Really - What Happened To Our Schools?.......

[global1]

I guess this is a naive question - but - I went through grammer school in the 50's and high school in the 60's and college in the 70's. I have to say that I got a good education during that run. Now I hear of all the problems in schools - with students, teachers and parents.

Our school systems have deteriorated since my education. Why? What happened to change that? Can it be blamed on the politicians? the parents? the students? society in general? reliance on computers and electronics? what?

When did things start to go wrong? What changed the course of education in the U.S.?

I know this must sound dumb on my part - but really I'm not sure what forces were at work to create the situation we have in schools now. I'm interested in the opinions of those on DU as to what went wrong.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Standardized tests and less emphasis on liberal arts and skills.

Not to mention the abolishment of recess, music, and art.

[557188]

30. NCLB killed independent thought

One of my professors, a few years ago, remarked that kids entering college now can't problem solve anymore. Everything is based on memorization and taking tests. They can't actually engage anything at a theoretical level and interact with it.

Honestly, I can see that as well.

[seabeyond]

33. same bitch 40 yrs ago. family environment counts for something. we have always

had reflective, challenging, intellectual conversation in this house. my boys were raised with it. question, challenge respectfully, think things thru from all sides. my husband learned to do it in this house.

school cannot, will not ever be all things.

some things must be enforced and taught in the home

you want your kid to have independent thought and out of the box thinking, start at home. from day one

[no_hypocrisy]

38. Agreed. No problem-solving, no critical thinking, no logic, no extrapolation.

[JohnnyBoots]

47. Yep, they ask less questions and believe what their Government tells them.....The lobotomization of

a whole generation.... I am only 31 and I can see the difference between people my age and kids as old as 26 and 27. It is real scary Orwellian type stuff.

[pitohui]

2. racists fuckwits didn't want to fund public schools if black kids could use them

it's as simple as that, there is so much racism in this country that the bigots would rather shoot the feet off their own kids and deny the schools decent funding than to see one black kid get a good education and have a fair chance

i attended public school in the 60s & 70s, in the south, and it was so obvious to me -- the public schools were, for the most part, far superior to private schools but as soon as integration came, the bigots yanked their kids from public schools because they don't want their kids around black kids, then since they're paying for private schools anyway they fight tooth and nail to defund decent public schooling

it's no mystery to me "what went wrong" -- i feel a deliberate choice was made by the racists to destroy public schools -- i feel i've seen it with my own eyes

you can still get a good education in public schools, but trust me, the nay-sayers and the racists won't be happy until that option is entirely removed

[EFerrari]

7. You make a really good point. Integration in some districts

meant closing down the black school and the kids were on their own. Then the nutcases ratched that up and started attacking our public schools wholesale.

It's really hard for me to swallow the fact that Obama is on the privatizing bandwagon.

[proud2BlibKansan]

40. +1

[we can do it]

68. I Think You Are Correct

bigotry is ruining this country

[hollowdweller]

74. I had a friend who said the same thing as you.

She had her kid in Catholic School in WV which is a great school and probably the most racially diverse school in the county.

She moved to SC.

She initially put her son in public school but she said where all the people there put their kids in private school and underfunded public education the public schools were awful.

So she put her kid in private school there. But she said the private schools there had to cater to their customers all the ignorant white bigots so they had to dumb down the curriculum to get them to pass. Said the people were getting ripped off.

She actually moved back to WV the schools and overall bigotry of SC turned her off so bad.

[XemaSab]

3. Ronald Reagan happened

The schools in California were already in the crapper in the 80's. x(

[rampart]

48. sputnik

i'm an older boomer, with a good public school education (now a retired engineer)

we needed scientists and engineers for the space race, and the increasingly technological cold war. we were taught to think, to question, and to learn.

the unintended consequence was the anti war movement, and general disrespect for authority. nixon could not abide that. the actual mechanism by which the "dumbing down" was accomplished: memorization of questionable history, discouragement of questioning, irrelevant assignments, distrust of science and math.............

[Lydia Leftcoast]

58. That was certainly part of it

When I was growing up, students from any college major could be hired for management training in most companies, including banks. By the early 1980s, though, only Ivy League students were allowed to go straight from English major to management trainee. Everyone else had to major in business or computer science (preferably a specific area of business, such as finance or marketing) to get a job as a management trainee.

The result was that students became even more obsessed with grades over learning than before.

