DailyDirt: Comparing US Schools To...
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
The US education system is constantly being compared to other school systems -- with the underlying theme that the US might copy some of the best practices and put them to use for our kids. Sure, it's good to take a look around and see if there's a better way to teach kids, but some practices might be difficult to adopt (eg. eliminating long summer vacations). Here are just a few links on what we might learn from foreign school systems.- Japan's education system may teach us that instituting strict standards testing is unproductive. Teaching to the test and similar practices has been blamed for creating a less innovative culture and students who are less prepared to adapt to changes. [url]
- Another suggestion is to pay teachers more, so that teachers have resources and incentives to become better teachers. Countries like South Korea, Singapore and Finland pay their teachers well and provide social prestige for educators. [url]
- The role of American parents in their kids' primary school education differs somewhat widely versus Chinese parents. One big difference seems to be that Chinese parents blame their kids' lack of effort, but American parents more often blame the lack of ability of the child, teacher or school. [url]
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Filed Under: china, education, japan, lessons, parents, schools, south korea, standardized testing, students, teaching, tests
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2) The whole funding in accordance with test scores is a complete failure.
3) The anti science crowd is a bunch of nuts.
4) Vouchers are an insane proposition.
5) If you want your children to have a parochial education, then send them to a parochial school.
6) Attacking our children's education simply because you do not like unions is really stupid and counter productive.
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Is our childrens learning?
But I don't think anyone in the US makes policy decisions based on evidence any more. Anecdote and ideology are much more useful and powerful.
(I learned this while fighting the war on terror-drugs with my socialized medicine drone-homie in our welfare-fraud Cadillac while we thefted child pornography music on our obama-phones. Fucking teachers unions. /sarc)
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Teacher pay
Teachers make shit when they are first starting out and have to spend hundreds of hours writing all their lesson plans from scratch and spend hundreds of dollars of their own money on supplies for the room. This all assuming they can even find a job.
Then when they get cushy and bored from not having to improve their lessons or freshen up the room, they are making a ton of money and likely cannot be fired.
I saw a great proposal that all teachers should be paid a flat rate with no raises ever. Said flat rate should be very high - say $100-125,000 per year. This would pull in the best and the brightest to teach and cause them to leave and do something more productive after a few years of no raises.
High turnover for teachers would be a good thing if it prevented stagnation. My most boring, ineffective teachers were all on the tail end of their careers.
Likely, this would also require a loosening of the teacher's licensing requirements. However, if all the people chasing those $125,000 paychecks are smart people who are motivated, then who cares if they have a teaching certificate!
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Re: Teacher pay
and then the school district claims copyright upon the teacher's work (which was performed on their own time)
"Then when they get cushy and bored from not having to improve their lessons or freshen up the room, they are making a ton of money and likely cannot be fired."
and then a ridiculous stereotypical slam appears
"this would pull in the best and the brightest to teach and cause them to leave and do something more productive"
and this in an economy that sucks, so it must really be a good idea.
"his would also require a loosening of the teacher's licensing requirements"
yes, because opportunities abound - there are so many high paying jobs out there.
"who cares if they have a teaching certificate"
Yeah, anyone can teach. It's not that difficult is it?
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Re: Teacher pay
There are many problems in US education. One that is overlooked is the attitude of the parents; do they demand their children study, do homework, etc. or blame the school or teacher when it is not done.
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And this is the biggest problem area of all.
Although I differ a little about the homework. The preponderance of the evidence shows that homework, at best, doesn't improve anything and at worst, degrades the actual quality of the education.
And yet, schools are assigning more homework than ever -- entirely because parents believe that lots of homework == lots of learning and complain if they think their kids aren't getting assigned enough of it.
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TED: Sugata Mitra: Kids can teach themselves
Mitra Sugata: Whole in the wall
Maybe what we need are "guides" people who can observe and adapt to the interests that children acquire and subtly push them in the directions that they themselves chose, tracing a path that through challenges that the kids sets themselves they strive to learn the tools that they will need to overcome.
I didn't have a hole in a wall in my time, I had public libraries, I didn't spent much time in school but I spend almost every waking moment in a library and it was the first thing I would know where it was in whatever city I was in, and of course the trash, I luv rich people they throw out so many good things, trash is cheap and wonderful to experiment with.
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Why do we not see any gains from this spending?
In fact as we spend more our kids are less educated than before.
Student achievement has declined over the past 25 years as spending has increased, as things look currently common core will be a race to the bottom.
The biggest problem is no accountability in the education system.
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Certain texbooks, like math 101, should be published online in the public domain for anyone to download and print and look at and search on their tables or laptops or whatever so that students don't need to continue paying for something that's been paid for a long time ago. The publishers have already long benefited from the copy'right' of these materials in prior editions and they have long been paid and new editions are almost identical requiring almost no additional effort to justify a new copy'right' and the continued copy'right' of previous editions.
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Pay teachers more?
Besides, when you compare teachers pay to their actual time worked, it isn't nearly as bad as most teachers let on. Many of the teachers I know admit this.
I am sure my statements will get me flamed but I stand by them. Well, as much as an anonymous post can stand by comments. ;)
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Re: Pay teachers more?
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Re: Pay teachers more?
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Re: Pay teachers more?
Your arguments are not convincing.
"Pay for results would come much closer to creating better workers of any kind"
No child left a dime is a complete failure.
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The Last Word
“TED: Sugata Mitra: Kids can teach themselves
Mitra Sugata: Whole in the wall
Maybe what we need are "guides" people who can observe and adapt to the interests that children acquire and subtly push them in the directions that they themselves chose, tracing a path that through challenges that the kids sets themselves they strive to learn the tools that they will need to overcome.
I didn't have a hole in a wall in my time, I had public libraries, I didn't spent much time in school but I spend almost every waking moment in a library and it was the first thing I would know where it was in whatever city I was in, and of course the trash, I luv rich people they throw out so many good things, trash is cheap and wonderful to experiment with.