[quote]Ghost22 wrote:
Oh, oh, oh, oh!
I know where Louisiana is!!!
The Louisiana educational system doesn’t fail in that one respect.
“U r here”[/quote]
LOL
[quote]Ghost22 wrote:
The Louisiana educational system doesn’t fail in that one respect.
[/quote]
That surprises me, especially after teaching a handful of LA kids this year.
Test scores improve for fifth-graders
The percentage of Texas fifth-graders who passed the math portion of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills is improving.
Eighty-one percent of the 294,794 students who took the test on April 4 passed – 2 percentage points higher than last year, the Texas Education Agency reported Tuesday…
Students who were displaced by Hurricane Rita or Katrina also had to take the test. The passing rate for those students was only 45 percent. If their scores are removed from the entire state calculation, then the overall passing rate would be 82 percent.
In all fairness I’m actually a product of the Texas educational system.
God knows how I ended up balls deep in cajun country…
I got 19/20, immigration one got me.
It can be astounding, the stupidity. Like people not knowing what states border the one they live in. Or not being able to locate their own state on a map!
Do you really want to feel like puking? Ask people these two questions:
-
Who did the British fight in the Revolutionary War?
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When did the War of 1812 occur?
I asked these when I worked in retail, just to see. People missed the first one fairly often. Kinda sad, but hey it’s kind of trick question (barely) so I let it slide. But I couldn’t believe how many missed the second one when I give them the answer in the freaking question!! I was both shocked and dismayed. People would say all kinds of years, but 1812. Morons.
Not terribly surprised, but this is what happens in an educational system that wants to spend ever more time on therapeutic subject matter instead of knowledge.
The dumbing down of academics for fear that someone, somewhere might get their self-esteem battered always lurks in the background on problems like this.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Not terribly surprised, but this is what happens in an educational system that wants to spend ever more time on therapeutic subject matter instead of knowledge.
The dumbing down of academics for fear that someone, somewhere might get their self-esteem battered always lurks in the background on problems like this.[/quote]
What do you mean here?
What’s therapeutic subject matter?
[quote]ToShinDo wrote:
I got 19/20, immigration one got me.[/quote]
Same here. I’ve never heard that number mentioned in a news report or anywhere else, despite the recent focus on immigration.
Kids or young adults not being able to identify Louisiana or Iraq on a map is not a failure of the educational system to teach Geography, it’s an indication of total disinterest in the news. I learned where Albania is in Geography class, but Albania is rarely in the news, so now I’m not sure where it is (I remember it’s on the Adriatic because of that episode of “Cheers”). But if you watch or read any news at all, or even if you just watch “The Daily Show”, the locations of Louisiana and Iraq have been drilled into you.
I think that geography has been greatly neglected in schools in North America in general. However I always thought that Americans knew their history and geography fairly well. Anyways this video might help some acquire new knowledge of the world:
This is sad, but honestly I don’t think it matters if most people can locate Iraq on a map. Secondly, knowing a second language is nice, but I’d hardly consider it necessary. It’s hard to argue that not knowing a second language is going to significantly impact most people.
This is mostly trivia. It is indicative of a more grave issue, which is ignorance of global affairs. However curing the symptoms isn’t going to make the disease go away. People who blame this on teaching to the tests are missing the point, teaching them geography just for the sake of geography is no better.
Finally if you think this is a result of no child left behind, you either a)did not go to a public school b) are blinded by your political prejudices or c) you are a complete idiot. Our public education system was a joke and a waste of time long before Bush.
18/20.
The CSI question had no place in there.
I can’t believe how few Americans knew the population of their own country. That is pathetic.
[quote]cap’nsalty wrote:
This is sad, but honestly I don’t think it matters if most people can locate Iraq on a map.
[/quote]
Yeah…it’s not like it’s been in the news recently, or anything.
[quote]Ghost22 wrote:
In all fairness I’m actually a product of the Texas educational system.
God knows how I ended up balls deep in cajun country…[/quote]
Did you fall for the “You can make big bucks in the oil field” line? Lord knows I sure did. Oh well, at least I didn’t move to Mississippi.
How are kids supposed to learn in school anyways? From the age of 5 to 18 they’re getting jacked up on Coke and candy bars in school, while at the same time P.E. and recess times are being cut. Vast stores of energy and no way to expend it. Have we completely forgotten that both the mind and the body need to be worked equally? An example from history, Plato was both a renowned scholar and an accomplished wrestler.
There are dozens of major flaws in the US Public Education program. Far too many to list in a single post.
My $0.02
Now I’ll go back to lurking in the shadows.
