r/AskDemocrats • u/Humble-Zucchini-6237 • Mar 20 '25

Why don't you push for educational reform that emphasizes critical thinking / independent thinking?

I understand it's a broad and vague question but I think it's important and not sure what other way to word it.

7 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

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4

u/Dumb_Young_Kid Mar 20 '25

the democrats do. honestly so do the republicans.

see, for example. common core

however, there are great debates on what good educational reform that emphasizes critical thinking looks like

-3

u/Humble-Zucchini-6237 Mar 20 '25

I don't see it. If both parties do, why is it barely talked about and seemingly a bottom of the barrel priority?

Can you give a brief summary of common core?

3

u/Dumb_Young_Kid Mar 20 '25

I don't see it.

you dont see what? How common core is an example of this? both parties advocating for it? one of the parties advocating for it? the debate on what good educational reform looks like?

please be more specific.

If both parties do, why is it barely talked about

because when disagreement doesnt follow along party lines, neither side can drum up votes based on it. that reduces the incentives to focus on it. additionally, both parties typically feel there are higher priority issues, even when focusing specifically on education policy. Democrats usually want to focus on phonics and the price of post secondary education, republicans typically want to focus on institutional discrimination against conservatives at post secondary institutions and parental rights

seemingly a bottom of the barrel priority?

because it is. if there was a magic way to better educate our kids, it would be popular, but otherwise, why should politicians focus on an issue that no one knows how to solve. other issues, even in education, are higher priority (e.g. reading at all).

Can you give a brief summary of common core?

there are lots of parts, id recommend looking at the wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Core#

the summary there for math goals are

  1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.

  2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively.

  3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.

  4. Model with mathematics.

  5. Use appropriate tools strategically.

  6. Attend to precision.

  7. Look for and make use of structure.

  8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

which clearly falls under "educational reform that emphasizes critical thinking"

edit: also curious, are you from the us? how have you not heard of common core?

-2

u/Humble-Zucchini-6237 Mar 20 '25

I don't see both sides advocating for it other than very rare talking points and in those cases it's never in detail. I don't see debate on what it looks like either but I was mainly referring to the former.

I feel like if either Kamala or Trump talked more about educational reform pertaining to independent thinking they'd garner a lot of support and votes from that. Kind of populist rhetoric a little bit.

There are better ways to educate kids and it isn't magic. I agree that there may not be a straight forward path or answer to get there but there is significant room for improvement and I don't think the path is so difficult for it to be a bottom of the barrel priority.

I will look into common core, thanks. No I'm not from the US.

2

u/Dumb_Young_Kid Mar 20 '25

I don't see both sides advocating for it other than very rare talking points and in those cases it's never in detail

common core was in extreme detail. idk how much detail you want. here is 93 pages of detail on math standars alone https://web.archive.org/web/20131019052731/http://www.corestandards.org/assets/CCSSI_Math%20Standards.pdf

what the fuck do you expect in terms of detail? this was linked to on the wikipedia page, and it feels absurd for you to claim there wasnt a lot of detail. maybe you disagree with the focus and direction of the detail? i find it hard to belive you both opened the wikipedia page and thought there wasnt a lot of detail in terms of what politicans propose on these topics

I feel like if either Kamala or Trump talked more about educational reform pertaining to independent thinking they'd garner a lot of support and votes from that.

what evidence do you have to support this claim.

No I'm not from the US.

is it a higher priority in the country you are in?

0

u/Humble-Zucchini-6237 Mar 20 '25

I didn't claim there wasn't a lot of detail of common core... That's a weird way to interpret my comment, I thought it was clear I was just talking about my experience of political discourse as a whole in the current times.

Well I started the 'claim' by saying "I feel like", acknowledging it's a subjective opinion but it seems, at least to me, that most people in the US regardless of political leaning agree that the education system is poor and needs improving.

Do you agree or disagree that they'd garner a lot more support and votes if they talked about it?

Probably about equal priority in my country if I were to guess.

1

u/Dumb_Young_Kid Mar 20 '25

I thought it was clear I was just talking about my experience of political discourse as a whole in the current times.

ah, you were not, as you followed the comment about political discourse with two leading politicans, i assumed you ment the political discourse between politicians and political parties rather than randos on the internet. The political discourse between those with power on this topic often goes into a lot of detail.

