No, let's not go back to that, it's a bad idea an systematises socio-economic, behavioural and other problems.
In my research of educational systems while building Geddit, I've found that American education, and the systems of many other countries, seem to have some kind of disease regarding 'standards'. High standards, falling standards, who cares? What are the learning outcomes of students? Standards are for manufacturing tolerances and audit requirements, not for the development of children. This sort of thinking is mired in 200 year old practices from the industrial revolution, where education's role was to provide assembly line workers and assembly line managers. No wonder so many education abstractions in terms of grouping and teaching students still resemble those found in mass manufacturing!
I have found some interesting glimpses of an alternative. Finland's educational system was developed some 50 years ago when that country faced great decisions for the future of its society amidst the cold war. Finnish schools place equity above all else - teaching is designed such that no student falls behind, and problems are resolved communally, in-class. The choice to try and do things like carpentry, or applied arts is left up to the student after they've been given a taste.
This equity is acheived through differentiation - teachers are trained for it. When I visited the Joensuu teacher training highschool (kind of like a teaching hospital but for education rather than medicine - real students, real classes, trainee and senior teachers), differentiation was at the core of all teaching methods and skills. The needs of individual students are incorporated into the whole. And before you cry 'but Finland is so homogenous', a quarter of most classes at Joensuu are made up of the children of immigrants.
This approach produces outcomes that 'tracked' or 'standardised' systems cannot hope to match. Most students go on to university or skilled 'apprenticeships' - this in turn supports the Finnish economy so that it may support this high level of education.
This paragraph is particularly vile:
"Unfortunately, the efforts and philosophies of otherwise well-meaning individuals have eliminated the achievement gap by eliminating achievement... (and following examples)" I have seen this said so many times but never once witnessed it first hand in the course of my research. Acheivement is not eliminated except where the teacher is simply incompetent.
Tracking has one advantage - it's cheaper and easier. You have natural economies of scale when you treat education like piece work at a manufacturing plant and have separated assembly lines. It seems Americans are always reaching for the cheaper, 'more efficient' solution to fix the problem of their underfunded schools than actually funding them properly.
US schools do not, on average, seem that underfunded to me. Look at http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_ifn.asp to verify that the USA averages more per student than most industrialized countries. Even if you correct for GDP, the USA is not that bad.
In my research of educational systems while building Geddit, I've found that American education, and the systems of many other countries, seem to have some kind of disease regarding 'standards'. High standards, falling standards, who cares? What are the learning outcomes of students? Standards are for manufacturing tolerances and audit requirements, not for the development of children. This sort of thinking is mired in 200 year old practices from the industrial revolution, where education's role was to provide assembly line workers and assembly line managers. No wonder so many education abstractions in terms of grouping and teaching students still resemble those found in mass manufacturing!
I have found some interesting glimpses of an alternative. Finland's educational system was developed some 50 years ago when that country faced great decisions for the future of its society amidst the cold war. Finnish schools place equity above all else - teaching is designed such that no student falls behind, and problems are resolved communally, in-class. The choice to try and do things like carpentry, or applied arts is left up to the student after they've been given a taste.
This equity is acheived through differentiation - teachers are trained for it. When I visited the Joensuu teacher training highschool (kind of like a teaching hospital but for education rather than medicine - real students, real classes, trainee and senior teachers), differentiation was at the core of all teaching methods and skills. The needs of individual students are incorporated into the whole. And before you cry 'but Finland is so homogenous', a quarter of most classes at Joensuu are made up of the children of immigrants.
This approach produces outcomes that 'tracked' or 'standardised' systems cannot hope to match. Most students go on to university or skilled 'apprenticeships' - this in turn supports the Finnish economy so that it may support this high level of education.
This paragraph is particularly vile:
"Unfortunately, the efforts and philosophies of otherwise well-meaning individuals have eliminated the achievement gap by eliminating achievement... (and following examples)" I have seen this said so many times but never once witnessed it first hand in the course of my research. Acheivement is not eliminated except where the teacher is simply incompetent.
Tracking has one advantage - it's cheaper and easier. You have natural economies of scale when you treat education like piece work at a manufacturing plant and have separated assembly lines. It seems Americans are always reaching for the cheaper, 'more efficient' solution to fix the problem of their underfunded schools than actually funding them properly.