a giant problem is the motivation of people. They are happy doing who knows what instead of always trying to do better. Education can’t teach you that.
Well, that’s a confidence issue. People with low self-esteem set low, easy to achieve goals. It allows them to feel a sense of accomplishment and avoid failure. It doesn’t work that well because the sense of accomplishment isn’t associated with high effort. They may make themselves feel like they had to do a lot, but really it’s just not a healthy lifestyle.
This is what middle school does. You get a lot of little goals that are easy to achieve. It’s suppose to inspire confidence so students set higher goals in high school. Ironically it really only works if the student has confidence to begin with. Having confidence and a positive image of oneself starts much earlier on in life. You’re a little too late by the time middle school rolls around. Again, home life really goes a long way with this issue. A reeeeally long way. But again, this is a reason why everybody is different. Trying to make an education system that caters to everybody is as hopeless as trying to make a single car perfect for everybody. I think we need a game plan that attacks at more than one angle.
But that costs more money, and unfortunately people have the Darwin “sink or swim” attitude towards other people. Which is fine, but don’t complain to me when you’re paying for them to live later down the road. And people are more concerned about money than being educated, even when it comes to their own money and their own education. 
As Jeremy said earlier,
It would erase boundaries of class, and end distractions.
This was a huge problem in all of the schools I went to, and I know it affected the way I was able to be educated.
I think the schools need to take more interest in learning how people learn best, and offer different tracks accordingly. I am a visual thinker, I am right brained, I operate a different way than most people, which is why I took much better to classes which focused on a hands on, or visual type of learning.
Not all kids learn the same, and schools need to start noticing this and changing the way they do things, or you are always going to be leaving certain people struggling to get by, not because they are stupid, but because they learn different.
Joe in regards to your post #98, if you really can’t see the difference then I am quite sure I can’t convince you in this thread that there is a HUGE difference.
I am surprised you think it is the same, you seem fairly intelligent when you copy and paste articles from the web on here.
I know you can at least read but I am shocked at your lack of understanding simple concepts sometimes.
That’s fine but I think there should be something that students can wear that is of their own choosing…like a tie.
Concepts like what?
A government funded program using the united states tax base can always do more than a locally funded program. It is the management of the money that is key. I’m not denying that government programs have a lot of bull shit that eats up productivity that needs to be done away with. I am simply saying that a federally or state funded health system…if set up correctly, would do more than CATS of WNY.
If you can’t see that blaming publicly funded services for helping the poor and thus “conditioning” them to recieve handouts…but then giving money to charities that do the same isn’t bizzare I’m shocked at your lack of understanding.
You just don’t like government. You’re a believer in private industry doing social work, while I believe that social charities shouldn’t have to exist because the government should take care of its own people.
This is totally true.
Are you serious? You’re anti-necktie?
Very much so. They hardly get washed, the fabrics used are great places for bacteria to live, and when they are stored they are put in dark places that are usually not very cold.
Terrific way to harbor and pass on things.
But back on to “self-expression.” Hm, you can take a lot of electives in high school. You can actually act how you want and not how you think you should act. You can play a sport. You can join a club. There are so many better means of self-expression than how somebody dresses that it just seems vain to think that by having students wear the same thing you are going to create zombies.
Maybe it would force students to actually be individuals and not rely on how they look?
individual responsibility
enough of the “not my child! no he wouldn’t do that!”
saw so much of that in school
enough cuddly crap and more discipline
thats the problem, its not the content, its the fact that these kids have five second attention spans
i skipped the last 2 pages and there are a lot of good points brought up but one thing that i think is a very major point is calculators. they should NOT be used in school for the majority of math! I use to havea extremely sharp mind when it comes to math and that mostly devloped when i was out of state, but after 4 years of highschool never using my mind i lost almost all ability to do math in my head, when i went to ECC for math this year i had to relearn my times tables because i had forgotten them. simple shit i I couldent rember it!
