How to fix our crisis

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCUM is delusional. Humanities departments are on life support at this point. Many students want to go into STEM careers and likely could if they just had better high school preparation. We only have a 40% long term retention rate in stem programs, that is terrible. And even with these rigorous STEM programs, it’s been expressed time and time again that university grads are under skilled. We clearly have an issue, but people are worried about jimmy learning Korean for a semester.

Then those kids already have the opportunity to take Calculus in HS. Once again, not everyone needs to or wants to be a STEM major. If we stop forcing that on everyone (including those who so obviuosly are NOT interested in STEM), we might have more educated people---

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We could start by getting rid of Test Optional (cant wait to read about this nonsense in the history books - justifiied by it's "too easy" to fake with testing but total un-uniform GPAs are more reliable). We could start with lengthening the school day and the school year. Getting rid of retests and No-Fail policies. Strong intervention in early elementary for kids falling behind. Less focus on playing 3 travel sports and more focus on education and learning (not just rote memory but true education). Empahsis on critical thinking. Bring back cursive writing. No Cell Phones in schools. Get rid of Teachers Unions and pay good teachers 100-150K a year. Fire low results teachers. Make measurements public for both schools and teachers. Limit class sizes to 25. Have chatGPT write the curriculms so they arent dull, as they often are.

How exactly do you plan to define "low results"? Like "NCLB" where if kids are not at or above grade level the teacher has failed? How about in a 90%+ FARMS school where the kids enter 2nd grade with 70% of the class at the K reading level. Well if that teacher takes those kids to end of 1st grade or early 2nd grade reading level by the end of 2nd grade, they have stellar accomplishments ---they have completed what others have not done, despite the kids still being "below grade level". Yet that was punished with NCLB, and still is---there are more issues than just school for many kids, until you fix the early learning and home life (seriously, hard to study if you are worried about gunfire coming thru your living room window nightly or if mom's latest BF is going to beat the crap out of her and/or you and your siblings).

Your last point is pure bs. The Harlem Children Zone should just be replicated nationally in these urban district. Even in dangerous neighborhoods, education access can be improved without improving households.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Making calculus a graduation requirement and not guaranteeing a high school diploma would fix a ton of our issues

How ridiculous. Unless one is going into a STEM field, calculus is completely unnecessary - and useless.

“Calculus is useless” is exactly why our education system is so bad. So many parents happy to have ignorant kids.

Once again, unless you are going into STEM field, calculus is NOT needed. So why force kids to take it when they could instead be taking more useful courses? Like Statistics for useful math, and personal finance for kids not on a college path (along with stats).

I'd prefer my kid who wants to be a journalism major be editor of the school newspaper, or take a period or two to intern while in HS, rather than being forced to take calculus

Arguing for courses based off of “utility” is not how education works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My changes would be…
1) banning social promotion and failure of state exams -> re-entering the current class you are in
2) Cell phone bans
3) top down redesign of curriculum. More IB programs. Foreign language in elementary school and required every year until high school. Better health and wellness instruction in PE.
4) dismantling funding towards STEAM programs. More lab-based science classes in high school with required lab reports. Complete redesign of certain science curricula (physics, looking at you)
5) research-based history education in middle school. Teach students to evaluate historic documents and whether a source is credible or not
6) disempower parental rights groups from the classroom, particularly books. Average parent knows squat above education.
7) Bring back lost G&T programs, take notes of what works from the magnet school mode
8) Bring Back In School Suspension and make it a mark against promotion to the next grade
9) rework the canon. Some things are working (Of Mice and Men, The Alchemist, The Great Gatsby, Antigone, Fahrenheit 451- note the prevalence of American literature and how students engage with it) Some things are not working (Shakespeare, Shakespeare, Shakespeare, Shakespeare, Shakespeare, dismissing important writers like Shelley, Walker, and some male authors to get the boys more excited, also this guy named Shakespeare, get him out)

+1, bring back consequences and update the curriculum as teachers have been pleading for decades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stop teaching so many courses. We could consolidate many ap English and history courses to a series of Humanities courses- literally call them Humanities 1, 2, and 3. Make them rigorous general education courses on US and global history, English Literature, and potentially add in some philosophy/sociology in the later coursework. Increase and normalize the “fast track” where Algebra 1 is taken in 8th grade across the country; then, by senior year have students choose between a project-based stats course or calc.

