Fixing America's Educational System:

It's Clear That Government Alone Cannot Correct All the Problems
By Craig Barrett

Now that the latest election cycle is over, it’s time we turn our attention to solving one of the nation’s
most important and vexing problems: education. Nothing is more critical to America’s future. Our
economic power is determined by many factors, but education is arguably the most important.

At the same time, our economy is becoming increasingly knowledge-based, creating new jobs based
on the raw material of ideas and technical innovation. According to the National Association of
Manufacturers, by 2010 there will be an estimated 5.3 million high-skill jobs available to qualified
workers and 14 million more 10 years later.

Who will take these jobs and will they all be located in the United States? The prospects aren’t
promising. Not when millions of American students are graduating from high school without basic
reading, writing and math skills. Nor when roughly 25 percent of U.S. students drop out of school
without the skills to succeed.

When more than 60 percent of employers rate high school graduates’ skills in basic English and math
as fair or poor and when, according to one study, employer costs for remedial training in one state
have reached $40 million a year, it’s clear our educational system is failing our students and our
country.

But it’s not just our own system of education we have to worry about. Over the past decade, countries
such as India, China, Russia and the nations of Eastern Europe have emerged as a major force in the
world’s economic marketplace. That’s a total of about 3 billion people who didn’t participate in the
world economy 10 years ago. Even if just 10 percent of these people are well-educated (and it’s likely
the percentages are higher), that leaves roughly 300 million well-qualified new competitors for
technology jobs worldwide. This figure is about twice the size of the U.S. work force and represents a
massive shift in the competitive environment for highly skilled jobs.

Other examples of the competition we face from abroad: Several Latin American governments now
provide monthly stipends to poor parents who decide to keep their children in school rather than send
them out to work in factories or on the streets. Roughly 20 million people in Mexico, Honduras and
Nicaragua already participate in such programs. By 2006, 11.4 million families in Brazil (more than
45 million people or a quarter of the population) will take part in this type of program.

Other nations are quickly becoming the world’s leading providers of higher education. College
enrollments may be booming here in the U.S., but China graduates twice as many students with
bachelor’s degrees and six times as many engineering majors as the U.S. India and Singapore are
producing scientists through top-notch undergraduate programs. In 2001, India graduated almost a
million more students from college than the U.S., including 100,000 more in the sciences and 60,000
more in engineering.

As the CEO of a company that sells semiconductors and other high-value products that are used in
computing and communications equipment, I view the addition of more highly educated individuals
into the global economy as positive. Quite simply, it broadens our base of potential end-customers
and creates more worldwide demand for our products. The fact that roughly three-quarters of Intel’s
revenues are generated outside of the U.S. is testament to the global nature of our business.

However, as an American citizen, I find the increasing number of highly skilled workers overseas and
the focus that foreign governments place on education and technology to be a major concern.

If we can’t hire the workers with the training and skills we require, Intel and other companies will
find it necessary to move to those countries where the talent resides. To state Intel’s position as
simply as possible, we must hire the best engineers in the world to stay competitive.

The solutions to improving U.S. education require a great deal of focus and bold leadership—from
both government and business. From the government, recent efforts to boost standards, measure
results and increase accountability are headed in the right direction. The No Child Left Behind
legislation, which in addition to a focus on standards and accountability also requires technology
literacy by the eighth grade, is clearly a good beginning.

However, we must do more to ensure teachers have the training to teach the subjects they’re
presenting. Curricula must reflect an increased focus on science and math to better prepare students
and allow them to compete globally. Immigration rules must be adjusted to allow foreign-born
students educated at U.S. universities to stay in the U.S. to add their talents to our economy. Today,
we force these individuals to leave the country – in effect educating talent for our global competitors.

Business has an important role to play, too. For our part, Intel spends more than $100 million on
programs designed to improve teaching and learning. Over the past several years, we’ve trained more
than 2 million teachers worldwide to use technology in the classroom to improve student learning.
We support programs to spur high-tech research and support student excellence in dozens of U.S.
universities. Intel provides college scholarships to help young people succeed as our next generation
of scientists, mathematicians and engineers. We sponsor several competitions and recognition
programs to provide incentives for academic excellence. Intel also posts tools and online resources
for teachers on the Internet and funds the Intel Computer Clubhouse network, where underserved
youth have access to high-tech resources to help provide job and life skills.

