The continuing curse of fuzzy math
My column last week on Fuzzy Math prompted a massive response from teachers and parents who’ve been battling “constructivist” nonsense in their schools. I’ll be sharing their letters, insights, and recommended resources in greater detail soon. Meantime, the results of the latest international math and science tests will come as no surprise to veterans of the math wars (via Education Week):
Teenagers in a majority of industrialized nations taking part in a leading international exam showed greater scientific understanding than students in the United States—and they far surpassed their American peers in mathematics, in results that seem likely to add to recent consternation over U.S. students’ core academic skills.
New results from the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, released today, show U.S. students ranking lower, on average, than their peers in 16 other countries in science, out of 30 developed nations taking part in the exam.
The test measures the performance of 15-year-old students, regardless of grade level, examining the skills they pick up both in the classroom and outside school, as well as their ability to apply that knowledge to a variety of situations.
In science—the main subject tested on the 2006 PISA—American students scored an average of 489, below the international average among industrialized nations of 500, on a scale of 1 to 1,000. Finland, which has shone in worldwide comparisons in recent years, notched the top science score of 563, followed by Canada, Japan, and New Zealand.
While the United States’ science score on PISA lagged statistically behind more than half the developed nations’, it ranked in the same statistical category as eight other industrialized countries, including Poland, Denmark, France, and Iceland. The United States outperformed such nations as Italy, Greece, and Mexico.
In 2003, the last time PISA measured performance in science, U.S. students tallied an average of 491, 9 points lower than the average of 500 in industrialized countries.
In math, which was tested in less depth on this PISA, American teenagers fared even worse, producing an average score of 474, 24 points below the international average of 498 among the 30 participating industrialized countries. Finland also landed on top in math.
The top-scoring American students’ averages were statistically worse than those for 23 of those nations, and equal to only those of Spain and Portugal. Just four countries—Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Mexico scored lower than the United States.
As in science, U.S. teenagers’ math performance was roughly the same as in 2003, the last time PISA was administered. The United States was 17 points behind the average score for industrialized nations then, meaning the score gap has since widened slightly.
Twenty-seven nonindustrialized nations also took part in the 2006 PISA. U.S. scores in both math and science ranked below those of several countries considered nonindustrialized, including Estonia and Slovenia.
Garbage in, garbage out.
See what others have said
Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.
Trackbacks
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Categories: Education
Mudville Gazette
» The five-year plan
NewsBusters.org
» Oprah To Do Primetime Christmas Special With The ObamasRiehl World View
» Dowd: Dem Elites Displeased With Obama As Palin RisesStop The ACLU
» SEALs Charged With Assault for Arresting Top TerroristGay Patriot
» The O So Hip ObamaLegal Insurrection
» Is "Finish the Job" the New "Peace With Honor"?Weekly Standard
» DVR Alert: Oprah, Obama, Primetime, ChristmasJustOneMinute
» Getting Ready For The Turkey
Yeah? Well we got Obamination who was outstanding in math. His kindergarden teach even said so.
Teacher.
Does anybody want to inform these people that you cant use calculators on the MCAT?
Garbage in, garbage out.
Are you listening NEA?
That was a stupid question.
As long as schools get paid daily for butts in seats and we HAVE to keep teachers because we can’t fire them, our children will continue to pay the price.
Two words again:
Private schools
Two more words again:
Home school
TF
TF – Big time.
Hey feebz,
Thanks for the second!!!
that would be three charlie tango foxtrot.
If you were a non-industrialized country that scored better than the US, what color would you be?
If a train left Slovenia ten minutes after a train left Estonia what food would Finland be?
I’ll add two more words, Soap,
School choice.
We have to get some kind of competition between schools to end the education unions’ hold on our education system. The elimination of the Dept of Education would help a lot.
LOL AlohaGuy.
OT/
Waiting on the math teacher lgMoby to respond so we can ignore him too.
The Dem’s want to help out the poor struggling economies of the world, so dumbing down our children makes perfect sense…
NEA? They think the answer is more money. Money solves everything, don’t you know? Considering what CA spends per child here for education, and where we stand overall among the 50 states, it’s pretty pathetic. Money spent on private education would be money better spent.
But that would annoy the unions now, wouldn’t it?
Yup deepdiver,
Raising the bar would help too. To much lowering the bar so we do not bruise the ego’s of todays spoiled brats.
easy soap, My spoiled brat earns it.
Bumper Sticker:
“My illegal alien kid taught your kid algebra.”
I once dated a woman whose son was in a beginning algebra class. I helped him with his homework one night by teaching him how to solve word problems. Let’ just say the one on his assignment that evening had an answer of 100. The next day I asked him how he did. His teacher told him that the correct answer could be anywhere between 98 and 102.
I told him to ask her if it was acceptable if they calculated her paychecks that way.
Bumper Sticker:
Fuzzy Math Feels Good
AJ,
We are not worried about your child. She is doing a great job of raising you!
Soap, You have that right!
Totally Fuzzy
LOL trinitytim,
Good 4th tag!
After 9/11, I taught 9th grade general science for one year. At the beginning of the semester, I gave a non-credit math quiz (my idea) so both students and I could see if they had the elementary math skills needed to read graphs, balance chemical equations, etc.
