Schools: The Disaster Movie ~ Waiting for Superman

[Slimprofits]

http://nymag.com/news/features/67966/

By John Heilemann

... For decades, the conversation about our schools has been the preserve of the education Establishment—and the result has been a system that, with few exceptions, runs the gamut from mediocre to calamitous. Waiting for “Superman” is no manifesto. It offers no quick fixes, no easy to-do lists, no incandescent lightbulbs to unscrew. What it offers is a picture of our schools that isn’t pretty, but that we need to apprehend if we’re to summon the political will necessary to transform them. “Nobody ever wants to call a baby ugly,” says Duncan. “This is like calling the baby ugly. It’s about confronting brutal truths.”

Looking squarely at those truths will cause the blood of some viewers to reach a roiling boil. Fingers will be pointed, and they should be—directly at the adults who have perpetuated the grotesqueries that consign generation after generation of America’s children to failure. If that leads to some hellacious donnybrooks, so much the better. “If you want to change public education, you have to do something that feels like a threat to the status quo,” says Canada. “If we don’t fight about this, if we can shake and be friends, we ain’t going to change. And if we don’t change, huge numbers of kids ain’t going to make it. There is no Superman coming to save them. All they have is us.”

[flintlock]

Re: Schools: The Disaster Movie ~ Waiting for "Superman"

Teacher's Unions+overly litigious society+loss of civility and manners+poor parenting+bloated bureaucracy= crappy education.

[sunskyfan]

Re: Schools: The Disaster Movie ~ Waiting for "Superman"

Number one on the too-do list. Make schools larger than 200 pupils illegal. That will bring down the current matrix very quickly without being political. The mega-school concept is critically flawed and stupid. No one can police these monstrosities, they produce awful results, and hide their true expense.

Sure, your kid won't be able to take a obscure class but he/she will be safer, bloated bureaucracies will be harder to sustain, and kids will learn a sense of community they are not getting.

[Ghent12]

Re: Schools: The Disaster Movie ~ Waiting for "Superman"

Teacher's Unions+overly litigious society+loss of civility and manners+poor parenting+bloated bureaucracy= crappy education.

A line from Fight Club seems appropriate. Something about "A generation of men raised by women..."

[Jam]

Re: Schools: The Disaster Movie ~ Waiting for "Superman"

Make schools larger than 200 pupils illegal.

Second that.

[metalman]

Re: Schools: The Disaster Movie ~ Waiting for "Superman"

Second that.

we'll need a new gov't bureaucracy to enforce the new rule!

[Starving Steve]

Re: Schools: The Disaster Movie ~ Waiting for "Superman"

Chopping the Dept. of Education, along with the Dept. of Agriculture, the Federal Reserve Bank System, and the Environmental Protection Agency from the federal govn't would be a good start.

On the Education Dept, chopping it would mean letting individual states set their own education curriculum. Chopping the Fed Ed. Dept. means ending standardized-timed-testing. And that would mean allowing teachers the right to teach. That might mean ending English-only, ending nationalism, ending Constitution-worship, ending Founding-Fathers worship, ending flag- worship, ending the cursive lessons, ending the phonics crap, ending the timed-drills, and ending the rote-memorization of everything.

Would it be so dangerous if kids were encouraged to think-critically? Would it be so dangerous if kids were encouraged to think of their future employment opportunities in the world? Would it be so dangerous if kids were encouraged to work with their hands and bodies to really do tasks that the world's job market needs? Would it be so dangerous if kids were encouraged to relate to the entire world, not just the USA?

Really, changing policy direction in America really has a great deal to do with changing the public school curriculum in America and getting rid of the U.S. Dept. of Education in Washington. That would save the nation, chop the deficit, and help the kids in school.

[santafe2]

Re: Schools: The Disaster Movie ~ Waiting for "Superman"

Number one on the too-do list. Make schools larger than 200 pupils illegal. That will bring down the current matrix very quickly without being political. The mega-school concept is critically flawed and stupid. No one can police these monstrosities, they produce awful results, and hide their true expense.