After years of lower test scores and declining performance in our schools, it’s clear that
government alone can’t resolve all the problems our country faces regarding
education. Business must also step up to the challenge.

If America is to compete effectively in the expanding knowledge-based global

economy, it’s imperative that government and business work together to do all
we can to ensure our young people are getting the quality education they
deserve. The country’s economic future depends on it.

-http://www.caltax.org/member/digest/jan2005/1.2005.Barrett-
FixingAmericasEducationalSystem.03.htm
-(c) 2005 California Taxpayers' Association

This concept was developed in 1989. This presentation was first placed on the Internet in
December 1998.
http://mb-soft.com/public/schools.html
C Johnson, Physicist, Physics Degree from Univ of ChicagoEx-Teacher, Thornridge High
School, Dolton, Illinois
First Developed, 1989,
First Published on the Web: Dec 14, 1998
A very straight-forward way is available to quickly and effectively improve
American public schools. It is not expensive, and may even be less expensive than existing
standard efforts. It involves operation of three PHYSICALLY SEPARATE parallel schools in a
District. Attendance at specific schools would not depend on academic ability or knowledge at
all, but on each individual student's social compatibility. Absolutely no discrimination
exists because each student has the personal choice available to attend any of them.

Initially, every new student would have unlimited choice of which school to attend.
As long as a student reasonably followed generally acceptable social rules in
his/her conduct, that choice would remain unlimited. However, if a student exhibits
violent behavior, or regularly behaves disruptively, or regularly and openly flaunts the
established rules of society and school and classroom, that choice would become restricted.
No Principal or teacher would determine or control such a limitation; the student
would. And, even if a student's behavior caused required attendance at a specific school, a
number of ways are always available for him/her to earn enough respect to again have
broader choice.

A central premise here is that there are some students that need to learn very
basic inter-personal skills in order to eventually become part of adult society.
Existing public school systems don't have very effective ways of dealing with such students,
and they tend to represent danger and disruption for an entire educational environment. Once
such students learn adequate behavior skills (and attitudes), such students could become
welcome participants in any classroom. And therefore in any later adult environment. This
essay is meant to offer a possibility in that direction.

As an ex-Teacher, I know that even a single student who has uncontrolled behavior can nearly
totally destroy any Teacher's efforts at Teaching. Such students quickly learn that the Teacher
has no authority to even try to control them, and many find the situation to be a stage on
which to perform to impress other students. When a Classroom has more than one such
student competing for the attention of the other students, it can be essentially uncontrollable,
where the Teacher cannot Teach anything at all and is instead simply attempting to do
something resembling babysitting. No one wins in such environments.

Nearly all potential "solutions" for the terrible situation of the American public
school system seem to be "top-down" concepts. A central bureaucracy decides the rules
and conditions (and money) and then they try to impose that somewhat artificial environment
on masses of students. Won't work! That is proven every day in millions of Classrooms across
America. People, students, are a diverse lot! Rigid structures and rules will always fail. In
addition, the whole concept of education is far more complicated than normally perceived.
Rather than a Teacher jamming thoughts into students' heads, it is crucially important to
enable the many students to first be in a receptive condition for learning to occur.
Rather than any authoritarian, top-down structure, THIS approach is more of a "grass roots"
approach, where each individual student actually usually has most of the control of
what choices are available to him/her. For this reason alone, it seems like a viable
possibility! Some of the students might even come to appreciate that element of choice,
rather than having to entirely live within authoritarian decrees from some distant bureaucrat!
There is an aspect of a sense of respect for the students, rather than a sense of
being in an overwhelming authoritarian environment.

The American public school system faces an assortment of huge obstacles. Many students are
apathetic. Some teachers are unmotivated or incompetent. Some schools include physically
dangerous environments. All school administrators are limited by various discrimination laws
in doing much about any of this. Some of the parents seem to either be too busy to care
about any of this or they simply do not care, seeming to pawn off their kids to Schools as a
sort of Daycare so they can live a separate life for a few hours each day. As a result, many
parents who actually do care have justifiable concerns for the safety and the education of
their children. Many feel that their only valid choices are to either send their kids to incredibly
expensive private schools or to move to a house in a district or town known for adequate
school system performance.

