How US Schools' Culture Stifles Math Achievement 888
Zarf writes "I'd like to file a bug report on the US educational system. The New York Times reports on a recent study that shows the US fails to encourage academic talent as a culture.'"There is something about the culture in American society today which doesn't really seem to encourage men or women in mathematics," said Michael Sipser, the head of M.I.T.'s math department. "Sports achievement gets lots of coverage in the media. Academic achievement gets almost none."' While we've suspected that the US might be falling behind academically, this study shows that it is actually due to cultural factors that are devaluing the success of our students. I suspect there's a flaw in the US cultural system that prevents achievement on the academic front from being perceived as valuable. Could anyone suggest a patch for this bug or is this cause for a rewrite?"
Flaw in School Focus, too (Score:5, Interesting)
Even at the college I went to, a small, private liberal arts college that highly values education, sports achievement is made more visible by school. I was a music major, and computer science major; music majors are very busy with extra-curricular activities, but there is no Music Major Academic Achievement award. On the other hand, the school honors all athletes with high GPAs, because of the difficulty in balancing sports and academics.
I think even this trite example shows the sports-focus in a lot of schools. It's an achievement to be involved in sports on top of being a good student; it's a lesser achievement to be involved in music on top of academics.
Fixes for this? I don't know if it's just money. I think a focus does need to come away from sports. Part of that would be money (grants/scholarships for sports), but I think part of it is a culture that values entertainment and physical activity over, well, *thinking.* Even history seems to be going out the window because of fear of being politically incorrect or offending some people group or minority. Math and science are not taught because, IMO, kids don't "like" the as much, by default, as arts or sports (this coming from a half music major, mind you). This has definite effects on "thinking." "Thinking" is NOT always fun, but I think kids need to be taught that not everything that is necessary and good is "fun."
But that doesn't go over well in an entertainment-focused culture/society/world... nor an educational system that is more designed to please the kid than teach the kid, and more designed to push a worldview or agenda than real knowledge and the ability to think and come to conclusions based on factual knowledge, not interpreted evidence.
Michael Sipser (Score:5, Interesting)
Michael Sipser is one of the most friendly mathematicians/theoretical computer scientists I've ever met. I am sure he is helping MIT's math department greatly, and maybe even the US and world.
A long long time ago, after my funding fell through (long story), I unofficially attended a semester at MIT taking a few math and computer science classes. I cleared it with all involved, and no one really minded my sitting in, although a few people just tolerated me.
Even though I was almost totally unofficial, Sipser took the time to meet with me and talk about my taking the class in depth. He even wound up writing me letters of recommendation for research programs and grad schools, and followed through about them! Although I "earned" the letters (I'm not bragging by any means - it was a real class, but not an excruciating one; I'm just saying that it wasn't soft-hearted charity), I didn't realize at the time just how far beyond-the-call-of-duty this kind of support was, and how fortunate I was to get that opportunity.
If you're an MIT student, take Sipser's complexity class - it's awesome. If you're not an MIT student ... take Sipser's complexity class - it's awesome! ;-)
It might not be a surprise then, that he has an incredibly well-written (although typo-laden) and accessible intro book on complexity theory, the standard for beginning undergrads, in addition to his papers. He really cares about his subject, and further, the teaching of that subject.
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it comes down to what's fun and what attracts girls. Which are somewhat inclusive.
If you're physically inclined you can attract a lot of attention (and thus popularity and girls) in school by becoming a star athlete. If you're not physically inclined then you can do the same by getting into the arts. Pick up an instrument, start doing drugs and attract a different kind of girl and become popular that way.
If you go into math and science most of the girls (and the people having all of the fun) will label you a nerd and want nothing to do with you because you are associated with courses that they find hard and boring.
I didn't know very many kids in high school who really thought about money all that much. Some of them had part time jobs to pay for their weed and dates but thinking ahead to making tons of money and being rich was something that you did via a) fun (playing sports or an instrument) and b) luck. Maybe my position is unique because I went to an arts school and played in bands but most of us figured we'd end up starving junkies trying to "make it". Money just wasn't something that we thought all that much about.
I don't know what the answer is. You're not going to make math and science fun for people who don't like it. The real issue is that it doesn't have mass appeal. I know there's going to people (I'd be one of them) pulling their hair out and screaming "WHO SAYS MATH ISN'T FUN!?" ... but the majority of people who I know simply don't like it. And thus it's not culturally popular. Of course this doesn't answer the question of why adults and mainstream media doesn't encourage academic excellence. Only why most kids don't chose to excel at it.
