kat321
Posts: 66
Joined: 2/4/2011
Status: offline
|
Long post... but no apologies for it.
1) No I am not a K-12 teacher. I do, however, do more than my share of policy work and consider myself fairly fluent in educational systems from one-room school houses (which still exist int the US) to large-scale international systems comparisons.
2) I am a firm believer that Republicans and Democrats are responsible for the current state of education. There is equal blame to go around here. My earlier comment was leveled at the numerous posts here that seem to lay all the educational problems at the feet of "liberals" and that simply isn't the case. Pointing out that since "A Nation at Risk" came out in the mid 1980s educational reform has been spearheaded by conservatives is my way of saying that each group needs to own up to its responsibilities here. Any other stance muddies the waters and makes what should be a universal and civilized discussion a partisan free-for-all which does little for real live teachers and students in actual classrooms. Everyone has caused this problem.
3) I have never ascribed to the fund it fund it fund it mentality in education... nor, I believe, do many of us on either side of the proverbial fence who are serious about any sort of systemic reform. What many of us are willing to do that most won't is address all of the realities and inconsistencies that come from the funding mechanisms peculiar to the US educational system. NCLB was underfunded, but it was bad policy, and IMO, shouldn't have made it out of committee, let alone receive gobs of money. The linked article by Chester Finn lacks much detail (which is what happens when Finn writes for newspapers.... His complete analyses are generally well informed, if not absent of the bias of the think tank he works for.). Concerning the article, it fails to mention the costs of testing systems and scoring (a single test per child given once in grades 4, 8, and 12 is not what was offered to schools by publishing companies), increased requirements for the education of special needs students and ELLs, as well as the ability to pay for requirements of private after school programs should "adequate yearly progress" not be made. Finn relies on an earlier analysis by McFarland that calculated the bare minimum of what NCLB would require as opposed to the likely state expenditures after all was said and done. At the time, Finn was working to build support for NCLB under President Bush, who he supported completely in terms of education policy. He wrote to back the party line, which was his job. He has since written on why NCLB should be modified, though admittedly he still holds on to the big-business accountability model that NCLB ushered in to our collective educational consciousness.
Funding of special programs or new initiatives, IMO, should be a function of the likelihood of the program to meet its stated goals in terms of student learning. Many current efforts supported by liberals and conservatives do not meet this criteria. Take charter schools and vouchers.... Accountability should exist with charters, but so many states are so vested in the schools' success, that programs have been egregiously renewed without the schools making any academic gains by the expiration of their charter. Voucher schools have never had any requirements tied to state funding. To be fair, I will also mention that the newest voucher legislation in places like Indiana, for the first time, is forcing private schools that accept vouchers to give the state accountability tests. I don't know offhand if there are any punitive measures associated with poor performance on the tests.
4) We do put a lot of money into education in the US....sort of.... however it is at the local level- outside of federal purview- where most of the money is spent. We spend relatively LITTLE as a percentage of our GDP: about 4.1% for K-12 education (spending on higher education puts us at about 7%). Internationally this places the US behind the UK, Switzerland, NZ, Iceland, Denmark, Israel, Norway, Sweden and Korea. It puts us ahead of Finland, France Italy, Germany and Japan. (Current funding data is not available through the OECD for China, India, and some of the bigwigs in test performance.) If US citizens have a problem with education funding, the argument is misconstrued if the burden is placed at the feet of the federal government. While it is true that some federal mandates, like IDEA, do end up making education cost more, the bulk of collection and allocation of educational funding occurs at the state and local level.
5) From some of the posts by US citizens here, it seems as if many are woefully lacking concerning knowledge of international education. The last time I was in an Indian classroom, children were not learning trigonometry by scratching problems in the sand. In fact, the Indian education system, like many worldwide, is marked by tremendous differences in access based on wealth. The kids I saw doing trig were working on SmartBoards in very well appointed classrooms. The children in poverty-stricken rural areas were not so fortunate in their particular educational circumstance. The number of children not receiving any form of education was disheartening.
Most international data points to somethings that all of the comments here avoid. The two biggest determinants, worldwide, in educational achievement are the educational attainment of the parents and affluence. This is not to say poor students or students whose parents never went to school are unable to learn; only that these two factors are the most consistent indicators of educational 'success'. Countries that have large populations living in poverty generally do not fair well on international comparisons like the PISA as education is not doled out equally to all citizens in all countries. Note that it was Shanghai that had amazing results on the recent PISA assessments.... not China. Once like students are tested internationally against like students (e.g. testing only affluent students from different countries) US students post much more favorable results. No one really has a sound answer as to how to seriously address this issue.
6) If we really want to do the evolution-creationism thing, I suggest another thread. Thus far, the posts here seem to be devoid of any reference to the scientific definition of what a theory is as opposed to how we use the term in the vernacular. That difference is the reason creationism should not be in science classrooms (though a world religions class would be a great place for it.) But, again, that's another thread.
Have at it.....
|
RE: Looks like no child left behind is going down - 
Profile
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread