The "Weird Socialization" of public schools

[emmiedahl]

Elle, that does not mean we have shitty universities. It means we have a shitty economy and that some of our majors inherently do not lead to jobs. There is a reason I am majoring in molecular biology and not linguistics: I need a fucking job. But that is not a reflection on the quality of education at Washington State University. Many of the people in my major at WSU are from China, South Korea and Japan. Do you really think they come to America because there are no universities in their country? No, they come because a science degree from a crappy second-rate university in the US is excellent preparation for a job.

[Elle]

There is an educational crisis in the US, not only with public schools, but with homeschoolers as well. It seems that private schools are doing well, though that's hard to say since they don't report to any state agency. But homeschoolers we see with blogs are making elementary mistakes and lack an understanding about basic science. NCLB really dragged down the quality of education, leaving it to colleges to make up for what students should have learned just to graduate. Without a doubt there are students who graduate from really poor schools with a high level of education, but a lot of that is due to their own initiative. Our schools are failing to educate so many students that it's shameful.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,59330,00.html It's still happening. Schools are still sued for failing students. My mother-in-law's school dealt with this last year, and after a couple hundred grand in legal fees, the school won. That money could have gone to hiring a few more teachers or updating out-of-date text books. But not all schools win, and these students go on to colleges that have to catch them up, colleges that are already struggling and so cut the number of classes for students capable of college-level work, carrying over NCLB into colleges where the students on track and ahead once again have to fend for themselves.

[duchess0592]

The homeschoolers on those blogs don't give a very good represention of homeschooling, its kind of like saying all public schoolers use drugs because I see some using drugs

Those blogs do make homeschooling look bad. My homeschool education was nothing like the fundie blogs.

[Elle]

Elle, that does not mean we have shitty universities. It means we have a shitty economy and that some of our majors inherently do not lead to jobs. There is a reason I am majoring in molecular biology and not linguistics: I need a fucking job. But that is not a reflection on the quality of education at Washington State University. Many of the people in my major at WSU are from China, South Korea and Japan. Do you really think they come to America because there are no universities in their country? No, they come because a science degree from a crappy second-rate university in the US is excellent preparation for a job.

You are lucky to have had enough of a basic education to get into a molecular biology program. Sadly many American students can't even get into basis 101 classes without a year or two of remedial classes. Most universities have a higher standard than most colleges, but this doesn't mean all of them are wonderful. Do you really think University of Phoenix is wonderful?

http://www.kgw.com/news/local/Oregon-su ... 28993.html

Oh, but our universities are all so wonderful just because some are! Some are, therefore all of them are! Even though a state has a lawsuit against one of the nation's largest universities for not only misusing student aid funds, but for a lack of quality that is actually sending students backward. Lawsuits have been going on against UoP for years, and they don't have a great record for winning. But hey, American universities are the best in the world, so UoP must actually be really good and everyone needs to stop picking on them!

State schools aren't for profit and gain nothing by making unnecessary cuts. Ivy League universities have a reputation for accepting only the top of the top. But these aren't the only universities out there. For-profit universities, Ivy League aside, have little incentive to provide quality education, and have even been sued for graduating nursing students without all the clinicals and such they need to actually qualify for nursing licenses. A week as a day car provider doesn't meet the clinicals for nursing degrees in any states. But hey, universities are wonderful, so those women suing need to shut up and praise the high quality of their education.

http://business.time.com/2011/05/20/why ... tter-jobs/

http://stateimpact.npr.org/ohio/2011/12 ... -good-job/

Yeah, a lot of grads can't find good jobs.

http://www.heldrich.rutgers.edu/sites/d ... y_2011.pdf

Half are still looking for a job a year later, and a lot aren't finding jobs in their degree field.

[Elle]

The homeschoolers on those blogs don't give a very good represention of homeschooling, its kind of like saying all public schoolers use drugs because I see some using drugs

Those blogs do make homeschooling look bad. My homeschool education was nothing like the fundie blogs.

