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What is the role of public education?


Fishteacher73

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This started on another thread, but it seemed to be intersting and something I wanted to explore and get your views.

 

What role does the public school system play in raising todays kids?

 

There are weaknesses in the current system. Wht do you think they specifically are and what could be done to repair these areas?

 

Are there variations upon the basic US model that you think would be more effecient and effective? (Such as the European Gymnasium system).

 

And finally, what role does the public have in the funding of public schools, and how these funds are spent?

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What role does the public school system play in raising todays kids?
I think the single biggest problem is that teachers in public schools are limited in their ability to discipline kids. This allows a small number of kids to disrupt a large number of students. Teachers should be able to list behaviors that are precluded, and remove kids from the classrom that cannot comply with the list.
And finally, what role does the public have in the funding of public schools, and how these funds are spent?
The public should certianly fund schooling for all. However, individuals should be able to direct their kids to any school that the parent feels is apporpriate for their child. I feel quite strongly that a voucher system is the most egalitarian, and is the most cost conscious. I am aghast at the cost of our public schools, and at the quality (or lack thereof) that the public money acquires.

 

I sent both of my older kids to small Catholic schools in their elementary years (none of us are Catholic.) The cost of the education at the little Catholic parish schools was about 50% of the cost of Portland public schools, but, of course, we had to pay for that in cash. I sent both of my kids to Catholic high schools as well. The costs there were only about 80% of the cost of public school, but the quality differential was even greater. The problem in public schools is NOT lack of money. It is that the money does not get to the teachers and students.

 

Incidentally, I have lots of conversations with friends that are teachers. I am afraid that my population of teachers is a little skewed, since they are all master educated, but I think they mostly agree with me. I will be really interested to hear from the teachers in this forum.

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It does seem that the role schools have in character education is increasing, while the tools that are available are decreasing. This is coupled with the fact that the volume of basic knowledge that we are expected to teach has grown.

 

I agree that teachers should lead by example in terms of conduct. Unfortunatly this is not suffecient for some that lack this direction at home. The burden has shifted to the educational setting.

 

Class size is a huge factor. With a lower student to teacher ratio you, as an educator, can focus on the individual needs of the students and hone in on specific problem areas. This is much more difficult when class sizes are larger.

 

As for the aspect of funding, the voucher system I feel would be a good idea, but the initial aplication would be quite strenuous on the system and would negatively impact those schools that lost the enrolement (Which is how funding is determined currently). There are many good and hard working teacher at low performing schools. I think you will see that there will be demographic trends that follow these students. Send kids with a poor homelife and support stucture to a good school and you will still have a kid that is low performing and the overall quality of the school that the student went to would decline as well. This would probably level off after a time period (years) but more than likely the net result would be a mediocitization of all the schools in general.

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What follows is MY OPINION. I am not a teacher in a public school system. My children do not attend public school. I homeschool all six of my children. I have taught both adults and children, and have studied various educational methods and learning styles for many years. However, again I stress that this is only my opinion.

 

What role does the public school system play in raising todays kids?

Today's kids are, by and large, raised by teachers instead of parents. I think that is both unfortunate and potentially devastating to the future of our country, and to the development of children. However, it also seems almost unavoidable, as so many kids are being raised by single parents, and the family core is disintegrating every day. As the place where children spend most of their time, schools are filling the role that was once held by parents and extended families. Parents count on schools, and specifically teachers, to teach their children everything from science and reading to morals. And while many parents adopt a hands-off attitude towards schoolwork, they are very eager to step in when they feel their child has been slighted.

 

There are weaknesses in the current system. Wht do you think they specifically are and what could be done to repair these areas?

Are there variations upon the basic US model that you think would be more effecient and effective? (Such as the European Gymnasium system).

And finally, what role does the public have in the funding of public schools, and how these funds are spent?

 

I will continue this later, but have to leave right now. We are FINALLY on our way to the hospital. She just got off the phone and the doc said to come in NOW. So I'm typing as she puts on her shoes.

For those of you that pray, start now. For the rest, just send some good vibes, or whatever it is that you do in a time like this, our way. Direct them towards rural Pennsylvania, and we should do just fine!

 

I'll be back to finish as soon as I can....

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What role does the public school system play in raising todays kids?

US zero-goal education ("every child left behind"):

 

1) To indoctrinate.

2) To justify increasing taxation and public expenditure.

3) To emply unemployables.

4) To purchase minorities' acquiescence.

5) To replace personal responsiblity wth State compensation.

6) To trade political patronage for votes.

7) To create a culture of prescription drug use.

8) To suppress intellectual superiority.

9) To create a minimally capable, maleable laity.

10) To teach the meaning of physical intimidation.