Plain old anti-intellectualism (Score:2, Interesting)
Look it up sometime, particularly in the US with regards to government (i.e.: taxpayer-funded) schools, which have almost zero accountability to the taxpayers themselves. Or watch the movie Stand and Deliver, or read the book Ender's Game. Or look at the way unions enforce industry pay rates. Or how islamic dictatorships suppress knowledge outside of the mosques. History (especially recent history) is replete with dramatized examples of the repression of "excellence" in the anti-intellectual vein. Most commonly, it is the symptom of the desire to maintain power but almost as frequently, it is done in the name of saving face.
Very few things have ever goaded me into a red haze. This sort of thing is one of them and is one of the reasons I'm so glad to see my family home-schooling many of my cousins. Their steeper learning curve constantly reminds me of just how destructive the lowest-common-denominator aggregation of our schools really is.
Re:Recognition (Score:1, Interesting)
In contrast, look to Japanese culture, in the manga "Death Note," for example. The main antagonist who also happens to be "the good guy" is extremely intelligent and pretty "cool" to boot.
Re:It's totally culture (Score:3, Interesting)
Have you met a reasonable sample of second-generation Asian-American students (oh, say, more than four)? There's no way you can convince me, that culture doesn't have a whole lot to do with their strengths (and weaknesses). Eastern Europeans? They don't seem to have as consistent a trend in performance here, and again I believe largely cultural.
By the way, I believe in g (although its interpretation is a matter of subtlety) and its heritability; also its explanatory effect about performance in large populations (for example it's not a coincidence to me that nations with overall high g have overall higher per capita income). Still, it has to be balanced against other explanations which I find more predictive and significant for the individual.
Or show the alternative? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not as if the media were ignorant of the trends. They have seen the future and made fun of it [imdb.com].
The current trends are worrisome, not only in the US, but in the whole world. The easiest way to become a millionaire seems to be in sports or music, and in many countries, including a large part of the USA, being a "scholar" means studying religion.
And don't think that a long-lasting total cultural decadence cannot happen, because it has happened before [wikipedia.org].
This is no joke, if mankind forgets math, we will suffer a worse fate than global warming, communism, and radical Islamism put together.
Re:Heaven forbid some students do better than othe (Score:5, Interesting)
So set up and teach your child math at home.
This is what we just did last week. We pulled our kids out of school because we were so disgusted with the "tall poppies" attitude to academic achievement. I.e, the idea that the flowers that stand taller in the flower bed need to be pruned to keep them in line... or that the kids who want to learn more need to be force to do work that the find drudgery just because they can't move ahead of the rest of the class.
My 2nd grader's teacher was complaining that he wasn't doing his math worksheets or playing the adding games in class. I saw one of his math worksheets where he was so bored that he looked up Roman numerals in one of his books and taught himself how to do the whole homework in Roman numerals... and then I saw where the teacher then made him re-do the 'right-way'. We've had similar experiences with his past teachers and the principal has a similar attitude that he should do the same work as everyone else in the same way.
He's been home-schooled for only a week, and now he's gone past the adding 1-digit numbers that they were doing in class and is now adding and subtracting three-digit numbers with carrying and borrowing. He has no trouble getting his math worksheets done now. He's even said that "This is harder, but more interesting so I like it."
AND I live in one of the better school districts in the LA area.. where the teachers are well paid...
I'm a left-winger and I used to be all against school vouchers... but now I've seen the light. We need real competition, and we need to bust the teacher's unions to get the bozos out of our school system.
It's not that parents aren't involved... It's not that teachers don't get paid enough... It's not the burden of standardized tests. It's that our nation's schools are run by a bunch of bozos who pay teachers on the basis of seniority instead of performance, bozos who disparage being elite academically, but celebrate athletic elitism, and frankly that among the ranks of our teachers are some of the dumbest people in our society.
Re:Answer: Money (Score:2, Interesting)
The prestige lies not in the money or physicality so much as the Hollywood-ality of it.
Math vs Sports (Score:2, Interesting)
I remember what happened to Friedrich Gauss... (Score:5, Interesting)
The story is (and how accurate this is I'm not entirely certain) that when Gauss was a child in school, he was acting up in class, and his teacher assigned him the task of adding up all of the numbers between 1 and 100. 2 minutes later, he had the answer, and he showed the teacher that he had figured that 100 + 1 = 101, 99 + 2 = 101... and thus cut it down to 50 pairs of numbers that added up to 101. He then multiplied 50 by 101 to get the answer of 5050.
I mention this because if little Freddy Gauss had done something similarly in our current school system, he'd have gotten one of three responses from the teacher:
1 - "Class, look at what Freddy figured out! Isn't he smart?" This bit of gushing praise would get him pegged as a "teacher's pet," and after his "not-smart" classmates managed to re-arrange his face during recess, he'd decide better than to open his mouth.
2 - "That smart-ass attitude just earned you a trip to the principal's office!" This attitude of "you just made ME look not-smart, so you're going to pay!" will also convince him to shut up next time.
