Get Schooled

By Nel

June 21, 2006 02:38 PM | Link to this

This has been a very depressing week for education news. Do you think the elected officials understand what this type of information does to attracting well paying jobs to Georgia? This type of news makes people looking for an educated workforce go elsewhere. Great place to brings jobs that don’t pay more than minimum wages.

By jim d

June 21, 2006 03:02 PM | Link to this

This could make for an interesting blog if we had the state by state statistics on their transient workforce.

I have a sneaky suspicion their may be a close correlation.

By Janine

June 21, 2006 03:20 PM | Link to this

Tofig makes the most important point in the last paragraph of McDonald’s article.When speaking of the graduation rate she says, “It’s about foundational things that make that happen”….She is so on target. It all begins much before high school. The problem is quite evident by the end of elementary school… Much has been said about the poor showing of middle schools…especially in Dekalb…but, if you do a little research , you will find that the test scores that accompany the 5th graders from the feeder elementary schools are already quite low…and the downward spiral just continues.

By GodHatesTrash

June 21, 2006 03:27 PM | Link to this

Is this a surprise, given the yahoo epidemic in Georgia?

We’re talking high school - GEORGIA high school - how hard can that be?

Pathetic!

By Frustrated

June 21, 2006 05:51 PM | Link to this

I have seen first hand middle school kids who are smart and have no trouble making A’s. During these computerized tests I watch while these same kids just randomly pick A,B,C,D without even reading the questions. They get done withing 5 minutes for something that should have taken an hour. They then start running their mouths and others become rushed. I don’t think Georgia is low at all. It’s just kids who are unappreciative of a good education and disrespectful of authority. Many of these same kids are on free lunch and I have heard horror stories from some of the lunch room cashiers on how badly these students treat them. It’s not the school. It’s not the teachers. It’s the parents who want the best for their kids but aren’t willing to play a role in supporting the teachers or taking responsibility for these kids. Middle school is not too old for a good turning over the knee and a bop on the bottom. Might I add, embarrass them in front of their classmates. One parent did and the kid actually kept a low profile for a while. He started up again and the parent came back. This issue got resolved because of it. People just need to quit handing kids the world on a silver platter and make them earn stuff. Until then, expect the schools to be just a baby sitter for problem kids where teachers spend the day defending themselves from kids acting out. Sorry so blunt but this is what I see.

By janine

June 21, 2006 06:20 PM | Link to this

WELL SAID, FRUSTRATED…..Just a short personal experience. About 5 years ago, I had a young black male student who was having a great time being the class clown…and never completing his assignments. We had a conference with his mother and she threatened to come to school dressed as a bag lady and follow him around all day and sit in on all his classes if he didn’t “straighten himself out”. WELL, HE DIDN’T, AND SHE DID……Of course, nothing is worse for a young adolescent that being embarrassed by his parents….After that day, he was our model student….nuff said!

By Matt

June 22, 2006 09:14 AM | Link to this

Here is what is so funny. The article stated that someone from the state department said they are going to increase the “rigor” of the classes in response to the high dropout rate. Is this person the biggest idiot in the world? How in the *$## is that going to reduce the dropout rate? Let’s make it tougher, the kids will surely want to stay in school then!!!

We all know the entire SYSTEM must change to keep kids interested in school. We have to revamp the whole idea of education to improve. New “Standards” are the same standards re-written and moved from one grade to the next to make them look new. Let’s face it, you’ve got to learn the basics and the basics will never change. You will learn to read, write, count, study your history and learn some biology. That’s education—doesn’t matter if it’s a QCC or GPS. Standards mean we are teaching what is going to be tested, it doesn’t mean learning is going to be any better.

You can go back and look at Georgia’s test scores and the politicians who ran for state offices and they’ve all said the same thing for 30 years. All the talk in the world and all the standards and accountability mean nothing to these kids. They need to be in a system that meets their needs, and sorry folks—but kids have different needs. Some are smarter than others and that is just life. Sadly, we have left the bright intelligent children behind to focus on all the kids who are lagging. We are dumbing down our bright children to help the slow or deprived when we need a system that can help all of them. We don’t need reform, we need to start over with somthing new!

By SET

June 22, 2006 10:31 AM | Link to this

Matt is getting close to the problem:

The graduation rates are phoney. The schools are cooking the books. The true “flunk” rates are far higher because the schools are deliberately graduating failure students who can’t read and write for political reasons largely tied to keeping the cash flow coming. Plus the “graduation” stats usually don’t include those who quietly leave school or vanish.