[maxsolomon]

4. babies havin babies

unskilled, uneducated parents have kids, don't prep them for school, don't read to them, don't make them do their homework, can't HELP them do their homework, let them watch the idiot box, let them watch the idiot box WHILE they do their homework, don't model educational success for their kids, don't set expectations of success. the cycle repeats and the degree of failure grows - its the basic theory of the movie Idiocracy.

then we blame the teachers. you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

[seabeyond]

9. so right on. i am tired of thread after thread blaming schools. and the obvious sits in front of

our face adn is ignored. pretend the real issue isnt not a part of the problem.

like anything will be resolved or fixed ignoring the HUGEST part of the problem with the schools

[EFerrari]

15. That may be true but it doesn't obviate the attack on public ed

that those idiot Republicans mounted.

[seabeyond]

16. republicans? sheeeit. dems falling into repug game. look at du attacking schools

ignoring the real issues.

drives me mad....

[EFerrari]

18. Well, it started with Republicans and sure, now also bolstered by "Democrats".

:(

[seabeyond]

20. i will go with that. agreed. nt

[EFerrari]

29. Also as pitohui pointed out up thread, as soon as public schools had to integrate,

the wheels started turning. Our schools are a natural target for RW politicians. They get to hit the race button, the government button, the religion button all at the same time AND funnel funds to their buds in the private school industry.

[seabeyond]

34. oh... and those big bad liberal teachers being paid by tax money doing nothing all day

vacation time all over the place, ect...

[Hello_Kitty]

19. A while back I was doing a sales job where I met clients in their homes.

I took note of how many there were where there was not a single book in view. Or there would be books but they were shit like Twilight or Left Behind.

[seabeyond]

25. i have gotten ass chewed out by adults cause they say too many books, kids read too much

the should be allowed to be kids.

my kids LIKE to read.

adults that brag.... i dont read no book.

ya

and how is that working for ya as the kids arent making it thru highschool and yawl are pulling hair out trying to keep them in

[EFerrari]

41. We didn't have any books in our home until I started buying them with my allowance

at about 11. Couldn't afford 'em. My grandma had a one volume dictionary/encyclopedia and that was it. When I turned out to be a bookworm, my mom had to schlep to the library with me twice a week and haul a bunch of books both ways. But that was before color teevee and video games and even before girls sports really took off. Back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. :rofl:

[we can do it]

69. true!

[EFerrari]

5. Raygun.

What a curse that man was.

[tonysam]

6. A thirty-year war waged against public education beginning with a fraudulent report

called "A Nation at Risk," peddled by the likes of Bill Bennett, which trashed our education system.

Public education is just the latest institution to be put under constant assault by the neoliberals, who think public education is a failure, not because it is but because it is PUBLIC. Public services for the public and for the purpose of keeping our democracy are anathema to privatizers.

This is nothing short of wholesale war against the American people by a tiny elite. And these bastards have the ears of a DEMOCRATIC administration, of all things.

[seabeyond]

8. kids have been in 4 schools. all of them have been excellent. teachers excellent

adm excellent. kids education excellent.

the only one i have a tough time including is the private school

the kids have the opportunity to learn. it is handed to them, regularly, continously. they either do it, or they dont.

they are doing work way earlier than we did in our day. they are learning (or have opportunity to learn) way more than we did in our day. expectation is much higher than in our day. rules are tougher than in our day. and they arent able to get away with shit, like in our day

[raccoon]

10. There were crappy schools back then too. I went to school in the 1950's and 1960's,

and the public schools I went to were terrible.

[EFerrari]

12. Really? Where was that? The schools I went to were great

in contrast to the very same schools my kids attended. :(

[raccoon]

44. A very poor county in a poor state (SC). Lowwwwwwww tax base. nt

[NoNothing]

11. Two figure I thought interesting

My hometown school district is facing a budget shortfall and threatening to cut the music programs. 80% of the budget is salaries and benefits.

The city I live has notoriously mediocre public schools. The *average* total compensation for a teacher is over $100,000 per year. The average wage for the county is just over $37,000 per year.

[The Midway Rebel]

39. Are you suggesting that the problem is teachers earning too much money?

You are comparing two averages: one average total compensation and the other is an average wage.

[proud2BlibKansan]

42. Where do you live that the average teacher earns over $100K a year??

I'm moving. Prepare the welcome wagon.