3 - "OK. In that case, add up the numbers between 100 and 200." (Tricky one, that - it's an odd number of elements!) Freddy would be kept busy, while the teacher figured out how to contact Mr. and Mrs. Gauss and suggest that they get their holy terror signed up for advanced math.
Would anyone care to estimate the percentage chance of each response? I'd say that no matter the school, there'd only be a 5% chance of the third option being taken... (and it's predicated on the idea that the teacher would be knowledgeable enough in math to throw a curveball like that last one).
Re:Answer: Money (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry, I just don't get your connecting the difficulty of sport and math.
Playing in the national league of a sport is nothing like getting your basic degree.. The basic degree says you have a good chance of trying out for your local amateur team. Getting a PHD, and tenure and research post in a good university.. Now that's playing in the national league. And it's also exceedingly hard to achieve. And carries nowhere near the kind of take home pay that a premiere league sportsman has.
There is a pay grade within academics for achievements and time. It's called advancement in the department.
However, that pay grade, as previously mentioned is nowhere near the sports personalities' pay.
The time periods for patents were implemented when it took years to get an invention to market, and when you did, because ideas just didn't travel that fast, it took years again for it to saturate a market (in engineering, you'd be lucky to get an advancement in a significant portion of the market within 10 years of getting a patent).
Copyright, when it was first created, gave a period of 14 years complete monopoly of the work to an author. That was deemed a fair period in which to recoup the costs, and make it possible to be an author as a job, and make money.
That was in 1709, when ideas travelled FAR more slowly. So if, in 14 years, an author could make a living writing in 1709 with a limited audience (literacy was low), why on earth does it take the life of the author PLUS 70 years? Because it's profitable to big business, not the individual academic, who, because they don't have the funds to fight the 'big boys', rarely get to play the patent game (copyright, perhaps, but that's another whole minefield).
Yes, many people put Bill Gates as a nerd genius. Yes, he created a huge company, in much the same way as the Ghengis Khan built a large army. Scorched earth tactics that turned a large part of the software world into a wasteland. That was the problem with his version of 'competition'.. It wasn't a fight to get a share of the market, he fought to kill any corporation he couldn't own. Which was great in the financiers eyes, as it was a glowing paragon of their kind of money making machine. That same money making machine which has just ground to a screeching halt.
No, I'm not a rabid anti-Microsoft zealot. Microsoft have come up with great inventions over the years, and MS labs have come up with true innovation.. Just the business side of it has had no honour. It's not what a competitive academic environment would give at all. It's what a cut-throat, predatory, dishonourable number cruncher would come up with as a strategy.
Competition is where you come up with the odd trick to win the egg and spoon race (like glueing your egg to the spoon). Bill Gate's 'competition' is shooting everyone else on the track.
Re:Heaven forbid some students do better than othe (Score:5, Interesting)
You know teaching kids to their full potential is a hard thing... but our schools don't even teach them to enough of their potential to do no harm. What I am demanding of our school system is that they stop damaging bright kids with the potential to do great things.
Einstein/Mozart/Newton/Jobs level intelligence is 1/1,000,000,000. This means that in LA schools there is a good chance of a little Einstein there somewhere... what do you think her odds are of being developed to the point where she can make some use of her potential? Now if she were a golf prodigy what do you think her chances would be?
Welcome to my childhood! (Score:4, Interesting)
Year after year I, and one other kid, scored in the 99th percentile on our standardized tests. Every year when we took the "Stanford Achievement Test" we kicked ass. When we got to high school, who did the teachers praise? The dimwitted fucktards who could run fast.
So many years later, those jocks are lucky to have a job pouring concrete and I'm a software developer. The other 99th percentile kid is the head of software development at a nearby company.
LK
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Interesting)
The people that grew up with the moon landings on TV are getting old and replaced by a generation that did not have such great role models.
Case in point? I'm 35; Apollo 17 (the last Moon shot) splashed down the day I was born. I'm old enough to run for President, and nobody has been on the moon in my lifetime. There are good, well-known science, math, and engineering role models out there (Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose, Burt Rutan, Bill Nye, Brian Greene, Michio Kaku etc) -- but they're nowhere near as conspicuous as famous athletes.
What would help is some good publicity for all of the cool science, math, and engineering being done. MythBusters, despite what the purists would say, has done a lot to encourage a love of science -- or at least something resembling the scientific process. Junkyard Wars, and even the various robot-battle shows help get kids (and us older kids) interested in science and technology.
How about fewer popularity-contest "reality" shows, and more technical/scientific contests? You can pump up the "cool factor" and still have quite a bit of good science content.
Rand covered this a while ago (Score:5, Interesting)
It is a culture of stupid. (Score:5, Interesting)
The problems I have encountered with teaching children mathematics is that children are no longer learning skills that promote memorization and logical reasoning. Much of these problems comes from the electronic media intrusion into their lives. Children are constantly assaulted with advertisements and other errata all day long. Mentally, they have to dispose much of it to make sense of their world. Lacking the experience, they have no idea what is important to remember and what to forget. The default is to dispose of anything that does not provide instant gratification. It is a shame to have so much and to be so bored.