The results were incredibly bad, and I had to offer remedial math after school to those that wanted help. Very few took me up on my offer. All had graduated 8th grade math, but many could not calculate simple percentages, etc.
Sad, very sad.
…at least our students, even our brightest, feeeeel gooood about themselves.
We spend more on children at the lower end of the academic spectrum than those at the top. If a child is bright, their parents are considered selfish to ask for more challenging curriculum, because of the obvious disadvantage those with special needs suffer with.
The great thing about fuzzy math is that liberals are completely unaware they are aborting themselves out of existence.
As far as they know, their population hasn’t changed.
You wanna bet a gazillion dollars that the teachers who teach the other forms of fuzzy math i.e. division multiplication…, use the tried and true methods (or a calculator).
I had the best math teacher in the world during my high school years and there is no way she would teach this fuzzy crap!
All the crap the hippie liberals posing as teachers have been feeding our children is now coming home to roost.
These results are a “leading indicator” of how
competitiveuncompetitive the USA will be in the global market 20 years from now.If you are dumber than people in a country you can’t even find on a map ….
You might be a redneck.
If you have a Bush/Cheney ‘04 bumper sticker on your truck…
you might be a redneck.
Being a redneck, I can say these things.
Bait!
Even worse, I took an accounting class a few years ago and the instructor kept telling us it was OK when her numbers were off. I reported it to the administration and she was very hostile after that. This is why I have a hard time reading my dentist’s statements. They don’t make sense even though a computer is used. It’s never in my favor when mistakes are made. I want the numbers to add up correctly when it involves my money. Speaking up is not always the wisest thing to do but I can’t seem to help myself. I have noticed that Michelle has a similar problem.:)
The brainiacs in my school district decided to do everything on a pass fail basis in elementary scholl. Luckilly, this was a couple of classes after my youngest started school. Once the first crop of “Feel Good” students got to jr high they were so far behind in math they threw out the pass/fial and went back to regular grades, and they had to reteach the straglers.
I think a far greater problem we face is the discriminatory way we speak of numbers. When we talk about imaginary and or irrational numbers aren’t we being a little harsh? After all,no number is imaginary! And by saying a particular number is irrational we are making a judgment about it based on personal notions of rationality. I suggest in the future we use the gentler “not easily described” (instead of imaginary) and “decimally indeterminate” (instead of irrational.) This will lead to greater harmony and understanding in the classroom which surely will enhace learning.
While subbing for a special ed teacher yesterday afternoon (working one-on-one with an autistic student in an inclusion environment), I was present for the afternoon math lesson. Here’s the problem the teacher wrote on the board for partner work (after doing a few examples with the whole class):
When I looked out my window this morning, I saw 12 squirrels on the ground. When I went outside, 4 squirrels ran up a tree. How many squirrels were left on the ground?
Students were asked to solve the equation, but to come up with their own way to do it: draw a picture, draw circles and then cross out the ones representing the absent squirrels, using manipulatives, using a 100s chart, whatever… A lot of the kids just didn’t seem to be getting it (to include “my” student, who really is smart, just has issues with attention span and judgments about what is appropriate behavior…). Why can we just teach the kids rote memorization – until they get those memorized (that was a 1st grade class), they can use a number line: find the number 12, then count back 4 spaces, which gives you the answer of 8: no pictures, no circles with some crossed out, no confusion…
That would be funny JSR if it were not such an actual possibility!
Test scores are irrelevant.
Your chidren will adapt to service our union.
Resistance is futile.
You will be administrated.
TF?
LOL 29Victor
You think the kids can figure out 7 of 9?
Does a W04 sticker count?
Sounds like fuzzy math to me. Oh, wait… yes!
American public schools don’t exist to give children a good education, they exist to give educators a good job and as a place for parents to stash their kids while they “persue other interests.”
Get into a conversation with any anti-school choice or anti-home schooler and just listen to their reasons for being against these things.
You will hear a lot about how “the system” needs the kids there, how “the system” needs the money and how you don’t dare and fiddle with “the system.” You will hear very little about what is actually best for children.
In the eyes of the NEA, American kids exist for the benefit of the American educational system. That’s just the way it is.
And this will never change. Parents don’t dare mess with the system because then they would have to admit that it was a failure. And if they admit that it’s a failure they open themselves up to the question “Then why do you let your kids go to public school instead of taking responsibility for their education yourself?”
And they really don’t want to have to answer that question.
On-my-soap-box #36
I don’t know if I could figure out 7 of 9. But I’d be willing to die trying.
I think we should try “new math” with educators paychecks:
If you have 25 students and 15 of those students can’t pass the state assessment test, then how much of your paycheck should we donate to a home school co-op?
On December 4th, 2007 at 9:39 pm, 29Victor said:
American public schools don’t exist to give children a good education, they exist
to give educators a good job and as a place for parents to stash their kids while they “persue other interests.”to indoctrinate your children into liberalism and PC.There is no constituency for math, which is forever associated the nerdy white boys, the lowest of the low in other words.
My nightmare is that Bush will get a hold of this and will announce “We’ve got to ‘do right’” (the scariest phrase he utters) by math teachers.” And we all know what that means: boost their pay, shorted their hours, since them for more training. And that is exactly what the NEA is thinking.
