• Note, this doesn’t apply to Inner-City schools or schools seriously in need of funding. This applies to schools like I go to (RHS in Ramsey NJ). We are the 12th best school in the state, at least we are supposed to be, and are in serious trouble.

    Why is my school in trouble? NJ schools are competing too much between each other. In NJ, and most of the country, a School’s federal and state funding depends on how well their students are doing. Student performance is measured via standardized tests (In NJ, those are the HESPAs, GEPAs, and FEPAs, as well as the SATs, PSATs, and CAT tests). Average GPA also plays into ranking.

    Now this is where the problem arises. Schools are trying so hard to get more funding, it is at the expense of the student.

    Now, here is my personal experience. In 8th grade, we took the GEPAs (Grade Eight Proficency Assement). These tests are almost completely around to test the school’s overal performance. Your score on the GEPA has almost zero bearing on your education.

    But, it has a huge impact on your school’s funding. The Middle School I went to (Eric S. Smith) had the best GEPA scores in the state. They get a boatload of money, enough to give large (undisclosed) bonuses to every teacher in the school.

    How did we get the best scores in the state? Well first off, my class (Class of 05) is probably the best 150 students Ramsey has ever seen (we’ve broken almost every record there is to break. We’re #2 in the nation on the National Current Events test, #13 in the National Knowledge Masters competition, Have the best PSAT and CAT scores in the state, and well, I have a 3.6 Average and I’m not even in the top 25% of the class. Hell, our Football team even won states. Theres more, we we #1 4 years ago in the state Word Masters competition, ect ect. There too much to name.

    Now, the problem. How did we get the #1 GEPA test scores in NJ? Well, we took the GEPAs in April, and from February on, we did nothing else but review and prepare for the test. We didn’t learn anything, we didn’t take any non-Gepa related tests. We spent every minute of every day preparing for 2 months.

    How did we get #2 in Current events? We spent 10 minutes of each Social Studies class preparing for it for the first 5 months of the year.

    How are grades so high? Teachers are incredibly loose on cheating, screwing around, and teach a watered down version of the class. Grades are often rounded up in cases where they should not be.,

    As a result, we are not getting the education that our taxes pay for. I can honestly say, in Smith School (rated as a top 10 school for the 3 years I went there) I walked away after 3 years learning close to nothing.

    We need to stop this endless competition between schools. While the Feds and State Government are throwing money at my school, schools in Newark or Jersey City or Camden go to ruins. Teachers at my school are payed 60-97 thousand dollars per year, and for the most part they are not good teachers. Their saleries are inflated by inflated test scores.


  • this is why i go to private school…


  • I know what you are saying, Sir Yanny. Raised on public education is never an easy thing for any of us. I dread the day that our nation should become a nation of test-takers, instead of fostering creativity and ingenuity. Instead, the leaner more competitive schools get richer, while the schools that need educational funding the most are left behind. :( For a country that preaches equality and diversity, it does not live out to those ideas in its school system. The district bureaucracies reap the profits with their six figure incomes, unbalanced books, and air conditioned rooms, and the public schools are forced to fend for themselves.


  • Hahaha… you do sound like a communist. :lol:


  • This is why we need charter schools.

    This is also why I go to a private school (and get a 3.96 GPA, take that Yanny!)


  • haha, these are my quarter grades
    physical science (pre-physics) - 98%
    theology- 99%
    english/literature (odyssey/iliad) 98%
    latin II 100% (not a SINGLE problem wrong the whole quarter on a quiz or test)
    Algebra 98%
    ancient history 99%
    WW2 / Music theory class 99%

    straight A+'s !!
    haha take that YB. i’m not sure what GPA this is though. :P :D


  • Mine:

    Geometry X - A
    Chemistry - A
    Latin II - A
    American History I - A
    AP Computer Progamming Honors - B
    American Lit I - B
    Arch Drawing - B

    Friggin Electives brought me down!


  • i excluded my gym class (i ALWAYS get B’s in that; i’m convinvced he doesn’t give out anything besides B’s) my gym teacher is so evil, he made me write a 2 page essay on teamwork, beacuse he thought i didn’t have enough teamwork.

    sigh…. next year i don’t get gym class anymore ( i hate it, but it’s not as bad as another class) instead i get spanish or some other language. then i have to take 2 different languages. :(


  • Sounds like NJ has a serious problem. Something similar has just started here, we call our tests WyCAS, but fortunately I haven’t seen it affect the quality of education. The High school I go to just started an International Baccelaurate program so those of us who have decided not to drop out of it (like a good 50% of those who started it did) are almost completely focused on college prep. IB has a nice effect on my classes too, not only are most of them smaller, but I only have to deal with widespread ignorance and the most annoyingly stupid in a couple of classes. knows he’s going to get beaten for being an elitist


  • Its definately a problem in New Jersey. I’m lucky, not to be modest, but I don’t fall into a typical learning curve. Most of the smarter people in my class (those who had potential before being exposed to our Middle and High schools), fell into the ritual of Study for Test - Take Test - Forget test. We’re forced to learn the same thing (with little or no advancement) every single year in most classes. No one retains what they learn. Why? The habits taught by the teachers incourage short term memorization, not learning and understanding.

    And, as our teaching staff gets younger and younger, we had 14 retire last year, the quality of education gets worse and worse.


  • If we are just counting 1st Semester 02=03, I have a 4.0, if we are counting all semesters averaged I got a 3.96

    Yes, Gym does count.

    So I still have the best GPA (at least among Sophomores) (Yanny 3.6) (Strong Bad 3.88) Sometimes GPA doesn’t mean anything though.

    Similiar to Yanny though, even though the standards are higher than a public school, I don’t really have to try hard except on papers, largely due to a combination of idiot classmates and my own above-average academic ability.

    With that disclaimer, sans geometry and sentence fluency , I learn a lot more outside of school than in.

    Go '05!


  • for once, eh maybe 2 or 3 times i agree with u yanny. the NJ school pay to much attention on Standardized testing so they can be more prestigous and make more money. this has to stop. and just for the sake of it i am probably in the lowest 2% of my Class, the 05 class of Ramset High School. offcourse i am not proud of this but i just had to say it


  • Would you rather a SImpson’s style race to the bottom (“don’t try to hard, the worse you do the more money we get”)


  • no it is more like jojn the Marines when i turn 18 then die b4 30 so i will not have to experiance Civillian life in poverty ;)


  • Eh, I come from inner city schools in Los Angeles, need I say more? :wink:


  • Does anybody else agree that part of the reason that politicians put such an emphasis on public (and standardized) education is becuase we’re in a race to “compete” with other countries…?


  • I admit, i’m ignorant of the American system, but this whole “competition thing” seems fruitless and self-defeating. It’s worse than NFL parity rules.
    Is there a point? I mean with this competition thing, the good schools get better, and the poorer schools sink to the bottem. Its perpetuating a big problem. I don’t understand why this is a good idea. It seems that schools should get money “according to its need” - $/student, or as the budget requires as established by a standard or something.
    Am i being naive?


  • no u are being smart CC ;)


  • Moses, yes you need to say more, and yes CC, you are being naivé.

    THe U.S. spends more per student on education than any other country in the world, and yet on geometry and geography tests we consistently do worse.

    This is not really about money. The problem is significantly deeper and more complex.


  • well then inform us of this deepr Problem mate

Suggested Topics

Axis & Allies Boardgaming Custom Painted Miniatures

28

Online

17.0k

Users

39.3k

Topics

1.7m

Posts