Helping Some Students May Harm High Achievers 1114
palegray.net writes "According to a new study performed by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Washington, increased emphasis on helping students with a history of lower academic achievement results in lower performance for high achievers. This trend appears to be related to the No Child Left Behind Act. Essentially, programs designed to devote a large number of resources to assisting students who are deemed to be 'significantly behind' leave little room for encouraging continued academic growth for higher-performing students."
Death Coil (Score:4, Insightful)
No Child Left Behind (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought this was common knowledge (Score:4, Insightful)
This has always been blatantly obvious.
Re:Schools award mediocrity (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, if you're stupid or fat doesn't matter, you're still a good chap and there's nothing wrong with you. But if you're rich, smart or successful then you're a fucking pig for making everyone else feel inferior
In other news.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder if China and India similarly punish people for wanting to get ahead. Last I checked, our finest graduate programs are admitting higher and higher percentages of foreign high achievers due to a frightening lack of domestic ones. When are schools are more concerned with teaching junk science (global warming, polar bears, spotted owls), junk politics (socialism, marxism), and how to be spineless cowards, than they are with teaching math, science, history, and other factual subjects, it's not a surprise that we're falling farther and farther behind on the global scale.
Re:Frankly, that's the right compromise (Score:3, Insightful)
As long as they don't get constantly mobbed/beaten up/terrorized by their "inferior" peers.
Except when it comes to sports! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Expected (Score:2, Insightful)
I did terribly at sport at school. As a result I was not offered positions in any sports teams, and instead had to partake in "social sports" which were not competitive.
Did this affect me? Am I upset I wasn't treated as an equal, or giving copious amounts of extra coaching? Sure, I'd have loved to be talented at sports when I was young, but the fact was that I wasn't.
Turns out, later in life, I discovered an enjoyment for sports. I go to the gym, ride my bicycle, have a go at things.
All adults have the opportunity to work on something they didn't enjoy as kids. They can start reading history books, or re-learn some basic mathematics. That's the beauty of being an adult!
So why force kids into something they don't want at a young age? All the teachers will get is additional hostility and resistance.
Re:Better educate the masses (Score:5, Insightful)
What schools do participate in something like NCLB? Public schools. Why? Because they get no money if they don't. Why can private schools simply ignore it and continue a policy of pushing gifted pupils? Because they don't care about pennies from the state, they care about big bucks from mom and dad.
So what happens to someone who is bright but poor? He's in a NCLB school, being bored and finishing with a degree that ain't worth jack because the dunce next to him has the same degree. Sure, the dunce had to work hard for it while the bright child spent most of his time slacking, the net result is the same: A worthless degree.
Re:Schools award mediocrity (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I shouldn't be arguing; if you're correct then I should be able to get a Nobel Prize just by trying really hard.
Stupid and lazy. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Schools award mediocrity (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Frankly, that's the right compromise (Score:2, Insightful)
You'll notice from the article that the smart kids are _also_ improving, they're just not improving as much.
Re:Better educate the masses (Score:1, Insightful)
I think every student should feel challenged and inspired in school, but the greatest emphasis should be placed on the education of the whole population instead of finding the superstars.
Re:this is why i am a mean teacher (Score:3, Insightful)
75% failure sounds an aweful lot. I don't know how to say that... but 75% of your pupils being stupid sounds a bit less likely than them being unable to learn anything front you...
Re:I thought this was common knowledge (Score:5, Insightful)
Just accept that not every child will be the next Nobel prize, and accept that maybe your child is one of the dumb ones, and will have to do simple manual work all his life.
If we leave some children behind, we can run much faster. Sad, but that's life.
Re:No Child Left Behind (Score:5, Insightful)
This fear of a middle-ages class-based school system that is encoded in every administrators head, has forged a bond inbetween civil servant and teacher so strong that they cannot be distinguished from another.
In fact this bond is so strong now that even the slightest form of desire for exellence is not just seen as an attack on the schoolsystem itself but also on the very fundaments of the society it's supposed to serve.
One giant self fulfilling prophecy if you ask me.
Re:Fits with my experience (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Schools award mediocrity (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't that a good prep for the average office? Tell me, who gets promoted: The quiet, hard working guy who gets his job done on time and is generally really good at what he does, or the complaining loudmouth that nobody likes but at the same time nobody wants to get in his way?
