Posted on 03/19/2006 6:19:56 PM PST by SmithL
Too many students fail to meet California's standard for proficiency, sparking a simple solution under consideration in the Capitol: redefine "proficient."
By changing a few words in state law, legislators could dramatically affect how the federal government rates the state's education system.
"I think it's a totally sensible thing to do," said Assemblywoman Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley.
Critics of Hancock's proposal, Assembly Bill 2975, say the state's goal should be to improve schools, not alter words.
Hancock counters that both are needed to avoid severe sanctions in coming years under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, or NCLB.
"What all of this needs is for grown-up egos to be set aside and to focus on the young people," she said.
The California School Boards Association and the Association of California School Administrators have taken no position on AB 2975, but they say Hancock has seized on a very real problem.
Jack O'Connell, state schools superintendent, opposes AB 2975.
"It's a measure that would have the net effect of watering down our standards," O'Connell said. "It takes us in the wrong direction."
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
It's fer the chill'ren....
Lower the bar!
Schools are too easy as is. Problem is parents think that subpar work deserves a b or an a when in reality shitty work deserves a shitty grade.
Far too many parents get into a hissy when their kids come home with bad grades on a relatively easy assignment and then complain that the material is too hard.
If you took the average american high school kid and placed him into school in say, india or china, they would flunk out pretty fast. We really ought to be demanding more of kids and up the standards. Your going to have to learn alot of that material at some point anyway.
A perfect example of the dumbing down of America. Rather than trying to get the students to perform to a higher standard, which is the hard thing, they reduce the standards to their level, which is the easy thing. If our children are never challenged in adolescence, they will not be adequately prepared for adulthood, where they will be challenged on a daily basis. How long is it going to be acceptable to hand functionally illiterate people their HS diplomas?
The day they do that is the day my kids are out of public school.
We have a pretty good system in the area where I live, but this is getting ridiculous.
Given that California schools have dropped from number one in the nation to the bottom five I would say "no, the bar is not set too high."
And why should you? You don't have to have a pulse to vote Democrat.
>How long is it going to be acceptable to hand functionally illiterate people their HS diplomas?
As long as they vote dem. Nothing wlse matters, certainly not America.
It is the administrators whoring school districts that make these children fail.
There is NOTHING wrong with the public schools. They are producing plenty of Democratic voters....
If the Dems have their way, everyone will be stupid and have to rely fully on the government to think for them. It's the Democratic way!
It's the same all over the country, don't educate the students just push them from grade to grade without consequence. Big city, small town as long as the NEA stays in power the education of our students will only get worse.
I'ts time to get rid of all the BULLSH$T classes and get back to what worked for a hundred years and had our kids at the top, not 50 or 60 on the list.
In ca the bar is already on the floor. Have to start tunneling to drop it
Thank you - that shows Cali at #46... lowly Georgia (where i can assure you the public schools suck) is #40.
When I attended my daughter's middle school graduation last year, I was proud to see that she had an asterix by her name indicating that she had attained the honor roll (GPA of 3.5 or more) for each of the nine trimesters of her middle school career. Until I looked over the entire program and saw that 55% of the class had the same asterix! Talk about blatant grade inflation.
Five-star post! You've said it perfectly.
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