Revisionaries: PBS documentary on Texas' control of education
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We can keep a few of the good cities.
Even with such a good idea as that, we'd be in No Intelligent Man's Land all alone.
We'll move the city, how'd you like to be an island?
Off the coast of.....
Fortunately in most states the school district, and sometimes the school itself, sets the curriculum, so they can take into account local culture. For instance I recall that moving from Georgia to Michigan as a youth I noticed that we spent a lot less time on the Civil War/Revolutionary War (guess which side called it which?) and focused on certain leaders differently.
It's not necessarily that either side was wrong, but emphasis makes a difference, and the people care about those things.
Further, teachers, once assigned a book, can spend as much or as little time customizing the curriculum for their class, and creating extra assignments to augment or replace portions of the textbooks they feel inadequately teach their subject - as long as their students can pass the state testing, they're fine straying from the line a little distance.
In essence, the state testing probably has more effect on the overall curriculum than the books.
It's not necessarily that either side was wrong, but emphasis makes a difference, and the people care about those things.
Further, teachers, once assigned a book, can spend as much or as little time customizing the curriculum for their class, and creating extra assignments to augment or replace portions of the textbooks they feel inadequately teach their subject - as long as their students can pass the state testing, they're fine straying from the line a little distance.
In essence, the state testing probably has more effect on the overall curriculum than the books.
GasBandit
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Not until we all learn to spell secede, at least.
I agree, the most often heard alternative title that I've run into is "The War of Northern Aggression," or possibly "The War Between the States."
War Between the States is the most common alternative I've heard, but that was from people with actual confederate flags flying from the back of their pickup.
Perhaps I've got it mixed up, but recall that I started school in the early eighties.
Tell that to my department chair.
This is how it used to work. Now it's common to find that the majority of your curriculum is dictated by bureaucrats terrified that any deviation from their directions will lead to lower test scores. And to be clear, that only concerns them because they're worried about funding. Educating students is secondary at best.
Of course, your mileage may vary. Maybe I've just had crap luck with my schools.
North_Ranger
Staff member
Y'know, if ever again GasBandit starts badmouthing the Finnish school system, I think I'll just post clips of this documentary in response.
GasBandit
Staff member
You will never find me sticking up for the american public school system.
And as I always say - there's no bureaucrat like a Texas bureaucrat.
That's because everything's bigger in Texas.
YMMV. State to state, county to county, it's silly to lump Texas wing nuts with counties thousands of miles away with completely different reasons for sucking. Here, it's a tradition to reject school bonds. So while my local schools are some of the best in the state thanks to proximity to WVU, one county over sending your kid to their schools is tantamount to abuse.
And you're proof.
It's not provincialism. Multiple newspapers in the state documented conditions in Preston County schools that were Dickensian at best, rivaling the slums of Calcutta at worst.
Voters still rejected the next school bond.
I honestly was lucky. The one I went to was excellent, and has the awards to show for it. It wasn't until I talked to people outside of my high school that I realized how bad some of the other ones can be.
GasBandit
Staff member
I didn't say they weren't bad, I said the ones you think are good, are also bad.And you're proof.
It's not provincialism. Multiple newspapers in the state documented conditions in Preston County schools that were Dickensian at best, rivaling the slums of Calcutta at worst.
Voters still rejected the next school bond.
Where the parents actually care, schools are great.
Why are the schools surrounding universities good? Not because of the university. It's because the parents in that area are well educated, and demand good education.
GasBandit
Staff member
Only relatively speaking. Americans are that accustomed to substandard primary education. I know DarkAudit was being flippant, and I know it's subjective, but I am actually proof - when I was taken out of private montessouri school, the only thing the public school I moved to could think to do to me was move me ahead one grade in most subjects and two grades ahead in math. And that was a good public school.
Then we moved to El Paso, where the EPISD couldn't give a shit, put me back in my own grade, and I proceeded to coast without cracking a book until college, whereupon because I had forgotten how to study since I hadn't for years and years, I had to take calculus 3 times.
Public school ruins your children. If you hate them, send them to public school.
GasBandit
Staff member
Military family. The other public schools I attended are in affluent suburbs in Maryland, New Mexico and Colorado. They were comparatively better, but none still approached the level of education available from the private school. My folks learned their lesson though, my (much) younger brother went to private school all the way from start to finish. I envy him.
Basically, public education is like public transportation. Some places have crappy buses, some places have nice buses, some places have buses you fear for your life whilst inside. But no matter how nice the bus, none of them ever beat a rental car.
GasBandit
Staff member
Welp, you've already covered West VA, and how much broader a sampling do you want? Will you be unswayed without an example from EVERY SINGLE PUBLIC SCHOOL, as I suspect?Still 47 left.
My experiences with my local school system...
- District decides putting security cameras in our school was a better idea than repairing FIRE DAMAGE.
- Voters decide they'd rather go to split sessions than pay for more schools to be built. Grades go down, petty crime goes through the roof. Still wouldn't pass a bond to pay for the schools, requiring federal aid to build them.
- The only time a bond EVER passed was when the after school sports programs were put on the chopping block.
- Oh yeah... the time they shut down my middle school because a gang war broke out.
Still, the private schools aren't much better. You get a better education but a year doesn't go by that we don't hear about a teacher sleeping with a student or a student athlete is involved with raping someone.
- District decides putting security cameras in our school was a better idea than repairing FIRE DAMAGE.
- Voters decide they'd rather go to split sessions than pay for more schools to be built. Grades go down, petty crime goes through the roof. Still wouldn't pass a bond to pay for the schools, requiring federal aid to build them.
- The only time a bond EVER passed was when the after school sports programs were put on the chopping block.
- Oh yeah... the time they shut down my middle school because a gang war broke out.
Still, the private schools aren't much better. You get a better education but a year doesn't go by that we don't hear about a teacher sleeping with a student or a student athlete is involved with raping someone.
GasBandit
Staff member
Sounds like it's time to just bomb a fault line under that community and watch it sink to the land of the lost, it's past redemption.
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