4 ms·

The fundamental problem of education in public schools and its ineffectiveness is not being addressed. It's great that many of these extracurricular clubs and

The fundamental problem of education in public schools and its ineffectiveness is not being addressed. It's great that many of these extracurricular clubs and institutes exist to impart advanced education to interested students. But it does not solve the underlying problem.

lintiness 11y ago
interested private parties witness massive bureaucratic failures and provide solutions. what's the problem, taxes didn't fix it?
jerf 11y ago
It's a step in solving the underlying problem, since at this point only someone studiously incapable of learning from history can think that the school system is going to produce a superior math curriculum on its own. I'd say "it had its chance", but that's hardly true... it has had its several dozen chances.
- dineshp2 11y ago
  As the article clearly states, these math programs are only attended by the well off due to awareness and finances not being a hindrance. What about the vast majority of students who don't get to attend these type of programs? We need to come up with solutions that are inclusive and accessible to the vast majority of students. Clearly inclusiveness and accessibility are missing from these programs. The methods that these programs use to promote the development of problem solving in students are novel. Maybe they can be incorporated into school curriculum and better train the teachers to handle this new approach to learning.
  - jerf 11y ago
    Well, see my other post in this thread. This is an example of exactly what I was talking about. If your only response to stuff like this is to complain about how it's not "fair", you take one step towards preventing it from even existing in the first place. Who wants to try anything new if the only thing they're going to hear is "But it's not being evenly distributed to everybody!"? This is step one. Before we can "come up with solutions that are inclusive" we need to just plain come up with solutions! Don't kill that with complaining long before it's relevant about how "fair" it is. Is it really so wrong that the rich are willing to be guinea pigs anyhow? It is, after all, ultimately disingenuous to complain that the school systems aren't seeing this improvement because whenever the school systems suggest trying this sort of improvement the complaint about using kids as guinea pigs and ohmigosh their futures will be wrecked immediately come up. You can't have it every which way. This is a significant chunk of the mechanism that has rendered national-scale schooling impossible to innovate with anyhow.
    - dineshp2 11y ago
      I am not complaining about the existence of such initiatives. It's great that they exist and as you said it is step one. But such initiatives cannot be a solution to a poor public school system.
      - jerf 11y ago
        "But such initiatives cannot be a solution to a poor public school system." I'd submit you're still asking for some sort of magical solution whereby we skip this step one somehow and leap directly to everybody having the good thing. But that involves skipping the experimentation phase that demonstrates the thing is good in the first place. It's why nothing, right now, can be the solution to a poor public school system... attitudes like this have utterly paralysed them. If you want to see improvements, you've got to loosen up a bit on this fairness kick. Somebody is going to get them first. It is a mathematical necessity, because we should not do "experiments" by rolling things out to everybody at once in one shot. It's not like there's a guarantee that it's an improvement, after all.
dominotw 11y ago
>The fundamental problem of education in public schools and its ineffectiveness is not being addressed. If it so ineffective, how come americans win so many nobel prizes, have thriving high tech industry ect http://graphics.wsj.com/which-country-has-the-most-nobel-prizes/ http://graphics.wsj.com/which-country-has-the-most-nobel-pri...
- dineshp2 11y ago
  You cannot conclude that the current school education is not ineffective(effective) just by looking at the number of Nobel Prize winners. The USA is lagging behind many countries in key areas( especially STEM fields). Anyway the point I was trying to make was that, these extracurricular initiatives are great, but it cannot be a solution to a poor public school system.
  - dominotw 11y ago
    >The USA is lagging behind many countries in key areas( especially STEM fields). Lagging how? Test scores are not a good way to measure the "lag", imo.
    - dineshp2 11y ago
      There is lots of research which suggests that the USA is indeed lagging behind in STEM fields. K-12 does not prepare students well enough when compared to many Asian and European countries. The numerous research articles are a Google search away. Another indicator is the lack of sufficient skilled workforce in STEM fields in the USA. This forces many tech companies to hire from abroad.
      - douche 11y ago
        To make a reasonable comparison to the United States, you'd have to lump a European country in with a third-world developing country to get the same level of racial and cultural heterogeneity. People always try to compare the US to Finland, when Finland has less population than New York City and the demographics of New Hampshire. Tech companies hire abroad because it's cheap, not because there is a real skill deficit.

