4 ms·

In your view, what would one of those failing schools require to improve performance to an acceptable level?

acjohnson55 9y ago
Nothing. Not sure if you're a sports person, but imagine if the NBA had a franchise that was never to participate in the draft at all, and everyone kept asking why they never made the playoffs. Joking aside, I believe the answer is to reframe the question and ask what society can do. The core problem is that nearly all of our efforts to fight poverty are designed in such a way that the less poor you are, the more you're able to benefit. I believe we need to shift our methods to prioritize the people with the deepest need, at every level. In such a society, schools like these, which catch by far the most challenging demographics, would be by far the best resourced. The goal would be to rehabilitate these most challenged students to decreasing levels of intervention over time.
- ianai 9y ago
  I think society itself must change. It needs to be more inclusive and forgiving. Having a test implies a success/failure context. That alone is enough for certain psyches to give up. If they perceive their "life as a failure" they won't even try for yet another test. Get rid of the tests. Maybe ask kids what they want to study? We all know you get further with carrots than sticks. As for income, who knows. Surely in a world where CEOs make in hours what average people make in a year there are compensation issues.
  - appleflaxen 9y ago
    everybody fails at something in life (if you don't, then you aren't reaching high enough). to teach (or demonstrate to) kids that the risk of failure means you should choose a different path is a terrible lesson.
    - ianai 9y ago
      I agree.
  - pavlov 9y ago
    Those Scandinavian school systems that have demonstrated good results (e.g. Finland in the PISA comparisons) have spent decades gradually de-emphasizing tests and grades. So I think you're right that the American system should seek to have less tests and especially less standardized tests, instead relying more on the pedagogical expertise of teachers. That will be hard to accomplish because it would require somehow implementing another element of the Scandinavian system: teachers have both high competency requirements and high motivation for the field.
    - ianai 9y ago
      I think motivated teachers would come naturally to that system. Glad to hear there's a workable model.
      - mafribe 9y ago
        As a (university) teacher myself I feel it should be pointed out that teacher motivation strongly correlates to student quality/motivation. Teachers are humans too, with emotions and feelings, and if students treat us badly that's kind of difficult to ignore.
    - mafribe 9y ago
      Scandinavian school systems that have demonstrated good results [...] have spent decades gradually de-emphasizing tests and grades. The Asian systems that have demonstrated good results emphasize tests and grades heavily. What conclusion do we draw from this? One might wonder if different demographics do well with different forms of teaching.
      - acjohnson55 9y ago
        If by demographic, you mean ethnicity, I think that's dead wrong. But one thing you can say places like Finland and Korea do share is a deeply held cultural belief that everyone in the nation is in it together. What we lack is the same societal norm that it would be unacceptable for children in the suburbs to have all the advantages, while children in cities and rural areas tend to grow up in great disadvantage. Some say that our size and heterogeneity holds us back. I think that's bullshit. It's a cop out that's ultimately self-defeating for the whole nation. Lastly, I don't think it's simply arbitrary, whether we pick the Finnish or Korean models, despite the fact that they both appear to produce great results. I think the pressure culture of Korean education is deeply problematic, and Finnish success proves that you can generate well-educated children without forging them in a crucible.
- ygaf 9y ago
  Yeah, the impression I've got is that the schools are in a hopeless position. When students can't be controlled (from the synopsis of the amazon book - "Kids from the halls barged into classes all day"), and schools cant choose their students, the school is then at the mercy of its surroundings.
  - acjohnson55 9y ago
    I'd argue that students shouldn't need to be controlled. They need guidance, nurturing, and engagement. And social services, in some cases. This concept of out-of-control students is a symptom of extremely concentrated, poorly treated social dysfunction.
    - ygaf 9y ago
      It's no concept my friend. Sure, the students need nurturing. With the world each of them is surrounded by, and their own life outside school, they are bound to behave badly. But it sounds like you are saying schools shouldn't have authority. Schools with well-behaved students have an inertia, but the school will also ultimately exercise control over them. edit: didn't realise who I was talking to, more respect is due (or less opining on 'baltimore' and 'teaching'). I've read some of your journal.
