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ORIGINAL: KeriB

I lived in California for quite awhile so I understand the weird mixture of politics. Here's the thing though when it comes to the education system California is no different from most other states. The legislature has now idea how to run a school, design curriculum, or assess student achievement. They also have no clue as to what teachers really have to deal with on day to day basis in the classroom or what even makes a good teacher. As with most politics it's about getting re-elected instead of what is good for the students.

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ORIGINAL: kat321

DK- it would require more than that.  Research in schools wasn't taught at all K-12 until probably the mid-1970s, and from then on it largely consisted of glorified book/periodical reports (read everything you can on a topic and tell the teacher about it.)   There are library/media standards; however, the time to teach this is generally handed to a school media specialist as part of a larger project in an English or history class.  While this worked for a while, two factors overrode the practice: more time spent teaching for testing requirements and cuts in funding for the library/media specialist nationwide.  To put that job in perspective, it is cut more often that arts and world languages programs which are usually seen as among the first to go.

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There is another issue as well.  Have you ever graded 150 four-to-five-page papers (5 classes, 30 kids per class)? At twenty minutes a paper (which I think is woefully inadequate to do a sufficient assessment of a developing writer and critical thinker) that would be fifty hours of work for one assignment.  I think, in the end, this is why detailed research was never taught K-12 and was always seen as the domain of the college.  While we can argue that times are changing (cue Bob Dylan here) and that this should be part of a school's curriculum, there are still issues with the workload associated with the task. 

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ORIGINAL: FirmhandKY

You can make sense out of fl's inane remarks?

You're a better man than I, sir. 

Firm

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ORIGINAL: DomKen

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ORIGINAL: kat321

DK- it would require more than that.  Research in schools wasn't taught at all K-12 until probably the mid-1970s, and from then on it largely consisted of glorified book/periodical reports (read everything you can on a topic and tell the teacher about it.)   There are library/media standards; however, the time to teach this is generally handed to a school media specialist as part of a larger project in an English or history class.  While this worked for a while, two factors overrode the practice: more time spent teaching for testing requirements and cuts in funding for the library/media specialist nationwide.  To put that job in perspective, it is cut more often that arts and world languages programs which are usually seen as among the first to go.

That must have been what happened in my school (seems it was 1975 or 76), but that bit of instruction may have been the most valuable thing I was taught in the 12 years I spent in public school.

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There is another issue as well.  Have you ever graded 150 four-to-five-page papers (5 classes, 30 kids per class)? At twenty minutes a paper (which I think is woefully inadequate to do a sufficient assessment of a developing writer and critical thinker) that would be fifty hours of work for one assignment.  I think, in the end, this is why detailed research was never taught K-12 and was always seen as the domain of the college.  While we can argue that times are changing (cue Bob Dylan here) and that this should be part of a school's curriculum, there are still issues with the workload associated with the task. 

I realize the difficulty and the fact that simply grading the work would be a huge task, maybe teacher's aides or assistant teachers could handle some of it?, but that doesn't change the simple fact that research skills should be taught and practiced in elementary school and beyond.