January 3, 2007
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The Education Gap
I'm going to focus on a "Gap" that influences or concerns most Americans. One that all politicians mouth platitudes over and make promises about and sometimes even make a half-hearted attempt to modify or bridge.
This Education problem seems to be the result of wide-spread belief that:
1. Education is the key to advancing your social status, income, and security
2. The U.S. Educational system isn't doing a very good job at meeting the country's needs.To a certain extent, these beliefs are true. A college degree is still the key to advancement into the "upper" classes
(unless you are born into the top upper class, in which case you get a free ride).
After World War II and the coming of the GI Bill, college enrollment swelled beyond anyone's expectations and the college degree as an entrance key somewhat diminished, but still is important.
This college expansion had a ripple effect down through the school system and demands for "better" schools and teachers ran into a very solid road block - funding. We suddenly discovered that we were getting what we paid for and with more gender equality, the system was no longer being subsidized by bright women and we were not paying enough to reach our desired goals.
At the same time schools began to be forcibly integrated. This integration was supposedly racial but was actually primarily social. Students were bussed out of their neighborhoods, which led to much less community support of the local schools and less willingness to pay for the needed improvements, or even to maintain current standards. Cities saw a flight to the suburban districts by most who could afford to move, which further reduced support and school funding.
Today we have a widely varied system of public schools, most of them under local control and either grossly underfunded or jealously guarding access to their local schools while giving lip service to the "No child left behind" concept but quite willing to see their neighbors' children left behind if it means lower taxes for them.How to bridge this gap is an interesting social (and philosophic) question.
First, do all of us want to bridge it? After all, "our" children's superior education and college degree does give them a step up the class ladder, if that's what we think the primary purpose of education really is. If our children are among the disadvantaged, what can we do to lessen the gap?
Can we really educate everyone as far as they can go intellectually without disrupting the social order or bankrupting ourselves? Should the "social order" be disrupted?
A few years ago the prospect was bleak, but modern computer and internet technology has made bridging this gap a possibility - but it would mean re-thinking the entire role of education. How, if learning means interacting with a computer monitor, do we socialize our children? Who will determine curriculum and content? How will education be funded?
Comments (13)
"Should the "social order" be disrupted?" I don't see why not. The social order has been disturbed many times in the past, and we continue to survive. My problem with doing so is we seldom know when enough is enough, recognize when an approach isn't working, and back away when necessary. Instead, we tend to build little bureaucracies that take on a life of their own wasting millions of dollars while denying opportunity to deserving young men and women in favor of those who can not perform.
As for education by computer, I don't think we are ready for that. Computers make great research tools, but they have not yet evolved to the point where they can answer the confused questions of a 20 year old who doesn't understand what the text is saying.
I disagree about computers' abilities. They are currently capable of not only making sense of a 5 to 80-year-old's questions but even steering said student onto the right track and emulating a mentor which appears to be interacting . Over twenty years ago I watched HS students interacting with the rather simple and limited "Eliza" program. Remember that one? Many of them actually got in arguments with the program despite its very limited response selection. Computers have come a VERY long way since then.
IMHO, many of the next generation of students here in the U.S. will see few if any live teachers.
By "disrupting the social order" I was refering to the demolition of some of our more appealing myths, such as social class being dependant, at least partially, on educational attainment only possible in "top" schools.
I just wanted to say hello I am sorry I have been so bad about commenting back I feel bad. I hope you and your wife are doing well.
Yes we should improve education systems in the US as well as offer free higher education to all citizens, as they do in many European countries. The argument can and has been made that Europeans are smarter than Americans, and this is due largely to America’s insular lifestyle, geographic isolation from other counties, lack of travel or work abroad, as well as the educational systems short comings. I don’t know about you, but I am embarrassed by the fact that the US is a world super power yet has the lowest grade school scores and college graduates numbers in the Western world.
I see real benefits in using computer more and more for educational purposes, however I don’t think it should replace a classroom based educational system. I think it work with it and compliment it and we aren’t using computers and educational software enough in education. Students are more interested in technology as well, and tend to “buy in” to their education when they are really interested and curious about the topics as well as the means and methods of educating.
Curriculum should be developed by educators more than the governments, as the governments often have their own “educational” agendas and will or will not focus on certain things. For example, it is my opinion that world history, world politics, foreign relations, and geography are severely lacking in the American educational system. Most Americans didn’t know the difference between, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq until recently. Is it important for them to know some may ask? Yes, the world is becoming smaller and smaller, and their government is involved in their governments, tax dollars go there, and their votes in the electoral process contribute to all of that.
