The U.S. Department of Mis-Edjukashun
First, the U.S. dropped out of a major international math competition this summer. Now comes word that our student’s test scores on a major international reading exam have been rendered invalid because the contractor who printed the tests misnumbered the pages–and the Department of Education failed to proofread the booklets:
In an episode that has embarrassed the Department of Education, thousands of flawed testing booklets forced the invalidation of United States reading scores on an international exam administered without major mishap in 56 other countries.
The contractor that printed the faulty exams for the government is reimbursing it $500,000, government officials said yesterday. But the department admitted it had not proofread the tests.
“I’m really upset about this,” said Mark Schneider, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics at the department. “It’s a big embarrassment.”
The problem came on a test known as the Program for International Student Assessment that allows students’ proficiency to be compared with that of their international peers. It was administered to 5,600 American 15-year-olds last fall, as well as to students in the 30 member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and in 27 less developed countries. Scores are scheduled for release next month.
The error appeared to be the first major mishap leading to the invalidation of American scores on an international test, Dr. Schneider said. But a string of similar incidents brought flawed results on other standardized exams, including the SAT’s and the state math and reading tests used to judge schools under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
Gotta love our federal educational bureaucracy: No Dunce Left Behind.
See what others have said
Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.
Trackbacks
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Categories: Education
Power Line
» The Alarmists Do "Science": A Case Study
Mudville Gazette
» When the wind won't blowMudville Gazette
» Bad Weather (Part I)Legal Insurrection
» Hacked E-mails or Else!Pundit & Pundette
» About last night's voteJustOneMinute
» "Unequivocal"?NewsBusters.org
» WaPo's Dana Milbank: 'The Senate Really Has 100 Blanche DuBoises'
geez, you dont even give approval to go to print on business cards for crying out loud until they have been prufred.
We should have China print our books. Yes, they would have lead, but I’d bet they would be numbered right!!!!
morning aj
gud mourning.
The blind leading the blind.
Think any heads will roll at the DoE?
Waiting for the sound of rolling heads… waiting… waiting…nada…
Well at least our students can get birth control.
Hey, maybe it’s a good thing. Saves us the embarrassment of how poorly the US would’ve scored against the rest of the nations.
Was the printing contract an earmark?
How can we possibly maintain our technological lead if we can’t compete in math or science, and it’s getting to the point where we have to import our scientists?
Oops – my bad – we’re not supposed to be in competition – after all, we can’t have any losers – that might damage their self-esteem.
We might not win these international competitions, but, by golly, we’re gonna feel good about it!
You know, all things being equal, I am glad I dropped out of the public edumacation fiasco. Of course, I quit public schools about the time my family got out of the world of reporting since they could not tolerate op-ed being passed off as news. I think we were all better off for our choices.
Right, but at least many of our students got the chance to dress and act like Muslims for a few days.
I went to publick skool and I ain’t not no worser. At least I can put a condom on a banana.
I was studying to become a French teacher and in the end dropped the teaching part. While there’s a part of me that wishes I had kept going, I think everything about being in a public school would have made me sick. I’m becoming more and more convinced that I’ll home school my son once he’s old enough!
Wow…$500,000 to print about 5600 booklets, $89.00 per Must be pretty damn thick booklets. Hope my math is approximately right.. I went to public school. How to we spell WASTE?
The Department of
EducationIndoctrination needs a complete overhaul; haul it over to the trash dump!It’s a pleasure to agree with MM about something. US education in general and math ed in particular is BAD. It’s an issue where the average liberal is worse than the average conservative. There are exceptions to this rule — the Bush Department of Education is no more competent and any other Bush Department.
Does anybody know the name of the contractor? I would be interested to know all the details of the bidding and awarding process.
Of course, these kind of things wouldn’t happen with a National Healthcare Program. It would be different, right?
This kind of loonyness makes me glad that I went to school in the late 70’s/early 80’s where we actually learned a few things.
Sadly as a college student in the 21st century, alot of my classmates aren’t able to handle the course work and the profs don’t spend much time teaching-just indoctrinating! I have found this especially to be the case in the Sociology and English department.
GSP
P.S. Glad to see even a troll gets something right every once in awhile!
If you think this is sad, just wait until they start writing prescriptions.
yeah, but his case of BDS is inflamed again.
Check your property tax forms.
In our county, 36% goes to education.
I’d rather KEEP my money from those dunces and decide to use it to pay insurance on my home.
Beat me to it aj
Why do we need to give them tests?
Just give them all 100% so they can all feel like winners.
Then after college they can go to work for the government.
Just like our school’s that are first to blame the parent’s for their child’s inadequate test scores and not the teacher’s teaching or lack there of, let’s blame the printer for the foul up and forget the fact that it was not proof read and the mistake’s might have been present on the printer’s original copies.
#15 lgm, How is it that all the civil service bureaucrats appointed by preceding administrations are never held accountable for the mess they wallow in? The greatest skill for an unelected union protected bureaucrat is to be able to pass the buck to some political appointee.
The bureaucratic response to any disaster is to study it to death, all the while hoping it will just go away.
When the Bush administration is long gone the same simi competents who allowed this to happen will still be there. Who will you blame then lgm?
The reading test might have shown that “Johnny can’t read.” So, dropping out of the math competition was probably a good idea since they wouldn’t have been able to read the reading problems.
Not being able to read for themselves will lead students to think that what their
historyindoctrination teacher teaches them is the truth. They won’t be able to read the truth for themselves.But somehow or another, someone will tell them that no matter what–they are all winners.
Boy, have they got a surprise when they get to the real world!
MTNEER
It’ll still be Bush’s fault
ROFL
lgm is a teacher. Go back and read his post. Errors in grammer.
BWAAAHHHAAAAHAAA
Screwed up again? So what else is new with the Federal gov’t.? Our tax dollars hard at work….
I think the problem is they didn’t spend enough of our money. $500,000? The only way to ensure it gets done right the next time is to spend $1 million or more.
Not one head will roll from this fiasco….everyone involved is protected by a union.
Woody Guthrie, socialist icon:
“oh you can’t touch me, I’m singin’ in a union, I’m singin’ in a union….
This just about sums up the government bureaucrat AFSME members’ attitudes!
See the teechers wuz rite. We need to quit
concentworrying bout the test. Testing dudn’t pruv nuttin. Letz get back to self esteem and getting rid of tag and dodge ball. Those are impurtant.Do I recall the secretary of education being completely humiliated in “Jeopardy” last year, losing badly while a character actor who once played a dope on “Laverne and Shirley”?
A perfect symbol of the state of education in the US today and its inept leadership.
Why is a federal department of ineducation even needed? Seems to me that it should be a function handled to meet the needs of the individual states only.
Eclectic, go ahead and educate your children at home. It’s expensive, difficult, time-consuming, and sometimes even discouraging. But it’s the best way to “train up a child.”
My wife and I have been home-schooling our 13 children since our oldest, now 20 and an aspiring fiction author, was 5 years old. No regrets.
Not easy, but no regrets.
#28 Soap, do you think our buddy knows what the meaning of “is” is?
I am so smart, s-m-r-t…
The contractor that printed the faulty exams for the government is reimbursing it $500,000… Unless I’m mistaken, there is the implication, but not declaration, that this fiasco cost 500k. The number is just what the contractor is reimbursing the gov’t, not necessarily what it actually cost us in total – it may have been more.
Y’all are forgettin’ one thing – being able to use computers(remember one laptop per child?) and calculators, they don’t have to learn how to spell or calculate – that’s what the machines are for. All they have to do is feel good about themselves, like good little puppets.
MT,
He would have to learn how to spell it first!
losing badly while a character actor who once played a dope on “Laverne and Shirley”?
I was a victim of the California school system somehow graduating in 1975. Thank God for the Military they actually provided me with the skills to improve my reading comprehension, writing, and speaking skills into the post-graduate level. Of course it took them over 20 years to get me up to that level (you wouldn’t know it by some of my typo’s, I type therefore I misspell).
