Are the kids behind, or the expectations unreasonable?

[Ravin]

I heard a statistic on NPR yesterday, that 2/3 of American children don't meet standards for their age/grade by age 8. The speaker went on to talk about the need for starting earlier, preschool, etc., but something struck me:

 

Are they going about it wrong? If such a large majority of children are behind where the standards say they should be, is the problem really the children, or the standards? Are they pushing too hard, too soon? Are they even measuring the right things?

[Kathryn]

I agree with your thought. Children work on different timetables, especially early on. I think it's ridiculous to say an 8yo is "behind." my son was an early reader, but there are many who simply aren't ready until later on. They tend to even out. My mother's family moved halfway through her kindergarten year. At her old school, they were beginning to learn the alphabet. At her new school, they were reading already. She was labeled "behind." She went on to an Ivy, so I think it all evened out in the end.

[SKL]

It would be interesting to see a report on how they decided what the standards should be.

 

I think the standards are probably not too high for the average kid who has involved parents and lives in a community that values book-learning.  However, the reality is that probably 2/3 of public school population falls short of that in terms of ability, resources, or value system.  At some point we need to live in the real world.  It's great if they can encourage a more pro-academic attitude in communities, but there's no point putting the cart before the horse.

 

It's great to offer the opportunity to learn these things, for those who are ready and willing.  But to say the rest are failures is not helpful.

[Chrysalis Academy]

I wonder about that too.  I have seen the expectations for younger and younger kids get higher and higher even in the 4 years between when my two daughters started ps.  Yet just as many unprepared kids are entering the system, and need remediation or help just to get ready for a classroom situation.  So it's getting to be more and more of a pressure cooker in the younger grades. I think this is incredibly unhealthy.

 

On the other hand, I am shocked by the fact that (in our town at least) the percentage of 8th graders who meet standards is no higher than the percentage of 2nd graders.  You can blame "poorly performing" 2nd graders on factors other than school, but by 8th grade, the school has had them for 9 years.  I think it's a complete failure of the school system that you can't take some of the kids that came in unprepared and get them up to standards by 8th grade.  If all you are doing is keeping kids where they are - the well-performing kids keep performing well, the poorly performing kids keep performing poorly - then what is the point?  Just to keep them off the streets?  Then what????

 

Sorry, soapbox.  Dh and I were just "discussing" this last weekend! 

[SKL]

Yeah, I am highly skeptical of all these education reforms because I don't ever see much change in the ultimate result - the performance of all 18-year-olds.  Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.  All the investment and pressuring of students and teachers that have been happening in recent years are only worth it if we can say we have a much more literate society at the end of it.  Do we?  Will we?  Or is this really just another way for high achievers to distinguish themselves from everyone else?

[Kathryn]

I wonder about that too. I have seen the expectations for younger and younger kids get higher and higher even in the 4 years between when my two daughters started ps. Yet just as many unprepared kids are entering the system, and need remediation or help just to get ready for a classroom situation. So it's getting to be more and more of a pressure cooker in the younger grades. I think this is incredibly unhealthy.

 

On the other hand, I am shocked by the fact that (in our town at least) the percentage of 8th graders who meet standards is no higher than the percentage of 2nd graders. You can blame "poorly performing" 2nd graders on factors other than school, but by 8th grade, the school has had them for 9 years. I think it's a complete failure of the school system that you can't take some of the kids that came in unprepared and get them up to standards by 8th grade. If all you are doing is keeping kids where they are - the well-performing kids keep performing well, the poorly performing kids keep performing poorly - then what is the point? Just to keep them off the streets? Then what????

 

Sorry, soapbox. Dh and I were just "discussing" this last weekend!

I completely agree. It seems to me that kids just get shuffled along, whether they are ready to move on or not. I think a much healthier model would be to teach each child at their level in each core subject, regardless of whether or not that was ahead or behind the norm for their grade.

 

I missed a lot of math during my fifth grade year because I had fifth disease and my math teacher was pregnant. I was hopelessly lost for years in math after that because nobody ever took the time to make sure that I grasped the concepts that I had missed. I just kept getting pushed along and falling further behind my class.

[Soror]

 The speaker went on to talk about the need for starting earlier, preschool, etc.

 

Because that's working well so far!

 

I think we start too soon with too much for many but then we really start slacking in the middle ages and in many high schools there are very weak expectations.

[SKL]

I thought I'd avoid the whole "teaching to the test" in a parochial school, but I was wrong.  This year I've had multiple things come home asking me to work with my kid on xyz because "it is on the tests."  One of these was doing a better job of filling in the little circles.  Seriously. I am going to keep my kid up later so we can discuss / practice filling in the circles?

