Well, this explains a lot up north...

As a former Detroiter and frequent visitor, let me say thank you for all those tax dollars pumped into entitlement programs and public education as you have shown the country the failure of just dumping money at the problem and doing nothing to fix it.

That is astounding. 47 percent? I cannot imagine the day-to-day (and even hour-to-hour) difficulties that poses in living regular life.

Don't Michigan students have to pass standardized tests in order to graduate? How does someone who can't read pass them? How does someone who can't read get past the second grade?

This is mind blowing.

jmleong it's because public education is a SCAM! Teachers don't get paid unless those kids pass, you know they are not going to go without a paycheck on Friday. The one size fits all education model that we have tried to cram down people's throats for the last 75 years does not work, kids are not cars. Please tell my why the quality public education has gone down every year since the Dept. of Education has opened it doors? Tell me why the answer to all of Education's problems are levys? Cause as you can see dumping money at the problem creates wonderful results. Shhh we don't want to really deal with the problem of African Americans and the inability to correct the culture of failure in their schools, so lets just up their food stamps and get their parents a cell phone. Pacified with "bread and circus", but don't you dare say anything about it because then you are a union hater or un-American.

And no it's not all the teacher's fault. The biggest problem is the funding method. You can't kick the 20% of them out who are causing 99.9% of the problem because even little crackhead johnny is a paycheck.

Dexter Manley :

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1077/is_n12_v44/ai_8010811/

Amen, dbw... A. MEN.

DBW,

We know you're not a REAL racist, so no need to talk like one. You (hopefully) meant to say:

"Shhh we don't want to really deal with the culture of failure prevalent in urban schools, so lets just up their food stamps and get their parents a cell phone."

BSwell I'm to lazy to be a racist, hating people because of the color of their skin is a lot of work.

The African American culture in our country is facing some real problems, and the last 30 years of hauling the Honorable Jesse Jackson and Rev Al up on stage to say they need more of the Man's (White) money has not fixed the problem. Stand up and demand corrections by those who lead us and REAL change not change from other people's pockets to pacify the simple with "shiny things" and a crack house to raise your family in. It's disgusting what we do with the poor in our country, here is a loaf of bread, Boost Mobile, and 500 dollars to pay your slum lord for your "home" We really don't care about your education just about buying the teacher's votes.

We can put a man on the moon, track a terrorist to his grave for 10 years, make a computer that fits in your pocket but heaven forbid we fix our education system.

All Americans deserve the same opportunity.

We can't fix education until we address our crumbling social structure and our depraved American culture.

we can't fix education until we believe that teachers know what they're doing and pay them well enough to allow them to continue to do it. imagination is a sin in this country.

Even if the education system is flawed, where are the parents? I taught my step children to read, write, and basic math at HOME. Where are the parents?

Sadly, without parental support the kids suffer. The parents expect the schools to teach the kids all by themselves. If the kids are difficult, the teachers are powerless and if the parents don't care, all you have is troubled kids.
The teachers pass them without them actually knowing much. I can't believe the number of high schoolers who have not been able to pass their graduation tests. And what's worse is that they don't seem to care.

The parents expect the schools...knowing fully well, and opening blaming the schools for all the failings of their kids. Sounds like passing responsibility.

Also this:

http://www.theonion.com/video/in-the-know-are-tests-biased-against-students-who,17966/

I agree with OhioKimono and Hockeyfan. A good friend is a TPS teacher K-5 an the stories I've heard are truly amazing. Child prostitution, mental and physical violence.

Sadly some of the least form of abuse, tends to be the norm from her students when the parents come in yelling and threatening her with the demeanor of a drunken sailor.

I agree with OhioKimono, Hockeyfan and INeedCoffee. Parents set priorities. Teachers can only do so much. Parents have to make sure their kids are doing their homework, teach them right from wrong. That is their responsibility, not teachers. There are instances of white and non-white poor kids who do well in school and become successful, productive adults because they had parents who were involved, who taught them to respect others, and steered them in the right direction. No doubt about it. It starts in the home.

I remember back in the day, when if i got in trouble at school, it was nothing compared to what i got when i got home, but of course that was back when people didn't scream child abuse for a spanking on the rear end.

In Junior high we had a teacher who if you got caught being bad (which had a very broad definition) he would give you swats with a paddle, which had holes drilled in it (supposedly to cut wind resistance), then he would offer you a dime (shows my age) so you could call your parents if you wanted to complain/ cry about it, almost no one took him up on the dime to call home. I never got swats, not because I was never bad, but you only have to be as good as the people your smarter than.