There IS another alternative! The public school system COULD respond appropriately to
the diversity of school children WITHOUT discriminating against anyone! ALL students will
be able to receive the best possible education for that student. The cost to
accomplish this can be very reasonable --- it might even be LESS EXPENSIVE overall than
existing system expenditures! Students would attend one of three physically separate,
different schools, NOT dependent on educational achievement or ability or test results (which
would be potentially discriminatory) but rather, dependent on a number of aspects of
behavior. Students that generally do their homework and attend classes and behave
reasonably would always have the choice to transfer to whichever of the three
Schools that he/she might choose. Often, that might be the CALM School, which would
nearly certainly quickly become a high-motivation school, that could accomplish the most
educating, because there would be very few Classroom disruptions or incidents of violence
there. Even students that had extremely low grades or test scores could attend that school, as
long as their BQ (Behavior Quotient) was satisfactory (see below). Low-achieving students
can often thrive in such a motivating environment, and mixtures of students of
different achievement levels would probably be good for all of the students. Distant
Education Bureaucrats have always talked about the advantages of that environment, without
actually understanding what they were talking about!

The MEDIAN School would greatly resemble what all Schools used to be like. It would likely
become an intermediate-motivation school and would have many "normal behavior" students.
The third school RUDE would be where disruptive or violent or totally unmotivated students
would attend class, and that school WOULD have metal detectors and extremely strict
discipline.

Note that these Name Designations are simply for descriptive purposes here and some
suitable actual School Names would be selected that would not represent any socially
discriminatory reasons for students to try to humiliate each other any more than they
normally do.

