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My Students Can't Read

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Re: My Students Can't Read

#111

Post by JumpCrisscross »

XorNot wrote: post #40
pclowes wrote: post #28

We really need to make high school diplomas mean something again. However, this means something like a 35% fail rate. Unfortunately, the populace would not accept that and so every credential gets inflated to worthlessness. 90%+ of all people in undergrad and 50% of grad school probably shouldn’t be there. They just want the credential, to get the job, to get the money. This is understandable but there is no interest…

What do you plan to do with the people who don't pass though? Everyone's very excited to have failure rates or whatever and then mute on the real problem: those people don't just go away.

> What do you plan to do with the people who don't pass though?

Remedial classes. Or, realistically, unskilled labor.

Like, what do we do with these kids now? The same thing, except after we’ve saddled them with a meaningless diploma and a pile of debt.

Re: My Students Can't Read

#112

Post by cjbgkagh »

D-Machine wrote: post #103
cjbgkagh wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this hypothetical you’re a teacher, not world emperor, so you’re limited to pass/fail decisions of a particular class at a particular school. I personally have grave concerns regarding the poor education of the youth and think education should be far more stringent, but unfortunately I don’t get to make those decisions. If I was a teacher I’m not sure I would be willing to fall on that sword. I avoid the issue by…

There's no hypothetical here IMO, this is a real-world problem, and also you aren't limited to pass/fail decisions as a teacher, except in exceptional cases of borderline grades. Otherwise, there is a passing grade / requirements, and grades can be determined by objective tests (all students get the same difficulty tests). Also you have something like an average of many courses over many years to make the pass/fail d…

These laws have a strong impact on behavior so you’re not going to fix the behavior without fixing the laws, which I agree, need to be fixed.

Re: My Students Can't Read

#113

Post by throwaway2016a »

pclowes wrote: post #96
jbxntuehineoh wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Publicly funded colleges should not be able to loan 6 figures to people who don’t understand interest rates. I am happy to vote to take their funding away if they want to continue doing that.

First, colleges don't generally give loans. The lenders are not affiliated with the college.

Second, as with anything it is more complex than you are making it. For example, I've known people who have:

- Had a variable interest go up with little to no notice and no adjustment to the payments so if you're not paying attention month to month you end up underpaying.

- Been put in deferment without notice (so their payments stopped) and without requesting it, but continued to accumulate interest.

- Interest is sometimes compounding while in deferment or paying less than interest.

- Were mislead about how interest accumulated while they were still in school (i.e. lead to believe there was no interest when in reality there was just "no payments")

And in that last one in particular, the person I know in that situation (happened to be married to her now), it was her boomer parents that signed the loan paperwork and they didn't even give her access until after she graduated when she found out interest compounding that whole time.

I think the whole debate is putting too much on 17 kids and not enough on their parents who need to co-sign these documents. When I was that age the school didn't tell me how interest worked, my parents did.

Re: My Students Can't Read

#114

Post by [deleted] »

johnobrien1010 wrote: post #73
pclowes wrote: post #28

We really need to make high school diplomas mean something again. However, this means something like a 35% fail rate. Unfortunately, the populace would not accept that and so every credential gets inflated to worthlessness. 90%+ of all people in undergrad and 50% of grad school probably shouldn’t be there. They just want the credential, to get the job, to get the money. This is understandable but there is no interest…

This assertion seems light on sources. What evidence do you have to support your claims?

[deleted]

Re: My Students Can't Read

#115

Post by dundunUp »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #94
D-Machine wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Could you prove the disparate impact is random and your pass criteria isn’t racist? Can those in favor of grade inflation and meaningless credentials prove their decisions also don't have disparate impact and aren't racist? Based on some recent US Supreme Court decisions re: affirmative action, it would seem unlikely this case would be any different. The hard questions about long-term harms to students and society…

In this hypothetical you’re a teacher, not world emperor, so you’re limited to pass/fail decisions of a particular class at a particular school. I personally have grave concerns regarding the poor education of the youth and think education should be far more stringent, but unfortunately I don’t get to make those decisions. If I was a teacher I’m not sure I would be willing to fall on that sword. I avoid the issue by…

This is a big component of why we have objective grade level standards.

Re: My Students Can't Read

#116

Post by marcus_holmes »

baggy_trough wrote: post #59

Do we have the courage to do what's necessary to fix education in the United States? That is: - abolish teachers unions - fail / keep back students who don't meet standards, in a completely objective fashion with no regard for racial / ethnic / gender sensitivities

Why does every conversation in the USA always involve race?

Re: My Students Can't Read

#117

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ngriffiths wrote: post #20

> The students who cannot read a 20-page article today are the voters who will not be able to read a bill, or the jurors who cannot follow a closing argument, tomorrow. Obviously literacy is super important but these are examples of things where literacy plays very little role, because ~nobody can read a bill, or follow a written legal argument. I mean a very literate person can get something out of reading it, which…

> nobody can read a bill, or follow a written legal argument

Really? I have no legal training. I can follow a SCOTUS opinion and most local legislation.

Re: My Students Can't Read

#118

Post by throwaway2016a »

atmavatar wrote: post #77
ngriffiths wrote: post #20

> The students who cannot read a 20-page article today are the voters who will not be able to read a bill, or the jurors who cannot follow a closing argument, tomorrow. Obviously literacy is super important but these are examples of things where literacy plays very little role, because ~nobody can read a bill, or follow a written legal argument. I mean a very literate person can get something out of reading it, which…

> The students who cannot read a 20-page article today Looking at the other half of this complaint: cannot or will not? In an age where there's a million things demanding your attention, a 20-page article is asking for a lot of someone's time, and my experience has been that 19-and-a-half of those pages are nearly always filler. The student commenting they kept losing track of what the paper was about suggests the as…

> Looking at the other half of this complaint: cannot or will not?

This. I'm 40 and getting my MBA part time while working and being a parent and I can tell you even as an adult: when you hand me a 20 page case study I will read it but I'm going to be swearing under my breath the whole time.

In today's day and age reading anything long is asking a lot.

My daughter (10) routinely reads 400+ page books meant for kids older than her, but give her a 200 page book in class and she struggles with it even though it's a lower reading level because it is a chore.

Re: My Students Can't Read

#119

Post by pclowes »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #108
pclowes wrote: post #28

We really need to make high school diplomas mean something again. However, this means something like a 35% fail rate. Unfortunately, the populace would not accept that and so every credential gets inflated to worthlessness. 90%+ of all people in undergrad and 50% of grad school probably shouldn’t be there. They just want the credential, to get the job, to get the money. This is understandable but there is no interest…

> the populace would not accept that What is your evidence for this? It seems like there is growing frustration with the realization that we may have an economically useless cohort about to hit the real world.

High Schools don’t support teachers who are confronted by angry parents who are mad that you are ruining their kids chance at an Ivy by giving them a B- in HS algebra (meanwhile the ivies remedial math classes are packed more than ever)

Re: My Students Can't Read

#120

Post by JumpCrisscross »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #78
pclowes wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. You can’t put equity before excellence or you erode both. Passing students to avoid “disparate impact” to me is highly ignorant and often deeply racist.

It is easier to make that call when you’re not at risk of being sued.

Legislative step number one then, remove the legal basis for such suits.
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