Re:Schools award mediocrity (Score:5, Insightful)
When was the last time this worked anywhere in the real world, outside of a school. I can't remember a boss saying "Well, John, you really got us that million dollar contract, but I'll still promote Jeff over there, he didn't make the closing but he worked really hard on it for a month, you persuaded your customer in just a day, that's hardly an effort."
Priorities (Score:3, Insightful)
The major question that the US needs to answer is do we a) prioritize the high end of the bell curve to push the really smart kids or b) prioritize the low end of the bell curve to at least establish a minimum education standard. In an ideal world, the parents should be pushing their kids to at least be at the minimum and schools would not be afraid of saying "You fail". Unfortunately, in the US this is not the case and thus the question remains.
If we do want to prioritize the high end, that means really pushing kids and funneling money into college level course availability (and not community college but actual hard classes). This would, in an ideal world, make sense because the parents should be able to help get their kids to a minimum level but they shouldn't be expected to know enough about advanced topics. But, this would require hiring many teachers who are much smarter or at least more advanced than the teachers today which means that any attempt to push the boundaries will never work.
Re:Stupid and lazy. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Better educate the masses (Score:5, Insightful)
But that is not the case, it has never been and it will never be. Not all people are equally good at learning. And to make matters more complicated, not everyone is equally good at learning the same skills. That's what a degree should show.
When everyone can get the same degree, no matter whether they can actually acquire a certain skill, the degree is no longer useful as a tool to determine whether someone has certain skills, making the degree worthless. Especially when there are people who have a degree (from a private school) that can be used to measure whether someone has the skills. Because this school can actually "leave children behind" and avoid passing pupils that shouldn't pass.
Thankfully (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Also in the news (Score:5, Insightful)
Further, this isn't really a "no shit" issue. The theory behind helping struggling students is that struggling students need help, while those who excel can manage to do well by themselves. In fact, many people in
So while I realize that your comment was supposed to illicit some humour out of the submission, I don't agree with the particular stance conveyed. Academic freedom is highly treasured and should not be curbed in the name of "usefulness" by some arbitrary measure. This study did provide some insight - that excelling students do need encouragement and that the current strategy is not working. While this concept may have seemed "obvious" to some, that opinion is meaningless without some evidence to back up that stance. This study provides that evidence.
Student motivation and teachers (Score:3, Insightful)
As many others have pointed out, this was very much to be expected. It requires exceptionally skilled teachers to be able to motivate a whole spectrum of students at the same time.
In a traditional classroom, communication has a star-shaped topology with the teacher in the center. The teacher is a very scarce resource, and although broadcasting is available, the broadcast can be tuned to either low-bandwidth or high-bandwidth students. If only low-bandwidth broadcasts are used, those which could go faster will get bored real quick.
There are all sorts of proposals out there to break the star-shaped topology and get students to collaborate and motivate each other; however, the teacher will still be a scarce resource, because all proposals require a level of coordination which will itself require time&effort.
Proposed solutions (all of them well-known):
Re:Frankly, that's the right compromise (Score:4, Insightful)
Is there some opt-in to be dumb?
Re:this is why i am a mean teacher (Score:3, Insightful)
This "if you aren't going to try your best" shit is something you could stuff to adults, not to children. Try to remember how you have been in school.
There is a reason why kids aren't allowed to drink / drive / vote and stuff. They are not _reasonable_.
And if you just focus on the brilliant ones, then maybe, just maybe you are not really a teacher.
Re:Better educate the masses (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Stupid and lazy. (Score:5, Insightful)
I was both, that is having an easy time in school and often being in fights (both starting and defending). I totally agree that violence is not something that should be in schools, but I don't think for a second that separating the "stupid" kids from the "bright" kids helps.
Also, really smart people often have a really hard time in school and kids with good/great marks != geniuses.
I think a bigger problem (and with a less obvious solution) is how to spot the bright people, and keep them motivated and interested during schools. I mean, high school teachers aren't members of that group of people and tend to see creative solutions as failure rather than brilliance.
Re:No Child Left Behind (Score:5, Insightful)
No, really, it is largely about finance. You need a greater teacher/student ratio than most schools have.
See, because even if you want to separate kids out based on their gifts, you need someone to evaluate which kids are gifted at what. You can give them tests, but that will only tell you which kids do better on tests.
