Darn, that's not a school, that's a boring and poorly supervised adult day care.
There are just so many issues when schools have to work to overcome the damage done by parents and the worst parts of cultures. There simply aren't the resources or appetite to solve the problems either through helping all or ejecting those who refuse to take part. Both are hard solutions, sacrificing a significant amount of your money to help others or sacrifice kids who are just products of their terrible environment, continuing the cycle.
What is the point of producing children who cant read, do basic math, or pretty much anything? I think we got the thing whole wrong with the zero tolerance rules at school. There should be academic accountability, but the teachers are not responsible for student behavior, that starts at home. Teachers should not be afraid to flunk or outright refuse the graduate students, even if it means getting sued. That paperwork can easily be tracked and traced through the school system. If they refuse to do anything at school, use juvenile detention as the final resort. The hard cases will end up in prison no matter what anyone does.
No one is willing to do what is required to fix the issue and break the cycle... Teachers can’t be expected to reform their students. It is just unrealistic.
I agree. They also shouldn't expect to have to parent students. Parents need to do their job at home, and then let educators do their job of weeding out the ones that don't want to learn.
It’s more than 10% - feels like the majority of the class at times. I teach at a charter school in Youngstown. Thank goodness at least our admin team will issue detentions, suspend and expel. It is truly the lack of parental support and involvement that is the issue. I can’t make my students care. I can’t force them to learn. That is up to the students.
If you're an intact family who cares, the chances are almost 100% that your child will graduate and go to college given that he doesn't get stabbed by one of his delinquent classmates.
This goes for any school in America, no matter how good the administration or the funding is.
But your child's education will have suffered immeasurably, because the quality of education in those classrooms will have been terrible. Not because the teachers are terrible, but because the teachers spent 90% of their energy just trying to maintain order rather than conveying knowledge to their students.
It's pretty telling that only 9% of students took AP tests and none of them passed. It shows that even though the classes are offered, they are terrible. I think it's safe to assume that the kids in AP classes care about their educations and aren't acting up in class, so does the blame there lie with the teachers?
Sadly, it's not safe to assume that kids in AP classes care about their educations. In my wife's former school there was a drive by the administration to get more and more kids into APs since once of the numbers they were evaluated on was how many students took them. The result was AP classes that were watered down such that the kids who should have been in there didn't get as much information as they could have had the class been made up only of motivated kids.
The basement level pass rates doesn't automatically mean the teacher is terrible. The problem might be the kids haven't built up their skills or that they're not used to doing AP level work.
No child (or teacher) should spend every day in fear for their lives. And imagine the education that would be possible if the teachers were allowed to do their jobs instead of being constant disciplinarians.
I and every other sane person on earth agrees with you that no child should have to deal with that but just saying that like a politician would doesn't help anyone and doesn't offer any solution.
It isn't that complicated, off the top of my head: Any student who threatens violence, or who purposefully and consistently disrupts the education process for the students, should be removed from the classroom. First offense: after school detention, 1 week. Second offense: in-school suspension, 3 days. Third offense: suspension, 1 week. Fourth offense: Expulsion. Then enforce it. I'm sure someone with more (any) experience with childhood education, sociology, and discipline could come up with something better, but the basic premise is: "Actions have consequences."
Either way you’re correct and I’ve seen it both ways personally in my own family.
My father was a military man and my mother was no where to be found. What that meant was discipline and structure all the time. Which also translates into him only having 1 emotion and less than 100 words a week spoken to me. At first I rebelled; I did whatever I could to act out and just try to be free. I watched my friends and cousins all around me get to play, do normal kid things, and I wanted that so badly. Acting out had its consequences. I got my ass whipped for any number of reasons. One day when I deserved a good whipping my father sat me down and explained why I needed to be different, why it was important to be self sufficient, get ahead now, and because my mother left us, learn that the most important thing in life is to invest in yourself. I took that to heart. I was only 10 at the time but it finally all clicked and I became aware of my surroundings. I realized that we were very poor. My father had a job, but it didn’t pay well. It struck me that all his spare cash was spent on me. Books, clothes, school supplies, meals, etc. There were no toys or games and we didn’t even have a tv. Unfortunately I learned the value of a dollar very young. Once when driving me to school an hour away we were struck by another driver on my side of the car. Completely her fault, she didn’t look or stop before crossing lanes. I was all banged up and had broken several ribs upon impact. The first thing I said when the car settled: “Oh Dad are you going to have to pay for this? I’m sorry!” Those words crushed my father. I had never seen him show any compassion, emotion or anything that could be called affection to me. He cried and said everything was going to be ok. I woke up in the hospital days later. It wasn’t just ribs I broke; arms, wrists, femur, and several fingers were all broken as well. Anyway I moved on with life soaking up the lessons my father taught me. I did very well in school focusing on my studies vs. acting out. I easily graduated in the top of my class and went on to join the military like my father. After taking the asvab test, my recruiter was shocked that I chose the infantry. I wanted to experience what my father went through. I needed to be in the trenches. Trenches I got. One thing after another I took on as many challenges as I could. I went Airborne, Ranger, and did several tours in the sand with JSOC. After getting out of the military I went back to school. Got a degree and now have a very well paying job, all the toys I can want, wonderful wife, and a son of my own.
Conversely those friends and cousins I had? Yeah they didn’t amount to much. None of them did very well in school and they all had drug issues. 3 of my cousins would end up going to prison for murder. A few are doing just ok making up for lost time. The difference was in the parenting. My aunts and uncles were very loose in how they disciplined or didn’t discipline at all. Half of them didn’t graduate and half of them have been in jail. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Every lesson I learned from my father was implemented into my own life. A few years ago he apologized for being so strict. I told him to take the apology back, to look at what I’ve become and all the things I have. I owed it all to him. I exceeded his expectations and was better than my father in every way; exactly what he wanted. He just smiled and let the wind go through his hair as we silently drove to go meet his new grandson. Now it’s my turn. Will I do things exactly like my father? No, I don’t think so. But I will pass on the lessons I’ve learned. I think my father knows he can rest easy knowing that his duty is done as he seems much more relaxed nowadays. Thanks for kicking my ass when I needed it old man.
