What is Digg?105 Comments
- Alphabet, on 10/12/2007, -11/+42yea, and the other 1/5 must have been failures because of high school too. It's all about work ethics. Remember how your high school days were? Did you study or watch tv all the time? Now look at the people who got all A's in their classes. Did they study or watch tv all the time?
All because people ***** around in high school doesn't mean it's the high school's fault. The high school did their job trying to teach. It's your job to try to learn. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16At least it's not 5/4 of graduates. :))
- Flanker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14Robots, Riding, and ROFL
- NSMike, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15No no no no no! Why the crap are people listening to these standardized test morons?!
Just because someone doesn't take a test well does not mean they're not ready for college. I didn't take the ACT, but I took the SAT, and I have to say that it was NO measure of anything that had to do with college. 1/20th of my college career was math. The rest was language. Math was my weak point on the SAT. Then I get to college, find out I have to take only basic math classes, get those out of the way, and focus on my degree.
Standardized Testing != Real College Experiences.
On another note, NOT EVERYONE IS MEANT TO GO TO COLLEGE. This is a yuppie ideal, proliferated by the common perception that everyone has to be a businessman or some other white-collar professional anymore. I was talking with a woman I worked with about her son a while back. I was about 22 years old, four months after I graduated from college. He was just about to graduate high school. I automatically asked, "Where's he going to college?" And when she said, "Oh no, he's not college material," I was shocked. I had fallen victim to this idea that we ALL need to go to college. That's just what people DID after all. Then I realized it made sense. A tremendous amount of sense. Being realistic and honest, and knowing your limits saves everyone a great deal of trouble. So, aside from innacurate standardized testing, the problem is the perception that EVERYONE is capable of getting a degree. There are a select few of us out there with them. Let's not make the job market less valuable by tampering with that, shall we? - elastikos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+134/5ths of politicians not fit for office?
- ShrimpCrackers, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15I agree with Alphabet. Speaking about my experience in Asia, as an Asian person, you train just to pass tests. When it comes to it, you wonder why most Asians are generally uncreative to solutions to problems while our American counterparts are.
There are tradeoffs, one thing is for sure, I had to work my ass off to study, none of my aced tests were done without sweating it, just like everything else.
On the otherhand, check out the highschool dropout rates. They haven't improved much since the 1990's.
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/dropout/a5.asp
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2005/dropout2001/sec_3.asp
Keep in mind, this includes alternative degrees like GED and so forth, so the numbers are actually worse. I remember API saying that only 36% of Asian Americans graduated on time with a highschool diploma and no alternatives. Makes you wonder how it is for everyone else. - esuomynona, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11@original poster
Your assumption is that the purpose of high school is to prepare for college.
Granted, the state of schools in general does not provide "quality assurance", but not everyone has the ambition or desire to go to college. And some of those graduating from college do not actually know the material or possess the skills that their degrees would lead you to believe they have.
Some students get to high school and have not mastered 3rd grade level math. Long division is near impossible for some. They get angry when they can't have a calculator. English is their first language but they can't pass and English class. They pass Spanish only because the Spanish teacher can't actually speak Spanish.
It is too late for the kids who get to high school and do not know the basic material from gradeschool.
The problem with public schools is that they have to take kids who don't actually want to go to school. Private schools have an advantage that they can not accept the kids who don't want to go to school, and those who don't actually care enough to go to school certainly don't care enough to pay to go to school.
You can't force someone to learn. - sinjar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11I thought I heard it was eight tenths
- sgtpinky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9I'm an engineer. I lecture in Finite Element Methods for structural engineering, and every year about 10 out of 80 students are hopeless.
The problem that we have in Australia is that the universities are now 60% funded by full fee paying international students. How do you turn away someone that wants to pay you $20k a year!!? It's dropping the standard badly. A high distinction (best mark) is now 80% or above!!!! I remember when it was 90%. It's getting lower and lower, so that more students end up with a good mark on the final certificate, even though they are weak students. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Good. More people to mow my lawn.
- JangoFett, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I think that might be a bit low. 999/1000 sounds a little closer.
- Saintlink, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6ShrimpCrackers,
Right on. Most public education forces you to train for tests instead of being objective thinkers. Even now that I'm in college it is shocking how much we're forced to study just so we can feed the Scantron God™ another sheet of paper. We aren't producing logical, well-formed adults. We're producing machines trained to accept group think. This is anti-intellectual and dangerous. - SpacemanSpiff, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8I think the more important question is should we even have these so-called "standardized" tests anymore. I know people who scored very low on their SAT and ACT, yet excelled in college. I also know people who did the opposite.
