Is U.S. education truly getting worse?

[Tokenconservative]

Sorry, couldn't see the rest of your post past this chip. I'm sorry again that you were such a good teacher they had to fire you.

I am too in a way...but given that I make, I dunno, 10-12x more than I did as a teacher, that's okay to some extent.

Too bad for those kids, though.

Tokie

 

[Tokenconservative]

I keep hearing exactly the same here in Europe (mostly the two systems I know well, France and Switzerland).

Unfortunately, Tokie systematically butting in with his sour grapes and his various fetishes prevents all significant discussion of this fascinating subject.

Stop talking to/about me and maybe I'll go away.

If you were not a shrieking leftist who simply cannot stand to have his/her/other assumptions and ideologies assailed, then this would not be a problem for you.

Perhaps you can take a pill before coming online in future?

Tokie

 

[Tokenconservative]

I was addressing you, so I believe the term "politically correct" applies to the right.

Could you give us an example of how the left has modified the curriculum to weed out the ideals of the right? I ask this in response to your statement:
~~ Paul

No..wait...what?

You believe that PC derives from....the right?

If this is what you are saying (and you are often very unclear, which I read as practiced leftist obfuscation) it's laughable. It was who, the Young Republicans who established speech codes on university campuses?

The left has established things like "rainforest math," which is designed to, while muddling young minds about math, show that not just white males use math.

Maybe your youth was different from mine, and I'll admit I did not get very far in math, but as I remember it, math was math and it did not have skin pigmentation.

History books that tell youngsters that the US was "just as much to blame" for the war with the Imperial Japanese as were those self-same Japanese, as a build up to the argument that the a-bombs were unnecessary, is a good example, too.

Tokie

 

[Tokenconservative]

Sounds highly plausible to me. My high school was pretty run-down (though not as badly as the school you describe), and was in fact quite poorly-funded, but had incredibly good teachers. I'm a 24-year-old graduate metallurgy student, and I haven't taken a biology course since 10th grade (about 8 years ago). I can still understand a lot of what my wife (the neurobiologist) says when she talks shop, and I credit this to my excellent biology teacher. A number of the teachers were on a comparable level to him, despite the lousy conditions in which they worked. My guess is that the teachers that were most interested in just educating children were the ones most likely to stay in a low-paying district, whereas the less driven teachers flowed to the high-paying schools.

That's an interesting observation/supposition, one that I think deserves more attention.

In my opinion (purely anecdotal) indeed, some of the best teachers I run into are in lousy schools while some of the worst "teachers" are in the best schools. I find that teachers identified as the "best" tend to be those who are so-so in their field, but very good at office politics. This is not so very much different from just about any other industry, from what I know.

The question that immediately demands of us is: should the system charged with educating our children be permitted to operate under the Peter Principle?

Given, every school runs the gamut, and it's ALL based on the principal (just as it is in nearly any company--sigh...and no, before any of my detractors [and they are legion] begin howling, copanies do not have principals like schools do and I know that...it's an ANALOGY, folks!) but there it is nonetheless.

Tokie

 

[Flo]

Stop talking to/about me and maybe I'll go away.

Cut the maybe and we have a deal

 

[Tokenconservative]

Cut the maybe and we have a deal

Okay.

But has to be everyone.

And you'll need to provide a link--LIIINNNNKKKK!!!--to prove it.

Tokie

 

[Tokenconservative]

Question:

Let's say schools today are not doing a worse job than they did 40 years ago (I wonder why that "arbitrary" date was chosen?).

If not, what would they LOOK like, if they were?

Tokie

 

[Flo]

And you'll need to provide a link--LIIINNNNKKKK!!!--to prove it.

is that something that can be cured, I wonder ?

 

[Flo]

Question:

Let's say schools today are not doing a worse job than they did 40 years ago (I wonder why that "arbitrary" date was chosen?).

If not, what would they LOOK like, if they were?

Tokie

The question is "a worse job compared to what ? ", instead of compared to "when".

 

[Tokenconservative]

is that something that can be cured, I wonder ?

Apparently not...it's some sort of man-made genetic disorder that prevents latter-day "thinkers" from actually um...thinking.

