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#21 | |
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(The Fat's Sabobah)
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I think a diverse curricula would be more beneficial. Such as providing various routes for students to graduate from high school. For example: receiving high school credit for vocational training, as well as greater cooperation between high schools and community colleges in providing an accelerated path of graduation. Unfortunately, the way I see it, publics schools are being run like businesses due to a lack in funds. As such, schools cut programs that don't make them money (languages, arts, music, sciences) in favor of those courses which students tested on: mainly math and English (the higher a school scores on standardized tests, the more money they receive). However, you do not see cuts in extracurricular programs like football...because football games are a large source of revenue for schools despite the fact that it has nothing to do with education. So what am I saying? Increase funding for public education. Teachers are worn thin as it is: over-sized class rooms, outdated material, and low pay do not make a good education system. We are robbing children of a decent education because this administration (and other state governments) don't see the importance of an well-educated majority. Now, I'm not conspiracy theorist, but I'd be really wary of a government that spends more money on starting wars than it does educating its children. |
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#22 | |||||||||
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Little Chief Hare
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Half your statements sound meaningless and the other half baseless. Try fleshing them out. I hope for your sake that you can. |
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#23 |
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FFR Player
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@Jewp: The problem with giving more money to schools is that the money doesn't go to better education. Case in point: Kansas City. Billions more was given to the district, and grades didn't increase at all.
We pay twice as much adjusted for inflation than 30 years ago but grades have barely budged. As Thomas Sowell says about college education and finances, "Very often the case if made to the legislature and the public that the students deserve a better education but, after the money is appropriated, most of the additional money may go to raise faculty salaries, reduce teaching loads, or finance more research projects." He observes that average joint costs are impossible to compute, but marginal costs are. And when they are computed, it's not very favorable. See, schools only have to do "well enough." There are no incentives to better than that because public schools do not depend on doing well to get money. This creates an inefficient use of resources. In the same chapter, he notes that before WWII, hundreds of black chemists were hired in the private industries, while every single major university hired none. They could do what was trendy at the time. The private institutes needed to get the best they could, and because black chemists were seldom hired by public institutes which didn't need to be efficient, the private institutes saw the economic advantages in hiring neglected yet talented black chemists. Even in an era filled with racism, affirmative action wasn't needed to hire these people, only incentives for profit. He says it clearly: "Discrimination entails costs on the discriminators." Now public institutes will tend to hire more than necessary due to affirmative action and its trendiness, and the costs are borne by others. If you're against running schools like a business, then you may like Obama's plan (well, at least the part that doesn't call for more of the same): pay teachers much more based on their quality. Many districts pay teachers the same amount. This perpetuates a "Market for Lemons," as explained by Nobel Prize-winning economist Akerlof--basically, there are less good teachers because the demands for good and bad teachers are the same due to "asymmetrical information," meaning that the administrators don't know (and because of monopoly power, don't care) who they are hiring and all teachers get paid the same anyway. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, Google it.) Well basically, if teachers could be graded somehow on their quality, they'd have an incentive to perform better. This is the same principle behind voucher programs, but on a much smaller scale, and on one that people like you could probably get behind. Monopolies are always inefficient. Always. If you ever see Thomas Sowell's Economic Facts and Fallacies in a bookstore (the lovely book I was referencing earlier in this post), sit down, buy a cup of coffee, and read the chapter titled "Academic Facts and Fallacies." It will blow your mind. Summary of chapter: colleges behave stupidly, your professors suck, your colleges need to do worse to seem better, colleges are very profit motivated despite being "non-profit," your professors suck, Harvard and other elite colleges are overrated, nobody in the system really gives a **** about what is going on, and your professors really suck.
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last.fm Last edited by lord_carbo; 01-15-2008 at 12:00 AM.. |
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#24 |
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Resident One-Hander
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I say school needs to be made much harder, and punishments twice as severe. Kids today are immature, puerile, unappreciative brats who don't care about anything that they are given, which DOES include education. Their incorrigible attitude only compounds the issue. If kids were made to realize what they were doing wrong and punished for it should they knowingly break rules, they might shape up. MIGHT. I've seen countless kids sent to the dean's office and punished, only to be back in the class in no time doing the same old things, obviously not having learned anything.
I do feel bad for the teachers that are overworked and underpaid. Teachers deserve to be paid upwards of 100,000$ for the hardest positions, like college. Maybe, if students were shown how they hurt their teachers with their laziness and lack of work ethic, it may touch them enough to motivate them to work harder. But very few kids seem to truly understand how they feel. I feel for them. If students were shown how they harm those around them (And not just teachers) with their attitudes, I think it would really make a change in them (Not to repeat what I just stated). I have seen what happens to overworked teachers, and it isn't pretty. Some choose not to care anymore. Others decide to become excessively lax, and others become rigid and severe. I've seen all three, and I feel bad when it happens, because I know that the teacher has endured so many years of hardship that they can't take it anymore. For the kids that do care, they make the future brighter for America and for the world. Unfortunately, the world is running out of these children, who are being replaced by overweight, unintelligent slackers with complacent, care-free parents. Who knows what'll happen. It may suddenly turn around as things reach their climax, or it may continue to descend until the nation collapses. As more people are birthed, more intelligent people enter the world. But many more slackers are born alongside him.~Bynary Fission |
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#25 |
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FFR Player
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Unfortunately compassion and caring only sounds good on paper. It works lousily in both theory and practice, however, because there are few incentives for schools to do better, for teachers to do better.