- Chathamization 9y ago
  Yeah, I've always found that the emphasis on schools to be a bit of a cop out. You might as well ask how the schools in Syria can reduce the violence faced by kids there: "See, the schools in area A [unaffected by war] have students are are much safer than the ones in area B [in the middle of a war zone]. We need to reform the schools in area B to make them more like A." I guess people like to focus on schools because it ties into the idea that we're a meritocracy ("anyone will succeed, as long as they go to a decent school"). It also lessens the burden for the rest of society - we only need to think about making schools decent enough. We don't need to think about putting more resources into supporting struggling families, or reforming societal structures at the root of massive inequality.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    I've long believed the same thing. Our "liberals" today focus on schools because it allows them to buy into the idea of meritocracy and dismiss the other pesky social justice issues with a clean conscience. After a few years of living in downtown Baltimore and similar places, I've concluded that equality of opportunity achieved through schools is a crock. My wife and I lived in a high income Baltimore neighborhood (Bolton Hill) adjacent to a very low income one (Sandtown). Our daughter went to a private pre-K. You could put a retinue of Nobel laureates on the faculty of the elementary school in Sandtown and you wouldn't be able to convince the folks in our neighborhood to send our kids there. Trying to fix society with school is like trying to wag a dog by its tail. We're talking about neighborhoods here with massive dysfunction. Where gangs literally divide up the blocks and you'd better be in one or another lest you get beat up walking to school. There are no jobs--you see men milling around the neighborhood in the middle of the day. Teachers can't fix that.
    - gavinpc 9y ago
      Thanks for paragraph two, but why the snarky dig at "liberals"? This tribal caricaturing is itself becoming part of the larger problem.
      - humanrebar 9y ago
- rbcgerard 9y ago
  Put another way, in John Locke's book published in 1693 "Some Thoughts Concerning Education" he spends the bulk of the book focusing on body and mind as well as virtue and reason, while touching lightly on curriculum in the end...blaming a school is not useful when the pre-conditions to an effective treaching envionrment have not been met
- rbcgerard 9y ago
  Put another way, in John Locke's book published in 1693 "Some Thoughts Concerning Education" he spends the bulk of the book focusing on body and mind as well as virtue and reason, while touching lightly on curriculum in the end...blaming a school is not useful when the pre-conditions to an effective traaching envionrment have not been met

Nothing. Not sure if you're a sports person, but imagine if the NBA had a franchise that was never to participate in the draft at all, and everyone kept asking why they never made the playoffs. Joking aside, I believe the answer is to reframe the question and ask what society can do. The core problem is that nearly all of our efforts to fight poverty are designed in such a way that the less poor you are, the more you're able to benefit. I believe we need to shift our methods to prioritize the people with the deepest need, at every level. In such a society, schools like these, which catch by far the most challenging demographics, would be by far the best resourced. The goal would be to rehabilitate these most challenged students to decreasing levels of intervention over time.

ianai 9y ago
I think society itself must change. It needs to be more inclusive and forgiving. Having a test implies a success/failure context. That alone is enough for certain psyches to give up. If they perceive their "life as a failure" they won't even try for yet another test. Get rid of the tests. Maybe ask kids what they want to study? We all know you get further with carrots than sticks. As for income, who knows. Surely in a world where CEOs make in hours what average people make in a year there are compensation issues.
- appleflaxen 9y ago
  everybody fails at something in life (if you don't, then you aren't reaching high enough). to teach (or demonstrate to) kids that the risk of failure means you should choose a different path is a terrible lesson.
  - ianai 9y ago
    I agree.
- pavlov 9y ago
  Those Scandinavian school systems that have demonstrated good results (e.g. Finland in the PISA comparisons) have spent decades gradually de-emphasizing tests and grades. So I think you're right that the American system should seek to have less tests and especially less standardized tests, instead relying more on the pedagogical expertise of teachers. That will be hard to accomplish because it would require somehow implementing another element of the Scandinavian system: teachers have both high competency requirements and high motivation for the field.
  - ianai 9y ago
    I think motivated teachers would come naturally to that system. Glad to hear there's a workable model.
    - mafribe 9y ago
      As a (university) teacher myself I feel it should be pointed out that teacher motivation strongly correlates to student quality/motivation. Teachers are humans too, with emotions and feelings, and if students treat us badly that's kind of difficult to ignore.
