The sad state of American education
Six days ago, The National Assessment of Educational Progress submitted its report on the condition of American high school education. Despite the US spending so much money on public school education the system is failing:
You can go through it and look at it from the perspective of each state. (California is very bad.)
Colleges are now providing remedial courses in writing and math. Speaking of the universities (not covered in the report) they are also failing to educate while succeeding to indoctrinate. It is bad enough that the university professors, which are predominately left, want students to share their worldview, but they don't even seem to want to teach the analytical skills a student at such an institution deserves.
There are good teachers in our high schools, and I don't want to disparage them, but there is something seriously wrong with the system.
Read the report and draw your own conclusion.
Tags
Who is online
88 visitors
"Overall, the fiscal year 2024 Budget requests $90.0 billion in discretionary funding for the Department of Education, a $10.8 billion or 13.6 percent increase from the fiscal year 2023 enacted level (less rescissions)."
24summary.pdf
"A new analysis of the National Education Association's spending shows that in 2020-2021 the teachers union spent a fraction of its money on representing members and more than double that amount on political activities.
According to data compiled by Americans for Fair Treatment, 17.6% of the NEA's spending went to political activities and lobbying, with just 8.6% going to representational activity. Political activities also accounted for more spending than employee benefits, which made up 15.1% of the organization's expenditures."
Teachers union spends more on Dem causes than its own members, analysis finds | Fox News
What is your explanation for the fact that America's most educated persons, University Professors, are liberals?
Look at the hiring process. They now design jobs that no non progressive would ever even bother applying for, even if tenured progressives would ever hire a non progressive.
University will advertise for a history professor, but they have to have a focus on gender/queer theory etc..
It isn't because liberals are more intelligent, if that is what you are trying to say.
It is that the radical left (not liberals) took over the universities and only hired leftists. Example from the UK:
Very good. I've heard of one professor who was applying for an administrative job being told don't waste your time, we are looking for a woman.
maybe because it is easier than other work
Who says America's most educated people are university professors? About a quarter of the postsecondary faculty in the US is foreign born. About a third of faculty in STEM fields are foreign born. Foreign born faculty, having been foreign educated, are under pressure to assimilate into the American university culture.
Here's an older article that shines a little light on the issue. If more people were aware of this, then the objections would be more vocal.
What is most interesting is that an increasing share of the student population is foreign born, too. So, foreign born faculty are teaching foreign born students in conformance with radical doctrines of DEI, CRT, and racial bias.
People who can, do. People who can’t, teach. You can scoff at that old idiom all you want but there is a lot of truth to it.
Most educated does not automatically equate to most effectively intelligent.
The thing is... university professors are rarely the most educated people. They are the most specialized people.
Ask an English Literature professor to do trigonometry. Ask a mathematics professor to explain The Scarlett Letter. In almost every area of life, they're not any better educated than anybody else.
Sorry, I just think this is nonsense.
Are there some complete lefties... yeah. Are they 90%... not a chance.
We just don't hear from the ones that use numbers.
Granted, but at least the fact that they excell in some aspect sets them a step higher than most people who don't specailize in anything academically.
You mean that universities prefer that those who teach have open minds?
Doesn't the word "liberal" mean generally:
And at least this when it refers to politics:
And when it refers to education:
You disagree with those definitions?
Maybe?
I've been thinking about this a lot recently.
BTW, I studied mathematics in college. My wife studied elementary education, my daughter majored in math, and my son studied biochemistry. My daughter and I have graduate degrees, my wife and son have bachelor's degrees. Wife and I were public school teachers, and my daughter still is. As a family, we've always been huge supporters of education.
So these thoughts come from that perspective.
The thing is, we (Americans) overlook a whole lot of very knowledgeable people when we use the term "educated". We don't consider skilled laborers to be "educated", despite the fact that most of them are exceedingly knowledgeable in their fields.
If you take a lot of classes and do an original piece of research, you'll be awarded a PhD, and be regaled as "highly educated".
If you work in a field for decades and your "original piece of research" is a new device that greatly improves worker safety in that field... you're still "uneducated".
There is massive, massive bias toward work done in academia vs work done in "the real world".
Dallas is the home of the corporate headquarters for Texas Instruments. If you invent something new while working at TI, your name goes on the patent and you share a royalty with the company. I know guys who have retired on royalty income from a dozen or more things they've invented. But they did all that with bachelor's degrees, so they are considered "less educated" than a guy with a PhD who's never done anything outside of a college campus.
So while I certainly don't want to denigrate educational achievements or academic excellence, I do think we need to reconsider how we view some of the excellence people show without university involvement.
