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Category Archives: Public School

A Short History of America’s Middle Class – Part 3/3

28 Sep

In 1800, most Americans (94%) worked and lived on farms. After the Civil War, many left the farms to work in factories but the pay was low for men and even lower for women and children (a situation similar to what has been happening in China for the last few decades–this evolutionary transition happened in the US first. Now it is repeating itself in other countries.).

If life was so harsh in the cities and factories, these migrants could have stayed on the farms and I’m sure most would have if life had been better on the farm, but it wasn’t. For a migration of this size to take place means those people were desperate. That many people do not walk away from a good thing to be treated as if they were slaves.

Legally, children as young as age three worked in US factories (this is illegal in China today). A high number of children also worked as prostitutes (also illegal in China today). Many children (and adults) worked 16 hour days. That would not change until 1938 with the Federal regulation of child labor in the Fair Labor Standards Act.

For an example of what life was like in the US for children before 1938, the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission paints a vivid picture:

“From the early 1800s, children were an integral part of the textile industry’s work force. In the Manayunk district of Philadelphia, children as young as seven assisted in the spinning and weaving of cotton and woolen goods. By 1828, nearly half of Manayunk’s one-thousand laboring residents were children under the age of fifteen. In nearby Kensington, children labored as bobbin boys and girls from sunrise to sunset earning one dollar per week. Exhausted at the end of the work day, some slept in doorways and alleys near the mills. Philadelphia’s 1820 census found that 40 percent of the eleven-hundred workers employed in some thirty-nine textile firms were children.“

Annie Lowrey of the New York Times on 9-21-2012, reported on a study of Who Makes It Into the Middle Class, and education plays an important role but so does the environment and family a child grows up in.

Lowrey wrote, “Isabel V. Sawhill, Scott Winship and Kerry Searle Grannis tackled the question of why some children make it to the middle class and others do not, studying criteria that tend to be indicative of later economic success and examining how race, gender and family income come into play.”

The study discovered that graduating from high school was not enough.

In fact, a child that graduates with a grade-point average above 2.5 with no criminal conviction and no involvement in a teenage pregnancy had an 81% chance of joining the middle class as an adult. A child that does not meet this criteria only had a 24% chance.

The study found that “Children from disadvantaged families are less likely to be ready for school at age 5, less likely to be competent elementary-school students, less likely to graduate from high school without a criminal record or a child, and so on.”

I find it interesting that the study did not blame public school teachers for this.

Benchmarks for measuring the success of public schools is set by politicians in Washington DC and the capitals of the fifty American states, and teachers have no say in those benchmarks. In addition, public school teachers (all college educated with additional training required before becoming a credentialed teacher) have very little to do with the curriculum they teach or the methods used to measure success or failure of the public schools in the United States.

For example, if the Congress and White House says teachers must jump ten feet and they only jump seven, then they have failed and that is how the media reports it. Nowhere do any of these benchmarks for measuring the success of public schools include parents and the environment a child grows up in. Teachers are told to jump ten feet (with no pole, pogo stick or trampoline to help) with no consideration for the impossible.

The formula for education is simple:

teachers teach + students learn + parents help in every way possible and that equals education.

Teachers cannot replace parents or learn for his or her students. All a teacher can do is teach. If a child goes home and does not study or read, the teacher cannot jump the ten feet that Washington DC demands.  If you still are not convinced, I suggest reading Not Broken.

What is wrong with the US Congress and the White House that they are so blind they cannot see this?

Return to A Short History of America’s Middle Class – Part 2 or start with Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”

 
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Posted by on September 28, 2012 in American Public Schools, Education, family values, government, Parenting, politics, Public School, Teaching

 

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A Short History of America’s Middle Class – Part 1/3

26 Sep

There are many ways to prove that America’s public education system is not a failure and is an INCREDIBLE success. This time, I will offer the rise of the modern American middle class as an example:

 

Today, the definition of the middle class in America is complex. In 1951, sociologist C. Wright Mills studied and wrote about the formation of a new middle class of white-collar workers—does not refer to Caucasians but to the type of work—described as mostly highly (college) educated, salaried professionals and managers (roughly 15 – 20% of households today). Then there is the lower middle class consisting mostly of semi-professionals, skilled craftsmen and lower-level management (roughly one third of households).

