It's even funnier because he thinks he lives in a major US city

... or worse, they do know, and yet here we are still blaming the racist homophobic xenophobic transphobic furryphobic patriarchy for everything.

I explicitly said that I believed your description of your wife's experience, and your response is to assume that I am making stuff up unless I am willing to give you an unreasonable amount of personal information about myself.

But if you are really sure that I am full of ****, I'll give the name of the school to a mod. If the mod runs a Google search and finds a "puff piece" or other evidence that the school in question is extraordinary, I'll eat a two-week ban. If the mod doesn't find anything like that, you eat a two-week ban. How does that sound?

I already know what the Google search will turn up, so you might want to take that into account before you agree.

And where exactly did I do that?

My first reaction was: lol, ban wagers?

But I didn't notice initially that you specifically said it was your son's class.

No, I don't care to know the exact neighborhood school you attend and there's no need to get mods involved. I wasn't even denying what you're saying is true, just that we're not talking about the same level of dysfunction.

Anyone who would suggest heads up for posting privileges with me is risking too much, even if they're the overwhelming favorite.

You know that I am not a teacher. I have never suggested that my wife is a teacher. You thought I was relaying an anecdote about a third grade class to which my family had no connection? How would I possibly even know what the hell is going on a random third grade classroom to which my family had no connection?

As you said, you live in a city 15 times larger than mine. Why confine yourself to a personal bubble? You don't hear interesting stories from time to time?

I know more than I care to about all manner of things I have no direct involvement in. Get out there and say hello.

I hear interesting stories all the time. Only very rarely are they about third grade classrooms in random schools.

Hello, Inso0! Just wanted to make sure you didn't miss this:

Why bother with other countries and introduce a thousand other factors? There are plenty of public schools here in the states that manage to pump out excellence year after year.

This topic came up before, and I can't think of any better way to say it than I did then:

I believe it is outside the scope of a public school education to fix these underlying issues. What, specifically, can the schools themselves do to fix this? So far we have, "Reason with the children so they'll agree to behave" and "Pay the teachers 3x as much."

Okay, great. But how about instead of that, we remove the problem children from general classrooms and let the current infrastructure do its job for the majority of the population who can behave themselves. Then you can pay 24/7 instructors 3x the salary of a teacher and reason with those children in the form of whatever goes on in strict military-style boarding schools.

You make it seem like I'm some 1950s quack doctor prescribing some woman a lobotomy for being horny. I promise you're not going to screw up a 7 year old who tells the teacher to, "Shut the **** up, *****!" more than he/she's already getting screwed up at home. The pleasant side effect is that he'll no longer be holding a few dozen peers hostage to his complete disregard for education.

It would probably shock you to know how many of these kids are getting rubber-stamped up to the next grade against the suggestion of their teachers.

Of course there are plenty of public schools there that manage to pump out excellence year after year. And there are plenty that don't. That's the ****ing problem. Comparing to countries with better education systems seems to indicate they don't have that problem, and that isn't because they ship 15% of their kids off to military school. But for some reason, you seem to think that is the solution, and when asked why you believe that will work, you just repeat the same talking points again. You have no evidence that it will work; if anything, the evidence out there would seem to point to the opposite.

Do you ever take a minute to think critically about what the reasons might be that some schools have achievement rates that are higher than others? Maybe try to expand to reasons outside of your pre-conceived notions.

Let's say you're right. Is the solution then to ignore those problems and ship off 15% of the students, or might it be an idea to address those underlying issues? Try to think big here - if the scope is outside of education, then I guess it's time to address other societal issues.

When you keep repeating the same "solution" that sounds like it comes from the 1950s, then you're sort of acting like one. However, it's not as egregious when it comes from you, because in the case of the doctor he or she is a trained professional, while it seems more obvious all the time that you have no idea what you're talking about.

So, it's your opinion that when a kid reaches 7, all hope is lost? Wow. I promise you that not only is it possible to help that 7 year old, but that you absolutely can screw up that 7 year old more than he/she's already getting screwed up at home. And unlike yours, that's a promise I can actually keep.

Yeah, your analogy seems more apt by the moment. The 1950s called for you; they want their straps back.

Good post. Inso0, this is what evidence looks like. The results seem like common sense to me, but I imagine they'll be a surprise to you.

I'm talking about homogenizing resources.

Obviously in some cases this means funding more in problem spots. My kid's class of 25 has 4 with learning disabilities, more than 15 with immigrant parents, and several from households whose language is not the local language. The teacher doesn't have time or training to attend to the students who get decent grades, or if he or she does, it's at the expense of the rest.

