Posted on 08/04/2014 12:25:17 PM PDT by Lorianne
Unfortunately for these students ditch digging in this country is becoming a semi-skilled profession (Class A or B CDL). Very few people dig ditches in this country with a shovel, Gradalls and trackhoes are used now.
If we want our education system to match that of other countries, we’ll need to find out what those other countries do to keep THEIR students from dropping out.
It’s sad that there’s no measure on the other end of the scale - how many students received an adequate eduation as a result of the change in standards? The brighter students were being kept down to ensure the lowest rungs “passed.” But that harms their futures. When the standards were improved, how did it impact those upper rung students’ ability to find work and functionm regardless of race? How about the lower students who didn’t drop out but actually achieved the new requirements? How did it impact their futures?
Tiers were regarded as racist but are needed to ensure that the brighter students are challenged as well as providing those who will drop out rather than face rigorous requirements with the basic literacy skills they are willing to achieve.
Unless you are a design engineer of various disciplines a working knowledge of 3,4,5 right triangle and the area of parallelograms, circles and triangles will get you through life just fine.
Bumping into the bell curve.
You are not racist, you are telling the truth.
I quite agree. If students don't see any practical application to the subjects they are studding they just glaze over and tune out.
The problem is that they are going to need many of these tools later in life and we do a miserable job connecting class and homework assignments with real world outcomes.
The European system that you're talking about is more rigid in movement. A single test divides people into fixed tracks, which all but set your final path in life. While one can move upward (if you can afford it in terms of lost time), it does not necessarily permit mixtures.
In order for trades to return, one must overcome the practice that trades are:
• treated similarly to unskilled labor within the United States.
• not necessarily considered as skilled labor outside this country, putting them at a disadvantage.
Many students in high school are not qualified to be in high school.
Someone else on the thread mentioned that being a ditch-digger is becoming a semi-skilled profession since no one really uses manual labor with shovels anymore.
It’s the same with a lot of garbagemen. The trucks that they drive have to be operated by someone who has some skill with hydraulics. You can’t put a brain-dead person behind the wheel of these modern trash trucks.
There is our problem: the school system is producing idiots, PLUS there is a societal element of people who don’t even WANT to learn. What do you do with them?
+!
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