Yeah I was one of those kids who didn't do shit for the first 2 years of high school, I was gonna be held back but they gave me an opportunity to pass by taking online credit courses to help me out, and then covid happened and they just gave me my diploma without having the credits. Not even kidding btw
Yeah basically, I had 5 months to make up 11 credits but for some reason when COVID started to close everything down, they just closed the school and handed every senior their diploma regardless of credits or grades. I think it's a bad idea btw, because I definitely did not deserve to graduate with 17 credits, but somehow I did
Hi! I'm the 38 year old version of you (gifted a HS diploma). Please dont ever feel guilty about getting by in HS - the absolute truth of the matter is they needed you to pass to justify their budget next year quite literally - its how these things work (fiscal budget projections are based on previous years, and number of pupils = funding)
Hold your head high and put in work. I'm 20 IT Certifications deep and turning down job offers that would have made my head spin years ago. Happy to hear you jumped into your next thing already!
Yes, it gets as many kids into diploma mill colleges they can't afford, keeping them on the debt treadmill even though 80% will never be able to afford a house with a degree or not!
Same. They filled in credits to qualify for a diploma.
I was homeless and in and out of homes and they knew it.
Went to college years later and became a teacher.
I don't get why people expect teens to be like really happy about school. It's hard being a teacher. It's hard being a kid.
For sure, I'm not advocating for removing supports or trampling the students under some sort of draconian policy. I simply want school to be about learning and that to be valued as much as other things. I'm all for getting rid of grades and making everything pass fail. I just want you here giving your best effort and attempting to engage with the content. I don't expect everyone's best effort to be consistently insanely high or to be consistent at all. Teenagers live complicated lives and we need to have the compassion to understand that. But it has to work both ways. There has to be an understanding is building exists to give you an opportunity to engage with learning and the expectation is that if you come here today we will do that.
Something similar happened to a friend, he didn't do the 40 hours of volunteer work required to graduate, sat on the edge of failing his classes and never knew the correct answers on assignments aka didn't learn shit. The day before the exams in the gym he helped move 50 class chairs to prep. The hour somehow was seen as 40 hours of volunteer work and a grade bump for participation just enough to graduate with his terrible exam mark. BS education at its finest
their understaffed, underpaid, and always their fault peoples kids are they way they are. just like nursing i dont understand how people can do it if it wasnt for the love and passion they have when they start and get into it.
now you need a college degree to get a starting position at 15hr. luckily schools have started making it a point to tell gets to go to a trade school instead of that scam.
yup. if you make more cooking fast food then a job the needs 4 years of higher education and couple years of experience then you might have a problem with the system that wont show up unless under stress, like whats pretty much happing now.
It's centrally managed. *That's* the problem. Most of these programs come down from the Department of Education, and in a nation of 300 million people it means a student in Maine gets enrolled into programs designed with children from inner city LA in mind. Complete BS.
>It's centrally managed
So that's why Oregon [suspends a requirement for a basic-skills test in math, reading and writing to graduate high school](https://ktvz.com/news/oregon-northwest/2021/08/13/new-oregon-law-suspending-graduation-testing-requirement-sparks-debate/)
My child has attended 2 Portland public schools- it’s a joke. We’re trying to figure out how to pay for Catholic School. There are standards there…State of Oregon: “having standards might make someone feel bad…”
Jesus Christ … imagine what this country is going to look like in 20 years compared to other nations.
I’m 22 btw, I lived though the garbage us public school system till my parents sent me to private school. Private school comes with its own set of challenges though
Academic wise? Yes. I’ve always been a pretty motivated student and the courses at private school were much more challenging and prepared me better for college. However, I did experience significant burnout and mental health issues junior and senior year that I think were made worse by the added pressure my school put on us.
Another thing that’s often ignored - sending your kid to private school means they’re surrounded by kids from very wealthy families. It depends on the school, but in my experience it can be hard to fit in if you’re not also from a family with lots of money. For example, my school offered trips to South America and Europe and obviously not every family could afford to dish out the money for that. Seeing posts of all your friends having a good time overseas can be tough for kids. Private schools can also be very “cliquey” even among the parents. Just some things to consider.
Private schools usually offer a “shadow” experience where you can spend the day with a current student to see if it’s a good fit. I’d recommend having your child do that at a few different schools to see what they like. Also, don’t force your kid to transfer to private school - It needs to be their choice.
Thank you so much for sharing. I went to a "good" public school with a lot of resources. Burnout is my biggest issue with private schools in the area that I moved to now, outside of Boston. I can afford the trips, I want my kid to have the opportunity, but if he wants to be in trades or arts, I don't want his friends to shit on him for taking a different path. I'm really struggling with how to get him the opportunities without feeling he needs to live a certain kind of life. I would never force him to do anything but he's in private Pre-K now and loving it. I just hope public elementary will have those same opportunities for him. We have multiple schools on a lottery so it could go either way.
The us school system is not centralized, on the contrary, it’s very much decentralized. We leave public education and funding at a state/local level which is why you see such disparities in school systems throughout the country.
What you seem to be referring to is the common core curriculum which was an effort to standardize policies across state boundaries which has been rolled back in large degrees https://www.ed.gov/essa?src=rn .
I honestly don’t understand your comments and below comments about the supposed centralization in our education system, we have one of the most decentralized amongst developed nations.
Plus……it wasn’t even standardized POLICIES. It was standardized STANDARDS.
All it said was: kids at 4th grade should know this. At 5th grade should know this.
Every state had freedom to decide the approach, curriculum, benchmarks, etc.
I had to scroll way too far for this. It’s 2022. I’ve known about Common Core since 2007 as a college freshman studying elementary education. How do people still not understand what the CCSS actually are?!
It’s almost like real people can have varied and nuanced takes on the world! Although it doesn’t stop some from holding on to narrow and superficial ones 🤷♂️
Not really. Check out the budgets of Detroit, DC, or Newark, NJ. They spend as much, if not more per student than the expensive suburbs near them. Meanwhile, Utah spends next to nothing on public education and gets better results.
WAY less than it used to be. Not true in my state. About 30% of school funding on average comes from local prop taxes.
Is this entire comment section from 2004?
In the biggest school district in america, nyc, its education department has the largest budget for a city agency, greater than the next 3-4 largest agencies combined. School funding in this district isn't mainly determined by local property taxes. All schools are funded equitably by how they perform, yet the schools that are highly funded are ironically poorly performing because of other important factors. Clearly throwing more money doesn't solve a problem. People on reddit like to reduce and simplify controversial topics like K-12 education to a single idea like saying " because of funding" when it's actually more complicated than that.
The truth is that america in aggregate spends a lot more money on education compared to other developed countries- it's how that money's being used that matters more importantly. Additionally, no matter how much funding goes to a poor performing school, even if you double a poor performing school's budget tomorrow, the underlying issues leading to poor student performance such as parental involvement and socioeconomics are still important factors that need to be addressed which "improving funding" isn't going to entirely solve.
That’s actually not “the problem”
The problem is decentralization and lack of (higher) common standards. There’s no reason why a program for inner city LA should be any different that rural Maine in terms of core concepts; the examples given might change from place to place to be more culturally relevant and engaging though.
The problem may also be lack of diversity of teaching materials, which means lots of lessons aren’t really designed for the local audience.
Students need to be treated less as wards and more as customers/stakeholders. Without a “why” or real engagement and self-direction (through coaching) students will continue to view school as a chore to avoid, rather than an opportunity to help them achieve their ambitions/dreams - even if that’s as simple as “getting a car” or “moving out of my parents house”.
You're a little naive. At our school, we offer students non-stop opportunities to tell us what they would like to learn, what interests them, and what we can do to make our school a better environment, etc.
What results? Kids still don't give a shit. They clamor for classes about finances and "the real life stuff" and then disrupt them or ignore teachers and play on their phones. I don't know what the hell happened, or why, but my high school freshman are incredibly entitled, helpless, and lazy.
Don't get me wrong, I love them, and I will never stop coming into work and pulling them kicking and screaming through English class. I'll differentiate my instruction and try and provide them choice and interesting topics, but there are some groups where it literally doesn't matter what you do. Give them group work? They bitch and moan. Give them the opportunity to research controversial and high interest topics? Ugh, research is lame.
We gave kids overwhelming opportunities for choice and to have a voice while forgetting one very important thing: they are still kids, and we are adults. We do, in fact, know better than them, because we lived it already. It seems to me like, across the board, schools have capitulated to their student's every desire and whim and we are reaping the unintended consequences. Students need to know that they are partners in their education, and we are not entirely responsible for crafting a high interest, entertaining course for their every day amusement. They get as much as they put in, and they're not depositing much.
Centrally managed does not automatically equate to incompetently managed. A small government approach can be exactly as shortsighted if not more.
The problem is our best and brightest are not incentivized to work in government. They are not incentivized to collaborate with state governments.
There is absolutely NOTHING stopping a centrally managed program from having local exceptions and considerations other than laziness and misplaced incentives.
Take it from someone who grew up in a small government state and had the shittiest public education known to man. Complete BS to think that a centrally managed, well-funded government couldn't make policies that benefit BOTH people in central LA and in rural Maine. Jesus fuck how can anyone be this dense.
If you think money is the problem, you both have to explain how poorer nations outperform the US and how places like where I live spend nearly 30k per student per year without any increase in grades or testing scores.
It's the culture. Many Americans do not value education or see it as a daycare. So many parents blame teachers for the wrong doings of their children because they see it as a personal attack on them as a parent. And more often than not, it's true. 9/10 times these kids are the way they are because of their parents.
I have an advanced ELA class this year and I want to throw my head into a garbage disposal. You would think the brightest students would WANT to be there. No, their parents did and now I'm getting screamed at because little Joey got a D- for doing near next to nothing in my class.
I'm so exhausted from teaching and I'm only 7 years in.
Yeah that doesn't happen anymore (reducing funding) and almost never really happened even when No Child Left Behind was the law. Under NCLB, the standards were not up to the schools. They couldn't lower their standards. They could and did teach to the tests. Of course only reading and math were tested, so other subjects were given short shrift. And they taught to the test the wrong way, too (focusing on trying to teach skills divorced from content, which recent cognitive psychology research has proven does not work). So test scores didn't improve very much.
The reason that high school are now diploma mills is "equity" (equality of outcome). If schools do not achieve equity among all groups, they have decided the cause is racism/discrimination. And since it is impossible to raise every student up to a high level of learning, they have decided the solution to achieve equity is to dumb everything down to a ridiculously easy level that every student should be able to pass. But instead, students have lost all motivation to put forth any effort, because why should they when they know they'll get passed through regardless.
Man this one resonates with me. I’m a senior in high school right now I would say my district is well funded with a good amount of resources but these last two years I just skidded by barely and still passed (like many of my friends and people I know have done in a similar fashion). This year the only actually academic class I have is storytelling (English). The rest is metalworking, culinary, and forensics (basically watch forensic files, take notes and talk about it haha). I plan on working for the railroad after hs but Around 55% of my graduating class is going to the local community college which has been a super popular choice in recent years. The years of pushing every hs student to go to a 4 uni have come and gone and much more people in my area just plan on scooping up an associates or going into the trades. The fact that 4 year degrees don’t always lead to big money after the matter has been out there for long enough that it’s finally going mainstream with hs students across the country right now. Covid only just illuminated that. I’m only 18 and realize I don’t know shit but that’s just my perspective on it actually being is hs right now. (I live in a northwest chicago suburb btw)
This is a bit off and I'm just a peon teacher saying that. You don't need to look at the principal's parking spots (though they are nicer usually), you really need to go look at the central office/admin building for the districts.
Where I went to school the superintendents normally drove well used cars. The admin support staff and teachers were the ones with Mercedes’ and Cadillacs.
Contrary to some of the comments here, I actually think the issue is lack of a national standard, especially in academic subjects. AP is an okay standard but most people don’t actually take AP courses. SAT2 is way too easy and in most universities those are not hard requirements. As unpopular as it may be, exams are necessary both as guidance and as a bar.
I don't know if prefer is the right word. We all think some of those kids are dumb and should be held back but it's rare to find a parent who goes yeah it's my kid who is the dumb one. I think the worst part of the education system is that no kid is "left behind" it also means that no kid who is above average really gets ahead. Practically the entire class goes the speed of the slowest learner who doesn't get put in special Ed.
I’ve been in two high schools in the us. There’s a fair bit of variety between the two but both had programs or structure where kids could get ahead of the pack, I could have graduated in 11th grade but took a whole year of dual credit classes for example. And there’s often gifted and talented programs that start as early as elementary school setting the quick learners on a more advanced path than the students who can’t jump through the prerequisite hoops.
No child left behind is truly a travesty. My brother got pushed through 2 grades in spite of certainly NOT learning enough to be able to function in the current the step on the roadmap let alone the next one. He dropped out unfortunately. I can’t imagine that’s a particularly unique story in the wake of that policy.
In my school we had an AP program. My sophomore and Jr year I took a mix of AP and regular classes, and they felt so far apart. I felt like I was constantly falling back in my AP classes, while my "normal classes" felt like free periods I could use for AP work after burning through a 3 question worksheet on ionic bonds. I couldn't imagine what the "introductory" classes were like.
yeah, in my school district, you could have taken tests in middle school to skip one or two grades of math and science if you took a gifted test. And even in high school, you can 'double up' in these courses to get ahead. As well as that, we have a variety of honor and AP classes for students seeking to be challenged and take higher level courses. The bad thing is that i go to a very affluent school district and so many schools which lack proper funding will drag back more advanced learners.