despite what you new yorkers think is a advanced education system some other states send their advanced students to special schools where they teach on a much more advanced level. fuzzyfish was one that was at such a school. I completely gave up in 11th grade, i lost all interest in school it was too damn easy so i said fuck it. i don’t have to do anything and these people will still passs me. now i’m upset at myself becasue i have no idea what i want to do. i started going to school for machining and i don’t like it, it’s neat but not somehting i want to do for 30 years 
.
limit the use of calculators
offer chalanging schools for those who need to be chalanged in life!
uniform > dress code from grades 1 to 8. maybe from 9 to 12 or maybe even 7-12 change it up to make it a dress code. i went to both catholic and public grammar schools, uniforms were not a big deal. i went to canisius hs, it was one plain shirt/pants/tie, and was not a big deal. not only does this eliminate gang wear and put everyone on a similar playing field, but it gets people ready for life, when you might actually have to dress nicely once in awhile instead of wearing xxxl jeans with rips and a g unit hoody. (and dont get me wrong, i love my hoodies and rap, but sometimes the gear just isnt appropriate.)
quality is definitely > quantity as far as parenting goes. i lived w/ my sister and my mom, who was a single parent. she worked about 55 hrs a week busting her ASS doing her job, but would still make time for baseball games, basketball games, dance recitals, taking us and friends places, and making sure we were doing well in school. i read it earlier in the thread somewhere, but i wouldn’t dare come home with less than a “B” in school, b/c i knew my mom was doing everything she could, so the least i could do was to try my best also.
flash forward to now: parents are worthless, many of the kids don’t care. so before we try to figure out where the money is going to come from to support this, let’s look at if it actually could work. i don’t see how a jail term or punishment would help, UNLESS, the parents had an actual caring relative to take care of them in the meantime. but, STILL, would time in jail actually help neglectful parents? remember, they don’t care in the first place, they would be pissed off that they were being reprimanded for how they were raising “their” kids, they would do their time, or punishment, and be more angry, and still not give a shit. SOME people may see the light. but how many - about 10-15% - ? the money that would be spent and lost on the other 85-90% would be wasted.
problem 2: many of the kids just don’t care. you can’t change their minds or outlooks or work ethic or morals if they have no interest in them being changed.
i agree with the general idea of this thread that the public education system in the US should be top notch right across the board, but it’s the students who drag it down. it’d be easy for teachers to have a class full of average and above students if the students all cared. the problem isn’t only pumping more $ into education, it’s getting the attitudes right first. then money will help.
uniform > dress code from grades 1 to 8. maybe from 9 to 12 or maybe even 7-12 change it up to make it a dress code. i went to both catholic and public grammar schools, uniforms were not a big deal. i went to canisius hs, it was one plain shirt/pants/tie, and was not a big deal. not only does this eliminate gang wear and put everyone on a similar playing field, but it gets people ready for life, when you might actually have to dress nicely once in awhile instead of wearing xxxl jeans with rips and a g unit hoody. (and dont get me wrong, i love my hoodies and rap, but sometimes the gear just isnt appropriate.)
i absolutly think uniforms would help, even if they enforced the dresscodes in effect it would help.
i dont agree with this post. if you felt bored in school, you should have spoken to the teachers/admin about taking more challenging classes.
when you learn the basics of math, such as standard operations, times tables, etc, you dont have a calculator. so if you are then using one in 5th-6th grade and on, you obviously didn’t learn them when you were supposed to.
i wonder how many people even on this forum who took advanced classes in HS… or even before HS? how about college, anyone graduate with honors? if you just took the basic curriculum, and it bored you, why wouldnt you take more or change it up? not to knock public schools, but i’ve seen some of the classes that were offered… one senior level music class… consisted of a different student bringing in a cd each class, listening to several songs, and then discussing in class. no tests, no written work, not even mandatory participation. i’m sure some of the discussions could get interesting, but is this a good way to get students ready for life? that was at one of the top ranked suburb public schools… i can’t imagine what the city ones are like.
I hated wearing uniforms…I think slacks + white/blue shirt + blazer > your standard black pants + white shirt…
Bad looking uniforms impact negatively on performance. There is a reason they say the suit makes the man.
Hm, so…maybe it’s not a problem with our education, but our culture as a whole…
OH NO!