I have acknowledged time and again that the problems didn't start with the schools. This thread was supposed to be about what the schools can do to improve outcomes.

It's not whether a 7 year old child is lost forever. Obviously your life path isn't set in stone by 7. But these schools are not equipped to deal with large numbers of highly disruptive students.

itshot links this study of studies and you give him an attaboy as if you actually read the thing. That's not new information, and you're a fool to think those strategies aren't already in place. She doesn't have access to any of her MPS materials any more, but the district pays obscene amounts of money to bring in consultants to train teachers and provide materials for classroom management strategies.

From the paper:

Rococo already admitted that the student he thinks I'm referring to was the 17 year old high school senior who heads to the corner after school. No! This problem is evident when the kids are young, and only grows worse as the teachers' attention get spread thinner and the students who aren't responding to corrective action keep getting pushed through to the next grade where they fall further and further behind and just making things worse.

The time for proper diet and exercise was long before your diabetes led to gangrene. Now we have to take your foot.

Maybe you think it's hyperbolic, but how fair do you think it is to the 30 other kids if your 1st grade classroom has 5 or 6 of the kids in that video above? That kid acted like that with parents in the room. Teachers don't have extra adults to assist, and "you need to leave" isn't an option because there's nowhere to send them.

My wife spent 15 years teaching 6-8th grade and was by all accounts highly successful. She was featured in a book on empowering urban youth and won a few awards. The class that finally made her throw in the towel was a 2nd grade class at a new school that had 80% staff turnover from the year prior. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but I've seen the cell phone videos taken by the kids who stole hers out of her purse during class. These kids are 7 years old. How hard can it be?

Absolute chaos.

The school scored a 10.1 out of 100 in the latest year in which Student Achievement scores were measured. 0.0% were proficient in ELA, and 1.2% were proficient in math. The school had a 45.3% absenteeism rate.

I'm sorry, sir, we have to take the foot. You should've done something sooner.

As a matter of general principle, I actually agree with the idea that public schools are not responsible for solving all of society’s ills.

The problems are so massive, empowering schools to solve them would almost necessarily make the schools too powerful. For example, it would almost certainly mean the ability to take children away from some parents and effectively institutionalizing many more children in some form. I personally think that’s getting into social services that should clearly be separate from (though in close collaboration with) school systems.

There is a difference between teaching a kid to cope in social situations and fixing what ever is broke at home.

While it is certainly true it hasn't solved all of society's ills or should be expected to solve all of them, the list of ills public schooling has solved is pretty damn long.

It might not be up there with sewage systems, running water or waste management, but it's probably on par with modern medicine and the concept of human rights.

So it's a fine thing to protect and ensure it runs well.

Agree with all of that in principle.

I think to protect school systems, we need far stronger social services programs and charities in terms of community support and, yes, unfortunately, mechanisms to protects children from bad parents.

There's nothing about the OP of this thread that implies any such thing. This is a politics forum, not a schools forum. What better place to discuss the overall issues? Why would you want to limit the discussion to what schools can do without making any further changes outside the system to support them?

No, it isn't, but you seem to want make sure it is by shipping them off to military schools.

When did I suggest that any of those strategies weren't in place?

Cool. So, is there a possibility that the strategies aren't being implemented properly, that the right ones aren't being used, that the proper supports aren't in place, or that further policy changes are needed to ensure change can happen? Or is it your belief that there is something unique about students in the US, or Wisconsin in particular, that means the only solution is to ship kids off to military school?

Teachers actually get paid more than I thought on average.

Probably sucks in other states, but in nyc DOE teacher top pay is 100k++ for 180 working days a year. That's a pretty good living, imo.

I love teachers, have several in my family, but they are the biggest whiners on the planet. They are always acting as if they are so unappreciated and put upon, when it's the exact opposite, teachers are placed on a pedestal that in reality is probably more than they deserve. It's an important job, and not an easy one, no question... but it is far more pleasant and has far better hours/work conditions than many other important jobs. And the compensation is quite good when factoring in pensions, health benefits, summers off, etc.

It sounds good but means nothing without the spending of living cost .

The later parts of the video actually talks about how uneven the pay is. The average pay, especially for the amount of hours worked, is actually very competitive with most professions.

But there is also no question a lot of teachers are underpaid. Oklahoma teachers for example.

This is really old but it's important to remember a lot of teachers in the US are incredibly underpaid.

Background:
https://www.newson6.com/story/5e35e2...r-walkout-2018

This is the aftermath:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/educa...ars-heres-why/

https://okpolicy.org/report-despite-...till-way-down/