The following exchange is from Dialogue Group 3, Thread 19.
2. The Dumbing Down of America
Sun, Nov 29, 1998 - 2:52 AM/EST
DixieDarling
I recently read a story about one of those highly touted inner-city schools with a innovative curriculum and high standards. The first national test results found the school to be dead last in reading comprehension. The administrators were appalled and formed a committee to investigate the problem. The committe found that while the children could read the words, they had no concept of what the words meant. Allons, a vocabulary program was instituted and the test results soared the very next year.
I am not trying to make light of the accomplishment nor do I not understand that working with at-risk children is more difficult than with the children of the suburban middle class, but why did the teachers and administrators not have a vocabulary progam in place from the start...hasn't understanding words and their meanings has always been part of any decent reading program? So, although efforts were made to correct he problem, the problem wouldn't have existed in the first place if there were qualified people running the program. Who were these people anyway?
As I could go on forever on this subject, I will stop now to await comment and further developments.
3. Education can always stand reform
Sun, Nov 29, 1998 - 10:43 AM/EST
j2saret
The essence of performance is accountability.
Education when considered as a product or commodity is an item that has a long baseline before ultimate outcome can be measured. The political process has a shorter baseline and so is ill suited for measuring the performance of education. I don't have any answers, and the only measures I have are personal, I was educated in a mixture of public and private schools as were my siblings--we are all intelligent and knowledgable.
My eldest two daughters were educated as above and my youngest daughter was educated strictly in public school, there is no difference in knowledge or intelligence I can perceive between the three of them or between my and their generations of family.
If we go to public finance of private schools, how can we protect against those providers who take the money and don't provide the education? Also how can we provide a level playing field between public schools who must take every one and private who get to pick, choose, and easily expel. It seems to me [that] we could not measure their performance the same way.
Question for DixieD: Does it necessarily represent a decline in educational standards if a student can no longer decline "Amos Amat" or does it represent a change in standards?
I don't have a lot of answers on education just a lot of questions. I want everyone to have access to as much education as they can absorb, with as much public financing as possible.
In this day and age, the education of citizens is the only wealth of nations. The providing of that education is the equivalent of the providing of land to open the middle of this continent.
John
(you've touched a nerve)
4. Amo, Amas, Amant
Sun, Nov 29, 1998 - 1:46 PM/EST
DixieDarling
I understand your question although I think your example was a bit esoteric for the masses...few have been taught Latin except in Catholic schools or private institutions for years. In public schools where I live, English is a foreign language to many of the native born!
The quality of public education varies wildly from place to place in America. I live in the South where education has not been a priority for many of the inhabitants ever. Our state system is decent in some areas and terrible in others. I live in an area where it is decent, but based on the overcrowding of the schools, the marginal child is overlooked. My children who were educated in the public system do not have the same depth of education as the child who was educated in a mix of public and parochial schools. If I had it to do over again, all of them would have gone to private schools.
However, not everyone has that option, so we must do what can be done to assure that all children learn the basics...Latin be damned. The single worst area of skill building is in mathematics and science. Math teachers are a premium commodity and there are too few to go around, so they teach where and when they please. That leaves the less attractive schools without qualified math teachers and all schools with some poor math teachers. Let's face it, if you are a math quiz, industry is panting for your skills and the school system will never be able to match the salaries offered. To a lesser degree, the sciences suffer in the same way. One answer is to open the positions to those without certification, but with real world experience in the subject matter. How many of us care if the teacher is certified as long as he/she is a good teacher? Only the teacher's unions, I'll wager.
There are many other issues, but this is all I will say at the moment.
5. some observations
Sun, Nov 29, 1998 - 4:58 PM/EST
Mark
Free market capitalism works against better qualified and better rewarded teachers in the public school system. (e.g. Dixie's note re industry's recruitment advantage for a math major.) Were it not for idealists willing to be underpaid to do something worthwhile the system would be much worse off.
Competition is not the only tool for advancing civil society. We do a wonderful job of rewarding the primarily aggressive person over more highly motivated and less venal people who actually contribute much more to a healthy society. I've noted elsewhere how the NMFS manages a RATIONED fish resource in an overcapitalized industry still based on cutthroat competition that is wasteful of the resource. Competition thwarts progress here: wrong tool.
Education reform, like tax reform, is an area where we need to face our national economic mythology critically. We cannot look anywhere to the past, however rosy you may view it, to successfully address these issues.
6. By the way, j2saret...
Sun, Nov 29, 1998 - 5:07 PM/EST
Mark
I'd like to get better acquainted with your proffessional jargon. Post #3, with the education-as-commodity / baseline / outline stuff: very useful. Thanks.
