Is the U.S. education system going downhill?
| So if that district does a bad job well doesn't matter they still will receive funding because most people have no choice |
You've never read the NCLB have you? You hit on a few valid points but this one in particular is the exact opposite of true.
| You've never read the NCLB have you? You hit on a few valid points but this one in particular is the exact opposite of true. |
You are correct I haven't really looked over NCLB don't have a child of my own so wasn't all that interested in it. I assume you are talking about districts having to meet certain "academic criteria" (Math and reading I believe it was? though there is probably others) to receive funding.
But meeting this criteria doesn't mean they are doing a good job which is evident from the failing graduation rates we see around the country and how poorly we score on the international stage. Basically the way I see it is now school districts are teaching the children to test instead of teaching them so they can gain knowledge.
Getting a student to a point where they can pass one of those tests isn't doing a good job in my book. Instead it makes districts put so much emphasis on these tests (Because they need the funding) that they are dropping funding to electives like computers science, music, arts, woodworking, metalworking, or basically any real life teaching that students find fun.
Math and English are important subjects don't get me wrong but I don't think the correct way to teach them is to prepare students to pass a test.
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| I sit there in math not learning about things that will help me in life, ex. financial things, but we do sit there talking about factorizing quadratic equations |
Actually, I have found that factorising quadratic equations is much more useful than 'financial things'. Considering that everything I've ever needed to do with finances is either just addition or at worst some series and sequences stuff, whereas quadratic equations are very useful when I'm interested in working out something, such as physics related (e.g. motion of an object), or when I'm making something (finding best ratio of material to size, the width of an object required for a specified area, etc.). Though I guess all these things are circumstantial - some people won't ever do that kind of thing at all.
@ NT3: The biggest problem with learning Math in the US is that we aren't given a context in which to use it until we hit college. So for the 10 years of our educational lives after "Johnny has X number of apples ..." we are just staring at raw data without any clue of when or how it could possibly be useful. This is what I believe torpedoed me in school. I do take most of the blame here because in retrospect I could have easily looked up the applications for what I was being taught on my own. But at the time it was presented and given the way it was presented it just appeared to be busy work and I could not get that chip off my shoulder because of it. This is part of the point that Disch is touching on in regards to education. Teachers simply do not know how to communicate the information they are teaching in a way that engages most students here in the US.
| I sit there in math not learning about things that will help me in life, ex. financial things, but we do sit there talking about factorizing quadratic equations |
Well, it is actually important to learn that. I remember saying in my question, math is the only class I learn stuff in (correct me if I didnt say that). Say you want to do some renovating in the far future. How are you going to know how to do the algebra you need to find all the lengths, widths, and beam strength to support the roof. Well, you may not need to know the last part unless you are doing that, but when I helped my dad add an entire addition to my house, he made the blueprints himself instead of paying someone else to do it, and there were a LOT of equations on it so we didn't have to start over.
But I hate how they teach us all these pointless skills (like knowing the female parts of a plant, wtf?) but refuse to tell us how to do something essential to being an independent adult, such as taxes... getting a job... or even cooking yourself a meal!
I think they need to put all of the irrelevant stuff (like I said, plant parts) in it's own class. No one I know wants to be a botanist (plant scientist), but if there is, make a whole class for plants and stuff for the people that do. In regular, 7th grade science, we should be learning about health stuff. Like, the parts of your body and how to keep them in good condition. I agree, we need to know the basics of every science, like space, photosynthesis... the stuff that we NEED to know to not be considered an incompetent idiot.
My dad always said to me:
"It is better to be a jack-of-all-trades master of none, than to know everything there is to know about one subject."
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