I agree that the blogs don't represent all homeschoolers. One of my dear friends is in her last year of a really good university on a full-ride scholarship after being homeschooled her entire life. Her parents homeschooled her because the quality of schools in their area wasn't so great. I don't know the exact stats, but more than half of homeschool students are homeschooled for religious reasons, like their parents not wanting them to ever encounter a gay person they can't immediately condemn as a pervert. Many homeschooling parents are great at what they do and take it seriously. But for those doing it out of religious reasons, it's questionable how much emphasis is placed on a proper education rather than the bible. This is why California tried passing a law requiring at least one parent be a licensed teacher. Too many homeschoolers aren't keeping up with their public school peers. Some do phenomenally well, but far more are doing very poorly. And who knows how many more are under the radar and aren't counted at all. It wouldn't surprise me is many fundies and other religious zealots don't even get birth certificates for their kids thinking there's some government conspiracy to take all kids to be soldiers of satan, and it's a pretty sure thing they're homeschooling.

Oh geez, and there's this newer homeschooling thing called unschooling (not schooling at all).

[desertvixen]

Oh, but our universities are all so wonderful just because some are! Some are, therefore all of them are! Even though a state has a lawsuit against one of the nation's largest universities for not only misusing student aid funds, but for a lack of quality that is actually sending students backward. Lawsuits have been going on against UoP for years, and they don't have a great record for winning. But hey, American universities are the best in the world, so UoP must actually be really good and everyone needs to stop picking on them!

You're making the same BS argument that you're trying to accuse emmie of making. We have universities that are awesome, universities that are good, universities that are adequate, and universities that are pretty suck.

I would agree with you that UoP is NOT good, but people choosing a college need to do some looking at what they're getting into before they start giving money to a school.

[treemom]

Hmmm...I just wrote a piece for school this week about the idea that we need highly skilled foreign workers. It actually isn't the case. Specifically I wrote about Vizcaino v. Microsoft. Microsoft claimed they needed to bring more foreign workers in as employees while they had an entire class of permatemp workers who were actually doing those jobs and had been. Foreign works usually demand less in salary. The "we need higher skilled workers" is often just a ploy to higher engineers and developers for less than the market average salary.

[emmiedahl]

A. I received my diploma from a very poorly ranked public school and went to community college before university.

B. What does UOP have to do with the general state of college education in the US? People pay four times as much for UOP, it has a cost similar to Ivy League, so I think the barrier is not that that they just could not afford remedial education at a community college.

C. Your statistics have nothing to do with your assertion: that outside of the Ivy League, American universities are offering a lower-tier education. I am going to a lower tier university. Right now. With students from other countries who have options in their countries and yet chose to leave home and come study at a second-rate American university. Why? Because the science education is amazing.

[Elle]

Desert, Emmie isn't acknowledging the downfalls to the higher-education system in the US, insisting only that our universities are the best in the world when the truth is some are very good and many are not.

Treemom, I agree that not all fields need as many foreign workers as some companies want us to believe, and according to a semi-friend of mine who is here on an H1B visa, it's for exactly the reason you say. Lower pay. When the tech layoffs started, it wasn't foreign workers let off first. It was the higher-paid American workers. We have many skilled workers counting just the laid off ones, and xenophobic as this may sound, the jobs need to be going to American workers first.

[Alecto]

Also, in support of the testing issues in public schools - many special ed students, especially self contained special ed, those with severe cognitive disabilities don't actually get a diploma - they get a "certificate of attendance." They still are often subjected to the same testing as other students.

[emmiedahl]

Desert, Emmie isn't acknowledging the downfalls to the higher-education system in the US, insisting only that our universities are the best in the world when the truth is some are very good and many are not.

Treemom, I agree that not all fields need as many foreign workers as some companies want us to believe, and according to a semi-friend of mine who is here on an H1B visa, it's for exactly the reason you say. Lower pay. When the tech layoffs started, it wasn't foreign workers let off first. It was the higher-paid American workers. We have many skilled workers counting just the laid off ones, and xenophobic as this may sound, the jobs need to be going to American workers first.

