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Author Topic: I Think Something Is Wrong With Our Schools Paul G. Thompson The Weenie Man Posts: 4718 From: Mount Vernon WA USA Registered: Nov 2000 posted 09-08-2003 04:39 PM                     I was returning home from an inconvenience store with a cup of coffee about 1:45PM today. I observed a school bus dumping off a bunch of brats at that time. They were probably 7-9th graders. With the timing of how long it takes the bus to get out here added to the time it takes for the bus to be loaded at the school, I would guess school let out at about 1:15 PM. OK...... 1. What happened to the days where the brats stayed and learned until the 3:15 bell? 2. I don't know about some other states, but we, in Washington State, are producing a bunch of kids that don't know how to read, write, add, subtract, divide, (but they know how to multiply ) and think. In otherwords, their scholastic standing is equivilant to a bunch of morons that don't have enough sense to come in out of the rain. Here is something I found: a. A dozen schools in four Skagit County school districts failed to meet federal standards for successful schools and many could face federal penalties if the trend continues. b. The schools that literally flunked the mandated standards are: Mount Vernon: Lincoln Elementary School Madison Elementary School La Venture Middle School Mount Baker Middle School Mount Vernon High School (They flunked everything.) Well, if they are not in school learning, how does one expect to produce an educated human being? I just read this in the news: LAKE STEVENS, Wash. -- Local teachers have voted to reject a contract offer and walk out in the second teacher strike in the state at the start of the school year. Key issues for the 400 teachers include salaries, health care and workload. OK, here is another dumb one: AUSTIN, Minn. -- Two teens accused of searching for a marijuana dealer dialed the ultimate wrong number - they called the Mower County Sheriff's cell phone. A few minutes later, the phone rang again. This time, Amazi let a deputy answer. The caller again asked for a bag of marijuana, and the deputy - who called himself "Dupe" on the phone - arranged for a meeting at a convenience store an hour later. "Apparently, they didn't know the meaning of 'Dupe' as in 'duped' either," Amazi said. "It's incredible." The girls, ages 15 and 17, were arrested at the scene. Police said they found cash for the marijuana and drug paraphernalia on both girls. One was released to her parent and the other was turned over to a probation officer. "Not only did they do something wrong, but they should have been in school," Amazi said. My question is: How can someone be so stupid to call the same number twice looking for a bag of grass? They probably got the phone number off a shithouse wall. Please don't get me wrong....There are many kids who want to learn. Many "good" kids from high school have admitted to me they are concerned about the educational standards. Some admitted to me there are teachers that are not qualified to teach the subject they are supposed to be teaching. I rest my case.  |  IP: Logged Jeff Stricker Master Film Handler Posts: 481 From: Calumet, Mi USA Registered: Nov 1999 posted 09-08-2003 05:09 PM                     Paul, the thing that bothers me is these young people are going to be 'running' things someday. I have alot of trepidation about what's going to happen to our standard of living and our ability to invent the new technologies that made the US such a great place. I see the same things here in Indiana and am afraid it isn't a geographical thing related to your area. Lots of lazy kids not wanting to strain themselves.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 09-08-2003 05:29 PM                     The biggest problem is with the PARENTS and not so much the schools. For example, 80% of women incarcerated in Oklahoma are also single mothers (most are in jail over drug-related violations). With such a deplorable example being set, how can anyone expect the kids of these mothers to turn out decent? I feel sorry for parents who are busting their ass to keep their kids on the straight path. Lazy/bad/absentee parents make shitbird kids, who in turn become very destructive influences on other kids despite efforts in parenting. The underlying problem or lowest common denominator in all of this is the perverted obsession our popular culture has in making bad people seem cool. The bad/tough kids at school always becomes the cool trailblazing ones to follow and emulate. Anyone who insists on getting good grades and staying free of drugs, tattoos, piercings, teenage parenthood and juvenile criminal convictions gets ridiculed as a "nerd" or even gets the hell beaten out of him. I don't condone what those idiots did at that school in Columbine. But I understand what inspired it. The kids themselves need to be held accountable for any sorry shit they do instead of just getting more rehab or ritalin. Same goes for the parents. As far as the education system goes, teachers should not be expected to be parents. Such an expectation is bullshit. Education reform is badly needed, but needed from