When I came up, one debated by obtaining, absorbing/analyzing data and then regurgitating it in a way that suggested you understood it and therein/thereby, making your OWN argument, bolstered by the data and/or arguments of others whom you might reference.

Today, one need only say, "here is the link that you need to read to understand my position," and if one's opponent should say something like...um, can't you make your own argument, why clearly you opponent is a backward-thinking Cretin hopelessly old-fashioned and ignorant of the more tony approaches to "debate" today.

Slap a fedora on my head, a skinny tie around my neck and call me "fogey."

Tokie

 

[Tokenconservative]

The question is "a worse job compared to what ? ", instead of compared to "when".

Hmmm...I'm not sure you understand the problem.

We have to compare apples to apples. It would be difficult to compare and impossible to draw conclusions about the state of our public schools were we to say, compare them to farming practices in the Ukrainian countryside since the collapse of the old Soviet Union, or to utilities construction processes of mid-19th Century England.

See, because it's a school system, we have to compare it to a school system. Now, we can (and do) compare our school system to those of other nations (we always come out wanting), and we could, I suppose compare the current US school system to that of Samaria in the 12 century BCE, but I'm not entirely convinced that would tell us much.

Utility is what we are after in this case, and what better utility might we find than in comparing apples to apples across time?

Tokie

 

[Flo]

Thanks for definitively demonstrating you've got absolutely nothing of interest to say ...

 

[Prometheus]

A big part of the difficulty in dealing with this topic is the sparsity of good data. I teach and I also do data-collection/analysis for my school and for my state's department of education. In my experience, virtually none of the published data on educational outcomes can actually be trusted. Standards for collection and reporting of data vary widely from place to place, cheating abounds (what do you expect when you tie people's job security to test scores and then let them control the testing/reporting process), tests are mis-used (eg. placement tests are used to report achievement, etc.). Data is collected and reported with an eye toward meeting defined policy targets, and not in any attempt to conduct genuine science.

Also, SAT's and most of the other tests used are "norm-referenced" (http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/assment/as8lk1.htm)
so they don't actually tell us much about how present students' actual knowlege compares to that of past students. With a norm-referenced test, your score depends not just on how many questions you got right or wrong, but with how everyone else in a random sampling did on the same test in the same year. If everyone get's smarter from one year to the next, then you need to also get smarter to get the same score.

 

[Jeff Corey]

....Also, SAT's and most of the other tests used are "norm-referenced" (http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/assment/as8lk1.htm)
so they don't actually tell us much about how present students' actual knowlege compares to that of past students. With a norm-referenced test, your score depends not just on how many questions you got right or wrong, but with how everyone else in a random sampling did on the same test in the same year. If everyone get's smarter from one year to the next, then you need to also get smarter to get the same score.

One question. I thought "norm referenced" was based on all the available data. Why use a random sample with all the computing power available and the data are available from machine scored tests?

 

[Prometheus]

One question. I thought "norm referenced" was based on all the available data. Why use a random sample with all the computing power available and the data are available from machine scored tests?

Good question. I'm not 100% sure, but I believe it has to do with the fact that the primary purpose of a norm-referenced test is to rank and sort students along a bell-curve. These tests don't actually try to measure what the schools are teaching.

The standards-based tests individual states in the U.S. are now using, as required by the "No Child Left Untested" act (can you guess how I feel about that particular law?) are not norm-referenced, but they have a lot of other problems--one being that each state gets to construct and implement it's own test, and the tests are not comparable across states.

Here's a link that mentions briefly some of the problems with the PISA testing mentioned in the OP:
http://www.fairtest.org/examarts/Winter 2004-2005/International.html

 

[Jeff Corey]

Good question. I'm not 100% sure, but I believe it has to do with the fact that the primary purpose of a norm-referenced test is to rank and sort students along a bell-curve. These tests don't actually try to measure what the schools are teaching.

The standards-based tests individual states in the U.S. are now using, as required by the "No Child Left Untested" act (can you guess how I feel about that particular law?) are not norm-referenced, but they have a lot of other problems--one being that each state gets to construct and implement it's own test, and the tests are not comparable across states.

