21–30 of 140 posts
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Why don't private schools have to deal with these "dull-normals" too? Having rich parents doesn't disqualify one from having below-average IQ.
Private schools can choose who they want to admit
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As a nation, we've decided that every child should be educated. I think that's a good goal to have, although there may be a more efficient way to do it. We kind of have a system in place with magnet schools and selective enrollment, but that's for high school. >allow schools to suspend/expel students who are repeatedly disruptive or violent in class I think education and patience are helpful in teaching kids to vent…
>As a nation, we've decided that every child should be educated. The key point is that the current approach is failing at this. It's possible that by giving up on the really hard cases and focusing more on the average cases, it would be possible to educate more children than the current approach achieves. Better to reach for a good outcome and succeed than to reach for a perfect outcome and fail, so to speak. >I thin…
The rich send their kids to private schools. Therefore, this problem does not apply to the rich. Therefore, this problem will not be solved.
This made me pause and think for a moment. What do rich kid schools do? I have no idea. I went to a dumb kid rural high school. But for some reason through the endless education discussion I've never heard brought up what rich kid schools do differently. Even if the answer is "but we can't do that because we're poor". Man. Now you've got me all curious...
Also from what I was told, teachers usually are payed better so a lot of them come from better universities and also it seems that they are better updated on current technologies.
Of course this will depend on school and I also think even private schools get some crappy teachers/bad syllabus, but in general I think it boils down to having either better material stuff or better trained teachers or both.
Edit: Forgot to add that these two improved areas seem to combine to give much better learning experience which in the end seems to somewhat correlate to student success.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>As a nation, we've decided that every child should be educated. The key point is that the current approach is failing at this. It's possible that by giving up on the really hard cases and focusing more on the average cases, it would be possible to educate more children than the current approach achieves. Better to reach for a good outcome and succeed than to reach for a perfect outcome and fail, so to speak. >I thin…
No one is very well served by the current system, I would agree. But if you start thrusting out the bottom end of students without even the increasingly value-less credential of a high school diploma, you're effectively consigning them to the prison system for life. With so many under-employed liberal arts college grads and aged-out boomers sucking up the low-end jobs, it's becoming increasingly difficult to find job…
This wouldn't be a case with something like a basic income system. Or, the alternative more politically palatable to conservatives: make-work programs. Where people are paid to do work that, while not necessarily economically productive, nevertheless gives them the psychological satisfaction of feeling like they're working and contributing to society, and possibly helps them develop the discipline required to pursue further education in future.
Or put it another way, think about the people who would choose to teach knowing that they'll just be drilling tests all day every day. Think about personalities that process will select for. And those will be people teaching your kids.
No shit. Public school is all about teaching to the tests. There's no time to actually learn anything useful , because everything is focused on bringing up the state test scores, which influence funding. Not only are you spending all this time teaching what is going to be on the standardized test, and how to structure essays and do your work according to what the test graders expect, but there's the two weeks taken o…
But if yes, then any criticism of "teaching for the test" falls flat: this is stuff students need to be able to do, and to the extent that you're finding it hard to do, then you were failing all along, and removing the tests would just hide that. [1] (Plus, it's not like a student that can't meet this minimum is going to somehow do just fine in "real literature".)
However, to conclude a "no" answer to that question, you would need to cite specific questions from the tests, and go on record saying "nope, no reason a graduate of our system needs to know that, so why are we making sure they can answer it?"
So I'm confused as to why such testing critics never discuss this crucial piece of evidence, instead relying entirely on innuendo about suppose dangers of "teaching to the test".
[1] Which, of course, doesn't means the teachers specifically were the cause; in the extreme case, if students are literally starving, then you need to fix that. But regardless, any root-cause analysis must start from the detection of a failure, irrespective of where it ends.
No shit. Public school is all about teaching to the tests. There's no time to actually learn anything useful , because everything is focused on bringing up the state test scores, which influence funding. Not only are you spending all this time teaching what is going to be on the standardized test, and how to structure essays and do your work according to what the test graders expect, but there's the two weeks taken o…
Whether that's good or bad depends entirely on the content of the tests. You have to ask, "is this stuff that a graduate of the system should be able to do?" If no, then it's fair to criticize them for having to spend time teaching this, and instead achieve a lower proficiency but teach a broader skill set. But if yes, then any criticism of "teaching for the test" falls flat: this is stuff students need to be able to…
Another negative side effect is it discourages good teachers. A neighbor told me how he wanted to be a science teacher in highschool. He shadowed one of the older science teachers and was basically discouraged by what he found out from them -- the advice was "you don't get to actaully teach much fun or interesting stuff, just teach to the test" Or put it another way, think about the people who would choose to teach k…
One summed up the problem as all the time and effort spent on standardized testing actually means that the system focuses almost exclusively on evaluating teachers (and whether they are following the prescribed teaching materials close enough) and could really care less about the individual students and the quality of the education.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Private schools can choose who they want to admit
Well there must be private schools somewhere that admit children of below-average intelligence, due to the profit to be had from rich parents with said children, so perhaps it would be instructive to look at how those schools handle it.
I remember two kids from primary school seemed to have disappeared and then reappeared a few months down the line from school year start. They didn't make the cut like their siblings. I think one of those kids, thinking back, was the son of the managing director of the company that is now TalkTalk pre-acquisition.
The rich send their kids to private schools. Therefore, this problem does not apply to the rich. Therefore, this problem will not be solved.
This made me pause and think for a moment. What do rich kid schools do? I have no idea. I went to a dumb kid rural high school. But for some reason through the endless education discussion I've never heard brought up what rich kid schools do differently. Even if the answer is "but we can't do that because we're poor". Man. Now you've got me all curious...
One of the differentiators, I think, is that only parents who actually care about education spend >$10k/year on something they could get for free. Most of the children attending have significant support from their parents and come from stable homes.