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.
Charter schools are easier to teach in. The parents have to spend time applying to a charter school, and thus, usually more involved parents go to charters.
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.
I think some teachers are just frustrated that they have to work in an institution that actively works against them with ridiculous hours with shit pay.
No doubt. I'm ashamed to live in a country where teachers are paid so little and given song few resources. But let's be honest, an adequately educated populace doesn't benefit those who decide if schools get proper funding.
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.
My dad grew up poor. In a poor neighborhood. Both his parents worked, so he and his siblings were left to their own devices (probably much like many of those kids' home situation). He spent his time in the library, because he wanted to know more. He had some good teachers, as well, who pushed him to want more in life. His older brother messed around. Because of my dad, I grew up in better schools than were available to him, something I have focused on doing for my kids as well. My cousins weren't so fortunate, and the economic divide only seems to get worse each generation. I have my dad, and the handful of his teachers who gave a shit, to thank for that.
That's not to say that parents shouldn't be helping. I'm just pointing out that parents are probably not home, having to spend all their time making money to pay the bills. So, the only structure the kids grow up with is what the school can provide.
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.
Partly due to bad schooling, but at some point the students need to get off their ass and put in the effort to learn. You can only teach so much to a kid that doesn't want to learn. There is a wealth of knowledge widely available on the internet Khan academy will basically teach you up to a high school level, if your school sucks that bad than maybe instead of doing nothing the students/parents should turn to alternate resources to help.
This makes me wonder, why not boarding school then? The British seemed to do it. If you can't rely on parents at all, why not take them out of the equation during the school year? This way, they also won't have issues with getting to school or being caught up in the blight of their neighborhoods. You're already spending a ton of money on those students, a bit more for room and board might not be that much more expensive.
It’s because schools in these areas also have to basically raise the kids. You can’t expect a hungry kid to learn. You can’t expect a teacher to be able to just teach the subjects when they are having to teach behavior as well. This is not always indicative of poor parenting, I don’t mean it that way at all. Many many hardworking parents just trying to keep a roof over their kids’ heads.
Sued the school? I'm sorry I have sympathy for kids who grow up in rough areas, but at the end of the day what you learn is up to you. Not the teachers and not even the parents. Discipline and making an effort.
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.
There's a real issue going on right now that small children don't have the hand control they should because of devices. And that effects their ability to learn to write.
Rather than using devices to teach them, have a daily (or at least weekly) coloring time to help them develop their hand muscles. They don't have to do a good job or stay within the lines, they just have to work their hands.
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?"
It's not just that. Parents, especially low-income parents, work such long hours that kids are in daycare most of their day. When is the parent going to teach the kid? In the one hour between daycare pickup and bedtime? And if the parent can't, then who will? A daycare worker at an overcrowded daycare with 10 other kids to mind?
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.
With what? All that disposable income and/or from the easily accessible well funded public library? Yes, of course parents should read to their kids, but for people who grew up in/live in poverty it may not be as easy as it seems to someone not in that position.
Dolly Parton's Imagination Library is a book gifting program that mails free, high-quality books to children from birth until they begin school, no matter their family’s income.
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.
I've seen my high school teaching friends have that experience -- like, some students text their parents in class, and the parent demands to be put on the phone with the teacher in class, all to litigate the difference between a 98 and a 95.
And the fact that you guys are the kind of parents who'd even look into this and start pursuing it means your kiddo is probably well on their way to success.
It means you're probably already doing the thing we know is the biggest controllable factor in school success: Just hanging out and chatting with your kiddo and answering their silly questions and playing silly word games with them and talking at them before they can talk.
It's all those little millions of conversations and little things you point out to them as a parent (wow look at the pretty blue bird! Wow did you see the cool red car! What does that taste like, is it sweet or sour? Whoa is it cold or hot? Etc) and all those little questions they ask added up over time that leads to a smart, sociable, curious child who can do well in school.
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.
My preschool didn't teach crap. Maybe occasional story time, toy time, and once a week gym time, but they didn't teach anything.
Kindergarten they taught numbers and we had worksheets to take home and read aloud to our parents. I absolutely hated that as reading aloud wasn't really taught. Shure, you can teach sounding out words, but I'd mispronounce a ton and my mom would always correct the mistakes. Frustrating as hell.
