Why public schools are failing, black and white
 

Public schools are failing for one very simple reason, we reward failure!!

The public schools are the only industry in the world where if you do bad, you get more money, ie a reward for failure.

The simple solution to the public school problem is to simply reward the successful schools and shut off the money to the bad ones. Even a moron can tell that, after a while, without more money, bad schools will go out of business, that simple. If you only fund successful schools, you will only have successful schools.

Get the commies out of our schools or shut the public schools down.

Since getting the commies out is highly unlikely, I say stop funding public schools. Vote NO on every funding request. Its the only way. Support free and private education. Leave no child behind, in a public school.

Your simple solution simply won't work.

Simple question, where do you propose to send the children of the failing school that you have shut down?

Got news for you, a schools success is a combination of the admin, teachers, students, parents, community and environment.

But good luck with your plan. :rolleyes:

They will most likely be absorbed by the surviving schools which will increase the strain on those schools, require expensive construction/renovations to house them, and result in re-hiring the original teachers to teach them because of the teaching shortage.

Or, perhaps, the failing schools will be cleared out of faculty/staff and the schools will have to hire new teachers. The only question is "from where?" because, again, there is a shortage of qualified teachers.

The reality is that many of the new legislation (NCLB, for example) that requires more and more training/certification is discouraging many people from pursuing careers in education. I'm not trying to say that these laws are inherently bad because I do agree that teachers should know what they are talking about and be experts in their field. Unfortunately, the reality is that many people who are interested in teaching decide that the salaries don't justify amount of money/work needed to become a teacher. I know that for me, were it not for the fact that I really want to teach (and, quite frankly, I'm in a good financial position) I'd have thrown in the towel on becoming a teacher a long time ago.

Of course, I'm not saying that paying us more will solve all of our problems because it won't. I still see issues with bad parenting and unmotivated students, along with "grade inflation" for the sake of passing the problem student on to someone else. But I figure that as long as we're discussing the capitalistic business model approach to teaching, I should throw another spin on it.

BB.

It is difficult to educate a segment of our society that doesn't want or value education. IIRC, there was a study done in Harlem recently trying to break this cycle by spending enormous dollars per student to try to increase high-school matriculation and college entrance. It basically showed that you could increase minority college attendance by tripling your per capita expenditures but for the most part, they all dropped out of college instead of high-school. Think of what you could have had if you had spent those dollars on students who really were educable.

"Public schools are failing for one very simple reason, we reward failure!!

The public schools are the only industry in the world where if you do bad, you get more money, ie a reward for failure.

The simple solution to the public school problem is to simply reward the successful schools and shut off the money to the bad ones. Even a moron can tell that, after a while, without more money, bad schools will go out of business, that simple. If you only fund successful schools, you will only have successful schools.

Get the commies out of our schools or shut the public schools down.

Since getting the commies out is highly unlikely, I say stop funding public schools. Vote NO on every funding request. Its the only way. Support free and private education. Leave no child behind, in a public school."


Typical statements and a simple minded but wrong solution from someone who thinks they have succeeded in some facet of life and that therefore qualifies them to make pronouncements about any and everything else.

Spend a year working as a substitute teacher (there is crippling shortage - pay is poor and working conditions are tough) in the public schools and you will become vastly more informed.

Poor parenting (for numerous reasons) and the low value placed on education and learning in popular culture are two of the many factors that hinder our education system.

It is not the schools that are failing, it is the parents and the students. One of the biggest mistakes we make in our educational system is that everyone wants and will benefit from a college education.

As my father always told me when I didn't want to do my schoolwork.

"That is fine, the world needs ditch diggers too"

Public schools are failing because of one thing "tenure". The system rewards all teachers equally, some do a great job of educating their students and others don't give a ****. If you can't fire a teacher, how can you improve the system.

My wife has substituted in our school system for 30 years, she basically gets called everyday she is in town and goes to work. She could be a full time teacher if she wanted too but enjoys the work and wants the flexibility, it's not a money thing. The point I am making is that she subs for a lot of the same teachers all the time and they abuse the system with absenteeism, personal days and just generally a poor attitude, but they can't be fired, period. Oh, and they are ****ty teachers.

There are plenty of dedicated teachers, most of which are overworked because of class size. Tenure just brings out the worst in the lazy SOB's

Same here, except that we are needing fewer ditch diggers as we are more mechanized.

Nobody mentions that American society does nothing to honor academic achievement at all levels - unlike sports/entertainment. While validation and motivation are important from the parents, the media response (IMO based on advertising dollars) to knowledge is limited to Jeopardy! and the national spelling bee (you have to pay for the Discovery Channel and then it's nothing about competition just achievements/history).

