education for this century.

[JohnRoberts]

Charter schools: Interesting, I didn´t know about that. Wiki ties them to Milton Friedman, rightly so? And what would that mean? He is a person I can much more respect than most of his self acclaimed offspring.

Charter schools is about giving parents a voucher for their share of the funds that their local school would automatically get, and allow them to choose whatever school they want to send their children too. This introduction of free market self-interest decision making into education, rewards better performing schools and penalizes the underperforming schools/teachers.

Milton Friedman RIP was a well known economist and advocate of free market solutions. He was also very critical of government management. One of his popular quotes on that subject is "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand."      8)

Charter schools while certainly moving the needle in the right direction regarding quality of education receive a tremendous amount of push back from teacher's unions and established school systems who would lose funding in a more competitive environment. While I would support expanding this more widely, I am not holding my breath for those in power to allow it to happen. 

JR

 

[ricardo]

The other thing that just offends her is that she discovered higher education is basically paying large sums of money to go home and read chapter after chapter and then sit in a class while a "professor" reviews what you've read and leads a discussion group on it....

You've just highlighted the 3 important steps in 'learning'.  They are quite separate 'tasks' and each of them needs to be right for true understanding & learning.  Lets take them in turn .. excuse the language which is biased towards a college type education but in fact holds true even down to pre-school

TEXTBOOKS
No question that technology should make these cheaper AND DRIVE CRAP ONES INTO THE DON'T RE-CYCLE BIN.  Have a look at JOSmith's stuff for how it should be done.  https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/

Technology will help self-learning like this http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=psychologists-identify-best-ways-to-study  But 'textbooks' have taken advantage of these methods for years.  Look at US Army manuals teaching Electronics from before WWII.

Summary: Good 'textbooks' play a major part in helping & encouraging self study .. even at pre-school.  Technology can maximise their advantage with more question & answer.  Lets get rid of bad ones.

PROFESSOR REVIEWS

This is where you see good & bad teachers.  Good teachers ALWAYS add something to the text (even if they wrote the book).  They can judge their audience and inspire but their primary role is to help you make sense of all of this.  They MUST make you THINK instead of just regurgitating.  This is where we need to spend more money to make sure we have more good teachers.  Here's what one should be like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcL66zx_6No

Sorry about the commie example JR .. but Sandel is one of my heros.  Please watch the whole first half. 

Technology may not help this much.  Face to face is vital here.  But technology helps us to share what those lucky students had.

DISCUSSION

Finally, to set the 'seal'[*] on learning / knowledge, you need to use this new found learning and test it against the evil world.  Here, technology, by making communication much easier, has facilitated a much more open & fruitful forum for discussion AND shared the knowledge & experience of many more practitioners.  This forum is a good example.
________________

iomegaman, I think your daughter can really only complain about the extortionate price of textbooks written by money grubbing professors and perhaps Sandel's point that a good education should not be denied to the poorest among us.

* What a terrible word to use .. as though learning had a beginning and end.  Excuse wun hu ain formulae wid de English as she is spoken.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Sorry about the commie example JR .. but Sandel is one of my heros.  Please watch the whole first half. 


Sorry i couldn't make it that far, but i found the ad for some kind of financial aid service from Wells Fargo right on topic...

=====
Yes labs and use of new knowledge helps lock it in. A mechanical aspect of human learning involves getting adequate sleep... part of the overnight processing discards superfluous information and reinforces the good stuff...

-----
If you think about it, many textbooks are an attempt to mass produce and cost effectively replicate  the output of one outstanding teacher, so more students can benefit than that one teacher could address in person.

Yes we should already be recording great lectures so we can hear and learn from the greats, and there will always be a place for lesser instructors to help. My primary point that having humans repeat the same lectures over and over is not creating as much new value as some mix of modern media.