Sure, your kid won't be able to take a obscure class but he/she will be safer, bloated bureaucracies will be harder to sustain, and kids will learn a sense of community they are not getting.

I've been working locally in support of this idea. It's not fun but we're making some headway. We humans do best in small tribes that support each other. Factory schools serve no one.

[doom&gloom]

Re: Schools: The Disaster Movie ~ Waiting for "Superman"

Chopping the Dept. of Education, along with the Dept. of Agriculture, the Federal Reserve Bank System, and the Environmental Protection Agency from the federal govn't would be a good start.

On the Education Dept, chopping it would mean letting individual states set their own education curriculum. Chopping the Fed Ed. Dept. means ending standardized-timed-testing. And that would mean allowing teachers the right to teach. That might mean ending English-only, ending nationalism, ending Constitution-worship, ending Founding-Fathers worship, ending flag- worship, ending the cursive lessons, ending the phonics crap, ending the timed-drills, and ending the rote-memorization of everything.

Would it be so dangerous if kids were encouraged to think-critically? Would it be so dangerous if kids were encouraged to think of their future employment opportunities in the world? Would it be so dangerous if kids were encouraged to work with their hands and bodies to really do tasks that the world's job market needs? Would it be so dangerous if kids were encouraged to relate to the entire world, not just the USA?

Really, changing policy direction in America really has a great deal to do with changing the public school curriculum in America and getting rid of the U.S. Dept. of Education in Washington. That would save the nation, chop the deficit, and help the kids in school.

I have yet to meet anyone who has ever been educated by the US Dept of Education...

[Alvaro Spain]

Re: Schools: The Disaster Movie ~ Waiting for "Superman"

Make schools larger than 200 pupils illegal?

A great idea, but making things illegal is the stablishment gun, not ours. They are never going to allow that. Societies are like people, they defend themselves from external or internal attack. Societies can only change when there is no other option, after (unfortunately) suffering a level of damage and pain that they have not yet suffered.

[GRG55]

Re: Schools: The Disaster Movie ~ Waiting for "Superman"

I've been working locally in support of this idea. It's not fun but we're making some headway. We humans do best in small tribes that support each other. Factory schools serve no one.

How do you do that when teachers are getting laid off, and the administrator bureaucrats making those decisions aren't?

Make schools larger than 200 pupils illegal?

A great idea, but making things illegal is the stablishment gun, not ours. They are never going to allow that. Societies are like people, they defend themselves from external or internal attack. Societies can only change when there is no other option, after (unfortunately) suffering a level of damage and pain that they have not yet suffered.

The tendency is always to try to go back to the comfort zone, to restore the previous status quo. Isn't that what TARP was all about for Hank Paulson? Isn't that why there's a bunker mentality developing on Wall Street and in D.C.? Isn't that why Obama's "outsider" credentials are leading to his downfall after one term? Unlike the Clintons and the Bush clan [for example], he simply does not have the strong connections into the moneyed core of political power...and is therefore more easily expendable if he is unable to serve their purposes...

[Munger]

Re: Schools: The Disaster Movie ~ Waiting for "Superman"

The Small Schools Myth

[shiny!]

Re: Schools: The Disaster Movie ~ Waiting for "Superman"

How do you do that when teachers are getting laid off, and the administrator bureaucrats making those decisions aren't?

Speaking as the wife of a dedicated, frustrated teacher, Thank You.

Yes, the Dept. of Ed. has to go. Most people who are not in the education field have no idea how many regulations and bone-headed policies come from that department. Legislators and bureaucrats in Washington, who have no idea what is needed, dictating minutiae from afar. Mandating one-size-fits-all curriculums and teaching methods that make children unable to learn and think critically. The teachers have no say anymore, but they get they get all the blame.