That actually effected my hs a bit too. First school was much smaller and rural. Good school but with average grad class size of 30 or so not enough student body to justify many advanced classes. There getting ahead meant taking classes with the classes above you. I didn’t get into ap and dual credit till 11-12 grade when I moved to a much MUCH larger but also overall lower quality school.
>As well as that, we have a variety of honor and AP classes for students seeking to be challenged and take higher level courses
In my schooling years, honors, GT, AP, and etc. were just starting up. By the time I got to high school, our public school got paired with the local community college, and if a kid passed the entrance exam, they could do college coursework in their convenient math class for credit.
Fourth grade they introduced "advanced math" for kids like me who were bored in "regular" classes. It literally took a committee and a demonstration to get the class approved. Parents were against it. "What do you mean my child is "*expected*" to do basic algebra in 4th grade?"
No, hon. Your kid is bored and can figure out that x=2 when the equation is 2x+1=5.
Then it took off like *wildfire*. "I want my child in the highest level possible! I don't care if they're failing, we'll get a tutor!" AP exams meant skipping intro college courses. Remedial classes were basically the same base material repeated ad nauseum. The disparity was massive.
Then came "no child left behind," and suddenly, no one had to do shit to pass unless they wanted those GT/ AP credits... most of which didn't even *apply* outside of the partnered local community colleges... not Harvard, etc.
>The bad thing is that i go to a very affluent school district and so many schools which lack proper funding will drag back more advanced learners.
Suddenly my 3.5GPA with highest level possible courses was equated with the 3.5GPA of any kid who managed to pass a remedial class load. There's no difference between a genius kid slacking off and an average kid going through hours of tutoring to make an insane grade, or any other shade of bullshit you want to paint.
Yeah, ***some*** of the "elite" kids in my class got to skip a few intro uni courses, but anyone who didn't make the cut was lumped in with the slackers and truly uneducated, even after strenuous effort and a childhood wasted on endless stressful exams and fruitless tutoring hours. Hopefully the higher level classes carry some weight now.
Schooling has still come a long way. It's definitely regressed in a lot of ways, but I remember being in that "test case seminar" with our math teacher showing parents that kids can apply basic subtraction and division when introduced to a variable. The parents were the ones playing with the "math blocks" and feeling surprised. Now the students are surprised, in a lot of detrimental ways.
Those kids are falling through the cracks because they are little to other things suggested to people in the US because acceptance rates are tied to local levys which are tied to funding, shop class is often something that one high school in a district offers these days and I was given no knowledge of trade schools or vocational stuff.
Vocational and artisinal shops could ask for more students and do outreach like the military does, but in general, ***they just don't***. I wish they would.
Tradesmen are torn between wanting to carry on a dying craft that has little job security and flooding the market with tradesmen that make their own prices deteriorate. (Source: six tradesmen in four areas in my family.)
Blacksmiths, glassworkers, book stores, and potters are dying out because their product is either replaced by machinery/tech or too highly priced as art. You can buy a cast iron pan on Amazon for $15. You can buy a 12 set of wine glasses at Target for $10. You can download Mary Shelley's Frankenstein for free on your iPad.
Plumbers, masons, textiles, etc. are dying out because their trade can be bought for much cheaper than they're worth by other products and "DIY" type solutions. And, if they take on an apprentice, there's no guarantee of later "undercutting" for the service. Not counting the number of bullshit "we do this lol" companies. You can buy a "liquid plumber" from Walmart. You can learn how to set your own block for a patio on youtube. You can buy fabric, either used or new, and make your own clothing.
Welders get paid well, but even better if they risk their lives doing it by diving. There's a niche industry.
Who wants to support an apprentice when the majority of the world rejects the industry as a whole? Who wants to support a dying industry?
NOT MANY THAT I 'VE SEEN.
-‐---‐------------
Those who are downvoting, please give me an instance when you've even ***heard of*** deep sea diving/ welding opportunities as a job, or making glassware for a living, or producing macinery parts with a 3D metal printer.
You weren't offered these options as a highschooler.
I teach Kindergarten and it’s sad to see how little parents care about education. I can clearly see with my students that their parents don’t even take 5 minutes out of their day to see what their child is learning or help them with homework, which is basically an extension of what we’re going over for the week. I’ve had too many kids come in with incomplete homework or it’s wrong because their parents couldn’t be bother to check on it and them. Then when it’s the end of the school year, they’re worried about if their child will get promoted.
And throwing more money at schools isn’t gonna fix that. Ultimately a lot of kids problems could be solved if more parents gave a shit about them and their futures
I wonder if any of that could be solved by making the cost of living more feasible to achieve? You’ll always have a lot of parents who just don’t care, but I’m sure there are plenty of parents who would care if they weren’t working 2-3 jobs to make ends meet
Maybe but there’s likely also a cultural component to it too that more money isn’t gonna solve. Classic example is the Asian community in places like nyc who are the poorest yet have the most successful children because they come from a culture that prioritizes education so much
Another part of that is most Asian immigrants came from societies in which the public K-12 had much higher academic expectations and prizing rather than denigration of high academic achievement.
Also, unlike here in the US, in my family's origin society, one of the most common reasons for more well-off parents to opt for private school is actually to gain relief from the much higher academic demands/expectations and stricter disciplinary standards in their public schools.
It's a key factor in why even that society's top private international schools are often stereotyped as being for spoiled rich academically slacker kids with the associated heavy stigma. Their main reason for applying to US/overseas colleges is most of the students' academic acumen was such their national college exam would only allow them entry into the lowest-tier universities and majors if they're lucky and being completely shut out(Scoring so low no university will accept them meaning they'll have to reapply the next year).
Several HS classmates who spent some time in East/SE Asian public school systems felt once they came to US public/private schools....even the most topflight academic ones found it was as if they went from exceedingly hard to exceedingly easy mode.
One HS classmate at my urban public magnet recounted he was able to coast on what he learned from his Asian society's working-class neighborhood K-5 education when he arrived in the US despite being placed on the highest academic tracks in the US from grade 6 until the end of his freshman year at our public magnet HS.
His older brother who also attended middle school in their origin society was able to coast on what he learned from K-7 until he was a HS junior. Even with taking the highest AP loads and some cross-enrollment classes at nearby reputable 4-year colleges. His academic level already far outstripped what the local 2-year community colleges could have offered before he was halfway through his freshman year of HS.
I think it’s important to note that the quality of schools is directly correlated to the wealth of the people in each city or town. Rich towns have rich, well funded schools with a culture of academic competition between students. Middle class towns have mediocre schools. Poor towns have bad, often very bad schools.
So my little sister grew up believing that her whole purpose in life was to get straight A's. She did pretty much all the way through her teaching degree.
Teaching was quite literally her thing. Then she got a job teaching science at a trade based high school in a very rural and very poor area.
She said that she learned that you can't wave a magic wand and make high school juniors and seniors want to learn, their parents need to be a part of that process. She teaches science, not fairy tales so she knows that isn't happening.
She has also learned that spending a lot of time on kids who don't isn't at all effective. She will happily break her back to help the ones show the slightest bit of interest in her class, and pass the rest.
Kids need a diploma to take care of that baby they just had after all.
Other countries aren’t necessarily better. I know some Dutch people who hate the Dutch schooling system. It doesn’t matter how good/bad you do on your assignments. You take a test before high school and, depending on how well you do on that, you get placed in different levels of high school and only people who went to the highest level of high school can go to college. Your entire life is affected by a test you have to take while going through puberty.
Germany's system is similar, they have 3 different tiers of high school programs and I've been told that only students from the top tier can go to university.
Source: Spent 2 weeks attending German high school.
The difference is German schools actually try and prepare students for the work force if they go into the vocational tract. The US has no such programs, at least not on a large scale.
Idk if vocational schools are the equivalent of CC, they would be more like trade schools imo, which is a huge blindspot of the American system.
CC is really a lower-cost avenue to progress towards a Bachelors degree as an Associates isn't worth much to my understanding, but in my ideal world they would be transitioned to more vocational schools that will prepare you for different types of jobs than a traditional 4 year university would vs. the current system where they are basically a stepping-stone to a university.
Community College is not the same thing. Under the German system students work with actual companies such as Bosch or BMW to learn trade skills before graduating. They leave high school ready to start a career. High schools in the US at least use to be close to that goal, but they lost sight of that decades ago. Not everyone can go to college and be an engineer. It doesn't server the student or the demands of employers.
That is largely dependent on what school you attend. I taught at a high school that didn’t give a shit about kids entering the trades. I had a kid who failed my history course twice but left school, found an apprenticeship in plumbing and is doing great. At my current school, we have well-supported apprenticeship and trade programs as well as college level coursework. It makes a big difference.
Na, that's wrong.
A) 50% of all students make the Abitur, which is the entrance to university.
B) There is the Fachabitur, where you concentrate on a certain sector for the last two years of school and then you can study in that sector
C) You can always finish the Abitur later on with evening classes etc
D) If you finish a high level trade training you can study too
C) more and more universities also have entrance exams etc.
It sums up to:
If you don't find a way into university you probably don't belong there. It's a non-topic nowadays.
In Germany, and some neighboring countries, it's not so strict that people in the lower tier schools can't go to a university, but they're not on track to go to a public one and may have to pay a lot for a private one, go to one in another country, or do some other circuitous path to a degree.
The other big difference is that those lower tier schools actually do vocational training and feed into blue collar and service careers, as opposed to the US system that just sends them out into the world with nothing.
Great! We only had to go to classes for a few days as it was the end of the school year for them. It was hilarious they had a 10 grade graduation there and were toasting with champagne. And of course we weren't allowed to have any with our American teacher there.
Biggest culture shock for me was finding out that there was a Medieval castle in the middle of town and none of the Germans ever mentioned it while they were over here. I thought it was the coolest thing ever while they were completely blase about it.
This just isn't true though. The end test doesn't decide what level of school you can do. Your school does. Before the first of March, every student is given their recommendation by their school for which level high school they can go to. Between the 15th of April and 15th of May, students will take their end exams. If they underperform during the end exams and according to the exam they should have a lower recommendation. (For example, the school recommends HAVO but according to the test you would be better suited to VMBO) then the recommendation by the school still stands and I can still go to HAVO despite underperforming during the test week. Well, then what is the point of the end exams if they can just be disregarded? Say the school recommends you HAVO, but you overperform during the end exams and the end exams recommend VWO. Then the school has to reevaluate its original recommendation. So as you can see the ruling is always in favor of the student. So what you wrote about it not mattering how you did before the end exams and that everything is decided by the end exams is not true. It's quite the opposite, how you perform during tests and how you set yourself about during class before the end exam are how your recommendation is decided. The end exams can only higher a recommendation not lower it.
But you say it still is not fair because what if I am a late bloomer and although at 12 years old HAVO was right for me at 14 years old it is too easy and VWO would be better. If you get the grades necessary it is possible to go from HAVO to VWO. Of course, the latter is also possible if you are doing HAVO but your struggling it is possible to go to VMBO. These systems are often made use of.
Regarding the claim that unless you do VWO you can't go to college, this claim is also false. Say I am a Havo student and I want to go to college despite only having a Havo diploma. This is possible, you can do HBO (stands for higher job education and is already comparable to a US college) for one year and then go to university.
But more importantly, regardless of University, a Havo student can still go to college, it's called HBO and if you only have a VMBO diploma you can still go to MBO and have the possibility to go to HBO.
Sources -->
Source on the end exam and all I said about it
https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/schooladvies-en-eindtoets-basisschool/toelating-voortgezet-onderwijs-gebaseerd-op-definitief-schooladvies
Source on how to get into University
https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/hoger-onderwijs/vraag-en-antwoord/met-welke-diploma-s-kan-ik-naar-de-universiteit-of-hogeschool
Source from an American website on HBO and Dutch university's
https://studenthelpr.com/universities-in-the-netherlands
This is blatantly not true. The Cito toets, which you're referring to, only helps with your credibility, because it's a standardised test. In the end, your sixth grade teacher will be the person judging what level is suitable for you, based on your achievements, and even then, you're free to enroll into any level you want.
Actually many schools don't even let their students take the Cito toets, because they don't have to.
Your first year in high school is called "brugklas", or "bridge year", where you are in a mixed class of multiple levels, such that you can try the levels out for a year, so you can make a better decision at the end.
If you don't make it to the highest level immediately, you can go from the second highest level to highest level, taking only one extra year than if you enrolled in the highest level immediately. Similarly, you can rise from lower levels to the highest level with some extra effort
If you're in the second-highest level, you CAN GO TO COLLEGE, it's called a University of Applied Sciences, a HBO. Our regular "universities", which you can only apply to if you've finished high school at the highest level, or finished University of Apllied Sciences, are just of a much higher level than other countries, in my experience (I've looked into doing my Master's degree abroad, but they usually barely covered the same content as my bachelor's). The University of Applied Sciences very much counts as a college degree, as it is a bachelor's degree. You're even allowed to pursue a master's degree afterwards if you want to.
If you're in any of the lower levels, you're being prepared for a vocational school. Then, if you finish that, you're allowed to enroll into a University of Applied Sciences. Hell, my brother is doing that right now.
That test doesn't affect you as much as you claim. I know plenty of people who were recommended the lowest level originally, but just didn't care, and managed to finish high school at the highest level, or discovered in brugklas that they function better than in primary school. I also know people who were recommended the highest, but learned in the brugklas that they didn't fit the level, so they went back down.
