tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post3546634846433849023..comments2024-03-29T09:47:01.168-05:00Comments on Althouse: "The problem is with adults... If they say we’re becoming more stupid, it’s perhaps because we’re in a school system they invented."Ann Althousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01630636239933008807noreply@blogger.comBlogger78125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-4452952263663854542011-06-24T18:43:33.141-05:002011-06-24T18:43:33.141-05:00I gave up on public schools with my oldest son. In...I gave up on public schools with my oldest son. In Middle School, we got a request to meet with the school psychologist. I rescheduled my day and we arrived at 8:30. The psychologist breezed in at 9, did not know who our son was, had not read the file and finally finished up by telling us he was a good kid and would be fine.<br /><br />A few years later, he was underachieving in high school. I learned that kids on probation had to pick up a form every Friday and have all teachers sign off that the kid was keeping up. My son wasn't on probation but I thought it was a good way to keep track of his work. I had already tried to get the teachers to send the week's assignments home on Monday and most would not cooperate.<br /><br />Half his teachers refused to sign the form.<br /><br />I went to Back-to-school night and met with his algebra teacher, an aging fat guy with a pony tail and a motorcycle. I tried to talk to him about my son's homework. He told me that he wasn't sure about the homework (of course, he didn't have his records)but my son was a good kid.<br /><br />All the other four went to private school. Also, he actually turned out OK and is a lawyer, a partner in a big national firm and heads their Bay Area and Las Vegas offices.Mike Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02762548735851773288noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-20247359326597776312011-06-24T15:56:58.483-05:002011-06-24T15:56:58.483-05:00Well, the ones that went and taught at Montessori ...Well, the ones that went and taught at Montessori schools had some pretty good ideals. The rest of you... eh.<br /><br />Thumbs up for Steve Jobs, though. Your generation wasn't all bad.Mickeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04149229713350959848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-83772948678867691922011-06-24T14:59:02.866-05:002011-06-24T14:59:02.866-05:00Boomers didn't invent the schools as they exis...Boomers didn't invent the schools as they exist today, but they did allow people like that "distinguished educator", William Ayers, (much to the cheers of all the closet Communists allowed back into positions of trust and authority after the 50s) to do it without any real objection.<br /><br />PS Yes, I remember all the "relevance". Even then, I thought it was nonsense.edutcherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15033144261502435196noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-55091438647727625752011-06-24T14:41:10.926-05:002011-06-24T14:41:10.926-05:00Lost me at "Then we grew up"Lost me at "Then we grew up"glennhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00993381999736874161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-35505970199393389372011-06-24T14:40:39.969-05:002011-06-24T14:40:39.969-05:00I went to private schools and my children have all...<i>I went to private schools and my children have all been educated in private schools. I dont mind paying twicw, once in the form of property taxes and once in the form of tuition, knowing that my kids are excellent writers, critical thinkers and deep and enthusiastic readers. In one sense i am happy that their poorly educated peers will not show as well as my children though i am sad for us as a country that we are satisfied with so little</i>. <br /><br />I went to public K-12 back in the 1950s and 1960s, and it was ok. But, then I got to college and saw how much better the private school kids were prepared for college. And, so decided to send my kid to private school. <br /><br />I was quite happy with private K12, despite double paying. I will admit that the very best pubic high schools were comparable for their best students. But not for their average students. <br /><br />There were a lot of advantages. One is that the school went to great pains to make sure that each of the kids had a path for excelling, whether it be math, music, sports, art, speaking, etc. Another is that they required a rounded education. Sports and fine arts were mandatory (but the sports were pass/fail, so the spastic among the students didn't have their gpa's destroyed as a result). <br /><br />Also, there was effectively no bullying. It was ruthlessly suppressed. But, interestingly, both the bully and the bullied got counseling - the later in order to be bully proofed. And, yes, it works.Bruce Haydenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10815293023158025662noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-35816560499350464662011-06-24T14:32:02.409-05:002011-06-24T14:32:02.409-05:00A talk show host yesterday pointed out that the pu...A talk show host yesterday pointed out that the purpose of a bureaucracy is to perpetuate and grow itself. The longer the bureaucracy has been around, the worse they become. <br /><br />Public schools are not strangers from this dynamic. They are run for the benefit of those within the bureaucracies, and not for the customers (i.e. the students and their parents). <br /><br />There are plenty of horror stories about public education, and here is one of mine. My secretary in AZ had three kids in the PHX school system. The school system got their federal money the first day of school. So, the school district made their cuts a couple of weeks later, yearly throwing a lot of their HS students each year. So, they got the advantage of being paid for those kids, without having to actually take up class space for them. Bonus all around, and everyone happy, except, of course, for the kids thrown our and their parents.