the aspect of teachers getting paid worth a damn instead of starvation wages. Most any state has an education bureaucracy bloated with middle and upper management. Lots and lots of expensive white collar welfare is happening in that regard. Right now most politicians have no balls to do anything about this problem. They don't want to fire their good-ol-boy buddies from high paying ghost employee jobs to streamline administration. And they sure as hell don't want to raise any property or ad valorem taxes to pay for any teacher pay raises, much less things like text books or the classroom light bill. So we'll continue to stand by and watch the situation deteriorate. We're already exporting nearly all our manufacturing out of the country. Soon we'll be exporting many of our high tech white-collar jobs as well. IBM forecasts 3 million high tech industry jobs will leave America over the next 5 years to go to places like China and India.  |  IP: Logged Chris Hipp Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1462 From: Mesquite, Tx (east of Dallas) Registered: Jul 2003 posted 09-08-2003 05:54 PM                     I have mixed feelings on this subject. First off, I don't think that the schools are responsible for the "dumbening" of today's kids. Everything comes back to the parents. So many people have this idea that kids should learn everything from school and that the government is responsible for everything. People don't even raise their own kids anymore, just stick them in front of the TV and go do what you need to do. What do you think will happen to these kids? They are going to be lazy in everything they do. So, you have schools crammed full of these kids that arent interested in anything that isn't on TV or requires any use of imagination, intelligence or willpower. A good example would be my 14 year old cousin. He came over this weekend while I was reading the FT forums. He looked at the monitor and said "why are you looking at pictures of guys?" It didn't even occur to him to actually READ what was on the page. The bottom line is that it comes down to parents involvement. Very few kids are self-motivated enough to make straight A's in school. Those that are are constantly distracted by the kids who don't want to learn and are being forced to go. As far as the schools are concerned, I think the biggest problem is that these slacker kids are being forced to go to school. I don't know of any other country where you are required to go to school until you are 18. Schools to teach the basics to everyone up to a certain age and then let the slackers go out and join the workforce and let the motivated students stay and learn so they can move up in society. I consider myself educated, but I have very little common sense. I can't add or subtract in my head, but I can do more complicated math and algebra than the average forty year old. I love the saying about these kids are going to be running things someday. It has been around for so long and how many of you remember hearing it as a kid? The reality is that kids are by nature inexperienced and you say oh these dumb kids. My point is, kids don't have the life experience. I don't have the life experience. My main points here are: Schools are a valuable asset for those who want to learn. Kids are lazy because the parents don't want to raise them to be any different and when they do turn out to be hoodlums they blame it on society instead of there own lazy parenting. You can't blame kids for being inexperienced. By the way, when I talk to a stupid kid, "I say 60 million years of mammalian evolution wasted."  |  IP: Logged Martin Brooks Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 900 From: Forest Hills, NY, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 09-08-2003 11:53 PM                        Those kids aren't going to be running anything someday. Those kids, if they are working at all, will be working in the service economy: in hotels, fast food restaurants, gas stations, etc. However, there is still a large group of kids who care about education, have rich parents, and will go to the best colleges and become the future executives and leaders. It used to be that middle class and lower class parents pushed their kids to succeed where they had not. Frankly, I don 't see this much among Americans anymore. Where I do see it is among certain immigrant groups, like those of Asian and Indian origin. There is almost no respect in our society for education. Our heroes are movie stars, athletes and the rich. In so many parts of the country, kids see nothing on the vista except gas stations, fast food restaurants and shopping malls. Culture is a reality TV show where people will do absolutely anything to humiliate themselves on television. Success is being a star of Girls Gone Wild. Well-meaning parents think taking their kid to a water park is high culture and that it's perfectly okay to let their 10-year-old dress like Brittany Spears. I agree with those who believe that most of the fault is with the parents. But I have also been in schools where the teachers are barely literate. If a child doesn't come into first grade with pre-reading skills, which means having been read to, knowing