[mytwomonkeys]

I believe we are seeing an increase in people delaying kindergarten because parents don't feel their kids are ready for it. And I agree. I don't personally believe kids at age 5 should need to enter kindergarten with a set of readiness skills. I know people disagree, and that's fine. I'm not impressed with programs and advertisements like ABC Mouse and My Baby Can Read. I think pushing standards on younger and younger age groups creates serious issues for a lot of children (and families). A seven year old not in chapter books isn't a red flag to me. A wiggly 5 year old boy shouldn't have to be labeled as having behavioral issues because he doesn't "sit still and listen well". The issue I see in early public school education has a lot to do with unrealistic expectations. Yet ironically, the expectations cease as the child gets older. My daughter is in public middle school and they still encourage inventive spelling!! That is absurd to me. Her assignments for writing are below par IMO as well. It seems they put emphasis on certain things at the wrong time.

[SKL]

I am in favor of an earlier start for academics for the average kid (earlier than when I was a kid, that is).  But the material still has to be appropriate to the kids' maturity, which in my experience is not the case.  So my average kid is doing her best to devise tricks and shortcuts, without really understanding why that produces the right answer.  Meaning she'll have to re-learn it year after year until her horse sense catches up with that particular concept.  Waste of time!

[Arcadia]

My daughter is in public middle school and they still encourage inventive spelling!! That is absurd to me. Her assignments for writing are below par IMO as well. It seems they put emphasis on certain things at the wrong time.

My public school 4th grader is not allowed inventive spelling.  In fact that would cause him to fail the state writing test.  My 2nd grader is suppose to edit all his drafts for spelling errors.  Its weird that your child's school still allows inventive spelling.

[Soror]

I have to say that I see the same disparity in expectations between grades in hs'ing as well. Quite often there is a rush to start but standards start slacking around middle school to where an academically minded middle school family is doing the same level of work as others have their hs'ers doing.

[SKL]

I wondered about that slacking at middle school.  My kids' school posts its scores against the average for each grade, and there is a big jump in the "better than them" margin around middle school.  Why would that be?

[mytwomonkeys]

My public school 4th grader is not allowed inventive spelling. In fact that would cause him to fail the state writing test. My 2nd grader is suppose to edit all his drafts for spelling errors. Its weird that your child's school still allows inventive spelling.

I agree it's weird. I hate it. It isn't just my daughter's school but the entire county. My daughter doesn't even have spelling as a subject, so the fact that it is never corrected is extremely absurd to me. We are in FL. I'm not sure if this is statewide or just my county.

[Santi]

Are these common core standards or something else? It'd be nice to know what the actual expectations are. Usually I think the standards are too low. Not meeting the current ones isn't always entirely the kid's problem as the teaching I've seen has been horrendous, but dd was constantly put in group projects with 6 other kids where none of them had listened to anything and didn't try at all. In elementary/middle/high school those same children have all been considered smart.

[Farrar]

I don't think it's an easy dichotomy like that.  There are some I think are too high and some I think aren't, but mostly I think the expectations are just wrong.  For all kids, they should demand a more thorough foundation instead of trying to cram more in.  And there should be more flexibility to remediate and advance the kids who need it, especially in the early grades, when development is uneven and unpredictable.

[Murphy101]

I don't think we need more younger.

We need three Rs and only the three Rs age 7 until age 10 or even 12.

There's too much other carp clogging the wheels.

[Ellie]

Starting earlier won't help if the instruction doesn't make sense. Sight reading at an earlier age, stupid math stuff at an earlier age, won't make a difference.

[Bookaddict]

I have just finished a book called The Smartest Kids in the World and How They Got There by Amanda Ripley. The book looks at Finland and South Korea whose students generally score the highest on standardized tests throughout the world. In particular the PISA is discussed (Program for International Student Assessment) taken by 70 developing and developed nations. Finland has been held up as the educational success story for the world because their students consistently score higher than most kids in the world. The test is administered to 15 year olds.

 

The US scored about average for reading (12th in the world) and below average for the developed world (27th in the world) for Math. The startling thing was how many undeveloped countries scored better than the US. There are critics of the test of course but this particular test does not so much as test what you can regurgitate as opposed to looking at all the given data and using critical thinking skills to solve the problem. In fact, all information needed to answer a given problem is always given-you just need to know how to use it. They aren't bubble tests but tests that require written essays (for reading) and solutions (for math) explained. An example math question was a graph presented to a TV audience by a reporter stating robberies were significantly up from last year in the given city. Do you agree with this statement looking at the graph? Explain. The graph was clearly distorted as the increase was only 5 or 10 robberies (out of 500) but the distorted graph bars made it appear that it was almost double the year prior. Only 18% percent of US 15 year olds answered that correctly.

 

She does not give an answer to the US education problem but merely presents lots of data and studies. She went to each country and spoke to education officials, teachers, parents, students and followed US exchange students to see their experience. One of the clear differences was that all the top scoring countries had far HIGHER standards of learning for their students and ESPECIALLY their teachers.

 

Finland's  motto for teachers is that they only want "the best and the brightest" to be allowed to teach while the US she pointed out has a system of "anyone who thinks they like kids (or don't) can come and try). The standards and education that the teachers were held to were significantly higher than here. Finland makes it as hard to teach as it is to get into med-school and as prestigious too. There is a thread on this forum where people are discussing the book and indeed many of the users say they decided to homeschool once they went through the teacher program in college because it was frightening as to how EASY the schooling was. Across the US, Colleges of education, are the ones with the some of the lowest GPAs. I know that at our local university a 2.0 is necessary to get in and to graduate a 2.5.

