States setting low bar for student achievement

Link. "We're lying to our children when we tell them they're proficient, but they're not achieving at a level that will prepare them for success once they graduate." The federal government can't impose a set of standards, because education is largely up to states.

Maybe we need education reform. The difference in quality of teaching will naturally vary if every state has different standards. Thoughts?

My big problem with education is the whol idea of teachers receiving tenure. Once a teacher becomes incredibly hard to fire, it usually seems that the individual slacks, and the school will do nothing about it. My best teacher I ever had was a guy who was rich enough to not work, but taught us because he wanted to make a difference in our lives and instill in us his knowledge.

My big problem with education is the whol idea of teachers receiving tenure. Once a teacher becomes incredibly hard to fire, it usually seems that the individual slacks, and the school will do nothing about it. My best teacher I ever had was a guy who was rich enough to not work, but taught us because he wanted to make a difference in our lives and instill in us his knowledge.

Mrha

[QUOTE="Mrha"]

My big problem with education is the whol idea of teachers receiving tenure. Once a teacher becomes incredibly hard to fire, it usually seems that the individual slacks, and the school will do nothing about it. My best teacher I ever had was a guy who was rich enough to not work, but taught us because he wanted to make a difference in our lives and instill in us his knowledge.

snowman6251

You guys confuse me. What's tenure?

I thought it was like a teacher's censorship insurance. You know, so they couldn't get fired for saying something contraversial.

Can anyoneinform me?

[QUOTE="snowman6251"][QUOTE="Mrha"]

My big problem with education is the whol idea of teachers receiving tenure. Once a teacher becomes incredibly hard to fire, it usually seems that the individual slacks, and the school will do nothing about it. My best teacher I ever had was a guy who was rich enough to not work, but taught us because he wanted to make a difference in our lives and instill in us his knowledge.

smc91352

You guys confuse me. What's tenure?

I thought it was like a teacher's censorship insurance. You know, so they couldn't get fired for saying something contraversial.

Can anyoneinform me?

It sucks that every state has different standards. Ever since I moved to North Carolina, school has been a lot harder because of the 7 percent grade scale as well as a 4 class per semester(which means up to 8 different courses in total a year) schedule.roosuu

It sucks that every state has different standards. Ever since I moved to North Carolina, school has been a lot harder because of the 7 percent grade scale as well as a 4 class per semester(which means up to 8 different courses in total a year) schedule.roosuu

I don't think its a state-wide thing. It depends on the school.

The high school I went to didn't follow the Semester schedule. Itofferred six 2-month "mester"s with 4 of them mandatory.

And classes were like 2 hours long each.

At least america tries to allow students to try everything. Down here you basically fall into science or business in secondary school with a foreign language and you normally can't stray from the path you choose, there is especially a lack of teaching the Arts (music,media, etc). Our schools down here have a high standard of teaching but generally our students aren't trained how to act properly in a work environment which leads to alot of educated workers being unable to attain jobs or losing them. Also if you fall back down here.. you get left back, something which I applaud American schools for doing even if it is at the cost of lowering the standard of education. Not everyone learns the same speed or the same way so several options is always good.

At least america tries to allow students to try everything. Down here you basically fall into science or business in secondary school with a foreign language and you normally can't stray from the path you choose there is especially a lack of teaching the Arts (music,media, etc). Our schools down here have a high standard of teaching but generally our students aren't trained how to act properly in a work environment which leads to alot of educated workers being unable to attain jobs or losing them. Also if you fall back down here.. you get left back, something which I applaud American schools for doing even if it is at the cost of lowering the standard of education. Not everyone learns the same speed or the same way so several options is always good.

Espada12

This opens to door to corruption like the grade inflation scenario I mentioned before.snowman6251

But you still need to present a case. If teachers deserve to be fired, the council would fire them, right?

Your problem should be with the councils councils then, no?

Our schools really don't. You take English, History, Math, and Science and then you can add your electives but its of questionable quality. You HAVE to take History of countries X,Y, and Z. Real freedom would be something like "I want Russian History". You can't get that everywhere. And art and music programs are being cut in lots of schools with smaller budgets.snowman6251

Really? My cousin had to take those mandatory classes but he got to sample everything which I always thought was a good thing.

[QUOTE="snowman6251"]This opens to door to corruption like the grade inflation scenario I mentioned before.smc91352

But you still need to present a case. Ifteachers deserve to be fired, the council would fire them, right?

Your problem should be with the councils then.

