Are students failing at school or are schools failing students?

[Baller23Boogie]

My 6th grader came home yesterday and was talking about this paper she has to write. The teacher said she can't pick both, has to pick one or the other.

She asked what I thought but I wanted to know what side she was going to argue. She said she was on the students are responsible side (which I'm pretty proud about, I'm all about self responsibility).

She said that it's not uncommon for kids to be doing their homework until the very last second, sleeping in class and not paying attention in class, which I told her are all very good points for her paper. She's going from her point of view, which we have a very good school system up here.

I thought it was an interesting discussion. Anyone have any thoughts?

 

[Noodle]

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

Of course you also can't make the water taste like crap if you want the horse to drink.

 

[Courtsensetwo]

Parents are failing their children and their schools.

There is one common denominator among high performing school systems such as Zionsville and carmel:

Involved parents.

Now, some parents are a problem and need to be sedated a bit, but by and large parents involvement gives the teachers, schools and students a fighting chance.

 

[TMFT]

I think it can't be generalized because it's far too complicated.

The first and most important factor with school success is socioeconomic. Do you have physical security at home? Are you have stable housing? Are you food secure?

The second critical factor is parenting. Do you have involved parents? Do you have present parents? Do your parents do everything for you (sorry millennials, we were under parented and we've pushed the pendulum back HARD, to our kids' detriment).

The single best public school I have ever been to was West Lafayette HS. Which makes total sense. Lafayette is a blue collar town. Across the river it's really a college only town. There are VERY few W. Laf. "townies" in the way that you'll see in other college towns. A bunch of high achieving academics from around the country/world sending their kids to the local school is a recipe for academic success. Have trouble with calculus? Ask mom/dad, the electrical engineering professor. That HS has among the highest AP & standardized test scores in the state. But if you take those same teachers and ship them to Lawrence Central, it'll be a different result.

I think where the schools have failed the most is by hamstringing teachers with meetings that they're not able to focus on teaching & building relationships with students. Mrs. TMFT is an outstanding teacher and she has built amazing relationships with kids. Her last few years at her prior school were very disheartening for her because she felt like the choices being made at admin were not in the best interests of the students.

 

[Marvin the Martian]

Parents are failing their children and their schools.

There is one common denominator among high performing school systems such as Zionsville and carmel:

Involved parents.

Now, some parents are a problem and need to be sedated a bit, but by and large parents involvement gives the teachers, schools and students a fighting chance.

We attended every open house of all three kids. It was amazing to go from a packed honors classroom to an almost totally empty "normal" class when you followed the kids' schedule. And the parents in that mostly empty class were mostly honors parents. So anecdotally parental involvement makes a huge difference.

Another thing, we all learn differently. I have a very smart buddy, but he needs hands-on work. Ask him to read 30 pages of rules for a game and it just isn't going to happen. And if he does read them, it is guaranteed he misses important points. Do a hands-on game demo, and he picks it up quickly. Classes aren't usually designed for that style of learner.

 

[UncleMark]

My 6th grader came home yesterday and was talking about this paper she has to write. The teacher said she can't pick both, has to pick one or the other.

She asked what I thought but I wanted to know what side she was going to argue. She said she was on the students are responsible side (which I'm pretty proud about, I'm all about self responsibility).

She said that it's not uncommon for kids to be doing their homework until the very last second, sleeping in class and not paying attention in class, which I told her are all very good points for her paper. She's going from her point of view, which we have a very good school system up here.

I thought it was an interesting discussion. Anyone have any thoughts?

How many kids are going to tell the teachers they suck at their jobs?

 

[Baller23Boogie]

How many kids are going to tell the teachers they suck at their jobs?

These days, a lot of them.

 

[UncleMark]

These days, a lot of them.

If you say so.

The question is premised on the assumption that schools are failing, and we're just looking to place blame. I'd want to discuss the premise before looking for the proximate cause.

 

[Baller23Boogie]

If you say so.

