So what is the reasons teachers aren't effiective?

Comparative teacher salaries are much higher in most 1st world countries than in the US. Also the cultures in many 1st world countries emphasize education much more than in the US. Kids and parents in the US have a more casual attitude about education, especially poor kids and parents.

The biggest issue with comparative test scores is that the US has mandatory school attendance through high school, which many European countries don't have. Rather than send kids to high school who won't go to collage, many countries put them through trade schools. So in most cases, test scores are apples to oranges. Countries that skim off the cream and test them appear to have higher test scores, when they're only testing a small sub set of their kids.

Relatively low salaries, difficult cultural conditions, unfair test scores... all those contribute to the appearance that the US has a substandard education system.

 

US salaries are pretty high. http://educationbythenumbers.org/wp-content/uploads/Screen-Shot-2014-03-07-at-10.53.48-AM1.png

 

is an education system where nationwide only 68% of black males ever graduate high school, considered, quite good, or an abysmal failure?

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_coi.asp

an overall 80% graduation rate among all kids is horrific... it should be 98% to be considered quite good... I mean we can't manage to graduate more than 80% of the kids when they have lowered the bar for graduating to make it easier, so now kids should have no trouble jumping over the low bar, yet they can't even reach that...



this is quite good?

 

you didnt read the link did you.

 

what link am I supposed to read, your message that I replied to, did not contain a link...

 

How do they get the best people to get interested in teaching again?

 

your best argument is demonizing? good job.

 

When teachers were in short supply in the 50/60's, there was no requirement for degrees in teaching and people were hired that wanted to teach. That is how my mother became a teacher. Back then a school could discipline a student that got out of line. In the 60's I noticed the changes that were starting to happen, lawsuits against schools for disciplining students. From there it has been all downhill. Now schools have 'counselers' that determine what happens and schools are hamstrung by fear of lawsuits. Teachers tread water between difficult students, counselors, and lawsuits.

I talked to someone my age and in his school, the little school marm actually jumped on the back of an unruly large farm boy that was out of line. Now that would land you in jail.

Education is good up until about 3rd grade before they children become more self aware kids that know they can get away with just about anything. Now the regulations of schools have become a bizarre mix. Due to having to document everything for legal reasons, schools have become intolerant of rational thought. Zero tolerance for being kids. Taking kids out of school for alleged shape of gun fear. Sending kindergartners home for alleged sexual harassment. Some of the most idiotic things imaginable.

I fear our schools cannot recover from the PC infestation.

 

No matter how much you spit polish a turd, at the end of the day it's still a turd.

 

You could pay teachers $1 million a year and education wouldn't get any better, tax payers would simply get poorer. It's the parents.

 

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink if it doesn't want to. The kids doing poorly don't want to and they don't have parents who will help them want to.

 

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Updated Statistics -- The national graduation rate for black males was 59 percent, 65 percent for Latinos, and 80 percent for white males for the 2012-13 school year, according to the report. Particularly striking was Detroit where only 20 percent of black males graduated on time in the 2011-12. ; (Source)

 

Interesting. You feel it's a no win job? If so I have 2 things to consider
1. All talks, conferences, and meetings to enhance the school system are pointless and waste of time, resources, and money.
2. Perhaps the point of parenting being so bad is the reason decision makers don't try to make things better. Why waste tax payer money?

 

Correct on points 1 and 2. It's only a no win job if they can't get the parents involved. We spend more on education than ever and look at what we're getting? It's not the money.....it's the people.

 

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Private schools aside, the majority of public schools are doing an excellent job of educating. The real problem is, where they are located. In cities where there is a sizable population of minorities, public schools suffer greatly. Massive disciplinary problems lead the list of causes for that. (Source)

 

On this we agree. Of course, as we saw recently that whenever a minority is 'removed' from a classroom or disciplined the Progressives rise up in arms and the ball is open. Anyone who has taught minorities know that many, for whatever reason, have severe discipline problems that only a 5 yr. stint in the Foreign Legion could probably resolve.