Each school year in a student's education would be treated separately, so a student in the
(RUDE) trouble-makers' school who matured and discovered motivation, could begin to
consistently do his/her homework and attend classes and behave in a civil manner, and
he/she would have the opportunity to request a Transfer to attend one of the other two
schools the following year. Such Requests for Transfer could be submitted at any time during
the School year as well. Motivated students, of all educational abilities, would have
the opportunity to attend the CALM school in a motivated, vibrant, safe
educational environment.
(There are no precise ways of describing these three school environments. I have chosen to
use both levels of motivation and descriptors of social compatibility to describe them, but that
would not always be the case. An extremely motivated, extremely intelligent, but extremely
disruptive student could certainly wind up in the RUDE school. Similarly, a well-behaved,
possibly quiet, student with limited ability and minimal motivation could easily spend an
entire education in the CALM, high-motivation school.)
Anyone who has interacted with the Public School system quickly sees the great diversity of
motivations and abilities of students. Up to about thirty years ago, students were "tracked"
into classes with other students with similar education and ability. This situation allowed
teachers to teach at a rate fast enough to not bore the students but slow enough to allow
most to grasp each subject area. Then, the Federal courts felt that minority school children
were being effectively discriminated against by this system. The courts found that such
children were commonly tracked together in the "lower tracks" due to poor performance on
standardized IQ-type tests. When a teacher taught such a class, it was felt that possibly less
effort would be expended in teaching them. Whether or not that was true, the conclusion was
that such tests were biased TOWARD white children and AGAINST minorities who may be less
proficient at taking tests. The net effect of all this was to make "tracking" illegal. All students
were to be distributed equally and randomly to eliminate any "tracking" and school busing
was added to eliminate inter-school differences. These added aspects were intended to
accomplish an additional goal. By putting disadvantaged minority youth into the same classes
with white, motivated, conscientious children, it was hoped that the disadvantaged youth
would become motivated to match their white classmates.
Admirable goals, to be sure. They even sound pretty logical. In some individual cases, those
goals were achieved. However, in general, the ending of the tracking premise has led
to an much inferior modern public educational system. Various specific causes seem to
be involved. Three seem to be particularly significant.
One of the initial premises of the Courts' rulings was that the society and mores of the white
children would predominate and that minority children would learn to fit in to this
(desired) social scheme. That has rarely happened. Commonly, the harsh neighborhood
life of minorities has embedded a socially more active or aggressive attitude in those
students in contrast to the passive nature of many non-angry whites. The result is that
the social scheme which commonly predominates today in many schools and
classrooms has tended to be that of the aggressive, disruptive and confrontational
environment, learned substantially from the minorities. Exactly the opposite of that
which was desired!
When a teacher has a broadly diverse group of students, it becomes frustrating for everyone
involved. In my first year of teaching, I taught around 170 High School Freshman (9th
grade) in General Science classes which included students whose average reading
scores were about 3 (allegedly equivalent to 3rd grade reading ability.) One of those
Classes included several minority kids with reading scores of about 1 (First Grade
reading ability), with the lowest being 0.7 (not even First Grade reading ability) and the
highest of all the 160 Ninth Grade students was a white girl whose reading score was
7.2 (Seventh Grade reading level.) This situation represented a real dilemma for a very
motivated new Teacher! My AVERAGE students could understand about Third Grade
level. I quickly discovered that virtually all of them thought all those little lines at the
end of a ruler were for decoration! I dedicated nearly the first three weeks of classes in
all the Classes, just to try to learn what those marks meant! They NEEDED to know
such basic knowledge for nearly all the rest of what I was supposed to teach them! And
once they became adults, they certainly would eventually have to know what a half an
inch is! Most of the time I tried to aim at the bulk of the kids, around Third Grade level.
Even though I was an enthusiastic, idealistic High School Teacher, I found myself
teaching effectively Third Grade Science to Ninth Grade High School students (with a
Ninth Grade Science book which virtually none of them could read!) This was
frustrating in itself for me, but I was also very aware that my 50 slower students still
 didn't have a clue of what was going on and simultaneously, my (one) "advanced" (7th
Grade level) girl student was continuously bored and not learning anything.
Occasionally, maybe once a month, I taught a class aimed at her level to maintain my
own sanity. Occasionally, I would try to teach at First Grade level to try to motivate the
slower students. In all cases, most of the students were constantly bored. After all, this
was probably the seventh time they were being taught Third Grade science! Absolutely
none would have gained any reason for developing personal motivation or any
inspiration in pursuing science as a career.You might note that I had a valid question
for the Bureaucratic hotshots that think they run the Public Education System! Should
I have focused all my efforts on a Third Grade mentality, in other words,
conceding that one 7.2 to never having anything to learn during the year? But
that STILL left about 50 of the slower students, Second and First Grade readers, where
they would also have been 100% neglected? Or would the brilliant minds that run
these systems instruct me to exclusively teach the First and Second Grade readers,
thereby discarding around 2/3 of my students with not a thing of interest during around
160 hours of class time? THEY have all the answers, right? So, if they had given
me instructions back them when I had this dilemma, what would they have told me to
do?The problem is that they have absolutely no idea, because they have never even
ever confronted the actual real-life situation which exists in virtually every public
school classroom today! If they would have ever understood the situation, then they
would have understood that ANY of their Ivory Tower solutions necessarily discards
massive numbers of students. It is really quite disgusting what they force the American
public educational system to do to so many hundreds of thousands of kids every year.
Destroy enthusiasm. Destroy creativity. Destroy excitement. Destroy intellectual
interest and ability. How could it be no wonder that obscure countries in Africa now
show better student performance than US kids do?
With a wide range of motivation and behavior in a classroom, the potential for learning is
continually a hostage to disruptive behavior of even a single aggressive student. Since
the diversity of students from society is so broad, virtually every modern class has at
least a couple of these disruptive individuals. Under these conditions, "teaching"
quickly evaporates and "baby-sitting" ensues. Neither Teacher nor students want this
(except the one who is trying to get attention.) One of my Classes had about 8 such
individuals (mostly white, by the way) out of 35 students. It was a year-long nightmare,
and immensely frustrating. I sometimes wondered if I should be getting paid as a
Teacher because so little actual teaching/learning was ever able to happen! That
experience also contributed to my deciding to leave teaching. How could anyone have
believed that my time or any teacher's time is worth so little to simply be a day-care or
babysitter? Just weeks earlier, I had had unlimited enthusiasm regarding all the minds
that I would be able to mold. Except for Contractual obligations, three weeks would
have been sufficient for me! But I had made some promises that involved a total of
four years being necessary, and it was a grim future to look forward to.
.

New Approach

The premise being offered here is an alternate solution, which does not involve the
environment described above but still complies with all Laws. Each and every student would
be in an intellectually and socially appropriate atmosphere for greatest opportunity for
learning. There would result some variation of level between schools or classes, but
ANY INDIVIDUAL STUDENT COULD ATTEND ANY OF THEM relatively irrespective of
his or her native ability.

