Spend less on the students that don't need it. Seriously, do you know how much more is spent on a Special Ed student than a gifted/IB/early grad/whatever student? I don't have a quotable statistic handy, but, at least in 2006 when the article I have in mind was written, it's pretty astounding. I mean, not to say that they don't deserve anything, either, but they're not going to be the ones that really matter in the world. Aside from the extremely rare rags-to-riches special-ed-student-is-a-genius stories, advanced students are the ones that really matter, and they get shafted because parents of special ed students are louder and schools don't want to appear that they don't give a fair chance or something. Personally, I hate that schools are compelled to have classes with borderline-special-ed students mixed in with regular ones. I can't count tHe amount of times I've felt so frustrated in my Biology class because we had to stop to repeat a simple concept ten times because three students, two of which have no intention of passing anyway, don't get it.

To be honest SX, the frustrated moments you are talking about rarely happened to me with Special Ed students, maybe about a quarter of the time. Usually the rest of class attempted to help instead of snorting in frustration at "The Retard". We had around a dozen or so in my class of around 120, I knew about half that I talked to sometimes, didn't even realize they WERE special ed till highschool, lol.

In fact, most of the "ARGH" moments in my classes were athletes or pothe-"artists". You know the kind, they just wanna blow through it and pass so they live with mom and work and a McJob. Don't care about learning or improving themselves.

Here in hickville the local school's lost their Special Education funding for misuse (READ: They put kids in based on skin color or family renown) of funds. I remember my cousin telling me they tried to put Corky in the "retard class" because of a "reading disability". This is a kid that blew through the 8th Potter book in 2 days and will quote stuff randomly from things he's read. Only LD he has is on his cell phone.

~Tobe

I'm pretty sure there are only seven harry potter books. Your newphew must be very good if he can read books that don't exist. I think we can just all agree that the problem is that the schools don't get any punishment for failure, only more rewards(funding). Luckily social darwisim should seperate all failure students from the successfully ones.

Sorry, at the time I was on the phone with him and he was all flipping around about the possible 8th book. Some kinda encyclopedia for the series and an epilogue/testimony to James Potter's death. The way he was talking it was already out and he read it, he's kinda a braggert. I called him on it and he caved to, "I said I COULD read that in two days."

However the 7th he read in, I'll quote his mom here, "26 hours on the nose, then he decided he needed to sleep, bathe, and eat again."

Anyway, that wasn't the point of my post elevatorman.

~Tobe

You'd think it would be easy to tell the difference between genuine illness and just plain laziness. I feel that giving all the attention to the smarter children is divisive. Everyone deserves the same quality of help. That being the best possible. It should be acknowledged though that if the child is being unproductive on purpose for no good reason then yes they should be let go. Little reason helping those who don't want help. But that doesn't mean that every kid with a disorder or is a slow learner should be labled as "less important" And if there are any genius kids in a class then they can just be pushed up a grade or get private tutoring.

With the Education department going the way it has been, everybody is in a no-win situation unless somebody figures out the problem.
I do know that homeschooling is not the answer. Whether the school is great or not, high schoolers also learn there through social interaction. It's rough and sometimes cruel, but you learned how to handle idiots and brats. Later on in life, you know when to hold your tongue and when to lash out.
When children are homeschooled, 80% of the time the parents want to "shelter" their children, meaning that they don't get as much social interaction as they should. When they get to a job or college, however, they almost have no idea what it's like to interact with strangers that are their own age. It sounds trivial, but social interaction does play a major role in learning.
As for the students that simply do not want to be at school, (and coincidentally, are the ones that are causing most of the problems) they should not have to be forced to be at school. It's their decision, have them suffer for it. They're only wasting the school's funding anyways.

Actually Questern, I used to say that as well, then a relative of mine started looking into it since the schools around here so abominable. You'll be pleased to know that we were both very wrong in our assumptions about homeschooling. I'm going to start plugging links like one of the lawyers around here but if you search around, especially on states like oklahoma, they have extensive homeschooling coordination groups. At the very least weekly trips to areas and weekly meeting spots to meet other parents/kids. So even to the point were there are scheduled daily meetings that act like recess were the kids can interact. Also they have tutors onhand for older kids that are above their parents level of knowledge (They say it a different way but thats what they mean).

