Posted on 07/06/2011 7:07:40 AM PDT by KeyLargo
chicagotribune.com
Illinois erases state's last writing exam 11th-graders will no longer take the test — saving state $2.4 million
By Tara Malone, Tribune reporter
July 6, 2011
Illinois high school juniors no longer will be tested on writing skills during the state's standardized tests every spring, eliminating the last Illinois writing exam and shaving about $2.4 million amid budgetary shortfalls.
While students might welcome being spared the sweating over topic sentences and persuasive verbs, many educators worry the essential skill could get short shrift in Illinois classrooms as a result.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
No static from me. You summed it up well. I would add there is no incentive for students to do well on a test. They are going to get promoted anyway. If they don’t do well on a test, it’s the teacher who is punished. A teacher teaches for a future they may not see. This economy was not ruined by teachers. For those who have intelligence and want to learn, our teachers do the job. For others, teaching has no meaning.
If we are even hit by an EMP we are so screwed in more ways than one.
My mother went to school in the 1950’s in an extremely poor part of the country. She has only a high school education, but her writing skills are light years beyond most university “educated” kids these days. Her school probably spent a few hundred dollars per year per student. Very good arguments can be made that the quality of an average high school education in the 50’s and before is much more valuable than the average “University” education today. How were they able to achieve these things before the unions, and the tens of thousands of dollars, and the “improved” teaching methods, in buildings without air conditioning, hot and cold running water, computers, and (those ancient worthless text books).
I am from your mother’s generation.
Public grade and high school teachers during that era taught to a standard that was well above what is now referred to as a ‘college education’.
I have to say, Newbie, that your post is beyond insipid. Talk about a liberal mindset. You wrote quite a lot and in the end said nothing of honest substance. The idea that there should be no proficiency testing means your job got a f@$kload easier. Save the money and spend it hiring more teachers that are better prepared to teach students writing proficiency(?!)...and then we just have to take the liberal education establishment's word for it when they claim that that students are indeed improving? Yeah, right!
What a circular-logic-jerk. A simple net search gave me some interesting numbers in regards to education spending/compensation in Ill. So let's go to some facts and not this koolaid crap you are peddling. A simple net search gave me some interesting numbers in order to assess spending in Illinois over the last ten years that are actual empirical data comparing FSY 2003-04 to 2008-09:
Enrollment: 2,116,219 + 1.6%
K-12 Teachers 135,635 + 6.3%
Per-Pupil-Spending 10,835 +25.2
Per-Pupil-Compensation 10,398 +46.4%
As you can see the education spending in Illinois has increased exponentially in the compensation end, particularly on the bureaucrats front. The number of teachers vs. enrollment is almost a 4-1 increase in favor of more teachers. Yada, yada.
Now when you actually get down to the Chicago numbers you have a -3.0% in enrollment and a -6.3 in the number of teachers. Sounds great, huh? But then we look at per-pupil spending in the same period is up 30.7% while per-pupil compensation (teacher salaries, medical, yada) is up 80.4%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just chew on those facts for a little while.
Bottom line: 2.4 million in cuts is literally a drop in the bucket when the annual budget is 22,000 x a million. And for what long term costs?
Your excuses are anything but honest. As Fonzie used to say - "Sit on it!"
Two corrections - I forgot that you stated were out of the high school game now. Whoops. I forgot that you thought teachers in MANDATORY K-12 schools should be paid as much as professors at college/universities that have VOLUNTARY enrollment.
The other is that the annual education budget is around 11 billion. So 2.4 million in savings is STILL a drop in the bucket when compared to a budget of 11,000 million.
I am grateful for my public school education all those years ago. I had many memorable and terrific teachers, and even learned from the ones I wasn't crazy about.
So, yeah, take some money from a testing program that probably didn’t have any useful effect anyway, and put it back into education. I’m for it, and don’t see it as a erosion of standards.
Nowadays, 'putting it back into education' really means more emphasis on social engineering rather than educating.
It is no secret that liberals have hijacked the teaching profession. Educators now teach with certainty that global warming is a real phenomena, as well as environmental "truths" that aren't even close to being factual. Young, impressionable minds are captive to teachers who revere and idolize someone as flimsy and fraudulent as Obama.
In many, but perhaps not all schools, educating no longer involves critical thinking, reasoning and logic, but rather creating group-think. The underlying tenet of socialism/Marxism/liberalism is - the loss of the individual and elevation and primacy of the group.
Depending on the study you read, we're now at a point in higher education that one in four, or one in three college freshmen need remedial instruction in basic subjects, mostly math and English. How did this happen? The incremental erosion of the teaching profession, and of the primary and secondary educational systems. You can make the same argument for higher education: students at the mercy of tenured liberal professors. Higher education churns out teachers who, like their professors in college, don't encourage critical thinking and don't actually teach. The last thing nanny-staters want is more strong, self-reliant, intelligent people in the world. They want good followers, and the educational system in this country is devoted to producing as many of them as possible.
There are no easy answers or solutions. Charter schools and homeschooling are options for parents who want nothing to do with public school indoctrination for their children.
...and of course I would agree that there are still many good teachers left - the ones who tough it out because they love to teach and they have an impact. But I’m not convinced that they are the majority of teachers.
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