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Comments

1. #101
   On April 9th, 2008 at 12:58 pm, Concerned Citizen said:

   CJ and Terrig,

   God bless you both. Children are hard enough to raise in this day and age without anything else to complicate it. I wish you both the best.

2. #102
   On April 9th, 2008 at 1:42 pm, emjem24 said:

   jenmom said:

   Teachers are just as indoctrinated as the kids sometimes. You’re fed this BS about the standards and the testings that will prove your worth as a teacher to the point that you start believing it. You have to be politically correct and watch what you say. I can see how teachers start to believe in the BS they are pushing because it is being pushed onto them by admin.

   I experienced this as well. Try New York State curriculum standards and their lovely standardized exams called the Regents. In the name of “quality education,” many states, including Texas, give a half-a$$ed, multicultural, revisionist, apologist, pc recounting of both US history and Social Studies. There were some ways that I combated this tendency. I encouraged kids to ask questions. When I taught in NY, we were using texts over 10 YEARS OLD (which is pretty typical of “cash-strapped” school districts), very inaccurate, and very liberally peppered with pcisms. While I had students point out things like inaccuracies, misprints, factual errors, I also got the typical, middle school question,”why do we have to learn this?”

   Most of the time I deflected because I just plain felt uncomfortable. Then, one day (as a student teacher) I just spoke the truth, “all this information is test-driven.” I then got a follow-up question: “do you agree with that?” I said no.

   Those that don’t will likely not be teaching long. They’ll either leave teaching all together or be forced out.

   Public schools have become so test-driven. I blame a lot of this on the state and federal departments of education. I also blame teachers for not raising enough of a stink about this and instead going with the flow. Some teachers claim they support individual learning styles but what I’ve often seen, in my years of teaching, is an acceptance of uniformity of thought.

   I spent many years as a sub and I wonder if sunshinerbray fully understands what teaching is becoming. Many qualified teachers start as subs and while they wait for positions to open up, they get their masters degrees. Many schools claim they need teachers but are reluctant to hire from their substitute teacher pool. I experienced this first-hand, along with a lot of other subs with not just bachelor’s but master’s degree backgrounds in education.

   What I, and other subs noticed was the following: a) schools would hire mostly bachelor’s recipients that were outsiders or not already subbing for the school system b) schools use a lot of long-term subs to fill teaching positions they say they can’t fill, and c) they won’t hire master’s recipients. For schools who are looking for the best qualified candidates, it looks an awful lot like cost-cutting so that administrators can earn their cushy incomes. Substitute teachers are also the first to blame when educational quality seems to fall when it’s the staffing choices/decisions of a school district that need to be looked at.

   When a system becomes so bloated and ineffective that it stops producing a quality product (education) that is competitive with other countries, and breeds chaos, then that system needs to be changed.

3. #103
   On April 9th, 2008 at 2:02 pm, rooster said:

   Where is the ACLU equivalent to sue the teachers out of their profession for what they are doing to our young citizens?

   Remember, most school administrators/officials were teachers first. So the old, I’m just a teacher don’t cut it bubba.

   Tell me how much of the union dues collected by NEA/teachers, salary actually go into protecting our children from the crap they are indoctrinating into their little minds?

4. #104
   On April 9th, 2008 at 2:10 pm, sunshinerbray said:

   It’s amazing that if you don’t immediately follow the party line around here, you’re automatically a liberal who’s a part of the problem…

   To give you some insight into my opinions of things, I’m currently writing a master’s thesis on illegal immigration and its economic effects in the 20th century. Without going into the details, I’d say it’s in-line with the conservative platform. I wrote a paper this semester on McCarthyism, and I defended much of McCarthy’s stances. I’m as conservative as they come.

   #100:
   I’m not “defending” the assignment. I was just trying to look at things from her POV. I personally think is was pretty weak. I might do something like that, MAYBE, for example, as a warm-up exercise during a class on the Boston Tea Party or the Dred Scott trial. However, it’s not meaty enough to be a good assessment. My only point was that it’s not completely out in left field, either.

5. #105
   On April 9th, 2008 at 2:23 pm, sunshinerbray said:

   For those of you are curious about testing for Texas social studies classes (or other core classes, for that matter) you can review the 2006 TAKS 11th grade test:

   http://www.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/resources/release/taks/2006/grxltaksapril.pdf

   Here is the answer key:
   http://www.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/resources/release/taks/2006/gr11takskey.pdf

   There’s no “teaching to a test” in my school. My kids do groupwork, document analysis, round-table debates, etc. If you cover the TEKS, which are definitely meaty, your kids will be fine.

   The test is not hard. Not at all. A “passing” score on the social studies test is a little more than a 50.

6. #106
   On April 9th, 2008 at 3:15 pm, Rorschach said:

   Word is that the school district is holding a press conference at 2:45 Local time (in about 30 min.) and will announce that one student will be charged with “making a false claim”

   Is this in fact true that Ms. Bowers has made a false claim? or is it that the school district is trying to make it all better by claiming it never happened?

   http://tylerpaper.com/article/20080409/NEWS01/731498537

7. #107
   On April 9th, 2008 at 3:51 pm, Chief RZ said:

   This is disgusting. No one should physically attack another person because of their beliefs or thoughts.

8. #108
   On April 9th, 2008 at 5:21 pm, thumbelina said:

   False Report Charge For Girl In Athens School Attack

   New developments today in the case of a supposed beating of a student from Athens ISD.

   13 year old Melanie Bowers is having charges filed against her by Athens ISD today through the Henderson County District Attorney’s office for filing a false report, said Athens ISD officials today.

9. #109
   On April 10th, 2008 at 7:59 pm, jeffshultz said:

   Michelle, can you update the headline for this topic to reflect that this was an incidence of fraud on the purported victim’s part?
   Thanks.

10. #110
    On April 14th, 2008 at 11:43 pm, mileslibertatis said:

    Michelle, seriously, this is a pretty isolated incident of this type of fraud, but we have to really be careful not to become like the liberals and be honest about what happens. If this student made it up, she is just a teenage drama queen acting out some odd Nativist facade for attention

    We can’t let her detract from solid arguments for the rule of law and stemming the tide of culture dilution. This story was, after all, a story about left-wing hypocrisy and government indoctrination.