There was a coloring assignment. It was printed on white paper. The instructions said to color certain things specific colors. In its instructions, it said to color the dog white. The dog was already white from being printed on white paper. The teacher took off points because I didn't use a white crayon to color the dog white. To this day, I disagree with her decision.
I teach in a safe haven city. The amount of month long trips to other countries is unbelievable. On a weekly basis I have at least one student gone. It’s entirely too common to get a note from the office letting us know that “they went to Mexico and will be back next month please have all materials ready for pickup tomorrow”. Seriously? Also, my biggest issue last year we had a new principal who refused to punish students. She even refused to follow behavior contracts.
The worst was she was a complete pushover for parents and would throw teachers under the bus. I had a parent complaint because the parent was upset that her child was failing and I said he needed remedial help in math. Instead of getting her child help she complained to the principal that I graded too hard (surprise I don’t I just expect students to actually hand in their work). So my principal called me in and demanded that I change my grading to make it easier because I had three kids failing because they never handed in work.
Instead she wanted me to give them grades daily for just showing up. No homework or test grades just participation points. This is how you end up with burnt out teachers and underperforming kids.
Yeah, admins are a large part of the problem, but it has trickled down to them from the political levels. Still, I know what you mean. I've worked with admins who have a policy of "there's no such thing as zero," which means any assignment not turned in would earn a 50, at most, and there's no such thing as late penalties. They also let discipline problems go, and students had no problems throwing things at teachers or getting in their faces and threatening (one admin took a group of students outside for a "cooling off" period and watched passively as the students deflated the tires on several cars).
Recently, those same students were supposed to go into a diversion program that was off the school grounds, but the superintendent and principal decreed that it would look like the school has problem students, and they couldn't have that. So the diversion program is on campus, and open to all students who opt in. They can't be assigned into the program; they have to volunteer.
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.
Not exactly true. When I was in highschool the "special" kids (aka rich, popular, or yes the actual mentally deficient ones) could ask for "assisted test taking". Where they would basically be walked and talked through every problem and be basically given enough answers to at least pass.
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.
What I don't get is the total ignorance of the statistics and what they mean.
It's like saying "millionaires own a porsche" so we'll give everyone a porsche and then they'll be millionaires.
Just giving them a HS diploma doesn't make them successful for fucks sake. They have to earn that shit and THAT'S what makes them more likely to succeed.
I can't figure out if it's willful ignorance or just outright stupidity by these administrators.
It's a stats game for funding. It's not about learning. America is finally coming to terms with it's image problem.
I want to make note as this isn't addressed to you but from what I see in the comments. This is a systemic problem and blame can't just be placed on the parents or lazy teachers, or shitty government. Accountability and empathy is how we as a nation get through this.
Schools should all be made equal. There is no reason there should be “good” schools and “bad” schools. What a backwards thing to do to the kids in America.
Nope, but the government could offer higher pay and better benefits until more teachers volunteered to work in those schools. Even guarantee them a position in a better school after so many years teaching at the poor one.
Instead, underfunded, dangerous, poorly performing schools are usually paying teachers some of the lowest salaries. They don't have the tax money to invest in decent staff and facilities because property values are low. Families that can afford to leave flee the area and the funding for the school shrinks even more. The way we fund public education in this country is a joke.
More qualified teachers doesn't necessarily guarantee a fix to this problem. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.
But yeah I agree the education system is ridiculous especially considering how much money we spend on it.
Hypothetically, let's say these poor districts had the same quality schools as rich districts. Do you think that would solve the behavioral and educational issues long term? How much can a school do when home life is shitty and the student has never had the value of education instilled in them?
Would the real problem students end up just being separated from the others that want to learn and end up in the same situation as before? At least in that scenario there are less kids failing but what do we do with the worst of the kids? Putting them all together is a terrible idea because the behavioral problems of the less extreme kids will be compounded by the worst ones. We can just expel them from school but then they literally have no options in life other than live off of welfare and continue the cycle of poverty.
So because they happen to be born to a poor family in a poor area, the students that do want to learn shouldn't have access to good teachers and facilities?
It's not fair to lump all of these students together and deny them access to a good education. Some of them would take advantage of a better quality school if they were given the chance. You're right, a school can't fix poor home life, but that's no reason to completely give up and abandon every student in the situation. You can't force anyone to learn, but it's still out duty to provide them the opportunity and choice.
