Al Sharpton, Where Are You?!

[Worriedman]

Check the numbers again my friend.

The 1980's was a low mark, but today's kids take advanced math and science courses at twice the rate of any previous generation.

Heck, the "Greatest Generation" had to include math classes as part of basic training for WWII recruits to find enough soldiers to be artillerymen, navigators, book keepers, etc.

Our drop out rates are way down, our test scores are way up, and our advance courses enrollment is way up. If the incoming generation sucks so bad, why are they passing calculus at rates our country has never seen before?

Heck, this year's high school freshemn MUST have pre-calculus just to graduate. (It's part of the NEW Algebra II curiculim. A class that wasn't even required when you and I graduated.)

Do us (and you) a favor, take your classes and run a simple Civics test. Ask who was the first President of the US, how many Justices make up SCOTUS, who is the Chief Justice, what is the length of term for US Senators and Representatives, the line of succession for the Presidency? Add a few Geography questions, like what oceans bound the US. Just read a report for the same type questionnaire for Oklahoma high schoolers, and less than 50% could answer any of those questions. I would surmise that TN students in our public school system would do no better.

http://www.news9.com/global/story.asp?s=11141949

Sad thing is, 75% could not pass a Citizenship test.

I am not shooting from the hip as a detractor of your Profession, I taught chemistry, physics and upper division math for a few years back in the late 70's till the lack of discipline that was becoming rife forced me back into the construction industry, where I simply faced grown men with hammers and crowbars in their hands, not lawyer protected thugs who can score 30 points in a basketball game, but could not read as seniors, or care less about that lack. My family has been in Education for generations, Grandmother taught in a one room school house in NW TN, my mother was Tennessee Teacher of the year in the '80's, so I have some knowledge of the situation.

The Progressives have systematically affected a "dumbing down" of our children with respect to history, I would hazard a guess that not one of your students would have a clue as to who George Mason was.

Edited September 18, 2009 by Worriedman

[Guest Muttling]

Sad thing is, 75% could not pass a Citizenship test.

You are quite correct and recent testing has proven it. (However, I believe the number is a bit higher than 75%.)

History classes aren't so much getting dumbed down as they're getting shortened which means less curriculum can be covered.

The pressure is to produce scientists and engineers. Under the new standards, our kids spend 14 of the 22 required credits in math, science, and english.

On a side note, I pull a lot of history and science in my math classes (especially WWII and Cold War stuff.) I have frequently been impressed on what my students actually do know of history.

The curriculum isn't designed around the citizenship test and vice versa, much of the curriculum isn't covered by the citizenship test so its poor measure of how much they've really learned. That said, I'm sure we agree that it would be an improvement to put such things back into the curriculum.

The 1970's and 1980's return to Progressivism is LONG gone. Kids are taking calculus and physics at the highest rate in history BY FAR. What's more, the new Tennessee standards will require this year's freshmen to take one math higher than Algebra II (e.g. statistics, advanced algebra, Pre-Calculus, or Calculus) as well as Physics or Chemistry 2.

In no other period in our history has more than 15% of students taken such high order classes. Currently 20% to 30% are taking them, 3 years from now it will be everyone except special ed students. Tell me again how we're dumbing this aspect down in the 2000's. (Not 30+ years ago when you left the profession, but what is happening in education at THIS point in history.)

Unfortunately, your beloved History is going to get back seated even more. Math, Science, and English are going to suck up more than 65% of the hours they need to graduate. Add in the requirements for foreign language classes (which didn't exist in the "good old days" when education wasn't so dumbed down) and there's only 25% of the hours left for all the other items including history.

FINALLY.....Next time you point to a dumbing down, read up on the Basic training requirements for World War II recruits. The enlistees sucked at math so bad that the military couldn't find enough recruits who could be quartermasters, mortar crews, artillery men, navigators, book keepers, etc. As a result, they had to add math classes to basic training and the top brass raised heck about it.

Today's students are no worse academically than we were and are certainly better than the students of the "Greatest Generation." Discipline and work ethic are a completely different story.

Edited September 18, 2009 by Muttling

[Worriedman]

FINALLY.....Next time you point to a dumbing down, read up on the Basic training requirements for World War II recruits. The enlistees sucked at math so bad that the military couldn't find enough recruits who could be quartermasters, mortar crews, artillery men, navigators, book keepers, etc. As a result, they had to add math classes to basic training and the top brass raised heck about it.

Today's students are no worse academically than we were and are certainly better than the students of the "Greatest Generation." Discipline and work ethic are a completely different story.

I believe that the lack of History taught in our schools is by design. If the general public is not aware that we are a nation that was formed via Revolution, the easier it is to control that population. Why promote ideas such as those espoused by Henry, Franklin and Washington?

Calculus is great, but if the general population is unaware that the founders fought a war about tax rates far less than those imposed upon us today as a method of revenue leveling, what good is it? If we have created a country of sheeple that simply acquiesce to the demands of the 500+ that seek to rule, have we moved forward? If they do not understand that 50% of the population pays no taxes, relying on wealth redistribution to keep an electorate that lives to suckle at the tit of the dole satisfied, so that it constantly sends up the give-awayers to the Capital, how long can that Ponzi scheme endure? Trig is a wonderful skill, if you have something to do with it.