This week, The Huffington Post, Yahoo!, and Slate are co-sponsoring the first-ever online "candidate mashup," another way in which technology is helping us to access and judge the presidential candidates. Those Web sites asked users to submit questions for the Democratic candidates on any issue and then ranked the top three issues that Charlie Rose will ask them about. The videos will be shared on Friday, and users will be able to edit them to highlight differences among particular candidates on specific issues.
Education made the list, coming in as the # 3 issue right behind Iraq and health care. In fact, education beat out, in descending order, energy, the environment, the economy, immigration, terrorism, abortion, and gay marriage. Voters have long been ready to hear more from the candidates about education -- back in July, it was the number one issue about which voters submitted questions for the CNN/YouTube debate.
Here's the thing though -- I'm sick of the kind of education questions the candidates are being asked. Cheesy softballs (like the "Who was your favorite teacher?" bit from the CNN/YouTube Debate) or predictable check the box-type questions about the existing No Child Left Behind law do little to inform us of what these candidates plan to do about the crisis in America's schools.
Mostly I'm tired of hearing about No Child Left Behind. There's no real debate there for the Democratic presidential candidates. As Gov. Roy Romer points out at ED in '08, we've already heard that question asked of Democratic candidates a number of times and we know that they will all jump to attack NCLB.
I can already imagine the mashup Huffington readers will get to make from a NCLB question.
Charlie Rose: Do you support the existing version of the No Child Left Behind Law?
Candidate # 1: No.
Candidate # 2: Certainly not. I blame the Republicans. Down with NCLB.
Candidate # 3: Hell no! I hate it! Terrible law. Here's what I love: teacher's unions!
Candidate # 4: NCLB is a disgrace. Too many children continue to be left behind, we don't have qualified teachers in the classrooms, and more testing isn't going to fix any of that.
Candidate # 1: That's what I meant to say.
Candidate # 5: The Law-That-Must-Not-Be-Named must be destroyed!
Candidate # 6: NCLB is worse than Britney Spears at the VMAs.
Charlie Rose: Time to move on.
Candidates #7 and # 8: We never get to talk.
But Americans already know that NCLB isn't working in its present state. Consider the facts:
Six thousand kids dropped out of school yesterday, and another six thousand will drop out today, and tomorrow, and the day after that.
Seventy percent of our 8th graders aren't proficient in reading, and by the end of 8th grade, what passes for the U.S. math curriculum is two years behind the math being studied by 8th graders in other countries.
And I'm not just talking about minority students or low-income schools -- out of 29 countries participating in a 2003 assessment, America's 15-year-olds ranked 24th in math; 24th in problem-solving; 18th in science; and 15th in reading. Even America's top math students rank 23rd out of 29 countries when compared with top students elsewhere in the world.
While the candidates pander, founder, and stomp up and down about NCLB, we are losing our economic foothold to China, India, and Singapore.
Education issues aren't only about teachers and schools, test scores and politics. They're about families, income mobility, job security, economic competitiveness and making sure our kids have the skills they'll need to face the global challenges that are already rising to meet them.
This online debate, the first of its kind is an opportunity for voters to cut and paste, to choose what they want to hear about and who they want to hear it from. But that's going to be awfully hard if all they get is more of the same, and none of it good. Let's cut the lip-service about NCLB and mash-up some answers to questions that matter.
If teachers are basically playing host to hyperextended daycare, or if the K-12 system honestly doesn't amount to more than a jobs program, then the results are going to be less-than-satisfactory.
Computers are tireless tutors. I think there should be a nationwide effort to have a standardized, externally audited and evaluated, digital-based school system, one that even offers home schooling for disabled/parentally disinclined students. The future is now, the little one-room schoolhouse is part of history,
nobody using coal for a pencil anymore, time to get jiggy with it, manage costs, and teach kids valuable and usable skills and provide them the
informational content you'd associate with a well-rounded education. The digital classroom
is a good cost-saving concept, too, and can theoretically host multitudes of students that would otherwise not be able to fit in a standard
school facility. I'll bet Japan's doing it...
I do-and I'm concerned about it.
when first implemented I saw kids who were taught to the test-in a singularly focused method of teaching. I don't think all kids learn in the same way-so I think the amount of book study should be countered with hands-on/project type work.I also don't think it provided for a well-rounded educational platform-ignoting those students who are creative-rather than analytical.
The biggest problem I have is that all of the "booklearning" does not do enough to connect these studies with the world. I saw a decrease in maps, for example,in book tutorials. I, myself, being middle-aged went back to school to a community college. I was shocked by the lack of worldview perspective or even how the studies related to the world in terms of opportunity. Most just wanted to learn just enough to survive that 9-5 grind and make a decent living-without thinking of how the science/technology COULD be used to further the world.