I just came up with a wonderful idea to save the Federal Budget a few billion dollars a year. Let’s close the Department of Education and let the states decide what to teach our children (not that they would do any better). One of many bloated Bureaucracies in our Federal system. At least it would be a good start with many more to go.
Which branch of government actually runs the Department of Education?
This is why we need a conservative president.
Almost forgot we really need to break the back of the NEA union too. That would do wonders in being able to prepare our children to become a functioning adult in today’s work force.
Two words:
Home school
Two more words:
Private schools
From the same people who brought you FEMA, urban housing & VA health fiascos – we’ll edjumacate your kiddies!!
Can someone please tell me again why the feds have a dept. of ed???
Starve the monster – remove the money.
Starve the monster – remove the money.
Starve the monster – remove the money.
STARVE THE MONSTER – REMOVE THE MONEY!!
They’re your children….and it’s your money.
We shouldn’t have our test scores compared to international scores because…blah, blah, slavery, blah, blah, self esteem, blah, blah, teacher’s unions!
I guess they didn’t have time to proof-read the tests because they were busy handing out birth control to middle-schoolers and establishing “Peanut Free Zones”.
Soap,
Words to live by.
Autocrat: “L’etat se moi”
Statist: “the state is everything”
Liberal: “we’re here to help you.”
Libertarian “leave me alone.”
Bureaucrat: “What’s for lunch?”
Speaking of home schooling and private schooling (thank you soap), I wonder how difficult it would be for small groups of like-minded parents, with similarly-aged children, to hire an educator/teacher to privately educate their children at home. It would be akin to the “Little Red Schoolhouse” of yesteryear, but with a modern twist of privatization. I don’t have children yet, but I’m wondering if this would be feasible and/or amenable to people.
Parents would be able to screen their chosen educator, the burden of cost would fall on a number of different families, the children would still be able to have interaction and socialization with their peers, teachers could actually teach and get the fulfillment out of their profession, and there would be an almost private tutor type setting. Like I said, I don’t have children, but what would prevent this from becoming a reality?
I can just see the conversation in the back room….
“Marge…. have you seen these test scores??? The public is going to have a coniption fit if we release these…
Hmmm… look… the test pages are mislabeled…
Quick… throw the whole thing out!!”
Explain to me why not correctly labeling the pages invalidates the tests themselves?
I sense somthing a bit deeper here.
Morning 30. Saw the wedding pics. Very nice.
So tell me “again” why government employees, who are paid with our tax dollars, are allowed to form a political pressure group (labor union) to force us, the tax payers to pay them more money to deliver and ever more and more substandard performance?
… an ever more… sorry, fingers faster than brain.
I’ll bet this is just another example of diversity being the mother of incompetence.
1…2…3…4…= cirriculum for new Dept of Ed competency assurance exam
Proofreading: Another lost skill. Silly me – I always thought teachers were supposed to teach by logic, reasoning, repetition, and example (I’m sure I haven’t thought of several other categories of ways to teach). Looks like Dept. of Ed. missed the example method.
And exactly what is it that Gov’t does well?
Why should I trust these civil
servantsleaches with any of my wellbeing?10… 11…12…13 = advanced placement for Dept of Ed competency assuranc exam
assurance… fingers brain disconnect again
Hmm, perhaps we haven’t thrown enough money at the problem? Yeah, that’s the ticket: if we’d only shovel more $$$ into the Dept. of Ed., they’d get it right.
I don’t really need to bother with the closing “/sarc” tag, do I?
Top of the mornin’ to ya Soap.
thanks!
Soap, 30, AC, MT, all good folks. Morning to you all…..
#61 but… but…but… the copy editor ate my homework!!!!
I too am a little puzzled as to what the page numbers have to do with the test scores. I guess maybe it has something to do with the grading but even that should have been based on the question number. What if the test booklet did not have page numbers at all? Would the test results have been any different?
Doesn’t pass the smell test.
