Abolish The United States Dept of Education
A month ago at a Wall Street Journal conference I asked Senator John McCain if elected president would he abolish the US Department of Education?
He responded with mumbo jumbo about "no not really.....the No Child Left Behind program is producing better test results etc.
Yet the overwhelming tenor of the comments to my "Boiling the Frog" entry suggests the US system of education is broken, out of touch with reality and is really operating to the tune of "No Child Left Alive" as it focuses on bringing up bottom performers rather than focus evenly on all kids...including talented and gifted ones.
I couldn't help but think of the decline of the Roman empire as I read some of the posts. Our education system is built on a model of "utter lack of emphasis on discipline.....too many resources (students routinely pull out calculators to substract 5 from 8).....and our system has built in an enthusiasm for irreverance exhibiting no morals for kids to imbide and no connection with any person except one related to money"
Speaking of money, another wrote that while he/she was "sitting on the sidelines" in response to my call to get involved in teaching science and math in America, why should he/she "give up my six figure salary to teach at the local high school for $42,000? It doesn't take much math skill to see which direction to take."
This same poster lambasted the "stupid" rules "about having to have a degree in secondary education" to teach science or math. Not exactly a logical flow here.....no degree but give me a hundred k please? Dah!
One response came from a project manager who, hooray, does subbing in AP Physics and Calculus.
But that's where the upside ends.
This person, too, is downstruck with the state of affairs in science/math education, and the overall field of engineering in general.
His/her front line observation on science/math educators is chilling: "new teachers were high school and collegiate bottom performers.....old teachers are burnt out and killing their time to retirement.....administrators do anything to keep their jobs - including sacrificing teachers"
Hmm, not exactly a prescription for success.
Hence to the dismantle the US Department of Education thought.
As we know in IT, bad governance and management upsets the entire applecart.
So too in how we teach science/math in
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He responded with mumbo jumbo about "no not really.....the No Child Left Behind program is producing better test results etc.
Yet the overwhelming tenor of the comments to my "Boiling the Frog" entry suggests the US system of education is broken, out of touch with reality and is really operating to the tune of "No Child Left Alive" as it focuses on bringing up bottom performers rather than focus evenly on all kids...including talented and gifted ones.
I couldn't help but think of the decline of the Roman empire as I read some of the posts. Our education system is built on a model of "utter lack of emphasis on discipline.....too many resources (students routinely pull out calculators to substract 5 from 8).....and our system has built in an enthusiasm for irreverance exhibiting no morals for kids to imbide and no connection with any person except one related to money"
Speaking of money, another wrote that while he/she was "sitting on the sidelines" in response to my call to get involved in teaching science and math in America, why should he/she "give up my six figure salary to teach at the local high school for $42,000? It doesn't take much math skill to see which direction to take."
This same poster lambasted the "stupid" rules "about having to have a degree in secondary education" to teach science or math. Not exactly a logical flow here.....no degree but give me a hundred k please? Dah!
One response came from a project manager who, hooray, does subbing in AP Physics and Calculus.
But that's where the upside ends.
This person, too, is downstruck with the state of affairs in science/math education, and the overall field of engineering in general.
His/her front line observation on science/math educators is chilling: "new teachers were high school and collegiate bottom performers.....old teachers are burnt out and killing their time to retirement.....administrators do anything to keep their jobs - including sacrificing teachers"
Hmm, not exactly a prescription for success.
Hence to the dismantle the US Department of Education thought.
As we know in IT, bad governance and management upsets the entire applecart.
So too in how we teach science/math in
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