Oh, America, we're so proud of you. You finally got the nerve to bother to try to fix your broken education system for the first time in years. The best part is that this isn't some half hearted attempt at saving face like No Child Left Behind was. That's great.
Anyway, the point is that America is finally taking a chance with educational reform. Before we get into specifics on how crappy these new ideas are, the US deserves a round of applause; for good or bad, the fact that the we are taking chances is a good sign, and hopefully, this risk taking will pay off in the future.
The highlights of recent educational reform: L.A. loves Charter Schools, Baltimore just beat out Finland for being 'the shiz', and Online Universities are saving children in Africa. Yes, education and reasoning just found out a way to end world hunger. You're welcome.
Let's start out with L.A. Charter schools, shall we? Basically, Los Angeles is changing many of it's schools into charter schools(Education Week). Charter schools in other areas are getting a bad rap in other areas however. This is mainly because while they use a larger amount of money than a normal public school, students are not getting a higher quality education, based upon a University study in Michigan. Then again, this study was baed in Detroit, so violence and corruption could have skewed the results. Just kidding. In any case, the fact that charter schools have been getting substatially larger amount of money than public schools and yet only 1 in 9 have shown to be more effective than average is not a promising statistic. But, they are trying something new, so I support it anyway.
Baltimore is amazing(Huffington Post). Apparently, Baltimore schools have increased enrollment, decreased the number of dropouts, and increased student achievment. This also came from a school district which was struggling not long ago. One notable thing that they do is get parents and the surrounding community involved in the schools. Wow. That's surprising. Who would have thought that when parents care about their child's education, things can change. Astounding. We should do that for Averill Park- OHWAITWEDID. Yeah, after the superintendent decided that the best way to close a budget gap is to terminate the arts. Way to go genius.
And now we get to the highlight of this post, solving world hunger! Cheese for everyone! Not really (BBC). Actually, what so amazing is that online education is becoming increasingly popular and accessible. So yes, some African farmers are, and have been, getting the most recent irrigation techniques, allowing for more food production, (sort of) solving world hunger. Open University, based in the UK, has allowed over 2.5 hundred thousand students with education. On their own time. Lectures and other bits of teaching nonsense are available for free via the iTunes U service. This system is being compared to the American community college system, which is designed to give more people with the option of being able to get a degree. Some are even proposing that this could be used in a similar way, with student getting their first two college years online, then persuing an advanced degree elsewhere. Honestly, this sounds like an awesome idea. This could certainly decrease college debts, seeing as many courses are available for free. I also think that this could be used for students who travel very far, allowing them to take couses on longer vacations while being able to stay at home. While I don't think that this will ever replace any college, online education has the potential to be a very useful tool.
Sources:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/03/21/26detroit.h30.html?tkn=SLTF%2FHT8Vwv3CzSl7c4UWVoW18tAcWo%2Bl%2Bbh&cmp=clp-edweek
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-donaldson/baltimore-leading-educati_b_838187.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12766562
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Monday, March 21, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
Finland is the shiz
Do you remeber education? It's that problem everyone complains about, but nobody wants to fix.
First, America's educational system is not regulated on a national level. This is bad. Because each state and local community have almost total control over how much education, and in what subjects, kids are going to get, you can have mixed results. New York's educational system is, thankfully, much better when compared with other states. But many others, Arizona, Florida, etc. have very low standards for children to reach. I'm sorry, Utah, I wish I could trust you with your children, but I can't. Preaching the Bible in science class just isn't right.
But let's talk about how other countries seemingly get this education thing right. Finland, for example, gets the highest average scores in science and reading in the developed world. finnish children also spend the lowest amount of hours in a classroom in all of the developed world. Having two or more teachers per classroom is the norm. And children don't even start going to school until they are seven years old. Furthermore, students are taught in a very relaxed environment, and competition, in contrast with the US education system, is very minimal, Talk about a paradox. They seem to get less education and yet they get higher scores; how can this be? Simply put, they get less hours of classroom time, but the hours that they get are much higher quality than those of other countries, especially America.
