considering that I finished high skool before the creashion of the U.S. Deparment of Edjukation in 1980.
If there were federal mandates, bureaucracies, and of course, No Child Left Behind, when I was in skool …
I actually might have amounted to somethin and not needed my own personal prufreeder.
If the DoE disappeared tomorrow, what in the wirld would we doo?
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Professor, we were the lucky ones. We actually got an education when no one was dictating to our professors what and how to teach. It was a time of real searching and honest debates and we actually did learn. Perhaps that’s why we can still string together a few words that actually convey a thought!!! How novel!!!
Here is an excerpt from an email sent by the principal of a middle school in Ridgewood, NJ. This lady has a PhD. in something or other
“He is receiving appropriate care and we are optimistic that he will be alright.”
The two obvious grammatical errors in this one sentence are (1) no comma separating the two parts of a compound sentence and (2) the use of the word, alright. [UGH!]
When the principal of a middle school in an upper middle class town (a town with a huge education budget) can’t write properly, there’s something fundamentally wrong with the entire process.
The government’s role is the least of our problems.
Used to be – whenever you heard a politician say “We’re gonna hold schools accountable” it was time to vote that guy out – because what it meant was more governmental meddling in the classroom. Dictating textbooks, mandating reading material, increased paperwork, and really, less education.
This new movement seems to want Big Brother.
I know that California schools would be vastly better off if the Dept. of Education was disbanded. Why the Feds mess with education, when it should be a local and state issue, I just don’t really understand.
Don’t worry, though, this #occupy thing is going to kill off the college system. Once everyone reneges on their student loans, people will be required to pay upfront, or as they go. Fundamentally transforming America. Come Hell or high water.
Even your intentional misspelling of words shows you have a better “edjukation” than most are getting these days. You must have been in school when they still taught phonics. Today’s students may not know how to spell, and they probably don’t have a very good idea of how to misspell either.
Hukt on Fonix werkt four mi!
Shocking that you would misspell “Edjukation”. Everyone knows that it is spelled “Edjumakashun”.
I was educated by Catholic nuns, when they still wore cornstarched headware. No federal mandate could improve their teaching skills.
I went on to participate in the great Anti-establishment protests of the 60’s. We were right about Vietnam but wrong about everything else.
Mea Culpa!
I attended a public high school. It was the best 7 years of my life.
“If the DoE disappeared tomorrow, what in the wirld would we doo?”
Lose all the fun of correcting (with red pen, of course) the instruction sheets and notes sent home by teachers that I could have written better when I was in third grade and sending them back to said teachers with a note written in bold letters—->”what does this mean?”
Strange how I never received a response 😉
Tiger – The sentence is a bit awkward but I cannot see where the comma would go considering there is an ‘and ‘ to join the 2 compounds. They are both in present case .
“alright ” vs all right” – my American spellchecker let both through but did not like allright. I think that is case of conversational take over.
Elsewhere it is noticeable that American students are slipping down the international testing ladders. China & Hong Kong top these things but they put out their best kids. However many other countries offer their normal kids & they are smashing American kids.
1- need to accept evolution & make it compulsory for state funding /accreditation .
2- go metric.
3- raise the high schoolEnglish requirement. Even Chinese kids are killing you in English!
There are some real issues with evolution. I’d say teach the Scientific Method, teach evolution as a current best-fit hypothesis with some rather important known problems. Bring forward some alternatives that are testable and let the kids try to support one or the other or do something that surprises us.
Don’t we already teach metric? The problem is the ‘real world’ in the US doesn’t use it so the only exposure to it is in the science classroom with little relation to outside, everyday experience. You lose skills that aren’t used… I bet not many adults would do well on calculus I exam for example since most jobs don’t require everyday use your skills probably have gone rusty.
The main problem with your proposal is that you speak like there is only one theory of evolution. In fact there are several and they are all mutually exclusive. Which one are you going to teach.
Then of course, none of the theories of evolution can be tested using the scientific method as all theories of evolution are unfalsifiable.
Sure they can, plain Darwinism has been basically proven to be a law of variation but unlikely to be a mechanism for speciation. It is also unlikely to be the mechanism behind abiogenisis, if that phenomenon has occurred.
And as for Evolution I was speaking mainly of the biological sort, not Cosmological which is a little different and closer to religion in my opinion than Science from all parties involved.
