"The Stupids"

Posted by: Ken_Sayers Posted date: February 08, 2011 In: Daily Journal (Opinion) | comment : 9

We have a new epidemic in this country and it’s not obesity. This country is experiencing an epidemic of “Stupids.” Apart from the fact that our new generation of congressional representation does not have a clue as to how government and the economy work, we have another really big problem, education.

“The new statistics, part of a push to realign state standards with college performance, show that only 23 percent of students in New York City graduated ready for college or careers in 2009, not counting special-education students. That is well under half the current graduation rate of 64 percent, a number often promoted by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg as evidence that his education policies are working.

But New York City is still doing better than the state’s other large urban districts. In Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers, less than 17 percent of students met the proposed standards, including just 5 percent in Rochester.”

I have to admit that I have no idea how many kids dropped out of school when I was a student (1948-1960). However, I had many friends across the socioeconomic ladder (greasers and preppies) and I do not remember ANY of them dropping out. What’s more, everyone could read, write, and do basic math skills when they graduated. I heard, the other day, that Richard Dreyfus was making it his goal to put “civics” back into the high school curriculum. The first question that came to my mind was, “When was it removed?”

I cannot even begin to imagine how a person can get through elementary school (K-6) and not be able to read, write, and do basic math. After five years of practice how can you not? I took English composition as a freshman in college, albeit in summer school (I couldn’t wait until Fall). We had to write eight papers, at least one a week, and a term paper, complete with footnotes, note cards, and bibliography of original sources. We could not graduate unless we passed that course and we could not pass that course until we could articulate an intelligent idea on paper. I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and went on to get an MA.

When I went back to college, just twenty-four years later, to get Bachelor of Science, not only did I have to show that I passed English Composition to get back into college, I had to take a Writing Proficiency Exam, WPE, before I could get out. I had to demonstrate that I could, in fact, organize my thoughts on a subject and present them in an articulate, written essay. EIGHTY PERCENT of the graduating seniors had to take the WPE several times before they could pass. The preparation I received, nearly a quarter of a century earlier, allowed me to pass the exam, with flying colors, the first time. Something happened to education during my twenty-four year absence and all I know is that we cannot blame it all on the teachers. Life in the “home” has changed dramatically with unemployment and foreclosures.

I do have one small clue. I have a sibling, nine years my junior, and there was a major attitudinal shift between his and my generation. He had a pretty good IQ, right up by mine, I would guess. We were raised with nearly the same values, but something major happened. He cut classes in high school. I asked him why and he told me that he didn’t like the teacher. I, too, had teachers I did not like. I thought Mr. Jenkins, in the seventh grade English, was tedious because we had to diagram sentences ad nauseum. I did not like my U.S. History instructor because he was more interested in whatever sport he coached than the subject he was supposed to teach and it showed. However, I learned history in spite of him, because that was my job. It never occurred to me that I could skip his class.

I believe this attitude may be prevalent in the parents of today’s students, not to mention the students, themselves. One thing I do not understand about the current college prep curriculum is this:

“One idea is to simply report a college-ready graduation rate as an aspirational standard and leave it at that. Another is to impose tougher graduation standards — like requiring that all students in the state take four years of math and science, or permanently raising the passing score on high school Regents exams to 75 in English and 80 in math.”

Since when did a kid, who was bound for college, NOT have to take science and math every year (s)he is in high school? I took biology, chemistry, and physics. I took algebra, plane and solid geometry, and trigonometry. And, I took German. I opted out of calculus. We had English and some kind of history and geography course every year. When did that change, and more importantly, why?

There is talk about getting rid of teachers when students do not place well on tests. Maybe, but a teacher only has a kid in class for roughly five hours per week . How well that kid does might depend, I would think to a large part, on what happens in that kid’s life during the other one hundred sixty-eight hours in the week.

Regardless, if we do not correct this problem with education now, today, we can forget about competing in the world tomorrow. Our students are not the only people suffering from the “Stupids.” It appears that the disease is rampant among the GOP. How do I know that? It is simple. They want to cut Federal Aid to Education. They do not want to cut Defense. All I know is that if they do not fund education, there will be nothing but the GOP to defend. But then, maybe that’s their plan. Meanwhile, the “Stupids” are eating away at the fabric of this country.

‹ Previous Next ›

About The Author

Ken_Sayers

Number of Entries : 222

http://modeducation.blogspot.com/ Michael Dunn

We do have an epidemic of stupidity, but not for the reasons mentioned in this hit piece, which is really just an aping of the generic right wing rants against public education.

