How to fix Education...

If you want folks that never get to see their kids - because they are working to support them - to read to their kids we should probably do something about a living wage first.

I thought that the key indicator was how often families ate dinner together. The direct impact was language acquisition but the secondary factors were the corresponding SES, education and books read in a home that allowed for a family to eat together on a regular basis. My experiences from working at a high performing public HS, a low performing middle school and a continuation school is that parental involvement does have a influence in academic success.

We can fix education by spending more money on programs. But the Wacko Right won't support that.

Parents reading to children is a good thing.

Getting the government involved in motivating/enforcing such behavior, not so much.

Actually, reading to your children is unfair:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417997/professor-if-you-read-your-kids-youre-unfairly-disadvantaging-others-katherine-timpf

How can you guys be so statistically illiterate? "Indicators" are correlations not causations. It is definitely not DIRECTLY involved with success in school.

How about an additional question - how can we prevent people from abusing statistics and confusing correlation with coincidence and causation?

Westcoast wrote: parental involvement does have a influence in academic success.

ding, ding, ding

However, often more affluent schools push the onus of teaching onto the parent by assigning mounds of homework that the child can't possibly finish on his/her own. Not infrequently, the homework covers "advanced" material that the teachers haven't even touched on in class thus requiring the parent to essentially teach the material themselves. While it's easier on the teacher, because the kids come into the classroom with some basic knowledge, it's an unrealistic, unfair and lazy practice.

statsy wrote:

How can you guys be so statistically illiterate? "Indicators" are correlations not causations. It is definitely not DIRECTLY involved with success in school.

How about an additional question - how can we prevent people from abusing statistics and confusing correlation with coincidence and causation?

Actually, you are wrong, Mark Twain.

It has been demonstrated that reading to children at a young age stimulates myelination in the brain. It is a DIRECT cause (not sure why we are putting that word in all caps, but I will play your silly little game).

Google is your friend. Maybe your last one.

Q: How to fix Education...

A:

1) free market

2)????

3) better education system

thejeff wrote:

Actually, you are wrong, Mark Twain.

It has been demonstrated that reading to children at a young age stimulates myelination in the brain. It is a DIRECT cause (not sure why we are putting that word in all caps, but I will play your silly little game).

Google is your friend. Maybe your last one.

My name is not Mark Twain nor am I wrong nor am I playing a "silly little game".

The word is put in all caps because it is the word of focus in that phrase. Do you not understand how people use caps and italics?

The OP said nothing about myelination. He was talking about INDICATORS (caps again, can you handle it this time?) being direct causes. Furthermore, stimulating myelination does not mean someone is going to do well in school. So it is indeed not a DIRECT cause of success in school.

You too appear to be statistically illiterate. Maybe lacking in logic, science, and reading comprehension as well.

Mark Twain is a nickname for you, since you both seem to be averse to statistics. I assumed you were learned enough to catch on to that. What was I thinking.

BTW, I AM the OP, genius. I know exactly what I said, lol

Was the education system broken at some point? When did this occur?

More students than ever are attending college. Students are doing more, achieving more and quite frankly smarter.

thejeff wrote:

Mark Twain is a nickname for you, since you both seem to be averse to statistics. I assumed you were learned enough to catch on to that. What was I thinking.

BTW, I AM the OP, genius. I know exactly what I said, lol

You show your ignorance everytime you post.

I get your nickname, but it is not my name.

I do not seem to be averse to statistics. What I posted clearly shows that I was pointing out how you are misusing statistics.

I know you are the op. OP doesn't just stand for original poster "genius". You clearly don't know what you said if you're claiming that you said anything about myelination.

Instead of responding to my points, you only attempted to attack me. Every error of yours that I pointed out still stands. Indicators as you call them are correlations not direct influences nor are they causative.

The Donger wrote:

Was the education system broken at some point? When did this occur?

More students than ever are attending college. Students are doing more, achieving more and quite frankly smarter.

If it's not broke, fix it til it is.

The modern education system, both in America and throughout the Western world, is a laughingstock peice of garbage. The purpose of education is not to raise test scores or get kids into college. It's to prepare people for LIFE. And modem education does pretty much exactly the opposite of that,

statsy wrote:

How can you guys be so statistically illiterate? "Indicators" are correlations not causations. It is definitely not DIRECTLY involved with success in school.

How about an additional question - how can we prevent people from abusing statistics and confusing correlation with coincidence and causation?

How can so many of you be so clueless as to continually trot out the tired "correlation is not causation" mantra as if this is the definitive last word on the topic?

Is education in the US really broken?? Every other "high achieving" country only tests their elite students. Poor? Special needs? Not dealing with you. Plus, why would so many foreign students come to the US for college if our system was so bad? We have the best organized and developed university program in the world.

So, I guess to answer the original question... If we neglect the bottom third and focus on the remaining, we would see drastic improvements.

Wowwwdude wrote:

Is education in the US really broken?? Every other "high achieving" country only tests their elite students. Poor? Special needs? Not dealing with you. Plus, why would so many foreign students come to the US for college if our system was so bad? We have the best organized and developed university program in the world.

So, I guess to answer the original question... If we neglect the bottom third and focus on the remaining, we would see drastic improvements.

Ha! That is one way to think about it :-)

But, you know, you may be on to something... I wonder if we track students at the right time? Where I live, VoTech is all but eliminated... The world is gonna need plumbers and mechanics for the foreseeable future... I would love to see a move in that direction...

Not every person should (or needs to) go to college... divide folks up into College Prep and VoTech tracks... kids wouldn't need to sell drugs if they were gonna make $35k outta high school (while other kids go into debt paying for college, lol)

Thoughts?

Ummm... Man wrote:

statsy wrote:

How can you guys be so statistically illiterate? "Indicators" are correlations not causations. It is definitely not DIRECTLY involved with success in school.

How about an additional question - how can we prevent people from abusing statistics and confusing correlation with coincidence and causation?

How can so many of you be so clueless as to continually trot out the tired "correlation is not causation" mantra as if this is the definitive last word on the topic?

There is nothing clueless about pointing out that correlation and causation are not the same thing. It is indeed the last word on the topic because it is a fact. Correlation is not the same as causation. How can you possibly disagree with that?