This new system is based on student/parent behavior and motivation rather than
the student's test-based perceived ability. In the first couple Grades, all students would
attend similar classes. Specific additional new records, possibly even on Report Cards, would
be maintained regarding each student to maintain a year-long cumulative motivation rating,
or what I call Behavior Quotient. As a starting point for discussion, I would suggest something
like the following:

Negatives
Unexcused class absences (-3 each)
Skipping a full day of school (-8 each)
Late for class (-1 each)
Doesn't do homework (-1 each)
Disruptive classroom behavior (0 to -5 each incident)
Fighting (-50 or more each incident)
(etc, listing specific undesirable behavioral matters)

Positives
Volunteers to help (+1 to +5 each)
A month's perfect attendance (automatic +10 each month)
A month's complete homework set (automatic +10 each month)
Parent at PTA meeting (+10 each month)
Parent/teacher conference attendance (+10 each)
(Other desired behavior patterns)
Many of these matters could be automatically maintained by the school's existing computer
system (attendance subjects). The others could easily be added to a school's current record-
keeping system with very little new expense or administrative time or effort. As a student's
education progresses, this cumulative year's total would be used to determine which of three
different schools he/she would attend for the following year. Since a well-behaved, motivated
student could easily accumulate over 200 plus points, even a few "mess ups" could still
happen by "real" kids and still total the +100 necessary for entrance to the most-motivated
CALM school for the next year. Most students would not even have to rely on parents earning
them bonus points to accomplish this goal. Scores above zero would qualify for the
moderately motivated school next year. Scores below zero would cause attendance at a
school for unmotivated students. Depending on a student's behavior and history and that
student's desires regarding attending a specific School, he/she may or may not need to
convince parents to attend some events in order to garner some extra points.

Please note that the most passive, quiet, lowest-ability student would receive +90
for perfect attendance and another +90 for turning in all the required homework,
so that student would easily have his/her choice of schools. Each student would have
access to his/her current BQ score for that year, possibly on the Report Cards. If, late in a
school year, a student was at +80 and really wanted to attend the CALM (highest motivation)
school the next year, he/she could volunteer to help several teachers or his/her parents could
start attending PTA meetings and parent-teacher conferences.

.
Flexibility of This System
An appeal system would exist for making adjustments for extenuating circumstances (in both
directions) and for showing flexibility in borderline cases. Possibly a GRANT of a certain
number of points might be given to a specific student, due to some specific personal
situation. A child who lived in an apartment with 12 siblings might be GRANTED some leeway
regarding turning in all homework. Individuals or parents might even elect NOT to attend a
higher motivation school if desired (possibly to participate in a stronger sports team or take a
more comprehensive Auto Shop class or for any other reason.)

A hyper-active student or one otherwise affected by medical or mental conditions would have
the opportunity of Appeal regarding a specific personal choice of school.

Since each year is treated separately, at any point any student could easily change behavior,
attendance and/or homework patterns to qualify for a higher-motivated school for the
following year. No one would be doomed to a "low track" forever. Even a student with poor
study habits and low standardized testing scores could qualify for and belong in
the highest-motivation school (although he/she may initially get poor grades as a result.)
Such a student would be in an environment where improvement was likely, so even initial
poor grades might quickly improve. In such a school environment, teachers could encourage
students who were grasping the material quickly to help those students that might be having
more difficulty, and the students would probably all grow from such experiences.

There might be other low-accomplishment students who might CHOOSE the MEDIAN or RUDE
School because of a personal concern of feeling dumb among a lot of smart and motivated
kids. Such choices might be discouraged, but they would always be available to each student.

.
Individual Student's Choice
Another important aspect of this system is the (publicized) length of the school day. If the
(RUDE) low-motivation school day length is 6 hours, then the (MEDIAN) mid-mot day length
should be 7 hours and the (CALM) hi-mot day length should be 8 hours. Fore-knowledge of
this will help students/parents to decide and determine their individual motivation levels. The
longer day length will also allow the more motivated students more time to learn complex
concepts, and to include additional elective classes.

Students intending to attend College should (reasonably) try to regularly be in the (CALM) hi-
mot school and not be in the less motivated Schools for more than two or three years in the
twelve years of school. Colleges might realistically not count classes in the (RUDE) low-mot
school as contributing to high school graduation requirements.

Most people argue about who is to blame for causing such disruptive and dangerous
behaviors, and they blame TV, movies, graphic news, lax parents, lack of role models, etc.
Any or all of that might be true, but American society doesn't have any way of greatly
improving any of those factors, even if they ARE valid. The ideas presented in this essay
essentially concede that such students are going to exist because of the attitudes of modern
American society. It just seems obvious to me to collect such disruptive (and often dangerous)
students together in one place (a separate RUDE School) where intense discipline could be
applied. After all, eventually, those students will be out in society, and if they never learn
responsibility and consequences and discipline, they will be society's problems throughout
their adulthood. If they are put in an environment that is essentially a Military School, they
might learn acceptable social behaviors for later adult life. They certainly do not have any
incentive to learn such things in the modern environments of Public Schools. At the same
time, the remaining students (and Teachers) would be able to be in an environment where
productive educational learning could flourish. Given the circumstances, it seems like an
obvious direction to try.

