50% of all children are below average!!!

[snowman]

50% of all children are below average!! This statement is true by definition. Yet we cannot beleive what it states.

When public schools perform below average, exactly what is ment by that statement? ITs impossible for the total of all public schools to perform this way. Yet it actually happens!!!!

Public schools are below average because they teach below average, not because of the students. Political correctness has brought the norm DOWN, not UP as hoped. So what should be done in response?

[Bill Verburg]

Originally posted by snowman

Public schools are below average because they teach below average, not because of the students. Political correctness has brought the norm DOWN, not UP as hoped. So what should be done in response?

Gotta disagree w/ you, JMO but any school is just a reflection of it's community, a community is not necessarily defined geographically.

The average wrt school performance is an arbitrarily chosen standard, in itself generally pretty meaningless and quite variable w/ time and place

[pwd72s]

Originally posted by snowman
50% of all children are below average!! This statement is true by definition. Yet we cannot beleive what it states.

When public schools perform below average, exactly what is ment by that statement? ITs impossible for the total of all public schools to perform this way. Yet it actually happens!!!!

Public schools are below average because they teach below average, not because of the students. Political correctness has brought the norm DOWN, not UP as hoped. So what should be done in response?

Vouchers...

[snowman]

Yes

[nostatic]

tell the parents to get off their ass and give a crap

[pwd72s]

Originally posted by nostatic
tell the parents to get off their ass and give a crap

Damn right! If you mean them getting their kids away from the government schools.

[nostatic]

Sorry Paul, but some of the gov schools are fine. The ones where the parents are active. My son's public school is quite good. It is a public charter school, and the parents are not passive. Neither are we...we've gotten excellent services but we had to work hard to get them.

[RoninLB]

teacher unions is the biggest legal scam in the US imo.

[pwd72s]

Your definition of "excellent services" may not be the same as mine. For instance, I didn't care much for a "global studies" textbook my daughter was given that flatly stated the constitution does not give individuals the right to keep & bear arms...that the 2nd amendment was for the purpose of forming a militia. Then there was the time a sex ed teacher decided to insert a diaphragm in a plastic vagina for a freshman health class, then there was the lecture telling her 13 year old contemporaries that their parents values old fashioned, and they, 13 and 14 year olds, have the "right" to form their own values....Uh, should I go on??? Naw, it won't matter to the good folks who buy politicians, keeping parents from making any real choice when it comes to their children's education. That being the most powerful and richest political lobby in the nation, the National Education Association. Folks, it's no "association"...it's a powerful and nasty public employees union... If you really care...yes, get off your asses, and get your kids out of the sewer that is the Government school system.

VOUCHERS!

[HardDrive]

Well, ok, you found some of the material offensive. Are you suggesting that things would be better in a private/religous school? I went to both public schools and a catholic HS. My sister did a combo of public and quite expensive private schools.

Education is part art, and part science, and people are always going to disagree on some of the finer points, regardless of where the kids go.

pwd72s, did you feel the schools prepared your daughters well enough for the future?

[pwd72s]

Harddrive, No, I don't feel they prepared my daughter well...but I'm sure a good teacher can explain how it's all the fault of her parents...that's what they usually do. But my real point? Parental choice here...I feel that nostatic, superman, and others who wish their children to grow up instilled with liberal values are quite happy with a government school...especially if they are also secular humanists who preach situational ethics. But a conservative person? No option...unless parents can afford private schooling on top of the onerous taxes they pay to support the government schools, no option.

I'm arguing for free choice here, not the closed union shop of government schools. Let the parents get off their ass and choose the schools they like. Since they are already forking over boucoup bucks in taxes, let them choose through vouchers.

This will never happen, by the way. Nobody in Congress sends their children to government schools, but the "campaign donations" given Politicians by the teacher's union assures that a lot of working stiffs have no choice...

[Victor]

That is sad. But - it needs to be this way.

Who else is going to flip burgers at McD's, stack shelves at Wal-Mart, watch Nascar, believe wrestling is for real, think Starbucks make good coffee, buy in to this whole "War On Terror" crap and be able to lift heavy stuff????

[beepbeep]

Err...if we assume that children perform according to usual Gaussian distribution curve and skewness of probability distribution is zero, 50% of kids WILL be below average...it's a simple statistical fact.

Otherwise, how could they calculate "the average"??

[livi]

The half below average may still be more happy and content than the half above that feel they have an obligation to live up to someone else's standard. The pressure, the stress, the anxiety of not doing enough. Then later in life, the coronary, the depression, the pills...

OK, just rambling here.

[hardflex]

this is a "glass is half empty" kind of thread.

[on2wheels52]

Perhaps not totally relevant, but in the National Spelling Bee do you notice the reeeeeeeealy high percentage of home school kids? My HS senior son has managed to acquire a fair education in public school (AP classes every year) but we were prepared to do the home school thing if we were unhappy with his public school experience.
Jim

[Bill Verburg]

Originally posted by beepbeep
Err...if we assume that children perform according to usual Gaussian distribution curve and skewness of probability distribution is zero, 50% of kids WILL be below average...it's a simple statistical fact.

Otherwise, how could they calculate "the average"??

I don't believe that Snowman used "average " IQ, but rather average performance on standardized tests that are widely used in this country to evaluate schools.

Problem is each state has a different standard, and private schools are generally exempt from it. There are national standards that are used but mostly only for collage admission and there is a lot of squawking about them as being "unfair". I lost all faith in them because everyone of the standard tests both state and nationally administered, is curved.

[Jims5543]

Originally posted by pwd72s
Vouchers...

Only if the school scores a failing grade in the standardized testing.

My sons schools suck, they are FCAT orientated. All that matters is they score well on the standard test and the school could not care less about them.

Then the school gets to identify students with "learning disabilities" and exclude their scores from the standarized testing.

So guess what happens. The school pre-tests the kids and checks the scores, the ones with hopelessly low scores are labeled "learning disabled" and tossed to the side.

The ones with low scores are then pulled from normal classes and tutored on how to pass the standard test.

Then the school gets an A or a B as a "whole" even though they just played the system.

If your kid takes the test well but does not get the curriculam or is struggling with it, it does not matter the school does not care. All they care about is a good score on the standard test.

A kid can fail a grade and still pass the test.

I just pulled my 13 y/o out of public school and my 3 y/o will never step foot in one. We are so sorry we did not do this years ago with the older one.

No child left behind and standardized testing has ruined schools.

[Jims5543]

Originally posted by nostatic
Sorry Paul, but some of the gov schools are fine. The ones where the parents are active. My son's public school is quite good. It is a public charter school, and the parents are not passive. Neither are we...we've gotten excellent services but we had to work hard to get them.

I respectfully disagree. I was/am very involved in my sons education I sat with him every night doing homeowrk wioth him making sure what his teacher failed to teach him was taught to him by me.

My wife volenteered at the school every day before our 3 y/o was born. We attend every teachers conference and open house and any other opportunity to meet our sons teachers and get to know them.

All that made no difference when a teacher is an old bag that needs to retire and decides they do not like a kids personality and beats them into the ground, then lies about it.

Why should a government run entity like a school be run any different than any other government entity? Its all a clusterfock.

[Jim Richards]

Originally posted by snowman
50% of all children are below average!!

LOL! beepbeep and Bill V. have nailed it. 50% are below average, and 50% are above average. So, what is considered average? How does that stack up against some meaningful benchmark?

Seriously, without answering the above questions, and looking at a breakdown by school district or even by school to isolate potential problem areas, this is all meaningless ranting.

Enjoy.