Problem: Can’t meeting reading standards. Public school solution: Don’t bother teaching kids to read; just lower the standards.
[…]
Duncan is right when he argues that we need to create a system that is “fair and flexible and focused on the schools and students most at risk.” Ten years ago, [Reason’s Lisa] Snell outlined just how such goals could be achieved:
Real education reform would give parents a way to find a better quality education now, instead of waiting years for their failing or simply mediocre public school to improve. Until the federal government allows real education reforms -- such as universal tax credits or actual vouchers that are at least equal to the federal portion of per-pupil spending -- it will have little impact on the educational experience of students who need better schools while they're still in school.
Instead, the Feds will just define functional illiteracy down and teachers’ unions will cheer.
— Well, they’ll cheer until you get fed up and finally get serious about fixing the broken system. At which point, they’ll chant facile slogans, break shit that isn’t theirs, and try to overturn elections.
For the children.
Somebody has to say it: teachers aren’t some special national resource. They are people who took jobs. If they can’t do the jobs they signed on for, we need to find others who will.
We don’t need to protect them from the failures of our children. We need to protect our children from their failures.
There it is. Deal.
We spend more on public education than any other country other than Switzerland. Money is not the issue. Shitty schools are the issue.
Schools should be privatized, vouchers issued, and let the market place respond. They do that in socialistic fucked up Belgium. It should work even better here.
An illiterate generation is a docile generation. All you gotta do is provide plenty of bread and circuses, and the elite can do as they please.
Is the circus in town in Madison?
Of course the circus has a permanent camp in D.C.
Reading, writing, and arithmatic? Pshaw…
What’s really important is to make sure they can recite all of the usual and customary talking points vis-a-vis social justice; as well as recount, verbatim, an oral history of how the progressive Democrats and the worker’s allies in the unions made all of that greatness possible!
Oh and, of course, the narrative of how the HISTORIC! ascension of Barack Obama restored order to our nation, America’s standing in the world, and stopped the sea levels from rising.
Pesky reading? Well that won’t do; they might accidentally be exposed to wingnut agitprop!
Pesky arithmatic? That’s out also, lest they percieve the budgetary chicanery of their benevolent tyrant overlords…
Better to stick with the oral history. It’ll make them better sloganeers later, and, you know, seeing as how the Billy Ayers cadre have PROOOOOOOOOF! that minority kids are more verbal and all, reading is fundamentally racist!
Which explains why slaves
weren’t allowedwere forced to read…If they can’t do the jobs they signed on for, we need to find others who will.
If that were only possible. From personal experience, I know that public schools do not care about one’s subject credentials but rather only about whether one’s taken all the courses designed to indoctrinate teachers in the latest progressive theories. The unions will never allow people without the correct view of the world to be exposed to children, unless the entire system is scrapped, starting with teacher “certification” and mandatory union membership.
That’s what I’m talking about, R Sherman.
Take the Hillsdale approach and go viral with it. Tax payer money goes to fund it as an alternative to other “public” schools. Let’s let competition decide.
I am really stuck on tenure for grade-school and high-school teachers. What could they possibly need a tenure system for? Are they under some kind of political threat for telling us that in fact the wheels on the bus do go round and round?
Hey, it worked so well for Fannie Mae and the home mortgage industry…
O/T but the shit is going to hit the fan today. http://biggovernment.com/stemplar/2011/03/10/the-essence-of-project-muslim-brotherhood/#more-240412
Mr B, I don’t get enough fair usage to download all that video, what’s the gist?
LBasom,
It’s teasing out the shoe dropping; on what I expect is going to be evidence of NPR’s willingness to take $5 million from the Muslim Brotherhood. I am speculating that how that money is to be used is discussed.
Okeefe said video coming on Hannity today. Watching for a web release sooner.
Ann Coulter was on Hannity last night and she was railing on Walker and used Okeefe damage to liberals as her standard for Walker goals. She did touch on the MB and the $% mill. The last two videos are audio of Andrew B and Okeefe on Hugh Hewiit. I liked the AB one the best.
I responded to a commment on ANN and all caps last night. I think the person was talking about Ann Althouse, when I was talking about Ann Coulter. Thinking we were both watching Hannity.
Speaking of education, This is an interesting piece I snagged from instapundit.
My wife came home today and told me there were six kids in her second grade class that had never used a computer and she had to teach them how to use the mouse. I thought the kids were faking it. She disagreed. There are two computers and some whiz-bang new-fangled Minority Report type million dollar digital chalk board in every classroom in that school. The computers were unplugged and the digital chalk board had “Eat Good Food” posters scotch taped to it.
Last night at the school board meeting the Superintendent said we had to close two outlying schools to make up a half-million dollar shortfall next year. The schools are 20 miles out in the county. They each have 2 computers in each classroom, new each was $3000. There are 12 classrooms in one and 16 in the other. Sell those suckers for $1500 and that’s $84k right there. That’ll pay for the gas to bus the rural kids into the town school.
