OK folks.

If NCLB is cancelled, what do you propose as replacement STANDARDS for teacher and student performance?

Now... before you tell me that the solution is to spend more money, consider these statistics here in the Picksburgh area.

In my county, Beaver County, Aliquippa High School has the highest per-student spending in the county.  Highest per-student state subsidy too.  In return for this spending, they regularly place in the State Finals in basketball and football.  They also have the highest dropout rate in the county and the lowest test scores.

How much more money shall we spend?  And if spent, will that really translate into Aliquippa's teams joining the NFL and the NBA?

Beaver Falls high school has a similar situation, except its athletic teams are not all that great.

Now my township is right next door to Aliquippa.  We have almost the lowest per-student spending and while our test scores are not the best in the county, we are near the top.  Dropout rate is one of the lowest too.  Sadly none of our teams have made the state finals for years, except the gals Cross Country who I think won a couple of years back.

I am not a cheerleader for NCLB per se, but WE NEED STANDARDS.  What's your proposal?

Most decent teachers complain because they can't teach they way they feel is the most effected.  NCLB also doesn't truly take into consideration various forms of special education needs.

OK folks.

If NCLB is cancelled, what do you propose as replacement STANDARDS for teacher and student performance?



I could write ten back paragraphs here about the need for overhaul in our societal priorities as a whole and the prerequisite for a cultural paradigm shift, but I often find the shorter answer is the honest answer.  Honest answer: I don't know. 

The sad thing is, the people whose job it is to know don't know either.  I watched EdSec Margaret Spellings and a whole bunch of other experts pow-wow on a panel on C-Span just last month and they were all singing the same song and dance I've heard for 25 years:  Standards, standards, gotta have standards!  Incentives for students to learn.  Incentives for teachers to teach.  There are problems with our public education system and we've got to get in there and fix them if we want to be competitive on the world stage....

Bottom line, they're talking sh*t.  It's horribly depressing.
:(

One thing people have to understand is that not every student learns the same way. Any GOOD teacher will tell you that. What works for one child, may not work for another. In Vermont, many students have what is called an IEP (Individualized Education Program). An IEP is made up between many teachers, aides, parents, etc. putting that student's need FIRST and addresses issues of HOW that student learns and what works best for him/her. Under NCLB, the IEP kind of falls to the wayside because teachers are more focus on teaching to a test rather than teaching the students how to LEARN!!!


The only thing that standardized tests establish is how well someone can take a standardized test. 



Cat

There are so many problems and issues wrapped up in the education question that it is harsd to know where to begin.  Lets start with teachers.  When I first came to Castleton State college ed majors were just that.  They studied how to teach and little else since the ed major required so many credits.  So they might have learned HOW to teach, but they didn't know anything TO teach.  At some point Vermont required teachers to have an academic major in order to get certified.  That helped a bit, but for the most part the students interested in going into teaching were not the brightest crayons in the box.  So at least at Castleton there were 2 problems.  First, the ed curriculum was to large to allow future teachers to learn anything else, and second, teaching was not attracting the beat or the brightest.  Requiring an academic major was a first step in the right direction, but it wasn't enough, especially for those interested in elementary ed, since k-8 teachers have to teach everything, so a history major, for example, isn't really good prep.  We did design a multi-disciplinary major for them which required broad basic knowledge of all the arts and sciences.  I don't know how common that sort of thing is, but it does make sense.  Attracting the best and brightest to teaching is another issue.

There is also the home angle.  When I was a kid my parents made it very clear that education was important, and they worked with me on my studies, checked my homework, coached me for tests, and made it clear to my teachers that they had my parents' complete support.  From what I gather that kind of commitment is rare these days - especially when both parents need to work to put food on their family.  There are lots of other issues for other posts. 

Two words...Public Schools!

They'll give a child the lowest education ever and not even give a fudge about your children and leave them behind.

This is why we have cut-backs and demands of bailouts! Let's just do what the Private Schools and Colleges do and have tuition!

Two words...Public Schools!

They'll give a child the lowest education ever and not even give a fudge about your children and leave them behind.

This is why we have cutbacks and demands of bailouts! Let's just do what the Private Schools and Colleges do and have tuition!


There are plenty of substandard prep schools where the tuition is dear, the curriculum is lame, and the teachers belong in the loony bin.   

When my parents graduated from high school in the late '50s, you could take a high school diploma and get a job that would allow you to buy a house and bring up a family. 

Now you can hardly do that with a BA/BS. 

When the f**king establishment scolds the teachers unions and whines about higher standards, they neglect the one standard we need to apply: The ability of the student to take what he has learned and go earn a living with it. 

By the time I was in high school in the '80s, the schools were hounding us to get into college because what we were doing in high school wouldn't get us anything on the market. 