In England, years ago, there were nationally televised competitions between highschools and universities about real knowledge. Probably also kept some of the public more educated too....

Great idea, problem is no one would watch. Their all playing killer videos and surfing porn.

I co-taught with one teacher last year who was not only worthless (his final exam was to watch The Miracle Worker and do an essay on it... did I mention this was a PHYSICS CLASS???) but also damaging because he would actively pick fights with the kids, let them wander around the school and give them zero accountability. The number of times I went up the chain of command because of him was mind-boggling, and my role in that classroom quickly settled on keeping the kids from beating him down because, no matter how much he deserved it, the kids would come out on the losing end of that deal.

This guy would always be de-staffed and sent to another school but never let go. I suspect he hasn't lost his job because of the need for physics teachers. Fortunately, he plans on retiring this year or next.

BB.

Teachers, in general, are not to blame for the state of our public schools. I know about teachers because most of my family, extended family are teachers, principles, administrators. EG sisters, aunts, uncles, grandmothers, g grandmothers, gg grandmothers, ggg grandmothers, cousins....my daughter, to many to name.

The system is to blame. The system is a socialist, communistic based system that quite simply awards FAILURE, that SIMPLE, no fancy analysis required. NOTHING that is non government awards failure, NOTHING that is successful, including private schools rewards failure.

Teachers are to blame for accepting the indoctrination, something they should be smart enough to resist, to the socialist ways. I think all teachers should have at least 15 years experience in the "real" world before they are allowed to teach. IN other words a whole lot less so called socialist education courses and a whole lot more reality. After all they are not teaching rocket science, just the abc's and basics. Real independent learning must be left to college and post grad education, where people can start to think for themselves, when they have attained the tools necessary to start to learn. Real learning only takes place in the real world, after college. The purpose of education is to provide continuity, to provide the TOOLS. Knowledge is learned, only after the tools are mastered.

Many teachers seem to want to do the right thing but they are very careful about what they can do or say for fear of getting sued.

It is in a towns best interest for their schools to do well - if not property values suffer. I saw this happen to a few towns several years ago. When the prop values stall it is only a matter of time before the next steps happen which help to bring it all down then the state has to come in to "help" by throwing money at the problem.

We are so good at looking to throw money at a problem until it goes away.

No. Schools are almost entirely merely a *reflection* of the PARENTS and the STUDENTS. I.e., the school is merely a mirror reflection of the community it is in.

Schools that are located in areas with parental failures are always going to fail as schools.

Schools that are located in areas with strong, interested, caring, successful parents (parent who are successful at parenting) are going to be successful.

If you have an area filled with parents who don't value education, and don't teach their kids to value education, hard work, integrity, etc., the school will fail, even if it were filled with teacher who are brilliant geniuses like snowman. That's because (1) a school is only a place that can present a kid with an OPPORTUNITY to learn (you can't teach a kid who isn't interested in learning), and (2) a school can't and shouldn't be expected to raise kids, i.e., teach them values, etc. That needs to be done by parents.

When you don't like what you see in the mirror, the solution isn't to throw money trying to fix the mirror.

Schools must accept that there are two kind of students. One has no interest in learning anything, the other has interest in learning everything. Traditionally this has been accommodated by tracking or even academic, and non academic school districts. The courts have decreed that all public schools must be equally funded, a communistic, socialistic decree that is destined to fail. Now even failures must be funded like successful schools. Just like I stated, we are rewarding failure. Only when the legislature has the gumption to take back their responsibility and tell the courts where to go, will this injustice be corrected. So far I haven't seen any thing that looks like gumption or guts or leadership in the legislature.

[QUOTE=snowman;3595927] The courts have decreed that all public schools must be equally funded, a communistic, socialistic decree that is destined to fail. Now even failures must be funded like successful schools. Just like I stated, we are rewarding failure. Only when the legislature has the gumption to take back their responsibility and tell the courts where to go, will this injustice be corrected. QUOTE]


unclear to me why equal funding destines schools to failure. please explain

and exactly what do you propose from a gumption point of view?

I don't think "funding" has much to do with it.

Again, the school is just a reflection of the community.

I went to a variety of public primary schools in So. Cal. in the 70s and 80s. Some of the lower end area schools in LA, to some of the highest rated public K-12 schools in Orange County (if you know those schools, you know how extremely successful they are).

The buildings looked pretty much the same, the teachers made roughly the same money, the books were the same, etc. I.e., there was no significant difference in "funding." The only real difference was the parents and the students.

