Comments about ‘Parents approve of local schools, have negative perception of public education as a whole’

What, no one has anything to post in response to a positive report on public education? Where are all the public education naysayers now? Someone out there must believe this report is fabricated by the sinister teachers unions.

To Thucydides, you took the words right out of my mouth!

Okay, I will chime in. Public education is a great system for teaching to the masses, but not to the individuals. The polls shows that somewhere between 70% to 79% give an A or B to their schools and their teachers. When I went to school that would be a C+ (79%) to a C- (70%)bordering on a D+. My question is who are the 20% - 30% who are not satisfied. Do they matter? Are they listened to? Does anybody in public education care? They get to pay for the education like the rest of us, but they are obviously not happy with the outcome. 20% to 30% is an awfully lot of people. My guess is the 20% to 30% are on both ends of the spectrum. Kids who are struggling and being brushed aside. Or kids that are our best and brightest. There was a lot of uproar in Logan City recently about an AP Calculus teacher that was let go. Many of the comments centered around the fact that these are AP students and they will be fine anyway. A C+ or C- is not that great a grade. But, that's good enough.

I went to school in the 50's. We had 40 plus students in every class and that was before the teachers started whining. I know of three families that moved back east and in all cases the classes for their children had over 30 students.

Do Parents realize that their children are learning that evolution is being taught as an indisputable fact? Jon Huntsman was quoted this morning on CNBC that he believes in evolution. Ben Stein has a DVD entitled Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed in which he explores the science of Intelligence Design and how there is a concentrated effort to keep it from being taught in our schools. He interviews Richard Dawkins wherein Dawkins says that the evolution of life, where it began, was somewhere else than earth and that it occurred long before earth. He admits that life evolved to the point that some kind of intelligence planted the seeds of life on this planet but denied that it was God. View the DVD yourself and you will be amazed. Do we know more about a cell today than Darwin? Football is not the only thing that should occupy our mind.

Whenever I reach the point of the mountain on a red air day I see all the junky air in SLC or down in Provo. It always seems that away from me the problem is the worse. The truth is I am still sucking in that same gunk even when I cannot see it. This survey reflects that amiably. People don't see the problems surrounding them because they are too focused on the ones off in the distance. Parents will applaud their local schools while chiding the educational system as a whole.

Education as a whole has slowly and steadily improved over the years because of technology advances and incremental growth in teacher training. It can still do a whole lot better. We have barriers in place like severe funding issues, parental support, poverty students, unions and legislative policies that should be discussed and addressed. I believe we can do a whole lot better if some of these obstacles are reduced or remedied.

@FDR

Huntsman is correct. Huntsman also believes in God.

The cool thing about Science is that theories once established with enough detail and evidence are considered what we actually know till they are disproven. Science still allows for things to be tested and verified or even other theories like creationism to establish themselves.

If creationism passes scientific muster than the scientific community is obligated to adopt it as the major theory of how Earth came to have life while other celestial bodies appear to not have.

I hope someone else views this DVD and explains why Intelligent Design should not be taught in school. Frankly they seem more scientific in their knowledge of a cell than then evolutionists. I have a cousin who is a professor of Biology and he readily admits that evolution does not explain the world to him.

FDRfan said, "Do Parents realize that their children are learning that evolution is being taught as an indisputable fact?... Ben Stein has a DVD entitled Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed in which he explores the science of Intelligence Design and how there is a concentrated effort to keep it from being taught in our schools."

Evolution *is* an indisputable fact. I perceive that many folks understand "evolution" to mean "the hypothesis that humans evolved from lower life forms", but that is not what it means. I would say that hypothesis is disputable, but to my knowledge it is not taught in Utah public schools.

On the other hand, the existence of evolution is not disputable, and I am hopeful that efforts to teach future generations what is known about evolution will reverse the current state of confusion.

There *should* be a concentrated effort to keep instruction on intelligent design out of public schools schools because it is a religious belief. It isn't science and shouldn't be taught in science classes.

One more thing: Please notice that you don't need to choose between believing in God and believing in evolution. You should believe everything that is true.

Now, on the subject of our schools, there are a few teachers I would like to assign a grade, but they aren't here in our public schools. Where are they? I am referring to the elementary school art teachers and music teachers...

