I read an article the other day, sorry no link, it was in print. But the point the author made is indisputable.

50% of the children in public schools are of below average intelligence.
25% of the children in Public schools are in the lower 25th percentile of intelligence.

Private schools have entrance exams and can end up with an entire student body of above average intelligence, but public schools get the public.
Why are we setting goals that "All" students must demonstrate competence in math and English, when we set goals like that, we are guaranteed to fail.

Why is the topic of intelligence seemingly left out of the debate about what is reasonable performance for public schools?

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“ The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”

Adam Smith , The Wealth of Nations 1776

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics"
FDR's second Inaugural Address

This is unfortunately something that lawmakers on both sides of the isle completely fail to realize. It doesn't help that states can easily manipulate statistics to keep federal funds flowing and local school boards have a complete disattachment with the classroom.

Basically nobody in power has a clue what goes on in public schools and everything they try to do has no real affects.

I got it, but I'll keep quiet for now....

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When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

I find it hard to believe that the population of america is giving birth to stupid. Believe it or not france and US has nearly identical average iq scores of about 98. So stupid to me is not born its learned.

Ill tell you what i know, I been to public school, and catholic. By FAR the private is Much better!!

Ill tell you why, one.. the kids, many are from rough areas and have bad attitudes, and in my oppinion the average kids probably don't want to get beat up so they try and put up the same act and rebell. Of course I am in an area of the US which has probably one of the Worst public school systems in the usa. Thats Tucson arizona alot of latino and black gangs. Anyways one loud rebellious violent kid will make other kids act the same way.

But thats not really the whole problem. Half the problem, sorry pramjocky, Is that the quality of teachers in public schools is Pretty damn low atleast in my experiance. The teachers are forced to go down to the lowest common denominator and dumb everything down, its rediculous. In Private schools its you have to keep up or else. Public is Everyone wins just show up once in awhile.

It seems to me public school teachers afterawhile just go in to get a paycheck. But there is some hope, (I went to about5 diff highschools) the highschool I graduated from was public, and it was actually probably one of the best public schools in the country. It was BRAND new. I was member of first graduating class. They had teachers that were caring but did not dumb down material. They were strict and had good quality security. Gated fences so no one was sneaking out and doing drugs like other public schools. Anyways.thats my experiance.

I also am very angry about the poor training in teachers when it comes to identifing learning disabilities (public+private), but thats another thing. (and no i don't meaning prescribing ridlin to everyone).

Basically the way to fix the school system is unfortuanetly to do the long tedious process of going through each school individually. Some because there needs to be a serious crack down on gangs and violence. Whether that be splitting gangs up to different schools, or tearing down weak schools and building up fortress like schools with gates and cameras that you can watch everyone and quickly punish/jail anyone that commits violence or illegal activity. or take a serious look at the quality of each teacher.

10% of kids fall into the lowest 10th percentile. Why do we not do more to help them?

5% of kids fall into the lowest 5th percentile. It's a travesty.

On the other hand, 10% of the kids are in the upper 10th percentile, so all is not lost.

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"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither breaks my leg, nor picks my pocket."

Thomas Jefferson

Well, metalted, it is true that half of the teachers are below average. But, how do we fix this problem?

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When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

Children in this country are encouraged to approach the "lowest common denominator" in too many instances. Kids finish doing their work, and then they just get more work. A realistic goal would be to stop subsidizing so much "special education" for the slow kids and focus more on advanced studies. There should be more tangible rewards for good, hard work.

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Is our children learning? -George W. Bush

"I think—tide turning—see, as I remember—I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of—it's easy to see a tide turn—did I say those words?"—Washington, D.C., June 14, 2006

"[T]he illiteracy level of our children are appalling."—Washington, D.C., Jan. 23, 2004

You claim that private schools are superior to public schools.

I don't intend this as a personal attack, but if your post is indicative of what can be expected to come out of a private school, I think I'd opt for a public school...

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Sayeth John Drake - 10/13/08: "OK, you're right, I admit to LYING"

Here is a thought...50% of the children in public schools are below average intelligence. Aren't 50% of any group below average of whatever category is being discussed. You know the average....

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"Bring the boys back home!"--Pink Floyd

NFA JJG 42-95

Free People/Free Markets

Following the Path of the Beam

ROFL...I was going to point that out in gest but I think it must be 50% of US kids in public schools are below average in the world or some other larger group.

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...the government...is caving in...with their specious arguments couched in the...language of civil rights law, and that the churches ... likewise crumbling to...rhetoric which is nothing but heretical sophistry -- ~F Phelps
Platitudes like the one you offer are no different - and no less incorrect - than the jackass part-time Christian who says, "I'm going to heaven because I'm nice to people." It so misses the point.~Impugn

My two daughters have attended public school from 1st grade to 7th and 11th respectively.
Both of them are in the top 10%. In fact, they're in the top 1%. Intelligence-wise.

Grade wise, one is slightly above average and the other slightly below.

Besides bragging rights, I mention this because it does underscore the problem that Goober is trying to point out.

The focus in public schools, (and underscored by such programs as "No Child Left Behind"), is on acheiving a grade. This has NOTHING to do with intelligence and almost nothing to do with character.

