What can be done to address some of the problems in the US education system?
Consider discussing:
- Charter schools - pros and cons
- School choice and vouchers
- Tracking - pros and cons
- Educational reforms (tenure reform, merit pay, extended school hours, etc.)
DUE: Tuesday 1/22
Waiting for “Superman” is a documentary about the education system in the United States today. The film picks apart the issues holding American school children back; from government bureaucracy, to bad teachers who can’t be fired, to a system that is out of touch with the needs of the global economy. In the film, four children turn to charter schools as their last hope for a quality education. The problem with charter schools is that there aren’t enough to go around and not all of them are producing great results. Rather than turning to charter schools to solve all the problems, we should monitor and try to repeat many of the great ideas and advances taking place there. As for tracking in schools, it is unfair and prevents many students from succeeding. Tracking means kids in the middle and bottom may not be given a fair chance. The problem with tracking is that there is not much of a chance for moving up and it can begin as early as middle school, before some kids hit their prime. Every child deserves a quality education and a bad teacher can be a big part in preventing that. Today, it is so easy for teachers to receive tenure and once they have it there is a very small chance they will ever be fired. I would suggest making the requirements for tenure longer and harder to get, making the teachers want to work harder or clear out any bad ones. It will also secure the really good teachers that deserve to be there and are an asset to the education system.
ReplyDelete-9 (Rachel)
In class we have recently watched a film about the education system in America. One of the things that was talked in film are charter schools. These are public schools that receive public money but are privately owned. These schools are good because it gives people a good education that is better than other public schools. But, these schools are bad because there are only a limited number of seats in them and a child’s future for coming is based on a lottery. One of the other problems that film points out is tracking which means that a student’s classes are based if they are average, above average, o below average. This is a bad idea because it doesn’t allow students who are below average to make them advance. The film also points out some of the obstacles that schools face when teaching students. One of these problems is giving teachers tenure which means that after a teacher works for a certain amount of years it’s hard to fire them. If a bad teacher gets tenure then then the school can’t fire them because it will cost the school more money to fire them. To fix this problem teachers should be given the option of getting tenure or more pay. Also, tenure should be harder for teachers to get and only certain good teachers can get it.
ReplyDelete--Parth Sojitra
Consider discussing:
ReplyDeleteCharter schools - pros and cons
School choice and vouchers
Tracking - pros and cons
Educational reforms (tenure reform, merit pay, extended school hours, etc.)
Make sure to include your name and/ or blog #
Before watching the documentary about America's public school system, I didn't think much of it, I pretty much didn't care; I didn't even know what was a charter school. However, the film digs deep into the public school system and the evils around it. Charter schools are public schools available to children, but in order to attend the children need to win the school's lottery. These schools generally have a better education than regular public schools.Unfortunately, this is the only fair way for children to enter these schools. It's disturbing that a child's fate lies in a randomized number. We followed about five children and their journey into entering the charter school's lottery system. When 3/5 children lost their chance at a great education my heart sank. These children has great potential to achieve amazing things in life and Daisy already had goals of becoming a doctor or veterinarian. One of the problems with public schools is the teachers. There are some terrible teachers out there teaching the future of America, and many are not doing their job. Some people would teach terribly, but do not care because they have ten year and thus can not get fired (well it's terribly hard to fire them, but not totally impossible). These teachers do not care and create schools into failure factories. Some teachers don't teach their classes well because they teach the "dumb" class. The teachers don't see potential in their students since they are not in "honors" or "level a" or "ap" and much more. This is the problem with tracking. It groups students by their "potential intelligence". Many students in Japan do not follow the tracking system, but just have students in large classrooms and the teacher would just teach. Japan's scores soar high as America's doesn't budge. This system doesn't stereotype children and students help each other learn. It seems impossible to reform America's public school system. Many families and teachers would create a riot if school hours would be extended or trickle into the summer, but it works in many Asian countries, so why not here? I think one of the major problems is tenure. It should be extremely harder for teachers to achieve it and teachers would go extensive evaluations from administrators, the school board and even parents in order to gain tenure.