No, I absolutely acknowledge that there are problems. I just think in general that we are among the best in the world when it comes to post-secondary education. Statistics and my own personal anecdata agree with me.

[Elle]

A. I received my diploma from a very poorly ranked public school and went to community college before university.

B. What does UOP have to do with the general state of college education in the US? People pay four times as much for UOP, it has a cost similar to Ivy League, so I think the barrier is not that that they just could not afford remedial education at a community college.

C. Your statistics have nothing to do with your assertion: that outside of the Ivy League, American universities are offering a lower-tier education. I am going to a lower tier university. Right now. With students from other countries who have options in their countries and yet chose to leave home and come study at a second-rate American university. Why? Because the science education is amazing.

A. If your high school had been better, you might have been able to save the time and money spent at the community college.

B. You are saying American universities are the best in the world, ignoring how there are many that are absolutely awful. People go to UoP thinking they'll get a better education than at a community college, or because a degree isn't offered at a community college. Ivy League schools are so much tougher to get into that it's barely comparable to UoP. The barrier is less money and more about having top-notch grades and the right references, high school resume, and connections. IF you can get into an Ivy League, you can get the aid from the government, but the prestige of an Ivy League degree will likely have job offers before the degree is received. UoP takes everyone who applies and then sinks them into debt. UoP is the largest university in the US, and unfortunately it's graduating people with inadequate educations. As the largest post-secondary education facility, this is important. More students will go here than to any other college or university, and this is a major problem.

C. You are, again, overlooking that not all universities here are wonderful. Good for you, you found one. But your university isn't representative of all universities, or even most, in the US. I know of a community college with a tech program so amazingly good that it's given more weight by tech employers than the state's universities. This doesn't mean all colleges are wonderful. I took some classes there. It was a good tough school. I took a class, briefly, as a bad college, but won't say either that all schools suck. We have some GREAT schools, colleges as well as universities, but unfortunately many aren't good. And many students who come here for school are from countries where having a degree at all is so exclusive that even a community college degree is impressive. It helps that when talking about countries with the best schools, all they hear about are the top universities.

[Elle]

No, I absolutely acknowledge that there are problems. I just think in general that we are among the best in the world when it comes to post-secondary education. Statistics and my own personal anecdata agree with me.

Counting the TOP SCHOOLS, yes. But counting the education most students receive...no. You're lucky you're going to a great school. More students will go to UoP or to another school and get a degree that won't help them, and that sucks. These students are overlooked when it comes to determining the countries with the best post-secondary systems. But as long as we give the blanket statement, "The US has the best colleges and universities," then students will happily sink themselves into dent for life at substandard schools thinking they are doing something good. An appropriate statement is, "The US has some of the best colleges and universities in the world." We have some, but not all, and not all of our colleges and universities are anywhere near the top, especially out for-profit schools.

[treemom]

Emmie, look at how many Americans with degrees are working at McDonald's and how many employers are having to hire foreign workers because of the lack of qualified American candidates. A student from a high school that enforces minimum standards for graduation at the grade level from which the student is graduating rather than passing kids jut for showing up will get more out of even our lower public universities than students from many of our high schools where they are passed out of fear of being sued, and when they return to countries where a degree from anywhere is prestigious, then yes, they will have tons of job offers. Here in the US, having a degree isn't helping many people. It's seen as semi-necessary, but yet we still have an unfathomable number of graduates working entry-level jobs in retain and fast food, and still many more who can't find any job at all, finding it's worked against them to not have job history for the time they were in school. Some students are helped greatly because of the major they chose, many others are struggling and have no idea if they will realistically ever get their loans paid off.

I wanted to quote this to remind you of what you said.

Employers are not hiring foreign workers for lack of qualified Americans..it is about pay. And let me tell you, com petting against foreign workers many of whom do my job with a PHD is difficult. Choosing not to get a degree because you think it is hopeless isn't a good idea either.