Note: we don't need to fall into rigid models of just replicating how a lesson was taught in the past. A modern version can mix modes of media with printed lessons interleaved with talking heads, perhaps a SIRI like artificial intelligence to answer frequently asked questions, and when all else fails a chat connection. A study of the FAQ could use this feedback to alter the primary text to improve the knowledge transfer. A history lesson could mix in filmed recreations, while i kind if like letting my brain complete the images when studying history.  Electronics lessons could cleverly mix a schematic with circuit simulation, so the student could probe the schematic with a virtual scope probe to 'see" what the invisible electrons are doing. (I apologize if there is already an electronics lesson doing this).

The technology seems to be well ahead of the practice in this area. The korean teacher making $6M a year has been suitably motivated to apply modern technology. I think allowing the free market to motivate innovators with profits will drive progress far better than waiting for teacher's unions to come around on their own.

While teaching is not literally like a manufacturing process where some raw material (information) is poured into a empty vessel (children), it is a process so it can be measured and improved. 

JR

PS: Last night I heard a joke on one of the talk shows. "In NYC only 26% of students passed a standardized english test, but they are so bad with math that they don't realize what 26% means, so don't feel bad about it."  ;D ;D [/joke]  While anecdotal I am hearing a few reports of progress from the application of standardized testing. It was always understood that this would take many years to have an effect (measure, measure,measure... adjust, measure measure measure, etc) , of course we hear far more reports about the failures, and unintended consequences like teachers cheating.

PPS: If new media textbooks were completely adequate by themselves there would be no need for teachers, probably a scary thought for teachers. Sorry. 

 

[iomegaman]

My youngest daughter just restarted her college career and frankly this time round is finding footing the bill a rude awakening...what peeves her most is the system of financial empire in place requiring text books and dis-allowing older versions...the seedy side of higher ed.

A textbook with a 30 page addendum being version 8 and costing well over $200.00 when version 6 is virtually worthless at $60.00 according to the professor who wrote the addendum and requires it for his class.

I told her to buy the cheap version and take the dive on the information, she has a 50/50 chance of finding the $140.00 information by pure guesswork.

The other thing that just offends her is that she discovered higher education is basically paying large sums of money to go home and read chapter after chapter and then sit in a class while a "professor" reviews what you've read and leads a discussion group on it...

So in USA education needs a MAJOR over-haul being a big debt machine (the higher education financial bubble makes the housing bubble look like a gnats fart) a machine that guarantees nothing but debt.

Between that and the political machine that consist in huge administration cost you've got a recipe for stupid.

We are way behind the curve in all aspects here...but some of this seems to be intentional.

I believe that you'll find this very interesting. You're not the only person who's had your thoughts.

-a

Good thoughts...rather long getting to them...my kids have all pretty much circumvented the system as much as possible, 3 of my four girls pay as they go, never taking out loans and working hard at home, the only issue they have is the incompetence of the instructors...all of them have had to fight and watch like a hawk when grades received are not posted to their credit as grades received...amazing how many instructors blame the "new web page" for failure to posit the grades my girls earn, I suspect most of it has to do with wrecking the curve...my 2nd daughter often makes 150% of the possible results always doing the extra credit and making sure she is ready to test.

My one daughter who did take out loans planned it in such a way as to make the State she schooled in responsible to pay back the loans, she works as a DA (which is part of her goal to be a Judge) and if she stays with it for 5 years her loans are all dismissed.

My son found employment with a company that is paying for his engineering degree, where he works as an non-credentialed engineer surpassing all of the union engineers who feel no compulsion to advance the company...he works hard and is already pay grades ahead of his graduate peers in the company...

Some of the current education models border on criminal, almost all of it is immoral.

 

[hodad]

Charter schools is about giving parents a voucher for their share of the funds that their local school would automatically get, and allow them to choose whatever school they want to send their children too.

No, no, no.  This is not what charter schools are about.  A charter school can be an established school whose administrators and teachers make it in some way different from a conventional school in that district (this may mean an emphasis on tech or the arts, or a different style of teaching, longer school days--many things.)  Or it can be a new school that (usually) is trying to or claiming to try to do something different in order to reach its students. 

