Agree or disagree? Why? Why not?

We are losing the children long before high school

As the Mother of 3 very different children I can tell you the current education system "leave no child behind" is in my opinion leaving many children behind and worse not letting any children exceed.

Back when my now 35 y/o was in school they were just trying to understand special education and gifted education. Because of us moving and then regional High School she was in 4 different school systems all in NJ. The 1st school system was open to change and was willing to try to serve my daughter in what ever way was best for her. She was thriving, then I had to move. The next school system was very big, set in it's ways and could not figure my daughter out, life and school became very difficult for her. She was behind and unhappy when we moved again. Luckily the next school system was very small and very flexible and openminded. My dd is very unusual in that her learning dissability is spacial which effect math and such, but she is gifted in reading and writing. This school figured that out and put her in an enclosed classroom for math & science, mau=instreamed her for Social Studies & specials(art, chorus,home ec) and put her in a Gifted & Talented class for Language Arts. This was just what my DD needed and she thrived in middle school and won a presidential award for her 4 year(5th-8th) improvement. The high school was not nearly as enlightened and she barely graduated went on to CC and dropped out in no time. I am trying to talk her into trying CLEP's now.

Flash forward a few years and I have 2 sons in the great school system. One has multiple learning disabilities and needs MUCH help. They do try lots of things and he had some great teachers. I am still not sure where we failed him, but he is in his 20's and he has never reached anywhere near his potential. At some point he just shut down on learning. My other son was brilliant he learned all kinds of things early, he was precocious, but a really good kid. He loved to learn and he learned everything fast. School failed him because there was no system set up to keep school interesting. He became bored to cope with the boredom he became distracted. He always learned, but never cared about grades or homework. He would get A's or at least B's on all tst, but fail a class or get a D because of not doing homework. We would punish him, rreward him, anything to try to engage him. Nothing worked except for his 4th grade teacher he loved her and still does. (That was also the year we bribed him with a computer) He got straight A's most of the year a couple of B's and one C. we were very happy and thought maybe he was turned around. 5th grade he had the same teacher he had had for 3rd grade and his grades went back to D's. I sometimes am surprised we got him through high school. We didn't let him drive for over a year, we took away everything, nothing phased him. He is also in his 20's dropped out of CC and just drifting.

What I am trying to say in this very long post is we need to stop trying to make school perfect for the "Average" student no student is totally average. We need to make sure we don't bore and lose the bright students, and we need to help the learning disabled students not feel stupid or hopeless.
One size fits all education serves no one well.

 

I have to disagree there is not a big problem in most global surveys I've seen of the top 50 nations roughly 25% of the planet we rank usually in the middle say 25 more or less. That makes us average among the top quarter of nations that is not bad we are generally over Italy and Spain for example in literacy, mathematics, science, history and the like in most cases.

I would say its a matter of perspective and what is expected and those may be unduly high not everyone can or should go to college for a bachelors degree. I would think if we took our best students in the best public schools and paired them against most of these groups we would be near the top. But I would argue what does it matter if one is going to go into a skilled trade or into the workplace out of High School. I think the main problem is we are educating too many students for college and it would better to educate say half our students in vocational areas in High School so they be employed right away or trainable on-the-job or both. Educate some of the rest in a vocational area and some college prep for say a community college or trade school after secondary school. And focus the pre-college education on our best students say the top 20%. But every young person should leave High School with some sort of practical skill. I just the other day met a High School graduate in a fast food restaurant that couldn't make chance of keep track of orders when it wasn't even busy is this what we call getting a young person employed maybe they should have offered eight semesters of cashiering, fast food service and basic cookery so they could do that job or start out with a better one.

Thinking this way we should look to see how many of our High School students are ready to be employed in society productively and there I can see we need a great deal of work.

 

I have no issue with education after High School I earned a trade based accounting degree that is fully accredited and kept my skills up, even added some added work. I have a certificate in management for example. But if I recall 50% of students drop out the first year in college and another 50% quit without a bachelors that is a good deal of students dropping out with debt. And very little in the way of job prospects.

For reference my father in the late 40's left High School a fully entry level trained bookkeeper, training in office work and related areas and had a decent general education. My mother left High School ready to work in retail with several related classes. Several of his friends left trained in agricultural and farming sciences, pre-apprenticeship in trades and other areas and could get a job. While getting some education in other areas the school felt was important.

So what is so wrong with that if you educate a young person to do skilled trades in a general way and set-up to go into a trade school after or enter an apprenticeship I would think that would be a good thing. And if they can leave school employable that would even be better. I will note this would benefit low income students who might find further education prohibitive unless they work at the same time.

If you ever saw the movie ACCEPTED its not far from the truth parents either think a child will go to college or be a loser. That is sad but true. Not to mention the school they created was kind of neat.

 

..in Austria/Germany, you're 'done' school after grade 9 - in grade 9 the pupil makes the choice to either go on to higher ed after grade 9 (Gymnasium, which essentially, they go until they complete grade 12, and then off to uni) or they chose a trade and become apprentices. Around the age of 15, most know whether they want to work or continue schooling.

This works well.. they continue to go to trade-school and learn what is important to know with that trade... for example, if you want to be a tile setter, you'll learn the math needed to calculate what you require for materials, etc. After two years in the vocational school they become journeymen... working as skilled tradespeople by the time they're 18.

Learn the skills you need for the job you want to do - this would 1) generate more skilled workers 2) get people working in a field they want to be in 3) have more people put money into the system... win/win/win.