Another way to measure the size of the middle class in the US would be subtract Americans that live in poverty in addition to the top five percent. In 2010, fifteen-point-one percent (15.1%) of all persons in the US lived in poverty. That adds up to 47.4 million people.

Then annual-household earnings of $100,000 or more puts those Americans above the middle class. In 2005, an economic survey revealed that 5% of individuals in the US earned six-figure incomes exceeding $100,000 annually—that is 15.7 million people leaving 250.9 million Americans in the Middle Class.

A simple definitions says, “The middle-class commonly has a comfortable standard of living, and significant economic security.”

For a better idea of how many Americans enjoy significant economic security, we may want to take a glance at the Great Depression.

During the Great Depression (1929 – 1942), the highest unemployment rate reached almost 25% in 1933, then started to improve.  Unemployment at its worst, means more than 75% of working adults in America were still employed (possibly defining significant economic security). It took thirteen years for unemployment to recover to the level of 1929. In 1940, unemployment was 15%. In 1941, unemployment was 10%. By 1942, thanks to World War II putting Americans in the military or back to work manufacturing weapons, unemployment dropped to 5%.

However, life in America was not always the way it is today and working to gain an education, with an emphasis on work, has mostly been the big game changer.

For example, before 1860, America had few cities and they were mostly small.  The vast majority of people lived on farms and small rural towns. In fact, in 1800, ninety-four percent (94%) of Americans lived on farms or in small towns near farms.

Then by 2000, seventy-nine percent (79%) lived in urban population centers (cities and the suburbs of cities).

In 1850, the average age of death in years was 39.

By 1900, that average was age 49.

In 1970s, it was age 70, and life expectancy in 2010 reached age 78.3.

Life expectancy has also been linked to education. Those with more than 12 years of education—more than a high school diploma—can expect to live to age 82; for those with 12 or fewer years of education, life expectancy is age 75.

Continued on September 27, 2012 in A Short History of America’s Middle Class – Part 2

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”

 
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Posted by on September 26, 2012 in American Public Schools, Education, family values, government, literacy, Parenting, politics, Public School, Teaching

 

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Are we a Nation Eating and Drinking its Way to Idiocy – Part 2/2

18 Sep

To understand what too much sugar and not enough sleep might mean for a student’s ability to learn, I turned to the ehow.com: “According to a study published in the Food Nutrition Bulletin, children suffering from poor prenatal nutrition also showed reduced cognitive and motor skills, starting at about 6 months of age. The gap was noticeable at 12 months and began to widen as the children aged. This group of children eventually included an increased number of dropouts.”

Then the CDC reports: “Teenagers and young adults consume more sugar drinks than other age groups.

1. Non-Hispanic black children and adolescents consume more sugar drinks in relation to their overall diet than their Mexican-American counterparts. The high school dropout rate for blacks in 2010 was 8%. The percentages of black adults lacking basic literacy was 24%.

2. Mexican-American adults consume more than non-Hispanic white adults. The high school dropout rate for Hispanics/Latinos was 15.1%.  The percentages of adults lacking basic literacy was 44%.

3. For non-Hispanic Whites the high school dropout rate was 5.1%, and the percentage of adults lacking basic literacy was 7%.

4. Low-income persons consume more sugar drinks in relation to their overall diet than those with higher income.

5. The worse years of sugar consumption were ages 12 to 19.

6. Among boys aged 2–19, 70% consume sugar drinks on any given day

Conclusion: If we compare literacy levels and dropout rates to sugar consumption, we find a link. Yet, who is blamed for illiteracy and the dropout rate?

ANSWER: The public schools, teachers and the teacher unions.  The parents are seldom if ever blamed and the sugar industry keeps denying the science.

It is obvious that until most children eat a healthy diet and sleep at last nine hours a night, how can any honest, moral person accuse the schools and teachers of failing at their job?

Until America solves this problem so its children eat and drink healthy foods and fluids (think water), teachers cannot be held accountable for children learning. Of course, diet is not the only factor but it is a crucial factor. Sleep plays a factor. Watching too much TV is another link. In addition, being raised by a parent that does not or cannot read also has a big impact.

Meanwhile, too many parents, the media and politicians keep making schools and teachers the scapegoats by preaching the wrong conclusions.

