When were the "good old days" in public education?

[cmd]

That phrase just popped up again as I was reading Uly's thread about public schools. I'm curious, when were those good old days that every one talks about?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. I'd like to think

they were when I taught school in the 70s and 80s. I was allowed to teach individuals in whatever way worked, and didn't have to teach to a test. I tried my best to teach tolerance and to celebrate cultural diversity.

[DebJ]

2. Well, I will offer that in the 1950's, teachers did not have to deal

much with students who either a)had drug addiction problems, or b)their parents had drug addiction problems, or c)the students are seriously brain-damaged because their pregnant mother had drug addiction problems.
"Wait until your father gets home" meant something then, too.

[ramadoss]

4. class size

Class size should fit in with all that as well. Smaller classes would provide a huge improvement in our students grades. BTW, I believe NCLB will be the downfall of public education as we know it.

[thinkingwoman]

9. but they don't

Your post contains one of those interesting urban legends of education.

The belief is that lowering class size significantly raises students' grades.

But we have small class sizes in Indiana, much smaller than 20 years ago, with no significant change for the better in local public schools.

In fact, students learn less nowadays.

That is not to say that we should abandon the push for smaller class sizes. But it is hardly a cure all.

[cmd]

10. I have to disagree

Students do not learn less in schools today. There is so much more to learn today than than there was 20 years ago. Education will always be a work in progress.

Class size is very significant in how children learn. Research shows that any time an elementary class exceeds 23 students learning drops markedly. Yet, it is not unusual to find classrooms with more than 30 students in them.

[thinkingwoman]

17. me too

I disagree with your post (not surprisingly).

All scores are lower in the local schools than they were 20 years ago. And class sizes are smaller. And more money per pupil is being spent.

That doesn't add up.

[IrateCitizen]

15. You're mistaken on lowering class size...

The common overgeneralization is that simply lowering class sizes across the board will improve performance across the board. That isn't necessarily the case.

The problem is that the students who are higher-risk, those in the MOST need of reduced class size that allows for more individualized attention, are overwhelmingly in the lesser-funded schools that often have the HIGHEST student-to-teacher ratios. Meanwhile, the more affluent districts in which students do not so desperately need more individualized attention, are the ones that are able to afford more teachers and building space to accomodate smaller classes. Therefore, performance doesn't really change much, because the kids that NEED the smaller classes aren't getting them, and the kids that don't, are.

Personally, I find the idea of more than 25 students in a class for K-3 to be absolutely inexcusable. Larger classes are a bit more workable at higher grade levels, but it's those first 3-4 years of school that often make or break a kid. We should be placing more resources on those years, ESPECIALLY in areas with a significant number of at-risk children (i.e. poor inner cities), if we really want to make a difference in education.

[thinkingwoman]

16. your first line echoed the point of my post

perfectly.

[IrateCitizen]

30. No, because your post was also an overgeneralization

Your post can only be read as stating that class size NEVER has anything to do with improving or decreasing student performance.

My post, OTOH, dealt with the instances in which that approach works, and the ones in which it doesn't.

There's hardly a convergence of thought between us on this matter, in spite of your attempts to spin it to the contrary, based on what you wrote in your post.

[thinkingwoman]

35. reading comprehension...

is another element missing from public school educations these days.

My post "can only be read as stating" what it actually says. Anything beyond the words on the screen are supposition, at best, and projection, at worst.

Your addition of the implied "never" to my point is an interpretation--nothing more, nothing less.

I didn't spin anything--I pointed out that within your disagreement, you actually agreed with the point of my post. The fact that you then went on to disagree with yourself and me does not negate that.

I've noticed on these boards that quite a few posters (new and multi-platinum alike) tend to read their own ideas, thoughts, and biases into posts and respond to things that weren't meant, or posted. I find it rather amusing, really, even when I am the target.

But I find it particularly amusing on a thread about education!

Cheers.

[REP]

5. Children Had Parents, Not Just People Who Had Reproduced Them

Too many people seem to just "oops!" have kids and expect someone else to raise them - and then bitch when they don't like how they're being raised. An impossible and unrealistic burden to place on the schools and teachers.