<br /><br />Another thing that I saw there was the school system's use of credentialism. They all had those MSs and EdDs, etc. And, whenever the parents challenged them, would trot out their credentials, and essentially call the parents stupid and illiterate. Never mind that the educrats had failed to educate the kids. What was scary though was the extent that this disempowered those parents. <br /><br />WV:duckpen - one way of looking at public schools.Bruce Haydenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10815293023158025662noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-33393336401534367082011-06-24T14:29:18.967-05:002011-06-24T14:29:18.967-05:00For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what...For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what acronym <i>twicw</i> stood for and even went to go look it up...before I realized it was just <i>twice</i> misspelled.<br /><br />Ah, context. You are a stubborn bitch.Scott Mhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02459388007426664813noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-26774921719357722952011-06-24T14:22:21.470-05:002011-06-24T14:22:21.470-05:00I went to private schools and my children have all...I went to private schools and my children have all been educated in private schools. I dont mind paying twicw, once in the form of property taxes and once in the form of tuition, knowing that my kids are excellent writers, critical thinkers and deep and enthusiastic readers. In one sense i am happy that their poorly educated peers will not show as well as my children though i am sad for us as a country that we are satisfied with so little. The schools i attended and to which i sent my children had no interest in the input of the student body, nor of the parents for that matter, since they had been doing what they do and do well for quite a long while.Michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08258681007386089907noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-58974254919586998662011-06-24T14:03:36.577-05:002011-06-24T14:03:36.577-05:00So, GM, did U ever take a look at the KC, MO schoo...So, GM, did U ever take a look at the KC, MO school experiment c. 1986-2001?Seeing Redhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00338495289040972548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-41847401331722892972011-06-24T14:01:42.272-05:002011-06-24T14:01:42.272-05:00Cottage industry of fraud vs. public school fraud....Cottage industry of fraud vs. public school fraud.<br /><br /><br />They got a long way to go to catch up to our public schools.Seeing Redhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00338495289040972548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-6119409037818905542011-06-24T13:59:31.369-05:002011-06-24T13:59:31.369-05:00Dose said:
Why the hatred of Public Schools? I...Dose said:<br /><br /><i>Why the hatred of Public Schools? I've been a public school student my entire life. K-law school, if you will.<br /><br />I'm sure I've made your point for you in your mind, but rest assured some of us DO like the system</i>.<br /><br />Not surprisingly. But do you know if you like the system because the values that it espouses conform to your liberal beliefs, or your liberal beliefs are a result of programming by government workers?<br /><br />And, yes, a lot of us here would use you as a poster boy for the evils of public education.Bruce Haydenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10815293023158025662noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-34309540326181523132011-06-24T13:54:08.276-05:002011-06-24T13:54:08.276-05:00Anyone that can afford 30k per year to send their ...Anyone that can afford 30k per year to send their kid there doesn't need my help. Did you have a point?<br /><br />The Real Cost Of Public Schools<br /> Network NewsX Profile <br /><br /> WaPo<br />Sunday, April 6, 2008 <br /><br />We're often told that public schools are underfunded. In the District, the spending figure cited most commonly is $8,322 per child, but total spending is close to $25,000 per child -- on par with tuition at Sidwell Friends, the private school Chelsea Clinton attended in the 1990s.Seeing Redhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00338495289040972548noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-35926502818155526932011-06-24T13:43:00.759-05:002011-06-24T13:43:00.759-05:00Moneyshot quote from Carrie's cited article (1...Moneyshot quote from Carrie's cited article (11:13):<br /><br />"Current SS-10 Course: The SS-10 course as it currently exists does not fulfill the spirit of civic education. Using one quarter of SS-10 to teach the Constitution limited the amount of contemporary U.S. history we could teach."<br /><br /> Ah, seeeee: that damned Constitution was getting in the way of "fulfill[ing] the spirit of civic education."<br /><br /> It all falls into place . . . .Luciushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03938166025093103574noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-70086663692833838362011-06-24T13:31:54.684-05:002011-06-24T13:31:54.684-05:00Check this:
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?co...Check this:<br /><br />http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=Relevant&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=1<br /><br />Usage of "relevant" looks like the left side of a bell curve with the 1960s about halfway to the peak in 2000 (perhaps still rising).Fernandinandehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11253225431705407699noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-6499638507394985722011-06-24T13:29:39.748-05:002011-06-24T13:29:39.748-05:00Yeah, Garage, here's another glaring example o...<i>Yeah, Garage, here's another glaring example of voucher fraudsters that the Dems shut down in 2009</i><br /><br />If you think I support sending public dollars to Sidwell, I don't. Anyone that can afford 30k per year to send their kid there doesn't need my help. Did you have a point?garage mahalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06485491995866513686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-87343121214989519972011-06-24T13:24:51.675-05:002011-06-24T13:24:51.675-05:00Addendum:
As the schools chancellor, Joel I. Klei...Addendum:<br /><br /><i>As the schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein, has increased efforts to get rid of teachers the city deems ineffective, the number of teachers in rubber rooms has grown. There are now about 550, costing the city $30 million a year.</i><br /><br />Thirty million a year; pretty soon we're talking real money!Phil 314https://www.blogger.com/profile/04133300763922742206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-86789345679358204812011-06-24T13:23:18.900-05:002011-06-24T13:23:18.900-05:00Garage said;
