Forums → WEPR → Public Schools

Well... that's a problem.

Theology is more than just Catholicism.

It's better for people to not always hear things skewed in the way they're already brainwashed into believing.

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear AT ALL with the whole jewish thing. He's teaching my religion class....

Why? Don't regurgitate the stuff you saw in the video.

What dangers? Like I said, I'm not going to watch the video, so I want you to explain to me in your own words how public and private schools could be considered dangerous.

How so? I think people should be in charge of their own children, in stead of sending them into the state's hands.

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear AT ALL with the whole jewish thing. He's teaching my religion class....

You make a perfectly good point. Why teach a child what the chemical makeup of salt is, when they wanna go into the army, or do absolutely anything aside from science?

Social opportunities? you mean bullying and being yelled at by teachers?

A child can get socialization through sports, and other extracurricular activities.

It's not focused on teaching students the material, but on getting them to remember it long enough to pass their tests and imparting test taking strategies.

Alright I sat down and watched the video. I generally don't like to talk about a broad topic off the basis of a single video because it feels restraining, but I'd rather not continue posting here if I'm going to get nonsensical responses "like so freakin typical" when I gave a perfectly rational reason for not watching.

Something I can personally back up. Especially for math. I hate not knowing why we use a certain formula or why it works. I hated my high school math, because they would teach the formula, when to use it, and then move on.

As I've stated, it is destructive towards our creative side of our mind.

at first i agreed then i thought for a sec and i think its actually better for teachers of one religion to teach another one. you might be catholic so you wont get what im saying but if you had a catholic teacher he would teach that class as facts. while an atheist or any other religious person would probably teach it in an objective logical way. that will often give you more understanding on the subject and will not combine your personal opinions and feelings into it.

How far did you get? Trigonometry?

This is related, I actually wrote an essay about something like this not too long ago

Why is Americaâs Education Failing?

