Capitol Hill Blue Forums Life and Moral Issues Education Shocking details of Atlanta cheating scandal

I have to agree. Teachers with tenure get transferred to failing schools and ultimately fired if test scores don't rise. Teachers without tenure are not asked back.

There's a lot pressure to perform for teachers. As a result, kids are no longer taught to think and reason, but are taught to master test taking.

A lot of today's "teaching" is a result of the failure of GW Bush's "No Child Left Behind."

Issy has nailed it...erm, framed the condition beautifully.

Here's why:

Parents no longer prep their kids for school. Parents, today, feel it is 100% the district's responsibility to teach the kid everything.

Parents can't even be bothered to send their kid to nursery school which has been shown to greatly improve the kids performance in school.

So much for planned parenthood.

(...and don't get me started on my just because you can breed rant... )

Job guarantee set to performance is a "set up?" That lady shouldn't be allowed to teach anyone. She's an utter disgrace if that truly is her position.

It's the same with the farmer that was given a sack of rotten seed corn, a broken stick and a half acre of lava bed for a field. He felt it was unfair to compare his production with that of the farmer with a ton of quality seed, two tractors, three laborers and 200 acres of irrigated alluvial farm land. Just another lazy whinner.

Money gets you access, does it not? It's the American way.

That is, in fact, not correct, Rick.

Super Crunchers, Ian Ayres, Bantam Books, New York, New York, 2007, p. 165.

Teachers HATE DI, not because it works, but because it effectively negates all of their education. Quite literally, anyone who can read aloud legibly can use DI to successfully teach children at any grade level. The lessons are completely scripted.

BUT! you say, that makes the kids into automatons. Not so, sayeth Ayres. A major study of teacing methods was undertaken y the Office of Education and the Office of Economic Opportunity beginning back in 1967. Project Follow Through studied 79,000 children in 180 low-income communities for twenty years. One of the teaching methods studied was DI.

ibid. p. 161.

The Lord knows I am not one to praise G. W. Bush overmuch, but he got it right on this one. Our educational system suffers in this case because of a failure to recognize that carefully engineered instruction can be the best thing for our children, and because of a failure to recognize success where it exists because the livelihood and egos of the teachers is threatened.

I have asked several teachers in elementary and middle schools what they think of DI and, to a person, they all got nervous, clammed up, and in one case just asked me to leave. They KNOW it works on many levels, but they will not admit it because it negates their reason for being and proves that a degree in education is not necessary to teach well.

NCLB is not failing you, your teachers are.

You decide: Pro and Cons of NCLB

Our public schools are filled with regular kids. Their average IQ is 100, half of them are above 100 – half below / some are gifted, some are slow, some are achievers, some are dreamers - just like in real life. Our schools turn no children away. Special Education kids with learning disabilities are mainstreamed. Yet the NCLB AYP goals fantastically require 100% of a schools student body to be performing at a level of proficient (grade B or better).

Not every kid is geared for college. Many of the kids are better suited for vocational school - yet there is no room in NCLB for such studies which ultimately discounts each kid's individuality.

Education Reform (NCLB) - the fix is in:

• High-Stakes Testing Doesn't Work
  
• Merit Pay Doesn't Work
  
• Charter Schools Are a Net Negative
  
• Most Turnaround Claims Don't Pan Out

You gotta click the linky-dink to get to the details of each bullet point.

Com'on, they were cheating for the children. I mean why teach a child to read when you can just collect a paycheck?

Stuff that works, when it comes to education, is pretty well defined, I think. First, students must put in a FULL day (minimum 8 hours) of school a day, 5 days a week, with no summer vacation. The second thing is that money for school should be attached to the student and the parent then have the right, and obligation, to make sure that the child attends the best school available, based on its past success. This has worked in every country it has been done in.

What I find interesting is that none of the above seems to be open for discussion. Instead we have teacher unions supporting cheaters and, generally, a failed system of education. We have government spending more than virtually any other nation on this failed system of education. Best of all we have, in many cases, parents supporting the failure! Please note, they only room I have left for parents is to decide on the school then they should just get the hell out of the way (I am not a big supporter of parent involvement in education).

I guess I should also mention that even though we are spending all this money on a failed system, in many cases the physical schools are also falling down, there is a lack of supplies and books, etc. so, I guess, the other main expense is bureaucracy and teachers. What this seems to mean is that the current system is just screwed.

On the other hand we have some of the best higher education in the world. Those institutions educate many foreigners and aliens which we then throw out of the country. This, in turn, means that many of our own companies must setup, say, in Canada, which tends to only care that folks are working and paying taxes - we have higher, more moral, standards.....