The opposite also exists. Some kids who don't make straight A's because they don't bother to study will test very high. I was such a kid, good grades, but not the top ones. A few B's never bothered me. But all the way through school, from the Iowa and California tests in grade school, the IQ tests, the National Merit and the ACT, I scored very well. I was just a perceptive kid with good logical skills and did well on standardized tests. My projected GPA from test scores was always higher than my real GPA because high school was a breeze and I never studied. I was in college looking at a 2.6 before I developed some study skills and got my act together. Other high-testers that don't otherwise show much academic skill are those high-recall kids with near-photographic memories. It makes them look smart on standard tests, but their analytical skills often prove very limited.
They will fight it, and a merged school would probably end up being Grambling Tech University rather than just being absorbed by Louisiana Tech. If it were up to me, I'd merge the graduate and research programs into Louisiana Tech and remake Grambling into the best Junior College in the south. Then poor kids in north Louisiana could still get into college with a 2.0 and have a shot at the brass ring. And Louisiana would not be wasting money running two similar colleges just a few miles apart. The fact is that Louisiana has too many four-year institutions and a shortage of junior colleges. North Louisiana needs a junior college badly and Grambling could meet that need. It might even revive their flagging football fortunes. Most Louisiana JC players must go out-of-state to find a good JC football program. Grambling could wrap those players up and feed them to other Louisiana four-year schools.
I'm reasonably confident that the one reason this will not happen is football. Academically it makes sense. Athletically???? not so much.
This once described me to a T. Due to a teacher in elementary school who slept through many of our classes, I basically missed my entire fourth grade year of math instruction. It was the one subject that didn't come naturally to me. My math grades up until that year were good, but I needed a teacher to work with me when I had questions. The next year I was stuck with a teacher going through hellacious personal problems and who could not handle questions form the class...and I had a lot of them about math given the fact that I hadn't learned anything the year before. That teacher's method of dealing with students who had questions was to get impatient, then yell. First ever C I earned was in math that year. Add to that an algebra teacher in high school who also did not work well with people who weren't natural math people (also liked to yell...also liked to make fun of students in front of the entire class)... Well, let's just say that I was lucky that LSU had remedial math back then. It is amazing to me how high my ACT score actually was given how poorly I scored on the math component. Years later, I walked by a conference room at work and noticed a coworker tutoring an intern in algebra. I sat in and asked a few questions about a problem on the board, and it was amazing how well he explained it all to me. I started sitting in on his tutuoring sessions more to prove to myself that I wasn't an idiot when it came to numbers. It took a patient person who could answer my questions in plain english to restore my confidence, and after a bit I was able to work through some of the math problems on my own. So I really understand how just fear of math can make your brain just shut down. And to go further off topic :grin: , the engineer that was doing the tutoring would make a fantastic teacher. But he'd have to jump through endless hoops in many states to get certified to teach because he doesn't have a degree in teaching. One of the few things that I like about my current job is that we run a program that offers a fairly quick way for people with degrees in subjects other than education to become certified teachers...it's a great program that is a huge benefit to schools in this state.
it describes me, too. i can choke on any test. i was a fine arts/ceramics major. to make clays and glazes you have to have a pretty good grasp of math and chemistery, or, be able to follow instructions to the letter. i had no problems making clays and glazes and understanding formulations from memory when i was actually doing so in practice. but put questions about it on paper and ask me to explain a glaze forumulation and the results were disaster. it was difficult for me to pass tests, not to mention make a good grade. i was lucky that in my final two semesters i had an instructor that recognized this. she would come into the the lab where i was making glazes and "visit" with me. asking what i was making, why, etc. i didn't realize until the end of the first of those final two semesters, she was giving me my tests. i was lucky that i was in a very small department in school and had a professor and mentor that not only recognized testing was a major weakness for me, but took the time to find a way around that.
I agree with you completely. With the single parent families and the dual working parents, helping and prodding a kid through school gets left to the teacher. These type of households are also breeding grounds for poorly disciplined kids that teachers can't control. In my opinion, the poor quality of public schools in La is a reflection of family morals and the degrading family unit. The private school I sent my kids to had the occasional bad apple but most kids had proper home incentives and did well.
I've been in the public school system 18 years and sometimes parents do everything right and the kids make bad choices but the majority of the problem is just as you state. There are, however, some ineffective teachers. Some are very knowledgeable in content area but have the wrong approach. The most effective are knowledgeable and make the classroom environment fun and friendly- they have a strong rapport with students. Not nearly all, but too many teachers feel the need to exert their authority and think ordering kids around makes them big. Especially with kids today, respect and sincere caring goes A LONG way b/c of the home environments......they don't get enough. I'm talking about "At risk" students- low income, single parent, several siblings, generation after generation on government assistance. Many overcome but the deck is stacked against them.
Education is very important & we have a few teachers that post on here & of course some parents so it is bound to come up a lot.