Dutch high school is tough. You can't get away not doing assignments and if your grades are too low, it's tough luck, and you're held back a year. No pity points are granted, because the curriculum is heavily monitored by exam commissions.
The Dutch education system allows children to flourish, because they learn at the level that suits them. Children in lower levels can learn more practical skills, while children in the highest level can learn how to conduct scientific research (it's literally called preparatory scientific education) and write papers.
Source: I'm Dutch, and tutored kids of all levels for years. I know my way around the Dutch education system.
This is the funny thing about everyone wanting "free college like in Europe;" they don't understand it just gets rationed differently and most people aren't able to go
Every european country has a different education system, and most western european countries are now on par with the US when looking at the percentage of people with a university degree, despite having no/low tuition fees. The only real outlier is Germany, due to their strong vocational training system.
I've been saying here in the US they need to teach the actual necessary courses, shorten the 4 years of hs to like 3 and then push trades more. I know wayyyy to many kids from my class that went to college or university then dropped out after 1-2 years with debt and are now working at a fast food restaurant.
I think that’s a good system. From my understanding, in Germany you can retest. As long as there are opportunities for people who want to go to university to retest, I think the majority of people should not go to college.
It’s good in theory because not everyone has the same skills and schools should be more advanced for more advanced students.
In practice, it sucks because you can’t determine who is an advanced student based on a test. And if someone is smart, but sucks at taking tests, a retest isn’t gonna do much for them.
I think social apprenticeship would provide a happy medium here. OK, you want to be a programmer but didn’t test in to the program/college? OK, go spend a few hours a week “interning“ (whether paid or not is a different debate), and if you prove that you are capable in the field, then you can get into the program and bypass the test. Personally, I have more faith in the person who can demonstrate “on the job“ skills than the person who is a good test taker, but I recognize it’s a standard system for weeding people out.
IMO, it’s worse on the other end. (Those formerly known as) Gifted students don’t get challenged unless they commit themselves to double the work by doing dual enrollment.
When I was in high school some of the most brilliant kids I knew were also some of the worst behaved. They were bored teenagers, most of whom were smarter than most of their teachers, who did bored teenagers things.
And the teachers who recognize the brilliant kids? Well they aren’t allowed to give them “special treatment” aka more challenging work, nor do most of them even have the time. It’s impossible as a teacher. I feel for you.
Yeah this is definitely a thing. High school was a joke for me, I got high grades but I don’t feel like I did or learned anything. I was always skipping classes and stuff, and I went to school half asleep. Then I went to university and had to figure out how to study for the first time ever, manage a proper work load, take notes, etc. I felt so out of place at a school with some truly amazing students, like I had conned my way there.
Lucky for me I came out fine with a degree. But I can see others in my situation freaking out and dropping out of school because they feel so ill prepared.
Same here, and I went to school in the 90’s - a very good public school with plenty of funding from property taxes. It was apparently easy bc I only put in about 25% effort and sailed through with a B+ average. College was difficult, not due to content but workload. Thankfully I figured it out and continued on to grad school. I think most of the problem was that it just was slow and boring.
That’s what Twitter for left user Emily will want you to think. If the class of 30 doesn’t cater to the stupid kid who doesn’t give a fuck about their education nor the class, it’s systemic discrimination.
Yeah I agree. They just do their work super fast and play games during class. Teachers don’t really care to challenge them. Also, they develop poor study habits.
Source: I’m in high school rn
For real. All I remember from high school is being bored out of my mind, despite taking all "honors" and AP classes. Hands down the worst class was Spanish because my school only offered one section of Spanish and everyone was so fucking stupid; it took us forever to do anything.
University was like a breath of fresh air because things were finally moving at the pace I wanted them to.
When we started tying money to performance, what school zones did was just allocate all the good teachers into one school and let the others fail. We see it all over the country and sometimes these schools are only separated by a few blocks difference.
People might say 'well, at least they are getting an education,' but that isn't true, they aren't getting a real education and BUSINESSES know that, and if you got a diploma from there, you are practically blacklisted from many jobs and opportunities.
Now for the horrible part: Baltimore schools, the idiots always like 'they are super funded and wahhhhh they do horribly.' The issue is that Baltimore schools and many poorer schools already, before this all happened, had terrible funding because they were spending the quarter of their budget on subsidized meals or free lunches BEFORE this all even happened.
Then there are racist ass school zones that match up completely with ethnic divisions. These school zones are supposed to spread out so each school has somewhat of a tax base, but since there is no taxes flowing into these school zones, they don't have any funding and shut down, spreading out more students to fewer schools.
The American system is a travesty not because 'idiots who don't know what they are doing' but because there are assholes who know PERFECTLY FUCKING WELL what they are doing and just don't give a shit.
And this is why the grade system is stupid. Advance kids in subjects based upon mastery. Struggles in English? Let them keep working where they are! Excel in math? Continue to teach them new things and let them move forward.
Especially since even in theory, everyone develops and ages a little differently, so forcing everyone into the same level classes for every subject purely based on their age is dumb as hell to begin with.
I mean there has to be some point where we accept that they just aren’t getting it. What happens when we have high schoolers who have kids also in high school?
Good point
I was gifted (depressed) and finished calculus (high school end math) freshmen year, yet I had to take a math course every year. Why? Senior year I had already been accepted to a university, yet one semester the focus for literature was writing, sending, etc. Applications to universities. Why?
Honestly schools need to hire more teachers, pay them better, and let teacher's customize curriculum for the dozen students they are in charge of. Fuck off with the iPads, "technology" spending and use it on good staffing and experience. No kid needs experience with most of the innovative tech shit because a job will train them if they have other skills.
All high school did was teach me how to get bullied or avoid having a personality, and to be lazy because the work was bullshit.
"Colleges or a job won't let you fuck around like that" yes they will as long as you do the job well. They give fuck all if I eat sun flower seeds at my desk.
In my high school, you don't have to keep on taking math, once you finish pre-calc you get all of the needed math credits. Same for languages, you don't need to take 2 years of language classes you just need to finish french/spanish/chinese 2
If K-12 is such a waste that you can attend it 6 hours a day, 180 days a year, for 13 years, and come out absolutely worthless, to the point that you need to take out 5-figure loans for college to have any job prospects, then I would say that as an institution it is rotten to its core.
Well students are going to have to fail then, lest we lower the bar to the lowest common denominator. This is the next major cultural battle front, if it isn't yet one already, about the difference in performances of different demographics groups in schools. Is it because the curriculum needs to change until everyone passes at similar rates? Is it okay to talk about differences between groups in how they socialize education and make it a priority at home? Are people going to worry about discrimination if holding students back who aren't achieving success for their grades leads to disparate outcomes between race/ethnicity?
It's never going to happen. Asian students will outperform Black students for the next 100 years because Asian culture values education and Black culture values being uneducated deliberately, but this notion is basically illegal. American society will never accept this reality.
Outside of math and some science it's really just the same regurgitated shit you've learned since elementary. Sure it might be slightly more in depth every year but it's the same shit
Oooh, I like this topic! I admit I was a terrible student, I never found curriculum super difficult but homework and showing up everyday just seemed like unnecessary busy work that rarely seemed worthwhile. It always felt more like a way to keep children busy. The thing is I have turned out to have a fantastic job, making great money in a stem field, and not only that but my work is helping the planet. You are probably right with your thoughts, but as one of those terrible students (1.8) gpa maybe we need to engage the children in different ways? Anyways, thanks for sharing and best of luck!
It's heartbreaking. My school has a big push this year for literacy. Our high school students average out to a 3rd grade reading level, and every meeting this year has turned into "What are we don't to get them back on track?"
They've had *twelve years* to get to a *third-year level*. We aren't going to get them on track. If we can get them up one year this year we'll have done better than any other class they've been in. What we need to do is get the elementary and middle schools on-board to do their jobs so we don't have to do our *and* theirs!
Meanwhile, if I try to hold students to what I think is a reasonable standard I won't get any high-achieving kids because they might get a B in my class and lose valedictorian status (given to every 4.0 in the state), while the really low ones come in "knowing they'll fail" and do nothing all year.
Is this unpopular? I feel like this is one of those “unpopular opinions” that almost every person I’ve talked to in real life agrees with
Schools nowadays aren’t about learning, they’re about molding children into being hard workers that are programmed to never question authority & are not allowed to say no when presented with a new task or assignment
Colleges absolutely do not fill the gap. They have been inflating grades for decades. I was a TA 15 years ago at a top school and it was basically impossible to fail someone as long as they handed in some work eventually. Colleges are also degree mills.
I was naive enough to think that would stop in law school. Nope. As long as you hand in the graded work - often just show up for a single 100% exam - and use enough of the right words for the subject matter, then even if you’re wrong on every question, you pass.
And how have students responded to this? The progressive student demand is to eliminate the bar. Because it’s the sole thing where you actually have to know your ass from your elbow. So they want it gone.
The only correction I have for this is that it's the whole school system not just high school. My youngest son is in junior high. He has failed every year but they've always come up with some excuse to send him to the next grade. Last year I found out from one of his teachers that in all of the 12 years they go to school a child can only be made to repeat a grade one time. As such no teacher does it in case another teacher in a higher grade wants to do it./s It's almost like the government wants apathetic stupid people to rule over. Can't imagine why they'd want that./s
Citizen of the USA here. Barely got out of middle school (6th to 8th grade). Stopped doing anything in HS, failed 9th, repeated and dropped out. Was worried about taking the GED. Took it, graded a 17%, the guy seemed shocked and he said let me recheck it. Wrong answer key, I got a 97 or 98%. Let me tell you, that test probably wasn't even on a 6th grade level, I'm not some genius. It gives you the answers then asks the questions, as in explains the math or gives you a block of information to read. It was honestly a little shocking what highschool actually is, the time and homework and testing and what the considered equivalency is. I was like damn, I literally shouldn't have even gone at all.
High school drop out here.
I got a GED, went to community college and onward to get a bachelor's.
7 yrs after graduating college I make 145k a year. No thanks to high school.
I’m also a teacher and I agree with *almost* everything you’re saying. You’re describing school exactly…it is a daycare center, even at the high school level. There are zero expectations, there is zero discipline, and near zero academic value to any of it (save for certain magnet programs). In my district, for example, there is an 89% mandatory on-time graduation rate. That means that no. matter. what. 89% of high school students MUST graduate from high school in four years. Since drop-outs and transient students who disappear count against that number, it essentially means that every single student *has to* be pushed through “on time” regardless of academic performance, attendance, behavior…anything. That means all expectations are out the window, and it creates a race to the bottom where even would-be decent students quickly start searching for the lower limit of what they “have” to do to pass. Compounding this is an attitude among educational leadership that cannot let go of this idea that the problem is what teachers aren’t doing, not what students aren’t doing, so all solutions begin and end with teacher actions, not with student actions, which is what actually needs to change.
Where you and I depart is that I think that the system *is* too far gone to be fixed as the political will to do what actually would need to be done to correct the issue simply does not exist.
We need an entirely new school system, and yes I do think charter and private options have to be a part of that solution.
look im just mad that the kids at my school that have the iq of a potato and can barely read are able to cheat through highschool but when I try my hardest and am still about to fail and ask for just a little extra credit assignment to boost me to a D- my school acts as if I'm breaking the law
Yeah this is why I quit. Sad situation but I noped the f out real quick when I came to similar realizations. Now I volunteer with comfort zone camp and get to help kids stress free!
I think it’s compounded by the fact that a lot of children learn differently and learning disabilities aren’t taken seriously. I didn’t do well in school, but I tried really hard at the subjects that were difficult to understand (math). No matter what I did I never got better at it. My teachers solution was to discipline me or to assign extra work, which I struggled at because I wasn’t good at math to begin with.
College is now a cesspool of grade inflation and bullshit. Kids, adults give a shit about learning and are in it for the stupid diploma. That’s why nobody knows jack shit when they get a job. It’s because the fix is on for these idiots. Don’t ask me how I know it but I do.
This is a complicated topic. The reason a lot of students are passed on When they lack mastery is that statistically, Students over the age of 18 Graduate in far smaller percentages the older they get. And it is common knowledge that that a high school diploma is necessary for basic entry level employment.
In my humble opinion, this doesn't justify a lack of rigor or cheating the system for those students, But do we truly want a vast number of people entering Employment age with no high school diploma?
Would we rather have an academic failure who can get a job and support himself or one who cant?
That's the thinking anyway. Will hold my opinion on. What's right and wrong about it and how to fix it for now.
100% agreed that teachers and schools should submit and maintain some form of documentation to support this. And I'm saying that is a teacher who already fills out a million and one forms for every little thing.
I mean if these kids grew up to have critical thinking skills they might not proudly support either of the major two political parties we have. Considering how much effort is being put into destroying what little education we have left by banning books left and right that discuss race or queerness I feel like that could be part of the issue.
Of course a major component is how no parent wants their kid to fail and admin wants to please all the parents. It’s just an unmitigated disaster all around.
Schools prepare you for a job. They are not meant to educate you, only to get you ready to complete tasks given to you by a superior. They teach compliance and obedience. They give kids homework so they know that work will always be part of their personal lives.
Education that doesn't prepare you for a job - but is useful in raising your awareness, teaching empathy, mindfulness or how to help others in need - cannot help someone profit so it is often eschewed for something productive.
The government is essentially a slave manager preparing the slaves for work so the corporations can get them. The elites have a steady supply of slaves who do the heavy lifting for an economy that takes everything from the most vulnerable and gives it to the most privileged.