The "instant gratification" and easily accessible entertainment destroys the logical reasoning learning. Children are no longer involved in hobbies or interests that require more than collecting pictures of anime characters off the web and searching for over-the-top Youtube videos.
When you have the rich (like Paris) or well known (Brittany) acting like stoned asses (nice they may be) and getting away with it publicly, why would they be interested in anything that doesn't resemble that life. Mathematics, or even literacy, is not on their radar.
If you don't believe me, look at some of the asinine responses previous to mine.
And, don't even get me started on some the stupid educational ideas that are being promoted as we speak.
Trials and Tribulations (Score:2, Interesting)
In something like 12 years of schooling I only had one decent math teacher who understood the material and could delve into it in more than one way. "Lectures" from other teachers were often nothing more than the teacher copying one page of notes they wrote years ago onto the board then spending the last half of class browsing the internet or grading while the students worked through the daily assignment of whatever algebra topic the book deemed important.
Mathematics in school was just rote memorization of vaguely related algebra topics, most of which I've still never had a use for. Teachers attempted to make the class "fun" by assigning nonsensical word problems or including art projects and other silly nonsense that only decreased my grade. I recall having to make some sort of 3-D shape out of construction paper in high school -- an absurdly hard task for me as I don't have any artistic skills. I worked for a few hours on it, turned it in, and got a solid C on it.
I was made to think I was a poor maths student because I couldn't stand grinding though 20 problems a night and would consistently lose points on the ridiculous art projects thrown in every now and then. (Seems like quite a few people deal with this tedium by taking doctor approved speed, but that's another story.) I get to college, have plenty of amazing teachers, and find out I love math. In years and years of schooling the only useful knowledge I gained from those earlier high school math courses were the basic laws of algebraic manipulation and such (which I had to heavily review before calculus). The other large majority was worthless. I'm not sure if I was just largely unlucky with the math program or if other schools are this bad or worse.
Coincidentally, the one decent high school math teacher I had actually had a degree in math. The rest? Education.
Re:Duh (Score:3, Interesting)
Elitism is bad. People who consider themselves members of the ruling class are elitists (among other things). A ruling class is bad because people should not be "ruled", rather they should be free. (The original post connected intelligence and elitism. I did not. There is a connection: elitists consider themselves intelligent. Note this does not imply that intelligent people are elitists, nor that elitists are necessarily correct in their self-assessment.)
Elitists are bad, but people can be elite without being elitist. People who are good at things are elite. But they aren't elitist if they don't hold the belief that they should be making decisions for me. That's the difference between elite and elitist.
People should not be elitist, but we should value people who are elite. Not just in intelligence, but in charity, ethic, and other areas of life.
If "weight" is a euphemism for ruling, then no. Experts should not be given "weight". Appeals to expertise are a common tactic to justify ruling people. I thank experts for their knowledge and guidance. I may be able to use it to make my own choices in my own life. Experts are not needed to make my choices for me.
Weight means that if an expert says something is true we should probably at least take a serious look at that statement. When an expert says one thing and an every-man says another, sure consider the every-man's point but give serious consideration to what the expert is saying. As it is now, the expert is written off as being an intellectual elitist, more often than not. I'm sure you could come up with plenty examples yourself.
Desirable, yes. Many things are desirable. But I would rather have a stupid President who wanted people to be free than a genius who decided he deserved to be my king.
No argument there. The problem is that nearly all politicians believe that they know whats best for us. I'm not sure of your political bent, but I don't think that the republicans are any less elitist than the democrats. The difference is that the republicans try to appear to be by saying, "Hey this guy is average, just like you!" But look at Bush's policies, and what the republican party has been doing, and then tell me that they don't dream of being my king.
Saying that we should value experts and people who are intelligent is not the same thing as saying we should just follow them like sheep. Acknowledging that someone is smarter than you is not the same as saying that they are better than you. An expert saying that we should do something is not equivalent to them trying to run our lives. For example, if my doctor told me that I should eat healthier, is that an example of him trying to run my life? Should I ignore him for being elitist? Or should I maybe give his advice some consideration and modify my behavior accordingly?
Re:Heaven forbid some students do better than othe (Score:5, Interesting)
It's that our nation's schools are run by a bunch of bozos who pay teachers on the basis of seniority instead of performance, bozos who disparage being elite academically, but celebrate athletic elitism, and frankly that among the ranks of our teachers are some of the dumbest people in our society.
Yes indeed. I'll give you an example that will tend to support your point.
... so in effect she was teaching remedial English.