Stop making students take every class under the sun for elite colleges and have them tested across these two courses: Humanities and Math to free up space for whatever electives they want. If you wanna take Humanities, Calc 3, Physics, Bio, and Chem with a language, do it. If you wanna take Humanities, Stats, Latin, Advanced European history, do it. No reason why we have to take so many classes across the spectrum that we don’t care about.

Because not everyone is ready for Algebra I in 8th grade.

I watched this unfold with my oldest in HoCo (at a MS in the Top 25%). Someone decided in 6th grade that everyone needed to be at least 1 grade level ahead in math. So they eliminated the 6th grade math courses and put all those kids in 7th grade math. Well, for my kid, it worked out. They have a talent for math, but have learning issues (anxiety, reading issues and ADHD) so had never tested into advanced math. After a D on first test (highest score in class), they went on to get an A that year and excel. However, the first 6 weeks of math were HELL for many many students, who simply were not ready for skipping a year of math at the 6/7th grade level---there is a reason they were ON GRADE LEVEL. It was a nightmare for on friends kid. Parents and kid went thru hell trying to do the homework, study and the stress was not needed. After 6 weeks, that parent along with others finally convinced the school to put some kids back into 6th grade math. That friend's kid got a B+ in math that year. And you know what, that kid went on to be a journalism major, and started working in sports journalism immediately upon graduation from a 4 year college and has continued to find great jobs to advance their career. They are happy, just not a STEM oriented kid. But that first 6-8 weeks of MS was an unnecessary hell and made the transition difficult (and killed the kids already fragile self esteem about math---they already felt they were not good at math---it's HoCo, everyone is advanced it seems. )

[Anonymous]

A little bit of Shakespeare is fine, but not every year. Maybe one play and a sonnet. If kid wants to take an elective on top of that, fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Making calculus a graduation requirement and not guaranteeing a high school diploma would fix a ton of our issues

How ridiculous. Unless one is going into a STEM field, calculus is completely unnecessary - and useless.

Majority of seniors aren’t even competent through Alg II. We have a huge parenting problem and truancy problem

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A little bit of Shakespeare is fine, but not every year. Maybe one play and a sonnet. If kid wants to take an elective on top of that, fine.

+10000. Every time this is borough up, some English major or Shakespeare lover gets butthurt and acts as if you won’t understand the world without Shakespeare. I love Macbeth personally, but there is no way learning outcomes are being achieved teaching Shakespeare. There’s also much better and approachable writers who are key figures of the canon- Sophocles’s plays for example are really popular with students.

Taking boys interest could also improve the classroom. There’s a big appeal amongst teenage boys to read Salinger, Kafka, and Murikami. My son always hated English class until his senior year when his teacher had them read Jhumpa Lahiri- suddenly he was tearing through books.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop teaching so many courses. We could consolidate many ap English and history courses to a series of Humanities courses- literally call them Humanities 1, 2, and 3. Make them rigorous general education courses on US and global history, English Literature, and potentially add in some philosophy/sociology in the later coursework. Increase and normalize the “fast track” where Algebra 1 is taken in 8th grade across the country; then, by senior year have students choose between a project-based stats course or calc.

Stop making students take every class under the sun for elite colleges and have them tested across these two courses: Humanities and Math to free up space for whatever electives they want. If you wanna take Humanities, Calc 3, Physics, Bio, and Chem with a language, do it. If you wanna take Humanities, Stats, Latin, Advanced European history, do it. No reason why we have to take so many classes across the spectrum that we don’t care about.

Because not everyone is ready for Algebra I in 8th grade.

I watched this unfold with my oldest in HoCo (at a MS in the Top 25%). Someone decided in 6th grade that everyone needed to be at least 1 grade level ahead in math. So they eliminated the 6th grade math courses and put all those kids in 7th grade math. Well, for my kid, it worked out. They have a talent for math, but have learning issues (anxiety, reading issues and ADHD) so had never tested into advanced math. After a D on first test (highest score in class), they went on to get an A that year and excel. However, the first 6 weeks of math were HELL for many many students, who simply were not ready for skipping a year of math at the 6/7th grade level---there is a reason they were ON GRADE LEVEL. It was a nightmare for on friends kid. Parents and kid went thru hell trying to do the homework, study and the stress was not needed. After 6 weeks, that parent along with others finally convinced the school to put some kids back into 6th grade math. That friend's kid got a B+ in math that year. And you know what, that kid went on to be a journalism major, and started working in sports journalism immediately upon graduation from a 4 year college and has continued to find great jobs to advance their career. They are happy, just not a STEM oriented kid. But that first 6-8 weeks of MS was an unnecessary hell and made the transition difficult (and killed the kids already fragile self esteem about math---they already felt they were not good at math---it's HoCo, everyone is advanced it seems. )