Hey Roy was that teachers name Mr Howard by chance?

Ditto: Parents, Parents, Parents

If parents were doing their job, every child with the mental capicity to read, would be reading. And if they sensed that their child wasnt getting proper instruction in school, they would scream their heads off at school board meetings.

Ugh, that's capacity.

Parents, parents, parents....

We are mostly all in agreement that a lot of what is going wrong is a break down on the home level. That parents are not stepping up and are generally dropping the ball. A friend of mine is a High School teacher who teaches Special Ed. She talks quiet often about how there are students in her class that are just lazy and don't care about their education and feel entitled - thus they don't have to lift a finger.

With students like this all over, it's mindblowing to think that many places want to make teachers pay based off of student performances.

My kids knew how to read simple words by the time they entered kindergarten, because of what we taught them at home. Most kids have the basic capacity to do so.

When there are kids entering kindergarten who don't even recognize the alphabet, that's certainly a problem!

(Sure, all kids have a different learning pace, and some might get stuck on a letter here or there. But most kids would be able to recognize most letters of the alphabet at a young age, if the parents bother to work with them.)

linecrosser- No his name wasn't Mr Howard, I went to school in Southern Ohio, but I imagine most schools in the early 70's had someone similar. I agree with all the people saying the parents should take the brunt of the responsibility, I remember when I was growing up any of the neighborhood parents could tell you what to do, and you minded, if they asked you to do something you did it, just as if your own parent asked you, and heaven forbid if you didn't and it got back to your parents. It was almost a worse crime to have another parent call your parents to complain about something bad you did than to have your own parents catching you doing something bad.

There's no question that education begins at home, with the parents' attitudes towards schooling. When I was a kid, as for many of you, there was simply an expectation that not only would I learn to read well, but that I would go to school and excel. And if I didn't excel, I was expected to try harder. I remember when I got my first "C." Ninth grade. My mom hit the roof!

I was public-school educated, raised by a single mother from the age of 9, and we didn't have a lot of money. Didn't stop me from graduating both high school and college with honors. So I don't believe that public schools are "scams," and I don't believe that familial status or economic status are good excuses for poor school performance.

It is easy and convenient to blame teachers. We can tie their pay to their students' performance, sure. But we are setting them up to fail if no one at the place where a kid spends the other 17 hours of their day cares about what's going on at school.

If Little Johnny in the sixth grade can't read, it's a parent's job to know and ask "Why not?" and "What can we do to fix this?"

Maybe we should tie PARENTS' salaries to their kids' school success? I am sure there are some crappy teachers out there. But your kid only has to suffer a crappy teacher for one year. He suffers poor parenting for a lifetime.

You should be charged with parental neglect if your child can't read in the 6th grade. You are damaging him as much as physical abuse, maybe more.

I don't think this is only a problem up north.

During my odd life, I was an assistant teacher (read: unpaid intern) in both Rossford and Toledo schools.

At Rossford Middle School, I practiced under a teacher that shouldn't have been teaching. The teacher swore at students during class and called a student dumb for forgetting their pencil. Calling a student dumb is over the line, but in this particular case it was unforgivable. The student who was called dumb (among other things) was one of the few latino students in the school. She was a shy girl who was very kind. Seeing her berated was heartbreaking and led to me being expelled from teaching in Rossford.

The teacher? She continues teaching at Rossford and now teaches master-level students at BGSU and UToledo. Despite writing the school board and other school official concerning her behavior, she was promoted. I never heard from any of the school officials. I told my supervisor about the incident of the teacher berating the girl. My supervisor, upon returning to the school, stood outside the door of the classroom and heard the teacher say she would "hit a student with their bloody stump." Thankfully, my supervisor witnessing this incident allowed me to get full college credit for the teaching experience, as the university realized I was not in the wrong.

At Toledo? Well... that's another long story, but the basis is that the teacher, who was months away from retiring, would show up drunk to class.

The system is flawed -- and it's not just Detroit. I'd bet there are several students in Toledo who pass grades without the qualifications to move on. There is a lot that needs to be changed with the education system, and I'm not sure that anything less than a full reconstruction will work.

Even if the teacher calls a student dumb..that's no excuse for a child not doing well and a parent not pushing a child to excel. Shit happens, welcome to teh real world...if being called dumb was the worst thing that ever happened in school life would be great. By the 6th grade the students were and are saying worse then calling each other "dumb".

