What is the biggest problem in public education?

[ColbertWatcher]

Poll question: What is the biggest problem in public education?

[XemaSab]

1. Administrators

n/t

[cherokeeprogressive]

37. That was my exact thought when I saw the subject line of the OP.

My only difference with your response is that I'd add Administrators who somewhere along the line forgot that they were once teachers.

[proud2BlibKansan]

67. Stupid administrators

Not all of them are bad. Most that I have worked under but certainly not all of them. Only the stupid ones. :)

[omega minimo]

2. 3 decades of Reaganism

:thumbsdown:

:thumbsdown:

:thumbsdown:

[LearnedHand]

3. The way subjects are fractured from Jr High on

People come out of school without a good understanding of how one subject relates to another. It would be marvelous, for example, when kids learned algebra if they also learned that the Arabic cultures were developing algebra when Europeans were still eating sticks and worms.

[XemaSab]

44. I'll add to that and say teachers who are trained in one subject alone

so you ask them, for example, what the practical applications are of a math problem, and they have nothing useful to say about it.

[DefenseLawyer]

4. Consolidation?

I am no expert, and I know it is cheaper in many ways and makes for better football teams, but I wonder if the move to consolidate neighborhood schools into big megaschools in many parts of the county in the 60's and 70's hasn't had a lot of negative repercussions.

[polysciguy420]

5. well...

The biggest problem is the curriculum. Public education by and large does not prepare the average student for higher learning. Aside from a curriculum over haul the second biggest nemesis facing public education would be funding. The disparity in per pupil spending on a district to district basis is appalling. An equality of education is the most basic element to an equality of opportunity.

[Goblinmonger]

90. So public education is just a farm team for colleges?

What about the good number of students that won't go to college? Too bad for them?

[dem629]

6. Bad lunches not enough math run-on sentences.

[ColbertWatcher]

9. B-b-but, twitter just started! How can U blame it!? n/t

[dem629]

10. OMG, like...Tweet! Kthxbye and FTS.

[Fumesucker]

7. Other: The fact that Americans basically despise learning..

No, not all Americans, but a substantial majority would rather die than learn anything I sometimes think.

[Muttocracy]

22. it's hard to get past that cultural mindset no matter the resources. nt

[Starbucks Anarchist]

27. Yep.

The anti-intellectual mindset is strong in this country.

[anonymous171]

28. You can't blame it on culture.

With the right structure and training, children can be taught to do just about anything regardless of culture.

[Fumesucker]

34. Schools have kids for 180 days/year, 8 hrs/day..

That's 1440 hours/year..

The culture has them for the rest of the time.. 7230 hours/year..

1440/7230 = 0.199

Less than 20% of a child's time is spent in school and much of that is not directly accounted for strictly with training and structure.

What's that old Jesuit maxim? "Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man."

Well, the culture pretty much has the kids until six or so...

[Johonny]

38. I disagree

I find most Americans like learning stuff. If you ever talk to everyday Americans they seem to "know" a lot and certainly what they know came from somewhere. The problem has more to do with what medium they use to inform themselves. Written information as made way for electronic media. Which in general is control by very few people and worse delivers far less information per minute than print. This leads to a culture of people that feel they are well informed but are actually extremely ill informed.

[Fumesucker]

42. My brother's wife is an RN and far from stupid..

My brother has had a digital camera for at least ten years now (he's on at least his third), his wife refuses to use it because she doesn't want to take the fifteen minutes of minor effort it will require to learn how to upload the pictures into the computer..

Instead she continues to spend a great deal of money on film and prints because she *hates* learning anything new and she is far from alone in America.

If you are interested in sports or popular culture it's not so obvious, but if your interests run to anything at all out of the ordinary you can watch people's eyes glaze over if you try to talk about something they don't want to hear about. I literally got shouted down a few days ago when I tried to talk about a fascinating (to me anyway) book I'm reading about the Allied codebreakers in WWII, I was told I was being disrespectful and talking "politics" (maybe in WWII) by talking about something that is not a popular subject of conversation. The person I was trying to speak to was interested but the rest of the group wanted nothing to do with it and would not let me carry on the conversation, even sotto voce.

It's illuminating to me that of all the adults I know I have the best conversations with my son in law's grandmother, she just turned 86 and seems to be the only person around me really interested in the major events unfolding in our world today.

