NationStates Jolt Archive

Not if we have quotas to meet! Just pass them on through!!

http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/06/15/failing.students.ap/index.html

And people wonder why our schools are so bad off.

Not if we have quotas to meet! Just pass them on through!!

http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/06/15/failing.students.ap/index.html

And people wonder why our schools are so bad off.

Schools are not so bad off. Youve fallen for the propaganda. US schools continue to produce leaders in every field consistently.

Schools are not so bad off. Youve fallen for the propaganda. US schools continue to produce leaders in every field consistently.

I haven't fallen for any propaganda. I know that schools are not all that bad. of course, even at my high school - one of the highest ranked in the state - I saw things like this happening.

If they had anything resembling a brain they would have an independent body of examination to check how they were doing, not just let teachers make up scores.

To add:

I acted as a supplemental instructor for a freshman chemistry class for several years. The main thing I noticed about these incoming students? The complete and utter lack of personal responsibility for their studies exhibted by the majority of these students. They expected to go through the whole semester without cracking a book - putting frat parties, etc. ahead of their studies - and still succeed. Some of them learned after the first test. Others went through the whole semester bitching about how hard the professor was and how I wouldn't spoonfeed them the answers.

Some of this is obviously just the fact that these people were personally lazy. However, I think a big part of it had to do with stories like this. All too often, students in our public schools are not expected to earn their grades. It is apparently easier and less stressful (and better for the books) to just give them the grade and move them on. Don't bother challenging them or making sure they learn how to study. The teachers who do these things are horribly undervalued.

It's all really sad.

The forums are so bumpy today...

*silently laughs at the failure that is NCLB*

Is this from the same people that cry about "No child left behind" in the first place? First they say it's a bad idea because it doesn't work then they try to circumvent it?


Nice :rolleyes:

Well hey...you're not allowed to fail them from Kindergarten to Grade 9...why let them fail in high school? Hardly seems fair...might as well just pass them through all the way! [/sarcasm and anger]

Schools are not so bad off. Youve fallen for the propaganda. US schools continue to produce leaders in every field consistently.
Not the point. The kind of students who do very well in school, would probably do so, regardless of the actual quality of their education. The ones who are missing out are the 'middle' group of average students. That's not propoganda. That's reality.

To add:

I acted as a supplemental instructor for a freshman chemistry class for several years. The main thing I noticed about these incoming students? The complete and utter lack of personal responsibility for their studies exhibted by the majority of these students. They expected to go through the whole semester without cracking a book - putting frat parties, etc. ahead of their studies - and still succeed. Some of them learned after the first test. Others went through the whole semester bitching about how hard the professor was and how I wouldn't spoonfeed them the answers.

Some of this is obviously just the fact that these people were personally lazy. However, I think a big part of it had to do with stories like this. All too often, students in our public schools are not expected to earn their grades. It is apparently easier and less stressful (and better for the books) to just give them the grade and move them on. Don't bother challenging them or making sure they learn how to study. The teachers who do these things are horribly undervalued.

It's all really sad.
Since the system is set up so that the only way for the school to get funding is if the kids score x, then the school is forced to act in its best interest instead of failing the kid like he deserves. That is how the child is not 'left behind.'

On a tangetial note, kids need to lose things. Games, contests, whatever. It's a part of growing up and if you remove it you get kids who feel that everything should just work out for them no matter what. A friend is fond of pointing out something (that I can't verify for you, so take it as you will) that if you ask a group of kindergardeners whose the strongest they will all raise their hands, if you ask a group of 4th graders the same question they'll identify one person in the class. It's in there.

The thing is not to shelter them from loss, but teach them to cope with the fact that things sometimes don't go thier way-even if you're good at soccer, sometimes you lose. Or the chant in the latest Batman movie-"Why do we fall? To learn how to pick ourselves up."

Well, now I quoted a superhero movie in a tangetial rant that is only kinda on topic. Probably should go now before I start touting the wisdom of the Archie gang...

If they had anything resembling a brain they would have an independent body of examination to check how they were doing, not just let teachers make up scores.
Good luck. Marks are subjective, especially in the humanities. You could not objectively 'check' them. Not without exhaustive retesting and interviews to determine actual skill levels.

Few teachers 'make up' scores. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that scores are a valid way to qualify student acheivement.

Good luck. Marks are subjective, especially in the humanities. You could not objectively 'check' them. Not without exhaustive retesting and interviews to determine actual skill levels.

Few teachers 'make up' scores. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that scores are a valid way to qualify student acheivement.
Having friends who have done scoring for independant testing centers, it is even less reliable. The practice of 'getting the scores you want' vs. the scores you have is frightfully common.

To add:

I acted as a manager for a public service employer for several years. The main thing I noticed about these incoming employees? The complete and utter lack of personal responsibility for their work exhibted by the majority of these employees. They expected to go through the whole career without lifting a finger- putting personal phone calls, etc. ahead of their duties- and still succeeding. Some of them learned after the first review. Others went through the whole day bitching about how hard the boss was and how I wouldn't do their jobs for them.

Some of this is obviously just the fact that these people were personally lazy. However, I think a big part of it had to do with stories like this. All too often, workers in our public service are not expected to earn their wage. It is apparently easier and less stressful (and better for the books) to just give them the money and promote them. Don't bother challenging them or making sure they actually do anything. The managers who do these things are horribly undervalued.

It's all really sad.
Sorry Dem, I just thought this would be useful to use (bolded changes are mine) for another argument as well:).