I was engaged to an college English teacher many years ago. That didn't work out because she was also a selfish bitch, but that's neither here nor there. At the time, she was teaching first-year college English. Most of (and I mean, 80+ percent) of incoming freshmen couldn't write in full sentences. Seriously
She would bring home papers to grade, and I would read some of them. It was truly incredible. These were kids that (somehow) managed to graduate high-school, yet were very nearly illiterate. I remember that one of her first assignments was to write down every detail of their trip home from school that day, just to get a feel for their capabilities. A typical result would be something on the order of: "Left school. Side door. Went to car. Got in. Went home." How in the nine hells did they ever earn a high school diploma? Scary. And this was twenty-odd years ago, and I can't believe matters have improved much. Probably quite the opposite.
Worse yet, the school's star basketball player was one of her students at one point. Big black guy, very proud of his athletic skills (keep in mind that this school diverted a lot of funds to the team, and it brought in a lot of money each year.) So this idiot made it class once or twice the whole year, turned in no assignments and took no tests. Yet, he was very angry that he received a well-deserved "F". He told her flatly, "I'm just here to play basketball, why you fuckin' wit me." Actually, he said a lot more than that, stuff which would have put the bastard in jail if she'd had a recorder on. Anyway, the problem from his perspective was if that F went through, he'd be kicked out. For any ordinary student that would be tough bananas, but the school's President wanted this guy kept around.
She submits her grades to the school computer, and next thing you know her boss comes storming in, wanting to know how dare she give the star basketball player an F!!! She pointed out that he had only showed up a couple of times for class, and done no work. You know what he said? He said, "Huh. Any way we can get a 'B' out of this?" She told him no, because that was the right thing for the student. He agrees and leaves, and goes right into the database and changes the guy's grade to a "B", updates all the paperwork, and left my fiancee's name on everything so it appeared that she had approved it.
I told her that either this administrative asshole changes the damn grade back, or she should quit. A lawyer friend told us that if there were any repercussions from her supervisor's actions, she could be held liable. He wouldn't change it (naturally) so she wrote a formal letter of resignation, sent it to him and various other faculty members (so he couldn't just sweep it under the rug) and quit.
This kind of crap goes on all the time, I discovered, and it's not hard to see why anyone who actually gives a damn about the students or quality teaching might just say "fuck it" and go into something else.
Re:Flaw in School Focus, too (Score:3, Interesting)
Depends on the school but generally yes an athlete that helps sell lots of tickets to sporting events gets a free pass to the point of maintaining athletic eligibility (that usually requires only a C average).
They do this by only taking safe classes ('Rocks for Jocks' was a notorious class where I went. As was 'Grapes and Wines of the World'.) Lots of students that aren't athletes do the same (they are called 'Liberal Arts' or 'Education' majors).
Graduation % is very low for some sports programs though. After 4 years their eligibility is up and they move on. Often without a degree or with a worthless 'communication' degree.
Standardized Education (Score:1, Interesting)
I believe that the problem is how American schools standardize education. My class graduated last year without me. I had a 33 on the ACT, 800 on the SAT Math Level II Subject Test, 5s on the AP Calc BC, AP Physics, and AP Stats tests but I didn't graduate. People constantly talk about how hard it is for Special Education students to function in a normal school environment, but I speak from experience when I say that it is just as hard on the gifted. My teachers and fellow students would have easily described me as talented and hard-working, but I just couldn't force myself to hold myself back and concentrate.
I really hope that we fix this soon but, honestly, I'm not optimistic.
Re:Answer: Money (Score:3, Interesting)
So lets have a non-government system where free people make their own choices. Then you won't have to spend so much energy worrying that someone might have a religious perspective. They can be responsible for their children and you can be responsible for yours. Everyone chooses for themselves and their family only.
Teachers pay isn't worth it (Score:1, Interesting)
I am currently in my 3rd year of college, getting by with student loans. I was an education major until this year.
If I only stayed for a Masters, which is required in my state to teach secondary ed (jr. high and high school) I will be in debt to the tune of $55,000 and I would make about $32K a year.
I can make just as much working at the insurance agency I worked at BEFORE I went to college.
Its just not worth it! That's why I changed my major from education to rhetoric. It's not that I don't care or that I don't want to teach...but I have a daughter that I will need to put through college in ten years and I have to think about how I'm going to be able to do that (which is *not* on 32K a year!).
I firmly believe that the most mediocre students become teachers because they can't do anything else. The smartest people go into industries or start their own businesses because they want to make $$$.
Darn right, I'm bitter (Score:5, Interesting)
But at least it hasn't made you bitter. ;)
When I first moved to LA, I lived in Pasadena and I volunteered to be a math tutor at a local high school. The kids didn't know very basic stuff that they should have learned in elementary school... but that's not the scary part. These kids were trying very hard to figure out the material, they weren't just coasting (the tutoring program was voluntary). I was helping a girl with fractions and I explained them to her in like 15 minutes and a light went off, and she got it. She wasn't having trouble because she was stupid or wasn't trying... it was just that no one had ever explained it to her before. No one had ever sat down with her for just 15 min and explained it. AND the worse part is that kids at other tables dropped what they were doing to come over and listen too. It was so sad, and it really made me feel bad for how the school was failing them.