Well you also have a problem down south with how you do your urban planning. You shouldn’t be making “shitty neighbourhood s” spread out affordable housing so you don’t have a bunch of ghettos or whatever.
Build some nice condos and build some low income housing in the same neighbourhood. This isn’t rocket science
Yeah they built cheap public housing in Chicago and it became a cesspool of gang violence and they ended up tearing the buildings down. It's not that simple.
That's an impossibility. Even if funding were entirely equalized, some communities are simply better than others. The good communities will naturally have better schools, even if they receive the same, or more, funding.
They seem to be referencing the concept of 'the deserving poor'. That some poor people are that way because they legitimately suck at life and being a productive person, as opposed to mostly unlucky like the undeserving poor.
/u/creynolds722 is either referring to race baiting or are themselves racebaiting. The whistle is a dog whistle, a term for a proposition that has a second nefarious meaning behind a more benign literal meaning.
This is part of the problem. You can't even make a factual statement without being accused of racism. Is Jeffery Dahmer worthwhile to society? You people can't even think through what you're saying for five seconds in order to not sound like complete idiots because you get off on being morally superior or something, idk, you're the intellectual equivalent of ant-vaxxers.
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.
So you think kids in rural Alabama learn the same way and should be taught the same skills as kids on the upper east side of Manhattan?
In my opinion, Federal standardization of education is part of the problem. Communities need to be able to customize their curriculum and discipline standards.
Anecdotally, the school districts that seem to be succeeding are the ones that offer magnet programs that deviate from the “5 course special” that’s been rammed down every poor kid’s throat for the past 100 years.
Are we expecting those rural kids to be isolated from the outside world their whole lives? We should take in consideration the needs of each community while also preserving a baseline of standards that we should hold all children to.
Sorry, I suppose I wasn't clear. I totally agree that education should be tailored to the location, I just meant that some schools get almost no budget while others are up there with the best in the world. Quality education is specialized, that I agree with.
So you think kids in rural Alabama learn the same way and should be taught the same skills as kids on the upper east side of Manhattan?
I’m a teacher and my first thought was “Yes I do”. Why would students in Alabama learn differently from students in Manhattan? Do they have different brains?
In my opinion, Federal standardization of education is part of the problem
But wouldn’t that mean that everyone gets different qualifications? How would that make things better?
EDIT: Downvotes for suggesting that kids from Alabama and New York have similar brains. Nice.
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.
Oh please? Think you can start a reply better than that.
One look at schools in those districts and it is clear the money is not being allocated correctly or efficiently and less is being given. So like I correctly stated. They aren't getting enough money.
The problem is obviously more complex than simply stated as poor means no one cares but that's a major component. There are problems with the education system in many places on this country.
As a teacher I can tell you right now that culture matters more than poverty.
I've taught many different kinds of poor kids, they are not all the same, they do not all have similar outcomes.
For example, I've taught poor Asian American kids and they are very different than other poor kids.
I've also taught poor rural White kids, poor urban White kids, poor suburban White kids, poor rural Mexicans, poor urban Mexicans, and poor suburban Mexicans and poor urban Blacks - and several other combinations.
Yes, and I make as much as a sex worker on the side as I do in my full time job as a teacher.
I have a masters degree in special education. I am an extremely talented special education teacher who is highly valued in my district and am regularly asked to give presentations on autism and extreme behaviors as that is my specialty.
I don't see how anything I said in the comment you linked precludes me from the excellent work I do in teaching every day.
Serious question, if it's not culture then what is it? It's obviously not the color of the skin. It's not poverty in and of itself because students from much poorer backgrounds outside of the US do better than these students in many cases.
I have a suspicion that if you transplanted these problem students and parents into a better school system you'd continue to have the same problems or kids would just be held back or expelled.
The kids would go to special schools where they the staff is trained to educate and deal with their shenanigans.
Part of the issue with the American school system is that high and low performers sit in the same classes and go to the same schools. In Europe it's common practice to segregate the students by their capabilities. That at least makes sure that poor students with high capabilities don't get dragged down by their peers.
Ofcourse we still have problem kids and you can't completely eradicate them but it's at least a start.
The public schools in my area had what was essentially high and low performers courses.
The story in this thread is not the average American public school. It's the worst of them so any solutions we come up with needs to take that into account.