I’m a nerdy white guy with a degree in math but there is no way I would even try to be a teacher in the public schools. Of course, there is no way they would take me either . . .
As a science teacher, this pisses me off, because I work my buttocks off to teach my students not only science, but critical thinking, self-discipline, a work ethic…basically the whole adult skill set. And what do I get for it?
“I’m gonna call my mom and she’s going to get you in trouble…”
I don’t know if I can last ’til June 2012, when I can retire. I won’t have much income, but I honestly don’t know if I can do this much longer.
Don’t knock all teachers out there. Keep in mind one thing about public education vs. private. Public education has to take them all, private schools and kick out students for any number of reasons. I subbed in a 1st grade classroom today.. Teacher left a pretty bare-bones lesson plan, and no notes about the kids. I had one boy who wouldn’t stay in his seat, pretended to pee on a couple other students, reportedly bite another student during recess, reportedly said “what the hell”, and the last straw for me was me catching him flipping the bird in the hallway on the way back to the classroom after lunch. Conveniently, he did that when we were stopped next to the main office, so I marched him right in there, reported his behavior, and took the rest of the kids back to the classroom. Still wasn’t an easy group to manage, but it was loads easier without having to ride herd on that one child. Not a lot of teaching gets done when you have kids like that in the classroom. His special education teacher came in later in the afternoon to left me know he’d be keeping the student the rest of the afternoon. I’d be willing to bet that, if the parents had options (I think a fair percentage of students at this school are on the lower end of the economic ladder, and one I had not previously worked in), they’d be hard-pressed to find a school that would take him.
So, when you accuse teachers of not teaching, remember, teachers are only part of the equation: parents MUST be involved in their children’s lives and education. Too many parents think managing their children’s learning is completely up to the teacher. Public school teachers have to deal with whatever kind of students are assigned to their classrooms. I have one school I love to sub in: very involved parents, well-behaved students; it’s an environment in which, if the teacher leaves me a lesson plan in which I actually give instruction (which isn’t always the case – sometimes they leave reinforcement activities and such), I can do so. Then, there are other schools in which I am an overpriced babysitter, just making sure the kids don’t kill each other of burn down the building or something. Help get those behavior problems corrected, and the learning will automatically increase, since a lot less time has to be spent on behavior management. Fix it to where disruptive students aren’t in a general education classroom. Fix it so we don’t have the “really smart kids”, the “average kids” and the “dumb kids” all in the same classroom, so ALL kids can be taught at a pace where they can keep up. If they don’t master a skill essential to success in the next grade, hold them back, no questions asked. I know some of these ideas are considered heresy to some in the education establishment, but I think that’s what is needed to “fix” public education…
Who cares about nonsense like “math” and “English”, when we’re creating a generation of tolerant kids who will reject the idea of good vs. evil, and embrace different kinds of good, all of which are equal, especially those that aren’t traditional/white/Christian. I say in with sensitivity training, and out with subtraction!!! (/sarcasm)
What are educators teaching THEIR children? This fuzzy math crap or real math? If children are raised on a diet of nonsense, where the hell do they think the next generation of teachers will come from? It will be the blind leading the deaf!
No wonder we have to import so many H1B visa workers like engineers: we don’t have any American capable of doing the work, thanks to the government (mis)education system. Foreign skilled labor + foreign unskilled labor = no need for American workers. Right? With no Americans working and earning money, who is going to be doing the spending American business needs?
I don’t mean to knock all teachers, just very large chunk of them. If they care so much then why don’t they strike for changes in the rules at school and changes in the administration instead of only striking for more pay? Why don’t they change or secede from their union?
I hate hearing that excuse. My wife went to private, Christian schools and they would get the kids who had been kicked out of all of the public schools in town. Where do you think they go? Either to a private school or some form of “alternative education” (now, those teachers have my everlasting admiration).
So, what about the kids who didn’t get to learn that day? One kid gets to ruin it for the rest? If there was school choice then their parents could choose to send them to a school where that kid wouldn’t be allowed to disturb anything. And then the “lower end of the economic spectrum” cycle continues for another generation.
That’s true, if it weren’t they would home school. But the State has taken the responsibility of educating kids on itself. But if you try to take full responsiblity for your kid’s education and homeschool or try to get vouchers, the System complains, if you don’t take any responsiblity, the System complains. So, as a parent, I’m supposed to take a System-proscribed ammount of responsiblity for the education of my children?
You are describing a system that is failed. You complain because you have to teach in it, but immagine being a kid that is supposed to learn in it. Why not create a way that gives kids a chance to escape it.
I understand the system is broken. I just don’t see anyone within the system trying to fix it.
DirkBelig #47
They send their kids to private schools. Why? Because they know the state of public schools and can afford to get their kids out of them.
I googled to find an article proving my point, but I found so many that I’m just going to link to the search itself.