After that experience I was determined to try really hard to get my kids into a good school district. Buying a house in such a good district was a real hardship, and required us to get one of those 'sub-prime' loans. So now I have one of those time-bomb mortgages where the rates are going to shoot up in a few years... all to get into a school district which turns out to not be much better than the one in Pasadena.
So, yeah, I'm a little bitter.
Re:Answer: Money (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not money: Self-esteem (Score:3, Interesting)
I am told by a parent of a young child in a local school that they have an award ceremony where they now have the cut-off for rewards around an average of 70 and up. During the ceremony, at least 3/4ths of the class receives awards.
At my local school they have an award ceremony every month. They give out 'student of the month' awards instead of honor roll type things. You get 'student of the month' because a teacher picks you for needing a self-esteem boost.
They also give out citizenship awards for helping other kids and being nice to other kids. My kid got several at first and was all excited so he tried to look for extra opportunities to nice things for other kids so he could win more. But then they stopped giving him awards because they decided that he was winning too many and other kids needed a chance to win.
Stuff like this really make me appreciate "The Incredibles" more and more.
Unions (Score:3, Interesting)
No change can happen though. It is disallowed by the union.
You repeat this like a mantra. Any attempt to ascribe a single malicious motive to organization made up of thousands of people, who if questioned individually would tell me that the students come first, is likely to be fallacious.
I love unions in the abstract. Unions can be a great force for good. Some Unions like the Steelworkers are just fickin' awesome in the good things they do for their memebers and our country.
But some unions in the specific are bad. Teacher's Unions are not awesome. Not even a little bit, unless you count being "awesomely bad" as being awesome. They are a cancer on this country that enforces an idiocracy on our schools.
It is hard to understate how much harm teacher's unions are doing to the US.
Re:Sorry right wing but I have to do it... (Score:3, Interesting)
David Brooks is many things, but he's not a neoconservative. He's generally an old-school conservative, more a disciple of Goldwater than Rove.
But he's definitely far more conservative than most of the Times columnists (with the exception of Bill Kristol). So when he criticizes the Republican Party, it would be a lot like Michael Moore going after the Democrats.
Re:Answer: Money (Score:5, Interesting)
You, sir, are full of bullshit and don't what the hell you're talking about. Sometimes that happens. Do you know member of a teacher's union? Have you talked with him/her? Do you know what the stated priorities are of any union in your local area?
Look, I was thinking about this today. The teachers are the ones in the classroom, working shoulder-to-shoulder with students, seeing their needs, hearing their cries. The alternative is to put all the power in administrators -- actual fat cats who make more than teachers -- who never see, hear, or deal with students. All they care about is money figures in a spreadsheet. You can dig up enormous numbers of stories where it was the teacher's union fighting for student safety and welfare, and the administration fighting them every step of the way.
Here's an example. I used to teach in Massachusetts at community college with a pretty weak union; a cranky dean ran everything pretty much as a fiefdom. Students failed the physics final? Pass 'em anyway, more money for the school. Teaching basic math/science? Not interested, give me a "sexy" new class like cybersecurity to advertise. Observe what's going on in the classrooms? No time for that -- I had to beg to get an assistant dean into my room one time a year, for like 5 minutes, and scrawl some smoke-up-my-ass about how everything's great (and demonstrating that he didn't have a clue what I'd been teaching).
A fellow teacher tells me about this kid who's in the engineering program. He took Calculus I three times before he just barely passed it. Now he's in Calculus II and failing that for the second time. The kid's obviously not cut out to be an engineer. Can anyone tell him this? No, because that would be less money for the school, and the dean would crack your nuts if he found out anyone had advised the student about that. So off they went, sucking money out of this hapless student year after year.
Now I'm in New York with a strong teacher's union. Instead of a dean, here my boss/employer is the department chairperson, a teacher herself. First thing she tells is do _not_ pass students who are unprepared into other classes. Last month she fought with administration to get smaller basic remedial classes, where students are really struggling. Here I get observed regularly -- every semester a different teacher comes into my room for a whole class period and writes up a 5+ page document on exactly what I did, puts it in my permanent record, and we have a 1/2 hour discussion about I can do to improve. Here I would feel very confident that I could politely advise a student on their own best-interests, even if it meant less tuition money to the college.
That's what the union is doing, specifically on the ground this week. Guess what's the #1 priority of the administration in their negotiating sessions? "Get rid of the chairpersons as union members." Remove their responsibilities to deans who are in administration, not teachers, not dealing with students.
