Has Bush Administration Dumbed Down Public School Class Work?

[Quixote1818]

Students Say High Schools Let Them Down
Findings of New Survey Made Public During Meeting of Governors

DES MOINES, Iowa (July 15) - A large majority of high school students say their class work is not very difficult, and almost two-thirds say they would work harder if courses were more demanding or interesting, according to an online nationwide survey of teenagers conducted by the National Governors Association.

The survey, released on Saturday by the association, also found that fewer than two-thirds believe that their school had done a good job challenging them academically or preparing them for college. About the same number of students said their senior year would be more meaningful if they could take courses related to the jobs they wanted or if some of their courses could be counted toward college credit.

Taken together, the electronic responses of 10,378 teenagers painted a somber picture of how students rate the effectiveness of their schools in preparing them for the future.

The survey also appears to reinforce findings of federal test results released on Thursday that showed that high school seniors made almost no progress in reading and math in the first years of the decade. During that time, elementary school students made significant gains.

Continued at:

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050716222709990001&ncid=NWS00010000000001

[ohio_liberal]

1. I don't think this is anything new

The Bush administration surely has contributed to the decline of education, but IMO the US has been behind the curve for at least a couple decades.

[Mythsaje]

2. There's no doubt

we need to seriously re-think the way we're doing education in this country. This is just a symptom of a deeper problem. IMO.

[halsaxby]

3. Dumbing Down

I believe that the dumbing down of the US public education system has been goin on since the early '70s. Hell, around 1993 they had to dumb down the SAT to mask a long term pattern of declining scores. If you doubt me, talk to any teacher w/ 20+ years experience. If you doubt them, talk to your average 18 y.o.

[iconoclastic cat]

4. Where is their responsibility in this problem?

Are they perfectly innocent in all of this?

Feh. I scoff at this article, its pro-government bias, and the Crucible-like attitude toward these students.

Thanks for posting!

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. I can only speak with any authority

about elementary schools. And I will agree with this article that we have undertaken many efforts to change how we teach kids to read, write and compute. And our test scores are going up so we feel like we are on the right track.

But boy are we meeting with resistance from secondary teachers. The Math teachers are angry that kids don't have Math facts memorized when they get to middle school. We feel that teaching kids to think and solve problems is more important and more valuable in terms of life long skills, than teaching them to memorize Math facts. And we have research and test scores to back us up. We also know that good thinking skills and lots of practice leads to recall of facts and is more permanent than rote memorization. So we elementary teachers are sticking to our changes.

It really is becoming quite a battle. And principals in secondary schools report that their teachers are very resistant to change. I do lots of work with professional development in my district and I can report that our training sessions are dominated by elementary teachers. (Most training is not mandatory, but offered to teachers who want to improve their skills.) So we clearly have a mission to educate and change minds in our business. Maybe falling test scores will help. NCLB is clearly not the answer; high school kids are NOT held accountable under NCLB - it only applies to kids in grades 3-8.

[acmejack]

6. They don't even teach government any more here.

It is really quite amazing.

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. I teach it

It is a big part of the Social Studies curriculuom in my state and in my school district.

[Bill McBlueState]

8. math facts

It's not clear to me how kids can "think and solve problems" in math, though, without knowing the math facts. I agree that memorizing the multiplication table in a vacuum serves no purpose, but it's very hard to factor polynomials -- a requisite for solving algebraic equations with nonlinear terms in Algebra I and II -- if you need a calculator to factor a two-digit number. So I think there needs to be an emphasis on both problem-solving skills *and* quick recall of basic facts.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. We teach them HOW to find the answer

rather than just memorizing it. For example, using manipulatives to show that 2+3=5 and allowing the kids to actually discover the answer leads to permanency in learning. Forcing them to memorize the facts is not near as effective. And if they don't understand WHY 2+3=5, then what good is it to force them to memorize it?

Practice using the facts to then solve problems does lead to long term memory (memorization) of them. So by the time a kid is ready to take Algebra I and II, his previous experiences in Math have surely led to long term memory of the basic facts he needs to survive Algebra. If not, then he is not ready to factor polynomials.

[donco6]

16. You're absolutely right.

I'm in central ad. and from that perspective, I can see exactly what you're talking about. We have a hell of a time getting secondary teachers to catch up with what elementaries are doing, even when the elementaries are posting good gains in student performance - from MULTIPLE measures, not just one test.

