Posted on 09/16/2008 5:15:53 AM PDT by raybbr
What else do you expect from something run by a leftist union?
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All Liberal Marxists ( and their Useful Idiots) lie.
The examples given in the article are about students who earned "A"s but still needed remediation.
Conclusion: Their government teachers lied to them, and/or the teachers are incompetent and clueless.
Any time a principal or teacher promotes a child who is not proficient, that teacher and principal is a LIAR. They are lying to the child, the parent, and the taxpayer.
I have relatives in Fairfax and Montgomery Counties...ever different from DC.
“I still have my old sliderule.”
Probably a fraction of the population under age 30 knows what that is and only a micro fraction of 1 percent could even work one.
Any time a principal or teacher promotes a child who is not proficient, that teacher and principal is a LIAR. They are lying to the child, the parent, and the taxpayer.
You are absolutely correct. Why do I think of Jack Nicholson in the movie A Few Good Men saying , "You don't want the truth. You can't handle the truth." Too many parents think they are living in Lake Wobegon where all the children are above average. Too many teachers and administrators do a disservice to the children to get the government aid. That is why I only believe national tests where those who administer the test have no financial gain from the aggregate scores increasing.
“I still have my old sliderule.”Probably a fraction of the population under age 30 knows what that is and only a micro fraction of 1 percent could even work one.
And that is sad. Slide rules are an excellent visual demonstration of how logarithms work. They also teach estimation skills and permit rapid calculation in the absence of electrical power. I think every student should learn to use one before progressing to a calculator. I think we do students a disservice by introducing them to computers and calculators too soon. Makes them less capable of spotting examples of GIGO when they occur.
The colleges aren’t spending jack, parents are.
The colleges should pick up the whole tab. They're the idiots "educating" the teachers... and that's where the problem starts.
I too remember remedial courses offered in college in the '80's. And I wonder if remediation is really necessary for so many students. My own experience leads me to question the role of remedial courses. Here's why:
I waited a year after high school before enrolling in community college. I did so poorly on the math portion of the entrance exam that I was told I had to take remedial math. Thanks to some fast talking, the college let me skip remedial math and enroll into the required credit course (algebra), and I scored an "A" easily in that class.
Four years after community college, I enrolled into a university. Again, I flunked the math portion of the entrance exam and was ordered into remedial math. Thanks again to some fast talking, one counselor agreed to let me skip remediation and enroll in college math (the only required math course for my major). I was that professor's only "A" student that semester.
Those weren't difficult math classes, but according to the tests, I should've never been able to pass them, let alone ace them. That led me to wonder how many other students could skip remediation and do just as well. Now I wonder if these remedial classes are actually profitable to colleges. And I found some articles and comments that suggest remediation is profitable:
For example, this article may be pro-remediation, but here's an interesting comment buried in it:
Remedial education is only as costly as the resources devoted to it, contrarians say. Providing remediation on the cheap can be a money maker.
“There have always been people who have claimed that as community colleges are forced to do more and more remediation, they have fewer resources left to do things like training nurses and computer technicians,” says Boylan. “I tend not to agree with that because most community colleges do remediation by hiring huge numbers of adjunct faculty, paying minimum wages, then reinvesting that [profit] into programs like nursing and computer science.”
Then there's this research paper which says (p. 10) researchers found:
..."no reports of remedial programs that operated at a loss".... In fact, the authors hypothesize that, especially in community colleges, remedial course income may subsidize less profitable activities in the institution.
Just another side of the story to consider. Hmmm...
Hi. I meant to ping you to #108 above, too.
Colleges are pretty much a scam today. With the govt. subsidizing loans and giving out so many grants there’s no reason for them drop tuition rates. In fact, that boob Obama is talking about giving more tax dollars in the form of tuition subsidies.
I find it hard to believe that any college program operates at a loss. They use students to do the teaching and you pay a fortune for what instruction you do get.
The market does not exist in the college industry. It is completely over run with bureaucracy, bloated salaries and waste. Remind you something?
Interesting... I test extremely well so I had no trouble with those exams but I can see your point. And while I tested into the pre-calculus course I wanted, a year or so after I started the community college changed its standards so that you could no longer test into that class, just lower ones, and I never figured that one out.
Again, schools reflect their communities. An "A" student in certain schools probably just means that the kid did the basic amount of work required and wasn't a troublemaker.
An "A" student from Compton is going to be very different from an "A" student from Bel Air.
As Woodward and Berstein said, “Follow the money!”
It is possible to have nation tests that are highly predictive, reliable, and honest but are **private**! The SAT and ACT are examples. The board exams for many of our professions are another example.
I think Charles Murray has the right idea. We need certification exams and exams similar to the board exams of many professions. They should be private run and managed.
So...I see and opportunity for businesses such as SAT, ACT, and the Sylvan, and Kumon tutoring centers. They could make up certification exams that could inexpensively test students to see that they were indeed on grade level for math and reading and almost any subject from spelling to civics and history.
I've taken many an exam from these guys when applying for jobs.
Honestly....Why would any parent trust a grade on a report card? Smart parents are checking up on their children to see that they actually can read, do math, and are learning about our culture.
I think more government teachers would be honest with their grading and promotion to the next grade if they knew that most of the parents would be taking their children for private testing. If the teacher failed to teach, or the child failed to learn this would quickly show up on the private tests.
Two more highly respected private exams come to mind: the Advance Placement exams and CLEP.
The **LAST** thing I want to see are government national exams. Imagine the fun the Marxist NEA could have with that! Imagine the how powerful political groups could manipulate the nation's curriculum to teach political correctness.
“Just another side of the story to consider. Hmmm...”
Hmmmmm indeed. I hadn’t thought about it from the “cui bono” perspective. Clearly those who provide the remediation profit. Think about all the private tutoring organizations out there to help kids (of parents who can pay) read, do math, etc.
And that, my FRiend is the point. Some students (an unfortunately growing percentage) are just flat out lazy. When given the answers and you refuse to even use them... then it is your own fault. It is this chunk of the student population that actually present a legitimate argument against teacher pay based on student achievement.
Sorry it has taken me so long to respond. I don’t come here often, for reasons that I explained about so much time spent coming up with projects for my kids and then after school, doing extra work with them.
I have asked both of my sons if they would like to be home schooled and they are emphatic about continuing to go to school because they like school. They like being with their friends and the social aspect of it. One is active on the soccer team and the other on the football team and are popular.
For now, it is working because they have really good heads on their shoulders and do not cave to peer pressure at all. They know what is right and wrong and stand up for their values. I think they are even a good, conservative influence on their friends that seem a bit more weak minded when it comes to being indoctrinated by liberalism. They even make their liberal teachers furious when they stand up for their values, so for now it is for the best.
Sorry it has taken me so long to respond. I don’t come here often, for reasons that I explained about so much time spent coming up with projects for my kids and then after school, doing extra work with them.
I have asked both of my sons if they would like to be home schooled and they are emphatic about continuing to go to school because they like school. They like being with their friends and the social aspect of it. One is active on the soccer team and the other on the football team and are popular.
For now, it is working because they have really good heads on their shoulders and do not cave to peer pressure at all. They know what is right and wrong and stand up for their values. I think they are even a good, conservative influence on their friends that seem a bit more weak minded when it comes to being indoctrinated by liberalism. They even make their liberal teachers furious when they stand up for their values, so for now it is for the best.
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