Parents need to stop teaching their kids that being bad at math should personally affect them. Way too much societal clearance that being trash at math is normal and valid. People speak about being bad at math like they’re being tortured-no, you struggle with critical thinking and don’t like being challenged. So many people “like math when I get it”

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Making calculus a graduation requirement and not guaranteeing a high school diploma would fix a ton of our issues

I agree about not guaranteeing a HS diploma - we should force more kids to repeat grades as they do in France, for example.

But I am not convinced every HS grad needs calc. How about starting with the knowledge to pay taxes and killer arithmetic and algebra skills?

Why do people always put the responsibility of taxes on the school? That’s a parenting issue (and a reading skills issue, it is incredibly easy to file unless you’re obscenely wealthy or own a business). I do not think schools should be a ”Parental Failure 101” drop off. Also, at our local high school there are two personal finance classes, and the instructors emphasize that students say they want “life skills” until it comes time to actually do the work and learn. Many kids do not care.

+1, I guarantee you the students will not listen to Financial planning lectures.

DP. My kids did. They learned a lot from those classes, in addition to my spouse and I teaching them about personal finances.

You need to understand how many kids out there have parents who don't care about their kids' education. They send them to school and that's the end of their involvement. Many aren't even getting them to school (and that's an entirely different issue!). They aren't teaching their kids anything. That's the role of schools. I have many, many students with MIA parents. They could be incarcerated, dead, generally disinterested in their kids, living with relatives, addicted to drugs/alcohol, etc. Even the ones who aren't in these categories don't see themselves as educational role models for their kids as many never finished school. If nobody at home ever asks to see your report cards or asks about what you are learning at school, even the best student won't care about school by MS.

I agree, but not sure what this has to do with anything. All the more reason to offer these classes at school.

When your parents don't care, very few kids will care about school and learning. They are lost by MS. They don't give a crap about a financial literacy class. They often read far below grade level and don't hand in work. They don't attend school regularly because who would if your parents don't care and don't make you go.

So are you saying that because of these particular kids, classes like financial literacy shouldn't be offered? I'm sorry, but no. We don't pull everything down to meet the lowest possible standard. And I would also argue that a lot of the kids you describe find school to be a lifeline, without which they would NEVER be exposed to any educational concepts at all. Again - all the more reason to offer these classes at school.

I never said they shouldn't be offered but it won't do them any good. They are not in class, sleeping through class, on their phones/laptops, etc. My DH teaches these students and they mostly are done with school by MS. By HS, they are years behind in reading and math. Many of them have missed 50+ days of school beginning in kindergarten. It's no wonder why they are so far behind. I teach them in kindergarten and you can often see the trajectory at age 5/6. The LEAST number of days of school my kindergarteners have missed is 14 (I have 24 students). Nearly half of them were considered chronically absent (missing 18 or more days of school) by the end of the 1st quarter.

What is it, exactly, that you would like to see happen?

Here is a good start:

1) Free, quality childcare from infancy for all kids whose parents work and make below certain income limits. Sliding scale after that limit.
2) Qualify food for kids in daycare-high school. The "food" the students current get is mostly total crap.
3) A much better home and parenting situation. Something similar to the resources in the Harlem Children's Zone in NYC.
4) Paid sick leave for everyone.
5) Paid parental leave for everyone.
6) Free and required annual checkups for all kids (not just them getting shots at shot clinics). We are seeing a lot of issues in our 5 yr olds that should've been caught before this (vision, hearing problems, autism, speech issues, etc). If early intervention is key, early detection is needed.

So basically you want the government to take over parenting?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A little bit of Shakespeare is fine, but not every year. Maybe one play and a sonnet. If kid wants to take an elective on top of that, fine.

+10000. Every time this is borough up, some English major or Shakespeare lover gets butthurt and acts as if you won’t understand the world without Shakespeare. I love Macbeth personally, but there is no way learning outcomes are being achieved teaching Shakespeare. There’s also much better and approachable writers who are key figures of the canon- Sophocles’s plays for example are really popular with students.

