Education Reform Thread

[Cantih]

This was back in the early 2000s, but I did semesters as an office TA as an elective, which was really just doing rounds and getting attendance sheets from all the classes.
This let me see all the class compositions, and from what I knew of the student body, once you could see the whole picture, there were "standard" classes that were very obviously dump classes for fuckhead students, mixed with slightly above average students to balance out class grade averages.

[Not Kuno]

Hire more teachers to lower classroom size. Problem solved. Pretty much every major teaching methodology is done in classroom sizes of 25 or less.

[Ksandra]

Is tracking still a thing in schools nowadays? I know I was an asshole in grade school because I was bored in class, but part of the reason I got better in middle school was that we were separated by our academic abilities. They stopped it sometime in the 90's after I graduated (at least in my district in Illinois), and I personally thought it was the wrong decision. I understand parents and kids don't like being told they aren't as smart as the other students, but I feel it does more harm than good. Smart kids get bored because the material is too easy, slower kids get frustrated because they can't keep up.

NCLB makes this basically impossible for schools. Mixing classes means the smart ones don't get enough education, but studies say it helps the lower ones better to push forward. We have to worry about the low ones passing the tests, not the smart ones. (ugh)

[Ksandra]

Hire more teachers to lower classroom size. Problem solved. Pretty much every major teaching methodology is done in classroom sizes of 25 or less.

This is such a major factor and should be the number one priority.

But it won't solve everything because as long as you have no leverage, you will still have kids acting out like crazy no matter the class size.

It only takes one to stop the whole class.

[Churchill]

If they move all the smart kids to a separate learning program,

Why don't they move all the burger flippers to a separate classroom as well?

[Ksandra]

If they move all the smart kids to a separate learning program,

Why don't they move all the burger flippers to a separate classroom as well?

NCLB makes this basically impossible for schools. Mixing classes means the smart ones don't get enough education, but studies say it helps the lower ones better to push forward. We have to worry about the low ones passing the tests, not the smart ones. (ugh)

.

[Churchill]

idk, psure AZ still segregates smart kids.

And I don't see how you couldn't in a HS situation unless your school doesn't offer any AP or Honors classes or move kids ahead in various math classes.

[Ksandra]

idk, psure AZ still segregates smart kids.

And I don't see how you couldn't in a HS situation unless your school doesn't offer any AP or Honors classes or move kids ahead in various math classes.

There are still honors classes, but that's usually the extent of it. I have three levels honors, regular, and lower class. But that is also HS, which changes a lot. You won't find that in most middle schools and lower.

[Aksannyi]

In the end, unless it's an AP or IB level course, the material is the exact same for both levels, just the pace is different. I've been noticing that as really the only difference between my host teacher's honors and regulars courses.

[Ksandra]

In the end, unless it's an AP or IB level course, the material is the exact same for both levels, just the pace is different. I've been noticing that as really the only difference between my host teacher's honors and regulars courses.

Very true. Though I think something can be said of the behavior class/size issue that's been mentioned in this thread. My honors kids are all good, there's only 12 of them, and they are actually motivated to do well. So while my content is essentially the same with minor differences (more vocab, higher expectations in writing), they are still learning a lot more simply because of having an optimal class environment.

[BerenTebogo]

Hire more teachers to lower classroom size. Problem solved. Pretty much every major teaching methodology is done in classroom sizes of 25 or less.

Thanks for stopping by with this succinct and poignant point that certainly has not been the almost sole discussion takeaway of 4 of the last 5 pages.

[Not Kuno]

Thanks for stopping by with this succinct and poignant point that certainly has not been the almost sole discussion takeaway of 4 of the last 5 pages.

Thank you I try. Although to be fair I didnt see anything about it on the last page, but it was brought up on the page before. Oops.

[Salodin]

I can't speak to the country, but in Florida class sizes are usually kept small (with few exceptions that I'd elaborate if wanted). Even so, going into the school year kids are divided up based on scores and observations. They try to keep the rowdy kids in each class to a minimum, and give them to the teachers best able to handle it. The smart kids aren't all out together, aside from the one gifted teacher most grade levels have, because these are kids. They jump around in performance a lot, some weeks they're way ahead, some they're behind.

