For A Great Future: 60 Ready-to-use Assemblies for 21st Century Schools

14 things that are obsolete in 21st century schools

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Another thing that is generally a plain misconception is that outsourcing provides more for less, when in fact that is usually in a minority of the cases as many studies show. So although your anecdotal case may somehow although this still seems doubtful confirm your own biases, it is not generally the case. But it does confirm one thing for sure — that my hypothesis was correct — the GOP is responsible for your lack of funding. Educational funding is a local issue. Since being on the board, we have received less funding from the National government.

The president is responsible for creating that budget. The Senate has been Democratically controlled since his first election. The House was controlled by Democrats for the first 3 years, and Republicans the last 3 years. This hardly represents an oppressive GOP majority. Funding actually received from the National government has dropped since The state government provides a large chunk as well. Funding from the state has been relatively stagnant since Where we are hurting is on the local level. This is not necessarily driven by politics, but by the citizenry.

Our county has a large unemployment rate due to the current economy. They are the tax base in our county as we have very few industries and very little businesses that hire more than 50 people. Asking the citizens to fork out more money is not really an option, unless you suggest the local government take from the poor to give to the poor. So improving efficiency is a necessary step. I never said to anyone that this would be a solution for their school division, but it has worked for us. As far as injecting funds into the system, that has been through the grants that I suggested in the first response.

No need to ask the citizens for money when you can find grants that are willingly giving it to you. The areas we outsourced have been working with greater efficiency that what we provided locally. I forgot to mention that none of our local staff was replaced but rather absorbed by those companies that we outsourced too a requirement for our division.

So in essence, they have a zero deductible and the insurance pays for everything else. We even offer all retirees the same benefits, some who retired over ten years ago. Instead of blaming one group or another, I still feel it is necessary to open up a dialogue with all groups since education is the foundation of our society. As far as incentives go, there is only one: No one prides themselves on how much money is saved, or how much is spend per pupil, etc. Rather, we pride ourselves on how well our students perform, their happiness values, and their ability to find college, work, or military upon graduation.

What greater incentive do we need? We are constantly trying to find ways to have more programs to support our students, and finding ways to save money helps move funds directly to the students. By the way, even though our citizenry lean Republican in national and state voting, 3 of the 5 local Board of Supervisor members are Democrats.

The school board is not allowed to run by party, but I know that 4 of the 5 supported the Democrats in both the last national and state elections. So, rather than placing blame on one party in your case the GOP , we are working together to come up with creative solutions to our economic woes. And quite honestly, I think it is working quite well. Check the data, its all in there. It , the Republicans gained control of the House and that is when defense spending actually started decreasing.

If you have different data, please share, as I am going by those published by the white house budget office and may have overlooked some contingencies. Your comments about education spending dropping since would make sense, since the budget included an abnormally large boost for education arising from the stimulus. This was signed in by Obama but probably was not maintained at such a high level because it was for stimulus purposes only, so of course it would drop somewhat.

Your unemployment and financial hardship is probably due to a staggering degree of inequality of income and taxation between the rich and the poor, to which you can most likely thank the Bush Tax Cuts and his complete lack of regulation of the banks that eventually lead to the meltdown of the entire economy. The temporary increase in spending on military was, in large part, due to the fact that Obama had to deal with the failed wars that Bush began, not to mention the resentment that was created overseas by Bush with his foreign policy failures.

It is the case that most Republicans run on a platform that seeks to reduce funding to education while simultaneously increasing funding for a military death machine based on the another outdated concept — that military spending produces economic prosperity in the form of a multiplier. Either way I applaud your progress, but I seriously doubt that there is no GOP policy to blame here for a lack of funding, especially since it just so happens that your state and county are fairly Republican leaning.

Wait…you just said you revolitionized you schools buy funding with grants…. Your bias against the GOP is obvious, which leads to a very basic question: How anyone can not have a bias against the GOP is my question. Having a bias against the GOP is simply having a bias against idiotic policy. This last one, for all I can tell, is basically code for turning the entirety of the US into some giant gun toting hick town complete with racial, ethnic, gender and religious based discrimination.

At least the Democrats are working on things that are pressing, such as reducing the ridiculous costs of healthcare, cutting military spending, promoting sustainability and innovation, and promoting STEM education rather than trying to devolve back into a state of science deniers read Decline and Fall by NewScientist and see how many times they specifically blame republicans for the majority of science denial in the US.

