Increasing Violence in Public Schools

[alamo5000]

It makes matters much more difficult for the kids who want to succeed when they are mixed or otherwise locked in with the feral junior miscreants. Public schools have to take in everybody, it's a part of the definition, where private schools don't. As such, it's much more important to be able to "track" or differentiate students, as the strivers will quickly become targeted by the deadheads, and that hurts everyone.

That reminds me of a lot more problems I had. I remember one year on the very first day of class we had a teacher give us all a 'pre-test' for everything we were supposed to learn that year. Literally it was the first day of class and we were given a comprehensive final exam for the entire next year's curriculum. It was expected that everyone would fail, which most did.

Except me. I got either a 96% or 98% on that test. I think I missed two questions on the whole test. After we got the scores back I went to the teacher after class and made the case that I should be doing something else and not really do all that specific homework related to stuff I clearly already knew. Her response was that I should learn to take directions and that doing all the homework (she was known for giving excessive homework) would build my character. Naturally I thought the whole thing was bullshit and I quickly learned that school was not just about 'education' of what's in the books you get.

People might think that I should have been in the 'gifted and talented' program, but I WAS ALREADY IN the gifted and talented program. I aced the final exam of the math class for the gifted and talented program, on the first day of class.

I tell that story to demonstrate more than one problem and as a preface to this. Later on some school officials thought it was a smart idea to put the remedial students in class with the gifted students. Their logic was that the gifted students would rub off on the remedial ones and show them how to study or whatever. It fell flat on it's face though. Before the end of the year just about everyone saw a general decline in grades and behavior. All of my gifted and talented classmates all quickly became C level students and it happened in less than one school year.

One bad apple can ruin the bunch. You don't try to heal that apple. You get rid of it for the good of the rest. But the rules of school are not based on logic. They are REQUIRED to take everyone and anyone (and it shows).

The same general concept applies across a whole lot of things, behavioral and otherwise. If you take a Rhodes Scholar and put him in a classroom full of ghetto miscreants it won't take long for the scholar to join the ranks of his classmates.

[Robert Mitchum]

I would rather work in a level 4 Super Max prison than the Public School system.
Having worked both its not even a hard decision come to.

[peterb]

I tell that story to demonstrate more than one problem and as a preface to this. Later on some school officials thought it was a smart idea to put the remedial students in class with the gifted students. Their logic was that the gifted students would rub off on the remedial ones and show them how to study or whatever. It fell flat on it's face though. Before the end of the year just about everyone saw a general decline in grades and behavior. All of my gifted and talented classmates all quickly became C level students and it happened in less than one school year.

Oh yeah. Being the kid the teacher always calls on last for the right answer, and getting the evil eye from half the class, is loads of fun. I started screwing up so I could be “normal”.

That kind of mix *might* work if you included only the remedial kids who truly wanted to do better but were starting from behind. Doing it with the kids who don’t give a damn helps nobody..

[Borderland]

I can't even begin to understand the public school system these days. It was bad enough when I was in HS, but it seems to be a lot worse these days. The HS I went to was 75% Hispanic and I wasn't. I have to say it was probably a good social experience but I didn't think so at the time. There were fights in classrooms and on campus almost daily. Fortunately for me I didn't look like an easy mark at 6'/180. I also played baseball and most people knew that. Nobody brought a gun to school and there was no honor in fighting with a knife. I stayed in school and graduated. I can thank my parents for that more than anyone else. I had no plans to go to college because the draft was still around and I saw the writing on the wall.

The way I see things going is the public school system will be radically changed to channel kids with special needs and early achievers in different directions. Actually that's already happening with smaller HS campuses for kids with special needs. My DIL is a counselor at one of those schools. One size doesn't fit all, especially when it comes to education. I'm in favor of public education to grade 12 but I'm not in favor a system that I dealt with. Some of the people that I went to school with should have been in prison.