The biggest thing teachers do are "small groups" where each class is divided into three or four smaller groups where each group is labeled as low, on point, or high. They stick the slowtards in the low group where they do get a little more attention in their work, but not as much as they usually need. The on point kids are just kept on point, and the high kids get to finish their work and then do something constructive with their remaining time. Of course the kids and parents aren't told this though, but if they're involved with their children they pick it up and always push the teacher to get them into the higher groups.

This is for elementary school btw. Once you hit middle school you're introduced to switching classes for subjects, and the only differentiation inside subjects come from being labeled honors, or not.

[Ksandra]

This is for elementary school btw. Once you hit middle school you're introduced to switching classes for subjects, and the only differentiation inside subjects come from being labeled honors, or not.

I was gonna say. Try to do the groups in high school is lol. It's funny, the older they get, the less you can trust them to work independently.

[Ksandra]

Apparently, England is going through a similar teacher problem involving workload:

http://www.bbc.com/news/education-34426598

More than half of teachers in England (53%) are thinking of quitting in the next two years, a survey has suggested.

The survey, conducted by the National Union of Teachers, found 61% of those wanting to leave blamed workload and 57% desired a better work/life balance.

Two thirds of the 1,020 primary and secondary school teachers questioned felt morale in the profession had declined over the past five years.

[notorious bum]

South Africa Freezes Tuition Fees After Student Protests
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/24/wo...le.com%2F&_r=0

Protests have erupted across many of South Africa’s public universities this year, with anger focusing on the deep-rooted economic and racial cleavages remaining a generation after the end of apartheid.

But in recent days, the protests have spread outside the campuses, as students have leveled their ire directly at the government. Students and police officers clashed outside the Parliament building in Cape Town, and students marched on Wednesday to the headquarters here of the African National Congress, the liberation movement that has governed the country since the end of apartheid in 1994.

[Ksandra]

Teacher in LA has a class action lawsuit against LAUSD. They fired him for giving a joke to students involved nudity (none of the parents complained. Lawsuit includes 2000 teachers who feel they were fired to save the district money on retirement benefits.

http://www.ijreview.com/2015/10/4479...nt=inf_10_74_2

Apparently this was the joke:

"In court papers, they alleged that the investigation was launched because Esquith had quipped that if he could not raise enough money for an annual Shakespeare play, students would have to perform their parts naked like the king in Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.""


On a personal note, this is happening to my mom, too. She's not fired, but they are doing absolutely everything to make her quit. She doesn't get a prep period anymore, they force her to be on every committee at the school, won't approve of any of her school supplies, etc..

This is a woman who got a day named after in her CT for her work in special education. I don't just say it because she is my mom, but because she really is a fucking amazing teacher. Schools don't want to pay, though. Shit has got to change.

[Melena]

That blows, but when it comes to pay, you can blame a lot of things. Every time I hear of teachers fighting for pay, I lose brain cells reading comments about how they should be thankful and they are already overpaid, get paid for only working part of the year, without even knowing all the unpaid overtime teachers put in, let alone all the out of pocket expenses covering for supplies the schools don't pay for. It really is a thankless job.

[Andalusian girls]

personally i'd love to pay them more if they accept a system that ties compensation to performance rather than seniority

[Blubbartron]

personally i'd love to pay them more if they accept a system that ties compensation to performance rather than seniority

Teachers aren't employees stuffing widgets in boxes that you can simply measure performance. Imagine trying to rate the performance of someone in middle management, who is directly managing 200 employees, and every year ALL 200 employees turnover. I have trouble even fathoming a reasonably fair method of judging performance in those conditions. Even the best managers in the world realize that at some point you have to just cut your losses and get rid of people who aren't working out, but teachers don't have that option. Any method of evaluation that depends on the students is inherently extraordinarily unjust for this very reason. Good luck coming up with a system that doesn't ultimately rely on that.