7. The Woman's Role
Sun, Nov 29, 1998 - 5:40 PM/EST
DixieDarling
Mark,
It occurs to me that the steep decline in the quality of our educational system can be fairly well correlated to the ability of women to attain jobs in industry...all of which started about 30 years ago. Before that time, a majority of working women were teachers, nurses, or secretaries if they were educated, and waitresses or maids if not. With the elimination of a "captive" workforce, the quality of teachers fell and continues to fall. Even when I was in college, education majors were considered less intelligent than those in other majors and that was a long time ago. (Before I get a bunch of "hate" mail, let me assure any teachers out there that I am painting with a very board brush and am not inditing all teachers.) It's just a thought.
8. I buy it, Dixie. An odd parallel...
Sun, Nov 29, 1998 - 6:33 PM/EST
Mark
In high school around 1968 I started grooming horses at the race track. A series of regrettable choices led me to other racetrack jobs like veterinary assistant and trainer, and I spent most of the '70s and some of the '80s in this milieu.
By the early '70s there was an obvious, widespread & documentable seachange in the workforce on racetrack backsides across the land. Your labor backbone of grooms, hotwalkers, and exercise riders -- largely comprised of male itinerants and loaded with functioning alcoholics -- morphed into a workforce of more motivated and dedicated women with a passion to work with horses. Boy, did the trainers cash in! By now, women have a lot more of the status jobs in training, vet work, and track management.
Something I actually miss is the camaraderie I had as a "kid" with these happy-go-lucky, sad, hardworking goof-off, irresponsible, loyal racetrack "bums." These were people who couldn't function in normal worklife and normal society, but worked 365 days a year, made their own way, and were able to belong -- then.
The backside is more efficient without them, but I have to think there ought to be someplace in 1998 where the dispossessed can have a life as full and meaningful as that of Miss'ippi Charlie or Whitey or Squirrel ... Wanting but generous, defeated but valiant -- I'm romanticizing, but I ain't lying. (Dixie, can you bridge the gap for us between experiences like these and sully's description of welfare "failures?")
9. Jargon?
Sun, Nov 29, 1998 - 10:27 PM/EST
j2saret
It seems to me that much of the public/private debate in (at least this part of) this country has been couched in capitalistic terms. "The public schools need to be opened up to competition and market discipline." I like to examine things in the language that is being used by opponents of the status quo (I once turned a planned violent anti-war demonstration peaceful by quoting chairman Mao) so I made up my "professional jargon" The only exposure I have had on a professional level to educational techniques is in the area of business training. Other than that I am only a consumer of education both for myself and for my children. This thread seems be a place where we can strike a productive note. I am intrigued with the information and creativity being displayed. re math in school: I know that when I was a 16yr old high school senior I was admitted to the most advanced math our school offered, there was a lot of set theory and boolean algebra. The new math hit the schools at the same time and my youngest brother, age 6 got the same set theory in Parochial School. I don't think that the content or the theory of education has been dumbed down.
Watching my children learn has shown me that the emphasis on understanding first principles rather than rote learning has merit. I'm not sure a return to an emphasis on grades is helping things either. I was willing to rebel and contradict my teachers, consequently I graduated in the lowest third of my class. After the ACT I had a college aptitude ranking in the 97th percentile. What I think has gone awry in our society and is reflected in the schooling of our children is a commercial medium that shoots for the lowest common denominator, discourages critical thinking, and because of the nature of its transmission cannot show nuance, thus must paint everything in broad brush strokes. I refer, of course, to Television. I took care to raise my children so that they would always leave the TV and come over to be read to/read to me. Even my son who has a rare genetic disorder (cohen's syndrome) and will never live outside of a group home has an extensive vocabulary and is quite knowledgeable in current events. When we became his conservators, his demonstrated ability to recall and reason preserved his right to vote. This last election was his first and he proudly canceled out my vote. (no he did not know who I voted for he just came to different conclusions than I did) I think a lot of our consternation about the educational abilities of the young will be alleviated as internet online time replaces a substantial amount of their TV watching
Here in Minnesota we had a lot of debate in the primary election about financing more education. As the ante was raised it ended up as an offer to finance two years of "Higher Education" The man who was elected Governor: Jesse (the body double)Ventura won my vote when he said that he did not believe we should finance the first two years of post secondary education but rather the last two when we would know that the people we were paying for had the interest and the ability to benefit from our expenditure.