Tax dollars should fund education, and higher salary tax brackets could pay additional taxes to fund the educational system. It would balance out the well-known benefits and “ins” to scholarships, jobs and colleges that these people who are rich and “well born” into connected families possess as a consequence of birth.
Surprisingly enough, most of your suggestions have been carried out for many years. Higher salary tax brackets do pay more to fund education - Through the graduated income tax at the national level and through more property taxes at the local level (presumably rich people live in better houses and pay more property tax). At the state level where most educational funding comes from, the state income taxes tend to be regressive (everybody pays at approximately the same rate) but those with higher income would pay more.
Curriculum is pretty much developed by educators with two important caveats: Most curriculum is under pretty tight local control and if the wing-nuts take over the local school system, they can temporarily screw things up. The state and national governments tend to insist on over-testing students to make sure they are learning at acceptable rates. This is obviously a stupid waste of the teachers' and students' time as it presumes that for some reason they are not teaching and learning as they should. Why either the teachers or students would waste their time this way is never discussed.
American education is surprisingly pragmatic- world geography for example, was not emphasized because until recently, it was thought to be irrelevant. There are some strange areas of the system that should be improved but are seldom discussed: The standard American school year is 180 days, 25-40 days less that that of most other industrial countries. the insistence that all students should graduate from the entire 12-year program with few attempts to adjust curriculum for individual intelligence differences has meant that the entire system tends to be set to the lowest intellectual level possible. The top 25 % of american students get a very good education, it's the other 75% who get shorted.
Here in the U.S. it is unlikely that any student who should attend college doesn't have the opportunity, as a matter of fact college attendance is promoted for many who should not attempt it, consequently we have a system of "dumbed down" colleges to fit with our "dumbed down" public schools.
Yes, while all the is true, the fact remains that higher education is more expensive in the US, and not free as it is in many Europeans countries such as Germany. In addition the fact that American students consistently score lower on exams and the fact that Americans are not aware of simple things related to foriegn affairs such as the geographic location of counties because of what you called pragmatism, or what I would call unsular living and its associated education system are real areas of improvement.
On the other hand, Americans are educated in an open and logical manner, which takes care of their immediate needs in America. It also promoted critical thinking and freedom of expression, two very beautiful factors. However, I am argueing that this is no longer enough, the world is getting smaller and America more Imperial, and as the world largest superpower, Americans should be educated enough to be aware of whats happening outside of their immediate sphere of existance. After all it is the people that manage the government, so they should know what this responsibility entails. The real question is do "they" or the powers that manage our educational system want people to be more educated on these topics, or are they merely just as competeant as the students they are producing, thus dont see the need for change in spite of the lower test scores and international reputation of being less educated and aware socially as well as academically.
Your comments are well taken. The American higher ed system is more costly than almost any other country's; just as our medical care system is ridiculously overpriced and for much the same reason.
Intelligence is pretty much universally equally distributed throughout the world's population, so you are correct: lower average test scores seem to indicate a below-average school system, but it's not quite that easy:
Most national public school systems mirror the culture and satisfy cultural demands so it's difficult to get a clear comparison even in such matters as geographic knowledge and math. The scores depend on what the school systems are actually teaching and actually plan to teach, not necessarily what they say they are doing.
As part of my varied and checkered career, I was for a time part of an inspection team for the Southern Association for School Accreditation . Our job was to spend a week or so in a particular HS and go over what they said they wanted to do, what they were supposed to be doing, what they actually were doing, how much they had improved since the last visit, and suggest improvements. I remember one HS faculty getting very upset because I pointed out that they were doing a very good job of teaching what their student body and school board wanted but that they certainly did not have the well-integrated diverse student body they said they did nor was their curriculum particularly well related to state requirements. That HS was a new one in an upper-class community in Palm Beach county - an area not particularly noted for its diverse population. That school would have done very well in comparison to just about any educational system in the world - they had plenty of money, solid parent backing, well paid teachers, and high expectations. They were, as I remember, not particularly well versed in new teaching technologies.
Another problem with comparison is who makes up the student population and who gets tested at what level. Universal education means very different things in different countries.
I am very critical of our present system and can think of many ways it can and should be improved, but I also think we are beyond the time of Band-Aids and patches. My wife is the product of a one-room school house where the first five grades were all taught at the same time by the same teacher and her primary education was good enough for her to later place well in a national talent search contest, get a free ride through college and recognition as a superior teacher. The time of the one-room schoolhouse is long past however and I think here in America the end of schooling as we presently know it is fast approaching.
The new system I favor is computer- internet-virtual reality based but there are other alternatives out there and I'm interested in which one (s) you think will be the new wave.
