23 Baltimore schools have zero students proficient in math

a reply to: strongfp

China is very different culturally too. They do not have a culture of individuality, self-reliance and liberty. Even their spiritual practices support passive acceptance over striving to move out of their decreed lot in life.

They are less individual focused and more communal by culture/ethnicity. So it's less risky to educate the hive.

originally posted by: Dalamax
Ummm. Just what are the teachers doing all day?

Is there something in the water? Lead pipes? Mercury in the food dye? Just wtf are these pupils wasting their time doing?

a reply to: infolurker

A degree in Education is one of the easiest degrees you can get. You don't have to be smart, and there's a reason for that. Teachers in Chicago are always going on strike. The Teacher's Union in NY had to remove the Reading section from the job tests because applicants couldn't pass. A good teacher in a public school is very hard to find, that's why my son is in a private Montessori school.

While it unsurprising that among actors and actresses there are 90 Democrats for every 10 Republicans, many would be amazed to discover that teachers are actually as liberal or even more so than those in acting.

Among English teachers, there are 97 Democrats for every three Republicans, with the proportion being even more one-sided among health teachers, with 99 Democrats for every one Republican.

While there are slightly more Republicans among math and science teachers, among high school teachers overall, there are 87 Democrats for every 13 Republicans.

It is important to understand the influence of schools of education, which train prospective teachers, on the political and ideological leanings of teachers.

Why Are Teachers Mostly Liberal?

a reply to: ketsuko

This is true. I'd say they're more family oriented, which makes them more prone to a national hegemony propoganda scheme. Moas three togethers comes to mind.

originally posted by: ketsuko

China is very different culturally too. They do not have a culture of individuality, self-reliance and liberty. Even their spiritual practices support passive acceptance over striving to move out of their decreed lot in life.

They are less individual focused and more communal by culture/ethnicity. So it's less risky to educate the hive.

I'm not exactly arguing with you here, but I have some reactions to your post...

Firstly, I find it difficult to accept characterizations such as yours about the Chinese culture. They are as culturally diverse as any large, heavily populated people. Reducing them to a single descriptive narrative seems imprudent, barring something that I address as an externalized 'secondary' reality - such as social engineering, or political indoctrination.

It seems unlikely that a person, having been born and raised in China, would necessarily lack those traits we find in ourselves. Only that they are affected by their environment, society, and individual nature.

In other words, they are ultimately people, regardless of where they are from.

Secondly, what most of us know of the Chinese culture is handed to us in a neat package - usually filtered for "our" consumption... and it seems imprudent not to accept that the only valid estimations come from direct observation. Maybe that's just me.

I don't say this to refute your assertions, nor challenge your perceptions. They may be very valid... I'm just not ready to let go of the fact that of all those I have met... none fit any 'flat' characterization... and some quite often have demonstrated exactly those qualities you appear to believe they don't have.

I find myself repeatedly reminded that as self-contradictory as this generalization may sound...

with all individual humans, exceptionalism actually is the norm.

originally posted by: M5xaz
a reply to: infolurker


I took Latin in high school

I did too, it helped tremendously with learning/knowing Law words.
Too bad it’s not found as an elective these days.

Then why do we keep them in school?
They either cannot or won't learn.
Yet we spend more per student on such schools than any other.
typical government, the more money you give it the greater the ineptitude.
I think I figured it out: they can learn addition by counting bullets.
You have 11 rounds in your clip and you shoot twice.
How many bullets are left in your clip?
Enough - Thats correct!

a reply to: Maxmars

Eastern religion is more centered on the idea of reincarnation. You accept your lot in this life because it is a way to prepare your soul to hopefully move into a better station in the next. So in a way, they are moving up or seeking to, but it is a much longer view than what we take. Instead of moving up in one lifetime, they tend to think of moving up in lifetimes.

Western thought is not reincarnative. We think of this one lifetime, not more than one.

Like it or not, our cultures are shaped by our spiritual practices and beliefs even if we are not believing. This is what we mean when we say we are a Judeo-Christian nation, not that everyone here is Jewish or Christian or that we are governed by theocracy or should be, but that the basic principles and cultural practices of those spiritual traditions strongly shape and affect our way of life and mindset.

