Also, abolishing the Department of Education and returning control to the states, (as originally intended), would greatly improve quality of education.
And of course involved parents would be nice.
Fantasyland report cards will continue until major changes occur.
ARTH ping.
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Math be rassist. Grades be rassist too.
I'd like to see Separation of School and State. It should be a flat rule: tax money cannot be used to education children.
Families should take it as a personal responsibility to make sure their children are educated. Do it yourself. Pay someone to do it. Join a Home Schooling Association -- whatever.
But the government-run schools, and the Teachers Unions, should be basically illegal. Separation of School and State.
My sister experiences this teaching middle school math at a special residential school for black kids in Baltimore. She is an amazing teacher and gets results. She’s not afraid to give failing grades when the kids are skating by with excellent grades in English, social studies, and science even though their proficiency in those classes is abysmal.mill have to send her this book as a gift. Thanks for posting.
Rossiterm is a pedigreed liberal, but he’s done some good things such as publishing an an oped in the WSJ expressing doubt about man made global warming and how that keeps poor Africans poor. He was fired from the progressive Institute for Policy Studies think tank after his essay was printed.
I went to grade school a few years with Rossiter and we were friends for a while in Ithaca. His dad committed suicide at their home in 1970 and Caleb found him.
We had one man who took on the educational establishment when he self-published a traditionally-based algebra textbook in 1981. He had seen a similar situation of woefully low performance with his community college students in 1970 as a new algebra teacher after retiring from the military. His foray into the private halls of academic "authors" caused hateful attacks on his efforts to teach math to the child who had come from weak parenting and weak teaching. As a decorated bomber pilot, the warrior fought back hard. Their effort to destroy him exists even today, 19 years after his death. His name was John Saxon and he managed to build a K-12 math textbook publishing business worth an estimated $100 million. He kept declaring that "Results matter!" His opponents declared in return, "Equity matters!" Evidently, their goal of equity is being fulfilled today with fake grades being given to assure equity for all.
SAXON math ROCKS.
All three of mine used it, all got into their respective private universities in the honors programs, and all three were eligible to take Calculus right from the start, with no remedial math required.
People like to talk about graduation rates.
What’s really important is the LITERACY rates, and THOSE are abysmal.
They just clutter classrooms and distract serious students.
I will never understand many freepers axiomatic belief that state control will automatically produce better results.
It certainly has that potential, and I support a return to federalism for other reasons, but states can screw up as bad or worse than the feds.
IOW, if full control were returned to states, some (most?) would improve, but it is almost certain some would get worse.
With 50 states you'd get a wide range.
I graduated HS in the early 80s. I was horrible at algebra. My brain simply does not ‘get’ algebra. I grasp the concepts of geometry with no difficulty at all but Algebra baffles me. In 10th grafe I got a 37 on the final. In 1th grade retaking the course I got a 40 on the final. My teacher stood there in a flowing robe and said “You shall not PASS!”
In 12th I aced what the school called Business math.
Was it really that long ago that schools held people to a standard? I guess it was.
Another form of affirmative action. Better to face reality and fail the failures.
Been going on for decades. Long ago, my first year in public school teaching, I was told by an older teacher in an elementary school that each teacher could only hold back 2-3 students max. each year. It threw off the class counts for the next year as they were near maximum, and the school district would have to hire ($$) a new teacher should a class size go over the count. An F/D in one subject meant the student had to attend remedial summer school, again governed by open slots, in order to be passed on to the next grade in the fall. The teacher told me you had to determine who benefited most from a repeat of the entire year or summer school in one or two subject areas. Some kids still wouldn’t get it if they repeated the same year for the rest of their lives. Those kids were passed on. Throw special ed (protected by law) and disruptive students (and their equally badass parents) into the mix, and the concept of passing a student to avoid conflict is common practice. Don’t forget the school administrators that won’t stand with the teacher when the parent’s complain.
I hate to say it, but the Soviets have won.
No-—Local control only. States are too big and too much of a bureaucracy that eats up millions. All local choices, local boards, local decisions of curricula, etc which should ONLY be Classical in the sense of the McGuffey Readers so the tools to be critical thinkers are given to all children.
The most brilliant “minds” in our history did NOT spend that much time in “group think” conditioning factories——they were Readers and spent no more than 4 or 5 years in institutions-—and they weren’t “social” experiments-—but taught hard facts and complex thinking skills (mathematics)-—like Ben Franklin, Washington, Adams, etc.——early childhood should be in the Natural Family until after age 7 AT LEAST—— like Pastor Bonhoeffer’s mother stated (personal tutors ONLY-—and no artificial institutions (Real Life interactions, mastering skills (true self-esteem) and emulation of mature, moral people, who love the child (so children are humanized and practice and observe Virtue).
Socrates-—the only purpose of education is to teach Virtue. (Without Virtue, there is no Freedom).
High school, even middle school, is way too late to be worrying about this. You’re never going to learn algebra if you can’t do basic arithmetic and you’re never going to read Shakespeare or even a newspaper if you can’t get through Dick, Jane and Sally.
There are very few jobs that don’t require at least minimal skills like these.
Bear?
Honest reporting from the Washington Post? That’s weird... This is NOT a PC subject...