Taking boys interest could also improve the classroom. There’s a big appeal amongst teenage boys to read Salinger, Kafka, and Murikami. My son always hated English class until his senior year when his teacher had them read Jhumpa Lahiri- suddenly he was tearing through books.

+1 why do we need to update our math curriculum with the times but not our reading curriculum? And stop forcing them to read non fiction in English class. They already read non fiction via history books. Most teens find nonfiction super boring and don't want to read. If you make reading a chore and bore, they won't want to do it. So, how is it helping their reading comprehension if they don't want to read things like that.

"Classics" can and should change.

Also, we really need to stop dumbing things down so that certain groups of kids don't feel badly about themselves.

One thing I think the US does well is that it provides for adults to go back to college and get a degree. A lot of kids are just not ready for college at 18. They need to grow up a bit, then go to college. I think it's harder to do that in other countries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Making calculus a graduation requirement and not guaranteeing a high school diploma would fix a ton of our issues

I agree about not guaranteeing a HS diploma - we should force more kids to repeat grades as they do in France, for example.

But I am not convinced every HS grad needs calc. How about starting with the knowledge to pay taxes and killer arithmetic and algebra skills?

Why do people always put the responsibility of taxes on the school? That’s a parenting issue (and a reading skills issue, it is incredibly easy to file unless you’re obscenely wealthy or own a business). I do not think schools should be a ”Parental Failure 101” drop off. Also, at our local high school there are two personal finance classes, and the instructors emphasize that students say they want “life skills” until it comes time to actually do the work and learn. Many kids do not care.

+1, I guarantee you the students will not listen to Financial planning lectures.

DP. My kids did. They learned a lot from those classes, in addition to my spouse and I teaching them about personal finances.

You need to understand how many kids out there have parents who don't care about their kids' education. They send them to school and that's the end of their involvement. Many aren't even getting them to school (and that's an entirely different issue!). They aren't teaching their kids anything. That's the role of schools. I have many, many students with MIA parents. They could be incarcerated, dead, generally disinterested in their kids, living with relatives, addicted to drugs/alcohol, etc. Even the ones who aren't in these categories don't see themselves as educational role models for their kids as many never finished school. If nobody at home ever asks to see your report cards or asks about what you are learning at school, even the best student won't care about school by MS.

I agree, but not sure what this has to do with anything. All the more reason to offer these classes at school.

When your parents don't care, very few kids will care about school and learning. They are lost by MS. They don't give a crap about a financial literacy class. They often read far below grade level and don't hand in work. They don't attend school regularly because who would if your parents don't care and don't make you go.

So are you saying that because of these particular kids, classes like financial literacy shouldn't be offered? I'm sorry, but no. We don't pull everything down to meet the lowest possible standard. And I would also argue that a lot of the kids you describe find school to be a lifeline, without which they would NEVER be exposed to any educational concepts at all. Again - all the more reason to offer these classes at school.

I never said they shouldn't be offered but it won't do them any good. They are not in class, sleeping through class, on their phones/laptops, etc. My DH teaches these students and they mostly are done with school by MS. By HS, they are years behind in reading and math. Many of them have missed 50+ days of school beginning in kindergarten. It's no wonder why they are so far behind. I teach them in kindergarten and you can often see the trajectory at age 5/6. The LEAST number of days of school my kindergarteners have missed is 14 (I have 24 students). Nearly half of them were considered chronically absent (missing 18 or more days of school) by the end of the 1st quarter.

What is it, exactly, that you would like to see happen?

Here is a good start:

1) Free, quality childcare from infancy for all kids whose parents work and make below certain income limits. Sliding scale after that limit.
2) Qualify food for kids in daycare-high school. The "food" the students current get is mostly total crap.
3) A much better home and parenting situation. Something similar to the resources in the Harlem Children's Zone in NYC.
4) Paid sick leave for everyone.
5) Paid parental leave for everyone.
6) Free and required annual checkups for all kids (not just them getting shots at shot clinics). We are seeing a lot of issues in our 5 yr olds that should've been caught before this (vision, hearing problems, autism, speech issues, etc). If early intervention is key, early detection is needed.

So basically you want the government to take over parenting?

dp.. I don't see that as government taking over parenting. I see that as government helping and caring about the well being of its people.

If you look at schools around the world that score high, the kids have amazing lunches, not like the crap we serve here.