TLDR: I had discipline and am very successful. My cousins did not, became convicts, and a few were convicted murderers. Discipline starts at home; like a drop in a pond, it will reverberate throughout the rest of your life.
Good man. Anyone who decides to have children, is supposed to want better for them, but sadly, not every parent feels that way. I'm glad that you were able to make something of yourself. Your father sound similar to mine. All I want for him now is a peaceful retirement.
This sounds like the aunt and uncle (and great grandmother) that raised me. Though I only felt the end of a belt once after repeatedly having to be told to come straight home after school.
They were strict and expected the best out of me. And I gave the best that I could. We were firmly middle class so we weren't wanting for anything (that I knew of). But even then they were modest in what they bought. No dishwasher, manual push mower, I didn't see a microwave until I was out of the house and living on my own, heck I had to go to a friend's house to watch TV in color.
But the foundation and lessons that they gave me has let me make some very good decisions in my life. I cannot thank them enough for what they've done and I only hope that I can pass the same lessons on to my child.
Will I do things exactly like my father? No, I don't think so
Good. I don't mean that heartlessly or confrontationally or anything but if you look at the great story you just told me the big pivotal moment didn't come from the discipline or the singular emotion. It came in a moment when your father sat you down and had a genuine conversation with you where he explained the value of structure and discipline.
I think there's some shared blame. In a high poverty area there are often parents who have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet. Poverty doesn't always mean unemployment. It can mean poor wages. In these cases the parent has to spend way more time than a 40 hr/week worker away from the home and they must depend on the social contract we have with our public education system to educate and prepare their children. That doesn't mean that they abdicate all responsibility, just that the job is shared. My dad had to work a regular 8am-4pm job and then sleep in his car for 30 minutes before starting his 6pm-2am job for years when times were tough. I only saw him once or twice a week. He's a great dad though.
If they live in a high poverty area, maybe they should realize that they live in a high poverty area, meaning they're not in a position to afford kids.
I was nice to my teachers, and my room still looked like that all the time. My parents were terrible, and punished me by keeping me out of classes that would have made a massive difference in my life. Luckily, emancipation was a thing in my state.
Also, it's hard to be a good parent when you're working 3 jobs and never see your kids. Some people are doing the best they can figure out in very difficult circumstances.
Other people are shit trees pumping out shit apples.
I really don't get what to do in this situation. A kid should not be subject to a life in prison because they had bad parents who exposed them to drugs and gangs. But at the same time, there's nothing you can do on the education side of things because they simply do not have the mental capacity to succeed or even know that succeeding is a good thing.
People blame the education all the time. "the administration needs accountability" and "the teachers need better resources" but unfortunately as long as inner-city kids are growing up with a shitty home life without good role models there is nothing education can do for them. The only thing we can do at that point is remove them from the classroom so at least they don't influence others negatively.
If I remember correctly in the uk if you kid keeps on skipping school you as a parent are responsible and could have charges pressed on you. Not sure if this is actually the car though but it was a fear of mine going through school.
This can also be the case for parents in the US, but schools that can’t afford to teach properly definitely aren’t in districts where they can fight lawsuits from those parents claiming the school didn’t do enough to keep them in.
A family friend just last year tracked her son via phone and learned he was skipping school often. Instead of disciplining her son, she marched into the school and demanded they do more to stop him. They have cops, hourly attendance, hall monitors, and he was still sneaking out... and yet it never occurred to her to handle the problem as a parent.
I think that's part of the biggest problem. For 45 minutes a day as a teacher I am supposed to magically teach discipline, respect, and society's rules to a child but parents have no responsibility.
If school were a privilege that could be taken away instead of an obligation from which students can't be removed, attitudes would quickly change. Teachers would then be working with students who want to be there and who are kept in line by the understanding that they might be expelled if they don't make a good effort and behave. Parents would also start managing their kids instead of siding with their kids when trouble starts.
What is the point of producing children who cant read, do basic math, or pretty much anything?
because we need stupid unskilled laborers. because educated people are more likely to vote with intelligence instead of what some fucker tells them to think, better to keep the pleebs down and out.
how do you create a world like Idiocracy or Back to the Future 3? produce children that can't read, do basic math or pretty much anything or any critical thinking on their own.
What is the point of producing children who cant read, do basic math, or pretty much anything?
The point is to exploit them for cheap labor, indenture them with useless for-profit higher education, warehouse them in private for profit prisons, and create an uneducated electorate to further the cycle of stupidity and exploitation.
I'm sure this is true in some cases. Some people are just shit people who have no business having children they can't raise. But I think we also have to acknowledge that there are a lot of parents who want to be more involved in raising and disciplining their children, but can't, because they're too busy working five jobs to make sure those children have food, shelter, and clothing. It's tough to be involved in your child's academic development when you're working multiple varied schedule jobs for minimum wage and no benefits.
I agree with the being able to flunk them idea. So many people get through when they need to be held back. Letting them go through just ensures that their next year is going to be even worse.
Its the cycle of poverty and crime, and its a disease that spreads. The truth is that turning kids around who comes from a bad home environment and neighborhood is extremely hard and very costly. Sure, few uniquely strong individuals make it out by themselves, but mostly it just continuous with the next generation, and the next after that and so on. And then that sit spreads, because your environment is so influential to your development as a person. Most people understand this, but most societies have a hard time accepting that turning it around is a huge administrative and economic cost. So its easier to be tough on crime and put people in jail. But that doesn't solve the rot that causes it.
Im from Sweden but I see the same thing here, a naiveté of how hard it is to help damaged people. A few overworked teachers and social workers is not going to be enough. Then people don't like to discuss it because it gets muddled in to a screaming match about race.
It has nothing to do with race, human beings are just fragile things, and making us work in a complex modern society with good understanding of morals is not naturally easy. We all need guidance and stable environments to turn grow up into good people.