 

Education is manufacturing process. It should be run as a proper factory, from grading incoming raw material to quality assurance and control to producing a product for which there is a market. Unproductive employees should be terminated. Defective parts should be rejected when detected - only a fool continues to invest in what will be rejected as garbage at the end.

 

Vigorously cultivate the Gifted. Educate the average student. Remove the semi-ineducable and give them marketable manual trades. Suppress the stupid.

 

Contemporary education is exactly antithetical to those goals. The results are loathsome and inoperable. An advocate makes virtue of failure. The worse the cure the better the treatment - and the more that is required.

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...Education is manufacturing process....Unproductive employees should be terminated. Defective parts should be rejected when detected...Vigorously cultivate the Gifted. Educate the average student. Remove the semi-ineducable....Suppress the stupid....

I am glad we can depend on UA to offer a solution that will make any respectable firebrand blanche. I find myself imagining a US congressman with a political deathwish standing in the well of the US House of Representatives and trying to combine "cultivate the gifted" with "suppress the stupid" in such a way that he will survive the path to the exit.

 

As much as I appreciate the perspective, we have to acknowledge that we are poor prognisticators of which students are likely to be long term successes. Even SATs are weak prognosticators, and they are relatively late flags in the education process. And I do find myself wondering whether a guy like Stephen Hawking might have been placed in the reject pile early on were it not for some extraordinary input.

 

This certainly is a bit at odds with the apostle Paul: "Admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all men" (I Thess 5:14). I could see why you think those folks with religious influence have really messed things up.

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Ok, i'm back. Still no baby after 5 hours at the hospital and still very strong contractions!

 

Well, you may find this hard to believe, but I believe most of what UA said... at least through his 10 points. I think that public education in this country is seriously lacking, to say the least. It begins with teachers that are disgustingly underpaid, and ends with complacent parents and children that just want to finish to get to 'what's next', without fully appreciating where they are going.

 

I think the biggest problem is that facts are put ahead of thinking. What I mean by that is that children are spoon fed what is important in order to regurgitate it for a standardized test, instead of actually 'learning' WHY those things are important.

 

I don't agree that education should be a sort of factory. I think that it should be much more individualized. I think that every person has potential to be successful in some area. In an ideal situation, every person would have the opportnity to find their own area of expertise, whether that be academic or voactional, and that area should be allowed to develop. Students should have the chance to learn in the way that is most compatible to them, whether it be books, videos, hands-onb, or whatever.

 

I have seen how a difference in learning style can greatly affect a child. While my oldest is able to read and comprehend things on her own, my second one needs specific instructions to grasp most things. Is the 2nd one less capable? Not at all. He just needs a different approach in order to grasp certain concepts. My third child is not as interested in academic areas as she is developing inter/intra-personal skills. She is slower with "normal school" stuff, but was able to dial her grandmother's phone number from memory at age 2. She is great with pattern recognition, and has incredible hand/eye coordination. And her memory is amazing. But she thinks she's not as smart as her older sister because she doesn't read as well. Mind you, this kid can remember things like phone numbers, addresses, and recipies like no other person I know. She just can't read all that well.

 

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. Having them home now, I am able to work with each of them individually, to develop their strengths and their weaknesses. I am fairly certain that they would not have the same opportunities if they were to attend public school.

 

Please understand that I hold public educators in the highest regard. I think that most teachers are very hardworking and incredibly dedicated people. Most of them have the best intentions, but are limited by the confines of the machine we call education.

 

How to correct this problem is something to which I have devoted many hours of thought. There should be many changes, but where to start seems to be my biggest roadblock. So I started at home, with my own children. I have many more opinions on this matter, and relish the opportunity to share them!

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What role does the public school system play in raising todays kids?

 

There are weaknesses in the current system. Wht do you think they specifically are and what could be done to repair these areas?

 

Are there variations upon the basic US model that you think would be more effecient and effective? (Such as the European Gymnasium system).

 

And finally, what role does the public have in the funding of public schools, and how these funds are spent?

I'm not entirely aware of how the American school system works, but generally, the schools should educate the people when it comes to reading and writing in their native language, educate them in history and how the society works, and give a solid foundation in the natural sciences (biology, physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, the body and its function, etc.) and the scientific method. Math is obviously a given. Critical thinking is tremendously important as well. Then it can never hurt to teach them a second language as well.

 

Discipline should come from the parents first, but obviously schools do have a role to play here too, as it should be part of preparing them for society. A school system where guards and metal detectors are necessary is a school system in a society that have failed.

 

Obviously, public education should be free. An educated public is harder to enslave. An informed and critically thinking public is the only public fit for democracy in my opinion. If we know history, we might not repeat the mistakes. If we know the basics of science, we could make better judgements in environmental issues.

