I agree. People have to take personal responsibility for their actions. One of the BAD lessons of the bailouts is that we have rewarded bad behavior.

Obviously, schools vary. I’m certain that I can find anecdotal evidence supporting the notion that teachers are eliminating accountability. I can also find plenty of evidence supporting the notion that teachers are requiring accountability.

Some facts, however, will eventually come out–one way it comes out is in the quality of graduates, which can be reflected in the quality of schools to which those graduates are admitted. Of course, when parents either lack the funding or don’t see it as a priority, then the kid has no possibility of being admitted to a fine college or university. That plays havoc with research statistics/results.

I’m unwilling to admit to a silver bullet re this problem. I am aware however, that more than 50% of my graduating high school class of 1952, went on to at least one college degree–with the resulting job opportunity. The statistics for that age group are that only 12% of high school grads hold a college degree. Degrees certainly don’t tell the whole picture–but they are one pointer. By the way, that school system in a Detroit suburb is still turning out a high percentage of college grads. [Of course, we also don’t know what proportion of students who started in the school system dropped out before they finished high school.]

This has been a merry trail because I think conclusions on either side of the picture are very difficult to make with any finality. But the US education system needs upgrading.

Again, comparing our very heterogenous system to a homogenous system like China or Japan proves nothing. Compare it to a similar system like the UK and we do OK. But, I agree, we need to do better than OK.

Miki: Theoretically, I don’t know of a single way to manage variables in research so that you can compare the quality of education when I was kid to that which kids get today. In fact, as a research scholar, I would say it’s an impossible research problem.

Emotionally, I think that some schooling yesterday is better than some schooling today. But there is no way to factually assess the comparison. Emotionally, I also think that some schooling today is better than some schooling yesterday. There is no valid research way to make those comparisons, 50 years apart.

The variables are monstrous. Let’s take the teaching profession as an example. Detroit metropolitan teachers–when I was in high school–were among the best paid in the nation. We can get most of that factual information. And we can compare living costs then with living costs today, by managing the variables. However, families with rarest exception had only one car–whereas two or three are the norm today. Families only had radio for much of my grade school–so there was no regular and expensive TV, video, and cellphone upgrading. How do you compare cost of living between 50 years when the differences between what’s perceived as necessary vs. luxury are so immense?

Women only had three major professional opportunities for jobs in most of my grade school years…Nursing, teaching and secretarial. My wife worked as a summer secretary for General Motors in high school–but most of the executive secretaries were college grads. She worked at General Motors Overseas and the top secretary was a college graduate with a master’s and spoke 12 European languages. She had a great job and wore mink in the winter to show it. That was the top of the rung for women. And in many Detroit firms, you had to have a college degree to get a secretarial job.

Why would most college grads want to teach today? It’s a very limiting, insecure, low paid (in most communities, though not all) job–with terrific parental and supervisory stresses, and little support and resources. As a consequence, the brightest don’t usually teach. They’re in business, law, medicine, etc. There are certainly exeptions–and they deserve our utmost support. But those differences significantly impacts the educational quality of students.

Furthermore, in inner city schools, and in many outer ring schools, both parents work, or they’re single parents, or they’re heavily English as second language, or . . . well you get the problem. The parents often have little schooling and are intimidated by schooling–and so there is little support. Some of the schools in many inner city settings serve breakfast to more than half of the school population–and that takes time out of learning. The issues are formidable–but not insurmountable.

College teachers in community colleges and state colleges (not the research universities) are under unique financial pressure, so I suspect that the anonymous state college teacher may be under all kinds of pressure–just like the state college presidents. The anecdotal material is all over the map. . . and though it makes for great readership, I would have to be looking at researched fact to believe that the information has widespread applicability.

In all the firms in which I’ve consulted (Fortune 100), it’s rare for anyone, except the CEO and vice-presidential executives to have an administrative assistant, much less a college grad.

Over the past 50 years, the world for teachers, schools, taxpayers, parents, and legislators, etc. has changed drastically.

The solutions will all be nuanced, and only partial. But they must be carried out–they’ll be costly–and frustrating to many of us. But the problems cannot be fully solved. Thus, well-to-do parents send their children to high-priced prep schools to make certain their children achieve. The prep schools in Boston, where my grandchildren live, cost more than $30,000 a year — and that doesn’t include boarding school. Those are the extremes of education that we all face.

Thus, for many, accountability problems are inevitable. There is no valid way to say that children learned better when I was in school than kids today. And when a parent tells me that our suburban schools have better building and teacher resources than 50 years ago. . . based merely on building resources, that’s a laugh. I believe that you had to have a Master’s degree to have a job in our community. I had several PhD’s as teachers–for what that’s worth. In one instance, it was worth a great deal personally.

My elementary school had full-time music teachers, orchestral, band, and choral, 2 full-time gym teachers, and classrooms with never more than 25 students. My little elementary school had a swimming pool, two gymnasiums, and a several acre playground. The system had every building renovated a few years ago, and when I was visiting with my brother, we stopped by–and asked for a tour–it was August, before school started. I asked to see the kindergarten room–the African American principal smiled, and took me on the tour. A very large, high ceiling room, boys and girls bathrooms, sinks along the wall, and a huge fireplace with European tile around the opening. That’s a marvelous context for learning–and highly unique.

The only other place with those resources are in a northern Minnesota town–all built years ago by a major steel mining company.

My point–the comparisons are impossible…I doubt most of them, and anecdotal material from the most involved are highly suspect.

Dan, all you say is valid, but I’m confused. I wasn’t comparing education now with when we were young, as you say, that’s comparing apples and oranges.

But a perfect attendance record at school, while learning little-to-nothing, is worth about the same as showing up for work every day sans productivity.

It may make me a dinosaur, but I don’t believe that accountability, responsibility, commitment and similar traits have changed—or did I miss something?

Miki, what do you disagree about the tree? I’m willing to change a few things about it.

Children and consequences has always been a confusing topic for parents. There’s the “traditional method” where you reward and punishment than there’s new movements.

I personally don’t have anything exact, but I feel strongly against consequences when they are punishment.

Heather at http://www.beyondconsequences.com is really great with this because she moves parenting that uses consequences to instill fear in children and transforms the parenting approach into love. It’s a myth that reward and punishment need to be used on children to create change.

Dan, I’m not sure that we’re talking about the same thing. The focus of this post was that kids watch the world around them and see many business ‘leaders’ walk away after decimating their current company, whether from stupidity, greed or criminal actions, with multimillion dollar payouts and into similar positions at other companies. Seeing this sends a message that the actions of these ‘leaders’ was OK.

I also cited a lack of accountability stemming from decisions made by school administrations, such as the Dallas Independent School District.

I”m still not sure how this was interpreted to be about how much students learn these days, but I do disagree that anecdotal evidence has no value and that CandidProf’s descriptions are no more than whining. DISD’s actions and the results of the No Child Left Behind law to me are facts, as is the amount of remedial schooling so many kids need after graduation.

Isn’t accountability about bearing responsibility when you know you’re the culprit (eg. taking responsibility for your own mistakes). Although I know the meaning is vaster. According to wikipedia: “Accountability is a concept in ethics with several meanings. It is often used synonymously with such concepts as answerability, enforcement, responsibility, blameworthiness…”

Finger Pointing, IMHO, has nothing to do with accountability.