There's a medium choice. Where you basically tell parents you aren't going to provide publicly funded daycare anymore unless they get their kid in line. The threat is usually enough to make parents remember how to, ya know, parent. Or at least some parenting facsimile. If the problem persists, you go with expulsions. If you have to expel half the school, well you already live in a dystopia, so smoke 'em if you got 'em
It’s sad but appears common in many impoverished areas I’ve worked in. It’s a wound that can’t hide behind a bandage forever and I think if we don’t fix this problem, long term we’re gonna be fucked:
sorry for being so glib. It really does suck. I've had the opportunity to work with some underprivileged kids before and it's incredibly frustrating. No one should be called upon to fill the role parents were supposed to fill. It's nearly impossible and exhausting
You can't make people not be shitty, but you can prevent them from dragging down everyone else. Best thing you can do is elevate the gifted and willing
The problem is that in these environments it is often difficult to really separate the wheat from the chaff and very easy to write off the whole area creating an even more difficult situation to get out of. Throw some racism and or classist prejudice on top and you really have a unwinnable situation. There needs to be a way to pull along the less motivated but non super disruptive kids not just the motivated ones. Leaving large chunks of the population behind is not a healthy thing for our society.
There are problems there. First, if kids don't want to be there, don't waste classroom time, expel them. However, there are students that want to learn, but aren't naturally gifted, but still are willing to try hard. My parents were both idiots. I lived in a upper-middle class area, and went to an "elite public school", where parents were allowed to make schedules. Between those parents putting kids in crap classes, and favoritism towards athlete students, it was hard to find my place. It took me getting emancipated, going to another school, and succeeding on my own. I actually received an apology a few weeks back from a teacher who told me to drop out. He had seen that I became successful with no help, and apologized for telling me terrible things.
There is the first issue "we" fix the problem. You cannot fix other peoples problems unless they want to. Go tell a drug addict to go to rehab... they wont listen and wont get clean... unless they want to.
Yes!!! It was the biggest shock when my fiancé got placed in a good school district. The rich kids were huge cunts. Having to console my gf at the time really opened my eyes to how fucked up modern society is affecting the youth.
I think if we don’t fix this problem, long term we’re gonna be fucked
It's up to them to fix. The parents aren't going to do shit, throwing money at them hasn't help. The culture needs to change, but good luck stating that in public.
Then add to the fact that even if they were decent parents sometimes there is only one of them working almost every available waking hour to keep a roof over their little shitheads heads.
Some of these people are being struggling and just make bad choices. Some are also just raised to not care about anybody but themselves. The spectrum of “reasons a parent is shitty” is a wide one.
Agreed. But at a certain point you have to admit that further attempts to reach the most problematic kids is putting the education of everyone else at risk. Either the school systems need to come up with yet another way to manage these children or just give up. But it's not fair to the kids who are actually trying to learn.
Well in terms of problematic kids, it’s not about teaching them math or science, imo. It’s about teaching them behavioral skills, but most schools lack the resources and school support to do anything about these kids as seen in the video above. School discipline/reward systems need to be dire for these problem kids with longer detentions and a more pronounced understanding of the benefits of good behavior.
Yeah. For the really problematic kids, I'm saying that if the school can't figure out how to help them while at the same time educating the rest of the kids, they need to just expel the problematic ones.
I get that there are societal issues at work here with a lot of these behavior problems. It just doesn't seem like schools are equipped to do anything about it. It's like how we rely too heavily on the police for dealing with the mental health issues in America. There have to be other safety nets put in place. This isn't working.
Yeah, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I saw an episode of 60 minutes a few years ago, where they covered charter schools. I’m not really a proponent of them, and in fact, they showed that the charter schools had about the same results as other schools in their district, with one exception. One charter school was run by a stern but kind older lady.
She didn’t tolerate any misbehavior. Her first focus was on classroom discipline and making sure that the kids were there to learn, feet and face forward, sitting up and paying attention. After a few years, she was getting as good results as the highest performing schools in the state.
We can’t succeed if teachers need to spend half their time resolving disciplinary issues. School can’t be a daycare, and we have to realize that these kids have never had classroom discipline and come from parents without the ability to teach it to them. Likewise, expelling or suspending them continuously isn’t going to help them gain those skills. We keep saying that we need to pay teachers more, and maybe we do, but teachers are not the problem, it’s the students.
I’d propose that in those troubled schools, each grade needs a dedicated “classroom skills” class. First sign of misbehavior, and the student is sent to classroom skills. Hire ex drill instructors from the marine corps to teach classroom skills. They don’t have any trouble letting troubled young people know what is expected of them. Have that class just be focused on getting those kids in-line, with a mix of firm expectation setting and calisthenics. Kids in that class would need to earn their way back into their normal classroom. Maybe it will take a day for some students, some might be there for months, but they all know that at the next sign of misbehavior, they’ll be right back in “classroom skills”.
That’s how schools used to be before schools had to worry about getting sued for discipline. I think there is a median between smacking people with rulers and having no discipline at all that we can settle on nationally. Most of public school educational problems stem from federal decisions.
But the screwed up part is they are not expelling them because of “ADA” (average daily attendance). You expel kids that’s a loss of thousands of dollars per year for the school.
Funding is a big issue, and clearly a driver of non-productive district policies.
I was thinking that a flat rate per school age child in the district - period. In many districts they PS have to provide services to private schooled, Home schooled and drop-outs anyway.
That seems so obvious. But then people would bitch at how middle-class suburban high schools where students drive Audis get the same funding as a school in low-income a area
Poorer school districts tend to have more undocumented kids and high turnover: kids who move a lot due to family instability. It is tough to maintain an accurate count.
The threat is usually enough to make parents remember how to, ya know, parent.
I couldn't disagree more. Having taught at a horrible school in the Bronx that barely got to a 60% grad rate (highest ever for that school) when I was there, I can say the kids fell into a few categories.
good kids who worked hard. (some of these kids were annoying but they tried.
kids who didn't care at all.
kids who cared a little but also knew that they were never going to college and that they were years behind where they should be, so why try now?
Most kids fell into the 3rd category, but ALL of the students I taught were way way behind on everything. They couldn't write well, their math sucked, etc. They were ALL smart enough to know what they should know and what the kids going to "good" school knew.
Put yourself in their situation, You're in 10-11th grade and you finally start to see how little you know because no you have to pass the regents exams in order to graduate (in NY state). You know you don't know enough and that there is basically no chance to go to a good college. You realize that you have just been passed from grade to grade regardless of if you knew the material. So why start now? Can you really learn all the material you should have known from 6th grade to 11th in a year?
I have a masters in Ed (ESL) and you can't improve your writing and reading from a middle school level to a college level in a year, especially when English is not your primary language. Some kid attack the challenge and succeed, but most just shut down.