This sounds like your typical survey of congress- I love my local congressperson- they are great and deliver for us- congress as a whole- now they are horrible and disfuctional- but of course I could never vote for a bad congressperson- the classic case- my local schools- they are great and teachers are really trying because of course I live here- as for schools in general they are horrible and teach all the wrog things and are failing- ahhhh mayeb the truth is somewhere in the middle

srw: Evolution is not a scientific fact. In science there are just theories that are held up by observation/evidence. Never, never does a theory become a fact. It is constantly and forever scrutinized and can become *close* to fact, but never anything more than "extra certainty".

FDRFAN: The criteria for accepting intelligent design as science would require you to accept astrology as science.

Evolutionm is NOT a fact,

evolution is not even scientific,

and evolution should NOT be taught.

the hypotheosis of Evolution is frought with problems,

it is built totally on assumptions and suppostion,
it's language is filled totally with "may haves", "might haves", "could haves", "possibly haves",

imaginary trees where everything is forced to fit in ora dead branch is created, invented relationships,

total ignorance of anything that counters it,

only in the fantasic world of evolution anything is possible,

It is ridiculous, it take more faith than religion,

and is supporters are so dogmatic, they will not allow any questioning of it or any alternaive thoeries,

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You MUST choose between God and evolution, because a supreme being, capable every and all miracles and wonders recorded in the scriptures would have no need of evolution,

nor would a perfect being chose an imperfect and improbalistic method for creating man, an intentinal creation and puposeful creation.

NO, a Perfect being, a God, would not use imperfect means, nor would have any need to.

To believe otherwise is to rationalize a belief in the pseudo-scientific nonsense that is evolution.

Evolution and God are not separate. I believe God creates through evolution. It is indisputable that evolution occurs.

Oh yeah where did I get my ideas? I got them while studying Biology at BYU. The class on evolution that is taught at BYU is a great one.

As to the survey, the negative hype surrounding public ed is just that, hype. Guys like jon Stossel find some run down school in the ghetto and take their cameras in. They film the worst kids with the worst behavior and put it on t.v. Then your local politicos say, "see what is happening in our schools?!! Public ed is broken. Let's cut funding for them and open charter schools. Never mind that I own a company that builds charter schools for profit. We need charters and vouchers! Public ed teachers are our enemy."

In reality, our kids that are trying are doing better than ever before. We have assimilated a whole generation of kids that didn't even speak our language and the ACT scores are still maintaining a high rate. It really is a miracle what our schools and teachers have done with this generation.

Keep it up!

Good job teachers. Most of you are doing an excellent job putting your heart and soul into it; a job most of you love despite the challenges which at times are many. Too many adults are hypercritical except when it comes to them and theirs. I say ignore the whiners who could never hack your job in the first place and keep working hard and caring about our kids. Thanks again..

I agree 100% with Rock.

Our teachers here in Utah are incredible. No wonder our kids keep achieving such great success on the lowest education budget in the nation. Of course good families play a part in that as well.

Thanks for all you do!

To Goet: I understand and agree with your point about theory/fact/observation. But I would also claim that there are "experimental facts". For example, under normal circumstances most objects move downwards when released a few feet above the Earth's surface. Theories of gravity have come and gone, but the observations remain. I would say it's similar with evolution. With our God-given senses we have observed that evolution occurs and is occurring now.

It appears that "the truth" has argued vehemently against an assertion that I did not make, i.e., that humans evolved from lower life forms. I thought I said it clearly before, but I will try again: it is possible to believe in "evolution" without believing that humans evolved from lower life forms.

According to Wikipedia, evolution is "the change over time in one or more inherited traits found in populations of individuals."

I believe that God intentionally created humans and other forms of life. I'm not sure how he did it--he hasn't told us the details yet. I also believe in things that we observe to be true.

Have any of you seen the DVD? Why not?

I thought it was always "greener on the other side of the fence", and not so good on this side of the fence.

Something is skewing this public education view, "my school is doing well while other schools (of which I don't know anything about) are doing badly".

How well is your school doing? Compared to what? Are students really learning the knowledge and skills necessary for a future of success?