US School Kids Are Doing Better Than Ever – But You Never Hear It - NurtureShock Blog - Newsweek.com:
"There is a constant drumbeat heard that America's education system is failing the nation's children. Everywhere we turn around, you hear that traditional public schools in shambles; the teachers are failing and so are the kids' scores. (The only saving grace seeming to be charter schools, which operate outside of the traditional model.) School drop-out rates are said to be stratospheric. And if, by some miracle, kids do make it to college, they don't have any real academic prowess when they get there – since we frequently hear about college students having to take remedial courses.
Last week, I was at a conference, participating in a discussion on education reform. One of the panelists – the creator of several highly acclaimed schools – essentially argued that schools are such a mess that we need to throw out the American education system and start over."
Doomsday Talk like that works to galvanize support for his programs, and it's an easy applause line.
But the trouble is that it ignores the fact the millions of kids are thriving in the traditional school system. If we only focus on the disasters, we risk being blind to this success. And the fact is that success – not failure – is actually the American educational norm.
Today, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that there were a record number of students in American colleges and universities in 2008: an incredible 14,955,000 undergraduates were pursuing their degrees. That surpassed the historically high 2007 enrollment, and the Bureau expects that 2009's enrollment is even higher still. Since 2000, the number of undergrads and grad students has skyrocketed, adding more than 3.2 million to college rolls.
"There is a constant drumbeat heard that America's education system is failing the nation's children. Everywhere we turn around, you hear that traditional public schools in shambles; the teachers are failing and so are the kids' scores. (The only saving grace seeming to be charter schools, which operate outside of the traditional model.) School drop-out rates are said to be stratospheric. And if, by some miracle, kids do make it to college, they don't have any real academic prowess when they get there – since we frequently hear about college students having to take remedial courses.
Last week, I was at a conference, participating in a discussion on education reform. One of the panelists – the creator of several highly acclaimed schools – essentially argued that schools are such a mess that we need to throw out the American education system and start over."
Doomsday Talk like that works to galvanize support for his programs, and it's an easy applause line.
But the trouble is that it ignores the fact the millions of kids are thriving in the traditional school system. If we only focus on the disasters, we risk being blind to this success. And the fact is that success – not failure – is actually the American educational norm.
Today, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that there were a record number of students in American colleges and universities in 2008: an incredible 14,955,000 undergraduates were pursuing their degrees. That surpassed the historically high 2007 enrollment, and the Bureau expects that 2009's enrollment is even higher still. Since 2000, the number of undergrads and grad students has skyrocketed, adding more than 3.2 million to college rolls.