Not all students are capable of honors/AP work

They, they they! Who exactly is "they"????

Alright, is "you" a more appropriate pronoun? Or, should I list all the noms d'email used here? Stop playing games.

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Why should you stop being right? Maybe one day when you finally are right you'll figure it out. Here's a newflash for you - you haven't been right yet. You started this thread with bogus claims and, as usual, you can't back them up with any sort of proof at all.

If a woman wrote this, you and/or mcgentrix would accuse her of being premenstrual. A friend of mine once called this rhetorical style, "Wet chicken."

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Why should you stop being right? Maybe one day when you finally are right you'll figure it out. Here's a newflash for you - you haven't been right yet. You started this thread with bogus claims and, as usual, you can't back them up with any sort of proof at all.

If a woman wrote this, you and/or mcgentrix would accuse her of being premenstrual. A friend of mine once called this rhetorical style, "Wet chicken."

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Duke -- All languages are best learned young, not just German. Now, if the left had its way, foreign language instruction would begin a great deal earlier and would be universal.

Music instruction should also begin young, prior to age 10. Although I have used my former husband's educational history as a benchmark to illustrate how education has improved, one way in which his schooling surpassed mine was the use of recorders early in the elementary school curriculum.

My daughter applied to the Harvard summer school program. Harvard was not supposed to admit her as she was a year too young, but everything worked out well. As far as 8 weeks not being enough, well, that is a standard summer school class.

I challenge your memory on reading 10 short stories per week in high school. Ditto on seven novel per semester, which is one every other week or so.

I have no idea how schools in Texas are. Why should I know that?

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For one thing, the results of those tests are a part of the funding formula devised by your state legislature for determinig how much state and federal $$ the schools in Arlington get. I suspect the Arligton school Superintendent would rather have students take the tests and get the $$ than not get anything.

Fishin -- You don't get it, do you? Look at the tiny percentage of kids who fail! Besides, this is the federal government's way of eliminating public education.

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plainoldme wrote:

Duke -- curriculum.

I challenge your memory on reading 10 short stories per week in high school. Ditto on seven novel per semester, which is one every other week or so.

oh Lord, I wouldn't even call it reading, more like a quick glimpse and on to the next.

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plainoldme wrote:

I have no idea how schools in Texas are. Why should I know that?

I'm sorry, I meant to say Massachusetts. lol
I have no idea why I said Texas. Laughing

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Plainoldme, what on earth makes you think you are correctly correctly representing a conservative viewpoint here? It is not a conservative idea to pass all students to a higher grade regardless of merit. It is not a conservative idea that all students should be doing honors work. Equality of results is a liberal fashon. Equality of opportunity is the conservative ideal.

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Roger wrote:Plainoldme, what on earth makes you think you are correctly correctly representing a conservative viewpoint here? It is not a conservative idea to pass all students to a higher grade regardless of merit.

Where did it the notion of social promotion come in? It hasn't been mentioned on this thread.
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Again: It is not a conservative idea that all students should be doing honors work.

It is a conservative idea that all students can be taught a curriculum, despite never having learned a word of English; despite having undergone major brain surgery; despite having an IQ that is below average.

Truthfully, the kids who were the "hoods" of the 1950s came from conservative homes and those kids in turn grew into adults who embraced conservative values.

Conservative homes of this kind are not houses in which books are read or academic achievement is valued.

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Duke -- Massachusetts schools improved steadily over the second half of the 20th C. The mean score on the SAT in Massachusetts is higher than the mean score nationally and a higher number of students attend four year colleges.

I've written elsewhere that my former husband, who is now 62, and who was educated in Malden and Melrose, MA until the fifth grade, when his mother moved to Florida, had a much less satisfactory and demanding educational experience than I had in Michigan. I am five years his junior.

My kids, now 27, 25 and 20, were totally educated in Massachusetts. They were better educated than either of their parents.

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fishin,

I must say you do yourself a complete disservice on this thread in continually harping that a rhetorical point be proved to you. PlainOldMe may have used overblown rhetoric to start this but your complete failure to address the issues raised points to a lack of any cognitive skills on your part.

My personal feeling is that anyone that thinks kids today are worse in school than when they personally attended should be forced to take an 8th grade standardized test. I guarantee that most of those same people would do no better than 80% and quite a few would fail it. Based on the writing and thinking skills of many of those promoting a change in education, I think they are only doing it because they are unable to understand many of the subjects students today excel at.

Now.. Let me address some of your issues fishin.

Quote:

Who is demanding that everyone pass? I certianly don't care if everyone passes. If they don't pass however, they shouldn't be getting handed a diploma that says that they did.

As for the tests being redundent - why not ask why the SATs and ACTs ever became necessary? If primary and secondary schools could have been trusted to actually educate the students the colleges wouldn't have had any need for SAT/ACT tests.

To see who is demanding everyone pass I suggest you go read the "No Child Left Behind" initiative available on the White House website. You might want to pay attention to "(Part B: Reading First)
Overview The Administration is committed to ensuring that every child can read by the third grade." Let me know if you need the words "no" and "every"explained to you.