 

My own sister is an 8th grade math teacher and I have NO IDEA how she is even remotely considered qualified. We were homeschooled in the most backward way possible with only basic arithmetic (my mom lived in a small town of 200 people growing up and that is all she learned so the felt that was great for us too). We both struggled in college with all our remedial math classes and ended up taking College Algebra at our local Junior College so our C would not transfer and hurt our GPA. She has an undergrad in history and was hired as a teacher before even obtaining her teaching certificate and she just completed a Masters from University of Phoenix in education, where, again she had to take NO real math classes but instead a math techniques teaching course that counted as a replacement. Yet she is TEACHING algebra. She can't just look at a problem and tell you how to solve it-she needs the book and the solutions manual and has to plan it out. I love her to death but she should NOT be teaching Math to 8th graders. I don't blame her; she needed a job and this is where the school system put her. But WHY? HOW? How is someone with C grades in college algebra, low Math scores on the SAT and no "proof" that we ever did math (my mom had a DIY curriculum) at all-considered qualified to teach Math?

 

The point is that I think (and the book alludes) that our kids, like many around the world, can DO MORE and are capable of more than we currently ask. BUT they need to be taught by better qualified candidates. This Is NOT a knock on teachers as I know there are many good people out there with the best of intentions and many who ARE VERY qualified. But there are many more who aren't qualified or who should not be qualified to teach. Many times this is NOT due to their fault. The teaching programs in the US are the ones responsible for ensuring adequately educated teachers come out of their programs.

 

The fascinating thing about these PISA scores is that across the board US students did worse. Our most affluent kids did far worse than Polish affluent kids, Finnish affluent kids and Korean Affluent kids and many other countries. The US also had a MUCH larger gap in performance from the best to worst scoring kids whereas many other nations were scoring well in all socio-economic states. 

 

I really recommend this book for some insight into hard facts and data about where US students actually are in comparison to the rest of the world. It is quite surprising. No one country has all the answers but I do think the last thing we need to do is start relaxing standards. Kids are amazing and will rise to the expectations of the teachers, parents and society at large. I think we do them more of a disservice saying they can't do what is already expected-which to be honest is NOT much. 

 

One more thing, while many other users have stated they had a child who was "behind" or whose parent was "behind" and then they caught up and excelled ahead or stayed on track-that may be true but it is only anecdotal evidence. There are far more children who fall behind and simply stay there. This book looks at the big picture of all the students, not the exceptional few.

[regentrude]

I am puzzled by the way the US educational system seems "backwards", comparing to my experience in Germany.

 

Here in the US, there is a push for early academics, mandatory academic kindergarten for 5 year olds, a pretty steep learning curve through 4th grade, and then... nothing. The learning is paused in grade 5; the students are basically just corralled and parked in a waiting position, until learning resumes in 9th grade, at a level far below what would be possible had they actually learned something in the middle grades.

 

In contrast, in Germany kids do not start school until they are 6 or 7 years old. they learn their ABCs in school. The elementary school is relatively gentle, and at the end of 4th grade, I judge that our US public elementary school was a bit ahead of my son's German elementary school. But then in 5th grade, students are sorted into two tracks of schools, the tempo increases, students have more responsibility for their own learning, - and at the beginning of 6th grade they are, in math, a full year ahead of their US peers. (At that point, when I realized this, I pulled the plug on school and started homeschooling)

 

It makes no sense to me to put pressure on little kids and subject them to 8 hours school days and then completely slacking off in grades 5 through 8. Preteens in puberty ARE actually capable of learning; their brains have NOT fallen out.

 

[Dmmetler]

I taught in an inner city public school, in an area where almost all the families came from one of two big housing projects, in a neighborhood which, at the time, was the center of the drug trade. Lots of single moms, many of them not even 20 by the time their first child turned 4. 

 

 

Our school had limited Pre-K slots-2 pre-K non-special ed classes and one Pre-K special ed class to 8 kindergarten classes. There were also limited Head Start slots in a program that was accessible to our parents. All told, about 25% of our kids qualified for some form of subsidized early intervention. The rest either were at home with whatever adult was available, or in a mish-mash of childcare arrangements (which often were the form of one mom or grandma taking in a large group of kids for other single moms who lived in her building). There were some great situations for kids in the area-small church preschools and charity-run programs, some kids who had parents who worked in university support services and were able to get their kids into the lab school there, and so on. There were also a lot of kids who had very advanced life skills (preschoolers who could lug the family's laundry down to the project laundry room, load the clothes by climbing up and down the baskets, and put in the quarters and hit start, or who could change the baby's diaper and mix formula), but who very literally had never picked up a crayon, seen a book, or played catch.

