8th-Grade Algebra Requirement in California Gets Sidelined

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My wife is a teacher and we end up in this argument all the time.
In Louisiana the state is pouring money into these "failing" schools in the hopes of reviving them. The end result has always been the same. You can not fix the problem with money. You have to change the attitudes of the kids attending.
If you want to find the root problem of our educational system failure you should look no further than the parents. The schools can only do so much. In an effort to make the schools look better they have been reducing the "minimum" requirements for years. In the end you have a generation of kids who do not know how to work nor do they care to learn. Expectations have been dropped for them in a society where nobody fails. I only hope that their future employers are quite so understanding.

sawtooth of 2:11PM January 03, 2009

After reading one of the comments left on your page I have come to the conclusion that as a nation we are training lazy and stupid undisciplined kids. How in the world could our education system go from being one of the best in the world to one of the worst? They used to teach Latin along side of algebra to Junior high students before they iunvented this incredible tax structured system and failiung unionized teaching system.

J. M. of WI 6:10AM January 03, 2009

The government should not issue mandates without a plan to pay for it. Let's face it, we are testing the teachers and they don't want to be tested because we will find out they are not doing their jobs. But they say they will start doing their jobs when they get more $? LOL. The "Two organizations representing school board members and administrators . . ." - translated: unions, have a full nelson submission hold on the liberals, especially on the left coast. More $ won't help solve the problem, the only thing that will force the public teachers to do their jobs is private school vouchers so the kids that want to learn can go to a good school. Since the liberals now have control of most of the country we can expect further degradation for at least another 8 years thanks to factors such as but not limited to:
1) The main stream media churning out their biased liberal propaganda (I have heard MSNBC referred to as Democrat HQ)
2) The liberal public universities feeding a steady stream of liberal brainwash passed off as "higher education"
3) The Republican party leaving conservatives feeling used and abused
4) And now the approval of the "misery loves company" broken, not working with no way out socialist Europeans
Our only hope is that history repeats itself once again after 8 years of dissatisfaction that we can have "regime change".

Concerned of WI 2:04PM December 30, 2008

The government should not issue mandates without a plan to pay for it. Let's face it, we are testing the teachers and they don't want to be tested because we will find out they are not doing their jobs. But they say they will start doing their jobs when they get more $? LOL. The "Two organizations representing school board members and administrators . . ." - translated: unions, have a full nelson submission hold on the liberals, especially on the left coast. More $ won't help solve the problem, the only thing that will force the public teachers to do their jobs is private school vouchers so the kids that want to learn can go to a good school. Since the liberals now have control of most of the country we can expect further degradation for at least another 8 years thanks to factors such as but not limited to:
1) The main stream media churning out their biased liberal propaganda (I have heard MSNBC referred to as Democrat HQ)
2) The liberal public universities feeding a steady stream of liberal brainwash passed off as "higher education"
3) The Republican party leaving conservatives feeling used and abused
4) And now the approval of the "misery loves company" broken, not working with no way out socialist Europeans
Our only hope is that history repeats itself once again after 8 years of dissatisfaction that we can have "regime change".

Concerned of WI 2:04PM December 30, 2008

The government should not issue mandates without a plan to pay for it. Let's face it, we are testing the teachers and they don't want to be tested because we will find out they are not doing their jobs. But they say they will start doing their jobs when they get more $? LOL. The "Two organizations representing school board members and administrators . . ." - translated: unions, have a full nelson submission hold on the liberals, especially on the left coast. More $ won't help solve the problem, the only thing that will force the public teachers to do their jobs is private school vouchers so the kids that want to learn can go to a good school. Since the liberals now have control of most of the country we can expect further degradation for at least another 8 years thanks to factors such as but not limited to:
1) The main stream media churning out their biased liberal propaganda (I have heard MSNBC referred to as Democrat HQ)
2) The liberal public universities feeding a steady stream of liberal brainwash passed off as "higher education"
3) The Republican party leaving conservatives feeling used and abused
4) And now the approval of the "misery loves company" broken, not working with no way out socialist Europeans
Our only hope is that history repeats itself once again after 8 years of dissatisfaction that we can have "regime change".

Concerned of WI 2:03PM December 30, 2008

You can say what you want and point fingers in all directions but as we all know, whatever your job is the performance is better if you are paid what you are worth and you have the proper tools to complete the task. The teacher issue of pay and necessary tools aside, the problem lies with students/parents accountability. Today we have a generation of intitlement. They feel they are "owed" something by someone. Wrong! The students need to work hard, listen to and show respect for their teachers, do their homework and come to school ready to learn. Get out there and work hard. Reach for whatever "bar" is set before you. Why lower the bar?

debbie of AL 1:09AM December 30, 2008

What's going to make the U.S. a 3rd World country is a failure of confidence - confidence that we can improve. For the nation that first put a man on the moon to give up on students understanding the equation for a straight line is mind-boggling. There are now tools - yes, education can be improved by better tools which can make every teacher more productive - tools which use computer technology to reach students at their own level, motivate them to win (and learn), and do generate better math scores. There are new types of programs - California's is called Algebra Readiness - which are designed to catch students who have fallen multiple years behind. Teachers who believe that new tools will work, and get state-of-the-art new tools, do make them work. The tools are new this millenium, are still in their infancy, and will be climbing an exponential ramp in productivity similar to all other 21st century technology.

Tool User of CA 11:37PM December 29, 2008

The bull dog, must be a teacher, notice every so called problem is supposto be cured by giving the teachers more money. That is the all and end all for them. We don't need technology, smaller classrooms or new books or the high speed internet. What we need to do is demand students pay attention and do home work. And if they don't want to, then send them to a school where they can do what they want, and leave the students who want to learn alone. Everyone already know this but the powers that run the schools want to drag everyone down to the lowest performing students, and then cry for more money. Figure it out

What Happened of CA 3:02PM December 29, 2008

Raising the academic expectation is at the core what our educational system ought to do; however raising expectations without support through technology, educator compensation, smaller classroom sizes and simple classroom resources such as books, high speed internet and computers is flawed planning.

thebulldogsolution.com of CA 12:10PM December 29, 2008

This is funny on the face of it. Algebra should be taught starting in the 5 grade. I thought we have been paying for the best and the brightest. Naturally many students will fall by the wayside, since only 1/2 are even proficient in math or english by the 10 grade. This is not the schools fault it is because people in general fall into the lower middle in brain power. Only maybe 1/3 should continue school after the 10 grade. Most are only there to party and have nothing else to do. In junior college about 15 percent or less go on to a 4 year college. Right now the US is transitioning to a 3rd world country. The liberals in congress Kennedy, Boxer, and the rest got what they wanted.

What Happened of CA 10:35AM December 29, 2008