I just wish to help in any way possible to improve a terrible situation, and I am surprised at
the many "shallow" approaches that are commonly tried. The ones that show much effect
tend to be incredibly expensive, in some cases being on the order of $40,000 per student per
school year. For less than that, a school district could hire individual personal live-in tutors for
each of the students! Such "demonstrations" will obviously show positive results, but they are
impracticably expensive for large scale application. The approach of this essay uses existing
Schools, existing Teachers, and existing materials and equipment, and it is certain to show
spectacular improvements in test scores of the "peaceful" (CALM) Schools, probable good
improvements in the MEDIAN Schools and possibly even educational improvements in the
(RUDE) "problem children" Schools, too.

Traditionally, it would have been unimaginable if a School student would interrupt an

instructor's lesson by standing up, walking over, and punching another student. The offending
student would be seriously punished, and possibly expelled from that School. In modern
American Public School Classrooms, students all know that the teachers are not allowed to
strike or even touch them, and some Teachers have been sent to jail for doing so. They also
know that the School administration will only fill out some paperwork about the matter and
send the student right back to the same Classroom, essentially without punishment, and
often, without even any reprimand. It is amazing. The Instructor is often NOT in charge of the
Classroom. In America, in most Public School Classrooms, at least 10 of the students believe
that they can do absolutely anything they please, and the Instructor is considered a minor
part of the control dynamics. With peer pressures important for young kids, their various
actions tend to encourage each other to more and more disruptive behavior, which often
escalates to actual physical violence. And the Instructor cannot even get involved to try to
establish control, and becomes a bystander.

.
RESULTS
The CALM, hi-mot school figures to be close to the ideal learning environment. Motivated
students (of all social and racial and ability groups), a physically safe environment (as a
physically SEPARATE school), and motivated Teachers who could actually expand the students
intellectual envelopes, and involved parents, would combine for wonderful results. It seems
likely that most of the students would graduate from this School and that most of them would
go on to continue their education in College. Even the initially disadvantaged and initially slow
students!

The MEDIAN, mid-mot school figures to be similar to the Schools of a few decades ago,
with some important differences. Again, a physically SEPARATE location should ensure a much
safer environment than is common in large cities, since most of the trouble-makers would not
be present. Such people would not be disruptive in the Classroom so as to allow more
productive teaching time as well. They would also not be present in the hallways so less gang
pressure and racial or religious discrimination might develop there. In addition, the Teacher
would know that these students have some, but limited, motivation which would allow
adjustments in the teaching method to most benefit them. Considerably more educational
growth would certainly occur in virtually all the students in this school than is generally the
case in the current system.

The RUDE, low-mot school would almost certainly require more aggressive efforts at
discipline and maintaining order. If these commonly disruptive, irreverent, disrespectful
students are to learn anything toward being productive participants of society, they must
learn appropriate behavior and respect first. This school would have low tolerance on anti-
social behavior. It might even have some aspects of the "boot camps" and Military schools
that have arisen to deal with troublesome children. If and when some of these students learn
such appropriate behavior and respect, (and most would probably see selfish value in doing
so), they could likely quickly qualify for the MEDIAN, mid-mot or CALM, hi-mot school for the
next year. Until they learn how to properly co-exist with society, they would primarily have to
deal with each other and with a strict school structure designed to handle their behavior
patterns.

There would probably be other incentives for students to strive to learn socially acceptable
patterns to qualify for the MEDIAN, mid-mot or CALM, hi-mot schools. One would suspect that
most girls would generally qualify for one of those schools, which would leave the RUDE, low-
mot School primarily for unruly boys. Since these boys would have few girls to "show off" for,
they may choose to learn better behavior just to be in a School which has more girls. This
motivation may not be very traditional, but if ANY method assists trouble-making boys learn
better social behavior patterns and self-restraint, society will ultimately benefit.