Money follows the students much as it would in any public school. 

Charter schools are a mixed bag.  Some are very successful, some are abject failures.  Most are somewhere in the middle.  They can be as entwined in corporate bureaucracy (when run by for-profit charter corporations) as some conventional public schools are in govt. bureaucracy.  The charter school idea sounds great, but more and more I see it as a way for various corporations to get their hands on more and more of our tax dollars-ie, the military-industrial complex has added an education wing. 

 

[JohnRoberts]

Charter schools is about giving parents a voucher for their share of the funds that their local school would automatically get, and allow them to choose whatever school they want to send their children too.

No, no, no.  This is not what charter schools are about.  A charter school can be an established school whose administrators and teachers make it in some way different from a conventional school in that district (this may mean an emphasis on tech or the arts, or a different style of teaching, longer school days--many things.)  Or it can be a new school that (usually) is trying to or claiming to try to do something different in order to reach its students. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_school

I made a gross simplification... The key distinction in my mind is that parents choose to send their kids to a charter school, not that they are assigned to a school based on where they live and have no choice. These charter schools are not run by the same educators and survive or fail based on pleasing their customers (the parents and children). The voucher program allows parents to apply the funds to the generally more expensive private schools with the parents making up the difference.

Money follows the students much as it would in any public school. 

Charter schools are a mixed bag.  Some are very successful, some are abject failures.  Most are somewhere in the middle.  They can be as entwined in corporate bureaucracy (when run by for-profit charter corporations) as some conventional public schools are in govt. bureaucracy.  The charter school idea sounds great, but more and more I see it as a way for various corporations to get their hands on more and more of our tax dollars-ie, the military-industrial complex has added an education wing.

That's an interesting complaint...  If a private business does a better job than public schools I would not mind... I do not mind the Korean teacher making $6M a year...  I mind when children do not get a good education. I am open for all suggestions except, just throw more money at them and expect it to be different this time. Hopefully the competition will induce the public schools to raise their game.

JR

 

[hodad]

I made a gross simplification... The key distinction in my mind is that parents choose to send their kids to a charter school, not that they are assigned to a school based on where they live and have no choice. These charter schools are not run by the same educators and survive or fail based on pleasing their customers (the parents and children). The voucher program allows parents to apply the funds to the generally more expensive private schools with the parents making up the difference.

This is closer, but doesn't take into account pre-existing schools that become charters, or even (as in the case of Decatur, Ga.) an entire school district that goes charter. 

That's an interesting complaint...  If a private business does a better job than public schools I would not mind... I do not mind the Korean teacher making $6M a year...  I mind when children do not get a good education. I am open for all suggestions except, just throw more money at them and expect it to be different this time. Hopefully the competition will induce the public schools to raise their game.

The educational-industrial complex already has its fingers in public schools, be they charter or otherwise.  There are the textbooks and programs that get adopted and replaced on a regular basis, and there are the for-profit charter school corporations.  There are those who promote the idea that any monkey with a scripted learning program can be a successful teacher--devaluing the teacher while simultaneously promoting their product.  I can tell  you from experience with my own son that these programs do not a good teacher (or educated student) make.  My wife & I spend a fair chunk of time compensating for the deficiencies of the scripted math program my son's school uses. 

The thing that would help education most in this country is good teachers who are both allowed and challenged to teach well.  The burdens put upon them by the "deciders" (teaching to the test, scripted programs that stifle teachers as well as students, poorly designed curricula, etc. etc.) thwart the educational process and get in the way of  actual learning. 

On a different note:  I was a little stunned the other day as I listened to my son's teachers explain the curriculum for this year, and it dawned on me that basically everything they do is "teaching to the test," which used to be only what the "bad" schools did and now is pretty much de rigeur. (I can understand why, because the state standards can be very peculiar and particular.)  I would have missed out on so much in school had my teachers been constricted this way.