lintiness 11y ago

interested private parties witness massive bureaucratic failures and provide solutions. what's the problem, taxes didn't fix it?

jerf 11y ago

It's a step in solving the underlying problem, since at this point only someone studiously incapable of learning from history can think that the school system is going to produce a superior math curriculum on its own. I'd say "it had its chance", but that's hardly true... it has had its several dozen chances.

dineshp2 11y ago
As the article clearly states, these math programs are only attended by the well off due to awareness and finances not being a hindrance. What about the vast majority of students who don't get to attend these type of programs? We need to come up with solutions that are inclusive and accessible to the vast majority of students. Clearly inclusiveness and accessibility are missing from these programs. The methods that these programs use to promote the development of problem solving in students are novel. Maybe they can be incorporated into school curriculum and better train the teachers to handle this new approach to learning.
- jerf 11y ago
  Well, see my other post in this thread. This is an example of exactly what I was talking about. If your only response to stuff like this is to complain about how it's not "fair", you take one step towards preventing it from even existing in the first place. Who wants to try anything new if the only thing they're going to hear is "But it's not being evenly distributed to everybody!"? This is step one. Before we can "come up with solutions that are inclusive" we need to just plain come up with solutions! Don't kill that with complaining long before it's relevant about how "fair" it is. Is it really so wrong that the rich are willing to be guinea pigs anyhow? It is, after all, ultimately disingenuous to complain that the school systems aren't seeing this improvement because whenever the school systems suggest trying this sort of improvement the complaint about using kids as guinea pigs and ohmigosh their futures will be wrecked immediately come up. You can't have it every which way. This is a significant chunk of the mechanism that has rendered national-scale schooling impossible to innovate with anyhow.
  - dineshp2 11y ago
    I am not complaining about the existence of such initiatives. It's great that they exist and as you said it is step one. But such initiatives cannot be a solution to a poor public school system.
    - jerf 11y ago
      "But such initiatives cannot be a solution to a poor public school system." I'd submit you're still asking for some sort of magical solution whereby we skip this step one somehow and leap directly to everybody having the good thing. But that involves skipping the experimentation phase that demonstrates the thing is good in the first place. It's why nothing, right now, can be the solution to a poor public school system... attitudes like this have utterly paralysed them. If you want to see improvements, you've got to loosen up a bit on this fairness kick. Somebody is going to get them first. It is a mathematical necessity, because we should not do "experiments" by rolling things out to everybody at once in one shot. It's not like there's a guarantee that it's an improvement, after all.

dominotw 11y ago

>The fundamental problem of education in public schools and its ineffectiveness is not being addressed. If it so ineffective, how come americans win so many nobel prizes, have thriving high tech industry ect http://graphics.wsj.com/which-country-has-the-most-nobel-prizes/ http://graphics.wsj.com/which-country-has-the-most-nobel-pri...

dineshp2 11y ago
You cannot conclude that the current school education is not ineffective(effective) just by looking at the number of Nobel Prize winners. The USA is lagging behind many countries in key areas( especially STEM fields). Anyway the point I was trying to make was that, these extracurricular initiatives are great, but it cannot be a solution to a poor public school system.
- dominotw 11y ago
  >The USA is lagging behind many countries in key areas( especially STEM fields). Lagging how? Test scores are not a good way to measure the "lag", imo.
  - dineshp2 11y ago
    There is lots of research which suggests that the USA is indeed lagging behind in STEM fields. K-12 does not prepare students well enough when compared to many Asian and European countries. The numerous research articles are a Google search away. Another indicator is the lack of sufficient skilled workforce in STEM fields in the USA. This forces many tech companies to hire from abroad.
    - douche 11y ago
      To make a reasonable comparison to the United States, you'd have to lump a European country in with a third-world developing country to get the same level of racial and cultural heterogeneity. People always try to compare the US to Finland, when Finland has less population than New York City and the demographics of New Hampshire. Tech companies hire abroad because it's cheap, not because there is a real skill deficit.