#61News2Use: Sounds like about 99% of MM’s commenters could get a job as copy editors for this outfit. Now, do they pay union wages or is this another job that U.S. citizen will not do?
citizens…. fumble fingers$#%^&*snark snark!
#64 Just A Grunt: odiously odiferous, for sure.
If I were pressed, I could make an explanation for how the page numbers were important. For instance, a problem references a graph on a different page. Or problems which build on other problems on other pages. IF (and that is a huge “if”), such linkages exist in the test, then a page numbering error could indeed lead to all sorts of problems. So – for the moment, I can say it might pass the smell test – but as some of you have pointed out, it might not.
I have no respect for the federal/state educational systems as they stand.
I can tell you, I graduated from HS in the nineties. Little did i know what I was in for when I got into college. I took 3 college bonehead English courses to even get to an “average” level.
Embarrassingly, I could not tell you a pronoun from an adverb when I graduated. I didn’t learn this until college.
Frightening.
Math was really not bad at my HS, neither was science. But I had one teacher (all the parents wanted him OUT) who was a total hippie-flower child. He didn’t have a “grading system”. Basically, he said “show up, or don’t show up” he would just sit there and talk about current events or whatever we wanted to talk about for the whole period. Yup, that was my English class. I was not required to read one book, do one assignment, or even show up to class.
At the end of the semester/year…he gave everyone the grade they “thought they deserved”?? Basically the whole class got an A (ya think we were that stupid).
Of course, we thought this was all fine and dandy. We were in HS. But I can tell you…It did me absolutely no justice in the long run.
I really hope for my districts state they gave him the boot. But I doubt it. He was tenured.
The efforts to deep six the Dept. of Education need to be stepped up. Give control of the schools back to the states who are in a better position to know how to administer them. Giving more money to this department is throwing money into a bottomless pit; we simply do not need this governance at a Federal level. Incidentally, I received a far better education as a child in the rural South before the Department of Education came into existence. What is their mission….the dumbing down of America?
Seems to be.
You’d think they could find their way to Kinko’s.
I graduated from high school in 1974 and I know without a doubt that the education system in this county is much better now than it was then. I graduated from high school having passed only ONE math class, and that was pre-algebra. I took one science class, biology, and got a D in it.
In the district where I teach students must take at least 3 years of math, must pass both algebra and geometry, and take math in their senior year. They have to pass at least two years of science to graduate. Four years of English, at least one year of a language other than English, etc.
We work our butts off educating these kids, other people’s kids. It’s a thankless job (obviously, from the posts on this thread!), with long hours little respect, but we do it because we care, and because we know that the better educated a society is the better the society is. We can’t help everyone because a lot of our students (and their parents) just do not care, but we give it our all.
Not all public education is bad and not all teachers are bad. But before folks condem us all with one broad sweep of the brush, please come in to my third period class and see how they behave. See how they get out of their seats, how they talk, how they use their cell phones in class, how they argue with me, how they don’t do homework, how their parents accuse me of racism and worse. Then see if you can still blame me for their failure to learn what they should.
Please…a little balance here!
How many people on this board homeschool? I have been considering it for next year. This is my daughters’ first year in public school (after attending private school) and I can’t stand it. Thought I could handle it in elementary school, but I can’t. I just cannot stand handing over my kids education to the government. It is too frightening! I don’t agree with the curriculum or the socialization aspects of school for my kids. I know I could do better at home. I just have to convince my husband that homeschooling is something we can do.
Hi guys-
Compliments of tv.com
Michael McKeon won the November 21, 2006 Celebrity Version of the game show Jeopardy. He competed against Margaret Spellings, U.S. Secretary of Education, and actor Hill Harper of CSI NY. Michael was playing for his charities the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the International Myeloma Foundation.
GSP
#47 MTNEER – L’état c’est moi
#72 Bob’s Kid – You can believe whatever you like. It’s possible that your educational goals are different than mine. You are correct in that the children provided by the parents to the schools greatly affect how the schools perform. However, today’s students are tomorrow’s parents, and that is not an encouraging thought.
