Comments on: Report: U.S. Schools Not Making The Grade

High-Powered Panel Warns That American Kids Can't Compete With Global Peers

[hsteacher1]

As far as the students passing college exams at the age of 16 is absurd. When India and other countries test at that age you forgot to mention that the students that did not meet the criteria will be ejected from the public education system. Therefore, are you for leaving slower students behind. What will happen to the students that can not pass those exams. As far as teachers, we can teach on extremely high standards but who can lower down the material for students that are in special education. There are problems with the public education system but most of them will not be fixed with broadcast done on poor performing schools and teachers. You need to target society as a whole before pointing fingers at public education. Did any of the bipartisan committiee step foot into a regular classroom and try to teach high standards??? I am tired of watching your program stomp all over public education and comparing our students to other countries with only part of the facts. Tell the details of recieving these quality educations in other countries. Do the American people want to pay for educating all of our students.

[vthope]

I have been looking for this to happen ever since universal prekindergarten started rearing up from the big business and government purposes of producing better workers and less crime! I told people that Kindergarten would become the new first grade, 4 year old the new Kindergarten, and 3 year old the new preschool. All of this would lead to high schools reducing their grades to be able to move these other grades in! Budgets can not handle both! And the NEA is not willing to let their numbers fall. I had a hard time thinking of 3 and 4 year old in our public school system. Now we want to put 16 year old into college, and train them in jobs we for years would not let them do under the child labor laws. Whatever serves the government best is what we will end up with! It is time for parents to start looking at what is happening to our school! Wake Up!

[rsoxfan1123]

instead of spending $500 billion improving iraq, what about getting class sizes down? my daughter's kindergarten class was slated for 30 kids. instead of cutting teachers, overcrowding classes and eliminating electives to save money, what about expanding schools? Those same neighborhoods in which everyone bellyaches about the teachers not doing their jobs typically have 30-35 kids per class (or even 40) with thugs, rapists and drug dealers mixed into the crowd. then if the class scores poorly, Bush and his no child left behind gestapo blame the teacher and the teacher's unions.

[hsteacher1]

I am flabbergasted at the lack of knowledge actually put into your publication. Many concerned citizens will hinge their opinions of the public school system on your ill fated report. In this report you forgot to mention the effects of the decline of the American family on the education system. In this you also forgot to mention the tremendous amount of educators time spent buying materials for students and time spent acting as counsolors and mentors to our students.

[rsoxfan1123]

antoniorego -you, sir, are a moron. no offense, but you truly are. you are talking about things of which you know absolutely nothing.

[clestes-2009]

bellaL,

you are as far in outer space as your hero, the ever war mongering Shrub! Dismantled the public education system. Oh yeah, that sounds like it will fix the problem.

First off, that won't help most people. In most couples, they both work. Then there are the single mothers, such as myself, who also work. When are we going to find time to educate our kids? And think about all the child care money that will have to be spent if the kids are not in school. Think about the money to be spent on private tutors.

I suppose this is too much to ask for you to think about, but how about putting some federal money that is currently being spent on war into fixing the education problem. Perhaps you did not realize this, but when Shrub was govn of Texas, they rank at the bottom of all states on their education system. He has taken his poor record on education from a state level and moved it to a national level. How great for us!

You know, everytime you open your mouth, you make a bigger fool of yourself than before. But far be it from me to discourage you, I can always use a good laugh and you are so absurd it is *** funny.

[olebd]

With No Child Left Behind, the methods of teaching have gotten out of wack too. My 3rd grader is doing division with decimals. He's pretty good at it and it's considered 4th grade level BUT, it takes him a while to solve the problems because he counts on his fingers. It appears they glossed over the importance of making sure he had a full grasp of his times tables first before advancing him. Now, I feel like I'm playing catch up at home.

The teaching method seems to be geared to nothing more than passing tests and moving on in order to pass the next test. Repetition is lost.

[webdepot]

(part 2)
the actual knowledge the 1 and 2 level kids possessed, was considerably less than what it could/should have been.
Education in this country will not improve until a basic realization is made; just as people have differing physical abilities, they also have different mental abilities.. We are not created equal. Until the student is once again given that ability to overachieve and excel in a particular subject, we will continue to turn out mediocre achievers.
%u201CRemedial%u201D courses for incoming freshmen was never even a thought in my college days. Either you could or could not perform at the college level, period. Those that couldn%u2019t keep up, washed out of college. Those that could keep up, went on to become the engineers, doctors, historians, lawyers that kept this nation at the top. Well, those overachievers just aren%u2019t there anymore, at least in the public system.
Quick story, went to grocery to pick up a few things.. Bill came to 14.78. The gal, about 18 to 20 years old, saw me remove a 20 from my wallet and jumped the gun and entered 20.00 as cash tendered. When I then reached in my pocket and handed her 3 cents, she was totally blown away. She looked from her right hand, with the 20, to her left hand, with the pennies, to the register, to me, at least 4 times. She then voided my entire order and re-rung it.. Just how pathetic is that. For *** sake, I could calculate the change in my head by the time I was 9, even if I were given the three pennies.

[olebd]

Too bad most of these inner-city kids have no role models either unless, of course, you consider what they're learning from rap videos and video games. I saw the new Jay-Z video just yesterday....nothing but the typical show of the brothas kickin' it in a Rolls Royce, women gyrating all over the place, money flying around in the air. What they see is fromer crack dealers making it to the big time.....over and over again. It becomes all about image, who wears the best clothes, drives the nicest cars, has the most, etc. In their head, the fastest way to get there is to sell drugs.

[webdepot]

(part 1 of 2)
The education system in America started going downhill 40 years ago.
When I was in grade school in the 50's, each grade/subject was segregated by ability, so, for say 7th grade, there was a 7-1 class, a 7-2 class and a 7-3 class.
The 1's were overachievers, the 2's average students, the 3's slower learners. Any one student could be at a variety of levels in their different subjects. My own situation, I always made the 1 class in math/science, between 1 and 2 in English and a solid 3 performer in history. I hated history, which I considered useless.. Obviously my mind was geared more to scientific endeavors.
The point is, teachers were able to teach to the student's strength and keep them interested and challenged. In the 1 class, when the prescribed curriculum was completed about 2/3 of the way through the year, the teacher kept us challenged with advanced math teaching beyond the prescribed curriculum.
Somewhere in the 60's, some parent b*tched about their child being stigmatized by being placed in the 3 class. Soon the policy changed and students of all abilities were lumped together.
Teachers however, still had a performance requirement to pass/graduated a certain percentage of their class. Result, they were forced to teach to the level of the slowest kid.
The 1 and 2 level students quickly became bored and bored kids don't learn.
So, while most passed their grades,