Typical of you nutters. The list goes on. Your side is to blame, Numbnuts. You and your ilk and your warped and ignorant view of the world and life. You attract talent by paying well and incentivising, pick up a book for once. I am just amazed at how blinded you are by hate and discrimination for others! You are offering only finger pointing and excuses instead of solutions. I am also curious if you have ever taken any economics or government accounting courses recently, if not, you should probably look online there are quite a few for free.

A basic understanding of how these things work will help explain why the current budget and other things are not working. Before you start name calling and pointing fingers, educate yourself! In the area of policy decisions I discriminate with full force, and it is because policy decisions affect everyone, not just those that support them. Also, your arguments are completely irrelevant to the conversation, I was speaking to funding, not management of the education system.

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Prop up the strawman and knock it out of the park. Having worked in a public school, international schools and a charter school, there are a lot of factors that go into education. I agree with a lot of what was said in the article, but most of the things in here had nothing to do with money. Funding is not the biggest problem that we have. Funding and management go together.

The public school that I worked at had a ludicrous number of office workers, many who sat around and did little. The charter school had only a few who worked very hard. I made a sarcastic supposition that the funding problems Mike Reid was facing in his school were probably due, in some way, to Republican ignorance on the matter, fully expecting a retort on this end because of the way Mike had phrased his previous post. He had mentioned that his school had done some things to become more efficient at managing with a lower budget, and I could tell that the slant was leaning Republican because they are always trying to prove their fallacious and illogical arguments with conjecture and anecdotal evidence.

This particular post stemmed from the belief that Republicans have that cutting funding to schools will somehow magically improve their efficiency. Mike Reid attempted to provide, impliedly, anecdotal evidence for this ridiculous concept. Receiving the reply I expected, that of a defensive one, I replied with my reasoning supporting my belief that Republicans are most likely to blame for lowered funding in public schools. I also provided evidence for my claims that this lowered funding does not provide the ends Republicans seek — that of better managed schools.

I then received a few angry and nonsensical posts and Republican propaganda which I responded to in kind with the same BS that was thrown at me. Not one of these was a straw man argument as you claim, but if you do have evidence to the contrary, again, please provide and paraphrase it. I simply support them more than I support the idiotic crap that comes from Republicans. Try standing on two legs with your trickle down economics now that Piketty has officially blown that argument to smithereens.

Go crawl back into the uneducated hole you came from and degenerate back up into the trees where you belong. Where did that come from? Get off the drugs, Dicksnot. This also leaves those who follow its illogical policies in the same boat — irrational, ignorant. Thus you are irrational and ignorant… This really is hopeless, but yet so fun, almost like training an animal. Say something dumb again so I can provoke you even more: Ecologist here- very entertained by all of this. I saw the climate change comment. Feel free to respond to this but I will most likely never be back on here- just happened upon the discussion.

With that said, I also know this has little to do with the discussion, just my area so I felt compelled. You gauge it with a level of confidence. So American public education was fine back in the s when segregated schools were the norm and students who wanted to drop out and work did so freely? Are you saying that our schools would be doing just fine again if we still had segregated schools and no longer tried to educate everyone under the age of 18?

Your reading comprehension and inference indicates you have recently come out of the American public school system. Apples and oranges, Genius. And kind of like the fool sajawah above trying to change the subject, read my mind, and judge me from his mind reading. It is what has become of you guys, and I can guess the current education system has something to do with it. Sajwanih is 24 and a recent product of it. Again, going on six years and this administration has failed miserably to correct any of the problems they could have a positive effect on — like jobs!

But, hey, you have all the answers! And resorting to name-calling is ineffective and rude. That it took this long to finally see progress in the economy is only a testament to the havoc his administration wrought through pure ignorance. Not to mention the fact that most of these things are just common sense. Can you cite any empirical evidence that supports your assertion? BTW, name calling is petty and an immature approach to true debate of ideas.

This included every member of my high school there, an international school with more nationalities represented in my very classroom than most universities have at all and many teachers. This also includes major business leaders there with whom I was acquainted being that my family is also quite prominent in the business world there. As for name calling in debate, I agree, it has no place in true debate of ideas as you say. It was simply some sad attempt to name call me, to which I responded in kind. This is where its uses lie. As for the current president, his economic policies have been, thus far, enough to drag us back from an economic slump not seen since the Great Depression.

Economics will back me up in saying that taxing the rich to a higher degree than the poor makes sense based on the concept of declining marginal utility, as well in that poverty is a trap. Want me to go on? I can go into more depth on any one of these. I am not sure I want to live in your real world…as there are the next leaders and entrepreneurs that are sitting in the very schools that you feel are so inaccessible.

