Funding Schools

[The Other Guy]

Do schools here in the US have enough funding? To little? Where does this funding need to be applied?

My thoughts:
The No Child Left Behind act should be called the No Child Allowed Ahead Act. Though it helps the less bright students, allowing them some breathing space, it does nothing for the smart kids. For example, where I live, Ohio. (not sure if this is nationwide) The state is required to test students and identify them as advanced proficient, but it does not require any classes for said students. So, the students end up bored in regular classes, done with their work way early, being asked by teachers to help the students who don't even try because they don't have to, thanks to NCLB...

There's more, but my dinner is ready and I don't feel like typing any more...

 

[5.56X45mm]

It didn't let me vote on everything I wanted. Just the Get Rid of No Child Left Behind!

I think that there is a major issue with our schools. Most of the technical fields are being taken out. No Shop Class, No Auto Class, No PC Science Classes, etc...

Sadly there a lot of students that will not go to college because they don't want to. But that does not mean that they should be hindered. High School used to be about getting people ready for the real world. Not just college.

History/Geography is a big time need of improvement.

Math needs to be redone across the whole grade system. Students should be doing Higher Math once they get into High School. Not just starting it.

English needs major help in terms of teaching kids about reading. Most kids that I see today can't read worth a crap.

As for the No Child Left Behind Act. Get rid of it. Doesn't do anything good.

What really needs to be done is that parents should have greater control in their kids and not the school system. Schools used to be about teaching kids not raising them. But the idea of Big Government has infested the schools just as everything else.

End the PC crap at school and if the kid is a moron (not disabled) sorry but hold him back. Nature works with the slow and stupids being eaten first. It should happen in school also. Kid is a moron and doesn't want to learn... hold him back. No sense in him holding the other students back.

 

[The Other Guy]

It didn't let me vote on everything I wanted. Just the Get Rid of No Child Left Behind!

odd, it should have. Redleg! get over here...

I think that there is a major issue with our schools. Most of the technical fields are being taken out. No Shop Class, No Auto Class, No PC Science Classes, etc...

agreed. Anything the schools can't afford is being dropped. My school has 1 shop lass, no auto class, and uses Windows 2000 for the PC classes. :roll:

Sadly there a lot of students that will not go to college because they don't want to. But that does not mean that they should be hindered. High School used to be about getting people ready for the real world. Not just college.

Agreed. I had one student ask my geometry teacher when we'll need to use some sort of theorem in the real world. The teacher didn't really say, but mentioned that it would be on the Ohio Graduation Test...

History/Geography is a big time need of improvement.

oh yeah. I'm a geography whiz of sorts, but I know kids who can't find Indiana on a map...

Math needs to be redone across the whole grade system. Students should be doing Higher Math once they get into High School. Not just starting it.

my school offers Algebra 1 starting in 8th grade, Geometry in 9th, Calulus in 11th (I think...)

English needs major help in terms of teaching kids about reading. Most kids that I see today can't read worth a crap.

Haven't seen that many problems there...

As for the No Child Left Behind Act. Get rid of it. Doesn't do anything good.

roger that.

What really needs to be done is that parents should have greater control in their kids and not the school system. Schools used to be about teaching kids not raising them. But the idea of Big Government has infested the schools just as everything else.

Start with the Abstinence Sections in Health. That's a parent's job, and no one listens to them anyway.

End the PC crap at school and if the kid is a moron (not disabled) sorry but hold him back. Nature works with the slow and stupids being eaten first. It should happen in school also. Kid is a moron and doesn't want to learn... hold him back. No sense in him holding the other students back.

My thoughts exactly. If the kid's really trying but is just dumb as a fencepost, I understand. But for those who don't try... I know several kids who can't tell you anything about anything except when NCLB let's them drop out...

 

[Damien435]

I voted for buildings, sports, history/geography, technology and get rid of NCLB. Education can not be standardized nationwide, the types of students that attend class in San Diego, CA have nothing in common with their peers at Enemy Swim Day School in Waubay, SD, other than their age. Buildings get old and need to be replaced, it’s as true with schools as it is with anything else. I personally believe sports to be of great importance to a school’s identity and the health of the students. As we take more and more funding away from sports the number of obese high school students goes up. The reason nobody cares if we continue to fall behind nations like Singapore, Indonesia and others in test results is because people can’t find them on a map and hence they aren’t important. NCLB is shifting so much of our attention to test scores on math and science that history and geography, already towards the bottom of the totem pole, are being further cut. Our kids keep getting fatter but schools are being forced to cut PE and health classes because they must meet federal requirements and add more math and science classes. And technology because computers and everywhere and a teacher that is using a power point projection along with the lecture can convey more information in ways that are better suited to students than a mere lecture. I had a physics teacher in high school who put a ton of McDonald’s Happy Meal toys along the front of the classes because all the odd shapes and colors helped to keep our attention on the front of the class.

 

[A Can of Man]

Should really be two kinds of high schools.
One for those who want to learn, they can access a variety of courses.
Then there should be for those who did really really bad throughout middle school and perhaps the first two years of high school. There they can attend classes that teaches them how to operate sewing machines.
I'm sorry but I don't think society can use a useless moron with no motivation that sort of knows who Shakespeare is. Make yourself useful. Learn to push a button. Let the machine do the rest.

