shewho-laughs.blogspot.com
has moved to
Monday, September 26, 2011
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Monday, September 12, 2011
Friday, September 9, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
From TPM: I think Ron Paul just said that 9/11 was caused by excessive government regulation.
To be honest, my stomach turned over when the Republican presidential debate audience (twice) wildly applauded Rick Perry's record as the modern governor who has presided over the most executions. Unbelievable. Listening to this whole debate has been an exercise in suppressing my gag reflex.
I am sick, which didn't help the stomach-turning and gagging. Chicken noodle soup helped a little and would help more if I had a bottomless bowl of steaming broth. I should say that I am sick and pretending not to be eight hours a day because I don't want to be sent home. Paid leave (especially paid sick leave, which seems so elementary) will be a must-have in my next job. It's too hard to be without it, even as a childless and reasonably healthy young woman. I have chronic moderate-to-severe headaches, killer cramps, and an immune system not made out of bricks and Teflon (read: I get fairly sick fairly often, and very very sick about twice a year)--but I could have children in day care always hopping from one bug to the next, or a debilitating chronic disease or mental illness myself, and I don't, and that's just sheer luck.
Waiting for the bus this morning.
NCLB and Race to the Top treat public schools as though they were shoe stores.
Diane Ravitch in the Saturday Evening Post: American Schools in Crisis
What the federal efforts of the past decade or more ignore is that the root cause of low academic achievement is poverty, not “bad” teachers. Children who are homeless, in ill health, or living in squalid quarters are more likely to miss school and less likely to have home support for their schoolwork. The most important educators in children’s lives are their families. What families provide in the way of encouragement, experiences, expectations, and security has a decisive effect on a child’s life chances. The most consistent predictor of test scores is family income. Children who grow up in economically secure homes are more likely to arrive in school ready to learn than those who lack the basic necessities of life.
[...]
The promise of Race to the Top is that billions more will be spent on more tests, and districts will reduce the time available for subjects (like the arts and foreign languages) that aren’t tested. Piece by piece, our entire public education system is being redesigned in the service of increasing scores on standardized tests of basic skills. That’s not good policy, and it won’t improve education. Twelve years of rewarding children for picking the right answer on multiple-choice tests is bad education. It will penalize the creativity, innovativeness, and imaginativeness that has made this country great.
and
The law treats public schools as though they were shoe stores: Make a profit or else. If you don’t, you might be fired, you might get new management, or you might be closed down.
and the most essential message is the most basic, the most easily overlooked in the jumble:
It is worth remembering that the reason we first established public education was to advance the common good of the community. It began in small towns, where communities agreed that all the children should be educated for the good of all and the sake of the future. Public schools have a civic mission: They are expected to prepare young people to become citizens and to share in the responsibility of maintaining our society. As political forces tear them apart, creating opportunities for entrepreneurs and for profit, it diminishes our commonwealth. That is a price we must not pay.
What the federal efforts of the past decade or more ignore is that the root cause of low academic achievement is poverty, not “bad” teachers. Children who are homeless, in ill health, or living in squalid quarters are more likely to miss school and less likely to have home support for their schoolwork. The most important educators in children’s lives are their families. What families provide in the way of encouragement, experiences, expectations, and security has a decisive effect on a child’s life chances. The most consistent predictor of test scores is family income. Children who grow up in economically secure homes are more likely to arrive in school ready to learn than those who lack the basic necessities of life.
[...]
The promise of Race to the Top is that billions more will be spent on more tests, and districts will reduce the time available for subjects (like the arts and foreign languages) that aren’t tested. Piece by piece, our entire public education system is being redesigned in the service of increasing scores on standardized tests of basic skills. That’s not good policy, and it won’t improve education. Twelve years of rewarding children for picking the right answer on multiple-choice tests is bad education. It will penalize the creativity, innovativeness, and imaginativeness that has made this country great.
and
The law treats public schools as though they were shoe stores: Make a profit or else. If you don’t, you might be fired, you might get new management, or you might be closed down.
and the most essential message is the most basic, the most easily overlooked in the jumble:
It is worth remembering that the reason we first established public education was to advance the common good of the community. It began in small towns, where communities agreed that all the children should be educated for the good of all and the sake of the future. Public schools have a civic mission: They are expected to prepare young people to become citizens and to share in the responsibility of maintaining our society. As political forces tear them apart, creating opportunities for entrepreneurs and for profit, it diminishes our commonwealth. That is a price we must not pay.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)