It's really just common sense. Who's going to have a greater emotional connection and allegiance to students? Teachers in their classroom every day, or administrators in an office crunching budget figures? Those are really your only choices.
Look at this month's issue of "American Educator" magazine, from the American Federated Teacher's union. (http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/issues/fall2008/index.htm) It's all about how to better judge and analyze how well teachers are doing. There's an article on peer review with what will be a surprising result to you -- it is the unions *fighting to fire more bad teachers*, because it hurts our profession, whereas the principals who hire them don't have the guts or care to start the process (p. 37). At one school where the union got involved in teacher evaluations, dismissals went up from 1% to 12% in the first year. You can see quotes from principals, surprised as you are, about how much more aggressive the union was about firing bad teachers than the administration would have been.
So to conclude: You are completely full of bullshit, ignorant on this issue, and don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Sometimes that happens; you can become more knowledgable. Maybe with luck this has been... educational.
Re:Not money: Self-esteem (Score:3, Interesting)
Gah, I didn't realize it was quite that bad. When I was a kid, being on the honor roll was something to be proud of. I guess they've decided personal pride is a sin, haven't they?
That's exactly why a reward/award system works so well, and it's also a basic tenant of sociology: Positive reinforcement. If a child is doing something that helps others, excels, or otherwise performs exceptional feats, he or she needs to be rewarded for it!
How ridiculously absurd!
Re:Answer: Money (Score:1, Interesting)
>The education system, in your description, exists to make teachers happy.
Wow. Clearly you don't know any teachers. I'm married to one. Many of our friends are teachers. And let me tell you unequivocally they aren't happy. And contrary to what you want to believe, I don't usually hear complaints about pay or the amount of work. The vast majority of them are dissatisfied for one reason: the kids are dicks and they have dick parents.
And just so this doesn't sound like sour grapes, let me give you a flavor of what my wife goes through every day as an 8th grade science teacher.
-Parents who call up and *tell* her she's going to accept a late assignment from their child because the parent says so. And these aren't legitimate "kid was sick" scenarios. They're bullsht reasons like "we went to the movies and ran out of time".
- Kids who tell her that she has no right to discipline them and parents who will stand there in front of other students and reinforce that message.
- Parents who refuse to make their child go to detention because, and I quote, "It's inconvenient for me to drive up to school to get them."
- Kids who think "I forgot" is a legitimate reason for ANYTHING and their parents who call the principal to complain that remembering to do homework is too hard for a 14 year old.
- An absolute inability to follow directions. She's resorted to putting extra credit freebies in the instructions just to see if they'll pay attention ("one extra point if you put a smiley face somewhere on this paper"). If she gives out five points in a day it was a success.
- A general disdain for any rule that might be a negative for the kids. Like having homework deadlines (no, I'm not kidding; they're 'stifling to his creativity'). Like failing a kid for cheating on a test (the parents *love* to believe their 14yo over an adult professional with two degrees).
So let me tell you that when I saw the title of this story it was a complete 'no-sht' moment. It's been very apparent for some time that there is something going wrong with our culture. We have a bunch of slack-ass 'fight the man' parents raising kids with no discipline and no mandate of success.
I had no money growing up and I went to a half-assed school district. But there was never any question in my household that education was the single most important thing I was going to do in my life. It didn't matter how crappy or boring the teacher was. I was expected to find a way to learn that material and get the grade. And gee, what do you know-- it worked. Three engineering degrees later I'm still finding things to learn and I love it.
Two points of clarification:
* This is a district with money, not an inner-city slum
* I'm no union apologist. I work with union labor every day and it's the bane of my existence. My wife also does not favor the union, although she's stuck with it and uses it where necessary.
Re:Answer: Money (Score:3, Interesting)
Unions make it near impossible to fire a teacher who does anything inappropriate short of running down the halls naked and pressing his(or her) genitals against the classroom windows.
Even then, they'd probably demand 3 warnings from a single institution.
Case in point there was (and still is) a teacher's assistant in a district I used to work in and my parents still work in. She basically came to work drunk everyday for the last several years but because of her seniority and her penchant for moving from school to school if someone caught on, the union rules made it impossible for the district to fire her.
Unions may have a useful purpose, but the power they have to protect sub-par workers is a detriment to any business, especially education where it can have such a larger impact on other people.
Re:Not money: Self-esteem (Score:5, Interesting)
The horribly scary thing about your response is that you were in HS in the late 90's while I was there in the mid 70's before you were born. Yet, the decline apparently remains evident even over a much shorter timeframe. From my personal experience, the false "self esteem" crap (as I recall it was referred to as something like "damaging the student's psyche" back "in the day") has been around in "progressive" areas for many more years than some may realize. Sigh...