 

All told, the typical student who qualified for intervention entered pre-K with verbal skills typical of a 2 yr old. The typical student who didn't qualify for intervention tested maybe 6 months higher, if that-it wasn't that they didn't have needs, it was that there weren't enough spaces available for them. At age 5, the kids with subsidized preschool were at least on a reasonable preschool level in some cases, or, if they weren't, usually the paper trail had started to get testing to find out whether there were actual special needs other than environmental ones. The ones who didn't entered on about the same level that they'd tested at when they were 4. Not surprisingly, most of the kids are nowhere near grade level at grade 3. But they've made far more than a year's gains every year they've been in school. It's simply that they've got a long way to go.

 

 

I do think that good early childhood programs, for those kids, can make a world of difference. Just having someone read to them, talk to them, expose them to books, expose them to things like crayons, glue, and fingerpaint, let them play outside and ride tricycles and throw balls, and so on is so much more than these kids get at home in so many cases. It reduces the gap that they have to make up, so that, over 13 years of public education, hopefully they'll graduate with a solid education.

 

Meanwhile, in schools in the same public system, less than 5 miles away, almost all the kids enter K with many of the precursor skills for reading in place, and some are already reading. Many are above grade level starting out and are bored. The top 25% or so really could benefit from a much more enriched curriculum and more options than they get (and those kids account for a lot of the homeschoolers in the area as parents are unwilling to settle for what even the "best" schools offer).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Abbyjensen]

I did my thesis on Comparative International Education. Basically, I did a lot of research but never came up with any solutions. I know that the statistic about 2/3 of 8 year olds are below grade level, but I think it would be more interesting to see achievement based on socioeconomic status. I read somewhere that parent's income level is the number one predictor of a child's success in school.

 

I might do some thorough research on this later, but I would not be surprised if, say, 85% of students with a parental income level of over 50,000 met the standards, and 85% of students with a parental income level below 20,000 didn't meet the standards.

[bugs]

I have not read "The Smartest Kids..." so I don't know if this was addressed, but I am not sure if the disparity is as "simple" as you laid out.  Both S. Korea and Finland are very homogeneous societies.  The U.S.A. is not.  There are just so many cultural dynamics at work in our society, our schools/teachers must juggle these. 

[Crimson Wife]

I haven't really looked through the CC English standards, but I have felt for a long time that the CA state English standards are too heavily dependent on physical writing ability in the primary grades. A lot of boys especially don't have the fine motor skills to do the work expected of K-2nd graders.

[Spy Car]

I am puzzled by the way the US educational system seems "backwards", comparing to my experience in Germany.

 

Here in the US, there is a push for early academics, mandatory academic kindergarten for 5 year olds, a pretty steep learning curve through 4th grade, and then... nothing. The learning is paused in grade 5; the students are basically just corralled and parked in a waiting position, until learning resumes in 9th grade, at a level far below what would be possible had they actually learned something in the middle grades.

 

In contrast, in Germany kids do not start school until they are 6 or 7 years old. they learn their ABCs in school. The elementary school is relatively gentle, and at the end of 4th grade, I judge that our US public elementary school was a bit ahead of my son's German elementary school. But then in 5th grade, students are sorted into two tracks of schools, the tempo increases, students have more responsibility for their own learning, - and at the beginning of 6th grade they are, in math, a full year ahead of their US peers. (At that point, when I realized this, I pulled the plug on school and started homeschooling)

 

It makes no sense to me to put pressure on little kids and subject them to 8 hours school days and then completely slacking off in grades 5 through 8. Preteens in puberty ARE actually capable of learning; their brains have NOT fallen out.

I'm not seeing this "let them coast in Middle School" phenomenon play out in our local schools. the children of friends that I know are working very hard, with appropriately challenging work. hardly taking it "easy." Granted most of the people we know look to place their children in the more academically advanced schools or advanced programs within schools, but to describe what's going on as "slacking off" is very wide of the mark.

 

I've said it before (and it is never popular) but I think some homeschoolers are kidding themselves about what's going on in the better public schools (including Middle Schools).

 

Bill

[Farrar]

Bill, I think you're absolutely right that there are some schools that are not letting kids coast after elementary school.  Or before.  Or at all.  And we all know that there is an elite of kids at the top tier who are doing incredibly high level work and will be making college admissions very competitive now and in the future.  But the numbers consistently tell a story that overall education in this country is lagging behind and has been for a long time.  We don't compare well to other countries.  No individual state scores can beat Finland either, so it isn't only that Mississippi is dragging down California or anything like that.  To me, the way we've structured our expectations seems to be a part of that overall problem.

[regentrude]

I'm not seeing this "let them coast in Middle School" phenomenon play out in our local schools. the children of friends that I know are working very hard, with appropriately challenging work. hardly taking it "easy." Granted most of the people we know look to place their children in the more academically advanced schools or advanced programs within schools, but to describe what's going on as "slacking off" is very wide of the mark.

 

I've said it before (and it is never popular) but I think some homeschoolers are kidding themselves about what's going on in the better public schools (including Middle Schools).

