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2/3 of 8th graders are lacking in basic skills!

9K views 88 replies 39 participants last post by  mike in pa 
#1 ·
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/12/18/132834/commentary-were-ignoring-a-national.html

America is already looking at becoming a third world nation. That's what these rates represent-a disconnect between a small, educated elite who had the advantages of private schools, tutors, and engaged parents, and a massive underclass who can't do the most basic reading or math, much less hold down a job. Even the US Army requires basic reading and math skills! But these kids don't even have that. America won't be able to even be a military power in the future, with kids that are too fat and too uneducated for the army. At this rate we will not be able to build enough prisons to hold everybody. The end result is probably a massive emigration of the elite to other countries, and the masses winning in politics, with the result being Argentina-style corruption and levels of crime.
 
#2 ·
Im torn. Just cant figure out the real problem, are we an under educated or over educated society? Lets all think about it and discuss. If we were an under educated society then why is it that so many people are out of work and higher educated continues to be devalued? For instance, say I got an associates degree 25 years ago, is that same degree still likely to nab me a job in my field of choice? From what I can tell, the level of education required to perform the same roles has increased to what amounts to another 2-3 years of education.

Can someone help me with the other side of this arguement? If we are an undereducated society, can someone show me the proof for that? Even if every child in America became genius overnight and continued on to college where are we going with it?
 
#3 ·
I think it is a two fold problem, Anne.

The education you got 25 years ago for an associates is probably more thorough than you'd get in a bachelor's in most state colleges now. They have, like public schools, dumbed down everything in order to allow more inputs from high schools which have also been dumbed down.

Essentially, if you haven't home schooled or sent your children to private school then you have to hope that you are in one of the few areas that still has good public schools. Hint, they'll be less urban and less...umm...inclusive. (No way to say this politely.)
 
#5 ·
I'm a detailed Recruiter for the Army (detailed meaning that I didn't volunteer but came on orders) and I can tell you that we don't have crazy requirements, but at the same time many people who are seniors in high school can't pass the ASVAB. I literally have an 8th grade education and I scored a 76 when I entered, and you only need a 31, yet many people who are either getting ready to graduate or have recently graduated can't meet that standard. This might just be where I'm at, I'm certainly hoping it is.
 
#6 ·
I scored 93 on the ASVAB when I took it in 1988, was offered everything under the sun. Even back then we had rocks that couldn't pass it, I don't think it's a new thing.

I think that what we are seeing is that the pool of candidates interested in enlisting in the Armed Forces today is smaller than before and typically has been those that have no other opportunities. It is a quality issue.

I was a Navy recruiter my last year and a half before I retired, and it was hard to find qualified people, and the one's that were qualified weren't interested in enlistment.
 
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#7 ·
This tells me that 2/3 of the parents are failing their children. A good parent can not rely solely on a government run program to provide their children with anything.

Both my children excell academically. It is most definitely not genetics, and they've only seen public schools. The difference is the extra time my wife puts in to their education. Between getting involved with the schools and spending her time with them doing extra homework that she prints from homeschooling sites.

IMO If a child is failing at anything it will always be the fault of the parent.
 
#8 ·
This tells me that 2/3 of the parents are failing their children. A good parent can not rely solely on a government run program to provide their children with anything.

Both my children excel academically. It is most definitely not genetics, and they've only seen public schools. The difference is the extra time my wife puts in to their education. Between getting involved with the schools and spending her time with them doing extra homework that she prints from homeschooling sites.

IMO If a child is failing at anything it will always be the fault of the parent.
We teach our at home also so they actually get an education. We see that even the AP classes are made for the dumbest in the schools. My kids are getting stuff in high school that we were teaching then when they were 8. You should of heard the complains from my boys math teacher when he would tell the teacher he was wrong on his Trig. He could not understand how my boy was so much sharper then the teacher was. He informed him that he was taught it when he was just 10 becasue his dad always had him out in the garage building projects. Parents just dont understand if you dont teach you kids to get ahead of the pack they will always be in the rear. And we all know the view never changes from the back.
 
