AUGUSTA, Maine — Tens of thousands of Maine kids do not find school very challenging, according to a 2011 survey of school-age children. The finding does not surprise some state leaders who have been pushing for more challenging school classes.
“This shows we have more work to do and we are working on it,” said Education Commissioner Stephen Bowen. “I think there is a broad understanding that this generation of kids needs to see a level of engagement that we didn’t have to think about a generation ago.”
The federal Department of Education’s National Assessment of Educational Progress asks students several questions about how they are taught and whether they think they are learning. For example, 37 percent of fourth graders in the country say their math work is “often” or “always” too easy. In Maine, 39 percent of fourth graders answered that their math work is “often” or “always” too easy.
Another measure educators say is important is how many pages they read a day for classwork and homework. Nationally, 67 percent read 15 pages or less a day, but in Maine it is 56 percent. What concerns many is that in Maine 23 percent say they read 5 or fewer pages a day.
“We are working on a lot of pieces to improve courses and make them more rigorous,” Bowen said. “But we know we still have a lot more to do.”
Bowen said an example of where schools are facing a serious problem keeping a student interested is when they are talented in a specific area. He said a gifted math student may go through all the higher math courses a high school offers in two years.
“What do you do, where do you go to keep that student involved and engaged in math is a question facing schools all over the state,” he said.
Sen. Brian Langley, R-Ellsworth, is the co-chairman of the Legislature’s Education Committee. A former teacher, he says all of the testing programs set up by the state and federal government has led to teachers “teaching to the test” and not making sure students are learning what they could be learning.
“A lot of times students don’t feel challenged because they may not be in a course that interests them or they feel really applies to them,” he said. “In today’s world kids have to see the relevance in what they are doing. I don’t think today you can tell a student, ‘you have to study this because you have to study this.’”
Langley agreed with Bowen that the state is trying to develop new classes and approaches to meet the changing needs of education. He says students are often more comfortable using technology than teachers and learn differently than the old lecture model of education.
“I think we have to look at every student individually,” he said. “Are we challenging them in the context of what it is they want to do?”
Sen. Justin Alfond, D-Portland, is the lone Democratic senator on the committee. He said it is “exciting news” that there are students who want to be challenged and want to learn more at school.
“I think that information needs to get to our schools and our parents,” he said. “We need to put the bar higher, challenge our students and make sure they succeed.”
Alfond said the state is seeking to develop “multiple pathways” for students to learn. He said studies have shown individuals learn differently and too often schools in the past have used the “one size fits all” approach that studies show does not work.
“There are schools today that are providing that individualized approach to learning,” he said. “The challenge is to have that approach in every school.”
Bowen said schools are working hard to make use of technology to provide that individualized approach. He said the Education Department is looking at ways it may help by developing some advanced courses that could be offered online to schools that cannot afford to develop an advanced math or science class for a handful of students.
“We know we have a long way to go to challenge many students that want more from school than they are getting,” Bowen said.
Huh. Maybe it’s hard to feel “challenged” when you have a laptop which spells and supposedy corrects grammar for you, and a calculator to do your math.
And spelling? Big whoop. Type the first couple of letters into Google and it’ll pop right up.
We seem to not challenge kids much at all anymore. We just keep using the “We must keep up with technology!” excuse to help them work less IMHO.
The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America:
…so they vote democrat.
So teachers should vote aristocrat (aka republican)?
No, teachers should teach!
And parents should parent and students should work at learning. And cheerleaders for the right wing should acquaint themselves with facts instead of scripts.
Ah, another Obama cool-aid drinker.
Take that up with Charlie Webster and Charlie Summers. They can probably come up with a state plan to bar teachers from voting. After all, they have been known to vote Democratic.
At the direction of their union, because the union does not want them to think and vote on their own. Teachers are like lemmings being led over the cliff by their pied piper the union.
Do you realize the a huge proportion of the teachers in the state do NOT belong to the union?
In answer to your trolling, have you ever seen anyone enter the voting booth with another voter to insure that they were voting for whoever? You are assuming that all these teachers, who are college educated can’t make up their own mind on who to vote for?
If the unions were as powerful as you claim, do you actually believe that Paul LePage would have been elected as Governor? That all these Tea Party/Ditto Heads would have been elected?
LaPage is a great governor and you should be thanful that he is getting Maine out of debt and back on solid financial footing after being lead down the path of fiscal irresponsibility by the prior dumbocrats and King Angus!
I really feel bad for you. You obviously were picked on by teachers in school (I wonder why???), and now have a huge grudge against them. If you had ever been in a classroom to teach, you would realize how much work is actually done and how much teachers have to put up with that is out of our control. Instead of bashing Maine teachers, why don’t you give a constructive suggestion.
I have served on a local school board for many years and I have a pretty good insight as to what works and what does not and who good teachers are and those that are not.
It is a teacher’s job to teach; a parent’s job to send their children to school ready to learn. We are sending too many children to school shortchanged in this area, then expecting teachers to somehow ameliorate that. They cannot.
> “So teachers should vote aristocrat (aka republican)?”
> ” No, teachers should teach!”
… whatever the Texas Board of Conservative Aristocrats say should be put in all American text books ?
But on the bright side their system is a great way to teach what lowest common denominator means, beyond it being a math concept.
Conservatives demanded a single curriculum measured by national tests. Now they are surprised that THEIR one size fits all, politically motivated curriculum, fails to challenge real people.
So if :
MEA – Maine Students Perform Well on National Tests
http://www.maine.nea.org/home/684.htm
Once again, Maine students scored near the top on the National Assessment of Educational Progress ….
But Maine students are not challenged, then please write a paragraph on why you think No Child Left Behind should not get
an ” F “.
There is a critical thinking challenge for our conservatives posters.
EXACTLY!!! Teachers should TEACH — as in academics. …and not spend so much time getting kids ready to learn when parents and society shirks that duty.
The teacher’s union seems to be doing well though……………
And for those of you with poor reading comprehension skills, I wrote “teacher’s UNION”.
Not really. Lots of teaching jobs have been cut and with those jobs go dues-paying members. Also, big portions of the “union’s” agenda has been stifled and even reversed due to the economic disaster fomented by the mortgage industry (big bankers showering loans on unqualified buyers) and venture capitalists in it for themselves.
Sure teacher positions get cut when you have to balance a budget. Lavish pension benefits for teachers due to unions are destroying our educational system. As long as the teachers get theirs to hell with the students, because there will always be more students next year. Tenure is King!!!
Lavish? Really? Would you care to elaborate with any facts?
Lavish pension benefits? And those would be what?
31?
You and a few others agreeing with you here appear to be unaware that Maine has no such thing as “Tenure.” Teachers in Maine get Continuing Contracts not tenure. Sadly you’re right that teaching positions get cut (Lots most recently) to balance budgets. I’m not sure how you think that could happen if you also think that they have something like tenure which by definition (Status granted to an employee, usually after a probationary period, indicating that the position or employment is permanent) would prevent such from happening.
Dude, like Tenure man. It hurts the wrong people. Sounds like a bummer to those who love and care about making things cool. Listen, this issue tops my list of to dos. Dude, like we gotta win this one man. HIGH FIVE!
You obviously haven’t spent a second teaching a class of students and don’t have the slightest clue of what you are talking about. And you pathetic right wingers will bash teachers, cops, firefighters, and unions and then send our people’s jobs to China and give trillions to the oil companies as you kiss your corporate masters’ toes. It is just disgusting.
You sound like Obamas speech writer!
“Lavish pension benefits”? Those pensions are a result of money earned but extracted from public employee pay so that it could be “invested” for them by state government. The employees had no say as to where that money was “invested” and in some circumstances, as they saw with Governor John McKernan, it could be “redirected” in order to meet the goals of the Aristocrat (aka Republican) Party. Tell us all what agreements YOU would enter into to take care of your retirement by defraying compensation and how happy you would be to see those agreements reneged upon. Can’t? That’s because you appear to be just another dittoheaded cheerleader for the Aristocrat Party.
Teachers do not receive Social Security, and the pensions are hardly “lavish.”
So noleman1, if Maine teachers are so terrible and not held accountable at all, and still receive plush benefits (even though they apparently aren’t good at their jobs and don’t care), why don’t more people want to become teachers? Sounds like a great deal…according to you, someone can become a teacher, not try hard, not be held accountable, and still live a very pampered life.
Maybe, just maybe, the truth is you really don’t know what you are talking about. Maybe, just maybe, your motivation has more to do with attacking unions, than actually improving education.
Do you have any idea what a typical teachers’ pension is? $19,000. Hardly lavish. Wall Street’s vision for America eliminates pensions, and the middle class. (I’ll grant that public sector unions were foolish not to fight the unfair trade agreements that robbed private sector workers of their right to retire in simple dignity.)
