Posted on 06/14/2003 12:29:09 AM PDT by sarcasm
I'd say let them get GED's but make a high school diploma have some kind of meaning again. We were told that we cannot put in job requirements that a high school diploma was required because for one it discriminates against minorities who don't graduate and for another because a high school diploma doesn't mean the applicant can read or write anyhow. Now college degrees are beginning to go the same way ---the "university" here has 60% of it's students in remedial courses and if they stay long enough, they'll be handed a degree of some kind.
Goodness gracious (trying not to swear here!), they only have to pass 60% of the math, which is really basic, to pass! And they are thinking of lowering that to 40%!
These articles always claim "civil rights leaders" are upset at the tests. How I would LOVE to ask what these CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS want, bottom line. It sounds to me like they do not want CIVIL RIGHTS. They want a class of people to be coddled for life without effort. But why? That doesn't make them look good; it makes them look STUPID. What is the goal there? Do these LEADERS really think that you can build your biceps by lying on the couch? How can you prepare a generation by first telling them they are not good enough to pass tests for other people and then set them up for failure and ask to have the bar lowered for them? How DARN PATRONIZING.
Public education is a TOTAL JOKE. The only people who succeed with it succeed DESPITE all the attention on politics and legality and the obscene amounts of money going to the bureaucratics of it all.
The state ought to throw up her hands and say, "OK, fine, we tried to make education serious enough to make sure that anyone who graduated from the 12th grade in CA had at least a 9th grade education [because that is the level of the test], but you weren't happy with that, were you?" And pull out all funding for public education COMPLETELY.
There would be millions of small (and large) private schools cropping up everywhere, all different kinds, some very cheap and some expensive -- the need and the market would dictate.
You would need only one law to go with the dissolution of public schools: NO MINOR ALLOWED UNACCOMPANIED BY A GURADIAN OUTSIDE THE HOME DURING SCHOOL HOURS.
We would not be worse off and look at the whopping surplus we would have. Let's spend it on infrastructure, police, fire, the truly disabled, the veterans, etc. and let parents be in charge of their own kids!
Stepping off soapbox now.
Didn't they have 12 years?
There is only one true viable option.
SHRUG!
Take your kids out of that mess and either home school them or enroll them in private schools.
I know a very smart and very good teacher who summed it all up for me when I was seeking his advice about educationg my daughter.
He said: "The education of an American child is much to important a task to be left to the state. Keep your child close and monitor everything that is taught to her. Instill in her common sense, morals, and respect of others as well as the love of reading and learning and it will all come out just fine."
Thank you Mr. Downard!
These illegal alien children should be rounded up and deported ASAP!
I agree with you. The schools here in California just keep getting worse as the years go by.
What does it matter that the question was about compounding the appreciation on $10,000 worth of valuable artworks? It still boils down to a basic math problem. So what if the family of the kid taking the test has never owned $10,000 worth of valuable artworks? The kid should still be able to figure out the answer to this math problem if he has learned basic math.
A compounding problem or one with a constant rate of decrease has become a pretty good bet for a skill to teach to. I believe it's considered an "average difficulty" level on the SATs. I'd rather see a problem with a little surprise to it, with some variation, like I said earlier, maybe some fluctuation.
I suspect it's a poison pill. The liberal lunatics will look at a problem about expensive artwork, use it as an excuse to scream foul, and the test will all of a sudden be about Igor and Hans at a Cinquo de Mayo Festival. And, I don't think problems should be outside the experience of a majority of those taking it.
It's worse than just having 1/3 illegal that nobody will get rid of. Many of the kids are citizens because they were born here. To an illegal. They can't be deported of course, because they are citizens, and mom has to stay here with the kid. So they all speak spanish at home, wave Mexican flags on the 4th of July, and collect food stamps for their 8 kids they've got squeezed into that one bedroom apartment.
Maybe we should just be giving these tests in Spanish. It's going to be the official language of Upper Mexico, after all. /sarcasm
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