What it doesn't tell you is which kids are smart but unmotivated or bored, and therefore not bothering to try. It doesn't tell you which kids might have skills and assets that don't show up well on tests. It doesn't tell you which kids are just nervous and don't do well on tests. It doesn't tell you which kids are smart but have learning disabilities-- yes, 'learning disabled' has become code for stupid, but there are real learning disabilities.
For anyone to really know all that about students, someone needs to know the students. You can't really get to know the students well enough when you have 45 minutes a day per class with a class of 40 kids. You'd improve our education system immensely if teachers were given a couple hours a day with a class of 15 kids, maybe with opportunities for private tutoring.
Of course, you can't accomplish that without hiring loads of new teachers, and you can't hire loads of new teachers without spending a lot more money. Plus, in order to attract good teachers, you might have to pay them better. I think I'd probably like being a teacher, but not if it means I'll get paid 1/4 of what I get paid now.
Re:Death Coil (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I think lots of people have been saying this for years. It's completely obvious, but unfortunately some people won't listen to even the most obvious things until you can say, "a study proved it." And of course, you never hear about any studies that prove obvious but politically-incorrect ideas.
Anyway, yes, of course, kids don't simply raise themselves. Smart kids, dumb kids, it doesn't matter, they need people to pay attention to them, teach them, tell them what to do, be given examples of what to be, etc. Attention is a limited resource, and the more attention to pay to some kids, the less you pay to others. So if you pay all your attention to the problem kids and the dumb kids, the well-behaved kids and the smart kids suffer.
And no, really, the smart kids don't take care of themselves. All kids need attention.
Also in the news (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No Child Left Behind (Score:5, Insightful)
Few teachers are taught how to think much less how to teach that ability so all they can pass on is WHAT to think.
When students do not have the thought processing skills to understand what they are being told they get frustrated or bored and the transfer of knowledge fails.
Re:Death Coil (Score:5, Insightful)
Intelligent students are more empowered today... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm getting tired of the "all the intelligent people are victims", what really needs to be done is to have good guidance counsellors and to know about these internet resources, many intelligent kids can get the help they need from professors on the net and whatnot now. They have all the ability, what they need most is to have a map to be pointed in the right direction.
Re:No Child Left Behind (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I thought this was common knowledge (Score:3, Insightful)
How do you measure the success of teachers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here on
So to combat this you get standardized testing. If too many people fail the standard tests, then the teacher is bad. But what does that do? It means that the smart teacher will teach only what's on the test. And they will ensure that each student can score well on the test, ability be damned. It's all about the test.
This creates a curriculum which is meaningless. Just a bunch of hoops to jump through in order for the teacher to get their bonus (they get bonuses here in Japan... Does that happen other places?) Got a bright student that actually wants to learn something relevant? -- "Shut up kid. Talking to you costs me my bonus. You can already pass the test." Got a student struggling that needs to understand? -- "Just frickin' memorize this damn thing, OK? I don't care that you can't use it in real life. You only need it for the exam. Got it?"
The gaming potential here is enormous. I'm actually surprised that my school doesn't operate like that. Although we are one of the lowest ranked schools in the prefecture. So perhaps lack of need to achieve test results makes life better here. Most of the teachers are amazing, actually.
But it really begs the question. How the hell do you measure the success of teachers? They hold all the cards and there's no obvious objective measure that I can see....
Re:Schools award mediocrity (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Death Coil (Score:5, Insightful)
It's completely obvious, but unfortunately some people won't listen to even the most obvious things until you can say, "a study proved it."
Vouchers (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, it WAS the goal after all... (Score:3, Insightful)
So, while there is a major effort to get struggling kids better scores, which is very good, this goal of NARROWING the gap can only be achieved if the top students don't get even better scores.
Re:No Child Left Behind (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds a bit like my time in school. I was smart (but not the brightest by a long way), and wanted to do well, but that never stopped me getting on with other people.
Not only did it give me a better perspective on life, teaching me that just because you're not the most intelligent person doesn't mean you can't be interesting, it also went a long way to keeping me out of trouble. It helps if people know that even if you probably wouldn't put up much of a fight, some of your friends would be quite happy to jump in and change the balance a bit.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Schools award mediocrity (Score:5, Insightful)
Especially since you bring up "genetic lottery". If succeeding for certain people in certain endeavors is effortless, does that make their successes any less valuable?
