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What's the Problem With US High Schools?
GrumpySimon asks: "ABC News is reporting that High School kids are dropping out of high school in 'epidemic proportions', with an estimated 2,500 kids quitting daily. What's wrong with our school system that so many kids prefer working 40 hours a week instead? How can this be fixed?"
It seems to be an America truism that "things get better after High School," and it wouldn't be surprising if most of you readers feel the same way. However, why does it have to be this way? What's the big problem with American High Schools where more and more children are feeling that it's better to risk the "real world" than to continue on with their education? Of course, another question that should be asked is: Is High School really the problem, or is it America's Educational system as a whole?
There's no doubt that dropout rates are a major U.S. problem, but the ABC article would make one think that dropout rates are on the rise. Nationally, this just isn't true. Between 1972 and 2004, dropout rates have fallen drastically. For all ethnicities, they are now almost half what the rates were 30 years ago (note: the full article that references this table can be found here)
This doesn't mean that isolated cities (such as Detroit and Baltimore) that have experienced serious economic problems and urban blight are better than 30 years ago, they are likely worse, but to characterize the problem as a national "epidemic" is completely ignoring the truth. Our school systems, teachers, and local governments have been working hard to raise graduation rates nationwide. And the data supports their assertion that they are seeing some success. Sure, there are MAJOR shortcomings to our public school system, but there has been major progress that shouldn't go unrecognized.
Huh? Don't mind me, I'm just the new guy.
It seems to be an America truism that "things get better after High School," and it wouldn't be surprising if most of you readers feel the same way. However, why does it have to be this way?
I think a lot of the reasons things "get better after high school" is because of the age you are when in high school. I didn't know who I was, took people's opinions of me too seriously, and couldn't get the girl I liked to notice me. I was definitely excited to get out of high school because of how glorious college was made out to be. I didn't read the article, I'm sure it got involved to level at which i just wouldn't care, I assume that the kids they're talking about dropping out aren't then enrolling in college but it just seems like a lot of those feelings stem from puberty and the social environment created by forcing kids of those ages to interact.
Given that most high schools are run as assembly-line institutions with often ridiculous learning-hindering schedules, policies and rules, and given the absurd amount of time routinely wasted in high school classes, this is hardly surprising. I'd estimate 20% of the time I spent in high school classes was even remotely productive.
/Practically never studied
//Graduated with a 3.9
///Didn't learn what an imaginary number actually was until college. Why the high school teacher couldn't just say "the square root of -1" eludes me. Our instructions were to use a calculator program to find it.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
The world needs ditch diggers too...
Lowest common denominator.
What's really sad is a lot of recent grads won't understand either the math or the implication of that statement.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm
John Taylor Gatto argues that American education fails to properly educate because it was not designed to educate. It was designed to create good consumers.
I think public education is severely broken in the US, for many reasons:
* single-classroom style -- many students learn in ways that do not work with a single classroom and oral lectures, which is the style almost all high schools use. Almost never are students allowed independent study, and even if they only learn from reading, they are still required to sit in class, which is a complete waste for them
* forced attendance -- by forcing people to attend, there is no motivation to make the most out of it. There is no real opportunity cost to being in the classroom, making a high percentage of people there unmotivated to learn.
* low pay -- financing education on the local level means limited funds to attract highly educated and highly functional people. While most high school teachers are extremely motivated and devoted, the simple financial reality is that jobs that pay 20-40K/year do not attract top quality people. This is part of a larger issue of simple limited resources put on education
* separation of teaching from learning -- mostly in real life, people become experts and learn things when they turn around and teach others. Almost never are high school students given the chance to teach what they learn, and almost never are their rewards for them in teaching others.
* national curricula -- teachers have almost no flexibility on what they teach or the ability to customize lessons for what students really need to learn. Learning is an interactive process that drawn a person to a new understanding from their current one. Set teaching standards eliminate the ability of teachers to understand what their students know now and customize the lessons for maximal learning.
* lack of content applicability -- most lessons in high school are useless and disconnected from real world applications. They are abstracted and meaningless for students who dont experience how to apply what they learn. Mostly, high school has become a babysitting exercise to keep people out of the work force as long as possible to remove competition for existing workers.
In sum, kids dropping out makes sense to me. High school is not helpful to them. This situation will only continue as virtual communities continue to form and become more organized and effective.
