How would you reform the US Education system.

[Colleen27]

They learn about Civics in other classes too-all along the way in their education. Civics is just more concentrated. Our kids have a full year of civics in 9th grade but have learned a lot along the way in other social studies classes and will continue to do so through high school. For some kids PE is the ONLY exercise they EVER get. Also, ask the teachers, kids, especially middle school and younger NEED to burn off that energy during the day through PE and recess. I could tell the second our kids walked in the door after school if they had inside recess or not that day and our kids are no where near hyper.

This whole PE thing is getting ridicules. If you don't want a PE requirement in your schools lobby your congress people to get it removed and see how far you get with that.

Well, in our district 8th grade and younger still have recess (two a day for elem, only one a day for middle) so PE isn't their only active time during the school day, much less the only exercise they ever get. There's no reason a class period needs to be taken up with mandatory PE for those students who would rather put it to some other use.

At our middle school, kids who are in band, for example, don't get to take a single art or foreign language elective at all. There are 5 required academic courses for 6th & 7th graders so band is the kids' only elective for those two years. In 8th grade there are two "free" periods for electives, but since a year of PE is required they have to take PE in the one open slot that's left after signing up for band. Where is the benefit in that? Is PE really that much more important than Spanish or art or drama or academic electives like creative writing that we have to require it at the expense of those other options?

 

[allison443]

Just to add to the phys ed discussion, my kids had phys ed twice a week in elementary school. In high school it is three periods a week, and you have to take it a total of four semesters.
However, in high school there is a rule that if you are playing a varsity sport you can sit out of phys ed during the sports season. You can use it as a study hall. The varsity teams practice every day so I guess they figure that is enough? That might just be a rule our school came up with though.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Well, in our district 8th grade and younger still have recess (two a day for elem, only one a day for middle) so PE isn't their only active time during the school day, much less the only exercise they ever get. There's no reason a class period needs to be taken up with mandatory PE for those students who would rather put it to some other use.

At our middle school, kids who are in band, for example, don't get to take a single art or foreign language elective at all. There are 5 required academic courses for 6th & 7th graders so band is the kids' only elective for those two years. In 8th grade there are two "free" periods for electives, but since a year of PE is required they have to take PE in the one open slot that's left after signing up for band. Where is the benefit in that? Is PE really that much more important than Spanish or art or drama or academic electives like creative writing that we have to require it at the expense of those other options?

Here, you can take music/choir and a foreign language but that is it.

My 8th grade dd did not want to take any music, so she was able to take the other classes of business, speech, art, etc.

It really helped her with that sampling of stuff. She is now focused on business, computer and communications.

Now for the kids in music/language they are short changed because they never even got a taste of any "samples" or tracks for HS. It is really stupid.

Let's say a kid wants to do HS sports. How cool would it be to be able to take a class that helps him/her. A more focused program.

And kids that want to learn software or whatever else, could go there.

Why are we so opposed to making things better for kids in school? It boggles my mind.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Just to add to the phys ed discussion, my kids had phys ed twice a week in elementary school. In high school it is three periods a week, and you have to take it a total of four semesters.
However, in high school there is a rule that if you are playing a varsity sport you can sit out of phys ed during the sports season. You can use it as a study hall. The varsity teams practice every day so I guess they figure that is enough? That might just be a rule our school came up with though.

Some schools do "waivers". For example my oldest was in band in TX and they gave out a waiver for PE.

We move back to MO and guess what, she has to take 2 PE classes to graduate early. So she skips English to take PE.

She got in under the rule that you have to take 4 yrs of English to graduate.

She got into college no problem. They not did even care. As long as you made the right number on ACT and had a good GPA you were good to go.

 

[Hoodie]

Yes but you are an east coaster. I would think it is more about reputation of the private school than the school itself maybe?

Like the movie "Baby Boom"? You have to go to the right preschool, etc. to get into the right college?

It is resume building? And honestly if I could afford a private non religious school, we would do it. However that does not exist here.

Not really. Honestly, the public high school I went to in the Boston area had a better graduation rate and college placement than some of the private schools in the area.

I don't think people trust the public education system anymore.

 

[Colleen27]

I can tell you that living in a state that has had school choice for 20 years-long enough to know if it works or not--that the bad schools are still bad and the good schools are still good and giving a choice does NOTHING to change that. The main reason kids use it is to get into a district that has programs, usually sports, that they want. VERY few kids actually use it to move from one district to another for academic reasons. It also points right back to the FAMILY values in education vs the schools being at fault for the kids not succeeding. The worst district in our state (the Minneapolis public schools) has free busing for kids that want to move to a better, suburban district and only a handful of kids each year take advantage of that. Vouchers are NOT the answer but I LOVE having our statewide open enrollment option and would NOT change it for anything even though it isn't making the bad schools better-it does help if you have a job transfer, etc.