#73 jenmom – We’ve been homeschooling for ten years, now. We currently have two in school: ninth grade and fourth grade. They are marvelously socialized to deal with people of all ages. They are, generally, well-behaved and polite. Over the years we have made lifestyle choices to support our decision, but we have never regretted it. I have also been a teacher in private schools. The warehousing of children, and the expectation that they will learn in an environment that is not conducive to it, is the same in the private schools as in the public schools. My children do attend some local community classes (our children’s museum runs classes periodically) but we look on them as entertainment more than education. I generally have to explain to the fourth-grader what it was he was supposed to have learned in the class.
#72….I don’t think the majority here think (I can only speak for myself but from the comments I’ve read not only in this thread but others, I think I can sum it up) that ALL teachers in public school are bad. I think the general consensus would be though that the system as a whole is broken. Just like a broken clock is right twice a day, the inverse can be true, a good teacher can exist and thrive in an horrendous system.
As to your comment concerning the difficulties with discipline in the classroom and then assigning blame for the kids not learning: I hear you but have little sympathy. These same kids then leave your classes not having been disciplined (?anywhere?) and then try to come work for us in the corporate world. Guess who gets to try to teach them what they didn’t learn earlier. We use the tools you should have used. When these tools have been applied CONSISTENTLY, I (only speaking for myself here) have never seen anything but good things happen.
As I have relutantly stated before, I am a FORMER public school teacher.
Glad I quit.
No one should send their kids to public schools unless you want them voting for Chelsea Clinton one day.
In our city we spend a little over $7200/kid/year in the public system. We average about 28 kids per teacher. That is a little over $201K/teacher/year. Our average teacher pay is $55K/year.
Where does the extra $146K/year go?
Not for new schools, bonds pay all those for.
Not for major repairs, bonds pay all those for.
Not for supplies because all the teachers say they have old textbooks, no textbooks, no supplies.
I can see some overhead in maintenance and administration but nearly THREE TIMES THE TEACHER?
Throwing MORE money at this is not the solution.
And not for proofreading. opps
I meant “bonds pay for all those.”
Not ALL. \Those that are very good are usually not the ones that don’t “go with the flow” and are kicked out. Tenure rules, not performance.
Both my best friends are teachers. Both from really rough districts. They are new and passionate…One even has a “Miss Manners” assignment once every few weeks in class (teaching kids manners, shaking hands, opening doors – I can’t believe we even need to do this…but we do).
But she gets resistance on a lot of her assignments from administrators specifically about her assignments being too hard.
She is second generation Mexican and speaks Spanish fluently. She expects them to rise to the challange and does not respond to anyone in English. She does not allow them to address her by her first name (this happens a lot these days) and she runs a tight ship.
I hope she makes it. We need good teachers like her.
Well, speaking as a psychometrician here…
1. $89.00 doesn’t seem too much for test booklets that are supposed to be printed CORRECTLY. After all, the cost of test developers, proofreaders, and psychometricians, not to mention printing and shipping, is probably included in all that. It’s not surprising that no one at the DOE proofread the books – after all, that was what they were paying RTI for, and there may not have been time and money budgeted for an outside review of the booklets.
2. I can see why they threw out the results. It has nothing to do with page numbers and everything to do with where the text accompanying the items was printed. The sample I saw had the text accompanying two items printed on the page prior to the item stems, but the instructions said to find the text on the “opposite” page. Why would we want to use and publish test scores that we know will be lowered to some extent by these types of mistakes? This was not a tiny error where the impact could have been estimated.
An embarassment? Certainly, but more for RTI than for the DOE. Hopefully, the next vendor that the DOE hires will have quality control procedures outlined and documented, and will incorporate in that process time for the DOE to review the test booklets if they so choose.
Amen Feebs.
I pray they survive a system that rewards teachers for making it 10 years so now they cannot be fired no matter how bad they become. If these teachers had to earn their pay, they would be gone quickly. They are very thankful powerful, lobbying NEA.
In Haiti, our toddlers know 3 languages by the time they are 5. They are little sponges who cannot get enough education.
