So, how bad are our public schools really?

[dawg]

It seems to me like everyone takes it as a given that our public schools are really crappy and that our results are way worse than those of other countries. What I'm asking is .... is that really true?

Does anyone know of a good place on the net to get an apples to apples comparison of U.S. vs. other developed nations with regard to educational systems and results? What proportion of students to the other countries' systems attempt to educate for the full 12 years? Are the systems that are beating ours public or private?

I ask these questions because it is my sneaking suspicion that our public schools, while badly in need of funding reforms, are basically sound. I suspect we are experiencing more of a societal crisis than an education crisis, and now that the elites are rallying the wagons for education "reform" they are just as likely to do harm as they are to do good.

Thoughts? Links?

[uncommon]

1. I agree. My daughter's school is in a poor city and it is pretty great. Full of books and

computers and supplies and bright, clean classrooms manned by capable, responsive teachers.

[Brickbat]

2. Very generally, I look at public schools the way I look at the country's current infrastructure.

An excellent idea, soundly implemented with good goals, taken for granted, left to rot, and now a target for people who would rather wreck something and take the easy way out rather than make something good, exciting, and useful for all people.

[blondeatlast]

3. +1. Wish I'd said that. nt

[LWolf]

41. +2

[elleng]

4. Depends on where they are, REALLY!

Its a big country, so broad generalizations don't work.

For example, had we moved to Montgomery County Maryland or Fairfax County Virginia, we might very well have found suitable public schools for our daughters. As it was, living in DC, we went private/parochial.

[exboyfil]

14. DC has the highest per pupil spend in the nation

So why are not the schools better?

[Chan790]

28. Lots of reasons...

none of which Michelle Rhee wanted to address. Why engage the root causes of the problem when you can engage in crack-pottery.

It starts with lack of parental involvement in the lives of students. It's not all parents, most DC student's parents I know are involved...but I work down the block from the Columbia Heights educational campus in a bank...I see these kids weekly and I see their parents, well most of them. The kids doing the worst in school (and they're obvious)...I don't know their parents. The truants coming in at noon to make a withdrawal on school days, I don't know their parents. We're a community bank...we're involved in our community, a heavy sponsor of programming and events in this community. We offer free finance seminars to residents on how to manage their expenses and save for life-events. It's not incorrect to say I know 90% of the people living within a 1/4mi. of our branch, whether they bank with us or not.

There is also a lot of bad spending going on...it's possible to spend a lot of money on the wrong stuff and not achieve anything. For example, you should look up Ms. Rhee's salary. She's pulling more a year than the mayor and in the meanwhile Garfield HS is decrepit, the teacher to student rate is almost 30:1, remedial programs designed to catch the "slow kids" up are under-funded...and Rhee's funneling money off to fund charter academies. Her other brilliant idea was to pay students a "salary" to show up. That's money that could have fixed the infrastructure of the school, funded educators, purchased books. Do the math. Approximately 18,000 junior-and-senior-HS students in DCPS x ~$40/week x ~40 weeks in the school year. Figure that even 15% of them are truant and it's no surprise that DCPS spent $20M this year (last school year) bribing kids to show up.

[elleng]

29. LONG history of bad management, among other things.

[Warren Stupidity]

32. Urban school systems have huge infrastructure costs and

vast numbers of disadvantages students to deal with. Their cost structures as completely different than those in middle class suburban communities. Their demographics are completely different than those in middle class suburban communities.

[Dappleganger]

37. Quite true, and you cannot just expect middle class strategies

to work in urban schools. I know that many have tried before in the nearby city where we live and it just doesn't work. One major factor I have observed is that the city council and mayor have, year after year (we've watched this for nearly a decade), cut the superintendent off at the knees wrt to implementing whatever strategies they have. They don't listen to teachers at all and instead strain at the quick fix. The magnet schools ARE doing quite well, but those kids are going to do well no matter where you put them. It's the urban families, urban schools, urban communities which are in dire need of vision and practical help (and of course it doesn't help that our state continues to underfund the classroom size mandate).