Our area doesn't offer busing for school choice, so its effectiveness is limited to those families who have both the desire and the resources to get their kids to an out of district school. I know quite a few lower middle/working class parents who take advantage of the program to send their kids to more affluent districts than they can afford to live in, but inner city families often don't have any practical way to handle daily transportation out to the suburbs so those kids tend to be stuck at their neighborhood schools.

I don't think it makes the bad schools better. But I don't want to see it go away either, because my daughter plans to attend an out-of-district high school when she gets older to take advantage of a program (IB) that isn't offered in our home district.

 

[brerrabbit]

At our schools atheletics, ROTC, Marching Band and Drill Team all qualify as PE credits so there are plenty of ways to fulfill the PE requirement.

I find this thread really interesting and quite a good example of why our current system seems to be so bad. So many opinions about what should and should not be done, and who should and should not run the system.

Not be critical but merely an observation. Educators tend to be highly protective of their profession. One earlier comment even said every thing should be run by educators. Well I disagree strongly. Where in education courses do they teach business skills, accounting, finance, etc. In looking around at the districts in my area the top people, superintindent, finance people, grant people, etc. are all people with advanced degrees in education. Why not have some accountants and finance people taking care of that aspect of the business, because yes it is a business. Another kind of beef I have with the system is the number of PhD's running around the school system. There is not a single profession other than Dr's and Lawyers where you have a higher concentration of advanced degrees than you do in education. I have a Masters and wanted to get a PhD but found that any program in my state that was worth pursuing required me to essentially quit my job and pursue it full time and work as a teaching assistant. I currently aware of a dozen people in our local school district that are working full time and pursuing their PhD's on a part time basis. Seems to be rule number 1 is if you want the job of superintindent that you must have a PhD so they pass them out like candy to those willing to pay the cost. We have 25 plus PhD's in our district and we only have a total enrolment of arounf 14,000 kids. To be a librarian in our district you have to have a Masters in Library Science.

What does all this mean? Well to me as an economics student it seems a form of protectionism by the profession. Want to go into school administration? Price of entry is a graduate degree at a minimum. Want to be the boss of it all? Don't bother applying if you don't have a PhD. There are huge barriers to entry in education administration. So what do you get? A bunch of teachers with advanced degrees trying to fix the same problems again and again while using the same methods that their predessesors used learned from the same advanced degree programs they attended and failing miserably.

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

I hated PE. I had to take it in high school, and it was worthless. Hated every minute of it. I can't remember if it was a semester or a year. Either way, hated it.

DS was SUPPOSED to be required to take a year of PE in middle school. He was enrolled in PE in 7th grade, and it was a year long course. Well, at the semester change they took him OUT of PE and put him in a computer class. Um, hello? I was told the computer course was also required. OK, whatever. He went to 8th grade missing a semester of PE credit.

They put him in ROTC, which he did NOT request. He needed to switch to a different level for math, which took him out of ROTC but it left him with an open period where they didn't offer a PE. WHY is there not PE every period??? But guess what? That computer course was available! So they pulled him out of PE in 7th grade to take a class he COULD have taken the following year. But since he had already taken the computer class he ended up taking Art, which he loved.

Long story short, he never did get that second semester of REQUIRED PE in middle school. I keep waiting for somebody to catch that, but so far they haven't.

I think he needs 2 semesters of PE in high school, but it might be 3. Kids in marching band and sports are exempted from PE.

 

[Colleen27]

Just to add to the phys ed discussion, my kids had phys ed twice a week in elementary school. In high school it is three periods a week, and you have to take it a total of four semesters.
However, in high school there is a rule that if you are playing a varsity sport you can sit out of phys ed during the sports season. You can use it as a study hall. The varsity teams practice every day so I guess they figure that is enough? That might just be a rule our school came up with though.

It isn't just your school. Our state leaves it up to the district, so it varies from place to place. Where I grew up, if you played two seasons of a JV or varsity sport over your four years of high school you could get the PE requirement waived. The district we live in now doesn't do that so even though my son plays two sports (football & baseball), he'll have to take PE as a freshman along with everyone else.

 

[NotUrsula]

Yes but you are an east coaster. I would think it is more about reputation of the private school than the school itself maybe?

Like the movie "Baby Boom"? You have to go to the right preschool, etc. to get into the right college?

It is resume building? And honestly if I could afford a private non religious school, we would do it. However that does not exist here.