I wasn’t talking cosmology. I was talking science and specifically the various theories of evolution. There isn’t just one. Can you name two or three of the competing theories of biological evolution?
“Plain Darwinism” hasn’t been proven to be the cause of anything other than endless fancies of flight and scientists perpetrating hoaxes on the general public. (Which kind of reminds me of the theory of AGW now that you think of it.)
Darwin claimed his theory accounted for speciation. If you admit it didn’t then Darwin was wrong by your own admission. And let’s not even talk about abiogenesis.
@WarEagle
Yup, we agree. Evolution via Darwinism does not seem to hold the answer to speciation. And nothing has held up for Abiogenesis. However, as a law of variation within a species combined with Mendel we have a working hypothesis that is/was a major contributor to our understanding of medicine, heredity, and how resistance/mutation can be positive adaptation.
Darwinism as an explanation for ‘everything’ though, while a nice, plausible, and ‘simple’ concept, has consistently failed to meet expectations. And you are right it seems to inspire the same passion as AGW despite a distinct lack of evidence. That and the fact that the primary opponents tend to argue based on religion let both sides stir the pot quite effectively.
Evolution as presented in the classroom is not a ‘theory’ as it hasn’t been sufficiently backed up by experiment or adequate observation of the process in its most important statements/observations. That should relegate it to mere hypothesis. A hypothesis that is in want of further development or the dustbin since its explanatory/predictive power is quite limited within the scope it should cover.
Why would you make teaching “evolution” compulsory? It is a hypothesis based on limited, circumstantial evidence, and, as a description of human origin, cannot be demonstrated to be true. There is no continuity in the physical record. There are no means to reject coexistence of species. And, ironically, the explanation to overcome entropy is predicated on the existence of an underlying order. Unfortunately, the “God” particle continues to evade our senses. Evolution as a description of origin is an article of faith or philosophy.
If you do demand teaching evolution, then it must also be required to specify the qualifications necessary to identify the range of our knowledge and skill, which clarifies our inability to prove the hypothesis.
At worst, a predisposition to limit inference of knowledge from emergent patterns, will stunt our effort to characterize the physical realm in which we exist.
That said, some evolutionary principles are observable and reproducible. For example, a transition in forms can be observed in simpler organisms with short life-cycles. Those principles are useful to inferring knowledge from natural and artificial processes. So, teach evolutionary principles, and even evolution; but, be certain to properly qualify your statements.
I agree with your English requirement. Language is a facility for communication. It is to everyone’s benefit that we share a common language. It is to our detriment that there are people who desire to divide us by promoting a second primary language.
As for metric, sure, why not. I would place units of measure in the same class as language. With a common standard, it would mean one less discrepancy to be considered.
In addition to your list, I would include teaching logic, since it is the premise for independent, rational thought. I would teach mathematics, since it the best tool we have to model our physical realm. I would teach, as Steve suggested, the scientific method (in its truest spirit), since we want to develop engineers and not technicians. The former can potentially act as the latter, but the reverse is not true.
Oh, and we should teach a full history. Americans have been deceived through a selective recall of history, which has painted them, and Caucasians specifically, as uniquely evil. This was not and is not true. It is also a grand generalization which libels and discriminates against every individual based purely on the color of their skin.
Speaking of a selective history…
Palestinian chieftain: ‘There will be no Palestinian state’
“The world has no idea what goes on in the West Bank,” said Sheikh Abu Khader Jabari. “Neither we nor Israel will profit from the recognition of a Palestinian State in the United Nations. [Palestinian President] Mahmoud Abbas climbed up the tree and now does not know how to climb down.”
The war of aggression initiated by “Palestinians” and their allies was not as universally supported by people of the Middle East as many people would believe. As is often the case, it was individuals with delusions of grandeur who were felt threatened by a loss of power. The war was waged against Jews, Christians, pagans, and even dissenting Muslims.
There is a reason why the “Palestinians” were ejected from Jordan. There is a reason why Assad pursues extreme measures to retain power in Syria. Those historical reasons reflect a division of power among competing interests and various sects within Islam.
Why would you make teaching “evolution” compulsory? It is a hypothesis based on limited, circumstantial evidence, and, as a description of human origin, cannot be demonstrated to be true. There is no continuity in the physical record. There are no means to reject coexistence of species. And, ironically, the explanation to overcome entropy is predicated on the existence of an underlying order. Unfortunately, the “God” particle continues to evade our senses. Evolution as a description of origin is an article of faith or philosophy.
