Just now, BirdsFanBill said:

Yes and no. They're the same battles but because of technology/ SM more people have opinions and can be heard now. Which isn't necessarily a good thing. In fact its a bad thing. 

100% agree with this.  The bigger and general problem is with the activists whose power has suddenly shot thru the roof.  Yes, on both sides.

22 minutes ago, Dave Moss said:

So you think the solution is to put the lowest educated parents in charge of deciding the curriculum and that the outcome will somehow be improved?

Strawman. Do better.

i think the solution is to make teachers accountable for relative performance and to make boards take customer feedback seriously. 

If they dont, they cant be surprised or offended when parent organize to replace them. 

7 minutes ago, DrPhilly said:

Does the education level of the parent matter to you in terms of whether or not you are willing to engage in discussion about what to teach to their children?

Not really.

14 minutes ago, Outlaw said:

I'm not saying parents are more qualified to teach than the teachers...I'm saying that dismissing them wanting to have input into their children's education because they don't have a bachelor's in elementary education from SNHU is pretty ridiculous.

100%

3 minutes ago, ToastJenkins said:

Strawman. Do better.

i think the solution is to make teachers accountable for relative performance and to make boards take customer feedback seriously. 

If they dont, they cant be surprised or offended when parent organize to replace them. 

I would love school choice. Competition is good for everything. 

1 minute ago, Dave Moss said:

Not really.

Ok, so you aren't interested in discussing it with any of them.  Fair enough.

40 minutes ago, toolg said:

I have no training or certification to operate heavy machinery. But I have a degree. That means I can give orders to the construction workers on my commute. Get out of the way! They're holding me up! 

You could probably do a better job than those union slobs

3 minutes ago, DrPhilly said:

Ok, so you aren't interested in discussing it with any of them.  Fair enough.

Do you think someone like me who has a graduate degree in history should be going into my child’s history class and telling the teacher what to do because I disagree with something they said in class?

9 minutes ago, ToastJenkins said:

Strawman. Do better.

i think the solution is to make teachers accountable for relative performance and to make boards take customer feedback seriously. 

If they dont, they cant be surprised or offended when parent organize to replace them. 

The problem is the people who are running here are these people.

Thank bob none of them won, but the fact that some of these people got 40% of the vote is pretty shocking to me.

11 minutes ago, ToastJenkins said:

Strawman. Do better.

i think the solution is to make teachers accountable for relative performance and to make boards take customer feedback seriously. 

If they dont, they cant be surprised or offended when parent organize to replace them. 

I mean school boards are elected. If the "customers" don't like the job they're doing they can elect someone else. Or run themselves. 

18 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

I think it's far too simplistic to say our education system overall is "objectively poor".

School performance has mirrored income inequality in a lot of ways: the bad schools have gotten worse, and the good schools have gotten better by comparison for the most part. 

The quality of public schools in the US is wildly unequal. If you exclude just the bottom 10% of schools nationwide you get a much different picture of the quality of our education. The same cannot be said of those nations that have leapfrogged us, whose educational systems are a bit more consistent throughout (they have some unevenness to them as well to be sure, but not nearly so much as here)

Obviously the bottom 10% are part of our system for good or bad, I only say that to illustrate my point. 

Its unintelligent to manage to the poor performers. Those system push those kids out earlier thats why the appear to look better

3 minutes ago, Eaglesfandan said:

The problem is the people who are running here are these people.

Thank bob none of them won, but the fact that some of these people got 40% of the vote is pretty shocking to me.

Meh. Log could probably get 30-40% in any election. We can pull anecdotes in the extreme to paint any narrative we like.

4 minutes ago, Dave Moss said:

Do you think someone like me who has a graduate degree in history should be going into my child’s history class and telling the teacher what to do because I disagree with something they said in class?

Hell no!  I've seen what you bring to the table as a result of reading your posts for years.

4 minutes ago, DEagle7 said:

I mean school boards are elected. If the "customers" don't like the job they're doing they can elect someone else. Or run themselves. 

They did. And many won. Which offends the arrogant fools like Moss

17 minutes ago, ToastJenkins said:

They did. And many won. Which offends the arrogant fools like Moss

Right but doesn't that kinda go counter to your argument that the parents don't have enough say?  They literally elect the board. Short of them directly individualizing their kids curriculum, which isn't remotely feasible,  that's kind of the most control they can get. And way more than they get from private businesses.

19 minutes ago, ToastJenkins said:

Its unintelligent to manage to the poor performers. Those system push those kids out earlier thats why the appear to look better

You mean systems in Europe? Yeah, they track more. Which honestly I'm a proponent of. 

But that goes to the earlier point: the performance of the US educational system is much maligned, but the problems are very uneven. There are some REALLY bad schools that drag the average down a lot, and even within schools there is the issue that "every child" must be covered and so a disproportionate amount of time is spent on poor performers.

I'm not bothered by extra time to try and get low performing students some extra care, but NOT at the expense of making sure top performers are getting maximized by the system. And there is too much of sacrificing the herd and top performers for the stragglers, I don't disagree with you there.

