Fail U and the downhill slide of education in the US.

[Darren]

Two teachers told me that by the fourth grade they knew which kids would be failures.

A college professor related the story about one of his students that complained that they always got A's or B's when he gave them a C. To their credit they told the professor later they were unprepared for graduate school.

A university stopped providing remedial courses and used that as a sieve to weed out the student base.

Vandals did their thing on a memorial to a Black Civil War regiment that was the subject of the film "Glory."

Two teenagers couldn't figure out what I owed with a calculator when I bought nine books. The posted price was eight books for $10.

Why Johnny Can't Read was published over sixty years ago.

But wait! There's more!

[RayThom]

Two teachers told me that by the fourth grade they knew which kids would be failures.A college professor related the story about one of his students that complained that they always got A's or B's when he gave them a C.To their credit they told the professor later they were unprepared for graduate school.A university stopped providing remedial courses and used that as a sieve to weed out the student base.Vandals did their thing on a memorial to a Black Civil War regiment that was the subject of the film "Glory."Two teenagers couldn't figure out what I owed with a calculator when I bought nine books.The posted price was eight books for $10.But wait! There's more!

Darren, I get the feeling you're trying to relate these examples to black people. Don't bother with more, no one needs a follow up.

[MajGenl.Meade]

A university stopped providing remedial courses and used that as a sieve to weed out the student base.

Was it this one?

[Darren]

Darren, I get the feeling you're trying to relate these examples to black people. Don't bother with more, no one needs a follow up.

All of the individuals I know about were White, Ray. You do have a point though in your leap of "faith."

If schools in lily white areas have failed, is education better in mixed or mostly Black schools?

It must be comforting to wash your hands of an issue with a simple dismissal of "PREJUDICE ALERT! Sound the alarm! Move along! My work here is done.

[ex-khobar Andy]

A university stopped providing remedial courses and used that as a sieve to weed out the student base.

I'm still stuck on using a sieve to do the weeding. Have I been doing it wrong all these years?

[Darren]

"In her 17 years as a middle school social studies teacher in Nashville, Tennessee, Su Williams regularly encountered students who still struggled to read at a basic level, and nothing she learned in her teacher training or in her nearly two decades in the classroom prepared her to help.

“I learned in the classroom that what I was trained to do—Whole Language and Balanced Literacy—doesn’t work. That was an eye-opener,” she said. Without the time to teach her fifth-grade students how to read proficiently—or a thorough understanding of the biomechanics of how children learn to read—Williams kept focusing on the subject matter she needed to cover for the school year, hoping their reading would eventually improve.

It was an exercise in wishful thinking."

[MajGenl.Meade]

It's like not larnin' them the Times Tables in maths. In the good old days (1835), starting in the first year of infant school and continuing into secondary education, English teachers required the students one by one to stand up and read aloud a paragraph or two of whatever book was assigned. Some kids were terrible readers - that is, monotone droning, completely wrong EMphasIS, but their shame/whatever was irrelevant. Read, damn it. And so we all did. No one killed themselves. Made us read aloud in History, Geography, Divinity, Math and Science too. Not so much in PE. You didn't get out of school without being able to read in those days (1876).

[BoSoxGal]

Any teacher who says they know by 4th grade the future potential of their students should not be teaching, period. THEY are the problem, not the students.

As someone who taught non traditional (adult) college students for a number of years, I can attest that nobody’s potential is set in stone in their youth. How kids perform in grade school, middle school and high school is often shaped by forces out of their immediate control, like dysfunctional home life, undiagnosed learning disabilities, undiagnosed mental health issues, poor nutrition leading to cognitive limitations, or even (shocking!) being a very bright person stifled by a learning environment tailored to the lowest common denominator, etc.

In my own case, after leaving Massachusetts schools for Arizona schools between 4th and 5th grades, I (formerly a top student with perfect attendance) struggled with a curriculum that was a repeat of what I’d already learned in 4th grade but taught by very different (and in retrospect I realize) inferior pedagogical methods. Combined with coping with the heartache of being homesick for people and places, having a mother who faced a life altering medical condition followed by chronic depression and a father who remained utter shit at being a parent beyond the basics of keeping roof over and food on, I fell far below my potential in middle school and high school - I got mostly good grades and occasionally very good grades, was honors in some subjects and barely attended class in others, and ultimately got bored with school and dropped out my senior year. I had my GED before my classmates graduated - scoring in the top 1% of test takers in the state, for what that was worth. Lots of folks would have written me off as a failure at that point, but I went on to earn four university degrees, including a law degree from one of the half dozen elite schools that offered me a place based on my academic record and my stellar LSAT score.