Our society as a whole is fairly mysologistic (hateful and/or fearful of knowledge). Consider how popular Sarah Palin and W’s rants against intellectuals have been. This tendency, while it has always existed in American culture, has been exacerbated and exploited by religious fundamentalists and especially corporations. Big tobacco was famous for saying “our product is doubt” in connection to their well-financed and successful campaigns to create doubt about the addictiveness of tobacco or the dangers of second hand smoke. Carbon emitters, especially Big Coal and Big Petroleum have been so successful with this strategy that only around 50% of Americans even care about climate change.

With respect to school, I think you need to do some research and not rely on your personal experiences. While everyone you know may very well have graduated reading and writing at grade level, some may have just been very good at “pulling it off” as so many functionally illiterate folks are. But even if you are accurate about your friends and family, there have always been high drop out rates and plenty of kids graduating without being able to read or do math at grade level. This is not a new problem and may in fact be no worse today than it was in the 1950s.

Also, the single most significant influence on student achievement is not the school or the teacher, but the socioeconomic background of the student. Even conservative, anti-union ed researchers like Eric Hanushek say that schools/teachers only account for 15-20% of student achievement and outside-of-school factors account for the rest. (For detailed explanation, please visit my blog, Modern School).

It’s not the schools that are failing, but our entire society for allowing such glaring wealth inequity to grow and fester. This is the one variable that HAS changed since the 1950s, 60s and 70s.

http://myspace.com/4merlyknownasken Ken_Sayers

LMAO I have been accused of a lot of things, but never a generic right wing. I had a lot of friends across the entire socio economic ladder. When I attended, the Flint City School System was one of the best in the country. We learned. And, I agree with you that our entire society is failing. But cutting aid to education instead of two wars is not the direction we should be going.

http://notforlack.wordpress.com Desiree Hooper

“Also, the single most significant influence on student achievement is not the school or the teacher, but the socioeconomic background of the student.”

This is an excrutiatingly artificial distinction as it obviously begs the question of WHY socioeconomic status is such an important factor. While it is true that students in lower-classes tend to experience less pressure to acquire advanced degrees, more obligations outside of school which conflict with their studies, and a litany of other intervening factors – relative economic status also plays a substantial role in the quality of school which students attend. Attempting to reduce this to a pure class-issue distracts from the discussion of why class has such a profound affect on an individual’s life. Moreover, it’s a needless qualification – the fact that class is the preeminent factor is not mutually exclusive with a role played by decreasing education quality overall.
http://modeducation.blogspot.com/ Michael Dunn

Not artificial, nor excruciating to anyone except those invested in maintaining their class privileges at the expense of others. Schools appear to be failing because of high levels of failing students. There is not necessary any causal relationship. It is a correlation. And if it is true that the majority of academic achievement is attributable to class, then we should not be wasting precious resources and threatening teachers with punishment in order to force them to solve a problem that is societal.

There is also a correlation between class and academic achievement. However, there are very clear explanations for why higher wealth corresponds with higher academic achievement. First, poor kids are much more likely to be born premature or with low birth weight, have malnutrition, iron deficiency anemia, lead poisoning and exposure to toxins, including cigarette smoke, all of which contribute to cognitive and developmental delays and impairment. Next, middle class families read more to their kids and use far more complex language, resulting in an enormous vocabulary and pre-literacy gap by the time kids are three years old (See studies by Lee and Burkham and by Hart and Risley http://modeducation.blogspot.com/2010/10/8-delusions-about-education.html. Lastly, all the privileges of wealth, like extracurricular activities, summer camp, vacation, sports, eating regular meals together, etc., continue through a child’s school career, increasing the academic achievement gap.
http://www.lossofprivacy.com Irene North

…I cannot even begin to imagine how a person can get through elementary school (K-6) and not be able to read, write, and do basic math. …

I can assure it can and does happen. I work at a junior high and see it on a daily basis. I work in the special education department, but some of these kids (about 1/3 of the 7th graders) are so low that I’ve been pulled from working with my smarter special ed kids to work with 20 kids who have no clue what whole numbers are, how to round, how to work out CGF or LCM, etc etc.

The problem is that the elementary schools pass them on regardless of whether they can actually do the work. Then we get them at the junior high and they have so many deficiencies that it affects other subject areas. How can they do well in woodshop when they can’t add or subtract fractions with different denominators? Science involves some math. English, Social Studies, and Science require deductive reasoning and critical thinking, skills which these kids are lacking.