The question is premised on the assumption that schools are failing, and we're just looking to place blame. I'd want to discuss the premise before looking for the proximate cause.

My reply was being playful.

Kids look to blame everyone but themselves. It's just what they do.

I would be on the parent train, but that's not an option for her paper.

 

[mcmurtry66]

My 6th grader came home yesterday and was talking about this paper she has to write. The teacher said she can't pick both, has to pick one or the other.

She asked what I thought but I wanted to know what side she was going to argue. She said she was on the students are responsible side (which I'm pretty proud about, I'm all about self responsibility).

She said that it's not uncommon for kids to be doing their homework until the very last second, sleeping in class and not paying attention in class, which I told her are all very good points for her paper. She's going from her point of view, which we have a very good school system up here.

I thought it was an interesting discussion. Anyone have any thoughts?

I’m sure schools are all different but it’s much harder for parents today. My kid’s school rarely has homework as they do basically everything at school. There are no textbooks they bring home etc. it’s much harder to keep up

 

[Baller23Boogie]

I’m sure schools are all different but it’s much harder for parents today. My kid’s school rarely has homework as they do basically everything at school. There are no textbooks they bring home etc. it’s much harder to keep up

All our work is done online. My youngest has a button on her computer that doesn't work, so it's in the "shop" to get fixed at her school. She gets a loner for school but isn't allowed to take it home.

No computer at home, no homework. Make that make sense.

 

[HurryingHoosiers]

Both is likely happening. If a student isn't applying themselves then obviously they are at fault. On the other hand, there are bad teachers/schools out there that aren't doing their students any favors. Plus, students all learn differently so sometimes hard for schools to accommodate with 20+ students in a class. Then the 3rd issue of some parents not doing anything to help at home.

Defunding public schools under the guise of the voucher system isn't helping either.

 

[Cortez88]

I’m sure schools are all different but it’s much harder for parents today. My kid’s school rarely has homework as they do basically everything at school. There are no textbooks they bring home etc. it’s much harder to keep up

My kids have an incredible amount of homework. My high schooler spends the entire day every Sunday doing homework. And she’s doing hours Monday-Thursday. My middle schooler has homework every night as well.

 

[Bligedy]

My 6th grader came home yesterday and was talking about this paper she has to write. The teacher said she can't pick both, has to pick one or the other.

She asked what I thought but I wanted to know what side she was going to argue. She said she was on the students are responsible side (which I'm pretty proud about, I'm all about self responsibility).

She said that it's not uncommon for kids to be doing their homework until the very last second, sleeping in class and not paying attention in class, which I told her are all very good points for her paper. She's going from her point of view, which we have a very good school system up here.

I thought it was an interesting discussion. Anyone have any thoughts?

Parents, kids and administrators in that order.

 

[outside shooter]

It varies by state and district, but by and large my only complaint with school systems in my area is that, since Florida requires standardized tests at the completion of certain grades and those tests are in part used to rank schools and teacher performance, teachers gear their classes toward better test performance. Sometimes that's at odds with teaching important ideas such as critical thinking skills.

 

[larsIU]

My kids have an incredible amount of homework. My high schooler spends the entire day every Sunday doing homework. And she’s doing hours Monday-Thursday. My middle schooler has homework every night as well.

Yeah, mine is "doing homework" 5 hours a night. I mean, probably 3 hrs of homework (or 2) and a bunch of screen time thrown in.

 

[hoot1]

We attended every open house of all three kids. It was amazing to go from a packed honors classroom to an almost totally empty "normal" class when you followed the kids' schedule. And the parents in that mostly empty class were mostly honors parents. So anecdotally parental involvement makes a huge difference.

Another thing, we all learn differently. I have a very smart buddy, but he needs hands-on work. Ask him to read 30 pages of rules for a game and it just isn't going to happen. And if he does read them, it is guaranteed he misses important points. Do a hands-on game demo, and he picks it up quickly. Classes aren't usually designed for that style of learner.

