Education in America??????

[Aurielius]

If the USA's rank in that international standard were split along state lines, Massachusetts would be ranked in the -teenths or higher. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment#cite_note-10)

 

Jus' sayin'.

 

It's not the USA as a whole, but problematic States with dumb people who have no desire to be smart. Like...if the South were excised from the statistics gathering I have no doubt the USA's standing would jump up 20 places.

Talk about hit an run, I'm a Northerner but find that dismissive and trite. I would take you behind the verbal woodshed but am certain that our ex Confederate members will do it for me. I await with droll amusement the ire of our erudite southern members.. Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.

[grannywils]

@Lukertin, I briefly responded last night but wish to take it a step further this morning. My post has to do with the serious problems I see with our education system in the U.S. and with the apparent lack of concern that exists among a large percentage of the population and the government with respect to correcting it.

 

I explain this to you since you have made one of the most monumentally ignorant remarks I have read on these forums in many a day. I apologize up front if you find my remark to be offensive, but please understand that I meant it to be. You have singularly offended an entire segment of the U.S. population with an offhand remark while at the same time showing a certain ignorance of the subject and the intent of the thread to which you were responding.

 

I am not attempting to "improve the U.S. standing" so that we can show that we are better than everyone else. What I would like to see is some concern with our youth. I would like to know that we can provide them all with a decent education regardless of their geographic location, economic status, or the inate intellingence with which they were born. All of them will be taking us into the future, whether they go to MIT, a vocational school or become the plumbers, electricians or janitors and waiters and waitresses that we all need to work in this country. They will need to know how to read and write and understand basic concepts. They will unfortunately have to deal with people with attitudes such as yours, and actually understand the language with which you just insulted all of them. If properly educated, they will perhaps be capable of responding in kind.

 

I do not know for sure if you meant your response to be "tongue in cheek" or as some sort of joke, but if so it fell very, very flat.

 

Oh, and by the way, no I am not from the south. I am from New York City, but do not take kindly to seeing anyone treated unkindly or insulted without the benefit of a defense.

 

[ginnyfizz]

Sorry Granny, I thought you were from New Mexico, but as you say, a native New Yorker in fact. I do get a bit confused sometimes....

 

You and I are totally on the same page on this one, in that we are thinking of the future of the young, and how we can equip them to be happy, productive and stable citizens. As you know, in my last job I came across many youths who had been let down by the system and bypassed in particular by the education system, and many of them had literacy issues. We need to be picking these people up FAR earlier.

[Deleted472477User]

Employer laziness. Too many jobs out there list degrees in the requirements when in fact you'll probably never use any of that knowledge in a lot of cases (a former co-worker of mine at an old IT job I had in the UK was a contractor from Sony - said his Computer Science degree looked good on a CV and that was it).

 

 

You see this here in the States somewhat too. Jobs requiring ridiculous education levels for the most mundane positions, most of which can be learned on the job or with a few courses. When I was job hunting, I heard a few stores from people looking at mid-level admin/clerical jobs that wanted a bachelor's degree! Worse yet, they didn't care what the degree was, they just wanted a degree. I've decided that some of this stems from employers seeing the educational state of the Us and making a Bachelor's Degree the new high school diploma. In other words, they're convinced that kids graduating in the last ten years won't have what it takes without college.

 

I have run into this as well. My background is in call centers, and sometimes I see ads stating "Bachelor's Degree or X amount of years experience required." Sorry to say, but a BA isn't going to give you the experience you need to handle your call center stats, how to talk to customers, or how to deal with the screeching rage hag on the other end of the line. So I don't get it.

[lukertin]

It's not the USA as a whole, but problematic States with dumb people who have no desire to be smart. Like...if the South were excised from the statistics gathering I have no doubt the USA's standing would jump up 20 places.

 

You wanna clarify this statement?

 

I happen to live in the South, Texas to be exact. I have traveled all over this country and I can say with 100% confidence that stupidity is not a 'Southern Phenomenon'.

 

I'm a compressor mechanic in the oil and gas industry. I have two patents and one process patent. I make an assload money doing what I do and I'm what high-minded elitists call an 'ignorant redneck'. BUT I'm at the top of the food chain in my field and people who are not from the South answer to me and look TO ME for answers when they are standing around conference tables scratching their heads like a pack of morons, but their suits look nice.

 

I am a product of Southern public schools and the ONLY reason I went to college was to chase girls and drink beer, yet HERE I AM. It is personal initiative and DRIVE that makes people 'smart'.

Studies regarding education in math and science: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/11/state-education-rankings-_n_894528.html

worst states in in the south, best states in the northeast.

 

Government studies: http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/states/

Why is it that poorly performing states cluster in the south? With the exception of Florida, NC, and Texas, every southern state underperforms the National average. You think that's a coincidence? Meanwhile everywhere else either overperforms or constitutes the National average

[ginnyfizz]

That doesn't excuse your rank rudeness and the shocking nature of your sweeping generalization/stereotyping. We country yokels (the UK equivalent I suppose of rednecks)get it all the time too - the BBC types and elitists sneering and then being amazed to discover that some of us went to college, emerged from it able to read and write and, shock! horror! switch on a computer, connect to the internet and haul people to account for said sneering and rudery.

 

And, after all, you are even qualifying your own statement. When in hole stop digging. Rather than use this thread as a vehicle to spread prejudice and stereotyping - it sure as eggs isn't going to help those underperformers by jeering that they or their parents are stupid and ignorant and not interested in education - try and come up with some ideas of how to help them.

 

I rather think that is what Granny was driving at in making this topic.

[Kendo 2]

@ lukertin

Thank you for the links. The words 'sobering' and 'depressing' come to mind.