Feeding children and teens processed sugar is child abuse and should be a crime punishable by life in prison with no parole.

Source of dropout rates: National Center for Education Statistics

Source of literacy rates: Education Nation.com

Discover how to Avoid the Mainstream Parent Trap or return A Nation Eating and Drinking its Way to Idiocy – Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga.

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Posted by on September 18, 2012 in American Public Schools, child abuse, Education, family values, Parenting, Public School, student behavior, Teaching

 

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Are we a Nation Eating and Drinking its Way to Idiocy – Part 1/2

17 Sep

Did you know that eating white bread is similar to drinking a soda, or eating a sugar rich candy bar or consuming a piece of pie or cake? White bread, along with potatoes, corn, carrots, white flour, cane sugar, and white rice, is a STARCH, which effectively converts into (more) sugar upon digestion.

And too much sugar damages the brain while not enough sleep slows brain development. According to the National Sleep Foundation, “Sleep is food for the brain. During sleep, important body functions and brain activity occur. Skipping sleep can be harmful — even deadly … Not getting enough sleep limits your ability to learn, concentrate and solve problems. You may even forget important information like names, numbers, your homework …” (There’s more.  I suggest you click on the link to find out.)

It isn’t as if I did not know all this. Like Sherlock Holmes, I deduced what was causing “accelerated cognitive decline” in my students long before The New Junk Food Danger—Dementia? was published September 13, 2012.

In fact, long ago, I was convinced that “Americans are literally eating a ‘diabetes diet’ that’s very toxic to the brain and other vital organs,” says Dr. Joel Zonszein, medical director of the diabetes clinic at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. “And the one of the most terrible complications—brain damage—is occurring in younger and younger patients.”

I left the classroom as a teacher in August 2005 (after thirty years in education).  For about 20 of those years, I asked my students what they ate and learned that most kids do not eat breakfast and often drank a Coke or Pepsi before reaching class in addition to a bag of greasy French fries or a slice of cheese pizza before eating anything healthy if they ate anything healthy at all.

In a class with thirty-four students (on average), maybe two or three ate breakfast, but they were not eating a healthy breakfast.  The cereal was usually coated in sugar and drenched in milk and milk that is not organic is high in the wrong kind of fats that studies show turn the brain rancid (literally rots the brain).

The high school where I taught installed soda machines a few years before I left. One early morning I ran into the soda distributor and asked him how many cases he delivered to the school each week.  His answer was two-thousand cases—enough so each student could drink three a day, and the campus snack bar sold 64 ounce servings of Coke for about one dollar. After lunch, too many students walked in my classroom with glassy eyes and dull looks.

Feeding children and teens processed sugar is child abuse and should be a crime.

Continued on September 15, 2012 in A Nation Eating and Drinking its Way to Idiocy – Part 2

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga.

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Posted by on September 17, 2012 in American Public Schools, child abuse, Education, family values, literacy, Parenting, Public School, Reading, Teaching

 

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Not Broken! – Part 5/5

05 Sep

You may want to skip this page if you prefer opinions without facts used as support (this is known as hot air or natural gas).  I tend to support my opinions, some say, with too many facts (what I consider to be six cups of coffee).

There are more comparisons we should look at, and the first is comparing literacy in America with its northern and southern neighbors in addition to the top-ten countries with the highest reported high-school graduation rates.

In fact, there is another measurement that may be more meaningful than a country’s reported high school graduation rate. That measurement is functional illiteracy.

The United States and many other countries claim high literacy rates because the definition of literacy says, “The adult literacy rate is the percentage of people age 15 and above who can, with understanding, read and write a short, simple statement on their everyday life.”

However, functional illiteracy means that reading and writing skills are inadequate “to manage daily living and employment tasks that require reading skills beyond a basic level.”

Functional illiteracy is contrasted with illiteracy in the strict sense, meaning the inability to read or write simple sentences in any language.

For example, my older brother, (died age 64 in 1999) graduated from high school in the United States in 1953 and was considered literate due to the definition of literacy, because he could write and read at a second grade level.  However, he was functionally illiterate and never read a newspaper, magazine or book in his life. In fact, he could not fill out an employment application.

Now, let’s cast serious doubt on comparing high school graduation rates in America with other countries.

