Education in the Sad State of Michigan
May 20, 2008
I could not be more disillusioned by the current state of affairs in our public schools. It's not just Dearborn either, our entire state. It's like a boat floating around with no direction or course, just floundering with the waves of contemporary and meaningless BS from Lansing.
We are told that we need to increase relevance, yet we are killing off every single elective class in each school. We are told to increase rigger but than are told to simply teach the MME test. What’s wrong with this picture? AP and Honors courses have made them so damn rigorous in the high schools that students are opting to go to HFCC and take them with unqualified part-time teachers to catch less than 5 hours a night in homework per class. The whole system has been turned on its head! The kids who are at the top of the academic scale are suffering for our grandiose view of rigger and the kids at the bottom are suffering for our grandiose view of relevance.
For the kids at the bottom, we are killing off every single program that made sense of math, and science and language arts for visual learners. When we gut out all of our vocational programs like electronics, manufacturing, automotive, welding and wood shop. We destroy relevance for kids who use the principals they learn in academic classes while learning a way to make a good living. We have slashed the graphic arts departments as and they were the biggest peddlers of language arts for kids who struggle in English classes.
We are building football complexes and I ask you, where is the relevance and rigger in artificial turf? Where are our priorities? What in the hell are we doing to our kids and the future of our state and country making decisions like this?
I am floored at the lack of imagination, not just by our own school board, but our state superintendent. I do not understand how they have allowed this abysmal state of affairs to have crippled and corrupted our educational system to the point where my, soon to be freshmen, son can’t even take a wood shop class until he is a junior. Why can’t he take a wood shop class you ask? Because some Principal in the east end has decreed that after 4 years of failing to achieve AYP every single 9th grader will have to take remedial reading classes instead of electives. This is simply insanity!
Than we have the union groping for more money at the same time that the school board is rattling their saber to slash programs like instrumental music, middle school sports, shop classes and other electives.
When is someone going to stand up and damn all of the leaders for their shortsightedness and lack of vision and spinelessness? I hope someone does it soon as it looks like another summer with the union and the administration playing chicken with our kid’s futures!
--by Lets try this....... on 5/20/08 Lives: Michigan
OTHER RECENT NEWS
<< Previous Article: Our drug culture
>> Next Article: Education in USA Failing
12 Comment(s)
Agreed. I'm in the Navy in a math and science related rank and all I've heard from recruiters and CO's is how nobody can qualify for the math/science-intensive careers like Intelligence Specialist and Nuclear Engineering because very few states in the US still teach the basic equations and drill them into our heads.
Just knowing basic algebra, trigonometry, some physics and a rudimentary understanding of chemistry is enough to qualify for a rank which PROVIDES a 4 year BA in Nuclear Engineering through 2 years of schooling and 4 years of service to the US Navy, not to mention officership after 2 years and often over $60,000 in sign-on bonuses. Still, even with those few requirements which can be acquired with minimal effort in High School, the Navy has a massive shortage of Nuclear Engineers. In the opinion of the US Military, the Midwest teaches Math & Science the best, which is not a compliment to us. It's an insult to everybody else.
--by on 5/21/08 Lives: USA
Here is the answer to some degree...
With Proposal A, the state effectively took local control away from schools. I don't care what you say, when they took the money they took the control.
Yes we have a board and some resemblance of local control...but lansing calls the shots. We merely react to what they prescribe.
It really is sad.Someone needs to seriously look at prop A and see how it can be fixed.
--by on 5/21/08 Lives: Michigan
The reason why our government doesn't want educated citizens is they will see how bad of a job the government is doing. Educated people will question what our elected officials are doing and won't let them continue to put their interests before the the good of the citizens. We should demand that educating our children be the top priority of this state! How many students can't do simple math or speak proper english yet graduate from high school?
--by on 5/21/08 Lives: Detroit area
You're right. It's not just Dearborn, it's the state and federal government who become enamored of shiny object educational buzz words. My kids have been in the public school system for 8 years, and the getting of knowledge has led to little wisdom. We are home schooling next year--something I thought I would never consider, but I can't wait for the state to figure out this "rigor" course will fail and then they'll try something else. Just because one can read a paragraph and fill in the right box to pass a state test, does not mean one is educated. There's no time for understanding, and little emphasis on coherent writing skills. I suggest reading "The Case for No Homework." It doesn't lead to higher achievement. I'm not going to fight the system--I'm leaving it.
--by on 5/22/08 Lives: Dearborn
This school problem is not just a problem here at Dearborn Schools. Our new generation of kids lack the parental guidance that some of us received as young adults. Our kids are getting their schooling from the Rap culture, their computers and their lack of parent involvement. Yes, some kids do have both parents in the household , but these parents were rotten students also, I have come across many parents that were big losers just like their own sons and daughters ( that they are allowed to do whatever they want ). Drugs are rampant , kids stay out all night, parents allow kids to throw parties in their own homes. How many of your daughters went to Prom and spent the night out with their boyfriends ? Great example for you parents ! I laugh at all the parents that lie for their kids at discipline hearings. The kids are liars and their parents are their teachers.