[emmiedahl]

Elle, I saved money by going to a community college and will get the same degree in the same amount of time. And I seriously doubt that more college students are going to UOP or similar for undergrad than to normal colleges.

A lot of our problems are completely unrelated to the actual education one receives at a university. In every general ed class I have taken, the professor insists that there are so many job opportunities and we totally should be switching majors! And that is not the truth. A Bachelor's degree in Cultural Anthropology is not that marketable. This does not mean that cultural anthro majors receive a shitty education, just that there are not a lot of jobs for these very knowledgeable people once they graduate. You can get a world class education in cultural anthropology and still not have a job waiting for you.

Another problem is that many American high schools are not preparing students for university. You take a kid with a diploma from a rather poor secondary school and throw them into the very competitive and rigorous college academic environment, there will be problems and the college is not the source of them.

Last, UOP has some excellent programs. It is definitely a YMMV situation, but my stepfather got his master's from there and he received immediate job offers.

[Elle]

I wanted to quote this to remind you of what you said.

Employers are not hiring foreign workers for lack of qualified Americans..it is about pay. And let me tell you, com petting against foreign workers many of whom do my job with a PHD is difficult. Choosing not to get a degree because you think it is hopeless isn't a good idea either.

We need to clarify. It depends on the field. In the tech industry, there are plenty of American workers with skills who've been laid off. Unfortunately the longer someone has been out of work, the more out of date their skills become. Right now there is more of a problem of fewer people with current skills. There wasn't always. Areas with tech jobs tend to be more expensive to live, and it's really difficult to get a job in an expensive area if you can't afford to move to live there to get the job. A lot of employers will cover moving expenses for lower-paid foreign workers.

I think the US needs to impose penalties on companies for doing this. It's not anti-capitalist either. Hiring lower-paid foreign workers and paying their moving expenses where there are workers here who either have just graduated or who are a few years out of work but could be easily brought up to speed is hurting the American people in general.

There is more of a problem now with fewer qualifies American workers in the tech field than there were, and it's because tech skills become obsolete as technology changes.

The medical industry is one having a hard time with enough trained workers, though that may be partly because of fewer Americans going into nursing and aiding.

Teaching is one where there is no shortage of teachers, just jobs, as schools make cuts to staff.

[emmiedahl]

What are we arguing about again? You keep changing direction, Elle. None of your assertions or statistics back up your claim that American post-secondary education is poor compared to other countries.

As for UOP, a quick google search found that there are under 250,000 UOP students and 18.2 million college students in the US total. So let's stop using them as a representative of American college education.

[Austin]

Also, in support of the testing issues in public schools - many special ed students, especially self contained special ed, those with severe cognitive disabilities don't actually get a diploma - they get a "certificate of attendance." They still are often subjected to the same testing as other students.

Exactly.

Elle, my son has had an IEP since second grade and has a moderate learning disability. He still had to take and PASS the Ohio OGT - Ohio Graduation Test - all five parts. He had the same accommodations he has for any other test (extra time, scribe, if requested, text on tape, if requested, etc.), but he still had to pass them to get an actual diploma. IEP students who do not pass the OGT get a Certificate of Attendance, as Alecto mentions.

The reason that the math is tested at a 10th grade level is because that's when the students first sit for the test. If they do not pass it in the fall of 10th grade, they have five additional chances to sit for it. It took our son two sittings to pass it (and we were incredibly proud of him, as many IEP students obviously do not pass it). He will graduate with a full diploma in May.

It kind of sounds to me like you want to shit all over education and devalue it in general. If you can't or don't want to go to college, that's fine, but don't try to make people feel like they wasted their time or that their kids will waste their time in going to college, if that's what they want to do. Research has shown that college graduates, over a lifetime, make significantly more money than do high school graduates. That may not reflect your specific anecdata or agenda, but those are the facts generally. We are just now beginning to come out of the worst recession since the Great Depression, so it's not too surprising that some people are still trying to find employment, but that doesn't make their college degree useless or the time they spent going a waste.