I suggest you find out the history of the SAT before you make a fool of yourself by claiming it came about because of the failure of schools. Ivy League schools were using SATs in the 1930s. In 1940 only 38.1% of 25-29 year olds had graduated from HS. The number is almost 90% today. (US Census Bureau) Are you really saying that if the schools were good enough to only graduate 35% of the students we wouldn't need the SATs?

I normally don't like to browbeat people but your actions needed a response of a similar fashion.

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parados wrote:

I must say you do yourself a complete disservice on this thread in continually harping that a rhetorical point be proved to you. PlainOldMe may have used overblown rhetoric to start this but your complete failure to address the issues raised points to a lack of any cognitive skills on your part.

Uh huh. She starts a thread and when she's questioned on her comments, refuses to address the comments and then throws out red herrings trying to dodge the questions and it becomes a lack of cognitive skills on my part? lol My cogniative skills are just fine. I can tell she's been back-tracking since her second post.

parados wrote:

Now.. Let me address some of your issues fishin.

Quote:
Who is demanding that everyone pass? I certianly don't care if everyone passes. If they don't pass however, they shouldn't be getting handed a diploma that says that they did.

As for the tests being redundent - why not ask why the SATs and ACTs ever became necessary? If primary and secondary schools could have been trusted to actually educate the students the colleges wouldn't have had any need for SAT/ACT tests.

To see who is demanding everyone pass I suggest you go read the "No Child Left Behind" initiative available on the White House website. You might want to pay attention to "(Part B: Reading First)
Overview The Administration is committed to ensuring that every child can read by the third grade." Let me know if you need the words "no" and "every"explained to you.

Context is a wonderful thing. You should try using it some time. POM started this thread and has continued to bemoan how "conservatives" have "demanded" that every student pass. You managed to find ONE WWW page with the words from ONE conservative outlining an objective - a goal. Where are all of the others? Where is this onslaught of conservatives demanding that every student pass?

How about this little quote: "These reforms will not be easy or inexpensive. But all of my accountability proposals have the same fundamental purpose: to boost student achievement, close the achievement gap in our schools, & make sure no child is left behind."

Is that another conservative demanding every child pass? I think Al Gore would tell you otherwise since those are his words from his speech to the National Conference of Black Mayors (Dallas, TX Apr 28, 2000). BUt maybe those big mean conservatives got to him and forced himn to say it. Wink

parados wrote:

I suggest you find out the history of the SAT before you make a fool of yourself by claiming it came about because of the failure of schools.

I'd suggest you read and respond to what is actually written and not what you THINK someone meant before you make a fool of yourself again. Where did I say that the SATs were developed for any reason at all? Here's a hint: I didn't. What is very clearly said was "why not ask why the SATs and ACTs ever became necessary?". When did they become necessary? When did they start gaining widespread use? Schools didn't start mandating widespread use of the SATs until the 1960s after the California University Systems started requiring them. Were they necessary when only a handful of schools used them?

Quote:

I normally don't like to browbeat people but your actions needed a response of a similar fashion.

Uh huh...

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[quote]parados wrote:
[quote]I must say you do yourself a complete disservice on this thread in continually harping that a rhetorical point be proved to you. PlainOldMe may have used overblown rhetoric to start this but your complete failure to address the issues raised points to a lack of any cognitive skills on your part.[/quote]

Uh huh. She starts a thread and when she's questioned on her comments, refuses to address the comments and then throws out red herrings trying to dodge the questions and it becomes a lack of cognitive skills on my part? lol My cogniative skills are just fine. I can tell she's been back-tracking since her second post. [/quote] Yes, you do have a lack of cognitive skills. Allow me to demonstrate using your words.

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Context is a wonderful thing. You should try using it some time.

Yes, context is a wonderful thing. You should try using it.

Quote:

You managed to find ONE WWW page with the words from ONE conservative outlining an objective - a goal. Where are all of the others? Where is this onslaught of conservatives demanding that every student pass?

If you had bothered to check out my quote you would have found it was not from just "ONE WWW page". It was from the "Presidential Initiative". Lets examine those two words "Presidential" as in belonging to or coming from the President. In this case the President named George W Bush. "Initiative" as in his plan to create a program called "No Child Left Behind", which by the way is the title of the initiative. This isn't just ONE conservative's words on one website. This was the President's plan laid out and sent to Congress. The same plan that several Presidential proxies held town meetings around the US to talk about. As for the "onslaught of conservatives", that would be them. As for "demanding that every student pass", again we have to deal with context. You appear to have skipped my statement where I said POM's rhetoric was overblown. Her rhetoric was not entirely innaccurate however. The goal of the plan was to have "every child read at 3rd grade level". An impossibility since not every person is capable of that. Overblown rhetoric perhaps.

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I'd suggest you read and respond to what is actually written and not what you THINK someone meant before you make a fool of yourself again.

Again, good advice. I suggest you take it to heart.

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Where did I say that the SATs were developed for any reason at all?

You said it when you asked a rhetorical question then answered it.