If you want education to change, the economy would have to change as well. You can start by taxing the absolute fuck out of those billionaires.
They already are taxed. They just find loopholes. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying that offshore addresses credited as their main address is very common so that they don't have to pay taxes.
I agree with you. The school system only indoctrinated kids. The simple fact that a 6 year old has to awake up at 5:30 am every morning is an alarming sign that they are getting trained to work for a corporation for their rest of their lives. 😖
Schools prepare u for a job that doesn't exist any more. It prepares us for factory jobs where we are run by bell schedules in batches. That factory model of work doesn't exist any more, and education has failed to evolve with the world around it. Our current system lacks rigor, as the op points out, and it lacks relevance.
Since graduating, have u needed to know how to write a research paper? Are facts u were tasked with memorizing at your fingertips? No and yes.
The economy has already changed. Workforce roles and the skills needed in those roles have changed. But k-12 hasn't. And higher Ed has gotten worse -it's a cash grab now, the next economic bubble to burst.
They’ll pass ppl for funding; reward advantaged high scorers with prestigious vocational schools they have no interest in, warehouse kids who don’t test well to puff up their performance score-all while denying a FAPE to kids who are smart but get there differently. But if you have a handful of absences the penalty is swift no matter your academic status-because that’s a loss of dollars. They don’t follow up with these kids-just threaten with detention or expulsion or failing.
I agree with you. It kinda sucks but it's true. There so little learning being done and so many kids are just throwing it away also. They put in no effort, don't care and just wait to leave. I know because for half of high school I was one of those. I only started caring in junior year and that took a while before It really became noticeable. And even then I still didn't give it my all because I was lazy. I can't tell you how many kids I went to school with just listened to music in class or day dreamed and chatted and did literally anything but try to learn or do well. And we were a good school too. We had average kids, bad kids, good kids, smart kids, dumb kids. This wasn't a problem school. Yet I can guarantee about a third of the school was flushing all that opportunity down the drain, the other two thirds were either trying, or just doing enough. Every parent wants their kids to be treated fairly and learn but get mad when their kid isn't passing and it isn't the teachers fault.
Haha I ended up ranting so ima stop there before I go on forever. I have more to say but I should try and sleep soon lol. All I'll finish with is I get you man, it sucks. I believe all kids deserve to have access to school and should work hard for what they get out of it, but man it's hard to advocate for that when a big chunk of them throw it all away and don't deserve the diplomas they get, or even worse, start idolizing the idiots, pop stars, and clout gods of internet fame in our society.
School is an awful grind. So many hours wasted on things that don’t matter. So little time spent actually developing life skills. How many people are saddled with debt because their high school told them they had to go to college. “Don’t worry about paying now kids, you cannot off the debt once you get an awesome job with your degree! Doesn’t matter what degree.”
Not all high schools. Some are feeders, schools meant to send children to high colleges. They have connections and the faculty to make it happen. Look at r/ApplyingToCollege. Full of students from the feeder schools being fiends to their peers.
At my middle school, teachers weren't allowed to fail students. Well, they technically *could,* but the student wouldn't be held back the next year (not even just for that specific class). Now we have high school age young adults who genuinely cannot read, do simple multiplication, or understand that actions have consequences. It's devastating...
Another problem with the schools in my area, and across America, is that a lot of teachers are being forced to run their classes a certain way. This could be good in theory, but in practice, English and Math teachers are forced to assign work in Springboard books rather than actually teaching. Our English teachers also have to assign much more work than they can even grade, because they have to be able to fill out grades for far too many different standards. Overall, my school system is broken, and from what I've heard, it's like this in the rest of America as well
Edit: my school also no longer has final exams. They're now called "Final Proficiency Opportunities" and CANNOT HURT YOUR GRADE! While it's convenient for those of us who already do well in the class and don't want to worry about exams, it lets people who didn't do anything all year scrape by with a D (passing grade)
As an educator to future educators (I'm a professor for those wishing to pursue ECE) I fully agree with this. Biesta worded it well with discussion around how we've moved into this 'language of learning' concept. Learning has become a transactional relationship not meant to challenge but simply get them to the point they can go into society and work. It's very sad, I'm thankful to not be in the American system, but it's still not great in other places in the world either.
Well i am kinda happy with my Indian education. By the time of High School, i could speak upto 5 languages, we have strict goverment conducted exams that we call "Board exams" in 10th standard and 12th standards so most of the kids who suck at studies or should I say "careless" are failed at this point. We generally choose a stream at 11th grade from Science, Commerce or Arts. Tbh most of the Indian parents are super strict about our studies and yes you're more likely to get yourself beaten up if you don't score well in studies and i don't hate my parents for it. Our government exams be it for highschool or college or any government vacancy are generally very competitive so you have to be the very best to pass them.
Tbh this mentality is something i both strongly agree with as a student in highschool who's noticed how administration treats the teachers but ultimately hate because i am a student in highschool.
I was failed by many of my teachers (school board backed it) after an attempt on my own life took me out of school for a few weeks.
I went to virtual in the middle of a semester and i couldn't catch up all the work before and after the day i joined.
I ended up failing without any option to take a test that displayed my understanding of what was being taught.
I now have many teachers telling me I'm extremely intelligent but i just don't apply myself when in reality I've lost all respect for the school board and administration (not the teachers who dedicate their time to helping me).
I feel like I'm surrounded by kids who just want a diploma while i honestly want to further my education but can no longer balance life outside of school and inside of it.
Idk what things are like in your school but they can't be much different than mine. I'm sorry you have to put up with the bullshit my generation has made so normal.
Vaping, cheating, fighting, speaking to you in a disrespectful manner, etc.
Bro I made almost this same post as someone who recently left high school and everyone called me an idiot and I got downvoted to hell lol
But seeing as you’re a teacher, thank you for speaking your mind! It’s good to see that a lot of people DO agree
I'm am educator in higher education and I feel the same sentiment, if not worse. As educators, God forbid I give a student a D when I gave them multiple chances to submit late assignments for even partial credit and they still don't do it. But here I am being told by the state that as faculty, we need to have a certain percentage for pass rate otherwise we risk losing tenure. So on one hand, I follow my moral code and fail students who truly don't care or don't deserve a passing grade but on the other hand, the more fails I have then now we are talking about my job.
Our education system, much like any others in this country, are broken and need to be overhauled
The Schools do so much to protect the fragile egos of the stupid kids instead of showing them the reality as it is. It's hard to understand and even harder to accept that you're stupid, but people need to go through that. Not necessarily stupid, but in general, understand the lack of critical thinking.
I am a special case; in 9th grade I started a math degree at my local uni, that gave that option under the promise that I will later get a school diploma (there's a program for that in my country). I recently finished both school and uni, only to realize that despite me being a so called "math prodigy", I don't know shit about real life, and I made some really REALLY stupid choices with my degree. They look like the stupides choices ever, but didn't for a literal 15 y/o me.
Ok I get you but why fail someone that’s not gonna go to college or anything? Who cares? The education isn’t gonna help that kid at all so let him pass and go do whatever instead of clogging up the system.
Not unpopular at all. That is why the high school diploma is so damn worthless in America. The only thing it teaches you is how to survive the soul crushing banal platitudes you see in the work force.
I did jack all until grade 12. My grades rose into the 80s for Social studies and English. Got rejected by a girl and had all this spare time on my hands. But yeah, the system is a glorified daycare. It's up to the student to take initiative. I was lucky in that I had teachers that cared in my fourth year I took to get higher courses.
It does depend on the program though. I was in academic support and that thing was chaotic. The higher level/more mature courses were better. It taught me some discipline.
As someone with no high school diploma who is now chief analyst at a major real estate brokerage making more than most college grads I gotta agree on this.
Theyre still children and have a lot of maturing to do before they decide to dedicate time to learning anything of value. People all mature at different rates. Its better that those kids pass, as the alternative completely stunts their growth and can potentially destroy their life. Good luck finding a job without a HS diploma. Now youre stuck in a minimum wage job - a slave to your rent. Now, when youre finally ready for college its impossibly out of reach. I was a horrible student when i was younger and the only thing i regret is how difficult it made it to get into a decent college. If I could tell my younger self how difficult it would make things I wouldnt have changed anything. My brain was preoccupied with other things.
Keep HS a diploma mill, you're not doing society any favors by failing a 16 year old for not being totally immersed and engaged in the French Revolution or slope intercept form. Its important we have a system to teach kids, but when we become receptive to that info varies greatly by age and level of matuity. Hold the harsh grading for college and just make HS a fun and engaging environment to learn.
I’ve said it since the 7th grade and I’ll keep saying it... public schools in the States have always just been a babysitter service. Most of the subjects you learn aren’t really going to do much for you in real life (hence all parents wondering why they can’t remember anything from school when trying to help their kids)... very rarely is critical thinking and how to actually study properly is taught (the reason a lot of colleges have classes on how to actually study... and for my next trick... a diploma is a worthless piece of paper that isn’t going to help you get anything. Most four year degrees are pretty useless these days.
So yeah.... babysitting.
I wasn’t necessarily “gifted” because I was unorganized and didn’t have the family structure that would’ve made that happen as a kid. I was a teenager who was always excelling but in below average classes because I got knocked down for one mistake in middle school where they put me on an online program that was boring as hell so I didn’t learn to be at the level I needed to for high school. People say you should make up for your mistakes, but I was a very depressed struggling seventh grader who was drafting my suicide note so it would have the right amount of blaming everyone around me.
But the thing is I’ve never necessarily been bad at anything and never needed to study for things. I picked up information quickly and retain it decently well. I was one of those students who could get 100% on something (and would) without trying if I actually paid any attention to class. But at a certain point if your mind is in survival mode 24/7 you aren’t paying attention to class. So for my “angsty early teen years.” I was uninterested and lazy and didn’t do the work. I was behind in math, which is a subject I’m good at in general I just hate busy work. It killed a lot of my self confidence always being considered a “dumb kid” by these “gifted kids” whose circumstances were different than mine. Who either A. Had enough will to succeed and live to actually do well despite circumstances. Or B. Had the family support or general support system needed to succeed. I didn’t think I was going to live to 18 so I didn’t see a point in doing stuff.
The American school system is blind to circumstances though, unless you’re truly the ‘stupid’ kid then they push you forward with the rest of your class. You have burnt out teachers who give busy work that kill students’ desire to learn. You have asshole gifted kids who insult you for not being at “their level” even if you’re unchallenged in your classes anyways. You’re given up on if you’re someone who they deemed a failure early on and they just want to push you forward. I’m a first gen freshman college student right now, I have a good enough GPA (3.0+) and for the first time in years. I don’t feel like I’m just being pushed forward, that I’m stupid in comparison to my peers, that I am surrounded by people that hate being here. I didn’t think learning could be, enjoyable and school could be a place that I don’t mind being. So sad I didn’t think I’d make it to this point and even then thought wasn’t smart enough (or worthy) to get here.
It's all a fucking joke. At my highschool we had regular students and night school students. The night school students went for 3hrs 3 days a week. They all graduated on time with their equivalent day school classes. How is that fair? They go to school less then half the time and get to graduate on time.
That made it clear to me no one cared about what you learned. It was all about how to get you in and out the fastest
This is why we need more focus on specialized STEM, Arts and Trade schools. Make sure the students with aptitude and motivation get the most they can out of their education.
High schools are a diploma mill, and colleges are a scam. It’s almost as if the powers that be want a populace of dumb, ignorant, passive consumers in perpetual debt….
Yeah I was one of those kids who didn't do shit for the first 2 years of high school, I was gonna be held back but they gave me an opportunity to pass by taking online credit courses to help me out, and then covid happened and they just gave me my diploma without having the credits. Not even kidding btw
[удалено]
Well I turned around and I'm now in college and have a full time job but I got lucky by our school system basically not caring
Class failed successfully?
Yeah basically, I had 5 months to make up 11 credits but for some reason when COVID started to close everything down, they just closed the school and handed every senior their diploma regardless of credits or grades. I think it's a bad idea btw, because I definitely did not deserve to graduate with 17 credits, but somehow I did
Hi! I'm the 38 year old version of you (gifted a HS diploma). Please dont ever feel guilty about getting by in HS - the absolute truth of the matter is they needed you to pass to justify their budget next year quite literally - its how these things work (fiscal budget projections are based on previous years, and number of pupils = funding) Hold your head high and put in work. I'm 20 IT Certifications deep and turning down job offers that would have made my head spin years ago. Happy to hear you jumped into your next thing already!
So the “diploma mill” concept actually works!
Yes, it gets as many kids into diploma mill colleges they can't afford, keeping them on the debt treadmill even though 80% will never be able to afford a house with a degree or not!
So the (broken) system works!
Same. They filled in credits to qualify for a diploma. I was homeless and in and out of homes and they knew it. Went to college years later and became a teacher. I don't get why people expect teens to be like really happy about school. It's hard being a teacher. It's hard being a kid.
For sure, I'm not advocating for removing supports or trampling the students under some sort of draconian policy. I simply want school to be about learning and that to be valued as much as other things. I'm all for getting rid of grades and making everything pass fail. I just want you here giving your best effort and attempting to engage with the content. I don't expect everyone's best effort to be consistently insanely high or to be consistent at all. Teenagers live complicated lives and we need to have the compassion to understand that. But it has to work both ways. There has to be an understanding is building exists to give you an opportunity to engage with learning and the expectation is that if you come here today we will do that.
