Grim News About US Education

[Jagshund]

Watching the news this morning (first time in years), one of the stories headlined as 'Grim News About US Education' was about the recent rash of military entrance exam failures (1 in 4) that include such, "simple questions like if 2 x 2 = 4, what's the value of x?"

Uhhhhhhhh . . .

[Rick Lee]

In that case X can be either an X or a +. Are those choices given?

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by 1968Cayman

Watching the news this morning (first time in years), one of the stories headlined as 'Grim News About US Education' was about the recent rash of military entrance exam failures (1 in 4) that include such, "simple questions like if 2 x 2 = 4, what's the value of x?"

Uhhhhhhhh . . .

Is that a real question or should it have been green?

[Jagshund]

It was stated as being an actual question, but I think they meant if (2)(x)= 4, what's the value of x?

[tabs]

American education k-12 is a complete failure. Americans think that by throwing money at the problem they can solve it. What happens is that money increases the size of the bureaucracy. Since bureaucracy is a one shoe fits all solution..it is doomed to failure.

The kids who can adapt and play the bureaucratic games do OK. The ones who bring baggage to school from home and/or don't have sophistication at home, fail.

Also part and parcel to the failure is the no child left behind dumbing down and teaching for a test methodology.

Lastly we come to the the "I am entitled to success" mentality of the American people and you now can see what you get.

Welcome to the THIRD WORLD.

It is now only a matter of time that higher ed gets the budget cuts as the states start to go BK. The first place they cut is the University. At that time the best and brightest in the world will go elsewhere.

What made America great technologically was the prosperity that we enjoyed since WW2. Before WW2 the technological leader was Germany with Hitler many of the best and brightest left Europe to come to America. After the war it was the opportunity that America offered.

Now as America starts to slip they will go to where there is the opportunity to work and prosper

[ossiblue]

Originally Posted by 1968Cayman

Watching the news this morning (first time in years), one of the stories headlined as 'Grim News About US Education' was about the recent rash of military entrance exam failures (1 in 4) that include such, "simple questions like if 2 x 2 = 4, what's the value of x?"

Uhhhhhhhh . . .

Read the same article this morning. What's really telling is that 75% of 17-24 year olds fail to qualify for the armed forces because they are either school drop outs, have criminal records, or cannot pass the physical fitness requirements.

[trekkor]

they will go to where there is the opportunity to work and prosper

And, where exactly, is that?


KT

[McLovin]

Originally Posted by ossiblue

Read the same article this morning. What's really telling is that 75% of 17-24 year olds fail to qualify for the armed forces because they are either school drop outs, have criminal records, or cannot pass the physical fitness requirements.

exactly.

this isn't an "educational system" problem, it's a FAMILY problem.

kids aren't being raised right, or raised at all. for some reason we expect our schools to not only educate, but to raise kids (most of whom are from multiple marriage, divorced, single family, broken homes whose parents don't care a lick about education).

that's not the school's role, and it can never fulfill that.

[audiman08]

Not to sound like a crotchety old man, but I'm sure texting hasn't done a lot to improve the younger generation's grammar skills either. The question (for some of these youngins) should read "Wht IZ the valu of x if 2(x) equalz 4?"

[Crowbob]

The real effect of this will be that those unsupervised, uneducated criminal kids have learned at least one thing; that being survival skills. In a world that is spiraling down the turlet, they will prevail at the expense of the rest of us.

[Gene-o]

I think the study also shows what kind of people are signing up for today's armed forces. When I was a HS senior (1983) many decently educated kids still enlisted.

Fast forward to 2010: we've told every HS student that they MUST go to college whether they were college material or not. Many of the people that would have gone right into the service after high school in the past are now in college instead. The thought of a career in the service has never entered their minds.

[jyl]

Interesting, but you need to think harder - what is this study telling us about?

- The education level of high-school graduates?
- Or the education level of the subset of high-school graduates who seek to join the military?

They are different groups. The study looked at 350K high school graduates who applied to enter the Army between 2004 and 2009 and took the ASVAB. As the report acknowledges:

"The group is not representative of individuals across orwithin states and the nation, but is a self-selected sample of individuals aged 17-20, with a high school diploma, and an interest in joining the Army"

It is very likely that the subset has, on average, a significantly lower educational level than the superset.

