President of the US: Fix the Education System

[edward]

The cold war and the space race provided a clear goal for public education in the 50's and 60's.

The role schools should play in developing social norms and self esteem has taken priority since then. The students graduating from school may not be qualified for much, but at least they'll feel good about themselves - after all, it's not their fault they're poor - it's society's.

I think Microsoft, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and other companies should play more of a role in setting educational standards. After all, the point of education should be to prepare students to go work in places like that - especially since the alternative is to become competitive with foreign manufacturers by accepting comparable pay and benefits as foreign labor.

Students need to be challenged and they need to have aspirations. Neither of those things are happening anymore. This is most likely as you mentioned due to things like the end of the space race and other technical challenges. The big companies do need to be involved.

I think that the "No Child Left Behind" fiasco has left a lot of kids feeling that they must be dumb. They are tested and re-tested so much that the only thing they are learning is how to pass the blasted tests.

Humans seem to have an inherent need to be challenged and inventive. Schools are obviously not providing that incentive.
Without any stimulus to be creative and innovative we seem to get lazy and stagnate. This may even be related to why humans seem to have a tendency to start a war every few years.

I have been posting in the global warming thread and it got me to thinking about this thread. Is there any chance that a new challenge, such as an urgent need to develop new energy sources, could break our young students out of their malaise?? Anyone got any ideas?

I doubt that the federal government will look at a students need to be challenged until we are outsourcing the development of our own weapons.

just a ramble.

 

[0TheSwerve0]

Found http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v32-issue2/hirji.pdf"about the California's public school system.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

You are the President of the United States. Fix the education system.

This is the 10th ammendment to the Constitution that I have sworn to uphold.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Therefore, I will see to the education of my own children and call it a day.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v32-issue2/hirji.pdf"

amongst?

Text added to satisfy a curious criterion.

 

[Jeff Ford]

The first step is to eliminate grades 1-8. Replace them with a single school where all classes are based on ability instead of age. Things like gym class, lunch and recess can be based on age, to ensure proper socialization, but math, reading, grammar, history and the like should be based on ability. When you master one level you get to move up.

The second step is to stop putting everyone in the same high school. Two schools are needed, one for college bound, and one for future trade workers. For someone who isn't interested in college, many of the required courses are just a place for them to cause a disruption. Get that first year of trade school out of the way early, and help these people into the work force sooner.

 

[Astronuc]

Some High Schools Avoid Valedictorians
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10693512
by Steve Inskeep

Morning Edition, June 4, 2007 · Some high schools are getting rid of a senior class tradition — naming a valedictorian. They say that lowering competition among students is better for their overall success. Eden Prairie High School in Minnesota will graduate its last valedictorians this year. Next year, exceptional students will receive just an honors diploma.

I was looking for an article on the fact that testing nationwide is not uniform and although test scores may be increasing, the actual knowledge of students (or average students) is not.

 

[ShawnD]

I would stop giving all the money to the sports departments of schools

This. My high school had a swimming pool, a football stadium, a hockey arena, and 2 gymnasiums. Sports are nice and all, but it's just a blatant waste of money when it's lumped together with the budget that was intended for real education. I have 2 zany ideas that I always thought would work.

1). Lower the educational requirements to be a teacher and have a stronger emphasis on experience.
Yes I said lower them. In college, one of the best teachers I had was a guy who didn't even have a bachelor of science. He was a guy who had a 2-year diploma in applied chemistry and something like 10 years of experience in the chemical industry. He really knew his stuff. I don't understand why somebody with a master's degree and no experience would be more qualified than somebody with a 2-year certification and 10 years of experience.

2). Eliminate all sports related junk and use this money to award small cash prizes. I mean like you show up every single day for a month and you get $10. Get the highest test score and you get $10. Yes I'm serious. It would probably cost a lot less than having a stadium, but it would actually encourage people to do good.edit: I won't debate these ideas if anybody quotes them. I'm just throwing them out there. Jon Stossel had a 20/20 special on education in the US and one of the principals interviewed said he awarded small cash prizes for achievements in school. It seems like such a cool idea that I just had to include it in this post.

 

[Smurf]

I don't know about the rest of Canada, but in BC the teacher shortage is artificially created. A bachelor's in education should be enough to get a high school job.

I don't know how I'd do it, but as a general thought I think we should require teachers keep up-to-date on the best teaching techniques, which should be a formal branch of psychology imho.

 

[Cyrus]

This. My high school had a swimming pool, a football stadium, a hockey arena, and 2 gymnasiums. Sports are nice and all, but it's just a blatant waste of money when it's lumped together with the budget that was intended for real education.


I have 2 zany ideas that I always thought would work.

1). Lower the educational requirements to be a teacher and have a stronger emphasis on experience.
Yes I said lower them. In college, one of the best teachers I had was a guy who didn't even have a bachelor of science. He was a guy who had a 2-year diploma in applied chemistry and something like 10 years of experience in the chemical industry. He really knew his stuff. I don't understand why somebody with a master's degree and no experience would be more qualified than somebody with a 2-year certification and 10 years of experience.

2). Eliminate all sports related junk and use this money to award small cash prizes. I mean like you show up every single day for a month and you get $10. Get the highest test score and you get $10. Yes I'm serious. It would probably cost a lot less than having a stadium, but it would actually encourage people to do good.

Lol, wow. I posted that a while ago. Talk about old thread.

 

[ShawnD]

I don't know about the rest of Canada, but in BC the teacher shortage is artificially created. A bachelor's in education should be enough to get a high school job.

I don't know how I'd do it, but as a general thought I think we should require teachers keep up-to-date on the best teaching techniques, which should be a formal branch of psychology imho.

I would go as far as saying most shortages are fake.

Anyway, teachers already get training on a regular basis. It may not be extensive or anything, but they do take courses from time to time. It's no different from engineers and chemists taking courses and attending training for some new equipment, new CAD software, or new analytical techniques.

Maybe I'm over the line when I say this but I tend to think good teachers are just good teachers and bad teachers are bad teachers. No amount of training will turn a bad teacher into a good teacher.

 

[Smurf]

Lol, wow. I posted that a while ago. Talk about old thread.

astronuc rezzed it, not shawn.

 

[BobG]

I don't know how I'd do it, but as a general thought I think we should require teachers keep up-to-date on the best teaching techniques, which should be a formal branch of psychology imho.

I think it is to at least some extent. They should have learned something of learning in the physical domain, the cognitive domain, affective domain, etc. In the military, we had quite few volumes of text on instructional system development to include how to identify what should be taught, what methods should be used, how to manage the program, etc. I always kind of assumed it was drawn from civilian programs for teacher education or certification or at least some external source (it was certainly on a different level than most military texts - I had to put it into a format that even satellite operators could understand).