chris955

Yes those figures are bad but certainly way 'less bad' than the figures quoted in that story. As has been pointed out the emphasis on sport can certainly be detrimental and is very American unsurprisingly. We of course can only comment at a personal level on what we see with our own kids.

Amazulu

Unfortunately there are not many good teachers but plenty of poor and average ones

Education via the cane is the way to go. Threats of violence will focus young minds

Beoz

Pardon my ignorance. But what use is Spanish and Shakespeare?

Beoz

... .... and of course there is an easy answer to all this. Don't leech off the state and send them private. They can be both sports persons and scholars.

bcworld

Well private schools are funded by $10billion of taxpayers money so they're already 'leeching' off the state.

jad n rich

Shakespeare, very little use I imagine but it was part of the higher level English course.

Spanish, is of massive use, any second language is. In many jobs for sure, its an advantage. Plus in Countries like USA its almost as useful as knowing English.

In his personal case he will be studying BA Health, (emergency medicine, paramedic), I imagine Paramedics with more than one language are pretty useful.

The Bloke

.... and parents are screaming that kids are doing too much homework - ie, they want homework to be discontinued.
Every Wednesday evening, I walk past the local netball court, and the number of kids who should be doing homework, are play in the weekly competition (not to mention other sports that are played during the week).
When I was that age, I was never allowed to go outside or watch "the idiot box", as my dad used to call it, until homework was finished.

Amazulu

Yep. Focus on the basics. Instill discipline and hard work when they are young. The rest will sort itself out

scottishcelts

you're having a giraffe aintcha.

Absolutely not. Anyone touches my kids, they'll get a not so friendly visit from me.

scottishcelts

Yes but leaving out the violence and threats of violence.

Amazulu

Leave that in

Get 'em racked and stacked early on

Grayling

If that is the way you were brought up it didn't stop you turning out a dickhead did it?

GarryP

My thought is you don't fix this by attempting to go back to some "when I wer't'lad" idea of education. That was always bloody useless rote repetition (which is basically pointless in the age of google), and the idea of instilling 'fear' as a motivator is a non-starter for lots of reasons.

Nope, you need the kid to WANT to learn, to understand why they NEED to learn - that it's not just torture with no point. That step has always been missing as far as I can see - its always been "do this because we tell you to". Much, much better to get in them the desire to learn, then the rest takes care of itself.

And there is no excuse for not using technology to deliver personalised, tailored, education with high quality 'lessons' and interesting, purposeful examples such that they can remember the point. Flipped classrooms give even useless teachers a role.

If you clear out the rote cr*p you have space to get them to actually learn. There is no point in remembering facts any more, dump it. Literacy isn't remembered facts, neither is numeracy - they are skills and knowledge of how.

FFS, you could give them a tablet each for $50, included with it a year's worth of videoed lessons, a library of books, etc. If the useless parents won't read to them, give the youngsters a tablet that will. This is shades of Neil Stephenson's 'Diamond Age' - but why the hell haven't we moved forward towards that level of personalisation yet? $100m would do it - more point that wasting billions on something that obviously isn't working.

Beoz

Indeed. At least those who send their kids private get to see some of the hard money back, and feel a small way justified in paying tax.

Amazulu

Name calling? Really my uber right-wing friend?

You know how that is going to end up!