[Nevernose]

45. Are you not familiar with the term "outlier?"

DC is an exception. There is a direct relationship between per pupil expenditures and school performance, bu, as with all statistics, there are exceptions.

[exboyfil]

46. I am but I am making a point

What is the solution for DC schools such that parents can send their children to them instead of spending huge dollars going to a private school? What about those parents without the resources? What is going on in these schools that keeps parents from sending their children to them? Is it the safety of the children from their peers? Is it the facilities that prevent learning? Is it the disruptions from their peers during class time? Is it the competence of the teachers? Is it the availability of resources (textbooks, computers, etc)? Is the spending uneven?

[seabeyond]

5. exactly. i see it all over my town. the poor, the rich. they are good schools with adm and teachers

that do a good job. i started kids out in private because i was convinced the public school were bad. over the years, i started seeing academics were better in the public. pulled kids out and went to poor public. it was kick ass. alter had kids transferred to the high income public that was $ poor. it is excellent. have a son in our diverse, lotsa poor high school and again i am impressed.

it is ALL over town.

what i do see, is a breakdown in society, the child that is entitled and a lack of support for the teachers.

[ejpoeta]

13. what i see is that someone has to be at fault for why kids aren't doing well in school

and it can't be the parents! they are working all the time. it can't be the hours in front of the tv or video games.... it MUST be the teacher. it MUST be the school's fault.

the first thing i tell the teacher when i go in for parent teacher conference is that i am not one of those parents. i hold my children responsible for doing their work and behaving. i don't accept 'i forgot'. i don't accept 'but everyone else was doing it'. and i will do everything i can to help the teacher with my kid.

[seabeyond]

19. teacher apologizing for insisting my son come in for tutoring. no fuckin way

i say to her. apologize? what is that. thank you so much. thank you for pulling kid out and tutoring him.

she said

you would be surprised at the number of parents that dont want to bring kid in for tutoring, yet the teacher has to demand it from the aprent. then what

the parent bitches how bad the teahcers are cause teacher insisted the kid be tutored so he wasnt flunked.

i just cannot see what else the teachers can do fr the kids.

and i approach it as you do too. i tell the.... i support you.

[ejpoeta]

35. it's ridiculous. i am so sorry that you had to take time away from more important things

to take your kid to be tutored. you should be thanking your lucky stars the teacher even bothers. i mean, take some responsibility!! and i do not mean you. i mean those parents. how easy would it be for the teacher to just ignore the problem and push the kid on to the next teacher. i have seen it happen. they just keep passing the kid to the next grade. teachers can't do it all. parents have to be involved!! and good for you for telling the teacher so.

[Dappleganger]

38. There are children coming to school without having eaten breakfast.

No paper or pencils, basic school supplies. Stayed up too late on the computer or outside with friends so they are tired. Stressed over their family situation like money and health problems. No regular study time (if they have a place to study) or no study skills/partner in place. Not to mention gang issues as well as bullying.

Some things the families can control but many of these they can't, but whichever it is many of these urban students are just SHOWING UP in the morning in an educational deficit.

[seabeyond]

39. i do like the breakfast program. and i would like an after school

study environment and maybe kid club environment. we have the breakfast. i dont know about the other. but i have heard of it.

[Dappleganger]

40. At-school breakfast means they have to get there earlier

in order to eat it, and I know that in itself can be a difficulty, but yes those programs are quite helpful.

[seabeyond]

42. yes, they have to get there early. but... with these kids, already tough to get to school

bus gets there early, so if they have that, it is not an issue. many parents off to work need to take kids early, so that is good, too. it is tough for two working, or single working for parent to drop off at 8, cause they have to be there at 8. mine, was watching my two nephews walk a couple miles to school in winter when it is so cold and dark.

besides, both my kids go early for sports... doable.

