Money for bricks and mortar is always easier to spend than money for salaries, equipment and expendables.

So you'd say that the child needs to stay home until they are smart enough to go to school?

If I were American education Tsar I would eliminate classes on Shakespeare's "Julius Ceasar". "You can read that $hit on your own time boy!"

Just kidding.....maybe.

Reading, Writing, Math, and gym. Two hours a day each, five days a week.

We run several afterschool peer tutoring programs in inner-city Denver. They seem to work quite well.


Look, IMO all the tools are in place for kids to get a worthwhile education. All that leaves as the problem are the parents and the kids use of those tools.

So what if you are the smart kid, and the teacher teaches the "other" kids things you already know. Deal with it, or go up a grade (tool in place). Stop whining or they'll kick your a$$ at recess.

People want all kids treated the same, but that cannot (and should not) be done. There are smart kids and dumb kids. Fat kids and popular kids. The dumb kid shouldn't get to pass just because he should be treated like everyone else.....should he?

Read what I said.

This is some of it......

And this is the rest.....Am I missing something here.

It looks like you're being deliberately obtuse.

That's part of it. Read the part where I said that children shouldn't be held back if they perform at a higher level or pushed forward if the don't get something. See how they work together? If the artifice of grade levels is removed from education in the developmental years then children can be taught according to their developmental characteristics rather than the dictates of school board budgets--which is the main reason that schools are arranged as they are. Why do we have a thousand kids in the same school? Economies of scale. Not because there is an inherit benefit of educational concentration camps.

The same argument holds true for grade levels. Instead of the educational system designed and run for the benefit of taxpayers and managers, how about a truly radical notion of running an educational system so that children get the best education they are capable of receiving? Small, neighborhood schools and small classes. By running small neighborhood schools, parents play an important role in the system. By having small classes children receive more individualized instruction.

Bot

About the article that started this thread, is the issue really about a mandate for inflated grades or perhaps is it about a new college professor suffering issues of insecurity coupled with examples of aggressive students who know how to pressure a weak person, in this case a college professor, for what they want? Doesn't the process described serve as a model-like microcosm for the very building blocks of our 2 tiered society?

Two Tiered
 

Tracy. What do you mean by a two tiered society?

- Peter.

Neighboourhood schools
 

Botnst wrote...

>Small, neighborhood schools and small classes.<

This might work in some areas, though as long as the government remains in the equation I have my doubts. However the situation is not as simple as that, at least not countrywide.

For example where I work we have so many illegal immigrants that a school designed for 500 kids K-8 was stuffed with 1700. We had classes being held on the floors in the hallways and in the cafeteria. So we had to build a whole second campus just down the road to take the excess which has all the K-5 kids now, (about a thousand) most of whome dont speak english with all the associated problems that causes.

Already both schools are again over filled and we have nowhere to build another campus and two of our other schools are now experiencing the same problem.

- Peter.

My wife teaches in an ESL school, though the magnitude of the problem in AZ, NM, CA, and TX far outwelghs the problems in LA. As a taxpayer and homeowners, I realize exactly what the problem is: I don't want my millage to increase and I don't want my sales tax to increase. Therefore, the school adjusts by seeking economies of scale in some sort of balance with the need of the kids for an education. Some folks want to get more money from the Fed, a stupid idea. Fed dollars get filted going up and coming down. It's much more cost effective to spend the local dollars on local issues.

Obviously, there is more money out there for education than gets into public school else taxpayers wouldn't be able to pay local taxes and also set-up and maintain private schools. This is becoming an increasingly 2-teired educational system. As private schools thrive, resistence increases for increased property taxes for school. Why should a homeowner be penalized twice? It's atough nut to crack. The people who pay the ultrimate price for it all aren't taxpayers, it's the children who are getting screwed.

This all sounds great.

Except for the parents who don't give a damn, and that one kid every couple of years who isn't going to get it and will be a twenty-seven year old sophomore.

A system wide overhaul will never be tried. The status quo works well for those with the influence.

Maybe Karl Marx was right........


Something we totally agree on.

"The onrush of technology largely explains the gradual development of a "two-tier labor market" in which those at the bottom lack the education and the professional/technical skills of those at the top and, more and more, fail to get comparable pay raises, health insurance coverage, and other benefits. Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households."

Source: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html

About what, in particular? I am unfamiliar with Marx in general and had no idea he had promoted some sort of educational program.