AMEN to that!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Knowledge does not equal wisdom. You can shove every piece of academia or technical skill down the gullets of these kids, but if you also promote a culture of entitlement, disrespect, and egocentrism then it's all for nothing.

Schools should teach our kids mental abilities; parents need to teach them proper social behavior. Lets start shifting some of the blame of today's youth on the parents and not just the schools.

Brian, you quote numbers for this year,,,,in case you didnt realize it, Romney hasn't been Gov. of Mass. in years. Talk about using numbers 'to make the argument most favorable to their position"

Perhaps you could try home schooling?

NAEP stats

"Massachusetts 4th and 8th graders lead the nation in reading and mathematics performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) exam. This is the fourth NAEP test in a row in which Massachusetts students have scored first or tied for first place."

Oh, if I'd have researched the article a bit more I'd have found that.

Apparently the NAEP are only factored into "K-12 Achievement". No doubt there is plenty of room for subjectivity.

Uh, we don't spend the most, not even close.

jag, supplying more than empty opinion is helpful to make your point.

What are you talking about? It's not an opinion. It's a fact and easy to confirm. Southwestminster stated a blatant falsehood and I called him out on it and yet I'm the one with the "opinion"? Are you making a joke?

It is opinion until you can support it with figures jag.

Jesus, Joe. Are you incapable of using Google? I love how exactly no one on here uses a citation, but mine is the only one that's an "opinion." Look it up - I can't believe you live in this state and don't even know the most basic facts about it.

jag, YOU made the claim and have offered zero support for it. It is up to you to do so or it is pure opinion and nothing more.

Good grief you're pathetic. And ignorant to the point of not even being having basic knowledge on what you're posting about and apparently handicapped to the point of not even being able to do basic research. Here, since "the internets" is too complicated for you:

http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/10f33pub.pdf

Read till you're not ignorant anymore.

Note that even Massachusetts spends more on schools than Maryland. The irony of the ignorant claim ("Maryland spends the most money on schools") makes this even funnier.

jag, you need serious help with your anger issues.

I see Maryland is 15th highest spending out of 51 jurisdictions.

Not quite anywhere the bottom is it jag. So your opinion was not as informed as you thought was it? Now I understand your angry reluctance to prove your false opinion. Good try though, maybe next time.

"Not quite anywhere the bottom is it jag. So your opinion was not as informed as you thought was it? "

You honestly must be illiterate. I never said we were at the bottom or "anywhere the bottom" (sic). Of course I don't want us to be anywhere near bottom. Who on earth wants to mimic all those horrific, underperforming red states?

Maryland is number 14 in expenditures according to your link. Not quite "not even close" in your words is it?
that is the top 27 percentile jag. Again, I now understand your reluctance to supply any links.

We are also 14 in total secondary school spending.
Thanks again for your link jag, it WAS very informative. Maybe you should have read it before you posted your opinion.

You're embarrassing yourself, Joe. MD has the best schools in the country and gets a great bang for their buck to boot. The fact you're mangling your own sentences trying to turn those facts into something negative is hilarious to watch, but sadly I have to actually get back to work now. Goodbye you silly, little boy.

jag, you have been proven WRONG by your own link now you slink away like the slug you are leaving a trail of failure behind you.

jag states as fact "we don't spend the most, not even close" then supplies a link to PROVE HIMSELF WRONG! Major fail jag. All the juvenile name calling you got cannot change that fact.

In what universe is 15th close to 1st? I can make the claim that MD is the very best at a whole lot of things if being 15th is the same as being 1st. Quit trolling every single thread as if it's your job to spread ignorance.

We don't spend the most, and yes, year after year they are in the top 5. Along with Massachusetts and Virginia.

"we don't spend the most, not even close"

More closer to the top than to the bottom. Continue to fail jag.

sorry jag. One day you will be able to keep up son.

I meant to throw this up earlier, but my actual job required me.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/qc/2012/16src.h31.html

Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia are, consistently in the top 5-6 year in and out. This list is the most recent one

If 50 teams competed in a tournament and a team ended in 15th place would you consider that team to be "close" to the top?

Here is the study from the previous year, 2011:
http://www.edweek.org/media/ew/qc/2011/QualityCounts2011_PressRelease.pdf

Massachusetts is 3rd in this one, Maryland again #1.

LOL, speaking of being uneducated.... Is your incoherent rant Obama's fault, too?

Source of your statistics and claims?

According to the UN HDI, our Education Index in 2007 was #13... out of 181 countries. That is an estimate of how literate we are and how long we remain in school. According to the most recent report, our Education Index in 2011 is #4... out of 187.

A recent PISA study was done and we ranked an average of #26... out of 75 countries. However, this is an average of reading, mathematics, and science; it does not take into account other knowledge. In addition, creating a comparison between the different educational systems is not reliable because of disparities in how "success" is measured.

Also, your 50% of college grads has been shown to not be quite accurate. Fact checks have shown that its closer to 25% that can't find a job; another 25% find jobs that their degrees are useless.

They're as accurate as standardized test scores.

Standardized testing does not apply to private schools. I could be wrong, but I assume MA has many more private schools than MD.

Do we blame the teachers for these generations behaving like that? Or the parents?

Wow, he's actually making his judgment based on 4th and 8th grade assessment tests?

That's it?

NAEP is THE national educational metric for measuring student educational progress across the US and is also now being used for international comparisons as well. It covers the most number of students compared to anything else out there, and it allows us to see how well states and school districts are doing over time.