[Spike89]

6. Schools an easy target

Comparing apples to apples just won't work, there aren't really other apples. We do a good job but of course we've been starving schools/teachers and demotivating students with bleak prospects after school. If we really wanted to do a great job, we'd have to start with a solid premise and goal of what the role of schools are. Is the goal to outscore other countries in standardized tests? Is the goal 100% literacy? Is the goal creating lifelong learners or fully trained ready-for-work employees? If we say "all the above" we'll need to plow a lot more money into the mix and test for more than standardized knowledge.
As any teacher knows, you really can't assess performance unless you have goals set.

[frazzled]

7. There are around 98,000 public schools in the US

They vary radically by state, district, socio-economic level of the student population, etc.

I really think your question is too vague. Are we talking about a school in Elmira, New York, or Biloxi, Mississippi? In Orange County, California, or the South Side of Chicago? In Brookline, Massachusetts or rural Wyoming?

Most schools are good and doing their jobs. My kids went to inner-city schools in Minneapolis, MN, and at that time, I felt they were excellent. But even within those schools I saw a few stellar teachers and programs, and the inevitable few rotten apples. The elementary and high schools they went to were great. The junior high was a nightmare. There's always room for improvement.

But there are schools in our country in which students are failing en masse. It's hard to get top teachers to work in these schools. The administrations have often given up. It's these schools in crisis that are the main focus of discussions today. And there is no question in my mind that we must find ways to help them improve. That will involve some new ideas. These things won't make a difference to 90% of the schools in the country. But for the struggling schools, assistance and change are needed. At least that's my opinion.

[dawg]

10. That sounds like more like pockets of poverty and blight ...

than it does a problem specific to the schools. I would imagine that none of those struggling schools are in predominantly white upper middle class suburban districts.

[frazzled]

12. So you're saying we should not be helping pockets of poverty?

Most of the proposals for school reorganization being defiled here are geared to the bottom five percent of schools in each state. That is what this whole discussion is about.

If you want to take the right-wing, conservative position that "those people" should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps, that the government shouldn't waste time and attention on the "lazy" poor, that I'm-all-right-Jack, screw you ... go ahead. Personally, I believe it's time we focus attention on these hidden problems that middle-class Americans (what's left of us) don't want to worry their pretty heads about. We've left these schools in poverty-stricken communities fester for too long. It's time to try some changes.

[dawg]

15. I want to do something about it, I just don't think the fault necessarily lies with the schools.

I think public education has been under attack for the last 30 years in this country. To the extent that everyone just assumes that our public schools are "shitty" and in need of total restructuring.

I don't think that is necessarily the case.

[frazzled]

18. Then you're saying ...

We just can't educate those lazy (ethnic slur here) kids. That the status quo is okay.

This myth that everyone assumes the public schools are shitty is just that: a myth. I haven't heard anyone say that.

Today, the president talked about 2,000 schools that are "dropout factories." That is 5% of the schools in the nation. I didn't hear him say that teachers were the cause. But people here seem to think he did.

If you want to wait until all poverty and inequality is banished from the nation, until racism and xenophobia are a thing of the past ... well, you're going to be waiting forever. Till then, whole segments of our society will be dropping out and perpetuating a cycle of poverty for another generation.

We can all just bury our heads in the sand, but saying it's not the schools' faults is to condemn these neighborhoods to continued failure. It's our duty, as liberal citizens, to be concerned about the education of all our kids. Teachers should feel that way, too (and most do).

[seabeyond]

23. i aint readin no stinkin book.... raise a kid in an anti academic environment and then

see how well they embrace a learning environment that their parents abhor and ridicule and spit on regularly....

and tell me if there is not an issue

btw... my brother and his wife has said this many times... i aint reading no books. he was on my ass for child abuse cause at the youngest of ages, kids read and knew what was up in the world. we are snobs... because we are informed. they do everything they can to be anti education as my brother asks WHY... three out of his three kids didnt graduate from highschool. WHY... are his kids doing this TO HIM. he did EVERYTHING the parent books said... though he never read no stinkin book.