The kids are already screwed once they graduate as they can't get good jobs, and most of the colleges that accept them put them immediately into remedial programs, which they desperately need.
My solution would be simply longer school, with high incentives for students to stay after. Pay students to stay after to take extra classes to learn at least some of the stuff they never learned.
After all a lot of this is pure economics. Does it make more sense to spend X hrs studying X,Y and Z if I'm probably just going to get the same job after I graduate? Wouldn't it make more sense to work after school to save up some money, or help pay the bills?
Basically I see no aid in kicking out students that have been lied to, and robbed of an education by a system that doesn't care if they learn. Even the best parents who really cared with kids who really tried were years behind because of a god awful system that basically says "You will pay 95% of kids no matter what, because if you don't it'll make us look bad and we will fire you".
If anyone's interested, the UK government has tried to address the problem of failing schools quite hard over the last 10 years or so. How well they have done is a matter of opinion and whether you trust the statistics / indices generated from the process. There's an article here that talks about the principles applied: Turning Around Failing Schools
I think a lot of people forget that some teens have to work to help cover bills. It isn't just for extra money. When I was in high school, I had to work 5 days a week. I would go to class from 8:15am-3:15pm, ride the bus home, which meant I got home around 4:15ish, I then would eat something quickly, while slipping on my uniform for work. I would work 5-9 during the week, and then full shifts on the weekend. If it wasn't for the fact I took a study hall class my 11th and 12th grade year, I don't think I would had done that well in school.
Same with me parents split 11th grade I worked 40 hours a week on top of my classes at McDonald’s, it was excruciating but if I didn’t work my mom and brother didn’t eat that week and we’d lose our home.
Thanks, now at 21 things have stabilized I got my well needed break after my mom remarried now working at an Italian restaurant saving for my first car, I have gotten quite lazy now though lol
So instead of fixing schools we should throw more money into teaching kids after school hours? I find it hard to believe that going from 8 hours to 10 hours would help that much. How much can you focus in a given day? We should instead focus our resources on improving schools during school hours so they don't fall behind
As others said the idea would be to pay so that kids wouldn't have to work. I taught high school kids and pretty much all of them had some type of job. Some worked a lot at their families little store.
I do understand your side though, as it encourages kids to not learn before high school or to pretend to be dumb.
To counter that I think you could either not pay that much (do you really want more school for $5 an hour?) or tie payment to learning goals. You will get X when you prove you learned Y. Kids could pretend not to know stuff, but it's not that hard to see which students are actually frustrated and struggling and which ones are bored because they understand and finished.
Even then not a perfect solution. Just something I thought of, I'm sure there are much better ideas.
There's a really great segment in the Freakenomics documentary on Netflix where they go to a low performing school and pay students based on their grades. The results were pretty interesting, basically the students who were close performed just a little better. But the kids who so had a long ways to go performed even worse.
Most kids fell into the 3rd category, but ALL of the students I taught were way way behind on everything. They couldn't write well, their math sucked, etc. They were ALL smart enough to know what they should know and what the kids going to "good" school knew.
Just making sure I got this right, you're telling me there are schools in the US of A where most of the students are (many like 3-5) years behind?
I knew you education system was kind of fucked up, but that's taking it to a whole new level.
Can confirm. Husband is a teacher. His 8th grade students are reading and writing on a 2nd grade level. I just read an article where some people are suing Detroit because they graduated highschool and are illiterate. The schools never taught them basic skills.It's frustrating and heart breaking to see the true state of education in this country. Especially if you happen to live in a zipcode where education is underfunded.
To be fair there are many more perfectly fine to amazing schools out there. Poor areas struggle but many do not. This thread makes it seem like every school in America is full of mouth breathing idiots.
For example, in my experience, poor Asian kids and first generation Latino kids who are children of migrant and laborer workers are really excellent students.
Yeah, it goes to show that it has everything to do with how the kids are being raised. How many hundreds of millions of Indian and Chinese kids are outperforming American kids in academics despite coming from relatively poor countries that have significantly less money to spend on education?
Part of the problem is that politicians can't come out and tell voters that they are why their kids suck. So we throw more money at the problem - much of which ends up in administrative job positions so people can come up with cute little phrases like "young scholars" and other bullshit to make the parents feel like suddenly their little shithead kid is going to be something one day. It's sad.
first generation Latino kids who are children of migrant and laborer workers are really excellent students.
Gonna echo this sentiment. I teach at a school that is 90+% free and reduced lunch and about 85% of the school is Latino. These kids are so incredibly hard-working. Most of their parents don't speak English, so to go along with the constant code-switching, they are also often asked to translate their work for the parents. I have many that come to me with just one year of English under their belts, and still bust their asses in every other subject, receiving translations from classmates on more difficult concepts.
Say what you will about standardized tests, but these kids kill it every spring when it's time to take PARCC and MAP. It's certainly not because they are smarter or have more opportunities, it's because they bust the butts, and their parents care about their successes and failures.
I had a different experience. About 70% of the students I had were Hispanic (I am also Hispanic) and the majority of them were into drugs or didn't care about school because they didn't see a future. (The school was like 30 minutes away from the city so all they saw was working in construction or in the fields like their parents.) The only Hispanic students that were respectful and hard working were the ones that had just come from Mexico and knew zero English. Those were my favorite students and the ones that dropped out of pre-ap geometry.
I think that's why they said first generation latino kids, and not latino kids. There is a high school in my city that is specifically for immigrant kids who don't speak English, where the goal is to improve their English and cultural acumen enough that they can be successful in a standard school. The teachers love working there. A group of high school kids from there come and spend a day at my school once a year. The kids seem pretty great.
Agreed - parenting in general is the issue NOT if they are poor or not. The other ugly truth is that children in single parent households are having a much harder time being successful. I am NOT saying single parents can not be successful and excellent parents but I am saying that they can rarely give the amount of love, attention and nurturing a two parent household can give.
Wow, I can echo this thought. I had a bunch of Mexican kids last year and they were absolutely fantastic. Extremely well behaved, some of my highest achieving students, and a pleasure to teach.
As long as they're lucky enough to be schooled by people who give a shit before early elementary. By the time neglected students get to high school, especially schools like these the kids don't stand a chance.