The cost of computers and Wi-Fi are comparable to the purchase of the traditional textbooks and I am hoping that teachers are looking at their students and understanding their needs as opposed to talking at them all day. For example, the high school I attended for part of my educational years had only 65 students in it—counting grades ! They see the disadvantages far from the services provided by the Educational Services District, no money for things like wi-fi and cafeteria—everyone had to bring sack lunches at my high school as there was no caf—and teachers that teach more than one subject, rather than specializing in just one , but cannot fully appreciate the advantages that can only be felt by those who have lived in the community and actually had the experience of going to the school.

Anyone not on the team is a huge fan, because the athletes are their friends and frequently siblings and cousins. By the way, if the cost of wi-fi is too much, and the cost of traditional textbooks is as well…what does that say about the cost of traditional textbooks? You know that list of student names in the front of a textbook that shows to whom it has been issued each school year?

Get yourself a good consultant because the process is complicated. The traditional way is far more expensive. This is a problem with a society that spends so much on war and entertainment, rather than putting more towards education. To improve society the people that make up that society need to be educated. A vibrant and free student-run media program producing and sharing important stories. Why even leave to go to the school house? This can all be done at home in many towns.

This will save many districts lots of money as they can now let all the teachers go, and students can stay home and teach themselves, or through a collaborative online course. We all have to decide what the purpose of a school is. There are some core competencies that students need, and it is fantasy to believe students can simply progress along as the spirit moves them; they need guidance.

As a former teacher, I see what this is…. At the end of the day, we do have had working models that produced competent children. I was being a little sarcastic in the first post — only because whatever new thing that comes out, we have at least in our town administrators who use it to defend spending more money when it simply is not necessary.

We had high performing schools well before our budget jumped significantly to do what has been imposed on us in the name of ed reform.

And IMO, technology is a bottomless pit, especially in a town where kids have multiple devices. True reform in our town would be to teach without a device. If we choose to ban these things from the classroom, we will eventually make ourselves obsolete.

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We must keep up with the rate of change and find ways to incorporate at least SOME of these things into our curricula. I feel for children whose education is marred by a misguided belief that the old ways are the only ways. I have seen parents and districts do backflips to buy SMART boards, which are very cool, but they did not revolutionize education. Now we are going the other way, to personalized, one-to-one, device fed learning, making those big bulky class-led discussion boards obsolete. Kids need essentials, and exposure to a variety of things, so they can build the future next great thing.

We all know that. Cindy, this is a possibility for some yes. But for many students, socialization skills are essential, thus, the school house will be needed until that is overcome. Also, combining our money to meet the needs of the greater good science labs, PE equipment, music, the arts, etc. As a teacher and former school board member, I have realized what it means to finally step outside of my box when it comes to new ideas.

When you find something that works for you, go with it! Meanwhile, I do agree with your statement about teachers being let go. With greater globalization and use of technology, some teachers are finding it hard to find jobs. Years ago teachers could have 60 kids in a class. Times have changed and 30 in a class is considered too many, thus we are able to hire more teachers.

But times are changing again, and so the education field has to evolve to meet those needs. Unfortunately, for some, it may be a loss of a job been there! Good luck getting taxpayers and state and local legislatures to pony up the tax dollars for these reforms, especially in the South, where we have teachers who still spend their own money to buy supplies for students. BTW, if parents made their teenagers go to bed at a decent hour, 8 am would still work just fine at school starting time.

I suspect that if you started school at 9, teenagers would still be half asleep at 9. Why are they staying up late? Because they have practice, or games or dance or…. Where do those things go when school starts later? They either go later, making the students get to bed even later or they get rescheduled for all this new time before school — neither of which gets the students any more sleep.

The human body, especially that of a teenager, is not designed to have a 9pm-to-5am sleep schedule. This is not even to mention the difficulty in waking up an hour before sunrise with no natural light. Circadian rhythms are a real thing, no matter how many people like to deny it. Starting school later would be a godsend for highschoolers. And every teenager is not exactly the same as every other teenager. Thank you, I was just about to say this. And no one has addressed my question of logistics for all the extra-curricular activities that are now filling the students after school time.

My other point is that school should be training people for the real world.

My circadian rhythms necessitate a different start and stop time. See map of 1: It may be slow, but we are working thru the challenges. Many more will begin making the leap this next fall. The Web provides further incentive to shift the decisional power in the learning event and you are right about the need to shift it. The new economy favors those who favor information, and that includes educators. How do we help our conservative citizens see that the economy has a new hero, one with infinite wealth given away freely, if we would only teach the entrepreneurial skills to reach for it?