I am totally against merit pay as you will just end up with an even simpler education system than you have now. I see teachers every day bang their heads against a wall because students just refuse to do the work. The way our system is designed, there is little to no homework at the elementary level. In junior high, there is homework every night, often in every class. Students simply refuse to do it and still expect to pass. One of the teachers I work with has resorted to giving the kids 30 minutes of the 55 minute class period to complete the homework yet we still get 1/3 to 1/2 of the kids who refuse to do it even then. If I were a teacher I’d be fighting merit pay.

As Michael Dunn said in a previous comment, “Our society as a whole is fairly mysologistic (hateful and/or fearful of knowledge).” This is true in the district I work in. You are called numerous names for being smart. The kids freak out when I tell them I don’t watch TV because I’d rather be reading (books or news). They ask me why I do it because I’m not in school. That’s their thinking. You only learn in school. Once school is over, you stop learning.

Lastly, you have to add in the fact that my district is a relatively poor one. I know who the kids with meth-head parents are. I know the kids who don’t get enough food. Everyone at the school knows of the outside problems these kids have to deal with on a daily basis. Sure, there are kids that are doing well, but there are so many with outside influences that it’s difficult to counter it with the little time you have in school with them.

There are days that I want to bang my head on a desk, but there are days where you see things just click with a kid and they finally start to understand math that make it worth it.
jan

“When I went back to college, just twenty-four years later, to get Bachelor of Science. ” An incomplete sentence… Ending bashing GOP (which I am not) undermined your argument: The New York school systems you mention are not largely GOP leaning. I wish you had made your argument without reverting to political blame. We all share the blame. Blame won’t fix the problem; Only working together will.

http://myspace.com/4merlyknownasken Ken_Sayers

Thanks, sloppy editing/proofreading. Yes, there is enough blame to go around, but here in Florida (and in NJ) it is the GOP that is cutting education hard, rather than raising taxes in places where it is affordable. You want to work with the GOP? Good luck

http://facebook Donald Jaster

I was a poor Minnesota farm kid in the 40′s-50s’s. I figured out the way off the farm was education, so poverty can be an impetus to study.
Not counting 1961, the year i exited the army, I had some form of formal schooling up to the year 2000. Mostly job related.
I went to school with my 8th grade daughter , back then, and figured out that a full one third of the class time was spent on dicipline. We need tougher rules and ability to expell those that disrupt the class.
Maybe kids should get a break from schooling, about age 13,mkake them work at some real drudge job, dig ditches, clean and maintain parks, etc.
Teach them that ‘school’ is you job right now, before you go out and get a real job. Farm kids already work hard enough to know smarter is better.
Make nerds the heros, not the jocks..
http://www.peacemoon.org Buck Moon