Can ineffective teachers be removed? Tenure, or not ABSOLUTELY, and any school board who opts NOT to initiate the process is derelict in their duty. “Tenure is king”? Patently absurd…..
$1583.33 per month, I know of many retired folks that don’t receive that much with their social security and pension combined, Never mind what they have to pay for Health care. How much it the monthly health care cost for teachers? Back in the day you were suppose to have your house and all major bills paid for by the time you retired, so that you could live on the money you got.
What an offensive, uninformed statement. My sister teaches. She doesn’t make enough money to cover her bills. Last year the salaries in her district were frozen. She has to take expensive classes to maintain her teaching certificate, but she also has to scrape together work after school and in the summer, just to get by. During the school year, she works 60 hour weeks and it never seems to satisfy the whining parents who what her to “pass” their lazy kid. If you don’t know what it’s really like in a school, stop spouting off.
Lavish pension benefits??? I have to work until I am over 70 years of age to receive a pension of around $26,000, all this for teaching more than 40 years. Maine teachers can not access social security benefits, even the social security benefits that we pay in for second jobs. Noleman1, I bet your pension benefits are more lavish.
Sorry to inform you but I still work, have not reached retirement age yet.
No, they are not. In fact, unions in general have been largely crushed (or is there still work to do? Are there some people out there with two nickels to rub together…?)
“If you want to know who rules over you, find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” ~Voltaire (HINT: not labor, but capital — corporate welfare queens)
Apparently not all that well, given what you perceive to be your correct employment of ellipsis dots, and how you punctuate quotations and plurals. But I guess we get your gist . . . even as we gag on your delivery.
Yup – Carnegie era change agents. Google Charlotte Iserbyt.
Gosh. Lots of accomplished, educated people including physicists, rhetoricians, mathematicians, historians, etc. use laptops. I had no idea that those funky little machines did all their thinking for them. Thanks for setting the record straight.
Not all children in Maine have laptops in class. My daughter didn’t have one until the 7th grade and she wasn’t required to have a calculator until this year when she enters the 8th grade.
A lot of her papers also had to be hand wrote and yes, she writes in cursive. If I asked my daughter if she felt challenged I’m pretty sure she would respond with a yes. Can’t ask her at the moment because she is at band camp but I will ask her tonight when she calls.
Edit: So I just asked my daughter if she felt challenged and she said yes. She only disliked one teacher but loved the rest of them.
Agreed. But I do feel cursive should go the way of the neck tie. What’s up with that? Don’t look at my buttons?
Some schools no longer teach it which I find sad. Give a letter written in cursive to a college kid and they most likely will struggle with it. A few months ago I had to read a letter for a person because he couldn’t read cursive. His grandfather had wrote him a letter and a lot of older people still write in cursive.
Maybe in 20 years it shouldn’t be taught but I feel at the current time it is a skill children should have.
But it would only be useful in reading letters from our grandparents. It has no other use in our modern world. Just my opinion, and others will disagree with me, but I can’t imagine one proffession that requires cursive. It’s outdated. (Other then maybe a signature….)
Yes, it is outdated but I still feel it is something that should be taught. Just as a child should be able to read an analog clock without numbers to know what time it is.
I’m with ya, we should teach our children all we can, but I think that autoshop or wood shop or even home-ec would be more useful than cursive. Long hand is great, we know how to do it, but it isn’t going to raise our pay grade.
It is a tricky question. If we drop cursive, which is going the way of the dinosaur, (Unless you are in Kansas where Dino isn’t allowed to be talked about because it promotes evolution) we have more time to teach other things. If we drop it, we lose a part of the past. I hate it personally, not because it is difficult or anything, but I am left handed and quick printing smudges less than cursive.
To me, it trains the brain to slow down and pay attention to detail (I’m talking for younger children – from 3rd to 6th).
There is intrinsic value to that IMHO.
And a lot of cursive writer (especially me) have never written that well in that medium. I’m also a lousy typist (fast but 4-fingered and error prone) so I love writing on the computer. Also, spell checkers won’t eliminate all common errors (your/you’re, etc.) that many make (including commenters on these lists).
Then you are quite fortunate. Count your blessings. Your daughter was taught to use her brain. I truly believe that handwritten papers train a brain to pay attention to details better than a keyboard does. Our schools dabble in laptops from 6th grade on.
As far as calculators, they use them from K on. My kids have learned one thing: Unless there was a little calculator icon with a slash through it (few and far between) then that was the green light to go running for one.
In my day, my folks would have had to go to the library, but instead chose to teach me work. While I am an intelligent guy, my girls bring homework to me that I need to refresh myself on, by way of internet. It’s not all bad. I am able to teach my girls work, and have their bookwork at my finger tips. It’s all about the parents. The school lays down the base for the parents to build on. At least under my roof…
I agree about parents; however, if the child comes home and says “My teacher told me not to ask you for help with this math because you won’t know how to do it.” ( yes, I’m completely serious – look up Everyday Mathematics and how they do basic calculations) then the parent has to reteach themselves how to do math if they want to help them.
That’s not always possible if the parent has weak math skills to begin with.
When I taught school – we used Everyday Mathematics and a few times a year we would have either “Math Family Night” or “Math Parent Night” when the parents could come in and learn the different math games used in the program and ask questions about the different calculations that the program uses. We would maybe have 10-15% of the parents or families make an attempt to come…
Had you offered free soft drinks and donuts that figure would have jumped to 35-45%. Add booze and a room where parents could watch TV, use the web to go to their Facebook account, or text quietly in a corner and you’d easily have gotten 50%.
Ok, yes I’m kidding…just a bit. But when you start looking around, we all have to admit that something has changed in our society and it isn’t to the benefit of solid child rearing practices. The number of these types of people is growing and it is they who will indeed someday soon decide that the best place for their child to get an education is sitting in a comfy chair at home taking courses online. That doesn’t sound like an intelligent way to go to me but who knows, maybe by the year 2050 nonsocial couch slobs will rule the world.
When I was in my early ’20s, before we had children, I was a member of the working poor, alongside exhausted, stressed out parents often having to choose between attending parent/teacher conferences and keeping their jobs with unsympathetic employers. Time is a resource, too, and we’ve taken it away.
Did they work full time? I know a lot who do. I’m not making an excuse for parents (I work full time overnights), but we need to be realistic in that it often takes 2 incomes to live now, and a lot of parents aren’t capable of learning new ways. I know there are slackers everywhere – I make no excuses for them. I taught myself Everyday Math, but it was positively painful after learning it so long ago (I was tortured with New Math – yep, same thing different package). What annoys me the most is the number of people I KNOW have their kids tutored because of EDM and yet everyone seems to love it because it supposedly ‘works.” Very few seem to make the correlation between the clandestine tutoring and the ‘success’ of it. Still, parents can only do so much when the teachers tell them “Don’t ask your parents for help with this because they won’t know how to do it.”
Some of the parents did work full-time, and I definitely can sympathize with those that did… But there were also some that I don’t know for sure, but would imagine just didn’t bother to come… EDM can definitely be a challenge, and I know that my parents often would get frustrated when trying to work with their students. There were points where I would tell my parents “Do the best you can, if you don’t understand it, call me or just send it back with a note”. Since EDM uses so much of a circular curriculum, there would be times I would not send home homework especially if it was a brand new concept and something a large percent of my class struggled with; instead of I would save the HomeLink and use it as “Morning Work” the next morning when I would be able to help them.
“…we need to be realistic in that it often takes 2 incomes to live now.” I will NEVER understand why we so readily accepted lower wages for the last 40 years, sending everyone and the dog out into the workforce without a thought to who would do the job of child rearing! ….when costs continued to rise exhausted parents reached for credit cards rather than picket signs… Why on Earth should we accept this? The economy is a monster of our own creation, not a force of nature for heaven’s sake!
Of interest is that parents are not mentioned in the article at all. Some of the comments here by parents who help their children are heartening, but there are many parents who are either not able to help or not willing to do so – and in some cases actually work against the teachers and schools.
We’re seeing so much of that here. The culture of the community; the low value placed on education, behavior problems, latchkey kids poverty….. While we fire Ed. Techs…
There where NO Ed techs in the classrooms before the late 70’s, Even the best behaved kid will start to imitate the worst behaved kids because they see that bad behavior will get the attention.
Funny how the influx of “ed techs” coincides with the exodus of parents from the home into the workforce; as costs climbed and wages dropped — exhausted and in debt….
So what is YOUR solution to kids are coming to school without the decorum to learn properly? Too many people expect teachers to “deal with it” and give us the same results they would be able to in a classroom full of well-raised children. I say it is a problem for all of us, not teachers alone.
