On 25 Apr 2004 19:30:24 -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jay Warner) wrote: > I'm sorry, I can't help adding $0.02 to the discussion of what is > clearly a hot button for this group.
And I can't resist adding a gloss to Jay's post. > > 1) if (primary & secondary) schools provide what the more vocal parents > claim they want, is this not what they are supposed to do? > Alternative (A) is to switch from state funding and local Boards, which the U.S. has universally, to national standards. But half the school boards still want to minimize Evolution, and church lobbyists within the states like the ability to water down the science curriculum, select biased history textbooks, and so on. Alternative (B) is to abandon the public schools. Many wealthy folks have already, in addition to the churchly folks. Support for vouchers is largely a matter of selfish (financial) interest. Why not let the public pay for their children, too? - There is little reason to expect the voucher schools to do better, and early returns show that they have not. - There is too much emotion among the supporters of vouchers for them to listen to evidence (about anything). The anti-public people that I have known have entertained extreme fantasies about how great schooling once was --- 50 years ago, or 150 years ago. (Before public schools, 150 and 200 years ago, the median education was more like 13 months than 13 years, and Higher Math at Harvard was bookkeeping.) In recent years, the *courts* have introduced a new element. States have had to start funding the low-income counties, instead of letting them go to hell, because of court orders. One implication, as it works here in Pennsylvania, is that (soon?) the wealthy districts can no longer vote to pay premium taxes and thereby assure that their own children receive a premium education in the public school (at least, a premium-priced education). > 2) If the professional educators who design, select & deliver > curriculum do not/cannot explain to said parents the implications of > what the parents claim to want, where should we look for improvement in > the 'product'? > As I mentioned obliquely in discussing IQ, the 'product' is apparently improving steadily -- if the standardized tests are to be the guide. A test that is 15 years old needs to be re-standardized because the children are scoring half a grade higher than they did before. > 3) The No Child Left Behind thing is definitely misguided or worse. > The frustration from which it was born remains real, however poorly > expressed and misdirected. The racism and elitism inherant in its > execution may be structurally embedded. > Frustration: Finally, bad schools are getting some attention. Racism and elitism were responsible for the worst schools. I am cynical about the Bush-initiative; I think that they used this chance to criticize public schools, in hopes that it would help destroy them. (Rather like: Dept. of Homeland Security was less essential than moving federal employees *out* of jobs with civil service protection or union protection. Bush was not willing to support a new department if it had protections.) Cynically, I also suspect that they were willing to allow such a horrible job of setting up the testing program because they figured that raising havoc in the schools would hurt them, and help the cause of vouchers. (On the other hand, the Bush inner circle has demonstrated contempt for experts in defense, the economy, and the environment - to mention some areas that I have noticed; so the incompetence may be a side effect of how they rule.) > 4) I fully agree, & can add my own horror stories, of the sorry state > of education in math. My own opinion, IMHO, is that neither the > curriculum developers and/or those delivering said curriculum seriously > understand what 'math' constitutes. If not this broad generalization, > then I submit these good folks don't understand how to communicate > 'math.' As a non-math major & professional, I have to rely upon > Devlin's description (The Math Gene), which is consistent with my > observations of weak students in a local Child Care center & my business > stats students. > > 5) I _think_ that what we call 'gifted' students include those who > manage to understand 'math' because/in spite of their early education. > If we were to teach math differently, many more students would get it, > and much of the hair-pulling experiences college instructors have would > go away. > I know nothing first-hand about the present state of el-hi schooling. Or of college courses, for that matter. I do remember that I was surprised in a Newsgroup dialog (a year ago?) when I learned that there are standard undergraduate classes in econometrics, which used to be a purely graduate study. Physics courses also sounded to be more sophisticated and mathematical than I expected. [snip, Herman's post, and multiple copies of the edstat disclaimer.] -- Rich Ulrich, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