Plus, TFA says that only 40% of high school graduates take the ACT. I don't think that's a good indicator of the other 60%'s performance. - Kilroy2004, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@eonblue - You sound like an idiot to me. "I was never challenged in high school." "The classes that gave busy work I failed because I was too lazy to do the work" "The first time I didn't ace a class was because I was finally challenged."
All this tells me the following:
1) You were too lazy to find classes that challenged you or work-studies that challenged you.
2) Stuff that you don't like, you don't do.
3) You're smart, but you're self-involved and think you're better than everyone else.
Here's a hint - don't tell this story at a job interview. I don't think anyone would hire you. - Saintlink, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7@becominglumberg:
I've spent time in public, private and homeschool environments. I wasn't scared to try all there was to offer. I completed my HS degree and I'm currently in college. My grades on the ACT were in the top 4% of all students entering college, despite spending more of my childhood being homeschooled than the other two methods I mentioned.
I find the lack of tolerance for homeschoolers in general as some sort of social outcasts distasteful to say the least. If you come into contact with one already armed with that mindset are you not creating a self-fulfilling prophecy? I ask you to ponder that before applying blanket statements against homeschoolers. There are always exceptions to the rule, however many receive quality educations.
For further reading I suggest firing up google for 'John Taylor Gato'. He has written groundbreaking work in the area of education of children and teenagers. I highly encourage you to take the time out and invest in an alternate viewpoint. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5In my county, 50% of high school kids pass their standardized tests.
Then they breakdown that %. Of those in the city schools. 14% pass the standardized tests, and in the suburbs, 95% pass the same tests.
The city schools also spend twice as much per student. Go figure.
Take the kids who think thuggin and pimpin are valid careers out of the equation, and I bet all the scores will go up. - Durinthal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@Alphabet
"Now look at the people who got all A's in their classes. Did they study or watch tv all the time?"
I was on the computer all the time. 3.96 unweighted GPA, 34 ACT, 1390 SAT (pre-writing addition). I averaged less than an hour a day working on anything school related at home, and that's only because of papers I had to write for English. There was only a single AP class in my high school (English lit.), and overall I was horribly prepared for college.. All of my classes were far too easy, so I never developed any sort of study habit.
This was in a public high school in rural northern Ohio, by the way. There were about 110 students per class year. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Nice comment. Being black poor and stupid with gold teeth is somehow the cool thing these days.
- Saintlink, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6The problem lies with expecting a President to do the job parents, teachers and children. All the tests, taxes and textbooks will change this. Education should be very much a state and local matter. To try and bring the Feds in on a subject such as education is not being very pragmatic. How can they teach us how to think when they can't even balance their own checkbook? People on the local level need to come up with alternative solutions instead of waiting for a phantom Presidential education savior.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4One problem with public high schools is that they don't really teach core stuff any more. I know that basic math is taught and a few basic English courses, but more and more the curriculum is about freedom of expression.
Student:"I think robots are cool."
Admin:"Oh, then take 12 hours of computer/robot courses a week."
Student:"I like ponies, too!"
Admin:"Then take horse riding as your PE."
Student:"I like to make people laugh."
Admin:"Oh, then take these acting courses."
Student's Parent:"What about the three R's?"
Admin and Student:[blank stares] - GCRaya, on 10/12/2007, -10/+14And this isn't just the Bush Administrations problem. Clinton did absolutely nothing to help this. He even dumb downed the tests so the kids would get better scores.
- ShrimpCrackers, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7GCRaya should not be dugg down, the government reports here seem to support his assertion that since the 1980's most of our presidents did not do enough for education:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/dropout/a5.asp
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2005/dropout2001/sec_3.asp - VeryAngryJim, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I'm in college now, and I'm often amazed by the idiots I come across. When I was an engineer I constantly ran into other engineering students whose SAT scores were shameful and who probably should have never been admitted to an engineering program to begin with.
I said I was an engineer, I switched majors and I'm in the air traffic control program now. I really think the bigger problem with schools these days is that students graduate high school not having a firm grasp of what they really want to do. I honestly cannot think of a single person I know who hasn't changed their major at least once. One of the smartest guys from my high school has changed at least 5 times already, no joke. - SpacemanSpiff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Interesting timing for this considering they just released a statement saying that the class of 2006 posted the highest ACT scores since 1991. Apparently that other one-fifth is very well prepared.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/08/15/act.scores.ap/index.html - chatwithaninja, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Of course adding funds to the government education system only encourages poorer performance... Why? Which schools get the additional funds? That ones that are failing the worst.