[Telly Savalas]

11. Women were less apt to drink and smoke during pregnancy in the 50's?

I don't buy it. Just because nobody was smoking crack back then doesn't mean there wasn't a myriad of social problems. "Wait until your father gets home" meant "some surly drunken bastard is going to come beat the shit out of you, then perhaps me too" with much more frequency in the 50's than today.

Before 1954 teachers didn't have to deal with that pesky "Brown v. Topeka Board of Education" case either. "Happy Days" was a sitcom, not a work of social history.

For the original poster: Stephanie Coontz's The Way We Never Were is a well-written work that discredits the myth of the existence of the "good ol' days" back in the 1950's.

[MountainLaurel]

18. I concur

Hell, my ex-BF's mother was told by her doctor that she should keep smoking while pregnant. She was 35, and the doctor said that having a smaller baby would make for an easier birth.

[fishwax]

22. The Way We Never Were is an excellent recommendation

to learn a little more about the social reality behind the 50s myth.

[ultraist]

36. Thank you Telly!

What a horrible thought that we should regress back to the days of worse sexism and racism than we have now. ugggh...

I couldn't imagine saying to my children, "wait until your father gets home." How demeaning, not to mention it promotes the strict father model. Why would a mother want to teach their children that they are 'less than' the father, incapable of discipline and that the REAL boss is daddy.

Ideas of good parenting in the fifties were not very enlightened. Parents still thought it appropriate to beat their children with wooden paddles.

[Yupster]

12. Today wait until father gets home

for many kids means not this weekend but the next one.

[DrWeird]

20. Or black kids.

The good old days = segregation.

[REP]

3. 1960s - 1970s I Think

Back when schools didn't have armed guards and metal detectors (like my high school had in the late 70s - early 80s) and students showed up ready to learn and teachers ready to teach.

I remember one day in my high school when they announced they were going to make the test scores look better by doing away with the Advanced Placement classes and replace them with more Remedial classes. Half the teachers walked out that day, and so did I (and into college). Remedial wasn't help for slow students - it was a holding cell for armed thugs.

[Blue_In_AK]

37. I showed up to school in the '60s

but that doesn't necessarily mean I was eager to learn. It was just something we had to do.

[LizW]

6. Depends on what you call "good"

Back when I went to school :Walter Brennan voice: ;) kids who had disabilities didn't go, or if they did, no one really expected the teachers to do anything with them. When I was in second grade, there was a little girl in my class who was so severely mentally retarded that she didn't speak. She was passed from grade to grade until she was old enough to drop out of school. Thankfully, that would never happen now. Even in a poor rural school system, something would be done to help her.

Same with children who are discipline problems or who have emotional problems. They used to be beaten in school, and when that didn't work, they were expelled. Or the schools just held them until they were 16. Now, schools have to do something with those kids too.

People who look back and think the educational system was so great in the fifties are ignoring the fact that the system then didn't work for lots of kids. Schools just weren't expected to do so much.

Is it more expensive and more difficult to educate the challenging children too? Absolutely. But is it the right thing to do? I think it is, but you will find people who don't.

[ananda]

7. Will Rogers

«Education ain't what it used to be; but then it never was.»

- Will Rogers

[cmd]

8. Will was right.

That is the gist of my post. There never were "good old days".

[Yupster]

13. It's true cmd

Nostalgia misses things too.

However, there really were major differences with the way kids behaved 30-40 years ago and today. That's not nostalgia.

We had no air-conditioning, overcrowded schools, teachers who made nothing compared to today, no ritalin, fewer staff, no diagnosticians, no phones in the rooms, no guards or metal detectors, and yet the kids behaved themselves in a far better way that kids do today.

I'm old enough to remember. It really was very different.

There are many things better about today's shools, but the discipline and social behavior of the students is not one of them.

[DrWeird]

21. Baloney.

"kids behaved themselves in a far better way that kids do today."

Yeah! Damn kids won't stay off my lawn!

[Yupster]

26. That's fine but

kids still behaved themselves a lot better when I went to school than they do now.

There were no security guards or security detectors.

We all brought pocket knives to school and no one thought anything of it.

You would never hear cursing in the halls, and you sure didn't backtalk or god forbid assault a teacher.

Maybe you think that was only on Leave It To Beaver, but it's what school was like when I grew up.

Believe it or not.

[DrWeird]

27. I don't believe it.

And I'm quite sure that wasn't the way it was.

