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How My School and District Failed its Students

anurbanteacherseducation.com

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Re: How My School and District Failed its Students

#91

Post by maxharris »

jseliger wrote: post #90
maxharris wrote: post #2

My solution? Make attendance voluntary by abolishing truancy laws. Disruptive students don't want to be there, and forcing them to go doesn't teach them anything. Human beings can't be forced to think. This runs absolutely counter to all kinds of notions and traditions, but it's how nature is. Wishing, legislating and expecting that facts be otherwise won't work any better here than it would in the physical sciences…

"My solution? Make attendance voluntary by abolishing truancy laws." I agree with you in theory, but in practice this doesn't seem to work out so well. Look, for example, at the chapter in Dan Ariely's book Predictably Irrational : about prebinding commitments and universities. In one experiment, he (and his co-authors) took a group of similar classes and divided them in threes: one group was told that it could turn…

Just what are these supposedly negative consequences of abolishing truancy laws? The disruptive students mentioned in the article didn't learn anything in school.

Re: How My School and District Failed its Students

#92

Post by lukeschlather »

alexophile wrote: post #31

What I don't understand about all this is why there isn't a way to use these clearly failing schools for experiments in alternative styles of education. Say what you will about things like voluntary attendance, but when your school is descending into anarchy, it just seems like there's too little to lose not to go out on a limb. The school my mom used to work at was rampant with corruption and ineptitude. It was take…

That's fine in very high population density urban areas, where there are a variety of schools and easy transportation between them.

It doesn't work in lower density areas. That was one of the most horrible provisions of NCLB, trying to make generalizations that could be applied equally well to an area where there are a wide array of schools and communities where you have one school for 500 students and getting to any other school is a serious hardship for the students involved.

And in those circumstances, trying to improve the existing school is the only option, since doing worse is unacceptable. (We're talking about years of children's lives here, and the only real source of education these communities have.)

Re: How My School and District Failed its Students

#93

Post by dfghjkfgh »

mycroftiv wrote: post #82
frossie wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make attendance voluntary by abolishing truancy laws I didn't downvote you, but I strongly disagree. I personally don't want to live in a society full of kids (did you see his percentages - up to 25%!!) that are considered unmanageable at age 12. If they are unmanageable at age 12, what do you think they are going to be at age 25? Angry, illiterate, jobless oh and yeah, still unmanageable. Or, in jail and unmanageabl…

The purpose of universal education is to educate, not to provide free day care, much less to serve as a corrective institution for young people with behavior problems. Our education system is a failure because it is overburdened with non-educational mandates. In my very biased opinion, it is the most motivated students who are harmed the most by this. The difficult challenge of improving the behavior and attitude of…

The purpose of public education was child care and to teach children - especially countryside children - the idea of turning up at work on time every day, sitting quietly and doing as they were told.

It was a big problem in the industrial revolution - trying to get people to understand that they had to turn up at the same time in the summer and winter - which was a big change if you had been used to getting up with the sun for the previous 2000 years

Re: How My School and District Failed its Students

#94

Post by dfghjkfgh »

earl wrote: post #86
dfghjkfgh wrote: post #59

The solution is simple - increase teacher salaries and have more computers in schools. It's worked for the last 30years

Sadly, no. See, eg, [1] for a chart of teacher salaries vs inflation over time. Quoting the article: "[...] we also find dramatic erosion in relative teacher earnings since 1960." See also figure C, "Real weekly wage trends for teachers and others, 1979 - 2006". In short, teacher's have been taking a hit in the wallet for the privilege of teaching for 30-40 years. In fact, if you're familiar with employment in Americ…

whoosh

Re: How My School and District Failed its Students

#95

Post by ScottBurson »

mannicken wrote: post #75
michaelchisari wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my knowledge of radical education approaches like Summerhill or Ferrer's Modern School, I would agree with that, with one caveat: Students don't have to attend class. They just have to go to school. They can choose, on a daily basis, what class they want to be in. If they disrupt, they're kicked out of class for the day, since attendance at that class is a voluntary association. To get credit and a grade for a c…

So how is this different from jail? You're forced to be somewhere you hate, unable to go outside, for a part of your life just because you were born?