I don't see why this shouldn't become the norm for American classrooms a well. It seems so much simpler. The first thing that we should do is hold our teachers to a higher standard. After all, we have so many high school graduates who are going to colleges and universities to become teachers, so we should always be picking from the very best of them. And of course, we should have more teachers. It isn't any secret that there is a correlation between smaller class sizes and student performance, so even if we didn't want to have multiple teachers per classroom, we could still get better results. And, if at all possible, we really need to have a well-rounded system, but with a more relaxed atmosphere. I'm sure that many students will happily tell you that a relaxed classroom atmosphere makes learning much more easier, sometimes even fun. And while this may be unrelated, school sessions should probably be pushed back an hour. Teenagers naturally stay up and wake up later due to hormonal changes, and yet we tell them to get up an hour earlier than they did in elementary school (logic at it's best).
But as long as we're dreaming, we should make more art, music and language programs mandated. Seriously, those Finnish 11 year olds are speaking three languages like pros. Not to mention that European countries in general, most of which have better education systems that the US, include more of those programs. But according to the superintendent, football is more important, and music and art must be cut first. Whatever.
Sources: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/86012107.stm
http://www.npr.org/2010/12/07/131884477/Study-Confirms-U-S-Falling-Behind-In-Education
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-08-13/living/howard.education.monopoly_1_government-run-education-zero-tolerance-education-system?_s=PM:LIVING
First, America's educational system is not regulated on a national level. This is bad. Because each state and local community have almost total control over how much education, and in what subjects, kids are going to get, you can have mixed results. New York's educational system is, thankfully, much better when compared with other states. But many others, Arizona, Florida, etc. have very low standards for children to reach. I'm sorry, Utah, I wish I could trust you with your children, but I can't. Preaching the Bible in science class just isn't right.
But let's talk about how other countries seemingly get this education thing right. Finland, for example, gets the highest average scores in science and reading in the developed world. finnish children also spend the lowest amount of hours in a classroom in all of the developed world. Having two or more teachers per classroom is the norm. And children don't even start going to school until they are seven years old. Furthermore, students are taught in a very relaxed environment, and competition, in contrast with the US education system, is very minimal, Talk about a paradox. They seem to get less education and yet they get higher scores; how can this be? Simply put, they get less hours of classroom time, but the hours that they get are much higher quality than those of other countries, especially America.
I don't see why this shouldn't become the norm for American classrooms a well. It seems so much simpler. The first thing that we should do is hold our teachers to a higher standard. After all, we have so many high school graduates who are going to colleges and universities to become teachers, so we should always be picking from the very best of them. And of course, we should have more teachers. It isn't any secret that there is a correlation between smaller class sizes and student performance, so even if we didn't want to have multiple teachers per classroom, we could still get better results. And, if at all possible, we really need to have a well-rounded system, but with a more relaxed atmosphere. I'm sure that many students will happily tell you that a relaxed classroom atmosphere makes learning much more easier, sometimes even fun. And while this may be unrelated, school sessions should probably be pushed back an hour. Teenagers naturally stay up and wake up later due to hormonal changes, and yet we tell them to get up an hour earlier than they did in elementary school (logic at it's best).
But as long as we're dreaming, we should make more art, music and language programs mandated. Seriously, those Finnish 11 year olds are speaking three languages like pros. Not to mention that European countries in general, most of which have better education systems that the US, include more of those programs. But according to the superintendent, football is more important, and music and art must be cut first. Whatever.
Sources: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/86012107.stm
http://www.npr.org/2010/12/07/131884477/Study-Confirms-U-S-Falling-Behind-In-Education
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-08-13/living/howard.education.monopoly_1_government-run-education-zero-tolerance-education-system?_s=PM:LIVING
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