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Only 22% of California 8th Graders Pass National Science Test
bonch writes "22 percent of California eighth-graders passed a national science test, ranking California among the worst in the U.S. according to the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress. The test measures knowledge in Earth and space sciences, biology, and basic physics. The states that fared worse than California were Mississippi, Alabama, and a tie between the District of Columbia and Hawaii. 'Nationally, 31 percent of eighth-graders who were tested scored proficient or advanced. Both the national and state scores improved slightly over scores from two years ago, the last time the test was administered.'"
Are known to the state of California to cause cancer.
Refer to Einstein's famous quip.
This news will undoubtedly be used as the basis for calls to shovel more money into a broken system despite decades of funding increases failing to show results, all the while modest Chinese budgets are sufficient for creating public K-12 education which outranks us.
The public schools have become a jobs program contaminated by labor politics.
We can't reward success without screaming from those who fear being held accountable for their failures.
We can't make better use of technology and automated learning because of perennial votes for make-work teaching positions.
The whole thing stinks, the public doesn't understand the system stinks, and poison politics will prevent the problems from being corrected.
I can see states like Mississippi, Alabama doing poorly because they are run by Republicans and republicans hate spending money on kids. (Yes I just heard a guy on MSNBC say that last night.) But California is a Democrat-run state. Their students should be the best and brightest and most well-funded. Like Democrat-run Maryland. Hmmmm.
(Note: I'm being sarcastic. I think Democrats suck just as badly as Republicans. None of them know how to run anything.... not the schools, not the MVA, not the Amtrak, nor the post office.)
Not only is it a statement on the fallacy of the superiority of "progressive" regimes in schooling, but in funding as well. Utah spends far, far less per pupil, and gets much better results. Success in education comes from, first and foremost, an appreciation of getting an education, and second, the willingness to work for it. You'll get better results with a single, good teacher with nothing but a piece of chalk and a chalkboard, teaching a class of eager students, then you will with any expensive computerized, state of the art classroom that's been staffed with some guy waiting for his retirement age and a class of kids that don't give a damn.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I'm not republican or democrat... but perhaps the data really requires a more careful analysis rather than just pointing fingers to the other side.
Do creationists really have much of a foothold in California? I wouldn't have expected that to be the case, but I wouldn't know. It seems to have the reputation of being a fairly liberal state though.
As much as I may dislike the Christian Right trying to inject their belief system into public education, it's not like the Right (or any subset of it) has a monopoly on ruining education with their ideas and beliefs.
It seems to me that the coddling don't-hurt-their-self-esteem attitude that is churning out kids that have screwed up expectations, inadequate educations, and a distorted view of their own competence is a product of a subset of liberal thinkers.
Fine. Then don't expect my tax money to implement laws to protect you from having the rest of your money taken away from you by someone else because they want it.
Lets all devolve into a bunch of people living in armed compounds telling everyone else to fuck off. You don't get roads, you don't get electricity, you don't get laws, you don't get nothing that you can't get and keep yourself by force.
See, in your system, you want someone to help pay to enforce your rights, and you want to opt out of paying to help anybody else. Which means as long as you get what you feel you're entitled to, everyone else is on their own. Why should my taxes pay to preserve the rights of the rich?
It's not so much "society" and "civilization" as it is a collection of armed camps.
I sincerely hope you get the opportunity to experience life the way you think it should happen. I bet someone will decide you've got a pretty mouth.
All you drooling idiots who whine about the taxes being forcibly taken from you at gun point seem to conveniently forget there's a lot of those services you do make use of ... take those away, and you can have something like Somalia or the inside of a prison. Bet that would be fun.
Vouchers aren't going to help. The public school systems aren't broken, its society that is broken. Kids who are individually motivated and have parental support will do great in any school environment. Kids who lack motivation but have parental pressure may be forced into rebellion in their later teenager years or college, but they'll at least do well in grade school. Kids who have motivation but lack parental support are the ones who are trapped in the school system, and their parents won't take advantage of things like vouchers. And the kids who lack motivation and lack parental support will eventually drop out because we have no support system for them. Any increased funding needs not go to vouchers, but instead to parental education to encourage the unmotivated parents to be more involved in their children's lives.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
So, basically there isn't a nationally recognized standard for sciences, so the test is really not remotely fair.
Right. There is no benefit to you at all from living in a country with an educated population. None.
You imply that spending more would help. Let's have a look at the ranks of the states you mention, and add in their rank (by average score on the science exam):
Alabama $8870 - rank 49
California $9657 - rank 47
Mississippi $8075 - rank 50
DC $16408 - rank 51 (by a *huge* margin)
New Jersey $16271 - rank 24
New York $18126 - rank 34
Alaska $15552 - rank 26
Vermont $15175 - rank 3
North Dakota and Montana, with the best results, both spend less than average amounts per pupil.
There are plenty of studies that show that throwing money at schools does not help. The single best thing you can do to improve most schools is to hire good teachers and fire bad ones. There is a strong *inverse* correlation between states with good education and states with strong teachers' unions. California is a prime example, as is New York (rank 34 on the list).
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
I call bullshit on the teacher's union correlation. In fact it is the states with the lowest scores that do not have binding collective bargaining.
Five states do not allow collective bargaining for educators, effectively prohibiting teacher unions.
Those states and their SAT/ACT rankings are as follows:
South Carolina â" 50th
North Carolina â" 49th
Georgia â" 48th
Texas â" 47th
Virginia â" 44th
http://markcrispinmiller.com/2011/03/5-states-where-teachers-unions-are-illegal-have-the-lowest-test-scores-in-america/
And in general studies show a small positive correlation.
http://shankerblog.org/?p=1941
Of course correlation is not causation, and in this case I really doubt it is a factor either way,
The only factor that really counts is the economic status of the parents.