Talk:Education in the United States/Archive 2010

Home schooling

In addition to the recorded doubts raised by home schooling parents, these need a valid reference and inclusion:

• The assembly line method of public education which is often forced to teach to the "lowest common denominator". This is alluded to but not spelled out
• Children pick up "bad attitudes" from their peers. This is not a automatic result of adolescence as is assumed. Other cultures don't have the teen problems that western nations do. Nearly all home schoolers of any age relate well to adults, and are prepared to interact positively with them.
• Exposure to drugs, alcohol and smoking. This may be in there. This is better enforced at some schools than in others but no school can keep them out entirely.
• Not so much lack of "religious" training, per se, but failure to include moral (or character) training of any sort. Where are today's equivalent of McGuffey Readers? Schools are essentially amoral. No judgment training or character formation whatsoever.
• Reflected in public teachers annoyance with private schools is the necessity in public schools to keep disruptive children in the classroom sometimes making it nearly impossible to teach. Home schoolers avoid these disruptors as well.
• "Teaching by television". Most public schools feel forced to assign children to report on television programs or even watch it in class. Most home schooling parents try to dissuade their children from television influence which they find to be amoral at best, immoral at worst.

Some scholar must have documented these somewhere. Student7 (talk) 19:33, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with your points, but I do have to opine concerning ethics. As a home-schooled individual, I do not believe it's the school's place to teach ethics or moral fiber-- unless that was a pre-determined desire by the parents, which would make better sense sending them to private schools where character development is part of the curriculum. However, I personally believe that's passing the buck, as parents should be in charge of teaching values and character to their children, regardless of their education decisions. As for the public teachers' annoyance with private education and their instructors; I believe their arguments are rather silly, and is more of an attack on liberty and the parents' right to decide how their children will be educated than any feigned concern for their quality of education received (note in the article how fear was used as the response toward private or home-school educations-- the definition of xenophobia). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.105.184.93 (talk) 02:04, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Montessori Schools

Possible incorrect header on this particular title, but within the article, changed to read that the US school system "includes over 5,000" schools, as opposed to "leads the world with over" - as it seemed more neutral.86.26.132.255 (talk) 18:16, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

The American education system blows, both at the lower and higher levels. There are a number of issues that need to be addressed, including the lack of fluid skills required to pass courses and do well on standardized tests. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.1.114.97 (talk) 21:20, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm just removing the offending sentence about Montessori schools. Somone who cares can put it in in an appropriate place, but it doesn't belong in the "Statistics" section or that particular paragraph. Removed: " The United States school system includes over 5,000 Montessori schools." --99.96.100.176 (talk) 18:17, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Textbooks`

I noticed the addition (move from Textbook) of the list of publishers. I didn't believe it should have gone in with Colleges/Universities in this article.

I thought perhaps a section on curriculum controversies would be in order. It's just a first draft. IF the list of publishers is appropriate, it should go here (or at the end of the article?).. just my thoughts.. Wikipelli ^Talk 17:54, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Testing

It just struck me on testing - most schools, even at the secondary level give a "final" exam once. If the taker fails it, s/he does not normally retake the exam, but repeats the course! This is not true in some former (and maybe current) Communist countries. They have "invested" money in you and, through sheer planning genius, know that you "should" graduate. Therefore, you will take the "final" exam up to maybe three times before declaring that you have failed the course. Normally no one fails in college there. Ever. Would need a reference for something that Westerners all take for granted! Student7 (talk) 19:27, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I think there needs to be a section on Assessment in the article. Student7 raises a point about testing but I don't think I agree about the current process for passing/failing courses. Many teachers are moving to alternative assessments which reduce or eliminate the reliance on a 'final' exam. Should be on the 'to-do' list! Wikipelli ^Talk 19:56, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Obesity Statistic

I noticed the move of the obesity statistic this morning from special ed to elementary and secondary education section. I agree with the editor(s) that noted that it's not a special ed concern and applies to all students. But I've been wondering... why have the stat at all? Though health concerns DO impact a child's education, that's not pointed out along with the statistic. In short, I wonder why the stat is included at all. Might just as well have a statistic that says x% have red hair. Just wondering out loud. :) Wikipelli ^Talk 15:03, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

You've got a point. The statistic was compiled by school nurses and reported in their professional journal. So if it goes anywhere, it would go here. Otherwise an "orphan" fact. So if we can agree that these school nurses are a reliable source and they have construed this statistic reliably, then presumably they think it affects health. As editor, I cannot go further than the report itself. I don't know what was in their mind when they collected and printed this. In other words, if health can be a school issue, then obesity can be as well.

