[getmeouttaPalmBeachCounty_FL]

Also from their website:

The figure below shows how communication skills in listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing, and representing are at the core of all academic learning. Teaching communication skills through appropriate special language instruction and effective content area instruction accelerates the learning of English and promotes the development of higher-order thinking skills. NOTE - If you have a browser for use by the visually impaired, please contact the TEA Curriculem Department to obtain the information conveyed in the graphical image.

[getmeouttaPalmBeachCounty_FL]

Perhaps, the brilliant educators who envisioned this pilot program might use a dictionary in the future to ensure the correct spelling of "big words" like c-u-r-r-i-c-u-l-u-m.

[ccmay]

My wife started college as an education major, but quit in large part because of meaningless edu-babble like that. She also realized that her fellow el-ed majors (with a few exceptions, of course) were easily the academically weakest group of students on campus.

I say these two observations have some correlation. In many locales, the average parent is going to be smarter than the average teacher, so I think they use gibberish to mask this reality and intimidate parents. It's not like medical jargon or legalese that actually has a purpose and meaning. It's just smoke being blown by an insecure guild.

-ccm

[Robert A Cook PE]

Gosh, that's a pretty label.

Doesn't mean anything, but it's still a pretty diagram for abureacrat to get paid making.

[pepperdog]

Ah, I know what that is. It's obviously the Union Label. Remember the little ditty, "Look for the Union Label"?

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

While language skills are very important; they aren't as essential as this model claims. Models like this are prevalent in education schools -- mainly because most teachers were better language arts students than they were mathematics or science students.

A great deal of mathematics, especially at the elementary school level, can be learned by hands-on manipulation of physical objects, such as blocks. More advanced math can be learned by manipulation of abstract symbols.

Similarly, science is best learned by "doing" science -- not reading and writing about it.

These hands-on methods are not popular among teachers, because they require a deeper knowledge of the subject than simply assigning workbook exercises. Nevertheless, hands-on learning (Google the phrase) is a powerful instructional method that all students could benefit from. Children having difficulty with the language could be taught a great deal of math, science, physical education, art and music without delay, by using these methods.