Having friends who have done scoring for independant testing centers, it is even less reliable. The practice of 'getting the scores you want' vs. the scores you have is frightfully common.
It's laughably easy to skew things like scores. Just look at the curve system of grading in many Universities and Colleges. Pah.

Funny that you all are now using the same arguments that conservatives have been using for years when pointing out how much of a failure the public school system is and has been becoming...failure due to policies that you espouse.

It's not just NCLB. It's non-competitive grading systems and getting away from teaching the basics, as well.

Karma is a bitch, isn't it? ;)

It's laughably easy to skew things like scores. Just look at the curve system of grading in many Universities and Colleges. Pah.
My University tried to do away with that by not having grades, but rather narrative evaluations of the students. The science departments and grade whores threw a fit (well, thats a mischaracterization, the school had the system for over 30 years before changing it...) so we do grades and narrative evals. The evals go with your transcript, so it actually makes you own up a little so that you don't have a teacher writting 'Who was this guy?' Not that that is an answer...thinly veiled school pride I guess...

Really need to start eating better so I don't wake up with stomache aches and make nonsense posts...

The school system should know well before the end of the kids' senior year whether 16% are going to fail to meet graduation standards. The remediation efforts should be varied and numerous, beginning well before their junior year. (Tutorials, summer school, week-end classes, etc.). The school system getting excited aobut this after the grades are in is simply stupid.


If you tested what you taught (ie: causing students to learn, not lecutring without assessment, modification, and reteaching), and you taught the curriculum, but the students failed nonetheless, then was the problem:
1. the curriculum; or,
2. the motivation the students?

In Texas, the students' scores dive on common assessments, starting as early as the 3rd grade, then mysteriously spike upward during their juniior year when it becomes obvious to them that they can't graduate without passing the exit exam.

As students will be required to pass the exit exams to promote from 3rd to 4th and then from 8th to 9th, I'm hoping that that diving phenomenum will cease.

Funny that you all are now using the same arguments that conservatives have been using for years when pointing out how much of a failure the public school system is and has been becoming...failure due to policies that you espouse.

Karma is a bitch, isn't it? ;)
Wait, are you sure? Because the article seems to indicate that the grade fixing is to maintain funding through the "No Child Left Behind" act. It seems that it is buckling under that policy, which if I recall was a conservative initiative...

Wait, are you sure? Because the article seems to indicate that the grade fixing is to maintain funding through the "No Child Left Behind" act. It seems that it is buckling under that policy, which if I recall was a conservative initiative...
Note my edit in my original post. I haven't had enough caffeine to keep everything coherent yet. :p

Personally, I think that NCLB was a stupid thing to implement, considering that the public school system was already broken. It just gave administrators MORE of a reason to shuffle kids through the system in order to keep funding coming in (which they were already doing prior to NCLB).

NCLB just exacerbated a problem that was initiated by liberal school policies.

Personally, I don't give a damn if it was conservative or liberal. I just wish government would either A) actually do something positive instead of making schools worse OR B) get out of public education, because they obviously do NOT know how to make it work correctly.

Funny that you all are now using the same arguments that conservatives have been using for years when pointing out how much of a failure the public school system is and has been becoming...failure due to policies that you espouse.

It's not just NCLB. It's non-competitive grading systems and getting away from teaching the basics, as well.

Karma is a bitch, isn't it? ;)

There is no point in saying, "liberal/conservative" educational policy. Education is cyclic. Current fads are things that have been done again and again under different names a decade ago, and decades again before that. I'm not referring specifically to the NCLB issue...I'm talking about pedagogical practices and approaches specifically to teaching mathematics and language. We swing from 'grammar and phonetics' to whole language, and back again. Anyone who has taught for any amount of time will see this pendulum swinging back and forth. What you get then is a group of kids with strong grammar and phonetic skills, but no decent reading comprehension or extrapolative abilities, and another group of kids who have no grammatical background or phonetic experience, but score well on comprehension. We keep 'experimenting' on student cohorts, but we aren't consistent. You end up with a class of kids that have such divergent educational backgrounds that you end up remediating them all in different areas just to get them up to the same level. And then your time is up...and it's unlikely you were able to meet all the outcomes mandated for that grade level. This problem piles up...as they move on, with gaps in their education that have to be patched next year, which means MORE gaps will likely happen when the next teacher runs out of time...

Politicians have a very limited vision that usually extends to the end of their term. That is a fraction of the time of a student's education, and new educational initiatives that are tested, then tossed, simply create roadblocks and pressure for both teachers and students. Sure, it might be nice to make sure that every kid becomes really computer literate...but not when that is going to come at the expense of time needed for basic skill building. And then, when those kids move on, and their lack is noticed, the next group gets NO technology training, and is forced to go overboard in the areas their older peers are performing poorly in. You can't have kneejerk reactions to things like this, and programs need to be implemented with sound pedagogical research behind it, and a commitment to follow through.

Funny that you all are now using the same arguments that conservatives have been using for years when pointing out how much of a failure the public school system is and has been becoming...failure due to policies that you espouse.

It's not just NCLB. It's non-competitive grading systems and getting away from teaching the basics, as well.

Karma is a bitch, isn't it? ;)

Funny that you assume this has anything to do with conservative v. liberal. The need for good schools transcends politics.

Meanwhile, I am neither conservative nor liberal - at least across the board. What I want is for our children to get a good education, in which they learn not only the subjects laid out for them, but learn how to learn. And I don't expect every student to graduate. If we expect that, then we must necessarily pander to the lowest common denominator. I also think that the idea that every student should go to college is bringing down the quality of our colleges and universities. It is higher education, and not everyone should be there - but our society has deemed it absolutely necessary.

Disgusting.