And how about the ancillary benefits to talented individual's achievements:
If Salk didn't find it difficult to find a polio vaccine would that diminish its utility?
If Homer just sat down and bashed out the Illiad in a weekend does that lessen it value?
While I personally laud "hard work", this idea of elevating effort over value smacks of the Protestant Work Ethic run amok.
Re:Death Coil (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stupid and lazy. (Score:2, Insightful)
I suggest that it is about return on investment. Resources invested in those who are motivated and and have at least a modicum of aptitude produce adults who go on to get good jobs and repay the cost in taxes that support others. I willingly support those efforts. Spending resources on those who don't give a rip or are clueless is money down a rat hole. As our economy continues to tank, we are going to have to make some tough, unpopular choices. I say spend the limited resources where they do the most good.
Re:How do you measure the success of teachers? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Schools award mediocrity (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem with awards is that they promote certain qualities. Being smart suddenly becomes more important than being, for instance, helpful. Thus not-so-bright kids are demoralized. So, are these awards necessary?
Another problem is that reward becomes the motivation - ideally everyone wants to get the reward, but only the top few get it. So, if I am realistic and see, that I will only get near the top if I learn 16 hours a day, I fall in despair and see no motivation to be even good, because, it is "gold or bust" situation. Imagine that in your workplace only top 10 workers would get all the salaries and only way to get anything would be becoming one of them. Would you accept the system?
Re:Death Coil (Score:3, Insightful)
And the plural of "someone else's glib quote" is not "argument". Or do you prefer glib quotes to both data and anecdotes?
PS- my post didn't have any anecdotes in it
Re:What a surprise (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Death Coil (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:this is why i am a mean teacher (Score:3, Insightful)
Teaching Rote vs Encouraging Interest (Score:2, Insightful)
The conclusion was that interest, more than anything, governed success and the enthusiasm and interest of the Gifted had infected the Normals. Allocating resources will only go so far but spreading interest will do more. Sadly NCLB leaves little room for a teacher to do so.
Re:I thought this was common knowledge (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Gaussian Function is no god sent writing on the wall. If you only educate the very smart ones, you get two peaks - the very good, and very poor results (I've seen it in action).
2. > If we leave some children behind, we can run much faster.
And of course the ones behind will never become politicians, never be promoted to management, never let their computers become part of botnet etc.
3. Government guarantees education. Just because some people don't have the abilities to adapt to the teaching methods doesn't mean state can (should) just dich them.
4. What is it with this winners/losers mentality. I certainly didn't go to school to "compete for the prize", and if it comes with mockery of being called a loser, I despise it even more.
Re:Death Coil (Score:5, Insightful)
My son is in 6th grade and has been at the top of his class since he joined school. He finished the No Child Left Behind mastery tests usually in 20 minutes or less even when the test was supposed to take between 60 and 90 minutes. Even given that, he scored in the 97th - 99th percentile for scores for the last three years (4th, 5th, 6th grade). He gets his smarts from his mother, but gets his motivation, or lack of it, from me.
I say all this because my experience with him and some of his classmates is exactly as described. In fact, we worry that the smart kids are rushing to get done just so they can get to the free time or reading time that much earlier. It almost becomes a race. If it wasn't for the fact that my son's scores are high, we'd have done somethign about it. The thing is, he was asked to be in an academically gifted program and he hated it, not because it wasn't interesting, but because it was more work!
I can see your point, but until we return to a policy of creating "smart kid" classes and "not-so-smart kid" classes, instead of the enforced homogeneous classes we have nowadays, it is unlikely that teachers will be able to cope with students that move at such different speeds. They try all kinds of strategies, like pairing the smart kids together into challenging reading groups, or assigning targeted homework, but 80% of the day is done together with everyone.
Re:Vouchers (Score:2, Insightful)
A much better solution would be a tax credit for parents of children in private schools or home schoolers.
An even better solution would be to get the government out of the education business altogether.
Re:No Child Left Behind (Score:3, Insightful)
Seems like comparing our schools to asian schools would have such a large number of factors that it'd be impossible to isolate single factors to find simple causal relationships. And one of the biggest factors-- culture-- is one that you can't really control very predictably without creating an oppressive regime filled with propaganda.
So I may read that book, but I'd still like to express some doubts that it will give the solution for the US education system. As far as I've ever seen, the education system in the US serves the lowest common denominator. Anyone who doesn't quite fit the mold, even if it's by way of excellence, is punished and pushed out, or else ignored.
