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[Moderator 1]

Author: English prof, small university
Date:   03-06-06 20:52

Why is it up to us? States are not doing their jobs by having reasonable standards in secondary school and sticking to them. They allow under-performing students to be promoted from grade to grade, then they allow them to graduate and we get them in our classes. There is no reason for us to need remedial classes in English and math in our colleges--students should be coming prepared. We shouldn't accept them if they're not ready to come. Parents should be demanding higher quality education from their schools and should be demanding that the schools prepare their children for college and beyond, but they're not. Where I live, parents care more about how the football team is doing than whether or not their kids are ready for college. They just assume the colleges will take care of what the high school didn't. That's not our job. Our job is to build on what they (should) have learned, not to do the job of the high schools. States should have standardized curricula and then have some oversight to make sure the curricula are being followed. If students are doing well, the state should find out why. If the teachers aren't doing their jobs, replace them instead of letting them stay for 30 years. We're not paid to be high school teachers, we're university professors.

[Norman Hanscombe]

The beauty of modern society is that nobody is responsible for anything.  This permits self-esteem to reach unprecedented heights, since we all "know" that whatever works (or, more correctly is alleged to be working?) may be claimed as our own, while whatever doesn't work becomes the baby we place on someone ekse's doorstep.  Of course large numbers of elementary schools aren't doing their job properly --- ask the High Schools.  Ditto the High Schools --- ask the Colleges.  Ditto the Colleges --- ask the Universities.  Ditto, ditto, ditto, until there's no one left to blame.

We've taken away a students right to fail.  No cover up is too much, in our endeavour to help everyone enjoy "success".  If ithe U.S.A. [or Australia]  were developing sporting teams, at every level, on a similar basis to how we approach education, Canada would defeat their southern neighbours much more frequently, and Australians would be similarly embarrassed by the Kiwis.

But what am I saying?  Sport is far too important to let standards collapse by doing anything as fookish as that.

There was a time in NSW when High School teachers commented on the fact that the essay writing skills of newly arrived Year 7 students were so high, it meant you had to be on your toes to ensure the students' standards didn't slip back.  No longer need anyone worry about that.  There was a time [in NSW at least] when the possesion of a B.A. was seen as indicating an applicant could be safely employed.  No longer.

It is a societal problem, and if it's to be reolved at all, that resolution will never take place as long as we isolate any sector of the education process from careful analysis, and the need for major reforms.

[pfagan]

The Pre-K - 12 Education is in major need of a serious overhaul.  But the question is, "How is that accomplished?"

College and graduate schools are also on the threshold of needing serious change but I ask again how do you do that?

The answer is so multi-sided, is real change and reform even possible?

Think of all of the constituents in Pre-K - 12...
- parents- Who want schools the way that they had them.
- students- who are unsure what school should be
- teachers- who want freedom to teach
- unions- who get in the way of reform efforts.
- administrators- who want to develop strong schools
- school board- people running schools with perhaps no background in education.  (Big problem here.)
- politicians- who compare apples and oranges to win votes
- educational researchers- who are looking at the issues with ways to combat the issue and make real strides.  Because of political pressure the ideas generated in the research have little opportunity to be tested in lieu of meeting standardized testing.

So everyone has so many different approaches, I am not sure if true reform will ever be possible unless you let administrators administrate and teachers teach.

State Education departments are making it almost impossible for adults who have worked in a career to transition into teaching.  We have young 22 year old teachers coming out of college ill prepared to deal with educating in the 21st century.

So it is a problem larger than just the ability of the state to handle.  All have a part to play, but want different paths to the ultimate goal.