USA EDUCATION: An Inconventient Truth

[Josiah]

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Disclaimer: I'm not a teacher. I'm married to a former one.... I'm friends with many... I've had a lot of them (lol)... but I'm not one of them.


The Teacher Unions and politicians will admit the horrible state of lower education in our country.... we spend a LOT (we're near the top in education spending per student) and our results are near the bottom. This has been decried for decades.


The unions and the politicians tell you the ANSWER is...
1. Better pay and job security for teachers
2. Smaller classes
3. Mandated preschool
4. Beautiful, modern, luxurious schools
5. Starting school later
6. School uniform
7. Better curriculum
8. More testing, less testing... more homework, less homework


TRUTH IS.... some of those things help.... a bit... sometimes..... but typically all it does is cost more.


Awhile back, I listened... curiously.... to a discussion between 2 teachers and a principle. Their UNIVERSAL point: By far, the factor that truly matters.... the one factor that is more meaningful than all the rest combined (including the quality of the teacher, these teachers said)... is the PARENTS. The values they have... the involvement they take.


Evidence?

+ The principle noted that her private/Christian school does the identical same testing each year that the public school district does, and they ALWAYS far, far exceed the scores of the public schools. But they spend less than HALF the money the public schools do, they pay their teachers considerably less, they have older (and less fancy) facilities. So why the much better scores? To quote her, "When parents are spending $700 per month on tuition for each kid, they CARE about their education." They make sure the kids are in school... ready to learn.... they make sure homework is done and study is accomplished... they attend conferences, converse with the teachers, get involved. And they convey their VALUE to their kids. The difference, she freely admitted, was not so much the school... it was the parents.


+ Another said that she can meet the parents of her kids and predict with great accuracy how well their child will do in school. She noted that in her former district, there was an elementary school where almost 100% of the students were from Chinese immigrant families... and that school was ALWAYS way, way up at the top in scores.... another school, with kids from different culture... always way at the bottom. Same curriculum.... same nice facilities... same quality teachers with the same pay.... same IQ's... same money spent. Difference? Parents.


+ I worked with a lady who at one time was a preschool director. She commented that there are all these "studies" that say kids from high quality preschools do better in their school work - even through high school. She commented the issue is not the preschools.... parents who can afford such top quality schools CARE about education, and that value doesn't disappear as the child gets older. When those studies look at preschools paid by the government in poor communities, suddenly the advantage mostly disappears.


No one likes to admit it..... If we Americans want to turn around the dismal situation of lower education in this country, a LOT more parents need to value education in this country.... care..... get involved.... be supportive. Whether our child is in private or public school or home schooled. Throwing more money at the problem... while the religion of the left.... does remarkably little good. And it's clear the CONSTANT new programs we've seen in the past 50 years also never seem to change the situation very much. IF (and that may be the real issue here)... IF we Americans actually give a rip about the dismal quality and enormous expense of lower education in this country.... by far the biggest factor is staring at us in the mirror.



End of rant.



- Josiah




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[JRT]

First class rant. I taught teens for almost 40 years at both the high school and university level. Parents and cultural values are immensely important. But even so there are other factors too. I remember when I congratulated Orlando D. and told him sincerely what a joy he was as a student, he smiled and replied "My brother starts grade 9 next semester." OMG, I wish that I had never met his brother. Two kids in the same family can be night and day different.

 

[Josiah]

First class rant. I taught teens for almost 40 years at both the high school and university level. Parents and cultural values are immensely important. But even so there are other factors too. I remember when I congratulated Orlando D. and told him sincerely what a joy he was as a student, he smiled and replied "My brother starts grade 9 next semester." OMG, I wish that I had never met his brother. Two kids in the same family can be night and day different.

Thanks for sharing that!

Yup, parenting has no guarantees (Look what happened to both God's kids in the Garden).... good to keep that in mind.

But I think the general principle holds up well.... and doesn't cost the taxpayers one dime.

 

[Lamb]

As most of you know, I used to be a substitute teacher...but I was also a Girl Scout leader for many years as well as Room parent for not only my daughter's class but other classes where the parents wouldn't step up to help.

In my experience, it was the stay at home moms who had children who were the brightest in the class as well as the most behaved. There were very few exceptions to that and those exceptions were where the dads were home when mom worked (different shift hours). Having a parent around instead of being stuck in daycare really made a difference.

Getting onto the high school level, it didn't matter as much if mom was home at that point as long as they had her there in their early childhood years.