DirkBelig~
We apparently need H1B visa teachers because a lot of people who would make excellent teachers can’t afford it: Teachers in my general geographical area, starting out, can make as little as about $27000 annually (state mandated minimum). Districts I hope to teach in are closer to $35000-40000, but that still isn’t a lot, considering cost of living – I’m glad I don’t have kids, because if it was just what I will make after I find a permanent position, I would be in an even tougher financial position, what with my student loan payment I have to start making this month, a car payment, rent/housing, gas, groceries, utilities. I don’t want to teach in the district in which I currently live because I can’t afford the cost of housing here on my own – I’m looking at districts with roughly equivalent pay scales, but lower cost of living. A lot of new teachers don’t make it to their fifth year of teaching – they get burned out that fast, and if their first classroom assignment has lots of behavior problems year after year, no wonder. A teacher I subbed for last year at one of my preferred schools for subbing is no longer teaching. Apparently, the class she had last year was a tough group. I thought subbing her class was a cakewalk, after the student teaching assignment I had last fall. If she got burned out (she is a younger woman) with that class, I shudder to think what she’d have done with my student teaching class, or some of the other classes I’ve subbed in at other schools (with not just a couple of inclusion autistic kids, but REAL anti-social behavior problems – like throwing pencils at classmates, for starters). A lot of people view teaching not worth the pay for what they have to put up with. And there are certain jobs like that – I interviewed for a district last summer in which the principal was very upfront with me: most of the staff don’t live in the very small town with the school. Last year’s graduating class was 6 in number. It is not uncommon for parents to sign their kids out of school for 3 months to go visit family in Mexico, and most teachers don’t last at their school (K-12 on one entire block) don’t last past one year there. We need to value teachers more: make it more attractive for those who would make good teachers to go into teaching. A number of years ago, back when chatting in AOL chat rooms was the thing to do, one of my “friends” was a 20-something teaching in CT making $30k a year – he couldn’t afford much in that area making that little. Move that same salary to where I used to live (NW AR), and you’d be fine. I know “more money” isn’t a real answer, but we need to pay teachers enough to make it worth going into teaching.
I don’t know what’s more ironic: A teacher who thinks I wrote “H1B teachers” when I clearly referenced “engineers” or that this teacher just vomited 499 words without a single paragraph break.
Teacher, educate thyself!
DirkBelig~
You may have referenced engineers, but I know I’ve seen news reports about different school districts around the country seeking teachers with special visa categories (excuse me if I’m not an expert on all the different categories of visas…).
As for “vomiting” 499 words without a paragraph break, excuse me, again, if I don’t always use the “preview” function on a blog comment to see what it looks like – train of thought and all that… It’s not like I’m turning in a research paper or dissertation here.
I was tempted to link to all of Michelle’s posts on unhinged teachers, but that would take forever… she’s done such a great job of cataloging these events over the years, it would take me forever to find them all though.
We had most recently, obviously, those “I’m going to encourage you to do drugs” “I’d do ecstasy with you right now if I had some”, etc. speakers in Colorado.
We had that teacher who played that insanely hateful anti-Bush video for his class (I think they were middle schoolers).
We’ve got Penthouse rejects giving after school specials to their 14 year old students.
We’ve had a history teacher taking students to Cuba.
We have kids being encouraged, by school staff, to stage walkouts in support of illegals.
etc. etc. Again, I could go on for days.
Again, screw math and English, right? It’s not like these kids will ever need to manage a bank account or interact with people. It’s more important that they learn why Republicans and American in general are bad, and that if someone hates us, it’s probably our fault, and we just need to “understand” everyone.
Miss Ladybug
Didn’t you look into how much you would be making before you chose this profession? And if you “did it because you wanted to help kids” then quit your griping and help the kids. You made your decision, you could have easily found out how much teachers made before you chose.
But instead you think we should dump more money into a failed system? How would you feel about a mechanic who didn’t fix your car right and when you complained said that he would fix it right if you gave him more money?
And, once again, the System blames the children that it was created to serve for the failure of the System. I knew a pastor once who said that “Pastoring would be easy if it weren’t for all of the people.” The difference is, he was kidding (I think).
When I attended school in S TX back in the dark ages
we had three “classes”. They were A- smart kids, B-
average kids and C- slower learners. Naturally in our
“everyone has to feel good about themselves and no
one can feel like a loser or Mommy and Daddy are
going to sue the school district,” society that system
will not work, but it certainly did when I was in school.
Parents nowadays are not realistic about their children
and their schooling. Their children are supposed to make top grades with no studying. I served on a jury with a grade school teacher who told me she
caught parents doing their childrens homework and
then threatening her when she told them that while
the child did well on homework the classwork wasn’t earning a passing grade. She said that one
Mother told her she had better get a big mean dog to protect her because something bad was going to
happen if her little darling did not pass.
I also know that things get really dicey when it comes to no pass no play and extracurricular activities. Teens are being pushed so hard by their
parents that they have physically attacked teachers
for giving their kids the grades the kids deserve.
It doesn’t help that a lot (not all) of the teachers
are typical products of this same school system.
Uneducated people are more easy to control.
#56 – And likely to vote Democratic.
#57 – ‘zactly
Miss Ladybug is right. Don’t blame all the teachers. The majority of them are caring, dedicated, well trained professionals. The problem is the training. They are indoctrinated with nonsense by the leftover hippies that run schools of education. Like the “publish or perish” threat in other areas of academia, these education professors try to always come up with something new. Ask any long time teacher: this leads to recycling of old ideas in new clothes. They see the same old failed programs come back with new names every 10 years!