~ Tracy
In the documentary, Waiting for Superman, I learned many things about the education system that I never knew before. For example charter schools are secondary and primary schools that get public money. The pros of a charter school compared to a public school is that they have more flexibility in curriculum and provide an alternative to public schools. But, some cons that charter schools have is that it is very hard to get into them especially if there is a lottery. I think it is very important to have other choices to send your child to school than just a public school because of the change it might be a drop out factory. Kids should be able to get the help and resources they need to be successful. Tracking also came up often in the documentary. This is when students are separated in subject levels based on test scores. This could be a good thing so that the teachers and students know when they need to work on something more to get better at it and go on to the next level. A con could be that if a child is put in the lowest level they will automatically do poorly because someone has told them they are bad at that subject. Another topic discussed in this film was tenure. Teachers who have tenure have work for a long amount of time and it is very difficult to fire them. One way to fix this problem is to reevaluate all the teachers who have tenure and see if they are good teachers, if not they should get their tenure revoked making it easier to fire them.
ReplyDelete-Grace
There are many things that can be done to address some of the problems in the US education system, one of these things being educational reform. The first thing that can be done is the school day could be extended so students have more time in classrooms to learn. Also, teachers should not automatically earn tenure, and schools should be able to fire tenured teachers easier than they currently are able to. Tracking in schools should continue to happen, as it ensures that the students who will thrive are getting a proper education without the disruptions of students who are less likely to thrive later in their education. School choice is a positive thing because parents who want the best for their children should be able to have choices about where they send their children to be educated.
ReplyDelete~~6
While i was watching the film "Waiting for Superman" I felt pretty sad that this is what we deem as 'good' education now. I mean there are good schools out there but some are much better then others. Charter schools for example can be on two ends of the spectrum. Some have amazing teachers that not only aid kinds all through their years there but also help those kids as they grow older and keep them on the right track to collage but some charter schools instead take another rout, pushing kids through school and just hoping that they'll get by with what little knowledge they have. It's pretty sad that schools could get away with this too-even if they can make their own curriculum- they should at least have the chance to get good teachers (or train others in some way) that can aid other children as they go through their school years so these kids will have the basic knowledge needed to get through high school or collage.
ReplyDelete--11
This documentary
ReplyDeleteThis documentary gave an insight to the differences and issues that are consistent in our education today. Not all kids have the opportunity to go to a good school and get and education. Charter schools allow children to have this opportunity and increase their changes for a better future by aiding parents with finances, but as well as teach a child more about values as well as academics. Everyone should have a choice to get a better education. Just because a family is struggling with finances and cannot afford to send them to a better school does not mean the child should have to suffer. Schools like this one provide an alternative to your traditional pay-as-you-go private school. This country needs to focus more and providing well-taught educators and intelligent staff to these schools, to help these children improve their future.
ReplyDelete-14
I thought that this movie was really interesting because i never think about schooling and what schools are bad and good. I think that charter schools are a good idea because of the schooling that they offer some kids, but I think that the lottery situation is not the best way to go about picking students for the school. They should make the successfull charter schools larger offerring spaces for more and more kids. This will be good for the kids who live in areas where their local school is not producing graduating students who will go on to becoming successful in what they want to do. I think that tracking in schools is a good thing because some students need to be challenged more than others. There are a lot of students who are not challenged in regular level classes. Children should not get discouraged because they are in the levels that are challenging them apropriately.
ReplyDelete----2
The film we watched,Waiting for "Superman", shed some light on the situation I never really made a big deal of. Everyone says our education system is messed up, and I would go along with it, but now I know how terrible it really is. Tenure is a giant debate and to keep it, or not to keep it? I vote get rid of it as soon as possible, tenure ensures that teachers, when reach the minimum amount of years teaching at a school, can almost not be fired. There are always those teachers that will sit back and not care or teach because they can stay and you cannot do anything about it. Another discussed issue is tracking. It is like "honors" or "ap" classes that put the "smarter" kids into the higher classes. I honestly am not sure about whether it helps or hinders considering you will always have the kid who will sit back and act not like an honors student because he's in a regular class. But, when I was in middle school i was put into GATEways (Gifted and talented education), where the top 4% were pulled out of our gym or elective few times a week and go to the classroom and learn more. We went on educational trips and did projects as well as classwork, so it was almost an extra class, except everyone loved it. SO I mean tracking can help bring the "honors" kids up, or motive regular class kids to work harder or stay down, it can go either way so we'll see. Also school choice is very important. Considering MCST comes from 26 different districts, people have all kinds of reasons to come here. If you live in a place like Harlem or Newark though, I believe school choice should be there in order to help kids have a better future and a better education. Parents can go and pay thousands of dollars for private school, send them to private schools, or even out there child's name in a charter schools lottery, but the option of public school is always there, but may not always be the best choice.