Tim - those are widely accepted as "the" measurement of success by all except the people who are against standardized testing in general. Its not like some obscrute stat, those are the numbers that most grade themselves with.

Jeff/Jason: Maybe it is, but it strikes me as unusual that they wouldn't factor in secondary education at all.

Tim: NAEP does assess performance of 12th graders and has done it for a national sample for many years, but the state assessments for 12th graders just started as a pilot in 2009 and only included 11 states. There are more years of data and broader state participation for the 4th and 8th grade state assessments, enabling state comparisions basically because the No Child Left Behind Act required states to participate in the NAEP for reading and math to get Title I funds. Moreover, it's important to note that state compulsory school attendance rates vary between ages 16 and 18, and high school graduation rates are only about 75 percent (with grad rates more like 50 percent in many urban high schools, like in Balitimore). So that means, once they do become more universal, the NAEP state 12th grade assessments will not reflect those students who leave school before the assessment, possibly skewing the real results for secondary education. Nonetheless, NAEP despite its limitiations, is currently the best common results yardstick out there, and Romney was on safe ground claiming that Massachusetts schools were ranked #1 among all the states, with O'Malley's counterclaim based on a private ranking system that puts much less emphasis on actual student results.

You are dead on Jeff - don't you love how Ed Week can ignore the real stats. Folks who have no idea about the reality of schools swallow O'Malley's "#1 schools bs hook, line and sinker. Tim, go talk to a high school department chair who is up to their ears facilitating bridge projects about Maryland's #1 schools. Our kids can't even pass basic proficiency tests to graduate so they have to complete projects that are an absolute joke. Without the bridge projects, almost half of our seniors wouldn't graduate. Funny how that stat never hits the paper. Even funnier how everyone thinks they know so much about the workings of schools just because they spent 12 years (or more) in them.

I appreciate the perspective, but I personally have a tough time putting real stock in education standards that stop at 8th grade. I guess I'm in the minority. Now, if they had 11th or 12th grade assessments I'd be more interested in them.

Ed Week may be a trade paper, but let's not ignore the fact it's a non-profit, independent organization that uses broader standards then tests given to kids twice in their first 9 years of schooling.

Additionally, when you see the same schools at the top year in and out, it says something positive about those states.I attended a high school in Virginia - Henrico County. It doesn't surprise me at all that Virginia is also consistently in the top 5.

Do you hate Christians or something?? Or just hate the idea of parochial schools? Either way, mind your own business. It's called America - there are options that include religious education. Deal with it.

There are also non-religious reasons to send children to private schools. Class sizes are universally smaller, this is the biggest secular reason.
Also, let's be honest. Just because Maryland is a top 1-5 school overall in public education, it doesn't guarantee that you live in an area with a great school available.
Example: If I lived in Overlea, there's no way I'd let my kid go to Overlea High School. I would definitely look at private school options then (unless my kid got into Eastern).

There are several reasons to go the private school route

The main drawback with public school is class sizes.
That's the one thing you can be guaranteed of in private schools.

However, there's no qualifications for teacher quality at private schools.
Yes, the more prestigious ones will have very qualified teachers, but when you go to public school, teacher qualifications are assured.

There are advanced classes in public school, too. In Virginia (like Maryland, a top 5 school year in and out), we had 3 levels of class, Honors, Advanced, and Basic. Sounds like your daughter was in the wrong caliber of class.

Of course, I don't know how Maryland schools work.I just know they rate as highly as the schools in Virginia so I suspect they must have something along these lines.

Interesting info Mr. Borns. Here in Columbus Ohio, the school board just got caught "doctoring" the attendance records to make each school look better in State of Ohio school assessments. Its a BIG issue now. Has anyone seen the dropout rates natonwide.....its shocking.

Completely agree.

Hence Obama largely trying to bypass the crap that is No Child Left Behind (teaching to the test) with his Race to the Top program (one of about 40 gazillion great programs/projects/tax cuts to come from that oh-so nefarious stimulus program) which focuses on teacher and principal effectiveness, having states come up with their own reform programs instead of passing down a Bush-like federal "my way or the highway" testing structure, as well as encouraging states to foster successful charter and private school options.

Yeah, I'm not really a fan of the current educational agenda. Then again, I wasn't a fan of the previous couple of agendas as well.

If they shut down the Deptartment of Education and let States manage it themselves, I wouldn't have a problem with it. Just set some common sense baselines.

I certainly agree with you about teachers being the most important aspect of any education system.

In some ways, the curriculum is VERY IMPORTANT. Many years ago, Maryland put in place "stretch spelling" and abandoned phonics in elementary school. Seeing these these kids 15-20 years later is very sad. They cannot read well! In many ways, Maryland's curriculum is counter productive and is devastating to the lives of these young adults.

The curriculum is as important as the quality of teacher. ..it's the tool that dictates what is being taught. If the curriculum has been created in a way that is easy to pass, then false positive grades will be given in order that the claim of being No.1 can be made.
Like herding cattle through the chute with the current process..

Actually Jag - rtt is the same old crap in a different wrapper. Just a different test and a few new labels like "Common Core." All sounds great but people in the know recognize that it's all bs. Whence Feds get involved in education it turns to crap. By the way, just how do YOU measure "teacher effectiveness?" Again, sounds great but nobody seems to have an answer. I might be a great social studies teacher, but if a kid I teach has has lousy reading and writing teachers he will struggle and it has nothing to do with me. There are far too many variables that affect a kids performance to pin it down tontheneffectiveness of a single teacher. RTT sounds good to the ignorant, but is just another load of crap from the DOE.