Xref: utzoo sci.math:5407 sci.physics:5590 comp.edu:1903 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ncis.llnl.gov!ncis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!purdue!mentor.cc.purdue.edu!l.cc.purdue.edu!cik From: cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) Newsgroups: sci.math,sci.physics,comp.edu Subject: Why American students are poorly educated Message-ID: <1101@l.cc.purdue.edu> Date: 18 Jan 89 16:17:37 GMT References: <14.UUL1.3#913@acw.UUCP> Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department Lines: 51 In article , johnm@uts.amdahl.com (John Murray) writes: > In article <14.UUL1.3#913@acw.UUCP>, scott@acw.UUCP (Scott Guthery) writes: ..................... > If unions and public schools are to blame, then how come kids in other > countries seem to be smarter? The US isn't the only nation with public > schools and teachers' unions. The United States is one of the few countries where the scholars have no say in the school system. About 50 years ago, the schools of education came up with the idea that keeping children with their age group was more important than having them learn. Furthermore, it was more important that different graders give the same grade. It also became unpopular to admit that different people could have widely differing abilities. This effectively precluded having standards. Since there were no standards, promotion and tenure became based on seniority and degrees/credits alone. The schools could not admit that they were bringing in and retaining teachers who did not, and even could not, understand what they were teaching. This system and attitude were introduced by the American schools of education, and have not spread to the rest of the world. ...................... > Why blame teachers and unions > for a system which allows kids to leave school without sitting some > standard national or state-wide exams? If every local school district gets > to set its own curriculum and rules, then of course some kids are going > to be short-changed. No school or teacher wants to seem incompetent, and > hance they'll "grade on a curve", so to speak. Centralize the curriculum, > exams, grading, and so on, and then see who's good and bad. One problem of doing this is that things get too rigid. We need experimenta- tion; we should not be so arrogant as to assume we know how to teach a given subject. As for standardizing exams and grading, that is where some of the problem lies. How are you going to do this without "objective" exams? Students have been marked wrong for using the equation "y = x + 2" instead of "y = 2 + x". I do not even want to give any hints as to the possible answers. Objective tests MAY be OK for manipulations, but not for understanding. And we have the situation NOW that in many subjects, a substantial majority of the teachers are incompetent in their knowledge of the subject. This is not going to be corrected in the next 5 years no matter what we do. -- Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907 Phone: (317)494-6054 hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)