"Schools are jails for kids." -- John Holt

Re: How My School and District Failed its Students

#96

Post by skittles »

I was talking to an Indian friend in grad school when he explained why schools in India were better than those in the U.S. He said it had to do with how our kids learned the alphabet with a song. He learned it by memory forward and backward. He later mentioned how a teacher in India might cane a child who didn't pay attention. That's when I became enlightened.

Re: How My School and District Failed its Students

#97

Post by [deleted] »

earl wrote: post #86
dfghjkfgh wrote: post #59

The solution is simple - increase teacher salaries and have more computers in schools. It's worked for the last 30years

Sadly, no. See, eg, [1] for a chart of teacher salaries vs inflation over time. Quoting the article: "[...] we also find dramatic erosion in relative teacher earnings since 1960." See also figure C, "Real weekly wage trends for teachers and others, 1979 - 2006". In short, teacher's have been taking a hit in the wallet for the privilege of teaching for 30-40 years. In fact, if you're familiar with employment in Americ…

[deleted]

Re: How My School and District Failed its Students

#98

Post by thebigredjay »

michaelchisari wrote: post #23
maxharris wrote: post #2

My solution? Make attendance voluntary by abolishing truancy laws. Disruptive students don't want to be there, and forcing them to go doesn't teach them anything. Human beings can't be forced to think. This runs absolutely counter to all kinds of notions and traditions, but it's how nature is. Wishing, legislating and expecting that facts be otherwise won't work any better here than it would in the physical sciences…

From my knowledge of radical education approaches like Summerhill or Ferrer's Modern School, I would agree with that, with one caveat: Students don't have to attend class. They just have to go to school. They can choose, on a daily basis, what class they want to be in. If they disrupt, they're kicked out of class for the day, since attendance at that class is a voluntary association. To get credit and a grade for a c…

QFT "Never underestimate the motivating power of boredom."

Re: How My School and District Failed its Students

#99

Post by sidek »

maxharris wrote: post #2

My solution? Make attendance voluntary by abolishing truancy laws. Disruptive students don't want to be there, and forcing them to go doesn't teach them anything. Human beings can't be forced to think. This runs absolutely counter to all kinds of notions and traditions, but it's how nature is. Wishing, legislating and expecting that facts be otherwise won't work any better here than it would in the physical sciences…

I disagree. Schools do function as low-security prisons, and that is important to society (This point can be disagreed on, but I do not want to make a long post about why this is my stance and, I think, the better one.).

To stop disruption, one should look at streaming by achievement as an option. This is already widely done in High School, and could be expanded to middle school with enough ease. Kids who are overly disruptive will disrupt only other disruptors ( and those who do badly in their classes... these people will be failed, but I look at it as for the greater good.).

Actually, my home province has this- to some extent. It's called the "Knowledge and Employability" program. I don't know much about it, but it seems to have been moderately successful.

Re: How My School and District Failed its Students

#100

Post by ryanwaggoner »

kenjackson wrote: post #12
frossie wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make attendance voluntary by abolishing truancy laws I didn't downvote you, but I strongly disagree. I personally don't want to live in a society full of kids (did you see his percentages - up to 25%!!) that are considered unmanageable at age 12. If they are unmanageable at age 12, what do you think they are going to be at age 25? Angry, illiterate, jobless oh and yeah, still unmanageable. Or, in jail and unmanageabl…

I agree. I suspect the problem is these children were disruptive at age 8 and no one did anything. I don't think letting a 12 year old decide they don't have to go to school is the answer. But I do think they should not be allowed to disrupt the education of others. There are some intereting alternative schools that may be a way to tackle the issue. It's not an easy problem. With that said, I think what this essay ad…

None of the students at Promise Academy have supportive fathers or grandfathers?
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