that you should just do the minimal amount required in life and that if the government doesn't force it on you or see fit to tend to you in their institutions in a particular way, then you shouldn't bother with it. And that will fail society in the long run.
Hell, just look at the adults we have today. A huge percentage can not name the last three presidents. Most probably could not name the 50 states, much less find them on a map. And I would say more than half couldn't find Iraq or France or Japan on a map.
Unless you accept responsibility for YOU and take care of YOU, we're all doomed. - doodlebumm, on 10/12/2007, -12/+27Did anyone *WATCH* the video?
- Odweaver, on 10/12/2007, -6/+21Parents not the schools. Parents allow thier children to make asses of themselves when little, they will be asses when they grow up.
- dobey123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15We can't encourage competition because that creates winners and loser, and then someones feelings might get hurt and that wouldn't be very nice now would it.
/sarcasm - FTLJohnson, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17A tool of freedom?
- alienz, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16@texpundit
I have known quite a number of people with real-world experience try and become teachers I think the record was 1 year for how long they lasted. People think it's so freaking simple, you just come in and teach and kids learn.
Yeah well try teaching in lower class neighborhoods, we'll see just how much of the problem is caused by idiot teachers who just barely passed their exams. - MikeCampo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15@tnerb
I agree, Ontario has some horrendous teachers. Some of my grade 12 teachers, more specifically chemistry and math, were sometimes unable to complete the homework that they assigned to us. We would spend half the class taking up one question because they were unsure of the correct methods. The funny thing is that after years of University and teachers college, you would think they would at least understand a grade 12 level of the field they are professionals in. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13You forget: today's society is the Entitlement Society. People don't have to *earn* much of anything anymore -- the government is expected to hand it to them.
And we wonder why our kids do badly in school. - yonas, on 10/12/2007, -9/+21@ dave_colorado -- you're a racist *****. ***** off.
- ArcaneDevice, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11all I hear are people giving excuses for kids who are lazy little punks. You either want to learn something or you don't.
When you reach your teenage years there is no excuse. You want to learn something that you feel your school isn't giving you ... do it yourself. This generation have access to the simplest, fastest and most fun method of learning in history, the internet. There's no excuse for not knowing basic textbook skills, facts and history.
My school 18 years ago had 32+ class sizes, boring teachers, frightening teachers, fun teachers, dull lessons, out of touch lessons ... not a new concept, every school has them. It's not an excuse. Stop acting like a dick and have some responsibility and respect and then the teachers might in return. - dawgma, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Oh my God.
I was watching that show for 20 min. before I realized that students in America are *assigned* to schools, and that it is difficult to change schools.
It *never* would have occured to me that the US would have such a restriction! Never.... That just sounds ludicruous! It should be common sense that a person should be able to go to the educational institution of their choice. Common-*****-sense. Especially for a country supposedly built around the freedom of their citizens!
How did this ever happen to you guys?? - zirtbow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10I didn't understand what your trying to say. Could you pass me on to your next post? I promise I will try harder to understand next time. I PROMISE!
- XxXoldsaltXxX, on 10/12/2007, -10/+20Honestly i just think its today's culture. All the bam margeras and emo kids out there have established a huge "I do not give a *****" attitude about everything.
- WeeklyGeek, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12I blame rap people.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I agree with you, but that is frankly beside the point.
You know if your child sucks at reading, writing, math or science. You know if they're intelligent or not. You know if they are falling behind. You don't need an "idiot light" to guage where your child is at in the world.
So let's say, instead of a child, we're talking about a car. You take your car to the mechanic for a tuneup. A day later, you notice the idiot light beaming at you about low oil. You say to yourself "whatever, I just took it to the mechanic, so it's not my problem!".
And you continue to drive that car for weeks, completely ignoring the giant flashing "low oil" idiot light. And then when the car finally dies and you've done long term damage to it, you return to the mechanic and blame him, because he should have put oil in it.
Did the mechanic fail at his duty? YES
Did you see warning signs of problems with your car? YES
Should you have heeded those signs and done something about it? YES
Just because someone else should have done something doesn't mean you have the right to look the other way when a problem arises. Because if you do, you're going to end up with a useless heap of junk on the side of the road that you can't drive. And when your car is no longer working, it doesn't much matter what the mechanic should have done -- becuase you had the chance to clearly see what was wrong and take action to fix it... but you didn't... and now you are paying the price.
The only difference here is that your inaction and laziness results in a child who has to pay the price.
So while teachers and their unions are doing a miserable job despite an enormous budget (the state I come from spends 57% or more of every tax dollar on education), the ball ultimately is in the hands of the parents. Period. - RandomGuySteve, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12Please don't tell me you respect either one of them. Moore is a lying sensationalist and Limbaugh is a hypocritical junkie.
- KyleRayner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9And apathy. Its "I dont know, and I dont really care anyway."
- hodyoaten, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9What bugs me is that stupidity is largely viewed as a virtue in America. Not dumbness, mind you, but stupidity. I'm not sure where you would find good intellectual conversation... even in coffeehouses it's mostly just pseudointellectual B.S.
- Kbennett, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Actually, there are some good comments so far (bioshocker and Paktu), but GregR, in my opinion hits the biggest problem on the head. Parenting in the US is utter crap right now. Every parent wants their kid to do well, but isn't willing to work to teach their kid to earn that achievement. Parents want the easy road, and when it comes to education, there is no such thing.
- celopes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8BlueX should be getting more thumbs up here. Not just because he is quoting a genius...
What Twain said is at the core of the problem: parents confuse instruction (what the school provides) with education (what I should provide as a parent and what my kid should seek from life). They leave everything to the school and assume responsibility for nothing.
