I'd be surprised if you haven't heard about the recent Knight Foundation/UConn survey (here is a copy of the final report - warning: pdf file) of high school students (and teachers). The purpose of the survey was to measure the students knowledge and opinions with respect to a range of questions on the Constitution, free speach and the media. The survey covered 544 high schools and about 112,000 students. Some results that struck me:
1. The one everybody's talking about: 12% of students said they strongly agreed that the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees. An additional 23% mildly agree that the First Amendment goes too far. That's just over a third of high school students who think the First Amendment's rights are too broad. That's just plain scary. What is unbelievably frightening is that 29% of teachers fall into those two categories (9% and 20%).
2. About a third (32%) think the press has too much freedom to "do what it wants" in the US: 38% of teachers agree with this.. And the alternative is....14% strongly feel that the press should get government permission to print stories, while 22% mildly feel that the press should get permission (for teachers, those categories are 6% strongly and 12% mildly).
3. Another big one: 75% think it is illegal to burn the US flag in protest. Three quarters of high school students are wrong. That's frightening. (Of course, 40% of teachers also think this. Can we please fire them?)
4. 26% of high schools do not offer a student newspaper. Fine. Here's the kicker: "Of the high schools that do not offer student newspapers, 40 percent have eliminated student papers within the last five years." (pg 15). That's right, 10% of high schools (40% of the 26%) in this country allow a senior to graduate without ever having written a single paper.
To be honest, I'm shocked by the ignorance and opinions of the students, but even more shocked by the ignorance and opinions of the teachers. You can't really blame the students for not knowing anything, if the teachers don't have a clue. And the fact that there are high schools where students never write papers is just staggering. Is it time to move to Canada?
Posted by baltar at February 2, 2005 04:32 PM | TrackBack | Posted to CultureI'm not staggered, and I think you have an error.
1) How can you work in higher education at a state school and be shocked at the level of ignorance captured by this survey? We see it every day. And while I know there are many wonderful high school teachers (I've had some, I know some now, I know some in training) some of the worst undergraduate students in my classes are secondary ed majors. We can debate the reasons why, but I see some reasons as being that the smart ones are deterred by low pay, excessive bureaucracy, pure evil of school administrators, and so on. When the market tells us that teachers are not valuable, you will not get the highest quality teachers. This is especially true in the social sciences, where the market value effects are felt in higher education as well. This lack of knowledge captured in the survey is social science.
2) I think it's elimination of student of student newspapers not student papers. The quote (and the link brought it up for me on page 17 of 92) "Of those, 68 percent now have no media." It's still awful, but not surprising. I've seen my high school - which my nieces and nephews now attend - go from one that offered yearbook, paper, and many extracurricular activities including a 144 person strong marching band to one that instead teaches whole period classes on how to take tests. Not just any test either, how to pass the test to get a high school diploma, because a student can go through 4 years of high school with an A average and membership in the National Honor Society and still you won't get a diploma if you can't pass the test, the passage rate of which has all sorts of consequence for schools. So, what do they do? Teach classes on the frigging test.
Posted by: binky at February 2, 2005 07:00 PM | PERMALINKI was mostly shocked at the level of ignorance of the teachers. I suppose I shouldn't be (given the ones I see come through academia, and the state of "Education" as an academic discipline), but it still was hard to believe.
You are right about my misreading of the quote, but I'll leave it up as a reminder of my ignorance.
Posted by: baltar at February 3, 2005 11:25 AM | PERMALINKI think it's more hastiness caused by outrage than ignorance.
Posted by: binky at February 3, 2005 11:29 AM | PERMALINKHowever, I seem to have recoverd myself. This (warning: pfd file) report (from 2001) of history teachers notes (pg. 7) that 81% of high school history teachers never assign a research paper of over 5000 words, 62% never assign one of over 3000 words, 27% never assign one of over 2000 words, and 12% never assign "essays that require outside sources of less that 2000 words). That's not my original claim (that 10% of high schools allow you to graduate without writing a paper), but it's damn close.
Posted by: baltar at February 3, 2005 11:41 AM | PERMALINKAgain, I believe you. I've had students in my classes who are baffled by my 10 page paper assignment. Some have even reported that they never had to write one single paper in high school. It's just that your cite was about student papers.
And, I don't want to lose sight of how heinous that is either. My suspicious side thinks that abolishing student papers has as much to do with a desire to avoid controversy as it does with extra work. But that's just my cynical side.
Posted by: binky at February 3, 2005 01:22 PM | PERMALINKre: why people avoid teaching
At an angry demonstration organized by their union, more than 400 New York City teachers lashed out yesterday at a Queens superintendent over mandates they said had restricted their ability to teach, including minute-by-minute rules on conducting lessons and requirements for arranging classroom furniture.
and
Among them, Ms. Fariņa said, was a complaint from Intermediate School 230, whose principal gave out stopwatches so that no portion of a lesson would exceed the allotted time. "Nobody is stop-watching them," she said.
I see. No one is stopwatching (verb!!!) them. They are to stopwatch themselves. That makes it soooo much better. And would pretty much do it for me.
are you sure ms. farina's comment wasn't to the effect that the principal who handed out stopwatches wasn't him/herself being stopwatched?
Posted by: joshua at February 4, 2005 11:53 AM | PERMALINKNo, I'm not sure, but looking at the context of the statement it says "stopwatching them" led me to believe the "them" referred to the teachers (since there is only one principal, who is not a "them"). That being said, given the discussion we've been having about the ignorance of those in the public schools, it is entirely possible Ms. Farina was referring to the principal as "them."
Oh, and Bob Herbert has a piece on this today.
Posted by: binky at February 4, 2005 12:03 PM | PERMALINK