 

[ricardo]

The thing that would help education most in this country is good teachers who are both allowed and challenged to teach well.  The burdens put upon them by the "deciders" (teaching to the test, scripted programs that stifle teachers as well as students, poorly designed curricula, etc. etc.) thwart the educational process and get in the way of  actual learning.

If new media textbooks were completely adequate by themselves there would be no need for teachers, probably a scary thought for teachers. Sorry.

John, hodad is perfectly right.  There is ALWAYS a place and need for good teachers/lecturers/professors.

Technology & scripted learning help good teachers but not bad teachers.  If you know any good old 'teachers', they will tell you that these days, they spend far more time on admin, and other BS that the administrators impose on them .. then teaching or preparing lessons.  This is worldwide.  My mother was a teacher in Singapore for most of her life and towards the end, she found the reports onerous and she retired many decades ago.

From personal experience, I know this is the case in Oz & the UK.

What do we do to encourage & reward good teachers?  We certainly don't do it at present.  Maybe the Korean $6m example is the way to go?

PS  She was a very good teacher.  Her students certainly held her in high regard .. though some of her methods would be frowned upon in the present politically correct climate 

John, I'm sad you didn't hear Sandel out to the end    But come the revolution .. 

 

[JohnRoberts]

I made a gross simplification... The key distinction in my mind is that parents choose to send their kids to a charter school, not that they are assigned to a school based on where they live and have no choice. These charter schools are not run by the same educators and survive or fail based on pleasing their customers (the parents and children). The voucher program allows parents to apply the funds to the generally more expensive private schools with the parents making up the difference.

This is closer, but doesn't take into account pre-existing schools that become charters, or even (as in the case of Decatur, Ga.) an entire school district that goes charter. 

If the wiki link that I posted is incomplete, tell them,, I do not know that much about the details, I tried to deal in broad strokes, to explain the reference to a free market economist. 

That's an interesting complaint...  If a private business does a better job than public schools I would not mind... I do not mind the Korean teacher making $6M a year...  I mind when children do not get a good education. I am open for all suggestions except, just throw more money at them and expect it to be different this time. Hopefully the competition will induce the public schools to raise their game.

The educational-industrial complex already has its fingers in public schools, be they charter or otherwise.  There are the textbooks and programs that get adopted and replaced on a regular basis, and there are the for-profit charter school corporations.  There are those who promote the idea that any monkey with a scripted learning program can be a successful teacher--devaluing the teacher while simultaneously promoting their product.  I can tell  you from experience with my own son that these programs do not a good teacher (or educated student) make.  My wife & I spend a fair chunk of time compensating for the deficiencies of the scripted math program my son's school uses. 

I don't recall saying anything about monkeys. They'd have to be well trained... computer media is cheaper and better behaved.  I fear it is teachers devaluing themselves by not delivering the "product" (educated kids).

I recall being experimented on with the "new math" back in the  50-60's by my senior year we ran out of the "new" program classes and I ended up with  two hours of study hall... code for "sorry we don't have enough new improved courses for you".

The thing that would help education most in this country is good teachers who are both allowed and challenged to teach well.  The burdens put upon them by the "deciders" (teaching to the test, scripted programs that stifle teachers as well as students, poorly designed curricula, etc. etc.) thwart the educational process and get in the way of  actual learning. 

I am not sure exactly what change you are suggesting. Rewarding good teachers and moving bad teachers into the appropriate fast food industry is high on my list too but there is a lot of push back from the teachers union.  I recall reading recently about a big stink, when they stopped automatically giving teachers a raise for earning a masters degree... turned out a study found that the extra degree didn't correlate with better teaching results (oops). It was mainly an institutionalized way for them to pad their pay checks.  Perhaps a good concept if master degrees actually made them better teachers, not just more expensive teachers.