And that's in places where the school system is supposed to be good. In places where it's bad, it's run down, understaffed, and under funded.
So though I'm not the sort of person to think that you can solve a problem by throwing money at it, I do think that a lack of qualified teachers is one of the big problems with our system. Both in terms of having too few teachers, and that the teachers we have aren't qualified enough. Spending more money won't necessarily fix the problem, but any solution will cost significant amounts of money.
The other big problem with education is the parents, but it's not clear what can be done about that.
Spend money on teachers, no administration (Score:5, Insightful)
Compare any big city school system, take the total dollars spent and divide it by the number of students. For some reason many consider that unfair and want to reduce the dollars used. Do the same for some county schools. If its anything like where I live the city is nearly 3x the cost per student and the grades are worse.
Why?
Admin and feel good people. In other words not hiring teachers but hiring more cronies of friends of politicians, family members, and feed good skill sets that have no bearing on real education. Some places have more grief counselors than nurses! Look at their class sizes compared to the county schools. If they are higher in the city and they are spending more money per student then start asking questions. Considering the disrepair some city schools are in its hard to believe it gets eaten up by building maintenance.
Then we hit the fairness wall. Its not fair to give the better achieving students more, let alone let them be separate from those who cannot or WILL NOT learn. Throw in lots of zero tolerance rules about scissors, aspirin, and the like, and money is diverted to troubled schools who have more students than ever before. In some systems its not fair to celebrate the high achievers! It also isn't fair to test some students now because of race. Apparently race makes people incapable of being tested, I never knew math could form allegiances.
NCLB isn't the problem. The problem is school systems who game the system. They divert money and attention from where it should be.
Re:No Child Left Behind (Score:3, Insightful)
Good teachers are often good at many other things as well. And they get fed up with poor pay and poorer working conditions and leave for better-paid and less stressful jobs.
Yes, you need good teachers. And you need to pay them well enough for them to want to remain teachers.
Paying them better will not improve existing teachers in a significant manner, but it will provide incentive for others to become teachers.
For inastance, here in Croatia, tram drivers are paid twice as much as teachers. And you need almost no qualifications whatsoever to drive a tram.
Teachers are the gutter of the possible jobs; very few people even consider it unless they either really want to teach or they haven't any other choice. There is no shortage of tram drivers, though; people are even willing to bribe someone to become tram drivers, and often they do so.
This is not the environment in which good teachers will have any reason to remain teachers, save for the fact they like the job. And that liking can be pushed aside when you get an opportunity to double your pay and halve your hassle. This is why many really good teachers I know no longer teach, and why many students I think would make good teachers don't even contemplate the possibility.
There are too few people even willing to teach, and therefore there are too few people to pick good teachers from.
It is not about employing a teacher and keeping him for life; it is about finding the best person for the job. And it requires hard work from the management, as well as competitive pay and benefits to maximize the size of the pool of people you choose from.
Teachers used to have respect. Nowadays, they do not.
At least a part of the problem is that the world has changed, and school systems have not.
This is why I want to found a private school... it's just that first I have to work other jobs before I can fund something like that.
Re:Schools award mediocrity (Score:3, Insightful)
The academic contests I've been in, I won without really working hard.
That was mainly because it doesn't look like hard work when you're enjoying yourself.
Working smart is better than working hard.
Re:hungrier kids? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Schools award mediocrity (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I shouldn't be arguing; if you're correct then I should be able to get a Nobel Prize just by trying really hard.
I agree with you. Effort is meaningless. It's results that matter. "Effort" is rewarded by teachers that feel at least that stupid kid is trying to learn. I breezed through most of junior high, high school, and college. College was only difficult because you generally only had 3-5 grades in any given class and that wasn't nearly enough of a sample size to read the teacher's mind and make up for an early blunder latter. The more tests, home work, and quizs that are taken into that grade the easier most classes are to pass. I'll tell you I'd rather spend my 10 minutes of studying with those that know the subject and can do it rather than those that are clueless in the subject yet seem to find time to "study" 20-30 hours a week. Those that think effort should be rewarded really are just looking for hard working factory drones.