Operating word here is responsibility! All over the world there is a crisis of responsibility where people are embracing the "blame someone else first" motto. But nowhere it is more pronounced than in this country.
You want your kid to succeed? It is more than just good grades. It is about getting involved and providing an environment that is healthy for their development. Experiences that will broaden their horizons. All that happens in parallel with instruction, but it needs to happen.
Once in a discussion about education with a fellow parent of a first grader, the guy complained about the teacher and the amount of homework she sent home. I assumed he was complaining it WASN'T ENOUGH. He was complaining it was too much!!! The same guy later confessed that reading wasn't one of his favorite activities "if you know what I mean" (his words). No, I didn't.
Another thing that just doesn't make any sense to me is the separation of grown-ups and children. Maybe because I wasn't raised in the US by American parents. Children can and should be involved in almost all discussions and subjects. And no question should go unanswered during those talks. It amazes me when I see American parents trying to "protect" their children from issues by discouraging their participation.
Luckily, it is not a trend that all Americans subscribe to. - jayhawk, on 10/12/2007, -13/+21I have taught in 2 districts where we didn't even have a teachers union. Our scores were no different than scores from other districts with similar students.
In the one district where I had a union, the union was able to help ensure that I was spending more time on instruction with my students and less time in hall duty and recess duty and lunchroom duty. The union was instrumental in ensuring that I had time to work more individually with the students who needed it most.
Unions take a beating, but my experience is that they are actually helping me to be a teacher and not everything else. Kudos to teaching unions.
Further, there's no evidence that exists demonstrating that providing schools of choice is any more effective than not doing so. That's just like the typical school board member who doesn't understand education . . . throw money at an idea that sounds neat in theory.
School boards are being poisoned all across the country by people who think Intelligent Design is worthwhile study and that evolution is flawed science. Maybe paying more attention to local school board elections would be a good place to start in trying to improve schools. - karmakanic, on 10/12/2007, -6/+14@PowerCow
Could you have included more misspellings and grammatical errors in your posting?
A Poster Child, you are... - friend18, on 10/12/2007, -12/+19Yeah in Asian cultures kids also burn down their homes out of fear of showing their parents their bad grades.
- DalekoProvidek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Local school district budget amounts:
1. Earmarked for getting mentally handicapped kids to pass the "No Child Left Behind" exam (and thereby ensure Federal money for the district): $8M.
2. Earmarked for Gifted and Talented Education programs: $30K.
Anyone else see a problem in the discrepancy? - Dayz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9I blame people for our failures. Teacher get too close to the students and feel bad for them when they have to fail them so they just pass the kid. I've seen it happen and thats what makes "Stupid in America" When you pass the kid in the next class when you know he should of failed he doesnt understand the new material because he never understood the old material. Understand what I'm trying to say?
- doodlebumm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I substituted at my daughter's Jr High when I had been laid off from my job. I substituted for the math teacher that was considered by faculty, kids, and parents to be one of the test teachers in the school. My daughter said that the kids told her that I did a better job of teaching the concepts (they understood the math concepts better afterward) than the regular teacher. I do not have a teaching certificate, and I was just a substitute. I do have a minor in math, but I've not been in school myself for over 20 years. I also helped my daughter out this last year in her pre-calculus class, and in a shorter time than the teacher spent in class teaching the same stuff, taught my daughter (and her friend) things so that they were now understandable to them. They are both straight A students, and have been all through school. I'm not patting myself on the back, I'm appalled at the lack of teaching ability of the teachers to teach my children.
My other daughter (6th grade) had a teacher this last year would always talk on her cell phone and text message through out the day. After parents complained to the principle she stopped, but it took concerted efforts by many parents to get that type of behavior changed.
The teachers for the most part have a hard job, and I think they are to be commended for going into teaching, but you can't tell me that it is the parents fault rather than the school system.
FWIW, we live in one of the best areas for schools in the state, and it is still bad. - dclowd9901, on 10/12/2007, -7/+14"Would five water companies, each with their separate pipelines and infrastructure serving the same market population make any sense? Would multiple toll highways serving the same routes make any sense? Would five or six or seven loud, smelly garbage trucks going down your street early every morning make any sense?
For the simple things like toothpaste, yeah, I can see that competition is "good". But there is another end of the spectrum. To think that privatizing certain services will auto-magically make them "competitive" or "responsive" or better is not merely naive, it's downright stupid. And I think education is one of them."
Sometimes, you ***** make it too easy. Yes, please dissect my meaning so that it comes out wrong, and make sure you ignore common sense, and assume I'm an idiot.
Or try this. Freeways: What if voters, instead of their chosen representatives picked the companies who worked on their freeways? You not only eliminate payola issues, but you also get companies more willing to please the general public who will be using those freeways and have to deal with the construction delays and problems of that nature. See, more privatized, less public. Better. You could apply this same logic with any of your selections.
And I believe schools should be funded entirely by students who attend them. There's no point in making every tax-payer responsible to pick up the cost of education, when it is so damned inefficient. Take it from the son of a teacher. There are way too many teachers in the profession that need to be weeded out. They ended up there, because, where they wanted to go, they lost focus and got lazy. Right now, if you wanted to, you could go apply at a school somewhere to be a teacher, and I would almost guarantee that you'd get a job. That's the way they are right now. And it's not getting any better, when it's being controlled by a bureaucratic government, and no incentive to get any better.
It's a simple equation, because I know I'll need to dumb it down for you: School does well -> attracts students -> becomes better. If school does badly -> loses students ->fails and closes down. The ultimate product here is our children's education. If that product is poor, then the school would go out of business. It weeds out the bad, and the good rises to the surface.
We tried it your way. It's not working. Now let's try something else that IS working. -
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