Not to go off-topic, but yes they do exist here. There are several non-denominational private schools in the metro area. They are not exactly inexpensive, but they DO exist. The HS list includes MICDS, Burroughs, Crossroads, Whitfield, Thomas Jefferson and Fulton, plus Logos, Churchill, Edgewood and Brehm for kids with disabilities.

The independent schools all give some merit scholarships. If your DD's grades are great, have her apply. The worst they can do is say no.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Not to go off-topic, but yes they do exist here. There are several non-denominational private schools in the metro area. They are not exactly inexpensive, but they DO exist. The HS list includes MICDS, Burroughs, Crossroads, Whitfield, Thomas Jefferson and Fulton, plus Logos, Churchill, Edgewood and Brehm for kids with disabilities.

The independent schools all give some merit scholarships. If your DD's grades are great, have her apply. The worst they can do is say no.

That is interesting. Unfortunately, it is not in cards to be able to pay for private school right now and well we have promised dd that she can finally stay in the same school till graduation.

But I will look at them. Thanks

 

[schmitty]

I not sure what you are trying to say.

I think what you are saying that someone that get a teaching degree with a focus on math is going to be a better teaching that someone that gets a math degree and then learns how to teach.

If that is what you are saying I couldn't disagree more.

(I thought the saying was "Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach)

No I'm saying someone who knows how to teach a subject understands it more than someone who just does the work. It doesn't matter what came first because you really have to understand it to teach it.

If I had 2 people, one that could do some math computations and one who can teach those computations, the one who can teach it understands the information much more than the other.

Its my take on the saying. Because it is alot easier to learn to do something than to get someone to learn something.

 

[gina2000]

At our schools atheletics, ROTC, Marching Band and Drill Team all qualify as PE credits so there are plenty of ways to fulfill the PE requirement.

I find this thread really interesting and quite a good example of why our current system seems to be so bad. So many opinions about what should and should not be done, and who should and should not run the system.

Not be critical but merely an observation. Educators tend to be highly protective of their profession. One earlier comment even said every thing should be run by educators. Well I disagree strongly. Where in education courses do they teach business skills, accounting, finance, etc. In looking around at the districts in my area the top people, superintindent, finance people, grant people, etc. are all people with advanced degrees in education. Why not have some accountants and finance people taking care of that aspect of the business, because yes it is a business. Another kind of beef I have with the system is the number of PhD's running around the school system. There is not a single profession other than Dr's and Lawyers where you have a higher concentration of advanced degrees than you do in education. I have a Masters and wanted to get a PhD but found that any program in my state that was worth pursuing required me to essentially quit my job and pursue it full time and work as a teaching assistant. I currently aware of a dozen people in our local school district that are working full time and pursuing their PhD's on a part time basis. Seems to be rule number 1 is if you want the job of superintindent that you must have a PhD so they pass them out like candy to those willing to pay the cost. We have 25 plus PhD's in our district and we only have a total enrolment of arounf 14,000 kids. To be a librarian in our district you have to have a Masters in Library Science.

What does all this mean? Well to me as an economics student it seems a form of protectionism by the profession. Want to go into school administration? Price of entry is a graduate degree at a minimum. Want to be the boss of it all? Don't bother applying if you don't have a PhD. There are huge barriers to entry in education administration. So what do you get? A bunch of teachers with advanced degrees trying to fix the same problems again and again while using the same methods that their predessesors used learned from the same advanced degree programs they attended and failing miserably.

It's interesting that you should bring this up because these are state certification standards. In NJ, a school administrator, principal, school counselor, school business administrator or school librarian must have a masters degree or higher in order to occupy the position. If it's protectionism, then blame state licensure and credential divisions.

A little tale: I have numerous credits in literature conducted in a foreign language from a tier 1 university. I have so many that my district's curriculum supervisor felt that I was qualified to teach on a college level. Yet, the state refused to recognize any literature classes conducted in a foreign language. I actually had to take an English literature class in order to qualify for certification. This is after a letter was sent by the university department head to the state explaining the curriculum. Protectionism to the extreme? You bet. But it's a state law.

 

[nuttylawprofessor]

The biggest problem we have in the American education system is our insistence on blaming "them." For every finger we point elsewhere, three point back at ourselves.

Oh, and I have to laugh at "Everyday Math" being called the new curriculum of the moment. The program is over 20 years old.

-NLP
(who graduated from an elite university that required a full year of PE to graduate)

 

[FINFAN]

Stop teaching to the test.

Cut the dead weight. The majority of teachers are wonderful. They love their job and they are great at what the do. Unfortunately, there are some bad apples that have no business being in a classroom. Get rid of them.