#9 ·
You can lead a kid to education, but you can't make them think. I really and truly think it is easier for these kids now a days to make excuses rather than it is to learn something. When does self motivation, and desire to learn and excell ever come in to this picture?

We have some of the best learning opportunities in the world here, and what do these kids learn? How to take advantage of the fat of the land and do pretty much nothing. These kids have never had to work or compete for much of anything, and it shows.

Maybe it is time for them to develop a little character and to scrabble for a few things in life.

To think of times past when there was a burning desire to get an education and make something of themselves. I'm not seeing a whole lot of that these days.
 
#13 ·
True story.

The lady that cut my hair for years had a son that was an english teacher - jr. high. The first six weeks over half of his students got D's or F's on their report card. The teacher was called into the principals office and told he couldn't give out those grades. The teacher said "they got what they deserved. They can't spell or write and they won't turn in assignments, either." The principal told the teacher he had to find a way to pass them.

Bottom line is kids are passed on to the next grade so the teacher/principal/school doesn't look bad.
 
#22 ·
In my school disrict (before NCLB) a program was implemented - Project Excel, I think it was called - that pushed a qualified group of students to the highest levels they could achieve. Anyway, I know of a few of them who have doctorate level degrees and are successful adults. Very intelligent people. Well, that program was scrapped after NCLB, as well as any other Gifted & Talented program because those students would've raised the average score too high with the rest of the students included, meaning the school would not get the federal funding the next year.

Up until right after I graduated, my high school had basic, College Prep, and Honors/Advanced Placement level classes. Another misguided step to "prepare students for college," that I heard countless times throughout my education, was to eliminate the basic level courses and force everyone into at least the College Prep level. The problem was they still needed to pass these students, so what did they do? They made CP easier! Now, everyone gets a Core 40 diploma that is much easier to achieve than when I graduated almost 9 years ago. Ridiculous. And here is what the "preparing you for college" step led to.

While I was in college, I was hearing shortly after I started from the instructors that the newest round of kids were idiots compared to times past. A few talked about how they couldn't believe how many kids came into that school who lacked sufficient math and writing skills for college level work. What angered me was numerous times through my college classes, I would have an instructor tell us as we were leading up to a test that the test in previous years had been a very difficult one for the students, so what they had done was make the test easier! What the hell?! With the tuition increases I was paying more than the students of the past, yet I was being challenged less and given easier material! I felt like I was just wasting my money.

I have definitely been able to experience NCLB at work and what it does to "prepare" students for college and the real world.
 
#14 ·
it's multi-facet issue.

1. everyone is a winner- everyone gets a trophy for winning, losing, and participating. right there, in itself, destroys the need to push oneself to accomplish. the words "accomplishment", "winning", "earning", "determined", etc. lost their meanings.

2. reduced responsibility and accountability of parenting- this is a combination of slackers raising slackers and passage of legislation design to take away personal responsibility and accountability (state dependent citizens).

3. excess of education funding but irresponsible spending. most education fund goes to administrative activities and propping up teachers pensions.

4. misplaced pride. "usa is number one" but not the people or most people anyway.
 
#56 ·
I agree with most of what you say. However, I strongly disagree about teacher pensions. I don't claim to know how it works in other states, but here is how it works in Illinois.

Teachers have to pay into the Illinois Teacher Retirement System. We are not allowed to pay into social security. (Not that I want to.) We pay around 9% of our income into TRS, which most actuaries would agree should be enough to develop a quite adequate retirement account. And so it would be, except that the State of Illinois has taken money out of the TRS to balance their budget for years. Now they can't pay it back, so teachers are required to raise their expected retirement age or raise their trs payment to 13%. Maybe other states are propping up teacher pensions, but in Illinois it has been the opposite.