Quite a wide assortment of potential designations could be used for the three Schools. Many
might be the source of ridicule by other students, such as Rowdy or Noisy or Turbulent or
Boisterous or Rambunctious for the one we have called RUDE; or such as Refined or Civil or
Polite or Quiet for the one we have called CALM. So such references should be avoided. An
interesting possibility might be to call the three Coarse, Medium and Fine, the way sandpaper
or gravel or some other materials are sometimes distinguished. Minds better than mine will
certainly be able to find acceptable superior designations.

The American Public School system has many problems today. American students rank near
the bottom regarding students in other industrialized countries. Students are often so out of
control that Teachers cannot do what they are paid to do, and they often wind up to be
babysitters! Or operating an informal day-care operation!
There are many reasons for this, all related to various aspects of human nature. But there is
one central failing that is horrendous! The American Public School system is now based on a
WRONG ASSUMPTION!
Prior to maybe 40 years ago, the System understood that it was intended TO
ENABLE KIDS TO LEARN HOW TO LEARN. That is no longer true in the Public School
system! In fact, the NCLB (No Child Left Behind) program of the government does exactly the
reverse! Each school and each Teacher is now REQUIRED to get their students to get good
results from some very specific Nationalized tests! So, what should a Teacher do? Teach the
students to learn how to THINK and to figure out things? Or to MEMORIZE specific things that
will certainly show up on the standardized tests?

Think about the concept of "creativity". There is NO PLACE for it given the current
rules and regulations regarding getting government funds! If a student HAD any
creativity to begin with, it is now necessarily crushed, because that student MUST spend his
or her time in learning how to do well on a STANDARDIZED test! See the dark humor in that?
The smartest, most creative kids are kept from developing those specific abilities, in order to
do well enough on the Standardized tests to enable that School to receive government
money. (Those students would have done great on those Standardized tests anyway!)

When they grow up, those kids will not know HOW to think, and will instead totally depend on
being able to "look things up" and then totally relying on others (probably foreign-born) who
ARE able to think! This is horrendous!

The NCLB Program is allegedly meant to provide an advantage for students. Sadly, it does just
the reverse for most students, and at best might only benefit a small fraction of very, very
low-achievers.

As long as our government believes that a rigid structure of Standardized tests is to be the
basis of the American Public School system, few kids will ever be able to compete with even
medium-achievers who were educated in other countries! Can there be anything more sad?

From time to time, some new approach is highly publicized as being the SOLUTION to all the
Educational problems. In pilot projects, nearly any such idea appears to work fine! That is
primarily because phenomenal amounts of money are spent on each student! The news
reports never mention that, only the impressive gains of some classroom of kids. But if the
reasoning is to spend $100,000 per year for each student, I have a different suggestion! Have
the government hire a personal tutor, full time, to LIVE WITH each student (for maybe
$30,000 per student). FAR cheaper, and I guarantee that the results would be impressive!

As long as this government mind-set is in place, I can only recommend that parents send their
kids to Private Schools or even to live in nearly ANY other industrialized country, where their
kids would receive a far better education, and actually learn to THINK in the process!
Regarding trying to fix the current problems, wow! Teachers and students and school
administrators have become conditioned to this current structure, and it is hard to imagine
that they will easily or quickly change. Even if improvements are made, it may take 12 years
before they start actually having effects. This is essentially saying that all of the kids currently
in American Public Schools probably have no chance of actually learning to learn there! I hate
to say that those millions of kids are close to being "wasted" but it seems pretty close to
being true.
Long ago, a High School History Teacher might try to enliven his students by getting them to
re-enact the French Revolution, to see if the students would do the same things as actually
happened. Creative experimentation. Now, no History Teacher could afford the time to do
such a thing, because it would not contribute toward their doing well on those Standardized,
multiple choice tests! Long ago, I taught Earth Science in High School. I would often start off a
class with a challenging question. One day, I asked each class to think of some way of proving
that the Earth was round, without being allowed to leave that city, and without trusting TV or
books. From their own experience, somehow, they had to think of solutions.
Each classroom was FILLED with active minds, where most of the students (not all) were
actively trying to meet the challenge I put forth to them. Take a break from reading this and
consider it a challenge to you! It if FUN and it is CHALLENGING and it MAKES you use your
mind!
In some classes, someone would raise their hand and describe some idea that I happened to
know was wrong. I COULD have said something, and gotten the discussion to a better
direction. But I felt it was better to simply allow the class to proceed with the discussion. In
every single class where that happened, the students eventually realized that that idea would
not work. There seemed to be a collective sense of accomplishment! In only one class did a
student ask me why I did not say it was wrong. And I answered that I thought that the class
learned a lot more ABOUT LEARNING by thoroughly investigating that wrong idea.
See the point? Modern science Teachers could not "waste a day" with such foolishness, when
there were FACTS, FACTS, FACTS to get the kids to memorize! If modern science Teachers did
that very often, their students would do POORLY on the Standardized Tests of facts! And the
Teacher would even be identified as a poor Teacher! In my opinion, such Teachers are the
ONLY HOPE for the American Public School system.
Sadly, the people who make Laws and who decide on what government programs will be
funded, have no idea of what goes on inside an actual classroom. They tend to be very old
people, and of rich families, so they tend never to have personally experienced the amazing
goings-on in a public school classroom today. I can tell them that there are virtually NO
opportunities for students to ACTUALLY HAVE AN ACTIVE MIND, certainly less than a minute
total in any schoolday. They are supposed to sit and memorize, which some kids can do well
and others cannot. There is NO future in the current structure. It is all just damaging kids, and
it also quickly discourages new Teachers, who actually started out believing that they would
be able to "change young minds!". There turns out to be no way that they actually can!
Losing The (Education) Raceby Charles J. Sykes

