OT: The OT Thread: To move or not to move, that is the question.

[Chainshot]

Hey Chain - legitimate question because I'd love the clarity - what constitutes politics talk vs. general economics/living discussion. I dont want to cross the line to politics talk - is there guideline around what's acceptable and whats not? Thanks!

Commenting on things like anthems or posting doctored pictures of political figures is certainly not economics or living discussions. So that all just got the boot.

 

[CowbellConray]

Commenting on things like anthems or posting doctored pictures of political figures is certainly not economics or living discussions. So that all just got the boot.

Thanks, appreciate the clarity.

 

[TheMistyStranger]

By all the metrics Education has only gotten worse since the inception of the DoE and NCLB was a massive failure of an expansion, the only way to really fix the education system in the US would be to go scorched earth on the entire system and rebuild it from the ground up. We spend more per student than almost all developed countries and still fall way behind them.

No Child Left Behind certainly exacerbated things. Tying a school's funding to the "success" of the kids led to teachers teaching to the test, and a lot of grinding kids through the system instead of getting them the resources they need to actually be successful.

We also spend more on health care than anyone else and lag behind dozens of nations. Makes me wonder where all the money is going...[but we don't really have to wonder, do we?]

 

[Gras]

No Child Left Behind certainly exacerbated things. Tying a school's funding to the "success" of the kids led to teachers teaching to the test, and a lot of grinding kids through the system instead of getting them the resources they need to actually be successful.

We also spend more on health care than anyone else and lag behind dozens of nations. Makes me wonder where all the money is going...[but we don't really have to wonder, do we?]

ESL certainly drags our education system down out here also.

If they audit the DoE the way they have been going through USAID I'm not sure we'd be all to surprised at the outcome.

 

[Chainshot]

Looking at the techniques to measure success is also something at odds with how other nations do things. The testing tied to funding part leads to teaching to tests set at a state and district level rather than trying to offer holistic teaching methods. Places that turn out well-rounded humans that don't grind to tests are also held as unattainable to scale by the nation spending that much on education. We've instituted a system with assistant to the assistant to the head of the redundancy department who then all have staff. That part is certainly bloated so money does not reach staff. Teachers are relatively poorly paid for the work they do and much like just about all other expenditures, supply provisioning failures result in most being forced to lay out their own income (which is already insufficient) for supplies used in daily instruction.

Literacy programs have little impact without the push of parents and guardians to make sure their charges are actually reading, getting their kids to basic literacy before they arrive at school. Funny how a bunch of issues shrink in the face of getting people literate.