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The germ of truth in the wacky conspiracy theory is that public school teachers have had to stop using a lot of these bottom-up, self-directed techniques, which

by rhelz 2y ago

The germ of truth in the wacky conspiracy theory is that public school teachers have had to stop using a lot of these bottom-up, self-directed techniques, which let the children control how fast the material is presented, and the order in which the material is learned. Even though these kinds of techniques have been shown to be highly effective, it's just too risky for public school teachers to use them anymore. The teacher is so encumbered by top-down standards that they simply cannot let the students pick the pace or order, bottom up. The pace must be set by the teacher top-down, it must be the same pace for every student--and it has to be a pretty fast pace to fulfill all the top-down standards requirements. Public school kids would benefit from more bottom-up, rather than top-down learning experiences. But public school teachers are evaluated on how well their students fill in those bubbles on standard exams. Home schooling parents just don't have this kind of accountability. The desire to have quantitative, objective measurements to "hold teachers accountable" or "get rid of the lazy teachers who have tenure" has had a very unexpected side effect: Every public-school kid has to learn exactly the same things, in the same timeframe, in the same order, at the same pace.

oceanplexian 2y ago
> The desire to have quantitative, objective measurements to "hold teachers accountable" or "get rid of the lazy teachers who have tenure" has had a very unexpected side effect The problem is that when you don’t hold students accountable you end up in a situation where China outcompetes the United States in education and pulls ahead economically. China actually does have strict standards and they aren’t worried about hurting some feelings when a kid fails a math test. You could make the argument quantitative measurements aren’t important in social sciences and gender studies, but fields like physics, engineering, and math they are extremely important and aren’t forgiving when people try to take shortcuts.
- squigz 2y ago
  Taking your first point at face value, why is this a problem, exactly?
- rhelz 2y ago
  > aren’t important in social sciences and gender studies Your education has failed to properly educate you about social science and gender studies :-) I think you should be held accountable! :-) I was actually compiling about a lack of accountability. Home school teachers are not held as accountable as public school teachers. For better or for worse. Having more discretion allows home school teachers to use some very effective, bottom up techniques, which work very well for some children. By the same token, if it is not working for their children, nobody holds them accountable.
matrix87 2y ago
> Every public-school kid has to learn exactly the same things, in the same timeframe, in the same order, at the same pace. Standardization isn't a bad thing. If there are no standards, then how could the state identify poor educational outcomes and fix them? If there's no way of identifying them, what's incentivizing schools and teachers to do a good job? I get that a lot of people (teachers especially) aren't fond of standardized testing, but the alternative sounds like an administrative clusterfuck
- pylua 2y ago
  Standardization of testing is different than standardizing the rate of learning.
  - rhelz 2y ago
    Well, having no money isn't the same thing as not having a yacht, either, but the one can impose substantial constraints upon the feasibility of the other.
- xyzzy123 2y ago
  It's hard to get across in a drive-by comment, but most of the advantages IMHO of alternative schooling methods are locked up behind increased parent engagement. You need standardised testing and close teacher evaluations etc if your operating model for learning is that you turn your child over to the school system and that system is then responsible for the complete education and safety of the child with minimal parental oversight or engagement. If you are passing on responsibility completely to the state then yes, the state needs "industrial tools" to be able to manage this at scale. With the closer involvement of parents and their acceptance of some responsibility for outcomes then a wide variety of more humane and personalised approaches to learning are possible.
  - matrix87 2y ago
    The way you describe it, it sounds like the problem is a lack of parental involvement and not necessarily the schooling system itself
scrubs 2y ago
Standardized testing came out of Bush junior which in turn came out of education reports in Regaen's time that US education sucked. That is, we've played this game with huge emphasis with and without. We can't whine all the time. The goal of standardized testing was to measure then enforce accountability, which is the right thing to do. Underperformance would be met with no/reduced federal funding. It was also intended to push back against too local too state control in an attempt to root our lagards. The fed level had no other way to influence local decision making except with cash. Others have written that bad schools is a particularly American problem. The US is average or so with respect to OECD countries especially given the huge variations in student background. The UK is not acing us for example. Now there is one aspect of it's only the US that is true. And it's self imposed. First, education has been made too political. Second, education is awash in American daydreaming of idealism; it's a proxy for arguing about larger issues in American society by trying to fix them earlier. Part of that idealism which is a inherently American sentiment my child has some greater purpose, talent, destiny that beurceatric teachers will screw up. So only if one finds and nutures it then ... fill in the blank with more guessing ... cause it's not like kids know any better. Third, it's gotten caught up in culture wars all which are a huge waste of energy. We did that to ourselves. That's why it's covered and yacked about so much. We adults ought to fix our adult problems in our context and get kids ready for same. As others have noted unschooling has a nasty tinge of too much money, too much time on their hands with too many opinions. That leads to weird roll-your-own for those that afford it. I'm American and raised two boys here one now through university.

