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Quote, "...a child is far less likely to make it if s/he is told s/he is 'stupid', 'poor', 'disadvantaged', 'handicapped', 'a victim' or any other characterization suggesting s/he just isn't as up to it" Where did that come from? I never implied or suggested such a thing. Please stick to the issues under discussion.

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Okay then C.I. Explain what you meant by "all children are not created equal" if your implication is that some are stupid or poor or disadvantaged, etc.

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What it means is that all children have different strengths and weaknesses, different interests and talents. Is that clear enough?

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Hasn't that always been so? Yet regardless of strengths, weaknesses, interests, and talents, is it unreasonable to expect all children of normal intelligence to meet a reasonably established minimum standard in order for them to be considered educated?

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kinda like a double edged sword though ain't it Foxfyre? I mean you get those fed mandated standards and you get fed control of your school. Is that not what conservatives refer to as "nanny" govenment? well anyway, the traditional (another word for conservative) view is that the local ie school board determines the standard and we now approach the very idea that the feds are better able to determine our local needs. Interesting ain't it?

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The Feds require no school to accept federal funding; thus there is no stranglehold on the schools by the Federal government. The federal government provides a very small percentage of funding for any school. But if the schools want the federal funding, they have to meet the requirements for receiving the funding. Personally I think NCLB with all its flaws and weaknesses is a huge improvement over federal funding buying the school a bigger fancier Lincoln for the superintendent to drive.

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Well,well.Disdainful silence.

Then-

"Oh.Ignore him.He has no idea."

"Where were we?"

"Oh yes.I was just saying that we had a graduation
rate of virtually 100% year after year with most going on to get additional education."

Cripes Foxy-that is virtually meaningless.It is just a speech pattern.

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Excrementum bellum vincit.

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"Look out kid they keep it all hid."

Bob Dylan.

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How can a virtual 100% graduation rate be virtually meaningless, Spendius? It is evidence, albeit anecdotal evidence, that you can effectively educate a classroom made up of a widely diverse group of kids with backgrounds and circumstances from all over the map. It disputes any notion that poor kids are not able to compete with the affluent kids, etc.

Mind you in our class were transient oil patch kids who got bounced from school system to school system as the rigs moved, Hispanics with marginal English skills who were expected to compete anyway, freshly integrated black kids from 'across the tracks' in a small redneck dominated town that still harbored overt racism, wealthy ranch kids, and everything in between. Some did better than others, of course, but each category of kid produced its own A students. And all graduated in a time when schools did not graduate kids who hadn't successfully completed all requirements including tough final examinations in all subjects.

This was BEFORE the modern era of social engineering and lowered expectations for all kids.

Based on Thomas Sowell's writing--did you follow the link?--our school was not atypical either. All across the country schools, free of teacher's unions, the ACLU, and Federal meddling, were doing a far better job of educating children.

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Foxy-

Of course it is meaningless.It makes no attempt to say what education is.It simply says graduation which means what anybody wants it to mean.

I once studied an examination paper in conjuction with the syllabus and worked out that at the pass mark (your graduation I presume) the student demonstrated a crude knowledge of about 10% of what s/he had been studying full time for three years which means that they were ignorant of 90% of it.This is not to take any account of leaks of examination questions,either directly or otherwise,or friendly marking which is bound to go on especially in small towns where the teachers are known personally to a good few of the parents,or of pressure from authority to present a satisfactory image in local media.

That may well provide high graduation rates but what it has to do with education defeats me.

If you will take the trouble to read the books I have mentioned which are-

Veblen's The Higher Learning in America,
StanleyCohen's Visions of Social Control and
The appendix to Orwell's 1984

you might discover a rough idea of a definition of education.

The Cohen book is focussed on deviancy control but it is easily translated into other fields where similar sorts of control talk are employed.

Foucault's The Archaeology of Knowledge is useful too as are most of his writings in these areas.

With the long summer vacation coming up you have plenty of time to grapple with this stuff.

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Spendius, did you intentionally overlook all I said about standards, expectations, requirements, quality of education?

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Foxy-

I've heard it all before.Many times.And then some.

Are you trying to excuse yourself from the grapple.

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Nope. Just keeping it real, Spendius. I know what I had to accomplish and what I had to know in order to graduate. That was in a time when students who had not accomplished what they had to accomplish and who couldn't prove they knew what they had to know did not pass their current grade and/or did not graduate.

Some highschool graduates now are practically functionally illiterate. That did not happen 30, 40, 50 years ago.

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Foxy-

There you are then.A progressively failing system.
Do we wait for meltdown?

You don't need practically AND functionally.

Okay.