Every attempt to impose discipline on the schools is compromised because in the case of the graduation “tests” before the cut-off for graduation is set the politicians first look to see how many blacks would fail, then set the cut off even lower. (For example the CA graduation test was to be 10th grade average, when projections came in that half of all blacks would fail it was reset to 8th grade average.)

The major reasons for this are financial because if the schools set any significant standards they know they have a real danger of many black students (who are the principal “at risk” group) sizing up the situation and deciding to leave school early since they can’t graduate under reasonable objective standards - so why bother.

This would be a financial disaster for the school districts. Like a grocery store, they don’t have to lose many of their customers to go under. Only a small percentage will cause the store to fail to meet fixed expenses because the profit margin is as low as 1%.

I believe in truth the black students having difficulty could actually be made to perform much better but this would require them to change behavior and they (and their parent) would never do so willingly. This is not good or evil, it’s just human nature. All people would rather do what they please and would not enjoy having to make changes to survive. The process of making any group sink or swim scares the schools so we get what we have now.

Where I’m coming from: My father and my uncles taught their sons to swim by demonstrating how to swim, having somebody in the water to coach the kid, then throwing the kid in the (the middle of the pool) water if and when he declined to participate. Everybody learned how to swim. The mothers stayed out of the way.

Not only did we learn how to swim but some wound up on swim teams as small children. Nobody was too traumatized, you got over it (especially since we all had company - lots of cousins, etc.). I suppose if a kid half drowned too many times they’d have given up. Everybody magically learned to swim. This was the early ’60s. People would whine today that this would be child abuse. They are wrong. Not teaching your little kids to swim is child abuse. And no, they don’t have to learn “at their own pace” whatever that is.

We need to greatly toughen up the public schools.

By SET

June 22, 2006 12:14 PM | Link to this

P.S. to above: I didn’t have to be thrown into the pool - I got in when I saw the others swimming. It all looked like fun to me and besides it was probably 90 degrees that day anyway.

By Nel

June 22, 2006 12:29 PM | Link to this

Having read that the US Secretary of Education is travelling the world, and having meetings. When asked why she needed to travel abroad instead of at home, her comment was something about the former Secretary travelled extensively domestically because at the time it was necessary. Do you wonder whay the US education system is going further and further down the sewer? Politicians really don’t do anything but work to get elected and to stay there once in. It’s up to the parents to take things in hand and fight for their children’s future….most unfortunately continue to abdicate this responsibility to anyone but themselves.

By SET

June 22, 2006 04:53 PM | Link to this

The US Government has no constitutional role in primary or secondary education. The Secretary can make paper animals and cut out dolls for all the difference it makes.

Anybody who seriously thinks the feds will “help” the “children” is in for a dissapointment. School policy is set with the State Legislature and Local School Board. - It’s usurped by the feds with their unfunded mandates and maniacial legislation such as NCLB. Federal policy is intended to aggrandize Federal Office (holders) and keep incumbents in power. It’s nice if they “help” anybody, but that would be an unintended consequence. Always look at what they do, not what they say.

By MrLiberty

June 23, 2006 01:53 PM | Link to this

Anybody who honestly thinks that Bill and Melinda Gates are acutally going to do anything about really improving “education” just doesn’t understand the important role that the government schools play in the business lives of people like Bill Gates. If he cares about the quality of graduates from government schools its only because he is tired of having to pay just to re-educate all of his new employees in how to read, do simple math, etc. He wants and needs worker bees, not independant thinking, creative entrpreneurs who may one day out-compete him for business.

Objectively we look at government schools as failures, and they are, but only in providing the solid foundation for learning that everyone should benefit from. But what if that is not why they are here at all. Read what this former NY State and NYCity teacher of the year has to say on the subject. The insites it provides will do more for you and your kids than anything you will read in this blog I can assure you.

http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm

By David

June 29, 2006 01:37 PM | Link to this

I am glad we are having this discussion because the more we do, the more people will be educated as to the real problem. A lot of good points have been made here. Read a little of (The Perils of High School Exit Exams By: Perkins-Gough, Deborah. Educational Leadership, Nov2005, Vol. 63 Issue 3, p90-91, 2p,) where she talks of the test that “can harm students and schools”. Go to the article by (Richard, Alan; Viadero, Debra. Education Week, 7/13/2005, Vol. 24 Issue 42, p12-12, 2/3p) where they contend that we actually have a bigger problem than we are stating because the stakes for failing are enormous. I could go on and on. I will tell you I am a teacher and I witness this every year. It is a combination of things and will not be easy to fix. All of you have presented part of the problem: yes parents need to step up, yes teachers need to be better trained and supported, yes more test are not the answer, and new standards are just a patch on a big wound. Meanwhile keep up this dialogue…