So it's not nearly as bad as either it was, or we thought it was. I guess an alternative had to pop up given the state of the educational institutions in this state and several others.

~Tobe

I do know that homeschooling is not the answer. Whether the school is great or not, high schoolers also learn there through social interaction. It's rough and sometimes cruel, but you learned how to handle idiots and brats. Later on in life, you know when to hold your tongue and when to lash out.
When children are homeschooled, 80% of the time the parents want to "shelter" their children, meaning that they don't get as much social interaction as they should. When they get to a job or college, however, they almost have no idea what it's like to interact with strangers that are their own age. It sounds trivial, but social interaction does play a major role in learning.

My little brother and I are testament to the fallacy of that statement. True, it happens to some people, but my father schooled me in the ways of the world and mentally prepared me for interaction with the unsavory elements of society. There's a lot of homeschooling groups around, but the amount depends on the area.

The 'social interaction' you speak of is what influenced us to choose homeschooling to begin (and no, I'm not going to go into details. Let's just say that some kids can be...mean). I homeschooled, and I'm all the better for it.

Then your father did a wonderful job. And in some cases, home-schooling for some kids is the best alternative. My primary reason for disliking the home-schooling programs (no particular ones, I don't live in the Midwest, so I haven't seen in person what it's like) is the lack of social interaction. (The Internets do not count.) I have absolutely nothing against the actual "school" part.

And yes, kids are mean. I intimately knew this fact throughout my elementary, middle, and high school years. I simple got over it, and I'm all the better for it.

I'm not sure how to say this without insulting Ultra, but I could tell he was homeschooled. I'm of course speaking of earlier times here but the fact does remain, he seemed too out of touch with how to deal with people, what to say and what not to say in order to avoid problems. That sort of thing, and I'm probably not the only person here who can attest to that. I look back on it and feel a little guilty I mistook it for a troll and not that it was just someone unaware of what reaction their statements would have on others. He's doesn't seem nearly so now, of course, but I assume he's in college now or something of that sort. Now I can't say if it's better to learn how to interact successfully with people via bullies on the playground, professor's in college, or bosses in the real world. But the issue was homeschooling, and I do still agree with Questern that if not thought out carefully and done in a completely correct manner it can have dire consequences later in the kid's life. However, as Ultra already pointed out, in a lot of instances learning social interaction is a little later is better than being traumatized by a corrupt school system.

Ultra's own experiences with homeschooling don't seem to earth-shattering, but he did take with him the stigma we associate with it. Of course one could argue that's better to have your child be a little less savvy in social interaction if it lessens the chance for them to fall prey to becoming a bully or a druggie, or end up in the hospital weekly due to the staff letting bullies run the school *cough*Tonkawa*cough*. It's up to the parent, what they think of the schools, and how bad the local school system is to determine the end resulting impact on the kid in question. There is no ONE TRUEâ„¢ answer, of course that is generally the case with matters of this nature.

In the end? Child education isn't a video game, there's no max/min-ing stats, you can't put all your kid's "stats" in one aspect of their education.

~Tobe

Well, my crash course in real-life interactions (via political science and reading lots and lots of news articles and editorials) didn't quite begin until I began job-hunting about four years ago (compare my posts from 2003 to those in 2006, when I returned after a long hiatus). I won't deny that I've had a somewhat more sheltered existence than others, but the nature of my experiences in the school systems I went to prior to homeschooling kind of gave me the opportunity to learn how rotten some people can be from a distance. Now, come college, I knew how to handle it with much more ease than before (I sometimes wonder how things would've turned out if I had not gone homeschooling, but hey, I can't complain: I've got two scholarships. That's pretty good to me). But yes, there are differences in how to approach homeschooling, as Questern said, there can be problems if social interaction is not approached in an appropriate manner. That's the beauty of homeschooling in my opinion, however; there's so much freedom to customize options for the particular child. Along with a general education, you can specialize in ways not possible with a normal school system, especially if the child has a particular goal in mind for what he/she wants to be as an adult. Plus, given the increasing numbers of homeschoolers in America, the amount of resources is increasing, and the social network is expanding. Heck, that's how my little brother met two of his best friends; through a homeschool bowling league.

