Happens when all that's taught is junk science. There are no absolutes in junk science and that makes it difficult for children to grasp.
Listen... If you love your children you will teach them yourself; PERIOD!
And....the parents want these failed students to be able to participate in the commencement ceremonies so they won’t be embarrased.
The state held a forum for science teachers to ask questions to the people who made the test. During the Q/A session, the person from the state got extremely angry, stood up and stormed out, refusing to answer any more questions. The questions? Things such as:
Q:Where did you field test these questions?
A: Elite public schools in the Atlanta area, with 98% graduation rates.
Q: How is that a real cross reference of the entire state? Our county is rural and only about 20% college bound.
A: Uh...NO MORE QUESTIONS!!
The truth of the matter, the TAKS test are the failure in public schools. Teaching for the test instead of teaching for the student. So many are failing to graduate in our public school system it’s a tragedy. I will get flamed for this but George Bush really screwed up a lot of children here in Texas. TAKS need to be dumped and get back to real teaching.
ping
Government education, ladies and gentlemen.
district profile
hispanic 55.1%
african American 27.1%
white/anglo 15.9%
Disgraceful. If any business turned out 60% failures in their goods or services, they’d soon be OUT of business.
Instead, the govt forces us to subsidize these puppy mills.
We’ve had beefs with the public school system for years.
We’ve pulled our 4th grade daughters out and they are in a great private Christian school.
However, we are still dealing with my son in a public middle school. He has 1 more year to go, and then off to private for high school.
He has had an okay education. It’s been lacking in history/science. Finally, in middle school he’s getting some good science.
My son had to answer a survey yesterday about school. One of the questions was “Is school challenging”. My son said “no”, and he’s taking high school algebra in 7th grade.
We’re also having a problem with one of his teachers.
The school closed the media center with the only announcements about it being closed over their PA system. My son never heard the announcements (his class talks too much).
He had to read 2 books and then had a choice to take an easy computer test on the books or write 2 long reports about the books. He went in the day before it was due to take the test, and the media center was closed. He tried the next day but the computers were full.
He told his teacher his problem. Lots of kids had similar problems. He asked if he could e-mail the report to her, and she said no. Out of 100 points she gave him 0. He was a straight A student (going on his 3 semester).
My husband and I e-mailed her about the situation, she wouldn’t change her policy.
We met with the teacher and the asst. principal, and nothing was changed.
They think that announcing something over a PA is adequate communication.
They think it wouldn’t be fair to let my son write the reports. He would have special treatment. We said we think all of the kids that were affected by the media center closure should be allowed to write the reports.
His teacher said he shouldn’t have waited until the last day. I told my daughters’ private school principal this and he said “Well, he’s a 7th grade boy. That’s what they do.”
We’ve had beefs with the public school system for years.
We’ve pulled our 4th grade daughters out and they are in a great private Christian school.
However, we are still dealing with my son in a public middle school. He has 1 more year to go, and then off to private for high school.
He has had an okay education. It’s been lacking in history/science. Finally, in middle school he’s getting some good science.
My son had to answer a survey yesterday about school. One of the questions was “Is school challenging”. My son said “no”, and he’s taking high school algebra in 7th grade.
We’re also having a problem with one of his teachers.
The school closed the media center with the only announcements about it being closed over their PA system. My son never heard the announcements (his class talks too much).
He had to read 2 books and then had a choice to take an easy computer test on the books or write 2 long reports about the books. He went in the day before it was due to take the test, and the media center was closed. He tried the next day but the computers were full.
He told his teacher his problem. Lots of kids had similar problems. He asked if he could e-mail the report to her, and she said no. Out of 100 points she gave him 0. He was a straight A student (going on his 3 semester).
My husband and I e-mailed her about the situation, she wouldn’t change her policy.
We met with the teacher and the asst. principal, and nothing was changed.
They think that announcing something over a PA is adequate communication.
We also found out that she let other kids e-mail her the reports. She also said she doesn’t even remember talking to my son about the reports.
Now she says it wouldn’t be fair to let my son write the reports. He would have special treatment. We said we think all of the kids that were affected by the media center closure should be allowed to write the reports.
She was on her way to Dallas to meet a group of science teachers to take them to Galveston so they could hop a cruise boat, tour offshore in the Gulf somewhere, and admire the diversity of its marine ecosystem.
I told her that my daughters, then in junior high, were studying the planetary geology, dinosaurs and archeology in the honors science program in Midland, Texas. She smiled and said that this due to her fine efforts and then mistakenly asked me what I thought of her program.
I unloaded for about the next five minutes. "What generally worthless garbage to thrust on their tender brains," I explained. "When will my children become astronauts, or paleontologists, or grave robbers. Wouldn't it be better for the children to learn about more mundane practical things like how internal combustion engines work, how electricity is generated and is used to light houses and run motors, how computers process data, how hearts pump blood, or what happens to wood when you strike a match."
I told her that fortunately, as a degreed engineer, I could (and did) sit down with my children and overcome the limitations of a public school education in Texas. "But millions of children in Texas do not have that option. What about them," I asked.
The Twit-wit explained that it was more important in her opinion for the children to find school interesting enough to stay class and eventually graduate than to learn anything practical.
The article you posted clearly shows the results of her short-sighted policy.
The gov’t school system is broken. John Taylor Gatto has written about this extensively. I would encourage Freepers to download his podcasts and/or read his lectures. His insight and lessons learned from 30 years of teaching in Manhattan public schools is a warning and a condemnation of what we are doing to our children with a Prussian-based system of schooling.
John Taylor Gatto references:
- Speech transcripts
http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Gatto.html
- “The Underground History of American Education” – final chapter summary http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/18s.htm
- Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto
- Download MP3 audio lectures:
http://www.altruists.org/downloads/by_subject/others/education/
By the way, I teach a high school geography class and routinely make statements like "evolution is only a theory". When questioned about how the world began, if it wasn't the Big Bang, I just say shrug my shoulders and simply say, "God created it". My students smile and nod. I've yet to hear from the administration.
60% flunked science?
I’ll bet 90% of them would flunk American History. How many would flunk sex ed?
I think you are right on the mark. The foolishness of our elites can be explained by their social distance from the scene. So long as they have their maids and gardeners and can fill their shops with sweat-labor.
Public schools would suck regardless.
The whole story starts here:
http://wigu.com/overcompensating/2006/05/illiterate-princess-part-1.html