If you have a PhD in something like Theology or "German Filmmaking" (actual PhD held by an American I met at Christmas party... I have sooooo many questions), is it really fair to say you are "better educated" than the client of mine who invented a new device to keep natural gas wells from exploding? I'm not sure I still think so.
Edited to ask... the view I'm describing here in the USA, is that also how it's viewed in China? What's their perspective on university vs workplace learning?
You think that successfully teaching an academic subject to a class of students is easy? Maybe it's PHYSICALLY easy.
LOL. Well, that immediately disqualifies them from being competent, eh?
Would you rather learn to be an electrician from a person who is incapable of repairing something electrical, or someone who is an expert at it?
First of all, I appreciate your excellent comment. As for your question, although I don't know, I do know that my wife's nephew's decision to study robotics will most likely make his accomplishments at least as admired and appreciated than if he had instead wanted to study philosophy.
@ Sean Treacy, Vic Eldred, charger 383, and Sparty On.
But may I ask each of you..Have you ever taught an academic subject to a class of students?
You traveled to China to teach English. Did that make you Chinese? Were you educated in China? Were you one of China's most educated people?
Did you teach like a Chinese teacher or like a Canadian teacher? Did your lessons apply the English language to Chinese culture and traditions or were you injecting Canadian culture and traditions into the lessons? Were you a competent Chinese educator or a competent Canadian educator living in China?
My question was OBVIOUSLY sarcasm, and did not require an interrogation as a reply.
But it was a teachable moment.
Yes, I taught Calculus at our community college for five years. Had to stop due time pressures of owning/operating/running a business and family commitments. I also taught Scuba up to and including Dive Master and Master Diver certifications for just under 20 years.
But I’m not a good example for your intended object lesson am I?
No I don't.
And you realize that liberal via any of those definitions differs from progressive?
Nope.
Will it suffice to say a majority?
“Because this report considered “commitment to multicultural social studies education” to be crucial, it called for “extensive staff development” which would “address attitudes”—i.e., indoctrination—and which would extend even to the schools’ clerical staffs and bus drivers.7 In short, the call for cultural “diversity” is a call for ideological conformity.”
― Thomas Sowell, Inside American Education
Meh. OK. That's certainly plausible anyway.
I think people who love politics tend to forget that "political science" isn't a real science and huge amounts of "academia" is composed of people teaching things like non-Euclidian geometry, inorganic chemistry, or electrical engineering.
Differential equations do not care at all how you identify, whether you were born in Memphis or Mumbai, or who you voted for.
Agreed. I specifically mentioned "the humanities."
[✘]
yes
I've been following this discussion . Perhap's its time for a little #AaronTippin?
(Buzz the following is a YouTube video, but you might be able to locate it on a search engine you use):
Aaron Tippin - Working Man's PhD
I get a song, showing trucks driving across a desert.
Could it be that the more intelligent are liberals?
Humanities and gender studies degrees does not make one more intelligent.
Elementary school graduation also does not make right wingers more intelligent.
‘Elementary school graduation also does not make right wingers more intelligent’
Not to most people but certainly to most leftists.
So, you feel that a person graduating from elementary school does not make you more intelligent than a person who did not graduate?????
You need to read the post again.....and again...until you understand it.
Okay.
So you are saying that most people except leftists do not thing elementary graduation makes people more intelligent.
You are not going to get it......
Bottom line.....elementary students are far more intelligent that most most leftists.
Because you are too busy trying to spin what you said to make sense out of it.
My point stands.
You are not going to get it.
Americans for Fair Treatment is a far rightwing, anti-union group whose main focus is see to it that fascism is taught in our schools. I'd no sooner believe their propaganda than I would that from Fox News.
True, but fascists are very motivated and get things done! It's what MAGA desperately wants, a bunch of little Christo-fascists running around making America 'grate' again, where they take liberals and hugs them tightly until there is no liberal left...
[✘]
Malwarebytes alerted to a phishing attack some link in this thread.
URL goes to "stampsforever[dot]com"
Time to lower standards again so no ones feelings are hurt and everyone can keep doing the same things and get raises for it.
It has been going on for a long time. I can recall an old "Firing Line" episode in which William F Buckley suggested giving minorities a college degree at birth in order to free up admissions for qualified students.
Btw the US Post Office recently put him on a new postage stamp:
Postal Service unveils new Buckley postage stamp - Yale Daily News
Can we try to keep the racism down to a manageable level ?
We can't do better than the Constitution which says NO RACIAL PREFERENCES!
If "no slavery preferences" had been written into the original constitution we may have avoided a civil war that killed 700,000 people and set up a century of racial oppression directed at the "freed" group.