I'm of course speaking of earlier times here but the fact does remain, he seemed too out of touch with how to deal with people, what to say and what not to say in order to avoid problems. That sort of thing, and I'm probably not the only person here who can attest to that. I look back on it and feel a little guilty I mistook it for a troll and not that it was just someone unaware of what reaction their statements would have on others.

Let's chalk that up to a little bit of that, improper Netiquette, and blind ambition to become a moderator (I think THAT particular factor hounded me a bit too much back then. >_>; ).

Child education isn't a video game, there's no max/min-ing stats, you can't put all your kid's "stats" in one aspect of their education.

This phrase should be a very useful one to those who have the 'athlete' children. You know, the ones who go for sports scholarships and disregard academic advancement entirely? It's not like every single one will be able to go pro, so it'd be nice to have an educational safety net of sorts, you'd think?

Actually I think Football, Soccer, Basketball, Band, Vocal, Debate, etc should all by after school hours. Too many schools only really fund either than body, or the mind, not both. Keep the extra curricular activities... extra curricular. They usually get a taste of them in elementary education, after that they can pursue what they want.

And you basically parroted me Ultra. Still I know my experiences with a few homeschooled people and they all seemed to have some of that social stigmata. I don't think it was a BAD thing, but it was there, and that was Questern's point. It's up to the parent, once again, to decide which will be better.

~Tobe

Allow me to compare my school with your other schools with my story. I just graduated from high school last year. It was the worst 4 years of my life. The halls were crowded all the time, literally a hundered or around a hundered people on one floor trying to get to class on one floor. Most of them weren't even going to class or going late they were talking to their friends or walking across the hall to say hi to their friends or just standing there. When there was a fight on a floor everybody would stop and look so everybody would stop and look even though the security guards would break it up in less than 30 seconds. Even if there was an argument mostly that girls would start people would stop and look. There would be a blg crowd all in the center of the hall. It would take 5 min or more to get to class. You were late after 3 min. On the first few days of classes most people wouldn't show up to class. At the end of the week around Thursday or Friday there would always be a fight, sometimes 2 or 3. Once these group of kids jumped this one kid with a bat. When you would take the stairs during class if you were late or going to the bathroom you'd sometimes see a couple making out despite them knowing a camera was watching them. Every Friday kids were allowed to play basketball in gym so everyone who could play or liked to play would be happy after 4 days of playing lacrosse. Sometimes you would get kids who had other classes and didn't have gym at the time come in and play basketball and take the ball from the kids who couldn't play or were too scared to get it back. If you were to cut class it was no big deal really unless the teacher knew you were cutting, some teachers knew you were cutting and some didn't make a big deal about it. I started cutting in 11th grade when I had an English class I didn't like, I ended up failing. In 12th grade when I had to take Economics I wasn't too pleased for the first I wasn't interested in learning about a market economy mostly learning about something I already know. Secondly after a month or so we did nothing in the class but sit there and talk, the teacher would even talk with us. I passed the class even though I cut mostly the last marking period of it. Most teachers don't emphasize on teaching at least in my school. The only thing they're concerned about is us passing some state test. They would spend 60% of the time talking and reviewing for the state test even though it was a month away. It's not really them who make us review for the test it's their bosses. So my point is most of the faults of America's education today is the student's not the people who teach them. This is the reason why other countries have better education systems.