I graduated in 2001 from a private Catholic high school that I actually liked quite a bit. However, there were still "problems". Let's ignore the obvious social stuff (which, to a very large degree, can never be fixed) and the fact that I just like smaller schools better.
What was there to hold my interest? There was a Drafting class that I found fascinating, but Drafting 2 was never offered because they couldn't get enough students. I got up through Physics 2, and we had Calc. But I liked computer and the only computer classes were typing, how to use office, and a very basic C++ class (all of which I knew by that time by teaching myself). The rest of the classes tended to bore me (except the ones on the history of the Church, because that was stuff that I hadn't heard before). The only other class I remember really liking was the Econ class because the teacher did a fantastic job (but most other students though it was boring... it was Econ after all). I kind of liked Psychology, but the teacher for that was terrible and while he seemed to be interested in the subject, he wasn't an enjoyable professor (quite dry, by the book, do this, do that). Some other teachers were just terrible (the Calc guy was as stiff as a board and just about killed my interest in Math). There was also Accounting and Business Law which appealed to me. But nearly every one of these classes I liked had a good teacher (important and hard to control) and was optional or had other more common substitutes (so if you didn't go looking to take it, chances are you wouldn't).
There wasn't much in the way of arts classes at all that I remember. If they were there they were purely optional. You had to take Gym. They did offer some interesting things (like Ballroom Dancing, which I regret not taking).
I didn't have nearly as much problems in College because I got to take the classes I was interested in (CS) along side requirements (some of which, like Sociology, I found interesting). High schools have become VERY focused on getting you into college (and every grade before on getting you into that next grade). My HS was college prep too (they advertised that). To a certain degree, I wonder how well anyone who goes through a decent American HS is prepared for the world. They seem to be like middle school now. It's EXPECTED you'll go to college. If you don't, you're either in a no skill job or you go to trade school. How about offering a metal shop class? We didn't have that, but it would have been fun. We were too college prep for that. No wood shop.
I'm not going to claim I know how to fix 'em. It's complex. But I know they did very little to encourage independent learning in the core classes unless you had a FANTASTIC teacher or you already liked the subject. Otherwise, it was "strictly business". And the less advanced your school (like a poorer one), the worse that all might be.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
My Story.
I was a junior in High School, about 10 years ago. One day I had intense nausea and a sharp pain in my back. I went up to the nurses office to seek assistance. I was promptly denied any assistance, as I did not have a "hall pass".
Realizing my situation required medical attention, I left. I proceeded towards my car in the parking lot, with the intention of going to the hospital to get the care I needed. I was intercepted by campus security. I ignored their pleas for me to return to campus, and continued towards my car. Eventually I was physically stopped by a mid 30s campus cop, a female about 5' 4" with very short hair. I told her I needed to go to the hospital, and that I was leaving.
The officer beat me up (as in a fistfight), kicking my knee out and using her baton. I was incapable of fighting back in my condition, and made no effort to do so. She dragged me back to campus, where I was made to sit in the office until the end of the school day. No one ever spoke to me or the officer regarding the incident, but she did stay nearby to insure I did not leave. No medical care was ever offered, despite my requests that they now call 911.
After school was released several hours later, I went to the hospital and was treated for a kidney stone.
What is wrong with our schools is that this can a) happen and b) get blown off completely; as it is obviously my fault for seeking medical attention and since I was a student, I must have started the fight with the rent-a-cop.
~Rebecca
While there is plenty, at least arguably, wrong with our schools, the most likely reason people would drop out of high school to work is that there is something wrong with our economy where increasingly families can't adequately provide for children while they are in school; the economy that has been doing well in aggregate terms hasn't been doing well in distributional terms.
That's the problem. It really isn't about education.
In high school you are surrounded by people who either a) don't give a shit, or b) are spineless fools doing whatever necessity to get marks. The a)'s should be allowed (if not encouraged) to leave, and the b)'s are a product of the education system gone wrong. In their eyes, something is right if it is marked right, and vice versa. The actual truth is irrelevant. Neither the a)'s nor the b)'s care about learning.
High school is more about social control than anything else. "Do as we say or you have no future," is what is told, and there's sadly too much truth to it. The people who simply want to learn away from the fast majority of idiots are pretty much SOL.
- Maybe not all people are want the jobs that requires a high-school education.