MtM, have a neighbor who is exactly like your buddy.

My neighbor had a terrible childhood and really never entered adulthood being well educated. This included not being able to read well.

Learning to read is vital to anyone as a tool to what should be a lifetime of learning. If you can read and with the internet, you have thanks to the internet a lifetime tutor.

 

[Ohio Guy]

I think it can't be generalized because it's far too complicated.

The first and most important factor with school success is socioeconomic. Do you have physical security at home? Are you have stable housing? Are you food secure?

The second critical factor is parenting. Do you have involved parents? Do you have present parents? Do your parents do everything for you (sorry millennials, we were under parented and we've pushed the pendulum back HARD, to our kids' detriment).

The single best public school I have ever been to was West Lafayette HS. Which makes total sense. Lafayette is a blue collar town. Across the river it's really a college only town. There are VERY few W. Laf. "townies" in the way that you'll see in other college towns. A bunch of high achieving academics from around the country/world sending their kids to the local school is a recipe for academic success. Have trouble with calculus? Ask mom/dad, the electrical engineering professor. That HS has among the highest AP & standardized test scores in the state. But if you take those same teachers and ship them to Lawrence Central, it'll be a different result.

I think where the schools have failed the most is by hamstringing teachers with meetings that they're not able to focus on teaching & building relationships with students. Mrs. TMFT is an outstanding teacher and she has built amazing relationships with kids. Her last few years at her prior school were very disheartening for her because she felt like the choices being made at admin were not in the best interests of the students.

What you’ve described in W. Lafayette has for the most part been my kids’ experience. We live in the poorest county in Ohio, but since most of the kids at my kids schools are from all over and their parents are tied to the university, the high school has well prepared them for college. Do with this what you will, but we regularly have kids getting accepted to Ivy League and other top schools.

I do think parent/family engagement is huge. A whole other topic is how to get people more engaged and what barriers there are to that engagement.

 

[mcmurtry66]

All our work is done online. My youngest has a button on her computer that doesn't work, so it's in the "shop" to get fixed at her school. She gets a loner for school but isn't allowed to take it home.

No computer at home, no homework. Make that make sense.

That’s exactly how it is at my kid’s school. And they have a monitor with all the kids with broken chromes and the repair status. No computer. No work

 

[Courtsensetwo]

My reply was being playful.

Kids look to blame everyone but themselves. It's just what they do.

I would be on the parent train, but that's not an option for her paper.

It could be a part of her argument on either side. It would be on mine.

 

[hoot1]

My 6th grader came home yesterday and was talking about this paper she has to write. The teacher said she can't pick both, has to pick one or the other.

She asked what I thought but I wanted to know what side she was going to argue. She said she was on the students are responsible side (which I'm pretty proud about, I'm all about self responsibility).

She said that it's not uncommon for kids to be doing their homework until the very last second, sleeping in class and not paying attention in class, which I told her are all very good points for her paper. She's going from her point of view, which we have a very good school system up here.

I thought it was an interesting discussion. Anyone have any thoughts?

BB, found your daughter's remarks about her fellow students to be interesting.

Reminded me of a discussion with a high school teacher in Indianapolis. The teacher moved to Carmel with his children's education in mind. In his view, it wasn't because the schools were all that much better, it was because the students were way better and more competitive.

 

[BradStevens]

My 6th grader came home yesterday and was talking about this paper she has to write. The teacher said she can't pick both, has to pick one or the other.

She asked what I thought but I wanted to know what side she was going to argue. She said she was on the students are responsible side (which I'm pretty proud about, I'm all about self responsibility).

She said that it's not uncommon for kids to be doing their homework until the very last second, sleeping in class and not paying attention in class, which I told her are all very good points for her paper. She's going from her point of view, which we have a very good school system up here.

I thought it was an interesting discussion. Anyone have any thoughts?

I hate questions like that, "pick a side." Any issue worth thinking about is more complicated than that and binary thinking is a systematic problem in humans.

All her points are good ones, though.