If there was too much "teaching to the test", I'd expect the students to ace the tests (they don't, except for the thankfully modest number of cases when the teachers change the wrong answers). I guess they can't even teach to the test successfully.  Note: there have always been some form of standardized testing and some degree of teaching in anticipation of future tests on a standard curriculum (LSATS etc).. 

On a different note:  I was a little stunned the other day as I listened to my son's teachers explain the curriculum for this year, and it dawned on me that basically everything they do is "teaching to the test," which used to be only what the "bad" schools did and now is pretty much de rigeur. (I can understand why, because the state standards can be very peculiar and particular.)  I would have missed out on so much in school had my teachers been constricted this way.

I guess I was lucky too that I got a pretty solid basic education before I tuned in, turned on, and dropped out... I failed calculus in my senior year of HS, and would love to blame the new math for poor preparation, but the fact that I spent more time studying the girls gym class outside the window than the blackboard had something to do with it. I still remember my calculus teacher taking me aside near the end of the school year and asking me what I was going to do with my life now after failing his class..  I don't know, suicide? Nah... I muddled through despite my early failures. In fact I've failed many times, and probably will again. 

I suspect the poor teachers these days are getting all tangled up in the new "common core" curriculum getting rolled out... Hard to teach to the test if they don't have the new answer sheet yet.

I do not deny that there are intangible touchy-feely aspects of teaching...  I recall being able to tell if the teacher had genuine enthusiasm for the subject (I remember one inspirational HS physics teacher, and one ski bum college physics professor who was a waste of protoplasm). Then there's all the rest between those extremes. 

In my vision we need to bottle the 1% of truly inspirational teachers, and we don't need to saddle anybody with rote lecturing. If it is boring to the teachers imagine how the students feel.  Good text books for basic subjects that haven't changed for a hundred years do not need to be re-written every couple years. That is just a money making scam,  and I am willing to speculate that most of the changes are not even making them better, just making them different enough to earn a big payday for some parasite(s).

I do not see us replacing all the teacher's with disney animatrons, but if i had kids of school age i would definitely consider home schooling and investigate modern technology options. At a minimum I would check out the public school options and local teachers.

Just like the quality of products is better with machine assembly, some degree of standardization and modern technology could probably improve the school day for both students and teachers.  If you want to let the teachers go free-form maybe they can do that in art class, (after they cover the masters). I guess they could justify updating modern art text books.  8)

JR

 

[hodad]

There's a lot more than 1% "inspirational" teachers.  I went to school in the rural South, and I can think of several that inspired me, several that were good although not necessarily inspiring, and many more that were serviceable.  The number who needed to be at the counter at Mickey D's was actually quite small. 

And please give the teachers' union thing a rest.  That's the biggest load of conservative hooey--that's the garbage that comes from the people who (however much they may protest to the contrary) wish to devalue the profession of teaching.  In your state, I suspect, as in mine, there are no teachers' unions--only "professional organizations."  They're handy if you're a teacher and need a lawyer, but their political clout is minimal. 

As to the master's degree issue:  lately there's been a stink here in Ga. about folks getting paid for advanced degrees in administration, for example, when that has nothing to do with their job.  I'm certainly behind the move not to pay these folks extra for these degrees (I'm also a bit dismayed by the proliferation of online "universities" for teachers--I question the value of these.  As you may have noticed, I value the in-person relationship of teacher and student.)  However, I happen to be married to a veteran teacher with a master's degree and specialist's degree (as well as ESOL endorsement), and she uses these degrees daily in the classroom.  And they make her a better teacher.  So I do see merit to extra pay for advanced degrees so long as they're relevant to the teacher's job.   

Here's an illustrative detail about scripted programs.  As my wife points out about my son's math program (she's taught it before), you can't linger on a topic if your students seem to be struggling with it; you have a schedule to keep.  Your year is mapped out for you, and you must follow the script.  This is not serving the students.  It is not allowing a teacher to use her best judgment to do what's best for her students.  It is a cookie cutter style of educating, and the cookies it makes aren't terribly tasty or well formed. 