So it is in China where one of their beliefs is reincarnation. There was recently a fight over the Dalai Lama. China tried to take control of him by demanding he announce he was reincarnating into a body they controlled (I forget exactly what leverage they were holding over the Dalai Lama), and the Dalai Lama threatened to not reincarnate at all. As I said, they think in lifetimes, not one life. So the individual is less ambitious in this lifetime, not to say they have no ambition, but they feel they have all the time in the world because they will live again ... and again ... and again. So they are maybe less pressed to try to accomplish everything in one life.

23 Baltimore schools have zero students proficient in math, another 20 Baltimore City Schools had just one or two students test proficient in math.

Baltimore City’s math scores were the lowest in the state. Just 7 percent of third through eighth graders tested proficient in math, which means 93 percent could not do math at grade level.

Amazing news... Why the government can't stop it? No one thinks about the future of the country. These students are the future. Bad one. Imagine our country without worthy engineers for example... I'm a student of the uni now and must say that my generation (difference only in a few years!) is much better in math, just look at the statistic of past years... They have a lot of opportunities to study, but no one uses them. It depends not only on schools but on students and their parents. Of course, that's easier to close their eyes to the marks, allow them to do what they want, and develop no discipline. I'm scared

the US education system is severely screwed up, and has been for decades,only just getting even worse. seriously the amount of people i know in the US, including close friends and relatives, that can't properly speak or write English (and we are talking about people born in the US, to English speaking parents), is scary. and even worse, almost every kid i know in the US, needs speech therapy. something almost unheard of in Canada,other than for kids with mental disabilities, and even then, not all that common. and the fact is they do in fact seem to need it. but why? what is it about the US that makes people not know their own language and can't speak properly?

a reply to: infolurker

Sorry to do this, but going to make the obligatory cycle of poverty and mentallity of life in the ghetto argument. When the potholed street is your teacher.

Perhaps if they adapted the math problems?

DaShawn has 2 ounces of coke and 10 2mg pills of fentanyl. Knowing the weight of an ounce is 28 grams how much of each pill would need to go in each bag if broken down into 8 balls?

They need to do more to appeal to what matters to these students, maybe bribe them with money for attending and passing? Like a signing bonus for staying in school and trying.

Absurdist arguments aside, many would rather be a baller than a doctor. And that is a faster and more street respected stratification route than a "rigged racist system" designed to keep the ghetto from gaining wealth.

Maps illustrate uncomfortable things and prompt even more uncomfortable commentary.

a reply to: Degradation33

Really? You found story problems to be riveting and directly relevant to your life?

I am sorry.

a reply to: ketsuko

It's a lot nicer than saying the schools are failing because the culture of impoverished neighborhoods does not see the same benefit in education it's affluent counterparts do.

And a hell of lot nicer than saying a large percentage of low income black people view public schools as an "Uncle Tom Assimilation Factory". Where you go have your identity reworked and whitewashed by a culture that profiles you with an institutional racism anyway.

It mostly applies to poverty though. Black people are the most institutionalized example of overt class elitism. And that's what is most relevant.

In my opinion this is largely driven by a mutually parasitic mistrust between white and black culture. Which can be personified as police vs. the hood. And you can't change it any faster than it was ingrained. I feel it's in the realm of genetic memory at this point. Hereditary mistrust no different than subsequent generations of any animal born to instinctively avoid things that cause harm without previously encountering it.

originally posted by: Degradation33
a reply to: ketsuko

...

And a hell of lot nicer than saying a large percentage of black people view public schools as an "Uncle Tom Assimilation Factory". Where you go have your identity reworked and whitewashed by a culture that profiles you with an institutional racism.

I understand (and do not reject) the imagery you evoke here. I do not deny that many agree that somehow anything not directly affirming one culture can be judged as a diminishment of that culture. I also believe that cultural perspectives are as fragile and malleable as personal perspectives. I however, being experienced in the 'cultural' lessons of life, I know that there was never an actual "effort" to do what you describe. But as with all "victimhood" perspectives, the accusation itself is relevant, and requires redressing to reconcile. Such reconciliation is impossible when either party refuses the good faith required to do so. I wonder if that is even possible given the postures some have taken.