 

 

Bill, my kids actually attended public school through grade 5/6 resp. So I am not kidding myself.

Our district performs well above state average. High school graduation rate is 89.6%.

50% of graduates enter a four year college, another 17% enter a 2 year college.

So, by no means a bad school. Not a selective elite school, but a good public school.

 

But even so, middle school is slacking.

Math instruction is pitiful: dumb "new math" in 6th grade, prealgebra in 7th grade for the advanced students - covering material a 5th grader could handle back home. Advanced students can take algebra "early" in 8th.

No foreign language instruction in middle school.

 

And we are the largest city in a 1.5 hour radius and have a STEM university. Take a guess about the quality of the small rural schools in all those little towns. Or of the public schools in the closest big city where the school system is struggling not to lose accreditation.

And there are LOTS of such districts. Not everybody lives  in a rich neighborhood in a metropolitan area on one of the coasts.

 

I am comparing what I see here in "normal" middle schools with my own education and what I see from friends' kids back home.

It falls short on so many levels.

Just to take math: it seems to be typical to teach algebra in 9th, 8th in the better district, and geometry in 10th.

That is slacking, because it would only take one year, 5th grade, to teach fractions and then start algebra in 6th grade and cover geometry before 9th grade.  There are several wasted years in there, and that seems to be the norm.

Unless you show me the multitude of public middle schools that offer a strong math instruction and a foreign language instruction as well, I stand by my assessment that learning is slacking in middle school.

 

You seem to be in a very privileged area. The schools to which you have access are not typical and not within reach for many, maybe even most, students.

 

 

[Spy Car]

Bill, I think you're absolutely right that there are some schools that are not letting kids coast after elementary school.  Or before.  Or at all.  And we all know that there is an elite of kids at the top tier who are doing incredibly high level work and will be making college admissions very competitive now and in the future.  But the numbers consistently tell a story that overall education in this country is lagging behind and has been for a long time.  We don't compare well to other countries.  No individual state scores can beat Finland either, so it isn't only that Mississippi is dragging down California or anything like that.  To me, the way we've structured our expectations seems to be a part of that overall problem.

What we increasingly face is bifurcated schools with "haves and have nots" where it is like a Tale of Two Cities in being the "best of times, and the worst of times." Way too many schools are not putting out graduates with the skills necessary to compete in a global economy, while some schools (or programs/academies within schools) are putting out students that are meeting very high standards.

 

Leaving behind a majority is not a good situation for our nation's future.

 

Bill

[Korrale]

I think they seem relatively high in K/1st grade. But I have seen a majority of kids (public school) excell and trounce these standards.

I think the upper elementary standards are very poor. I was appalled while I was tutoring what was considered acceptable level work. Basically in Language Arts and Social Studies the upper average work of a 2nd grader is higher than the lower average work of a 5th grader. That is a lot of discrepancy there. I am not including above or below average work either.

[Chrysalis Academy]

I'm not seeing this "let them coast in Middle School" phenomenon play out in our local schools. the children of friends that I know are working very hard, with appropriately challenging work. hardly taking it "easy." Granted most of the people we know look to place their children in the more academically advanced schools or advanced programs within schools, but to describe what's going on as "slacking off" is very wide of the mark.

 

I've said it before (and it is never popular) but I think some homeschoolers are kidding themselves about what's going on in the better public schools (including Middle Schools).

 

Bill

 

 

I don't disagree that good things are happening in the "better" public schools - I take your experience as evidence that they are.

 

Unfortunately, I don't have access to a "better" public school.  Our local public schools are abysmal, with less than 20% of students testing as proficient in both 2nd grade and 8th grade.  Students are not making gains in proficiency between 2nd grade and 8th grade.  Whether that is because of a conscious decision to "let them coast" or whether it is because of incompetent teachers or bad materials or a focus on teaching to the test or the fact that 75% of the students are economically disadvantaged and English language learners . . . whatever the reason, this is the reality I live with.  Which is why I homeschool.  No illusions, not kidding myself, just facing the facts:  I can do better than this.  Yeah, it's a low bar, but I can definitely do better.  :cool:

[Spy Car]

Bill, my kids actually attended public school through grade 5/6 resp.

Our district performs well above state average.High school graduation rate is 89.6%. 50% of graduates enter a four year college, another 17% enters a 2 year college.

 

Yet: math instruction is pitiful: dumb "new math" in 6th grade. Advanced students can take algebra "early" in 8th.

No foreign language instruction in middle school - does not start until high school.

 

And we are the largest city in a 1.5 hour radius - take a guess about the quality of the small rural schools. Or of the public schools in the closest big city where the school system is struggling not to lose accreditation.

And there are LOTS of such districts. Not everybody lives  in a rich neighborhood in a metropolitan area on one of the coasts.

 

I am comparing what I see here in "normal" middle schools with my *own* education and what I see from friends' kids back home.

It falls short on so many levels.

 

You seem to be in a very privileged area.