ReplyDelete-- 8 (janelle)
"Waiting for Superman" is a film that discusses some of the issues in the American education system that I believe are rooted in the fact that while there are many great teachers, there are also some terrible ones. The practices of the "lemon dance" and the "rubber room" are downright appalling. It does not make any sense to me why people who are not good at their job are not fired. In any other profession, if someone doesn't do their job well, they lose said job. A worker can also lose said job for any other reason, either legitimate or ridiculous. Why should teachers be treated differently? I've seen so many teachers who speak at union meetings have such a stuck-up demeanor. Some come off as if they believe they deserve to be treated differently then the rest of the country, like the work they are doing is somehow more important than the work in other fields. I also know many teachers that, quite frankly, deserve to be fired, and yet school administrations ignore all complaints they receive from students, parents, and sometimes other teachers. Michelle Rhee, the Washington DC school chancellor of the time put it perfectly: "Why does it always have to be about the adults?" They wouldn't be so opposed to merit pay if they were actually doing their jobs. I think if the teacher's union was more open and willing to accept education reform rather than defending every wrong policy that's holding the system back, then we as a nation could begin to heal the broken education system.
ReplyDeleteI often hear many adults speak about the younger generation like we're a generation of idiots. Whose job was it to educate us? I can't believe that we are expected to function like intellectual teenagers when we are bombarded daily with the same monotonous worksheets and teachers who sit on their laptops playing games all class. I've seen it happen on more than one occasion. I've had teachers give classes lectures on the importance of time management and then two minutes later give excuse after excuse on why they didn't have time to grade their assignments and end up giving things back months after they're due. I believe that the driving factor to why our education system is failing is because of the adults involved with it.
15
Waiting for superman was quite an interesting documentary to begin with, it had stated the issues in our educational system of the modern day. Such as tenured teachers who do not teach proper material to the young minds of tomorrow, teachers who waste the time of these young minds. Also "lemon" teachers pollute the schools of today and waste money from the state and do not help anyone but their selfish selves. Another problem that the documentary had mentioned was how poor our education is compared to competing countries. Our education is utter crap compared to other developed countries such as Sweden, and Norway. As our youth gets dumber and dumber the world around is watching them and nothing is being done about this issue. This documentary surely has the potential to raise awareness about this issue and spark a movement towards a resolution of this issue. In conclusion I enjoyed the documentary and it had educated me on the current standings of the United States educational system into what I am enrolled into this very day.
ReplyDeleteKirill
Waiting for Superman was a documentary explaining the problems with the American education system. One important topic that the book talks about is the tenure system. It is important that students have good teachers. Without a decent teacher, students will never receive a decent education. With the tenure system in place, it is almost impossible to make sure students are well educated. This is because the tenure system denies schools the ability to fire their teachers. Principles often do the "Dance of the Lemons," sending their bad teachers to other schools, and gets bad teachers from other schools. This does not help anyone. This just means schools get different bad teachers each year. What we have to do is get rid of the tenure system, and without it, more schools will get great teachers.
ReplyDelete~~~10 (Emily)
The educational systems in America defiantly need work. I agree with tracking so you can accurately provide for the student and their individual needs, but it should not be the end all be all result. It should be a helping tool, if it starts to hinder than pull back. Use tracking by playing by hear. Leave it up to the teacher, or teachers so there are checks (monarchies are no good in education). The luck you need to get into charter school is wrong. There should defiantly a different way to pick and choose. I get it, it's supposed to be fair, but it's not. They should make room, or send out the teachers or lesson plans to other teachers until they themselves get the results. If the teacher does not like being told how to teach, well tough cookies, because they're not doing there job and teaching those children adequately. As for extending the school day, I kind of agree with that as well. It should be longer, it'll help a lot of children out. Either with support that they are not getting at home, or keeping them from a bad situation. So some kids are going to be bored, if they're doing what they're supposed to be doing then they shouldn't be that bored. And if they run out of work then give them something else, the learning at your own pass kind of thing.
ReplyDelete-Stephanie