 

[Baller23Boogie]

I hate questions like that, "pick a side." Any issue worth thinking about is more complicated than that and binary thinking is a systematic problem in humans.

All her points are good ones, though.

My wife basically said the same thing because she said two things can be true at once.

She pointed out not being able to take her loaner home as a negative for the school, which of course my kid disagreed with. 😂

 

[BradStevens]

All our work is done online. My youngest has a button on her computer that doesn't work, so it's in the "shop" to get fixed at her school. She gets a loner for school but isn't allowed to take it home.

No computer at home, no homework. Make that make sense.

In my district/area, the reason is this: parents, do in fact, make a huge difference as everyone has noted. Progressive educators/admins realize this and want to do the equitable thing. They know that if they give a lot of homework, some kids will have parents help, which will give that kid an advantage over the kids whose parents will not or cannot help. And so to level the playing field, they don't assign as much homework (or any at all) so that all kids are on an equal footing.

Another incentive might be that the less homework, the less grading the teachers have to do. I'm sure for some teachers that motivates them, but I'm also sure for many it doesn't really play into the equation.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

It varies by state and district, but by and large my only complaint with school systems in my area is that, since Florida requires standardized tests at the completion of certain grades and those tests are in part used to rank schools and teacher performance, teachers gear their classes toward better test performance. Sometimes that's at odds with teaching important ideas such as critical thinking skills.

I don’t think you can ever “teach” critical thinking. Critical thinking is developed by how schools teach other subjects. That usually means some version of Socratic teacher-pupil exchanges. This would require teachers with a different skill- set than usually found in K-12 education.

 

[Mark Milton]

My kids have an incredible amount of homework. My high schooler spends the entire day every Sunday doing homework. And she’s doing hours Monday-Thursday. My middle schooler has homework every night as well.

That was the same for both my kids in high school (grad years 2020 and 2022). Two hours of homework a night on average combined with a 2 hour soccer practice makes for a long day. The youngest kid at times was up until Midnight working on a project of some sort. Usually on Sundays both boys would get an hour and half of homework done.

Nowadays, I don't think either kid has had a textbook in college--all the stuff is available on line, and all papers turned in electronically in word format so they can be run through AI screener and the plagiarism bank of papers that universities share in.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

My 6th grader came home yesterday and was talking about this paper she has to write. The teacher said she can't pick both, has to pick one or the other.

She asked what I thought but I wanted to know what side she was going to argue. She said she was on the students are responsible side (which I'm pretty proud about, I'm all about self responsibility).

She said that it's not uncommon for kids to be doing their homework until the very last second, sleeping in class and not paying attention in class, which I told her are all very good points for her paper. She's going from her point of view, which we have a very good school system up here.

I thought it was an interesting discussion. Anyone have any thoughts?

It’s the schools.

Of course homes, parents and families are important to good educations, and I don’t minimize that. But unless we want to talk about home- schools, quality education starts and ends in the schools.

And the most significant failure of education is in reading and literacy. A functionally illerate person will never learn much. And learning styles, I don’t believe, has much to do with this point.

Mississippi and Louisiana used to be near the bottom in state K-12 education rankings. Both states have improved rankings with state-wide reforms focused on reading and literacy in the early primary grades.

 

[Baller23Boogie]

It’s the schools.

Of course homes, parents and families are important to good educations, and I don’t minimize that. But unless we want to talk about home- schools, quality education starts and ends in the schools.

And the most significant failure of education is in reading and literacy. A functionally illerate person will never learn much. And learning styles, I don’t believe, has much to do with this point.

Mississippi and Louisiana used to be near the bottom in state K-12 education rankings. Both states have improved rankings with state-wide reforms focused on reading and literacy in the early primary grades.

What are schools doing that are causing kids to fail?

I'm not being argumentative, but trying to see another perspective.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

That was the same for both my kids in high school (grad years 2020 and 2022). Two hours of homework a night on average combined with a 2 hour soccer practice makes for a long day. The youngest kid at times was up until Midnight working on a project of some sort. Usually on Sundays both boys would get an hour and half of homework done.