We keep lowering standards so those who not the higher achievers do not FEEL bad. They do not keep score because that woudl mean someone has to loose. Then so many do not understand why kids get out of school and can not hold a job? Of course when they can not we simply dumb them down more by giving them welfare instead of doing that evil thing and telling them to TRY HARDER!!!
Yeah, and no one told them that technology is only as smart as the programmer. Better start cracking those books open, so technology doesn’t get dumbed down.
Tell me about it. Even though I say my generation never learned grammar, I remember at least covering a noun and verb by 3rd grade. My kids, 4th and 5th graders only know because I taught them….. We are still working on that and now adverbs, adjectives etc…..
I was never taught conjugation in English, my main language. Learned it in French class. I was finally shown a grammar book my senior year of high school by a frustrated English teacher who couldn’t believe we were never taught grammar.
I also learned English tenses after learning them in French…. Changed some perception of the English language. I am thankful, for the ability to thumb through that book. The teacher said she had it from many many years ago. I’m glad she did, and glad she shared the book with my class.
Having subbed in a number of schools the last two years, I can attest to the boredom the students experience. In some schools, homework is never graded (school policy) and oftentimes the expectations for work to be done well cannot be enforced (lack of parental support for high standards), so is it any wonder that private schools have stronger academic programs and results?
Wow, I ( DOB 1952 ) remember either my mom ( a 5th grade teacher ) or my older sibling checking my homework . We were graded not only on accuracy but also the appearance of the work we handed in . Back then it would have been better to not turn in your homework( dog ate it didn’t go well) than to turn in something messy. I learned very early on that acting like a dolt was not acceptable .
Hard to take school seriously when your teachers dress like grunges instead of like professionals. Teachers don’t take school seriously so why should the students!
The way someone dresses has nothing to do with intelligence, nor teaching ability. That is personal style. A neck tie is rediculous in this day and age. What is the purpose of a neck tie? The Fedora is making a small come-back…’least it keeps the sun off the ears….
What a ridiculous thought.
So, your saying that it is more important for me to wear heals and a skirt instead of going out into the field with my students and getting dirty with them? Modeling good teaching and learning is much more important than modeling fashion!
You ever heard of having a change of clothes?
Parents don’t take school seriously, which is why their kids don’t.
I can assure you that homework is graded in Brewer and I’ve never heard my daughter or any of her friends complain about being bored in school, ever.
Thankfully I have a daughter that gets upset if she doesn’t make high honors so she does strive to do her best in school.
Which private schools and how are their results stronger?
Your observations are completely opposite the results in Biddeford. Saint James School is K -8 and their alumni were about 10% of this years Biddeford High School graduating class yet 60% of the top 10, and all of the top 5 were former SJS students. Parental involvement is a big factor in SJS students success.
I made no observation but rather asked a question. You hit one of the biggest nails right on the head. Research is pretty clear about the positive aspects of parent involvement. In schools where parents are welcomed, where they seek feed-back on their children, where they talk with their children about school and where they value education, students do better. Congratulations to those children and parents of Saint James School . Keep up the good work.
I disagree that private schools necessarily “have stronger academic programs and results”. Do you have data to back up that statement?
I’m a public school teacher. Students in my district coming from the local private schools are generally far less prepared for high school than the students coming from the local public schools. The private school students coming to high school in 9th grade have generally not ever had homework; some choose what subjects they want to study and so have had virtually no math or writing; anyone with learning disabilities has not had those addressed and therefore some of those students read and write at about a 4th grade level.
Additionally, there is a sense of entitlement that students have picked up somewhere that gets in the way of their work habits. Many of them feel they should get good grades simply because they’ve been told in the past they are smart, and that they should not be graded based on level or quality of work done for the class. I’ve been teaching in this district for over 10 years, and it’s been the same situation all that time.
I am sure that private schools are good for some students in some circumstances.
I do feel that more should be done in public schools to serve the higher end of the academic spectrum. At this point it is legally mandated to serve the lower end of the spectrum, but not the higher end. Therefore, classes for advanced students or higher-level subjects are cut if there are fewer than 12-15 students enrolled, while remedial classes may run with as few as 2 or 3 students. This seems like a tragic waste of potential, but it is done to satisfy local and state budget limitations while meeting legal mandates.
You are right about some students coming from private schools are effectively uneducated. Montessori schools, and other “progressive” schools where grading is not done and the children themselves decide what they want to study produce ignorant students ill prepared to deal with the real world. But boy oh boy do they ever have self esteem….
The same cannot be said of students coming from traditional parochial or traditional private schools. Every young person i have ever met who came from one of those schools and then attended a public school commented on how far ahead of their public school educated peers they were.
In Maine, private schools students do not score higher than public school students on standardized tests.
Your observations are completely opposite the results in Biddeford. Saint James School is K -8 and their alumni were about 10% of this years Biddeford High School graduating class yet 60% of the top 10, and all of the top 5 were former SJS students. Parental involvement is a big factor in SJS students success.
Again, I can only go based on my experience, but towards the end of my teaching time, I always checked my students’ homework – but it was school policy to only put an actual grade on the homework that was suppose to be “mastered” at that point. If a student was just starting to learn a new concept, it was not graded as they were not expected to have it perfect yet.
not challenged? Maybe that’s why Maine has one of the highest drop out rates in the nation. Gee, I’m not challenged in school so I might as well quit and drive a plow truck.
What is the drop out rate in Maine? What is it nationally? Don’t just give glib statements as if you knew what you are talking about.
lack of parental support….enough said
Please elaborate, how does lack of parental support begin to explain the students not being challenged. I used to give my son extra homework to make sure he was being challenged until I learned that its next to impossible to skip a kid ahead a grade in Maine schools.
In cases where its lack of parental support it’s not that the curriculum isn’t challenging. It’s just the child doesn’t have interest because they don’t feel that there’s sufficient reward in applying themselves.
But more is not necessarily more challenging. Thinking and applying- that’s where many of our schools are falling down.
We chose not to have one of our girls advanced…little brat teaches us some times…..
The rewards are supposed to supplied by the parents. Also expectations of good work and honest effort.
One must ask, if they don’t find school challenging then why are they consistently failing standardized testing? Apparently school is too easy but testing is just way too hard. Why do kids respond as they have here? They’re kids. If you ask them a question like this about what adults want them to do, nine times out of ten they’ll tell ya, “Oh ya, it’s not challenging at all.” Makes for great political fodder by those who want to take charge of our tax dollars and or minds of our children…right Mr. Bowen? The reality is that it probably isn’t as challenging as it could be (If kids were willing to work harder) and that the greater majority of students aren’t even half trying to learn anything in schools these days. The fix? Parenting (Sure other factors can apply but all are irrelevant in comparison or competition with lack of parenting). What will be done? Nothing good, just more manipulative and expensive politics that will waste years and billions. On the plus side, at least moms and dads won’t have to do anything differently then they already have…or should I say, have not?
My own High School age child has told me they are learning math better with the on-line Khan’s Academy then they are with the teacher at school.
If that’s true then we should be seeing the positive results (On Standardized Testing) of such online learning very soon. Agreed? Although since such offerings have been around for years, who knows why we haven’t already? Perhaps there’s a flaw in your son’s contention? I hope your son fares better than most have done on such test going all the way back to the early 70’s. Individually he may, overall I suspect the continuing downward trend to continue. Sadly, knowing these days no one takes responsibility for anything, it’s just to easy to predict.
It wasn’t that long since I was in school and I’m sure there were a few like me, who figured out very early that standardized testing was a terrible way to judge what kids were learning. Our teachers would take a month leading up to the test teaching what we’d be seeing on the test. It wasn’t a real world solution as I never took those types of tests in college and have never had to for an employer. So, what was my solution to test taking? Making patterns in my answer booklet. Those tests don’t work, they’re a waste of time and money, and are why my kids won’t be going to public schools.
Good! Will they be at home?
Amen!
Never said my child is a boy. The only was to test your theory would be for the schoosl to offer on-line classes for the kids that want them and see if they learn any better. Say they have to finish by a certain date but can work at their own pace, and if they finish early they can move up to the next class/level. Yup, and when a kid gets a diploma and CAN NOT read or do basic math it is like a hot potato, NO ONE wants to touch it.
Amen to Khan’s!!!! I have used it too, to be able to remember what I forgot I learned. I saw a piece in Ed Week about 4 years ago that looked at how kids of the digital generation are learning differently than teachers teach. I think they were actually looking at brain function and development and finding differences with this generation. I don’t remember exactly, but I know they were finding distinct differences and were concluding that big changes were needed in the way we teach.
Next time please include a link to the research, instead of trying to make a statement without remembering the facts and findings from the professionals.