Francie, I live at Brazil and I am a technicial course teacher. The students starts at 7 am to 5 pm. A school system in Minnesota switch the starting time for its middle school and high school kids. The SAT scores of the high school kids went up immediately. As noted above, kids in their middle to late teens are biologically programmed to stay up later and get up later.

This idea that they are lazy or willfully tiring themselves out by staying up late is pure ignorance. Every student K has a digital device. Younger children have classroom devices and older children 3rd — 12th have laptops they take home. Curriculum is accessed digitally. Our wealthy neighborhoods already had home wi-fi, our poorer neighborhoods have it or are getting it through grants and a minimal personal contribution for each home.

We all know that the things we pay for are the things we value, so everyone contributes what they can. Until wifi is completely available outside the school, students save their chapters and homework assignments on their hard drive for afterschool work. It has been a stretching experience, and in year two we have just about worked out most of the bugs. Granted, there is more to do, but we have come a long way. The cost of our digital conversion, to include a 3 year lease on laptops was the exact same as the annual cost in those 3 years to replace our text books on a 7 year schedule.

We still have textbooks for AP classes that are not yet digital, and a classroom set for those rare occassions when the power is out and our AWESOME teachers continue to move forward. Again, this is all in the south; the DEEP south. Sterotyping southerners or northerners or rich or poor is a narrow minded knee jerk reaction. Education is supposed to remove sterotypes, not promote them.

Point 15 should be moving past the cliche. How dare you go against the narrative. That should have you back in the right mindset. When parents get home from work between pm, prepare a nutrit ous meal, and then participate in extra-curriuclar activities including sporting events and exercise, then assist with homework…it is impossible to get them to bed at a decent hour!

Starting High School at an appropriate hour for the teen sleep cycle will never fly. We tried it here and the parents were apoplectic. Too many of them have to depend on the teens to run the family while they are at work. The teens are needed to pick up younger siblings from school, feed them, and ensure that homework is done. My Grandson goes to school from 7 to 1, Absolutely asinine. It is easier and more likely to get in trouble from when the parents get home than from in the morning. He should go from If cell phones would be used like you described, it would be learning at the highest level.

Students today are very interested what else is happening and it is so easy to find out — not necessaily educational. Distraction from reality is at an all-time high. The use of technology many times adds to that delimma. Talk about a device that separates us from everyone around, the cell phone is that device. I see all of these devices adding to education, but teacher education must be constant If districts are willing to pay. Ever been bored out of your skull in a meeting? You reach for your smartphone.

Smacks of the fundamental attribution error Google it as I did last weekend. I teach a college course in which all the sections taught by different professors meet once a week to attend a presentation by a guest speaker. The presentations are mostly excellent — engaging, often with a multi-media component, interactive not just a lecture. Yet sitting near the back, I see students with lap-tops that have four windows open: Thank you for the lecture.

You responded only to the portions of my reply that pushed your buttons. You ignored most of it. Our young students willingly trade their recess time the only time in the schedule this particular year for the chance, just yesterday, to learn how to hammer a nail. Sorry if you perceived it as a lecture. I was sharing my observations, which I thought was the point. Why did people laugh? Your experience with elementary students sounds encouraging. And that kind of hands-on learning with materials is wonderfully engaging. My wife is a Montessori teacher, so I know that well. But while materials are great in early education for teaching concepts, the higher up you go, the more students need to be able to be engaged by ideas and words as well.

These are excellent points, but there is one lacking — the process of administration using a top-down model. Until schools allow the kind of spirited discussion and debate that engages students, teachers, workers, and administrators, there will not be real education. Often a discussion of what is to be done teaches more than the actual doing. You may many great points and provide lots of food for thought. Unfortunately until education dollars and job security stops being tied to standardized testing, as it is here in the US, innovation and risks cannot happen.

While the output would not feed the entire school Or maybe it would??? Google the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden program. I would like to add learning disabilities. It we truly believed all children can learn, then there would be no children labeled with learning disabilities. I have had the distinct pleasure and privilege of working with children labeled LD and in every case I have seen them learn, learn quickly, and impressively. As a parent of four who also happens to teach, I agree with most of your list.

Our district starts high school students the latest 8: It has been a very successful change. As for the technological advances you mention: I would love, in my dreams, to have access to the type of technology you espouse.

Unfortunately, in the south NC , our elementary school students do not have regular, consistent access to technology while at school. Many of our students who live in poverty do not have access at all. Schools operate in a nineteenth century model of an industrial revolution sock factory.