Accountability is at the root of the problem. If you don’t hold students accountable, there is no fair-minded way to hold teachers accountable. If the teachers are not accountable, how can you possibly hold the principal accountable. This chain goes all the way back to the teacher colleges, where the professors can sell any stupid idea and can never be challenged. This ensures job security for the whole chain.
The unions have an obvious stake in this view of accountability, making it almost impossible to fire bad teachers. Often, the best you can hope for is to foist the losers off on another school district. Oh, in case you miss the connection: job security=more dues.
But, we throw barriers up in front of even the best teachers. Today’s inclusion model and slavish obedience to heterogeneous grouping means a teacher is often teaching 4 or 5 different “classes” in her room. Add to that a litigious environment where a parent will sue you if their child’s score of 72 on a math test isn’t an “A”, or you risk arrest if you hug a child in your kindergarten class and you can see why some capable professionals will avoid a teaching career. Oh, and for those of you that think we just pay teachers too much: my son, who has excellent math skills, toyed with the idea of switching jobs to become a high school math teacher. He would have had to take an 80% pay cut. You do the math.
One other factoid: a recent nation-wide study showed no statistically significant difference in the performance of public and private school students.
/end of rant
29Victor~
Going into teaching in a career change for me. I’ve been in a business environment. I’m not a liberal. I’m not complaining about what I will be making. I don’t have a family, so I only have to worry about myself and my dogs. If I had a family, and it was just my income to support it, I might have made a different choice. Cost of living is high, in general, in the city I currently live in. Right now, I am fortunate enough to not have to worry about paying for housing. In looking for a teaching position, cost of living isn’t the only reason I don’t want to stay where I am right now – and those other factors don’t have much to do with money.
All I am saying is, if we want qualified Americans to go into teaching, just one of many factors to improving education is teacher salaries – yes, it needs to be easier to get rid of incompetent teachers, and just throwing more money isn’t going to fix anything. Improving teacher salaries should go along with finding better ways to deal with disruptive students, re-introducing “tracking” of students, so all the kids who need more of a challenge are in one class, all the kids who advance at a “normal” pace are in another class, and all the kids who are not advancing sufficiently are in yet another class. Kids aren’t stupid (even if they don’t achieve academically – all kids know who the “smart kids” and the “dumb kids” are within an “integrated” classroom), I’m sure I could gone on with ideas…
Klaatu~
Where did you see that factoid about public vs. private school performance? I haven’t looked for statistics, but I’ve always heard (there’s that “conventional wisdom”…) that private schools performed better, and that could be traced back to private schools’ ability to be selective about what students to accept, and being able to kick out students who caused problems. Guy I used to work with in AR told of being kicked out of a Catholic boys boarding school for his behavior…
And, as for taking a cut in pay (like your son), since finishing up school last December and only substitute teaching, I’ve taken a hit financially (I made a decent, but not high salary), but once I get a regular position, I’ll be doing okay. But, I also don’t live in the Northeast or California – I live in Texas (and glad I do: teachers’ unions are illegal here…), and so long as I don’t aim to teach in a “big city” (Austin, Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio), cost of living will be reasonable compared to what a teacher makes.
One thing I think a lot of non-teachers don’t understand is the amount of time a good teacher will spend in preparing for the classroom. As I type, my dad (retired Army, now a HS history teacher) is working on a Power Point that goes with his lesson for Thursday on the Byzantine Empire. And this after he spent a full (read 8 hour) day at school. And baseball season hasn’t started yet, either – he’s one of the assistant coaches (usually works with the JV squads). When you get down to brass tacks, converting a teacher’s salary to an hourly wage, based on the amount of time spent either in the classroom with students, or preparing to be in the classroom with students, and the pay sucks. But, if you’re getting into teaching for the money, you’re not going to last…
On December 4th, 2007 at 11:42 pm, Klaatu said:
I blame the whole broken System. The only people I don’t blame are the victims of the system, the kids. But, worse than blaming the teachers you seem to be saying that the System is broken and unable to be fixed but we should keep it going. So we just throw another generation of kids into the meatgrinder that is our public education system and perpetuate the failure?
Link or don’t cite please.
Miss Ladybug
I’m sure that they are all great ideas, but they are pie in the sky. They may be what should happen, but they are never going to happen. Meanwhile, more failed kids, more failed schools, more teachers striking and lobbying for more pay instead of striking and lobbying for changing the System.
Speaking of teacher’s pay, I found an article here that gives some numbers. It’s interesting to note that the teacher salary in no way correlates to a better education for the kids.
The System is broken and beyond reform. Good parents need options so their kids have a chance at a good education. Meanwhile, the government keeps taking our money and delivering failure.
About two months ago, I saw the factoid in USA Today (?), I think….
I have a clipping service and this was widely quoted in newspapers from my state. Having seen it in a number of places, I’m not sure of its origins.
I can think of only one explanation for this. You would expect private schools to perform better because the best predictor of student success is family wealth. However, with charter schools and cyber charters thrown into the mix, the average family income in private schools is dropping and their superior performance, on average, is too.
