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Chicago Mayor Calls For "Brainiac High"
theodp writes "In a private lunch with Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, BusinessWeek's Michael Arndt was taken aback by the mayor's candid monologues against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the failure of public schools — Chicago's included — to adequately train kids today in technology, math, and science. Among the education fixes Daley said he's contemplating are a fifth year of high school and elite math and science academies for Chicago's brainiest students. Endless wars that divert hundreds of billions a year from schools and job training are also undermining America's competitiveness, Daley added, wondering where the public outrage is."
Thank god at least one elected official has some sense of priorities...
Le français vous intéresse?
How about let the smart kids finish the required classes and go to college a year early? Or at least work on college classes their fourth year (like a community college set of classes for free given to them by the high school). Making them wait another year seems cruel when they can do the same coursework in college and actually further their education instead of taking classes that will probably be required in college anyway, effectively making them take those classes twice.
-SaNo
There are not enough jobs that require math, science, and technology skills.
The jobs that exist don't pay squat.
Furthermore, brainy kids are treated terribly by their peers.
Therefore, neither kids nor adults have real incentives to develop themselves intellectually.
Pouring more money into schools will not change any of that.
The Chicago Public Schools are laying off teachers and closing schools due to budget constraints. Howver, despite da mayor's feelings on the issue, I am not sure that dumping more cash into the the arguably bloated CPS bureaucracy would result in students receiving a better education. At some point, parental responsibility ensuring that students actually attend the schools and complete the days assignments might have a greater impact.
It would just be wasted as a "babysitting service" like the first 4 years of high school typically are. The amount of time my teachers spend goofing-off in class, not teaching anything, was ridiculous. When I got to college the professors taught the same material in about one-quarter the time. - Take the existing 4 years and concentrate them. Instead of Algebra 1 and 2, make it a combined course. Then take the resulting extra year and teach some "tech oriented" like Programming.
Final thought - I wonder where Mayor Daley thinks he'll get the money? You can't get more juice out of an already-squeezed orange. A wiser course is to hold costs at present levels, and make sure the 12 years in school are maximized to full potential rather than wasted.
(But of course "I'll give your kids an extra 13th year" will probably sell better to voters.)
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
The reason the country doesn’t have enough money for better schools or job retaining, he went on, is that it is spending hundreds of billions a year on war. This isn’t what the U.S. should stand for, he added. He also wondered where the public outrage is. Back when his father was Chicago’s mayor, he recalled, thousands of people would routinely take to the streets to protest the Vietnam War. Nowadays, he said, there are no demonstrations—people shrug off war and say if enlistees want to go off and risk their lives, well, that’s their choice.
First, a lot of it, I think, is some sort of backlash against the 60s and calling kids that had no choice to go to war "baby killers" and horseshit like that. Many of our boys coming back from Viet Nam were treated like shit for no good reason.
Secondly, it's the new patriotic sentiment. We got caught with our pants down on 9/11 and folks are pretty steamed about it still - especially the older folks who grew up with a secure and invincible America. There are also the folks who just like the fact that the US is "asserting" its power. Personally, I think power should be used sparingly and only when absolutely needed because others will:
not be afraid or respectful
and consider us to be bullies instead of beacons of freedom.
Third, there's a lot of apathy. Just what will protests do? What can you expect? There have been protests since the beginning and nothing has come of it an many protesters were harassed by folks - see #2.
Forth, there isn't the news coverage like we had in Nam. No stories with the soldier's coffins coming home. Hardly any battlefield coverage. And the economy is showing everything. So, of course there's no outrage. Folks are worried about paying their bills.
...then they don't need another year of high school. Off to college with them.
Simply dumping more money into education does not make it better.
Buying all this "technology" stuff is a waste of money if it's not implemented right. You don't need a computer to learn basic subjects.
Paying bad teachers more doesn't make them teach better. There are good teachers out there who deserve more for what they put into their jobs, and plenty more people who would make great teachers but won't take that big a pay cut from their current jobs in science, engineering, etc.
Similarly, elementary schools don't need two "counselors" each making $70k+. High schools don't need "career counselors" making $90k. And the school board doesn't need six figures (hell, no elected official does). Stop wasting money on administration and get some better teachers.
