Waiting For Superman...

[NAHSTE]

Haven't seen it yet, but I plan to.

 

[tigstah]

i plan on watching tonite.

 

[mgoblue2290]

Definitely plan on watching it. However my thoughts on our education system's recent downswing/failures is that is lies solely on the blame of parents. If the parents are not motivating the child and helping them and promoting schoolwork in the home, then there is nothing anyone can do. I'm not talking about yelling at the kid to do their homework, but legitimately explaining why school is so important.

 

[JeremyHight]

Are there flaws with education? Definitely, there is massive overhead, tons of corruption (in major cities), and what looks like decreasing results.

But if you have a better idea, go right ahead. With budget cuts, the idea of trying to lure the best and the brightest into education is laughable at best. Not only that, but teachers have decreasing support from administration, support staff, and most importantly, parents.

As a teacher, I cannot count how many times I've had parents come to argue with me that their little Johnny or Susie could never have done what I saw them do. You could never believe how much blatant disrespect is given to the position of teacher and even principal in schools. But at the same time, we are expected to deal with any and all students in any class unlike nearly every major education system in the world.

People constantly point out that the US is lagging behind in select testing areas. Well, duh. We educate nearly 100% of our high school students in high level math, we have the same requirements of an AP student as a near dropout. In other countries, these students are weeded out along the process and sent to technical schools or alternative education. They learn basic math, but not nearly to the level we require of 100% of our high school graduates. We could never offer this for monetary and geographic reasons, but we would never blame that. No, instead we expect teachers to educate everyone equally, regardless of future career paths or academic ability.

In the end, there are definitely flaws within teachers unions, lackadaisical teachers, and an overwhelming acceptance of low standards in most urban areas. But the main flaws in education have more to be placed on society, namely parenting, than anything else.

 

[Palooza]

Why the hate on Banksy? Exit Through the Gift Shop is amazing.

 

[Palooza]

Exit Through the Gift Shop is fiction.

Says you. That is completely open to interpretation.

 

[Palooza]

There should be nothing to interpret about a documentary.

Why not? I'm not allowed to sit down and watch a Michael Moore documentary and say "that's bullshit!" after the credits roll? I can't debate with my friends whether or not he skewed facts or anything like that? Because it's labeled a "documentary" I have to believe every part of it?

Say I sit down and watch a documentary on the Kennedy assassination, if the filmmaker comes to the conclusion that Kennedy was killed by aliens, I'm not allowed debate that because it's a documentary and every aspect of it must be true?

What next? Are you going to tell me that reality TV really isn't reality?!!?

I hate to break it to you, but nothing presented in the American media is non-fiction. Except maybe when Liz Cho reads the news.

 

[Champ]

Why the hate on Banksy? Exit Through the Gift Shop is amazing.

+1

 

[Goober]

Jeremy should make a teacher's stories thread, where he just bitches about having to teach retarded kids.

Also LOL at having to teach high level math to every kid. IMO it's way to easy to get a high school diploma, at my school you could graduate with algebra being the hardest level math course you've taken. Fuck that shit. Also I think you should have to be able to run the mile in under ten minutes to get your diploma. Fuck fat people.

 

[Champ]

Fuck Fat people

 

[bucky]

Definitely plan on watching it. However my thoughts on our education system's recent downswing/failures is that is lies solely on the blame of parents. If the parents are not motivating the child and helping them and promoting schoolwork in the home, then there is nothing anyone can do. I'm not talking about yelling at the kid to do their homework, but legitimately explaining why school is so important.

And to also respect the school system, and teachers authority. But in some school systems, the parents are worse than the kids, so good luck getting the kids to be responsible.

 

[bucky]

But if you have a better idea, go right ahead. With budget cuts, the idea of trying to lure the best and the brightest into education is laughable at best. Not only that, but teachers have decreasing support from administration, support staff, and most importantly, parents.

This right here!!!!

 

[bucky]

Jeremy should make a teacher's stories thread, where he just bitches about having to teach retarded kids.

Also LOL at having to teach high level math to every kid. IMO it's way to easy to get a high school diploma, at my school you could graduate with algebra being the hardest level math course you've taken.

Things may have changed today, but when I went to HS, you literally had to put effort into failing.

 

[BrntO4Life]

Things may have changed today, but when I went to HS, you literally had to put effort into failing.

It's even worse now, at least at my old high school.

 

[dope]

"that movie is complete and utter bullshit" my mother, teacher of 33 years, when I asked if she had seen it.

as nice as it was showing the parents that do care there are even more that don't and they don't show how much of basic education can be tackled at home, like knowing numbers, sight words, and the alphabet before they even get to school. yet with our economy (and this is going back to the 70's and 80's when our problems started) you no longer had the traditional 1 job household. instead you have family start seeing both parents out working and kids becoming latch key kids. and when parents get home they are to exhausted to make sure little johnny or sue are keeping up with their homework.

add into that no longer are teacher expected to teach the 3 r's but manners, sex ed, and a whole host of things that should and used to be taught by parents and you end having kids slip through the cracks, due to teachers just not having enough time to cover all the itinerary for that school year, and making sure they tier their lessons for different learning abilities, making sure multicultural diversities are covered. also it doesn't help when like jeremy said parents refuse to believe their child could have failed/lied/cheated/bullied etc etc so instead of holding them back they just let them move on to the next grade without them being proficient compared to their peers.

