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Thread: Common Core Standards

  1. #11
    Senior Member slgrieb's Avatar
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    That's an excellent post, but I think perhaps the major reason American education seems to struggle is that our system is too decentralized. Too much input at the local level often means that the task of educating students takes a back seat to being politically correct for the local school system. And yes, that's a direct slap in the face for all those pinheads who deny evolution, or man's role in climate change. Believe what you want, but keep your religion out of the classroom. We've failed to do this in Texas (along with inadequately funding our schools from K-12 right through college) and so we have a school system currently ranked 49th in the nation. That's in spite of being the second most populous state in the U.S. and currently having the 14th largest economy in the world. While you're at it look at the effect the Texas Textbook Committee has on textbook selection nationwide.

    When you look at the education systems that really work in developed nations, they are run at the national level, students are actively encouraged to compete (along with the promise of better jobs), and there are often more vocational programs for academically challenged, but still capable students. In the U.S., it's become obligatory that everyone graduate High School even if they read at a second grade level and are a millstone around the necks of their classmates. In most countries, these guys are just kicked to the curb. If your grades suck, you just aren't advanced to higher grade levels and no resources are wasted on you.
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  2. #12
    Senior Member Webhead's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by slgrieb View Post
    That's an excellent post, but I think perhaps the major reason American education seems to struggle is that our system is too decentralized. Too much input at the local level often means that the task of educating students takes a back seat to being politically correct for the local school system. And yes, that's a direct slap in the face for all those pinheads who deny evolution, or man's role in climate change. Believe what you want, but keep your religion out of the classroom. We've failed to do this in Texas (along with inadequately funding our schools from K-12 right through college) and so we have a school system currently ranked 49th in the nation. That's in spite of being the second most populous state in the U.S. and currently having the 14th largest economy in the world. While you're at it look at the effect the Texas Textbook Committee has on textbook selection nationwide.

    When you look at the education systems that really work in developed nations, they are run at the national level, students are actively encouraged to compete (along with the promise of better jobs), and there are often more vocational programs for academically challenged, but still capable students. In the U.S., it's become obligatory that everyone graduate High School even if they read at a second grade level and are a millstone around the necks of their classmates. In most countries, these guys are just kicked to the curb. If your grades suck, you just aren't advanced to higher grade levels and no resources are wasted on you.
    You're absolutely right. We are decentralized. But you bring up a good point -- this will (or eventually will if it hasn't already) get into a state vs federal issue. Because honestly, when you leave it up to the states, then you got the status quo states who want to hang in there with the old fashioned stuff and the progressive states who want to try new stuff. But there is no control and you end up with some students who advance quickly and some who are totally left in the dust. So this is a way to hopefully solve that. But I believe this needs to be standardized at the federal level though.

    By the way: Fun fact,... this common core methodology is sort of a result of George Bush's "No Child Left Behind Act". So it turns out some good came from that. I guess history will ultimately decide that though.
    Last edited by Webhead; 11-10-2014 at 05:56 PM.

  3. #13
    Senior Member CeeBee's Avatar
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    OK, I looked a bit and the way they start is totally messed up. Kids aren't going to understand.
    Don't have a kid who can't add 12+9 count over 100. Start with additions to 10, then work to higher numbers.
    I looked at higher level math, and again, instead of building a foundation they just throw in things that will end up as a big, meaningless mess in the heads of the children. No wonder why US is so much behind the level of other countries.

  4. #14
    Senior Member CeeBee's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by slgrieb View Post
    That's an excellent post, but I think perhaps the major reason American education seems to struggle is that our system is too decentralized.
    That's one main reason. The other one (IMHO) is the way things are being taught. Maybe there is a desire to have 1st graders above the level of other countries, but while doing so they are preventing them from understanding the basics.
    Quote Originally Posted by slgrieb View Post
    When you look at the education systems that really work in developed nations, they are run at the national level, students are actively encouraged to compete (along with the promise of better jobs), and there are often more vocational programs for academically challenged, but still capable students. In the U.S., it's become obligatory that everyone graduate High School even if they read at a second grade level and are a millstone around the necks of their classmates. In most countries, these guys are just kicked to the curb. If your grades suck, you just aren't advanced to higher grade levels and no resources are wasted on you.
    100% correct. Indeed, not everyone can/is interested in learning. Some are learning slower than others, some are just not enough developed for the age. We had a kid in the class who failed the 1st grade, one year later he did much better when he repeated the year.
    The other thing that I believe helps is motivating the students by competition. In order to get into a high school we had to pass an exam, only the top X got admitted, the rest were distributed to lower level, shitty high schools (shitty because of the crowd and professors who in turn didn't give a shit).
    College admission was a similar deal, by competition only for good colleges... think 5-20 candidates for each available seat in some faculties. I remember there was a year when the cutoff admission grade for the Automatics faculty was something like 9.90 (1-10 scale) - meaning all the seats were filled with people who got 9.90 or better at the exam.