We currently have a system of rewarding the failures, and not the successes.
If your business got paid more when they don't do their job than when they do - Will the job get done? Of course not. - becominglumberg, on 10/12/2007, -8/+12@Saintlink->
My cousins from Alabama were home schooled, and currently believe that dinosaurs and man lived on earth at the same time.
Not all alternatives are good alternatives. I think public ed should be franchiesed... andy company can get open a public school, but the ones that fail to perform do not get their charter returned to them. - 15charmaxwtf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I always thought the problem would be after university--but if they are not ready for uni I can only guess what they would be like for the real world.
Also, why are they called colleges in America? in the UK colleges are for 11-18 years, and also for 16-18. - richiestang78, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3High school is another 4 years of middle school. Also I find the test interesting since the downfall of public schools have been standardized testing.
- georgelogy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3OK!
- ahhell, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Because SATs are a valuable test.
All it is is regurgitating memorized garbage. Not exactly a "real world" test, now is it. - chatwithaninja, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Government schools are based on an Utopian institution of forced schooling?
I was refered to this archived article about the basis for the US governement schools.
http://members.iquest.net/~macihms/Education/pubnight.html
A quick blurb from the article:
"So the world got compulsion schooling at the end of a state bayonet for the first time in human history; modern forced schooling started in Prussia in 1819 with a clear vision of what centralized schools could deliver: 1. Obedient soldiers to the army; 2. Obedient workers to the mines; 3. Well subordinated civil servants to government; 4. Well subordinated clerks to industry 5. Citizens who thought alike about major issues."
And I find this hilarious:
"Prussia concocted a method based on complex fragmentations to ensure that its school products would fit the grand social design. Some of this method involved dividing whole ideas into school subjects, each further divisible, some of it involved short periods punctuated by a horn so that self-motivation in study would be muted by ceaseless interruptions."
Its a long interesting article so get a snack. - Scynet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Can someone find a PDF or somesuch of a typical test? Would be interesting to see how hard they are on a global scale.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5This just in: "Four-Fifths of U.S. College Graduates Not Ready for the real world."
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2And in the US, a University is a collection of colleges.
So why do you Brits call trucks "Lorries"
That's what we call a bunch of girls named Lori. - NSMike, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2In regular business, IT jobs are generally misunderstood. There are LOTS of jobs out there that require no degree at all, and pay GENEROUSLY. Case-in-point, my father. He went into the Navy during Vietnam. After that, he married my mother and entered the workforce as a janitor in a nuclear power plant. Now, he's an Instrument and Control technician, and makes nearly six figures from that, without ever having any college education.
- kingkilr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Its a joint responsibility of the students to try to learn and the teacher to be A TEACHER. There are schools where the teachers don't even bother anymore.
See the movie The Ron Clark Story it is really good(on TNT) - darkstar949, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2There is a bit more to it than that as well - when the entire institution is named College (i.e. "Harvard College") then it typically means that they awards Associates and Bachelor degrees. When the entire institution is named University (i.e. "Harvard University") it typically means that they award Graduate degrees as well (i.e. Master of Science).
- NSMike, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2In the US, a college is a specialized school, or a smaller school. For example, where I went to school was originally a college for teachers. Then they expanded their base of course content to include other degrees, and became a University. Universities are made up of "colleges," for example, my degree was in the College of Arts and Sciences. There's the College of Business, the College of Fine Arts, etc.
- Farkeologist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Alphabet: I goofed off, hardly studied, never had homework (because I did it all in school), and still graduated HS near the top of my class.
High Schools in the US (public ones, anyhow) are TOO DAMNED EASY, and we're STILL passing people through them even though they clearly can't read/write. Part of what I don't understand is how kids even GET to High School without these skills. Ta HELL with High School, the problem's in the Elementary schools!! - darkstar949, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I agree that not everyone is meant to go to college - and for that matter most of the jobs that are out there do not require a four year degree either. The majority of jobs that currently "require" a four year degree could easily be taught in one year of study, and some of the more technical ones in about two years.
Case and point - webmaster. When I was job hunting awhile back a good number of webmaster jobs wanted you to have a four year degree - and some of them even demanded a degree in Computer Science. Does a webmaster really need that much education - probably not. But the job market overall is trending more towards white collar jobs being associated with a four year degree. - darkstar949, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The problem is that when you teach for an exam the student will typically memorize and regurgitate the material without ever really ever understanding it. Eventually when you merely memorize information you start to lose it over time, when you are taught the principles of the information it sticks with you longer, and you can build off of it.