If you do demand teaching evolution, then it must also be required to specify the qualifications necessary to identify the range of our knowledge and skill, which clarifies our inability to prove the hypothesis.
At worst, a predisposition to limit inference of knowledge from emergent patterns, will stunt our effort to characterize the physical realm in which we exist.
That said, some evolutionary principles are observable and reproducible. For example, a transition in forms can be observed in simpler organisms with short life-cycles. Those principles are useful to inferring knowledge from natural and artificial processes. So, teach evolutionary principles, and even evolution; but, be certain to properly qualify your statements.
I agree with your English requirement. Language is a facility for communication. It is to everyone’s benefit that we share a common language. It is to our detriment that there are people who desire to divide us by promoting a second primary language.
As for metric, sure, why not. I would place units of measure in the same class as language. With a common standard, it would mean one less discrepancy to be considered.
In addition to your list, I would include teaching logic, since it is the premise for independent, rational thought. I would teach mathematics, since it the best tool we have to model our physical realm. I would teach, as Steve suggested, the scientific method (in its truest spirit), since we want to develop engineers and not technicians. The former can potentially act as the latter, but the reverse is not true.
Whatever – why hang yourselves up on evolution ?. If you don’t accept it -your loss – but your kids are failing maths science & english against their international peers.
The best way for USA to climb the ranks again would be to put Asian kids in the comps & leave whities to a minority , a token hispanic & no blacks.
That is evolution before your very eyes.
Oh & the whites should be Jewish.
Plus a few Lutherans . Gotta love the anti Catholic ones. Hey even Bachmann’s son was smart enough to evolve to be a Psych at UConn. Bet he ditched a few Mummy ideas as he grew up.
Americans will come around to evolution . I have faith 🙂
It only took Galileo 500 years to wait till the Catholic church evolved.
It seems that you did not read what I wrote. I do accept evolutionary principles, which can be observed and reproduced. I reject it as a description of origin for the several reasons listed.
To accept a singular inference from an emergent pattern is to artificially and prematurely acknowledge one possible hypothesis. This is not science, it is an effect of faith.
In any case, other than the principles which enhance inference of knowledge from natural and artificial processes, what value does speculation about human origin offer us, and specifically to elevating the human condition?
I did scan your 18 paragraphs but your stuff does not compute. Simply put American kids are failing the expected international standards & this includes at 15 an understanding of Evolution & its applications .
Do you also want them to argue Pythagoras Louis Pasteur DNA Einstein Watt etc? These are just kids. Tell them what they have to know to pass.
Just as they must know maths ,read set texts & be able to write grammatically correct essays.
Putting the evolution debate aside, I just wish high school level biology taught something more interesting. Evolution was the most boring subject as was most of high school level biology when I took it. Biology is fascinating when you get down to the micro and molecular levels, I wish they would dig into more on that level and put Darwin on the dusty shelf where he belongs.
I guess you can personally not agree or find it boring at school but you obviously limited your scientific career path.
But would you go further & limit others? Seems like you would.
No I did not limit myself at all, I just did not discover my passion for it until after high school when I started learning the facinating stuff.
I am not saying we should not teach evolution. I just don’t think it should be obsessed over religiously from a Darwinian perspective. Darwin is old news and quite boring science at that. If you want to fascinate a budding scientist, giving them tastes of molecular biology and biochemistry is much more likely to captivate them than some old dusty theories. Learning the molecular basis behind evolutionary theories would be much more interesting. Perhaps they do this now, it has been a few years since I was in high school. I don’t think we should limit the students at all, I think we should challenging them and captivating their interest.
hookt ahn fonix werkt fer mee.
Class of 1977, me was. Let me sea … 1977 … 1980 … I missed being an educaded smart guy by … let me grab my pocket thermometer … just 3 years!! I coulda been a kontender!
But my 1970s hair and fashion … absolute genius … they cant’ not take that away from me … ever!!
Florida now has thousands of high school students “dual-enrolled” in community colleges where the classes are just about right for your average high school student. The home schooling movement keeps growing.
What happened was federal block grants and mandates that mainstreamed kids who didn’t belong there, and had the iatrogenic effect of providing incentive to schools to find and cultivate all manner of concocted “special needs” students who because of the federal dollars are cash cows for the school systems (find ADHD and drug them, get money, etc. This was the response to widespread complaints following the misguided mainstreaming mandates.) Public schools here now consist of managing the population and mass-producing the “future labor force” (here in Florida, largely unskilled tourism and farm labor) with idiotic rules, standardized tests, ridiculous “values” classes such as sex-ed, marriage, anti-drugs, diversity, etc.), and a ton of administrivia… This is coupled with a steep decline in the overall quality of teachers for reasons everyone knows.