  - mafribe 9y ago
    Scandinavian school systems that have demonstrated good results [...] have spent decades gradually de-emphasizing tests and grades. The Asian systems that have demonstrated good results emphasize tests and grades heavily. What conclusion do we draw from this? One might wonder if different demographics do well with different forms of teaching.
    - acjohnson55 9y ago
      If by demographic, you mean ethnicity, I think that's dead wrong. But one thing you can say places like Finland and Korea do share is a deeply held cultural belief that everyone in the nation is in it together. What we lack is the same societal norm that it would be unacceptable for children in the suburbs to have all the advantages, while children in cities and rural areas tend to grow up in great disadvantage. Some say that our size and heterogeneity holds us back. I think that's bullshit. It's a cop out that's ultimately self-defeating for the whole nation. Lastly, I don't think it's simply arbitrary, whether we pick the Finnish or Korean models, despite the fact that they both appear to produce great results. I think the pressure culture of Korean education is deeply problematic, and Finnish success proves that you can generate well-educated children without forging them in a crucible.
ygaf 9y ago
Yeah, the impression I've got is that the schools are in a hopeless position. When students can't be controlled (from the synopsis of the amazon book - "Kids from the halls barged into classes all day"), and schools cant choose their students, the school is then at the mercy of its surroundings.
- acjohnson55 9y ago
  I'd argue that students shouldn't need to be controlled. They need guidance, nurturing, and engagement. And social services, in some cases. This concept of out-of-control students is a symptom of extremely concentrated, poorly treated social dysfunction.
  - ygaf 9y ago
    It's no concept my friend. Sure, the students need nurturing. With the world each of them is surrounded by, and their own life outside school, they are bound to behave badly. But it sounds like you are saying schools shouldn't have authority. Schools with well-behaved students have an inertia, but the school will also ultimately exercise control over them. edit: didn't realise who I was talking to, more respect is due (or less opining on 'baltimore' and 'teaching'). I've read some of your journal.
Chathamization 9y ago
Yeah, I've always found that the emphasis on schools to be a bit of a cop out. You might as well ask how the schools in Syria can reduce the violence faced by kids there: "See, the schools in area A [unaffected by war] have students are are much safer than the ones in area B [in the middle of a war zone]. We need to reform the schools in area B to make them more like A." I guess people like to focus on schools because it ties into the idea that we're a meritocracy ("anyone will succeed, as long as they go to a decent school"). It also lessens the burden for the rest of society - we only need to think about making schools decent enough. We don't need to think about putting more resources into supporting struggling families, or reforming societal structures at the root of massive inequality.
- rayiner 9y ago
  I've long believed the same thing. Our "liberals" today focus on schools because it allows them to buy into the idea of meritocracy and dismiss the other pesky social justice issues with a clean conscience. After a few years of living in downtown Baltimore and similar places, I've concluded that equality of opportunity achieved through schools is a crock. My wife and I lived in a high income Baltimore neighborhood (Bolton Hill) adjacent to a very low income one (Sandtown). Our daughter went to a private pre-K. You could put a retinue of Nobel laureates on the faculty of the elementary school in Sandtown and you wouldn't be able to convince the folks in our neighborhood to send our kids there. Trying to fix society with school is like trying to wag a dog by its tail. We're talking about neighborhoods here with massive dysfunction. Where gangs literally divide up the blocks and you'd better be in one or another lest you get beat up walking to school. There are no jobs--you see men milling around the neighborhood in the middle of the day. Teachers can't fix that.
  - gavinpc 9y ago
    Thanks for paragraph two, but why the snarky dig at "liberals"? This tribal caricaturing is itself becoming part of the larger problem.
    - humanrebar 9y ago
rbcgerard 9y ago
Put another way, in John Locke's book published in 1693 "Some Thoughts Concerning Education" he spends the bulk of the book focusing on body and mind as well as virtue and reason, while touching lightly on curriculum in the end...blaming a school is not useful when the pre-conditions to an effective treaching envionrment have not been met
rbcgerard 9y ago
Put another way, in John Locke's book published in 1693 "Some Thoughts Concerning Education" he spends the bulk of the book focusing on body and mind as well as virtue and reason, while touching lightly on curriculum in the end...blaming a school is not useful when the pre-conditions to an effective traaching envionrment have not been met