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." - Bertrand Russell

[ColbertWatcher]

49. Hmm.

I want to agree with you, but I don't think it has to do with where the information originates.

I think it has to do with the inability to make a distinction between knowledge and trivia.

It's not just game shows on TV, but I think sports has a lot to do with the elevation of trivia as well.

Knowing all the rules and nicknames for the game of golf or holding worthless football statistics in one's head is not the same as being able to use one's memory for something useful.

[dysfunctional press]

59. "Americans they seem to "know" a lot ...'

actually, most of them only THINK that they 'know' a lot- and they're usually mistaken.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

88. You beat me to it

Too many parents "don't hold by book l'arnin."

[BlooInBloo]

8. Combination: teachers, parents, government. (In no particular order.)

[etherealtruth]

78. Agreed ....but, I'd throw in

... societal values, including anti-intellectualism that is prominent in some segments of our society (as an example, fundies).

[Political Tiger]

11. Uninvolved/bad parents. n/t

[patrice]

12. Everything starts in the home, then systems/administrators, teachers, low/lax standards, sports

[Catshrink]

13. Politicians who know nothing about teaching enacting laws telling

teachers how to do their jobs.

[proud2BlibKansan]

69. Bingo!

Ever wonder why they leave doctors alone for the most part? Yet they dictate to teachers.

[all.of.me]

14. Low pay for teachers. nt

[polysciguy420]

15. good

point. teachers have to be some of the lowest paid PROFESSIONALS around.

[all.of.me]

16. and raising our children......

Teachers where I live are eligible for food stamps. Is it like that everywhere?

[jamesbolton]

25. You're insane if you think the pay is too low!

My wife makes only a little less than I do, and she works less than half the days per year I do. She has a BA in elementary ed which was a joke to get, and I have a degree in electrical engineering. She only has to teach 180 days per year in this state. That is less than half the days of the year!! I worked 361 days last year. Per hour she makes nearly twice what I do when you take into the account that she is done so early in the day. Teachers shouldn't make twice what experienced engineers do.

If the pay was lower so it was more reasonable you'd have more people that loved to teach get into the field rather than people that want a large paycheck and huge amounts of vacation time like my wife. I'm very happy teachers are so overpaid since it helps me, but I do have to admit that it's wrong for her to take so much money for so little.

[Stellabella]

30. You're insane if you think the pay is too high.

I mean, did you forget the sarcasm tag, or you that clueless?

You need to take a look at this:

http://teachingmusicbs.com/summer/summer.html

And grow up.

[ColbertWatcher]

52. Welcome to DU!

I do have to ask, though, does your wife's school provide all the classroom materials for every student? Is she given time before/after school/classes to prepare lessons, etc.?

[MadHound]

55. Either your wife isn't doing her job right,

Or this is a lot of bullshit you're trying to sell us.

First of all, unless she got her degree off a crackerjack box, her education degree was as hard to get, if not harder than your EE degree. Most teacher education degrees require a 3.5 to graduate, along with more hours than any other degree program. Nor are the classes pushovers either. I challenge you to take any reading, writing or math methods class and get the degree needed to pass it. I doubt you could.

Second of all, unless your wife is a piss poor teacher, she has to perform education related duties virtually the entire year. Continuing education during the summer, conferences, seminars, etc. It is a year round profession, if you're doing what you're supposed to. As far as getting off earlier than you, do you take your work home and spend hours prepping and grading(your wife does, if she's doing her job right). All that unpaid time

As far as overpaid, I'm sorry, but you're just laying it on here. The average pay for teachers is around $50,000. Starting pay averages around $30,000, and many places around $25,000. What you're only making $15,000? Somehow, as an electrical engineer, I doubt that you're making only $15,000.

So which is it, your wife isn't doing her job right, or you're just bullshitting all of us?

[jamesbolton]

86. Did you even read my post?

> her education degree was as hard to get

Education degrees are a joke to get compared to an engineering degree, and I don't know where you got that 3.5 GPA garbage. Did you just make it up? My wife had to take a couple of extra classes she didn't need to get her GPA up to a 2.0 so she could graduate. She was working full-time at the time to support both of us and going to school at the same time so her GPA suffered.