In the US, our kids have to deal with a system that gets paid for having their butts in seats. Roll call is more important than education.
#78 – I recall reading recently that in the LA school district that there are more administrators than teachers. That says a lot, doesn’t it?
Why are we participating in “international testing” anyway?
If you think the USD of Education sucks, wait til the UN is involved “based on the testing data supplied by international testing agencies”.
The fatal flaw in the US educational system is a complete failure of the US government to do anything meaningful with the beans it is counting.
What good are test scores and trend analysis in achievement when the country has no “Manpower” policy in order to address critical shortages throughout the labor force- from the menial to the high skill set occupations.
Oh, I know, let’s just import people from other countries who are qualified.
D-U-H!
This has been the failure of every presidency since Kennedy. The Country has squandered its WWII peace dividend on Great Society programs beginning 15 years following the end of the War.
Like spoiled brats. Now we have clueless “Boomers” in federal career slots at the top (just beneath the cabinet level) who have no clue how to run an agency that can run important parts of the Nation.
Eight years of Robert Reich (nice last name) as Clinton’s Secretary of Labor completed the hollowing out of that department, in unison with Clinton’s despising attitude about the military (the backbone job training program in the US btw).
And what did Bush I do to follow up Reagan’s Job Training Partnership Act?
At least it made an effort to bring the “mystery” of “high tech” to the local high school and community college levels. It replaced Johnson and Nixon’s toothless CETA program which did not address reality.
Even if good paying jobs weren’t getting outsourced, it is doubtful the Nation has a concerted game plan for winning the global competition like we could.
I had mentioned in an earlier post that the president of Georgetown U spoke to a group of about 600 plus private sector security people at the US State Dept on the “merits” of the global university. He pointed out that the US rank around 18th in the world in math, science, & similar fields. Dangerous to say the least as the Chinese and others have long since surpassed us. We used to be the leaders until the liberals killed the system.
I homeschooled my kids for a while and it was great. I highly recommend it, IF you have the self-discipline to do it well. Otherwise, don’t. As was mentioned above, it’s takes a tremendous committment on the part of the parents. Teaching is a hard job no matter who you teach!
Bear, as always…right on point. great post!!
Not tryin to argue here. Just lending some perspective on the relevance of test scores.
Test scores are manipulated to define priorities that may or may not have anything to do with the price of bananas.
Test scores make career paths for the “open-toed” shoe crowd who decide what’s what in educational psychology journals and use their interpretations of data to critique the system- but have zero vision about Nation building in the good ol USA.
The USA definitely has a problem with its educational system going soft. The system is so soft that when it comes to industrial prowess using the USA public school system to conserve our edge would be like tryin to stuff a marshmallow in a parking meter.
But it has always been a problem.
Always.
Going as far back as the 1840s the Nation has had an identity crisis about what schooling is for.
Today’s “progressives” come out of that long tawdry debate with their liberal focus on “the have nots” getting more. Yep. Good ol Marxist flava!
Then there is the other side. Perhaps Lincoln is the kingpin of that camp. The true conservatives.
Lincoln created the Land Grant University system with the signing of the Morrill Act in 1861. This legislation gave us the large research universities we have in each of the 50 states.
Primary purposes were to help the populations of the states and territories to feed themselves and learn the skills necessary for building commerce and supporting the economic development and infrastructure of communities.
It gave us the building trades- metal and woodworking-, home economics, industrial arts, business education and other curricula that were turned into dumping grounds for liberal minded school boards who had lost touch with reality and believed such low brow schooling was “stigmatizing”.
But the universities remain and still go a long way to support the economic infrastructure of the flyover country in each of our states.
Like any federally subsidized system, it is corrupt with many “bridges to nowhere” type research programs and paid shill “trials” of corporate products from grain to pain relievers.
No vision? No glory.
Test scores? Largely irrelevant. The brains of 15 year olds are under-developed. What they do with the fundamentals being taught far outweighs their regurgitative reflex on “standardized” tests.
The “Standardizers” aren’t out there in industry innovating or creating value to earn a living.
