Re: OT: Can South Central LA Schools be saved?

On Feb 22, 8:51�am, "da pickle" <jcpickels@(nospam)hotmail.com> wrote:
"Tim Norfolk"
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In my somewhat jaundiced 30 years experience here, there are many
problems with American education, including:

1. The fact that no-one really knows what we want it to do. Is it to
educate just about everyone to a given level (No Child Left Behind,
mainstreaming, etc.), or to try and get some excellence?
2. The 'experts' currently in charge are specialists in what I have
observed to be a non-subject, at least in terms of results - Education
Theory. It has stripped itself of the hard Sociology and Psychology,
and often of subject matter, replacing it in some extreme cases with
the concept that one can train a teacher to teach anything, if you
give them the book. My suggestion to improve things a little is to
have the curriculum in each subject pushed down from the subject
specialists in the universities. Given the large percentage that go on
to higher education, at least it would be fair to prepare them
properly.
3. The American concept (from Crichton's 'Rising Sun') that Americans
fix the blame, Japanese fix the problem. If students fail, it MUST be
the teacher's fault, so they are forced by the parents and
administrations to pass students who shouldn't. In a wealthy town near
here, every parent-teacher conference on problems includes the lawyer
of the parents.
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I suppose it is google groups that makes your post refuse to allow proper
indenting.

Your points:
1. �This is what "the experts" want to do. �I thought you liked the idea of
experts making the decisions? �I know that you mean you think different
experts would make different decisions and those decisions would be "better"
and would result in a better system. �However, you do NOT say what you think
would be a better system. �I think that the problem is top down committee
management and top down "experts" ... it does not matter whose set of
experts you choose, they will never be able to manage the dramatic
differences that are "the problems" at the local level.

The 'experts' that are consulted in education are rarely, if ever,
experts in any content matter. Part of the training in Education
colleges consists of imparting the philosophy that all subjects are
the same to teach. In learning mathematics, you learn process. In many
other subjects, you learn factoids.

As for content experts, someone, at some point, has to decide what
should be learned, and how it should be tested. I can say that
learning mathematics and the associated sciences, cannot be done with
short-cuts. A student needs algebra and trig to study calculus, and
those to study differential equations, the language of engineering and
the hard sciences. As Euclid said to Ptolemy 'There is no royal road
to geometry'.


2. �You are going to have to explain what you mean by pushing down and why
you think that soc and psy are "hard" anything. �The education departments
of the teachers colleges are awash with experts. �The entire system is a
command driven nightmare. �The amount of money shoved into the individual
parts of this "system" is unbelieveable. �It is "bureauracracy" at its
finest. �It is the bureauracracy that must be broken. �Replace the idea that
"experts" know best and insert choice and competition and the system will
improve itself. �It took a long time to get where we are ... it will take a
while to get it gone.

Education colleges are full of self-proclaimed experts. Most appear
never to have put their own teaching ideas to the test. I actually
suggested that such professors should be paid by universities to teach
in high schools every few years.

3. �I do not think it does much good to compare cultures that are so
different. �There are too many "other" things to consider. �(Sort of like
global warming ... people will think there is a "consensus.") �There are too
many "differences" between all the separate communities under consideration
to have any "one" solution be "the" solution for all. �This one size fits
all goes for a lot more than just education. �A small town in west Texas is
not comparable to a small town in Westchester New York. �There are some
similarities among regions of the country that might make cooperation useful
within them but not with other regions. �There are some common difficulties
within large population centers that might make cooperation useful for them
as well. �The key is to allow the states to be exactly the sort of
experimental centers originally envisioned ... again, not just in eduation..
Let parents choose and let competition do its job ... watch the video that
was part of this thread at the beginning. �The sort of institutionalized
blockage presented will never go away ... that dam must be blown up so the
water can flow again.

But results are what counts. If we need more engineers, scientists and
mathematicians (which the free market indicates is the case), we need
to find them somewhere. The rich send their children to MBA programs
and Law School, the poor usually learn in lousy schools and lack the
background. The middle class children avoid mathematics and science,
for many of the reasons that I have described.

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As for 'choice', I will hazard a guess that you graduated some time
ago. The problem is not just in the poor, inner-city schools. In the
nice middle-class suburbs, children now expect to take a light senior
year in high school, so they can 'experience themselves', or some
such. Locally, guidance counsellors are recommending that students not
take math beyond what they have to, since they 'can get it in
college'.
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I graduated from high school in 1963 in Bartlesville, Oklahoma ... an all
american city with a first class high school. �I know the problems today are
not just in the poor schools ... however, what you describe as poor
recommendations from school staff will not change if we have experts tell
them to make different recommendations. �You seem to be assigning blame
rather than looking for a fix. �If students are not made to go to school
beyond grade school and perhaps junior high ... say through the 8th or the
9th current grade, then they can go do whatever they want to do. �Let them
join the army or learn a trade. �Let them start trade school in the 6th or
7th grade if their parents want them to try that ... they can always get a
self education and go to college later if they choose. �Let the parents
choose what they want to offer their children. �If their children have
special talents, let them choose according to those talents. �If they choose
unwisely for middle-schools, the kids with talent will eventually overcome
the bad early choices of their parents. �There can even be experts available
for the parents that do not feel they are wise enough to make correct
choices for their kids ... wow, a win win for everyone. �We just need to get
away from the command system for education. �No choice, no competition, one
size fits all ... a recipe for what we have. �College will take care of
itself ... if we can fix our health care system in a way that does not make
it just like our current education system, we will have a model for how the
education system might be modified.

There are tragic cases of children not exposed to speech at an early
age. Even when the conditions change, they are never able to make up
that development, because the speech centre of the brain can't develop
properly. Some serious studies suggest that the same is true in the
analytical subjects, like mathematics and science. If so, then those
parents who elect not to have their children take 'hard' stuff will
condemn them to second-class status.
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More in my reply below.
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