7-18-11
The Flat World and Education--chapters 1-4
How do I feel after reading these first four chapters? Well, to be honest I feel a little helpless. Compared to other developed countries in the world, the United States ranks in the bottom third when it comes to math and science education. How do we fix this? Unfortunately, current legislation is handicapping our ability to fix a lot of these issues. We are cutting teachers, taking away the arts, and pouring our focus into teaching to the standardized tests. These are not the ways to fix the problem. The first step is to identify the problem and fix it where it is the most broken. According to this book and numerous other studies, our nation’s academic deficiencies appear most notably with our minority populations, specifically with the African American and Hispanic populations. So, common sense says that if we focus on these students our scores will improve and the problem will be fixed. The problem with that is politics and common sense aren’t good bedfellows. In fact, over the last few decades we have systematically neglected these groups. We made great gains when we desegregated the schools. The goal of desegregation was to provide equal educational opportunity to all children. It was truly on the right path in its infancy. Unfortunately, over the last three decades we have started to resegregate our schools. With this segregation we have created white schools with better teachers and more opportunities to succeed, and conversely we have created minority schools with bad teachers and fewer opportunities to succeed. I actually witnessed this happen in Pinellas County, FL. This school district incorporated a choice program that allowed students to choose the schools that they wanted attend. In one year’s time my school went from a 45% minority population to a 7% minority population. The district basically segregated itself. The good teachers soon followed the students by transferring to the schools with the more successful white populations, leaving the mostly minority schools with the left overs. This is only one example of our schools becoming segregated. If we want to focus on catching up with the other developed countries, we need to fix the current system that is on a downward spiral towards resegregating our schools and further neglecting our minority students.
The Flat World and Education--chapters 1-4
How do I feel after reading these first four chapters? Well, to be honest I feel a little helpless. Compared to other developed countries in the world, the United States ranks in the bottom third when it comes to math and science education. How do we fix this? Unfortunately, current legislation is handicapping our ability to fix a lot of these issues. We are cutting teachers, taking away the arts, and pouring our focus into teaching to the standardized tests. These are not the ways to fix the problem. The first step is to identify the problem and fix it where it is the most broken. According to this book and numerous other studies, our nation’s academic deficiencies appear most notably with our minority populations, specifically with the African American and Hispanic populations. So, common sense says that if we focus on these students our scores will improve and the problem will be fixed. The problem with that is politics and common sense aren’t good bedfellows. In fact, over the last few decades we have systematically neglected these groups. We made great gains when we desegregated the schools. The goal of desegregation was to provide equal educational opportunity to all children. It was truly on the right path in its infancy. Unfortunately, over the last three decades we have started to resegregate our schools. With this segregation we have created white schools with better teachers and more opportunities to succeed, and conversely we have created minority schools with bad teachers and fewer opportunities to succeed. I actually witnessed this happen in Pinellas County, FL. This school district incorporated a choice program that allowed students to choose the schools that they wanted attend. In one year’s time my school went from a 45% minority population to a 7% minority population. The district basically segregated itself. The good teachers soon followed the students by transferring to the schools with the more successful white populations, leaving the mostly minority schools with the left overs. This is only one example of our schools becoming segregated. If we want to focus on catching up with the other developed countries, we need to fix the current system that is on a downward spiral towards resegregating our schools and further neglecting our minority students.
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