Each year, about 2.75MM people graduate from high school. About 1.85MM (appx 67%) of them go on to college. The study group would have been almost entirely drawn from the remaining 0.90MM who do not go to college. Which means, more or less, the bottom third of the graduating high school class.

Any guesses as to the difference in grades, literacy, math skills, etc between the 67% of graduates who go to college and the 33% who don't?

http://www.edtrust.org/sites/edtrust.org/files/publications/files/ASVAB_4.pdf
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2010/tables/10s0267.pdf

Sure, there's the occasional kid who was admitted to Harvard but chose to enlist in the Army and go to Iraq. There aren't enough of them to skew the above number.

[jyl]

Come to think of it, do you recall that for a period there, the Army was falling short of its recruitment goals? The combination of a good economy and an active war. That period happens to fall right in the years examined in the study.

You'd want to look at the test data for graduates applying for the Navy and Air Force. And the test data during each year. And to look at the test data prior to 2004, not just the short (5-year) period from 2004-2009. As far as I can tell, this study didn't do that. Which says something about how rigorous a study it really was.

[audiman08]

I'm not sure about other services, but an ever-increasing number of enlisted sailors have college degrees. In fact, Navy OCS is becoming much more competitive because a B.A./B.S./etc. isn't as valuable as it used to be. I'm up for my second OCS selection board in April, and I'm just one of several enlisted reservists in my unit with a college degree. My dad enlisted in the Navy just after Vietnam, a time when nobody wanted to go in the military. At that time, very few enlisted sailors had college degrees and you didn't even need a degree for some officer programs. Of course, this article is about Army ASVAB scores, but I'm proud to say that the education level on the Navy enlisted side of the house is only improving from what I've experienced.

[teenerted1]

the version of the story i read yesterday had a different math sample
2+x=4 what is x?

what is even more disturbing is that in 1980 only 5% failed physical requirements be being over weight and now something like 30% are too obese to get in.
if you aren't studying you should be playing...grand theft auto doesn't count

don't kids want to take PE anymore?

but on a positive note
lazy, stupid, fat kids shouldn't be defending our nation.

[12own911]

[QUOTE=teenerted1;5741803]don't kids want to take PE anymore?
QUOTE]

It's not that the kids do not take PE anymore... it's does the school even have PE anymore? Schools have changed a lot in the last 20 years. It's not like it was when I went to school where PE was 5 days a week. Now it's 1 day a week.

Also let's not forget that most parents work today and that they are no longer home to insure that their kids are doing homework and staying out of trouble.

[pwd72s]

'tis a brave new world and our government school are palaces of indoctrination over education.

[Noah930]

Originally Posted by audiman08

Not to sound like a crotchety old man, but I'm sure texting hasn't done a lot to improve the younger generation's grammar skills either. The question (for some of these youngins) should read "Wht IZ the valu of x if 2(x) equalz 4?"

Oh, now I get it! Y didnt U jst say so?

[Jagshund]

Originally Posted by audiman08

The question (for some of these youngins) should read "Wht IZ the valu of x if 2(x) equalz 4?"

Your age is showing. I think a 13 year old could reduce it to four letters and a digit.

And we'd all be scratching our heads when asked to decode it.

[Schumi]

Originally Posted by tabs

American education k-12 is a complete failure. Americans think that by throwing money at the problem they can solve it. What happens is that money increases the size of the bureaucracy. Since bureaucracy is a one shoe fits all solution..it is doomed to failure.

The kids who can adapt and play the bureaucratic games do OK. The ones who bring baggage to school from home and/or don't have sophistication at home, fail.

Also part and parcel to the failure is the no child left behind dumbing down and teaching for a test methodology.

Lastly we come to the the "I am entitled to success" mentality of the American people and you now can see what you get.

Welcome to the THIRD WORLD.

It is now only a matter of time that higher ed gets the budget cuts as the states start to go BK. The first place they cut is the University. At that time the best and brightest in the world will go elsewhere.

What made America great technologically was the prosperity that we enjoyed since WW2. Before WW2 the technological leader was Germany with Hitler many of the best and brightest left Europe to come to America. After the war it was the opportunity that America offered.

Now as America starts to slip they will go to where there is the opportunity to work and prosper

Wow. I agree with TABS 100%. Well said buddy.