Khan Academy is a (useful) tool. Nothing more, nothing less.
Well, what your child says MUST be true. Let’s close all schools, sign everyone up for Khan Academy and declare victory over ignorance while saving lots of public money. Or maybe we should wait and see how your child performs on all those standardized tests that are going to show us how much all students know about, understand, and can do. Yeah, on second thought, maybe we should wait to see how great a student your child turns out to be compared to those who learn the old-fashioned way.
Yes. Of course there is good parenting but it seems more in the minority these days. What does the word “challenging” mean to a kid? Entertaining? Hard? If so, then they want the first though not the second. I agree it’s a poll question designed to elicit biased responses. How does each child define challenging? Even if they all answer according to the meaning that we think is the correct one, the students with less ability will be more challenged than those with the highest levels of ability. That is regardless of the teacher and learning environment. Also, those who have active engaged parents with high standards will likely want more challenge than those who parents are not engaged or motivating the child from home. It’s not a valid question. As someone else points out, if they’re not “challenged”, then why aren’t they all passing the tests with flying colors? To me, not being challenged implies that you’ve mastered the material. But if it’s entertainment they mean, then no that doesn’t necessarily translate to high test scores. An invalid question because you have no idea what you’re measuring with it.
This is one of the reasons why we homeschooled our children. The curriculum was not challenging and our children could not progress at the rate that they desired.
Homeschooled students run the gamut from those well-prepared for college to those who are utterly inept at even the most fundamental skills. Plus, their social skills are too often lacking and sometime downright negligible. Homeschooling is not the answer.
depends on the parents, the child, the curriculum, and how the child is socialized. I know three girls, all home schooled (teenagers now) who are very well adapted socially and very intelligent. No, it doesn’t always go that way, but sometimes it does.
I was just waiting to see an assessment of homeschooling/homeschoolers from somebody who doesn’t know anything about it.
How would you know? You’re still waiting.
We homeschooled our son up through eighth grade. He just graduated from a private high school (15 out of 118 in his class). During his time homeschooling, in two different areas, we were involved with home school groups of about thirty kids. The kids and moms all got together on Fridays and did team teaching, labs, field trips, plays, and so on. I’ve personally known about seventy homeschoolers. ALL were very socially adjusted. My son was captain of his track team in high school. The ones who went to public or private high schools had no issues. Most went on to, or are in college. The most common remarks we used to hear from teachers was how polite the homeschoolers are and how disciplined they are. Your comment about the socialization is what tipped me off. Very typical of somebody who has no experience with homeschooling or homeschoolers. Not all socialization is good socialization. So that’s how I’d know, how about you?
Nice reply. I agree fully. My sons had more socialization issues when they were in public school then when they homeschooled. One served three years in the United States Army. One graduated with honors with a culinary arts degree from EMCC. The youngest got a two year degree in computer systems at EMCC with honors and is now in his second year at UMaine studying computer science and mathematics making the Dean’s list.
People who talk about homeschoolers and socialization often have no idea what they are talking about. I was far more concerned with their socialization when they were in school then when I brought them home.
So if someone says anything “negative” about homeschooling, your conclusion is that they don’t know anything about it? That’s typical.
Most often those who make comments are doing so from afar and have little up close experience. Or they know one isolated family and they make the conclusion that all homeschooling families are like that.
Yup, another typical reply. “Most often…blah, blah, blah…” Prove your points or don’t bother commenting.
I don’t need to. Your message here to me makes the point perfectly.
No. Read my reply to scrutz. You don’t know what’s typical and what isn’t. Typical.
You get the same in public school. They are graduating kids that are utterly inept with horrid social skills.
Well, perhaps schools ought to be more concerned about academic skills than athletic skills, social skills, etc.
Yes, the social skills being learned in public education leaves a lot to be desired. We read day in and day out what happens with these children once they leave high school. They don’t know what to do with themselves, can’t find employment and many of them are becoming criminals and drug addicts. Sad state of affairs.
In all of the stories that we read here day in and day out, I have yet to read that these criminals were homeschooled in a state approved program. They are all products of the public education system.
I agree that there are too many these days who are saying that they are “homeschooling” but are doing nothing academic with their children. Those of us in the original homeschool movement have had wonderful results. Colleges are eager to accept homeschooled students, many who have never taken SATs or ACT tests.
As far as social skills, I am much more concerned with the social skills of those children going through our educational system. They are the ones who are lacking. We see evidence of this each and every day right here in the BDN.
Then why are we not meeting national standards if students do not feel challenged? If they were not challenged then our score should be perfect, but we have failing schools and failing kids. The excuse that this does not interest me or its to easy for me to complete this is is nonsense. Good teachers go where their kids lead them….period!
I got a suggestion. How about the state of Maine takes the money they blow on less than effective methadone programs and put that money into gifted and talented programs to ensure kids get the education they need.
I have another idea. Instead of feeding children 10 to 15 extra meals a week that their parents are already being paid to supply, we take that money and hire more teachers.
Another suggestion for Maine schools would be to build any new schools with SNOW in mind. Look around the state at how many school buildings have had to be replaced due to mold from leaking flat roofs or had to be re-designed and peaked roofs be put over existing flat roofs. I wonder how many programs and teaching positions could have been saved for the cost of poorly designed buildings.
How much could be saved if all our public schools text books and teaching supplies could be purchased as a co-op.
Sad how much money our district has had to spend fixing the roof of our elementary school because of the leaks.
As a retired teacher this story is sadly true. When comparing my 4th grade math text (1952) with work required to graduate high school today, I find students woefully behind the lessons I learned. There are many factors which contribute to the problem; the most glaring being the push-back from students and parents about the amount and difficulty of assignments both at school and home. Certainly the State’s efforts to improve achievement scores lowers the bar for excellence.
Oh, and they’ve been out the last several nights at athletic events so don’t overload the academics.
The problems with education in Maine are many but the most prominent problem involves the runaway success of the middle school movement. Launched in the 1980s and growing unfettered ever since, this movement emphasizes student feelings rather than student thinking and considers course content a frill. Until middle schools become places where substance matters more than fluff, then high schools are doomed to play “catch up” with all students except those able enough to try AP courses. And, of course, the state has sliced support for AP courses in Maine schools as of this year, making Bowen just another prevaricating commissioner of education.
Right. It is all that simple for high school teachers to lay the blame on the Middle School. Perhaps if high sch tchrs taught instead of pontificating, kids would learn at that level.
Perhaps cheerleaders and apologists for middle schools should reconsider some of their fantasyland everybody feel good forever agenda. Instead, they attempt to denigrate those who believe schooling should feature substantive academic content. Pretty sad.
There is no excuse for pushing children through elementary and middle school who are considered functionally illiterate. When they enter HS they should be prepared to do HS level work. When they leave HS and are accepted to a college or tech school, they should be prepared to perform at that level. It all starts at the earliest stages of a childs education experience. If they don’ get it in 1st grade and are pushed to 2nd without being ready, it doesn’t help them. In fact it just makes them sink further behind.
For one, I am not in the excuse making business. However, it seems many on here forget what teaching is. Teaching is taking the child where he/she is and moving on from there. If a 5 year old comes to school not knowing the alphabet, having never been read to, etc. he/she is not ready for regular kdg work. The school has to provide an appropriate education for these kids and that is not the usual kdg curriculum. It may include some components but it must also include opportunities to learn what most other 5 year olds have learned. These below level at the start kids will NEVER catch up with the other kids unless they have longer school years. 180 days just won’t suffice.
The same scenario goes for first through high school. All people are not the same and to teach as if they are is a mistake and unprofessional. It is paramount that teachers know where kids are in the skill and learning process and bring them along. You cannot do that by teaching the same page a day to all. You will likely reply, “Keep them back.” I have no problem with the kids not advancing to the next grade as such, but “repeating” what they already were unsuccessful at is not the answer. They have to be taught (hence teaching) what they don’t know so they can progress.
If you send a child to a higher grade and they haven’t mastered the skill sets needed to perform at that higher grade level, either the teacher the parent or both aren’t doing their job.
If a teacher gets a child into their class who hasn’t been prepared to do that class level of work because of the deficiency’s of a pervious teacher, what happens? Are they considered like a lot of datum that went into the computer? Garbage in garbage out? Or could it be like building a car with out the wheels to support the body?
These parts need to be fixed at some point along the production line. If it requires a child spending a 2nd year or remedial classes to bring them up to speed, this needs to be done. The present system obviously isn’t getting the job done.