You also see the parents of superior students returning their children to public school because they know, with the exception of the most elite private schools, an advanced student will have more resources in a public setting (not to mention a $15,000 reduction in tuition!)
29Victor~
I never said teach pay correlated with school performance. What I said is, we need a level of pay to attract the most qualified people to the profession. Private schools need teachers, too, ya know… And I’m willing to bet your local parochial school pays less in salary and benefits than the local public school system. I think it’s in how the overall dollars spent per child differs between the two: I see some pretty fancy new school buildings around here, but do those schools really need all the bells and whistles on their facilities, or could that money have been better spent on classroom materials, and how much of that “per child” allocation doesn’t even filter down to an individual campus? How much is wasted by truly unnecessary district administrative costs?
Thankfully, I live in a state in which teachers unions, and teacher strikes, are illegal. When I joined a professional teacher/educator organization here in Texas (to get my professional liability insurance – in case a parent decides to sue for what I’ve done in the course of my teaching), I made sure to find one NOT affiliated with NEA or any other national union, and when given the option to pay dues for the local organization, or to give an additional “donation”, I declined. I have my professional liability insurance, and that’s all I really need from them. And I am assured that no portion of my membership fee will go to support striking teachers in another state.
You say “good parents need options so their kids have a chance at a good education”. Well, what about the “bad parents”? It does the nation no favors to allow their students to get a crappy education. In the public interest (educated citizenry and all), we should do our best to see these kids gets a decent education, even if their parents aren’t concerned with it. What do you propose to do these kids?
There has to be a middle way between completely abandoning the concept of public education and keeping the status quo. I can’t imagine a time in my lifetime (barring some horrific national disaster) in which public education ceases to exist – too many people expect it to be there, and not just the teachers’ unions. Maybe getting the Feds out of it would be a nice start, and let the states deal with it themselves. I’m just going to try my best to make a difference in the lives and educations of my future students, and hopefully instill in them a love of learning, and a good start on learning to think critically (I’m certified for early childhood through fourth grade) as they get older. – it’s it is
Ahh, well then, I concede. LOL You sound like the Wikipedia.
From everything I’ve posted, you got this how? Please don’t argue against someting I didn’t say. Oh, and once again:
please link or don’t quote.
I didn’t say that private schools perform better, I asked you to prove that they don’t. And, yes, I assume they do better than the public schools because if they didn’t all of those public school teachers (see LINK above) wouldn’t send their kids there. And the parents who do send their kids there would stop and private schools would shut down because parents would refuse to waste their money on them.
and a third time… prove it.
but how is that possible when:
Don’t tell me, you learned how to debate where? in a public school?
You admit that the public school system is broken, yet you insist that it is better than any alternative. Why?
Miss Ladybug
Amen. But, like I said, the System doesn’t exist for the kids anymore.
Good for you. I refused to get a job with the city like the rest of my family have because I didn’t want to join a union. It wasn’t an easy decision.
School vouchers. Home schooling. Charter schools?
Yes, but now all kids are getting that “crappy education.” Why should all the kids suffer because of a few bad apples? Either help all or none? That makes no sense to me.
Is that a logical rational for continuing its existance? If it doesn’t serve the kids, what purpose does it serve?
Good for you and God bless.
29 Victor-
The New York Times
That’s an old report, but it says the same thing.
You want to stem the rising cost of public education? Stop making public schools follow arcane, inefficient rules. Jamie Vollmer, former critic of public education, lists all the things we’ve added to requirements… and he is 10 years behind the times. Read his blueberry story.
29victor~
Some public schools are excellent, some are horrible, some are just mediocre. And you can find that within any given district (though not always, it would seem). I’m new to teaching. During my student teaching last fall, I was assigned to a 3rd grade class at a school which, IIRC, had the highest percentage of low socioeconomic status students in the district. In a class of roughly 20 students, we had students who performed well academically, those who performed abysmally, and those who performed to “grade level expectation”. When it came time for parent teacher conferences, guess whose parents showed up, for the most part? Those students who were meeting or exceeding expecations had their parents show up (even the Spanish-speaking only mother of a girl who had been in a bilingual class the previous year). The students with academic and behavior problems? Parents were no where to be found. For the entire school, there was only ONE regular parent volunteer.
I had a tough student teaching assignment, but at least no one in my class threw a box of crayons at my head, as happened to the other student teacher for 3rd grade. After graduation, I started substitute teaching. I’ve been lucky enough to find a school that likes to call me regularly for sub assignments that is nice to go to: the staff are pleasant to deal with, and, most importantly (especially for a sub), the students are well-behaved. I see parent volunteers all the time – taking care of running copies, or laminating, or whatever, for the teachers. Also, for this fall’s Scholastic Book Fair (whose theme is “Book Fair Blizzard”, parent volunteers did a fabulous job of building excitement for the book fair by turning the main door to the library into the entrance of a ski chalet, and decorating the other walls in the hall outside the library with sledding scenes, snowflakes and snowmen.