Your St. Charlie opposed the Civil Rights Act because he thought it enabled government programs that helped blacks become more dependent on it. Without the civil rights act there would have been no Medicaid or food assistance , or the expansion of welfare, all programs that have kept tens of millions of Americans from the burden of extreme poverty , hunger, and lack of medical care.
Still we have whites proclaiming themselves the victim of something or other. Constantly. All day, every day. That white victimhood is how this nation got inflicted with the disease of Donald trump.
No racial preferences. Either you stand for the Constitution, or you don't.
The racism of Kendi is still racism.
Do you understand why affirmative action was first instituted ?
to take stuff away from one group
Yes, but you do understand that it was unconstitutional and had unintended consequences, right?
Actually, more than one: Asians & Whites.
It was defiantly unconstitutional but they still got away with it
Correct. And those who support it can't seem to grasp what is wrong with it.
We can try. But college professors won't let us keep racism down to a manageable level. Seems that every time racial concerns are addressed, a new academic theory of racial disadvantage comes along that requires completely re-engineering society.
Yes, affirmative action was instituted to provide equal opportunity. Somehow the goalposts were moved to make affirmative action a program to pursue equity and reparations.
And what of separate dorms & separate graduations?
I've heard about the dorms. Hadn't heard about graduations. Why would Black students demand a return to segregation?
Hilarious coming from someone who accused me of quietly referring to blacks in one of my posts on another thread.
It was meant to help minorities with jobs and college education, not to make them a preference, in which DEI has morphed into today.
Affirmative action really includes any laws that give a specific group an advantage over another group.
So, there are laws in Virginia going back to 1691 that give special consideration to whites and they continued pretty much unabated until the 1960's. It was essentially 100% white affirmative action.
In recent history the term was coined to specifically address those who have been historically disadvantaged or discriminated against. From our founding until the 1960's America had always held in reserve 100% of their college admissions and certain job positions for "Whites Only", so of course it's reasonable now after about half a century of chipping away at the white only society for some whites to get angry and bitter at the headway some minority groups have made. Is there anything worse for a die hard MAGAites than to see some non-Christian non-white thriving and driving a better car and owning a bigger house than the white person has? It's outrageous! /s
Which of course is why so many here are defending and excited about the demolition of any sort of affirmative action for any race but white.
I think a search for "affirmative action for whites" would probably turn up some interesting articles.
I wish I were kidding…
Illinois students are struggling to meet proficiency standards on state assessments. Instead of working to improve student learning, the state is lowering standards to hide the crisis.
That's not limited to Illinois.
That's pretty much everywhere. That's why the SAT has to be "re-normed" every few years.
Now how many of these "teachers" pushed some kind of identity political bullshit (pride flag, DEI, etc.) in their classrooms that caused these low numbers.
"Teachers have been among those who are alleged to have posted controversial and inflammatory comments about Kirk—prompting widespread doxxing, disciplinary actions in several states, and warnings from state officials to educators about inappropriate online statements."
Teachers Across the U.S. Get Suspended or Fired Over Posts Linked to Charlie Kirk
Not just in the U.S.
"The decline in American K-12 public education is getting worse. More dispiriting evidence came with the latest Nation’s Report Card showing a third of high - school seniors lack basic reading skills and nearly half can’t do rudimentary math."
Wall Street Journal Opinion (@WSJopinion) / X
Most classrooms I've ever been in there was a top half and a bottom half. Just no escaping the Bell Curve.
What with republicans decreasing funding for public education, insisting on including religion into public schools and politicizing and dumbing down all aspects of the education process, it's a wonder any kid can obtain a quality education these days.
Is that what happened? Do we spend more or less on education than we did 30 years ago? 50?
We do and the outcome is we get dumber young adults today.
I guess democrats need as many voters as they can get.
Fox, Newsmax, etc. Proves that liberals are much more highly educated than conservatives.
Pew Research shows that the education/ intelligence gap between left and right widens on a daily basis.[✘]
Proof?
"Pew Research shows that the education/ intelligence gap between left and right widens on a daily basi"
Proof?
"Fascist Trump supporters have proven themselves to be as anti-science, anti-democratic, anti-education, low IQ folk since the tea party and the German Nazi supporters. "
Proof?
"These MAGA folk are all insane fascists!"
Normally, this would be a SG ticket, but because you are on a roll...
Proof?
It's an interesting discussion.
Keep in mind, the term "educated" is pretty much wholly owned by the people in the business of "educating", and they only sanction use of the term to describe customers of the product they provide.
I have a graduate degree. (As does my daughter.)