This excerpt is taken from Charles' book, Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why America's
Children Feel Good About Themselves but Can't Read, Write, or Add
While critics tend to rely on the three-decades long decline of the Scholastic Aptitude
Test (SAT) to document the dumbing down of American education, more alarming is our
performance against the students of other industrialized countries. By virtually every
measure of achievement, American students lag far behind their counterparts in both Asia
and Europe, especially in math and science. Moreover, the evidence suggests that they
are falling farther and farther behind. As educational researcher Harold Stevenson notes,
although "the U.S. is among the countries expending the highest proportion of their gross
national product on education, our elementary school and secondary school students
never place above the median in comparative studies of academic achievement."

Part of the reason is that neither our schools nor our students spend very much time at it.
The National Education Commission on Time and Learning found that most American
students spend less than half their day actually studying academic subjects. The
commission's two-year study found that American students spent only about 41 percent of
the school day on basic academics. Their schedules jammed with course work in self-
esteem, personal safety, AIDS education, family life, consumer training, driver's ed,
holistic health, and gym, the typical American high school student spends only 1,460
hours on subjects like math, science, and history during their four years in high schools.
Meanwhile, their counterparts in Japan will spend 3,170 hours on basic subjects, students
in France will spend 3,280 on academics, while students in Germany will spend 3,528
hours studying such subjects - nearly three times the hours devoted in American schools.

By some estimates, teachers in Japan give elementary students three times as much
homework as American children are given by their teachers, while teachers in Taipei give
their students seven times as much homework as children in Minneapolis. By fifth grade,
children in Minneapolis are getting slightly more than four hours a week in homework,
while fifth graders in Japan get six hours and students in Taipei, thirteen hours.

Our Best and Brightest

The academic crisis is not confined to low-achieving students. Besides the overall drop,
the SAT scores show evidence of a rot at the top - a decline in the number of high-scoring
students. Even though the number of students taking the SAT rose by more than 50,000
between 1962 and 1983, for example, the number of students scoring above a 700 on the
verbal section dropped from 19,099 in 1962-63 to 11,638. Although the number of high-
scoring students in math has risen in the last decade, our best students do not stack up
well in comparison with their foreign counterparts. According to the National Research
Council, average students in other industrialized countries are as proficient in
mathematics as America's best students. The Second International Mathematics Study
found that the "performance of the top 5 percent of U.S. students is matched by the top
50 percent of students in Japan." When the very best American students - the top one
percent - are measured against the best students of other countries, America's best and
brightest finished at the bottom .

When tests compare achievement levels in advanced algebra, for example, twelfth
graders in Japan and Hong Kong earn mean scores of nearly 80 points, twice the American
mean of 40. The same gap appears in scores for the elementary functions of calculus,
where Chinese and Japanese students earn mean scores of more than 60, while their
twelfth-grade American counterparts score only around 30. Asians, however, are not the
only students to outperform us.

In tests measuring the mathematical ability of eighth graders in 20 countries, American

students finished tenth in arithmetic, twelfth in algebra, and sixteenth in geometry. High
school seniors fared just as poorly. In comparisons with students from 143 other