From my anecdotal observations, success in school correlates to parental involvement and how much the parents value a good education for their child. This won’t change. In a free country, people who don’t care to be involved their children’s education will continue to have children. That is the key to solving the problem with public education: parental involvement. I’ve not said this here, but I think a lot of these problems started with the creation of the welfare state, creating far too many people who look to government to take care of them, and by extension, their children, and also contributed to the breakdown of traditional families in many communities. If we can fix the problem with the breakdown of families, we will begin to fix the problems of the welfare state mentality, which will eventually influence parents to become positively engaged in their children’s educations.
My point in saying that was to stress how difficult it would be to eliminate the structure of public education as it currently exists, nothing more, nothing less.
Klaatu
Good job, that’s one. And here’s my counter-article.
And I never said that I wanted to “stem the rising cost of public education.” I said that I wanted to stem the rising tide of failure.
Yes, but you can’t force parents to get involved. What you can do is give the other kids a chance at a better life. That ONE parent who volunteered should have the opportunity to send her kid to a decent school.
If the kids with crappy parents are a “write off” then what is the point of wasting time one them? You seem to think there is no hope for them. Why perpetuate a failed system? Why sacrifice the good kids to the bad?
I’m sorry to say this and mean no offense, but the System that employs you is part of
In the current system parents don’t have to take any responsibility for their child’s education, there is a System to do that for them.
Hopefully you can make a difference, however small.
Believe me, I understand the irony of me (a conservative) becoming part of this government-run thing called “public education”. Not knowing how long it will take to fix, I’m not going abandon the field to the left. I was heartened today when I saw an entire wall dedicated to recognizing veterans.
Miss Ladybug #69
Oh…sorry.
But something must be done or America is in BIG trouble. And I’m not saying it needs to be eliminated, but it’s not going to change without being forced to. No government program ever does.
And, until then, parents need to be given the ability to get their kids out of failing schools.
I live in a fairly large city we spend around 10 grand per student per year. Recently the feds (or somebody) came out with a study that showed that every single “traditional” public high school in my town is a “dropout factory” defined as “a high school where no more than 60 percent of the students who start as freshmen make it to their senior year.” The surrounding cities, many with lower-income populations fared much better than mine. And the head of our school district just made excuses and attacked the study.
The kids need a way out. They are wasting four years of high school. I have a very difficult time having an intelligent conversation with high school graduates lately. Their grammar and general knowledge are stunningly bad.
And I’m tired of the kids being blamed for their bad education. I know so many school children who are convinced that they are stupid (from a very early age) because their teachers don’t know how to teach them. I know boys who get in trouble for being boys and girls who are 100% certain that they are bad at reading and math because they that’s how school makes them feel.
They learn that Bush is an idiot and that home schooling is bad for kids, but they don’t learn the basics that I knew by Jr. High. Their parents try to help, but there is only so much that they can do, they have been conditioned to believe that they are unqualified to educate their own kids.
More and more parents I know (including a pair of public school teachers) are yanking their kids out of these schools and home schooling them, it’s just a matter of convincing them that they can.
And that is our only hope around here. To continue to pay for the failed System, yank our own kids out of it and take care of their education on our own. But not everyone is blessed with that option like we are. They need a chance, they need an alternative.
Like I said, God bless.
But ‘ta for now, I gotta get some kip.
… and where you went to school they taught you that sarcasm and mindless negation was a debate skill?
And for that matter, I’m not trying to debate you. I’m reporting personal experience. If you can’t think of why a superior student would return to public school, here are a few suggestions:
The Gifted Individual Education Plan (GIEP) that guarantees a public school will provide needed services with no upper limit on the budget. (As an example in a different focus, I have personal knowledge of several special needs students, each of whom cost the public school district $100,000 per year… including cross-country airplane tickets for their parents.)
Parents know that, for college admission, it better to be the valedictorian of a “good” public school that to be an average student in a private school.
Public schools offer a wider variety of athletic and academic extracurricular activities. This gives a child a better opportunity to be a scholar athlete which is another edge in college admission.
A private school tosses out a bright but troublesome student and the local public school has to take him.
And while some things are broken in public education (the USDOE is at the top of that list), it serves the vast majority of students well. U.S. citizens have billions invested in public schools. It would be foolish not to work to make them better.
Get the unions out. (Administrations costs more than education and enough money for administration but not enough for education?) Enforce pay based on performance. Bring back corporal punishment. (Junior will probably be less likely to toss a box of crayons at anyone after receiving the board of education on their seat of knowledge) Allow those students who want to learn to do so. Release the students who disrupt the class and get them out of the way of those whom wish to learn. Teach viable real-life skills that will allow our children to compete in a global market. Do away with tenure. Offer vocational schools as an alternative. (Some children will be more inclined to study if it means not working so hard. Others will thrive on their field of interest and be thankful not to have to deal with that masochistic mathematical stuff) Put the educational system back in the hands of the states and the people. Teach factual history rather than revisionist history so that children can learn from our mistakes. Quit counting the same failed courses taken over and over by students as “full credits” allowing them to graduate without viable skills. ALLOW home-schooling rather than fighting it and be thankful that some parents actually ARE concerned about the ability of their children to compete, perform and (heaven forbid) actually function well in society. Get political indoctrination and real-good/feel-good policies out of education and teach the old standard reading, writing and arithmetic. Put the money being spent on the unions back in the classroom and use it to pay teachers.
Well, I can dream can’t I? Would that be a starting place to improve our proven-failed system?