The United States is often referred to as the best country in the world in many areas. It may be, but far from it in education. Out of a total of thirty-four countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, it ranks just fourteenth in reading, seventeenth in science and twenty-fifth in math (Walker). Despite America's status as a country, America's education is failing because of the large emphasis on standardized education, and the flaws of the students, parents, and teachers. How to fix the education system remains to be a problem.
Impoverished children are partially at fault for the failing education system in America. Poor children are ranked well below the national average among the group of fifteen year olds tested in the PISA, or the Program for International Student Assessment. Schools with less than ten percent of students on free or reduced lunch, had scores at an average of 551. Schools with more than seventy-five percent scored just 446 on average, well below the American average of 500. Results were consistent to show that low-income levels led to lower scores (Riddle). âChildren raised in low-income families are at risk for academic and social problems as well as poor health and well-being, which can in turn undermine educational achievementâ (Engle and Black, 2). Students who do not speak English also fall under a similar category of poor children. A lack of understanding in the primary language spoken in the United States will prevent a child from fully understanding the topics taught in school. Children who do not predominantly speak English are usually less affluent than those who do. The statistics are clear to show that underprivileged students are more likely to score lower.
Long lectures are a nightmare for any student. They are long, boring, and little knowledge is gained. They are an ineffective way to educate students. Students only spend ten to eighteen minutes of peak focus before zoning out. The remainder of class is wasted, with a childâs mind wandering somewhere else. A study conducted by two Indiana University professors in 1985 put students through a twenty minute presentation, and would have to recall the facts at the end. Logically, most people would believe that they would remember the most recent information the best. However, students remembered the beginning of the presentation the greatest. They also noted that most students lost attention by fifteen minutes anyhow (Khan). Based on this study, a student could be lectured for one hour, but only actively present for about a quarter of it.
Parents have a very large impact on a childâs education, which leads people to blame the parents for an inadequate education system. The MetLife Study of an American Teacher says, âParents report that schools with high parent engagement perform better on a range of measuresâ (6). It can pressure a student to do well and meet parent expectations. Unfortunately, parent involvement has declined. The same study concludes:
There are significant declines in the percentages of teachers and parents reporting that most or many parents take too little interest in their childrenâs education, fail to motivate their children, or leave their children alone too much after school (6).
Without parents emphasizing education, a student is less likely to excel in his studies. It can lead to students who do not greatly concern themselves in their education. The outcome will most likely lead to lower grades.
An effective teacher can make all the difference for a pupil. The teacher can be the reason for the success or the failure of his students. If a poor teacher was replaced with an average teacher, a single classroomâs lifetime earnings would be raised by an estimated 266,000 dollars (Birch). Professor Friedman says, âIf you leave a low value-added teacher in your school for 10 years, rather than replacing him with an average teacher, you are hypothetically talking about $2.5 million in lost income.â Schools need good teachers, but firing unqualified teachers has proved to be a difficult task.
Too many teachers lack the ability to educate their students, and prepare them for the future, and too few of these ineffective teachers are losing their jobs. Firing an incompetent teacher requires getting the union, the school board, the principal, and the judicial system involved, followed by thousands of dollars in legal fees. It is seldom that a teacher is ever fired. One California school spent eight thousand dollars to fire one teacher protected by tenure (Stephey). The trouble that schools must go through to fire an inept teacher deters schools from firing the teacher. The teacher will keep his job, and continue to poorly educate students and prepare them for the future.
In 2002, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB ) act was passed, a government program that required states to regularly give out state-run tests. Children are put through many of these each year. After the law was passed, the United States fell from eighteenth to thirty-first place in the math section of the PISA (CON Standardized Tests). The No Child Left Behind act created a system of teaching to the test. Much time is taken out to do the tests and prepare for them. Forty-four percent of schools have an average of 145 minutes a week taken out of class to prepare for standardized tests (âStandardized Exams Encourage Educational Equalityâ).
Another result from teaching to the test caused a decline of creative thinking. A 2007, five year University of Maryland study found:
â¦.the pressure teachers were feeling to 'teach to the test' since NCLB was leading to declines in teaching higher-order thinking, in the amount of time spent on complex assignments, and in the actual amount of high cognitive content in the curriculum (CON Standardized Tests).
Standardized tests reduce the ability to complete more complicated coursework, and students can only complete basic problems. It creates a right and a wrong system, where studentsâ creative thinking is abridged, and creating multiple solutions to a problem is difficult (Meador). The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking has fallen since 1990. Researcher Kyung-Hee Kim from the College of William & Mary faults it partly on the growth in standardized testing. He says, "If we neglect creative students in school because of the structure and the testing movement... then they become underachieversâ (CON Standardized Tests). Underachievers will not reach their full potential and their grades will not be as high as possible.
Standardized education continues to hold America back, but the students, parents, and teachers are at most responsible for the failing education system. Standardized education limits a childâs potential and ability, while attempting to bring everyone to the same level. The amount improvement is trivial, but the government continues to spend more on it. Students need to put more effort into their studies, but certain factors like economic can affect their performance. Parent involvement is critical to a studentâs success but is missing in many families. Inadequate teachers can limit a child in that particular subject, and hurt him in the future. In the future, changes will have to be made, or America may fall behind in other fields than education.

I have cousins who have extremely religious parents and they're homeschooled. Frankly, when I come over and visit them, it does seem like they're brainwashed. They don't watch television, they don't play video games, they don't have computers, phones, or any other types of electronic devices. They spend their days cleaning, reading the Bible, and going for long bike rides. That's all fine and dandy, really, because they seem happy. The main issue is that I don't know how they're going to function in the real world. They can't completely isolate themselves without some exposure to society, and when that happens they're going to be shocked. Where are they going to work? To live? Are they going to become priests? Can they become priests?

The only problem I have with home schooling is it limits the amount of interaction with other people. Yes they can participate in town sports and meet plenty of people in other social places but I feel they are limited in their ability to work with other people. I feel like their social interaction level is much lower than that of publicly schooled kids.

Very true, some homeschooler parents don't prepare the children for a successful future.

Britain's education is going down the tubes too. Just type "Michael Gove" into Google to get an idea of the idiocy students and teachers have to deal with.

Everybody forgot to mention that drugs and alcohol are also a huge factor.
Peer pressure makes it harder for teens to not use drugs or drink.
Many of them are already alcoholic and drug addict by the time they reach 15 yo.

Everybody forgot to mention that drugs and alcohol are also a huge factor.
Peer pressure makes it harder for teens to not use drugs or drink.
Many of them are already alcoholic and drug addict by the time they reach 15 yo.