When I yanked my kids out of the local public elementary school to home school them, there was no regular physical education, no recess, no nurse on site, no year-round art or music, a paltry amount of real academics, and loads of miserable “temporary” buildings. But in this neighborhood public elementary school, I counted a total of on-side administration employees and “special educators” — occupying what once were designed to be classrooms — that exceeded the number of teachers.
Support this by throwing more money at it? No way.
Why are the schools so bad? The number one reason IS the federal department of education.
Ah gut yo’ beet bi a myle (er too).
1958 was the year, Coventry, RI was the place.
Seems back in those days, there wasn’t a drug problem, nearly everyone worked for a living and personal responsibility was the norm.
The way I look at it, all this began during the LBJ years with the “War on Poverty” and “Great Society” programs AND an ill conceived civil rights law that began our descent into a utopia for them and a taxpayers hell hole for the rest of us.
Where are we heading? I shudder to think…
Oh, and we should teach a full history. Americans have been deceived through a selective recall of history, which has painted them, and Caucasians specifically, as uniquely evil. This was not and is not true. It is also a grand generalization which libels and discriminates against every individual based purely on the color of their skin.
Speaking of a selective history…
Palestinian chieftain: ‘There will be no Palestinian state’
(from israeltoday.co.il)
“The world has no idea what goes on in the West Bank,” said Sheikh Abu Khader Jabari. “Neither we nor Israel will profit from the recognition of a Palestinian State in the United Nations. [Palestinian President] Mahmoud Abbas climbed up the tree and now does not know how to climb down.”
The war of aggression initiated by “Palestinians” and their allies was not as universally supported by people of the Middle East as many people would believe. As is often the case, it was individuals with delusions of grandeur who were felt threatened by a loss of power. The war was waged against Jews, Christians, pagans, and even dissenting Muslims.
There is a reason why the “Palestinians” were ejected from Jordan. There is a reason why Assad pursues extreme measures to retain power in Syria. Those historical reasons reflect a division of power among competing interests and various sects within Islam.
If we hope to avoid the “Tutsi slaughter Hutu slaughter Tutsi” cycle, we cannot permit either the statute of limitation or history to be selective. And those who profit from this effort should be revealed for the opportunists they are.
Sherman Broder | October 17, 2011 at 6:06 pm
Ditto here. St. Joe teaching nuns. Superb. As for Creationism vs. Evolution, we were taught both in a Catholic school and I don’t see a problem.
The Catholic Church accepted the teachings of evolution in 1950 so anyone born 1945 onwards benefitted. In 2009 The church admitted that evolution should never have been non accepted . Also that it is true & fundamental science as we understand it & not in any opposition to christianity.
For this I give them credit. Now onto The secret of Fatima. I am waiting for that.
Normally, I’ll confess I don’t much care for Howard Stern, but this audio from his show has to take First Prize. (ht ALLAHPUNDIT from HotAir, here).
Congratulations to Howard and his interviewers for finally talking to the participants themselves and determining what this OWS protest is all about!
My favorite outtake . . . at 130:
He was the same guy who just prior to that admitted that he had not been able to “hook up” during the protest because he didn’t have a tent. (my “euphemism”) supplied.
I just listened to that at HotAir, it’s hysterical.
And, as does most great comedy, it unmasks a frightening truth.
What would we do? In round numbers, save $65 billion annually and put 5000 people on unemployment. Think what school districts could do with that money if just divided up and given to them (or, perhaps not). Someone else do the arithmetic.
It’s a start.
Ah yes the Dept of Education I have been pondering the utility of that organization for some time …they strike me as more a money laundering operation than anything else …they pilfer billions from the state …skim their vig and then send it back from whence it came
Aggie
Every agency of the federal government is a money laundering scheme. That’s why the dim are so opposed to disbanding any of them. They all have dim cronies skimming off the top and donating money back to the dim party. Republicans just think they are in charge of government when they have both houses and the presidency. The bureauocracy runs the show and they are all dims. A thorough housecleaning or elimination of these agencies are needed to change any of this.