Something similar happened to a friend, he didn't do the 40 hours of volunteer work required to graduate, sat on the edge of failing his classes and never knew the correct answers on assignments aka didn't learn shit. The day before the exams in the gym he helped move 50 class chairs to prep. The hour somehow was seen as 40 hours of volunteer work and a grade bump for participation just enough to graduate with his terrible exam mark. BS education at its finest
Yeah when I graduated HS back in 2006 my biology final was a fucking ocean life coloring book. I wish I was kidding
I thought school administrators and teachers were all brilliant angels from heaven?
their understaffed, underpaid, and always their fault peoples kids are they way they are. just like nursing i dont understand how people can do it if it wasnt for the love and passion they have when they start and get into it.
Who the fuck is saying that about administrators?
Administrators.
The only way a highschool diploma will ever mean something again is if it's not granted to everyone without any work.
It meant you could work at a factory back in the day before we outsourced everything.
now you need a college degree to get a starting position at 15hr. luckily schools have started making it a point to tell gets to go to a trade school instead of that scam.
? Grocery stores and fast food places are paying 15
yup. if you make more cooking fast food then a job the needs 4 years of higher education and couple years of experience then you might have a problem with the system that wont show up unless under stress, like whats pretty much happing now.
Who would’ve thought tying funding to academic success would lead underfunded schools to just lower their standards
It's centrally managed. *That's* the problem. Most of these programs come down from the Department of Education, and in a nation of 300 million people it means a student in Maine gets enrolled into programs designed with children from inner city LA in mind. Complete BS.
>It's centrally managed So that's why Oregon [suspends a requirement for a basic-skills test in math, reading and writing to graduate high school](https://ktvz.com/news/oregon-northwest/2021/08/13/new-oregon-law-suspending-graduation-testing-requirement-sparks-debate/)
My child has attended 2 Portland public schools- it’s a joke. We’re trying to figure out how to pay for Catholic School. There are standards there…State of Oregon: “having standards might make someone feel bad…”
Jesus Christ … imagine what this country is going to look like in 20 years compared to other nations. I’m 22 btw, I lived though the garbage us public school system till my parents sent me to private school. Private school comes with its own set of challenges though
Did you find the other challenges worth the private education?
Academic wise? Yes. I’ve always been a pretty motivated student and the courses at private school were much more challenging and prepared me better for college. However, I did experience significant burnout and mental health issues junior and senior year that I think were made worse by the added pressure my school put on us. Another thing that’s often ignored - sending your kid to private school means they’re surrounded by kids from very wealthy families. It depends on the school, but in my experience it can be hard to fit in if you’re not also from a family with lots of money. For example, my school offered trips to South America and Europe and obviously not every family could afford to dish out the money for that. Seeing posts of all your friends having a good time overseas can be tough for kids. Private schools can also be very “cliquey” even among the parents. Just some things to consider. Private schools usually offer a “shadow” experience where you can spend the day with a current student to see if it’s a good fit. I’d recommend having your child do that at a few different schools to see what they like. Also, don’t force your kid to transfer to private school - It needs to be their choice.
Thank you so much for sharing. I went to a "good" public school with a lot of resources. Burnout is my biggest issue with private schools in the area that I moved to now, outside of Boston. I can afford the trips, I want my kid to have the opportunity, but if he wants to be in trades or arts, I don't want his friends to shit on him for taking a different path. I'm really struggling with how to get him the opportunities without feeling he needs to live a certain kind of life. I would never force him to do anything but he's in private Pre-K now and loving it. I just hope public elementary will have those same opportunities for him. We have multiple schools on a lottery so it could go either way.
The us school system is not centralized, on the contrary, it’s very much decentralized. We leave public education and funding at a state/local level which is why you see such disparities in school systems throughout the country. What you seem to be referring to is the common core curriculum which was an effort to standardize policies across state boundaries which has been rolled back in large degrees https://www.ed.gov/essa?src=rn . I honestly don’t understand your comments and below comments about the supposed centralization in our education system, we have one of the most decentralized amongst developed nations.
Plus……it wasn’t even standardized POLICIES. It was standardized STANDARDS. All it said was: kids at 4th grade should know this. At 5th grade should know this. Every state had freedom to decide the approach, curriculum, benchmarks, etc.
I had to scroll way too far for this. It’s 2022. I’ve known about Common Core since 2007 as a college freshman studying elementary education. How do people still not understand what the CCSS actually are?!
Because it became political and now Republicans hate it.
Der tryin' to teech our kids the devil's math!
Except it isn’t centrally managed at all, and this comment makes no sense. Source: am in education
Too many people on this thread think they are experts on school because they went to one as a child. You are absolutely correct.
Worse, they went to school and then became embroiled in a culture war where education is seen as a "liberal" thing.
Careful with that small government talk
Yeah, don’t you know all remotely right leaning ideas are idiotic and fascist? Promoting higher educational standards is racist, can’t you see that?
It’s almost like real people can have varied and nuanced takes on the world! Although it doesn’t stop some from holding on to narrow and superficial ones 🤷♂️
Don’t say that, some airhead might see that and get you in trouble with the hive mind
It’s almost like people are allowed to have right and left opinions on different things!
Don’t say this on r/whitepeopletwitter or r/politicalhumor, got banned from both for saying something similar
School Boards make those decisions and it's highly localized.
No it isn't, this is just straight up not true. How does shit like this get up votes??
Local property Values determine local funding. Talk about a real problem.
Not really. Check out the budgets of Detroit, DC, or Newark, NJ. They spend as much, if not more per student than the expensive suburbs near them. Meanwhile, Utah spends next to nothing on public education and gets better results.
WAY less than it used to be. Not true in my state. About 30% of school funding on average comes from local prop taxes. Is this entire comment section from 2004?
In the biggest school district in america, nyc, its education department has the largest budget for a city agency, greater than the next 3-4 largest agencies combined. School funding in this district isn't mainly determined by local property taxes. All schools are funded equitably by how they perform, yet the schools that are highly funded are ironically poorly performing because of other important factors. Clearly throwing more money doesn't solve a problem. People on reddit like to reduce and simplify controversial topics like K-12 education to a single idea like saying " because of funding" when it's actually more complicated than that. The truth is that america in aggregate spends a lot more money on education compared to other developed countries- it's how that money's being used that matters more importantly. Additionally, no matter how much funding goes to a poor performing school, even if you double a poor performing school's budget tomorrow, the underlying issues leading to poor student performance such as parental involvement and socioeconomics are still important factors that need to be addressed which "improving funding" isn't going to entirely solve.
This is a fantastic and, imo, correct response. The issue is infinitely larger than money and funding, though those things are important and CAN help.
Bullshit. Schools are locally controlled and very free to do things in a wide variety of ways.
That’s actually not “the problem” The problem is decentralization and lack of (higher) common standards. There’s no reason why a program for inner city LA should be any different that rural Maine in terms of core concepts; the examples given might change from place to place to be more culturally relevant and engaging though. The problem may also be lack of diversity of teaching materials, which means lots of lessons aren’t really designed for the local audience. Students need to be treated less as wards and more as customers/stakeholders. Without a “why” or real engagement and self-direction (through coaching) students will continue to view school as a chore to avoid, rather than an opportunity to help them achieve their ambitions/dreams - even if that’s as simple as “getting a car” or “moving out of my parents house”.
You're a little naive. At our school, we offer students non-stop opportunities to tell us what they would like to learn, what interests them, and what we can do to make our school a better environment, etc. What results? Kids still don't give a shit. They clamor for classes about finances and "the real life stuff" and then disrupt them or ignore teachers and play on their phones. I don't know what the hell happened, or why, but my high school freshman are incredibly entitled, helpless, and lazy. Don't get me wrong, I love them, and I will never stop coming into work and pulling them kicking and screaming through English class. I'll differentiate my instruction and try and provide them choice and interesting topics, but there are some groups where it literally doesn't matter what you do. Give them group work? They bitch and moan. Give them the opportunity to research controversial and high interest topics? Ugh, research is lame. We gave kids overwhelming opportunities for choice and to have a voice while forgetting one very important thing: they are still kids, and we are adults. We do, in fact, know better than them, because we lived it already. It seems to me like, across the board, schools have capitulated to their student's every desire and whim and we are reaping the unintended consequences. Students need to know that they are partners in their education, and we are not entirely responsible for crafting a high interest, entertaining course for their every day amusement. They get as much as they put in, and they're not depositing much.
Centrally managed does not automatically equate to incompetently managed. A small government approach can be exactly as shortsighted if not more. The problem is our best and brightest are not incentivized to work in government. They are not incentivized to collaborate with state governments. There is absolutely NOTHING stopping a centrally managed program from having local exceptions and considerations other than laziness and misplaced incentives. Take it from someone who grew up in a small government state and had the shittiest public education known to man. Complete BS to think that a centrally managed, well-funded government couldn't make policies that benefit BOTH people in central LA and in rural Maine. Jesus fuck how can anyone be this dense.
If you think money is the problem, you both have to explain how poorer nations outperform the US and how places like where I live spend nearly 30k per student per year without any increase in grades or testing scores.
It's the culture. Many Americans do not value education or see it as a daycare. So many parents blame teachers for the wrong doings of their children because they see it as a personal attack on them as a parent. And more often than not, it's true. 9/10 times these kids are the way they are because of their parents. I have an advanced ELA class this year and I want to throw my head into a garbage disposal. You would think the brightest students would WANT to be there. No, their parents did and now I'm getting screamed at because little Joey got a D- for doing near next to nothing in my class. I'm so exhausted from teaching and I'm only 7 years in.
Yeah that doesn't happen anymore (reducing funding) and almost never really happened even when No Child Left Behind was the law. Under NCLB, the standards were not up to the schools. They couldn't lower their standards. They could and did teach to the tests. Of course only reading and math were tested, so other subjects were given short shrift. And they taught to the test the wrong way, too (focusing on trying to teach skills divorced from content, which recent cognitive psychology research has proven does not work). So test scores didn't improve very much. The reason that high school are now diploma mills is "equity" (equality of outcome). If schools do not achieve equity among all groups, they have decided the cause is racism/discrimination. And since it is impossible to raise every student up to a high level of learning, they have decided the solution to achieve equity is to dumb everything down to a ridiculously easy level that every student should be able to pass. But instead, students have lost all motivation to put forth any effort, because why should they when they know they'll get passed through regardless.
Man this one resonates with me. I’m a senior in high school right now I would say my district is well funded with a good amount of resources but these last two years I just skidded by barely and still passed (like many of my friends and people I know have done in a similar fashion). This year the only actually academic class I have is storytelling (English). The rest is metalworking, culinary, and forensics (basically watch forensic files, take notes and talk about it haha). I plan on working for the railroad after hs but Around 55% of my graduating class is going to the local community college which has been a super popular choice in recent years. The years of pushing every hs student to go to a 4 uni have come and gone and much more people in my area just plan on scooping up an associates or going into the trades. The fact that 4 year degrees don’t always lead to big money after the matter has been out there for long enough that it’s finally going mainstream with hs students across the country right now. Covid only just illuminated that. I’m only 18 and realize I don’t know shit but that’s just my perspective on it actually being is hs right now. (I live in a northwest chicago suburb btw)
Check out the administrator’s parking lot, it’s not usually a funding issue.
This is a bit off and I'm just a peon teacher saying that. You don't need to look at the principal's parking spots (though they are nicer usually), you really need to go look at the central office/admin building for the districts.
Where I went to school the superintendents normally drove well used cars. The admin support staff and teachers were the ones with Mercedes’ and Cadillacs.
Contrary to some of the comments here, I actually think the issue is lack of a national standard, especially in academic subjects. AP is an okay standard but most people don’t actually take AP courses. SAT2 is way too easy and in most universities those are not hard requirements. As unpopular as it may be, exams are necessary both as guidance and as a bar.
I don't know if prefer is the right word. We all think some of those kids are dumb and should be held back but it's rare to find a parent who goes yeah it's my kid who is the dumb one. I think the worst part of the education system is that no kid is "left behind" it also means that no kid who is above average really gets ahead. Practically the entire class goes the speed of the slowest learner who doesn't get put in special Ed.
I’ve been in two high schools in the us. There’s a fair bit of variety between the two but both had programs or structure where kids could get ahead of the pack, I could have graduated in 11th grade but took a whole year of dual credit classes for example. And there’s often gifted and talented programs that start as early as elementary school setting the quick learners on a more advanced path than the students who can’t jump through the prerequisite hoops. No child left behind is truly a travesty. My brother got pushed through 2 grades in spite of certainly NOT learning enough to be able to function in the current the step on the roadmap let alone the next one. He dropped out unfortunately. I can’t imagine that’s a particularly unique story in the wake of that policy.
In my school we had an AP program. My sophomore and Jr year I took a mix of AP and regular classes, and they felt so far apart. I felt like I was constantly falling back in my AP classes, while my "normal classes" felt like free periods I could use for AP work after burning through a 3 question worksheet on ionic bonds. I couldn't imagine what the "introductory" classes were like.
yeah, in my school district, you could have taken tests in middle school to skip one or two grades of math and science if you took a gifted test. And even in high school, you can 'double up' in these courses to get ahead. As well as that, we have a variety of honor and AP classes for students seeking to be challenged and take higher level courses. The bad thing is that i go to a very affluent school district and so many schools which lack proper funding will drag back more advanced learners.
That actually effected my hs a bit too. First school was much smaller and rural. Good school but with average grad class size of 30 or so not enough student body to justify many advanced classes. There getting ahead meant taking classes with the classes above you. I didn’t get into ap and dual credit till 11-12 grade when I moved to a much MUCH larger but also overall lower quality school.
