Let me rephrase. In Chicago, teaching is now associated largely with blacks, which brings on more contempt for teachers. They are in lower repute and are a better target to bash because they are perceived to be black. Let's face it, union bashing is largely black bashing. Lazy Detroit auto workers, lazy government union employees, lazy Postal Service workers, now lazy Chicago teachers. That's my view. I think your argument intersects somehow, I'm just not quite clear at the moment.
Perhaps the attacks on based on the inability of CPS to educate students: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/us-...79-chicago-8th-graders-not-proficient-reading
Really those are not problems for society to solve it is the parents' job to raise the kids. As to extended school years, you can barely fund the schools now where are you going to come up with another twenty percent of operating costs on top of what we spend now? The schools are broken because families are broken. The real answer to the dilemma you present is for workers to make more, and for us all to lower our standards of living just a tad, and figure out a way to distribute resources a bit better than winner take all crony capitalism we now have.
Why should we take the education system, a system designed for a country that bears no resemblance to the one we live in now, as set in stone and one size fits all, and change everything about our lives? How about we keep our lives, and look to ways we can change the education system?
Okay well what about the twenty percent increase in expenses? There really isn't anything wrong the schools that parents can't fix by teaching their kids some manners and respect. Anything allegedly wrong with the system is not going to fixed by changing the school year, but will cost a ton of money.
One aspect that is going unnoticed is the push for so many kids to get high grades, when not as many used to get them. If kids are not getting high grades, they are being failed by our educators. Even though, from the 50s to the 70s, getting great grades meant a lot of effort or being naturally smart. Now, it is a lot easier.
The scale changed for one thing. It used to be 70 was the lowest passing grade and now it is a 60. Add that to grade inflation and an A does not mean what it used to mean.
of course they are society's problem! a society is nothing more than the sum of its parts, and society as a whole derives a benefit from people who take on the responsibility and the significant cost (financial, emotional, physical, etc.) of perpetuating the society. without people willing to make those sacrifices, the society would die within a generation. so yes, it is society's problem and a society that does not want to die within a generation will do something to fix the problem. seriously, lower our standard of living?? oh yeah, because that's a sign of progress!
I do not think society derives much benefit from people who produce children who do not then take the time to raise them to be well adjusted properly socialized children. It is clear the educational system is a poor substitute for a decent family environment and not everybody in the world needs a flat screen TV and full cable package. Not everybody should be living in Mc mansions they can barely afford with two earners, in fact at least one of them ought to be raising their own fvcking kids. You are wanting the rest of society to make sacrifices for your kids and I want you personally to make the sacrifices for your own kids. That is how it worked for most of the history of our country and the further we get away from it the worse it gets. Wealth distortion is much greater threat to our society than the educational system. Fix the families and you will fix the educational system. It is as simple as that. The failure of traditional families the perverse wealth distribution closely parallel the decline in our schools. Go ahead though heap more on teachers and ask less of parents ....Talking about doubling down on dumbassery followed by a side bet of stupidity.... Oh and you still haven't addressed how you are going to get a consensus of your neighbors to agree to twenty percent increases in property taxes to pay for all this expansion to the system you are proposing. There is a critical nationwide shortage of teachers now, what do you think asking them to work twenty percent more and get paid the same is going to do to that. So for the third time where exactly do you think you are going to get that money. Local school boards are not like the Federal Govt. They can't just plug in an electronic check writing machine, they have to come up with real money to pay for what you propose.
how can people raise kids when the work day lasts 8.5 hours, plus commute, while the school day only last 6 hours? and when the average adult gets 3 weeks of vacation, but the child gets 4 months! how the hell is anyone to raise kids when you have that kind of disconnect between the raisers and the raisees?? this has nothing to do with how much a person makes or their standard of living, and everything to do with how much an adult works, versus the number of hours/days kids are in school. I make plenty of sacrifices for my child. all parents do. all I'm saying is that society should acknowledge that as well as the benefits it derives by parents making those sacrifices - and who knows, maybe make things a little easier for them. but I'm not holding my breath. I'm just ranting on the Internets. I didn't say anything about more teachers or heaping more money at the system. but please explain how exactly broken families contributes to "wealth distortion" (whatever that is) and explain to me your plan for fixing families. when did I say that was my plan? I don't have a plan. just a rant.