- Maybe some people are just stupid and would rather do meaningful work then spend time being spoon-fed academic work that won't use anyway.
- Maybe it's PARENT'S faults: not holding their children to standards such as completing their homework and actually understanding the material, which in turn makes the kids' grades lower and makes them despondent about school.
- Perhaps the parents aren't being very involved and interested in the children's school work, and the kids are taking the hint from their parents regarding how important school is.
My general point: If the roles of all parties involved were clearly defined, it would be meaningful to discuss who's screwing up. But the idealized roles aren't clearly defined - there's no known single formula for successful public eduction. So it's not rational to assume the schools are the parties with the problem.
When you show up and work 40 hours a week and try to do a good job, people actually appreciate it. They'll even thank you for being helpful and doing a good job. It's rewarding and satisfying. Work is an accomplishment. And they pay you.
No one thanks you for going to school. You're forced to go there. No one appreciates your contributions. There are no rewards. School is a process that a person goes through. No one cares about you at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of the process.
I don't think a big increase in funding so the teachers can have a lower health-care co-pay is the answer.
They'll just try to teach you a bunch of evil stuff about Darwin and other Godless Commies.
Content aside, the problem is that actually teaching has become really difficult these days in schools. With the (non-funded) requirements put on schools by "No Child Left Behind", Bush has recreated nationally the same mess he made as Governor of Texas. Kids aren't being taught in school, they're being made to memorize, and they're trained to take a specific test, which hasn't even been proven a valid metric.
Maybe if the teachers were actually allowed to teach the kids, they could actually engage them appropriately and keep them in school.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Unfortunately there is nothing particularly "current" about that zeitgeist.
It is isn't the schools, it's American culture. The schools reflect the anti-intellectualism of the culture. Our schools suck because parents and communities are willing to blame everything but their own disinterest in education, and therefore do nothing to fix the problem.
Let me start this with a thesis statement: I go to school to learn, not to do work.
The main problem I see these days with the US educational system is the fact that students are graded upon how much work they do, rather than how much they know, or how much effort they put forth to learn.
All too often I've come close to failing in my classes because I didn't do some useless assignment, and yet, still I have a perfect grasp of the concepts that were "taught". That's not right. Theoretically, if I failed, I shouldn't know the material, right? Wrong.
Also, assignments should only be given as necessary. I have one particular math teacher who, even after every person in the class has shown that they get the material, still gives out work on it. If they've shown they can do it, then what's the point in giving out more work, and wasting time that could be spent on teaching the next concept?
Now let me move on to incompetent teachers. Any teacher who needs to rely on a book as a primary source of teaching, need not be teaching. If you can't teach the concept yourself, with minimal help from a book, then you need to go back and learn it some more yourself.
All your reading ability are belong to me.
My dad is back teaching in a southern Colorado highschool after a 15 year break...the big things he complains about are:
1) No real disipline....students are disruptive and can pretty much do anything (non-violent) that they please because the school district fears lawsuits.
2) Actual teaching becomes secondary because of the babysitting requirements.
3) What actual teaching is done is totally scripted by the administration (the teachers have a very narrow guideline to follow) and basically amounts to programming for the standardized proficiency exams.
4) All the students are treated as if they are university-bound. He feels that this leads to a swiss-army approach that does a marginal job at best.
My personal experience coming out of the same school in 1992 and going directly into an engineering program is that I was not prepared academically or mentally for what I ran into at Colorado School of Mines. Looking back at it now I wish I had worked several years (or done military service) before ever considering engineering, and considering what a job that school was doing then, I would have better off dropping out at 16 and working and getting a GED....the education (or lack thereof) would have been the same and I would have had at least some money and life experience under my belt before tackling engineering....
1. When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
2. Do not eat iPod shuffle.
Every time I see something like this, I get confused as to why people are confused. The public schools are no longer intended to educate. Students are required to be there. Schools are required to take students. In some cases, students that do not want to be there are required to be there, and the school does not want the disruptive student to be there either. If schools were more optional, more open to getting rid of students that don't want to learn, then they could focus on teaching. Instead, they are babysitting unwilling children. The easy fix is get the parents involved. However, the parents don't want that, it's too much work for them. They want the schools to fix the problem they created.