Miami New Times investigation on Fla...Garage said;<br /><i> Miami New Times investigation on Fla. school voucher program: ‘a cottage industry of fraud and chaos’</i><br /><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/nyregion/16rubber.html" rel="nofollow">Well its a good thing public schools don't waste any money by giving it to criminals (or worse)!</a><br /><br /><i>The centers have been a source of embarrassment for both the Bloomberg administration and the United Federation of Teachers, as articles in newspapers and magazines detailed teachers running businesses out of the rubber rooms or dozing off for hours on end.</i>Phil 314https://www.blogger.com/profile/04133300763922742206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-62954914741381010042011-06-24T13:16:25.037-05:002011-06-24T13:16:25.037-05:00Well, there is relevance as in "relevant, MAN...Well, there is relevance as in "relevant, MAN" including racial equality, genderisms blah blah blah, and then there is *relevance* as in becoming fluent in Mandarin, problem solving for event-based coding, and biochem JUST SO YOU CAN SURVIVE IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY.jamboreehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10072654852275348264noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-78247581609923496512011-06-24T13:08:33.984-05:002011-06-24T13:08:33.984-05:00Multitasking is an illusion. Attention is a limite...Multitasking is an illusion. Attention is a limited resource. One can truly only attend to only one conscious task at a time. Productivity loss from rapid context switches (switching between tasks) is huge.<br /><br />If these teens are truly “always connected” then they’re never giving their full attention to anything.<br /><br />And if you actually want to learn something, you must give it your full attention.Peterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16099940931064117337noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-32430480094256272942011-06-24T13:06:19.705-05:002011-06-24T13:06:19.705-05:00Yeah, Garage, here's another glaring example o...Yeah, Garage, here's another glaring example of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidwell_Friends_School" rel="nofollow">voucher fraudsters</a> that the Dems shut down in 2009. <br /><br />Why to do you continue to beclown yourself?BJMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04447134335568803085noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-47482789250136156752011-06-24T13:04:12.827-05:002011-06-24T13:04:12.827-05:00Private industry wasting taxpayer money before the...<i>Private industry wasting taxpayer money before the government could.</i><br /><br />And wasted it is. One way around accountability to gauge performance in voucher schools? Just get rid of the exams that are used in public schools to assess it! Then the charter school can claim anything they want without having to show the taxpayers. <br /><br />"It's a MIRACLE!"garage mahalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06485491995866513686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-62861679168638388622011-06-24T12:58:12.352-05:002011-06-24T12:58:12.352-05:00The article is the kind of "so I decided to f...The article is the kind of "so I decided to find out" journalistic bunk I can't stand. Somebody paid this person for a junket to hang out at their old high school so they could tell us all this?<br /><br /> The "Brave New World" moment of making-out while scanning facebook is far more telling than any fatuous complaints from know-nothing teenagers about their designs on cracking the DJing market while Changing The World.<br /><br /> And god, the fatuous mental masturbating over the miracle of Sharing Study Notes. Not just like Study Notes of generations past, but formulated while IMing [who IMs anyway?] and playing Katy Perry and, and-- shared! not just with peers but, you know, "peers"-- their "friends" all over the world!<br /><br /> Cause Christ, I couldn't find the answers on wikipedia, bitch. Or just, you know, hack the teacher's Commodore 64 and put the answers on my iPad. Sheesh.Luciushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03938166025093103574noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-78752366859095235352011-06-24T12:50:15.197-05:002011-06-24T12:50:15.197-05:00That's terrible garage. Private industry wasti...That's terrible garage. Private industry wasting taxpayer money before the government could.<br /><br />Film at 11.<br /><br />Then again if the sacred public schools performed commensurate to what is spent on them, vouchers wouldn't be in demand. But it'd just easier to cry TAX THE RICH!!! and shake your blue fist.Hoosier Daddyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12872965118921894534noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-7354910558898882172011-06-24T12:49:12.590-05:002011-06-24T12:49:12.590-05:00Der Times-Artikel ist informativ.Der Times-Artikel ist informativ.Chip S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/13210586187250159751noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-30206298058460095802011-06-24T12:48:30.711-05:002011-06-24T12:48:30.711-05:00Let's back up that glib Boomer blame truck for...Let's back up that glib Boomer blame truck for minute, shall we?<br /><br />The majority of Boomers were not part of the hipster leftie crowd...you are confusing advertising/merchandising of the Boomers with political beliefs. <br /><br />In the 60's only about 30% of high school grads went to college. They went to work, married, had kids, and bought homes. Most of my non-hipster peers were apolitical as well, voting as their parents had done. Boring as shit shoulder-to-the-wheel stuff that deepened and solidified the middle class the WWII generation began and their hipster peers were/are so keen on destroying.<br /><br />Don't blame all of us for the left's excesses...we didn't embrace it then and don't do so now.BJMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04447134335568803085noreply@blogger.com