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Cherlene Proud To Be An American-Lee Greenwood! Jul 3, 2010 7:46 AM PLEASE ENJOY THE VIDEO! AND HAPPY 4TH OF JULY TO ALL! Cherlene Fill In The Blank-- Jul 3, 2010 7:25 AM HAPPINESS IS ________________! Cherlene Quote Of The Day Jul 3, 2010 7:13 AM Cherlene Give It A Name - Win The Title Jul 3, 2010 7:09 AM Cherlene Is 'Dumbing Down of America' True? Jul 3, 2010 6:45 AM I was watching Headling News this morning, as I do every morning. Only 1 in 4 students between the ages of 12 and 29 knew what Independence Day stood for? What does it mean? They didn't know. It is the celebration of our independence from Great Britian. Hence, signing the Declaration of Independence. Yes, there is a book called "The Dumbing Down of America", which I intend to read. It is sad to think that the most POWERFUL country is so incredibly behind academically than other countries. How do you feel about the following article by Charles J. Sykes? While critics tend to rely on the three-decades long decline of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) to document the dumbing down of American education, more alarming is our performance against the students of other industrialized countries. By virtually every measure of achievement, American students lag far behind their counterparts in both Asia and Europe, especially in math and science. Moreover, the evidence suggests that they are falling farther and farther behind. As educational researcher Harold Stevenson notes, although "the U.S. is among the countries expending the highest proportion of their gross national product on education, our elementary school and secondary school students never place above the median in comparative studies of academic achievement." Part of the reason is that neither our schools nor our students spend very much time at it. The National Education Commission on Time and Learning found that most American students spend less than half their day actually studying academic subjects. The commission's two-year study found that American students spent only about 41 percent of the school day on basic academics. Their schedules jammed with course work in self-esteem, personal safety, AIDS education, family life, consumer training, driver's ed, holistic health, and gym, the typical American high school student spends only 1,460 hours on subjects like math, science, and history during their four years in high schools. Meanwhile, their counterparts in Japan will spend 3,170 hours on basic subjects, students in France will spend 3,280 on academics, while students in Germany will spend 3,528 hours studying such subjects - nearly three times the hours devoted in American schools. By some estimates, teachers in Japan give elementary students three times as much homework as American children are given by their teachers, while teachers in Taipei give their students seven times as much homework as children in Minneapolis. By fifth grade, children in Minneapolis are getting slightly more than four hours a week in homework, while fifth graders in Japan get six hours and students in Taipei, thirteen hours. One factor in this international learning gap seems to be that we simply ask less of our students than other countries. While one fourth to one third of the high school students in other industrialized countries pass high-level achievement tests in biology that require in-depth knowledge and reasoning skills, only one in twenty-five Americans students (4 percent) passes such tests. A study by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) found that between 30 percent and 50 percent of students in other countries take advanced, subject-specific exams and that 62 percent to 96 percent passed those tests. In contrast, only 7 percent of American students take Advanced Placement Exams and less than two-thirds pass. The AFT reported that "Entrance to most universities in this country is not dependent upon achieving mastery of rigorous science content (or, for that matter, virtually any other subject-matter content)." In other industrialized countries exams requiring extensive knowledge and skills "must be passed by students who want to go on to study in colleges or universities," and "since the exams are well aligned with the school curriculum, students understand that working hard in school will pay off." If you want to read more: http://www.sntp.net/education/education_stats.htm Your comments are welcomed!
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Owner Cherlene
Started Jan 2, 2010
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Open
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A collaboration of thoughts, personal stories, articles and commentaries. My life for YOUR entertainment!
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