Our district has it all. Crushing poverty, incredible wealth, and an increasingly anxious Middle Class. The district-wide drop-out rate is terrible. Some schools are really poor. But there is both good and bad going on.

 

The highly functioning schools (and academies within schools) that attract hard working students and motivated parents are not letting kids "skate." Not a bit. The program we are looking at starts algebra in 7th Grade (and in rare cases 6th) and it is not "dumbed down math." Are there schools were students are functionally ill-numerate, no doubt.

 

This concerns me a great deal.

 

Bill

[regentrude]

The highly functioning schools (and academies within schools) that attract hard working students and motivated parents are not letting kids "skate." Not a bit. The program we are looking at starts algebra in 7th Grade (and in rare cases 6th) and it is not "dumbed down math."

 

So what percentage of public school students in your community have access to these highly functioning schools?

[Korrale]

I also agree that some schools are better than others. Even within our small school district there is a distinct difference.

We have 5 elementary schools with about 200-300 students. Each year about 50 students from each school filter into a collective middle school.

I am getting constant reports from 6th graders in my neighborhood about how a few schools, and 1 in particular, have learnt many things in a number of subjects that their elementary school never covered. I spent a lot of time at this particular lagging school (which has been awarded an excellence standard) fighting for assistance for students who are failing. They will start receiving Ds and Es. Then voila, they start being graded Cs and Bs. The work itself doesn't improve. Just the grades it seems.

[eloquacious]

Math instruction and reading instruction alike are made more difficult by linguistic differences. I have heard that in Chinese, for instance, there is no "twelve" or "thirteen," only "ten-and-two" and "ten-and-three," or something very like that. A seemingly small linguistic difference, but built into that number "name" is the concept of place value and how double-digit numbers are built.

 

Similarly, Finland often gets praised for allowing its students to wait until they are 7 to learn to read, and having them reading fluently very quickly. This is easy enough to accomplish when you have a highly phonetic language with a simple phonetic code. The same is true for German. My first language was German, and I know there are very few multi-letter combinations, and letters pretty much represent one sound. Take that and compare it to the hundreds of combinations for 42-44 sounds of English, depending on whom you ask and which region/country they hail from, and you can see why it might take longer to get students fluent if we waited until kids are 7 to teach them to read.

 

That being said, I believe that the majority of the time young students spend in reading instruction is absolutely wasted with sight words and whatnot. Used more appropriately, that time could be cut and made more effective...which would also allow teachers to wait until the "academic" first grade to teach reading. Or, start earlier if you wish, but teach less and make sure those basics are covered. 

 

In a similar vein, younger kids could do quite challenging math if the right methods/manipulatives are used. (Think the Right Start abacus vs. a generic one with a single color on a line, or Miquon with Cuisenaire Rods.) 

[Korrale]

On thing to consider.....

 

I have a friend who was a middle school English teacher. She is bright, enthusiastic, and very attentive with her students. When she started teaching she just got lost in the system. And she didn't know how to fix it. Each year she would inherit several children who were not literate at all. We are talking 6th-8th grade students. They couldn't read, or write. She would seek assistance. A reading coach. But the funding is stretched so thin that it just didn't always happen. Any student that did get a coach, and improved, even minimal improvement, would then lose assistance and filter back into regular classes. But it was too little too late. As a teacher she was lost. Her only option was to sit beside her struggling students during tests and read the tests with them, as part of an IEP. Her dilemma was that she didn't have the time or the resources to teach each child 6-8 years of language arts. She had to work with what she had. And though she would love to grade these children low, she couldn't keep doing it. It wasn't feasible to have a 16 year old in a class with 12 year olds.

[Farrar]

Completely seconding Regentrude's post.  That's exactly what I see with the expectations.  I think some people here differ about what level of work we should expect from elementary schoolers (I think we expect too many skills and not enough mastery in them, plus not enough content to hang a hat on, but I know reasonable people can disagree on this point...), but what I see is that we expect a lot early and then suddenly nothing, at least for the majority of students (again, there will always be schools that are exceptions and special programs, and so forth).  And that's how the Common Core is written and what the attitude just seems to be.

 

Like I said, I don't think it's about lowering expectations or raising them.  It's about changing some of what they are and restructuring them.  Something is clearly broken and I do think this is a part of it.

[Spy Car]

So what percentage of public school students in your community have access to these highly functioning schools?

Depends what you call "access." The Magnet Schools, which tend towards being "higher level" schools, are open to anyone based on lottery admissions. And they provide transportation.

 

There are other Middle School programs one "tests" into (these are "open" to all, but the tests favor the advantaged, as tests will generally do).

 

The Public Charters are open to all. But sought out by "the motivated."

 

Better "local" Middle Schools (non-Magnets) tend to be in "better" areas. If one is not "local" there are ways (like getting permits) for people who are savvy about working the system. But no transportation.

 

The reality is highly motivated people can (if they have the will, time, and energy) usually find a reasonable opportunity for a hard-working student.

 

The other reality is poor students usually attend their impoverished neighborhood school. Those that get into one of the "better" schools don't always make it, as the expectations can be too high. There are always the exceptional cases of intelligent and hard working kids who are determined to "make it" and do.