More funding is required for subjects especially math, science, geography and English. I'll explain why.
Math and science is self explanatory. If you don't have any engineers, you have to import them. Then you'll lose your technology to other countries as soon as you tell them to get lost. The guy's not going to forget how to build that long ranged, extremely accurate surface to air missile that your money helped him develop.
Geography. It's more than just what is where. It's a study of spatial relationships and phenomenon. If you understand geography, your understanding of the world expands beyond belief.
English. You might think writing a good paragraph is a load of crap but actually it helps organize your thoughts. It streamlines your thought processes so that you can come up with logical statements. People who lack this skill are impossible to keep track of whenever they open their mouths.

Most importantly, quit lying to the kids. There is no space for losers. It doesn't turn out like the cartoons. And for those psychologists... you want to know the number one therapy for beating depression? Not being a damned loser.

 

[deerslayer]

First, as a student I have seen no real change in schools under NCLB except an increase in bureaucracy due to the inception of programs which most teachers don't follow.


As a gifted student, I can say that that system is broken.

 

[The Other Guy]

As a gifted student, I can say that that system is broken.

Join the freaking club. :?

 

[deerslayer]

with the exception of my high school English teacher, who was forced to resign after a student with an axe to grind used the nudity in Excalibur to that end, I consider my time in the gifted program wasted.

Having us take so many damn PE classes is not going to improve our physical fitness. Increasing the price on candy in the vending machines to 1 dollar for a bag of M&Ms might help, but it's not proactive to have that crap there in the first place.

Most importantly, get rid of the tenure system, because it promotes indolence in teachers, and the crappy ones stay there forever, not doing a damn thing to further their students' education.

I think 13th redneck is right on all counts.

 

[The Other Guy]

with the exception of my high school English teacher, who was forced to resign after a student with an axe to grind used the nudity in Excalibur to that end, I consider my time in the gifted program wasted.

Having us take so many damn PE classes is not going to improve our physical fitness.

I follow you there. The "Honors" classes in my High School are essentially the same as regular classes with less time to finish projects.

And I agree with you point on PE classes. I acutally gained weight during my last PE class.

 

[deerslayer]

See, it's the same everywhere. The losers live forever and the good die young.

Occasionally, like my English teacher, a woman I've known since the cradle and who has been an outstanding educator for thirty years, the good teachers are thrown to the wolves by administrators who will cave to any sort of pressure, instead of defending both the teacher and the education system from frivolity.

PE didn't help me bench 200 pounds, practically living in the gym for the last three years did. Of course, i've never broken 125bs, so I never had the weight issue that the school board worries about.

 

[Damien435]

And neither of your schools have AP programs?

 

[The Other Guy]

My school has AP for seniors and... I think that's it.

 

[deerslayer]

When they got rid of that particular teacher, they destroyed the AP English classes. Gradually, the school has shifted less attention towards actual, real education and more towards vocational schooling so that the majority of the graduates can work at the local port as welders, mechanics, etc. If any job offers for students come up, guess what? They're all at port-based firms. It does not push a college-bound curriculum anymore so much as it tries to maintain an incentive for attending the local technical college.

I have hated that institution since day one, and not because I was interned there- I despised for the fact that many of teachers were unqualified for their position or unprofessional in their demeanor, the administration cared less about the quality of education than it did about the bureaucratic institutions of the state department of education, and the fact that it was readily apparent that our uniform policy and other seemingly petty rules were given much more importance than our welfare and education.

 

[The Other Guy]

When they got rid of that particular teacher, they destroyed the AP English classes. Gradually, the school has shifted less attention towards actual, real education and more towards vocational schooling so that the majority of the graduates can work at the local port as welders, mechanics, etc. If any job offers for students come up, guess what? They're all at port-based firms. It does not push a college-bound curriculum anymore so much as it tries to maintain an incentive for attending the local technical college.

Welcome to my world... everybody I know seems excited to go to C-TEC so they can get in the Centreal Ohio Technical College (COTC). WHAT IF YOU WANT TO GO TO A REAL COLLEGE?!?!?

 

[deerslayer]

Exactly. I think it's f****** ridiculous. I never have, and never will, believe that the school system is interested in my or my child's (god forbid) welfare or quality of education. AP is non-existent in my school (well, old school, since I'm out), the GT classes are a joke, hell, an Honors teacher asked me if I was dyslexic when she noticed I had bad handwriting- one has nothing to do with the other. What does that say about professionalism?

 

[The Other Guy]

Well, my school's a little better than that, but telling your new students that your old students did no better than a B- on summer assignments is generally a bad Idea...

 

[A Can of Man]

Dyslexic? I guess nowadays people think that every kid is sick with something.

 

[Missileer]

I just remember that with funding comes regulation. Then, the whole reason for it is defeated.

 

[deerslayer]

Dyslexic? I guess nowadays people think that every kid is sick with something.

I was absolutely livid that a teacher would just walk up to me and say, "Are you dyslexic? Straight up, your handwriting is terrible."

There's a time and a place to voice concerns like that, even if they are ignorant. In the middle of biology class is not one of those times and places.

And that attitude really frustrates me, it seems to me to be an extension of the all-too-common "it's not his fault, victim of society, etc."

 

[Damien435]

Where are you two from? Your schools sound worse than even the smallest backwater country school in South Dakota. What is your class size, seven?