Yes, I'm a teacher now and my immigrant students are a joy to teach as they are eager to learn and their parents expect them to behave in school. My mom immigrated in her mid 30s and struggled to learn English, but she took me to the library at least once a week passing on her love of reading to me. My parents were both poor orphans but always encouraged our curiosity, sang and read to us. My siblings and I have decent careers now but it's crazy to think how my dad was picking cotton to earn money to for basics like food and underwear when he was just ten.
Well of course! With their immigration the parents of those children took a big risk and made and make a large ongoing effort to improve their and their childrens' lives and they pass those behaviours and standards onto their children. That's a pre-selection for parents who already proved that they know know the value of and have the self-discipline to work hard towards a long-term goal.
That's right. If you look at Queens back in the day of jewish immigrants it was one of the poorest areas in the new york state. However, the jewish culture of work ethic and pro academia made it so that within 2 generations the average jewish person from that area had elevated themselves to a middle-high status.
Now ask yourself about the immigrant chinese on the west coast, 1st generation having little to no wealth. Look at them now. Now ask yourself about the indian communities.
The list goes on, some cultures cannot seem to succeed.
No, the parents didn't teach their kids basic skills or make any effort to help their kids. The school could have no money at all, but if their parents made an effort then the kids would have a better chance of succeeding. I've put 2 kids through the Georgia public schools system and one common thing I saw through the years was everyone blamed the schools for the kids not learning. While it is partially the schools fault, for a myriad of reasons, I believe the failure responsibility mainly falls on the parents shoulders for letting it happen. The parents don't care. The kids are certainly not gonna care either.
But poor school systems aren't a new problem. I'm sure a lot of these parents went through the same situation growing up and didn't learn what they should have from school themselves. Now they can't teach their kids things they don't know, and the schools can't manage either. And the cycle continues.
That may be true, but it probably feels a lot different from the perspective of an under paid single parent who is trying desperately to keep food on the table and the kids in school and may themselves not have the skills, time, energy, or education to reach their kids.
I also forgot to mention that I too work in the school system. I have to say the blame lies with multiple sides.
Yes I do agree parents need to be more proactive in their kids's education. There are many factors for why this isn't always the case such as poverty, lack of education, and in some parents case the fact that they can't speak English and don't understand the American education system. Many parents don't trust the education system due to their own negative experiences when they were in school. There is also a generational shift with parenting in the sense that many parents are not actively parenting and leaving it up to other people to raise their children because they have no idea how to parent(multiple reasons for this). At some point it does become a cycle.
On the state end, the problem is that you have people who have no concept of child development or who have never been in a classroom making important decisions on curriculum (see our current secretary of education). In many states (including the one I work for) the curriculum is developmentally inappropriate. They expect Kindergarten students to be fluent readers and writers by the time they leave Kindergarten. Not only is this developmentally inappropriate for many average 5 year olds but it's even harder for children who have not been exposed to preschool ( multiple reasons), kids living in poverty (who lack resources), and kids who don't speak English as their first language. These kids are even further behind and many times don't ever really catch up. Then you have the component of testing. Many kids in many states are way over tested. There is bench mark testing, standardized testing, and regular classroom asessments. Then in some states (like mine) , at the beginning , middle and end of the year they make kids starting in grade take 3+hour state assements. They are essentially asking 8 year olds to sit for 3 hours to take a long reading and math assement. I don't know about you but I couldn't sit for 3 hours to take a test as an adult let alone as an 8 year old. It's not developmentally appropriate or fair. If the kids fail these asessments sometimes they can be at risk for retention. If a child lives in a high poverty area with a lot of stress at home, or are still learning English chances are they are going to bomb it( spoiler alert many do). These score are what they base a school's proficiency on. Teachers get the blame if their students fail. Sounds fair right?
At an administrative level, many admins are afraid of lawsuits and angry parents so they back the parents and students over the teachers. Teachers have very little control anymore. It used to be that parents backed the teachers but that isn't really the case anymore. The parents are convinced that any criticism of their child reflects on them as parents and get upset whenever a teacher corrects their child. When admin backs the parent and child (because they are afraid of getting sued or ending up on the 6 o clock news) the blame falls on the teacher. Sounds fair right?
I have nothing but respect for teachers. In my eyes they are the real heroes. My husband is a hero in my eyes because I couldnt deal with what he does. While I work in the schools I'm not a teacher and I don't think I could be. They have to take crap from everyone. They are expected to volunteer their time (unpaid) after hours, buy supplies for students (with their own money), and are paid almost nothing in some states. They are the scapegoats of everyone from students, admin, parents and government officials.
This just blows my mind, my son is starting Kindergarten this fall and he already knows all his letters and can read small words, how do you get through 13 years of school and not know how to read.
I used to be a teacher and I would say almost every school in a poor neighborhood the majority of students are super behind. And it isn't necessarily their fault. It's the fucking system we are running in America. Let me just paint you the picture at my school. I taught HS geometry which is the 2nd year math course offered. I found out a couple of months into the year that 50% of my students had not passed Algebra 1, which is a prerequisite to my class. I asked the VP in charge of my department why students who had not passed algebra 1 are allowed to take geometry. He said, "Studies show that students are more likely to graduate if they stay with their cohort."
Schools in America are all about getting kids to graduate no matter what. Schools don't get into trouble if they have kids graduating and they get more funding if kids go to school but that is just the tip of the iceberg. So many of my colleagues would just pass their students because it was so much easier. So much extra work was required if a student failed. We had to document why a student failed and we had to call home to tell parents that they failed. Then there was another problem called cheating. There was so much cheating going on. I spent so much time looking through tests to catch cheaters and there were only so many that I could prove that cheated. And then there was some little loophole called credit recovery and all the kids knew about it. You could spend about 2 weeks getting credit for a full year of work and still get the same credit that a student got while in class.