What Teachers Think (Score:3, Insightful)
One girl was flagged as 'special needs' in that her only obvious special problem was that she refused to study for anything. As a result, the school decided they would help her with her problem by letting her bring her notes to every exam, even going so far as to allow her to type her exam on an Internet connect computer while the teachers turned a blind eye if she happend to open a web browser.
The result of this is that laziness or attitude has not concequences. Children with true disabilities or difficulties are just ushered through like cattle rather than given real help. And the students who could actually do great things- get discouraged by the sight of their peers getting free rides. They aren't pushed to do their best.
It's an utterly failed concept, bringing everyone down, and turning schools into a joke. But, god forbid you speak out against it... because then... *gasp* you must WANT children to be left behind!
*sigh*
This comes in light of a recent special edition of National Geographic that I read all about China- where school and studying hard is almost a religion over there. We're all going to be out-educated by miles in the next generation.
Re:Schools award mediocrity (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, most people that are rich started in middle or lower class. A small percentage of people actually inherit their fortune.
"most of the successful are just lucky while praising smarts violates the whole "we're all born equal" thing."
I see it this way: Everyone has many lucky situations that pass by them every day. Only if you are smart do you actually know what to do in those situations.
So, it is a small amount of luck and the rest is intelligence.
Re:No Child Left Behind (Score:0, Insightful)
When I was in school (Score:3, Insightful)
This method worked well, we had plenty of scientists, engineers, and other highly skilled individuals coming out of schools, or those motivated by learning to set on the road to becoming something along those lines.
I've said for a long time, if a child that has special needs, and yes this is gonna sound like "get off my lawn" but, the curricula should not be dumbed down to make any one child feel better about themselves, it makes the other 30 children in the class suffer by getting a lesser education.
My daughter is by no means a genius, yes I am a dad and I said that, but it's true I think she is average. She gets A/B honor roll every term, and next year is taking 3 AP classes and beginning Japanese, she is in 6th grade. My fear is that because, "no child gets left behind", her education is suffering for it.
Everyone is entitled to an education, a good education, not a half-assed, atta-boy heres your gold star for the day. In the long term, it's our kids that suffer, and ultimately we as a nation will suffer.
When *EVERYONE* is special ... (Score:3, Insightful)
The Japanese school system is the perfect example of where we are headed. They study and cram for exams, granted
In the past 20 years, there has been a huge rise in suicides, and what we might be considered odd and violent behavior. Japanese children are burning themselves out, and from time to time someone snaps spectacularly, murders their parents, an entire classroom of students etc. etc. etc.
No child left behind bears striking similarities to this process. Students schools are granted (or withheld) funding based on their schools test scores. So teachers are expected to teach to the tests, instead of the curriculum. In the end it makes dumber kids, who can't handle higher education, with the added benefit of ignoring the high potential children's growth.
So, in order to give a kid who is not mentally apt enough, an almost infinitesimal shot at becoming a doctor, we ignore the group of children who could become very GOOD doctors with only minimal additional effort.
Square peg, round hole syndrome. In the end of the day we either have NO doctors, or a few very very unqualified ones. [You only need a C to pass!]
Can someone explain to me how this makes the employment base of our non-manufacturing country stronger ??
Re:Schools award mediocrity (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, I do feel that the willingness to put out high levels of effort to achieve a goal can be a sign of what I'd consider to be good character.
That said, I do think that your assertion about who values effort and why is spot on.
pull your kid out (Score:1, Insightful)
And guess what? My kids are not especially intelligent -- pretty average when they were in the school -- Now my 10 year old reads at a 7th grade level, does math at a 6th grade level. My 6 year old is in third grade all around. And my 4 year old just finished kindegarden.
I'm not pushing them beyond saying we have to do something of each subject every weekday. They pursue the academics on their own and at their own pace.
Now everyone whines at my about socialization. Public schools gave my two kids negative socialization especially the 10 year old. He was getting into all kinds of trouble. Now we socialize in two different homeschool co-ops which other kids with similar experiences. The two oldest also do swimming lessions and other kinds of team based sports so there is plenty of socialization.
Re:No Child Left Behind (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Death Coil (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Schools award mediocrity (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No Child Left Behind (Score:1, Insightful)
Teacher salaries, teacher pensions, additional facilities, additional maintenance on those facilities, new school construction⦠where do you think the money to pay for this will come from?