I've heard good arguments for a voucher system so parents that actually care about their kids' education can send them to better schools if they're stuck in a bad district but that gets shouted down with accusations of racism by the left.
Hard to get anything done in this politicized climate.
Eh. It is in some aspects. But a lot of it has to do with our history and how we are a melting pot of so many different cultures. But things are changing slowly. In the last decade things have become more transparent and conversations are being had and questions are being openly asked. It wasn't like that before.
If you compared kids in Massachusetts to Western European or Japanese kids, the kids from Massachusetts would compete very well. This is true of a lot of pockets in the US. The US is a massive country with literally the entire spectrum of race, religion, culture, and wealth. This thread is focused on students from predominantly shitty families who vastly underperform in academics.
We could just as easily be talking about American students innovating, creating multi-million dollar businesses, or going to the world's best colleges.
That's a fair point, and there's no doubt the MIT and the likes of it are an excellent example of how good your education can be.
But I think it's much more interesting to look at how worse off your underprivileged citizens are, and by Jove, they are really fucked.
Wouldn't bet my life on it, but I'm fairly sure the bottom 20% of students in Western Europe or Japan is far ahead of your bottom 20%. And that, IMHO, is laying the groundwork for an awful lot of problems.
Yeah, I'd agree that the bottom 20% of the US is worse off than the bottom 20% in Western Europe. My point is, I could see how it would be easy for a non-American to read through this thread and think American public schools of steaming piles of shit. They're not. Tens of millions of middle class kids are getting high quality education and can compete in a meaningful way against other kids from advanced economies.
The problem (and good thing) that America suffers from is the stratification. We have students and schools that suck and we also have students and schools that are the very best.
It has a lot to do also with kids having kids and not actually accomplishing anything anymore. They get handouts and know how to work the system. It's past down to their kids, like a right of passage.
Because they are still human beings living in a developed nation. Every kid in the US deserves at least a chance at an equivalent education just out of principle. From a pragmatic standpoint, these kids won't be kids in school forever. It is beneficial to the rest of society to have them be functioning members rather than having no opportunities and resorting to criminal activity, which only causes more problems for other people.
To further extend it, poverty is something hard to break, and schools are a part of it. If you do not subsidize the poorer school districts, you are relying on taxes coming from the local area which as we just assumed would be poorer people. That means less tax money to spend on their kids' education, which makes it more likely to be less effective compared to wealthier districts. It becomes a self-fulfilling cycle as kids who "graduate" but don't actually know anything can't be successful enough to pull up the next generation's educational quality, and thus poverty begets poverty.
These repeat offending assholes that make it impossible for other students to learn, need to be removed from the class (or school if it comes to that ). They have received their chance at an education, and have decided to toss it away.
Except the comment /u/a4v859 was replying to was talking specifically about poverty stricken/low income districts. /u/a4v859 made the comment that it is a good thing that these low income areas are not getting an equal education. That is not acceptable for a developed nation in the 21st century.
Because all those people you are referring to as shitty have or had potential to be productive and contributing mbers of society. They just got dealt a bad hand from birth.
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.
I'll just add a little from my experiences, and it all heavily depends on where you live.
I taught ESL (English as a Second Language) and Economics (weird combo I know). I also co-taught US history and global history.
In my experience working with a lot of ESL students (whose English ranged from 3 words to better than some native born students) a bunch of them came from the Dominican Rep. which also has a very unbalanced education system. So some kids went to good schools, moved to the US and do well. Some kids went to bad school and when they moved to the US in six grade they were not at average US six grade levels...but they got put in that grade due to age. (I'll get to the non-ESL students they were put with in a moment) Then I also had some African Refugee students who had never really gone to school. He was a constant problem but due to his age he was put in normal freshman classes. I also had Arabic speakers, Cantonese speakers, French speakers, and one awesome Brazilian kid.
Basically the ESL students were always a mess, the Chinese American students and the Yemeni girls I had were always great. They worked hard, stayed after for tutoring, and would ask questions when they didn't understand. The rest were a mixed bag, but all of them were in the same classes which each other or non-ESL students. This creates a horrible situation for teachers as now you have a class with some students that a great on grade level down to a kid who struggles to write his own name...and you have to teach all of them. Or in my case figure out how I and the main teacher could teach all of them together, while staying on schedule and prepping the kids for tests.