I love the idea about bringing back trade schools.

all of the above and have the start time in the morning to be Elementary the earliest, then middle ,then High school.
Eliminate NCLB completely
positive reinforcement, not negative.
school of choice alowed across the nation

 

[NotUrsula]

To be clear, I don't object to requiring *some* PE. What I object to is overvaluing PE and automatically preferring it for every student over things such as personal finance classes, civics (yes, real American Government classes), foreign languages, music and art.

I also think that if the objective of a PE program is to encourage good health and physical fitness, then in most cases there needs to be less of an emphasis on "team-based ball games", and more of an emphasis on things that people can do on an individual basis to keep fit.

As for the national curriculum, today's big article on education in Time notes that there is now a movement afoot to establish a US content standard for grade level in core subjects (not a federal mandate, but a voluntary program for states to sign on to. 34 states plus DC have now voted to adopt it.)

 

[snarlingcoyote]

I see two threads of problems in education in the US today:

1. There were some really exciting, USEFUL things happening in Education prior to NCLB. After NCLB, kids are stuffed to learn the test.

Where is the proof, the evidence that teaching to tests, that rigourous classroom education starting at 4 or 5 is the way to go? What reasonable longitudinal study shows us that forcing every child to take an academic path in primary thru high school does them any good in their post-HS lives?

We are no long highly successful at producing technically skilled individuals in our schools. We seem to have become better at producing academics, but not people who do things, who produce things. We need those people: right now, what do we produce, what is building our wealth, our national economy? We better find something quick, guys.

2. The US, as a whole, does not value free and public education of all children anymore. Let's ban private schools. If you want your child to be taught religiously, send them to a class after school. If your public schools are so bad that you just can't bear the thought of sending your kids to one, then you need to roll up your shirt sleeves and work with other parents and make the schools better - the schools are supposed to be the sum total of the community's requirements for education of their children. At this point, in a lot of places, people really don't care what happens to the public schools. Their kids are home schooled, or enrolled in a private school. So the kids who go to public schools get a crummy education, and the rest get a decent education, and with that kind of set up, it doesn't matter what you say or do or who you blame, the public schools will NEVER get any better. And an entire segment of the population is denied the opportunity for advancement, for a decent education.

So force every single child to attend public schools. Force every single person with a child, grandchild, or relation attending those public schools to care about what is happening in those schools, to support those schools, and to build up those schools.

3. Schools are NOT businesses. They never have been, they never will be.Why in the world do some people think a business person would have any idea how to run a school? There is a business side to schools, this is true, but there is also a business side to churches, so why aren't pulpits given over to accountants? There's a business side to fire fighting as well, so perhaps, the next fire chief should be a CPA instead of someone with experience and certifications in fighting fires; it makes as much sense as hiring a business person to run a school system!



Personally, I'd like to see some brave soul who doesn't mind getting pilloried from all sides get us to try using Finland's model. They've got some of the world's best schools, with good long-term results and they used to have some of the absolute worst schools. Their nation decided to make education a priority, and as a community, they did it. Go check it out. It worked for them, it could work for us.

 

[Magic Mom]

give as much attention to gifted education as they do to special ed..

yeah forget about those kids in the middle....they don't need any extra attention.

 

[minnieandmickey]

Get rid of standardized testing and making schools a priority. It's sad that states such as mine (CA) are cutting education budgets before cutting any other, then begging the feds for more money for education

 

[golfgal]

To be clear, I don't object to requiring *some* PE. What I object to is overvaluing PE and automatically preferring it for every student over things such as personal finance classes, civics (yes, real American Government classes), foreign languages, music and art.

I also think that if the objective of a PE program is to encourage good health and physical fitness, then in most cases there needs to be less of an emphasis on "team-based ball games", and more of an emphasis on things that people can do on an individual basis to keep fit.

As for the national curriculum, today's big article on education in Time notes that there is now a movement afoot to establish a US content standard for grade level in core subjects (not a federal mandate, but a voluntary program for states to sign on to. 34 states plus DC have now voted to adopt it.)

I think the issue is your school then, not the entire system, because every other school I have either attended or our kids have attended was perfectly capable of getting these classes in AND having PE.

I don't know what your PE classes do but ours offer a variety of sports and fitness options. Yes, they play volleyball and basketball but they also learn to use the weight room, treadmills, elliptical, they have units on golf, bowling, running, nutrition. Our twins' PE class this trimester is called "lifelong sports" and they concentrate on sports that you can do over your lifetime-golf, bowling, running, weight training, etc.

When our kids were in elementary school, one day/week they had a walking unit where they walked around town, they all got pedometers to use and did a unit on how many steps/day they took, figured out how many calories they were burning, etc. but given the option most of the kids still wanted to play dodge ball or kick ball.