Kids are a lot more complicated than public education generally allows for, and very gifted kids are left behind almost as often as challenged kids with learning difficulties. Really gifted kids also have learning difficulties, just of a different kind. And lots of regular smart and really smart kids struggle in school because outside factors go unaddressed and overwhelm their best efforts.

I never assume a person is beyond learning, because I have seen brilliance in the writing of adult learners who had long before been written off by teachers as a failure. And some folks are late bloomers, but blooming late is far better than never blooming at all.

[Darren]

Another failure of the education system or just dumb assery?

[ex-khobar Andy]

Looks like dumb assery to me. Why rob a bank when television cameras are looking? Do your robbery in the traditional way - below the radar - for example by creating millions of false accounts and stealing the commissions thereby generated. You don't even have to buy a sledgehammer, and no-one goes to jail. Perfect! And that money has never been recovered! If there are any fines, the bank's stockholders (pension funds and the like) will pay.

PS When I was a lad, ACAB stood for All Copper Are Bastards. It wasn't rare to see it in English towns. I don't know if it has been resurrected or recycled or whether it now has a different meaning.

[BoSoxGal]

Not to mention that all the money in that Wells Fargo was put to bed in a vault that I very much doubt those looters got into. They probably did nothing more than trash the interior and the robber barrons at Wells, one of the most criminal banks in the country, can well afford to pay for anything insurance doesn’t cover.

[Bicycle Bill]

Looks like dumb assery to me. Why rob a bank when television cameras are looking? Do your robbery in the traditional way - below the radar - for example by creating millions of false accounts and stealing the commissions thereby generated. You don't even have to buy a sledgehammer, and no-one goes to jail. Perfect! And that money has never been recovered! If there are any fines, the bank's stockholders (pension funds and the like) will pay.

PS When I was a lad, ACAB stood for All Copper Are Bastards. It wasn't rare to see it in English towns. I don't know if it has been resurrected or recycled or whether it now has a different meaning.

It means the same thing here.  Just like the signs that read "Free Shit" or "Fuck Cops" or "Kill Cops" or where someone spray-painted "Eat the Rich" on one of the vehicles in the showroom of a luxury-car dealership that was broken into and looted/vandalised, it just proves that while the shit we've seen these last two weeks may have started as protests about police excesses against George Floyd, Breanna Taylor, Eric Garner, and the rest of the BLM "say their names" list, it quickly turned into being just another excuse for a bunch of animals who were only looking to smash up things and steal stuff.

-"BB"-

[RayThom]

"... because that's where the money is." Willie Sutton

[Guinevere]

I never assume a person is beyond learning, because I have seen brilliance in the writing of adult learners who had long before been written off by teachers as a failure. And some folks are late bloomers, but blooming late is far better than never blooming at all.

I agree with this entirely. My high school was a mixed bag of students, set in a somewhat diverse rural area. I've seen my classmates who would have been called "burnouts" and who hated classes and didn't do well, turn into super credentialed professionals and successful businesspersons, with degrees and educational experiences one might never have expected them to have. You never know what is going to make that educational lightbulb click on for anyone.

[TPFKA@W]

I never assume a person is beyond learning, because I have seen brilliance in the writing of adult learners who had long before been written off by teachers as a failure. And some folks are late bloomers, but blooming late is far better than never blooming at all.

I agree with this entirely. My high school was a mixed bag of students, set in a somewhat diverse rural area. I've seen my classmates who would have been called "burnouts" and who hated classes and didn't do well, turn into super credentialed professionals and successful businesspersons, with degrees and educational experiences one might never have expected them to have. You never know what is going to make that educational lightbulb click on for anyone.

Then, on the other side of the spectrum you have those who show great promise, go to great schools and then wind up having nothing to show for it but educational debt and little else for the effort. One just never knows how it will work out and we are all works in progress.

[dales]

Trump went to a great school and look how he turned out.

[MajGenl.Meade]

When I was a lad, ACAB stood for All Copper Are Bastards. It wasn't rare to see it in English towns.

