What are they teaching in school nowadays?

I am amazed at how many parents allow their kids to drop out
of school. In my family, college was your decision, but dropping
out of high school before graduating was not even open to discussion.
I don't know how someone can sit in a classroom for many years
and not be able to read. Yet I read that many kids intering higher
education can hardly read on a second or third grade level. How is
that possible?
 
I can tell stories from behind the scenes in the public school system that would make you all cry. I worked at a NYS-identified failing public school that had been driven into the ground by a morally corrupt superintendent and her equally corrupt old girls network of tenured incompetents. I've had 8th graders with literacy skills at 2nd grade levels; I've been told NOT to make any references to religion other than when covering the topic as part of a literature lesson; I've worked with teachers who set the switch to auto-pilot once tenure was granted; I've seen teens pushed through the system without basic skill sets; I've experienced firsthand the folly of the Common Core. The public school system broke long ago, and has no hope of being fixed. That's my personal opinion from the trenches, where I continue to try to positively impact the lives of 150 +/- high schoolers on a daily basis. Fortunately I currently work with professionals who are committed to quality instruction and the betterment of students in and out of the classroom. I spent my time in Scholastic Hades, and it was as sad as it was maddening.

You want the public educational system to have a chance to dramatically improve? Eliminate tenure and break the union's stranglehold on districts, Boards of Ed, and other things too numerous to list here.
 
They are learning they cannot fail. If they actually flunk something the teacher is 'expected' to help them recover the grade. So they get to pass a class they screwed up or missed 20 to 30+ days in a 10 day make up window at the end of the year. The teacher has to provide all the material and the grading rubric etc. Guess how many kids pass a class with a 69.4998888 ?

And the other thing....no body (an employer)outside of high school gives a rodents backside that you have 'special problems/circumstances or what ever'. They have no idea what the real world is about. The education system today is like Ford was years ago building cars..they had 4 wheels, an engine and a body but didn't work worth a flip. Until US education makes a stand like Ford did..quality is job one... we all need to start shoveling causes it is getting to the top of our collective waders.

Rant off....thanks :)

PS...they cannot add without a calculator and cannot read a clock that does not have a digital display.
 
I am sure that stuff they arent teaching in high school, is to be an American Patriot and to love your Country and respect your elders. I know they indoctrinate them in college to hate this Country and all it stands for.
 
I few years I was in a fast food "restaurant" and after giving my order, the total was something like $6.52. I handed the employee $11.52, which he entered into the cash register. He then looked wide-eyed at me and said "you get exactly $5 change!; how did you figure that out?" He was truly amazed. He clearly had no sense of numbers or how to use them beyond pushing the buttons on the register. I almost said "this is why I am not working in a fast food restaurant and you are" but decided to be nice and say nothing.

Although recently retired I was a health care executive with 10 facilities and about 2,000 employees in my area of responsibility. I often was interviewing and hiring management staff, and I cannot count how many times this involved college graduates and/or people with extensive work and supervisory experience who could not write a simple, grammatically correct sentence; could not do simple math calculations without a calculator or their computer, and often had less than a minimal knowledge of history, geography or pretty much anything else. Except, of course, popular culture and the latest news on the lives of the entertainment elite).
 
I will say this, trade schools are on the upswing here in PA. My Alma Mater, Thaddeus Stevens College, just got a 6 million dollar grant from a local heavy steel fabricator and expanded their branch campus. Even with that, they have to turn away applicants every year to keep class sizes at a reasonable level.

The illusion of "idea" work being the only thing needed to prosper is fading away as the students realize that the jobs that pay anything are ones that require skills other than being able to parrot back trite answers or solve math problems that, unless you're a nuclear physicist, have no practical application.

Go Bulldogs!

MFWT class of 2010
 
American education is the pits right now.

I have young co-workers who do not know how to express 15 minutes as a fraction of an hour; they don't know who we fought in World War II; they cannot name any more than one or two Presidents; and they are woefully ignorant of basic Earth science, such as the reason why our seasons change.

In less than 70 years, we have gone from teaching Latin to 8th Graders, to teaching remedial English to college students. Sad... :(
 
mc5aw said:
I can tell stories from behind the scenes in the public school system that would make you all cry. I worked at a NYS-identified failing public school that had been driven into the ground by a morally corrupt superintendent and her equally corrupt old girls network of tenured incompetents. I've had 8th graders with literacy skills at 2nd grade levels; I've been told NOT to make any references to religion other than when covering the topic as part of a literature lesson; I've worked with teachers who set the switch to auto-pilot once tenure was granted; I've seen teens pushed through the system without basic skill sets; I've experienced firsthand the folly of the Common Core. The public school system broke long ago, and has no hope of being fixed. That's my personal opinion from the trenches, where I continue to try to positively impact the lives of 150 +/- high schoolers on a daily basis. Fortunately I currently work with professionals who are committed to quality instruction and the betterment of students in and out of the classroom. I spent my time in Scholastic Hades, and it was as sad as it was maddening.

