Is public education on a down hill ride?

[Ayumi Hamasaki]

I was reading a paper in my English 112 class the other day about how the President and our Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan are ruining education.

I'm not so sure that they're the only ones doing it, but this whole new Race to the Top program is a giant hoax. I was in a high school that was below standards and had it's budget cut. Is that supposed to be some sort of punishment to make us do better? Hello, less money equals less textbooks, less teachers, and worse education.

Capitalism has no place in our education. Schools that are small and not in rich neighborhoods have zero chance of competing with larger schools that are in richer neighborhoods. How does it make sense to give schools that already have enough funding more funding? It doesn't.

What are your opinions on it?

 

[Valvalis]

The school system lately in the US (well, particularly where I am in Florida) is a big heaping mess, and it is influenced too much by the wrong people, ideas, and money. One of the biggest problems is that teachers themselves are treated like crap, they are punished for students doing poorly and are given little incentive to work hard. They are constantly fighting to keep what benefits they have, and often have to pay out of pocket for basic school supplies that should be provided by the government. Also, if you look at the state standards for certain subjects, they are so basic and lacking in detail that a kid could get through say, a history class for example, without learning very much of anything. If standards were more detailed in their requirements, then the teachers who do actually do a poor job would have to work harder, and their students would be getting more out of their classes. Also, too much pressure is put on the schools by parents who don't want to be blamed for their own kids turning out the way they don't want them to. It is not the job of teachers to raise children, that is the sole responsibility of parents and the teachers are merely there to educate them about specialized subjects, not how to behave in public or discipline themselves socially (unless, of course, the class is about that). One of the worst things a society can do to itself in general is to try to pass off responsibility to other people rather than taking it upon themselves to try to fix things.

Anyway, there are lots of things wrong with the school system, and I honestly don't know whether anything is going to change it for the better anytime soon or not. They're at least supposed to be getting rid of things like the FCAT standardized testing (which actually makes teachers of every subject--science, art, etc--take huge chunks of time out of their classes to teach kids basic English and Math for several classes in a row >_>), but I don't know whether that's actually happened yet.

 

[Rydia]

I never went to a public school. (The ones around where I live weren't very good so my parents paid money to send me to a private school)

However, I do not agree with tenure that teachers get. So... you work at a school for ten years and they can't fire you? So basically, you can be a crap teacher and no one can do anything about it. I noticed that this was a problem at my college. teachers with tenure were lazy during classes and refused to help students. It was pointless to complain to the dean because there was nothing he could do. So we'd have to endure the class through the semester or drop out of it and risk having to go an extra year <.<

 

[RedJeepXJ]

no child left behind is a huge failure, should really be labeled hold everyone back to the level of the worst student.

we actually let creationists preach their thoughts as if it was education as if knowledge could always be debatable at such ridiculous levels, should we offer alchemy as an alternative to chemistry, guestimating as an alternative to algebra?.

 

[Gaige]

I think public schooling is a huge failure because of expectations. People are judged based purely on knowledge and text and not enough on practical application. Stuff like cooking and woodwork is tested, sure, but we're tested on our English by writing page upon page of a poem or story we don't care about.

Not only that, but some people just don't test well. I'm lucky. I got half decent results in the end but a lot of people didn't, despite constant revision. People being expected to recall years of knowledge for the time exams take place is ridiculous.

Not to mention some of the knowledge we learn is ridiculous. Particularly in Math. I appreciate that Engineers, Architects and the like require this knowledge, but those that don't should have an option to learn the basics and nothing more. The emphasis on useless, unwanted information in schools is ridiculous and unfair.

Homework, also, dominates a student's life. Sometimes, I was given homework that would last me well into the night or take up a huge part of my weekend, and I resent that school took up such a huge part of my life as well as expecting me to do independant study.

I feel a total overhaul is necessary. Everyone, not just men and women in suits, needs to look at the curriculum, the homework, the grading system, and the exams system, and decide what needs to be kept and what needs to be replaced with something better. Students overdo it if they do everything expected of them. There needs to be more emphasis on useful application and practical work, rather than an education system built on learning the useless.

 

[Sum1sgruj]

I don't really see a problem in public education as far as the fundamental aspects of it. Really, college is where problems occur.
College is a contest, make no mistake about that. Professors aim to one-up each other and students get caught between theory and fact.
The upper system of education has become very bias in their definition of standards.
The only problem with public schools are certain teachers that embarrass their profession_

 

[Dee]

I wouldn't say it is on a downhill ride, but more of a low-level plane that sometimes rises in certain subjects while others tend to be a bit more of a rocky ride, steadily rising and falling in comparison to other cultures.

As a student teacher in a public high school, I can only speak from one little spec of the country, but the school I'm teaching at is quite a good one in terms of the percentage of graduates (90%), IB classes (International Baccalaureate; Google it if you're unsure. It is sort of a step up from honors classes). The teacher I'm teaching under has 2 advanced freshman classes, more of which were added this new school year. Even in the face of budget cuts and funding issues, some parts of the country still seem to be holding strong.

I do, however, think that it really comes down to the individual district. We can't just point the finger at the federal government and say, "Hey! You don't know what you're doing, let us take the reigns!" People like Curriculum Directors and the good folk in administration are the ones (usually) with their thumbs up their asses who tend to make teaching what the kids need to learn harder for educators.

It didn't help that when Bush was in office how he implemented NCLB act. While it seemed good in theory (with a lot of tweaking), it could have worked. That is, if the public education institution had proper funding, goals and people who know what they are doing, who have been in the classroom, who have experienced the hardships, the minimal amount of time we have to teach and make sure every student--no matter what their weak or strong points are--is at the same level or higher.

What about ELL kids? Don't even get me started on that.

Students with other disabilities? Please, they're not just some mold we can fit into a cookie cutter. Every kid is an individual and every kid learns differently and while some schools may work better than others, it is really difficult to say in the immediate present whether or not we're on the downhill.

In comparison to maybe 30 or 40 years ago, yeah, I'd say we ARE making progress, but the times are changing and we're slowly learning, slowly working through a terrible economy where just about damn near everyone is suffering, but we're not going downhill. We may be behind on some results, particularly in math, science and reading (that is, in comparison to the entire world), but we're not going downhill.

 

[bearsfwd]

Honestly, I don't see it based upon where I live, but in general it probably is on a down hill slide. Where I live, education is pretty good. We have a few bad apple schools here in South-Central Pennsylvania, but for the most part, we have good education. Hell, the school district I was in, while not being rich or anything, did a very good job. For the most part, teachers seemed like they wanted to be there, and it didn't feel like we were learning things just because the government set standards. We had plenty of sports and activities as well (even though the sport I played, ice hockey, wasn't supported by the school, even though we had a team).

 

[GBJoker]

Actually, it's already been proven that budget does not affect education levels. St. Louis City spends almost 15k per kid, while St. Louis County spends roughly 10k per kid, yet county has always and will always score higher.

Secondly, public education was ruined the moment it became public.