re: 9 reasons why public educ fails

Solid points.

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This is definitely true. If you want to know how just read up on the processes they're teaching to solve simple addition/subtraction problems. It's much more complicated with tons more steps. The answer isn't even important anymore, just the process. It's absolute shite.

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So what are they indoctrinating them to think? That i should know what i am doing?

If you learn how to use a calculator well enough you can do pretty much all math through high school without really knowing what is going on. that isn't learning math, the process is more important than the answer, because the process applies to all problems. Still if you don't get the right answer than the process isn't right.

Regardless that isn't indoctrination of some ideal. Other than it is good to know what the frick you are doing.

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Doing well in class, while a noble goal, does not = educated. We know more today, but understand less. Some students can tell you what year the constitution was written and ratified, but almost none can explain why.

Schools today crank out memorizers and regurgitators instead of thinkers. This has been a slow progression over the last 100 or so years.

If someone (or many people) receives a positive evaluation from a school, that doesn't validate the quality of instruction given by the school.

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Your points are valid though are the same throughout the history of education or matter of fact almost any learning experience. Doing well in class in my opinion is not just getting a grade but getting an education, think we believe the same thing just said it differently.

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Did you retire by choice or felt yourself getting pushed out?

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Voluntary retirement.

I was mentally and physically exhausted. I lived for the classroom experience and would go back to that in a heartbeat.

What I could not do was the planning to meet the transition to the new common core curriculum requirement. We had volumes of planning requirements and dozens of workshops to facilitate them. It was all meaningless as far as I was concerned because it was an example of form over substance.

I put every ounce of my energy into preparing for class each day - trying to present material at a level the entire class could understand and build upon, as well as challenging the more advanced students and not bewildering the students who should not really have been in an advanced math class. It was a practicably impossible task, but I loved beating my head against that wall every day.

Now comes all the planning. We had to predict what the class average on a standardized test would be when taken at the end of the year. Our evaluations as to effectiveness would be driven primarily by the accuracy of our prediction made in September. What we should have done was to give the Final Exam on the first day of class and record each students performance so that it could be compared to what they had learned at the end of the year. Trouble was that nobody told us to do that and even if they had, we didn't have a Final Exam ready to give them. == totally incompatible expectation vs resource and time.

We also had to match up the newly defined objectives to the previously defined 'grade level expectations' when both sets of curriculum description were written in awful form, both from a grammar standpoint and from a relation to real mathematics understanding standpoint.

I spent hours trying to decipher what GLE may not be entirely covered by the new objectives and how I would 'bridge the gap' between the two inane descriptions of just what the lesson should be on a particular interval. These definitions tended to be so specific as to be trivial or they tried to encapsulate an entire year's instruction into one convoluted statement across several threads of instruction. It was maddening if you tried to make sense of it all - and not one moment of that time did anything to enhance the produce presented to the students the next day. All it did was provide the bureaucrats with something to track and report to their higher ups with.

I will say that the new Common Core statements were a lot better than the prior GLE statements - those were practically unusable and I just ignored them and taught math.

I could see that my personality would not fit in well with these requirements. I do not fault the administration for any of my problems here - they were as frustrated and I was about the conflicting requirements. However, I was just too old and tired to make a decent effort. I did not want my failures to perform reflect on their performance - I didn't want to become the 'problem' that they would have to deal with when talking to the School Board bureaucrats.

And - I was physically and mentally exhausted. I was 75 years old, and had given every ounce of energy I had for the past 11 years. I have battled two separate cancers for the past four years and felt that one of them was beginning to sap my strength even more. One week after I retired I got the bad news - my lymphoma had spread to my colon and spleen and I was being put on a clinical trial.

Tomorrow is the last day of that initial trial and I am hoping for good news when they do the final evaluation four weeks from now.

Sorry for the rant - You asked and when I started typing I could not quit.

I love math - had been an aerospace engineer since 1960 - and started a photography business in 1985. Came back to my home town in 1998 and started teaching math in 2002. Loved every moment of the classroom experience and the day I left was I saw the biggest outpouring of student appreciation I could have ever imagined. Even the students who were failing were crying. I will be forever humbled by that experience.

I'm sorry you're having to deal with all of that. If anyone on here can empathize with the work demands you've gone through, it's me. You've been an awesome ambassador for public education, dispelling so many myths and falsehoods as well as educating the public about harsh truths.

If I could wish anything for you, it would be a positive prognosis and a job in a private school setting--far away from the bullshite of public education and in an environment where learning is the thing, not this dog-and-pony show called accountability.

These places exist. My wife works in one right now under the Catholic diocese.

Nothing but thoughts your way, friend.

I feel ya. I suggest you get into gardening in your retirement. It really helps me relax.

I think schools are as much for babysitting than anything. It allows mothers to work or shop or get drunk in the afternoons.

All kids need, to become educated, are good books and time. Anyone can educate themselves and, in turn, their children exponentially better and faster at home than the government can in a public school setting.

Education is not filling a bucket, it's lighting a fire.

My nine year old reads for hours each day in his free time. He also plays outdoors for hours, climbing trees, hunting and exploring. Because he is not forced to sit in a chair for 8+ hours a day (his school can be completed in 2-3 hours), he can blow off steam and read while relaxing. We don't have a TV and the kids don't play on the internet.

My wife has acquired quite a library of entertaining books, many of which are very old, all of which allow the kids to learn while being entertained.

Once a child develops a love of reading, all you have to do is keep him supplied with good books and the education takes care of itself.

Most of the greatest minds in history were self-taught.

"I am sorry how does teaching different techniques in math allow for . . . ?"

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Expanding the conversation to Social Sciences for example, CC's focus on method rather than correct answer invites local incorporation of fringe partisan teaching materials under auspices of varying perspective.

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CC's focus on method rather than correct answer invites local incorporation of fringe partisan teaching materials under auspices of varying perspective.

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One of these things is not like the other. Can you see that?

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One of these things is not like the other. Can you see that?

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If you care more about your kid getting their politics form the 6th grade social studies teacher, then you are missing the point of whats really wrong with our schools. We are falling behind in Maths and Sciences.

also i don't get how there is an alternative method in social studies.

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If you care more about your kid getting their politics form the 6th grade social studies teacher, then you are missing the point of whats really wrong with our schools.

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I care about results. PERIOD!
I far less about method.

Common Core offers no particular advantages toward that end, at least as far as I can see. It requires a lot more work in preparation from a teaching end. CC standards do seem higher. The methods of attaining those results are as elusive as ever though.

There are far more productive alternatives.

Opening up access and choice via vouchers would be one.

Another is intellectually leveling classes. Grouping kids across the IQ spectrum into the same classroom under the same educational umbrella is extraordinarily inefficient. Less capable kids hold the most capable back. The more capable kids push classroom tasks up to a level impossible for the lower capacity kids to meet.

The result?
Mediocrity.

We pay more and get less for the dollar in our primary and secondary public education system than any other society in history.

We can do far better.
CC is shifting the chairs on a sinking shipdeck.