the alphabet, having put crayon and pencil to paper and how to count to ten, that child is already lost and is unlikely to recover. Making matters worse is the reliance on television and video games, which combined with high-sugar diets, is making our kids hyperactive and fat. I always laugh when I read about "good schools" because in large measure, the only difference between the good schools and the bad, aside from the cosmetics, is that in the good schools, the kids have come to school better prepared and have parents who have a pretense of understanding and caring. So those kids already know how to read and do well on standardized tests. There's really no difference in the teaching. It used to be that if you weren't much of a student, you could get a job in manufacturing and earn a decent living, especially if it was unionized. Now that there's little manufacturing left in this country, if you're not well educated, the only job market is minimum wage jobs. I believe that is going to be a very big problem for this country in coming years. IMHO, I believe that we will become more like a third-world country: instead of a large middle class, we'll have an upper class of rich people, a massive lower class and a small middle class. But hopefully, I'm completely wrong, and just as we had a counter-culture in the 60s that took us out of the complacency of the 50s, they'll be a new counter-culture that once again embraces learning and education and it will once again be 'hip' to be smart.  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 09-09-2003 12:19 AM                        My two youngest daughters (now 16 & 17) attended probably the best elementary school our local district had. Unfortunately, our junior high schools suck... there's no nicer way to put it. We have 3 of them, and the drug, violence and discipline problems tend to rotate through all 3. There was no way I'd put these kids in there. They'd heard of a local private school, and they both ASKED to go there. So.... I'm chronically broke, but I've got a couple of well educated, and well-grounded kids. They're pulling nearly 4.0 averages in a no-nonsense school that bills itself as a "college prep" institution. I've got no gripes... except that I'm still paying for the kooks who seem to think that holding up a community by striking at the last moment is something positive.  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 09-09-2003 12:21 AM                         |  IP: Logged Chris Hipp Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1462 From: Mesquite, Tx (east of Dallas) Registered: Jul 2003 posted 09-09-2003 12:22 AM                     The two ends are becoming more extreme. The rich keep getting richer and the poor get poorer. We were just talking in school about how a college degree is meaning less now because so many people are going to college. Even Phd's are having a hard time finding jobs. Just like Martin said, we can't all be doctors and lawyers. I think it is more important to be passionate about what you are doing rather than how prestigious it is. Movie exhibition is not considers a prestigous job, but look at the people on here.  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 09-09-2003 12:53 AM                        quote: I think it is more important to be passionate about what you are doing rather than how prestigious it is. Movie exhibition is not considers a prestigous job, but look at the people on here. (rant on) Chris, the problem is that the booth positions that used to pay a (somewhat) liveable wage are all but gone. It's the same with the broadcast engineering field. "Advances" in electronic design discourage component-level service work. Instead, manufacturers encourage whole-card exchange, which does nothing to challenge the troubleshooting talents of local technicians. Ownership consolidation has resulted in fewer positions in any given town, lowering demand for the few that really care about the industry. Big companies like Entercom and Clear Channel can take one or two really good transmitter/antenna engineers, and spread them (very) thinly across as much of the chain as possible. In the end, demand is so low that educational institutions have little reason to train up entry-level technicians, and formal classes are subsequently discontinued. The big broadcasters have figured out that you can apply the title of (unpaid) "intern" to most positions. You have to find your own self-worth, because (except for maybe the larger markets), you won't get a lot from the owners. Now, figure out how much of the above applies to booth operators. The big companies have overbuilt just about every economically worthwhile market there is... squeezing out a whole lot of independent first-run operators, and a many more sub-run & discount houses. They retitle their operators as "managers", thereby avoiding union attempts to separate functions and negotiate less-than-embarrassing wages. The "managers" are such, mainly in title only... their pay and responsibilities certainly don't reflect it... and they're put in charge of megaplexes full of equipment that they have no clue how to maintain, let alone operate competently. The chains chronically