Hire some former drill instructors to fix discipline problems. Yes, your little deviant brat who "would never do anything bad" might get his feelings hurt a little bit, but maybe he'll finally get his shit straight and go on to be a decent member of society.
Spend some money and get some real scientists and engineers to teach. Teach hard science and math to the kids. Let's try to stop the reverence for idiocy while we can.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
To be perfectly honest, we would be better off digging a big hole, tossing the money in and then covering it over than spending it on war. Unlike the never ending wars including the war on [demon of the day], throwing the money down a big hole will create jobs and can be stopped at any time when we think of something more worthwhile to spend it on. It would have the side benefit of not making the rest of the world hate us as much as war and not alienating as many of our own citizens as the war on drugs does.
Given that, throwing the money at schools and seeing what sticks can hardly do worse.
Let's eliminate schools now. We are the dumbest nation in the world. A 4 year college education in the US is the same as a HS education in most other countries. Most people just watch sports and reality shows and lucky if they have the brains the eat, shit and fuck. Wasn't for the McDonalds commercials they wouldn;t know how to eat.
Since we are becoming a 3rd world country let's act like one ! Most jobs have left the country. Why learn how to read? We will be able to compete with 3rd world countries on their level !!! Illiteracy will give us an economic advantage.
It's called college.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Good questions.
And where would answers possibly be found. Oh, gods, if only there were an article linked from that summary!
Or... and I know this is crazy talk here... but, what if the summary itself mentioned something other than billions of dollars!
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
Endless wars that divert hundreds of billions a year from schools and job training are also undermining America's competitiveness, Daley added
Right. I'll tell you, I've heard so many times people say, "we could easily pay for X if we weren't spending money on wars" that if all those things people have in mind got funded, the money would be spent twice over. I don't know where the money would go if we stopped fighting wars, probably to cover medical/social security expenses, but Mayor Daley is very low on the priority list for recipients of the money.
wondering where the public outrage is
Where it is? It's everywhere. Outrage is the American national pasttime. Aren't there tea parties in Chicago? I mean, doesn't he watch TV? Every news program you watch has some segment trying to make people outraged. What we need is less outrage, not more, and more rational thought. I will happy when Americans realize outrage really doesn't help (or maybe they already are, maybe mayor Daley is noticing that). Of course politicians like outrage, it makes people easier to manipulate.
Qxe4
Why would we want to send them to school for another year when the four they already are forced into are a waste of time? Most college educated people I know will admit that they learned more their first semester of college than they did in four years of High School. How will another year of crappy education help? It'll only delay their real education. I say shorten High School to 2 years and make it into a preparatory school for either getting a trade or going to college. Take the extra money saved by not running a four year high school and funnel it into making higher education cheaper to get access to. This will have kids done with school by 16, when most of them really should start thinking about how to take care of themselves.
Lots of good points, but some seem unnecessarily and impractically harsh.
Stop honoring lesser holidays.
Which ones are the important holidays, and how can you justify those in an impartial manner?
...be quick to permanently expel students who either show little interest in academic life or have behavior problems.
Sounds like one-strike-you're-out to me. Suspensions and counseling should make things clear the first or second time, and you can consider expulsions afterward. Having little interest in academic life is relatively normal, otherwise everybody would be scholars. Not bothering to make a minimal effort suggests a problem.
In essence every student should know that endless help is at hand for excellence but endless rejection and failure are also very real and immediate consequences. Make courses just hard enough so that some good students can not pass them.
This is utterly impractical and it sounds a little vindictive. Set the bar so that some good students are eternally unable to pass any of their courses? Intellectual improvement is the point of going to school, and there should be help for students who have the determination to pass a course.
Be certain that Texas has no influence over text books.
Care to be a little more specific? I'm sure there are many intelligent professors in Texas that publish adequate material for the subject(s) at hand.
Though I agree with most of the other stuff. Education should be a higher priority in the United States than our military prowess.
The problem is that there isn't a problem. There are a whole lot of them, all interconnected and unrelated all at the same time. And that means there isn't a solution. Not a simple one anyway.