IMO the major problem is misappropriation of school funding. Here in NJ we throw tons of money at the âless fortunateâ(TM) districts and it all ends up in the wrong places, never making it to the students. Some examples of which are bus drivers getting 6 hours of overtime every month to charge their school provided cell phones, school administrators with a car and driver, exorbitant school administrator payouts like the Keansburg school superintendentâ(TM)s $740k retirement package with $120k annual pension.
Funding should be a fixed dollar amount per student, for every X number of students there should be one teacher, for every X number of students there should be another classroom, for every X classrooms there should be another school, for every X teachers there should be an administrator. It seems to me that if you followed a simple formula like this it would resolve a lot of problems.
Re:Schools award mediocrity (Score:3, Insightful)
In any real world scenario, John would be the hero in the company, Jeff would be facing a layoff. Think Gil from The Simpsons fame, the worst salesman in history. You can't say he isn't trying. But he's a loser. That's basically the story behind him. He's trying hard. Really, really hard. But he is a failure.
The real world doesn't care about your efforts. It cares about your results. Teaching our kids the reverse isn't really preparing them for reality.
Re:Death Coil (Score:4, Insightful)
As with Prince Albert in a can, you LET THEM OUT.
Re:Also in the news (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it's the smart kids that DON'T come from well-off homes with attentive parents that suffer more from lack of attention from the teacher. The well-off kids will get the attention from their parents, and possibly from private tutors, or maybe even private schools. The smart kids who's parents are struggling just to get by, on the other hand, are VERY much in need of the teacher's attention. They are the ones who suffer the most from the "give all the time-attention-resources to the slower kids" policies.
Re:Death Coil (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well fucking DUH (Score:2, Insightful)
The act gives funding to the schools that can get the greatest percentage of students to pass a national standardized test. So what do the teachers do to get the most funding? They group the kids into three categories: Those who will definitely pass the test, those who will most likely never pass it, and those students in the middle who, with a little help, will pass the exam
The teachers then focus all their attention on getting those border-line students to pass the exam in order to get the most funding. The smartest and the most challenged students are the ones who get shafted.
Ask a teacher.
Re:Death Coil (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, if a scientific study has been made and has conclusive results (which happens less often than we'd like to think), you should initially have reason to believe it. But stopping there is just intellectually lazy (or ignorant). You should look into the context of the "study". Find out who "they" are (and more to the point, who's funding them). Find out how strong the correlation was (you've studied statistics haven't you?). Find out if there is a consensus in the scientific community about this "study". Find out if there are any conflicting studies. Etc.
I'm not saying you need to detailed analysis on every study you come across. All it takes is a few minutes of searching to gain a better understanding of the context that surrounds a "study" (assuming the referenced "study" even occurred in the first place). Doing this, you can avoid many of the conspiracies or frauds out there that prey on the intellectually lazy.
Re:Death Coil (Score:3, Insightful)
No study needed, just ask any teacher... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Death Coil (Score:4, Insightful)
With regards to scientific studies, people (primarily journalists?) summarize things down to one or two points. We all see this sort of thing all the time for presentations and management discussions. The only problem is when we forget all that is lost in such consolidation. Furthermore, when the summaries of successive studies contradict each other people tend to lose faith (?) in studies at all and drift back to traditions, etc. (going to get some garlic now...)
With regards to children and education, I see this in the ever present glorification of "THE COMPUTER". It is amazing how consistent this is in today's cartoons for kids. There is incredibly often some version of the classic Delphi Oracle mascarading as a Computer. A Computer which knows all and will answer all - usually in simple straightforward answers. This doesn't seem to bode well for our overall ability to execute critical thinking.
Re:No Child Left Behind (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, everyone wants more teachers to be employed, but few are willing to pay the salaries.
Re:Death Coil (Score:2, Insightful)
I have no intrest in seeing the next rocket scientist kid slowed down by the next welfare case.
If they want equality, they should read a book... rather, they should have parents capable of raising them to read books.
Not fair? Screw fair. Fair is for naked hippys. Teaching children it's better/easier/more sympathy to be stupid then it is to be smart is part of the cancer that is making failed adults.
Re:Schools award mediocrity (Score:3, Insightful)
Worse, it smacks of Marx's key mistake. Marx felt that all value came from labor, and therefore the laborers should own the capital. However, by rewarding effort (labor) over results Marxist doctrine led directly to Soviet factories whose output was worth more as scrap metal than as finished product.