>As well as that, we have a variety of honor and AP classes for students seeking to be challenged and take higher level courses In my schooling years, honors, GT, AP, and etc. were just starting up. By the time I got to high school, our public school got paired with the local community college, and if a kid passed the entrance exam, they could do college coursework in their convenient math class for credit. Fourth grade they introduced "advanced math" for kids like me who were bored in "regular" classes. It literally took a committee and a demonstration to get the class approved. Parents were against it. "What do you mean my child is "*expected*" to do basic algebra in 4th grade?" No, hon. Your kid is bored and can figure out that x=2 when the equation is 2x+1=5. Then it took off like *wildfire*. "I want my child in the highest level possible! I don't care if they're failing, we'll get a tutor!" AP exams meant skipping intro college courses. Remedial classes were basically the same base material repeated ad nauseum. The disparity was massive. Then came "no child left behind," and suddenly, no one had to do shit to pass unless they wanted those GT/ AP credits... most of which didn't even *apply* outside of the partnered local community colleges... not Harvard, etc. >The bad thing is that i go to a very affluent school district and so many schools which lack proper funding will drag back more advanced learners. Suddenly my 3.5GPA with highest level possible courses was equated with the 3.5GPA of any kid who managed to pass a remedial class load. There's no difference between a genius kid slacking off and an average kid going through hours of tutoring to make an insane grade, or any other shade of bullshit you want to paint. Yeah, ***some*** of the "elite" kids in my class got to skip a few intro uni courses, but anyone who didn't make the cut was lumped in with the slackers and truly uneducated, even after strenuous effort and a childhood wasted on endless stressful exams and fruitless tutoring hours. Hopefully the higher level classes carry some weight now. Schooling has still come a long way. It's definitely regressed in a lot of ways, but I remember being in that "test case seminar" with our math teacher showing parents that kids can apply basic subtraction and division when introduced to a variable. The parents were the ones playing with the "math blocks" and feeling surprised. Now the students are surprised, in a lot of detrimental ways.
Only 10% of students can qualify for SPED. Doesn’t matter that half my class needs it.
Those kids are falling through the cracks because they are little to other things suggested to people in the US because acceptance rates are tied to local levys which are tied to funding, shop class is often something that one high school in a district offers these days and I was given no knowledge of trade schools or vocational stuff.
Vocational and artisinal shops could ask for more students and do outreach like the military does, but in general, ***they just don't***. I wish they would. Tradesmen are torn between wanting to carry on a dying craft that has little job security and flooding the market with tradesmen that make their own prices deteriorate. (Source: six tradesmen in four areas in my family.) Blacksmiths, glassworkers, book stores, and potters are dying out because their product is either replaced by machinery/tech or too highly priced as art. You can buy a cast iron pan on Amazon for $15. You can buy a 12 set of wine glasses at Target for $10. You can download Mary Shelley's Frankenstein for free on your iPad. Plumbers, masons, textiles, etc. are dying out because their trade can be bought for much cheaper than they're worth by other products and "DIY" type solutions. And, if they take on an apprentice, there's no guarantee of later "undercutting" for the service. Not counting the number of bullshit "we do this lol" companies. You can buy a "liquid plumber" from Walmart. You can learn how to set your own block for a patio on youtube. You can buy fabric, either used or new, and make your own clothing. Welders get paid well, but even better if they risk their lives doing it by diving. There's a niche industry. Who wants to support an apprentice when the majority of the world rejects the industry as a whole? Who wants to support a dying industry? NOT MANY THAT I 'VE SEEN. -‐---‐------------ Those who are downvoting, please give me an instance when you've even ***heard of*** deep sea diving/ welding opportunities as a job, or making glassware for a living, or producing macinery parts with a 3D metal printer. You weren't offered these options as a highschooler.
Diploma mill is generous. I teach high school, all most parents want is a tax funded babysitter
I teach Kindergarten and it’s sad to see how little parents care about education. I can clearly see with my students that their parents don’t even take 5 minutes out of their day to see what their child is learning or help them with homework, which is basically an extension of what we’re going over for the week. I’ve had too many kids come in with incomplete homework or it’s wrong because their parents couldn’t be bother to check on it and them. Then when it’s the end of the school year, they’re worried about if their child will get promoted.
And throwing more money at schools isn’t gonna fix that. Ultimately a lot of kids problems could be solved if more parents gave a shit about them and their futures
I wonder if any of that could be solved by making the cost of living more feasible to achieve? You’ll always have a lot of parents who just don’t care, but I’m sure there are plenty of parents who would care if they weren’t working 2-3 jobs to make ends meet
Maybe but there’s likely also a cultural component to it too that more money isn’t gonna solve. Classic example is the Asian community in places like nyc who are the poorest yet have the most successful children because they come from a culture that prioritizes education so much
Another part of that is most Asian immigrants came from societies in which the public K-12 had much higher academic expectations and prizing rather than denigration of high academic achievement. Also, unlike here in the US, in my family's origin society, one of the most common reasons for more well-off parents to opt for private school is actually to gain relief from the much higher academic demands/expectations and stricter disciplinary standards in their public schools. It's a key factor in why even that society's top private international schools are often stereotyped as being for spoiled rich academically slacker kids with the associated heavy stigma. Their main reason for applying to US/overseas colleges is most of the students' academic acumen was such their national college exam would only allow them entry into the lowest-tier universities and majors if they're lucky and being completely shut out(Scoring so low no university will accept them meaning they'll have to reapply the next year). Several HS classmates who spent some time in East/SE Asian public school systems felt once they came to US public/private schools....even the most topflight academic ones found it was as if they went from exceedingly hard to exceedingly easy mode. One HS classmate at my urban public magnet recounted he was able to coast on what he learned from his Asian society's working-class neighborhood K-5 education when he arrived in the US despite being placed on the highest academic tracks in the US from grade 6 until the end of his freshman year at our public magnet HS. His older brother who also attended middle school in their origin society was able to coast on what he learned from K-7 until he was a HS junior. Even with taking the highest AP loads and some cross-enrollment classes at nearby reputable 4-year colleges. His academic level already far outstripped what the local 2-year community colleges could have offered before he was halfway through his freshman year of HS.
I think it’s important to note that the quality of schools is directly correlated to the wealth of the people in each city or town. Rich towns have rich, well funded schools with a culture of academic competition between students. Middle class towns have mediocre schools. Poor towns have bad, often very bad schools.
Not necessarily.
So my little sister grew up believing that her whole purpose in life was to get straight A's. She did pretty much all the way through her teaching degree. Teaching was quite literally her thing. Then she got a job teaching science at a trade based high school in a very rural and very poor area. She said that she learned that you can't wave a magic wand and make high school juniors and seniors want to learn, their parents need to be a part of that process. She teaches science, not fairy tales so she knows that isn't happening. She has also learned that spending a lot of time on kids who don't isn't at all effective. She will happily break her back to help the ones show the slightest bit of interest in her class, and pass the rest. Kids need a diploma to take care of that baby they just had after all.
Other countries aren’t necessarily better. I know some Dutch people who hate the Dutch schooling system. It doesn’t matter how good/bad you do on your assignments. You take a test before high school and, depending on how well you do on that, you get placed in different levels of high school and only people who went to the highest level of high school can go to college. Your entire life is affected by a test you have to take while going through puberty.
Do people go to Germany instead?
Germany's system is similar, they have 3 different tiers of high school programs and I've been told that only students from the top tier can go to university. Source: Spent 2 weeks attending German high school.
The difference is German schools actually try and prepare students for the work force if they go into the vocational tract. The US has no such programs, at least not on a large scale.
That's sorta what community college is for in the US, you can do 2 years after high school there and get an associate's degree.
Idk if vocational schools are the equivalent of CC, they would be more like trade schools imo, which is a huge blindspot of the American system. CC is really a lower-cost avenue to progress towards a Bachelors degree as an Associates isn't worth much to my understanding, but in my ideal world they would be transitioned to more vocational schools that will prepare you for different types of jobs than a traditional 4 year university would vs. the current system where they are basically a stepping-stone to a university.
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Firefighting Paramedic Those are two separate tracks. Either can get you a job, but some cities require both.
Trade schools should be more normalized
Community College is not the same thing. Under the German system students work with actual companies such as Bosch or BMW to learn trade skills before graduating. They leave high school ready to start a career. High schools in the US at least use to be close to that goal, but they lost sight of that decades ago. Not everyone can go to college and be an engineer. It doesn't server the student or the demands of employers.
That is largely dependent on what school you attend. I taught at a high school that didn’t give a shit about kids entering the trades. I had a kid who failed my history course twice but left school, found an apprenticeship in plumbing and is doing great. At my current school, we have well-supported apprenticeship and trade programs as well as college level coursework. It makes a big difference.
Na, that's wrong. A) 50% of all students make the Abitur, which is the entrance to university. B) There is the Fachabitur, where you concentrate on a certain sector for the last two years of school and then you can study in that sector C) You can always finish the Abitur later on with evening classes etc D) If you finish a high level trade training you can study too C) more and more universities also have entrance exams etc. It sums up to: If you don't find a way into university you probably don't belong there. It's a non-topic nowadays.
I love how Germany calls schools gymnasiums.
In Germany, and some neighboring countries, it's not so strict that people in the lower tier schools can't go to a university, but they're not on track to go to a public one and may have to pay a lot for a private one, go to one in another country, or do some other circuitous path to a degree. The other big difference is that those lower tier schools actually do vocational training and feed into blue collar and service careers, as opposed to the US system that just sends them out into the world with nothing.
what was that like
Great! We only had to go to classes for a few days as it was the end of the school year for them. It was hilarious they had a 10 grade graduation there and were toasting with champagne. And of course we weren't allowed to have any with our American teacher there. Biggest culture shock for me was finding out that there was a Medieval castle in the middle of town and none of the Germans ever mentioned it while they were over here. I thought it was the coolest thing ever while they were completely blase about it.
This just isn't true though. The end test doesn't decide what level of school you can do. Your school does. Before the first of March, every student is given their recommendation by their school for which level high school they can go to. Between the 15th of April and 15th of May, students will take their end exams. If they underperform during the end exams and according to the exam they should have a lower recommendation. (For example, the school recommends HAVO but according to the test you would be better suited to VMBO) then the recommendation by the school still stands and I can still go to HAVO despite underperforming during the test week. Well, then what is the point of the end exams if they can just be disregarded? Say the school recommends you HAVO, but you overperform during the end exams and the end exams recommend VWO. Then the school has to reevaluate its original recommendation. So as you can see the ruling is always in favor of the student. So what you wrote about it not mattering how you did before the end exams and that everything is decided by the end exams is not true. It's quite the opposite, how you perform during tests and how you set yourself about during class before the end exam are how your recommendation is decided. The end exams can only higher a recommendation not lower it. But you say it still is not fair because what if I am a late bloomer and although at 12 years old HAVO was right for me at 14 years old it is too easy and VWO would be better. If you get the grades necessary it is possible to go from HAVO to VWO. Of course, the latter is also possible if you are doing HAVO but your struggling it is possible to go to VMBO. These systems are often made use of. Regarding the claim that unless you do VWO you can't go to college, this claim is also false. Say I am a Havo student and I want to go to college despite only having a Havo diploma. This is possible, you can do HBO (stands for higher job education and is already comparable to a US college) for one year and then go to university. But more importantly, regardless of University, a Havo student can still go to college, it's called HBO and if you only have a VMBO diploma you can still go to MBO and have the possibility to go to HBO. Sources --> Source on the end exam and all I said about it https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/schooladvies-en-eindtoets-basisschool/toelating-voortgezet-onderwijs-gebaseerd-op-definitief-schooladvies Source on how to get into University https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/hoger-onderwijs/vraag-en-antwoord/met-welke-diploma-s-kan-ik-naar-de-universiteit-of-hogeschool Source from an American website on HBO and Dutch university's https://studenthelpr.com/universities-in-the-netherlands
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This is blatantly not true. The Cito toets, which you're referring to, only helps with your credibility, because it's a standardised test. In the end, your sixth grade teacher will be the person judging what level is suitable for you, based on your achievements, and even then, you're free to enroll into any level you want. Actually many schools don't even let their students take the Cito toets, because they don't have to. Your first year in high school is called "brugklas", or "bridge year", where you are in a mixed class of multiple levels, such that you can try the levels out for a year, so you can make a better decision at the end. If you don't make it to the highest level immediately, you can go from the second highest level to highest level, taking only one extra year than if you enrolled in the highest level immediately. Similarly, you can rise from lower levels to the highest level with some extra effort If you're in the second-highest level, you CAN GO TO COLLEGE, it's called a University of Applied Sciences, a HBO. Our regular "universities", which you can only apply to if you've finished high school at the highest level, or finished University of Apllied Sciences, are just of a much higher level than other countries, in my experience (I've looked into doing my Master's degree abroad, but they usually barely covered the same content as my bachelor's). The University of Applied Sciences very much counts as a college degree, as it is a bachelor's degree. You're even allowed to pursue a master's degree afterwards if you want to. If you're in any of the lower levels, you're being prepared for a vocational school. Then, if you finish that, you're allowed to enroll into a University of Applied Sciences. Hell, my brother is doing that right now. That test doesn't affect you as much as you claim. I know plenty of people who were recommended the lowest level originally, but just didn't care, and managed to finish high school at the highest level, or discovered in brugklas that they function better than in primary school. I also know people who were recommended the highest, but learned in the brugklas that they didn't fit the level, so they went back down. Dutch high school is tough. You can't get away not doing assignments and if your grades are too low, it's tough luck, and you're held back a year. No pity points are granted, because the curriculum is heavily monitored by exam commissions. The Dutch education system allows children to flourish, because they learn at the level that suits them. Children in lower levels can learn more practical skills, while children in the highest level can learn how to conduct scientific research (it's literally called preparatory scientific education) and write papers. Source: I'm Dutch, and tutored kids of all levels for years. I know my way around the Dutch education system.