- Kostadinos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Rather than blame the schools why don't we look at the parents?
What has failed our children is not the education system, but the American parent.
Stop codling little Johnny, and take responsibility for making sure that he takes his education seriously.
Don’t stick your kids in front of video games and televisions for 8 hours a day, and then turn around and blame the education system because your child is incapable of forming a coherent statement or solving a simple math equation.
Here’s a news flash, parents who take an active role in their children’s education have kids that succed.
Those that fail to nurture their children and don’t take an active role in their education blame the system, when the reality is that the onus is on them.
The schools have your kids for 6 or 7 hours day. YOU have them for the other 17-18 hours.
Make sure they do their homework. Make sure they read a book for an hour or two a day instead of watching T.V. or playing video games. Discuss current event with them. Take them to Libraries and Museums. Expose them to different cultures and ideas.
This is your job, Mom’s and Dad’s. Don’t blame the teachers and the schools when you fail to do this.
Take responsibility for you child’s education, or shut the hell up when they fail. - iceperson, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4"Right on. Most public education forces you to train for tests instead of being objective thinkers. Even now that I'm in college it is shocking how much we're forced to study just so we can feed the Scantron God™ another sheet of paper. We aren't producing logical, well-formed adults. We're producing machines trained to accept group think. This is anti-intellectual and dangerous."
How else would they produce little brainwashed communists? - kingkilr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2how is that fair to the kids who get stuck in a class with hooligans
some of them want to learn but need help, do you think they will get it in that class? - cubicu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well, I think the reason most people don't know what they want to do at 18 is because they don't think about it beforehand. They just go into college thinking that it'll all work out then. But switching majors wastes a lot of money and time. As for myself, I've been thinking about what I want to do ever since I was in elementary school. My parents encouraged this by giving me opportunities to explore different careers. Throughout high school, I chose the courses I took based on the career I wanted to have. Now I'm about to enter college and I have it all planned out. Now, there is always the possibility that I will change my mind, but at least I have a good idea of what I want to do.
- BionicBeefpile, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You're joking, right?
Ever since "No Child Left Behind", *all* that gets taught are the core subjects covered by the standardized tests, to the exclusion of almost everything else.
If the students do badly on the "progress" tests, the school gets slammed with penalties, so they know where their bread is buttered - Murdats, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3thank god they only live in America then and not the real world
America, the land of liability and lawsuits, making it into the country of rounded corners - speel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1...and the question still remains .. how do you teach todays generation? seems like no one knows.
- eonblue, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@"eonblue - You sound like an idiot to me. "I was never challenged in high school." "The classes that gave busy work I failed because I was too lazy to do the work" "The first time I didn't ace a class was because I was finally challenged."
All this tells me the following:
1) You were too lazy to find classes that challenged you or work-studies that challenged you.
2) Stuff that you don't like, you don't do.
3) You're smart, but you're self-involved and think you're better than everyone else.
Here's a hint - don't tell this story at a job interview. I don't think anyone would hire you."
Interpret it as you wish.
However:
1. Workstudies were never mentioned, so it never would not have crossed my mind. In high school you don't get to chose classes, past 2 electives and which type of science you want(physics/chem/bio). You are locked into your english math and history. Which was not arranged in any way shape or form by ability. I'll point out every class I elected to take I got a 3.5+ in as well as math. You've got to realize as a kid I generally don't know how to find those things. The only light at the end of the tunnel was running start, which I would have done if I didn't find my program first. (so I did look for somethign more challengeing and there was a positive result)
2. I did it for a while. Infact, I did it for my freshmen and half my sophmore year. But how is homework presented? Every teacher I talked to said it's so you can pass a test or write a paper well. I got sick of doing it all in the 10 minutes before class. It was a pointless exercise in doing meaningless work. (I scored b or higher on every test in every class, including history/english, and I scored b or higher on every paper I wrote)
3. After re-reading it it looks like I did portray it as me being "better" then everyone else. I cannot say that I am, but I certainly can say I was different, and I did have a lot less trouble with understanding/remembering things then 2/3ish of other students. I can say I finished with the feeling of being held back. I can also say that there were indeed students that were more intelligent and much harder working.
I feel your personal attack was unneccesary, but whatever.
(btw I'm smart enough to know how to paint it at a job interview;) should i ever want to bring it up) -
Show 51 - 100 of 105 discussions
Digg is coming to a city (and computer) near you! Check out all the details on our 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is