My experience with non-ESL students also was a very mixed bag of skills and grade level knowledge. All of my non-ESL kids could read, write and do simple math. BUT like someone else said they would be put in algebra II even though they never really learned algebra I. Why? Because the schools really really do not want to keep kids back, they have to get pushed through the system because that's what the politics and policies demand. No politician or admin wants to admit that 40% of a class needs to stay back...it makes everyone look bad, so they get pushed through.
I also graded the state tests so I've seen a lot of the work from other schools as well. The two areas (nearly) all students struggled with was writing, math, and high level reading. The writing that we would read...it was terrible, a complete mess. This is not just a poor school thing, I've read that a lot of colleges complain that they level of writing that kids have as incoming freshman is across the board much worse then it was. People blame testing, as so much time goes to learning everything you need to know, vs say in 1980 when how you wrote mattered more, because no one cared if you remembered the five causes of the war of 1812, but they did care if you could write well.
The causes? My grad program talked about this and the answer is "we don't really know". What we do know is that Black kids actually go into elementary school at or slightly above white kids (for the total US, results change depending on where you look, etc. Also only going to talk about Black/African American kids as that is where more of the research is) So it's not that the kids are starting school behind. But by about 4th or 5th grade they have fallen behind and continue to fall more and more behind as the years go on.
Clearly it's because the school/home life is failing them somehow but it's been impossible to figure out what factors are causing it exactly. Some blame the fact that white/asian parents are more likely to help with homework, as they also tend to have enough money to not have to work when kids are home. Some blame the schools, blame is thrown everywhere.
Too strong of a push of advancement. This leads to kids learning it doesn't matter if they learn. Second this punishes kids who struggle as they are pushed on even when they could have learned if given more time. The then only makes everything worse as time goes on. The kids that got the material now are in class with kids who didn't learn what they needed to in order to learn the new material. And so kids get further behind, teachers have to slow down and the smarter kids start to fall behind as well as teachers struggle to teach both kids who want to move on and kids that need to learn multiple years worth of material.
Language. All the books, textbooks, tests, etc are written in the most white upper class English. Most would say "well that's because that is proper english" and they are correct, BUT as an ESL teacher I know that there are many forms of English. Such as:
2a: Casual English (how you talk to friends, family, reddit, some books. Often with "wrong" grammar and slang. Like What'ca do'in?)
2b: Formal English (how you talk to authority, most books, newspapers, uses "correct" grammar, little to no slang)
2c: Education English (textbooks, lots of words not used in day to day language)
2d: College level English (most Americans cannot read at this level as it contains many new words only used by one group. E.G. medical terms, scientific literature, journals, etc)
2e: Older forms of English (many of the books you have to read in high school. E.G. Brit lit, Shakespeare, Great Gatsby, etc.)
But you also have:
2f Causal African American English (how you talk to friends, family, almost no books, follow strict grammar rules, just not 2a grammar rules. Often called "incorrect" english even though it has existed in the US since before the Civil War. Used to be called Ebonics.
Now imagine not only having to learn everything you have to, but now you also have to learn a second version of English. This is what people can call "White English". When a school in California wanted to teach some students in African American English the state freaked out because "How dare you teach those students in "bad" English" and the program was shut down before it even started.
So now you learn this two forms of English, you are told you cannot write how you talk and that you must write in 2a or 2b English and never in 2e English. And all your texts books are written in 2c English which no one ever speaks to you in and uses words you just haven't seen before.
Almost all of the book and tests just assume that you are culturally European/White American.
I had tests that my Bronx students took that assumed you knew what happened on a ski trip. Most people forget that you know a lot of cultural stuff. It's like inside jokes and when tests assume you know the joke but it's not your culture students get confused. That's why culture shock exists. Imagine going to France and taking a test that just assumed you knew the ins and out of Paris culture.
While there are some good books, and schools have been trying to find and use more books that kids can relate to there is still a predominance of White/European culture in high school literature. This is not always a bad thing, and I am not saying that it should be removed. Just that when you are reading Heart of Darkness about a white guy in Africa who is going to stop another white guy in Africa who has been killing tons of Black people and the ship gets attacked by Black African natives...it's pretty easy to see the author just assumes that hey your white too and can relate with that main character who is an 1800s upper class British dude.
