9 reasons why public educ fails

It depends almost entirely on where you go to public school.

I went to school in an affluent district, had excellent teachers and coaches, good community support and most importantly an excellent AP program. I got a lot out of public school.

If you go to school in an urban district or a very rural one, odds are your experience was quite different.

My issue with the video is mostly its point about "indoctrination". In the context of public school discussion (at least in the south) the idea of indoctrination covers two concepts: Liberal social ideology and evolution. This is what parents who make this complaint are always implying.

Now, the former is certainly true in some schools but is largely teacher dependent. The latter is simply something people will have to get over or go the homeschool route. The fact is though that I never experienced some liberal ideological indoctrination in school, and such a thing is far more prevalent in college than grade school. Plenty of students experience no liberal indoctrination until they reach college in fact. Most conservative/liberal flips happen after high school.

I will say they need to up the difficulty level. I was always in all-AP classes and literally never cracked a book once I left school until the night before a test and never had trouble getting As. Class averages on our college level calculus tests were always around 90, for example.

I watched it. This link has nothing to do with the discussion.

Easy answer in 1 word-Parents

Students whose parents care about their kids education, have get this, students who do well in class. The more parents that are involved in the education of their children the better they do. BTW, I actually mean education, not pissed off parents crawling the school looking to "protect Johnny" from everything not stop "liberal indoctrination".

some of the claims are valid ... they're reasoning isn't, but that's to be expected from people educated in public schools ... ...

There's nothing wrong with public schools except in states who fail to resource them properly.

Public education in Nebraska is outstanding.

I have a theory, that the liberation of women has been a prime factor in the failure of public schools.

Once upon a time the most intelligent and competent women became school teachers, it was the hight of success for an intelligent women. Now ambitious intelligent women become doctors, lawyers, business leaders etc etc. It was the way our society was ordered.

The gene pool of teachers has now decreased.

Now before all you wackos get all crazy, I'm sure there are exceptions, but I'm speaking about the macro level.

Also not saying the factors listed are not correct, or other factors have not played a role.

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I also want to know how we are indoctrinating our kids to be worse at math

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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.

I don't agree with much of the video's points. A few of the points I have no opinion on.

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1. Bad Reading Methods

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I have no opinion or experience in this area, however, I recently read an article that argues the opposite of this point. The argument's premise is that teaching phonetics sets children up for failure because English letters often deviate from their expected sounds (i.e. "jumped" and "jumpt") why some kids can't spell and why spelling tests won't help

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2. Insane Math Instruction

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From experience working with my own child, I agree that all of these reformist-type math approaches (like Saxon math, et al) are for shite. Everything my child was learning in school (to disastrous results), my wife had to spend time undoing with traditional math at home. He immediately understood the traditional approach and, if it weren't for that, he would've failed math many times over.

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3. Content for Knowledge

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Probably one of my biggest disagreements. In the Internet Age, knowledge is cheap. When a Google search is just a second away from most students' smartphones, knowing basic facts isn't as important (except for cultural literacy, perhaps) as skills-based learning (utilizing those facts). Students and parents have a right to know why things need to be learned. If an educator can't adequately answer that question, then the relevancy of learning that objective should be reconsidered.

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4. Inefficient Teaching Methods

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Having students learn by doing is absolutely enlightened teaching. That doesn't mean a teacher doesn't provide direct instruction, but the majority of learning takes place when students are actively implemented knowledge and skills. Not sure I understand what the counter-argument would be: A teacher lecturing/directly instructing for the majority of class time?

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5. Busy Work is the Norm

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Disagree again. Cooperative learning teaches students how to work together--a common complaint among parents. I think a classroom should resemble a workshop in many ways. I would much rather students demonstrating knowledge and skills on real world projects than practicing how to take some standardized paper-and-pencil test.

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6. Contempt for Accuracy and Precision

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The video is all over the place here. I think there should be some room for students to deal with interpretation and ambiguity. Rarely are things black or white in this world. However, I see nothing wrong with a definite answer, either. As for cursive, I don't support its removal from the curriculum, but I'm not sure that a lack of penmanship will be detrimental to future generations.

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7. Obsession With Political Correctness and Social Engineering

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As the video stated, this has always been a practice of public schools. It wasn't as much of a deal when America represented a more unified society. Now the problem is schools are indoctrinating students with too many of the wrong messages. As a result, I agree that schools should now refrain from this. Unfortunately, the lack of parenting is a huge impediment to this.

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8. Parents Are Unable to Influence the Schools

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I agree with this point. But the local and state education departments have performed so poorly in recent history that it's hard to argue with the push to nationalize schools.

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9. Poor Preparation of Teachers

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I agree with this point but for different reasons. The education field no longer attracts (or retains) the best and brightest and, as a result, has dumbed down requirements for entry.

-Low expectations
-Lack of discipline
-Liberals
-Poor parenting ("my kid would never ______, or lie about it")

-dishonesty