 

So 2 more questions:
1. Should money be put towards developing parents in some way?
2. Is the current state of parenting and not being a solution a reason why the best and brightest decide to take their talents to other industries? People like that want to know their contributions are put to good use.

 

So what is the reasons teachers aren't effiective?

This is a troll post and shame on anyone who takes it seriously.

 

Please stop. Thank you.

 

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I was at an educational symposium a few years back which included minorities and it was the consensus of the group that the situation has gotten so bad in urban areas, drastic measures were in order. Problem children should be sent to boarding schools, by legal force if necessary, at least Monday through Friday, to insure a distraction free learning environment. Of course that idea is fraught with legal and logistical problems but is an idea that has merit.

As far as "Foreign Legion" type service/education is concerned, doesn't the US have "boot camps" for that?

 

Collegiate education perhaps, but not secondary education. Primary education is on par with the rest of the world.

Three factors contribute to our educational demise at the secondary level:
1. Schools, both private and public, are being used more and more as surrogate parents with no authority to discipline children on the premises. Any "discipline" is either expulsion or suspension, which does not address the core issue for the disciplinary cause.
2. The politics of textbooks is causing massive confusion and denying how students should learn about the world. From science to history to foreign languages to literature, the politics of what or how something is said is wrecking havoc on the educational system. In addition, not learning about evolution or how evolution is conceptualized scientifically is causing a major problem with the conservatives and science.
3. We are more concerned with quantity than quality. We want graduation rates to be extremely high so that we can show that our system is good or better than the rest of the world. But we are doing this at the cost of quality education. No, we should not reduce the number of who is graduating, but that the information being shown is so compartmentalized that it is not allowing students to truly learn at an educated level.

 

A big reason is that teachers rely on family and the community to help. There's only so much you can do with a chalkboard, textbooks and a few hours a day. Another reason is that things are a lot more complicated these days. Kids rarely even go outside to play these days because there are playstations and the internet and smart phones. That just doesn't leave much left for the ol' attention span.

Both parents typically work, providing that there are two parents, so when they get home, they've got their twitter and 2,000 cable channels and walking dead episodes to contend with, so they can't help out where they used to before.

Lots of reasons, but at the end of the day, kids are still getting an education. It's just that teachers play a smaller and smaller role in providing that education. Now they know all about miley cyrus and caitlyn jenner, but nothing about the thirty years war, calculus, and how to conjugate verbs.

 

First I would say that the effectiveness of our education system is a local and regional matter, not a national one. The public school system where I currently live is better than the private schools in many areas.

There are as many reasons for ineffective schools as there are schools, but I can outline what I have seen.

Most of the extremely bad schools are not supported by the larger community in their area. Funding from local government is low, parents are poverty level citizens, the students come from high crime neighborhoods. They go to school more to avoid the bad environment they live than anything else. Teachers in these schools spend so much time managing student personal issues that few of them have much time to actually teach, and some have forgotten how.

For more borderline schools the issue can be outside involvement as much or more than real internal problems. Schools are graded by student averages, so schools with higher numbers of at risk children or children with learning disabilities tend to score low regardless of the real effectiveness of the teachers and administration. Outside forces are often sent to these schools to "fix" them and end up destroying beautiful learning environments for the kids that need it the most.

National and state testing at this point is a detrimental mix to most schools in the US right now. More time is spent teaching children how to answer specific test questions than is spent on teaching them the fundamentals. A simple non-invasive test is not a bad idea, but the system of accountability we have now is completely haywire.

 

Ok. So it's not possible to count on families like the original model did. That is sad but the truth. So should teachers try to find another way to make thing work?

 

That's going down a dangerous path. Of course we don't really need families and the community, but then you get into a situation where teachers are taking over a role that is best left to the family. Where the school becomes the family, and the teacher becomes the parent.

With public teachers being employees of the state, do you really want to give the state that much power? We can certainly do it, but you might not like the results.