[QUOTE="roosuu"]It sucks that every state has different standards. Ever since I moved to North Carolina, school has been a lot harder because of the 7 percent grade scale as well as a 4 class per semester(which means up to 8 different courses in total a year) schedule.FFCYAN

[QUOTE="snowman6251"]

Our schools really don't. You take English, History, Math, and Science and then you can add your electives but its of questionable quality. You HAVE to take History of countries X,Y, and Z. Real freedom would be something like "I want Russian History". You can't get that everywhere. And art and music programs are being cut in lots of schools with smaller budgets.Espada12

Really? My cousin had to take those mandatory classes but he got to sample everything which I always thought was a good thing.

I don't think the problem is necessarily teachers. At least not the ones that were in my high school. The problem is the school district lowers the standards and raises problems with teachers who actually challenge students and then they get poorer grades. And then there's the standardized testings...They actually give the same testing they give to regular students as they do to the specially challenged. And when the results are brought down because of them, the schools receive less funding because of it.

[QUOTE="Espada12"]

[QUOTE="snowman6251"]

Our schools really don't. You take English, History, Math, and Science and then you can add your electives but its of questionable quality. You HAVE to take History of countries X,Y, and Z. Real freedom would be something like "I want Russian History". You can't get that everywhere. And art and music programs are being cut in lots of schools with smaller budgets.snowman6251

Really? My cousin had to take those mandatory classes but he got to sample everything which I always thought was a good thing.

I see, that sucks.

[QUOTE="Mrha"]

My big problem with education is the whol idea of teachers receiving tenure. Once a teacher becomes incredibly hard to fire, it usually seems that the individual slacks, and the school will do nothing about it. My best teacher I ever had was a guy who was rich enough to not work, but taught us because he wanted to make a difference in our lives and instill in us his knowledge.

snowman6251

[QUOTE="snowman6251"][QUOTE="Mrha"]

My big problem with education is the whol idea of teachers receiving tenure. Once a teacher becomes incredibly hard to fire, it usually seems that the individual slacks, and the school will do nothing about it. My best teacher I ever had was a guy who was rich enough to not work, but taught us because he wanted to make a difference in our lives and instill in us his knowledge.

guynamedbilly

High school here in Australia is really good IMO.

In years 7 and 8 there are no electives, and you have to do, over the two years, 200 hours each of Maths, English and Science, and 100 hours each of History, Geography, Visual Arts, Music, Design and Technology (we did agriculture, metalwork, woodwork, computers, food and electronics), PDHPE and a LOTE (we did Italian). In our school Maths, English and Science were also graded, and the top class or two actually did a more advanced course covering more topics in more detail, and the bottom class had more teachers to help them. Our school, as a Catholic school, also did Religion.

In years 9 and 10 we could take two electives, but we still had to take 200 hours of Maths, English and Science, and 100 hours of Australian History, Australian Geography and PDHPE (and Religion at Catholic schools). The problem with the two electives that could be taken were that the choices we had were too "technical-skewed". Our school offered Agriculture, Farm Tech, Metalwork, Woodwork, Tech Drawing, Electronics, IT, Commerce, Italian, Ext History, Ext Geography, Visual Arts, Music, Drama and ML. There needed to be more science-based and humanities-based electives in years 9 and 10, because unless you wanted to do a 'technical' course you had to do Commerce and IT as your two electives (Italian, Drama, Ext History and Ext Geography didn't run because they didn't get the required 20 students in the timetable). I did Commerce and ML (1 year philosophy, 1 year IT).

Years 11 and 12, however, opened up a lot of humanities (business studies, economics, legal studies, modern history, ancient history, ext history, geography, ext geography) and science (physics, chemistry, biology, earth and environmental, snr science) subjects. However there needed to be more available an early stage because it was just so hard getting through everything, and seeing stuff that looked interesting in the textbook but it 'not being in the syllabus', even though they were 10 years ago.

In short grading is the only way that the education system can work. It gives those that want to learn the ability to strive forward and those that are finding it hard to learn the extra help they need. Dumbing down the course to make everyone pass is just not socially, nor economically, desirable.

Link. "We're lying to our children when we tell them they're proficient, but they're not achieving at a level that will prepare them for success once they graduate." The federal government can't impose a set of standards, because education is largely up to states.

Maybe we need education reform. The difference in quality of teaching will naturally vary if every state has different standards. Thoughts?

[QUOTE="FFCYAN"]

Link. "We're lying to our children when we tell them they're proficient, but they're not achieving at a level that will prepare them for success once they graduate." The federal government can't impose a set of standards, because education is largely up to states.

Maybe we need education reform. The difference in quality of teaching will naturally vary if every state has different standards. Thoughts?

leviathan91