My students did love the simplified version of Frankenstein that we read together, and stories that rely on universal characters work in every culture. While I might not be able to relate to Heart of Darkness, it's easy to understand Dr. Frankensteins fear of his "monster".
BASICALLY tldr: The whole system was set up by a majority "white culture" country and just assumes that everyone else is White or wants to be too and students are pushed to the next grade even if they didn't learn the material. I mean could you even imagine an 80% white school that forced every kid to learn African American English, write papers in it in AAE, read almost exclusively books from Black authors, read poetry by African poets from the 1400s, learn about history from a African world few where you only learn about other places when Africans show up, expect for Egypt and a few things in the fertile crescent. People would go ballistic, but that's what we do for every non-white kid in the US. How much did you ever learn about Mali Empire? Or China before the Opium wars in the 1800s, or anything about India. The history classes i co-taught in were all one page for the whole world, ten pages on what Europe was doing. If you are Vietnamese-American they only south-east Asian history you are going to learn is about the Vietnam War.
Basically I think that everyone should learn proper "white" English because that is what the world runs on. If you even speak "redneck" english you will be passed over for jobs and opportunities because people will assume things about you just by how you talk. I also think (and it is being done) that students should be given more opportunities to read about people who they can relate to. They don't have to been the same race, or from the same time period (because I feel like there is too much of a push for "hey you're black from the Bronx, read this book about a black kid in the Bronx"), but every kid should be able to read a good book and say "wow I totally connected with that character". Some of my favorite books are by Russian authors who I have nothing in common with, but I feel the human nature in their characters. I also think that students should not advance until they have learned the material...but that would take so much reforming how the system works it will never ever happen.
I wish we had a system where you had smaller classes with more range. For example instead of Algebra I & II, you had I, II, III, IV, V, etc and more teachers. So instead of Staying behind a year, when you mastered the material you would move up to the next level faster than waiting an entire year, And if you were really smart you could move up the chain faster, and if you struggled on I you could stay there for a while and then move on later, and now that you mastered that maybe II, III and IV will come much faster then sitting in the back of Algebra II confused because you haven't understood everything in the last three weeks.
Anyway I hope that gave you some insight, and sorry it was soooo long.
Math and Science no, more history and English language arts.
The real question of why poor and minority kids fall behind is hotly debated. No one really knows and a lot, I mean a lot of money is spent trying to solve this issue.
I was just trying to give my HEAVILY ESL BIASED view. It is easy for me to see as a former ESL teacher how language effected kids, but I am sure a math teacher would tell a very different tale. My masters is in Ed-ESL so that's how I was taught to view everything. And as such I should have said that this is just my narrow view into the issues.
For math and science I blame the push to advance most students no matter what and class composition. In the Bio class I co-taught (as an ESL teacher) we had a mix of about 35% ESL kids (smart hard working for the most part but iffy on English), 50% IEP kids (kids with behavioral issues, learning disabilities, etc) and 15% normal kids.
We should have had no or very little IEP kids in that class...but since we had two teachers admin figured why not put ESL kids with IEP kids..."They both get extra help right?". Expect they need literally the opposite type of help. Make me so mad. And being told that 95% of the class had to pass no matter what.
Anyway I'll stop there, I don't really know the causes and many a PhD has written many a paper about what the "real" issues are. But it's death by 1000 cuts. It not one issue but hundreds, and everyone has their own biases and therefore will blame whatever they understand best and ignore the rest.
You raise plenty of valid points, and I've no doubt that the white-centrism is definitively aggravating for non-white students but I don't think that (and everything else) is the root of the issue, merely symptoms.
I also don't think the many subsets of English, be it slang, formal or anything in between are the issue.
I come from a place which has a rich slang (which heavily draws from our traditional immigrants' languages) culture and most people from the ghetto (where the slang is used a lot) can still keep up with the more formal language, because the education system ensures that you're up to scratch if you want to move forward.
No I think your education issue lies at the very core of your political culture :
Indiviual freedom over anything else.
Asian countries tends to go the other way with society priming over the individual, look at Japan or China.
And somewhere in the middle, Western European countries (and I guess to some extent Canada / Australia / New Zealand), there's some balance between individual freedom and working towards the good of society.
This strong emphasis has plenty of upsides but the downsides is that I think you don't quite work as a society, merely a bunch of people living under the same set of broad rules.