[quote]Diomede wrote:
Our schools are an absolute embarassment. If we actually TAUGHT something in schools we wouldn’t need to teach to the test. Instead our schools are full of fluff…[/quote]
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. I teach at an excellent public school, and I see great students and teachers every day. My daughter is a junior at another public school, and she has received an excellent education. I can tell you, and all of the other knee-jerk critics of public education, that there is a great education waiting in our public schools for anyone who wants it. Lots of studies have shown that we have some of the greatest teachers and students in the world. You don’t hear about that because it doesn’t make good press.
[quote]vroom wrote:
I’m guessing the CSI question is in there to see if pop culture is more widely known that real world geography…[/quote]
I think you are correct, its like when they conduct surveys that ask people to name all of the Brady Bunch family, and them ask them to name all of the US Supreme Court Justices.
i didn’t take the test,
but i could’ve aced it if i wanted to.
The educational system is a tool available for kids to learn, its up to them and their parents to take advantage of it. The educational system cannot take information and force it into kids heads. Parents don’t do their job, then want to blame the school system because their lazy asses raised lazy ass kids. And regarding the kids not knowing the information in the survey, its not that troubling that they don’t know it, what’s more troubling is if they don’t care that they don’t know it, and have not intention on learning it. Kids today have the answer to just about any question available to them on the net, and they are savvey enough to know how to find it. All they have to do is want to find out.
[quote]T-Raven wrote:
Diomede wrote:
Our schools are an absolute embarassment. If we actually TAUGHT something in schools we wouldn’t need to teach to the test. Instead our schools are full of fluff…
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. I teach at an excellent public school, and I see great students and teachers every day. My daughter is a junior at another public school, and she has received an excellent education. I can tell you, and all of the other knee-jerk critics of public education, that there is a great education waiting in our public schools for anyone who wants it. Lots of studies have shown that we have some of the greatest teachers and students in the world. You don’t hear about that because it doesn’t make good press. [/quote]
You can’t honestly sit here and tell me on average that we have some of the best schools and students in the world(not including college…which we have by far the best schools). Do we have some? Sure…i have no doubt that we might have the best students and teachers. However, i wouldn’t say that your average american student is better than anywhere else in the industrialized world…our woeful test scores show otherwise.
The problem is that society does not value smart people.
Seriously.
Even on the boards here, if you are smart, or people think that you think you are smart, you are made fun of all the time.
We value sports heros, we value military might, we value money and success, but we don’t value people that display wisdom and intelligence.
These people are geeks and are ostracized for most of their lifetime. So, realistically, who the hell wants to be smart in that environment?
[quote]Diomede wrote:
T-Raven wrote:
Diomede wrote:
Our schools are an absolute embarassment. If we actually TAUGHT something in schools we wouldn’t need to teach to the test. Instead our schools are full of fluff…
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. I teach at an excellent public school, and I see great students and teachers every day. My daughter is a junior at another public school, and she has received an excellent education. I can tell you, and all of the other knee-jerk critics of public education, that there is a great education waiting in our public schools for anyone who wants it. Lots of studies have shown that we have some of the greatest teachers and students in the world. You don’t hear about that because it doesn’t make good press.
You can’t honestly sit here and tell me on average that we have some of the best schools and students in the world(not including college…which we have by far the best schools). Do we have some? Sure…i have no doubt that we might have the best students and teachers. However, i wouldn’t say that your average american student is better than anywhere else in the industrialized world…our woeful test scores show otherwise.[/quote]
I had a professor in college who loved to talk about that subject. He thought it was ludicrous that people would admit that our university system was the best in the world, but then purport that our secondary schools were somehow not getting the job done. If our colleges are the best, and our high schools are the feeder system for colleges, then how bad can the high schools be?
[quote]Diomede wrote:
T-Raven wrote:
Diomede wrote:
Our schools are an absolute embarassment. If we actually TAUGHT something in schools we wouldn’t need to teach to the test. Instead our schools are full of fluff…
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. I teach at an excellent public school, and I see great students and teachers every day. My daughter is a junior at another public school, and she has received an excellent education. I can tell you, and all of the other knee-jerk critics of public education, that there is a great education waiting in our public schools for anyone who wants it. Lots of studies have shown that we have some of the greatest teachers and students in the world. You don’t hear about that because it doesn’t make good press.
You can’t honestly sit here and tell me on average that we have some of the best schools and students in the world(not including college…which we have by far the best schools). Do we have some? Sure…i have no doubt that we might have the best students and teachers. However, i wouldn’t say that your average american student is better than anywhere else in the industrialized world…our woeful test scores show otherwise.[/quote]
Our average test scores are worse than many others because we average in the worst students thus bringing down the average.
Most other school systems remove the worst students by the time they get to high school thus inflating the test scores.
There are many problems with our school system but the fact that we keep the worst students in school never gets mentioned when we compare to other nations.