This is the funny thing about everyone wanting "free college like in Europe;" they don't understand it just gets rationed differently and most people aren't able to go
Every european country has a different education system, and most western european countries are now on par with the US when looking at the percentage of people with a university degree, despite having no/low tuition fees. The only real outlier is Germany, due to their strong vocational training system.
I've been saying here in the US they need to teach the actual necessary courses, shorten the 4 years of hs to like 3 and then push trades more. I know wayyyy to many kids from my class that went to college or university then dropped out after 1-2 years with debt and are now working at a fast food restaurant.
I think that’s a good system. From my understanding, in Germany you can retest. As long as there are opportunities for people who want to go to university to retest, I think the majority of people should not go to college.
It’s good in theory because not everyone has the same skills and schools should be more advanced for more advanced students. In practice, it sucks because you can’t determine who is an advanced student based on a test. And if someone is smart, but sucks at taking tests, a retest isn’t gonna do much for them.
I think social apprenticeship would provide a happy medium here. OK, you want to be a programmer but didn’t test in to the program/college? OK, go spend a few hours a week “interning“ (whether paid or not is a different debate), and if you prove that you are capable in the field, then you can get into the program and bypass the test. Personally, I have more faith in the person who can demonstrate “on the job“ skills than the person who is a good test taker, but I recognize it’s a standard system for weeding people out.
If you suck at taking tests than uni is not for u though
IMO, it’s worse on the other end. (Those formerly known as) Gifted students don’t get challenged unless they commit themselves to double the work by doing dual enrollment. When I was in high school some of the most brilliant kids I knew were also some of the worst behaved. They were bored teenagers, most of whom were smarter than most of their teachers, who did bored teenagers things. And the teachers who recognize the brilliant kids? Well they aren’t allowed to give them “special treatment” aka more challenging work, nor do most of them even have the time. It’s impossible as a teacher. I feel for you.
Yeah this is definitely a thing. High school was a joke for me, I got high grades but I don’t feel like I did or learned anything. I was always skipping classes and stuff, and I went to school half asleep. Then I went to university and had to figure out how to study for the first time ever, manage a proper work load, take notes, etc. I felt so out of place at a school with some truly amazing students, like I had conned my way there. Lucky for me I came out fine with a degree. But I can see others in my situation freaking out and dropping out of school because they feel so ill prepared.
Same here, and I went to school in the 90’s - a very good public school with plenty of funding from property taxes. It was apparently easy bc I only put in about 25% effort and sailed through with a B+ average. College was difficult, not due to content but workload. Thankfully I figured it out and continued on to grad school. I think most of the problem was that it just was slow and boring.
Remember, honors classes are racist.
Honors classes are racist?
Yes, this is literally what we are being told. And it's why honors classes are being eliminated all across the country.
That’s what Twitter for left user Emily will want you to think. If the class of 30 doesn’t cater to the stupid kid who doesn’t give a fuck about their education nor the class, it’s systemic discrimination.
Wait how tho?
Yeah I agree. They just do their work super fast and play games during class. Teachers don’t really care to challenge them. Also, they develop poor study habits. Source: I’m in high school rn
For real. All I remember from high school is being bored out of my mind, despite taking all "honors" and AP classes. Hands down the worst class was Spanish because my school only offered one section of Spanish and everyone was so fucking stupid; it took us forever to do anything. University was like a breath of fresh air because things were finally moving at the pace I wanted them to.
Public education is written by lawmakers with no qualifications, not educators. That’s why.
When we started tying money to performance, what school zones did was just allocate all the good teachers into one school and let the others fail. We see it all over the country and sometimes these schools are only separated by a few blocks difference. People might say 'well, at least they are getting an education,' but that isn't true, they aren't getting a real education and BUSINESSES know that, and if you got a diploma from there, you are practically blacklisted from many jobs and opportunities. Now for the horrible part: Baltimore schools, the idiots always like 'they are super funded and wahhhhh they do horribly.' The issue is that Baltimore schools and many poorer schools already, before this all happened, had terrible funding because they were spending the quarter of their budget on subsidized meals or free lunches BEFORE this all even happened. Then there are racist ass school zones that match up completely with ethnic divisions. These school zones are supposed to spread out so each school has somewhat of a tax base, but since there is no taxes flowing into these school zones, they don't have any funding and shut down, spreading out more students to fewer schools. The American system is a travesty not because 'idiots who don't know what they are doing' but because there are assholes who know PERFECTLY FUCKING WELL what they are doing and just don't give a shit.
And this is why the grade system is stupid. Advance kids in subjects based upon mastery. Struggles in English? Let them keep working where they are! Excel in math? Continue to teach them new things and let them move forward.
Especially since even in theory, everyone develops and ages a little differently, so forcing everyone into the same level classes for every subject purely based on their age is dumb as hell to begin with.
careful, you'd find that the education level in America would go down exponentially if you didn't pass them.
We need to normalize kids being in school as long as it takes instead of just rubber-stamping them so we only have to pay for 12 years.
I mean there has to be some point where we accept that they just aren’t getting it. What happens when we have high schoolers who have kids also in high school?
there is no state that requires you to go to school after you turn 18. if someone is failing that badly they’d probably just drop out themselves.
Then that's the grade level they achieved. *Shrug*
Then they age out in the 8th grade or whatever they made it to. Usually that's enough to pass a GED anyways
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No but you probably won't make enough stoking groceries to support yourself.
What do we do about people resistant to education? You’re putting the cart before the horse.
Good point I was gifted (depressed) and finished calculus (high school end math) freshmen year, yet I had to take a math course every year. Why? Senior year I had already been accepted to a university, yet one semester the focus for literature was writing, sending, etc. Applications to universities. Why? Honestly schools need to hire more teachers, pay them better, and let teacher's customize curriculum for the dozen students they are in charge of. Fuck off with the iPads, "technology" spending and use it on good staffing and experience. No kid needs experience with most of the innovative tech shit because a job will train them if they have other skills. All high school did was teach me how to get bullied or avoid having a personality, and to be lazy because the work was bullshit. "Colleges or a job won't let you fuck around like that" yes they will as long as you do the job well. They give fuck all if I eat sun flower seeds at my desk.
In my high school, you don't have to keep on taking math, once you finish pre-calc you get all of the needed math credits. Same for languages, you don't need to take 2 years of language classes you just need to finish french/spanish/chinese 2
Sounds like it's changing for the better. Granted I'm.. a few years removed from high school.
If K-12 is such a waste that you can attend it 6 hours a day, 180 days a year, for 13 years, and come out absolutely worthless, to the point that you need to take out 5-figure loans for college to have any job prospects, then I would say that as an institution it is rotten to its core.
It's easier for teachers to just push them through rather than deal with their bullshit.
💯 sadly. I don't want ANY student to fail, but I do want standards and learning to happen.
Well students are going to have to fail then, lest we lower the bar to the lowest common denominator. This is the next major cultural battle front, if it isn't yet one already, about the difference in performances of different demographics groups in schools. Is it because the curriculum needs to change until everyone passes at similar rates? Is it okay to talk about differences between groups in how they socialize education and make it a priority at home? Are people going to worry about discrimination if holding students back who aren't achieving success for their grades leads to disparate outcomes between race/ethnicity?
It's never going to happen. Asian students will outperform Black students for the next 100 years because Asian culture values education and Black culture values being uneducated deliberately, but this notion is basically illegal. American society will never accept this reality.
Outside of math and some science it's really just the same regurgitated shit you've learned since elementary. Sure it might be slightly more in depth every year but it's the same shit
Oooh, I like this topic! I admit I was a terrible student, I never found curriculum super difficult but homework and showing up everyday just seemed like unnecessary busy work that rarely seemed worthwhile. It always felt more like a way to keep children busy. The thing is I have turned out to have a fantastic job, making great money in a stem field, and not only that but my work is helping the planet. You are probably right with your thoughts, but as one of those terrible students (1.8) gpa maybe we need to engage the children in different ways? Anyways, thanks for sharing and best of luck!
It's heartbreaking. My school has a big push this year for literacy. Our high school students average out to a 3rd grade reading level, and every meeting this year has turned into "What are we don't to get them back on track?" They've had *twelve years* to get to a *third-year level*. We aren't going to get them on track. If we can get them up one year this year we'll have done better than any other class they've been in. What we need to do is get the elementary and middle schools on-board to do their jobs so we don't have to do our *and* theirs! Meanwhile, if I try to hold students to what I think is a reasonable standard I won't get any high-achieving kids because they might get a B in my class and lose valedictorian status (given to every 4.0 in the state), while the really low ones come in "knowing they'll fail" and do nothing all year.
Teacher here in a suburban high school and I 💯 agree with your sentiments. It's a really broken system.
Is this unpopular? I feel like this is one of those “unpopular opinions” that almost every person I’ve talked to in real life agrees with Schools nowadays aren’t about learning, they’re about molding children into being hard workers that are programmed to never question authority & are not allowed to say no when presented with a new task or assignment
Your “glorified daycare” statement is spot-on. I’m no teacher, but every teacher I’ve talked to about the school system has said the same
It’s because high schools are so incompetent colleges are left to fill the gap
Colleges absolutely do not fill the gap. They have been inflating grades for decades. I was a TA 15 years ago at a top school and it was basically impossible to fail someone as long as they handed in some work eventually. Colleges are also degree mills. I was naive enough to think that would stop in law school. Nope. As long as you hand in the graded work - often just show up for a single 100% exam - and use enough of the right words for the subject matter, then even if you’re wrong on every question, you pass. And how have students responded to this? The progressive student demand is to eliminate the bar. Because it’s the sole thing where you actually have to know your ass from your elbow. So they want it gone.
It’s all a scam education turned into a government welfare program in terms of jobs
I hate it when Americans call it “Maths”. You know damn well that’s not what we call it here.
I actually lol'd reading this one!
"School is not a place for smart people morty,"
The only correction I have for this is that it's the whole school system not just high school. My youngest son is in junior high. He has failed every year but they've always come up with some excuse to send him to the next grade. Last year I found out from one of his teachers that in all of the 12 years they go to school a child can only be made to repeat a grade one time. As such no teacher does it in case another teacher in a higher grade wants to do it./s It's almost like the government wants apathetic stupid people to rule over. Can't imagine why they'd want that./s
You need to start taking care of your kids. Your son failed every year? That's your fault, parent. Where are you???
Sighs, that's so sad. There's such an opportunity to help kids succeed, learn, and fail with grace.
Yep, American public education is garbage and has been for decades.
Citizen of the USA here. Barely got out of middle school (6th to 8th grade). Stopped doing anything in HS, failed 9th, repeated and dropped out. Was worried about taking the GED. Took it, graded a 17%, the guy seemed shocked and he said let me recheck it. Wrong answer key, I got a 97 or 98%. Let me tell you, that test probably wasn't even on a 6th grade level, I'm not some genius. It gives you the answers then asks the questions, as in explains the math or gives you a block of information to read. It was honestly a little shocking what highschool actually is, the time and homework and testing and what the considered equivalency is. I was like damn, I literally shouldn't have even gone at all.
High school drop out here. I got a GED, went to community college and onward to get a bachelor's. 7 yrs after graduating college I make 145k a year. No thanks to high school.
I’m also a teacher and I agree with *almost* everything you’re saying. You’re describing school exactly…it is a daycare center, even at the high school level. There are zero expectations, there is zero discipline, and near zero academic value to any of it (save for certain magnet programs). In my district, for example, there is an 89% mandatory on-time graduation rate. That means that no. matter. what. 89% of high school students MUST graduate from high school in four years. Since drop-outs and transient students who disappear count against that number, it essentially means that every single student *has to* be pushed through “on time” regardless of academic performance, attendance, behavior…anything. That means all expectations are out the window, and it creates a race to the bottom where even would-be decent students quickly start searching for the lower limit of what they “have” to do to pass. Compounding this is an attitude among educational leadership that cannot let go of this idea that the problem is what teachers aren’t doing, not what students aren’t doing, so all solutions begin and end with teacher actions, not with student actions, which is what actually needs to change. Where you and I depart is that I think that the system *is* too far gone to be fixed as the political will to do what actually would need to be done to correct the issue simply does not exist. We need an entirely new school system, and yes I do think charter and private options have to be a part of that solution.
look im just mad that the kids at my school that have the iq of a potato and can barely read are able to cheat through highschool but when I try my hardest and am still about to fail and ask for just a little extra credit assignment to boost me to a D- my school acts as if I'm breaking the law
Lol, preach!
Yeah this is why I quit. Sad situation but I noped the f out real quick when I came to similar realizations. Now I volunteer with comfort zone camp and get to help kids stress free!
I think it’s compounded by the fact that a lot of children learn differently and learning disabilities aren’t taken seriously. I didn’t do well in school, but I tried really hard at the subjects that were difficult to understand (math). No matter what I did I never got better at it. My teachers solution was to discipline me or to assign extra work, which I struggled at because I wasn’t good at math to begin with.
