The myth that public schools are a failure

[DGS49]

A blanket statement that public school teachers are underpaid, overpaid, or paid about right is nonsensical. Every school district is different. Every teacher is different.

And just to use a comment above as a springboard, complaints by teachers of having to 'teach to the test' make me crazy. TEACH THE FUCKING SUBJECT! If you do a good job of that, then the test scores will reflect that. Study after study have shown that teaching to the test doesn't work anyhow, except in the rare cases where peculiar scoring protocols favor one STRATEGY over another (i.e., guess or leave it blank). I have taken SAT prep courses, LSAT prep courses, and Bar Exam prep courses, and every one of them was worthless; they just give you the feeling that you are "prepared."

If the Teachers and their Unions were really interested in EDUCATION, they would be trying to influence what goes in the tests, so that they reflect the substantive material they are trying to teach, SO THEY DON'T HAVE TO TEACH TO THE TEST. But teachers don't want the tests to be valid because if they were, then the teachers would have no excuse for their generally dismal results.

 

[HenryBHough]

Given the great success of public schools why does Congress not legislate that all children of government officials be required to attend only public schools?

Were such a thing to be approved, would America's Kenyan President sign it?

 

[mgh80]

I really wish our public schools would refocus back to math, science, reading, writing and a focus on innovation. The idea of men being all evil and white people need to pay has fucked us badly.

Where did you get the idea that our schools are focusing on men being evil and white people need to pay people? I'm really curious, because based on my experience that's complete bullshit. The two largest departments at my school are English/Reading and Math. If anything they've added more core classes since I went to school (economics being one of them).

 

[ralfy]

Education in the USA is pretty pizz poor , I think that the idea is to dumb down the American kids so that they are on the same level as the mass of third worlders that are being imported into the USA . Course my kids are grown and educated Jake !!

It should be noted that the U.S. has one of the highest spending levels for education among industrialized countries.

Which of course begs the question, if some are bemoaning the "slashing" of school budgets, where is the money going? That question needs to be answered honestly before throwing more money on the fire.

From what I remember, for school systems in general (including private ones) significant amounts go to administration, etc.

 

[pismoe]

think you are correct at least for public schools and that's my only concern because taxpayers pay for them . I guess that people that use private school pay twice , once for private and once for public Ralfy .