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  #11  
Old 07-07-2011, 11:44 AM
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flacaltenn flacaltenn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BlueStreak View Post
Excellent question. One could also transpose the monikers, "free market capitalists" and "Public Service Employees" and still have asked an excellent question.

Dave
That was the whole point of picking this topic.. I've actually given a list of all the motivators that prevent profit and selfish motives from dominating private enterprise. But here are some again..

1) Public Relations.
2) Competition for market share.
3) Customer Confidence
4) Liability and litigation by customers, suppliers, and innocent bystanders
5) Stakeholder Interests and direction.
6) Contractual obligations.

Think you can get a REFUND from the Atlanta school system?
Think they care about competition?
Think the stakeholders can actually dictate the punishment for the guilty?
Think there any contract that will cost them funding because they fudged the scores?

There MAY be lawsuits but they will have to brought by politicized entities in the govt that are favorable to the established school interests.

Meanwhile the kids are doomed. Because it's NOT the silly wimpy proficiency tests that are the problem. The problem is that the curricula doesn't emphasize INDIVIDUAL competence of any kind. The public schools have long shifted from INDIVIDUAL performance to group and communal performance.

I can't tell you how many times my daughter claimed she couldn't do her homework because it was a GROUP assignment. Almost EVERY project involves several students partitioning the work amongst them. Because my daughter has some artistic talent -- she was always picked to be the illustrator. NEVER saw her doing any research and rarely contributed to the written or calculated report. Makes it easier on the teachers to grade. Teaches that valuable socialist village mentality. What's not to like? That was until we moved to Tenn. Still saw it -- but it wasn't the exclusive methodology.

No wonder they have to teach to the test.. The INDIVIDUAL student gets to float thru otherwise...

Last edited by flacaltenn; 07-07-2011 at 11:47 AM.
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  #12  
Old 07-07-2011, 11:52 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CarlV View Post
Maybe we should cut some more tax money from public education and give more tax cuts to corporations, that fixes everything.
And maybe hand out vouchers so the rich can take the edge off their private school tuitions because our public schools can't possibly need the money.

Carl
Real helpful Carl.. My uncle/aunt in the NYC school system (retired) will tell you how much those Fed funds meant to them. The compliance cost was at least HALF of what the Feds kick in. And what the FEDs kick in is actually miniscule anyway. It all just vaporizes somewhere..

Forget the rich.. How about we just REFUND the tuition money to those Atlantans and let THEM decide where they want their kids to go? Why can't they PUNISH this kind of incompetence with their tuition?

It's not a game to those parents whogiveashit.. They don't have YEARS to debate and tinker with the system. For them it's a TODAY kind of problem. And you're horseshitting around with politics...
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  #13  
Old 07-07-2011, 12:36 PM
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BlueStreak BlueStreak is offline
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I restate for those who are relative newcomers here.

I hesitate to post in education forums because, unfortunately, I have no dogs in that fight. (Although I do pay for it, regardless.)

My comments were directed at the public vs. private issue.

Flac, I understand where you're coming from. However, I look at it this way;

I see the ever increasing marriage between government and the corporate world.
I hear the arguments for giving corporations more freedom and reducing the influence of government in our lives. Quite often these arguments, at face value, actually make good sense...........Then I go to work and watch how the corporate buffoons do things, and DON'T get fired, or punished in any way. As a matter of fact, most of the time they close ranks, find a scapegoat to blame and protect each other no matter how bad they f**k up. Practically have to murder someone in front of a t.v. camera to get fired. Anybody who has worked for large corporations for most of their life should know precisely what I am talking about.

Imperfect as it is, at least in a Democracy I have my one little vote to use for/against politicians. I can speak out against my public leaders and not lose my income. In the corporate world no one, outside the boardroom, gets to vote for anyone or anything. And rarely, if ever, does anyone get to buck authority. It's top down oligarchy......a "Good ol' Boy network" far more tightly knit than Congress or the Whitehouse will ever be.

Run the government like a business?

Not if I have anything to say about it.

As I see it, the problem is that we have gotten too far from Democracy.
To far from Lincolns "...government of the people, by the people and for the people..."

Let the corporatists take over and watch what happens. Heck, some would say we're already there.

Dave
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Last edited by BlueStreak; 07-07-2011 at 12:41 PM.
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  #14  
Old 07-07-2011, 12:50 PM
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flacaltenn flacaltenn is offline
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7httv2yXvhM
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  #15  
Old 07-07-2011, 03:12 PM
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flacaltenn flacaltenn is offline
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Don't care how you do it.. Just HELP that woman in the YouTube clip..

She doesn't have time to spar with us over politics.. It's deadly serious and we've got folks blaming corporations and the rich.. I'd say that those folks have an ability to ignore her plight that just SCREAMS racism...
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  #16  
Old 07-07-2011, 04:05 PM
noonereal noonereal is offline
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I did not read the entire thread but did someone suggest that we run the government as a business?

If so, maybe rethink that position.
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  #17  
Old 07-07-2011, 04:59 PM
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As Rob (Merrylander) said, we're fortunate to live in an area with some of the best public schools in the nation. They give the very best private schools a run for their money.

That said, the age old adage "what gets measured gets managed" is the obvious source of the problems with the ridiculous "No Child" law. Whoever thought that schools wouldn't simply "teach to the test" or outright cheat are simply nuts.
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  #18  
Old 07-07-2011, 09:14 PM
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FinnBow: Welcome back to Road Warrior country from Sound of Music country...

Quote:
That said, the age old adage "what gets measured gets managed" is the obvious source of the problems with the ridiculous "No Child" law. Whoever thought that schools wouldn't simply "teach to the test" or outright cheat are simply nuts.
Nobody can argue that those tests are difficult. Nobody can argue that they don't represent the very MINIMUM expectations. We THOUGHT those dismal results were rising. Now we have reason to doubt that.