According to the United Nations Human Development Report, the United Kingdom, that reported the highest secondary (high school) graduation rate in the world, has 21.8% of its adult population age 16 – 65 considered functionally illiterate.

Switzerland, in second place for high school graduation rates has a functional illiteracy rate among adults of 15.9%.

Norway, in third place, has a 7.9% functional illiteracy rate among adults.

I could find no information on functional illiteracy in South Korea, fourth place, and Japan, fifth place.

Italy, in sixth place for high school graduation rates, has a functional illiteracy rate of 46% among adults

Seventh place Ireland has a 22.6% functional illiteracy rate.

Eighth place Germany has a functional illiteracy rate is 14.4%

Ninth place Finland’s functional illiteracy rate is 10.4%

Tenth place Denmark’s functional illiteracy rate is 9.6%

America’s functional illiteracy rate was reported as 20% among adults.

However, for a better comparison with a similar culture that has similar values and similar problems, I looked north to Canada and discovered that among adults aged 16 to 65, about 42 per cent scored below Level 3 in prose literacy, which is considered the threshold needed for coping in society. Source: Vivele Canada

In addition, the CBC reported on Canada’s shame, saying that nearly 15 percent of Canadians can’t understand the writing on simple medicine labels such as on an Aspirin bottle and an additional 27% can’t figure out simple information like the warnings on a hazardous materials sheet.

For further proof that comparing high-school graduation rates between countries as a way to judge America’s public education system was and is wrong, in 2009, Canada’s high school graduation rate was reported as 78% but the country has a functionally illiterate adult population ages 16 – 65 of forty-two percent (more than twice that of the United States). Even comparing literacy rates is not a fair comparison between countries, for example, because in Finland most parents teach his or her child/children to read before they start school at age seven showing us that culture has a lot to do with literacy too.

However, in America studies show that 80% of parents never attend a parent-teacher conference.

What about Mexico—just south of the US.  According to Mexico’s 2010 census 93.7% of Mexican males aged 15 and older were literate compared to only 91.1% of females, but what about functional illiteracy?  Mexico comes close to Canada with 43.2% of its adult population aged 16 – 65 functionally illiterate as my brother was.

Compared to America’s closest neighbors, the public-education system in the US is doing a fantastic job. Is there room for improvement? Of course, but the overall evidence shows that America’s public schools do not deserve to be condemned as broken. Instead, the facts say that most of America’s public school teachers are doing the job they were hired to do while it is politicians that are telling them what to teach.

Another factor to consider is High School graduation rates by race/ethnicity in the United States

For the 2007-08 school year, 91.4% of Asian/Pacific Islanders graduated from high school (156,687); 81% of Whites (1,853,476); 64.2% of American Indian/Alaska Native (31.707); 63.5% of Hispanic (443,238), and 61.5% of Blacks (415,111). Source: U.S. Department of Education

Most schools have all five races/ethnicities represented in the same classrooms (the schools I taught in for thirty years did) with the same teachers. However, when the numbers are averaged, critics of public education blame the teachers.

When averaged, the graduation rate in 2008 was 74.9%, which makes the public schools seem to be earning a C while they are earning an A- for the Asian/Pacific Islanders and a B- for Whites.

Really? How can the same teacher be so successful with Asian/Pacific Islanders and Whites and not with the other ethnic groups?

This is the advise I told our daughter when she was in grade school: “The only excuse to fail and not learn in school is when students do not pay attention, ask questions, read, do homework, class work, etc.  There is no excuse. Even if the teacher is incompetent, a motivated student will still learn.” And she did.

In addition, the graduation rates increase when the GED is included with traditional high-school degrees. In 2009, the completion rates of 18-through 24-year-olds was: 88.3% white, 87.1% black, and 76.8% Hispanic. Source: U.S. Department of Education

If an Asian or White student is successful with a teacher, why can’t the Hispanic or Black student have the same success with the same teacher?  After all, the teacher is responsible to teach and the student is responsible to learn (or has this been forgotten).  If the teacher wasn’t doing his or her job, then the Asians and Whites should have graduation rates similar to Hispanics and Blacks.

Return to Not Broken! – Part 4 or start with Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”

 
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Posted by on September 5, 2012 in American Public Schools, Education, family values, literacy, Literature, media, Parenting, politics, Public School, Reading, Teaching

 

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Not Broken! – Part 4/5

04 Sep

In conclusion, when do we see these types of global education comparisons from the media or critics of public education?