Here's a link that mentions briefly some of the problems with the PISA testing mentioned in the OP:
http://www.fairtest.org/examarts/Winter 2004-2005/International.html

Thanks for the link, but I was just questioning the methodology of using random samples when all the data were readily available. After all, norm referencing was the basis of the Stanford-Binet IQ scores years ago and they used all the data they had to calculate the mean and arbitrarily say that was 100.
This is really a minor point and a way to confuse the Tokin' Conservative.
By the way, I really do know a tokin'conservative/libertarian. She doesn't think that Big Goverment has any right to stop her from growing weed for her own use. And she detests our senator, the next POTUS,
Praise the Lard.

 

[LostAngeles]

I live in a wealthy town, but we must not know how to flaunt our taxes. The grade school is literally falling town, with roof repairs made three or four times a year; bats, squirrels, and chipmunks living in the ceiling, a foundation now lower than the surrounding ground, etc. We rank about 70 out of 90 for the number of computers per student in grade and middle schools. The septic system was shot and required monthly pumping until two years ago, when we finally replaced it under orders from the state. And yet people move to this town specifically for the school, and have for decades.

My guess is that we're spending our money on the teachers and staff.

~~ Paul

I'd guess Proposition 2 and a Half before anything else. Where I lived in MA was middle-class or so and I remember we couldn't afford anything more than some incredibly thin, flimsy paper one year. The next year was a bit better, but oy.

 

[Tokenconservative]

Thanks for the link, but I was just questioning the methodology of using random samples when all the data were readily available. After all, norm referencing was the basis of the Stanford-Binet IQ scores years ago and they used all the data they had to calculate the mean and arbitrarily say that was 100.
This is really a minor point and a way to confuse the Tokin' Conservative.
By the way, I really do know a tokin'conservative/libertarian. She doesn't think that Big Goverment has any right to stop her from growing weed for her own use. And she detests our senator, the next POTUS,
Praise the Lard.

I'se confusiated!!!!

First, my nick has nothing to do with "Tokin'"

Second, the reason they do it this way is pretty clear to anyone who is paying attention: the last thing the schools (and their unions) want is for anyone to generate "real" scores.

By doing it this way (or myriad other virtually useless ways) they can always point to the data and say, "...but the data are not complete!"

Their own data. They collect it. AND they get to use that excuse.

Handy.

Most people wish they could base THEIR next raise on data they get to cherry pick about how well THEY performed on their job...

Nice work, if you can get it.

Tokie

 

[Prometheus]

Second, the reason they do it this way is pretty clear to anyone who is paying attention: the last thing the schools (and their unions) want is for anyone to generate "real" scores.

Who are "they"? Teachers? Unions? Local school comittees? State education departments? Federal D.O.E.? Educational Testing Service? OECD? Parent Teacher Associations? Voters (via referendum)? Congress? State legislatures? A conspiracy of them all?

By doing it this way (or myriad other virtually useless ways) they can always point to the data and say, "...but the data are not complete!"

What would you suggest be done?

Most people wish they could base THEIR next raise on data they get to cherry pick about how well THEY performed on their job...

I've had one 4% raise in 7 years, but it came along with an increase in health insurance co-pays more than double the dollar amount. I wish someone would tell me which data I can "cherry pick" to at least let me keep up with inflation.

 

[Dancing David]

No..wait...what?

You believe that PC derives from....the right?

Yup, thats the fact.

If this is what you are saying (and you are often very unclear, which I read as practiced leftist obfuscation) it's laughable. It was who, the Young Republicans who established speech codes on university campuses?

The left has established things like "rainforest math," which is designed to, while muddling young minds about math, show that not just white males use math.

The district i work in uses Connected Math, how many use rainforest math?

Maybe your youth was different from mine, and I'll admit I did not get very far in math, but as I remember it, math was math and it did not have skin pigmentation.

History books that tell youngsters that the US was "just as much to blame" for the war

I don't suppose you could tell us which book that is and who publishes it?

Now the basis of the Spanish American War is discussed , but I have yet to read that.

with the Imperial Japanese as were those self-same Japanese, as a build up to the argument that the a-bombs were unnecessary, is a good example, too.

Tokie