You want the public educational system to have a chance to dramatically improve? Eliminate tenure and break the union's stranglehold on districts, Boards of Ed, and other things too numerous to list here.
Click to expand...


What is Common Core? I know about an apple core and the Marine "Corps", but not Common Core. An educational standard?

BTW, when Mila Kunis was invited to a Marine Ball, the actress's asst. pronounced Corps as "Corpse." So much for Hollywood and what it knows of the military. I'm afraid that it may be typical of her generation. :rolleyes: Oh: if you didn't see the story in the news a couple of years ago, Kunis accepted and attended with the enlisted Marine who invited her. But she was at first puzzled at the invitation and asked Justin Timberlake to be her date! They had just been in some movie together. "Friends With Benefits"? I think it was Timberlake who explained the situation to her.

But gee whiz: Marine "Corpse"? :mad:
 
mom and dad made sure that homework was completed, teeth were brushed, room was kept neat. I was dad's helper when he went into work on Saturdays or on his second job, installing cabinets and countertops. I was filled with pride that he took me along with him.

dropping out of school wasn't an option....it was NON EXISITING....after high school, college was the natural course of events............
 
I think that while so many young Americans were being educated in the SEA college of hard knocks,the dope smoking demonstrating anti-American protesters stayed at home ,went to college and never left,making the field of education their career and have spent the last 40 years pushing political correctness and socialism.Uneducated citizens make good subjects to those with ulterior motives.God help us to wake up!
 
G-Mac said:
The other day I had occasion to work with a young man that I'd just recently met. Probably in his late teens. I like him, seems like a decent kid....calls me "Mr.", "Sir", etc.

I was a bit surprised when he came up to me and said that he wanted to tell me something...."I can't read a ruler. Nobody ever showed me how. Can you show me?"

OK...first...I respect him for being honest and I will teach him to read a ruler, tape measure, yardstick, combination square, level, dial caliper, and whatever else he needs. But I had to ask him where he went to high school. He told me that he got kicked out of high school, but he did get a GED (General Equivalency Diploma).

So, here I have a young man, with what amounts to a high school diploma, and nobody ever taught him how to read a ruler?????

I don't blame him, I blame an educational system that would let this happen. I think we used to learn stuff like that in grade school.
Click to expand...

Don't blame the teachers. Blame the PARENTS! In an average school year a child spends about 900 hours in school and 7800 at HOME. Just who should be held more accountable?
 
G-Mac said:
He told me that he got kicked out of high school, but he did get a GED (General Equivalency Diploma).

So, here I have a young man, with what amounts to a high school diploma, and nobody ever taught him how to read a ruler?????

I don't blame him, I blame an educational system that would let this happen. I think we used to learn stuff like that in grade school.
Click to expand...

"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink", even if you hold his head under until he drowns. Why did he get kicked out? Some where, personal responsibility and parental responsibility has to kick in. Blame the kid and his parents.. Learning is not having knowledge poured into your ears, it involves hard work.

You want a better product from the schools, get the feds out of education and let the local school board take charge, then attend the school board meetings. Visit the school and see what is going on. Talk to the teacher, treating the teacher as the trained and experienced professional he/she is. Turn the TV and cell phone off, take charge of your kid. You can tell your kid what to do. If the kid argues, describe "emancipated minor" to the child while explaining how far a dollar does not go.

Teachers are not to blame for the condition of your kids education. Curriculums change based on political whims, targets change yearly, everybody knows better than the teacher for some reason, and seem surprised when their high school senior reads at a fifth grade level, can not get into MIT because he can not make change, but has an extremely good self image based on years of being told how great he is. And the teachers are not allowed to fail kids because the kids might feel bad about themselves.

Tenure is frequently misunderstood, at least in MN. Tenure means that the school board and administration need to follow a series of steps to fire somebody, instead of wacking them to cut payrolls or to create a job opening for somebodies graduating child. It still happens. but steps have to be followed.

When criticizing teachers, remember that without them, you would get to spend hours more each day with your kids. How much would you want to be paid to pend all day with a bunch of kids, locked up in a small room, with the expectation that you will teach them something valuable, and that if they don't learn it , you will be fired.
 
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