Posted on 04/02/2015 12:36:12 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
The racism card won’t work, because this was a black-on-black crime.
Since the advent of the Department of Education the level of American education has been on a steady decline, starting with the former goal of excellence to acceptance of mediocrity and now even making poor OK. Is this by design of a socialist oriented government? IMO
~ They’re in the jailhouse now ~
‘bout time too!
Hands Up Don’t Teach
That’s just an excuse...I live in the surburbs and our school district didn’t conspire to cheat.
The cheating was also about earning performance bonuses which get paid out when showing improvement. Nothing more than defrauding the tax payer, and they should enjoy their new taxpayer paid leave in prison.
Or charter school...
That’s brilliant!
Oh, those always wacky, fun-loving “educators”. Many of them are represented by these criminals.
Cheating to many/any degree has been going on for years even in very prestigious universities. Years ago I was a student at one of the world renowned universities in a very tough engineering, chemical, curriculum. A number of classmates lived in the same fraternity house as the TA. I and some of other guys lived off campus. I often suspected that the fraternity guys were being given extra tutoring even to the extent of knowing the quiz questions. As far as I knew only the frat boys made it into grad school. Later in life I met up with one of the frat boys in a post grad series of courses he and I were taking. He had gone on to receive his Masters degree. I did as good or better than him in this post grad series of courses. He asked me why I didn’t go to grad school. I told him the entrance was stacked for the fraternity boys.
The last years of my teaching career were under Ted Kennedy’s brain child, No Child Left Behind. Like so many liberal ideas it sounded good, but it could never succeed in the real world. It basically tried to repeal the bell-shaped curve.
Instead of recognizing that half of everything (including precious children) have to be below average, it insisted that after a passage of time (I think 14 years) 100% of students would be functioning at or above grade level. Every year after passage of NCLB the percentage crept closer to the 100% goal. So if 2007’s goal was 70%, it meant that 70% of your school’s students had to score at or above grade level on the test or your school and district failed. Two or three years of failing and penalties started to kick in. And remember, the percentage required to pass kept getting higher every year.
But wait, it gets even better. Every identifiable sub group at your school (blacks, Latino, Pacific Islanders, limited English, free/reduced lunch, special Ed students, handicapped, etc. etc.) had to also pass at that same 70% rate. If one sub group failed to make its goal, the school was marked as deficient.
Right about the time Obama took office, the passing grades for NCLB were getting so high that no school could be expected to get a passing grade. So the Dept of Ed started issuing waivers to states that agreed to Obama’s Race to the Top, which is where Common Core raises its ugly head.
The practical results of NCLB were several. Schools and districts became obsessed with passing “The Test”. (Each state set its own standard. States that set high standards got screwed first on NCLB). As time passed, standards were lowered. Reading and math became the only subjects that were really important, since they were the subjects being tested. And most of the schools’ efforts were devoted to bring up the low scores, so programs for gifted kids were abandoned. And the pressure to cheat was there, especially on administrators, since under NCLB, their jobs were at risk if a school failed several years in a row.
Instead of standing on their hind legs and telling the powers-that-be that NCLB’s goal of 100% success was absurd, the Atlanta group decided that honor and honesty could be set aside, to get awards and praises and to hell with what they were teaching their students. I hope they all do time.
“A man with a PhD from MIT will teach high school if it pays enough...”
Yes, and it would be a tremendous misuse of talent. Assuming the PhD was legitimate, most of the students would be too young to be able to absorb what he could teach.
Yes, it was unfair - and wrong.
I'm not suggesting we go back to that time. But we can do better than having teachers - who in the old days - would be selling shoes at the 'five and dime' or cleaning offices... Our kids deserve better. The American education system was designed for a different time. That's why it's not working.
When I was young - (and there was real discrimination against women) schools were different. Women teaching 6th grade back then would be the same type of women who run large companies in our time. Because women were kept out of top jobs and professions - students benefited.
Yes, it was unfair - and wrong.
I’m not suggesting we go back to that time. But we can do better than having teachers - who in the old days - would be selling shoes at the ‘five and dime’ or cleaning offices... Our kids deserve better. The American education system was designed for a different time. That’s why it’s not working.
Years ago I taught the introductory Management course to undergraduates at a local university. I required the students to do several case studies during the course. I would make corrections on the studies after they were handed in, before I returned them to the students. I later found that these studies, with my corrections, were going into fraternity files for the benefit of subsequent classes. If they had been learning something from the corrected case studies, I wouldn't have minded. But when they simply parroted my comments back to me, I figured they weren't learning anything except how to cheat.
You called that right.
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