May I rant just a moment about a few other things? I appreciate that most people on this website are at least neutral when it comes to teachers. But I'm really sick of being blamed for all the problems in education. 95% of the teachers I work with bust their butts trying to help kids learn. Most of them put in extra unpaid time to help student who are struggling. All of us go home with extra work, and some of us spend time during the summer in workshops and other activities trying to improve things for the following year. And BTW most people here at this website have it right: the necessity to be PC, (among other issues) ruins things for the whole system.

But for the rest of you, come and just manage a class of 25-30 students. Some of them will have an awful home life, some will be spoiled brats, and some will being trying to do their best with the situation. So just come and maintain order in the classroom for a few days. After that, jump through a pile of red tape and start trying to teach them something. Do all of that with administrators, parents, and kids complaining about something every day. After you've done that for a few years, then you can start b****ing about how easy teachers have it and how incompetent we are.
 
#16 ·
I think there's too much stress on continued education. People get degrees in basketmaking and then go out and get a better paying job than someone without a degree but with massive years of experience in the same field. How does that make any sense at all?

Also, I'm an insurance agent and I talk to a lot of "educated" people. Some of them are as dumb as a box of rocks and I wonder how they got their bachelors degree or their drivers license.

Here's an example I'd like to share:

We used to have a neighbor who went to college and had a bachelors degree. He was a parole officer. Very nice guy, nice wife and kids.

My husband traded a vehicle we owned for another vehicle that he saw sitting in a tow yard. The vehicle came home on a tow truck and in 45 minutes the vehicle was running, without the "engine knock" it had when hubs first started it. Said neighbor was absolutely amazed. No joke.

I'd rather have my "uneducated" man who can't spell worth a damn than an educated guy who can't even change his own oil.

It's all in the perception of what skills are.
 
#19 ·
And "money" is BS. I worked in an elementary school for a few years. I watched when the end of the fiscal year was coming up as the school admin ran around looking for places to spend money so their budget wouldn't get cut next year. We were a title 1 school- had a smart board in every classroom, 6-10 computers, 2 laminators in the buildings, classroom response systems, about 10 digital cameras, 8 laptops for check out, etc.

I also couldn't believe how much photocopying the teachers did. Whatever happened to having the kids copy off the board?
 
#20 ·
too much time spent on BS in schools.. what needs to be focused on the old 3 "R"s. And we may have to start culling out the distractions (discipline problems) in schools.

Seperate the student body into advanced, average and slow learners Make the teacher ratio accordingly so that the slow learner get more one-on-one time. ANYONE can learn, it just occurs at different rates.

and finally the parents... always the parents... you get out of your kid what you put into him(her)

Everyone does not need to go to college. College is offering degrees in the most rediculous stuff imaginable and kids come out expecting companies to be standing in line with baskets of money to give them.

The old apprentice/craftsman scenario worked great. You know how much money a heliarc welder with his own truck-mounted rig makes???? and he has no college debt.. that's what missing in this country.. craftsmen... instead we are graduating people in college whose degrees qualify them as a counter person at your local blockbuster.

The easier the degree, the more worthless it is... life's rule, not mine
 
#26 ·
In my school district the curriculum has actually been ramped up about 2 grade levels. The 6th graders are now using what was previously 8th grade text books and Algebra 1 is now a 8th grade class as opposed to a 9th or 10th grade class.

I wish that teachers has more input into their lesson plans and books were utilized more. There is no organization, my kids are continually skipping from one part of a book to the next,(when they use the books) given random worksheets, bench mark study guides, etc. They are all over the place all the time and dont know if they are coming or going. When I went to conferences this year I heard most of the parents complaining about how poorly their kids were able to handle the amount of organization requireed to navigate 6 different classrooms with all different requirements and formats for their learning. I spend on average 2 hours per night for 6th grade homework alone and wonder what the heck they are doing in school all day long. Math is the only class I have seen that actually makes any sense.
 
#28 ·
Im by no means arguing that anything has improved. If at all its gotten much worse, just in the last 5-7 yrs.