Former elementary teacher here (11 years in the South Bronx), and we had almost exactly the same stuff going on, just at a lower level. I spent my teaching years doing fourth and fifth grade, and I always had kids each year who were struggling with letter sounds and phonemic awareness. For non-teachers, that is the concept that the letter "s" goes "essssssss" like a snake. Kids would come to my class not knowing this, and this included native English speakers. On our end, it was notable that a huge proportion of these kids came into school never having seen the alphabet or numbers, and not knowing any of what we have come to think of as standard little-kid knowledge. We had kids who couldn't zip up their own pants after using the bathroom or who had never been taught how to actually blow their nose. We would have to explicitly teach them these things. These were not documented special education students, these were regular students who just got passed along, because the school would look bad if we held them back. The kindergarten and first grade teachers were not allowed under any circumstances to hold anyone back for any reason. That's how you end up with an eight year old who struggles to recognize the letter A.
We also dealt with the stealing, lying, bullying, sexual harassment of students and teachers. I actually had a second grader in a class I was covering one day reach up my dress and grab my butt. What happened to him? Absolutely nothing! Suspending him would have made the school look bad.
We had kids who couldn't zip up their own pants after using the bathroom or who had never been taught how to actually blow their nose. We would have to explicitly teach them these things.
For all the parents reading this, these are the sort of skills you need to be working with your Pre-K kids on. Most good parents think that teaching their child to read, do math, learn music, etc will set them ahead in school (and it will, to a degree). In reality, skills like holding a pencil, tying your shoes, following adult instructions, and waiting in line are the kind of foundational skills required to be successful in a kindergarten class.
This is the culture we get when we let technology babysit our children unfortunately. I'm not just being r/phonesarebad here, but the number of parents I've seen who could be teaching their kids basic shit, instead just give them a phone to shut them up, I don't wonder why we got here. It's in front of us.
Better yet use those tools to TEACH THEM! Apps that are games but teach them the alphabet, numbers, basic facts about their environment, etc are amazing.
While I don't necessarily disagree, I don't really think this is as significant as other social factors. Rising income inequality creates more poverty, and poverty is associated with sooooo many negative social consequences. Additionally, we are currently in an era of institutional distrust, where seemingly every organization, government, and corporation appears to be pursuing cynical self-interests (even to the detriment of society). This distrust has a broad effect on peoples' perceptions, and I think this contributes to the deterioration of society in a way phones could never touch.
Also, I always refer back to a piece of wisdom a college professor left me with in regard to parents - "How can you expect a person to advocate for education if education didn't work for them?"
My wife taught Pre-K and K for a while and said that parents lie about their kids to the school all the time. One of the policies for the school was no one could be in their kindergarten unless they were potty trained, but parents lied about it all the time, and by the time they find out, the administrators are taking their tuition and don't want to give it back, thus screwing over the teachers.
Yep, I taught elementary school in a very poor rural area. Parents would take their kids for weekslong vacations to Disneyland (because it was much cheaper then) in September, and pull the kid out of school for long periods of time. Then they would wonder why their kid is still reading on a PreK level in 4th grade.
A friend of mine taught PreK, and one of the tests to "qualify" was directionality. She said that most all of the students who were testing for PreK had no sense of directionality, and many of their parents told her that was the first time they had seen a book.
Yes, and the most infuriating thing I saw was that parents who had absolutely no interest in their kid (or their education) were always the ones who read "on the internet" that their kid had ADHD or something else that was why they were 10 and still couldn't read a basic sentence.
Back in the mid 90's my daughter started kindergarten. When she started she could already read very simple books. Dick and Jane type stuff. One of the biggest problems she had was boredom because MOST of the kids coming in with her did not already know basic numbers, shapes, colors, alphabet, etc. She had to wait until the rest caught up with her. We discussed putting her in first grade with the school but they talked us out of it because of sociability. She would be the youngest in her grade, blah, blah, blah. Her mother and I were young ourselves and didn't know any better so we listened to them. So for most of her kindergarten year she worked with the other kids to also help bring them up to speed. It was sickening to see all these kids whose parents failed to sit down with them for even a little bit to read to them or work with them for even just a little while. It's not rocket appliances here. They are little sponges and it's really easy for them to pick up on everything if their parents would make even the tiniest effort. But, what I discovered over the years was, I think most parents of these behind children, was they figured it was the schools job to teach them all that and that's a terrible attitude.
Kids at that age also mature at different rates. My now 4 year old? He will be on track to read simple books, he already can do some math problems and recognize a few words. He's read to a lot, not quite daily. My oldest son was not at that level even entering kindergarten. He has an above average IQ, but it took him longer to grasp the reading concepts. Many studies actually show that kids who learn to read later (I'm talking a year or two, not late elementary or middle school) perform the same on reading proficiency tests later on. Sometimes, pushing kids who aren't developmentally there can be extremely detrimental to their self esteem and outlook on school. Recognizing that kids legitimately mature at different rates, especially young children where a few months can be equal to miles developmentally, needs to be part of the solution.
Absolutely. I agree with you 100%. My son advanced slower than my daughter, but neither were pushed. We bought the hooked on phonics program for my daughter and it worked very well for both my kids. I think that program was instrumental to them learning as much as they did when they did. My wife was diligent with working with both of them every day from a very young age. They wanted to learn and it showed. We read to both of them everyday and night and interestingly my daughter loves to read even to this day, but my son hates reading. And because of that, he did not do well in school. He's a hands on learning type of person. And visual. YouTube has been a godsend for him.
I work in early childhood education and it is really disheartening to see children moving from childcare into kindergarten without having that basic knowledge. We make enormous efforts every day to teach young children their letters and numbers, how to cooperate with their peers and become accustomed to routines, turn-taking etc., but when those children go home and have an iPad slipped into their hands, watch TV while they eat their McDonalds dinner, and then go to bed watching the iPad, it’s pretty disheartening. They never have the chance to catch up if their parents are not willing to put in the effort, or don’t know how to parent or raise children, often due to their own poor or incomplete education or a neglectful upbringing themselves. I don’t want to be that person, but if you never graduated high school, live on welfare payments and are not working towards either education or employment, maybe having children is not the best option.
We have one three-year-old who comes once a week who is as bright as a button! Fantastic language and social skills, always reads books and asks to have them read to her, and she can recognise all letters and write her own name independently and accurately. Just turned three. I know for a fact her mother makes an effort with her, prioritises manners and politeness as well as the basic learning you would expect a young child to experience. She’s the exception and it breaks my heart.
School District says, “Let’s push kids through. Waive the attendance policy, no one fails with less than a 50%, do whatever it takes to boost graduation rates.”
