Who is really to blame?

rrrrrrrriiiiiiiigggggggghhhhhhhhhttttttttt

ur a teacher

toogood...that is actually a very astute comment.

I'm proud of you.

why do u keep following every board i go to

Chai works for the CIA, she's probably not just following you around the message board, have you ever noticed a plain black car parked about a block away from anywhere you just happen to be

i probably shouldn't have let that info about chai out

oh well what can she do to me, hey, what's this red dot on chest, kinda like a laser pointer, it's coming from that window across the street, what's that guy got in his hand, looks like a g..........................................................

Has anyone seen toogood around? I lost sight of her a few threads back.

toogood, I'm not "following you around" I read a lot of the threads, and post where ever I like.

If you're going to hang around here, you need to get used to the fact that people talk to each other here, and just don't make random posts.

I saw you replied to POM, and I was interested in what your response would be.

In other words....Get over yourself girl. You're starting to think you're a little more special then you are. Okay?

Just call me Blondie...

One way or another I'm gonna find ya
I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha
One way or another I'm gonna win ya
I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha
One way or another I'm gonna see ya
I'm gonna meetcha meetcha meetcha meetcha
One day, maybe next week
I'm gonna meetcha, I'm gonna meetcha, I'll meetcha
I will drive past your house
And if the lights are all down
I'll see who's around

One way or another I'm gonna find ya
I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha
One way or another I'm gonna win ya
I'll getcha, I'll getcha
One way or another I'm gonna see ya
I'm gonna meetcha meetcha meetcha meetcha
One day, maybe next week
I'm gonna meetcha, I'll meetcha

And if the lights are all out
I'll follow your bus downtown
See who's hanging out

One way or another I'm gonna lose ya
I'm gonna give you the slip, a slip of the lip or another
I'm gonna lose ya, I'm gonna trick ya
One way or another I'm gonna lose ya
I'm gonna trick ya trick ya trick ya trick ya
One way or another I'm gonna lose ya
I'm gonna give you the slip

I'll walk down the mall
Stand over by the wall
Where I can see it all
Find out who ya call
Lead you to the supermarket checkout
Some specials and rat food, get lost in the crowd

To be honest, I am not a big fan of unions in general. I think they are/were necessary in certain industries because of safety and where there are monopolies, but that is strictly from an economic stand point. But I don't think that is what ruined American education. I also don't think that American education is ruined - broken perhaps at many school districts.

I do think that parent involvement is very important in education and see that in some cases that could be a contributing factor. Recently I met with my daughter's teacher for our parent/teacher conference. The teacher did thank us for be a positive influence as my daughter is always prepared to school. She said that even in this school setting (private Christian school) that many parents do not properly teach their children about behaving and help with their education. Often times parents expect the school to teach discipline and are not involved with their child's education.

To me, if parents show that education is important even through simply asking how school is going, if they need help, going over their tests and reviewing their homework - it shows that you are involved. My husband and I work fulltime so our time is limited, but every night we take 15 minutes and do these simple things and it does seem to make an impression. I honestly think education is a partnership between school and parents. Even if the unions or publishers are a factor in the down fall of education - a parent can still fill the gaps. As a parent, you should know what the school is teaching and if you feel it falls shorts, step up.

hay hay hay hay

I've been talking about this recently with various people, especially my aunt, who works at a university. I'm a junior in college, and I've really been shocked at how poorly educated a big percentage of my classmates are. Whatever it is that's wrong with the school system, people are getting all the way to college unable to write a grammatically correct sentence. I'm not an expert at English, I'm not talking about the finer points, I mean things like they can't keep tenses straight in a sentence and don't understand what you mean if you point it out. Oh, and of course the geography thing, we're all aware of how bad that is-- we had an exercise in one class where people had to draw a world map from memory as best they could recollect...Wow. That was distressing. I mean, people didn't have anything besides a big shapeless blob with Mexico, Canada, and the US. Forget about the rest of it-- hopeless.

I really thought by the time I got to a four-year school it would be better, but it's only a little better than it was at my rinky-dink community junior college. I actually find it really hard to imagine what the explanation is for this-- it seems a lot more wide-spread than just some broken school districts. I wonder if parental involvement, as Linkat pointed out, might be a very big factor.

I'm sorry, I see I went on kind of at length there to say nothing useful to the discussion-- I have a lot of thoughts ( and gripes) about this topic, but no conclusions!

I don't think anyone is to blame.

The American Education system, by and large, works pretty well. It does a reasonable job for the majority of kids that pass through it and for the size of the task it is has, it has consistantly produced the people our society needs to keep our economy growing.

All this griping about the American education system is just griping. Sure there are things we could improve, but looking for blame is completely out of place.

Let's look for someone to whom we should give the credit-- I know, how about the teachers.

So then you don't buy the idea that it's getting worse? Would you think that we've probably always had a large number of people getting through with crappy English skills, can't-find-Europe-on-a-map, kind of thing? I've wondered about that too-- maybe it's just become the in thing to worry about now.

People have been griping about the failure of our education system for generations. Every decade is the same, our schools are failing and our economy is about to collapse.

However every decade the students of the last decade do alright. Books are written, music is created, businesses flourish and new technology is invented.

Sure, the little factoids that no American knows who the Prime Minister of Canada is are correct. But give me one reason why the average American needs to know who the Prime Minister of Canada is.

Obviously Americans are running a fine economy, inventing stuff, creating pop culture that is desired the world over and contributing to a productive working society.

If they can do all of this without locating Canada on a map, then the location of Canada isn't very important, is it?

Our strong economy and continued technological and cultural contributions to the world is evidence enought that our education system is doing just fine.

So we can conclude:

a) we're all correct when we bitch that what we learn in school has no bearing on the real world, and

b) we'll really be up a creek if through some bizarre turn of events suddenly what we were supposed to learn in high school becomes relevant...What if we slip into an alternate universe where job applications are all algebra and questions about African countries?!

My last job involved designing an novel algebra curriculum. One of our consultants, an expert in the field of Algebra education, defined the problem with Algebra education as this (I am paraphrasing as best I can)...

"The problem with algebra education is that when kids ask us the reasonable question 'why do I need to know this' we simply don't have a good answer".

If you don't see the wisdom of this... let me ask you this.

The quadratic equation is one of the highlights of the algebra you learned in high school. Assuming you are living a productive fulfilling life, when is the last time you needed to quatratic equation. Can you even tell me what the quadratic equation is used for?

The truth is, the things you learned in algebra class, you learned well enough to pass a test, and then you promptly forgot them. The fact is that you never needed to know them at all.

So, is education important? Of course it is... but the things you learn aren't important. It is learning to complete tasks, to communicate, to work together and to think. Americans end up learning and retain only the facts they need in their lives. This obviously works out very well for them.

This is why you will not be up a creek if all of a sudden you need algebra or African geography to get a job. You will simply go out and get the knowledge and skills you need.

The fact you went through the education system makes this process easier.

The most important part of the American education system is preparing you to work, to know where to get information, to learn how to shmooze with authority and work together and most importantly to integrate you into the culture. Even honor roll students have forgotten nearly all the things they that were crammed into their heads during high school.

I stand by my statement that the American education system does a fine job.

Linkat -- We had parent-teacher conferences at school this week. Some of the students work at the school during that time, either as guides who give directions or as representatives of the clubs/sports/performance ensembles to which they belong. One of these kids told a teacher that her mother has never attended a single open house or ever went to a parent-teacher conference. The teacher felt like crying for the kid.