Never!

The reason for that NEVER answer is because four US presidents (two democrats and two republicans) along with forty-four US governors and 50 CEOs made a huge mistake starting in the 1980s when they left out vocational training as part of educational reform.

Instead of admitting the mistake, politicians and many Americans continue to use teachers and teacher unions as the scapegoat claiming that public education is broken. If you need proof, today, America has a high unemployment rate at the same time that millions of high-skilled, high-paying blue-collar jobs that do not require a college education but do require skilled vocational training go unfilled.

Recommendation: The US should seriously consider starting vocational programs, similar to Europe, that leads to graduation from its secondary schools—this means two programs that result in high-school graduation: academic and vocational. In my opinion, it is ridiculous to treat every student as if he or she is college material.


Mike Rowe testifies before the US Senate about the need for people that can fill jobs that require skilled trades. He is the host of a TV show called Dirty Jobs about the hard work done by tradesmen and skilled workers.

All we need to do is look at information from the US Census to see the truth.

In the United States by age 24, almost 90% of young adults have a high-school degree or its equivalent, a GED.

However, only 30.44% (72.56 million) of those young adults went on to earn a Bachelor’s degree, and of those that earned a BA degree, 7.94% (18.95 million) earned a Master’s degree and 3% (7.2 million) a Doctorate or professional degree.

In addition, according to the US Census, 76% of the population is age 19 or older. That means 165.7 million (70%) adult Americans did not move from the high school academic program to a college academic program.

Many of these adults may have benefited from a vocational program leading to high-school graduation and a high skilled, high paying blue-collar job, and unemployment in America today would be much lower while the economy would benefit from more Americans working, consuming and paying taxes.

Instead, those that did not go to college were tossed into the world of work, most with only an academic high-school degree, and no guidance or support from the public education system that was designed by Washington D.C.

Continued on September 5, 2012 in Not Broken! – Part 5 or return to Part 3

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga.

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Posted by on September 4, 2012 in American Public Schools, Education, media, politics, Public School, Teaching

 

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Not Broken! – Part 3/5

03 Sep

Because the United States does not offer vocational programs in its public high schools, comparing US graduations rates to that of other countries that offer vocational training toward secondary high school graduation is not a fair and/or equal comparison. If we remove the vocational programs in other countries then we are comparing apples to apples instead of apples to cucumbers, and we end up with a more realistic rating of the top ten countries with the United Kingdom removed from the list.


Skilled Labor Shortage – high unemployment and a labor shortage at the same time

In North America, there is far less of a tradition in the public schools of vocational education of any sort, but in the UK and EU, there are vocational programs. However, there is a difference: “The UK requires much less general education and permits all training to take place on employers’ premises, whereas in other countries attendance at college or apprenticeship centers is the rule.” Source: education.gov.uk

The graduation rates of 17/18 year olds of the top ten countries compared for academics not vocational programs:

1. United States = 75.5%

2. Japan = 72%

3. Ireland = 70%

4. South Korea = 66%

5. Norway = 60%

6. Denmark = 55%

7. Finland = 48%

8. Germany = 39%

9. Italy = 35%

10. Switzerland = 30%

In addition, there are 193 countries represented in the UN, putting the United States high-school academic graduation rate (age 17/18) number one of all the nations that are members of the UN.

In addition, the US has the third-largest population on the Earth, and due to population size, it seems fair to compare the US to other countries with large populations.

1. China = 1.347 billion (According to data from China’s Ministry of Education, China has a 99% (160 million) attendance rate for primary school. However, about 63% finished Senior Middle School and 45% complete Vocational School of 15 – 18 yr olds)

2. India = 1.21 billion (49% of females participate in secondary schools compared to 59% of males)

3. United States = 314.2 million (75.5% completed secondary education by 18 yrs of age. However, by gender, more than 90% of girls complete high school or its equivalent, while only 85% of boys do. In the US, high school focuses primarily on the social and academic and does not offer a vocational program toward graduation.

