17th December 2003, 6:08 PM
Quote:Originally posted by A Black Falcon
I liked my (public) schools... sure, in some places, mainly urban areas, public schools are bad, but that is hardly true about the whole system. First, in many parts of the country there are major teacher shortages because school teachers get paid so badly very few people want to be teachers. The result is schools have to keep teachers that aren't as good because there is a shortage anyway... and we can't afford to pay teachers better because school funding is, as always, very low and one of the first things to get cut in a shortage.
Oh, and as for quality of public schools...
http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_ham...education/
How about this study? 88% of New Hampshire students questioned thought they were getting a good education, and 77% said they were going to go to college... and 73% said their teachers challenged them. I'd say that that goes against what you think it s true in public schools.
Oh Weltall, that brings up an important point. More people these days are going to college than ever before. And it isn't even close. That says something about our education system, and it sure isn't bad!
What does that say? It says that college admission is more accessable, due to student loans and dramatically lowered standards of admission. The same goes for student approval. Sure, the kids love it. The fact remains, against other nations, our schoolchildren suck, by and large, because our education system is in shambles.
Quote:Look, I think that yes, there are a lot of bad teachers out there and that urban schools in many cases are indeed quite bad. But there are a lot of public schools that are not, such as the ones I went to...
Oh yeah, and by far the best way to improve the quality of a school is to improve the quality of the teachers. And to do that you need to pay them well... then you will actually get applicants and will be able to afford to do something about the not so good teachers you can't when you don't have any money.
Can the crap. Again, we spend more money than ever on public school funding. That teachers are paid so little is all the evidence necessary to see just why throwing more money at the problem doesn't help. Where is all this money going?
It's not just poor teachers. Curriculums are terrible. History is being re-taught for purposes of 'diversity and fairness', the two most terrible misnomers of a liberal's vocabulary. And worse, we're told that it is bad for a child's self-esteem to fail. So, the solution apparently is not to fail anyone, regardless of how much they deserve it. Thus, you have children progressing through school, essentially pushed through the grades until you have a high-school graduate who can barely read on a sixth-grade level. This high-school graduate has great self-esteem that will be mercilessly shattered once they realize that the real world will not allow... hell, provide for failure the way our public school system does.
Quote:Sure, in other countries there is better preformance in schools. But you know what? Most of those are public schools, not private ones, in the areas that are better that us...
And they do it without sinking huge amounts of money into it. Egad!
Quote:Yes, increasing standards in tests is in theory a good way to force schools to improve. However, this law does not do it in a good way. As I said, it forces you to have equal performance in subgroups that you have in the general student population -- a major problem in states like this where those groups sometimes have just a few people! And when you need 100% of students to take a test to not be called a "failing" school, it's absurdly easy to "fail". Look, 100% isn't reasonable. You need to set goals that can be met... as it is they are trying to get every school to fail.
For instance, this year I think 130 schools in Maine "failed" the rules. I somehow doubt that even a fraction of that number of schools in Maine are actually bad schools. It just proves how this law is mostly here to kill the public school system so that Bush can justify giving more money to religious schools.
There is a test in Florida that all students must take in order to graduate. The minimum score required to pass is 40%. You are given FIVE opportunities per year to pass. Yet, many students can't even manage that.
If by subgroups you mean different races, I think you're essentially saying that certain people are less-intelligent than others. My expectations are the same from everyone. All students should be able to read at their grade level. Why is that such an outlandish expectation? Some high-school grads can't read at all!
Your way of thinking definitely worsens the mess, and for the life of me, I can't tell if you think this way because you're the guiltiest white male in the universe, or your hatred of Bush and Christianity is propelling it, as often seems to be the case with you.
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