Cooking the Books -- Public School Style...

[bhunter]

Originally Posted by CarlV

Maybe we should cut some more tax money from public education and give more tax cuts to corporations, that fixes everything.
And maybe hand out vouchers so the rich can take the edge off their private school tuitions because our public schools can't possibly need the money.



Carl

Here are some numbers. Why are we not seeing better results given that expenditures per pupil have tripled since the early 1960s in terms of constant dollars? Why do our students post such dismal scores on standardized tests compared to other countries? Immigrant Asian children do rather well on these tests even with language, culture, and economic handicaps vis-a-vis other minorities and even Caucasians.

http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66

The system has changed from teaching children how to think to teaching children what to think. Where the ideal is to engender curiosity and a yearning for knowledge, our system attempts the exact opposite.

[noonereal]

Originally Posted by bhunter

Here are some numbers. Why are we not seeing better results given that expenditures per pupil have tripled since the early 1960s in terms of constant dollars? Why do our students post such dismal scores on standardized tests compared to other countries? Immigrant Asian children do rather well on these tests even with language, culture, and economic handicaps vis-a-vis other minorities and even Caucasians.

http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66

The system has changed from teaching children how to think to teaching children what to think. Where the ideal is to engender curiosity and a yearning for knowledge, our system attempts the exact opposite.

I think our problems with education are more about social direction than how or what our teachers teach.

Sure giving tenure to teachers is a very big problem and also the pay and benefits are now insane.


"The system has changed from teaching children how to think to teaching children what to think. Where the ideal is to engender curiosity and a yearning for knowledge, our system attempts the exact opposite"

This is not my experience at all. I find that teachers today are much much better than teachers in the 60's. Can you offer more insight for the opinion?