by rhelz 2y ago

oceanplexian 2y ago

> The desire to have quantitative, objective measurements to "hold teachers accountable" or "get rid of the lazy teachers who have tenure" has had a very unexpected side effect The problem is that when you don’t hold students accountable you end up in a situation where China outcompetes the United States in education and pulls ahead economically. China actually does have strict standards and they aren’t worried about hurting some feelings when a kid fails a math test. You could make the argument quantitative measurements aren’t important in social sciences and gender studies, but fields like physics, engineering, and math they are extremely important and aren’t forgiving when people try to take shortcuts.

squigz 2y ago
Taking your first point at face value, why is this a problem, exactly?
rhelz 2y ago
> aren’t important in social sciences and gender studies Your education has failed to properly educate you about social science and gender studies :-) I think you should be held accountable! :-) I was actually compiling about a lack of accountability. Home school teachers are not held as accountable as public school teachers. For better or for worse. Having more discretion allows home school teachers to use some very effective, bottom up techniques, which work very well for some children. By the same token, if it is not working for their children, nobody holds them accountable.

matrix87 2y ago

> Every public-school kid has to learn exactly the same things, in the same timeframe, in the same order, at the same pace. Standardization isn't a bad thing. If there are no standards, then how could the state identify poor educational outcomes and fix them? If there's no way of identifying them, what's incentivizing schools and teachers to do a good job? I get that a lot of people (teachers especially) aren't fond of standardized testing, but the alternative sounds like an administrative clusterfuck

pylua 2y ago
Standardization of testing is different than standardizing the rate of learning.
- rhelz 2y ago
  Well, having no money isn't the same thing as not having a yacht, either, but the one can impose substantial constraints upon the feasibility of the other.
xyzzy123 2y ago
It's hard to get across in a drive-by comment, but most of the advantages IMHO of alternative schooling methods are locked up behind increased parent engagement. You need standardised testing and close teacher evaluations etc if your operating model for learning is that you turn your child over to the school system and that system is then responsible for the complete education and safety of the child with minimal parental oversight or engagement. If you are passing on responsibility completely to the state then yes, the state needs "industrial tools" to be able to manage this at scale. With the closer involvement of parents and their acceptance of some responsibility for outcomes then a wide variety of more humane and personalised approaches to learning are possible.
- matrix87 2y ago
  The way you describe it, it sounds like the problem is a lack of parental involvement and not necessarily the schooling system itself

scrubs 2y ago

Standardized testing came out of Bush junior which in turn came out of education reports in Regaen's time that US education sucked. That is, we've played this game with huge emphasis with and without. We can't whine all the time. The goal of standardized testing was to measure then enforce accountability, which is the right thing to do. Underperformance would be met with no/reduced federal funding. It was also intended to push back against too local too state control in an attempt to root our lagards. The fed level had no other way to influence local decision making except with cash. Others have written that bad schools is a particularly American problem. The US is average or so with respect to OECD countries especially given the huge variations in student background. The UK is not acing us for example. Now there is one aspect of it's only the US that is true. And it's self imposed. First, education has been made too political. Second, education is awash in American daydreaming of idealism; it's a proxy for arguing about larger issues in American society by trying to fix them earlier. Part of that idealism which is a inherently American sentiment my child has some greater purpose, talent, destiny that beurceatric teachers will screw up. So only if one finds and nutures it then ... fill in the blank with more guessing ... cause it's not like kids know any better. Third, it's gotten caught up in culture wars all which are a huge waste of energy. We did that to ourselves. That's why it's covered and yacked about so much. We adults ought to fix our adult problems in our context and get kids ready for same. As others have noted unschooling has a nasty tinge of too much money, too much time on their hands with too many opinions. That leads to weird roll-your-own for those that afford it. I'm American and raised two boys here one now through university.