The more hours claim is also a lie. I had 147 hours, and she thinks she only had to have 118 hours. I had to take an entire extra heavy semester of classes just to graduate as compared to her easy education degree.

As to time after school, she's been teaching so long she really doesn't spend much time planning. She has everything well planned for the entire year. I will admit that a new teacher will have to spend much more time their first few years planning than my wife does now.

> What you're only making $15,000?

Do you have trouble with math or with reading? I said almost twice as much per hour. She works less than half the days per year I do. She makes $65k per year in a small town in SC. It's hard to find a job around here making more than that.

[MadHound]

94. So upon further consideration, you're going with the bullshit option, OK, gotcha

You want to know how I know? Because I come from a long line of teachers, and better yet, I've gone back to school to get a teaching degree myself. The 3.5 GPA is a requirement in our education program, as is a massive quantity of hours. Nor is this a school requirement, but a state requirement for teacher education programs in our state. So perhaps it's just a SC thing, but somehow I doubt it. I'll have to look up the SC certification program and see for myself.

She may not spend much time planning, though again, that sounds like bullshit to me if she's anywhere close to a halfway decent teacher, even if she has been teaching for a long while. And what about continuing ed in the summer? What, she isn't required to get a master's degree? Sorry, but that's a national requirement there, thanks to NCLB. Not to mention grading, parents and other paperwork.

And making $65,000 in a small SC town? Please dude, next time just say it's a six figure income, it would have about as much credibility. Please, tell me the name of this fine town so I can move there are get in on these too good to be true teaching jobs:eyes:

[jamesbolton]

96. You're just completely clueless

> Please, tell me the name of this fine town so I can move there are get in on these too good to be true teaching jobs

It's Spartanburg County District 1 in Campobello, SC. We moved here from Rock Hill, SC where she made a little more money than that. If you have no idea what teachers make then maybe you shouldn't run your mouth so much.

[all.of.me]

65. When teachers are eligible for food stamps, the pay is too high?!? nt

[ulysses]

71. "Teachers shouldn't make twice what experienced engineers do."

Why not?

[proud2BlibKansan]

72. Did you run this by your wife before posting?

If my husband posted crap like this he would be sleeping on the couch tonight.

[Fireweed247]

80. "happy teachers are so overpaid"

She must be an administrator.

[LWolf]

85. .

:rofl:

"only has to teach 180 days"

"done so early in the day"

I swear, you should take that one on the road.

It's true that I don't "teach" more than the instructional days in a school year. I DO have to do continuous education beyond that to keep the license, as well as spending plenty of paid and non-paid days doing other related tasks. "non-paid" would be the point.

I get to work at 7am and leave at 5; that's a 10 hour work day, and I work through my 30 min. lunch. If I leave earlier than that for any reason, work goes home. And comes home with me on weekends, regardless.

And I still don't have time to keep up with everything that needs to be done. There are always parents I should have called, more paperwork I should have done...it only gets caught up by working extra days for no pay after the last day of school.

Just like setting up the classroom and preparing for the year, and for the first week of school, only happens because I show up 2 weeks before my paid contract starts.

[adamuu]

56. +1 n/t

[etherealtruth]

82. Teacher's pay is equitable to other similarly educated professionals

"The Detroit metropolitan area has the highest average public school teacher pay among metropolitan areas for which data are available, at $47.28 per hour. (See Table 1A.) The average public school teacher in the San Francisco metropolitan area is not far behind, at $46.70 per hour. The third-highest average public school teacher pay is in the New York metropolitan area ($45.79). The top ten metro areas in terms of average public school teacher pay can all be found in California, Michigan, or the Northeast." http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_50.htm

One is not going to become "rich" teaching in public schools , but then again nurses, social workers, police officers, firefighters ... will not become rich either. Teachers are paid on par with other similarly educated professionals. I understand teachers donate some of their financial resources to the students they teach (added supplies ... ), I can guarantee you many in the aforementioned list do the same.

[lutefisk]

93. That "study" is very misleading

Teachers do not receive overtime pay for any of the hours they put in outside their contracted time, yet it is impossible for most teachers to complete their work obligations within the contracted hours. Police, firefighters, nurses, etc. are well compensated for any work they do beyond their normal work day.

