How to fix our crisis

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think parents know how behind their students are globally. The suggestion of required calc and not making graduation guaranteed is accepted by most teachers these days as the ideal. Very few teachers think the standards are high at all and are disheartened by how behind their students are.

Well, that's BS. You have no idea what "most teachers" accept as the ideal. Please stop acting as the spokesperson for anyone but yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You're very odd. Humanities departments are not on life support. You have a very narrow view of careers. Many students have absolutely NO desire to go into STEM. Just because you're pushing it doesn't mean others have to be interested.

So you’re delusional. Thanks.

And thank you for proving my point.

Your point was that people don’t want to do stem. For someone advocating so ravenously for the humanities, you really should work on your logic.

And again, proving the point - this time, that you have difficulty with reading comprehension. I've bolded the pertinent words for you, "many" being the most important one that you left out.

Sure, plenty of people want to do STEM. And plenty don't. We don't all have to follow your prescribed path.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Not only that, but calculus is taken at much higher rates now than 20 years ago, yet according to OP, US education is in decline in that time. Meanwhile, colleges are reporting that many students are arriving on campus with an unwillingness to read long, complex texts and an inability to write at a college level.

Whatever is ailing the US education system, it cannot be fixed with universal calculus.

+100
If anything, remedial reading and writing instruction for those needing it, and more advanced humanities classes for others.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

I never took calculus at all. I fulfilled college math requirements with statistics and econ classes.

I recently sold a business for 13 million.

How about we make sure students graduating high school know how to read, can write competently, and have a broad base of knowledge in science, math, history, literature, arts and culture? And they should have baseline public speaking skills and understand basic project management.

I will never understand this weird belief that everyone should go into STEM, or that even STEM students don't need a general education in non-stem subjects. This is why so many people wind up struggling in the workplace. Most jobs require generalists who know how to communicate well and can self motivate and be organized. But everyone wants their kid to be a hyper specialist genius in one narrow area. That's like .01% of jobs. Plus if technology makes that job obsolete, that person has no ability to pivot.

We need more well rounded kids, fewer "pointy" kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think parents know how behind their students are globally. The suggestion of required calc and not making graduation guaranteed is accepted by most teachers these days as the ideal. Very few teachers think the standards are high at all and are disheartened by how behind their students are.

Well, that's BS. You have no idea what "most teachers" accept as the ideal. Please stop acting as the spokesperson for anyone but yourself.

Are you also a teacher or just another disgruntled parent?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I never took calculus at all. I fulfilled college math requirements with statistics and econ classes.

I recently sold a business for 13 million.

How about we make sure students graduating high school know how to read, can write competently, and have a broad base of knowledge in science, math, history, literature, arts and culture? And they should have baseline public speaking skills and understand basic project management.

I will never understand this weird belief that everyone should go into STEM, or that even STEM students don't need a general education in non-stem subjects. This is why so many people wind up struggling in the workplace. Most jobs require generalists who know how to communicate well and can self motivate and be organized. But everyone wants their kid to be a hyper specialist genius in one narrow area. That's like .01% of jobs. Plus if technology makes that job obsolete, that person has no ability to pivot.

We need more well rounded kids, fewer "pointy" kids.

+100

[Anonymous]

It’s interesting that none of the people advocating for more stem education have actually said they don’t want students to learn the humanities. It’s just an odd assumption that people get defensive about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As much as we talk about the difficulty of college admissions, American high school students are not learning enough content to compete in a global market. The SAT is not rigorous and barely tests at a pre-calculus level. Our students are dropping out of STEM programs like flies, and students aren’t graduating with the skills needed to compete in the entry level market. What reforms should we make?

Start with a focus on the basics. For example, I was truly in shock during Covid when the school shut downs impacted two years of schooling! Then, when presented with recovery funds, instead of using it to offer free tutoring or deep skills workshops, they gave the money to a Kid’s Museum in Bethesda that had some connection to the Board of Ed.

I think the social issues do not belong in the classroom. Far too much time is spent on those issues at the expense of fixing the broken academics. Funds should be used to:
- reduce class sizes;
- increase teacher pay and benefits;
- open alternative schools for the trades and deep immersion for recently arrived non-English speaking students, as well as for alternative schools for juvenile delinquents with expert social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists; and
- add two more G & T high schools.

Additionally, we should begin benchmarking US kids against the top international standards because even the top colleges have too much nonsense going on these days.

FWIW, I am a Dem who was one of many waiting for Kamala to speak at Howard the night of the election. But like so many others I know in the DMV, I sent my kids to private schools once I realized the system was focused 100% on equity and was not concerned with challenging my kids, who were doing just “fine.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:More people should be failed out of high school and directed somewhere else. As someone not born in the US, calculus being treated as some ridiculously insane requirement for 17 year olds is a really embarrassing reflection of this country. Sports are treated more seriously than education in the US

Do all 17 yr olds in your country go to HS? In many countries, free schooling ends around age 13. HS is only for the top students.

[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.

+10! Why do we have so many required courses to get into decent colleges? Yes, the liberal arts matter, but there’s so many degree programs not represented at all.

[Anonymous]

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?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s interesting that none of the people advocating for more stem education have actually said they don’t want students to learn the humanities. It’s just an odd assumption that people get defensive about.

Well, I mean there was this at 20:22:

"Humanities departments are on life support at this point."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More people should be failed out of high school and directed somewhere else. As someone not born in the US, calculus being treated as some ridiculously insane requirement for 17 year olds is a really embarrassing reflection of this country. Sports are treated more seriously than education in the US

Do all 17 yr olds in your country go to HS? In many countries, free schooling ends around age 13. HS is only for the top students.

My home country is like that, and it makes sense. I don’t really think you need to continue school if you don’t care about it nor find it tedious as many in this thread seem to. Plus, it’s not like it bars you from college. You still get a diploma and can go to university!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s interesting that none of the people advocating for more stem education have actually said they don’t want students to learn the humanities. It’s just an odd assumption that people get defensive about.

Well, I mean there was this at 20:22:

"Humanities departments are on life support at this point."

Humanities departments are objectively struggling across the US. You can’t emu head in the sand away from that truth. They didn’t say it was a good thing, just that it is happening.