I fail to see how this is a hack. A hack suggests some sort of unexpectedly clever solution, often simple, that solves a specific problem.
The failure of the American educational system is not a specific problem.
Having worked for a newspaper on the education beat for a number of years and covered an uncountable number of asinine school board meetings, I can honestly tell you that what works in Colorado may not work in other states in the union.
Now for the HN cop-out. I'm not against increasing funding for education, nor increased accountability and power for teachers. These are all great things. But there's a rotten core to our philosophy of education in this country that will never be solved by the government or any legal requirements for anything.
Small, focused charter schools or aggressive home schooling are the only real ways I can see to truly revolutionize the state of education. But those two are so amazing unpalatable or unpractical for the vast majority of cases that personally I'm stumped.
Really, if we're all going to be honest, what's going to change this is parental involvement. Daisy is not the majority of kids (referenced in the OP), she is an amazing exception and I hope the school system doesn't fail her. But the bigger issue is the teacher-student apathy to learning cycle. And that starts with parents who WANT their children to succeed and who understand how to help their children learn and achieve their goals. In the absence of that, no money in the world will produce successful children.
... or aggressive home schooling are the only real ways I can see to truly revolutionize the state of education.
We live in a school district with very good schools (Florida), some of the highest rated elementary schools in the state. Still, we pulled our kids out because they kept complaining they weren'nt learning anything and some personal experiences while I was volunteering at the school and saw how (to me, granted) some basic elementary skills where ditched left and right. Teachers have to work harder to get the kids pass the tests, but the tests are not hard in and by themselves, there is just no academic culture in most homes and the schools waste a lot of time with coloring activities. Then they come home and do two hours of tough homework, no time to play outside - and at school get bullied. What's the point?
This weekend, we went to a chess tournament. Two random families talked to me about (secular) homeschooling for the exact same reasons we decided to homeschool. Academic disorientation of public schools. Both parents were very upset. The one couple, original European, very academic, had already homeschooled their kids for years. The other family kept their kid home for a few days to try it out and loved it. Compare that to the school program: Cursive: "oh they don't need that". Typing: "oh they won't need that either, computers can recognize their voice in the future", Multiplication: "Well, why should they memorize it. they can google it.." Multiplication two years later: "oh, well, it seems they can't do any math if they don't memorize it, let's try again", Fifth-grader: " write a story in five sentences" what? what about 5 pages of creative writing? Computer Lab: "Kids are so good with computers" What can they do? "Let's have them explore MS Word, then play minecraft" , the list goes on.. seriously?
Data? You mean small focused charter schools that are opt-in so inherently all the students at least have an advocate to fight for them are doing better than the regular classroom where there are students with and without advocates? There is huge bias in small, focused charter schools because you're dealing with kids who all have someone who cares enough for them to switch schools and their success is not an indication of anything.
There is a wide range of charter schools but just like the public education system a ton of them are terrible and even have huge scandals. There are a few bright spots, but it's overshadowed by the biases they hold, the excessive focus on useless tests, and financial corruption found in some schools.
Did not mean to be condescending I have a lot of friends at charter schools (teaching) and I just don't see this as any type of real solution.
That is a major issue. Though I would argue that like many things in America, we have a false image of ourselves. Our school system is setup to be socialist, where everyone gets exactly 1 unit of education and then are released into a supposedly free-market world. That doesn't work, and the flaws in charter schools you are pointing out are actually exposing the faults in believing it's possible to deliver exactly 1 unit of education to all citizens.
I think a lot of folks worried about education reform are running around with some sort of utopian dream for how the world could be, while not realizing that there are philosophical arguments that have to be made almost simultaneously around the notion that not everyone is capable of being educated the same level, nor do they want to be.
What happened to the pride of voc-ed schools where kids learned specific skills that would help them earn an income and hopefully provide a high quality of life for their future families? Put more bluntly: What is the goal of education?
If we can't answer that, we have no business trying to legislate betters schools.
One other interesting data point with charter schools (and most opt-in schools) is they (usually) have the ability to kick out misbehavers and not have to deal with as many LD kids. The public schools often have little mitigation with said pupils.
