MORON ALERT: FOGLEMAN URGERS LOWER STANDARDS FOR MEMPHIS CITY SCHOOLS

The Commercial Appeal aka Comic Appeal ^ | 11/16/01 | Aimee Edmondson

[GailA]

I am 53, we had usually 30-35 kids per class, we were NOT by any means well off. Just above poverty. Lived in the burbs of Hammond Ind. My parents DID NOT take an active roll in my education, beyond providing the materials I needed to perform in school. My parents had a 5th & 6th grade education. They made it VERY PLAIN it was MY responsibility to LEARN what the teachers taught. By the time I was in the 8th grade I read at the 12th grade level. Math was my weakest area. I graduated in the middle of my class in HS from an INNER CITY school that had a student population from all over Hammond, Ind. Hammond Technical Vocational HS. We were a very diverse lot, no child was treated differently because of their skin color or lack of wealth.

Abe Lincoln had only a couple of years of formal school and managed to self educate himself into being a lawyer.

[garbanzo]

Yes Memphis is in Shelby County - but the school systems are separate.

[GailA]

Businesses or prospective employees looking to locate in Memphis or Shelby County should seriously consider the education system before seeking a to locate here after this Highly educated MORON wants to decrease the already LOW standards for Memphis schools. Better yet send your kids to private school or home school them.

There is NOTHING wrong with the kids, if you don't expect much of them, they will be happy to accomidate you and not produce much.

[Ahban]

However, Memphis Supt. Johnnie B. Watson likes Fogelman's idea. "I'm all for accountability," Watson said. "But the time has come that we need to stop letting half-baked testing determine what we teach and how we teach. It's controlling the school system."

I agree with that statement at least. Accountability should be accountability to the locally elected school board, not the state department of education. In my state the "state" department of education gets 93% of its funds from the FEDERAL government.

Accountabiltiy yes, but to the local people, not the feds. Will some schools water down their standards below what you and/or the people in the Beltway like? Sure, but they're NOT your kids! Will local control of schools be a panacea that will solve all problems? No, but neither will all the grandiose testing schemes cooked up be the power-hungry educrats. Local control will at least ensure a community gets the schools it deserves.

[callisto]

Fogelman wants Memphis's standard to be the 40th percentile. Right now, a 40 is an F on the state report card.

Well, isn't it refreshing to see that the state school board members hold such high goals for the education of the students. [/sarcasm]
I now understand why everyone I know who lives in Memphis, actually live outside of Memphis.