If we do open public financing of education up to for profit entities I think we should do it through the charter school concept, with strict accountability and firm guidelines. The schools should not be able to "cherry pick" their students, but take everyone the same as the public schools. Pay for performance is a tricky subject, it could very well lead to "teaching to the test"
John
10. can of worms
Mon, Nov 30, 1998 - /EST
sully
You can liken public education to a capitalist model. First, what is a monopoly? It is a single supplier of goods or services. Since it is the only show in town, it can charge high prices for it's products and keep the prices high by restricting supply. It also can block other firms from doing business by erecting high entry barriers.
Monopolies also do not innovate, develop efficiencies, and get top heavy with management. They also ignore the complaints and suggestions of their captive customers and not accountable for their actions. They can do this because profits are very high and they are the only supplier. Once competition starts however, the monopoly must respond or die. That is why competition is good because without it we do not get more and better products and a higher standard of living. Kind of off the subject, does Microsoft fit the Monopoly model?
Now, I contend that the public education is currently a monopoly:
1. Because of our taxes public education is a single supplier, if you want your children to attend private school, you still have to pay your public school taxes in addition to the private school costs.
2. The public education system is bloated, there are more administrators than teachers and many unnecessary rules and regulations that create inefficiencies and waste money.
3. Public schools are not innovate in a positive manner. They are doing more to raise self esteem of students without them earning it and playing other games to look as if raising standards instead of making real efforts to improve performance.
4. There are high entry barriers, first of all taxes collected by the government; we know that they do not like to give any back, how many states now have surpluses? Also the teacher unions lobby Congress and State lawmakers to make entry barriers even higher and block efforts to encourage competition like vouchers and school choice.
5. In the United States, we spend more per student than almost any other country in the world. In exchange, our children are receiving the worst education than almost every other country. If that is not high prices and low quality for services, then what is?
6. Public schools, teacher unions, and the administrators do not seem to respond well to parents and taxpayers or just ignore or belittle their critics and opponents. lack of accountability and powerful teacher unions that has politicians in their pocket makes it almost impossible to remove inferior teachers and get reforms in the public education systems.
To force the public schools to improve performance and accountability, then competition is the answer. One way is in the form of vouchers to the taxpayers, who this money belongs to, to spend at the school of their choice. If public schools can not give the same quality as private schools and close, so be it. But I will bet dollars to donuts that there would be major changes in the public school systems and student's educational performance in both private and public schools would raise to all time new levels when school choice and competition is a public policy.
11. The 'Dumbing Down' of dialogue
Mon, Nov 30, 1998 - 1:17 AM/EST
baggins
DixieDarlind said: "But, the opposite is true in the US. We are getting progressively worse by all standard measures."
This isn't true - given that the iq tests used around the world are published in the US generally and are largely based on US norms. The iq point level has increased over time in direct response to the increases in the average level of the US sample.
Also, There is no magic formula to be found in the education practises of Australia - we have the same range of issues (though on a smaller scale I would expect).
I disagree that this should be a discussion limited to US contributors - given that it arose from my discussion with Sully in the first place, and that to limit discussion in such a way is the antithesis of what we are trying to do in these dialogue groups!
Cheers,
Baggins
14. A penny for that thought...
Mon, Nov 30, 1998 - 2:01 AM/EST
baggins
Sully said: "You can liken public education to a capitalist model."
What the hell for? It is the least appropriate model I can conceive of. There is no evidence that a decade or more of economic rationalist ideals have produced anything of real social value. Slash and burn does not always produce a high fidelity result.
The university where I did my undergrad studies moves down the economic rationalist road a bit further every year. It is little more that a training institution or technical school these days. I can not support a perspective that places the economic aspect of a system as its primary concern. It degrades those people in the system and would ignore the central theme that the processes of education are about - that is 'to enlighten'.
What it costs to enlighten must come second to the preservation of a process where all people can be enlightened.
What else I might add was well said by Mark in post #5 above.
Cheers,
Baggins
16. Refom Yes
Mon, Nov 30, 1998 - 11:03 AM/EST
j2saret
Sully, you are correct the capitalist model offers some valid criticisms about public education, and points out many of its failures and inabilities to meet the needs of modern times. It also fails in some respects, as would a strict capitalist analysis of our defense needs. In revolutionary times private enterprise provided much of our naval capacity (Privateers) would you suggest that I and my neighbors invest in-- oh-- a "for profit" rifle squad? How about government vouchers for my share of the defense budget so I can invest it where I think I will be best defended? Nah I don't think so.
We don't want to "throw the baby out with the bath water" so we need to examine not only where our schools can stand improvement and why, but we also need to examine the tools we use to make that examination, their strengths, weaknesses and suitability.
John
(game,. but cautious)
