Which might be what I/we were getting at/into with the following:

Originally Posted by drgoodtrips
This is how society has evolved in the US. Public school is largely a babysitting service - but that goes deeper, by far, than the teachers that we hire.

You say "but that goes deeper, by far, than the teachers that we hire."

and I agree.

That might be an interesting area to examine ?

A very different area to examine, but where was it that I was saying that sometimes things that don't seem connected ARE ?

Oh yeah, post # 3 of this thread.

It's interesting to find myself in agreement with CT. Our society does not give teachers the respect and pay that they deserve. Of all of the jobs that I've held, teaching was by far the hardest. It was the most futility wrapped in a cloud of infinite frustration.

If/when I have kids, I'll be SO involved with their education, helping the teacher however I can.

__________________
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

*sigh*

You're doing exactly what I pointed out earlier. Your repeat of your previous argument (and use of the silly phrase "playing statistics") indicates to me that you're not interested in what I'm saying or what he's saying, in terms of the actual mathematics involved. I see little point in re-explaining why you're wrong about the relative "sameness" of our points, if you're only mathematical inclination is to point out that we both use the word "assume". This is like reading two word problems in a math textbook and claiming that the answer to both is "seven" because both problems have the word "apples" in them. I'm not going to waste any more time discussing this, and I say that not because I couldn't justify the problem with his argument, and the reasonability of mine, but because you seem disinterested in the mathematical concepts at play.

You're using your own refusal to understand what's being said as a justification a Solomon-like "you're both equally wrong".

...

Generally speaking, I think that there is a lot to be done to improve education, but I don't think that it should come in the form of raising taxes and paying teachers more without a better plan. Here are some ideas I've had that I think could be implemented without radical budget alterations that may be worth a shot before we tax and spend willy nilly:

1) Introduce more vocational programs at a younger age. Let's face it - not everyone needs to learn about Shakespearian sonnets and trigonometry. While there is an (understandable) desire to impart all children with certain knowledge, it's just not practical. It's easy for us to say, everyone should read Catcher in the Rye and know what the Magna Carta is, but that's not realistic. And, you start losing people, in high school in particular - when they discover that marijuana and hand jobs are a lot more fun than Charles Dickens. Take their interest and allow it to go where it will. Culinary programs, auto-shop programs, etc - and not just for a class or two, but as an actual "quasi-major".

2) Get rid of well meaning but harmful crap like "No Child Left Behind". Programs like that, which play God with funding based on test scores encourage all sorts of gamesmanship and manipulation at the administrative levels. Training kids to pass tests in order to get more dollars becomes paramount, as opposed to actually educating them. And, who can blame the administrators - they're just trying to ensure funding for their districts. It creates a Machiavellian scenario with superintendents chanting "The ends justify the means"

3) Stop spending all sorts of time on the dimmest bulbs and ignoring the smartest kids. Let's face it - half of all children are below median intelligence, and some people will grow up to ask if you want fries with that. There is such an emphasis on pretending that everyone's smarter than average and finding euphemisms and inventing diseases as excuses not to tell parents that little Johnny is "just slow" that things get skewed. If you want the American education system to shine, take some of the vast amount of resources invested in trying to polish turds (pardon the callousness of this sentiment) and put them into enrichment programs for the brightest kids. If you get a kid who is disinterested in or incapable of understanding some sort of complex play/work to read it anyway, who cares? What have you gained? But if you take some of that emphasis away and put it on the top notch students, allowing them to flourish (as opposed to sitting there bored, while the teacher explains it for the umpteenth time to someone else), you have huge marginal returns on your investment. Basically, it seems to me that the emphasis of our education system is on trying, in vain, to bring everyone up (or down) to a decent level of sophistication.

Again, this is callous, but the marginal returns on pumping tons of money to make sure "no child is left behind" are atrocious (many will be anyway due to just not being very bright). But, the marginal returns on stimulating the best and brightest would be staggering and provide a shot in the arm to the image of the education system, in terms of results. And, fear not for the "children left behind" - that is what the vocational idea is for. If they're never going to be lawyers or accountants - fine. But at least give them a shot at learning a marketable skill, rather than spending tons of money only to watch them absorb nothing on their way to dropping out due to lack of interest in Faulkner and chemistry titration experiments.

__________________
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

Around here, teachers make a fortune with private tutoring (some, like my ex's mother charging in the neighborhood of $50+ per hour). I'm wondering if that is universally true and, if so, what percentage of teachers have access to this market.

__________________
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

Not everybody has a GBN within driving distance, so I expect you're the exception rather than the rule. Not the Only exception, I'm sure, but just as not every student enjoys reading Keynes, not every school is Glenbrook North. (For the majority who don't know, a rich suburban high school where students are pretty much Expected to make it into top-tier universities, so intensive/expensive tutoring is not uncommon.) It's probably generous to say 10% of teachers have that situation available to them.

__________________
Today's forecast: Government corruption.

Tomorrow's forecast: 100% chance of more 'politics as usual'

Maybe it's finally time to vote Libertarian

It's not. None of the teachers I worked with had access to that.


Your other post above is very interesting. I agree with adding vocational programs, but I don't know that other subjects have to necessarily suffer. I suspect there's a way to allow students that want more real-world, not pre-college learning to get that without hamstringing them if they change their minds later on.

__________________
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

Oh, and I forgot one thing: studies are beginning to indicate that "intelligence" really isn't some sort of fixed thing. It has much more to do with effort and support systems than some sort of innate talent (for most individuals).

__________________
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

lol... my ex went to GBN. So, I suppose the reference is spot on - lots of parents with money to spend, hoping their kids keep up with the Jonses. Hell, when I was in high school, I used to get $20 per hour tutoring kids in physics and math, and my only qualification was that I'd received "A's" in the courses they were taking. Point taken.

__________________
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

That's a fair point. My post was addressing the "problem" on a macro level. It gets dicey when applied to individuals because of the humanitarian angle. It breaks our hearts to think that X specific child just can't hack it. I think human nature encourages us all to think that anyone can reach for the stars with the right combination of encouragement and specialized learning. I'm no different - I don't know that I could look at an individual child and say "sorry, buddy - drive thru for you."

__________________
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

LOL. So true.

Unfortunately, for many of these kids, it's the parents that tell them "drive thru for you."

Th real question is, what's the worth of that kid that the teacher diverts from a downward spiral to a productive life? We have to spend time on the dim ones, because some of them are 6000W bulbs in hiding.

__________________
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