[dawg]

25. You are misreading me entirely.

I think we need to fundamentally reform the way school districts are funded in this country. I also think that we need to pursue numerous other strategies to combat poverty and the detrimental effects it has on all aspects of peoples lives. The problem is that I think the "elites" are attempting to dismantle our public education system entirely. Fundamentally restructure it - throw the baby out with the bathwater. Based on the system as a whole "underperforming" the rest of the world.

There are people in this country who are opposed to any public good. They are opposed to public education full stop. And we are allowing them to frame this debate without giving their evidence any scrutiny at all.

I'm not saying do nothing about those failing neighborhoods. I'm saying it isn't the fault of the schools. If we can fix the neighborhoods (which we should try very hard to do) we will fix the schools. It's a chicken and egg situation.

[Uzybone]

8. Its like asking how bad a public bathrooms in the US

depending on where they are and who uses them, they are very very different.


Some are excellent and others are horrible.

[vi5]

9. It's perception a lot of the time...

I live in NJ and when I mention what town I'm in and that my daughter goes to public school, I get a look of shock, dismay, and sympathy because of the perception our school district has. Hell, I even have adults who graduated from this school system react that way.

And you know what? My daughter is in fourth grade and every teacher she has had has been phenomenal. The principal is great. It's a disciplined, caring, active and vibrant school. And my son has medical and developmental issues and is in their early intervention Pre-K program which is brilliant. And my wife and I could afford to send her to private school if we wanted. I can't imagine any private school giving her as good an education as she has in our public school, and definitely not with the kind of diverse student body in terms of ethnicity, religion, and socio-economic background which we think is just as important as anything else.

So a lot of the time it's perception....a lot of the time it's people expecting miracles and not wanting to be actively involved in their kids education...and a lot of the time it's just not wanting to hear that your kid may not be the brilliant genius or the well behaved angel you want to believe that he or she is.

[seabeyond]

11. all the difference appreciating what is being done for our children, supporting the teacher opposed

to battling with the teachers and seeing them as evil

the many times i have addressed teachers or adm for my kids i could have approached it in different manners. i could have gone in to confront, looking for a fight and by gosh... i would show them who is paying for the paycheck. or address any issue looking to have a win win win situation, for everyone in the equation

in preceiving things in that manner, i have always received the best for my kids.

[exboyfil]

16. I feel the same about our schools

I really doubt any private school in the area could match our schools in Math and Science. Language Arts on the other hand - we have issues (issues to the point that I am Homeschooling in that subject until my youngest daughter reaches High School).

[MineralMan]

17. It varies widely, even within school districts.

For example, some schools in my city of Saint Paul rank very high. Others rank very low. Guess which ones are in the nice, white, affluent neighborhoods and which are in the inner city.

You have to look at each individual school. When you do that, some things emerge from that look. They're alarming things, IMO.

[PBS Poll-435]

20. Close 'em all down. Now.

No Profit, No Point.






















:hide:

[AngryAmish]

21. It is a measurable thing

1. Give kids IQ tests.
2. Test kids at the end of every year.
3. Compare progress year to year.

A smarter kid can advance faster, a dimmer child less so. If a teacher has a room filled with 80-90 IQs, they can be the best teacher in the world but the results won't come. Same with a room with kids whose parents don't help. Same teacher with kids with 110+ IQs will excel. So this incremental change, over a large enough sample size, will become obvious. After a few years it becomes obvious who is the good teacher and who is not good at it.

[dawg]

22. This thread has been open more than an hour.

So far, no one has even attempted to offer evidence that our educational system is inferior to that of other similar countries. I'm not saying that it isn't true. I'm just saying that it has become such "conventional wisdom" that our public schools aren't doing their job, that no one even questions the premise.

[Igel]

31. Our schools aren't all inferior to those in other countries.

Most are superior to most schools in most other countries. Many are inferior to many schools in some countries. Most are inferior to some schools in a few countries.

That better? The difficulty is that on average our schools don't; in particular, many do and some really fail.