Money, fancy books, computers, etc. are not what makes successful students.

I believe this is Sno's point. He wants to eliminate funding for "unsuccessful" (how ever that is defined) schools.

Money does not define a successful school, thats why more money for schools is a fools errand. However in general, success is rewarded by money, failure is not. How does this jive with the mantra that all schools need is more money? Extra money is given to failures. Why not give this same money, money is a limited quantity, to successful schools? The money, given to failures is just pissed down the drain, reinforcing whatever caused the failure to begin with. No analysis is required, or needed. You reward success, that simple. Success will cause more of the same, failure, reinforced, will cause more failure. Its simple capitalism at work. Those, teachers, that cannot see this have been indoctrinated beyond salvation and should be fired.

In America, we need AMERICANS as teachers, not communists.

So are you saying that areas that are largely filled with bad parents should not have public schools?

Yes, if those schools are failures. Send the students to successful schools.

So many of you have the right ideas about the education situation. I retired a couple of years ago from education. I worked in lots of different jobs in the school district: teaching, curriculum development, giving workshops, district rep to local business, working in & management of grant programs, grant & proposal writing, etc., etc. I have posted comments about my thoughts concerning education before, so I won't repeat.
But there are mechanisms in the system that discourage too much success and hard work associated with teaching. I will give you an example. My wife always wanted to be a teacher, and got her certification at an older age than the typical beginning teacher. In fact she is in her fourth year this year. She was lucky enough to start at a new school in an upscale neighborhood.
She was nominated as the "Teacher of the Year" candidate for the past two years (the school didn't have a nominee the first year) by her school to the District and of course didn't get it. Someone who has been in the system for 20+ years gets it.
She is super talented, super able, super creative, and a super hard worker. She was educating her first graders generally from past second grade level to fourth grade level in some instances in terms of basic abilities in reading, math, writing , etc.
I told her she would probably suffer as a result, because they would load her class with low level kids and kids with behaviour problems, and she disregarded that.
This year, she was transferred to 3rd grade and amazingly enough given a class of low level kids and kids with behaviour problems. When she commented about this to the Principal, the Principal told her the 3rd grade level was low on test scores and that as a "strong teacher", she could handle it.
Now as the workaholic she is, she is doing a great job with the kids she has. But you'll never see them doing that sort of thing to a lousy teacher.

Your are correct. Punish the successful, reward the mediocre. Thats the socialist way.

I wonder how much better our graduates would do if they were taught by the best to be the best? The bottom is not going to pull up anyone by their bootstraps.

So a good teacher is given poorly performing students. That doesn't seem wrong or out of the ordinary. If she were teaching a gifted program, that would be another story. Of course, with LAUSD, you wouldn't see poor performing kids in a gifted program.

:rolleyes:

So Sno say you have an inner city school w/dropout rate of 25% when the surrounding schools are 50%. And you have a 'burb school where the dropout rate is 25% surrounding schools are 10%. Which one(s) of these schools are successful? How about which group of schools should you compare each of them to?


BTW more money has always been the american way to solve any problem...

What? You don't agree? Or is that a typical modern-day "educator's" response?

there are certainly bad teachers who don't care but......

a: gov't programs like 'no child left behind' are simply massive testing programs. administrators are told to 'make sure the kids pass the standardized tests...at all costs'. this essentially turns teachers into 'readers'. the learning process is no longer dynamic and flexible. politicians have stuck their fingers waaaay too far into the pie here.

b: teachers have had their hands tied behind their backs in the discipline arena and are not given the tools needed to deal with bad apples. it only takes one punk to ruin an entire class. the effects of this are FAR reaching (think about having constant disruption in basic algebra). punks simply are NOT booted any more.

c: parents are not doing their part. they are not 'parents' so much as babysitters any more. garbage in/garbage out. cell phones in the hands of 8yr olds, 10yr olds with thongs.....as a nation our parenting sucks.

So, get the bad kids OUT and drop the b.s. testing programs.

Not only that, but some of the money is based on pass rates. Therefore nobody wants to fail a student. Students should have to stay back if they can't cut the next level.

Here's another politically untenable option. Your kid gets 12 yrs of tuition free (if they want it). That's it. If they are smart enough, then maybe they can accelerate and get some of those years in college (state run of course). Or make it 8 + 4 (like the British). Those that don't want to be in school get manditory boot to trade schools (if capable) earlier.