Someone said earlier that we need to emphasize "hard work". OK, if you want your kid to pick tomatoes in the hot sun we can train them to do that in the public school system with no problem.

In fact, we can train them how to conform, obey authority, keep quiet, do as your told, work hard, and completely forget about any innate aspirations and inclinations because they're a waste of time.

Does this sound like we're training good citizens to inherit a democracy/capitalism mix where questioning authority and big dreams are what it's all about?

Huh!? Does it!?

But seriously, it does make me angry. Schools are nothing more than daycare, prison and an experiment in operant conditioning.

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...the government...is caving in...with their specious arguments couched in the...language of civil rights law, and that the churches ... likewise crumbling to...rhetoric which is nothing but heretical sophistry -- ~F Phelps
Platitudes like the one you offer are no different - and no less incorrect - than the jackass part-time Christian who says, "I'm going to heaven because I'm nice to people." It so misses the point.~Impugn

Emphasis mine.

What you're describing is a system of education proposed by B.F. Skinner and promoted in the 1960's. It was implimented because, positive reinforcement of good behavior showed to produce better results than negative reinforcement of bad behavior that was prevalent before (corporal punishment).

The problem with a teacher disciplining children for bad behavior is that the child easily shifts the responsibility for his actions to anger at the teacher. So he stops messing up in front of the teacher because he doesn't want smacked, then he goes out on the playground and does whatever the hell he wants because he's never made the connection of consequences.

So you see why everyone was thrilled with this new system of rewards for good behavior and good scores! MUCH Better. Or not.

The problem with rewarding good behavior is almost the same in reverse. Every human is born with an innate sense of curiosity and desire to learn. If this were not true the species would have died out long ago. Well when you start rewarding that natural inclination, the emphasis becomes the reward. Eventually, you stop passing out rewards and the good behavior stops too.

This is what I meant in my earlier post when I said an experiment in operant conditioning. We continue to fail to teach consequences - good and bad.

Much study has been conducted in regard to the maturation of a human psychologically and socially. Our heros don't just work hard for rewards, they do the "right" thing because they understand that it is "right".

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...the government...is caving in...with their specious arguments couched in the...language of civil rights law, and that the churches ... likewise crumbling to...rhetoric which is nothing but heretical sophistry -- ~F Phelps
Platitudes like the one you offer are no different - and no less incorrect - than the jackass part-time Christian who says, "I'm going to heaven because I'm nice to people." It so misses the point.~Impugn

That makes sense.

__________________
"Bring the boys back home!"--Pink Floyd

NFA JJG 42-95

Free People/Free Markets

Following the Path of the Beam

I think you've hit it on the head here. The number one job of public schools is getting kids to conform and to respect authurity. This makes sense if you think about it. The economic system which supports the businesses who own our government requires obedient respectful workers who are willing to spend their days reliably doing mindless and repetitive work. This is not something most people will do without conditioning. There are some classes which teach techniques of independant thinking but they are aimed at the top 10% or so of students. This makes sense too. Very few people will ever need to do any independant thinking in their working life so there is really no point in encouraging it in most workers.

The baby sitting part is accurate too. We coud teach kids almost everything they learn in high school by the time they were 14 if we really wanted to. The trouble is that 14 is too young to be sent off alone to college or the workplace. So we stretch the schooling to keep them busy til they're 18. This isn't necessarily a bad thing.

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A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the utmost extremes of injustice and oppression.
Edward Gibbon

Forgive me for monopolizing the thread. This is a particularly irksome issue to me.

Thomas Jefferson was a huge advocate of education but not public education. Some of the biggest advocates of public education were indeed big business and for precisely the reasons you mention! This is no secret but I guess most folks are OK with that.

It's a bad thing. Not only do we keep them in school later and later in life, we send them off earlier and earlier so that system of indoctrination kicks in before Mom and Dad have had a chance to do any real parenting.

It's no wonder we suffer such disciplinary problems! Public school systems weren't created to increase intelligence nor were they created to do the job of parenting! And they shouldn't.

I was lucky. My kids were so incredibly bright that I couldn't bear the thought of daycare and their natural affinity for learning held out much longer than most kids.

As my oldest stands on the threshold of "higher education", I'm stuck with the repercussions of her high intelligence and low grades. Had I made her conform, she'd have good grades but she wouldn't be as bright or happy. She'd have an easier time getting into a good school. When was the last time you heard of a college asking for an IQ test for admittance?

But without a college education, how will she make a living?

We've effectively flipped the tables so that non-conforming intelligent kids will pick tomatoes (not literally of course, according to guest worker advocates, thats what Mexicans are for), and conforming but not as bright kids grow up to be industry leaders and politicians.

__________________
...the government...is caving in...with their specious arguments couched in the...language of civil rights law, and that the churches ... likewise crumbling to...rhetoric which is nothing but heretical sophistry -- ~F Phelps
Platitudes like the one you offer are no different - and no less incorrect - than the jackass part-time Christian who says, "I'm going to heaven because I'm nice to people." It so misses the point.~Impugn