Student STEM Outcomes as Criteria for Success

They are hierarchical organizations as other organizations have flattened. They are autocratic and highly centralized, as other organizations have delegated and moved decisions down the chain to their points of implementation. Our model for schools is outdated years. Sorry, I really have to disagree with some things in this article. I am a senior in high school right now and most of the things that have been listed continue to be used at our school. I also think that a few are for good reason such as the prohibition of Facebook.

Yes, FB maybe a great way for students to discuss topics with each other in class pages but it gets very messy when you involve parents and teachers. It is not a problem of trying to check off the boxes, but finding out what works. At our school, students use the library on a regular basis and have updated computers for public use. It is incredibly distracting for teenagers to be outside of a classroom, we would never get work done. Personally, I like going to school early, if I had to stay at school until 5 pm, it would kill me. Honestly, you have to be in the moment to really understand how kids feel about school.

The only country I know of that uses standardized testing productively is Finland. They are used to judge schools, not individual students. When a kid with a smart-phone and a relatively inexpensive computer can film a movie anywhere and edit it while at home, or on the bus, or at a Starbucks, what makes the library such a huge draw?

14 things that are obsolete in 21st century schools – Ingvi Hrannar

They are disobedient, disrespectful, entitled Obamanites who think that everything should be given to them and that average performance should be celebrated. We are falling behind in the world not because were too hard on our children, but because were letting them get by with mediocrity. This kindler, gentler concept is making yet another morally worthless generation of children.

You want to control a nation…subjegate and impoverish its people.. Hrannar is promoting is not new at all—it is just more business as usual—continuing on with the worldview that humans are more important and separate from natural systems or nonhuman beings. This blog has a couple good ideas, but even those I like are framed in a way that feels misguided to me. It is as though this blogger a self described elementary school teacher and entreprenuer in Iceland is living in a world with blinders on. When I read this blog, that science fiction image of people with computers attached to their arms comes to mind.

I did also appreciate the idea of differentiating learning groups other than by age and giving more options for unique professional development for teachers. Failing schools need help, but standardized tests are doing so much more harm than good, effecting teaching, learning, and well-being year round! There are much more effective ways to support schools that are struggling. And we DO need to fight for the schools that we want. I can tell this blogger really cares about students and schools. If one of his points was that computers made out of scandalously mined minerals would be obsolete and computers made out of humanure would take their place, then great!

That makes sense—sort of?! But to disregard the context of our perilous situation seems ignorant at best. The approach that that Mr. That makes sense—sort of. The thing you are forgetting is all of the after school activities and sports. If those sports now start an hour plus later, that is a huge problem. This entire article is obsolete and written by someone who is completely out of touch with how the education system works. Wi-Fi networks, desktops, laptops and tablets are expensive to purchase.

And while, yes some of that cost can be mitigated by replacing traditional textbooks with these tools there is the added and very high cost of maintaining these networks and devices once they are purchased. More and more often the local taxpayer is reluctant to fund these items. Couple that with cuts in state and federal funding for schools and guess what? One of the best things to happen to me recently was a teacher contacting me, from Dubai, to tell me she was using my family travel blog to teach her class.

More research needs to be done before people write articles like these. I feel that these are achievable goals and even more importantly they are essential if we want to achieve true development. More important than the specificity of what has been said, is the overarching concept that the next generation needs to explore whatever technology available to them, be taught not to limit their capacity to achieve and to be mindful of the true value of good health.

Using keying and screens is horrible for the learning process. Using a touch-screen phone actually prevents you from remembering what you look up on it. Recall of knowledge read from a physical page is better. That depends on the type of learner you are. I am a visual and tactile learner, so this would work for me. I believe that tactile and visual learners learn better from physically writing than using screen or keyboards.

In a general sense, within the same teaching method, the trend of students that want to take pictures of the board instead of writing it down has weekend class quality. What about monitoring the progress of a student throughout the process. Is it possible to have a perpetual, continuous chain of monitoring which would insure that students evaluation would be available to the next level they enter where it could be again evaluated and if necessary find the cause s of failure s to learn?

Perhaps the good designer of these 14 items should include another one pertaining to adequate staff having precedent over inflated administration. It takes people to teach in the manner outlined. Willingness, hope, vision and motivation are not enough. I disagree with this. Typing is the single most useful skill I learned in middle school. I think students should take a typing class at least once in their life, because then they will be able to use technology efficiently in their other classes, as this article suggests. Smart points here, however I wish you had gotten a proofreader.

I see some sloppy mistakes which is a bummer, because it only takes away from an otherwise intelligent argument. Sometimes changes have to be made. In my opinion, too much tech integration is not a good thing. Kids are losing valuable skills i. Relying too much on technology trains tehbrain into being reactive and responsive. Example, kids want to look up answers using either google or Scire as oppsed to locating information in a book. Second, phones in the classroom are by far the the single biggest distraction playing games, texting, listening to music, etc.