[NoNothing]

51. Avg $52,000 in salary + $50,000 benefits n/t

City of Milwaukee

[tabasco]

53. Liar.

Public School Teacher - Milwaukee, WI 53202



Benefit Median Amount
Base Salary $53,149
Bonuses $0
Social Security $4,066
401k / 403b $2,020
Disability $531
Healthcare $6,103
Pension $2,657
Time Off $6,541
Total $75,068

Source: HR Reported data as of March 2010

http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layoutscripts/swzl_salaryresults.asp?hdSearchByOption=0%2C+0&hdLocationOption=&hdKeyword=Teacher+Elementary+School&hdJobCategory=ED01&hdNarrowDesc=Education&hdZipCode=53202&hdStateMetro=&hdGeoLocation=Milwaukee%2C+WI+53202&hdCurrentPage=&hdViewAllRecords=&hdJobCode=ED03000272&hdJobTitle=Public+School+Teacher&hdCurrentTab=1&hdZipCodePosted=&hdPaycheckCalc=&hdpageName=&hdOmniJobTitle=Teacher+Elementary+School&hdOmniNarrowDesc=Education&op=salswz_psr&pagefrom=salaryresults&hdOmniState=WI&hdOmniGeoLocation=Milwaukee%2C+WI+53202&d50th=53119.582&jobcounter=&countertype=&totaljoblistnum=&wsrcode=SW1&geo=Milwaukee%2C+WI+53202&metrocode=&geometrocode=&zipcode=53202&jobcode=ED03000010&narrowcode=ED01&state=WI&r=salswz_salresnxt_psr&educationcode1=&cmbEducation=&joblevelcode=&jobfamilycode=&hdNarrowDesc=&hdAjaxDisplaySection1=1&hdAjaxDisplaySection2=&hdAjaxKeyword=Teacher+Elementary+School&hdAjaxKeywordWithOR=%23Teacher%23+OR+%23Elementary%23+OR+%23School%23

[NoNothing]

56. Median vs. mean?

The 100,000+ figure came directly from the school board just two days ago at a public hearing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x2N4bDmzdc&feature=player_embedded

[proud2BlibKansan]

54. Wait a minute. I thought you said it was $100K

:wtf:

[NoNothing]

57. "Over" not "exactly"

[proud2BlibKansan]

59. Please explain the $50K in benefits

[NoNothing]

60. My guess is pension, training and health care mostly

I don't know exactly because they didn't break it down at the hearing beyond salary and total.

[proud2BlibKansan]

61. That's insane

No way. Sorry.

[NoNothing]

62. If the school board was lying

I suspect WEAC would have said so already.

[proud2BlibKansan]

64. Or maybe you misunderstood

Seriously. I've never seen a benefit package for a teacher that is as high as the salary. Here they are more in the $10K range.

[NoNothing]

65. Did you watch the video?

I don't really know what else they could have meant.

[proud2BlibKansan]

72. They are obviously including some other costs in that figure.

Seriously, a $50K benefits package is way out of the average range. I have served on our budget committee and we have to include a benefit package in our budget. It doesn't come anywhere near $50K.

I also am seeing over and over lately this meme that it's wrong for teachers to be earning more than the average salary in the community where they teach. That is the main idea in this video.

In Milwaukee, the average salary is $19K. Go ahead and try to hire teachers for $19K.

It's important to note that that average salary in the community includes every wage earner. So high school kids working part time at McDonald's are included in that average. Of course teachers are going to make more than the average worker. They are college graduates. How many workers making $19K in Milwaukee are college grads?

I also feel I must note that the group that posted that video - The Maciver Institute is a right wing think tank. And the rw think tanks have been going after teachers and public schools with a vengeance lately. Actually they have been going after us for about 30 years but have really accelerated their hate campaign in the last few months, as school districts struggle with budget cuts. And one of their latest talking points is it's wrong for teachers to earn more than the people in the community. Hmm. Do you think they would complain about doctors earning more? Accountants? :)

[HopeHoops]

13. The "teach to test" requirements to undermine funding for public schools

The GOP has a long history of trying to shift public school funding to "private" schools (GOP code for "religious"). The so-called "performance" method for distributing funds not only results in a "teach to test" approach, but it also penalizes the schools that need more resources the most. In some districts, the lowest performing students take nothing but math and English courses - period. That's not only insane, it is disgusting.

I'll be the first to put blame on most parents for not being responsible about the education of their kids, but the problem runs much deeper than that. How about the text books? Have you looked at one lately? A handful of companies develop them and are beholden to really perverted school districts like those in Texas. They look like a fucking USA Today now! No wonder kids get bored with them. They also weigh far too much because of all of the extraneous fluff. I thought MY books were heavy in the 70's!

Then there's the general attitude that teachers are to blame for the whole problem. That's bullshit. We're losing excellent teachers BECAUSE of the problem. The political solution? Require more testing, retraining, and accountability of the teachers. That sounds great, but right after we apply the same requirements on the assholes coming up with those political solutions. Teachers are stuck in the middle, but they do make for an easy target.