the biggest problem comes from a childs reading ability, if they aren't sound in their reading ability (which I feel falls on the shoulders of the parents far more than teachers) by the time they get to 4th-5th grade they won't be able to make sense of the math and science requirements. some kids enter into school without ever having picked up a boo, much less seen one.

as bad as the public school system may be compared to other nations, like jeremy said "you got a better idea, spit it out" so much of the problems lie with the hundreds of parents that use the school systems as glorified daycare centers. for every 1 household like the ones shown in the movie, there are hundreds of others not taking an active part of their childs lives. plus honestly the movie did nothing in the way of offering a solution outside of "charter schools are good" but then that comes back to the economic structure of things. remember that graph of the "drop-out factory" schools they put up, where were most of them again? oh that's right historically poor regions of our country. how are they supposed to get into those charter schools? its an endless cycle of ignorance, apathy, and unaccountability in those areas.

also that 100% math comment that goblin laughed at, laugh all you want, but every kid has to be at 100% testing in algebra. that doesn't matter if the kid is illiterate, dyslexic, or has any other learning disabilities. that kid better test at 100% in proficiency or that school gets its funding cut. and it goes beyond that as well, its every single subject that school teaches, and once again it doesn't matter if that kid is the next einstein or is severely mentally handicapped, 100% is needed by all. which then basically makes that school slowly die or become like the movie said a "drop-out factory"

getting out of this mess and restoring our education system won't happen overnight, nor with dumping millions of dollars into the system or removing unions, board members. it'll start at home with caring parents who take a vested interest in their child's development. what a surprise, a parent who cares about their kids lives and school, checking their homework, shutting off the tv and making sure it gets done, talking to teachers, pushing them to study, actually have kids that do well in school.

 

[Houston]

Private School FTW

 

[dope]

By reading the replies in this thread I can tell no one has seen the film. Half of it is about the failings of the public system while the other half is about publicly funded schools not tied to the unions and school districts are succeeding.

oh i watched it and found it to be no better than a micheal moore documentary. its slanted to his point of view and tells a story he believes in. anything outside of that motive is left behind.

please tell me where the movie gives a solution outside of "fire bad teachers" and "charter schools are awesome"

by copying what works at a charter school into a public school you leave out the fact that most students in a charter school have parents that care and push their children to learn. so their learning ability is higher than that of an inner city child who's living in a single parent household who's working 2 jobs to make it. so when you copy over their teaching tactics or in classroom activities you leave out the fact that some kids just aren't up to par when it comes to that subject or even that class level. and lets just completely ignore (like the director did) that only 17% of charter schools outperform their competing public schools and a whopping 38% are worse.

and then the tenure aspect you touched on, getting tenure doesn't mean untouchable or job for life as most people would make it out to be. those people still have to be reviewed and can and will be fired for poor performance. just removing "bad teachers" doesn't fix the problem. you remove all bad teachers and replace them with capable and caring teachers. well guess what they still don't have the resources they need, the support system for new or frustrated teachers, and a far better curriculum.

imo the only thing this movie can successfully do is get conversation started, which is what we are doing here. we are talking about it and trying to find solutions, instead you seem to just wanna shout from the mountains that this movie is gospel and that the only way for our education system to change and succeed is to follow what his slanted movie has stated.

 

[dope]

also lets remember that many of the statistics that come out about how bad our education system is failing is drug down by inner city schools that have a high drop out rate and low test scores. that's more of an economic factor than education. poor inner city's have very low property taxes which means less funding into those schools, which mean less resources. you'll notice on that map of "drop-out" factories, there was only 4 (maybe 5) in montana where i live and only 1 in south dakota where i grew up. well the one in sd is on a very poor reservation. same as in montana. the other 3 or 4 are all located on very rural and poor farming communities.

by finding ways to make charter schools, succeeding schools, and inner city schools on a more even playing field you'd see test numbers start to rise.

and those hcz schools are funded privately to about 2/3 of their costs, which is HUGE in getting not only classroom resources but good school lunches, doctors, dentists, playgound, gym equipment etc etc etc which all go towards stimulating and nurturing a childs mind.

 

[JeremyHight]

By reading the replies in this thread I can tell no one has seen the film. Half of it is about the failings of the public system while the other half is about publicly funded schools not tied to the unions and school districts are succeeding.

I just watched it today and I found this laughable. I hate to break this to you, but when you are talking about charter/private schools, of course they are going to be better than public schools. Even with the same funding and changes to tenure, I can guarantee you they will be better. Do you know why?

Children in charter schools normally have to apply. This does not mean these schools are only taking the best and brightest, that isn't true. It does mean though that children are not automatically placed in those schools. Instead parents have to file a form, call the district office, or some other small step to make sure that their child gets into the selection process for the school (which is normally just a lottery if there are too many kids). What does this mean?

The average kid isn't going to go and the below average kids with little to no parent support are definitely not going to go. Those small little steps are either unknown to them or not worth the effort. So charter schools are almost always better than their traditional public school counterpart, which have students automatically placed in their classrooms.

Charter schools are definitely producing, but if the average public school had the same admission process, I bet the results would be almost identical.