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Educational standards.

AfaintcoldcupofTea..

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Sep 21, 2003
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Is Education now segregating those that can, from those that can't? While concentrating mainly on those that can, and letting those that can't, muddle through with little to no support in order to fulfil set quotas.

Has it now become a priority for all parents to ensure, that their children by the time they start school should be able to fully read, write and do mathematics, so avoiding the above?
 
I don't think so, at least not as radical as it seems to me you are making it out to be.
 
Not sure how things are where you live, but if you're talking about public schools, I'd say it's exactly the opposite here in California. The curriculum is aimed at the middle, and any special attention given is to the ones that have trouble keeping up. If the exceptionally bright student is going to find enough to keep his mind busy, he's going to find it somewhere else.
 
The question almost seems too broad and generic to answer intelligently.

I beliee that my answer is probably NO.

There has been a huge push with special education over the last 5 years or so. I can't say it's being done overly well, or that we are where we need to be, but the schools have taken the first steps.
Special education children are (for the most part) no longer stuck out back in a portable, never to participate in general classes.
The curriculum is no longer "dumbed down" to the same extent we saw in years past. S.E. student are now included in standardized testing, etc.

We are working within a flawed system, and there's still a long row to hoe, but a struggling child is more likely to get the help they need than they were 10 years ago.

Whomp!
 
Dymanic said:
Not sure how things are where you live, but if you're talking about public schools, I'd say it's exactly the opposite here in California. The curriculum is aimed at the middle, and any special attention given is to the ones that have trouble keeping up. If the exceptionally bright student is going to find enough to keep his mind busy, he's going to find it somewhere else.
Click to expand...

Ha! I'll say. I moved to Orange County in the middle of my 5th grade year from what at the time was one of the top 5 public schools in the country. It was a total shock to learn the things in that 5th grade that I had learned years earlier in my prior school. What's more, the honors program was still lacking. It wasn't really any more advanced than the rest of the grade. My parents made a point of putting me in the best elementary school they could find in Los Angeles and my disgust thereafter with the public school system has continued undiluted by news of the school systems.

But, more to the point of the topic, I'm of the opinion that it's more dependent on the parents actions than the schools. Parents with high expectations for the children tend to opt for schools with better standards, teachers, etc, thus maintaining a certain level in that school which makes the "average" level higher than other schools that aren't particularly attractive to parents. The fact that the "smart kids" get grouped together just results in those schools having higher averages due to the students' abilities and this in turn results in higher standards even for the not-so-intelligent kids. It's a very remarkable feature of the human mind that it will acclimate to whatever intellectual environment it is placed in. In that way, even children that wouldn't normally be characterized as "bright" could be educated in a school with higher standards and then, in comparison with those that are smarter, but from schools with lower standards, he'd appear to be the more intelligent one. All I'm saying is that you can't make generalizations about schools and intelligence in a system that pretends all minds are born equal.
 
I have two daughters with 2 different learning styles. Kitten needed more challenging work than she was getting in public school. In Wisconsin they had her and other gifted children stay after school for more intense study. When we moved she lost that and wasn't bored because I put her in a Montessori school that let her work as hard as she wished. They created an course of study for her, as in Montessori classroom children work at their own speed, but always are challenged.

My younger daughter is VERY learning disabled. Because of advances in the treatment of learning disabilities I think all children have an easier time these days. I decided to educate her at the Montessori school because of small class sizes and the control over teasing that happens at a private school. Hey, if your kid is teased, the parents don't write the tuition check. It's amazing how it can be controlled when you have to control it. I also pay for private tutors for her disability because the public school is looking at how little tutoring they can get away with. My feeling is how much does she need to be successful in life? The money issue isn't important, but then I don't have to answer to taxpayers.

I remember when I was in school the teacher actually tying the left hand of a left handed child to his chair so he wouldn't use it. Being a leftie was considered BAD. So, I think things have way improved.
 
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