[Elle]

Emmie, it's beating a dead horse with you. No matter what, you think all out colleges and universities are just perfectly wonderful and think your experience is representative of the typical experience. Your and your stepfather are two people, not an accurate cross section of American higher-education student. I've linked articles showing half of grads still looking for work after a year out of school, and those who got jobs being largely out of their career field, including links about the UoP being sued for failing to educate students and setting many further behind than they were. You still think your experience is the norm and all out colleges are the best, and nothing is going to sway you from your belief that all the schools here are the best in the world and that getting a degree means a good job right away.

You also clearly don't want to understand what I've said. I said more students got to UoP than any other college or university, not that more go there than all others combined. You also have ignored multiple articles about graduates across the board being unable to find work, and ignore that only 36 of the thousands of colleges and universities in the US are in the top 200 in the world, and you presume this means all out colleges here are the best. Aside from the top schools, the rest aren't ranked in any worldwide way, but from what I've found, most other countries expect students to start college able to do college-level work instead of needing the remedial courses that are normal now here.

So I'm finished debating with you on this. Personal anecdotes doesn't work here, yet it's all you've offered.

[TaylorMaid]

What are we arguing about again? You keep changing direction, Elle. None of your assertions or statistics back up your claim that American post-secondary education is poor compared to other countries.

As for UOP, a quick google search found that there are under 250,000 UOP students and 18.2 million college students in the US total. So let's stop using them as a representative of American college education.

She said it was the largest, not larger than all combined. In terms of enrollment NCES backs that up:

http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=74

Yours is #18 by the way (which doesn't correlate in the slightest to the quality of education you're getting, I have no dog in this fight).

[TaylorMaid]

Elle, I really think you're just tossing out straw men at this point. She's conceded that not all US schools are great and never said they were "just perfectly wonderful".

[emmiedahl]

elle, I find it interesting that you cannot even nail down what you want to argue. So, fine. We are finished debating.

Elle, I really think you're just tossing out straw men at this point. She's conceded that not all US schools are great and never said they were "just perfectly wonderful".

Yeah, pretty much.

[Elle]

Austin, at my high school, the special ed students were dismissed during testing.

Students who get a 12th grade diploma should be doing 12th grade work. Otherwise call it a 10th grade diploma that you had more chances to take. If a student can pass it first chance, then graduate that student then instead of requiring they stay in school another two years because others will need more chances to pass it.

I think there's a major problem in the US when all students are made to feel that the one and only proper path is to go to college right out of high school, and those who don't go, those who go into trades instead, are shit on.

Studies showing retirement net worths show it's evened out. Those who go to college are using a significant amount of either earnings to pay back debt that non-college people can use to invest. If you look only are income earnings, it's easy to say that college grads make more. But they don't always keep the edge.

What out schools need to be doing is helping kids identify what they want to do with their lives, figuring out of there's a market for it, and then the most efficient way to get the education or training they need. All the emphasis on the value of education completely overlooks how, for many students, it's really NOT worth it. For some fields, it's mandatory. For some fields, it helps. For others, it's useless. A degree in fine arts won't help someone who wants to go into plumbing or auto mechanics. Someone who wants to be a teacher is going to have to have a degree, no way around that. We need to stop saddling students with debt for degrees that may not do a damned thing for what they want to do with their lives, and we need to encourage taking a realistic look at the jobs available instead of encouraging kids to "follow their dreams" when when that means encouraging them to follow a path with next to no available jobs and an extremely high number of people waiting around for the rare job opening. We need to stop making kids feel like failures if they want to go to a trade school instead of college and to stop looking down on them for not going into debt that won't help them do what they want to do. Not every person wants to go into the fields that have the potential to make millions. Many MANY people would rather go into a trade to make enough to support themselves and their families and be home with their families more. Not everyone wants to be jet-setting because it makes millions or has the potential to, and those who don't want to shouldn't be told their wrong or have less worth because they "won't make as much." It's not always bad to make less money. If someone's making what they need to get by and adequately support their families and are happy, why are they wrong? Why should we be telling everyone that the path to happiness and success is to go into massive debt to get degrees that may do jack shit for them and what they really want to do?