Quote:

why not ask why the SATs and ACTs ever became necessary? If primary and secondary schools could have been trusted to actually educate the students the colleges wouldn't have had any need for SAT/ACT tests.

Now lets look at my response. Again you fail the reading comprehension test.

Quote:

I suggest you find out the history of the SAT before you make a fool of yourself by claiming it came about because of the failure of schools. Ivy League schools were using SATs in the 1930s. In 1940 only 38.1% of 25-29 year olds had graduated from HS. The number is almost 90% today. (US Census Bureau) Are you really saying that if the schools were good enough to only graduate 35% of the students we wouldn't need the SATs?

What I said is simple paragraph structure. I respond to your rhetorical answer in the first sentence then at the end of the paragraph ask you to clarify if you meant what I thought you did.

According to my research, in 1957 over 500,000 students took the SATs and over 400 schools required them. The California School system started requiring them in 1960. Let me ask the question again and perhaps this time you can answer it. Are you implying that the US school system was failing in 1960 when California decided to require the SATs? If you are not implying that, then what are you trying to say?

Or if you want you can climb back up on your low horse and take another crack at the windmill waving your own red herring wildly about.

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The "Conservative" position on education is that it can and must work better than currently is the case. The "Conservative" approach is to institute rigorous standards and to require accountability. No one suggests or anticipates that all students will perform to a given level, but rather that all schools perform to a given level.

Certainly there will be students who for a variety of reasons fail to achieve satisfactorilly - thats a given, not in dispute, and to suggest otherwise is dishonest. Some students will benefit from specialized educatuion - at either end of the intellectual bell curve, and some students are gonna wind up pushin' a broom, homeless, or in jail.

There is nothin' in the "Conservative" approach that calls for equal result; the demand is for legitimate, realistiic, and productive equal opportunity - fully equal and unrestricted access to the finest free public education our money and resources can provide.

The onus is not on the students to meet unrealistic, utopian performance standards, it is on the public education system to perform to a rigorous, uniform, realistic standard, and to document, disclose, and verify that it is performin' to that standard ... nothin' more nor less than demonstrate value commensurate with expenditure. That idea bothers a some folks.

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Will run out of computer time before this is finished:

1.) The movement to improve education in the 1960s was launched by liberals.

2.) Liberals started with themselves. They took personal responsibility for their grades and chose challenging courses.

3.) Interestingly, many of you on this thread are arguing against well trained teachers!

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Yes, launched in the 60s, by liberals. And the results. . . ? Other than increased warm, fuzzy, feelings of self worth, I mean.

Challenging courses leading to a degree in education?

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roger wrote:

Yes, launched in the 60s, by liberals. And the results. . . ? ...

Logarithmic increase of expenditure accompanied by declininin' performance.

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Thanks, parados.

I should say here that one of the rhetorical methods of launching a debate and stimulating thought is to use a dramatic statement. While I came to the inescapable conclusion that only complete success in the form of the entire student body passing the various state exams would be accepted by the righties, who, as paradas accurately states could not pass said exams, to state that is to dramatize it.

Notice that the Timberlandko returns once again to money. Listen, aren't you paying more for your plaid shirts today than your mother paid for them when you were in college? Didn't the house in which you currently live cost more than the house in which you were raised? Does the car you drive today cost what the first car you drove did? Is the cost of your electricity and phone service and water and home heating oil decreasing?

I should say that there was a vigorous debate going on in the teacher's lounge with a veteran -- a woman the age Brandon claims for himself -- teacher telling a first year teacher that during the initial meetings prior to the institution of the MCAS those on the side of testing (people from the company that wrote the initial test) insisted that 100% of the students had to pass the test. Period. No exceptions.

The first year teacher said that the MCAS is considered the most difficult state test in the nation. I told him that was because the initial test was taken over by teachers -- valued people who were taken out of the classroom for two years -- who retooled the test, improved the grammar and relevancy of the questions, and made it something that answered the educational needs of the future workforce rather than a hodge-podge of questions obtained by going to the index of a world history test, looking up a name, say Marie Antionette, and making up stupid questions which totally lacked context.

Parados -- These folks here are deaf.

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POM,

We all have problems hearing at times. ;-) That is why people shout.

The key is to turn up our hearing aids and listen to each other.

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This ought to make Timberlandko and gungasnake happy:

No More Broken Promises: Reject Bush's Education Cuts
by Robert L. Borosage and Earl Hadley
Last week the House and Senate debated budget resolutions that called for significant cuts in education spending over the next five years. While an amendment by Senator Kennedy protected education funding in the final version approved by the Senate, the House followed President Bush’s lead and approved billions in cuts. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the House resolution would lead to $38 billion in cuts to education and training from 2006-2010, compared to current spending adjusted for inflation.
The House version also cuts billions of dollars in funding to other programs that are vital to educating children -- such as nutrition assistance and healthcare. And if the Republican leadership has its way, the positive changes made in the Senate will not survive the conference where the House and Senate produce a joint resolution. At the same time, the president is calling for new top-end tax cuts that'll add $1.6 trillion to continuing deficits over the next ten years.
This fits neither the needs nor the desires of the

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Not all students are capable of honors/AP work

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