They are not yet mature enough or disciplined enough to be responsible with technology. Students also think homework is obsolete and reading from a book. Ummm…plenty of studies like this! The reality is that this article is a pipe dream in my opinion. First, to have everything so technology driven is not good for the students or the teacher. When I was in grad school they had great access to technology — and while the professor was lecturing people would be on Facebook, surfing the web, house hunting, and a myraid of other things all completely outside of the focus of the class.

The schools I have taught in have been ten times worse! It is great to have access to technology and use it within reason to enhance education — but some of the things you listed as obsolete are still very relevant in schools today!!! The problame is not just the money but the obsolete people who lead the countries, the schools. But there are always good examples: SO, never give up the change! And the thing about parents and other teachers casually coming in and out is a great recipe for chaos. All excellent points and worthy of our consideration as educators.

Students looking on facebook or texting one another is no different than students passing notes or drawing pictures when we were in school. If teachers set clear expectations and provide proper supervision, you then place the responsibility on the students to comply otherwise they lose the privilege. The fact of the matter is this generation is connected to technology.

Using books and encylopedias to look up information is about as relevant as using an abacus to do math. Thank you to the author for providing great information to those of us willing to prepare students for THEIR future rather than forcing them to live in OUR past.

I think students should learn to unplug, on principle. Far too many people spend their entire day on a screen ignoring the people in the same room. This writer strikes me as painfully naive and inexperienced. I loved my SmartBoard—wish I still had it—and think electronic dictionaries are great tools. So much of the rest of this ignores the realities at schools.

Starting later means ending later which means all athletic practices and other activities start later so kids get out of those later and have less evening time at home for homework and family time. A fallacy that keeps being perpetuated. Teens adapt to what they need for sleep.. Open classrooms to parents then every Tom Dick and Harry believe that they can judge to quality and style of teaching that goes on in the classroom, by the way most schools do allow teachers to visit classroom to learn and team teach. I firmly believe that phones and tablets to a degree should be banned in schools I would go asfar as saying put cell service blockers in all schools.

Phones distract the students from the eessential learning of the classroom, kids can not be trusted to focus when they have ready access to Facebook etc. Computer rooms are necessary because not every student has their own laptop not everyone is rich and even if they do not all kids will bring them every day, students are great at avoiding work. As for teachers blogging etc when was the last time you taught in a school full time? Most teachers spend so much time compiling lessons, marking assignments, doing reports, helping with extracurricular activities and trying to have a life outside of school that they are to tired to do extra stuff.

You constantly allow students on phones and hand held devices, they will never get anything done. Solely because you cannot stand over every one at the same time and ensure that they are not texting, calling, facebooking, tweeting, etc. As a math teacher, I have never had computers in my classroom…and I have worked for very wealthy districts. I have never had an data projector until this year. A useful article upon which to chew the cud. The principles are fine but the realities somewhat different. Neither party knows anything about education and how it should be administrated yet they are given the power to create and destroy the educational programs students need..

They screw around with funding simply to fit in with their political theories, not based on actual results or real information. Schools need to be left out of the political grand-standing and given access to the funding they need. Leave student education to the people that know what is needed — the teachers. Politicians need to shut their mouths and keep their uneducated opinions to themselves. The political solutions to education today is much akin to having 15 people telling a carpenter how and why to use his hammer while refusing to allow him to use it to drive one nail into a board.

Because every single one of these things is completely accurate. You can go on and on about how irrelevant this article is but as an actual high school student, this is everything I need. A similar study of integrated science is under way. However, the available studies suggest some potentially promising—if preliminary and qualified—findings associated for each school type.

Those studies also raise questions that merit further exploration about variations within and across school types and about whether these schools are making progress toward the three broad goals for U. Our collective understanding of these schools would be enhanced by more information about the instructional practices in these schools and the factors that influence them.

Opened in August , Dozier-Libby will eventually serve students in grades Students are required to take a minimum of four mathematics and four science courses and a minimum of 2 years of foreign language. All students who successfully complete the program meet or exceed the A-G requirements for admission into the University of California system.

The health science theme is integrated throughout all curricular areas with heavy emphasis on integrated project-based units. In addition to the A-G requirements, students take a medical terminology course their freshmen year, which is articulated with Los Medanos Community College.

Students who pass the course with a B or better receive three college credits. Students also take a health science course each year with subject matter that is specific to health-related industries such as medical career exploration, global medicine, ethical and legal practices, and employability skills. For the school year, Dozier-Libbey served a total of students.