understaff their internal maintenance crews, drastically lessening the benefit of otherwise qualified individuals. Automation and current manufacturing techniques discourage low-level maintenance to the point that it becomes difficult to really know what makes the equipment in your booth tick. A lot of the really good remaining operators wind up trying to make a living in the installation & maintenance business, because there's generally no future in lacing up a projector & hitting the start button... except maybe in New York or LA... but then, I wouldn't know. The base problem? The consumer accepts the resultant product quality, and has for a lot of years now. As long as the industry can get the titles first, and put out a product just slightly better than home video, they'll pull in the customers. Given that, many of see no reason to spend a dime over the minimum necessary to fend off major complaints. You're right. It is impressive that so many people around here still care about this industry and the quality of its presentation. I, for one, hope it somehow manages to continue. (rant set somewhat lower)  |  IP: Logged Paul G. Thompson The Weenie Man Posts: 4718 From: Mount Vernon WA USA Registered: Nov 2000 posted 09-09-2003 01:07 AM                     Chris, consider this: The kids from the Catholic school that is about 10 blocks away from the Mount Vernon High School just scholastically beat the crap out of the public school kids. And their parents are no better off financially than the public HS kids. And yet, another public school in a city 5 miles away will have better grades by far as compared to the MVHS. So, I don't think it is near as much as the parents as everybody seems to blame. I think there are some serious problems with the public schools administration in the City of Mount Vernon.  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 09-09-2003 01:39 AM                        I'm with you on that, Paul. Dave Ross had the union rep on from that striking district on his show this morning. The guy had plenty of slogans to spew, but not one hard fact from which to justify what's going on. He was totally unprepared to answer even the most reasonable, basic questions. He justified the strike by saying that Everett managed to boost teacher pay, so his district should find a way to do the same thing. He didn't have a copy of the district's budget, and generally had no clue how they were spending the money they did have. His position was simply that they should be able to re-prioritize their budget in order to give teachers a better deal, regardless how the budget's currently set up. If he was trying to advance the teachers' position, he more likely set them back a few years. As for the private schools... you're right on.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 09-09-2003 01:50 AM                     quote: I love the saying about these kids are going to be running things someday. I think Martin is right in saying those kids are not going to be running things ever. There was a headline on SBC/Yahoo's home page about the growing percentage of people over 65 in the workforce. Some of that is certainly from people not being able to afford retirement. But another thing is many over 65 are better skilled, better educated and better equipped to hold onto the purse strings of power. I see a situation where America gets transformed into a kind of third world state where a scant few can get educated and skilled while the rest wait tables and work other menial service jobs. Our good white collar jobs are now in danger of getting exported to office parks in foreign countries where a greater percentage of people (and the culture) promotes a good work ethic. The really bad thing though is American workers on average are working longer hours and producing more than any other nation, but cheap labor is putting a lot of good workers out of jobs. And that has the harmful effect of promoting the virtue of just being a f**kup "because there's nothing you can do to get ahead; you're going to get screwed anyway."  |  IP: Logged William Hooper Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1879 From: Mobile, AL USA Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-09-2003 02:19 AM                        quote: The underlying problem or lowest common denominator in all of this is the perverted obsession our popular culture has in making bad people seem cool. The bad/tough kids at school always becomes the cool trailblazing ones to follow and emulate. It's not popular culture. Popular culture is just presenting all types & cashing in on the type to which the population responds. This is sophomore psychology stuff: there's an interesting phenomenon concerning discrepancies of what folks believe is attractive *to others*, which starts becoming plain purely with surveys of body silhouettes shown to males & females. You got your body types which run across a spectrum with these points: ectomorph: skinny, angular type mesomorph: middle-ish, toned type endomorph: burly, tending even to fat type Now please remember that in statistics things don't DISAPPEAR when they're not found in the densest part of the distribution, and that PERSONAL