And to think that, as senior in high school years ago, we had a choice of Algebra2, Calculus, or Statistics. I took Algebra2 and took Statistics as a freshman in college. Now, I guess it’s Algebra1 or “everyday math”, if anything is offered at all!
RUSH: Here is the latest from the New York Times. Just let me give you one sentence here from the New York Times: “Several recent studies stand as a warning against taking the platitudes of achievement too seriously.” In other words, don’t try to be your best. It’s only going to upset you because you can’t be your best. You’ll end up becoming a perfectionist and nobody can be perfect, and you will be disappointed. So stop trying to achieve, from the New York Times.
This should warm your fuzzy little hearts:
Trangressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity.
Do you wonder why our students suck at math and science? The Sokal Affair goes a long way to providing the answer.
Our kids may not be able to read & write, but they sure feel good about themselves.
Reading and writing is sooo overrated…
But hey, at least we got Mexico beat! Woo-hoo!
On a more serious note, Miss Ladybug raises a valid point about parental involvement: you can’t just leave it to the schools anymore to teach your kids, it’s got to be hands-on at home, too.
The pathetic state of public education is the result of a perfect storm of negative influences:
- Teachers’ unions that are nothing more than fund-raising organizations for the Democrat party;
- A Democrat party that rewards its fund-raisers by blocking any attempts to break their virtual monopoly on public education;
- “Teachers” who can’t teach, because what they themselves are learning in their own training is more and more of a multi-culti, PC, “feel good” brew that is poisonous to the intellect;
- School administrations that run scared of the kids, because the threat of litigation makes it impossible for anyone at the school to discipline them – so they resort to things like drugs to to “correct” behavior that used to be called, “Being a boy”;
- School administrations and teachers’ unions that are more interested in cloaking their failures by playing games with educational standards than in reversing the slide; and
- An increasing breakdown of the traditional family, leading to more and more unruly kids showing up at school to play “Lord of the Flies” in the classroom.
Upshot: kids who get it from all sides, who recognize that the public “system” is a bad joke, whose parents don’t give a damn, and who accordingly don’t give a damn themselves.
Shoveling money at the problem isn’t the answer; it’s been tried repeatedly. I’d like to see a supplemental study showing how much different countries spend per child on education, cross-referenced to the students’ performance. I’d be willing to wager that the USA comes in near the top on the money-spent side (and we already know where we come out on the performance end).
How to solve these interconnected problems is like trying to untie Gordian’s Knot. What’s needed is the equivalent of a scholastic Alexander the Great to just cleave the thing in two… but where is he?
As a college professor, I am sooooo tired of students who have graduated high school without the ability to spell, read critically, write or do math.
When I amaze my students by calculating grade percentages in my head, you know something is very very wrong.
Dr T, if they had any critical thinking skills at all wouldn’t that preclude them from getting into most Universities or colleges? I hope I am wrong and I know some people have managed to accomplish it but in the mid nineteen-eighties I had so many go-arounds with two of my professors teaching opinion rather than fact that I ended up quitting.
Unfortunately perhaps, I still have a little too much Hillbilly in my blood. (And don’t tell Rose but actually my Pa was from Texas and I reckon I got some of that in my blood as well) When these people start spitting lie-laced, emotional venom my way I get so angry that ugly does not even begin to describe it. Fortunately, my Ma got me out of the public school system at an earlier age but I never could manage college.
For Dr T. Who do you think is teaching Math to these students in high school? Not your Math majors. I can guarentee it. The Math majors have other options and deserted Math education programs 30 years ago. Politicians ignored this then as did educators. To get people to teach Math they watered down the curriculum. It is NOT about the text books. It is completely about the inability to train and recruit qualified teachers.
DrT, you will be amazed to discover that any blonde waitress, educated or not can calculate 15% of any number in her head, on any amount. To the penny.
I’m curious…
How many people here advocate the teaching of creationism or “intelligent design” in school? And if you do, how is that any different than fuzzy math?
Well James as an old science teacher I take this stand. The Theory of Evolution is just a theory or a model to try to explain the origin of species from material evidence. As such it is full of holes, but that does not mean it is unscientific. However Evolution is not a religion and not a treatise on faith. It needs to be discussed rationally and modified as information comes in.
Intelligent Design is more of philosophical explanation for the origin of species, but has little scientific principals to investigate. It is more an issue of faith than science.
BTW: Personally I don’t believe in evolution or intelligent design.
My freshman year of college, I took an education class beacuse it was something I was remotely interested in.
It was a class on how to evaluate students.
One thing that stuck out is how the professor emphasized that students should be tested on whether or not they can demonstrate the unserstanding of certain concepts over whether or not they happen to come up with the correct answer. (Partial credit vs. all-or-nothing.)
That was the last education class I ever took.
As an engineer, all this works to my advantage: no competition for future employment by any up-and-comers. Supply and demand, baby! Reduce the supply and the price goes up!
#78 – Quite a find in the NYT: “the platitudes of achievement”? Wow. This language sounds straight out of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, only there it was dystopian parody. How depressing that people actually can say such drivel.
#91, GaijinBob – Ha! You wish. Your competition is logging on to his computer in Estonia right now.