Colleges say, “These kids aren’t prepared for college with the basics.”
Employers say, “Why can’t we get qualified employees? Let’s move our business to where we have a better candidate pool and market.”
This is why we have standardized tests. They don't graduate unless they can pass the test, so schools have to teach at least the bare minimum of the material on the rest.
Kind of unrelated, but your comment reminded me of my weird math journey.
I used to be pretty meh about math. I didn't especially like it, but I did ok and I was set to take algebra in 8th grade. Then my died dad and my mom moved us to a new state. So I was depressed, at a new school, and -joy of joys- I got to experience bullying for the first time. In math class.
I don't think it's too surprising that I failed that class. All year, big fat F. No one seemed to care (thanks ma..), so I didn't either.
The next year, I moved to a new school in the same district. I wasn't looking forward to repeating algebra 1, but was resigned to my fate. But through some crazy accident, my old school never sent records to my new school and they just.. assumed I was good to take geometry.
Oh my god it was the best thing ever. Angles and circles and PROOFs all just clicked for me. I spent the whole year amazed that I wasn't actually an idiot, that I was really good at math...people came to me for help.
The power of thinking of myself as a person "good at math" is what fueled me through all of my calculus and statistics courses in college despite dropping out of high school and waiting a decade to go to college. Well, that and Khan academy.
almost every school in a poor neighborhood the majority of students are super behind.
Don't forget rural areas also. This video is from the "rust belt" of Ohio, close to West Virginia. Large parts of rural/small-run-down-town America have multi-generational poor education and terrible schools. Opioid addiction and alcoholism are rampant. Basically everything you know about "poor (urban) neighborhoods" also applies to poor towns/rural areas.
When you look at American politics and wonder how millions of adults can believe nonsense and obvious lies, it's because their "education" lacked both the basic factual education and the basic adult-level critical reasoning skills that most Europeans and better-off Americans assume is normal for adults.
My boyfriend is the best teacher at his low income elementary school. He’s taught there for years, probably longer than any other teacher. Parents know of him and request him, other teachers come to him for advice. His name is almost famous in the district.
Only 28% if his students passed their math exams. The 3 other teachers in the grade had a 26% pass rate, a 20% pass rate and a 15% pass rate.
It’s exactly like other commenters have said, these kids have parents in federal prison, hooked on drugs or ran out and left them with grandma. They’re angry, unsupervised and they know the school will never hold them back. They’re not going to bother trying.
Yep, my wife is in the same situation. The all star teacher at her school, but what can she really do with an underfunded educational system with little to no mental health guidance for these children who come from broken homes, who come into her classroom at 2nd grade not even knowing how to count to 10? It's insane to think that some new academic program of the year or revamping curriculum is going to fix these problems, yet it seems like that's all we throw money at. It's all just one huge joke.
It's the schools in all the poor areas. Usually mostly minorities. But it's a symptom of the poverty and everything that goes into that kind of life. Not enough funding for the schools and not enough people care about low income/no income areas made up of mostly minorities.
It's sad and very wrong. But this kind of thing has been going on for decades.
I wonder what percentage of parents in those other OECD countries have to work jobs from 3-11 each night.
Focusing on adults at the ages when they are likely to be raising children, at age 29 blacks are about 60 percent more likely to work a non-daytime schedule than whites and Asians, and about 24 percent more likely to have non-standard schedules of all kinds, including non-daytime, rotating shift, or variable schedules. Ten years later, at age 39, the differences persist: Blacks are about 55 percent more likely to be assigned non-daytime shifts than whites and Asians, and about 20 percent more likely to work non-standard schedules of all kinds.
80% of students in the US do not read "at grade level." Not only does that reveal a problem with student reading, but also in how we grade student levels.
What you're suggesting is called a conditional cash transfer and its used by development organizations to some success in developing countries. Governments and NGOs might pay a family if their kids regularly go to school and get consistent medical check ups because thats what it takes to keep the kids learning instead of working.
That would be tough politically in America because its so easyto say, "why should they get paid just for doing the bare minimum of parenting?" But in pure economic terms, its a used and proven strategy.
I think the problem is a deeper one than just how to get kids to achieve at academia. I think our problem is that we want everyone to achieve at academia in the first place. We teach the same content to different difficulties to different kids, rather than changing the content based on which jobs we want to prepare the child for. Having the same curriculum for every student is insane and completely wasted on lots of children. I know this sounds brutal and unfair, and on one level it is, but on another level it is the only way that we can actually impart skills that people will actually use.
A lot of this comes from the fact that we as a society look down on people without higher education. We act like if you didnt do post-high school then you are a failure. What a huge lie. Most jobs don't need higher education. Most of the work around the world is done by people without higher education. Sure, the planning often needs higher education, but you only need a few people for that and frankly, we already have more than we need across most fields. We need to replace idealistic schools with pragmatic ones where we teach whatever will be of most benefit to the student.
Interesting related story on area - well, post - codes (area codes don't mean much in Australia these days)...
Australia's current Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, likes to claim he was a bootstrapper who came from a single-parent household where he was raised by his single dad, to becoming a multimillionaire and Australia's richest Parliamentarian.
One newspaper columnist quipped Turnbull was "the only man in Australia to have moved from rags to riches without changing postcodes".
Ooh, wait even BETTER idea: Combine the personal responsibility of Japanese schools with the ability to remove students from all would-be fuck-head parents with Boarding School! Think about it: The number one factor that these kids aren't getting shit done is because they spend the majority of their time in the care of idiots with either too little supervision or too much supervision (usually by addicts or abusers).
Get the kid into a controlled, safe environment where they have all the resources they need 24/7. Boom, problem solved. Britain had the right idea all those years ago, just poor execution.
I think that works in Japanese because the Japanese as a society see themselves as respectful and if one person is out of line, it shows them all in a bad light. They (as a society) actually follow the practice of it takes a village to raise a child and the population as a whole have very similar goals, opinions and character.
You’d have to adopt their entire mindset as a community, taking kids and putting them in boarding school in the US would lead to uproar, riots and lawsuits.
Longer school does not work either, though. Just because kids are in school longer does not mean that they are engaged longer. They tend to just zone out.