The problems are:
And the list goes on. Frankly, I think democracy is to blaim. Democracy only works if the voters take an intrest and the elected people are accountable. Neither of these two is happening in western democracies. Fix that and you will start fixing the system. good luck.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Please stop using the words "brown people" like that. I don't care if you think you're being snide or ironic.
As one of those "brown people" I can tell you that to our ears it's your own racism you're projecting, not the alleged racism of anyone else. In fact, I've never heard a US politician in favor of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan use those words. It's always those who oppose them.
Speaking of education, while war is horrible and I would not wish it on anyone, at least now as a side effect the girls and young women in Afghanistan are returning to schools, still with great risks, but have been empowered to take some small measure of their future into their own hands. That, in the scale of human progress, is in my opinion at least no less an achievement than 5% more scientists coming out of the US.
Teaching kids how to stay out of debt!
The mayor 'floated' two possible 'fixes' for what ails chicago's ailing school system (wasn't our 44th president a community activist trying to improve public education in Chicago? What happened? Why is it not better?) - a fifth year of high school and a brainiac academy. Neither addresses the problems and would likely impact the average Chicago Public School student.
A fifth year of high school would have little impact, as these children managed to avoid getting a proper education in the first 13 years of public school, plus some amount of 'Head Start' programs, how in the world can anyone think adding a 14th year make a difference? It would increase the number of teachers by 1/14th and would require 25% more high school classrooms. Why not simply enforce a 'no social promotion policy' and start to cull the ranks of the teachers weeding out those that aren't effective?
A brainiac academy ony supports/aids those already succeding, draining the teaching pool of all the good teachers, and leaving those most in need of help to fend for themselves without even the benefit of a smart kid to help them with their homework/copy off of during tests.
In these tough economic times, several states are looking at eliminating the requirement for a 12th grade/senior year of public school, since kids are able to complete their required studies in before their senior year. Iowa is considering granting a bit of money as a scholarship (of sorts) of $2,500 toward their freshman year of college.
Mayor, get your teachers to do their job in the first 13 years (K-12), don't punish the kids for one more year, and pulling the brainiacs out of the general student population only helps those that have overcome the challenges your schools pose to their students, it does nothing for those left behind.
Ken
Instead of throwing money for a 5th year for brainiacs, fix the entire system. It makes no sense to have HS graduates who can't do fractions. Many kids in other parts of the world (even in developing countries) end their HS with a solid foundation in algebra, trig/geometry, vectors, biology, chemistry, classical physics and world history.
If we are to throw money, do it for the purpose of changing our way of thinking.
There is no draft.
Public school should be free at least through college. At the very least loans should have their interest rates set, or be refundable, depending on one's graduating scores.
If we spent $10,000 a year on only the (1.5 million) top half of graduating students for each of four college years, that $60B would buy more than the $120B+ a year we spend in Iraq and Afghanistan (plus the "business as usual" $TRILLION+ annual expenses for the Pentagon and intelligence budgets). That's free education and expenses for every American above the median performance. If we gave $1000 to everyone who graduated high school on time, and $500 to everyone graduating only a year late, cash and no strings attached, the extra $1.5B would pay for itself in the drop in people who instead "graduate to jail" at $40,000 a year (plus the cost of whatever damages put them there, and the loss of their taxable productivity).
And more Americans who can think and research for themselves would reduce how often we go into these expensive wars.
Education investment is the best investment. We've got plenty of places from which we can redirect the wasteful expenses instead into education, where the public is really building something that protects and benefits the public.
--
make install -not war
This is patently unfair. Yes, there needs to be an education system that provides for the needs of students struggling with language, with disabilities and even schools that help the intellectually challenged achieve their potential. There's no question about this.
The proper way to do this is not to refuse to serve the students whose intellectual or artistic gifts become special needs for out-of-mainstream education. Neglecting our brightest students is not a good way to drive America to the fore in the new century. To turn an old saw: the world needs physicists, research chemists and brain surgeons too.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Reposted (I have no idea why my original was posted as AC while I was logged in?!)