[etherealtruth]

95. Really

I was an RN for a large Metro Detroit hospice throughout the 90's ... we were all salaried. Only my first nursing job was hourly (and NOT for a particularly good wage). I think this may be true for police officers and fire fighters (overtime pay); however, their hourly wage is a bit lower. an other point is the other professions mentioned work some pretty difficult hours and shifts .... something teachers are not called upon to do.

Look at the yearly income for similarly educated professionals (especially in health/human services) .... teachers earn a salary on par with other similarly educated professionals.

As I stated previously, one is not going to become rich in any of these professions .... but, that's not why we choose them. I think we all choose professions that meet our needs and hopefully utilize our special talents.

[AndyTiedye]

17. Proposition 13

In California, Proposition 13 is the biggest problem. There's no money for education.

[ChimpersMcSmirkers]

18. Other: School Board politics and administrative bloat

[ColbertWatcher]

20. That's a good one. Would you mind expanding on it a bit? n/t

[ChimpersMcSmirkers]

77. Well, in general I think that school systems are top heavy.

Not in all cases, but a lot and it starts with having an elected school board. What real purpose is there to having an elected school board and an independent school system and all of the extra staff and politics that this entails, when in the end they come to the county board or city council for their budget? They should just be another department under the county administrator/city manager. In the locality I work at, the school system has it's own IT dept, finance dept., facilities dept. etc. This is very inefficient.

The only thing an elected board does is introduce another level of bureaucracy and political maneuvering. It's another avenue for lobbyist to influence the process. It's like setting up a second local government. For very large localities, I can see the case for having one since things can get complex, I'd just make them appointed by the county board of supervisors, like a planning commission. The main argument against not having an elected school board is accountability. Well, city councils and county supervisors are elected, so they become accountable. This argument seems flat.

I've worked in local government most of my career. School boards develop their budgets independently of the general county budget. They then go to the county board with their request. A big problem with this is that their budget are almost always unrealistic. They don't communicate well with the county finance dept. or the county supervisors so invariably it becomes a huge political fight. This is very disruptive and inefficient as well.

There is also the argument that a lot times elected school board members might not be qualified to make the decisions that they need to. There is no vetting or hiring process. Personally, I'd like my school board to be selected using relevant criteria by a committee then by a political campaign. An interesting anecdotal story:

http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/1999/0727education_ladner.aspx

Some studies that discuss the merits of elected vs. appointed school boards. Neither study is fully complete, but the results so far seem to indicate that having an elected school board doesn't provide much benefit.

http://www.sedsi.org/Proceedings/2009/proc/p081010010.pdf

http://cba.ua.edu/assets/docs/efl/WP07-08-03.pdf

[tosh]

39. Second that.

[nonconformist]

19. I think it depends on the district.

I don't think there is just one main problem.

I think in chronically underperforming schools, like poor inner city schools, it's a combination of parents that don't care, students that weren't raised to care or expected to excel, and teachers and administrators that have given up and are just going through the motions.

Across the board, I think part of it is that some really smart kids end up hating school due to teaching for the tests and class progress dependent on the least capable students "getting it". It can be frustrating, boring, even a bit condescending to smart kids. I also think that gobs of homework every night, especially in the form of busy work, really hurts student morale. I think that good teachers that could normally inspire and groom those smart young minds have their hands tied by policy.

[ColbertWatcher]

21. "parents that don't care" Could it be that they're also working several jobs?

I wonder if all parents living in urban settings are getting painted with too a broad brush?

[Telly Savalas]

63. Perhaps

But that poster should be credited for recognizing that the problems in public education vary radically depending on where you are.

Some of the posts here seem blind to the most troubled areas in the country. If the biggest problem with your school system is that the different subjects in the curriculum aren't properly integrated, then you're not doing too badly. There are districts with high-school drop out rates greater than 50%, where many of the people who do graduate do so at a 6th grade reading level, where the educational environment is regularly undermined by violent crime, and where the buildings are crumbling. The problems that result in this situation are numerous, complicated, and aren't going to fit in the space allowed for options in a DU poll.

[notesdev]

23. All the vested interests up and down the line

who put their own interest ahead of the mission of properly educating students

[anonymous171]

24. Not enough discipline and structure. nt

[RadicalTexan]

26. Other: grooming children for their future as cogs in the corporate machine

nt

[Stellabella]

29. The person who selected 'bad teachers' should be thoroughly ashamed.

Teachers work so hard, for such little pay and with very little support. SHAME.