When "good teaching" is getting through the script on time, there's a problem.  That's not serving the student, it's serving the script. And that's no good at all. 

 

[JohnRoberts]

There's a lot more than 1% "inspirational" teachers.  I went to school in the rural South, and I can think of several that inspired me, several that were good although not necessarily inspiring, and many more that were serviceable.  The number who needed to be at the counter at Mickey D's was actually quite small. 

And please give the teachers' union thing a rest.  That's the biggest load of conservative hooey--that's the garbage that comes from the people who (however much they may protest to the contrary) wish to devalue the profession of teaching.  In your state, I suspect, as in mine, there are no teachers' unions--only "professional organizations."  They're handy if you're a teacher and need a lawyer, but their political clout is minimal. 

First, in case you don't realize what you are doing, you have pivoted away from the facts in my argument to name calling and ascribing false motives, before finally denying my statement.

Regarding teachers unions fighting against reforms this is well documented, a quick google search brings up millions of hits. Most notable examples are in major cities of blue states but it is not just a few isolated instances and not at local level, because reform does not originate or get decided at local levels.

The unions do not advocate for the students they advocate for the teachers. There is nothing wrong with that legally it just is how it is.  The teachers union crossed the line of legality in Mexico where some hostages were taken and a stand-off occurred in an attempt to stop some reforms, but that's Mexico and an extreme example. In the US I've heard of sick-outs closing schools and the like. 

As to the master's degree issue:  lately there's been a stink here in Ga. about folks getting paid for advanced degrees in administration, for example, when that has nothing to do with their job.  I'm certainly behind the move not to pay these folks extra for these degrees (I'm also a bit dismayed by the proliferation of online "universities" for teachers--I question the value of these.  As you may have noticed, I value the in-person relationship of teacher and student.)  However, I happen to be married to a veteran teacher with a master's degree and specialist's degree (as well as ESOL endorsement), and she uses these degrees daily in the classroom.  And they make her a better teacher.  So I do see merit to extra pay for advanced degrees so long as they're relevant to the teacher's job.   

Here's an illustrative detail about scripted programs.  As my wife points out about my son's math program (she's taught it before), you can't linger on a topic if your students seem to be struggling with it; you have a schedule to keep.  Your year is mapped out for you, and you must follow the script.  This is not serving the students.  It is not allowing a teacher to use her best judgment to do what's best for her students.  It is a cookie cutter style of educating, and the cookies it makes aren't terribly tasty or well formed. 

When "good teaching" is getting through the script on time, there's a problem.  That's not serving the student, it's serving the script. And that's no good at all.

#1..  If you slow down to let everybody get up to speed and don't finish the curriculum, you didn't finish the curriculum so the capable students got penalized by the incapable. What is the larger crime? I suspect the best we can do is teach the most to the most number of kids. Those who can't keep up can repeat, why drag down the whole class.

#2 my computer media based approach means that students can work at their own speed, and the teacher is now free to help the handful of children that fall behind... There will always be fast and slow learners. it seems almost silly to try to teach the entire group  all in parallel at one single speed.

Perhaps I should clarify that I have far more criticism for education administrata, the teachers are mostly the foot soldiers caught in the middle of a system in need of reform.

JR

PS: Arne Duncan (a surprisingly good basketball player) just announced a suggestions to start classes later so teenagers can wake up before they get to class... While an interesting concept and every little bit (might) helps, I expect any change will be resisted.

 

[iomegaman]

Education in my opinion is first and foremost a familial challenge...my kids all ended up in public scools in one of the worst districts in Arizona, which by the way rates somewhere below 40+ other states in education...so my kids all had a very low tier educational opportunity...that being said there were some great teachers (math and science and English) and some downright idiots (history, PE, social studies etc...) because it was such a low paying district they were kind of forced to only get first year teachers who basically could not get hired in better paying schools, so the teacher turn-around was pretty high except for the "lifers" who were all locals and brilliant.