I teach math and I tend not to use the book for a number of reasons, first is that students lose them and abuse them and forget them in their lockers. I find I can keep them more focused an engaged if we work from the same examples in a lesson packet so to speak.

I didn't come into this thread to claim that teachers are doing everything right and parents everything wrong. I'm sorry your child has so much work to do every night. Sixth grade is such a difficult transition year for kids, the first year of middle school I'm assuming.


Teachers, most of us at least, teach what we are told to teach in order to prepare our students for the high stakes end-of-year testing. Many teach to the test simply because we have no choice and our very livelihoods are directly linked to how well our students perform on these tests.

Bottom line is this, the ones who are making the decisions regarding school policy and curriculum are the ones you should have a beef with, not the "soldiers in the trenches", the teachers following orders. Again, I agree there are some incompetent teachers who need moving out and there are those who make poor decisions regarding classroom management issues, but many of us are simply weary of being the scape-goat for every single thing that happens at school.

I can control what happens within my 4 walls during the time that I'm there with your child, nothing more.



I sincerely wish the best for all my students and their parents. Being a parent is the hardest job of all.
 
#34 ·
As an educator and education administrator in Northern California, I was pressured and then ordered to manipulate the requirements of our school's standards in a way that would eliminate failures. This included those that refused to participate in class, failed to hand in assignments, and even those that could not pass or refused to take exams.

I could go further into detail about the movement, from the highest levels of administration in the education system, to create a system that, not only elevates those that cannot perform, but restricts and discourages those that seek to advance beyond the set criteria.

This, along with the removal of pertinent, historical information being replaced with random, irrelevant, politically correct accounts, is undermining an entire generation of Americans. If ignorance is bliss, expect to see a new generation primed to be led blissfully into subjugation and appeased by gadgets and reality television.
 
#36 ·
Thank you for your post, it confirms my theory that nobody at a level above the classroom teacher cares about what happens at schools as long as they can look good on paper.

Its all about manipulating the raw data.

data

data

data



If you bury 2 out of every 10 discipline referrals or can convince parents of children that are bullied or assaulted, hell even teachers, not to press charges, it never makes the news and discipline goes down 20%.

Its disgusting and the educrats running the show now will find a special place to enjoy the orange flames lapping at their heels.

Biggest problem now is theres too much $$$ being used as a carrot. Every little thing comes with grant money attached and almost every admin will pander to whatever "flavor of the month" to get some do re mi.
 
#39 ·
How funny, I started in Forestry and ended up in education. Where are you going to school?

Interesting topic !

I have observed similar patterns in Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia.

I have some theories about it and it all comes down to 1 thing : The way edjucation is carried out today ( selfstudies with increasing use of internet )

You cannot even begin to compare education in northern europe or asia for that matter to america. Apples n oranges.
 
#45 ·
This all boils down to the feds getting knee deep into our kids lives and having more influence over the children than the parents or the teachers. The more it goes, I believe the federal government is pretty much the root of all evil. The further the seat of governmental power is away from the people, the more corrupt and inept it becomes. I believe that 98-99% of all educational decisions need to be made at the local schoolboard level (including curriculum) and no higher and completely free of governmental influence. If the school board doesnt guide the district correctly, then they can be voted out. At this low level of elected office there is no Democrat/Republican ties and it makes it much easier to fire them

Here in Texas each school district used to have it's own funds from it's own tax base and things were better in most schools, however the poor districts couldnt get as much money so the state passed a "Robin Hood" law that sent all the money to the state for redistribution to the districts. Things did change. Instead of the poor districts improving, the good districts started dropping. This is why my kids have agreed that my grandchildren will either go to private school or be homeschooled

Pick your federal department, any department not just education, and you will find a pile of stupidity and political correctness (interchangeable terms).The only thing the feds produce anymore that is first class is our military and that's because we give them our "first class" sons and daughters.
 
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