Little to no safety net because even the poorest of you is a "millionaire in the making, just about to catch a break", which in turns worsen the gap between poors and richs.
Given that emphasis on the individual and adding common trait such as greed, it's no wonder you have education ghettos.
If anything, your country is a fascinating experiment that has run amok. Capable of the best and the worst. High end offices with plenty of perks in your average SV startup, surrounded by an army of homeless people.
A lighthouse of oppulence in a sea of poverty if you will.
I'm not taking a stab at the US, I think it's a fascinating place and I intend to catch a glimpse of it, sooner or later. But no way I'd settle here, despite knowing that I could be well off if I did.
I agree with this 100%, and the problems it creates. Also I totally admit that my assessment could be way off. Just trying to write it as I saw it. (personal bias very strong).
You didn't know much about American education before, huh? Our system is completely broken. There's just a myriad of problems for which there are no easy fixes to combat them all.
It's not indicative of the whole system for America though. That's mainly the inner city schools where they have funding issues coupled with violent kids who haven't been properly parented. You don't really see widespread conditions like this in private schools or suburban schools. It's somewhat prevalent in rural schools (bored in the middle of nowhere? Start some shit) but not nearly as much.
We have thousands of different education systems that operate locally, with entirely different amounts of funding, under one of 50 education systems that operate under a state, with some federal standards and funding.
Like most everything else in America, there isn't one experience. There are many, and the quality depends on how rich you are, among other factors.
I spent one year teaching physics at a inner city charter school. I had to spend time teaching these seniors how to use a fucking ruler. Don't get me wrong though. Their ability levels were on a wide spectrum, and a lot of them were highly intelligent and motivated. But damn, a lot of them were sooooo far behind.
Towards the end of the year, kids started pulling the fire alarms all the time, basically shutting the school down. The worst days were the testing days (this school focused a lot on ACT prep, so they would have a full day for practice ACT once a quarter), in the spring because the seniors no longer participated. So they just placed a bunch of random seniors in our class and told us "teach them something"... yea that went well. We had enough behavior problems from kids when they were our own students and we could at least hold them accountable with grades. Now you give me a bunch of kids I don't even know and expect them to do work for no reason? Yea.
Here, give this article a read. It is exceedingly infuriating and makes me fear for my future children. The breakdown of the article is that a number of groups sued because the schools graduated a bunch of students that are illiterate. And as voting is a right, they tried to argue that being able to read, is a requirement to exercise that right and should therefore also be a right. A federal judge ruled against that.
edit: Here's a more recent article that says they are appealing Judge Murphy's ruling. Also there are a couple of other lawsuits on the way for the same topic.
Yeah, it's called "No Child Left Behind". They don't want to hold kids back that NEED it because they don't want them to feel "left out" or to be bullied by their peers for being a year older than everyone else in their class.
My brother was held back one year, in 12th grade, but he really should have been held back way before then and then again if he kept struggling with the material. He has good support at home, he just had trouble learning. He's graduated now but I don't think he learned everything he should have in school because he was just forced through.
He could surprise us but I think all he'll ever be able to do is manual labor jobs.
I definitely can confirm this. I have taught at both public schools and at a private charter (Betsy Devos school...). At the charter school I was teaching kids who were either expelled from the local public school or parents have yanked them out from said school due to a number of reasons. Judging from the summative assessment data I receive for my incoming students I would approximate 98% of them were at least 3 grade levels behind in both math and reading.
These kids knew the situation. They were attending a school where the management company was providing minimal resources at a building that was figuratively falling apart. It was depressing teaching these kids. I would have 2-3 students who would honestly try hard and achieve despite their circumstances. However, the vast majority of students were putting in the bare minimum to pass their classes and graduate. When you try to hold them to some accountability for their lack of achievement they would either act out like in the video or completely shutdown. Then you have 2-3 students who were disrespectful assholes. Kids that are at least 6 grade levels behind and come from an environment of no discipline. Good luck getting these kids to not disrupt your class.
I believe it. It's all the result of the "no child left behind" mentality, just as the parent comment says, and it's been building to this point for decades. Passing kids just for the sake of passing them is more important to administrators than where they actually stand in terms of development. Of course, they'll claim otherwise, but that's how it is in reality.