The doors to the Junior High boys locker rooms have been broken for four years. But every classroom has a new laptop and digital projector. There’s one teacher who took six weeks off to have elective surgery. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SCHOOL YEAR. Not during the summer. We’ve got one teacher with a Master’s plus 30 who teaches a semester class on “keyboarding”, where she teaches the kids to do Powerpoint presentations. $65k a year to teach PowerPoint to 6th graders.
And it’s not just the teachers. I was cleaning the cafeteria one night after a swim meet, about 8pm, and while dumping the trash I passed a custodian standing by the door. I told her that I was almost done and she could close up in about 10 minutes and she told me not to worry, “This was her last room and she was on until 11:30”. On my way out I saw the other custodian shooting baskets in the gym.
No way to cut costs, see. None. If it’s tax money, it’s wasted.
My wife’s a sub, BTW. Not a teacher. The school board voted down a pay increase for subs this year, it would have been the first in 10 years. They make 65 bucks a day, my wife does it mainly to keep in touch with the administration in the schools so we won’t ever have a problem getting our kids into the right classes or signed up for the right stuff, etc…
It works, and if your kids are in school and you can hack it, go for it. Although it is terrifying sometimes.
When I was a kid reading all that sci-fi I used to wonder what the future would be like.
The future is stupid.
Anyway….how bout: “Reading! – Arithmetic! – Writing!….RAW!!!”
Maybe it just needs a new marketing approach.
Or maybe there’s some way to teach kids how to read in a first person shooter type deal.
See Dick run. Kill Dick Now!!!
Just thinking outside the box here.
It’s time to nail the coffin lid shut on “If you spend it, they will learn.”
A close friend has a PhD in biology and is a professor at a 2nd-tier state school in the school of education. Her specialty is teaching education majors how to teach high school science. Last year she looked into applying for a high school science teaching job and was informed of her need for a master’s degree in education before stepping foot in a classroom. Alanis, call your office.
It’s striking when you see High School tests from the 50’s…the things the average student was expected to know.
We really have come a long way.
Gonna go the home school route, Jeff?
Might as well…
Even going the Home School route they still make you teach your kids alot of P.C. shit. At least in Cali.
Even going the Home School route they still make you teach your kids a lot of P.C. shit. At least in Cali.
You can tell your kids that they have to memorize a few verses of the Progressive Creed, but you don’t have to make them believe it.
In any event, the important thing isn’t that kids learn how to read and write and add and subtract; the important thing is that they realize how special they are, and that they feel good about themselves. We are stardust. We are golden.
O/T There’s the next NPR video release. http://www.theprojectveritas.com/npr2
Parochial schools deliver far better education than public at a fraction of the cost. Why is that?
Okay, not good enough for ya…
Homeschoolers do far better too. There is virtually no cost for that (other than of course the time for mom or dad to teach the kids). Why is that?
Private schools can refuse to teach students who aren’t willing to shut up and learn something, thus removing the disruptive influences. With home schooling, you HAVE to be involved as a parent, unlike the situation with public schooling in which some parents assume that because they send their kids to school, those kids are getting an education.
Pardon the interruption, but NRO just posted the new O’Keefe video:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/261894/new-o-keefe-npr-video-katrina-trinko
Joe, you are correct and the kids attending our little 125 student total parochial grade school from all socioeconomic strata score on average in the top 15 percent of all students nationally–at 1/3 the cost of what the local district spends per student.
BTW, their computers are hooked up and working.
Joe, expect the the attack on parochial education as “iniquity” to drift over to this side of the pond shortly.
My house got egged last night when I was out.
So I put my old Walker for Gov sign out on the front lawn this morning. Tonight might be interesting.
Funny thing about lazy union goons? Their cardio probably sucks. Should I let them try to run a couple blocks first or would that be too mean?
Unfortunately I had to take my kids out of the Catholic schools. For a lot of reasons, the public schools in our town were a better choice. I think that says it all about the Catholic school here.
What made them target your house, bh? Did you have a sign out initially?
The student brigade. Activate, agitate, and I can’t think of another word, for the UNION! http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2hSJqb/www.good.is/post/wisconsin-students-planning-school-walkout-to-protest-end-of-collective-bargaining/
Yeah, I had a sign out, Mr. B. They took it.
Could have been someone who knows me from a half dozen other things though. There was a rally and counter rally here a little while back and everyone recognized one another from both sides. Not that big a town.
Gotcha. Just curious.
Hey, if you guys want to call the WI AG’s office; and give him your opinion on whether he/she investigate the legality of the vote last night…..
http://twitter.com/#!/dane101/status/45959870666641408
This is really important. If everyone calls then it will HAPPEN! Democracy!
I gotta go bang some wood. I’m bored with glazing the fireplace for now.
Lost My Cookies. Nothing wrong with having decent public schools in your town and getting to use them (since you are presumably already paying for them). The problem is they tend to keep getting worse overall, despite funding, but obviously that is not universally true and there are exceptions.
