pls remove link from LibriVox to Wikipedia (!)

[kri]

They don't care about any of that stuff anymore. These days they teach you how to pass standardized tests. I had to teach the kids critical thinking myself.

Oddly, it worked surpassingly well...

You can't really say things like that, because as much as they try to standardize education, the value of public education depends greatly on the teacher. There are teachers out there that try to encourage critical thinking skills. What many people don't understand about public education is that it greatly relies on the teacher. Forget the politics and the rules and everything else involved. In the end it is the teacher that creates a classroom, and more or less they have quite a bit of control. I just don't understand why very few people see that the key to good public school education is well trained teachers, and well valued teachers.

I've seen this at my food service job. When you train people well, and give them a sense of responsibility for their work, they usually do well. This of course requires a motivated person, but that isn't hard to find.

You could have a school with the worst funding, but if that school has great teachers their students will learn a lot. I'm most certainly not saying that you don't need money to run a school though. Education needs more money, but that's not the most important thing.

[ChipDoc]

All I can say is that you're lucky you live in New Hampshire. I'm not speaking here from ignorance; I was the PTA president of two schools for a total of 13 years and I got to listen to the gripes from the inside. It's true that everyone will gripe no matter what the situation, but here are a few hard cold facts:

Despite a constitutional requirement to reduce class size, not only are our carreer-track teachers among the lowest paid in the nation (up to 42nd in 2003 from 46th in 1998!) but there's a hiring freeze. If you wish to be a teacher, you have to go the substitute route. This is because they can pay substitutes so little that it stretches the budget more - subs are part-time minimum wage folks with no benefits. As you can imagine, we aren't able to attract the best and the brightest candidates. Yet the teaching slots MUST be filled by law. The solution? Hire anyone willing to accept the pay. The requirements are certainly not calculated to cull out a lot of applicants. In many places a masters degree is required, but here all you need is a GED certificate and a record clean of felony convictions involving either drugs or child molestation.

You are absolutely right that there are some wonderful teachers out there who are going well beyond the call of duty in order to nurture young minds. But the overwhelming majority of new teachers stay in the profession less than a year and without that kind of experience, the schools are largely relegated to warehouses where the only folks who actually learn are those who actively seek out the opportunity.

[kri]

I guess my point is that education is hardly standardized. I think that the hyper focus that many people have today on standardizing schools is actually worsening the situation. It doesn't create a standardized education, it just lessens the quality.

I think it's also important to remember that you cannot give any blanket statement about education in the United States, because it would be false. Education varies so greatly in this country.

You know education was also one of the reasons I didn't move to Louisiana to be with my fiance, he moved here. I've heard crappy things about southern schools, including pay. Goodness gracious the corruptness of some of the small small schools in the south is scary. I also want my children to have a good education. The standard of living was also a good reason to have him move here instead.

Although, I am certainly not saying that all southern education is bad.

Despite the problems that I see in the education system, I think we are very lucky in the United States. We HAVE public education. In many cases people don't care about education, or their family doesn't care, or it's not important in their place of society. Education is rarely good for those people. However, where there is a will to learn one may educate themselves despite the quality of education they are given.

And anyways, I don't think important things such as critical thinking should rely on schools. As a parent, you should be the one to teach your children the really important things in life. If critical thinking skills and questioning information is important to you...well you get my drift. While I want to send my children to public school, their education will not stop there.

[pberinstein]

If the parent hasn't learned critical thinking him- or herself, how is he or she going to teach it to the kids? That's a real problem.

[kri]

If the parent hasn't learned critical thinking him- or herself, how is he or she going to teach it to the kids? That's a real problem.

If the parent hasn't learned it the child is not very likely to learn it in public school. I'm not saying this is an absolute, but the chances are very less. I'm certainly not saying that critical thinking shouldn't be a focus, nor am I saying it shouldn't be taught. I am not saying that we shouldn't bother teaching the important stuff in schools either (and I don't mean the facts and figures). I am saying that parents need to play a big role in teaching their children what's important to them.

The way I see it, Chip taught his children critical thinking because he thought it was important. If the schools they attended also were successfully trying to teach them the same values, Chip should still have done exactly as he did. Good or bad education in school, you teach your children what you feel is important. You don't rely on school to do it for you. However, this doesn't mean you should just let the school ignore the important stuff.