Maine teacher unions, you gotta love em for the great job they are doing in teaching! Oh, I forgot, they will place the blame on Federal, State, County, City and Town governments, School Boards, School Administrations, Principals, Parents, the students themselves, but you will never, ever see them take responsibility for their own short-comings and ability to teach!!! No, it would be an infrigement upon their tenure and lucrative pension benefits. Maine teachers are a joke!
Unfortunately, to keep funding coming for educational purposes, the test scores need to be up. To increase the test scores, they have to teach the test. This leaves little room for creative learning, as well as challenging the variety of learning levels in each classroom. Don’t blame the teachers, blame the system of standardized testing, which is the real joke here.
My point has been proved by this reply!
Please, noleman1, make your referent clear. Gosh, you really were shortchanged in English class. Better bone up on your grammar.
Educated by Maine teachers, what do you expect!
Do you still like to sit and look out the window?
IF you are teaching standards that are mandated and testing those standards then, yes, teachers are teaching to the test. That is as it should be! No one has said how one must teach – that is the art of teaching. If all you want is “creative learning” whatever that is, you are 30 years behind the door.
Oh, believe me, there are good ways of teaching, and bad ways of teaching.
So why is my daughter going to miss at least 3 of her teachers this year if they are such a joke? Every year there is at least 2 or 3 teachers she really enjoys and learns a lot from but according to you they are nothing but a joke.
I wish my daughter was present because she would type out an earful to prove how much you are wrong.
Why all those capital letters where they are not called for? And why those excessive, frantic exclamation points? Gosh, it appear that someone’s grades in English were inflated.
But no. You appear to argue that such deficient writing must be the fault of the writer’s English teachers; with teachers around to blame there’s no need to assume any personal responsibility for one’s own work.
Where are your facts showing their “shortcomings and INability to teach?” Thereis nothing lucrative in teaching or the “world” of education. You’re obviously angry, and unable to bring to the discussion anything factual or intelligent. (My proof is in your last sentence.)
That doesn’t surprise me.. University isn’t very challenging either.
Depends on your program!
So my daughter will have no problem fulfilling her dream of becoming a pediatric oncologist?
Do you have any facts to support your statement re: the University? What’s your field of study, or degree in ? What’s your GPA? Earn your Doctorate yet?
Wow! How did many of us ever make it through
school? No calculators, no laptops, no ipods,
no cell phones, no internet. We really loved school
that much back then? I doubt it! But one thing was for
sure, homework was done and checked and many parents
took an interest along with teachers.
And some of us parents still do check homework and help out our children when they ask for it. There are also teachers out there that do show great interest in their students. Mr. Burby who teaches in Brewer is one of them and my daughter loved having him as a teacher.
Mr. Burby sings Good Riddance for guitar class …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jns9R1Vgkwo
It think it is crucial to remember that challenging is not memorizing more difficult material- challenging is applying that knowledge in more difficult problem solving and real life situations. American students have fallen behind the rest of the world for many reasons- 2 of which are that more of them are now living in poverty, and the instructional methods in most schools are geared for Jeopardy-like multiple choice or short-answer test, that some company makes tons of money on. Lap-tops and calculators should be tools to help advance critical thinking and problem solving- not crutches for lazy learners. Our schools have to be restructured after this country wakes up to the fact the world has changed, and we have not kept up with it. Technology is a genie that is not going back into the bottle.
My niece tested in the 97 percentile when she was in grade school in Greenville. They put her with other students her age instead of with other students that were at the same level. So, as time went by, instead of being challenged she became bored. By the time she was a senior, she was close to failing in math. I blame the teachers and system! How many others have they let down?
That’s the easiest, and most common thing to do…blame the teachers and system. There are MANY pieces to the puzzle. Look at ALL of them to problem solve instead of just casting blame on one piece.
I bet the author of this story never asked those kids who are bullied IF SCHOOL IS NOT CHALLENGING
After teaching for 40 years it became increasingly clear that the lack of student challenges rose proportionately with the elimination of same ability level courses and the proliferation of political correct classes of mixed level students. With the advent of these classes, teaching toward the mean became the only available stategy to preclude failing grades for large numbers of students. The most egregious damage done was ignoring the needs and challenging aspects of course work for the advanced students. These individuals, in classes of same level students would more readily accept challenges put before them and be able to better advance their educational paths. The social scientists who have usurped the educational process in recent decades declared “tracking” a tool of capitalist exploitation, ignoring the professionals who had been providing successful educational venues for students of all levels for many years. As long as educational boards continue this debacle students of higher caliber academic potential will be denied appropriate challenges and students needing a higher level of support will be artificially denied. Ken
My thoughts exactly. Well said!
Thanks for your input. Ken
I agree that the high ability kids need to spend substantial time daily with other kids of similar ability. They don’t gain by working with lower ability kids often. We have, as a society, under-serviced the GT kids big time.
That is because we prefer to import them…
And for the less academically gifted students, the cuts in wood shop, motor shop, drafting, etc. may be somewhat to blame.
I did not type drafting twice, given my poor typing skills….
An EXCELLENT point, coldbarnocker. We have established an ethnocentristic attitude toward an entire generation of hard working, intelligent, and motivated students who wish to spend their careers outside of higher education classrooms and chase their dreams in a vocational realm. We commend them for their desires and then obligate them to expend their time, energies, and efforts in academic areas that do not prepare them to any extent for their chosen paths. It is an excercise in arrogance and disregard.
All students should be taught math, english, science, and history. But advanced english may not be interesting to someone in region 3 carpentry. The student would be intersted in their math studies, if serious about the carpentry. Science would be more interesting. Perhaps not history. It would be great if all students were eager to learn all the can, but alot are not. So give them a ciriculum that best suits them. There will still be a majority of students that will aspire to be college bound.
Ken makes a great point. And coldbarnocker, I agree 100% but also must add that it’s not just “less academically gifted” students who would benefit by more emphasis on educating for the trades. Lots of really bright people work in the trades. College is not for everyone – no matter how academically gifted. It takes a very intelligent person to be a good carpenter, mechanic, plumber, etc. We are losing a whole generation of bright kids to those professions by making college the only option. It would also allow us to keep standards up at the college level because people who really don’t want to be there aren’t motivated and drag down college classes as well.
Great points, all.
As a GT teacher and a parent of two GT kids, I applaud this statement!
Excellent point.
So true! My kids always complained that the teacher would enlist them to “help” other students. This annoys me because my kids could have been spending that time leaning something new for themselves. As far as the standards based grades, my kids always complained that “you get 1 wrong, you get a 3. You get 16 wrong, you get a 3” I am fortunate enough to have moved my kids to a private high school which has higher standards and expectations for the kids. I truly worry about the majority of kids in public schools. Some come out just fine, but others are just passed and graduate with inadequate everything.
Zephyra,
Your words certainly ring true. How sad that your kids and the multitude of others have to suffer the loss of potential currently existing in the public schools. One of the reasons that I and so many others have been forced from the roles of classroom teachers is the refusal of those in all rungs of administration to consider any ideas other than those within the current, failing system. Two years ago I emphasized to the Assistant Superintendent of the RSU that elementary grade students should not be permitted to access calculators for all their work until they master the most rudimentary of skills, including multiplication tables. I was informed that my idea would be “counterproductive” and would harm self-esteem and “hurt” their educational performance. You would think that the continual presentation of below standard math scores might encourage a new mindset, but you’d be incorrect. The current system has homogenized all within it, and students at both ends of the spectrum are suffering. Mediocracy has become the norm, and given the current structure, the only possible venue to exist. I’m glad that your kids are doing well. Ken
Calculators are not the source of all evil.
As a parent of one of your former students Mr.Fogelman, your class was one of the bright spots in their day. Thanks.
Dear Newly76
Thank YOU for your kind words. I miss the students terribly and the daily challenges of making their school day relevant, interesting, and enjoyable. The draconian atmosphere and continual blaming of students of lesser academic abilities for the failures of misguided policies presented myself and many others in schools across the landscape with no other option than to walk away, rather than causing harm to their students. It is very sad that so many of us, with so much left to provide for their students are forced into this position. As always, the true losers are the students, but with true accountability not existing within the administrative ranks, little will change. Superintendents, principals, and administrative teams simply get recycled into other positions to continue their misguided ways. I hope that your son/daughter is doing well and on a prosperous road. My thoughts and best wishes are with you both. With gratitude, Ken
So true. In grades 1-6 we were split up according to ability level. In 7th grade mixed levels hit and I was so very bored all day. We are all created equal, but we are not all of the same intelligence, strength, or personality. Denying these facts has harmed children in school. In life there are smart, and not so smart people. There are winners and there are losers. Trying to deny these facts may protect our kids feelings, but it hurts them in the long run.
So I would imagine these tens of thousands of students are earning straight ‘A’s and doing ALL of their homework. Otherwise how could they claim they aren’t being challenged enough, right?