Nowadays, I don't think either kid has had a textbook in college--all the stuff is available on line, and all papers turned in electronically in word format so they can be run through AI screener and the plagiarism bank of papers that universities share in.

When I coached high school mock trial, most of my ‘team” were high achieving IB kids. One of the students showed me what the IB curriculum involved, it was horrendous amount of reading all kinds of books. I don’t know how they found time to do all that work.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

What are schools doing that are causing kids to fail?

I'm not being argumentative, but trying to see another perspective

Failure to fully develop reading skills.

 

[mcmurtry66]

What are schools doing that are causing kids to fail?

I'm not being argumentative, but trying to see another perspective.

as counterintuitive as it may seem i have found tech has made it harder to keep up than easier. i know when she misses shit but hte day to day is harder to dive into whatever she's working on

 

[Mark Milton]

When I coached high school mock trial, most of my ‘team” were high achieving IB kids. One of the students showed me what the IB curriculum involved, it was horrendous amount of reading all kinds of books. I don’t know how they found time to do all that work.

I liken it to me expressing my shock at how could a young high school or college student be outside without a jacket. We forgotten that we likely did the same thing.

 

[mcmurtry66]

Imagine showing up for mock trial class in your Birkenstocks sweats and hoodie only to find the president of COH U is there to run the Socratic method. Those kids will have a story to tell the rest of their lives

 

[Baller23Boogie]

Failure to fully develop reading skills.

From my experience, our schools have done nothing but be proactive in that sense.

We had a meeting with some of her teachers because she's not up to grade level (it's been a long journey to get her where she is). She was pissed that she had to give up cooking class, but she's now into a class strictly geared for reading.

I know my experience isn't like everyone else, but they have always been proactive in that form.

 

[outside shooter]

I wish my public schools in rural southern Indiana in the 1970s were a tenth as good as the public schools that my kids attended in the 2000s and 2010s.

As I have mentioned, the fundamental concept of evolution (as central to biology as the periodic table is to chemistry) went mostly undiscussed in my high school biology classes. I took every math and science class my HS offered. My son did the same, 35 years later in FL, and was deeper into every subject as a sophomore than anyone had been as a senior at my HS.

 

[CO. Hoosier]

From my experience, our schools have done nothing but be proactive in that sense.

We had a meeting with some of her teachers because she's not up to grade level (it's been a long journey to get her where she is). She was pissed that she had to give up cooking class, but she's now into a class strictly geared for reading.

I know my experience isn't like everyone else, but they have always been proactive in that form.

Individual mileage will vary.

 

[hoot1]

Failure to fully develop reading skills.

Indiana state legislature is proposing to not pass third graders who fail reading tests.

Some educators have concluded students must reach a certain level of reading skills by fifth grade or they are destined to be drop outs.

Heck, they may be on to something.

Some parents are already up in arms. Be interesting to know if these parents were once drop outs.

 

[mcmurtry66]

Indiana state legislature is proposing to not pass third graders who fail reading tests.

Some educators have concluded students must reach a certain level of reading skills by fifth grade or they are destined to be drop outs.

Heck, they may be on to something.

Some parents are already up in arms. Be interesting to know if these parents were once drop outs.

Are kids ever held back anymore?

 

[Baller23Boogie]

Are kids ever held back anymore?

If a parent asks

 

[hoot1]

Are kids ever held back anymore?

Are kids ever held back anymore?

In my young days not promoting and skipping grades was in vogue.

My dream girl in fourth grade was the sexy and beautiful blond Stella Sue Carroll. She had been held back a few times. She was like a grown up movie star among kids.

Her fascinating attempts at cheating on spelling tests were excruciating to watch, as they were destined to fail.

My fear was that her behavior and the resulting criticism would ultimately cause her to stay home.

Turned out my fears came to fruition. Fourth grade was never the same.