Another situation that affects quality education is politics. When I was a kid going to school in NYC, classes were separated by ability. So for example, let's say there were 6 classes for first graders. The smartest kids would be assigned to Class 101, the next smartest to 102 all the way down to 106 where the slowest would be placed. I guess the point was that with kids being equal within each class, the teacher could apply the teaching to the class's level of learning. Politics in the community put an end to that. So now, slow kids are mixed with smart kids in the same class. The teacher has to spend extra time with the slower kids while the smart kids are sitting around being bored and not covering more learning skills as they ought too. The teacher cannot challenge the class with more difficult stuff and lose the slower kids.
Another thing they did away with were trade type learning. Typing, shop, etc. Loads of kids are more action oriented, don;t want or need college, and will make more money learning a trade. I did some construction a few years ago in Aviation High School in Long Island CIty NY where Amazon was going to set up a headquarters. The school's shop is a hanger where jets and reciprocating engine planes were located. The kids and teachers, dressed in sparkling, white uniforms, were working on the mechanics of airplane repair. As an ex-air force vet, it was particularly satisfying to see. I spoke with the teachers, also air force veterans, who showed pride in their work. As you walked through the school, everyone seemed busy and involved. The whole school had pride in what they were learning and doing. We need more of these kind of schools.
Another issue is discipline. When I was young, I would be afraid to open my mouth to the teacher. Because I knew when I got home, my parents would have heard about it and handed me my head. Today, teachers are afraid to tell the students anything. Many parent don't respect teachers or just take their kid's side regardless.
I will have to admit though that much comes from the top, the principal. I did work in over 250 NYC schools. There are about 1200. As I walked around in them, you could see which schools were quiet and disciplined and which ones the kids showed no respect, very undisciplined. I was in one high school where some kids were ripping the security cameras we were installing off the walls before we could connect them. We knew who the kids were. I had a meeting with the custodian and principals and security staff. All 4 principals (there were 4 in one building) said they couldn't do anything. So I told them they'd have to live with the problem and walked out of the meeting. They were afraid of the kids. In other schools, I saw principals in the hallway between classes pull kids out of the hallway and berate them if they were just talking. That school was operating properly. All the kids were in the classrooms when they should have been. No one was stealing things off the walls. You know that principal supported his teachers. It comes from the top.
Alan, there are so many things wrong with the education system right now; some are by default and others have to do with politics.
Although I can see your critique with lack of tracking, tracking is still used today. It is not necessarily called tracking, just advance, honors, regular, and whatever new politically correct word is used for the lower level kids. The issue though is that is not nearly as nuanced as it should be for the best performance. It has been shown that the best environment for a person to learn is one that is 18% to 22% hard then what they can do at a leisure. Less hard and the person gets bored; more hard and the person gives up. The problem though is that this would create a dozen different tracks and the funding is just not there. So I cant really complain about this one since it just would never happen due to the expense.
Trade courses are still being taught as well, but are not very well advertised. The type of students who typically go into these classes are those that are bad students since it is assumed that they will not be able to handle the college bound classes, that all other students go into. The issue though is that some of the "normal" students may be interested in these fields but are discouraged on taking them since they are obviously college bound right
. Those normal kids are often never given the opportunity to take these courses.
Then, even with truly college bound kids, we overload the courses with knowledge that most just do not need (unless they plan on studying that specific field) at the expense of "common" knowledge you actually need to live.
Russ always gets on the lack of knowledge with civics today, which is a direct result of students being treated like everyone will be a historian. When you think like this, the question of why bother teaching civics certainly comes up. In Math we never taught things like balancing a check book or how compound interested works in relation to investments or credit card balances. What a mortgage is and how it works.
All these things are cut at the expense of trying to make every student a scholar in every subject, which is just unpractical. We are training kids to be highly knowledgable but with little ability to function in society.
As far as my experience went, discipline is only an issue in inner city schools. I hate to be stereotypical
, but inner city schools are run by more liberals, and liberals tend to want to be more nurturing and caring instead of punitive. The problem though is that you need to be punitive with those 5% of kids who do nothing but goof off, otherwise they will do nothing but distract from the learning experience for everyone else. Suburban and rural principals tends to be much more punitive. The principal at my first school I taught at was about 120 lb. Every student was deathly afraid of him, even the biggest guy.