And a student good in math and science, who goes on to fill a seat in some engineering school is not the same as the kid who got C’s in everything in engineering classes but understands how the mechanical nature of things controls every process ever invented.
And alot of those folk come out of the underperforming schools in flyover country. They can walk into a production facility or a supply chain and make it better or keep it running with bailing wire and chewing gum.
The competitive companies are better at measuring the whole candidate than screening based on standards that might gyp them out of tomorrow’s rock star in their industry.
This isn’t something most companies will admit to. Yes, the candidate must be able to hack the math end of things– but even an A in the class or test doesn’t prove the candidate can do it when it counts.
GE is famous for recruiting under the radar.
Nobody gives a hoot about how they did on their SAT. I see this everyday playing out as employers are recruiting on our job board— looking for the can-doers.
So what if China outperforms on standardized tests? Their military still has to resort to stealing technology secrets in order to make their sh*t work.
And if there is such proficiency in Chinese schools, why is the crew of this Chinese freighter that ran into the Bay Bridge here in SFO unable to communicate in the International language of trade- English?
People made Japan the supreme economic power of the world when Toyota came out with their new car production model.
Look at them now: a dying nation with massive recalls. They are ahead of the US in testing too. I’m glad they make quality products. It was about time. Now what?
The Japanese have real problems just like the USA. And like the USA they need leaders that are going to step outside the comfort zone and do the unsexy thing of creating policy that works.
Europe still hasn’t done that.
The point: without industrial development policy (the making of concrete plans for launching and growing industries) and intelligent trade policy test scores are simply a diversion from the real issues that will keep nations from clubbing each other in warfare.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEBBBBBBBBBBEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEastie!
Feebs #80…sorry about my poor sentence structure in my first paragraph. I was indeed saying that NOT ALL are bad teachers and I believe that most of us here do not think all are bad.
Bear #84. The issue though is that the beans should not even be at the federal level. It is highly unlikely that inspiration of a student will take place “centrally” – instead, it will take place at the most local level there is – one classroom at a time.
This is why a single good lecturer in college can teach a class of 500 and everybody learn but a bad one can’t do it one on one.
shhhh, i am reading your post. quiet down.
Here is another great story about our educational system. It seems that high school students in an affluent suburb of Syracuse, NY hacked into the school disitrict’s computer system over 100 times over the course of 12 plus months and changed grades, accessed tests prior to their administration, shared information with other students, accessed teachers’ personal information and the list goes on.
Now, many honest students, some now in college, who took State AP tests and national SAT tests that were tampered with, will be forced to re-take theses exams as their pervious scores will be null and void thanks to these “little pranksters”.
As you can imagine, all are from well-to-do families and have lawyered up. If any of them see any real jail time beyond probation I will be amazed. It will be the proverbial slap on the wrist and they will all still go to big name colleges.
Our educational system is falling apart at the seams and at every level.
-Marc
Senndd awl of the dummbies to mee. We inn the armee are to stewpid to tel. Sance we’ve hav lowred are standurds, mabe we kan mayke are recrewting misshun even thowe we are stuk in Irak.
Or, maybe we can take the ill-disciplined and poorly educated byproducts of the nation’s schools and turn most of them into mature, responsible adults before returning them to their families, friends, society, and the future leadership of the nation.
#93 – lmao. good one.
The federal government has its place in the process. Where the beans are collected is important. Who collects them is important. And it trickles up from the local levels as it is.
The point remains, federal policy can be worthwhile if it involves the Congress and the Executive Branch working for the good of the nation.
The states are turning out some atrocious horsecrap under the guise of education. The Prince Georges thread of yesterday is a tangential case in point.
Not advocating big government in education here. Advocating education with a purpose based on Nation building in the USA.
Armored CAV:
My nephew is going back into a Bradley come January.
He left for his first tour a snot-nose and came back from his time in Fallujah a man.
What you say goes a long long way with me.
Just wanted you to know.
via 16 weeks in a boot camp.
Completely agree
The problem though: Do we trust ?any? of the people in Washington to even have a clue what that purpose is or should be.