I know this is long just scan it D:

Here's how I'm seeing it. Tax dollars are going to the "better schools" because they have better scores, etc, and thus less is going to the "worse schools". Said schools are worse because schools are located in low-income areas. People who live in low-income areas usually did not get a great education (there are exceptions), and thus do not value education to the degree some do. These people's children, who have not been taught to value education, go to school. Kid fails all his classes, and thus should be held back. However, parents threaten to sue school (whether or not they have the money to), school caves in and passes the child on even though he has not mastered the basics. Because of the highnumbers of these students, school forced to create programs for low-performing students. This takes money, which is cut from other areas, such as additional programs for high-performing students. Thus students who could raise the overall average grades of that school, who could go on to do better things don't get the chance to. When they runout of additional classes to cut, they start laying off staff, both office staff and teachers. The layed off teachers increase class sizes, making it harder to teach effectively, and also allowing a lack of disipline among students who are already lacking in academic knowledge. No one's willing to be the 'peacekeeper' of the school, so teachers are blamed when students misbehave, increasing their stress.The lack of office staff makes the teachers themselves have to work harder, doing the jobs the administration should be doing. Thus starts the war between teachers unions and the administation. The teacher's union can either A. demand more money for doing all this work, which would further the budget cuts and layoffs, or B. refuse to do the extra work, which actually requires a lot of leadership, and forces the administration to work. The administration, meanwhile, is trying to keep either from happenning, because A. it can't afford to pay the teachers any more or simply doesn't want to, and B. they simply don't want to do the work. And while this goes on, the grades of the school gets worse, and because there already IS competition, the school receives less money.

Meanwhile, the parents aren't willing to control their children, to teach them the value of education, because that's "the teacher's job". Students with behavioral problems don't listen to the teacher, as they've already found out the teacher can do little to them.

So basically, you want to fix the school system? Take OUT competition, replace currupt administration, hire more staff, get the parents to do their part, increase disipline, and then when the schools are EQUAL again, re-introduce competition.

Again, this is just from personal experience, the problems may be completely different in other places.

Full disclosure: I attended public schools from 2nd to 12th grades and I currently teach math (algebra & geometry at the moment) at a public high school since July of last year.

*How big is this "education gap" in U.S. schools? Do you notice this?

Find a study. Whether it's bigger or smaller than one thinks depends on what a person considers.

*If American schools are suffering low success averages then why?

There's no one answer to that question. Depending on what a person wants to look at, you can easily blame teachers, students, administrators, parents/guardians, society, etc. Whether any of those things are accurate would depend on the situation. The ONLY "blanket" generalization that I personally would go with deals with society, but even I know that's much too simplistic.

*Why do schools in other countries like Japan and Belgium (and possibly countries poorer than our own) do so much better?

Schooling is different from country to country in terms of what is expected at specific ages, how long school is, when school is, the culture and value of education, who is or isn't educated, etc. Take that all into account. I will say that I do think the increased standardized testing here is not helpful.

*Why is it taking so long to find a solution to this problem?

There is no such thing as a solution to this problem. Everything is a case-by-case thing. There are a variety of solutions and what works will differ from place to place.

*Are Teacher Unions a bad thing?

I will say that unions are not evil and generally for every "bad" teacher that gets protected there are many other "good" teachers that get protected as well due to "oh, [teacher] said/showed something [student/parent] found offensive" and would be fired otherwise. I had good teachers that taught me who would've been gone if not for their unions because of one thing they showed or said. In some cases, they wouldn't have been around to teach me and considering how good they were I might not have learned as much as I did when I was in school if I had someone else. Despite the subjective nature of the description of teachers, we all know there are differences between teachers & yes it's part "luck" whether you get a "good" or "bad" one. Even though I don't have that so-called tenure protection yet (a teacher without tenure can be fired for just about any reason, which is a category I currently reside in), I'm sure there will come a time when I may need it assuming I survive this time while I don't have it. While I've never experienced it, there are teachers who've been told to "pass" kids or be fired and its the union that protects the teacher if/when situations like those arise.

Yes, it's easy to beat up on a union, but unions have a job to do and they do them.

*Would school competition help make schools better?