HOMEWORK, what homework?
Honestly speaking, I am a teacher and I assign and grade homework.
Teachers do what they can and in most cases do it very well, but when they are forced to keep all students together in a classroom (because the strong students will raise the weaker ones); and not fail any student (it’s bad for the kid’s esteem); and not give kids too difficult work (because they may not like it); scores and reports are bound to suffer.
Take a look at one person’s view of how parents could help out: http://www.pressherald.com/opinion/teachers-cant-help-problem-kids-until-parents-get-involved_2012-07-15.html Not complaining that your kid is being expected to do too much would be a start.
I went to a parochial elementary school back in the 50’s. We had smart kids and some not so smart. Classrooms with 50 students. I can guarentee you that every child that graduated from 8th grade knew how to read, write (legibly), do math (with 2 years of algebra). Those were days when we had homework in every subject, every day. If it was not turned in the next day, our parents were contacted to find out why. They demanded that we work to the best of our ability and we did.
The high schools need to change, first, get rid of algerbra, then three years of courses, freshman, junior, sophomore years. The senior year would be a choice, college courses offered right in the high school, with visiting professors or on-line courses that could be taken at home or at school. OJT in the community for some students actually working like in a auto parts stores etc, military or additional life skillsor a combination. Students today are extremely smart, students today are extremely deprived of lifes skills. General knowledge must be taught somehow, it is not passed along in the genes, we cannot expect kids to know what we know, they must experience it somehow, they need to be able to mail a letter, learn how not to be taken by banks, car salesmen, etc.
Lastly, sports need to be outside of the school, community teams. Lastly we must move from supporting schools with property taxes, we need a one percent sales tax from the towns of a RSU and let the RSU collect from the towns involved to support schools. We have come to the end of rope as far as property taxes rising much more.
Sorry, it will never happen. Every school district in the state has a teachers union and there is nothing that they will not do to protect their own. They come first and students second.
Not true in the least. The association provides legal services in case a teacher has a dismissal hearing. The association also provides services to teachers at negotiation time. If bad teachers are still in a school, it the fault of the administration. The association just makes sure the contract is followed.
Why get rid of algebra? Taking that in 9th grade decades ago took me out of the doldrums and into a successful educational and professional career. It helped me learn how to think. What would you substitute?
The education department does not need to reinvent the wheel. There are many successful competency based math programs out there that allow students to progress at their own rate and not miss any necessary steps along the way. Find the best and implement them. The focus should be on great reading programs that work so that these children in fourth grade know how to read efficiently. If they do not know how to read by fourth grade they are most likely lost as the curriculum gets much harder and they are likely to be left behind. Before we can challenge children we need to make sure they are proficient in reading skills so they can handle more difficult material. All of this currently exists. Let’s find the best programs available and get to work on putting them in place.
Take a look at the parents. Every time the schools try to stiffen, the parents whine and sue.
“Whine” I understand but “sue” I don’t. Give examples from real life to back up your statement.
I should have said “threaten to”
How about when a child asks for help with a subject, the teacher actually helps them rather than saying, “you should know this” in grade school. Nothing has turned my kids off more than teachers who turn them away when they ask for help. They only ask for help if we cannot figure it out at home.
I agree- this is part of bad teaching-and there should be a complaint filed with administration.
I blame No Child Left Behind. EVERY child gets left behind with NCLB.
How, pray tell, is NCLB to blame? NCLB, while not perfect, was the best piece of legislation to come out of the Bush years as President. It focuses on the learning of ALL kids not just the upper crust. True, it set way too high and way too rigid standards for ALL kids. 80-85% of all kids can and should achieve at grade/course work but there are others who for a variety of reasons – IQ, handicaps, squalid living environments, etc. who cannot and will not achieve at grade level come hell or high water.
NCLB is partly to blame because schools were advised to focus their energies (and monies) on kids who were just below the threshold for meeting the Learning Results, and as schools want to avoid the AYP list, that’s what they did.
Still do.
Unfortunately it also focused on test results which leaves little room for creative, challenging classrooms where individuals rather than groups are the focus of the curriculum. There is a huge amount of literature on the use of standardized testing and most of it is not promising. But it is a big business, and it does produce results politicians can use and parents to some extent understand. But it rarely is predictive of future results. Students who ‘test’ poorly can reach high achievement levels in their careers. Just ask Einstein. Well, you can’t actually, of course, but he was a very poor student.
yeah, but “creative, challenging” classrooms also does not guarantee that kids necessarily learn what they should. Kids do need to get used to testing. If I had a dime for every time I hear “but my kid doesn’t test well.”…….then your kid is in for an even harder time once they get to college or god forbid, they have to take a licensing exam for their profession (nursing, etc). I am sure mommy and daddy can talk to the licensing board and convince them that instead of the standard test, it should be more of a discussion or maybe the kid could “draw” the answers.
My daughter is a perfect example to prove you wrong. She is now a licensed masters-level professional in a prestigious hospital and she tested miserably on standardized tests as a child. I never used her standardized test results as a measure of her learning. And, I encouraged her not to. But, you are correct on one point….. she did have to ‘learn’ how to take a test. Once she got into the heads of the test writers and figured out their methodology she did okay. But, she was only able to do that because she had some teachers along the way that taught her to think. Yes, those were the creative challenging classrooms she was lucky to land in. And, if you are an educator and you are not looking at different assessment methodologies to get at what a child has learned then I feel bad for the children in your care.
I disagree completely with the excuse blaming test results for lack of creative or challenging teaching. I am not advocating that test results be the “absolute” in measuring education but certainly if teachers, administrators and parents look at test results they can see if there are issues needing to be raised. The results can be a great place to talk talking about the individual and if the whole school’s results are low they can be a good place to start looking at what is being taught, the preparation of the person doing the teaching, etc.
I agree with you (as one who didn’t do so well on standardized tests) that there are people who can achieve, given motivation and support, even if results aren’t promising, however, to ignore the results is missing the boat for most.
Good points. As long as those using the results understand the limitations of the information provided by the tests and look at the data from a longitudinal perspective there is some validity to trends that appear. But, no, one test on one child does not give an accurate picture of what that child has ‘learned’. Other forms of assessment do that much better.
NCLB = ECLB
I taught before NCLB and I taught after NCLB was enacted. NCLB meant nothing, absolutely nothing. It was something sort of interesting to talk about, kind of like Red Sox vs. Yankees or whether they really had a space alien in Area 51, but once the classroom door closed, NCLB meant nothing. It could just as easily have been called MAAN, Much Ado About Nothing. What mattered were the students with names and faces who were right in front of me.
Actually, this makes sense. In any given class, even with ability grouping to some degree, a third of the students get it easily, a third get it with some effort, and a third just don’t get it. So you choose. Do I abandon the third who don’t get it, or do I try to teach them knowing that when I do the top third who got it the first time around will be bored, bored, bored. And I speak from experience. It has nothing to do with No Child Left Behind. It has everything to do with the individual students who have names and faces.
Scanning through these comments (and I can only take so much), most of them appear to have been made by people who have never tried to teach. Until you have, you have no idea of what it is like. NCLB is absolutely meaningless and has virtually no impact on what takes place in schools. Teachers’ unions have almost no influence on day-to-day classroom learning. They make handy targets for people who are dissatisfied with schools, but they really have very little to do with the way schools operate. It’s like blaming the arrangement of the deck chairs for the sinking of the Titanic.
They say it’s easy but they don’t do the work. The burden always seems to be on the teachers, as it should be, but the students and the parents need to assume responsibility as well and put work into it.
What it boils down to is that we don’t want to stigmatize the dumb kids by labeling them that way so instead we slow the entire classroom down to their pace. Then the average kids get bored and the smart kids start to despise school and even act-out. The teachers then get to deal with – catering to the lowest denominator while trying to keep the apathetic children entertained and the smarter children from burning the place down. Which – of course – is impossible; so they eventually burn out and don’t even do the minimum that is required of them.
The solution? either revamp the entire school system nation-wide, or home-school.
Believe or not, everyone learns differently and at a different rate. Some have learning difficulties or outright dyslexia. Calling them dumb is not the answer but more individualized assistance is. And that does not necessarily mean more home schooling.
It would be incredibly naive to think that the school systems have any where near the resources necessary to cater to every child.
His comment is a bit harsh, but it’s on point. But to suggest we start tracking kids again is like suggesting we bring back prayer in school.