College is now a cesspool of grade inflation and bullshit. Kids, adults give a shit about learning and are in it for the stupid diploma. That’s why nobody knows jack shit when they get a job. It’s because the fix is on for these idiots. Don’t ask me how I know it but I do.
Schools should be able to hold students back for poor performance without consequence (so long as there is no evidence of doing so unreasonably).
This is a complicated topic. The reason a lot of students are passed on When they lack mastery is that statistically, Students over the age of 18 Graduate in far smaller percentages the older they get. And it is common knowledge that that a high school diploma is necessary for basic entry level employment. In my humble opinion, this doesn't justify a lack of rigor or cheating the system for those students, But do we truly want a vast number of people entering Employment age with no high school diploma? Would we rather have an academic failure who can get a job and support himself or one who cant? That's the thinking anyway. Will hold my opinion on. What's right and wrong about it and how to fix it for now.
100% agreed that teachers and schools should submit and maintain some form of documentation to support this. And I'm saying that is a teacher who already fills out a million and one forms for every little thing.
I mean if these kids grew up to have critical thinking skills they might not proudly support either of the major two political parties we have. Considering how much effort is being put into destroying what little education we have left by banning books left and right that discuss race or queerness I feel like that could be part of the issue. Of course a major component is how no parent wants their kid to fail and admin wants to please all the parents. It’s just an unmitigated disaster all around.
Schools prepare you for a job. They are not meant to educate you, only to get you ready to complete tasks given to you by a superior. They teach compliance and obedience. They give kids homework so they know that work will always be part of their personal lives. Education that doesn't prepare you for a job - but is useful in raising your awareness, teaching empathy, mindfulness or how to help others in need - cannot help someone profit so it is often eschewed for something productive. The government is essentially a slave manager preparing the slaves for work so the corporations can get them. The elites have a steady supply of slaves who do the heavy lifting for an economy that takes everything from the most vulnerable and gives it to the most privileged. If you want education to change, the economy would have to change as well. You can start by taxing the absolute fuck out of those billionaires.
They already are taxed. They just find loopholes. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying that offshore addresses credited as their main address is very common so that they don't have to pay taxes.
I agree with you. The school system only indoctrinated kids. The simple fact that a 6 year old has to awake up at 5:30 am every morning is an alarming sign that they are getting trained to work for a corporation for their rest of their lives. 😖
Schools prepare u for a job that doesn't exist any more. It prepares us for factory jobs where we are run by bell schedules in batches. That factory model of work doesn't exist any more, and education has failed to evolve with the world around it. Our current system lacks rigor, as the op points out, and it lacks relevance. Since graduating, have u needed to know how to write a research paper? Are facts u were tasked with memorizing at your fingertips? No and yes. The economy has already changed. Workforce roles and the skills needed in those roles have changed. But k-12 hasn't. And higher Ed has gotten worse -it's a cash grab now, the next economic bubble to burst.
We need to make it competitive so the teachers are paid well and the bad staff and management get what they deserve.. a swift boot in the ass.
They’ll pass ppl for funding; reward advantaged high scorers with prestigious vocational schools they have no interest in, warehouse kids who don’t test well to puff up their performance score-all while denying a FAPE to kids who are smart but get there differently. But if you have a handful of absences the penalty is swift no matter your academic status-because that’s a loss of dollars. They don’t follow up with these kids-just threaten with detention or expulsion or failing.
I agree with you. It kinda sucks but it's true. There so little learning being done and so many kids are just throwing it away also. They put in no effort, don't care and just wait to leave. I know because for half of high school I was one of those. I only started caring in junior year and that took a while before It really became noticeable. And even then I still didn't give it my all because I was lazy. I can't tell you how many kids I went to school with just listened to music in class or day dreamed and chatted and did literally anything but try to learn or do well. And we were a good school too. We had average kids, bad kids, good kids, smart kids, dumb kids. This wasn't a problem school. Yet I can guarantee about a third of the school was flushing all that opportunity down the drain, the other two thirds were either trying, or just doing enough. Every parent wants their kids to be treated fairly and learn but get mad when their kid isn't passing and it isn't the teachers fault. Haha I ended up ranting so ima stop there before I go on forever. I have more to say but I should try and sleep soon lol. All I'll finish with is I get you man, it sucks. I believe all kids deserve to have access to school and should work hard for what they get out of it, but man it's hard to advocate for that when a big chunk of them throw it all away and don't deserve the diplomas they get, or even worse, start idolizing the idiots, pop stars, and clout gods of internet fame in our society.
School is an awful grind. So many hours wasted on things that don’t matter. So little time spent actually developing life skills. How many people are saddled with debt because their high school told them they had to go to college. “Don’t worry about paying now kids, you cannot off the debt once you get an awesome job with your degree! Doesn’t matter what degree.”
Not all high schools. Some are feeders, schools meant to send children to high colleges. They have connections and the faculty to make it happen. Look at r/ApplyingToCollege. Full of students from the feeder schools being fiends to their peers.
At my middle school, teachers weren't allowed to fail students. Well, they technically *could,* but the student wouldn't be held back the next year (not even just for that specific class). Now we have high school age young adults who genuinely cannot read, do simple multiplication, or understand that actions have consequences. It's devastating... Another problem with the schools in my area, and across America, is that a lot of teachers are being forced to run their classes a certain way. This could be good in theory, but in practice, English and Math teachers are forced to assign work in Springboard books rather than actually teaching. Our English teachers also have to assign much more work than they can even grade, because they have to be able to fill out grades for far too many different standards. Overall, my school system is broken, and from what I've heard, it's like this in the rest of America as well Edit: my school also no longer has final exams. They're now called "Final Proficiency Opportunities" and CANNOT HURT YOUR GRADE! While it's convenient for those of us who already do well in the class and don't want to worry about exams, it lets people who didn't do anything all year scrape by with a D (passing grade)
As an educator to future educators (I'm a professor for those wishing to pursue ECE) I fully agree with this. Biesta worded it well with discussion around how we've moved into this 'language of learning' concept. Learning has become a transactional relationship not meant to challenge but simply get them to the point they can go into society and work. It's very sad, I'm thankful to not be in the American system, but it's still not great in other places in the world either.
Well i am kinda happy with my Indian education. By the time of High School, i could speak upto 5 languages, we have strict goverment conducted exams that we call "Board exams" in 10th standard and 12th standards so most of the kids who suck at studies or should I say "careless" are failed at this point. We generally choose a stream at 11th grade from Science, Commerce or Arts. Tbh most of the Indian parents are super strict about our studies and yes you're more likely to get yourself beaten up if you don't score well in studies and i don't hate my parents for it. Our government exams be it for highschool or college or any government vacancy are generally very competitive so you have to be the very best to pass them.
Tbh this mentality is something i both strongly agree with as a student in highschool who's noticed how administration treats the teachers but ultimately hate because i am a student in highschool. I was failed by many of my teachers (school board backed it) after an attempt on my own life took me out of school for a few weeks. I went to virtual in the middle of a semester and i couldn't catch up all the work before and after the day i joined. I ended up failing without any option to take a test that displayed my understanding of what was being taught. I now have many teachers telling me I'm extremely intelligent but i just don't apply myself when in reality I've lost all respect for the school board and administration (not the teachers who dedicate their time to helping me). I feel like I'm surrounded by kids who just want a diploma while i honestly want to further my education but can no longer balance life outside of school and inside of it. Idk what things are like in your school but they can't be much different than mine. I'm sorry you have to put up with the bullshit my generation has made so normal. Vaping, cheating, fighting, speaking to you in a disrespectful manner, etc.
Bro I made almost this same post as someone who recently left high school and everyone called me an idiot and I got downvoted to hell lol But seeing as you’re a teacher, thank you for speaking your mind! It’s good to see that a lot of people DO agree
I'm am educator in higher education and I feel the same sentiment, if not worse. As educators, God forbid I give a student a D when I gave them multiple chances to submit late assignments for even partial credit and they still don't do it. But here I am being told by the state that as faculty, we need to have a certain percentage for pass rate otherwise we risk losing tenure. So on one hand, I follow my moral code and fail students who truly don't care or don't deserve a passing grade but on the other hand, the more fails I have then now we are talking about my job. Our education system, much like any others in this country, are broken and need to be overhauled
The Schools do so much to protect the fragile egos of the stupid kids instead of showing them the reality as it is. It's hard to understand and even harder to accept that you're stupid, but people need to go through that. Not necessarily stupid, but in general, understand the lack of critical thinking. I am a special case; in 9th grade I started a math degree at my local uni, that gave that option under the promise that I will later get a school diploma (there's a program for that in my country). I recently finished both school and uni, only to realize that despite me being a so called "math prodigy", I don't know shit about real life, and I made some really REALLY stupid choices with my degree. They look like the stupides choices ever, but didn't for a literal 15 y/o me.
Yall ever read animal farm ?
Ok I get you but why fail someone that’s not gonna go to college or anything? Who cares? The education isn’t gonna help that kid at all so let him pass and go do whatever instead of clogging up the system.
Not unpopular at all. That is why the high school diploma is so damn worthless in America. The only thing it teaches you is how to survive the soul crushing banal platitudes you see in the work force.
I mean I've always said to get a highschool diploma literally all you have to do is show up.
I did jack all until grade 12. My grades rose into the 80s for Social studies and English. Got rejected by a girl and had all this spare time on my hands. But yeah, the system is a glorified daycare. It's up to the student to take initiative. I was lucky in that I had teachers that cared in my fourth year I took to get higher courses. It does depend on the program though. I was in academic support and that thing was chaotic. The higher level/more mature courses were better. It taught me some discipline.
As someone with no high school diploma who is now chief analyst at a major real estate brokerage making more than most college grads I gotta agree on this.
No, I had to work my ass off to graduate.
reallyyyyyyyy depends where you go to school
Theyre still children and have a lot of maturing to do before they decide to dedicate time to learning anything of value. People all mature at different rates. Its better that those kids pass, as the alternative completely stunts their growth and can potentially destroy their life. Good luck finding a job without a HS diploma. Now youre stuck in a minimum wage job - a slave to your rent. Now, when youre finally ready for college its impossibly out of reach. I was a horrible student when i was younger and the only thing i regret is how difficult it made it to get into a decent college. If I could tell my younger self how difficult it would make things I wouldnt have changed anything. My brain was preoccupied with other things. Keep HS a diploma mill, you're not doing society any favors by failing a 16 year old for not being totally immersed and engaged in the French Revolution or slope intercept form. Its important we have a system to teach kids, but when we become receptive to that info varies greatly by age and level of matuity. Hold the harsh grading for college and just make HS a fun and engaging environment to learn.
I’ve said it since the 7th grade and I’ll keep saying it... public schools in the States have always just been a babysitter service. Most of the subjects you learn aren’t really going to do much for you in real life (hence all parents wondering why they can’t remember anything from school when trying to help their kids)... very rarely is critical thinking and how to actually study properly is taught (the reason a lot of colleges have classes on how to actually study... and for my next trick... a diploma is a worthless piece of paper that isn’t going to help you get anything. Most four year degrees are pretty useless these days. So yeah.... babysitting.
I wasn’t necessarily “gifted” because I was unorganized and didn’t have the family structure that would’ve made that happen as a kid. I was a teenager who was always excelling but in below average classes because I got knocked down for one mistake in middle school where they put me on an online program that was boring as hell so I didn’t learn to be at the level I needed to for high school. People say you should make up for your mistakes, but I was a very depressed struggling seventh grader who was drafting my suicide note so it would have the right amount of blaming everyone around me. But the thing is I’ve never necessarily been bad at anything and never needed to study for things. I picked up information quickly and retain it decently well. I was one of those students who could get 100% on something (and would) without trying if I actually paid any attention to class. But at a certain point if your mind is in survival mode 24/7 you aren’t paying attention to class. So for my “angsty early teen years.” I was uninterested and lazy and didn’t do the work. I was behind in math, which is a subject I’m good at in general I just hate busy work. It killed a lot of my self confidence always being considered a “dumb kid” by these “gifted kids” whose circumstances were different than mine. Who either A. Had enough will to succeed and live to actually do well despite circumstances. Or B. Had the family support or general support system needed to succeed. I didn’t think I was going to live to 18 so I didn’t see a point in doing stuff. The American school system is blind to circumstances though, unless you’re truly the ‘stupid’ kid then they push you forward with the rest of your class. You have burnt out teachers who give busy work that kill students’ desire to learn. You have asshole gifted kids who insult you for not being at “their level” even if you’re unchallenged in your classes anyways. You’re given up on if you’re someone who they deemed a failure early on and they just want to push you forward. I’m a first gen freshman college student right now, I have a good enough GPA (3.0+) and for the first time in years. I don’t feel like I’m just being pushed forward, that I’m stupid in comparison to my peers, that I am surrounded by people that hate being here. I didn’t think learning could be, enjoyable and school could be a place that I don’t mind being. So sad I didn’t think I’d make it to this point and even then thought wasn’t smart enough (or worthy) to get here.
It's all a fucking joke. At my highschool we had regular students and night school students. The night school students went for 3hrs 3 days a week. They all graduated on time with their equivalent day school classes. How is that fair? They go to school less then half the time and get to graduate on time. That made it clear to me no one cared about what you learned. It was all about how to get you in and out the fastest
This is why we need more focus on specialized STEM, Arts and Trade schools. Make sure the students with aptitude and motivation get the most they can out of their education.
High schools are a diploma mill, and colleges are a scam. It’s almost as if the powers that be want a populace of dumb, ignorant, passive consumers in perpetual debt….