--by on 5/23/08 Lives: Dearborn
Why do we even bother to take attendance at all in our schools? Our state won’t let the school fail a student based on attendance (or lack of). Why do we write referral slips for trouble makers when they get sent right back into the room they caused the offense in? We can’t kick the out of school because they would be “left behind.” In the mean time, all the other kids who are stuck having deal with trouble makers lose out. We are rewarding the worst of the worst at the expense of the best of the best.
Administrators used to understand that most kids of High School age were only beholden to those who could impose control over them. Often teachers had better control of kids than their own parents. We had better control because we had respect rooted in fear. We were not afraid to discipline a student by giving a failing grade or audit. I am not talking about corporal punishment, but fear of failure. Our disciplinary system used to have teeth. Being left behind or not being able to “walk” with your class was a humiliation none of us wanted to undergo when we were in high school. Now it’s a badge of honor and we are perpetuating it. Now we have nothing to hold over these kids and they are running the show. Parents are willfully clueless and often times contribute to the students problems or they are so busy working to support their households, they just don’t have the time to deal with their kid or simply in denial.
We have become very well paid babysitters who, essentially, are paid to just rubber stamp the bodies through the system while delivering the state mandated curriculum to the letter. We are not allowed to deviate from the state guidelines so we are basically robots that answer questions and keep them from killing one another. Principals have become PR professionals. They only have time to attend to the political duties. It’s not about what is right or wrong, only what is politically correct and shields the district from controversy or simply to placate whiney parents.
I apologize for the sullen and negative sounding account of what has become of the profession of instructing children. Like so many teachers now, the will to be creative, supportive and maintain control and decorum has broken down under the weight of cost cutting and unions. We are admonished for creativity and dedication. We are attacked by the state, administration and often times the community, in addition to the students. We get it from all angles and get very little gratitude other than a paycheck and a meager one at that. We see bad teachers with tenure get to do the most heinous and reprehensible things and actually get promoted while hard working, highly qualified young professionals with impeccable credentials get laid off year after year. We see fruitful programs get squashed because teachers who should have hung it up years ago surplus in to destroy them.
Get ready folks, if you think this generation of students is falling behind the rest of the world in math, science, and language, wait until you see the generations we turn out after NCLB. Wait until you see how employable our current students are in the “real world” when they have spent their lives thinking they can just take 14 or 15 days a semester off and still pass.
--by on 5/24/08 Lives: Dearborn
The sad state of eduction is our own fault, that of parents, citizens, teachers, administrators. We have allowed those who have no idea of quality education to run things. As long as our kids received As and Bs, as long as teachers didn't get any parent complaints, etc., all was well. Guess what? All is not well and the chickens are coming home to roost. Whatever is latest fad is the new program, curriculum, etc. Have you ever noticed that no education reforms, NONE, ever mention hard work, responsibility, accountability, etc.? Oh, don't talk about the state tests. The way teachers teach to the test, as if the tests were legitimate (Don't believe me? Check the newspaper throughout the state which have found errors, flaw, etc. in the test or ask to take the test yourself.), the results are flawed. About a dozen years ago, my son had a teacher who was following the district "cooperative learning" scheme. My son was graded down, consistently, because he wasn't "cooperative." I asked why and the teacher said he wouldn't go along with the group answers; he insisted on submitting his own. Well, I asked, were his answers right? The teacher, with a straight face, replied, "Yes, they always are." To make a longer story shorter, I just told her, "That's the stupidest thing I ever heard." You see, teachers are either afraid to confront such stupid policies as this or, well, don't realize they are stupid policies (and what does that say?). Of course, who gets to be the administrators who determine these policies? Yep, those who went along with the earlier jokes. Nope, things won't get better until more than one person objects...and most of us are too busy watching American Idol, following the Red Wings, or whatever else is more important than education. Just one man's lonely opinion.
--by on 5/24/08 Lives: Michigan
I just read a new study that indicates that private education is no better than public. http://www.livescience.com/
"Students in public schools have math scores that are just as good if not better than those of students in private schools, according to a new national study.
"These data provide strong, longitudinal evidence that public schools are at least as effective as private schools in boosting student achievement," said researcher Christopher Lubienski of the University of Illinois. "
I think the issue is that public schools have to put up with unruly kids whose parents don't care and that just doesn't fly with private schools. The unruly student is kicked out or never even passes the entrance exam.
Unfortunately a public school has to accept all students. I think charters are great! If all public schools were to switch to charters, maybe they could effectively force out the trouble makers and make the parents look elsewhere for free babysitters for their "little darlings".
--by on 5/30/08 Lives: Michigan
I think it is great that public schools have to accept all students. That is kind of the point, actually.
--by on 5/30/08 Lives: Dearborn
Private vs Public:
Where is this study? Who conducted it?
I have read several studies that show that, on the average, privatly schooled students are FAR more sucessful than public school students as a group.
--by on 5/31/08 Lives: Michigan