One of my saddest memories from Girl Scouts was where a girl was crying because her mom didn't show up for a ceremony. Her mom forgot to go because she was tired from her job. She was a single parent so it's not like she was to blame for having to work...but maybe she needed a better calendar. The girl told me, "My mom doesn't care about me."

I think parents need to make that effort in their children's lives to help them succeed. Yes, there are siblings who turn out differently and maybe genetics plays a factor into that. I don't know.

 

[tango]

From what I gather from assorted gleanings from teachers I've known over the years...

It used to be that kids would go to school (when I was a kid there was no such thing as preschool) they would already know the basic stuff you'd expect them to know at age 5 or so. They could generally play with other kids, perform basic social functions appropriate for the age, sit still for a reasonable time, and so on. As time progressed it seemed the constant complaints were that people were totally unprepared and had to be taught things they were previously expected to know.

Not surprisingly it followed them through the age ranges, from entry-level schoolteachers apparently being expected to teach children how to play, share etc, to secondary schooling being expected to fill in what it used to be safe to assume someone would have learned by age 11-12, to universities complaining that they spent the first year filling what they could previously assume would be covered at school, to employers complaining that the universities spit people out armed to the teeth with pieces of paper saying what they can do but who lack basic life skills, and so on.

I often wonder just how much this is a function of absent parents. When I was at school the norm was that a kid in school would have two parents at home, and the chances are one of them (usually the mother) would either stay at home to keep house or have a job that fit around school hours. In my class of 30 I think there were two kids who didn't have a father at home (one had died, one had left). Now it seems pretty much assumed that kids will be shuttled back and forth between parents who are estranged or separated. One friend (married with three kids) recently commented that he feels like he's in some kind of twilight zone where his family setup is considered unusual and everything has been turned on its head.

Maybe it ultimately comes down to the "it's all about me" mentality. If everything is about me then it follows that my spouse, my children, all take second place to chasing my own desires. And then we wonder why it all breaks apart.

 

[MennoSota]

Every child starts at a different knowledge point in the timeline of formal education. But, standardized testing says that all students must reach the same spot at the same time. Those who haven't reached the spot are said to have fallen behind. From casual observation this seems like it should be easy. However, every person walks their own route up the mountain of education while being told they have to reach the same mile marker at the same time as others.
Some get an easy route where others encourage them and give them many resources to make it to the mile marker. Others have no one assisting and have cliffs to climb, rock slides to maneuver, swamps to wade through, landmines to dodge. But...our politicians say that teachers are failing students because some students are not getting to the mile marker. More and more responsibilities are tossed on teachers. More tests are administered. More students struggle to get to the mile marker.
Private schools are not required to teach all children. They can pick from the kids who have many resources and then proudly pat themselves on the back while they ignore the kids with no resources.
Public schools are told they must not leave any child behind and provided limited resources to ensure that every child, no matter the path the child must take to the mile marker, must reach the marker at the same time. If the child doesn't make it, it must be the fault of the schools. So, the schools, with their limited resources, must cut up their pie between administrators, teachers, special Ed teachers and Paras, psychologists, social workers, bus drivers, cooks, janitors, etc. All these are hired to try help learners get through the learners personal path, filled with obstacles, and still get to the mile marker where private school learners are also meeting.
Can anyone here not see how hard this task is to accomplish for every single learner?
I spent nearly 20 years working with and teaching the most at-risk students in Minnesota. Many expected to be in jail or dead by age 25. Walk their path and see how hard it is. Most of you would fail on their path and become utterly discouraged. As an educator you give all that you can give to help, but it gets discouraging when you jump into the river to try save a drowning student and all you get is politicians and society standing on the banks of the shore telling you that you are doing it wrong while you struggle, neck deep, to save the child you have grown to love.
I have spent much of my life, neck deep in the waters. It breaks your heart when your child isn't saved and you watch her/him die while you try so hard to save them. You grow tough skin. You tune out the worthless noise of the idiots on the shores who won't sully themselves to get dirty or wet. All they end up doing is throwing more weights on to your shoulder and ask why you're not being successful. I have little good to say to such fools in their ivory towers.

 

[FredVB]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X5dUt-AiblE&feature=youtu.be

 

[FredVB]

https://www.outdoortopia.org/blog/b...jv4sWCzqm1aPteWB-XT10v5lMCGhQfVR4GKosSKchONx0