Part of our football heritage, Andy. "Over the wall we go / all coppers are bastards". Prelude to the pitch invasion. Days gone by <sigh>

[Gob]

According to a report published last year by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, poor white boys are the lowest-achieving group in Britain, with just 28 per cent getting five GCSEs at grade C or above, including English and maths, in 2013. That was lower than poor Pakistani boys and poor black Caribbean boys (who were, until recently, the worst performers). By contrast, 74 per cent of Chinese boys on free school meals hit that target, and poor Chinese girls are the highest-achieving group in Britain.


https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why ... hite-boys-

[Big RR]

I never assume a person is beyond learning, because I have seen brilliance in the writing of adult learners who had long before been written off by teachers as a failure. And some folks are late bloomers, but blooming late is far better than never blooming at all.

I agree with this entirely. My high school was a mixed bag of students, set in a somewhat diverse rural area. I've seen my classmates who would have been called "burnouts" and who hated classes and didn't do well, turn into super credentialed professionals and successful businesspersons, with degrees and educational experiences one might never have expected them to have. You never know what is going to make that educational lightbulb click on for anyone.

I agree Guin, you never know when someone is going to "burn out"; my college roommate came from Korea and was one of the most intelligent (in book smarts) people I knew. He attended the most competitive schools in Korea until he came here, then went to a very good high school, and showed great promise (one of things I recall is that he got 800s in the math levels 1 and 2 SAT achievement tests, a pretty substantial achievement. But in college he got sick of working and just bummed around; he flunked out of a number of schools (his father always got him in another) and has more college credits (first 2 year courses generally) to get a few degrees. I've lost track of him, but I recall he worked in computers for a few years (it didn't work out), and eventually married a wife who ended up supporting him. If he were happy (and he really wasn't when I knew him), I'd say he just followed a different drum and be happy for him, but he engaged in a lot of self destructive behavior, losing jobs, cheating on his wife, etc. One of those escapades used me as his way to get out of/mitigate the trouble, which put me on the permanent outs with his wife (I was already on the outs with his parents and siblings--I was always blamed as the troublemaker) and we eventually lost touch.

I'd much rather have a late bloomer than a late burnout, and think the above tale happens a lot more times than is commonly thought; predicting success in early grades is pretty much insanity, as well as laziness. This guy would have been predicted as the most likely to succeed, which he clearly did not.

[BoSoxGal]

Hmmm . . . I have many thoughts about the last few posts.

First, I truly believe an education is never a waste. I don’t think students should be burdened by the massive debt that is required for many to obtain higher education in this country - a great many other countries have models which prove this is unnecessary and that the societal investment in education beyond year 12 public school is well worth it and benefits us all. Sadly, American capitalism is still invested in a model that does not encourage the development of a critically thinking extensively educated citizenry.

Second, success is a thing which can be defined and measured many different ways. American society - again a nearly unfettered capitalist model - tends to define it almost exclusively in terms of material gains, and to ignore spiritual ones or touchy feely concepts like personal growth and self-actualization.

To be honest, the majority of the people I’ve known who were very materially successful - professionals with ‘thriving’ careers, nice houses and cars and stock options and super busy kids in great schools with lots of activities and a future planned to the hilt to recreate the parental model - are the least truly happy. Certainly we know as a matter of unquestionable statistics that the suicide rates among these successful professional people is significantly higher than the population as a whole. Depression, substance use disorder, martial strife and bad tickers abound in this group. Is that really success?

Education should be valued as an end in itself; it should be just as important to give a person who wants to be a plumber or auto mechanic or store clerk the opportunity to earn a university degree in which she has the option to study Plato’s Republic and the Federalist Papers as it is to give that educational opportunity to someone who wants to be a doctor or lawyer. If they want the opportunity and can show the aptitude to complete the coursework with a reasonable degree of success, they should have that opportunity without incurring debt the size of a house mortgage that takes them a lifetime to repay. It seems stupid to me that we have to argue this point in this country, as it seems beyond logical that we all benefit from a better educated society.

Finally, in defining success we should all bring compassion to the equation and recognize that far too many people with an abundance of talent and intelligence to share with their communities who find their careers cut short or much abbreviated in midlife by cancer, autoimmune disease, heart disease and mental health disorders are not ‘unsuccessful’, they are simply victims of bad luck, bad environment, bad genetics - things usually far outside their immediate control. I’ve always been sensitive to this issue having worked for years with disadvantaged clients in legal aid - and obviously now as I struggle myself with a life limited by health issues that have taken me far from the arena where I still intellectually and emotionally wish to be. I recognize that some people are just too narrow minded and prejudiced to acknowledge that folks who get a great education and have a lot of promise but then end up with not much of a career to show for it aren’t all losers - but most of us should have sufficient compassion to realize that there but for the grace of God . . .