The Solution to Failing Public Schools

The No Child
Left Behind Act (NCLB) is another failed example of a top/down
bureaucratic fix for earlier failed top/down bureaucratic fixes to
a government program which, in this case, is public schooling. Way
back in 2001, Reason Foundation education maven Lisa Snell wrote a
prescient article “Schoolhouse
Crock” predicting that what would become NCLB would essentially
do nothing to improve public schools. The NCLB supposedly set
accountability standards and goals for schools in the hope that
measuring failure would lead to improvements.

Today’s Washington Post and New York Times
have fully confirmed Snell’s prediction. From the
Post:

More than three-quarters of the nation’s public schools could
soon be labeled “failing.............


The State Legislature responded by reducing the level of
achievement defined as proficient, and the next year the proportion
of South Carolina schools missing targets dropped to 41
percent.

Problem: Can’t meeting reading standards. Public school
solution: Don’t bother teaching kids to read; just lower the
standards.

http://education-news.us/2011/03/10/low ... c-schools/

Big government can't solve anything, but they do get their slice of the pie first.

Chimney:

A solution is to look at the content of the classes - especially in high school - IF it is not reading, writing, math and languages - get rid of it........BUT the teaching skills in these area are lacking. Fire the camp follower teachers that do not teach core material.

March/April issue of Technology Review (MIT PUB) has a great article about Professor Woodie Flowers - he sums up well :

"Learing Calculus is training"
"Learning to think using calculus is education"


We are in mass training but even that poorly and few thinkers.

Ahh, but teachers are no longer allowed to teach critical thinking skills - that's not on standardized tests.

And that, LH, is a result of seeking to have ever larger, and remotely located, governmental agencies be responsible for the financial support of the education system. If the state government is contributing $X per student in financial support, they are going to want to make sure that in exchange for the money that the students are actually being taught something. How do you find this out other than by giving every student the same test and grading the results to determine if every student is receiving the education that you are paying for?