I had three electricians at my house on Friday, installing a battery backup system to go with the solar panels we installed back in May. I can't begin to tell you anything about what these guys were doing. My degree is in mathematics, BTW.
But because I have a pair of college degrees, I'm deemed to be "educated", and these guys... who know far more than I do about a bunch of things... are somehow "uneducated".
It doesn't make a lot of sense.
Agreed, but that is how many on the left think. If you are not a part of their ilk, then you are uneducated, bigoted dufus,
I too have 2 degrees. One on Occupational Therapy, the other in Health Science.
My wife is from the Philippines and we own property in a small fishing village. We hired local guys to remodel our two houses, basically from block to fully working western houses.
These guys have no college education, and would certainly do circles around me, and more than likely, most leftists, in how to build a house beautifully....But those same leftists would deem them uneducated.
More money is the standard reply from some democrats.
And that is just conservatives? I suggest one look at sources all over the place that would disagree with their ability to do so sonce they are in smaller numbers.
Many don't. Just indoctrination.
First of all, the biggest problem with public education is centralized school systems. A huge area gets a lump sum of money to spend as they see fit. And as we can see, this doesn't work. I was a teacher for over 25 years in the NYC school system (and btw, it is one of the best of these centralized systems, because it does offer schools of excellence on the middle and high school level), but on the elementary level, there are have and have-nots. I worked at a school that was a have-not school, and although we did have students on grade level, we also had a lot that were below for various reasons.
But on Long Island, we work on a decentralized system. You buy into the school district by the town you move into because your tax dollars go to the schools directly, and the parents, therefore, have a lot to say if the schools want their budget voted in. My children got the equivalent of a private school education and went to a top-notch university.
On the other hand, my girlfriend, who lives in California, had to send her children to private school after elementary school, because all of California works on a centralized system.
When all are served, it seems no one is served well.
Of course, things like the Federal government cutting money to the schools don't help.
Can you elaborate on that? I'm a proponent of paying for schools through state and federal money. Each school gets an amount based by per student.
We have that type of system in Arizona. Proponents of public schools state that too many students are leaving public schools and going to charter and/or private schools and leaving public schools without money. But the parents say they are moving their children to gain better educational opportunities. And both sides are correct as there's a limited pot of money. Currently the state government is worried because the voucher system they set up has grown to where the dollar amount paid out is several times higher than originally set up and we have school districts having to close down schools due to the lack of students.
Additionally schools have turned to mandating students must be in class every day and any absence needs a doctors slip as schools get paid only for the students in seats on the day.
My kids told me that was happening. Up here a lot of the Charter Schools are closing do to mismanagement and embezzlement.
The kids were trying to explain that parents were getting so much money for these private schools and then once they got it would then remove the kids and put them in public school pocketing some of what they got. We were in the car and I could barely hear what they were saying so I missed a lot of that conversation.
And if, say, one of the students' parents died, would they have to get a funeral director's slip?
I knew when I was a teenager that the American public education was deficient, but with what's happening, it's really worse.
A parent can take the child out of school but they will get grilled by the school as to why the child is missing a day. For your example, no they would not need a slip from a funeral director. But they can definitely expect to get grilled as to how close is this, why is it so important for the child to attend a funeral and how far behind the child will be if they miss that day of education. Basically guilt-tripping on the parent. It's crazy to me. Glad I'm old and don't have any children in school, only two grandkids left to go.
I wish my son in Milwuakee would send his 3 kids to school in Canada. A doctor friend and neighbour sent his daughter, who I helped with her English, to a Canadian school, one really close to where I was born and grew up. IMO he made a good decision.
Trump appointed Linda McMahon to shut down the Department of Education. They literally said she was brought on board and appointed to put herself out of a job.
Republicans are cutting education funding, to every type of school or university.
Republicans in most states push unpopular voucher systems putting poor families at a disadvantage so wealthy parents reduce their own costs in private schools.
Republican states frequently rank last in education and have done for years because education funding is last on the list of priorities.
Tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations are top Republican priorities. Not education.
If you think it's sad now just wait until another 3 years go by with this administration and a Republican majority. It's going to be much worse.
However we won't know how much worse it is because they are also shutting down the reporting real statistics and by the time McMahon puts herself out of a job and there is no longer a Department of Education that's when they will claim victory and lie about stats.
Considering the simple fact that test scores continue to decline and American students are less and less ready and able to compete in the world, one can say that the US Department of Education has failed miserably in their mission. It was a lofty goal but they failed in their promise. It's been a long enough experiment to declare it a failure, it's time to return full control to the local and state levels. Federal money will still go to schools but we can do better by our children.
What have we gained in a system that teaches to take a test rather than teaches to learn?