"Oh no a teacher said Im dumb"
"Oh no, Jill my former BFF called me a student knocked up slut" - my stepdaughter is in the 6th grade. Her and I have great communication and she shares a lot with me. She's a decent kid, not perfect. That being said...the students say far worse then call someone dumb.

It's more than being called dumb... It's being berated for forgetting a pencil. Dumb was one of the nicest things the teacher said.

It's more than being called dumb... It's about a system that is stagnant and broken.

Personally, if a teacher called any student dumb for forgetting their pencil, then I'm worried. This is not about the real world, this is about educating our youth.

Should everything that happens in the real world find its way into schools? Oh, poor student got shot... welcome to the real world. Ludicrous.

Naw, this is passing the buck.

In a perfect world people would not have to deal with these problems. The real world, these problems exist and you push through them and over come the challenges. People making excuses to not rise above something is a problem.

People have to deal with being berated by teachers for forgetting a pencil? Get real.

Hey if a teacher saying someone is dumb for forgetting a pencil is justification in your book for being a drop out and the symbol of the whole system being wrong....we live in a far better world then I thought.

OhioKimono,

Rather than let your silly argument advance, I'll leave it up to you to tell me where I stated that dropping out or THE symbol for the system being wrong is because a student forgot their pencil.

Keep conflating your arguments and throwing around strawmen... it doesn't get you very far.

If you go to your job, and you forget your single most important tool that you need constantly and everyday to do the job...your boss is going to call you worse then dumb.

Adversity and failure are important learning experiences. Shielding kids from those outcomes is not good. But I'm not liking the teacher calling a student dumb for forgetting a pencil. Maybe if she kept forgetting to bring that pencil. There are ways to teach that can get the message across without meaness. I had a couple of mean teachers in K-8. They just stand out in my mind today as being mean, period. I certainly didn't learn anything special from them. Strict teachers were the best though. They gave you performance levels to master and the tools to reach them. There was no coddling if you fell short and no misbehaving in class.

"most important tool that you need constantly"

again, just creating your own argument from facts that were never presented

Unless I am missing the point, JJFad is saying that the evidence of the education system being broken is how a terrible teacher (who, among other things, regularly berated her students) was not only not disciplined, but she was kept on, and promoted, and is having a wildly successful career in education.

The pencil story was an example that characterized the teacher.

But again, let's suppose a child has the bad luck of having several terrible teachers throughout his K-12 career. These teachers are transitory; the parenting is what is consistent and good parenting can combat poor teaching in many, many ways.

(And as a counterpoint, I of course need to say that in my own career as a student, I had many, MANY really great teachers in both the public schools I attended and the state university I graduated from. Some were just so-so, and yes, there were a couple of worthless duds in there.)

JJ is correct that the system is broken when you can not eliminate teachers who are a hindrance to the learning process, but the ultimate responsibility lies with the parents.

I've had a issue or two with a couple of teachers and how they treated my children. I told them to always be respectful and to raise their concerns about their teachers to us. It was a great teaching moment and after the 3rd or 4th time I could see the light switch on their heads. I told them we are responsible for our learning and improvement, crappy teacher or not. It was upto my wife or I to go down to the school and meet with the administration and or the teacher to figure out what the deal was.

As OK said "Shit happens, welcome to teh real world..." and that is a valuable skill children need to have. We let them know not everyone is "nice" and the way you fight that is not with equal parts anger or aggression, but you just keep working you way to the top. If you don't get satisfaction to your issues you don't stop till you do. Never did we yell or curse the teachers, we just raised our objections and let them know we don't speak to each other like that at home and I wouldn't let them speak to our children that way. When we didn't get relief from the problem (once it made it worse) we politely keep going up the ladder till our problem was resolved.

We worked too hard to let one dim wit teacher throw a wrench on the whole process. It's up to us as parents to show them how to fight the battle, or at the very least show them the rules for engagement.

"the ultimate responsibility lies with the parents"

What is the role of a teacher in today's society?

The role of a teacher today? I would define it, in part, as providing educational instruction to children and young adults,in the process of which they reinforce the values of responsibilty and societal behavioural norms. They are NOT parents. Parents are responsible for instilling their children with values and discipline. Parenst have the responsibility of sending their child to school ready and willing to learn. In short, terachers play the hand they are dealt. They cant stuff knowledge into a kid's head that doesn't want to learn or sees no value in an education because those values are not taught at home.