We make contributions to your child rearing too, if you are an American taxpayer.A few hundred dollars a month in fact over and above school etc. in tax deductions. Excuse me for thinking you had some point other than bitching about how we should help you raise your kids. My bad I will let you continue unabated. peace.
yes, it was mainly intended as a rant. not that I have any hope of the system changing - there are simply too many entrenched interests at stake. I do find it interesting though that you automatically assumed that my fix to the problem was to raise property taxes. it isn't my proposed fix as I do not have one. but if I had one, it would involve closing corporate tax loopholes.
? At the better public high schools, kids today work harder than those of the 1970s. Perhaps even much harder. More competition at the top in the attempt to get into the top colleges. Also, today there are Asian students. Lots of them in the good public schools, and they work a damn sight harder than those American kids in the 1970s worked.
I was referring more to general grade inflation and the fact that students are memorizing more than learning now. There are a lot of kids who cover more material and work a lot harder than their predecessors. It is just that I feel we don't value learning. We value getting a job (nothing wrong) by getting good grades at the expense of learning. If a customer wants a desired result and they pay a lot of money, they expect the result even if they don't deserve it. My high school friend who is now a lecturer in the statistics department at a very good public school recently taught an intro statistics course. He gave them a homework assignment that required a graphing calculator and a pre set program on the calculator. The kids learned how to use this program in high school plus step by step instructions were found in the chapter preceding the problems. In addition, one could google how to perform the program or watch videos on youtube. About 20% of the class emailed/came to office hours unable to use the program. He didn't tell them how to use the program and instead told them to try their best and that they would do it together in class. The next class, he asked how many people could not run the program or understood how to use the program. About 60% raised their hand. He asked, how many went to other resources and still could not figure it out. Barely anyone raised their hand from the original 60%. When he went over the problem, he asked how many people had done this before. Almost everyone had done it before. When I was in college over a decade ago, If I could not find the solution to a problem, I reread the book or found another book. Then I asked friends or teaching assistants or the professor. Now they have google, youtube, books, and a lot of other resources but they do not use them. They are used to just getting grades, not finding out how or learning due to curiosity. This is not everyone, but it is a trend I hear about.
then again, have you considered the possibility that maybe we're just dumber than previous generations?
Oh, I see. Fair enough. No question that high schools more than ever are about "learn what you need to do to get the grades and advance your career," as opposed to "learn because it's cool to learn." Colleges, even more so.
when my dept. boss (in industry) cleaned out his cabinets when he retired i grabbed up a few roneotyped ("ditto" copies if you're american and old enough to remember those), manuals about Simplification of Office Tasks (S.O.T.) General Approach to Problem Solving (G.A.P.S.)... dating from the late fifties. i kept them and pull them out every time some young genius comes to show us the neeeeeeeeeeew methods that are going to revolutionize the way we work (about once every 3-4 years). anyway, i remember in the 70's going once a week to amphitheater lectures that, though they were delivered viva voce by the prof, very well could have been videoed, and once a week to a small-group where we interacted with an assistant. they didn't call it flipping classrooms, but other than that i don't see the difference.
Each year, various morons get rich as management consultants by applying new vocabulary terms that are variations on the exact same themes found among the "ideas" that go under the name "Total Quality Management," which I suspect is some other nitwit's system similarly processed through the thesaurus.
As a science professor, Professor Mrs. Soccernutter has used this to a minimal degree and really likes it. To her POV, it separates out those what to learn, and those that don't. For a Uni, specially in science or technology, I can understand it. But to a non-uni (even community colleges) I don't think it is good.
Not the best example for the students: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york...-heroin-upstate-prison-cops-article-1.1875314