I am also encouraged abotu computer and its related options in the classroom, actually I use them daily teaching English. My students use a blog for for a journal and for other class assignments. I hope more and more institutions birng in technology to the classroom, having a projector and smartboard in the classroom also enable students to give presentations on a regular basis using technology and visual aids. However, I think study abroad programs are also valuable and so are foriegn language requirements. I am not convinced the latter will be a part of the "new wave" so much as computers and technology will, but it will really improve the quality of education and the general knowledge base, as well as critical thinking and multi-cultural communication skills that students will have upon graduation. In addition to fully funded higher education and more focus on international topics in high schools, those would be my immediate suggestions and hopes for the US educational system to bridge gaps, at least it would help those we have between continents and cultures.
Can throwing money at a broken system really fix it? What measures can we take to ensure that all children are given equal access to education? Does the gap exist only because the system is broken (and I admit that it is), or does personal responsibility (of parents and students) come into play here as well?
Most parents want the best education for their kids that they can imagine. The problem is that they don't necessarily agree on what's best and for a number of social/historic reasons, the public school system has little public support in some areas, which means voters don't want to spend the necessary amount of money to upgrade it.
I agree with sandstorms that more "internationalization" of our education system would be a very good idea. I can imagine computerization of the school system going far beyond what sandstorms reports and including a virtual classroom tailored to each student's needsw and aqbilities.
You made an excellent presentation of problems concerning the education gap. Also a great discussion of the problems and needs of education today. Mostly, I think, there is a lack of training in critical thinking. And the problem of dealing with children who are have some learning disabilities.
I have several grandchildren (and I had at least two of my children) who are ADD or ADHD, and they all had problems fitting into the system. I wasn't aware of such learning difficulties when my kids were in school, though I did know they were having problems. Three of my grandchildren have dropped out or have found other ways around the system - i.e., getting GED, etc. None of the three are of low intelligence (they were given IQ tests, however good they are), but had difficulties with focusing, etc. Several of them went the Ridalen (sp?) route. Another two persevered and graduated, albeit with the help of medication, but school has been hard for most of my family, with the exception of myself. I loved school but then, school wasn't quite the "factory" that many of them are now. I must say I think most teachers are excellent, but I've also seen teachers in the high school, during my children's education years, who simply couldn't handle the pressures and yet were kept on because of tenure.
There are a lot of problems with our educational system, and I have no answers. I appreciate the discussion; it is good to know that there are thinking and caring people who see the problems and are thinking/doing things to help.
Peace.
Anne, I really think your kids and grandkids problem is/was more likely to be motivational and because they didn't do to well as square pegs in round holes. It has always seemed to me that a person with ADD would really NEVER be able to focus or concentrate for very long - but I have know too many young people who have perfectly normal concentration abilities when they are really interested . Incidentally, why do you suppose ADD is so much more prevalent with boys than with girls? I suspect many of these learning disorders are more social than psychological or physical.
Here's a kind of weird confession. I Taught for some years in the same school system I had dropped out of at the end of my junior year - never did get either a GED or indeed any HS diploma - I used to kid my students (mostly advanced HS seniors) that if they didn't graduate they might find themselves having to do what I was doing - which they thought was funny. I suppose I was a little unusual, as I ended up with a free ride through college - I actually made more in scholarships and assistantships than I did my first year teaching! How did I do it? I got a competitive appointment to a service academy, did three years time in the army, went back to school on the GI bill, got other scholarships, an assistantship, etc. I always ignored demands for my HS transcript
I taught at the HS, Jr College, and University level and was judged by the State of FL to be a "Master Teacher" which got me a sizable bonus.
I'm afraid nowadays I would be judged one of those with ADD or ADHD - I didn't pay much attention in class- and would probably end up drugged to the eyeballs.
As you might guess, I'm really not a fan of school behavior modification by medication - I think it's way over-used.
I made it a point to volunteer to teach exceptional or "special" education students and was successful in motivating and teaching some who were really unlikely candidates for the public school system (Have any of you ever tried dealing with a student suffering from advanced Asperger's disease? - I have successfully)
I always thought that the methods we use to attract and keep capable teachers had major flaws. Fortunately I was never in the position of "Having to Teach or Starve" but most of my fellow teachers were not so lucky and had to make do on grossly inadequate pay. I lost a good many really good teachers in my department because they received much better offers in the private sector. I continued as a teacher because I really loved doing that more than any other occupation I could imagine - and I could afford to.
I suppose the above is a major reason why I favor computer-enhanced individual learning, where at least part of the non-educational responsibility is placed back where it belongs and the schools can't be used as glorified babysitters.
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