[Fresh_Start]

14. As a parent I can see a few things

1) children are more overextended with extracurricular activities
2) schools are teaching materials at an earlier grade level than they previously did
3) parents are overextended and are pushing their own children AND pushing the schools to do more for their children which has led to all sorts of new school rules for example elementary students must have at least 1 hour of homework per night high schools must have at least 3 hours of homework per night
4) as a society we have become less polite, and that is reflected in the children and the schools (think about internet bullying a phenomemon which didn't exist when you were in school
5) competition for college has gotten worse which means more and more high schools and their students feel the need to pile up AP courses
6) lots of litigation have changed the schools into being substantially more defensive for example children can no longer run on the playground and boys can't pretend play cops and robbers (zero tolerance for violence even if its just fingers held in the shape of a pretend gun)
7) there are lots of things which compete with schoolwork for childrens attention (think internet, texting, etc)
8) our society has become increasingly less homogeneous with more and more non-English speaking children in school
9) science has advanced so there is more material to teach

That's just for a start observing as a parent of 3. I should add that we are currently in a great school district. But even with a great district, the parents versus school/teacher situation can be ugly. Lots of parents don't accept that their child should have the consequences of their actions. I can't imagine that its a completely new phenomenon. But I can imagine that its worse because of the fear that Johnny's life will be ruined if he can't get in the "pick the school of your choice".

[FSogol]

17. My school system is light years better than it was in the 60s-70s.

Not every school system is troubled or dysfunctional.

[seabeyond]

26. that is what i am seeing from ALL the schools in this area. nt

[anonymous171]

21. The Science and Math obsession killed it

Thank you President Kennedy.

[we can do it]

71. WTF?

[ieoeja]

22. Nothing. But you sure have fallen for the RW propaganda that something has. (nt)

[seabeyond]

27. and there is the answer. nt

[hollowdweller]

76. Failing Schools = Welfare Queen??

I think maybe the whole failing schools thing is sort of like the Welfare Queen thing.

Conservatives pick a few areas where they ARE bad and then try to blow it up like it's everywhere in order to try to discredit public education for their own political gain.

I do know a good % age of students that are not doing well, but these often seem to be ones where their parents never expect anything of them, make excuses for them and side with them over the teacher.

[izzybeans]

23. The big secret is that the schools really aren't all that bad.

There are still some resource differences and their are clear educational attainment and performance gaps between poor and wealthier demographics, but most of those are out of the hands of the schools themselves.

Though believing that they are bad sets up a self-fulfilling prophecy where the actual quality of education is sacrificed for monitoring and a downgrade in the breadth of curriculum.

We have a cultural problem with regard to education, not a professional one. Our teachers are more highly trained today than ever. If there is a learning curve, it has to do with how schools should respond to the inequalities of the communities they serve. In effect, we are asking schools to be the "great leveling agent" for all forms of inequality. A task we didn't care about in the 50s or 60s as a nation.

We live in a country that denigrates intellectual culture as populated with egg-heads and thus take very little responsibility for the intellectual development of our own children. When our kids fail, blame the egg-heads.

[Fresh_Start]

24. excellent points nt

nt

[tonysam]

66. Of course they're not; that's why the privatizers are so bent on killing it

People have to understand the drive to destroy public schools isn't because they are bad or inefficient--it's because they are PUBLIC and thus supported with taxpayer money.

There is an ideology out there that believes ALL public services should be privatized, and never mind the private sector can't really do these functions well or to the extent needed to replace the public services.

[Sancho]

28. Some schools are not so bad, there is more variability now that 50 years ago

Schools weren't perfect in the 50's and 60's. There was a shortage of teachers that was made better by the GI Bill, more women going to college, Sputnik dollars dumped into science and math, and the LBJ reforms (Headstart, Special Ed, Right to Read, etc.). We had a large influx of teachers in the 60's and 70's. School districts built a lot of buildings when suburbs and the property taxes made dollars available. Accreditation standards became more uniform between the 50's and 70's.

In the last 20 years, there has been steady decline in funding for schools by states along with an increasing proportion to military budgets (federal). Property taxes have been slowed by voters, and the teacher pools have dried up because of low salaries. As the baby boomer teachers retire, the schools have a very large population (most babies born since the boomers), fewer qualified teachers crammed into too few buildings, and a MUCH more international population.

The schools with good teachers and solid property funding are better today than ever before: technology is excellent, teachers know their stuff pretty well, and there are plenty of extra-curriculars like music, art, sports, magnets, AP courses, IB programs, etc. The less supported schools and districts are getting killed. They can't get or keep good teachers, have poor facilities, and very difficult populations to teach.

