Topic: Six lies most people believe about U.S. schools

[LadyVirginia]

link

Some excerpts from the author's conclusions about the 6 lies:

The achievement gap between black and white, rich and poor is not due to lack of money. It largely comes down to a vocabulary gap, which means a knowledge gap, because words name things. Perhaps you’ve heard of the 30 million-word gap? Many poor children have a massive vocabulary deficit that modern U.S. education simply does not overcome.

***


Knowledge acquisition must be systematic and focused, and requires memory. You cannot have great reading skill that applies equally to a passage about the Civil War and to one about the lifecycle of amoebae. Your ability to read and understand any given passage depends on your background knowledge about the subject. In short, you cannot be a critical thinker without anything to think with or about.

***

Because they do not demand much of students, teaching programs recruit from the bottom of the academic barrel. As I’ve noted elsewhere, students who intend to major in education have below-average SAT scores, which equate to a below-proficient ranking on state tests. Teaching coursework is among the least challenging available, yet prospective teachers need more remedial classes than their counterparts in humanities and social sciences. Even so, education majors receive the highest grades of all college students, according to research by University of Missouri economics professor Cory Koedel. The combination of undemanding coursework and grade inflation perpetuates a culture of low standards throughout education, Koedel says.

***

Education subsidies seem to have devolved into a mechanism for getting people enough money to make them happy. We hear things like this, from Oklahoma Republican Gov. Mary Fallin, just last week: “It’s clear that a high school degree is no longer adequate to gain a good job and access to the middle-class life.”  Public schooling is considered everyone’s birthright to the middle class. But Gov. Fallin is just wrong.  Brookings Institution research recently showed that a person’s chance of living in poverty is only 2 percent if he or she merely completes high school, works full time, and marries before creating children.

***

The impetus that unites these lies is that they promote ideas people want to believe. But lies, however pleasant for one’s peace of mind in the short run, damage people. Those who run our schools say they care about children but year after year they continue to perpetuate systems that are demonstrably harmful to our kids. Those damaged kids will one day grow up to be citizens who are ill-prepared to face our nation’s challenges. The future of freedom depends on our willingness to tell hard truths to our entrenched educational interests and demand accountability for their actions.

An interesting read.

[Pandora]

... teaching programs recruit from the bottom of the academic barrel. As I’ve noted elsewhere, students who intend to major in education have below-average SAT scores, which equate to a below-proficient ranking on state tests. Teaching coursework is among the least challenging available, yet prospective teachers need more remedial classes than their counterparts in humanities and social sciences.

Yet they believe a person like me, without a college degree, is not qualified to teach a kid to read because I don't have a piece of paper that says I can.  And the same goes for your average parent.

[Weisshaupt]

Yet they believe a person like me, without a college degree, is not qualified to teach a kid to read because I don't have a piece of paper that says I can.  And the same goes for your average parent.

It was not so long ago that piece of paper was called a "High School Diploma".

[LadyVirginia]

... teaching programs recruit from the bottom of the academic barrel. As I’ve noted elsewhere, students who intend to major in education have below-average SAT scores, which equate to a below-proficient ranking on state tests. Teaching coursework is among the least challenging available, yet prospective teachers need more remedial classes than their counterparts in humanities and social sciences.

Yet they believe a person like me, without a college degree, is not qualified to teach a kid to read because I don't have a piece of paper that says I can.  And the same goes for your average parent.

yep.

I can't tell you how many times people have asked or assumed I had an education degree because I homeschool. Then they want to know how I know what to teach. 

[AlanS]

... teaching programs recruit from the bottom of the academic barrel. As I’ve noted elsewhere, students who intend to major in education have below-average SAT scores, which equate to a below-proficient ranking on state tests. Teaching coursework is among the least challenging available, yet prospective teachers need more remedial classes than their counterparts in humanities and social sciences.

Yet they believe a person like me, without a college degree, is not qualified to teach a kid to read because I don't have a piece of paper that says I can.  And the same goes for your average parent.

yep.

I can't tell you how many times people have asked or assumed I had an education degree because I homeschool. Then they want to know how I know what to teach. 

I guess it's true. Ignorance must be bliss.

God bless you, LV. My wife and I realized early on we didn't have the patience to homeschool our son with Asperberger Syndrome. But with (or despite?) public school and LOT'S of help at home, he's managed to get a GED and is a productive member of society.

Plus he already understands the evil of taxes.

[LadyVirginia]

God bless you, LV. My wife and I realized early on we didn't have the patience to homeschool our son with Asperberger Syndrome. But with (or despite?) public school and LOT'S of help at home, he's managed to get a GED and is a productive member of society.

Plus he already understands the evil of taxes.

God bless you and your wife.  Your son's life is worthwhile and that's something the left doesn't understand. He is who he is and you and your wife's devotion and dedication honored that.