Survival of the Fittest

Somewhere along the line people got the idea that everyone needs to go to college. In the state of Washington parents can put money away for their newborn child's college fund. Everybody needs a college fund. That is the word throughout the land. Well guess what. Not everybody goes to college. Some people just don't want to go to college while others just are not college material.

Our department of education and people who decide the status of education in this state either do not believe it, or are living in a delusional state of mind. The latest mandate (unfunded of course) requires a third year of math to graduate. Not a bad idea if it was handled realistically. But guess what, the students must complete algebra and geometry as the required classes. I am not sure how that will help the dropout rate.

Now Seattle school district is trying to require a 'C' or higher to get credit for a class. Another well intentioned idea that often leads to grade inflation. In other words, a 60% mastery of the subject matter is not good enough. Get a 70% mastery. I don't know of any college who accepts students with D's scattered through their transcripts. However, a 'D' does allow a student to move on to the next level. So 'D' students become dropouts since that is not good enough to pass a class.

I have science curriculum that I have developed according to certain standards. Once a student completes my class with a certain grade, s/he has mastered the material to that level. Any rote memorization will soon be forgotten and only the skills of how to learn, along with the major principles of the discipline, will be retained. So throw a high stakes test at the kids a year or two later to show them how dumb they are and to denegrate the evaluation methods of the curriculum being taught.

Why are our graduates so dumb? According to comparisons of our students with students from other countries and according to the failure/dropout rates in four year colleges, our educational system "sucks".

People who say that ignore some basic facts. We keep everybody in public school, whether they want to be there or not. We can't remove troublesome students like charter schools and private schools. We have to teach 'em all. Overseas in many countries students are tested and sent to the appropriate school with only the best going on to their universities. Others are diverted into training for trades. Our students have fine arts classes. In Japan that would just be a distraction. In other countries teachers are respected. In this country teachers are expected to be babysitters and Heaven help the teacher who dares to discipline a rowdy student too agressively.

Why do so many students fail at four year colleges? Don't look at the public schools. Look at the colleges. Teaching methods are very different from the public school methods. Instructors make many assumptions about their students and most use a lecture/test method while flying through the material being covered. Competition is fierce among students and no longer are there low achievers to take care of the bottom of the "bell curve". Using college teaching methods in public schools would greatly reduce class size as students would drop out as soon as legally permitted to do so.

We used to offer curriculum for students not planning on college. Vocational/technical programs were offered to these students. Well guess what, these programs are going away from the middle schools and junior high schools and the high schools have elevated the level to attract students interested in engineering, not the student who wants to learn how to build a house with basic hand tools.

It is too bad that we worry about how dumb our kids are compared to the rest of the world and accuse our educational system of catastrophic failure when we live in a country that has become great through its educational system and attracts students from other countries who want to take advantage of what we offer. If our educational system has failed anywhere, it is in its production of political hacks who attack the system for their own political gain, not caring about the negative effect their tinkering has on the present generation of students.

Now I'll get off my soapbox and next time talk about "dens of iniquity"- faculty rooms.