Federal funds account for only a small part a school's budget, but 80% of their paperwork is about complying with federal mandates. The paperwork on each child, each lesson plan, gets longer and more detailed every year. Time that should be spent teaching is spent documenting everything for "accountability" purposes. Bush II promised he would dismantle the Dept of Ed. when he ran for president the first time. Once he got elected, all he did was increase the bureaurocracy with the monolithic No Child Left Behind Act. Now all they teach is how to pass the standardized tests so the schools don't lose funding.

Teaching in order to have students regurgitate facts on standardized tests is the poorest way to teach. My husband believes it is important to use Bloom's Taxonomy in the classroom:

http://www.officeport.com/edu/blooms.htm

Bloom's Taxonomy teaches children how to think at advanced levels. Students who have been educated through Bloom's become self-starters and critical thinkers. Bloom's regards the recall of facts as the lowest level of learning. The curriculums that teachers are required to use do not allow for Bloom's Taxonomy.

Small schools and classrooms are ideal, but not essential. I went to large public schools with an average of 30 students in each classroom. My high school, which I attended from 1972-1975, had approx. 5,000 students, but the quality of education was excellent. There were only two small fights in the all the years of my high school. We had a large, well-developed Vocational Ed. program. We graduated with a high literacy rate. What is the difference between then and now?

Parents were involved. Divorce rates were low and most children had two-parent families. Parents valued education and made sure their children did well. Parents helped with homework and communicated with teachers. Parents had time for their children. Parents taught manners and respect.

A big part of the problem today lies with parents who don't care about their children's education, or parents who who are too busy working to get involved. They take no responsibility, but put all the blame on the schools and teachers for their child's failure. Just as the Welfare State has produced several generations of people who don't know how to work, we now have produced a generation of people who don't know how to think and who don't value education. These people are the parents of the children my husband has the task of educating.

[flintlock]

Re: Schools: The Disaster Movie ~ Waiting for "Superman"

A little story concerning public schools and another reason why maybe they don't work so well. As I was taking a walk with my wife yesterday, she related a story told to her by a fellow teacher. Seems her son was sitting in a desk taking a make up test. This thug student walks up and tells him to move because he wants the desk. Her son refused and got a punch in reply that broke his jaw. Her son responded by returning the punch. The schools response was to kick her son and his broken jaw out of that school. Last week the thug was arrested in the murder of a grocery store guard.

http://www.cbsatlanta.com/georgianew...09/detail.html

This is a shock to a community where such violent crimes are virtually unheard of.

Can't help but wonder if political correctness had a role in the way the school handled the kid's "fight". The thug is black in a community with .25% African American population. From what I understand the teacher had filed a suit against the school for the way they handled the situation because it has affected her son's college opportunities. My guess is the school will settle.

[BuckarooBanzai]

Re: Schools: The Disaster Movie ~ Waiting for "Superman"

Our public schools are set up as political indoctrination centers. Otto Von Bismarck started this trend back in the late 19th century. This has been expanded on greatly by the Cultural Marxists and their operating fronts, the Foundation system (Ford Foundation, Carnegie Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation), whose mission is to implement "social change". Look at the Ford Foundation home page if you don't believe me.

Cultural Marxism aims to destroy all effective and meaningful interpersonal relationships in "old-fashioned" society (the family unit, traditional marriage, free-market business relationships) and replace these wide-ranging relationships with a single relationship, that of the person to the state. All individuals are to be defined strictly by their relationship to the state (or by their relationship to those state-sponsored corporate entities, which serve the state's interests).

By this criterion, the public education system isn't failing, it's succeeding brilliantly.

Of course, the common people who treasure traditional relationships, and the free market, are horrified and view the educational system as a failure. Consequently, the mainstream media has to respond to these feelings, and they do so by publishing a constant stream of "why Johnny can't read", "why Johnny can't do math", and "why is Johnny bringing guns to school and killing people" types of hand-wringing stories that, of course, offer no meaningful solutions because they don't define the problem correctly to begin with. Johnny can't read because the goal of the system is NOT to get Johnny to read; that is simply the window dressing required to move the agenda forward, on their terms.