Posted on 03/09/2014 7:14:13 AM PDT by Sioux-san
The nine main problems and a relevant link for each:
1) Bad Reading Methods. Whole word (also known as sight-words, Dolch words, and many other aliases) is an 85-year flop that never worked. Children are told to memorize words as graphic designs. For most children, that’s effectively the end of literacy. (Learn about phonics.)
2) Inane Math Instruction. New Math and Reform Math mix advanced concepts with elementary arithmetic, guaranteeing that children are confused and make little progress. Inefficient methods are taught. The rhetoric is that children are learning the meaning behind the numbers. For young children, this is an absurd notion. How many adults know the “meaning" behind 5+2 = 7? (Innumeracy by design.)
3) Contempt For Knowledge. Everywhere in the public schools, we hear this whine: “Why would children need to know THAT?” Many schools scorn the very notion that there is anything in particular the children need to know, even such basics as who was George Washington and how many ounces are in a pound. (Learning stuff is valuable. )
4) Inefficient Teaching Methods. Constructivism is the main handicap in the public schools. This method requires that teachers stop teaching; they must stand passively aside. Meanwhile children are supposed to figure out everything for themselves. This will be a slow and incoherent process. (How constructivism hurts minorities.)......
Here’s how you know that Common Core is up to no good. It does not try to fix any of these problems. Rather, Common Core embraces them all and recycles them into supposedly new standards.
Bruce Deitrick Price explains education theories and methods on his site Improve-Education.org.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
It was largely a scheme to turn Catholic kids into protestants.
Because their parents don't expect them to learn solely in the classroom.
The Asian students excel because they are expected to excel.
That was my original point to a poster who seems to be of the opinion that letting kids go, or not go to whatever their parent considers to be a school is a preferable means of ensuring that everyone has a baseline education
The one common denominator among well-educated people is a love for reading. Since I was about 12, I devoured books as fast as I could read them. Not just dime-store novels (though admittedly a lot of that) but non-fiction books on history, science, technology and social studies as well.
I remember in high school working my way through Winston Churchill's books which allowed me to run circles around my history teacher at the time. I can still remember correcting him on a point concerning WW2 and it pertained to Germany declaring war on the United States after Pearl Harbor. My teacher maintained that it was the U.S. that declared war on Germany first. Actually, as I was able to point out, the U.S. declared war on Germany only after they had declared war on the U.S. first. Of course, I got the "why don't you come up here and teach the class yourself if you're so smart" attitude.
Point is, all schools can really do is give you a rudimentary understanding of all the various subjects. For any in-depth understanding of any particular subject, you must do your own reading.
Because they are doing well **in spite** of the government's godless K-12 SS schools ( single-payer and socialist-entitlement schools).
Their parents are afterschooling them by way of paid and unpaid tutors ( often cousins) and after school study clubs.
When did the government become the big mommy and daddy ensuring that “ everyone has a baseline indoctrination”? ( oops! “education”)
Government can’t and isn’t ensuring anything except a lot of wasted tax dollars.
When government “ensures” anything that means police and court action. ( Real bullets in those guns on the hip.)
Get back to traditional teaching-—Not a quick fix. The Union is a big part of the problems—but the real problem is how teachers are taught to teach.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The fundamental problem is that compulsory government schooling was a Prog idea from the beginning to turn Catholic immigrant children into Protestants.
Fundamentally, Progs have always controlled teacher training and curriculum development. Progs have always pushed at the boundaries of society’s morals and ethics.
Fundamentally, government schools is single-payer and socialist-entitlement schooling and was easy pickings for the the unions.
Unions are a symptom. Getting rid of them is like giving a tylenol to a person with a crushed leg.
Your mom and grandparents did what homeschooling parents do. In other words, you were “afterschooled”.
Where are the studies that prove classroom teaching does anything at all? Unless the informal tutoring done by parents and by paid professionals ( “afterschooling”) is measured, it is impossible to know if institutionalized teaching is in any way effective.
It is completely possible that the institutional schools are merely sending home a curriculum for the parents, tutors, and child to follow in the home.
Isn't that how the public education system was designed to operate?
True. I’m a older guy. Many of my catholic school friends tell me about how the nuns used to maintain a very strict classroom order and what methods they would use to discipline the unruly students. We laugh about it now.
I doubt if such strict classroom order still exists in any public or private school today because it would be considered abusive by some parents. But higher levels of discipline and etiquette were expected of students back then. Not so much now, especially in the public school classrooms.
Where is the proof that SS schooling ( single-payer and socialist-entitlement schooling) is operating. Show me the studies where the effectiveness of the teacher is measure separate from the efforts of the parents, tutors, and the child himself.
Unless the considerable efforts of the parents who have academically successful children are measured and studied, it is completely possible that the only thing SS schooling does is send home a curriculum for the parents and child to follow in the home.
I began to question this when I tutored children for our church. These children were given **more** homework to do **in the home** than my homeschoolers did all day! These institutionalized children not only spent 6 to 7 hours in the institutional schooling ( more if bus rides are included) and then were given **more** afterschooling work than my homeschoolers did during their homeschool day.
Assume the public school system is abolished. What do you propose as a realistic alternative?
I think we just called it being "raised." School was where I went during the day so Grandma could get the house clean, I suspect.
I went during the day so Grandma could get the house clean, I suspect.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yep! Free babysitting then. Free babysitting now. Who cares if the schools teach anything?