In other words, hard work isn't enough. Hard work must be backed up by brightness and direction. Otherwise, labor is as likely to remove value as it is to add value.
Re:Death Coil (Score:3, Insightful)
Keep in mind, NCLB is an absolute piece of crap that was doomed from the start. I think its only point was to show that the US public education system is so broken by a Teachers' Union who won't allow any progressive change, that only fools would send their kids to public schools. Luckily for the public schools, they create a ready supply of fools.
NCLB was also passed by a Republican congress.
Pretty much every teacher I know (which is more than a few -- every kid in my generation of my extended family except me became a teacher) was very vocal about NCLB being crap and doomed by the start. I'm not sure if the teacher's unions were in that boat in general, but I'd need to see some evidence to believe you can lay NCLB in their lap either.
Re:Death Coil (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like this one is your department.
Re:Schools award mediocrity (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Death Coil (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Death Coil (Score:5, Insightful)
To personalize it let's look at an issue in which both sides claim to have common sense on their sides. Gun control:
Typical Gun Control Position Common Sense: It's common sense that we limit ownership of guns after all. In my personal experience most people don't know how to use them properly and are more likely to hurt themselves than an attacker. Making guns available easily and their unlicensed possession anything other than a crime simply encourages criminals to have them. Plus they are a danger in houses with small children. There is just no good reason for people to own some guns. Hunting rifles and maybe shotguns, sure, but assault rifles and handguns?
Typical Non-Gun Control Position Common Sense: It's common sense that we allow unrestricted access to firearms. Most of the people I know are comfortable with their weapons and have been using them for years. If we make guns illegal, then only criminals will have guns. Taking away my ability to defend myself makes much less sense than trying to keep criminals from getting guns that they are clearly going to get their hands on anyway. My kids know better than to mess with the guns. I've been teaching them to respect (and use) weapons since they were old enough to talk and walk.
Both of these position are perfectly valid from the point of view of the person stating them. They're common sense based on logic and the evidence that the person in question sees day to day. Common sense is not always common, and even when it seems sensible to you, or you and your friends, it may not always seems so to an outsider.
Re:Death Coil (Score:3, Insightful)
Fortunately in the gun control issue we do not have to rely on common sense. Analysis of locales with gun restrictions shows in increase in violent crime, overall crime, and deaths. Locales that relax restrictions see a decrease in all of the above. True relaxed restrictions result in more gun related incidents but since there is less violence overall that is really beside the point.
Re:Death Coil (Score:4, Insightful)
On the assumption that, what, its effects began immediately after enactment and the world is ruled by people 25 and younger? (Since that would make them 18 and younger 7 years ago and thus just barely plausibly affected by the act.)
We'll leave alone the assumption that our society is more corrupt, money hungry and materialistic today than ever before.
In our efforts to "convince society that critical thinking and evaluation skills" are important, we might should start with yours, which seem to be nearly nonexistent.
Re:Death Coil (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Death Coil (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem today is that a lot of schools have something like 5 classes and kids are randomly assigned to all 5 classes. The slow or trouble kids drain the resources of the teachers. If you were to put the 30 smartest kids in the top class, even #1 and #30 would both be better off.
Teaching to the average of the high-achievers is a lot closer and more productive for #1 than teaching to the average of the slow performers, which is what is really going on.
Re:Death Coil (Score:4, Insightful)
NCLB IS social promotion. It is clearly a law that says no matter what resources have to be expended, we will not let any kid be more than 1 educational level below any other kid that is the same age.
Re:Death Coil (Score:2, Insightful)
However, the ones that went on to become the top of my high school did differ from the others in their pre-high school preparation. The ones that did well in this environment were those that had been fully challenged and pushed to work hard beforehand. These students were not allowed to coast through on B grades; either their parents demanded they get straight As and/or they had gone through previous academic programs of a similarly high level of difficulty.
This only further illustrates the point of the article. Its not so much even that a lack of attention will prevent the smart kids from learning. In that much NCLB is correct - smart kids can indeed learn on their own. Actually, that's part what makes them smarter then their peers. Instead, neglecting gifted students will foster an attitude that the minimum is enough, and coasting through is ok. In other words, it encourages them to be lazy, and develops poor work habits later in life. I will be the first to say it is very painful when you don't learn these habits sooner rather then later.
Re:Schools award mediocrity (Score:3, Insightful)