When Clinton came into office he offered deals the civil servants could not resist to make them retire. He then put dims in their places. These people are still there and by and large only hire dims when slots become open. I’ll bet a nickel obama has filled a lot of tese slots with his people on a permanent basis.
In the midwest we called it “edgymacation”. Need to speil chek Professor!
[…] is Losing Gaza Israel's Tenured Extremists CURL: Obama’s stumbling, bumbling 1-term presidency How did I ever get an edjukation… Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 05:47 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks […]
I do contract work for a local school district here in SC. This past Sept. walked into a class and the teacher had a syllabus(guess they called it that in elem. school)on the board. In the first line was the term PASS( which here is a standardized test that all schools are graded against), I asked her about it and she flat out told me that the PASS test is basically all they teach…..
PS…..same school, couple weeks later, they would not let me in the school as another standardized test was going on, MAPP.
That my friends is why the students don’t learn anything.
Homeschools,private schools, and charter schools, are the way to go. Many private schools have scholarship aid for lower income kids who are academically qualified, and parochial schools have lower fees for those who pay into the parish. Charter schools have started to move in the right direction, but they are now starting to threaten the public school collective, so it is very difficult to get into them.
In Texas a large scale voucher program was defeated in the most recent legislature session. Under the bill, students at risk of dropping out, victims of school violence, those in special education or limited English proficiency students, and those from households with income below 200% of the qualifying income for free and reduced price lunches would have qualified for educational vouchers worth 90% of the statewide average public funding per student. The bill was gutted to make vouchers available only for public and not private schools and so it died.
Parents should have the opportunity to choose where their kids go to school. Vouchers should be given to all families even if at 50%, and should be for any school of their choosing, public,private or parochial. In this way public schools would be held more accountable and those who want to pay for private school can find the extra cost from their own income or scholarships. At the very least it would give the consumer (the parents) some leverage over the leviathon that is the teachers union.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/08/05/beware_those_radical_ideas_110838.html
excerpts:
Rick Perry’s Education Policy Is More Sophisticated Than Obama’s
By Mona Charen
So what has Perry done to earn this epithet? He’s taken on the higher education establishment in Texas. He has proposed – gasp — that Texas’s four-year institutions develop a plan to offer bachelor’s degrees for no more than $10,000. “Skeptics,” the Post tells us, say that the goal cannot be achieved without sacrificing “academic quality and prestige.” It shows, these same unnamed critics assert, that the governor has a “record of plunging into splashy ventures, at times, despite the complexities, constituencies, or sensitivities involved.”
So it’s half-cocked to suggest that universities, even public universities, reduce their fees. But when President Obama suggests digging ourselves ever deeper into debt to further subsidize higher education, that’s a complex and nuanced approach? Has Obama thought deeply about the problem of the higher education bubble? Has he considered that for decades the federal government has been subsidizing college and graduate work (through grants and loans) and that as a consequence, institutions of higher learning have been jacking up their fees?…”
In addition to suggesting that tuition be reduced, a panel appointed by Governor Perry suggested that professors were “wasting time and money churning out esoteric, unproductive research.” Shocking. The panel suggested dividing the research and teaching budgets to encourage excellence in both, while also introducing merit pay for exceptional classroom teachers.
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reports that students are flocking to colleges and universities in flat, freezing North Dakota to take advantage of lower tuition rates. Enrollment at public colleges has jumped 38 percent in the last decade, led by a 56 percent increase in out of state students. Colleges around the nation, the Journal advises, must now compete for a new kind of student: “the out-of-state bargain hunter.”
Admittedly, North Dakota benefited from oil revenue and spent generously on its colleges and universities over the past 12 years. But in a time of straightened circumstances for everyone, how does it not make sense to have colleges and universities compete on price?
Obama seeks to forestall this commonsense solution by once again increasing government subsidies. Student loans, courtesy of Obama, can now be “forgiven” after 20 years of payment, or after 10 years if students choose “public service.” Who pays the difference? You know who.
Just as it seemed to be such a great idea for everyone to own a home, we’ve spent decades subsidizing everyone who wanted to go to college. The result has been an upward spiral of prices, which in turn causes politicians like Obama to call for more subsidies.
And Perry is the simplistic one?….”
After Governor Perry is elected, he will most likely disband the government’s Department of Education because he believes it should be a function of states’ rights. And just think how many billions that is going to save the federal government and all that teaching talent has to get a classroom job.hmm….