TASTES WHICH DIFFER ARE LEGITIMATE & STILL EXIST but are out on the tails of the curve. Silhouettes of these body types along a scale were shown to (heterosexual) members of the opposite sex (silhouettes of males shown to females, silhouettes of females shown to males), & the people surveyed were asked to say which body type was the most attractive. Then, the silhouettes were shown to members of the same sex (silhouettes of males shown to males, & females shown to females), & the respondents were asked to say which body type THEY THOUGHT THAT THE OPPOSITE SEX FOUND MOST ATTRACTIVE. There's a huge discrepancy between what they *thought* others found attractive in their gender, & what the others said was attractive! Females tended to find the most attractive male silhouette near the mesomorphic (middle) even tending slightly toward the ectomorphic (skinny). But males tended to select that they THOUGHT that females thought the most attractive male silhouette was closest to the endomorphic! So much for being wrong about what others think! The interesting question is what made males *think* that burly was more attractive. The likelihood is that they of course had no benchmark themselves, & were using the criteria of THEIR OWN RESPONSES to body types. The response was usually that of intimidation by larger males, & they assumed that the males *they* were intimdated by were more attractive to the opposite sex. So you'll find that males who are motivated by fear will tend to find hostile types "cool", whether as burly or just hostile. These people who are motivated by fear will tend to be the ones brought up in violent, abusive, and/or authoritarian environments.  |  IP: Logged Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 09-09-2003 07:30 AM                     My sister went to college to be a special education teacher... Teaching kids with learning difficulties. She seemed so happy as she worked thru the courses... I watched her making all her classroom decorations (by herself) with things that she purchased with her own money. After a few months of teaching, she left the public school system. Why? She couldn't afford to teach and live a normal life at the same time. My sis is almost as cheap as I am! We dont waste money. Public school teachers are among the lowest paid professional jobs, at least here in North Carolina. Class sizes are growing and spreading the teacher thin. Budget cuts in the systems are making things harder, too. I have a friend that teaches 6th grade elementary school. We go out now and then and invariably need to stop at Kmart, etc. to get school supplies. She keeps things on hand because some of the students are not prepared for classes. She tells me that one chronically unprepared kid who never had pencils or paper handy comes from a well-to-do family. His parents have been asked to supply the essentials, but do nothing. So, in short: Parents need to wake up. The public schools cant do it alone. Legislators: Stop cutting school budgets. This is not going political-- This is all I have to say.  |  IP: Logged Paul G. Thompson The Weenie Man Posts: 4718 From: Mount Vernon WA USA Registered: Nov 2000 posted 09-09-2003 02:40 PM                     Rant Mode Engaged. Bruce, it seems as though there was a couple of 33 million dollar hand-outs over the last several years to "improve" the schools in Mount Vernon. Now they are saying something along the line they are 67 million dollars short and want more! It took several attempts for the levies to get the voter approval. The voters shot them down like flies until they were finally were approved, and they just squeaked by. About four years ago, the school district wanted a 11 million dollar hand-out to build a new cushy football stadium. The voters responded with a Then just lately, they wanted to tear down some old classrooms before new ones were built! That really didn't set too well with the voters. With the bonds passed, there has not been any improvements in the scholastic standings. In fact, it seems to be worse than it ever was. State testing of the teachers was discussed more than once...but the teacher's union shot that idea down. I would guess they were afraid of finding that too many teachers are incompetent to be teaching their subjects. That concern has been said by some students as well. In short, I think our public schools suck. I have a whole family full of school teachers. One retired as a vice-principal, the other retired as the head of the science department at his high school where he was teaching. He is now teaching at a college in a part-time status. Alot of my younger brother's children are now school teachers as well and they love their jobs. But yet they all say there is only about 17 to 20% of the kids don't give a shit about learning anything is school. The other 80 to 83% do care, and those are the ones who are expressing alarm at the public school system. I maintain it is not always the parents. People point their fingers too much and blame others instead of themselves. I certainly hope this topic does not turn political. But I have this feeling it will. Rant Mode disengaged.  |  IP: Logged

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