I could elaborate, but the risk of exposing my human identity to some web crawler some day 20 years from now is too great
I fear our (USA's) only hope at this point is to allow unlimited legal immigration to anyone with a higher degree from an "accredited" (not sure how to determine that list, but that's probably easy) educational institution in a "strategic" field (such as math, physics, computer science, chemistry) and continue to exploit the traditional "brain drain" that has helped the USA in the past. It's rude, but we can either compete with incompetent "high self esteem" individuals or attract qualified individuals from elsewhere (our gain, their loss). My impression is that offspring of educated first and second generation immigrants don't much go for this "false self-esteem" crap and deal well with it at home by setting expectations from the home rather than relying on the busted public school system to do so. Unfortunately, the USA is at an important cusp -- if we continue to practice protectionist immigration policies, within twenty or thirty years we will cease to be a place smart educated people want to immigrate to and since we have poisoned our multigenerational American base with "self esteem" and "competition is bad" crap, I fear we are facing the demise of America as the world power. (Although, since I don't have kids, what do I care - all the kids of today's politically correct soccer moms will bear the cost of their parent's stupidity around the time I'm dying of old age).
Re:Answer: Money (Score:3, Interesting)
That is an UTTERLY flawed view as to why tenure is important. Its there purely to protect the ability to introduce new, unpopular theories into the academic arena. As long as the proponent has demonstrated they are competent in the research techniques required to properly and "impartially" present a new theory, society can be satified the theory met a level of intellectual rigor and standards. It doesn't exist to fight racism or unpopular non-academic political agenda.
Tenure absolutely should NOT exist on the primary school education level. High school teachers do not present new research, and are not there to crusade unpopular ideas to students. They are totally subject to the dictates of the school board. There's no reason for primary school teachers to have tenure, and it obviously instills mediocrity (if not incompetence) and raises the cost to PROPERLY administer a school. Instead of good teachers getting competitive raises, its spent keeping lousy teachers employed even when there is no economic reason to do so.
Unions did not come about because of GREED on the part of the members. They came about due to the "greed" of the employers, whether they are capitalists or taxpayers. Nobody gets rich working for the union (at least, not since the '60's). It does not mean unions are devoid of other negative traits which make them an anathema.
Re:Answer: Money (Score:1, Interesting)
And the individual results aren't so amazing with their students; their high scores are simply because these schools can cherry pick students.
When you get the best results, you don't have to make such excuses.
Can someone please mod this parent as flamebait?
Teachers have classes of 40+ students (sitting on
counters because I'm out of space for chairs) because we don't discriminate on who we take. I have had students who have violent behavioral disorders, deal drugs, carry weapons, and prostitute themselves to earn enough money for food outside of school. That's just the 6th grade.
Your private school will kick them out for wearing
the wrong color socks.
Give us money for textbooks (don't have them), supplies (few available), space, and smaller class sizes so I can teach those students on a more personal level that will make a difference to them.
That is why unions exist you insensitive clod.
FWIW if someone is a brilliant engineer that always produces amazing results he/she can shop for a job that will reward them much higher pay. If a teacher is highly skilled at their job there is no extra reward - you get the same pay as everyone else.
The abovementioned exceptional teacher could be attracted with a 10%+ pay increase, but there is no public school district that I know of that is able to do this on a regular basis. You can get business results in teaching but you need to pay business rates for it. Good luck selling that increase to taxpayers.
Re:Answer: Money (Score:3, Interesting)
I take difference with your argument.
Supply and demand do, of course exist both in the scientific, educational and sporting industries. But not fully in the ways that you suggest.
There is no 'shortage' of HIGHLY skilled actors, singers, or athletes. It is a shortage of 'slots'. You can only honor '10' artists a week (40 in any given quarter), say 5 to 20 atheletes in any given field in a year. 2 to 10 actors in a year, etc.
These numbers are specifically designed by their respective industries, synthetically. How else can a over-abundance of supply with few slots not produce price-pressures downward. The olympics, for example, pays little.. It is only the secondary income that makes this pay off. The olympics is more about skill than industry, and truer economics applies.
It's the same as the oil industry and diamond industry.. By artificially reducing the supply, they can control the finances. If left as a truely competative market, the focus of the population would not be nearly as profitable, the ranking would be not as nearly valuable, and thus salaries for the very tops of the pyramid would not be a matter of discussion.
It is the salaries that are the topic here, and to a certain degree, the 'life style' which includes but not restricted-to the salary, motivates young people to focus their lives. But if you look at world sporting events, the payout isn't nearly as great, yet the general participation is much higher than in the US, so I don't know that even the life-style argument really is all that true either.
IANASF (I am not a sports fan), so YMMV
Re:Answer: Money (Score:3, Interesting)
Nobody said TV is less stupid, just that geeks are held in higher esteem on TV.
For geeks as protagonists in incredibly stupid TV:
Beauty and the Geek