4. Indonesia = 237.6 million (29% complete general education programs and 17% complete vocational training)

5. Brazil = 192.4 million (65% complete general education programs and 9% complete vocational training)

6. Pakistan = 180.5 million (20% of females participate in the secondary schools compared to 35% of males)

7. Nigeria = 166.6 million (43% of females participate in secondary schools compared to 45% of males)

8. Bangladesh = 152.5 million (43% of females participate in secondary schools compared to 40% of males)

9. Russia = 143.1 million (53% complete general education programs and 41% complete vocational training)

10. Japan = 112.3 million (72% complete general education programs and 23% complete vocational training)

Primary Source: unicef.org

Continued on September 4, 2012 in Not Broken! – Part 4 or return to Part 2

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga.

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Posted by on September 3, 2012 in American Public Schools, Education, media, politics, Public School, Teaching

 

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Not Broken! – Part 2/5

02 Sep

I’ll start with 1900 when the total number of high-school graduates in the US numbered 16,000 of 815,000 seventeen-year olds.

In 1920, 311,000 graduated from high school or 16.8% of the total which was 1,855,000

In 1940, 1,221,000 or 50,8% of 2,403,000 graduated.

In 1960, 1,858,000 or 69.5% of 2,672,000 graduated.

In 1980, 3,043,000 or 71.4% of 4,262,000 graduated.

Source: nces.ed.gov

After 1970, high school graduation rates for 17/18 year olds level off and fluctuated but not by much.

In fact, in 2009, 75.5% of high school students that started ninth grade as freshman graduated from high school at age 17/18.

Furthermore, in 2009, eighty-nine-point-eight (89.8%) percent of 18 through 24-year-olds not enrolled in high school had earned a high school degree or earned a high-school diploma or a GED after leaving high school.

A GED is a 7 hour test on five-subject areas. Every few years a number of graduating high-school students is selected to take the GED. In order to be awarded a GED, a candidate must do better on the test than 60% of the graduating high-school seniors who took the test.

Take another look at the two numbers that represent graduation from US secondary schools before we compare public education in the United States to other countries:

A. 75.5% (age 17/18)

B. 89.9% (ages 18 – 24)

In 2008, the media reported that the US high school graduation rate was lower than ten countries but this was misleading as you will discover: Source: This list comes from a CNN Blog called Global Public Square. However, I have added more information from other reputable sources.

Note: the first number is the reported total graduation rate but it is often misleading once the facts are known. In addition, remember this: the US public schools do not offer vocational programs that lead to a secondary-school diploma (high school). In the US, programs that lead to graduation from high school are mostly academic—not vocational.


The need for Vocational Education Funding in the public schools

Top Ten List as it was reported in the media:

1. The United Kingdom (92%—In the UK, compulsory education for all children goes from their fifth birthday to the year they turn 16. In addition, one-half of British universities have lost confidence in A grades that are awarded by secondary schools and require many applicants to sit for a competitive entrance examination, and one out of five English adults [20%] are functionally illiterate telling us that graduation rates in the UK mean little to nothing in a comparison of this type—yet the United Kingdom boasts the highest secondary-school graduation rate without any mention of vocational programs)

2. Switzerland (90%, but only 30% completed the general academic program while 71% completed a vocational program toward secondary school graduation—there must be some overlap where students that complete the academic path complete a vocational program too)

3. Norway (78% below age 25 and 92% above age 25, but only 60% completed the academic program, while 38% completed a vocational program toward secondary school graduation)

4. South Korea (89%, but only 66% completed the academic program, while 23% completed a vocational program)

5. Japan (95%, but only 72% completed the academic program, while 23% completed a vocational program toward secondary graduation)

6. Italy (80%, but only 35% completed the academic program, while 59% completed a vocational program)

7. Ireland (90% before age 25 and 91% after age 25, but only 70% completed the academic program, while 62% completed a vocational program with some students completing both)

8. Germany (84%, but only 39% completed the academic program, while 45% completed a vocational program)

9. Finland (84% before age 25 and 95% after age 25, but only 48% complete the academic program, while 94% completed a vocational program with some students completing both)

10. Denmark (75% before age 25 and 85% after age 25, but only 55% complete the general academic program, while 47% complete a vocational program). Source: oecd.org

Continued on September 3, 2012 in Not Broken! – Part 3 or return to Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga.