The advantage my kids all had was they had "learned how to learn" at home...things like this forum being a huge part of my life metric, always learning pushing the limits of my ability has been a family identity (as a single father raising 5 kids I was forced to learn outside my comfort zones)

The one element I have discovered that is the greatest factor in the learning process is confidence...if the student can move forward with any sense of confidence the material will become part of them, without this they will never know what they know and it does not matter what method, technology, or environment you put them in they will simply not retain the information.

All five kids have excelled at higher learning, my oldest actually mentored for 2 years as she finished law school and was published as a L2 in Law Review (she is more published than our Commander in Chief who was ALSO editor of law review, an anomaly that begs investigation, how do you get to be editor if you are never published yourself?)...she almost never cracked a book her last two years because she "got it"...she figured out the science her first semester and spent the next two years having babies, teaching contract law and graduating in the top 2%...confidence was her engine, and was subsequently published again as an L3...

You cannot teach confidence online, or in a classroom, it comes from closer to home, and is essential for any discipline.

 

[JohnRoberts]

One obvious way that confidence matters is when some low self esteem student biased toward failure by a culture that promotes a victim mentality gives up and decides they can't learn something. We are correct 100% of the time when we decide that we can't do  something and stop trying. Lessons should be approached with the knowledge that millions of other people have mastered the same material. We are not the one in a million who can't.

Self confidence is a side effect of unconditional familial love and support. People often talk about the superior performance of asian students but they do not have a different brain just a different family culture that highly values education.

I really worry for all the children born to single minority mothers these days who are not even adults themselves. What chance do these kids have to get a supportive home environment?

JR

PS: I was raised by a single parent, so only having one is not the problem as much as the quality of that home environment.

 

[hodad]

The strongest predictor of a child's educational success is the educational achievements of the parents.  Obviously there are numerous exceptions in both directions, but education really does start in the home.  The question, the really hard one, is how do you break the negative part of that cycle.  The answer to that is not an easy one, I'm afraid, or it would have been solved already. 


Self confidence is another factor--I appreciate iomegamann's insights there. 

Don't doubt that teachers' unions are looking out for kids at least some of the time--their interests intersect quite often.  I trust teachers and their unions to do right by kids far more often than I trust politicians and education-related businesses. 

 

[lassoharp]

I really worry for all the children born to single minority mothers these days who are not even adults themselves. What chance do these kids have to get a supportive home environment?

I see a lot of single mothers trending towards home schooling in reaction to their perceptions of a bad public school system.  Though their intentions are golden I am seldom in favor of full time home schooling.  Even in the "worst" public school environment the children are given perhaps one of the most important facets of education - a designated time for focusing - i.e School Time vs Non School Time.  Mixing it with Home Time  I often notice that Home Time wins despite the parents extra attention and willingness to be supportive.  They spend more time policing the computer, which is the new classroom that is also the playroom -  "You'd better not be playing video games!!"  - and of course the child is playing video games.  I always advise my friends who are opting for home schooling to consider allowing the child to go to public school and simply applying their willingness to help by being a good tutor at home.  Some cases I have seen are sadly nothing more than letting the child "free form" their way around what ever subjects suit their fancy so the child will be "happy" and want to learn more.  In my day it was called "spoiled".  One child in particular was an avid reader and her mother was terribly proud of her "genius" daughter who had good recall of selected information from the books she enjoyed the most.  She did appear very "smart" but one day she had to write a note and the number of misspelled words suggested she was about 5 years behind where she should have been on some basics. 

 

[JohnRoberts]

I would be OK with home schooled children taking similar standardized tests just like the public school students. Hopefully the home school parents would be self-motivated to correct or possibly fire themselves if they are failing their children by not teaching them the required material. Allowing the children to skate on home studies is just as bad as allowing truancy from a public school. 

I suspect a computer media based instructor could be used anywhere. Perhaps even bringing world class education to 3rd world countries. Surely home schoolers could benefit from a well executed teaching program.