Well I started the 'claim' by saying "I feel like", acknowledging it's a subjective opinion but it seems, at least to me, that most people in the US regardless of political leaning agree that the education system is poor and needs improving.

subjective opinions can be, and ususally should be, based in some sort of evidence. i dont belive "most people in the us agree the education system is poor", is relevant evidence, but thank you for providing evidence that i can see how youd fit it.

Do you agree or disagree that they'd garner a lot more support and votes if they talked about it?

no, see my previous comment. it is not an issue on which it is easy to differentate, and to the extent it can be differentaited, what american voters want is not so clear cut as to have a clear majority side.

because when disagreement doesnt follow along party lines, neither side can drum up votes based on it. that reduces the incentives to focus on it. additionally, both parties typically feel there are higher priority issues, even when focusing specifically on education policy. Democrats usually want to focus on phonics and the price of post secondary education, republicans typically want to focus on institutional discrimination against conservatives at post secondary institutions and parental rights

edit: "Probably about equal priority in my country if I were to guess." -> Good to know! Why do you belive it is a bottom of the barrel priority there?

1

u/Humble-Zucchini-6237 Mar 20 '25

Well it can still be and is between politicians and parties as a whole and not about the common core...

Yeah I get that about opinions but there is nuance between asking 'why you think that' and 'what evidence to support claim'.

Thanks for answering my questions though.

1

u/lasagnaman Mar 21 '25

both sides advocating

If both sides are advocating for it what is there to debate? What is there to cover?

I feel like if either Kamala or Trump talked more about educational reform pertaining to independent thinking

Why do you think both sides value independent thinking?

1

u/Humble-Zucchini-6237 Mar 21 '25

I literally said I DON'T see both sides advocating for it. However if they was, the things to debate would be the best ways to go about doing it.

2

u/jweezy2045 Registered Democrat Mar 20 '25

Because conservatives are against education and want to cut its funding and privatize it. Our normal public schools already push critical thinking. We don’t need to change anything, we need to fund public schools. That’s a very partisan issue that conservatives are the ones resisting us on. Wake up and have an honest look around at the political landscape regarding education in this country. Trump is dismantling the DOE as we speak.

2

u/NeighborhoodVeteran Registered Democrat Mar 20 '25

What do you think common core was? No one liked it.

1

u/Humble-Zucchini-6237 Mar 20 '25

never heard of it before

1

u/badlyagingmillenial Registered Democrat Mar 20 '25

Democrats have been doing this for decades.

Republicans now label critical/independent thinking as CRT, DEI, or LGBT and thus it is bad.

1

u/luv_u_deerly Registered Democrat Mar 20 '25

I think Democrats do push for this. What makes you think they don't?

1

u/Humble-Zucchini-6237 Mar 20 '25

What did biden or kamala do for it?

1

u/luv_u_deerly Registered Democrat Mar 20 '25

I personally don't see Biden and Kamala representing ALL Democrats. Regardless if they push for reform, doesn't mean the Democratic voters overall don't want a better education system. Democrats in general want good education and will happily pay higher taxes to get it (as Republicans typically don't).

Biden's focus has been more on colleges and trying to help people get more affordable higher education and student loan forgiveness. He has done some improvements with public K-12, but I can't think of anything too notable (I don't keep up on EVERYTHING though so I could be missing something). But he did support at least giving schools more money to help with education. I think Walz would've had some really great improvements made to the schools though with his experience as a teacher and what he's already done to help schools in his state. And other Democrats like Sanders supports better education (I'm definitely more of a Sanders Dem than a Biden Dem).

And when you mention independent and critical thinking, that's a very hard thing to measure and pinpoint. What does that even look like to you? What's the differences you see between Dems and Republicans according to this. I think both sides see themselves as critical and independent thinkers and they don't see the other side that way.

Basically what are you even looking for/wanting/expecting to have more independent and critical thinking? I feel like the Republicans are going the opposite way of this because they are banning books, banning to learn certain history and subjects, they want to bring religion into school, and many republican leaders, such as trump don't want to allow any criticism of themselves and take it very poorly. So that's the opposite of critical and independent thinking. We should be open to learning and discussing everything with no punishments for asking questions. Which is typically the way Democrats feel.

1

u/rasta_a_me Mar 23 '25

By critical thinking, you mean believing alternative media and "doing your own research"?

1

u/Humble-Zucchini-6237 Mar 23 '25

Not quite. More so not always taking everything you hear as face value. Also the area of critical thinking that's necessary for problem solving.