Of these students, 45 percent in were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Frequent hands-on instructional activities are a key part of the program and are developed with industry and postsecondary partners. Examples of these activities are job shadowing, guided study tours, service learning opportunities, presentations by guest speakers, cross-curricular research projects, digital portfolios, and internships. In addition, all students are strongly encouraged to join and participate in Health Occupation Students of America. In , Dozier-Libbey was one of 97 public middle and high schools that were named California Distinguished Schools.

Although not explicitly focused on the STEM disciplines, these schools might instead strive for excellence for all students in all disciplines. The STEM education goals of comprehensive schools vary widely and can include helping to prepare the next generation of scientists and innovators, expanding the number of capable students for the STEM workforce, increasing science literacy for all, and generally preparing students for postsecondary success.

To these ends, mathematics and science requirements in comprehensive schools have increased in the past 25 years. In , for example, 31 states required three or more credits in science for high school graduation, and 37 required three or more credits in mathematics. In terms of STEM-focused programs in regular comprehensive high schools, Advanced Placement AP and International Baccalaureate IB are the most widely recognized programs of advanced study in science and mathematics in the United States, and the only two that are national in scope see box for a brief description.

As of , roughly 35 percent of U. English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies. These suggestions included emphasizing deep understanding rather. School programs are designed to develop sound character, creativity, ethical judgment, concerned attitudes, and the ability to live productively and harmoniously in a global workforce. The school offers a challenging standards-based academic curriculum with the following specialized programs: Honors, Opportunity, Potential, Enrichment classes, English as second language classes, Reading Recovery instruction, Project Raise services, inclusion and transitional special education classes, bilingual education, the Response to Intervention RTI program, 8th grade algebra, and a fine and performing arts program.

Classes are designed to foster curiosity, inquiry, and discovery in curriculum foundations. The school has an integrated curriculum for all students in which learning extends beyond the classroom walls. Of these students 84 percent in were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. In response to that report and other influences, a comprehensive effort is under way to redesign AP science courses. The goals of the redesign are to produce a more inclusive and more engaging program of study for each AP discipline.

Advanced Placement and International baccalaureate: The IB program was developed in the late s to provide an international standard of secondary education for children of diplomats and others stationed outside their countries. One goal was to prepare students for university work in their home countries. The International Baccalaureate Organisation authorizes participating high schools. Schools cannot offer only a subset of IB courses; instead, they must offer a full IB diploma program. Although some students take individual IB courses as they would an honors course, most are diploma candidates, taking a program of six or seven courses over 2 years.

Developed in , AP is the predominant national program for advanced courses in U. The College Board provides topic outlines for AP courses, generated largely by surveying colleges and universities. However, teachers are allowed considerable leeway in implementation.

Because informative research on programs and practices can be at a smaller scale than research on types of schools, a larger body of rigorous evidence is available on practices that are associated with better student outcomes, regardless of whether students are in a STEM-focused school or in a regular school.

Although many of these practices have been studied separately and in individual classrooms, the committee believes that it may be possible to improve STEM education for all students by combining successful practices and implementing them school wide. Thus, the committee believed that the most useful way of identifying criteria for success relates to educational practices: Focusing on practices instead of outcomes provides schools with concrete guidance for improving the quality of STEM instruction and, presumably, of STEM learning.

Drawing on this evidence, we focused on two key aspects of practice that are likely to be found in successful schools: This description is consistent with the vision that inspired the Conceptual Framework for New Science Education Standards. According to the research, effective instruction actively engages students in science, mathematics, and engineering practices throughout their schooling.

Effective teachers use what they know about. In this way, students successively deepen their understanding both of core ideas in the STEM fields and of concepts that are shared across areas of science, mathematics, and engineering. Students also engage with fundamental questions about the material and natural worlds and gain experience in the ways in which scientists have investigated and found answers to those questions.

In grades K, students carry out scientific investigations and engineering design projects related to core ideas in the disciplines, so that by the end of their secondary schooling they have become deeply familiar with core ideas in STEM and have had a chance to develop their own identity as STEM learners through the practices of science, mathematics, and engineering.

In selective schools, students regularly design and conduct scientific research, sometimes in collaboration with working scientists. Inclusive STEM schools aim to provide this same kind of experience. Students in these schools have opportunities to learn science, mathematics, and engineering by addressing problems that have real-world applications.

It is typically facilitated by extraordinary teachers who overcome a variety of challenges that stand between vision and reality. Further transformation is needed at the national, state, and local levels for this type of K STEM instruction to become the norm. In the rest of this section we identify some of the key elements that might be able to guide educators and policy makers in that direction.