What did Dylan mean then?He's no mug.You don't think he'd go with a line like that do you unless he meant it.It isn't gratuitous.He had had "twenty years of schoolin'.

Who is defining "illiterate"?

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Well I don't know that I would put my full faith in the efficiency or practicality of the U.S. educational system on anything Dylan says.

I agree with the assessment of a progressively failing educational system and that is why I support NCLB because, as flawed as it is, it is better than the status quo that immediatley preceded it.

I think the public schools will probably continue to be less than they could be, however, until that have sufficient competition that they will have to get back to the business of education in order to survive. Currently they seem to be in the business of being schools with the education of children a relatively minor consideration. (Note how often even on this thread you hear things like funding, schedules, regulations, requirements, etc. etc. etc. and how precious little attention is focused on what the kids are actually learning.)

I define 'literate' as being able to read and write sufficiently to competently fill out an employment application. I define 'literate' as being able to read and understand instructions and directions. I define 'literate' as being able to read a ballot in order to be sufficiently informed to know what your vote is intended to accomplish. You get my drift.

An unacceptable number of current highschool dropouts and highschool graduates cannot do any of these things much less so many business functions that require extensive reading comprehension plus ability to write coherently.

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Interesting article in yesterdays News & Observer

Quote:

Class of 2005 graduates are the most tested class in NC history

The Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Graduates of the class of 2005 have encountered more testing than that of any other generation of North Carolina students.

When the graduating seniors were entering kindergarten, the state was just beginning to administer end-of-grade tests in elementary schools. When they were in fourth grade, the state implemented testing as a way to hold schools accountable for student learning.

When the class of 2005 reached 10th grade, the federal government embarked on the No Child Left Behind program, another method of testing students and regulating schools.

The state's testing program has met both criticism and acclaim. The class of 2005 has performed better than previous classes on year-end testing in elementary and middle school. They have also outdone older classes in high school English and algebra testing.

"Let's remember that when this all began, only about 53 percent of kids were passing both their reading and math tests in elementary and middle school," said John Dornan, president of the N.C. Public School Forum, a Raleigh-based policy organization that has pushed for education reform in the state for two decades.

That number came up to 81 percent last year.

Despite the improved test results in schools and on the SAT, some argue that the stress on testing has left schools lacking in other areas.

The state's graduation rate has not improved with the test results; with about 60 percent of students who were enrolled in ninth grade four years earlier making it to graduation.

Some are concerned that the pressure schools are under to raise test results has taken the focus off of other important aspects of learning.

"What we're noticing with kids more and more is an attitude that if it's not on the test, they don't want to learn it," said Bob Brogden, who teaches social studies at East Chapel Hill High School. "Testing has taken the spontaneity out of learning."

The answer is balancing the importance of testing and solid instruction, said Elsie Leak, associate state superintendent for curriculum and school reform services. Although the system is not perfect, Leak said this year's graduates have gained from the changes in the state's education program over the last decade.

"I think they've gotten a better education, but we have to keep going and demand more of them," she said. "We need to keep raising expectations, and we have to be willing to change things."

Emphasis mine.

SOURCE

NC was doing end of grade testing long before NCLB. We still only have a 60% graduation rate, and only 81% passing reading and math tests even AFTER teaching to the test.

I've watched this with my own children, and know that the last month of school is devoted to teaching the tests. I've also heard numerous times "I don't have to know that." Sends me into a fury every time and they just look at me like I'm the one that's lost it!

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Foxy:-

I'm sorry.I have duties elsewhere and I think we are passing each other by.

I will try again sometime but I do have sympathy with your position.

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Later Spendius.

And Squnney I am not unsympathetic to your position either. There is something fundamentally wrong with thinking a 53% success rate, based on reasonable criteria, merits even keeping a school's door open much less thinking it acceptable. 81% is not acceptable either. New Mexico schools have typically done even worse. I think the problems run very deep and there is no way they can all be hung on testing. Private schools are showing nearly 100% graduation rates and producing high SAT's etc to boot.

I'm still saying lets try the voucher program. If enough parents opt for private schools, the public schools will have to do things differently to compete. If that means reforming the system to get rid of the kids who will not learn and who prevent others from learning, so be it. It wouldn't be hard to put together trade schools to teach the non-learners a marketable skill or two so they can support themselves. Get the losers out of the classroom and skilled teachers, abetted by parents, will inspire their students to want to learn.

I have even toyed with the idea of refusing driver's licenses to any kid who a) did not have a highschool diploma or b) had not successfully completed a vocational trade school or c) had not reached age 21. That alone should provide enough incentive to keep some of them focused on getting an education. Smile

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You keep advocating for a "voucher" system, but where is all that money going to come from? Construction, new administration, new teachers, and location, location, location?

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