[Anonymous]

It's not a political problem. There are red states and blue states where one party has controlled the state government for many years. Students are doing poorly everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Statistics and data science are way more useful for the average person than calculus. I run a small research firm and I am constantly looking for people with even basic skills understanding and interpreting data. It's frustrating how many college graduates don't seem to have these skills even when their pure math skills are better than mine. Very little of our work requires complex math but being able to run a statistical analysis on a data set, and to understand which conclusions are supported by the data and which aren't, is essential.

In the last few years we have been incorporating more AI capabilities into our work, both on our own initiative and often at the behest of clients. AI is really good at math. AI is crap at making judgment calls that require you to synthesize both quantitative information and qualitative factors. I need people who can utilize AI while also adding value with their analytical ability. These skills are sadly lacking in the current workforce but are in very high demand among my clients. I could probably take on 3-4x the number of projects I currently do if I could find more people. As it stands I regular turn down work because I lack capacity. I've also had two clients hire away some of my best people for in-house positions in the last year because they are looking for the same skills.

I think a lot of math-based jobs are going to become obsolete in the next 10 years due to AI, and we are not doing enough educate people to be critical thinkers with analytical ability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Making calculus a graduation requirement and not guaranteeing a high school diploma would fix a ton of our issues

I agree about not guaranteeing a HS diploma - we should force more kids to repeat grades as they do in France, for example.

But I am not convinced every HS grad needs calc. How about starting with the knowledge to pay taxes and killer arithmetic and algebra skills?

Why do people always put the responsibility of taxes on the school? That’s a parenting issue (and a reading skills issue, it is incredibly easy to file unless you’re obscenely wealthy or own a business). I do not think schools should be a ”Parental Failure 101” drop off. Also, at our local high school there are two personal finance classes, and the instructors emphasize that students say they want “life skills” until it comes time to actually do the work and learn. Many kids do not care.

+1, I guarantee you the students will not listen to Financial planning lectures.

DP. My kids did. They learned a lot from those classes, in addition to my spouse and I teaching them about personal finances.

You need to understand how many kids out there have parents who don't care about their kids' education. They send them to school and that's the end of their involvement. Many aren't even getting them to school (and that's an entirely different issue!). They aren't teaching their kids anything. That's the role of schools. I have many, many students with MIA parents. They could be incarcerated, dead, generally disinterested in their kids, living with relatives, addicted to drugs/alcohol, etc. Even the ones who aren't in these categories don't see themselves as educational role models for their kids as many never finished school. If nobody at home ever asks to see your report cards or asks about what you are learning at school, even the best student won't care about school by MS.

I agree, but not sure what this has to do with anything. All the more reason to offer these classes at school.

When your parents don't care, very few kids will care about school and learning. They are lost by MS. They don't give a crap about a financial literacy class. They often read far below grade level and don't hand in work. They don't attend school regularly because who would if your parents don't care and don't make you go.

So are you saying that because of these particular kids, classes like financial literacy shouldn't be offered? I'm sorry, but no. We don't pull everything down to meet the lowest possible standard. And I would also argue that a lot of the kids you describe find school to be a lifeline, without which they would NEVER be exposed to any educational concepts at all. Again - all the more reason to offer these classes at school.

I never said they shouldn't be offered but it won't do them any good. They are not in class, sleeping through class, on their phones/laptops, etc. My DH teaches these students and they mostly are done with school by MS. By HS, they are years behind in reading and math. Many of them have missed 50+ days of school beginning in kindergarten. It's no wonder why they are so far behind. I teach them in kindergarten and you can often see the trajectory at age 5/6. The LEAST number of days of school my kindergarteners have missed is 14 (I have 24 students). Nearly half of them were considered chronically absent (missing 18 or more days of school) by the end of the 1st quarter.

What is it, exactly, that you would like to see happen?

Here is a good start:

1) Free, quality childcare from infancy for all kids whose parents work and make below certain income limits. Sliding scale after that limit.
2) Qualify food for kids in daycare-high school. The "food" the students current get is mostly total crap.
3) A much better home and parenting situation. Something similar to the resources in the Harlem Children's Zone in NYC.
4) Paid sick leave for everyone.
5) Paid parental leave for everyone.
6) Free and required annual checkups for all kids (not just them getting shots at shot clinics). We are seeing a lot of issues in our 5 yr olds that should've been caught before this (vision, hearing problems, autism, speech issues, etc). If early intervention is key, early detection is needed.

So basically you want the government to take over parenting?

How are these ideas taking over parenting? YOU have the money and time to do all of these things but most parents don’t.