On education...

[alexpgp]

"Promoted" from a thread on grammar_mavens:

Why aren't educators more vigilant about the quality of the education they dish out? Personally, I think it lies with the increasing politicization of education, particularly with the emphasis on equality of results as opposed to an educated citizenry.

My mother taught in the New York City school system for many years. Each year, it seemed, the curriculum would be made easier (I helped her grade papers), and pressure was placed on teachers to make sure students passed. Failing a student was more often than not a casus belli, leading to unpleasant meetings with parents and administrators.

Dumbing down the curriculum is a quick and easy way to achieve an "equal" result. If spelling and grammar no longer matter, then they can't be used to distinguish "better" students from "poorer" ones.

Gutting other requirements, such as language classes, helps streamline the process. Political pressure is particularly effective here. I've heard parents proclaim, at a school board meeting, that learning a foreign language was not essential to a good education. (I know you'll find this hard to believe, but not one board member rose to argue that contention or to advance an argument for language education.)

[Note added postscriptum: I have heard similar arguments regarding music classes, shop, and physical education. In each case, it seemed the parents were really arguing as follows: "My kid isn't any good at this, so it ought not be a required part of the curriculum."]

What to do about the situation? That's tough to say. Any initiative that smells of parents having a real say in education (i.e., having control of how the money is spent) is roundly condemned as right-wing fanaticism. But in the final analysis, nothing will change until individuals do have that power.

Cheers...

Comments

[rillifane.livejournal.com]

Indeed, education has been politicized in pursuit of the goal of having all students evaluated as "above average."

And its ever so easy when the left has made it an article of faith that any fact which indicates that that any portion of the culture or mores of the majority is superior to that of the minority must be false, must be a frabrication, and must have been fabricated for the specific purpose of the oppression of the minority.

It makes no difference what majority and minority is being discussed with the sole exception that any minority grouping that is wealthier or more successful than average is always presumed to be wrong.

So if, in the public schools, a student does not do well in a subject then the fault must be with either the method by which proficiency is determined or with the subject itself. There is no other possibility.

And teachers unions have converted teachers from respected (albeit underpaid) professionals to factory workers. And too many teachers today tend to act like factory workers, striving to do as little as possible for the highest obtainable pay while taking control of the process by which their work is evaluated.

I suggest that teacher's unions are largely responsible for the absurd teacher certification processes which we have today. They result in a corps of teachers who, according to several studies, are barely literate themselves.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Your comment brings to mind an exchange that resulted in my being labeled a racist some years ago. I was listening to a speaker hold forth on how "blacks" would always, as a group, perform less well than "whites" when taking tests written by "whites" because such tests were inherently designed to favor "whites."

During the question and answer period, I made the error of asking why, if such tests were inherently designed to favor "whites," so many Asians were able to ace them? The answer was not pretty, and wasn't an answer at all, but a diatribe, describing me and my question as "the kind of thing we have to fight if there is ever to be social justice in this country."

My error, aside from suffering under the delusion that discussion was possible, was in accepting the collectivist view of the world that insists on lumping people into convenient groups.

You make a good point about teacher unions, but I think blame must also be reserved for the educational bureaucracy, which exists for the purpose of self-aggrandizement and is ever so sensitive to pressure from the "public."

Cheers...

if such tests were inherently designed to favor "whites,"

[rillifane.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, the famous white cultural bias of standardized tests which appears, somehow, to favor Asians.

Given that Asians do better on standardized tests than whites who do better than blacks what other explanation can their be than a conspiracy (no doubt vast and rightwing).

The possibility that it is related to the fact that Asian students watch less TV and spend more time doing homework than whites who watch less TV and spend more time doing homework than blacks is excluded and the mention of these facts forbidden.