Maybe someone has already posted this, but I’m convinced (and have been saying “I told you so”) that this is the DIRECT result of No Child Left Behind. This country has been on such a kick to mainstream special ed, and not to do “tracking” of students into pathways of aptitude, that we are now teaching to the lowest common denominator. Kids are challenged because you have 20 kids in a room that can only move on when the class as a whole is ready to move on. We can talk about excellence and aptitude on the sports fields and in the gyms all day long, but as soon as we talk about academic excellence in some students, that is “elitist”. It’s time to re-learn that there is NO one sized fits all in learning, and when you try to do just that, you damn more than half the kids into something they hate.
I agree with some of what you say, but trust me, NCLB is not the beginning of our problems. Society is breaking down. The family is breaking down. There is less and less importance being put on education AT HOME. When mommy lets her 3rd grader stay home with her whenever he wants(or in some cases, SHE wants), no amount of what a teacher says is going to convince that kid that education is important.
I do absolutely agree with tracking. One size does not fit all, but hey, let’s just call this class “college prep,” when, in fact, it has been watered down because all kids can take it so that it truly is not college prep any longer. That happens, and why does it happen. Schools are under pressure to increase rigor, but when a kid who does no work and should be in a lower level class can now magically earn an 80 in a “college prep” class, society thinks they are doing the kid a favor. Then everybody is mystified when the kid goes to college (and remember community colleges will pretty much accept everybody who applies) and has to take 3 remedial courses.
This is nothing more than some trash survey from the Penguin administration to promote it’s Charter School agenda. Do people really believe this garbage?
The 5th grader speaks…LOL..
Education Commissioner Stephen Bowen is a Heritage Foundation opportunist. He is bad for Maine kids and should go back to Virginia.
If school is that easy for that many students, then why aren’t they doing better. Granted, boredom can yield poor performance, but how much of the poor performance is due to that?
but how much of the poor performance is due to that?
______________________________________
I would say very little. You have to understand one thing. Nearly all parents (I have encountered) want to believe that their child is “so smart.” Some are, but the vast majority are kids of average intelligence and usually a less than average work ethic. Parents want to believe that their kid does poorly because they are “bored,” or “the teacher doesn’t like him, etc.”
Kids have take home tests/open book tests/they can use tons of notes on them, the teacher practically reviews EVERYTHING that WILL be on the test the day before and some kids still fail……..that goes to society and those kids who will simply do NOTHING in school (and that number is growing every year from what I can see)>
One would have to look at the wording of the survey question(s) and then also look beneath the answers to determine how the question(s) might have been interpreted. Were there intellectual answers or emotional answers here? Kids may be highly challenged objectively, but just don’t think the work is “exciting” enough, or whatever so they are responding emotionally. MANY students and parents in this state and across the country are constantly complaining that classes are too hard, that there is too much homework, etc. etc. Schools and teachers in MANY areas struggle to get kids to do their homework and to get the parents to encourage their students to do the work. Challenging? Most adults would need a refresher course to pass the 8th grade Maine standardized tests, and that is no exaggeration. Alfond and Bowen are absolutely living in la-la land if they think schools with large numbers of students can give each and every student an individualized self-paced program. That is simply INSANE and CAN NOT be done and IS NOT REALISTIC. And it will only encourage the lazy ones who need to be pushed to keep being lazy. Will college be individualized? How about the military? How about law school? How about big-rig truck driver school? NO! This is ridiculous, and I know that this idea is already FLOPPING BIGTIME in many locations just as it did in its various past forms in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. And most school systems certainly offer gifted-and-talented and accelerated, honors, and AP programs. At the secondary level there are vocational and co-op options where kids can work part of the time and go to school part of the time. I’ll bet a high percentage of these kids who say they need to be “challenged” more are not doing the work they are already assigned. And enough of the whining about “This work isn’t relevant enough to my own life,” or “It’s not exciting enough.” What a pathetic rash of WHINING all that is. There are some things you need to know. If you want to be entertained, go to Disneyland. School isn’t supposed to be a 24/7 funhouse, and not all topics and assignments can be “fun” just as the real world is not. There is a lot more to this than what we are seeing in this article.
There are two points I would like to add to your well said comment. First, much of the data that Bowen uses is from fourth grade replies. 9/10 year old kids can be easily swayed by the wording and order of the questions asked and may not be the best ones to determine what is best to learn. Second, all schools are different. Just as all politicians are not like Big Paulie or Bowan, not all schools are built like a Hyatt Regency and all teachers clock watching, pay-checker types. Parents and community members need to be involved at their schools to make things better and to understand what may or may not be going on inside the doors.
Standards-based grades. The problem is that the standards are so low!
I agree. I have seen articles on the news over the past few years about states with end of year tests…don’t pass this test, you don’t go to 4th grade. What happens when 40% of the kids don’t pass……gotta lower the standards.
I think kids should be held back more than they are now. If a kid is not ready for high school, keep them in 8th grade, but that very very very rarely happens.
Schools haven’t challenged students for 20+ years. I was bored with the curriculum and certainly wasn’t challenged long before laptops or smartphones were in the picture. This isn’t anything new or surprising.
Hmm..49.2 MILLION to build just one school in Hampden…Kids playing in the organic garden for 2 months at the middle school in Belfast or building a stick bridge over a ditch..Cramming all the special ed kids into regular classes and hiring ed techs to babysit them..Trying every liberal experiment in education that comes along..Like multi-age classes..Giving drugs to every boy that can’t sit still because they aren’t allowed to burn off energy at recess by playing like we did in school..Giving kids laptops and thinking they aren’t playing and doing things they shouldn’t on them..Nah , can’t be any of that…Try a little experiment..Show up at school just after school lets out and see how many teachers are still there to talk to…Most are out the door faster than the kids…God forbid a kid might want a little extra help or talk to a parent…And yes I speak from experience…
What fun!! Teacher bashing!! Let’s see……teachers teach what and how they are directed by three governments: federal, state , and local. Of course they are also supervised by school administrators. Have I forgotten the parents also telling them how and what to teach else they complain to yet another governing body…the school board? Forget all this! Let’s just continue the teacher bashing. It really shows our intelligence in this forum…
So true. It’s all politics,
I thought these teachers were dedicated, hard working professionals (although thanks to the union we pay them like interchangeable widgets instead of rewarding the good ones and getting rid of the bad ones). Let’s not even think about holding them accountable for the results of their work. Man you can not make this stuff up.
You start holding parents accountable FIRST for the results of their “work,” and then I am with you. Teachers have kids 6 to 7 hours a day (when the kids show up). The “parents” have responsibility over them the rest of the time. Many kids miss 20-30-50 days of school a year. Tell me where the parenting is on that stuff? Work in a school for a month and you would agree….parenting is where education begins. Without expectations set by parents and engagement with their child, it is VERY difficult for teachers to get full potential out of the students.
How about if the teachers start holding the students accountable. They are supposed to be dedicated, hard working professionals. Either they can’t evaluate students to determine if they have learned the material or they are knowingly passing students who haven’t learned the material. The teachers have it in their power to ENSURE that a high school diploma has some meaning, right now it does not. Quit blaming everyone else and do your job.
Maybe this is the problem. Steven is focusing to much on the teachers. Sorry Steven it takes more than teachers to educate a child. Maybe IF the parents were more involved you would have better test scores. And you would see the childs potential. If you all feel schools don’t challenge your child, come on parents do your job. Spend quality time and start working with your child.
C’mon folks, I was in school in the fifties when school was definitely harder, and we had to walk two miles in driven snow to get there, no wussy yellow buses to hand deliver us to school doors and it wasn’t challenging us then. We were still staring out the window from boredom. They could have ridden with jesse james for all the time they stole from me.
I was in school in the 80s, and it certainly was harder. You had to learn the basics and then built on them. Now schools push to “teach” kids stuff in 5th grade that they shouldn’t have to know until 7th (don’t worry because even though they are introduced to it in 5th grade, most of them don’t “learn” it then. That is why they will see it again in 6th grade and 7th grade….but hey, those posters for the “Ancient Mongolian history” project we did look great on the wall. The kids don’t know their multiplication tables or a verb from a noun but boy, mommy and daddy can see the poster their kid (or most likely mommy or daddy) made. Remember, not all kids learn the same way so schools have to integrate “projects” that may take weeks and what is the end result…..a poster with a few pictures and something cut from the internet. We NEED to get back to basics (but then schools get the complaints from parents because “well my kid is an artsy kid and she “needs” to be able to draw for 2 hours a day)……..it happens.
Again, we schools didn’t have parents calling and whining about why their precious little child didn’t make honor roll. Now, schools (I would say especially kindergarten through middle school cave to what parents “expect.” and that expectation is high grades and honor roll. It has very little to do with what the kids actually learn. They just want to see their kid’s name in the honor roll (which means NOTHING any more) in the newspaper.