It mostly applies to poverty though. Black people are the most institutionalized example of overt class elitism. And that's what sticks.

Would you be so kind as to expand this part of your post? While I think I understand, I want to be certain because among the many possibilities I can conjure includes that the "oppressed culture" itself might have acquired a certain fashion of 'elite' status, if only for the purposes of this context. I'm probably overthinking this...

In my opinion this is largely born from a mutually parasitic mistrust between white and black culture. And you can't change it any faster than it was ingrained. I feel it's in the realm of genetic memory at this point. Hereditary mistrust no different than subsequent generations of any animal born to instinctively avoid things that cause harm without previously encountering it.

I have to confess; I am of the belief that this construct of "cultures clashing" is not objectively realistic. If there are any tragedies to be expounded upon here it is the reality that some thinkers simply insist that we are actually two separate peoples. We are not (frankly, we never were.) But I suppose that is what happens when one culture is practically destroyed while within another culture, and suffers the indignity of 'property-status' ... But you could never "fix" that... and certainly never can "make it so it didn't happen"... We lost any chance of that when the last of the actual victims from that culture perished over time...

I have the opinion that we will all "grow up" eventually, the next few generations of humans will find this to be "noise" in the story of mankind.

The systematic categorization of humans is the purview of few nowadays... but they do it so poorly that we must assume it's on purpose.

a reply to: Maxmars

Would you be so kind as to expand this part of your post? While I think I understand, I want to be certain because among the many possibilities I can conjure includes that the "oppressed culture" itself might have acquired a certain fashion of 'elite' status, if only for the purposes of this context. I'm probably overthinking this...

It seems all these constructs of repression revolve around wealth unofficially. "White trash" are equally profiled and likely to fall into cycles of poverty and criminality.

The idea being: "The law enforcement of the affluent targets poverty". Like authority is an extension of the favored class, at least it takes on that oppressed mantra.

The beat up 84 Cutlass or barely running 83 Blazer is way more likely to be pulled over regardless of who is driving it. Especially if it's spotted in a neighborhood of Mercedes and Range Rovers.

But no one ever says, "You're harassing me because I'm poor in a rich neighborhood". But that could easily be why they were pulled over. Likely because there's also been an epic history of racism it takes precedence over the common denominator of most criminals, which is actually social class.

It is noise. But its noise that has the white picket fences as a much different dream and one COMPLETELY laden with an institutionalized mistrust of authority, which is by extension the repressive systems of the ruling whites. Education included.

Also why homicides cluster around the same dots on the map as failing schools, higher concentration of non-white, number of churches (both God and Chicken), and number of check cashing places.

Facing it yields uncomfortable data. All the remnant segregation is self-perpetuating. As long as there are highly policed ghettos with a higher percentage of non-whites the schools there will have failing students that dont care with a problem with authority. The police will have a reason to stay and the kids that grow up hating them have a reason to not try to be the part of their society. Choosing to care more about getting respect of peers than being a contributing member of law-abiding society.

It's a snake eating it's tail at this point.

originally posted by: Avuncular

23 Baltimore schools have zero students proficient in math, another 20 Baltimore City Schools had just one or two students test proficient in math.

Baltimore City’s math scores were the lowest in the state. Just 7 percent of third through eighth graders tested proficient in math, which means 93 percent could not do math at grade level.

Amazing news... Why the government can't stop it? No one thinks about the future of the country. These students are the future. Bad one. Imagine our country without worthy engineers for example... I'm a student of the uni now and must say that my generation (difference only in a few years!) is much better in math, just look at the statistic of past years... They have a lot of opportunities to study, look here, thousands of sources to get help with study tasks, but no one uses them. It depends not only on schools but on students and their parents. Of course, that's easier to close their eyes to the marks, allow them to do what they want, and develop no discipline. I'm scared

Now I'm so interested in the situation in other parts of the US and if it's different, so what are the reasons for such bad results in Baltimore