[Blue Wally]

31. I went to school in the 40s and 50s

Detroit City Schools to be exact. In Anthony Wayne Elementary School and Andrew Jackson Intermediate School (all Native Americans can protest both names) we had about 30-34 kids per class. De facto (i.e. residential) segreation meant that the schools were all white. Language difficulties were experienced by Ukranian, Lithuanian, and Latvian DPs (displaced persons) coming in from Europe. Usually these were about one per class and the teachers handled it by assisgning one of the brighter kids as their "friend" and within a fewe months they were coping in English. Since professional and educated women were pretty much confined to nursing and education, female teacher quality was very high. Some of the older male teachers had come on board in the depression, so they were of good quality as well.

We learned phonetic reading and "drilled" math. I can still do complex multiplication problems in my head by "doubling up and halving down". In high school, we got four years of math through trigonometry and solid geometry, science through chemistry and physics, and choices of latin, Spanish, German, and French. For vocational students, there was both a commercial track and a shop track. While all of the high schools offered vocational tracks, students who were really interested could take a city bus to Commercial High School, Cass Technical High School, and Wibur Wright Aeromechanics High School instead of attending their regional school.

We did have standardized tests that the teachers would hand out and we would take (mostly reading comprehension or math). We never found out the results of these tests and somehow the admionistration must have used them.

Some teachers used physical punsihment (usually a yardstick or a ping pong paddle) and some did not. In high school, there was usually an assistant Phys Ed teacher who was a year or so retired from being a football lineman at UofM or Mich State. More aggressive male students would be sent to him for counselling in the Phys Ed mat storage room.

[progressoid]

14. It's RW clap trap

[ThorsHammer]

19. IMO, parental attitudes are as big a factor as anything else

[ChairOne]

23. A lot of folks think it was before Brown v Topeka Board of Ed. /eom

[fishwax]

25. Yes, that along with various cases

banning state-sponsored prayer in schools. Those are the two things conservatives tend to point to, though they cloak references to Brown v. Board so as not to be obvious. But that's usually what it boils down to :grr:

[slackmaster]

24. Here in California it was the '60s and '70s

I surfed it, squeated through before the (Governor) Reagan administration too a meat axe to public education. Graudated from high school in '75. When I entered UCSD that fall the registration fee was only $158 per quarter for CA residents. Not it's $2,075.10 for residents and $7,727.10 for non-residents.

[cmd]

28. The good old days of the 50's............

I remember the year we got indoor plumbing at our school. The year was 1954. Until that time we used outdoor johns and got drinks of water from a crock in the corner of the classroom. The first and second grades shared one room, grades three and four another, and five and six the third. We had three recess breaks during the day and did not have standardized tests. The new school that opened in '54 had a gym and cafeteria along with those indoor restrooms.

High school in the late fifties was nothing like today. The highest level of math was geometry. We did have one year of chemistry. If you played in the band, you could not take Spanish. Latin was the only other foreign language taught. The library was housed in an 8x10 room. We had no art. Everyone had phys. ed. everyday.

Everyone in the fifties talked about what school was like in the "good old days."

[progressivejazz]

29. They never were.

As so many others (and you yourself) have pointed out.

To those who think their elementary and high school education was so much better than the kids' today, I offer the following challenge:
What is 3/4 minus 2/3? I was first taught this in the 6th grade, I think. That would be about 1953. Every kid in class was taught how to do it. Most didn't like it, and promptly forgot. And they still don't remember today. My experience with asking this question is that most people of all generations get uncomfortable when presented with it. Most then weasel out of actually answering the question.

So if anybody reading this thinks their education was miles better than today's, I ask: What is 3/4 minus 2/3? C'mon, this is 6th grade arithmetic, and I'm not even asking you to do it in your head!

The answer is, of course, 1/12.

[chicagojoe]

32. All the way up until the Bush idiots came along.

[jazzjunkysue]

33. in the Republikkan's imaginations

I'm a teacher, and some states have yet to see any good days at all.

[Ouabache]

34. When it turned out honest presidents like Harry Truman

authors like Kurt Vonnegut, ministers like Martin Luther King, values presidents like Jimmy Carter, songwriters like Woody Guthrie, singers like Paul Robeson, union organizers likie Cesar Chavez, actors like Ed Asner....ok ... you get the idea....add more