It depends. To say "yes" is short-sighted. To say "no" is short-sighted. It depends on what is causing the "problem."

*Schools do get extra funding, but a lot of students still fail. Where is all that money going?

What extra funding? Even assuming funding accounts for inflation and rising prices everywhere (remember, that funding has to pay for bills to run schools, electricity, water, heat, maintaining buildings, etc. not just education--and if anyone thinks paying for that stuff hasn't skyrocketed in recent years isn't paying attention to the economy), there's legislation that requires certain things to be done that really have nothing to do with education. Then, there's still the big thing no one seemingly admits.

School A gets 10 times more money than School B and School A is "successful" while School B is "struggling." Funding increases for both schools so now School A only gets 7 times more money than School B. Guess what, School A still does a lot better than School B despite the increase in funding.

So why did I say "what extra funding?" before? Because if all schools are getting extra funds, then it's not going to truly change the difference in success rates between schools most of the time. Of course, that's only even a factor if funding is one of the problems of a particular school, when it isn't always.

Yes, there's always possibly is the money being managed appropriately issue--but that again is going to be case-by-case.

*The presidential candidates. Which one do you think can fix our school problem?

None of them. Beyond feeding money back to states and preventing discrimination due to a variety of factors, there's nothing the federal government can do. School issues are local. I've read many a post here about how "horrible" public schools are. I won't waste my time saying that someone is wrong on that front because the situation some find themselves in is entirely different from my own and I can believe it exists. Just using my local area as an example, it's no secret that most teachers try to get into either the select schools in NYC or teach in most districts on Long Island (though certain districts are avoided) and due to the general quality of teachers in the area, teachers "fight" to get into schools. Schools here can be choosy, not all public schools have that situation. Some public schools in this country to just have teachers have to take whoever is willing to just to walk into the building. Even though public schools are very good here that doesn't mean that students aren't mean to each other or other issues don't exist, such as achievement gaps. Of course, I personally find complaining about how mean students are to be silly since there are mean people everywhere in life. It stands to reason that you'd find mean people in a school. A school is in many ways just a small microcosm of the local culture.

Though not asked, I don't have a problem with school district "borders" being relatively closed saved for case-by-case exceptions. Remember, we can't all just vote wherever we please either. Sometimes, the only time "well-off" students get to interact with the "not-well-off" students is through meeting them in public schools (because most people are not going to just talk to random strangers in any other environment other than a school really unless forced to do so) and just about every town has its share of "good"/"bad" areas. If the borders were totally open, the gap between schools might widen due to the money factor with the "well-off" picking certain schools to go and getting in while most "not-well-off" get left in other areas. Instead of having "racial" discrimination disparities, we'd have even more blatant "economic" discrimination disparities (though those are bad enough as it is without getting much discussion).

It should be acknowledged though that if the child is being unproductive on purpose for no good reason then yes they should be let go.

Remember, public schools are required to take and keep all kinds until the mandated kick-out age. No other type of school or schooling system (save perhaps home-schooling if you stretch it) has that requirement. That's why they're "public" schools. It's open for all and other than doing certain extreme things (threatening to blow up the school for one), all must be accepted regardless of desire/drive. Also keep in mind that the lazy/unproductive ones count towards determining whether a school is "successful" or "struggling."

Isn't saying that schools need to be handled case-by-case kind of impractical? How many high schools are in the US?

That's WHY finances and laws and such are so blanket-statement - it's simply impractical to go out and find every "good" school and every "bad" school in the entire United States. We're one of the largest countries in the world. Belgium and Japan may have better looked-after schools, but how many do they have?

I don't think education needs to be a federal thing, beyond basic landmark "Do our highschoolers know how to add 2 and 2?" things. As TR said; different fixes will work on different problems, and there's no organization in the world, no matter how efficient or well-run - and the US government falls pretty short on THAT note - that could possibly hope to keep that close an eye on every single high school in the entire United States. But I bet that a single county could keep track of all of its' schools on its' own, and recognise its' good and bad schools. So why not every county?