The emphasis on passing every student on to college/university hasn't served our society and economy well. Not everyone is suited for succeeding in a purely academic regimen at a university. There isn't anything wrong with that. There are many different kinds of "intelligences" and talents which don't fit into the iniversity box. For years in some european countries, students would be evaluated before going on to an advanced education. Those who were inclined toward something other than a continued academic education were offered alternative routes of education and training. That allowed them to be trained for other things no doubt less frustrating and more rewarding for them.

And do what with them afterward? Let them languish? Become homeless because they have no viable work skills? Join the military - which is also becoming difficult as it too has become highly skilled.

Yup.


Sorry but it's the only answer. The bad apples have no viable work skills when they graduate high school so why let them ruin it for the rest of the students who might succeed with a little less interuption and bad influence? The end result for them is NO DIFFERENT but the end result for other students can be significant.


Marv, I agree 1,000%.

This is crap, i know because i'm young enough to remember my time in public school clearly (currently 24). The problem comes from a mix of everything ranging from teachers, students, parents, laws, etc. I had my mix of bad teachers, and it wasn't necessarily that they didn't know what they were talking about, just that they couldn't convey that knowledge worth a crap. Then there are parents who either work too hard or too much to be involved, or they just don't care because they see education as a necessary evil before their kids can drop out and get a real job. Then there's societies influence on students, where they don't want to learn because education is second rate to sports. Our society idolizes sport figures, you ask a child who he'd like to be when he grows up and you get answers like Peyton Manning, Michael Jordan, etc. No one cares about people like Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, etc. Even young girls idolize celebrities instead of scholars, like Paris Hilton, Kimora Simmons, etc. Then there are laws that setup what is believed to be a standard for all students graduating high school. I scored extremely high in math and reading/critical thinking, but had a lot of problems passing the writing portion. Problem i had motivating myself to be a better writer came from knowing that i'd either work on cars for a living, or go onto college for engineering, why the hell do i need to understand how to bull**** on paper? Then on top of that you go to college and you end up taking classes that you thought you already took in high school. The difference is that they emphasize learning something, and get rid of the other crap. By the time your done with your first year of college you feel like the last two years of high school were a waste.

When education became intertwined with politics and government, it failed.

Government screws EVERYTHING up, intentionally or not. I think it's inherent to its nature.

Cut off public funding and issue dollar-value vouchers for parents to spend on the schools of their choice. Implement a form of market competition amongst the schools and you'll quickly start fixing the problem.



The only problem I have with this is it still is a "redistribution of wealth" (a socialist tenet) from those who do not have children to those who do, although as long as the vouchers are strictly controlled and used ONLY for education, I suppose I wouldn't have too much problem with that - and that's speaking from a guy who has no kids. I'm not so foolish as to think that we can disregard the fact that children ARE our future and we better give them the proper training and society today to address problems tomorrow - including taking care of us.

And by the time you actually learn how to do the job in your chosen field you realize at least 60% of college was a waste as well.

Oh dude, don't tell me that, i have two semesters to go.........

An honest college would adopt the slogan 'we get you the interview, after that it's on you buddy'. This MAY not hold true for law or certain sciences, can't speak to that. I'm a CPA and i can tell you that the stuff i bill $135/hr for i learned on the job.

Soooooo much b.s. in college. There is a suggestion that those who can't, teach. If it holds truth anywhere it is at the college level. But you put in your time and earn your grades to get the interview.

Kids that adopt an attitude of 'i don't see why this is important so screw it' in grade school are likely to adopt the same attitude in the working world as well and thus be failures there too.

Yup.

True to a point.

The usual/expected counter to that is "well, college teaches you discipline, basic skills like writing and effective communication, etc."

Nowadays I really even question that. More and more I see individuals with college degrees that can't write (fundamental grammatical mistakes like confusing "their" with "there" or "they're", misspellings, etc.) College is about cranking out students now and the more you can crank out, the more $$$ you make and the larger pool of benefactors you build for the future.

When's the last time a college actually flunked anyone?

Every parent is bad?

Hard to believe.


I pulled my kid out of public school last year and it was the best decision I have ever made. The tuition is killing me but I will fight to keep both my kids in private school.

Public schools are as corrupt as the local government.


Oh, and private schools seem to be a magnet that draws in parents that care. A throw away kid stands out in there, one was just told to leave this year she was disruptive and it was obvious something was really wrong at home. Problem sent packing, school back to normal. She lasted 2 weeks.

This is why I will flip burgers if I have to to pay my kids tuition in private school.

Very true, like anything in life, it means much more if you have to earn it.
The teachers union is a major problem too, as is liberalism. Education in the USA started dropping at the same time liberalism started, mid 60s.