The notion that increases pay increases incentives for more qualified teachers to teach completely contradicts research and theory on asymmetrical information and--worse--on basic labor market theory: we'd have a surplus of laborers. Teachers are too vast in unmeasurable and unknown qualities to compare, and certainly more pay for all teachers will seldom encourage schools to make sure they're getting the best. This is arguably true for all workers but especially for teachers, where every single quality is crucial as teaching is an open, social profession and little to no prior experience is often held. It's an inefficient method that creates more problems than it solves because subsidized schools have no reason to protect themselves from this type of enormous overspending, which eventually just leads back to the low "equilibrium" quality. As stated in the Market for Lemons paper, you can never buy a good used car. The notion that teachers deserve more money need not be true because the economy is a system for trades to operate--not a moral machine where people should determine the value of a voluntary trade in which teachers willingly subject themselves to the pay they get. Maybe teachers are getting underpaid. So? Then why do they insist on working? If anything, tenured and unionized teachers are given too many protections. It's the good teachers that aren't paid enough, and the bad teachers that are paid too much. Unions discourage stand-outs in the workplace and demand equal and "fair" wages. That's essentially what a union is: a big collection of people acting as one voice. But people aren't different.
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last.fm Last edited by lord_carbo; 01-15-2008 at 11:29 PM.. |
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#26 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 324
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As a specific example supporting the statement that America's education is failing, the high school I recently graduated from has formed a new rule that teachers cannot, for any reason, assign a grade lower than 50% on any assignment. Reason being: Grades lower than 50% 'demotivate' kids. So far, only one teacher who happened to me my Government teacher (a really smart guy) has opposed the rule and has been stuck down quite severely by the school board.
As for the results of America's "failing" education, outsourcing jobs in the medical, science, and higher tech fields will continue to increase, along with insourcing of employees for jobs that cannot easily be outsourced. A cause of that, a BS (Bachelor of Science) degree is already basically bs. If one doesn't pursue a Masters degree or higher in many similar fields, disappointment is surely in the near future. |
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#27 | |||||
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Resident One-Hander
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I think I have been going on too long in this post. To make my point, teachers are treated like garbage much of the time. They are underpaid and have to deal with a bucketload of kids everyday, many of which don't make their jobs easier. Some cannot handle it, and will stop giving kids any decent education. The students have a role in America's failing education. Some teachers play a part. And America itself does as well. This is a complex issue comprising of many layers. To fix the problem isn't easy, and there is no one solution to the crisis. But we can begin by taking government involvement out of schools, giving them adequate funding, treating our teachers better, and motivating kids. America needs to pay full attention to this matter, and action has been belated for too long. P.S. lord_carlo, I think you meant to say "But people are different. ![]() Last edited by Bynary Fission; 01-16-2008 at 03:31 AM.. |
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#28 | |
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FFR Player
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College professors do not have to be good teachers, they are only required to teach in addition to the research they have to do. Teachers at schools have to attain a teaching degree and no doubt they will pick up a thing or two while attaining their degree.
~Tsugomaru
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#29 | |
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Very Grave Indeed
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I've had some of the most brilliant teachers and professors you could ever want, and they can't teach worth a damn, so all that knowledge doesn't get passed on in a worthwhile way, and you don't learn enough. My brother had a computer/tech teacher in highschool who used to work for NASA, guy knew just about all there was to know about his field, but because he never learned how to teach (This was back when computer teachers were an exception and didn't need a B.Ed [This was also far enugh back that the course was called "Lab 2000" probably with an exclamation mark]) he turned all kinds of kids right off of getting into technology fields. |
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#30 | |||
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FFR Player
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last.fm |
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#31 | |
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FFR Player
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It seems ridiculous, but that's the reality. Some of the professors in the US might actually give a damn about teaching while others just won't put the extra effort into the subject they are suppose to teach. This just forces students to learn the material by themselves if they are serious about it.