[ColbertWatcher]

48. That just means we still have freepers hiding amongst us. n/t

[Stellabella]

64. Yep. Sigh.

[RC]

31. Subjects are taught in a vacuum.

For instance math is normally taught as isolated problems to solve.
The schools need to teach applied math. Tie the math to solving real world problems.

I used to teach Applied Math for a high school Electronics course that was heavy in math.
One day I was in the middle of going through a complex math problem on the white board and I noticed the lights coming on with the kids around the room. I stopped and ask what was was going on. They told me they had been given the same math problem in their algebra class earlier in the day and that they really didn't understand it.
Their Algebra class did not teach Applied Math. It taught them how to solve isolated Algebra problems. But by applying knowledge to physical things they could and did set up and measure in the lab, the math problems made sense to them.
The same goes for other subjects also. Rote learning of dates or places or whatever, without the comprehension of why or cause and affect, sticks just long enough to take the test.
And when all you have time for is to teach the test, is it any wonder when our kids graduate high school and start college, they find the collage has to have classes to bring those kids up to speed so they can take college level classes? Something is wrong here.

[Smarmie Doofus]

32. Bureaucracy and paperwork.

There's no time to teach.... let alone plan.

[asdjrocky]

33. Other-

Hottie teachers sleeping with teenage boys. Did someone pick that one yet?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

35. forcing public schools to be prisons waiting room

It is unfare to students and teachers alike to force public schools to warehouse young criminals until they happen to be incarcerated.

[SPedigrees]

36. Lack of a prescribed curriculum

that includes the basics of math, English, the history of the United States including the US Constitution and why this document is important, etc etc. When I graduated high school in 1968 my peers from cities and towns across America all knew sentence structure, spelling, math, history, and had a grasp on the various sciences. Even a class taught by the worst teacher in any given school covered the basics of the subject he or she was hired to teach because this was part of the standardized curriculum.

Other considerations would be free nutritious (not the fast food crap they serve now) school lunches for all children, as well as all the necessary school supplies provided by the state. Raise my taxes to fund this; I'd be happy to pay.

Reinstate the phys ed programs that President Kennedy put into effect during his presidency. Kids who get no physical exercise cannot be expected to sit all day in a classroom, much less to think properly.

And lastly stop making it easy for kids to drop out of school before their 17th or 18th birthdays.

[ColbertWatcher]

84. Have you heard of the dictionary of Cultural Literacy?

http://powells.com/biblio/1-9780618226474-9

[Johonny]

40. I'll throw out this idea

How about because public education doesn't matter as much anymore? The parents that lived in the US or came to the US pre WW-II understood that the way to success in the US was education. Post WWII a college degree basically guaranteed you middle class if not upper middle class. But still a solid high school education or vocational school could also get you a solid middle class job. My grandparents were all high school educated blue collar laborers and all lived ok middle class lives, owned a house, owned a car, sent their kids to college. My college educated parents worked mostly white collar jobs and live ok middle class lives, owned a house, owned a car, sent their kids to college. Now their college educated kids are basically struggling to hold on to being middle class. Only 1 out of 4 kids owns their own home. None drive a car bought new. Think about the kid going to school today. Kids aren't stupid. They live in their society. They understand even if they are great students, they are likely to not be able to afford college. The prospects for those with high school educations is not so much better than those without. Low paying service jobs that offer little prospects for future success. But worse today more and more kids that make it through college find no doorway into the white collar middle life that their parents knew. Instead many find themselves competing for the same low paying service jobs that offer little prospects for future success. It's not that education still isn't the best way to insure middle class success, it's just that the number opportunities certainly feel more constrained than ever.

[XemaSab]

45. Graduating with a crushing debt burden is part of it

When my mom went to UC Berkeley, she paid $200 per semester. She was able to have a part time job and put herself through college with no debt. Her parents didn't give her a dime, either.

The state college that I went to IIRC charged about $4000 a semester, so I graduated with $25K in student loans. And that was WITH my mom giving me money.

Also, even if you can get a good job, it's a market where employers don't care about their employees, and vice versa. I've worked for three places since I got out of school, and there's been some sort of bullshit in every job. The message is that employees are expendable, and I don't care to work in that sort of environment.