Do I have an easy solution? No. If I were put in charge of everything tomorrow, I'd probably do away with mainstreaming. We have schools for "gifted" students, why not schools to huddle the lower 10% together as well (excluding the truly special needs that are currently separated)? Get the top 10% the education that challenges them, the bell curve of the middle 80% will have them closer to together without the outliers, and the 10% that aren't as motivated or skilled will be put in separate programs designed to try to bring them back from the edge or at least get them ready for a vocation.
Which brings me back to something else that bothers me about the US. What's wrong with a vocation? There seems to be some stigma attached to trying to teach skills in high school, as if college is expected and that skills are taught there. There seems to be a decrease in automotive and shop classes in high schools. And there seems to be a stigma attached to someone that likes working with their hands. I've never understood that, but it is another thing that should change in the US.
Learn to love Alaska
I'm not sure where your evidence for this is. I've known a lot of private schools, all of which were non-unionized, and they were all considered to be far superior to the public schools located in the same areas.
Additionally, most of them paid teachers significantly less than public-school teachers. On paper, they should have sucked: non-union, basically no job security if you pissed off the wrong person, long hours, low pay. And yet, they routinely got more qualified instructors -- people who were actual experts in their fields -- and graduated students who went on to be more successful. Why is this? I don't have a totally pat answer for you, but I think that most of their success is because of the institutions themselves: people are willing to go and teach there, even though they're not unionized and the pay is lower, because they're good places to work. Class sizes are smaller, teachers get more freedom to plan lessons and curricula, and the perceived 'quality' of the students (interest, motivation, background education) is higher.
In my experience, unions and the job security that they offer don't do much to attract the best talent. If anything, they attract the mediocre, who are seeking a job that it's difficult to get fired from. Improve working conditions, and you'll probably find more people willing to work who really know their subject and want to teach it. Throwing money at the problem, which is what the unions generally ask for, is not a solution.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I know this is the wrong place to get any sympathy, but what the heck, it's only slashdot karma I'll lose. What's wrong with the high schools in the US is they are all too dang liberal. I remember in high school I had one conservative teacher, and he was the band director. Of course no one wants to be in high school! With all the liberal teachers I had, one encouraged students to share their viewpoints, while all the other forced all their dogma and beliefs down our throats at best, and worse case scenario penalized students for having "wrong" beliefs. There was a valedictorian girl at one of the schools in the district that wrote this great paper on the 2nd amendment and the right to bear arms, and the teacher gave her an F, so she played the teachers game and wrote a paper on Hillary Clinton, and ended up with an A. Don't tell me that's not penalizing students with differing beliefs.
The next problem is the teachers are mostly under qualified. Many a days in Pre-Calculus I spent correcting the teacher when she did a problem wrong, or going up to the board and solving the problem when she got so tired of my correcting her all the time. It was a joke! When other students had problems in the class no one dared ask the teacher to try to explain for fear of getting more confused than they already were. And don't even get me started on the A+ Certification course. The official teacher was Mrs. Huerta, but she knew nothing about the material. The above conservative mentioned band director, my friend Chris, and I ended up running that class. Even the Teaching Assistant couldn't grasp most of the concepts in the A+ Certification book we were going through.
Sam
Parents.
- Many parents expect the schools to fix their poor parenting skills
- Disruptive students cannot be easily removed from an otherwise productive classroom
- Suing the schools for any perceived slight (such as having a dress code dictating no long hair or earrings for males)
- Basing school budgets on how many children can get federal handouts via school lunch programs
These are just a few of the reasons that schools are less about learing and more about jobs and promote more dropouts.
School lunch programs are a prime example, if the child would starve or be less than properly fed without a school lunch program, then shouldn't the child be removed via child protective services from the parents during summer because the parents admit that they cannot feed the child and need schools to provide free food.
Many states education programs are funded by:
- how many students attend school each day (daily attendence)
- how many students are on school lunch programs (federal per student subsidy)
Man, a lot of people sure are whining about how the high school machine is interested in cranking out thoughtless droids in order for the corporate system to maintain control over helpless consumers, ruining education by teaching to a narrow test (never mind that the majority of Americans can't keep "your" and "you're" straight), or teaching kids in a way that is not best suited to them, or teaching things that "don't matter in the real world."
These are probably the people dropping out of high school. Grow up, people!