A coherent set of standards and curriculum. As noted above, roughly 75 percent of U. International comparison data suggest that these results might be explained by differences in U. The research shows a clear link between what students are expected to learn and mathematics achievement: At a given grade level, greater achievement is associated with covering fewer topics in greater depth.

Current work on the Common Core State Standards for mathematics 48 and the Conceptual Framework for New Science Education Standards 49 may allow states to move toward curricula that address the most important topics and are focused on developing proficiency in mathematics and science.

Some evidence suggests that these kinds of efforts—namely, adopting rigorous standards and aligning curriculum and assessments to those standards—can lead to gains in student achievement. According to one report:. Most importantly, this improvement can happen in an American state. The adoption of common standards can also provide an opportunity to focus teacher preparation and professional development opportunities on material that will be relevant to their work.

Teachers with high capacity to teach in their discipline. Teaching in ways that inspire all students and deepen their understanding of STEM content and practices is a demanding enterprise. To be effective, teachers need content knowledge and expertise in teaching that content, but the research suggests that science and mathematics teachers are particularly underprepared for these demands.

For example, in both middle and high schools, unacceptably high percentages of teachers who teach science and mathematics courses are not certified in the subjects they teach and did not major in a related field in college. Weak initial teacher preparation heightens the importance of continuing professional development, but the available research suggests that professional development in STEM, when available,. In any discipline, effective professional development should.

A supportive system of assessment and accountability. In mathematics, for example, since implementation of the No Child Left Behind NCLB Act, there has been a shift away from complex performance assessments toward multiple-choice items. A successful system of standards-based science assessment is coherent in a variety of ways. It is horizontally coherent: It is vertically coherent: The system is also developmentally coherent: A supportive accountability system focuses not just on student outcomes but also on teacher practices.

IMSA uses three different methods to determine the extent to which this objective is achieved:. The NCLB Act has also changed the time for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics instruction in the K curriculum. Particularly in elementary school, the predominant instructional emphasis is on mathematics and English language arts because those subjects are tested annually under the current accountability system.

In the school year, for example, elementary schools on a nationally representative survey reported spending an average of minutes per week on science instruction, minutes on mathematics, and minutes on English language arts. In contrast, 45 percent of districts reported increasing instructional time for mathematics in elementary schools, with an average increase of 89 minutes per week. A study of science education in California paints a starker picture. That survey of nine counties in the San Francisco Bay Area found: Equal access to high-quality STEM learning opportunities. The achievement gaps among students from different socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic groups are well documented.

For example, disparities in teacher expectations and other school and classroom-level factors, such as access to adequate laboratory facilities, resources, and supplies, contribute to gaps in science achievement for underrepresented groups. Policies to ensure that well-prepared teachers are placed in all classrooms can redress the imbalance in access to qualified teachers that currently exists between students from advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds.

For instance, when detracking fails to provide challenging learning opportunities for all students, low-income and minority students may have the most to lose because they often lack academic support outside school that could compensate for weak instruction in school. Strong teachers and focused, rigorous, and coherent curricula are certainly important factors to improve student learning in STEM.

However, school and community conditions also affect what is taught, how it is taught, and with which results. Research suggests that although teacher qualifications matter, the school context—its culture and conditions—matters just as much, if not more. As an example, research conducted in several school districts over 10 years highlights teacher learning communities as among the most powerful sources of improvement in teacher and student learning and identify multiple factors that strengthen and sustain those learning communities e.

Additional research is needed on the effects of STEM teacher professional development on student achievement and on which elements of school culture contribute to STEM learning, particularly in schools serving low-income and minority students who are underrepresented in the STEM majors and careers. Longitudinal data from public elementary schools in Chicago bolster these and other findings from the considerable body of research on structuring schools to promote high-quality teaching and learning. Roughly half of schools with a well-aligned curriculum and a strong professional community among teachers substantially improved math and reading achievement.

The elementary schools that improved student learning in mathematics and reading shared five common elements: School leadership as the driver for change. Principals must be strategic, focused on instruction, and inclusive of others in the leadership work. Professional capacity or the quality of the faculty and staff recruited to the school, their base beliefs and values about change, the quality of ongoing professional development, and the capacity of a staff to work together.

Such a climate is safe, welcoming, stimulating and nurturing environment focused on learning for all students. Instructional guidance that is focused on the organization of the curriculum, the nature of academic demand or challenges it poses, and the tools teachers have to advance learning such as instructional materials. The strength of these supports varied within and across elementary schools in Chicago:

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