 

Is this "access?" Sort of yes, sort of no, I guess. It is pretty limiting actual practice.

 

Bill

[mytwomonkeys]

My daughter's public school is good in regard to "tests" and she has wonderfully devoted teachers. I can't compare it to any other experience, as we have never utilized a public school before. I can say that I was shocked when she came home and said spelling is not incorporated at all. It is not a subject. It is not corrected. Therefore we continue with her instruction at home. I also feel the expectations in writing lack, especially since I know writing is heavily pushed in elementary school here. It seems bizarre to push paragraphs in 1st grade and build on quantity each year, only to taper it off later. My daughter loves school though, and overall, I find the curriculum to be up to par in most subjects. Math instruction is not behind here at all, and I've been very pleased with my daughter's growth there.

 

Anyway. IME, the early elementary years tend to focus on quantity vs quality. Reading and writing seem to have a rigid time table & the focus is often on milestones instead of progress. I find the expectations in the early grades to be more stressful than productive. With my daughter's age, I just don't understand some things, but we just make up for that at home.

[Bookaddict]

I have not read "The Smartest Kids..." so I don't know if this was addressed, but I am not sure if the disparity is as "simple" as you laid out.  Both S. Korea and Finland are very homogeneous societies.  The U.S.A. is not.  There are just so many cultural dynamics at work in our society, our schools/teachers must juggle these. 

They actually do address these concerns and had surprising results. Even states where most of the population was white or an area was heavily minority-they still did worse. They were careful to analyze state by state as well because 30 of US states is smaller than Finland (population-wise) and is also run locally like Finland. Yet across the board, these state still scored lower. Finland also has 3 "official state languages" making it far less homogenous than the most would think. They speak of one of their schools which has 14 spoken languages and kids from 13 different countries and yet all the students score well and have a high graduation rate.

 

I am not suggesting what I listed is the only problem because as the author points out-it turns out there were many societal differences as well like the overall value of education in South Korea and Finland. Overwhelmingly US students and foreign exchange students here felt like US schools and society cared more about sports than the education. 

 

There were ALOT of factors but a few strong ones were more educated/trained teachers out of school and higher standards.

[eloquacious]

On thing to consider.....

 

I have a friend who was a middle school English teacher. She is bright, enthusiastic, and very attentive with her students. When she started teaching she just got lost in the system. And she didn't know how to fix it. Each year she would inherit several children who were not literate at all. We are talking 6th-8th grade students. They couldn't read, or write. She would seek assistance. A reading coach. But the funding is stretched so thin that it just didn't always happen. Any student that did get a coach, and improved, even minimal improvement, would then lose assistance and filter back into regular classes. But it was too little too late. As a teacher she was lost. Her only option was to sit beside her struggling students during tests and read the tests with them, as part of an IEP. Her dilemma was that she didn't have the time or the resources to teach each child 6-8 years of language arts. She had to work with what she had. And though she would love to grade these children low, she couldn't keep doing it. It wasn't feasible to have a 16 year old in a class with 12 year olds.

 

I taught 6th and 7th grade "Language Arts" in Baltimore for a few years. I would estimate that my brightest readers were at a 4th grade level, perhaps one or two at a 5th. The vast majority under a 3rd grade level, with a not insignificant portion (20%?) at 2nd or even 1st.

 

We went through four curricula in two years, counting the two "major" curricula that the system paid for and trained us in, as well as the two makeshift "in between" curricula that they gave us to teach for a few months while they revamped/rethought what they were doing.

 

I can't think of those kids and think that the rest of middle school / high school was a pleasant learning experience for any of them. The only learning happening was in the Special Education Resource room down the hall where my hero, Mrs. Brown, was allowed to teach Wilson Reading to intervention kids. I wish I had known then what I know now as a homeschool wannabe turned afterschooler. I would have told the district what to do with their Studio Course and middle school Language Arts books and started the whole class at the very beginning.

[Spy Car]

And I bet the highly functioning schools are in the better parts of town and those students doing the best are from the better parts of town.  That's the same pretty much everywhere.

Yes, of course. Particularly at the elementary school level. When it comes to Middle and High Schools in this area you almost always get a mix of kids coming from very different backgrounds, and sometimes "world's collide." Often Middle and High Schools will have "schools within schools" to keep the more highly achieving students. Students from less advantaged elementary schools have "access" to these academies (in theory), but the work is pitched so high that most don't consider it a viable option.

 

 

Here there is no algebra until 9th grade.  I wish I were kidding.  They have been trying to offer it in 8th because they do have students who could do it.  The problem is mostly financial. 

 

From Regentrude's perspective though....I show my husband what we are working on (algebra) and he says stuff to me like..."oh this is like stuff we did in about 5th grade".  LOL  Makes me want to tear my hair out.  But yup, that is what he says.