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I find all of Stargazer's points important, as well as:

I think the biggest problem is that facts are put ahead of thinking. What I mean by that is that children are spoon fed what is important in order to regurgitate it for a standardized test, instead of actually 'learning' WHY those things are important.
Teaching to think and teaching to learn--- the most essential things! Most of my high school teachers put all the emphasis on this.
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I don't agree that education should be a sort of factory. I think that it should be much more individualized. I think that every person has potential to be successful in some area. In an ideal situation, every person would have the opportnity to find their own area of expertise, whether that be academic or voactional, and that area should be allowed to develop. Students should have the chance to learn in the way that is most compatible to them, whether it be books, videos, hands-onb, or whatever.

 

THe European Gymnasium system does this much more efectively than the American system. At various stages the educational process is branched to allow those that are not academically inclined to gain an aplicable education for the (ie trades, etc). The secondary system allows for specialization much like one does in college. This retains interest and allows more indepth education in the respective fields and therefore better educated population.

 

 

Obviously, public education should be free. An educated public is harder to enslave. An informed and critically thinking public is the only public fit for democracy in my opinion. If we know history, we might not repeat the mistakes. If we know the basics of science, we could make better judgements in environmental issues.

 

One must be careful that the educational system is educating and not indoctrinating. The US system is bordelining on indoctrination with standardized testing. My lesson plans are dictated by what the objectives are on the TAKS (Texas Accademic Knlowledge and Skills) test. This test is a pre-requisite for grade advancement. The test itself is pretty basic and even average students should not really have difficulty passing the test. The problem come that the lesson plans are essentailly dictated by the lower portion of the class. The teacher is focusing on producing students that pass the test, so the focus is on those that have problems. Thios causes discipline issues because the other portion of the class is bored and those you are teaching to generally were already disinterested. so in the end you have a group that is barely able to pass a basic test and little else. This will only worsen if test performance becomes a factor in pay for teachers.

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The role of public education. Well, I think its role is to relieve parents of the responsibility of making sure their children are educated. I think that's how it was sold anyway.

 

But the term, "educated" is a dangerous one in the sense that it can mean anything from knowing nothing on the one hand to knowing all things on the other. Mostly, as Fishteacher has pointed out, it borders on indoctrination. (Columbus discovered america! Uh, excuse me, but there were millions of people here already. The list is not endless, but it IS huge.)

 

I can honestly say that I knew nothing with any lasting truth-value when I graduated from High School, with the possible exception of mathematics and reading. I did acquire the skills of reading and mathmatics in school. But as far as subject matter is concernced, not much stuck to the wall. Most of it has been scraped off: re, Columbus. So why was it 'taught' in the first place?

 

The subject beneath the subject is "learning". Shouldn't we be teaching the kids to learn? Learning is a skill. (We seem to operate under the assumption that it's a static thing, something we're born with, something which cannot be taught or enhanced.) Perhaps schools should teach skills and only skills.

 

Oh, and Fish, I do think public schools should teach one value: The truth is good. In fact, I think I could make a case for that being the only subject.

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Unfortunmatly the re-occuring theme is that the schools need to teach critical thinking and not just masses of (in some cases erroneous) facts just be be regurgitated in the end. The system needs to be inegrated (cross-curriculum) and the value of information taught not just the quantity. The trend although is to remove the subjective and interpretive skills to purely objective multiple choice test taking bulimia of binge and pugre of information with no real utilization of the material.

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Unfortunmatly the re-occuring theme is that the schools need to teach critical thinking and not just masses of (in some cases erroneous) facts just be be regurgitated in the end. The system needs to be inegrated (cross-curriculum) and the value of information taught not just the quantity. The trend although is to remove the subjective and interpretive skills to purely objective multiple choice test taking bulimia of binge and pugre of information with no real utilization of the material.
It seems to be the US schools that are criticized most although nothing could be worse than the Madrases of the Islamic countries. Perhaps the European or Asian models would be good to immitate for our grades 1-12. We seem to get a lot of foreign students in our colleges and universities so I don't think the problem is in the upper level.s. Our grad schools are highly analytical.
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Unfortunmatly the re-occuring theme is that the schools need to teach critical thinking and not just masses of (in some cases erroneous) facts just be be regurgitated in the end. The system needs to be inegrated (cross-curriculum) and the value of information taught not just the quantity. The trend although is to remove the subjective and interpretive skills to purely objective multiple choice test taking bulimia of binge and pugre of information with no real utilization of the material.

I totally agree. I always hated memorizing information and then regurgitating it onto a piece of paper and then immediately forgetting everything that I had crammed into my brain. I'm interested to hear what everyone thinks about implementing the 'tracking' system in schools.

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