[ColbertWatcher]

47. I think you've touched on something very important here.

If I'm reading your post correctly, I think you're saying that corporations have become too powerful.

I think this may have something to do with how priorities have been warped since the Reagan era.

Somehow people have bought into the idea that unions are bad, public welfare is bad and worst of all being educated is near sinful!

I've always thought that Americans traded a monarchy for a class of corporate sociopaths.

Okay, maybe not always.

[Deja Q]

51. $200/semester, back in a day when the wages being doled out could afford the costs!

You've hit on so many points that truly need addressing in this country.

It feels the same with my current employer, but nothing else is out there.

And if any of these CEOs claims to be "Christian", "pro-life", "community-oriented", then they need to have a serious re-thinking. You can't be those things while treating people as expendable objects or "overpaid walking costs".

[ColbertWatcher]

46. ?

Do you mean to say "public education" doesn't matter or that a high school education isn't what it used to be?

[Johonny]

76. I mean the cultural values shifted as the relative value of

education shifted. The idea that education was the pathway to upward mobility was a corner stone of 20th century education. Today college graduates face a bleak job market where the rewards of education may not over come the costs (in time, lost opportunity and money) and when they do the delayed gratification is vastly longer than it was a generation ago. When I was a kid a high school education or vocational education was a ticket to a career in the military, manufacturing or union service jobs that brought the promise of middle class status. Today a high school education doesn't come close to guaranteeing this and at the same time many work places have devalued education (like the military). If you know you can't afford college why exactly are you going to work in high school when a high school education appears to have so little value? The answer is people aren't.

[The2ndWheel]

41. The burdens of the parent/child relationship

On both parent and child. It's too inefficient. You can have the child hear one thing at school, and something completely different at home. If we leave parenthood to random chance, the child may not have a chance.

What would be needed is some sort of system where adults are free to be adults, and all children are in a similar academic environment separate from adults in the adult world all year. There would be no contact between adults and children, other than with the professionals at the academic institutions. Parenthood would be specialized, and turned into a profession at those same institutions. That solves the battle between parents and teachers, and all children are in the same environment with the same resources for at least the first 18 years of their lives.

Write a check to every adult for a billion dollars not to have children. It would be cheaper than all the current bailouts. If the nation needs more children to be born, the state acquires sperm and egg donations.

Adults are free to do their jobs, spend their time and money however they wish, and they don't have to worry about children. Teachers are able to teach what is required to make sure the children will be productive members of society. Children are able to learn what society requires them to learn. It's all paid for in taxes, no other way to do it.

Eliminate random, amateur parenthood. Separate adults from children. Allow academic professionals to mold children to what society requires. Three simple steps.

[buzzycrumbhunger]

43. I'd start with "no child left behind"

Having barely survived getting two scary-smart kids through public school, my vote is that education in general is a farce. They aren't teaching kids to be productive citizens; they're teaching them to fall in line and spew out prescribed facts. Perform well, and the schools get their bonuses. Perform poorly (at least in FL), and they try their damnedest to get you out so you don't fuck up their statistics. Worst of all is if your kid is a thinker who dares to question why about anything because they don't have time or patience to deviate from the schedule. Over 20 years battling these people and I was lucky to get more than a 15-minute conference just before school (too inconvenient to meet me at a better time)--and I was there constantly. If I'd known how much our county's schools had deteriorated between my two kids, I would have let my daughter be home-schooled all the way and simply test out at her first opportunity. (As it was, she took her GED her senior year and scored high enough to be given a diploma from the state, which I didn't realize they could do.)

I can't say I had many truly great teachers, but my kids had exactly two between them who really cared. The rest of the experience simply pisses me off because my taxes pay for it all.

IMHO, education is geared toward creating a working class and no more. The ignorant are easier to control. Only problem is that we are now lagging pathetically behind the rest of the developed world and will pay hell trying to catch up. Intelligence hasn't been valued and neither has creativity--never mind that there are more important things in life to strive for.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERbvKrH-GC4">Alan Watts had it figured out.

[roody]

74. The testing is ruining education.

It is the ONLY measure by which a school, teachers, and principal are judged. The tests are grossly unfair and tricky. I will be administering them to third graders this coming week. If the legislators sat down and took some of the tests themselves, even primary grade ones, the law would quickly change.