This posting evolved out of an earlier research paper that I wrote for a Psychology class in junior college, studying the relationships among self-handicapping behavior, self-esteem, and neuroticism. Most of the studies cited in that paper involved students. The study I wrote about then, more specifically involved college students who were taking Psych 1B. It is possible that a confounding variable could be the subject’s knowledge of psychology.
Briones, Tabernero, & Arenas (2007) studied the effects of disposition and self-regulation on self-defeating behavior, and Luszczynska, Scholz, & Schwarzer (2005) studied General Self-efficacy (as opposed to specific or situational self-efficacy) and applied it multiculturally, thus broadening the scope of research beyond application to middle-class white students who may already have too much self-esteem. These studies could have real world application if we could design educational programs for inner-city at-risk youth that would replace self-handicapping with self-efficacy as a correlative attribute to self-esteem.
Free will. I have long been a critic of behaviorists who believe that the results of their studies demonstrate the lack of free will in human beings. It has always seemed to me that the key to free will is education, and the more the behaviorists can teach us about ourselves; (stimulus, response, conditioning, etc).the more free will we can achieve for ourselves by controlling our environments, i.e. consciously and deliberately designing environments for optimal freedom of choice rather than minimal. In the political/economic arena this is called social engineering, with the Left and the Right jousting for control. I see it as a battlefield in the struggle for World Peace (or an antibattlefield in the Great Antiwar) and the results of this study could point the way toward other studies.
Education. Assuming that the subject variable of our junior college psychology students had influenced the results of their self-report tests, my hypothesis is that teaching inner-city, at-risk high school students a short, basic version of Psych 1A could be an independent variable influencing the dependent variables of their subsequent self-report tests, as well as the variables of job placement and junior college transfer. To test this hypothesis, I could write a short textbook covering some of the material in college level Psych 1A, but with minimal math, simple science, and few technical words. In other words, a book of bare basics that explained, in the simplest, grade school-level terms, the benefits of learning psych 1A and its relationship to self-esteem, self-efficacy, and self-handicapping, as well as the benefits of a continuing education at the junior college level.. The introduction chapter would be a short lesson on taking notes in class, reading reference books, and forming outside-the-classroom study groups, with emphasis on students teaching themselves how to learn. A text like this could be printed very cheaply and distributed, for free, to an inner-city high school for at-risk youth, and would be an independent variable in our study. The students could be given the self-handicapping and self-esteem tests at the beginning of the school year, and then again at the end of the school year, and the results could be compared in a pretest-posttest design, as the dependent variables. Also, using a combination matched pair design, their pretest and posttest results could be compared to those of an equivalent inner-city school that did not get the textbook variable.
Ethics. I have read previous studies in which one group of students was given some kind of beneficial program and then tested and compared to another group that did not get the program. I always felt sorry for the students who did not get the program. What if, later in life, they found out about the program and wondered “why not us?” (This is why I am a philosopher, and not a very scientific psychologist.) I would rather just give away the free textbooks to everybody and then let the subsequent socio/economic results (lower crime, higher employment) speak for themselves. But I do understand and appreciate the finer points of scientific method. Technically, denying the program to one group is not as bad a study method as giving them a deliberately bad program and then comparing them to a group that had a good program. The latter method would be obviously unethical. The former would not, technically, be unethical because without the study, none of the groups would get the program anyway, just like in real life. To ease my own misgivings about ethics though, I propose a study comparing the socio/economic effects of different curriculum programs.
A two-curriculum study. Besides the basic textbook on psychology, I could also write, (and print cheaply) a book on basic logic and critical thinking. One inner-city high school could get one book, and another school could get the other one. (Maybe a third school could get both.) The self-report tests could be administered to the students but, and more to the point, official records and statistics could be tracked concerning job placement and junior college transfer rates for all the at-risk schools in the city and then compared to those of the school that used the program. A longitudinal study would also track the crime rates of the neighborhoods around the schools, although confounding socio/economic variables could weaken the results if the crime rate did not go down. However, if the crime rate did go down compared to other neighborhoods with the same confounding variables, the results of our study would be strengthened. By studying and correlating the potentially confounding variables in all subject groups, those variables would become controlled variables.
Benefits and costs. This is a win-no lose situation. By implementing this study, we will have added an educational resource to, not detracted from, the already existing conditions of inner-city at-risk schools. The schools are administered by city governments and school boards who will not look favorably on programs that cost money or overwork teachers. This program will not cost them anything if we get a grant to print the books, and our volunteer researchers do the work.
Simplicity of design. My proposal may seem complicated but it is not. It is clearly divided up into modules, and several small groups of social psychologists (junior college psychology students?) could correlate their results and then share them later with the other groups for meta-analysis. All we would need is a small grant to pay for the printing of the books, and volunteers to conduct the studies.
Variations on the study. Any complex study can be simplified by division into modules, with only a few people needed to work on each module. My proposal starts out with a pretest-postest study within one high school. A next-higher level module is the combination matched-pair study comparing the pretest-posttest results of a school that had the textbook (independent variable level 1) and a school, or schools, that did not have the text book (independent variable level 0). Another level module could have researchers tracking the job placement and junior college transfer rates for all the schools in the city and another team of researchers could be recording the job placement and junior college transfer rates of other major cities nationally. Another team of researchers would be studying the correlations of confounding variables, like local economic conditions, job opportunities, housing costs, crime, alternative educational resources, youth recreational activities, etc.
Multiple variables and multiple levels. While teams of researchers (from other junior colleges) are tracking the job placement and junior college transfer rates of other schools, more variations on the study can be conducted. In once city, for instance, we could introduce more levels to the independent variables. Level 1, textbooks in class with instructor, level 2, textbooks merely given to the students to do with as they please, Level 0, no textbooks. I could also write a third textbook, on basic economics, as a third independent variable with the same levels. A fourth independent variable would be a basic book on political science and political philosophy. A fifth could be about ecology with basic biology and basic chemistry. This would also increase the dependent variables that we could be studying: the economic and political changes in the neighborhoods surrounding the schools. None of the modules that I have factored into this program need more than three or four people each, with one computer and internet access for each module. All the module teams would be networking, and correlating their results. Most of the economic statistics are already out there, all one has to do is download them and codify them.
Click here: buck@peacemoon.org to email me with your comments about this proposal.
References cited
Briones, E., Tabernero, C., & Arenas, A. (2007). Effects of disposition and self-
regulation on self-defeating behavior.(Author abstract)(Report). The Journal of Social
Psychology, 147, 6. p.657(23).
Luszczynska, A., Scholz, U., & Schwarzer, R. (2005). The General Self-Efficacy
Scale: multicultural validation studies. The Journal of
Psychology, 139, 5. p.439(19).