The standardized tests test for perfectly acceptable topics: basic grammar, reading comprehension, and basic math. The majority of the kids dropping out are most likely the ones who cannot accomplish these things. So if you are getting bored in class because the teacher won't teach "outside of the box", take it upon your self to learn these things, but don't quit high school! First of all, if you can afford it, you can simply switch schools. Second of all, even though you might be convinced you are a super genius, people hiring you will be a little less than convinced if you couldn't sit through four years of high school.
If your teachers or administrators are jerks, notify someone. Figure out exactly what they are doing wrong (say, not letting you leave for a medical emergency) and report them to the proper authorities. I truly feel sorry for you if you get a bad teacher that can't teach worth shit, but even if you go to a small school like I did, you'll get a different teacher next year who can explain things to you. Oh, I know, why don't expend some effort and go to a different teacher of that subject for help? When your teachers refuse to help you, provided you are putting forth an effort, go to the principal or the guidance counselor. If you don't like the way the system is being run, there are smarter ways to fix things than quitting high school.
Also, as much as you might put stock in the Great Sheeple Conspiracy, seriously, take off your tin foil hat.
I don't understand why people drop out of high school. It's free (unlike college), and it's only going to take away 1 or 2 years of your life. Even if high school is useless for you, I don't see what plans you could possibly have that would be ruined by your continued attendance in high school. It may suck, but seriously, that diploma is important.
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
Hello Enoent
/. is a place were most participants can be reasoned with and asked to use reason. I get a bit tired of seeing emotional and non-logical responses to actual problems
To be blunt (but hopefully not offensive) your comment appears to be based on an emotional reaction that is short circuiting your ability to think logically in this area.
Blaming religious beliefs for lack of school participation is a thin argument at best IMHO. Worse it distracts from finding a solution.
I suspect the problems are more likely a set of cultural problems that are being ignored.
Here is a little conjecture:
-If parents were more involved with the education of their children their children would see more success in academic efforts. This success would be more likely to lead to academic interest. (Cultural change: 'the teachers are supposed to teach my kids')
-If high school were designed to give children a boost into the areas of their interest we would see less wasted talent and a higher number of experts coming from our colleges. (Cultural change: 'worked for me')
-If teachers were paid better and given more resources the job of teacher would be more sought after and a higher degree of competent teachers would be the likely result (if at the very least because higher competition would allow administrators more choices therefore weeding out those who are poor teachers). (Cultural change: 'sports stars deserve a 50 million dollar contract teachers should be happy enough just teaching my kids')
-If research into improved teaching methods were well funded and the higher levels of academia were willing to teach the new methods we would see a greater number of kids 'getting it' in a given subject, which would be very likely to heavily cut down on dropouts.(Cultural change: 'it worked for me')
Those are my thoughts based on observation, problem solving and logic.
I would honestly like to hear yours.
(I apologize if the beginning is offensive to you, however I think
Thanks for your understanding.)
Meanwhile the teachers have been 'educated' by the same system. They care nothing about teaching the students but if, God forbid, one of your actions should appear (in their fantasy world) to be an infringement of their constitutional rights, they'll scream like hell about it. The teachers of course think nothing of dressing like hookers and wearing T-shirts with obscenities emblazoned across them. (Of course not, they work for a government establishment and so their freedom of speech can't be restrained.)
Every morning the students all chant the Pledge of Allegiance. And periodically through the day they're encouraged to chant bizarre things like "I must express who I really am", "I have the right to be whoever I want" or some such American-style psychobabble. You probably think I'm making things up at this point. Maybe my wife is making this stuff up when she comes home from work, but I doubt it. This is what it means to be educated in California.
I also do voluntary work with kids in the area, trying to encourage an interest in science. The sad thing is that there are plenty of younger kids who have great potential. But so many of these kids have next to no chance of going anywhere with that potential.
Of course not all of California is like this. I live near an enclave of rich white-skinned people whose education district seceded from the surrounding city. House prices are through the roof there because apparently you can learn things in the few schools they have.
Still, a lot could have happened in the last ten years. Maybe it's like this in Britain now.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
To go a step further, I think the now-universal sense of entitlement kids feel can be traced directly to their parents. Baby boomers have pretty much had their cake and eaten it too and definitely show a strong sense of entitlement and arrogance in regards to the culture, wealth and values they feel they created. In the most basic sense, they are still kids and treat their kids as friends, not as kids. Their kids now expect the same luxury as their "friends" despite not having lived and earned it.