~Tsugomaru
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#32 | |||
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FFR Player
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However, I do agree America should cut down of morbidly obese people. FYI: When I googled Is Americas education system failing I saw an article about how much better private schools were than public schools. Last edited by RVL; 01-18-2008 at 11:56 PM.. |
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#33 | ||
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Resident One-Hander
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Yes, private schools are often 10x better than their public counterparts, simply because they expect more out of a student, and they are better at motivating their students. I know this from experience. I went to a Christian private school in 5th and 6th grade in New York, and a private school in kindergarten. If you got < 72% on your assignments, it was an F. I always had straight As, as I am motivated to succeed and do well in life later on. but anyways, the schools do not have government intervention. The students there were brighter, more motivated, kinder, and the teacher was probably the absolute best I've ever seen. Too bad many people can't afford to send their students to private schools. I've always thought that if the government were to either A) Learn off of private schools in terms of education and motivation, or B) Get the hell out of America's public schools America's education system would not be such a failure. After all, they even let companies advertise in schools in return for funding, as they cannot provide adequate funding for many schools. Many of the things they give out [the companies] are lies or twisted truths. For example, there was an example in which Procter and Gamble gave funding to schools in return to pass out pamphlets containing information about them and their products. Some of the text read "Procter & Gamble's products do not harm the environment". BS. Other companies force kids to watch a set amount of advertising daily from X company that pays them. I know Coca-Cola did this. It's so sad. These schools should be some of the best in the world. But they aren't. The only schools that usually provide any decent education are private schools and colleges. ![]() ~Bynary Fission Last edited by Bynary Fission; 01-19-2008 at 02:50 AM.. Reason: Made an error in wording. |
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#34 | |
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FFR Player
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There's also another reason for America's failing public schools, actually... I remember a year ago I heard on the radio only 50% of public school students graduated from high school.
Also, there's a thread about rap music being a bad influence on children. I understand not everyone listens or cares about it, I dont, but many children have been influenced by rap, please look at the quote below. Quote:
EDIT: Haha I found my notice on the floor and it stated that in my region the supervisor of the public schools were taking away an elementary school and redistricting 7 schools. Increased Lunch prices, activity prices, and transportation rides will take place next school year. It even stated the school's budget was really low. Also, the notice said that this type of movement will damage Elementary school programs, which aren't that important but it is still quite horrible. Last edited by RVL; 01-19-2008 at 09:04 AM.. |
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#35 |
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Resident One-Hander
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Rap music is a bad influence, and to a severe degree I might add. I know this from personal experience, and I'll tell you why. Listen to this. In 8th grade (Last year), I went to a magnet school. It was a school with it's basis on Aerospace/Aviation and technology. But it presided in a ghetto filled with mostly Mexican and Hispanic people, followed by blacks. The school's race distribution was a staggering 70% Hispanic and 15% black. The rest was white, Asian, and other. And let me tell you...8 out of every 10 kids I knew listened to gangster rap and hip-hop. And it showed. The kids at my school were extremely vulgar, easily angered, violent, and many were failing at school. Some did drugs. This was even present in the predominately white Magnet population there (The Magnet kids are the special group of kids that applied to go there and utilize the special programs there, and to get in you had to have a few requirements, like a 2.5 GPA or higher). Mainstream rap does idolize all of the aforementioned things. I have listened to a little myself, to see what it was like. It was torture. I have failed to understand how ANYbody likes it..though I can see why they like it.
But rap is not the only thing that is dragging schools down. In fact, I'm not sure rap actually has that significant of a role in failure and dropout rates (Though I'd love to see a statistic showing the correlation. I'm not doubting it exists, I'd just like to see one), but the trash on TV helps demotivate our kids, and lets not forget the excessive video games, s*itty teachers, and overall lack of motivation. The problem has been allowed to grow and fester for many, many years. The problem will not be easy to fix, nor will it be swift. But if we don't stop now, we may soon cross the Point of No Return. ~Bynary Fission |
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#36 | |
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FFR Player
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What I'm curious about is whether rap followed or lead the American culture. Did people turn to rap because students were getting, in general, more violent/vulgar/etc? Or did the trend appear because students turned to rap? |
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#37 |
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FFR Veteran
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Cornfields
Age: 29
Posts: 228
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I remember 2 years ago, I was in a school filled with students that fought a lot and get pregnant before they finish middle school. I'm Asian, there were only 5 other kids that are Asian and 3% white (they already adjusted them selves the culture there) the rest are mostly Black and Hispanic. Before I moved there, I was in a "well-mannered" and organized school; this school in contrast had laziest and stupidest people I’ve ever met. The first time I witnessed a fight, I cried immediately after I got home, I just couldn’t handle the huge adjustment. I’ve never in my life seen people fight so seriously, especially when more people started ganging up against one person. I do not hate people that listen to rap, it’s their choice, and after being there for a while I actually listened to some R&B myself. Kids in the school I’m attending right now also listens to rap/ R&B, but they are willing to learn.
As for the classes, the teachers doesn’t even take a good look at my tests, they just give me 100% on everything. Seriously, if the teachers had been more responsible things would improve at least a tiny bit. I remembered once the English teacher showed a video about high school violence, the scene where the kids fought; the entire English class got out of their seats and cheered! The teacher doesn’t even stop the video and say something. They hardly think before they act, they are also very straightforward. If they liked someone, they would tell him or her right away. One kid became obsessed, he followed me to the girl’s bathroom, then later he went on my bus and looked for where I live. Doesn’t he know that was way overboard? The students have reached to a point where the answers are right on the board, and they still needed help. It really depends on the area, the school I’m attending now has Hispanic and Black people as well, but they are very mature and understand how to handle situations instead of using violence. |
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