There is LESS chance of cooking the books with the NAEP test. It is the ONLY useful tool I've EVER seen come out of the Dept of Ed. Take a look for yourself...

http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ush...y_2010_report/

http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/mat...#tabsContainer

8th Grade math --- (I aced the sample test). Anyone want to do History?

Quote:
Marty has 6 red pencils, 4 green pencils, and 5 blue pencils. If he picks out one pencil without looking, what is the probability that the pencil he picks will be green?

A. 1 out of 3
B. 1 out of 4
C. 1 out of 15
D. 4 out of 15


Megan drew a rectangle that has an area of 24 square centimeters. Which of the following could be the dimensions of her rectangle?

A. 2 centimeters by 12 centimeters
B. 3 centimeters by 9 centimeters
C. 4 centimeters by 20 centimeters
D. 6 centimeters by 6 centimeters
E.12 centimeters by 12 centimeters
Well reported results. A correct way to measure academic achievement. And the alternate to "measuring" is ________ FinnBow?

What are we so afraid of when you "teach to the test"? That they might miss some multicultural, politically correct indoctrination? And how can we trust the whole enterprise when we expect (as you implied) that teachers/admins "would outright cheat"? Justified because Bush signed it? Or Teddy Kennedy wrote it? They were cooking test scores BEFORE THE NAEP test or NCLB...

The system is completely f'd up. Structurally rotten to the core. And parents that do care- like the mom in that YouTube link are angry beyond belief..
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  #19  
Old 07-08-2011, 10:33 AM
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piece-itpete piece-itpete is offline
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I did history

Aced both 8th and 12th. Although I sweated a little on one 12th question.

http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/testyourself.asp

The reason for the tests in the first place were, there were kids graduating that were functionally illiterate.

Pete
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  #20  
Old 07-14-2011, 09:52 AM
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I am privileged to teach in one of the best PS's in the Baltimore area (suburb). My take on this whole problem (it goes on everywhere, but Atlanta is a very large district).

1. Teachers are wrongly being required to administer stupid standardized tests. I teach physics and this sort of testing has/will not make it to that level. Besides, my tests are much more difficult and involved than those tests would be anyway.

2. Teachers are wrongly being held accountable for a student's success when students come into a classroom with a trail of teaching/learning history that may be either regurgitative or worse. You see a student for what, <2hrs/week and you are supposed to overcome urban homelife, social life, personal life, and all manner of other things that occupy a modern urban teen? Is it serious? Yes. Can a teacher reasonably make an academic impact on such a teen? Sometimes. But without home support, there is little hope. It's a thing about our entertainment-driven culture, and the need to assign blame and accountability to someone else. We are an off-loading people, on the whole. Shame, really.

3. As soon as you make pay, job security, and standardized testing the ONLY factors (it is no longer about individuals... it's about databases and statistics in an dizzying number of schools and districts). WTF? No wonder passion and creativity is losing in the profession. I see it all of the time in my own school... zombie-administered lessons, 20-year-old lessons still being used, speaking AT students rather than dialoging WITH students... the list goes on....

4. Money, money, money. Vying to be the academic best in everything. Being all things to all people. AP courses for all!, they say. Everyone MUST be prepared to go to college!, they say. Something is going to break in a scary way. Wait... that garment is starting to unravel now!

Since the 80's, and accelerated through the 00's, PC-nonsense has really been problematic

All of this would boil down to the following working world analogy...
Imagine that you are given a small budget to manage your department in a competitive company. You are given a new workforce every year (or half-year, depending...) who may or may not have had the required training and skills to do their jobs. But you're bright and can help them learn on the job. A fight breaks out. You get it under control, but you can't fire them for the act. The parent of a few come in from time to time to remind you that their son/daughter is not the problem; you are with your inadequate ways to help them. Wait.. is there someone over there dealing and using? Well, I CAN fire them for that! Down some on my staff, so we'll just all work harder and faster. Need some more capital to fund it. No? OK.. I'll make due. Meanwhile, I need to incorporate these several new ideas from outsiders as well as insiders who have a financial interest in my using their program. And I see that I will be accountable for the numbers. On top of that, my boss has told me that I need to cover another department's meeting from time to time, oversee the cafeteria at lunch, and organize and monitor some out-of-work activities... for morale building.

We are getting behind now... those other companies (countries) are funding staffs and their development. The corporate culture over there is supportive of having everyone succeed in WHAT THEY SHOW APTITUDE IN. What? Tracking? It's utterly unAmerican! I will have to fudge the numbers a bit to come in on-time and on-budget but thy shall be done, by golly! Now I'm caught. I will go to another company and make 2-3x what I made here, and with no work taken home.

Meanwhile, back at the manager training institute (colleges), there is no one to take the now-open position. So let's consolidate two departments into one and make due. And so it goes...



It's out of control from all of the corporate modeling, legal crap, funding problems, entitlement issues, and testing, testing, testing. And what does one do when the patient, who continues to be abused, gets more cuts and wounds? You apply more band aids, of course! Did I mention all of the testing going on? It's no wonder that all of the wonder of the profession, the process of learning, and the world... all of it is evaporating and becoming more drudgery than joy for an awful lot of educators in the trenches. I wonder what Socrates and his Society would think of American education in its current state?

I would probably enter the profession if doing it all over again because I love the wonder of the things mentioned. BUT, I would have to be much more choosy in where I go nowadays in order to insulate myself from the free-for-all.

Regards,
Tyler

Last edited by tybrad; 07-14-2011 at 11:24 AM.
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