Since there is little state money to equalize the support, and lots of dollars are siphoned off to charter schools and other GOP plans to take public money and put it in private pockets, the worst schools are caught in a catch-22.

The end result are some really good schools; the best in the world, but also some schools that are pretty desperate. There is little equalization in the US in many states. Florida is a typical example.

[Fresh_Start]

31. Blame the news as well

there is no 'fair and balanced' reporting.
Just like only sensational news hits the air, only the sensational school news is broadcast.

If you were to read the news, not only would you believe that your life is in grave danger from murderers, terrorists, chemicals, etc but you'd also believe that schools are filled with pedophile teachers and young men ready to settle the score for bullying.

Maybe part of the problem is the loss of the local newspaper where you used to be able to readd about the honor roll and the art awards and charity work that happens at school.

[DonCoquixote]

32. The elephant in the room

Racism is big, but I wonder why no one mentions the other "R", Religion.

Notice that you do not see a lot of liberal, agnostic private schools, even though there is little stopping them from being formed. The religious types form schools for one reason; because they know education is power, and that if they becomes the only means to an education, everybody will have to genuflect towards them. It's the same formula from Madrassas in Pakistan to Baptist schools in Texas to Catholic schools in the Bronx.

[rampart]

49. religion is tax exempt

its all the competative edge they need.

[mmonk]

35. In an off year election this past year, our 1st or 2nd largest

school district (the top two run neck and neack) was taken over by rightwingers by one seat. They are currently dismantling everything, especially all diversity policy and are backed by rightwing groups such as Americans for Prosperity.

[Orsino]

36. American corporocrats happened.

They hate seeing large piles of money that they don't control. The Department of Education's budgets have just been too goddamned tempting, and most of us lost interest in defending public education.

[Fire1]

45. That's it in a nutshell. n/t

[branders seine]

37. republicans and the ruling class have methodically undermined,

underfunded and over-regulated schools.

[Fire1]

43. "The fundamental issue is not charter schools and is not

corporations or capitlism, it is clearly a class of people who believe that money defines everything. I call them New Aryans because they have the same philosophical conceptions of themselves being supra-national beings and everyone else being expendable."
by Michael Martin


http://www.susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=8874

Kenneth Saltman clarifies it even better: "What is dangerously framed out within the neoliberal view is the role of DEMOCRATIC participation in societies ideally committed to DEMOCRACY and the role of public schools in preparing public democratic citizens with the tools for meaningful participatory self-governance. By reducing the politics of education to it's economic roles, neoliberal educational reform has DEEPLY AUTHORITARIAN tendencies that are incompatible with democracy."

http://thebroadreport.blogspot.com/2009/11/saltman-on-venture-philanthropy-eli.html

[Terry in Austin]

46. Kids are too long-term an investment. And they don't vote.

Some time in the 1970's, we made the transition from being citizens to being "taxpayers" and "consumers." We went from being a "society" to being an "economy" -- an economy that functions on the basis of next quarter's bottom line, and plans accordingly.

During the Nixon administration, the greater part of national basic research -- the kind of research where the payoffs are long-term -- was systematically dismantled. We stopped thinking long-term. We also lost interest in public spending, except for war.

Closer to home, more and more women "entered the workforce" as fewer and fewer families were able to get by on a single income. It was good that women were no longer impeded from having desired careers, but overall it left quite a gap in child care. Mom's at work trying to make ends meet.

I think a good case could be made that the needs of a society follow kind of a "Maslow's hierarchy," with basic child care a more fundamental need than a good education, and gradually the institution of education got re-purposed to become our society's primary institution for child care.

Basically, those places still labeled "school" are serving as warehouses for our kids. You don't need to hire professionals to run a warehouse -- just attendants. So it goes.

[Igel]

50. My 2 cents.

1.
There's a lot of variation in schools. Some are good, some are bad. Bad teachers with good students have reasonable outcomes; good teachers with bad students have bad outcomes. You have to get abysmal teachers with good students or superb teachers with bad students to really overcome the effect of the starting materials on the end product. To use a metaphor. So the course of education didn't change too much in that regard. (Of course, the surfeit of unqualified teachers was also a bipartisan affair: You really shouldn't suddenly increase funding to reduce class sizes by 25%, requiring 25% more teachers, without making sure you have that many unemployed teachers lurking in the wings.)