I've seen enough "if they're smart, off to college!" type responses here and elsewhere to know that it's a fairly popular proposition. However, as someone who did just that - I left high school as an under-18 kid to enroll in a very demanding engineering faculty in a prestigious university - I can attest that the transition can be extremely difficult. I simply didn't have as mature a mindset I needed as well as the social skills to easily succeed that early. Eventually, I did graduate, but for the first couple of years, I was very close to simply dropping out (and I knew enough colleagues who did - which was a complete waste of their talent and knowledge). I know anecdote =! data, but high school allows a child to struggle and fail without some very real consequences (mostly having to do with the already high and growing cost of retaking courses in university and/or continued residency, or not being allowed to proceed in a field due to low marks, etc).
The Ontario (Canada) HS system used to have an "extra" year (Gr13 or OAC) that was abolished some years back. As someone training to become a teacher (thus, my nick), I've already observed some very obvious negative trends (from talking to and working besides teachers who've been on the front lines for the past 10-20 years) due to the loss of a school year. Without the extra year of prep, students interested in university are discouraged from taking courses outside of the core curricula necessary for entrance. Sadly, this means stuff like comp sci courses, which used to have packed classes, are now sparsely attended and are close to being removed (if not already gone) at many high schools. Other things like integration in calculus (something OAC math used to have) have been dropped for parity with students coming from HS boards that only go up to 12 (who don't teach it) - leading to students being behind the eight ball almost immediately upon walking into any high science or engineering math course.
These two factors (amongst others) can lead to a situation where your high achievers, the ones who are so glibly asked to "go to college!", are negatively impacted by timing pressures or the attitude that they can succeed purely on academic terms.
I don't know anything about this mayor, so I don't know his politics or whether or not this is just a thinly disguised cash grab (as some have implied), but extending HS is not such an evil thing in and of itself.
Really, mod it "insightful"
Why is it that liberal's answer to every problem is to throw more money at it? Certainly if we cut all other spending to the bone we could fund individual tutors for every student, free laptops, massages, anything. The question is this: who's responsibility is it to ensure students work hard and strive to achieve excellence? THE PARENTS. Not the government. End of story.
No amount of government spending can make up for bad parenting. Entitlement spending is a deep, dark, bottomless hole.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
I went to the Illinois state-run brainiac school (IMSA) upon which Daley is dreaming -- let me tell you, this is not the model that will help Chicago's education program. These elite schools spend exorbitantly on a small crop of students, giving them (myself included) a fucking awesome education while students who didn't make the cut are stuck in the ineffectual morass of public high schools.
Look buddy. This world isn't a flat world and there's no equality in anything.
You got a leader and you got 1000 followers. Not everyone can be a leader.
So what if the school spent a lot to give a few true brains a fucking awesome education?
The aim is clear --- to make you guys leaders, so that when you grow up (if you grow up, that is) you can become a good leader and take care of your followers.
So what if your followers got crap for education now? They will have you as a good leader.
To really solve Chicago's education problem, you have to prioritize the schools that cater to the very worst students
Reading the sentence above makes me thinking. That brainaic school has chosen a wrong candidate.
You shouldn't be there since you have no brain.
Worst students will stay worst no matter what.
There are always a certain percentage of human population that will become scumbags. No matter how you educate them, they will still become scumbags.
Educating scumbags is a waste of precious resources.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Not only that, but forcing another year of high school on smart students seems like punishment. I'm sure most of us can recall horror stories of our own public education (if we're from the US and went to public school) and, at the time, wanted nothing more than to get the hell outta dodge. After all, if the public education system has failed, why force another year of it onto the students to "train" them? That sounds to me to seem more like the real problem in our society: Punish those who succeed.
If nothing else, he should be advocating less time in high school. Place them in accelerated programs and graduate them early, give them scholarships to university--anything--but get them out of the public education system as quickly as possible. After all, if the students are "brainy," chances are they're more well motivated and organized than their peers and need to be challenge. Only university can provide them with the challenge they need.
You're right, though. It does smack of the entitlement mindset. I think it's really rather disgusting, because the system is so broken and rewards mediocrity so much more that forcing extra time for "more training" isn't going to accomplish anything. I really don't think that the solution to a broken system is to say "Hey, we know it's not working, but just give us another year of your lives and we'll promise to make it better."
Yeah, that's really going to work.
He who has no