Public School Education System Thread

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

Do you want to gas them for making bad theater, which I support; or for being critical of their leaders, which is a little WPK.

BUZZ. False dichotomy.

BTW, why do you hate children? :snicker:

So both?

[Fife]

MO MONEY MO MONEY MO MONEY


The $7 billion school improvement grant program: Greatest failure in the history of the US Department of Education?

The final IES report on the School Improvement Grant program is devastating to Arne Duncan’s and the Obama administration’s education legacy. A major evaluation commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education and conducted by two highly respected research institutions delivered a crushing verdict: The program failed and failed badly. (The Washington Post’s article by Emma Brown does an exceptional job recounting the administration’s $7 billion folly.)

Despite its gargantuan price tag, SIG generated no academic gains for the students it was meant to help. Failing schools that received multi-year grants from the program to “turn around” ended up with results no better than similar schools that received zero dollars from the program. To be clear: Billions spent had no effect.

OK, Betsy, it's in your lap now. Whatchoo gonna do to shrink your shores?

[Speaker to Animals]

[Heraclius]

An interesting solution to the schooling issue is the usage of monetary means to keep kids in school. Basically, you pay students a monthly stipend based on how many days they are at school. They are allowed 1 absence a month and every absence after that cuts off 1/5 of their monthly check. When a student is in AP classes, they are given more money per student.

Perhaps if a student has 6 classes a day outside of lunch and physical education, if those 6 classes are all AP courses, then they get double the amount per month than the average student gains. This funding can even extend to SAT tests as well as AP tests. Currently it costs around $50 to take the SAT with SAT II tests costing around $30 each with taking 2-3 practically being mandatory for most high level universities. The AP scores, *strongly encouraged* by high-level universities are around $75 each. If a student was able to earn $100 for each 5 they scored on the AP test and $50 for each 4 they scored, students would have an economic incentive to study while also thinking about their future. Same would hold true if a student got $100 for breaking 1400 on the SAT or 700 on the SAT IIs. Their parents would also have a reason to stay on top of their kids. I had friends, once the entire college application/testing period was over, spending over $1500 on fees.

This method was used in 3rd world nations to keep students in school rather than working on farms, and it did in fact work out. In fact, there is no reason such a system can't be extended to giving kids in school a stipend for not being pregnant. Obviously it is a huge cost to give costs to students for NOT having kids, but when you look at the long-term costs of teen pregnancy for both the human capital of the parents as well as for society as a whole, we are far better off by preemptively stopping this from happening.

Obviously this all needs to be taken into account with a reformation of the entire sector of education to work. We need to start treating teaching as a profession similar to being a doctor and a lawyer with schooling to match it. Right now teacher unions have prohibited the possibility of pay being decided around results of teachers meaning that the only thing that causes salary increase is seniority. There is no reason for a person studying to be a teacher to do more than the bare minimum in school as they will not be held to a higher standard than the one doing less work. The entire reason the current system is held together is because there are people that actually do have a passion to teach the youth, and a lot of kids are lucky enough to at least have one such teacher in their lives. This teacher is often the one that provides them with the seed of intellectual curiosity that extends to other areas of learning.

Personally I don't think there is any issue with what is focused on in the classroom. It is impossible to get kids to learn what they need to learn as there is so much to learn in today's world and everyone has different ideas of what is necessary. A class on personal finance, mathematics up to pre-calculus, and 4 years of English seem self-evident, however.

[apeman]

I think paying students to attend class is an absolutely terrible solution that misses the mark completely. Doesn't solve any issues with quality of education or cost of education, simply just another form of coercion do get kids to actually just go to class. But this proposal -- which is clearly aimed at the lowest achiever,s because the others will go to class for free -- basically assumes that schools are magical places where if you just go to class you will learn.

I agree that personal finance needs to be taught at some point in high school.

[Okeefenokee]

For my classmates that went into trades after high school, all four years had been a complete waste. Trades are largely taught on the job, and don't involve the hypotenuse. They'd have been better served to get a four year headstart on their trades.

[Speaker to Animals]

For my classmates that went into trades after high school, all four years had been a complete waste. Trades are largely taught on the job, and don't involve the hypotenuse. They'd have been better served to get a four year headstart on their trades.

Yep. Big time red pill on the bureaucracy: high school is a waste of time all around and should be abolished. Kids should go directly to college or trade school.

[Martin Hash]

For my classmates that went into trades after high school, all four years had been a complete waste. Trades are largely taught on the job, and don't involve the hypotenuse. They'd have been better served to get a four year headstart on their trades.

Yep. Big time red pill on the bureaucracy: high school is a waste of time all around and should be abolished. Kids should go directly to college or trade school.

There may have been somebody who benefited from HIgh School but it wasn't me. Probably the biggest holdback in my career. The whole idea of grouping kids by age, making them attend a physical location at set times, during set days, months & years, is so antiquated and ridiculous I can't understand why EVERYONE doesn't see it? (Indoctrination.)

[Speaker to Animals]

For my classmates that went into trades after high school, all four years had been a complete waste. Trades are largely taught on the job, and don't involve the hypotenuse. They'd have been better served to get a four year headstart on their trades.

Yep. Big time red pill on the bureaucracy: high school is a waste of time all around and should be abolished. Kids should go directly to college or trade school.

There may have been somebody who benefited from HIgh School but it wasn't me. Probably the biggest holdback in my career. The whole idea of grouping kids by age, making them attend a physical location at set times, during set days, months & years, is so antiquated and ridiculous I can't understand why EVERYONE doesn't see it? (Indoctrination.)

Before the government got into the "secondary education" business, college freshmen were around age 16. Other kids started learning trades.

Imagine if we spent all this secondary education money instead on college and trade school. We'd see kids graduating from college/trade school around age 21, ready to start a family, and no debt.

That would go a long way to fixing the declining fertility rate right there.

[Ex-California]

For my classmates that went into trades after high school, all four years had been a complete waste. Trades are largely taught on the job, and don't involve the hypotenuse. They'd have been better served to get a four year headstart on their trades.

Going to college was more of a holdback for me. After college it took me another 5 years or so to slightly catch up to my friends that went into trades and even though I've equalled or surpassed some of them I still have student debt that they don't.