2.
However, one big change has been criterion referenced testing and making education and cultural practices explicit. I love it: You go through your lesson plans and what you test on is what you've taught. Your lesson plans are explicit. You hand kids a rubric on what is necessary for their project. You make sure that the ELLs all are taught how to take the test and fit into the school culture. Everybody should get an A on every test and quiz and project because you hand them the checklist for how to get an A. We used to love teachers that did that; now it's fairly routine.

On the other hand, it means you've handed out the answer key and questions that move beyond the course content covered in class are hard to justify. So the classes I've watched have always had utterly predictable tests. It's great for the kids having problems: They should get As if they just learn what's taught. But for the kids who would have gotten As because they went beyond what was taught there's no extrinsic reward. The textbooks are limited, in principle, to what's to be learned, and that reduces the depth of what can easily be learned in class. It also takes the "guesswork" out for kids who just want to get an A, and that's the goal.

This wasn't driven by conservatives. This "best practice"--it's not a bad one in lots of contexts--was driven by the desire to make sure that disadvantaged kids that hadn't been taught learning strategies and all sorts of background stuff could focus on what was needed to master the content. It assumes there's testing--but there has been for 100 years, so that's not new. What's new is altering how teaching is done systemwide to remove any advantage that formerly above-average students had. The result, however, is a kind of dumbing down of the upper reaches of the content in order to help those at the lower ends of the scale. It's done to improve overall GPAs, and that helps narrow the "achievement gap."

3.
Then there's the entire "relevance" nonsense that was coming into vogue in the '70s, the mantra from the '60s made into practice in the '80s. Make sure everybody's validated and properly appreciated. Why learn something that you'll never use? Why learn about people not like you? Or things written by people who aren't like you? First you have to teach them about themselves: the proper study of man isn't just man, the proper study of left-handed blue-eyed transgendered Latinos of Mixtec descent isn't "man", but left-handed blue-eyed transgendered Latinos of Mixtec descend--and failing materials for that, you pick the most important traits and focus on them.

So I'm reading a book about a poor Chicana that's standardly taught because, well, that's of interest to poor Chicanas and non-poor Chicanas or others who yearn for authenticity, to learn "their" culture, the one that they'd have learned if they were poor and Latino. Apparently poor Chicanas hope and dream of becoming what they are? Assume that their lives are the only authentic lives? When I was a kid I didn't want to read about working class kids; I was one, I knew what that was like, and knew it was okay to be a working class kid. I just didn't want to be one, and nobody I knew in my mediocre community really wanted to read out people like us. It taught us nothing, it wasn't entertaining, it didn't expand our minds or hold our attention. So when relevance-junkies get to college they have to pick subjects to study: The kids who didn't need to be coaxed by 'relevance,' who stretched their minds, go into all sorts of fields. Those who needed to be coaxed gravitate to fields that reflect themselves. It's depressing to see a Chinese class with mostly heritage speakers or Chinese-Americans in it, to see "anglos" avoid 3rd year Spanish because all the heritage speakers make life difficult for them, to hear that since the Filipino population of a campus is above a certain number the school should start offering Tagalog. When I studied Russian, everybody assumed I was (a) a pro-Soviet communist or (b) Russian. Such small minds. As Roman Jakobson is reported to have said, Don't let your history dictate your research.

4.
Everything else ultimately goes back to (1).
-- SAT scores decline? Students that wouldn't have dreamt of taking the SATs do now, the old variation is better reflected in the tests.
-- High drop-out rate? Not really; in some areas the cohorts that would have dropped out in the '60s still drop out but greater fertility means there's more of them. Overall, fairly unchanged, although often higher than other countries'. Moreover, there are fewer alternative programs.
--Greater publicity for failing schools? A lot of that is race/ethnicity sensitivity. See (2) and (3). Cohorts that used to do really badly still do really badly, whether they're white or black or Latino or Asian. Often they're just more salient now, and get a lot more PR.
--Lower test scores compared to other countries? Nah. They haven't much changed, although a lot of countries have increased theirs. They also don't reflect different curricular standards. We say cultural diversity is good but when it comes to test scores cultural uniformity is good; so you have people saying that test scores don't matter condemning the school system based on test scores.

And so it goes.

[ejbrush]

52. Schools have become too "college prep"

All I can speak to is what I've experienced in a relatively rural setting in Wisconsin. But, it might apply elsewhere. I dunno.
My father taught Industrial Arts for 35 years, retiring in 1997. Ya know, shop (metals, specifically). Back in the 60's and 70's, when we still built stuff in this country, there was respect for manual and technical trades. He taught kids how to weld, how to run machine tools, fundamentals of blacksmithing and foundry work, engraving. Two other teachers covered mechanics and woodworking. The guidance councilors would actually ask the kids what they wanted to do with their lives, and a lot of very bright, very capable folks went on vocational tracks and learned trades.