[treemom]

We need to clarify. It depends on the field. In the tech industry, there are plenty of American workers with skills who've been laid off. Unfortunately the longer someone has been out of work, the more out of date their skills become. Right now there is more of a problem of fewer people with current skills. There wasn't always. Areas with tech jobs tend to be more expensive to live, and it's really difficult to get a job in an expensive area if you can't afford to move to live there to get the job. A lot of employers will cover moving expenses for lower-paid foreign workers.

I think the US needs to impose penalties on companies for doing this. It's not anti-capitalist either. Hiring lower-paid foreign workers and paying their moving expenses where there are workers here who either have just graduated or who are a few years out of work but could be easily brought up to speed is hurting the American people in general.

There is more of a problem now with fewer qualifies American workers in the tech field than there were, and it's because tech skills become obsolete as technology changes.

The medical industry is one having a hard time with enough trained workers, though that may be partly because of fewer Americans going into nursing and aiding.

Teaching is one where there is no shortage of teachers, just jobs, as schools make cuts to staff.

Do you in fact have evidence for any of this? And every damn company has a tech job...You don't have to be actually making a chip to be in a field where their are claiming people aren't qualified. I live in one of the cheapest areas of the countries and I can assure you...lots and lots of IT jobs.

ETA: NCLB requires special ed kids be tested. It is part of the measurement.

[Austin]

Austin, at my high school, the special ed students were dismissed during testing.

Students who get a 12th grade diploma should be doing 12th grade work. Otherwise call it a 10th grade diploma that you had more chances to take. If a student can pass it first chance, then graduate that student then instead of requiring they stay in school another two years because others will need more chances to pass it.

I think there's a major problem in the US when all students are made to feel that the one and only proper path is to go to college right out of high school, and those who don't go, those who go into trades instead, are shit on.

Studies showing retirement net worths show it's evened out. Those who go to college are using a significant amount of either earnings to pay back debt that non-college people can use to invest. If you look only are income earnings, it's easy to say that college grads make more. But they don't always keep the edge.

What out schools need to be doing is helping kids identify what they want to do with their lives, figuring out of there's a market for it, and then the most efficient way to get the education or training they need. All the emphasis on the value of education completely overlooks how, for many students, it's really NOT worth it. For some fields, it's mandatory. For some fields, it helps. For others, it's useless. A degree in fine arts won't help someone who wants to go into plumbing or auto mechanics. Someone who wants to be a teacher is going to have to have a degree, no way around that. We need to stop saddling students with debt for degrees that may not do a damned thing for what they want to do with their lives, and we need to encourage taking a realistic look at the jobs available instead of encouraging kids to "follow their dreams" when when that means encouraging them to follow a path with next to no available jobs and an extremely high number of people waiting around for the rare job opening. We need to stop making kids feel like failures if they want to go to a trade school instead of college and to stop looking down on them for not going into debt that won't help them do what they want to do. Not every person wants to go into the fields that have the potential to make millions. Many MANY people would rather go into a trade to make enough to support themselves and their families and be home with their families more. Not everyone wants to be jet-setting because it makes millions or has the potential to, and those who don't want to shouldn't be told their wrong or have less worth because they "won't make as much." It's not always bad to make less money. If someone's making what they need to get by and adequately support their families and are happy, why are they wrong? Why should we be telling everyone that the path to happiness and success is to go into massive debt to get degrees that may do jack shit for them and what they really want to do?

Oh, I didn't realize you had just recently graduated from high school or graduated since the implementation of NCLB.

You're projecting your personal feelings about going to college and making assertions that have no basis in reality of what others are asserting.

Good to know some things never change.