If the student does not want to learn, because of social prssures, fear, etc., than it really doesn't matter how much money is thrown at the problem. The student must be encouraged to "want" to learn, and that begins with their parents and is supported by the community.
If the parents do not actively support their child at school, ask any teacher how hard it is for both the teacher and student to succeed.
If the teacher provides inadequate learning enviornment/desires to their student, than that student will fail to the sidelines.
Remember how the schools were before the NCLB started, way too many children were "graduating" with very inadequate skills and knowledge. The NCLB was an attempt to instill a minimum goal for the student, teacher, and school to obtain. Its time to look at the NCLB program and take the best parts, discard the bad, and develop a new method to improve our education program. We have been throwing money after money into this mess and still find it wanting. Maybe its time to cut the fat from the administration side of the schools and get more teachers.
And you are right, money has been shown time and again that it is not the forcing fuction to improve the system. The share of the ed budget that goes for admin has grown from about 5% to over 25% the last 40 or so years. Ed budgets have tripled even accounting for inflation in the last 15 years.
So let's ask the presidential candidates how quickly they plan to dismantle the federal education apparatus....not how they are going to expand (to our detriment)it even more.
All of this has come about due to social engineering. The idea that germed in the 50's and 60's that government could force an equality of outcome. Well, here is the result of all that social engineering.....failing public schools (among many other failures). The failures of our public schools were actually apparent way back in 1983. We have applied numerous big government solutions to turn things around since then....and things have only become worse. Maybe it is time to try more local/free market solutions and quit fooling ourselves that we can force some kind of equality of outcome between rich and poor, black and white, etc, etc.
Other suggestions:
1) Drop the emphasis on "self-esteem" and return emphasis to achievement. The self-esteem movement did not fool the kids (a kid still knows his/her relative ranking no matter how mamy empty praises he/she receives) and did not improve performance.
2) Shut down the US Dept. of Education. Top down management of schools has contributed to the failure by forcing one size fits all solutions on our school systems. Schools are a local function at their essence.
3) Get rid of Teachers Unions. What have they done for the students? Nothing. Shoot, what they really done for teachers....not much that I can see.
make school voluntary.
i know what libs don't like about that though. It goes counter to the idea of "equality of outcome".
Schools are a local concern. Even the state level is too high.
For what it's worth, I maintain that there would be more education funds available if so much money weren't being siphoned into the top-level "departments of education" among the various states. In my state many of the workers in the State Education Dept earn salaries that begin at $100,000 per year. Nobody knows exaclt what they do for that kind of dough.
Also, why does each high school need so many administrators? A Principal, a Vice-Principal (one heartbeat away from the top), an Assistant Principal, an Assistant Vice-Principal and so on. How many people do we need to walk the hallways looking stern?
And let's rearrange the priorities. Most of the local news stories around here are about school dress codes! Meeting after meeting, school boards discuss how high a hemline can be among other trivial issues. What kind of hat will be allowed? Let's worry about what's IN the kid's head, not what's atop it!
We live in a Wal-Mart world. We want everything cheap. Do you realize that we pay most cops and most teachers a near poverty level salary? How about those school bus drivers? Would you normally let your child ride with someone that can’t do better that a part time job making under $10 an hour?
http://denuded-heresies.blogspot.com/
Public schools take all students, not just the ones with affluent parents who emphasize and encourage education. They get the students who live in motels, hovels, and cars. They get students whose parents cannot speak English. They get students whose parents are drug abusers, drug dealers, in prison, or just absent. They get the students who are being raised by grandparents, other relatives, foster families, or public agencies.
These students present a greater challenge to the teacher, the classroom, and the system. They require greater resources to address the greater challenge. How do we address this? We punish the teachers and schools based on test scores. If every student had a similar home life, a similar background, it would be a more level playing field. Taken out of proper context, these test scores are meaningless.
The very schools that need the extra emphasis are the ones we punish. Ironically, most people call this a Christian nation while we turn our backs on the poor and disadvantaged.
On the other hand, what is the incentive to pursue higher education when the GOP’s corporate overlords are sending high tech jobs to India and China? Should a student get a graduate degree in Computer Science when the job prospects are slim?
Teacher are paid less than a lot of bartenders!
But as long as the income levels are skewed by removing more and more wealthy from their statictics they will never hold the good teachers.
TRUE MIDDLE CLASS INCOME IS $240,000.00 A YEAR but they don't want people to know that!
but we might be making a mistake in assuming that merely because a student is poor, disadvantaged, or comes from a "different background" --I hate that phrase!-- that he or she can't learn. The classic image of Abe Lincoln, educating himself above all odds, may be a myth, but there are plenty of motivated, hardworking kids who really give a damn about education. On the other hand, there are many rich, spoiled highly-advantaged young people out there who are dumber than a box of rocks.