Maybe if we started treating teens as young adults instead of big children and calling it reasonable for a man or woman of 18 to be able to earn a living, then K-12 education might matter more to everybody and maybe performance would improve. 

In the '90s society began to expect people to get postgraduate degrees even if it meant graduating with 80K in student loan debt. 

A sense of futility is great fuel for underachievement.

I'm sick of this crap!
::)

If NCLB is cancelled, what do you propose as replacement STANDARDS for teacher and student performance?

I am not a cheerleader for NCLB per se, but WE NEED STANDARDS.  What's your proposal?


  Americans have been persuaded by government rhetoric that the purpose of education is to prepare our children to score well on standardized tests so that we can have more well-trained workers.  As the standards movement gets stronger, we convince ourselves that being a useful employee is the key to a happy and successful life.  Rather than nurturing a sense of wonder and a passion for learning, our schools are increasingly devoted to standardizing knowledge into lists of data, telling students what is appropriate for them to know and think, and then "scientifically" measuring how well they regurgitate this data on assessment tests.  What is truly important in human life consists precisely of those things which cannot be measured - love, decency, joy, all the great virtues and passions.  This is what the education of a human being should be about.  But America no longer seeks to educate thinking, feeling, human beings.  We seek to educate servants.  The new rallying cries are "Raising Standards" and "No Child Left Behind", which we all know are just euphemisms for "job training"...

  All of this is just a prescription for an efficient human ant hill.  And it is worth remembering that in the ant hill an individual life does not count for much.  There are always plenty of replacements who can do the same job...

   Americans have been persuaded by government rhetoric that the purpose of education is to prepare our children to score well on standardized tests so that we can have more well-trained workers.  As the standards movement gets stronger, we convince ourselves that being a useful employee is the key to a happy and successful life.  Rather than nurturing a sense of wonder and a passion for learning, our schools are increasingly devoted to standardizing knowledge into lists of data, telling students what is appropriate for them to know and think, and then "scientifically" measuring how well they regurgitate this data on assessment tests.  What is truly important in human life consists precisely of those things which cannot be measured - love, decency, joy, all the great virtues and passions.  This is what the education of a human being should be about.  But America no longer seeks to educate thinking, feeling, human beings.  We seek to educate servants.  The new rallying cries are "Raising Standards" and "No Child Left Behind", which we all know are just euphemisms for "job training"...

   All of this is just a prescription for an efficient human ant hill.  And it is worth remembering that in the ant hill an individual life does not count for much.  There are always plenty of replacements who can do the same job...


You got it.  That's why American politicos don't give a crap about public education.  There are more than twice as many of us as there were in 1930 and over half of the population is considered surfeit by the ruling class.  It is no surprise to me that "liberal" Ted Kennedy supported NCLB.  His family is just as royalist as the Bushes.  They're just better at PR.  You know, like they care about the 'tards and stuff.  The Kennedys don't give a frack about the hoi poloi like you and me. 

I'm lucky the unemployment office just gives me a bunch of inane hogwash about optimizing new career opportunities.  Might as well just put me on the train to the nearest extermination camp!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/10/teufel.gif

Sense of wonder?  Passion for learning?  Can't have that, now can we?  Don't want the sheeple demanding leisure time, thinking about what life means, and for chrissakes getting in the way of progress with their uppity questions!  Jest shaddap and watch yer computer-scripted rom-coms!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/11/coffee.gif

There are plenty of substandard prep schools where the tuition is dear, the curriculum is lame, and the teachers belong in the loony bin.   

When my parents graduated from high school in the late '50s, you could take a high school diploma and get a job that would allow you to buy a house and bring up a family. 

Now you can hardly do that with a BA/BS. 

When the f**king establishment scolds the teachers unions and whines about higher standards, they neglect the one standard we need to apply: The ability of the student to take what he has learned and go earn a living with it. 

By the time I was in high school in the '80s, the schools were hounding us to get into college because what we were doing in high school wouldn't get us anything on the market. 

Maybe if we started treating teens as young adults instead of big children and calling it reasonable for a man or woman of 18 to be able to earn a living, then K-12 education might matter more to everybody and maybe performance would improve. 

In the '90s society began to expect people to get postgraduate degrees even if it meant graduating with 80K in student loan debt. 

A sense of futility is great fuel for underachievement.

I'm sick of this crap!
::)


You make a good argument.

I live in the Rust Belt area where once you graduated High School, you worked in the Steelyards.

This got fudgeed-up by unions who wanted more and didn't give two sheeshs about working. Now their children wished that they had jobs rather than work at McDonald's!

I stopped going to College after my Associates Degree because I got so damn tired of seeing people have Degrees...and not using them!


You got it.  That's why American politicos don't give a crap about public education.  There are more than twice as many of us as there were in 1930 and over half of the population is considered surfeit by the ruling class.  It is no surprise to me that "liberal" Ted Kennedy supported NCLB.  His family is just as royalist as the Bushes.  They're just better at PR.  You know, like they care about the 'tards and stuff.  The Kennedys don't give a frack about the hoi poloi like you and me. 