I don't know many details, but I do have one friend now living in the north east who home schooled his 2 or 3 children. I recall some activities involving larger outside groups so the kids get some of the same socialization and outside the classroom ancillary lessons children get just from attending public schools. The impression I get from my friend is that his kids are getting an equal to or better education than their peers, but I have no way to know. Even without recourse, standardized testing for home schooled children too might be a good idea, I suspect they don't free form but already teach and test to some organized curriculum.

JR

 

[hodad]

I would be OK with home schooled children taking similar standardized tests just like the public school students.

I've said this in the past, but at this point I'm so disenchanted with the tests (and all they entail) that I wouldn't wish them on anybody. 

 

[JohnRoberts]

I would be OK with home schooled children taking similar standardized tests just like the public school students.

I've said this in the past, but at this point I'm so disenchanted with the tests (and all they entail) that I wouldn't wish them on anybody.

I recall another old education fad that argued grading children's work made them feel bad (or too good) so they proposed only providing a pass/fail mark. Sounds a little too much like communism and suppressing individual achievement to me.

I don't want to break my own rules about imagining bad motives, but it seems standardized testing is being set up as a straw man to blame for a system not getting the job done. In some countries passing entrance exams are required to advance into higher grade levels. I've heard mention of some companies in the us no longer accepting a college degree as qualification for new hires and testing them to see how much they actually learned and know.

testing as you go, is process control 101... If you don't test you don't know how well you are doing until too late... just like in manufacturing you tweak a process "before" it starts cranking out rejects. That seems like a good idea for education too.

measure twice, cut once.

JR

 

[iomegaman]

Looks like change will come whether we want it to or not...

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101012270

JP Morgan will no longer give student loans...this portends a change that will domino and I am anticipating some very bad economic repercussions headed our way as these things unfold...the student loan metric makes housing look tame...

 

[JohnRoberts]

Looks like change will come whether we want it to or not...

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101012270

JP Morgan will no longer give student loans...this portends a change that will domino and I am anticipating some very bad economic repercussions headed our way as these things unfold...the student loan metric makes housing look tame...

i don't think student loan bubble will be as economy shaking as the housing mortgage derivatives collapse, but the damage has already been done to almost a decade of students. Speaking of housing what kind of home mortgage do these young adults take out with 50k of student loan debt hanging over their heads?

The legislators/regulators have finally figured out that they caused this mess themselves so are starting to tighten up. The colleges that have expanded spending and overhead like topsy thanks to rich tuition increase will feel much pain when the easy money goes away, that will be very much like housing but shouldn't ripple through the general economy like housing.

The big banks will get away pretty painlessly unless the legislators figure out some way to blame this on them.. those evil bankers.

The big banks are generally smart money so ahead of the curve... They all didn't crash in 2008. Some actually made money on the mortgage mess, and some betted on both sides of the deals.
===

As i recently mentioned there was just an IPO a couple weeks ago for a textbook rental business (Chegg). To raise something like $150M, my guess this is just a way to profit from the college money bubble before it collapses and cash out at the top of the dead trees text book business. The business model for buying and renting dead trees books already seems obsolete with yesterday's E-book technology, not to mention where textbooks will end up when college administrators get squeezed and have to find ways to cut costs.

Is it too early to short Chegg? The initial investors are getting paid back from  the IPO. The co-founder just stepped down from the board. and they aren't profitable. OK apparently Chegg also has some E-textbook titles, but eliminating the paper and printing cost only reveals how much of a scam the new textbook revisions every few years are.

JR 

PS: One of the few things I approve about the current administration is tighter oversight of wall street while they are still turning a blind eye to high speed trading which IMO is imposing the death of thousand cuts on the market.  Spoofing blizzards of fake buy/sell orders to gain price discovery knowledge and use that price discovery to arbitrage and profit from small price moves. arghhh, They used to call that front running when humans did it minutes before a trade they had information about... now doing it milliSeconds before using computers to gain the information is somehow OK?