We cannot rely on support from parents, the system we design needs to be thought of with parents out of the equation because in the case of the most vulnerable of kids they will not have parents that can help them. Special tutoring needs to be a part of the system, outsourcing the work will make things cheaper but it will complicate things for those struggling.
Kids in need should be our priority, because the ones that have supportive parents are really going to receive that support regardless.
I agree on everything else though. Content shouldn't be watered down, school needs to be a safe haven for kids in need. We should be having our most capable people thinking on how to improve the educational system so that we can truly bring everyone forward as we progress.
Honestly, it doesn’t really work without the parents. The issue is that the biggest problems with schooling discrepancies are poverty. Kids can’t eat, need to take care of siblings or their own kids or go work two jobs, have no homes, don’t get medical care, have no internet, etc.
There is no way to really fix those problems by changing the school system. You can have bandaids, like providing free food at school, but that’s fixing the problem at the wrong level.
are there no all-day schools in the US? My girlfriend went to one because of her mother being on her own and having to work and it was pretty involved compared to my "normal" school. They handled school, sports and homework. Your kid should come home with only very, very few things to do. It's a trend in germany to have it as an option at more and more schools but they have to build the infrastructure first (may schools in german didn't have a canteen) so it's taking a bit. The schools where I grew up didn't have one but now both "advanced" schools have all day school options.
I think every school should have the possibility to put your kid in an all-day school, I can't imagine the strain on single parents or parents where both have to work a lot otherwise.
Of course it's not possible to eliminate parents as an important factor of the success of your kid, but you can help.
A little bit, but I am not sure whether it is really comparable. It's a relatively new trend here in germany (started 2002). Translating a recent article: "According to this, in 2007 only 16.2 percent of children attended an all-day school. In 2017, the figure was more than twice as high, at 42 per cent."
As I understood it (not a parent and it was not available when I was at school): You have all-day classes and "normal" classes at school. The kids in all-day classes stay together during the day and the kids in the other class go home, it is not an optional add-on. My niece is attending all-day school with a musical focus and likes it very much. All day classes differ between schools and classes, with school on 3-5 afternoons until 4 pm. Supervision is given for homework and studying for exams.
Agreed. Love, shelter, food and support. Schools have kids 6hrs a day. Learning happens 24/7. There is no way schools can compensate for a bad home life. Progressive school reformers are blindingly naive to the impact that the other 18hrs of a child's day has to their performance at school.
> There is no way schools can compensate for a bad home life
There is a difference between "parents always matter to a child's education" and "let's stop trying to improve schools cause what's the point". The latter is basically the same as "schools are pointless, why have them in the first place?". If you believe that, look at some countries that don't have schools...
Or use school funding to pay students who volunteer to tutor the previous year.
In addition to being a continually renewing supply of teachers, it provides an income stream for those who might really need it and financially incentivizes academic excellence.
Or use school funding to pay students who volunteer to tutor the previous year.
why pay students to tutor? make tutoring younger kids part of the curriculum. teaching a skill is the best way to practice and internalize the skill for yourself.
montessori is already doing this very effectively.
Doesn't university math have tutorials and colloquiums? If you go to MIT opencourseware and look at the math and applied math courses tutorials are a big part. They're done in class to guarantee some minimal understanding. I think its the case with most math departments (not just elite ones like MIT). Not sure if something like that is possible. If you scale out of tutors with maybe a 1:3 or a 1:4 tutor to student ratio it might raise the bar for everyone. It might require a whole bunch of money though.
You can try to work the parents out of the equation as much as you want, but it won’t work. This isn’t a new problem, and we don’t and won’t live in small communal villages.
We cannot rely on support from parents, the system we design needs to be thought of with parents out of the equation because in the case of the most vulnerable of kids they will not have parents that can help them. Special tutoring needs to be a part of the system, outsourcing the work will make things cheaper but it will complicate things for those struggling.
Kids in need should be our priority, because the ones that have supportive parents are really going to receive that support regardless.
I agree on everything else though. Content shouldn't be watered down, school needs to be a safe haven for kids in need. We should be having our most capable people thinking on how to improve the educational system so that we can truly bring everyone forward as we progress.