I'm lucky the unemployment office just gives me a bunch of inane hogwash about optimizing new career opportunities.  Might as well just put me on the train to the nearest extermination camp!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/10/teufel.gif

Sense of wonder?  Passion for learning?  Can't have that, now can we?  Don't want the sheeple demanding leisure time, thinking about what life means, and for chrissakes getting in the way of progress with their uppity questions!  Jest shaddap and watch yer computer-scripted rom-coms!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/11/coffee.gif


I also agree with you about the Bushes and the Kennedys.

It seemed that the last 8 years, we had a Banana Republic. Now Bush I is seeing Jeb as a nominee as President....

Bush I...are you becoming like Reagan?

Maybe you are since you hung around him for too damn long.

And thank you Woody Wilson, if it wasn't for you, we'd be better off! (He's the one who formed the NWO, and I don't mean the wrestling faction).

If Jeb Bush was prez, I'd pull the car into the garage and let her idle for a few hours!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/14/sad4.gif

And pleeeez!  The death of heavy industry in the U.S. is the unions' fault only insofar as American workers are unwilling to work in a foundry for fifty cents an hour!

The death of heavy industry in the U.S. is the unions' fault only insofar as American workers are unwilling to work in a foundry for fifty cents an hour!



I work at $100 a week and I'm glad that I have a job!

Even when your underpaid...you're getting paid!

I work at $100 a week and I'm glad that I have a job!

Even when your underpaid...you're getting paid!


Marx is  :\'( right now.

I work at $100 a week and I'm glad that I have a job!

Even when your underpaid...you're getting paid!


You're workin so hard it's an outrage
and all their payin you is a starvation wage
you go to the boss and the boss says you aint
and speeds up the work 'till you're about to faint...

Talkin Union Blues.

Move 15 tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt

Move 15 tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt






St. Peter dontcha call me 'coz I cain't go, I owe my soul to the company sto'!

One of my all time favorite songs that is!

Picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I hauled Sixteen Tons of number 9 coal
And the store boss said, ""Well, bless my soul""
(Chorus:)
You haul Sixteen Tons, whadaya get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
Repeat Chorus
Born one morning it was drizzl'n rain
Fightin' and Trouble are my middle name
I was raised in a canebrake by an old mama lion
And no high-toned woman make me walk the line
Repeat Chorus
See me comin' better step aside
A lot of men didn't and a lot of men died
I got one fist of iron and the other of steel
And if the right one don't get ya, the left one will
Repeat Chorus
Born one mornin' when the sun didn't shine
Picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I hauled Sixteen Tons of number 9 coal
And the store boss said, ""Well, bless my soul""


If anyone can get an octave that Tennessee Ernie Ford did, sing along. :)

See me comin' better step aside
A lot of men didn't and a lot of men died
I got one fist of iron and the other of steel
And if the right one don't get ya, the left one will


"Half cut!  For confidence!"
  - 12" vinyl, Gary Clail, 1985

(That's the original, which is often confused for the 1987 version off the stellar Gary Clail's Tackhead Sound System, in which "Half Cut Again" (0:28) is the original song, "Reality" (7:07), which samples the previous track, and follows it up with "Stealing, Stealing, Stealing in the name of the Lord... I take donations in all denominations, in any currency, big or small...", which is itself sampled a few years later on Tackhead's Friendly as a Hand Grenade album.)


If anyone can get an octave that Tennessee Ernie Ford did, sing along. :)


Or just pick up a megaphone.  Worked pretty nicely for Clail.

"Half cut!  For confidence!"
  - 12" vinyl, Gary Clail, 1985

(That's the original, which is often confused for the 1987 version off the stellar Gary Clail's Tackhead Sound System, in which "Half Cut Again" (0:28) is the original song, "Reality" (7:07), which samples the previous track, and follows it up with "Stealing, Stealing, Stealing in the name of the Lord... I take donations in all denominations, in any currency, big or small...", which is itself sampled a few years later on Tackhead's Friendly as a Hand Grenade album.)

Or just pick up a megaphone.  Worked pretty nicely for Clail.

Yes, yes, I remember it well! 

In the end I have to thank Al Jourgensen.

If I hadn't bought "With Sympathy," I wouldn't have bought "Twitch."  "Twitch" was my introduction to nosy/dub/industrial sound and the name Adrian Sherwood.  I started buying anything with Adrian Sherwood's name on it, including Mark Stewart, Tackhead,  African Head Charge, Einsturzende Neubauten, Lee Perry, and the list goes on

But if I hadn't seen the video for "Revenge" in 1984, who knows, I might have overlooked the whole thing!
8)