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Posted by on September 2, 2012 in American Public Schools, Education, media, politics, Public School

 

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Not Broken! – Part 1/5

01 Sep

Regardless of the opinions of others or what the US media says, the facts clearly prove US public schools are not broken and most public school teachers are succeeding at the job they were hired to do, which is teaching American children each state’s mandated academic curriculum to prepare for college with more success than any country on Earth.

If anything is missing, it is vocational training (more on this later) as it exists in many other countries—something missing in American public education.

However, that is not the fault of the teachers or the teacher unions. That is the fault of politicians due to the political nature of public education in the United States and standards-based education reform.

In fact, education reform in the United States since the 1980s has been largely driven by the setting of academic standards for what students should know and be able to do.

Standards-based education reform in the US started with the publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983. Then in 1989, an education summit involving all fifty state governors and President George H. W. Bush (Republican) resulted in the adoption of national education goals for the year 2000.

For this reason, every public school teacher in America should boycott the classroom as the next school year starts in August/September of 2012, demand respect and the truth about the achievements in public education in the United States before returning to the classroom to teach.

It is time for Americans to stop using public school teachers as scapegoats to cover up the truth that if there is any failure, it belongs to Presidents George H. W. Bush, Clinton, G. W. Bush; Obama, and the 1996 National Educational Summit where 44 governors and 50 corporate CEO’s set the academic priorities of public education.


millions of jobs unfilled due to the lack of vocational training in the US public schools

Joseph Goebbels, one of Hitler’s inner circle in the Nazi Party, once said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will come to believe it.”

The big lie I’m talking about is what I keep reading and hearing about the US public schools being broken and that teachers and the teacher unions are at fault.

You see, it all depends on how the facts are presented and what is left out.

The critics of public education have a loud voice and use language that shows the glass half empty instead of 90% full, which is more accurate. Once all the facts of high-school graduation rates or its alternatives are known, the perception changes dramatically.

To learn the truth, one must start more than a century in the past and chart the progress.

Continued on September 2, 2012 in Not Broken! – Part 2

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga.

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Posted by on September 1, 2012 in American Public Schools, Education, media, politics, Public School

 

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The Good and Bad of America’s Continuing Cultural Revolution – Part 5/7

08 Jun

According to Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPPA – March 2005) the high school graduation rates in the United States in 1870 were less than 5% of school age teens. In 1940 that number reached 50% and by 1960 reached 70% where it started to fluctuate annually a few percent (single digits) one way or the other.

The reason for the need of a better educated population today is because we are no longer an agricultural country. In 1870, 74% of the population lived on rural farms and it doesn’t take a lot of science, math and literacy to farm [before farming became high tech].  By 1990, 75% of the US population had moved from the country to the city.

Along with this shift in rural to urban population centers, parenting methods went through a metamorphosis. In 1870, children were considered property and could be forced to work hard labor on the farms or be sold into servitude to work in coal mines or factories.

The Child Labor Public Education Project says that it wasn’t until 1938 that for the first time, minimum ages of employment and hours of work for children were regulated by federal law. Before that, children were treated as if they were property—treated as if they were slaves.

Parallel to these changes came the self-esteem movement that had its start in the 1890s and by 1960 was the  common practice of the average American parent (about 40% of all parents) to inflate a false sense of self esteem in children while pressuring the schools and teachers to do the same through grade inflation, doing away with rote learning, and dummying down the curriculum so it was easier for children to earn higher grades and feel good about themselves. In addition, having fun is now more important than merit.

The result, generations of young American narcissists that believe they are entitled to have fun and watch TV, eat what they want and not what they need, and have unlimited freedom to play video games, listen to music and spend as much time as they want social networking on sites such as Facebook.

If you have noticed that I am sometimes repeating myself from post to post, you are right. Rote learning does work and helps students remember important facts instead of forgetting them daily. Do you know who America’s 16th President was or its 32nd President and the significance of these two men?

When we ignore the lessons that history teaches us about our mistakes, our leaders (and parents) tend to make the same mistakes again and again.

Continued on June 9, 2012 in The Good and Bad of America’s Continuing Cultural Revolution – Part 6 or return to Part 4

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga.

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Posted by on June 8, 2012 in American Public Schools, child abuse, Education, family values, literacy, Parenting, politics, Public School, self-esteem, self-esteem movement, student behavior

 

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