[Daauto]

I read a statement in a article about six or eight months ago that said
" When schools are built before churches it leads to Communism "
It has been done progressively

[RoyGBiv]

The way I see things going is the public school system will be radically changed to channel kids with special needs and early achievers in different directions. Actually that's already happening with smaller HS campuses for kids with special needs. My DIL is a counselor at one of those schools. One size doesn't fit all, especially when it comes to education. I'm in favor of public education to grade 12 but I'm not in favor a system that I dealt with. Some of the people that I went to school with should have been in prison.

This is not the current Groupthink.

My MS and HS were both <10% white. If it wasn't for the GT program enabling me to graduate HS in 3 years, my path in life may have been very different. Maybe already over.

At one middle school community assembly, the Principal told the audience "I cannot be held responsible for the safety of the kids in my school." Truth. Verbatim. What a shit show.

Achieving equity through mediocrity: Why elimination of gifted programs should worry us all

[peterb]

But you know that if a school starts separating kids by academic ability, they’re going to be accused of being “elitist” and “giving up” on the slower kids.

At the same time, there absolutely is a stigma attached to being in the “dumb kids” class, and I understand why nobody wants to go that route.

From my experience, the screwups aren’t necessarily stupid. It’s not always a lack of intelligence — it’s more that they don’t or can’t see the value in a conventional education. Their life experience is just as real as the other kids but it’s taught them very different lessons.

I don’t think there are any quick or easy answers.

[Duelist]

That reminds me of a lot more problems I had. I remember one year on the very first day of class we had a teacher give us all a 'pre-test' for everything we were supposed to learn that year. Literally it was the first day of class and we were given a comprehensive final exam for the entire next year's curriculum. It was expected that everyone would fail, which most did.

Except me. I got either a 96% or 98% on that test. I think I missed two questions on the whole test. After we got the scores back I went to the teacher after class and made the case that I should be doing something else and not really do all that specific homework related to stuff I clearly already knew. Her response was that I should learn to take directions and that doing all the homework (she was known for giving excessive homework) would build my character. Naturally I thought the whole thing was bullshit and I quickly learned that school was not just about 'education' of what's in the books you get.
.

If you had passed a test like that at my school, you would have been given credit for the class with an A grade and moved to a higher class or another subject for that class period.

We all have experience in education - as students. Some of us have experience and training as educators. None of us have experience at every level in every district in the country. While some hated school, and therefore think public education is all terrible (and may have been a perpetually terrible experience for them), that cannot automatically mean all education is terrible for all students.

There are kids who don’t eat when they aren’t at school. We feed them breakfast and lunch, for free. There are kids who come to the counselors offices to get a bag of food to take home for the weekend.

There are kids whose only safe place and time in a given week is when they are at school. There are kids who keep all of the clothes they own in a gym locker, and do their laundry at school.

There are also kids who get out of a fancy car (dropped off or driven themselves) with a latte and designer clothes, and all of the AP and college dual enrollment classes paid for, and they get to play whatever sport they want, or do cheer, or whatever, and in public education we do have to service all of them.

I don’t really know where to go with all of this. I think there are a lot of issues in education. One of them is that there aren’t enough teachers, and we get burnout on those who do stick around. But the key thing is that nobody goes into education with the goal of becoming Severus Snape - of harming kids. We all want to serve and help them.

What that looks like for the latte crowd is somewhat different than it does for the kid who can’t leave their clothes anywhere but a school gym locker.

[Duelist]

But you know that if a school starts separating kids by academic ability, they’re going to be accused of being “elitist” and “giving up” on the slower kids.

At the same time, there absolutely is a stigma attached to being in the “dumb kids” class, and I understand why nobody wants to go that route.

From my experience, the screwups aren’t necessarily stupid. It’s not always a lack of intelligence — it’s more that they don’t or can’t see the value in a conventional education. Their life experience is just as real as the other kids but it’s taught them very different lessons.

I don’t think there are any quick or easy answers.

Schools already track by academic interest and ability - if we don’t, the kids who need to be taking AP or college level work won’t be able to.

[Clusterfrack]

Schools already track by academic interest and ability - if we don’t, the kids who need to be taking AP or college level work won’t be able to.

But that is now considered white supremacy, and schools are eliminating AP and advanced math to solve the ‘problem’.