I have been very surprised how much basic level algebra my son has been doing in 4th Grade here. I started him with this sort of thing in our "home" math program even earlier, and thought we had a multi-year jump on things, but that hasn't been so. I think most children here have been doing algebra in 8th (with 9th being for special cases, and 7th being advanced). I'm not sure yet if CC will affect this sequence.

 

Bill

[Alice]

I don’t know what goes on in the public schools except as an outside observer. But I think part of it is not so much that the standards are too high or too low but that maybe we have the wrong standards. Or are measuring the wrong things. This is somewhat a different discussion, but I had a patient yesterday who was so excited and proud to tell me about how her daughter got and “184 out of 193†on some test. That was what she had come away from her parent-teacher conference knowing about her daughter. The daughter is in kindergarten. I can’t fathom what kind of test they are taking two months into the school year in K or why it seems to be the only measure of learning. 

 

I live in one of the “best†school districts in the country. Routinely most of the schools here are in the top 25 on the best high schools in America lists. I hear from many people that middle school is a slacking off time UNLESS they are in a gifted program. The gifted programs are not in the local schools so some parents just can’t opt into those and others may be good students but not good at the standardized tests needed to get into the programs. 

 

My view as an outsider is that everything here is incredibly test-driven with no real questions about what we are testing or what it means. And that there seems to be very good services for those who are gifted or those who are special needs (I know many people very happy with what their schools provide for kids with learning disabilities or more severe developmental delay), but for those kids who are average or even above average students middle school seems to be a time of holding here. 

[newbieoftwo]

I will have to say from my own experience that middle school standards seem to vary the most from location to location. I attended middle school in a middle class area and completed geometry in 8th grade along with several other students. This wasn't considered an advanced track at my middle school, but was rather normal. However, when I moved to a new city for high school the teachers were absolutely astonished that I had completed geometry as an 8th grader. Students on the advanced track were taking Algebra 2 as sophomores. I took it as a freshman. Had I stayed in the same town I completed middle school in, finishing calculus as a junior would not have been remarkable, but in my new city it was practically unheard of. 

[SnMomof7]

Re: socioeconomic variances. Why are these so pronounced in public education yet virtually negligible in homeschooling populations? It's not just about $$, but rather more about parental attention.

[Spy Car]

Oh I'm sure they are doing some of these topics sooner (without calling it officially "algebra").  I met a woman recently who was new to homeschooling.  She pulled her 3 kids out of the district schools.  Her oldest was entering 7th.  She said there were a lot of issues at the school with discipline, crime, etc.  She was a very involved parent (president of the PTA for years, etc.).  She said her daughter was a straight A student and was getting As in math every year.  Then she hit 7th and she could not do any of the math.  She didn't understand how a kid could be supposedly getting As in math, but unable to progress.  So you take a student who was an honors student in a crappy district who can't function in the higher math.  The mom believed they just had to spend too much time with behavioral issues and other issues of students that they didn't do a good job at covering what needed to be covered so she was not prepared.

One of last nights 4th Grade homework problems asked:

 

If you have 2 diamond rings and 4 silver rings that are worth $1,440 altogether. And 1 diamond ring and 1 silver ring that together are worth $660. Then how much is a silver ring worth?

 

Not a super hard problem, but I bet some parents can't do the math.

 

Bill

[Spy Car]

Re: socioeconomic variances. Why are these so pronounced in public education yet virtually negligible in homeschooling populations? It's not just about $$, but rather more about parental attention.

You think socioeconomic differences (including educational backgrounds of parents) in homeschools have a negligible effect? I kind of doubt it.

 

Bill

[Elisabet1]

If you look closely at the classroom, there are a number of factors. They spend so much time on whatever new fad in education, and spend very little time on actual basic skills. The kids here have all been issued ipads, which they play on a lot. They no longer do handwriting, spelling, grammar. Even math is done with calculators. And, teachers often have access to play on internet. The standards for teachers where I live is quite low. You can have a great teacher, but you can also have a bad one. In addition to all that, this country is very diverse. They average in every single student and then complain when the average is not as high as they want. 

[EKS]

One of last nights 4th Grade homework problems asked:

 

If you have 2 diamond rings and 4 silver rings that are worth $1,440 altogether. And 1 diamond ring and 1 silver ring that together are worth $660. Then how much is a silver ring worth?

 

Not a super hard problem, but I bet some parents can't do the math.

 

Bill

 

I'd bet that at least 50% of parents would have trouble with that problem.  Realistically, it's probably more like 75%.

 

[EKS]

Re: socioeconomic variances. Why are these so pronounced in public education yet virtually negligible in homeschooling populations? It's not just about $$, but rather more about parental attention.

 

Has there been a study that shows this?  I would guess that as compared to public school families, the socioeconomic status of homeschooling families would be skewed towards the upper end.

[Crimson Wife]

You think socioeconomic differences (including educational backgrounds of parents) in homeschools have a negligible effect? I kind of doubt it.

 

Bill

That was true for the (self-selected) participants in the study that NHERI commissioned. Affluent HSers averaged at ~89th percentile while low-income HSers averaged in the ~83rd percentile.