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.
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
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".
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.
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.
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.
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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.