When I was in high school (different school than my dad), in the early 90's, our guidance councilors were pretty damn lazy. If your were in the top half of the class, you were college track. Period. I had to fight tooth and nail to get a shop class every semester, with the stern warnings that I was "too smart" to work with my hands. The vo-tech classes were a holding pen for the problem kids nobody else wanted to deal with. In four years, they burned through two full-time instructors and countless subs by using them as baby-sitters and wardens. My father voiced the same complaint from his school daily. He was a machinist at heart - he dropped the machine tool classes because he stopped receiving students who could actually do the math required to run the equipment. By the end, the only classes he was proud of were the learning-disabled oriented classes he taught with the art department (leathercrafing and such) because there was enthusiasm and spark with the students. The rest was just punching a clock.

Now, I went to college, did the academic route. Went to grad school, did the nasty, back-stabbing nasty department-politics cliquish academic route. Became a professional, had a career, and was profoundly unhappy. I burned out. Went back to tech school, became a diesel mechanic. Now, I have a job, work with my hands all day, use my head more than my hands, and am right with the world.

In summary, I think we Americans have become adverse to Trades and Labor. We want all our kids to be doctors, MBA's, lawyers, CEO's, sales reps. Schools gut, I mean literally eviscerate, vo-tech departments (and arts, and music, and home-ec) to have the funding needed to teach to tests. Not every kid with a 3.0 GPA wants to or needs to go to a four-year college. Staring at cubical walls for 9 hrs a day isn't for everyone, so we need to prep our kids to look at other options. Were are we going to get the next generation of welders, machinists, mechanics, cabinet-makers, carpenters, bricklayers (ever try to estimate out a brick wall and lay the damn things up straight? Trust me, you *need* a bricklayer), etc, etc, etc.

I probably forgot something here. Eh. I'm sure somebody else will chime in.

[warm regards]

55. Schools simply reflect the state of the American family, which has

been in a state of decline since the 60's, when the illegitimate rate was 5.2%.

Simply put, irresponsibility breeds irresponsibility.

[Lyric]

75. I don't consider "illegitimacy" to be automatically irresponsible.

Marriage does not necessarily equal stability, responsibility, or happiness. I'd say that two unmarried parents splitting up is hella easier on the kids than two married parents splitting, because there's less emotional and financial trauma. Even a relatively civil divorce still costs money (filing fees, court fees, attorney fees)--money that could have otherwise been spent on keeping things stable for the kids. Marriage isn't required for a child support order, so there's no benefit there. And the kids get to avoid the hell of a years' worth of bitter court battles and other crap that parents put them through during a divorce.

Unmarried, splitting-up parents can still inflict SOME trauma (sometimes there can be custody battles and arguing--not always, but sometimes). However, it's not nearly as common or intense as the trauma can be with a divorcing couple, no matter how good their intentions are. I also consider "illegitimacy" to be VERY outdated and offensive. No child is "illegitimate" simply because his parents aren't married. Think about what that word means in all other contexts. Even if we don't mean it "that way" when referring to children, the underlying toxic message (that they are "less genuine" than are "legitimate" kids) is still there.

[warm regards]

82. Nothing is "automatically irresponsible," but decades of social-science research

have proven that there is a direct correlation between illegitimacy and the incidences of poverty, educational problems, incarceration and the overall degeneration of our society. And while I agree that we must be careful when referring to children as "illegitimate," the branding of that term as politically incorrect has facilitated removal of the shame and dishonor that was previously attached to out of wedlock pregnancies. As a result, many people do not perceive this behavior as being wrong; thus, more of them behave irresponsibly.

[TransitJohn]

63. Here's my take.

Women entered the workforce in heavy, heavy numbers starting in the late '60s, early '70s. The scumbag corporations that run our sorry-ass country decided that they could suck all that extra income up for profits, and raised the cost of living in this country so that it now takes two incomes to run a household. Now, there isn't time in a parent's life to be involved as an active participant in their children's lives.

[kiva]

67. There are many good responses above, just like to add another.

Money, but not necessarily in the way it's been discussed in this thread. I was about a decade behind you, and my schools were cheap. Security? What security? Very few school districts had any sizable security force, and certainly not any investments in security comparable to metal detectors or other devices schools deem necessary today.