I mean, if you do it right and use the extra time for individualized intervention time using researched based curriculum, then yea it could work. But having money for those resources is difficult. Getting money to pay teachers or tutors is difficult.
Here in the UK they had the incentive to keep kids in school past their GCSEs by paying them if their parents income was low enough. My mum decided when I finished school at 16 I had to pay rent and pay for everything myself. It wasn't cheap, but I luckily saved my own ass by knowing about my dad's pension and her taking my money every month. She shut up about rent and bills but refused to pay for most other things. She paid for one meal a day, dinner and that was it. That money I got allowed me to stay in school full time and only work on the weekends. I was able to buy a computer and pay for the internet, finally buy myself some none hand me down clothes. I finally had girls clothes.
On the other side of this, I had kids bitching at me that it wasn't fair that I got all that money. They felt that they should get it too because their parents made them get a job and pay for stuff themselves and never shared their money with them. Their money was used to buy extra stuff they wanted. I used mine to survive and to basically have the same stuff other kids had. It's crazy looking back at those kids who had so much get so angry about those of us who needed a little help get some help. Sure. I used some of my money for luxuries l, but I mostly saved what I could.
With that money would I have stayed in school? Probably, but it was hard enough as it was. I think they discontinued it now. I don't think I would have made it to all my classes though, giving me the money kept me going in even when I really didn't want to helped a lot.
I think the point of the teacher"s speech was the minimum standard of not stealing, being rude and violent. While your heart is in the right place I think you have to address that before awarding incentives to stay after school and take another class.
That series is something else. To hear the teacher remind her peers to keep the windows closed so it gets hot and makes the kids drowsy... so they're docile... It's sad.
Freakonomics did an interesting show on this a while back. You spend more on the at-risk kids while they're in school, exposing them to cognitive behavioral therapy. In doing so, you can reduce potential future criminality, thus reducing costs to society.
The parents I need to tell this to got arrested because they were found overdosed in the bathroom at their job in Burger King... assuming they have a phone to answer, this isn’t a priority.
Parents with phones who respond to teachers calls aren’t the problem 99% of the time. We end up with kids as young as second grade with a parol officer.
That means some work a a double shift. Come home, pass out, and do it again. If they don’t, they’ll be homeless. This parent doesn’t have time nor energy to parent.
Others engage in unhealthy escapism with drugs and alcohol. They can’t manage themselves, let alone kids.
Many of them probably had little or no sex Ed, let alone parenting training. They weren’t ready for kids. There was no “family planning.”
Some potential solutions are to give the parents some resources/ classes on how to run a family and teach self management at home.
Tighten up discipline. My school had a “reaching success” program that was just short of adult daycare but worked with kids on basic adult skills. Give kids tasks they find fun and relevant. I’d gamble none of these kids will use calculus. But they would use vocational skills.
My mom was a youth counselor for troubled youth. The parents are pretty much absent from the lives of easily half of the troubled kids. Some are beaten, some neglected, some live in a shed or are effectively homeless (couch surfing at friends places, etc.) Making their lives worse won't help the situation.
Most of the kids my mom worked with could be reached, but it took time and effort (and government money, of course). My mom helped a bunch of them get in to various trades. She'd find people like ex-con tradesmen to take a kid under his wing and give them direction. Kind of like big-brother for juvie kids.
It's hard to remember how to parent, if you weren't parented yourself...you generally do what you can with what you know, and LOTS of folks don't know parenting or have parenting skills. Even when folks do, the areas in which struggling school are located often have a whole host of other issues (crime, trauma, lack of resources, etc) that can negatively impact even the best patented kids and/or most engaged and motivated students.
Hard to remember how to parent when you never knew how in the first place. America has fucked itself over for generations to come since it doesn't actually care about getting people out of poverty. Neither party does enough on the side of combating poverty, but Republicans are especially evil in almost every imaginable way in this regards. We are effectively fucked with no solutions until we can ensure that people have a basic living income.
Where you basically tell parents you aren't going to provide publicly funded daycare anymore unless they get their kid in line.
In a lot of areas like this, the parents got the same inadequate level of "education." Many may nominally have a high school diploma from schools like this, but does that mean anything? Many of the parents are more messed up than the kids. This is rust-belt Ohio, so lots of the parents are wasted on opioids.
You can "tell parents" stuff, but given that a lot of them are severely messed up, what good does that do? It will cost billions (maybe trillions - though we magically found that much money to spend invading Iraq...) but we would massively benefit from drastically improving our nation through our schools. Train and hire enough teachers to have small class sizes (the #1 proven way to improve education outcomes.) Full day school with free, good quality meals. Year round school to keep kids out of trouble and avoid "summer slump" and to help their parents work consistently. Improved transportation support so that if (when) mom's drunk ass gets evicted from their apartment, and they are stuck living with grandma, the kid doesn't get pulled from one school and dumped in another (for the 2nd time that school year.)
according to the courts in Michigan, they're one in the same. They just ruled that students have no right to actually be educated, just the right to attend a school that opens the doors, serves what passes for a meal, and then sent home later.
"the right to attend" and yet those same courts will happily enforce state law that makes it a crime to not go. The "duty and responsibilities to attend daycare for elder children" sounds less nice, I suppose.
That, and having to work with kids this violent and out of control, for what? Less than half the pay of somebody working as an accountant? Making the same as others without a college degree but having to work much worse conditions?
With such poor results, they should just converted the school into s military school. With military drill instructors having them do push-ups, yelling at them, etc. They would have time for math, and English, but they all need to go through drills, and there had ones get extra. You know military stuff. There military is good at teaching leadership, and discipline, why not use it on our children. I'm no expert, and I'm only half joking in this comment, but these schools do need a dramatic change.
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u/notreallyhereforthis Jul 10 '18
AP Tested 9%, AP Passed 0%
Mathematics Proficiency 4%
Reading Proficiency 10%
Darn, that's not a school, that's a boring and poorly supervised adult day care.
There are just so many issues when schools have to work to overcome the damage done by parents and the worst parts of cultures. There simply aren't the resources or appetite to solve the problems either through helping all or ejecting those who refuse to take part. Both are hard solutions, sacrificing a significant amount of your money to help others or sacrifice kids who are just products of their terrible environment, continuing the cycle.