Education should benefit from a competative market, same as anything else. Vouchers are the answer.
Who knows, maybe Jeff could open a school in Colorado for classical liberalism. I bet they would have a hell of a wrestling team.
By an odd coincidence, I also have to go bang some wood. Which is my euphemism for replying to a few dozen “urgent” work emails I’ve been ignoring for a week.
Later.
The definition of a good public school is one that’s full of students who come from good gene pools. End of story.
Are you being sarcastic Abe? I hear Andrew Sullivan loves that Bell Curve.
You could take random kids from any failing public school, put them with a decent school (at a fraction of the cost of public school) and have a marked improvement. The younger you get them the better the turn around. Come on, schools in Newark and Camden NJ and Washington DC are failing (despite getting more than $25,000 per student) just because of the “gene” pool of the students who go there?
I’m not being sarcastic in the least. If you put a handful of students from a failing school into a good one they would most certainly do better. But if you swapped the entire student population of a Camden school and that of a high performing public, the latter would turn to shit and the former would suddenly be a good school.
I wouldn’t put it all on genetics. It can be difficult to buck cultural norms that reject education as being unauthentic. Some manage to, probably the brightest of them, but the more average can easily end up screwed even if they have sufficient talent to do well.
I blame George Bush.
There is also an incredible lack of discipline in schools. My sister, who is a substitute teacher in Southern California, has to ignore students calling her “bitch” and the like. When I was a lad, I assumed one would get a beating for that. In fact, even the worst-behaving students would never have said something like that to a teacher, at least in the schools I attended.
Oh Lord Joe, they ain’t good. They’re just better than the others. I do have to say, though, that if your kids can manage to get into the college prep or honors track in my local public schools, they get a comparable education to anywhere in the country. My two oldest (Jr High and High) are expected to really step up, I’ve been impressed at the work they’re doing. Of course, I pretty much did nothing but pills, beer, and cocaine in my prep school days, which would have put me in class with the serially pregnant girls and meth addicts here, so YMMV.
“It can be difficult to buck cultural norms that reject education as being unauthentic”
morons of the world unite
“It can be difficult to buck cultural norms that reject education as being unauthentic””
i’m looking at you nea
I sort of used genetics as a (poor) descriptor for the raw material a school has to work with. Obviously cultural norms, parental engagement and what have you are a big part of that. I’m certainly more comfortable in asserting that a genetic sorting out process has had an effect on, say, a predominantly white blue collar, organized labor heavy school district versus an upper middle class town full of the children of software developers.
Abe, While as you present it is probably correct, I disagree with your hypothetical. But I get where you are coming from. I would not call it a genetic failing, but a failing of culture, combined with a healthy dollop of apathy and corruption. A public school needs to be able to kick out trouble makers and create some basic security to allow remaining students to learn. If you got rid of the 10% causing most of the discipline problems, got some teachers who weren’t completely burned out by a failed and corrupt system, and maintained some basic discipline, the 90% remainder would do far better than they are doing now.
You beat me to it Abe.
“I’m certainly more comfortable in asserting that a genetic sorting out process has had an effect on, say, ”
of jessejackson, sheilajacksonlee, alsharpton, maxine walters on the one hand and walterewilliams, thomassowell, clarencethomas, allenwest on the other hand.
Our public schools are pretty decent here in Orlando. A few more years of Jeb Bush might have actually whomped them all the way into shape.
But then Charlie Crist came along, made friends with the teachers, and tried to create a happily ever after that didn’t quite include the kids.
bh, where you live? I have family up in the north end of the state.
I’m about halfway between Fond du Lac and Milwaukee, Slart.
Ah. My family is all up in Appleton and New London. They had to move there because it’s a bit more tropical than where they used to live.
Abe: read Our School by Joanne Jacobs. Strong counter-example to your point. A great charter school in San Jose focused specifically on the worst-performing kids in the area. Poor, Hispanic, illegals, gang kids. They set a goal that any kid who went to their school and followed the rules–which are strict–would get admitted to college (community college included). They met their goal. They had to change the curriculum to include a lot of remedial stuff like even reading, but when the kids were expected to learn, and believed in, and supported, they learned. Incredibly moving stories about kids who had been told they weren’t college material–the soft bigotry of low expectations (which ain’t so soft, really)–finding out that they could in fact achieve if they worked for it. Parents flocked to this school so their kids could be saved from the gangs. Even some parents who were themselves gang members sent their kids here so the kids could find a better life.
People who really care and are willing to work hard can solve this problem.
Even if the kids were previously poor performers, they did commit to the rigor and disciple of this school by choosing it. That puts them ahead of plenty of their peers. The desire for self-improvement was in them or, in the very least, their parents. But it is certainly a good thing that at least some children have the benefit of public schools which understand that educating these kids requires a different paradigm which compensates for the culture they live in. Urban Catholic schools have been doing this for ages.