IP: Re: "We don't have the raw talent we need to be on the cutting edge"

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 12:16:36 +0100
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
> From: Jean Camp <jean_camp () harvard edu>
>
>
> For the elite who make it to US schools, the education system for those 
> foreign countries offers:
> algebra in jr high
> "advanced" calculus in high school
> music in high school
> decent foreign language instruction through school.
> We have raw talent. We just don't prepare it.
>
> The crisis is not in universities. The crisis is less evident in 
> elementary schools, where little equipment and less investment in current 
> knowledge is required. The crisis is in high schools, and to a lesser 
> degree jr high schools. High schools that have active booster clubs for 
> the _sports_ _teams_ and nothing for the chess team. Where science fair 
> happens once a year and football games every Saturday. Read voices from 
> Hellmouth on slashdot if you think smart kids get too many resources. 
> American high school teaches to the lowest common denominator, in a 
> sometimes violently anti-intellectual environment.  When America cares to 
> educate kids, as opposed to being entertained by them in contests of 
> sports, then we can have talent.
>
> At the higher levels where skills teaching is essential our current 
> education system fails.  We have a educational funding system that was 
> built to appease anti-Catholic, nativist, and racist opponents of public 
> schooling.We have an ed training system built to remove the placing of 
> teachers based on religious affiliation -- but not designed to educate 
> kids for the 21st century.   We refuse to increase funding by factors of 3 
> or 5 or 10 (as has been done with medicine as boomers age).
>
> The only significant increase in funding at the K-12 level has been for 
> the learning disabled (in part by cutting services for the intellectually 
> talented because the law requires access to the learning disabled but 
> doesn't fund it). Amazingly, learning by the disabled has significantly 
> increased! In the educational system we all decry as 
> fundamentally  broken! Wow! Almost as if investment paid off! Imagine if 
> we made the _same_ investment in _every_ child.
>
> Any comparison which shows US spending equal to that in the developed 
> world includes university spending. We have great universities because we 
> pay for them. The US spends less on education in music in k-12 than on 
> military bands. We don't educate our kids. That is why they don't learn, 
> and don't learn to enjoy intellectual challenges.
>
> WE HAVE AN INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION EDUCATION SYSTEM FUNDED AND TAUGHT FOR 
> INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION FACTORY EMPLOYEES. WHAT DO WE EXPECT AS AN OUTCOME?
>
> Enjoy your tax cut. We're all paying for the investment option declined.
>
> -Jean



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