Perhaps the Wicked Witches of the Left prune up and die when confronted with reality. The one you see here, complaining about the education “cuts” looks as though that is her imminent fate.
By the way, all that federal money poured into poverty areas for basic literacy? Ain’t worth a devil’s dime. Several of our schools in this county and a number of those in surrounding areas have failed yet again to pass the SOLs – basic Standards of Learning tests for their grades. The teachers are forced to “teach to the SOLs”.
These kids don’t have books in their homes – but they have whatever the latest game technology there is. They zone out through these boring “lessons”.
A hint to educators: build games that actually have learning content in them. That’s what the Baron did for our son, using a primitive Atari…or was it a Tandon? Whatever, the fB loved “Big Math”. I think there were explosions for the right answers. [Those noises had stopped by the time he was learning Statistics, though].
Education needs to move into the 20th century, and soon. Or even better, back to the 19th. Sadly, those who elect to “major” in elementary education in college are among the bottom scorers when it comes to their own university testing. Their SATs are low.
I see Trump is re-introducing apprenticeships. A good move in my opinion, as not all children aspire to ‘higher education’, for what that is worth today, and many would just as soon bail out of ‘education’ as they once did, if they had somewhere to go to learn a trade.
We have been hoodwinked into thinking that ‘higher education’ and more funding will drive our countries economies into the higher realms of ‘fruitfulness’ when the exact opposite has occurred throughout the West.
Providing more funding does not necessarily increase educational learning, which, and IMHO, has fallen dramatically since the 1960s and ever since Teachers Unions were given an authority to dictate what should be taught.
The whole system needs to change and become more efficient by teaching those subjects that truly benefit the student and do not pander to an ideology that has been proven so many times to be false.
“Education needs to move into the 20th century, and soon.”
I love your subtlety, Dymphna. You remind me of former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who in his State of the State address of January 9, 2008 belatedly declared, “we will start bringing our technology into the 21st century.”
Well, better 117 years late than never.
Thanks to Al Gore, we had an Information Superhighway as a Bridge to the 21st Century. Had we relied on the mere passage of time, we never would have made it.
http://bridgetothe21stcentury.com/bridge.html
Last week I read a very alarming statistic concerning the Baltimore City school district. It was reported that in 4 high schools and 1 middle school not one child was performing up to grade level in English and Math. NOT ONE CHILD!
This is very disturbing as what this really says is that we are raising future criminals en mass. These young people will be a burden on our society for the rest of their lives; in our jails, on our streets and on our welfare rolls.
This is a disaster.
I have wondered what it would be like if I couldn’t read (something BTW both my mother and mother in law feared due to diminishing eye sight) or do simple math in my head. I can’t imagine it.
This is very disturbing as what this really says is that we are raising future criminals en mass.
While it may be merely apocryphal, according to legend, Texas bases its expansion in jail capacity according to fourth grade reading scores.
Well, here’s one school’s brilliant solution to the problem: (sarcasm)
http://jezebel.com/one-struggling-dc-high-schools-entire-senior-class-got-1796095651
(video at link of the celebrating students)
By the way, all that federal money poured into poverty areas for basic literacy? Ain’t worth a devil’s dime. Several of our schools in this county and a number of those in surrounding areas have failed yet again to pass the SOLs – basic Standards of Learning tests for their grades. The teachers are forced to “teach to the SOLs”.
In colloquial parlance SOL means Spit Outta Luck (and we’re not talking about saliva).
PS: If there’s anyone who’s SOL it’s illiterate kids. Without literacy, things like computer literacy aren’t even on the table. Innumeracy is an equally important issue.