11 minutes ago, DEagle7 said:

Right but doesn't that kinda go counter to your argument that the parents don't have enough say?  They literally elect the board. Short of them directly individualizing their kids curriculum, which isn't remotely feasible,  that's kind of the most control they can get. And way more than they get from private businesses.

Not at all. If they felt they had enough say they wouldnt have run. Now they get to taste the other side of it. Should be entertaining

24 minutes ago, ToastJenkins said:

Not at all. If they felt they had enough say they wouldnt have run. Now they get to taste the other side of it. Should be entertaining

But if they lost the race what should they do?

1 minute ago, Dave Moss said:

But if they lost the race what should they do?

Consider their agenda if they want to try again. Most i would advise to not rerun and go back to pressuring boards as a parent/customer. if enough people agree they will get support.

school board of the people, by the people right? Or should this only  be you self-appointed operatchiks?

 

2 hours ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

I think it's far too simplistic to say our education system overall is "objectively poor".

School performance has mirrored income inequality in a lot of ways: the bad schools have gotten worse, and the good schools have gotten better by comparison for the most part. 

The quality of public schools in the US is wildly unequal. If you exclude just the bottom 10% of schools nationwide you get a much different picture of the quality of our education. The same cannot be said of those nations that have leapfrogged us, whose educational systems are a bit more consistent throughout (they have some unevenness to them as well to be sure, but not nearly so much as here)

Obviously the bottom 10% are part of our system for good or bad, I only say that to illustrate my point. 

We’ve actually tried throwing money at the problem by building the best facilities and paying the best teachers the most money to try to help poor areas. It didn’t work. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1995-06-22-9506220051-story,amp.html

As it turns out, the best predictor of both school performance and income is IQ. This is irrespective of parental income, race, or basically any other factor. It turns out that these metrics of performance in education and wealth basically boil down to the simple question of how smart you are. And IQ is mostly a heritable trait.

Which begs the question of why these supposedly brilliant people in education haven’t modeled our school system around this obvious fact? And why, shockingly, the new direction we are taking is to do away with advanced courses for those kids who actually are high performers?

It’s almost as if these people who went to school for education are incompetent when it comes to educating.

6 minutes ago, TEW said:

We’ve actually tried throwing money at the problem by building the best facilities and paying the best teachers the most money to try to help poor areas. It didn’t work. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1995-06-22-9506220051-story,amp.html

As it turns out, the best predictor of both school performance and income is IQ. This is irrespective of parental income, race, or basically any other factor. It turns out that these metrics of performance in education and wealth basically boil down to the simple question of how smart you are. And IQ is mostly a heritable trait.

Which begs the question of why these supposedly brilliant people in education haven’t modeled our school system around this obvious fact? And why, shockingly, the new direction we are taking is to do away with advanced courses for those kids who actually are high performers?

It’s almost as if these people who went to school for education are incompetent when it comes to educating.

Because feelings are more important than results. We can't make morons feel bad about themselves...

I couldn't care less since I don't have kids and therefore don't care about the future once I am gone, but the reason we struggle is because we refuse to separate kids into different groups based on aptitude. Starting in middle school, or definitely high school, there should be different programs for the honors kids that are going to college and the less intelligent kids where a focus on vocational training would be more beneficial. Other countries do this. 

But of course, when more white and Asian kids end up in the honors school, and more black and Latino kids in the vocational school, we will immediately hear cries of racism. So in order to not offend anyone, we will continue to drag down all kids to the lowest common denominator.

1 minute ago, vikas83 said:

Because feelings are more important than results. We can't make morons feel bad about themselves...

I couldn't care less since I don't have kids and therefore don't care about the future once I am gone, but the reason we struggle is because we refuse to separate kids into different groups based on aptitude. Starting in middle school, or definitely high school, there should be different programs for the honors kids that are going to college and the less intelligent kids where a focus on vocational training would be more beneficial. Other countries do this. 

But of course, when more white and Asian kids end up in the honors school, and more black and Latino kids in the vocational school, we will immediately hear cries of racism. So in order to not offend anyone, we will continue to drag down all kids to the lowest common denominator.

we stopped being pragmatic , long ago, if we ever were. 

 

 

Since this was mentioned in here, and part of the School board issue in VA

 

 

5 minutes ago, Ipiggles said:

Since this was mentioned in here, and part of the School board issue in VA

 

 

investigate away.

such a f'd up story. so the skirt wearing kid had met up with the girl for consensual sexx in that same girls' bathroom stall a couple times before...but this time, the kid goes f'n nuts & violently rapes her.  then the f'n superintendent flat out lies & there's some sort of cover up because...why?...a bathroom policy? is that really why? and the kid goes on to sexually assault another poor kid a few months later. jeezus! buncha sickos! 

50 minutes ago, mr_hunt said:

investigate away.

such a f'd up story. so the skirt wearing kid had met up with the girl for consensual sexx in that same girls' bathroom stall a couple times before...but this time, the kid goes f'n nuts & violently rapes her.  then the f'n superintendent flat out lies & there's some sort of cover up because...why?...a bathroom policy? is that really why? and the kid goes on to sexually assault another poor kid a few months later. jeezus! buncha sickos! 

And then it's mother victim blamed the girl cause she's 15 and should be able to defend herself better.  It's gross as gross gets.