[Deja Q]

50. If profits are the prime motivation, then we have lost our way as a culture.

Or, at least, the abuse of profiteering. Quality is pushed to the wayside just so more profits can be acquired. That is a waste of resources on every level.

And our students suffer as a result.

Our teachers suffer because they can't do too much.

Principals should be ashamed of themselves for fostering such indolence in the system and to just push people along.

Maybe fewer amounts of kids wouldn't get knocked up or breaking the law...?

But anyone who says teacher unions is a problem - to you I say you're a myopic little shill of tender toad vittles. It might have been easier just to call such a person a "worm"... Teachers, like tech support, is a profession where the worker is caught in the middle and is often the scapegoat for any number of maladies.

Enough is enough.

Please.

[w8liftinglady]

53. teaching to standardized tests...

My sons have spent the majority of their time learning how to pass these tests(the Taks test here).
My boyfriend,a teacher,hates the way he is unable to vary his teaching away from this.

[NashVegas]

54. Parents

Who have expectations that school's main function is to:

babysit
overlook their kids lack of discipline

[ebbie15644]

57. parent involvement

I have worked with children in schools for many years, I am not a teacher. I have been in schools that have high parent involvement and in schools with low parent involvement and that makes the difference with highly educated children. The schools with parents involved have high attendance to parent teacher meeting, higher school attendance, and higher testing scores. It's easy to blame the teachers, but it's more difficulty to call parents out. If you get parents involved, you will find the schools will become better.

[dysfunctional press]

58. 1.parents. 2.parents. 3.parents. 4.parents...

now, have i forgotten anyone?

until parents get more involved in their children's education and their children's schools, NOTHING will change.

[Mr. Hyde]

60. Ever occur to anyone that US students might be the problem with US schools?

probably not.

[ejpoeta]

61. i think the basic problem is the way school is thought of. it's not an investment

but a drain. and people don't seem to see it's importance. teachers are stuck just trying to get through the year without enough money for supplies and they get to teach kids to take a test instead of teaching them to think and learn and grow. Things like music and art are not seen as important, even if studies show that these things help children in all other areas. It's like people have a minimalist approach to school and then wonder why they end up with kids with a minimal education. First we need to instill a curiosity and a love of learning and knowing things. Once a child develops that thirst for knowledge, then it's easier to teach them.

I don't want to toot my horn, ehre... but i read to my 10 year old. all the time. whatever else we didn't have, we friggin had books. i bought them at yard sales and book fairs. sure they weren't the fancy bookstore books. they may have had drawing in them or rips. but we read them. and often. and when emily got to kindergarten, she was already reading a little. and she loved information. now at ten, she is reading above her level and reads a lot. her teachers are always amazed at her knowledge about things... and she is so excited to tell me about so many things she has learned. it does get annoying when she never stops. but her grades are top, even though she has ADHD. it was tough getting the school to get her tested because she wasn't having problems with learning and her grades. but I think the reading and instilling that love of learning is what has kept her doing so well in school.

I understand that this could change. she is only 10 after all. but i will continue to emphasize learning and reading and education. At least it gives her a head start if nothing else.

[ThomWV]

62. Seems to me the quesiton has 2 problems

You ask what the biggest problem with public education is and that presents two things to consider. One is the world of problems with public education and an evaluation without standards for which is of greatest concern. The answer probably likes somewhere between building maintenance and Administration qualifications but the universe of possible answers is so great that no rational comparison could be made. The second thing is implied, that there is some great but hard to identify problem with public education that presumable does not hinder private education or no education at all or some other kind of education that might exist bu eludes me at the moment. Now here's something you can sink your teeth into.

Is there a difference between private and public education in terms of the outcome? If so then it shouldn't be any more difficult than listing the attributes of one next to the other and comparing. If the outcomes are no different or very different, then what?

[scrinmaster]

66. Parents that don't care.

Teachers aren't the only ones responsible for teaching students.

[rucky]

68. Local funding through property taxes.

combined with wealthy suburbs breaking off from urban school districts.

[L0oniX]

70. FCAT ...it jukes the system.

For that matter, teaching people how to pass tests is not real teaching.

