When our son would tantrum – as all toddlers do at least once – we would calmly carry him to his room; explain that we did not want to see or hear such ugliness; and give him permission to rejoin us in the common areas of the home once he “finished.” Soon…then sooner…then soonest, he finished and the tantrum phase ended. Toddlers are much more sensible than many teachers. These public tantrums of public school teachers proves my point.
What you are about to read, is lengthy, yet important, in the understanding of the funding and politics, which is the devastation, caused by Affirmative Action – a misnomer, if ever there was one. So, I may ask, who gained freedom from this misguided program, and who was enslaved? No one gained their freedom – for there was nothing achieved by these actions – other than a big bill. (Ed.)
The U.S. will need another twenty-five years to eliminate race as a significant factor in higher education participation – at least according to a recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. In this decision, the Justices, while upholding “affirmative action”, tied its further use to an uncommon expiration date: the Court ruling allows public and private universities to continue using race as a factor in their student admissions for another 25 years. The higher education community anxiously awaited the ruling all summer of 2003. The impact of the decision was expected to reach far beyond university life, since the issue touches upon highly sensible areas of U.S.-American society.
War against the teachers union has commenced
~ Forewards ~
Since the inception of *unions* for any tax funded employee began – the QUALITY of performance of that group as deteriorated by leaps and bounds. As with all *union* agenda’s it is to support the upper echelon and not the people they are supposed to serve. I have watched how the Machinists union in Seattle destroyed the Boeing Co. and drove it out of the state. Now all those members are on the unemployed list.
There can be no doubt that functional illiteracy maims the ability of adults to achieve well in contemporary life. However, there are a number of emerging factors that suggest that not only is literacy a problem, millions of adults may also be functionally inorate. – Tom Sticht
The 1993 report Adult Literacy in America, based on the National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) lead the U. S. Department of Education to claim that almost half of America’s adults were functionally illiterate. A decade later, the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) reiterated that claim.
YESTERDAY: Kids crossing border for school scrutinized
Horne seeks Ajo inquiry; some districts crack down
LUKEVILLE, AZ (Mar. 7, 2004) – Just before dawn, a steady line of cars passes through this remote outpost on the U.S.-Mexico border, pausing at a bus stop to drop off children bundled in heavy coats to protect against the chilling rain.
It is 6:20 a.m. in Lukeville, a tiny town on the north side of the border. The town itself is little more than a strip mall with a gas station, an RV park and a general store, all clustered within sight of the international line.
“Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.” – C. S. Lewis
For well over a century, the systemic dismantling of traditional education is an essential objective of transforming America into a despotic dependency.
Education is a process, not an indoctrination. Schools should be about tutoring in the methods of critical thinking. Sound techniques and competent teachers can assist learning development. However, it has been decades since public schools provided a positive function. Dysfunctional Public Education Is No Accident sums up the issue:
Dorsey High School is touted by many, with a certain amount of pride, as one of the larger African American campuses in the unwieldy Los Angeles Unified School District. “Dorsey Pride” is the mantra yelled out at all the football games, and the Dorsey “Dons” are regularly visited by college football scouts for the depth of its football program.
For those of us teachers that remained outside of this sportsman’s Valhalla (99% of us), our lot was one of damage control and toeing the line when it came to grading, testing, and dealing with irate coaches whose superheroes dipped below that fatal 2.0 grade point average.
AAAAw, Jeez – here we go again! How dumb can we go? Everytime we touch the system – it goes further downhill – even though they promise it will make things better. (Ed.)
A panel of educators convened by the nation’s governors and state school superintendents proposed a uniform set of academic standards on Wednesday, laying out their vision for what all the nation’s public school children should learn in math and English, year by year, from kindergarten to high school graduation.
The new proposals could transform American education, replacing the patchwork of standards ranging from mediocre to world-class that have been written by local educators in every state.
If a manufacturer produces sub-standard or unsafe products, as in the current Toyota debacle, you can take your sub-standard or unsafe product back for repair or a complete refund, but when a public school district produces sub-standard students, there is seemingly no recourse. You cannot send your kid back to school, even if s/he cannot read comprehensively or perform basic math. Further, there is no means to recoup the property taxes the parents paid to support the public school system their failing child attended.