Comments
I fail to see how this is a hack. A hack suggests some sort of unexpectedly clever solution, often simple, that solves a specific problem.
The failure of the American educational system is not a specific problem.
Having worked for a newspaper on the education beat for a number of years and covered an uncountable number of asinine school board meetings, I can honestly tell you that what works in Colorado may not work in other states in the union.
Now for the HN cop-out. I'm not against increasing funding for education, nor increased accountability and power for teachers. These are all great things. But there's a rotten core to our philosophy of education in this country that will never be solved by the government or any legal requirements for anything.
Small, focused charter schools or aggressive home schooling are the only real ways I can see to truly revolutionize the state of education. But those two are so amazing unpalatable or unpractical for the vast majority of cases that personally I'm stumped.
Really, if we're all going to be honest, what's going to change this is parental involvement. Daisy is not the majority of kids (referenced in the OP), she is an amazing exception and I hope the school system doesn't fail her. But the bigger issue is the teacher-student apathy to learning cycle. And that starts with parents who WANT their children to succeed and who understand how to help their children learn and achieve their goals. In the absence of that, no money in the world will produce successful children.
We live in a school district with very good schools (Florida), some of the highest rated elementary schools in the state. Still, we pulled our kids out because they kept complaining they weren'nt learning anything and some personal experiences while I was volunteering at the school and saw how (to me, granted) some basic elementary skills where ditched left and right. Teachers have to work harder to get the kids pass the tests, but the tests are not hard in and by themselves, there is just no academic culture in most homes and the schools waste a lot of time with coloring activities. Then they come home and do two hours of tough homework, no time to play outside - and at school get bullied. What's the point?
This weekend, we went to a chess tournament. Two random families talked to me about (secular) homeschooling for the exact same reasons we decided to homeschool. Academic disorientation of public schools. Both parents were very upset. The one couple, original European, very academic, had already homeschooled their kids for years. The other family kept their kid home for a few days to try it out and loved it. Compare that to the school program: Cursive: "oh they don't need that". Typing: "oh they won't need that either, computers can recognize their voice in the future", Multiplication: "Well, why should they memorize it. they can google it.." Multiplication two years later: "oh, well, it seems they can't do any math if they don't memorize it, let's try again", Fifth-grader: " write a story in five sentences" what? what about 5 pages of creative writing? Computer Lab: "Kids are so good with computers" What can they do? "Let's have them explore MS Word, then play minecraft" , the list goes on.. seriously?
And then a friend sent me this link:http://mag.newsweek.com/2012/01/29/why-urban-educated-parent...
Data? You mean small focused charter schools that are opt-in so inherently all the students at least have an advocate to fight for them are doing better than the regular classroom where there are students with and without advocates? There is huge bias in small, focused charter schools because you're dealing with kids who all have someone who cares enough for them to switch schools and their success is not an indication of anything.
There is a wide range of charter schools but just like the public education system a ton of them are terrible and even have huge scandals. There are a few bright spots, but it's overshadowed by the biases they hold, the excessive focus on useless tests, and financial corruption found in some schools.
Did not mean to be condescending I have a lot of friends at charter schools (teaching) and I just don't see this as any type of real solution.
A fair point, and not condescending at all :)
That is a major issue. Though I would argue that like many things in America, we have a false image of ourselves. Our school system is setup to be socialist, where everyone gets exactly 1 unit of education and then are released into a supposedly free-market world. That doesn't work, and the flaws in charter schools you are pointing out are actually exposing the faults in believing it's possible to deliver exactly 1 unit of education to all citizens.
I think a lot of folks worried about education reform are running around with some sort of utopian dream for how the world could be, while not realizing that there are philosophical arguments that have to be made almost simultaneously around the notion that not everyone is capable of being educated the same level, nor do they want to be.
What happened to the pride of voc-ed schools where kids learned specific skills that would help them earn an income and hopefully provide a high quality of life for their future families? Put more bluntly: What is the goal of education?
If we can't answer that, we have no business trying to legislate betters schools.
One other interesting data point with charter schools (and most opt-in schools) is they (usually) have the ability to kick out misbehavers and not have to deal with as many LD kids. The public schools often have little mitigation with said pupils.