Technology. Nothing to speak of in grade school or junior high, a classroom full of typewriters - of which a handful were electric - was pretty much it in high school. Consider the amount of money it takes, even with donations from industry, to put together even pitiful high tech resources, then consider that we make them available at all grade levels...lots of money.

Energy costs. We didn't have year round school, and in most areas of the country schools didn't have air conditioning; the buildings were constructed with the idea that windows and the outside doors in classrooms (again, no fear of school shooters) could be opened to provide sufficient ventilation. Today's schools are built to take into account restricting access from outside, and for year-round school in many areas - so air conditioning is necessary. Fewer windows means no way to rely on any outside light, only electric lights.

There's a lot more, but the point is that schools today ARE expensive compared to what they cost a few decades ago but there is little public realization of that fact, and LTRs about that bemoan the 'reckless spending' in education. I agree with a lot of the replies above, and wanted to throw this into the pot.

[proud patriot]

70. having to function with less money year after year would be a start

Always top on the budget chopping block .

[hollowdweller]

73. I think school today is WAY tougher than when I went in the 70's

Kids I know now have way tougher courses and have way more homework than I did when I was a kid.

Maybe schools are worse now in some places but all the schools I know are more intense than when I was young.

[global1]

77. Wow - I Sure Learned A Lot From The Response Here - It's Ashamed That We Didn't Get The Recommends .

to keep up this discourse. I can't recommend my own thread or else we'd be there. I don't know if it is telling that we couldn't get 5 recommends to keep this going. Is education not as important as the following topics that did make it to the greatest page:

"Gut Bacteria Cause Overeating in Mice" or "In The Tonight Show Audience To See Palin".

Perhaps that is some of the problem with what is or isn't going on in education in this country.

I would like somehow to keep this discussion going. I'd like more people to weigh in on this.

I'm sure we'd uncover some additional factors that could ultimately play into a strategy of sorts to begin to turn things around. As I've seen here - not everyone thinks that education in this country is screwed up. Some are having good experiences.

Seems to me we need to analyze both the bad and the good experiences. Categorize why we have both ends of the spectrum. Then see what kind of strategy could be employed to start shoring up the bad experiences and making the good even better.

Overall, I want to say "thank you" to all those who responded to my original post. If possible - lets see if we can continue this discussion here - or bring it up to a more current thread.

Thank You DU.

[mike_c]

78. three decades of creeping "business management" caused the fish to rot...

...from the head down. It's still going on, and-- in my opinion-- still accelerating. One of the biggest dominoes of them all is about to fall. The California school systems, once among the best and most progressive in the world, have been under managerial and legislative assault for decades. I never thought I'd be teaching here while the California Master Plan for Education was systematically dismantled, but it is happening right before our eyes.

Part of the problem is that "fiscal conservatism" is too often linked with utter disdain for intellectualism and education-- conservatives and their lackeys fear an educated populace deep down in their bones, and they fundamentally distrust people who are better educated than themselves. In their hearts, they cannot stand the notion that poor people's children are getting a decent education at public expense. They hate the thought that minorities, and everyone else they look down upon, are given an honest shot to better themselves through education. That such betterment benefits everyone is utterly lost on them because they don't care about anyone other than themselves, and all they see is that everyone elses' betterment leaves them looking more and more archaic.

Masquerading behind mantras like "accountability" and "efficiency"-- the latest is "deliverology"-- they are systematically undermining one of the greatest experiments in public education ever-- and one of the most successful, in real terms. It was so successful that it has taken decades of constant assault and erosion to begin bringing it to its knees, but that day is coming. This academic year the California State University-- the people's university, founded upon a guarantee of affordable access to excellent education for all citizens-- the CSU began turning qualified Californian citizens away because the funding base has finally been undercut to the degree that the system can no longer serve it's primary target population. It is the largest university in the world, and it is now on life support. One can argue that this is because of the larger California budget crisis, but the fiscal crisis is only the final straw in a haystack full of bad management and outright hostility toward higher education-- in one of the U.S. states that has demonstrably reaped some of the best benefits of accessible, quality education.

The assault really began with Proposition 13, but the system was so good-- and so well defended by public service and educator's labor unions-- that it has taken this long, and the concerted efforts of legislators and corporate management junkies, to finally begin choking the life out of it.

[upi402]

79. +1^ Corporatism needs uneducated, non-thinking droids as labor

and as easily fooled plebes. I see that as the over-arching motive behind this long term push, or putsch really, against the foundation of our capitalist democracy.

[Fire1]

81. BINGO!! DING! DING! FUCKIN DING!!!!

Too many experts have said the SAME DAMN THING!!!!!!

[Kievan Rus]

80. Two words: Ronald Reagan