[proud2BlibKansan]

73. Funding

Not enough and an unfair system that funds schools serving middle and upper class communities better than lower class.

NCLB is another problem but our education system had problems for many years before this stupid law came about. It's also not a systemic problem. If it goes away, we will still have a lot left to fix.

[Enthusiast]

75. Proven methods of the past

were abandoned. When I was five years old I was sent to the first grade as there was no kindergarten. My wife attended first grade at six years old. It appears to us that teaching was more effective in those days-1960. For some reason those bygone teaching methods were abandoned in favor of 'new and improved' methods of teaching that were not as effective. It is telling that we were educated while not benefiting from kindergarten and pre-school yet today's students suffer from educational deficiencies. Something is very wrong. Today's teaching methods need to be examined with a critical eye.

[Fireweed247]

79. TV

Let's face it folks, these kids are learning how to be rude, disrespectful, focused on sex and being sexy in 6th grade and under, disliking all things intellectual, thinking it's cool to insult other kids, getting away with bullying... all from our wonderful American 'culture'.

[Fireweed247]

81. this is all by design

AS George Carlin says....'Education will never be fixed.. because the owners of this country don't want that. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want people sitting around the table talking about how bad they are being screwed. They want obedient workers.'

[LWolf]

83. Other:

A combination of factors, the weightiest being the use and abuse of the public education system as a tool of political manipulation and mass propaganda supporters.

When the political authoritarian model we are currently running is allowed to run amock, which it has been under NCLB and the previous state versions of the "standards and accountability movement," generations of future voters are conditioned not to think or act independently. That's a dangerous situation for a representative democracy. Add the consolidation of the msm in the hands of a few powerful owners, and the situation becomes more dire.

When public education can be the scapegoat, and the propaganda machine can encourage the public to consider the system incompetent, corrupt, etc. (while political maneuverings guarantee a broken system that CAN'T heal itself,) then politicians never have to confront the real reasons for educational failure, the number one being poverty. They can continue to allow the further division of classes, blaming the education system instead of themselves.

There are many, many problems within the system I'd like to address. All teachers would. Here's a link to a recent thread where many of those ideas are shared:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=5435933

Meanwhile, though, you asked what the biggest problem is, and I told you. It's not a problem "in education." It's a political and cultural problem.

[Coffee and Cake]

87. We strive towards mediocrity

Our educational system is joke and hardly challenging. We could probably condense k-12 to k-10 without any problems and have kids start college at the age of 16.

[TheKentuckian]

89. It starts with intent and/or methods

Kids generally have been taught to recall who's and where's with almost no focus on how's and why's.

Then there's the line of thinking by many (yes, even among otherwise standout parents) that their child's education is purely the teacher's job.

Of course we have stupidly insisted on unequal resources and facilities due to the way we fund mostly from property taxes.

Classes are way to large to do much other than to teach to the middle, which gives everyone else the shaft.

Like everything else in our society, the facts are up for debate. This leads to the most involved (and unfortunately nutty) to hijack the curriculum and the kids heads get stuffed with nonsense, opinion, and dogma.

We have long accepted schools to be places of indoctrination, rather than education. Everyone wants their slant to be passed on.

No nothing, do nothing parents.

Education being somewhere between undervalued to being actively undermined..

The general air of anti-intellectualism.

Cutting bait on the arts has not been beneficial and has helped to create less rounded people.

Traditionalism, I think is a dangerous part of the mix. The uniforms and rigidness are toxic to learning for many. I faired poorly in Christain school but excelled in a liberal and self directed environment, went from flunking out to twice in "Who's who" and had a full semester of college credit under my belt when I graduated.

The absence of "School House Rock".

Students not being invested and involved enough in their education.

[JI7]

91. thinking Learning should be fun or rewarded in a material way

people need to accept that it can be boring but you still need to learn it even if it wont help in getting a job or any other material gain.

not all kids need to go to 4 year colleges. some kids might be better off at trade schools and it's important to help these kids.

there needs to be more teaching of history and critical thinking.

[Jack_DeLeon]

92. Catering to the lowest common denominator...

allowing students who dont want to learn to hold back the rest of the class.

IMO school isnt for everyone, some people either cannot learn, or dont want to learn. We shouldnt cater to them to the detriment of others.