There are good teachers and bad teachers (just like in ANY profession….there are good cops, bad cops, good lawyers, bad lawyers, etc), but please, as somebody who works in education, I know where the pressure to make things “easier” comes from……..parents because they want to see those good report cards. I would much rather have a lower grade but harder teacher for a child, but I am in the vast minority.
Bear in mind for the past generation or 2, children are taught they are special and unique and mass education is not geared to catering individually to a child. Sometimes kids, school is not fun or challenging. Like life, it has a lot of boring stuff that needs to be done. It’s not the teachers’ fault, it’s not the bad curriculum, but it’s you, you have to knuckle down and learn how to do some boring things and then seek out the challenging and exciting things. When you graduate, the world will not care if you are challenged. The world will care how you challenge yourself.
I have also seen many students who said “they are bored,” which is code for “I do horribly but it is easier for me to say I am bored than it is for me to actually do some work.”…and many parents buy into it (so it is their coping mechanism for why their kid fails everything.
YES, there are some students who are truly bored in school. They could be gifted/talented, are more “hands on,”(and we know schools are getting rid of hands on opportunities more every year….blame the state for that one.
Teachers Unions..
Parenting. You ever wonder how many calls middle schools in Maine get when little Robbie didn’t make honor roll? Schools have bowed to parental pressure (and unfortunately many parents are vastly more concerned with seeing their kid’s name in the paper for honor roll than they are truly interested in HOW much their son or daughter is learning).
It is no harder for a teacher to make material more rigorous. They just need to be backed up by administration when the parents call because their kid “has never had a C before.” I work in education, and GOOD parents would be horrified how often that actually happens.
Yeah, it’s always someone else’s fault, right?
Teachers’ unions have little direct impact on what takes place in the classroom. They have helped raise teachers’ compensation somewhat which should be good. If you want a better class of people doing a job, the American way is to pay more. Teachers’ unions are a handy scapegoat for the difficulty society has in trying to educate its young, but they have very little effect on day-to-day matters. I have been a classroom teacher for many years, and I speak from first hand experience.
The “pay more and you will get better teaching” argument is laughable if it weren’t believed by teachers. They are telling taxpayers they don’t work as hard as they could because we don’t pay them enough, pay them more and the same crop of pathetic teachers will become shining stars. Yeah, right! If that’s true, theynshouldnall be fired for not coming to work planning to do their best.
I am not reading any more comments by people that have obviously spent no time in a classroom. I agree we should be challenging our students. Parents should also be parenting. What I saw in the classroom were good teachers trying to teach. It only takes a couple of kids who have no respect for any authority to disrupt everything. One student I know of was suspended from school, and seen riding his snowmobile during his days off. Some punishment.
I wonder where the kids learn the disrespect too? Some of them go home and hear their parents screeching about unions and lazy teachers, etc.
You ever wonder where the 5 year old hears the F bomb that they drop in Kindergarten? I suspect it is the home. Many parents don’t discipline their child. In the school where I work, cell phones are supposed to be silent. You want to know how many times PARENTS are the ones calling/texting their kids all day in school? Then when the kid gets caught using their cell phone, the “parent” is outraged….yep, teach your children well mom and dad.
didn’t texas just vote to not teach critical thinking skills?
The Texas Republican party included it in their official platform.
And we continue to wonder why our education system is not number 1
Education starts at home with caring parents who are will to spend time with their kids. Unfortunately low paying jobs and the high cost of living today require both parents constantly work sometimes more than one job. The ripple effect of the new American dream leaves little time for the kids and less time for parents to function as family. It’s no wonder everything is upside down and sideways when there is so little time to simply be together vs. rushing around in the few hours left over at the end of the day doing the essentials of maintaining a household only to find out that the bank account is over drawn. WE all want a better quality of life but it is the life style that we’ve chosen that is in direct conflict with the things that should really matter to us, our children.
Those who think technology will solve our social woes are badly mistaken. Better to view technology as only a tool that needs to be understood from the ground up because the slicker it gets the less it will be understood and appear to be more magic than science
I agree with some of what you say, but there are many parents simply not engaged in what their kid is doing (and it has nothing to do with how much…or in countless cases, how little the parents work….or are willing to work).
They have the attitude “I had the kid now the rest of the world needs to do everything else.” It is very sad.
You certainly make a valid point, and we all know parents like that. I disagree on the never home because of work folks, many young professionals are simply absent a large portion of the day due to their work, but the outcome is still lack of engagement.
I don’t think working long hours is limited to low wage parents. As a 2-income professional couple, we both worked long hours, but coordinated them whenever we could so that one of us was with our son in the evening. This meant many nights when we both worked after he went to bed, but no matter how tired we were, one of us always read a couple of bedtime stories to him and we emphasized the importance of education all the time. He graduated cum Laude from a private high school and is headed to a highly ranked private university.
We worked our tails off to provide him with this opportunity because he was our #1 priority as every child should be to every parent.
The problem? Students sent to school NOT “ready to learn”! Our children complain of boredom, as teachers use their time dealing with kids who aren’t ready to learn — even as educational technicians have been fired by the droves! The incessant blaming of teachers; the expectation that teachers should ameliorate OUR societal failures…. Misguided? More like “idiotic”!
Over the past 30 years, we have taken resources away from families, time, income and wealth. The two-income family of today is 40% POORER than the one income family of the early ’70’s! Enter hungry children, latchkey kids with no guidance….
Sure, it’s “business friendly” to take the parent out of the home for ever longer hours, for less money. “Business friendly” to starve the schools, even as they deal with children who are not remotely ready to learn. “Business friendly” to turn schools into institutions of control rather than investment. “Business friendly” to simply blame teachers when costs fall onto society…
Recipe for “unchallenged” students:
Child born to parent(s) still trying to satisfy own needs,
DVD’s, video games, cellphones introduced at early age,
Constant noise and stimulation, limited or no boundaries for calmly absorbing information,
State standards that are moving targets, “Learning Results”, “Parameters of Instruction”, “Common Core”,
Students with moderate to severe behavioral and instructional needs piled into regular classrooms, then “ed.techs” attached 1-1 to lower the chaos factor (try differentiating instruction with a small group while a “behaviorally challenged” student has a meltdown, 5 or more students “off-task” because their constant electronically stimulating world has reduced attention spans to a few seconds/minutes)
I will keep “cooking” in the classroom as I have done for many years, but I need everyone in our society to stop bashing the teachers and do what they can to provide high quality ingredients for successful learners in our schools.
NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) tests for 2011 show that 13% of Maine 4th graders are below basic math proficiency; 42 % are only at a basic level; 38% are proficient and 7% are advanced. With only 7% of 4th graders at an advanced level it would seem that our problem is not work that is “often” or “always” too easy.
A math lab could be a place for students to improve math skill. The problem solving ganes and experimental view for math and science is a good way to excite students. I worked in one and students liked to come in for a half hour.
So, I presume this report tells us that 39% of our 4th grade students are excelling in their math test results. I have not seen test results that are this good.
Republican’s don’t have much credibility on education since it was their uninformed policies that caused the
“teaching to the test” issue.
“Bowen said an example of where schools are facing a serious problem keeping a student interested is when they are talented in a specific area.”
Maine has 53% of its 4th graders at or below a very basic level of math achievement and Bowen is worrying how to challenge the 7% of advanced students. Didn’t we just drain public school funding resources to set up a very expensive science and math residential school for the advanced and talented?
Right now an increasing amount of the educational pie is being taken away from regular education and is going to wealthy districts, private educational corporations, charter schools, gifted programs, magnate schools, special education and on-line education.
Here’s my question: When are we going to stop giving attention, money, time, space and teaching resources to the top 7% of the kids and start investing it in the vast majority of our kids?
I’m pretty sure Bowen’s next pronouncement will be to say we can solve all our educational problems by taking more money away from regular public education and giving it to private, for-profit, on-line educational corporations. Perhaps someone should look into Bowen’s investment portfolio.
That 7% may be the ones running the country some day so investing in them does make some sense…
I talked to a Maine high school graduate last week (Hampden Academy) who had NO CLUE what year the Declaration of Independence was signed. My 8 year old homeschooled child knows more about American history (and likely most other subjects as well) than most Maine public school graduates.
Of course you’d like to think so. Oh, and have you actually tested her knowledge against ” MOST Maine public school graduates”? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
Your sample size is rather small don’t you think? I ask- as former graduate of Hampden Academy with 4 Degrees.
Is she going to miss them by this time next year, 5-10 years from now? If she should run into one of her former teachers 5-10 years from now will the teacher remember who your daughter is?
Nor do posters who don’t check whether they observed the difference between plural and possessive.
And just how many parents have actually won a Law suit againt a school system when the teachers union pay for the school/teachers leagal fee’s and the parent drops the law suit because they don’t have the money for the lawyer.