On the "x% of students have red hair", I guess it would need to be "construed" that this somehow affects scholarship or studying or something. It would also be dependent on who collected it. I mean, why would they pick schools? (That's where the kids are, I know. But the above case is different). Student7 (talk) 14:56, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I still think there should be some context developed for the statistic. Either health concern effecting learning (which doesn't strike me as a part of a general Education in the US topic) or, possibly, in a section on physical education, which does.Wikipelli ^Talk 16:50, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Done, though students may well have a more profound problem with learning/education which involves self-image. Food obsession as an emotional issue (loneliness, eg). I'm not sure for minors whether these sort out conveniently in the US. Everything is lumped together including ADHD kids, "mainstreamed" kids. This not only effects learning for the victim, but other children as well. This was not given in the ref, so "health" it is. Student7 (talk) 23:24, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Division of Grades

I wouldn't really know how to work it in, but it seems to me that the division information (and especially this image) is inaccurate. Where I'm from (Santa Rosa, CA), "elementary school" is (Kindergarten or) 1st Grade-6th Grade, "junior high" is 7th-8th, and "High School" is 9th-12th. While this may be rare elsewhere in the U.S., I feel it ought to be included, if someone can find sources for it. 68.126.149.168 (talk) 18:28, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

The only time you will find that grades under the 9th are included in "Junior High" is when the building was constructed to include that grade but it was later dropped because of space requirements. However, the "carving" on the outside of the building makes it desirable to continue the name. Or undesirable to change it. There is no reason to call a school a "junior high" if it does or did not include at least one grade from high school at one time. That is probably worldwide BTW. Student7 (talk) 19:10, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Very late reply here, but I'm not quite sure what you're saying. (By the way, same user here, but a different IP address.) The term "Junior High" isn't actually what I was referring to—around here, the terms "Junior High" and "Middle School" are pretty much interchangeable, although the former is the official term at most schools. What I'm saying is that the chart seems to suggest that sixth grade is part of middle school, unless there is a combined junior/senior high school. I've also heard that some of the middle schools around here used to include ninth grade a few decades ago, but that doesn't really have any bearing on what I'm referring to.

Main Point: For all of the districts in Santa Rosa, sixth grade is a part of elementary school; seventh and eighth are the -only- middle school grades, and high school is always ninth through twelfth. I'm quite sure that this is true for other areas of the U.S., but this article seems to suggest otherwise. (Also note that I'm excluding charter schools, which, here at least, are elementary schools [through sixth grade] with additional, separate classrooms and such for a small amount of seventh- and eighth-graders.)

I realize that this issue is of very little importance, but I thought I should clarify what I meant, in case it helps the article in any way.

69.105.224.31 (talk) 20:18, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

1) Junior High is never "interchangeable" anyplace to Middle School. See above.

2) The text says, "Elementary school includes kindergarten through fifth grade (or sometimes, to fourth grade, sixth grade". That is, the text is deliberately vague on the termination of elementary because schools do change throughout the country and within the same school district sometimes. How would you word it? Student7 (talk) 22:16, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

I understand what's troubling our anonymous visitor. The diagram shows elementary schools that terminate in 6th grade as feeding directly to combined junior-senior high schools, which is NOT the pattern in California (and keep in mind we are talking about the most populous state with a tenth of the U.S. population). Virtually all California elementary schools that terminate in 6th grade feed into a "intermediate school" or "junior high" teaching only the 7th and 8th grades, which in turn feed into a high school teaching the 9th through 12th grades. These junior and senior high schools are NOT combined and indeed are sometimes organized as part of separate school districts with totally different boundaries, with the result that a "class" of students who may have progressed together through grades K through 8 is often broken up among several high schools upon entering 9th grade. So the diagram should be modified to extend the Senior/Junior high school column in the middle so that it lumps over the column representing elementary schools that terminate in 6th grade, but with the end of the junior high block a bit narrower and the senior high block a bit wider to reflect the California pattern of Junior: 7/8 and Senior: 9/10/11/12. --Coolcaesar (talk) 02:13, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Maybe the diagram could be "vague" on promotion to jr high? Say "grade 5-6" rather than just 5? Coolcaesar may have the better idea, but couldn't quite follow it. Probably looks better than it sounds!  :) Student7 (talk) 14:39, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Grammar Corrections

Grammar was corrected in the Elementary and Secondary Education section. Kmetherd (talk) 01:19, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Small Edits in College/University Section -- Bigger Concerns

Hi, I just made a couple of small edits in the college and university section to improve clarity. If I had more time, I would go through and change quite a bit of it. This section has the perspective that American higher education is about four-year institutions (public or non-profit). For a lot of people, this is simply not true: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/tables/dt09_187.asp?referrer=report In the fall of 2007, enrollment for four-year U.S. institutions was 11,630,585, while enrollment for two-year U.S. institutions was 6,740,618. It is also not true that all students at two-year institutions plan to transfer to four-year colleges. I don't have time to search for more recent data, but here's an old table from NCES on this subject: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/tables/dt09_332.asp. Lbellows (talk) 00:54, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Problem with "8.3 Criticsm"

This sentence, "The same professor reports that the more money that a state spends on higher education, the slower the economy grows, the opposite of long held notions" in section 8.3 ("Criticism"), seems to be undermining the preceding sentence about "credential inflation" for no apparent reason. It's not a random, interesting fact - it's a deliberate attempt to undermine the previous point. I strongly recommend the removal of this sentence.

Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.134.48.195 (talk) 17:49, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, they could be placed in separate paragraphs, I suppose.

The professor was generally critical of higher education. He appears to be saying that 1) public schools are admitting (forced to admit) less than qualified applicants due to grade inflation, 2) they are therefore graduating too many applicants for too few jobs. And 3) spending money on higher education is, in his opinion, hurtful, and does not help, the economy. Public schools generally charge about 20% of actual costs, more in smaller states, and are therefore subsidized 80%, on average, of total costs, out of taxes. He sees no correlation between increased spending on higher eduction and improvement in the local economy.

Which of these points is conflicting? Student7 (talk) 00:57, 20 December 2010 (UTC)