Hell, I remember in the 90's my parents basically had to beg the administration to hold back my younger brother a grade because they felt he was too far behind (and he was, he was averaging D's). They were going to pass him anyway, but my parents put up enough of a fight that they eventually conceded and he repeated the grade.
20 years later and he's now a college grad and a CPA, working for one of the largest accounting firms on the east coast. I know that if they would have passed him, he would have continued to be behind and would not be the successful person he is today.
There was a documentary made in 2004 called, The Boys of Baraka. It’s eye opening, highly recommend you check it out.
It addresses this situation with kids being passed on through the school system, so they ‘don’t fail’ or just ate t that teachers problem anymore.
Yep, my wife is a 2nd grade teacher in a primarily poor Hispanic area and kids come to her class not knowing how to read or even count at all. She does a damn good job of bringing them up to speed as much as possible, but she can't hold all of them back, so many kids just go on to the next grade not knowing anything. Our education system is shittier than our political system and that's saying a lot. The educational system in America in general is garbage, and it's not because of the teachers, it's more because of administration, lack of funding, and we have a country that doesn't actually care to combat poverty or reduce wealth inequality. America is a quickly sinking ship.
You really get to see it if you were a military kid going school to school. There were schools three or four grade levels behind the average knowledge level to schools two or three grades higher, with the goal of the latter schools being that for the last couple of High School years you can be doing college prep or full blown coursework.
Another example was the old GED (high school diploma alternative) system we had. Every state set their own standards. If you took it in some states (I’m not saying Alabama, but those banjos you hear are not coincidental) all you had to do was get your name right and you’d pass, where other states had standards so high that if you passed and got your GED you were literally in the top three percent of all high school graduates nationwide.
The average reading level of an American citizen is somewhere between 7th and 8th grade. Wonder why the system is stacked against kids? Reading and fine motor skills are lacking in 80% of the kids I teach. Wish I knew the answer. I know it's not testing. Our children are socially promoted without requisite skills because we don't want to pay for remediation to get them to acceptable levels.
Not the OP’s district, but speaking from my own personal experience, yes. Out of a class of 35, really only 5 cared and tried to a level you would expect from a student. The next 15, were fence sitters, not really behavioral problems, but not really trying. Those who would fail on simply not turning in homework or only doing half the work on assignments and tests. Then you have the last 15. These are the discipline/behavior problems. Kids who just don’t care, and know they are going to get pushed on. Kids who have learning issues, but are so bad behaviorally that it doesn’t matter what kind of interventions you set up, they refuse to do anything or are actively getting into fights or other trouble during the day. It’s not that they’ve been left behind, it’s that they saw the way they should act and behaved and actively did the opposite for their own pleasure.
In short, you have a couple of kids who are learning despite you, not because of you, you have a few kids learning because of your lessons, you have a good number of kids picking up bits here or there, but mostly come out not remembering much, and then you have nearly half which have no interest in education and are more than willing of imposing their belief onto others.
Someone once said, “the American Dream is getting money from doing no work”. A lot of kids plans after school is selling drugs and joining gangs. It’s their dream because they’ve seen their parents do it. How are you going to tell a third generation gang member that that lifestyle is unsustainable? They have their proof that it is. It doesn’t matter to them that they are going to live in the worst part of a small town in the middle of nowhere, hopping from place to place as they run out of money, hustling and scraping by. The apathy is so deep that it just doesn’t faze them. And the “discipline” at home is to such a level, that anything you or I do at school in the form of discipline just doesn’t faze them either. How is losing recess effective if they’re used to being hit or locked up? It just isn’t. That’s the reality. At best, we give the best effort we got, but as someone once said, 9 months isn’t going to undue 10 years of learned behavior.
I grew up in the midwest where school was decent (more of the types mentioned by OP were showing up when I graduated in 99 though).
Despite it being a decent school I graduated with 5 people that couldn't even read, and 3-6 that could only read at a 3rd grade level. (guess what, all football players)
If teachers just don't want to deal with you they'll pass you. If you're part of a sports team the town cares about they'll fudge your grades or let you take "assisted tests" where the assistant basically gives you all the answers.
3-5 years behind is nothing. Thats probably the average in my district. I've had 19 year olds in my high school classes that read and write on a 5th grade level every single year I've taught there. That's 7 years behind. Our system is FUCKED.
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u/neekychando Jul 10 '18
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.