In a generation or two the Obamacare defenders will say, “ Assume Obamacare is abolished. What do you propose as a realistic alternative?”
The following are some realistic alternatives and suggestions that would help lead the nation to free markets in schooling:
If a child of any age wishes to take the GED or any other similar private exam, he should be allowed. If he passes, he should be given an **official** diploma from his local high school. This would encourage some bright students to take full control of their own self-learning and beginning to create a wider culture of personal responsibility in education. Each student leaving the system early would save the taxpayers a ton and make it possible for the young adult to be paying taxes sooner and for a longer period of time.
Vouchers and tax credits for all children, at least initially. Then gradually reduce the amount of state support for all but the poorest. If only the poorest in our nation get food vouchers ( food stamps), then only the poorest should get school vouchers ( school stamps).
Conservatives should immediately set up foundations that would fund private vouchers for private schools that promote conservative values.
Encourage the formation of dame schools in the homes. The zoning and health restrictions should not be any more stringent than those required for day care providers.
Conservative foundation should sponsor individual conservative teachers who would then run dame schools. The foundations should test the teacher, test the students, and provide community sports, arts, music, theater, and dance.
Some communities may wish to organize schools on the model used by our nation's volunteer fire departments.
Charles Murray is right. We as a nation should abandon most degrees ( and the entire idea of school grades) and move to qualifying exams in specific topics. The exams could start for individual subjects as early as first grade.
By definition, they are defenders and defenders do what defenders must do which is to defend something.
If a child of any age wishes to take the GED or any other similar private exam, he should be allowed. If he passes, he should be given an **official** diploma from his local high school. This would encourage some bright students to take full control of their own self-learning and beginning to create a wider culture of personal responsibility in education.
Sounds good but what evidence is there to support this position? Is there any data showing that significant numbers of kids (public/private/homeschool) presently getting GEDs become self learners in any significant numbers?
Each student leaving the system early would save the taxpayers a ton and make it possible for the young adult to be paying taxes sooner and for a longer period of time.
At present the data points in the opposite direction in that a GED holder is much more likely to be incarcerated than a graduate.
Vouchers and tax credits for all children, at least initially. Then gradually reduce the amount of state support for all but the poorest. If only the poorest in our nation get food vouchers ( food stamps), then only the poorest should get school vouchers ( school stamps).
Sounds good but look at existing entitlement growth. Some politician in the next election cycle is going to start promising school stamps for everyone.
Conservatives should immediately set up foundations that would fund private vouchers for private schools that promote conservative values.
From where will the money come from?
Encourage the formation of dame schools in the homes. The zoning and health restrictions should not be any more stringent than those required for day care providers.
Sounds fine but how will society have any way of knowing what the kids are learning?
Conservative foundation should sponsor individual conservative teachers who would then run dame schools. The foundations should test the teacher, test the students, and provide community sports, arts, music, theater, and dance.
Conservatives tend to steer their kids away from those areas.
Charles Murray is right. We as a nation should abandon most degrees ( and the entire idea of school grades) and move to qualifying exams in specific topics.
That is happening a lot in the tech world where a degree may not be as valuable as a current certification in a specific technology.
I think the student loan bubble is causing many to realize a degree doesn't get a person much without skills.
1) Americans on the MOST generous people on the planet in the entire history of humankind. If SS schooling were to disappear tomorrow only the most mean spirited person would ever suggest that Americans would so selfish as to allow any child to go without access to a private education.
2) I will address one of your questions with a question.
You demand evidence. So?.....
Where are the studies that prove government schooling ( SS schooling) works? Really, this is a serious question. Unless studies are done that separates what is learned in the classroom from that learned in the home due to “afterschooling” and tutoring ( private and professional) done by the parent and child it is **impossible** to know if socialist-entitlement and single-payer K-12 schooling is effective in any way.
If you are defending single-payer and socialist-entitlement schooling ( SS schooling), a teacher, or working for the government schools in any professional capacity, these studies should be immediately available to you.
3) I have presented actions that can be taken by conservatives that will **begin** the process of building a private infrastructure that will help wean American parents and citizens from the SS schools. None, all by itself, is a magic bullet that would immediately put an end to government schooling and provide for every child in the U.S. Such earthly perfection will not be seen until the Second Coming. Together, though, they would build and far more effective system than we have now.
4) Earthly perfection is impossible. We can only aim for better and demanding that every child be 100% perfectly educated by a private system before any action is taken to reduce and eliminate SS schooling condemns million upon millions to a life of illiteracy and innumeracy due to the fundamental inefficiency of single-payer and socialist-entitlement programs. ( Government schooling is an SS program.)
5) Finally,...What would happen if tomorrow a great big space ship were to hover over the U.S. and suck up every SS school in the nation?
Answer: There would be chaos for about 3 weeks but soon parents would find alternatives. The local karate schools, children's theaters, gym centers and dance studios would quickly hire teachers. Small tutoring centers would open in shopping centers. KinderKare and other national day care chains would would expand their services. Small towns would quickly organize volunteer schools based on the volunteer fire department model. The United Way would organize a scholarship fund. Dame schools would soon open in every city neighborhood and suburban subdivision.
There is one exception to the 3 weeks of chaos:
In Utah, Mormons would have well functioning schools open fully staffed with **highly** qualified teachers within 3 days.
Again.....Americans on the MOST generous people on the planet in the entire history of humankind. If SS schooling were to disappear tomorrow only the most mean spirited person would ever suggest that Americans would so selfish as to allow any child to go without access to a private education.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.