In fact, our test scores show that kids leave 5th grade pretty close to grade level (which in a low income district like ours, is saying something). But in middle school, they might as well stay home. No growth at all. So by high school, they're terribly behind.

We're dismantling our middle schools and going to K-8 and 6-12 models next year. Some are opening this fall. I think it's the best move we've made in 20 years.

[proud2BlibKansan]

17. Good for you.

Did you read my post on the other thread about high school Math teachers? I am so over their complaints.

I am very active in PD in my district. The elementary teachers eat it up. The secondary teachers have to be dragged kicking and screaming. I don't get it. I have told every principal I have worked for that the day I act like I know all the answers and don't need to learn anything new, please show me the door.

[donco6]

19. Yes, I saw that one too.

I posted on that thread as well. We have the same thing - elementary teachers actually ASK for specific, research based programs and training in the programs, and the high school teachers sit on their asses and expect perfect kids to be handed up to them. It's positively boorish. I'd be pissed off, too, if I were an elementary teacher - and for good reason.

It's like carrying a passenger on a bicycle. The passenger is the student and the elementary teacher pumps and pumps up the hill. Then, when you hand the bike off to the secondary teacher, they bitch and whine about why they aren't at the top of the hill yet!

GGGGRRRRRR!

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. I quit our union

mainly because of the idiotic complaints of the high school teachers. And I was an elected exec board member. The last battle they were fighting when I left was over block scheduling. We elementary teachers asked them for talking points, so we could echo their complaints to our administration. And all the high school teachers would say was "We will have the kids in class for 90 minutes!!" Like that alarmed us who have them for 6 hours??? LOL

[iwantmycountryback]

7. I'm a high-school student

And I'm not sure whether my work is hard enough or not, but I do know for sure that test scores don't mean shit. In New York, my teachers are forced to teach to the test and cram in everything you could possibly have to know for it. It's not a good way educate kids for the workforce.

[Bill McBlueState]

12. test scores

You're right about test scores being meaningless. I took French for five years, 8th to 12th grade, and while I became very good at taking French tests, I can't speak the language very well at all.

Same deal in high school calculus -- students learn tricks for solving integrals and finding derivatives, which are easy to test, but there's very little emphasis on the theoretical underpinnings of calculus. Those "theoretical underpinnings," even though they sound kind of scary, are what enable students to apply calculus to real-world problems.

[proud2BlibKansan]

18. That's too bad

I took French for 5 years also and was fluent when I graduated from high school.

[proud2BlibKansan]

21. Do you have teachers who show videos

instead of teaching? That was my biggest complaint when my own two kids were in high school. The youngest had a Math teacher who showed Oprah! I called the principal and asked him to please explain what Oprah had to do with Math. He asked the teacher who called me and explained that watching Oprah was a reward for doing their work on time. I told him my kid could stay home and watch Oprah, I wanted him to learn Math at school. I also told him I am a teacher and the only reward in my class for working is getting smarter. And what teenager thinks Oprah is a reward?

The next day, my kid was switched to another Math class. That teacher also didn't return the following year.

This is not an isolated incident. I cannot get over the number of high school teachers who show videos - a lot.

[getmeouttahere]

9. Yeah, it's called No Child Left Behind....

and it's much easier to convert a dumbed-down populace to sheeple.

I worked for an educational publisher for 10 years, and from the time it was implemented I never found one teacher or administration who thought that program was worth a shit (my emphasis)

[Quixote1818]

14. My feeling is that the Bush administration with NCLB WANTS to teach

to the test so the kids will do better on the tests making it look like test scores are going up but in reality they were just given all the answers to the test. So the Bush administration then can claim that test scores are up. It's all a ploy to make it look like progress is being made but in reality our kids are learning less.

[democrat in Tallahassee]

11. Here they only teach what they need to know to pass the mandatory

test; this test is used to grade the schools and determine how much money they get. The kids don't do well on the test; the school suffers.

[BornaDem]

15. Unfortunately, the dumbing down started long before...

he was elected. He has only added to the current disaster that public schools have become over the past century. If you don't believe that, find some eighth grade school books from the 1st half of the 20th century and see if you think your senior year courses were comparable.