  5. #15
    Senior Member slgrieb's Avatar
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    Yeah, I guess my Lefty Pinko credentials are really showing here, but if you look at how Japan, Germany, Korea, etc. deal with education we look pretty shabby. While No Child Left Behind and Obama's subsequent policies may have seemed like a good idea at the time, I view them as ultimately counterproductive. Because so much school funding is dependent on standardized testing, that means that our kids will spend way too much time learning the test instead of learning.

    What we should be doing is providing a consistent level of funding for our schools, rewarding teachers whose students perform well, and finding ways to reward the student's. Standardized measurement can provide a good baseline for school performance, but it really shouldn't be a litmus test for funding.
    Yes, Mr. Death... I'll play you a game! But not CHESS !!! BAH... FOOEY! My game is...
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  6. #16
    Senior Member CeeBee's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by slgrieb View Post
    Because so much school funding is dependent on standardized testing, that means that our kids will spend way too much time learning the test instead of learning.
    That is one issue. But the solution isn't that simple. Maybe based on an improvement measurement (more on it later).
    Quote Originally Posted by slgrieb View Post
    What we should be doing is providing a consistent level of funding for our schools, rewarding teachers whose students perform well, and finding ways to reward the student's. Standardized measurement can provide a good baseline for school performance, but it really shouldn't be a litmus test for funding.
    With the risk of being labeled [insert label here] again, I have no doubt that certain schools will never perform well, just because of the way the system works. Kids are assigned to a school, and a school in a bad neighborhood will get kids from that neighborhood. And who lives there? With small exceptions it's people of lesser intelligence, who are not capable of getting better jobs that yield a better pay - and intelligence has a genetic component, so inherently the overall intelligence of those kids is guaranteed to be lower than the intelligence of kids from a very good neighborhood (as an average, not meaning anything at the level of one particular individual).
    One solution to the problem would be a "before and after" assessment where the performance of the school would be measured in terms of both overall score and score improvement. Another possible solution is moving from the "free public" OR "paid private" to a model where the state issues an "education voucher" worth the amount that he state would normally spend for a student at a public school and can be used at ANY school, public or private. Of course there is still the issue of good towns that have high taxes and spend by far more on education and could make their public schools somewhat inaccessible to outsiders, but still it would create real competition - good private schools could easily adjust to capture students that would normally go to undesirable schools - and the undesirable schools would have to really improve or disappear.

  7. #17
    Senior Member slgrieb's Avatar
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    I lean more to the "nurture" side of the "nature vs. nurture" debate. But you'll certainly get no argument from me that kids in poor, high crime neighborhoods have an uphill struggle. Teachers who work in these areas should qualify for hazardous duty pay. Some teachers in this environment have been remarkably successful, but it's certainly a tribute to the educator; not the system.

    I admit to being conflicted about vouchers. In Texas, the home schooling movement is really driven by religious fundamentalists, and there aren't many charter schools or other alternatives available, at least up here in the middle of nowhere. Home schooled kids seem to do very well on standardized tests, but I have to wonder if the emphasis on being religiously correct isn't a barrier to creative and critical thinking.

    All the same, Younger Child was at one point getting very frustrated with what she perceived as the slow pace of her curriculum, and we looked at enrolling her in a church school. That didn't work out because a change in administration totally hosed the school's academic standards. It was like the old Saturday Night Live skit: "Principal, perhaps we would make more progress if we had 7 hours of class and only one hour of prayer." Even here in the Bible Belt that cost them most of their enrollment. We looked at enrolling YC at K12.com, because the curriculum used professional teachers in a self-paced environment, but then we read so much negative feedback we scrapped that plan. While I can't speak to the curriculum, the enrollment process was a total PITA, and a real TGF.

    Most of the home schooled kids I know tend to be somewhat withdrawn and don't interact well with others. That's not universally true, but seems to be a trend.
    Yes, Mr. Death... I'll play you a game! But not CHESS !!! BAH... FOOEY! My game is...
    WIFFLEBALL!

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