 

Hmmm...do we need football pads or lap tops? THAT is what's wrong with Southern schools today...That and dumbed down standardized testing so school districts can cram as many kids into desks as they can so inept union teachers can keep their phoney-baloney jobs. Have warm body in a seat, give it enough info to pass a test someone with an IQ of 100 could ace and get it OUT of the class room. That's just one SMALL part of the 'Democratic Plantation' mentality that has kept the deep South on the back burners since the end of the Civil War.

 

I simply resented the implication that ALL Southerns are a pack of backwoods rejects. It would be the same thing as me saying "Yankees can't cook" and grannywils taking offense.

 

*eats grannywils' pot roast and proposes to her*

[ffa1mf]

While the thread is on Education in America, I don't think the situation is much different in my country.

I am an adult educator, not a school teacher (and yes there is a big difference between the two) and part of my job is evaluating and orientating people who have been hired into my profession.

I have to admit that there appears to be a huge education gap that seems to be getting worse. I am amazed that most of the people I see have very poor reading (comprehending what they have read) and writing skills, and that math skills are almost nonexistent. The one surprise is that most seem to have a pretty good grasp of the basic concepts in physics and chemistry, but that may be because of the typical aptitude of people attracted to the field.

 

I have noticed that there is a significant difference in the skills and abilities between people who have graduated from school and gone straight into the profession and those who have worked in some field/job for a few years after school and prior to entering the profession. Those with even a small amount of work experience tend to have much better skills and abilities than those who come straight from school. It makes one wonder if they are getting a better education from working than they are from school or if it’s a matter that at school it didn’t really matter, but you better be able to perform at a job, so they have been forced to gain some skills.

[HeyYou]

There are several problems as I see it. The biggest, and root of most of the others is, Federal Involvement.......

 

Our teachers are teaching to the tests, and that's it. And why do they do that? Because school funding is tied to the schools performance on the standardized tests..... and "graduation rate".... So, we have school admins that are looking at numbers, and what they have to do to improve those numbers, so they can get more funding. Teachers are actually encouraged/forced to pass along sub-standard students, so they don't lose funding. Personally, I think the idea is ludicrous. We are forcing our schools to turn out sub-standard "product" so to speak.

 

Alongside that..... we have school admins that value sports higher than education. A school in my area was recently built, at a substantial cost, granted, that occurred shortly before the economy took a serious nose dive. However..... once they had their nice shiny new school, they also wanted a nice shiny new football stadium. (yes, a highschool football stadium....) They put the issue to the voters, and it was defeated. Twice. Well, then they took a different tack..... Seems 'inspectors' determined the bleachers at the 'old' football field were condemned, and need to be torn down. All well and good..... but, did the school admins rebuild said bleachers? Nope, the bulldozed the whole field, and then wangled the 2.1 MILLION dollars for the new stadium anyway...... Which was built. But, there was only one problem, the new stadium didn't include things like a concession stand, or....... bathrooms....... but, the school admins had one built anyway...... and started collecting money for it thru fundraisers, and other donations. I don't know if it ever got finished.... The stadium did though...... Now, the whole idea the school admins used to justify this expenditure, even when the economy was RAPIDLY going down the toilet? They needed a "marketing ploy" to draw students to the nice new school..... seems since the economy here had sucked even before the crash of 08, enrollment was declining..... (big surprise) and with the crash, that decline became quite pronounced. Even though population was going DOWN, unemployment here was still going UP. I don't have any idea just where they thought the new students were going to come from.... Hard to draw folks to a school district, when there aren't any jobs around here.......

 

And we aren't teaching our students life skills either. The class that taught kids the basic things, like, balancing their checkbook, running a household budget, etc, was cut, so the school could spend the money "on more important areas"..... Like, new football uniforms........

 

On the jobs thing: A bachelors degree is getting to be so common these days...... that even the cashiers at macdonalds generally have one. (or more.) Folk that do the hiring just look at the funny little letters after someones name, and they instantly think them more qualified than someone that DOESN'T have those funny little letters. At a large corporation that I worked for back in the late 90's.... I didn't have a degree, I just had a buncha years experience. I was hired in as a temp, and after my six months, I was OFFERED a management position on Store side hardware support. I had a clue. I knew what I was doing, and I got the job done. They recognized that, and rewarded me for it. Fast forward a year, when my job had gotten much more complicated, with more stores to support, and a change of O/S, etc...... and I was able to hire myself some help. I got a say in who got hired, but, I was left in the dark as to what they got paid. Reason being? Because these college "graduates" with zero experience, were getting paid TWICE what I was, and I was the friggin MANAGER.

 

Corporate america has it's priorities all wrong, as does the federal government, when it comes to education. I don't see that changing. The government loves to stick their fingers into things that don't have the faintest idea about.

[grannywils]

Kendo, who told you about my excellent pot roast?? It is quite yummy, if I do say so myself. I was actually mulling over your proposal momentarily until I reread the following: "Hmmm...do we need football pads or lap tops? THAT is what's wrong with Southern schools today...That and dumbed down standardized testing so school districts can cram as many kids into desks as they can ....so inept union teachers can keep their phoney-baloney jobs. Have warm body in a seat, give it enough info to pass a test someone with an IQ of 100 could ace and get it OUT of the class room.

 

I will give you much of what you said there, but please do not blame it on the teachers. Yes, there are some bad eggs. I will not dispute that. I personally know of some (unfortunately even have one in my family). But this is not the crux of the problem, and I'm fairly certain that you know it.

 

In any event, you are right, we need to stop worrying about their feet (i.e. football) and pay more attention to their heads (i.e. their minds); but that goes for all schools across the nation.