In more detail: For the most part, our ed system K-12 is superior to most other countries, in general. Around puberty as our kids are struggling to figure out how their ancestors' genes are supposed to dictate their cultural allegiances and their behaviors our kids go from near the head of the top 20 countries' student cohorts to the middle and keep on sliding. They never recover, although some schools' students make great strides. In fact, some schools' students don't suffer the same degree of angst: it's concentrated among some cohorts, and while there's a racial correlation and there's definitely ethnicity involved, race is a red herring. Working class white neighborhoods have the same problems for the same reasons--even if the "culture" you're fighting to define yourself by isn't clearly color-coded differently from the culture you're fighting against.

By the time "our" kids finish college--if they get to college--they tend to be better educated and students in most countries, and our best rival the best in other top-rated coutries.

The generalization is that high school graduates that go to colleges in the US tend to have memorized fewer facts but have learned slightly better thinking skills. Even in tests that test thinking skills, however, US students don't do better because they simply are too ignorant to marshall the facts for their thinking skills to operate on.

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[WCGreen]

26. first of all, in this country, every kid at least gets a chance...

There is no overt tracking so that kids can bust out of their "station" and do what ever it is they are capable of...

Some kids develope later than others. Sometimes it takes a figurative kick in the ass to get a kid going toward an education.

In the US, you can change, it's what makes the US great.

You can reinvent yourself.

In other countries that we are compared with, the kids are, from what I understand, tracked at an early age.

The kids taking the achievement tests are the best of the best.

Here in the US, all our kids take the test.

To me it's simple, do we want to offer all kids a chance at the brass ring or are we going to take that spark out of our education system.

I know we have way too many failing schools in this country but most of that can be attributed to poor surrounding, really low expectations and funding problems.

for years, the conservatives railed against public schools acting as social workers or social agencies and now they want to privatize all of that.

I don't know what the answer is, all I do know is that the people operating this "public private system" will figure out a way to wring every last dollar out for profit and that takes away the great leveling factor that public education gives our country.

[DailyGrind51]

27. That solely depends on the wealth of the District.

[Johonny]

30. I believe if you went back in time

say every ten years say based only on public opinion (say op ed in your area of your news paper). You would find our schools are in terrible trouble and never in worse shape than they are right now and if this continuous we can expect near disaster and decline. If this true given the horrific decline predicted continuously then you would be surprised to find the average American doesn't sit around on a rock pile banging rocks together.

On the other hand if you look at the state of education roughly 100 years ago. You'd find the US education system was truly bad and many Americans could not simply read or write. At least that was the major results of the WWI testing. Clearly 100 years later our educational system has improved over what it was.

Now compared to other countries... it really depends on how you count. If you believe in the UN and their measuring attempts it's hard to not notice our education system could use a new motivational boost. We simply aren't producing enough engineers and scientists and our population at whole seems badly lacking in terms of basic math and science understanding compared to nations we are competing with economically. I'm pretty sure that's and education crisis, but since the educational system is a part of society I don't see how you decouple the two.

[Dappleganger]

33. It varies greatly, even by just a few miles.

Our county is the highest performing in the state, while just a couple miles across to the next county there are a few good magnet schools and a bunch of black holes. Quite honestly, it is the fault of a city council and mayor who have no interest or ability to meet the needs of urban families in that city (Jacksonville). Their solution is to corral the problem away from their homes and put off the consequences until the next election. Actually, they did do one right thing by firing the superintendent and hiring the one they have now. Unfortunately he is met with one obstacle after another by the backwards city council and mayor.

[Fire1]

34. In Michigan, it depends upon the tax base. n/t

[Obamanaut]

36. Bad enough that the president's kids don't go to one. nt

[unhappycamper]

43. Education get 4% of discretionary spending in 2011.

In contrast, the elephant in the room is military spending at 58% of discretionary spending in 2011.

[Dappleganger]

44. +10000

[spanone]

47. it's another shitspin for the election coming up...something else to make Obama look bad

bu$h* fucked up the schools with nclb