Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Third Party?
Washington warned us about political parties (they drove him out of politics) and he warned us about foreign alliances. I heard on the radio today that the approval rating for Congress is at 11%. How can a nation survive the political power politics we now are struggling with? The leading Democratic front-runner has never been in control of anything. . . .no experience running a business, no having to sweat it out day in and day out to meet a payroll, pay the bills; no experience as governor, secretary of state, heck, township supervisor. We may elect a person whose experience is two terms in the Senate, I'm not sure that experience gives you the reality check necessary to run the country. Don't get me wrong, I don't see the other political party as having any great options. We need a flashier Ross Perot, I know, I know, third party candidates don't win but at least they can be honest. Remember Ross talking about that "sucking sound" if NAFTA passed? That sound of jobs leaving America, I may be wrong but it sure appears to me that our manufacturing jobs (the ones that paid a livable wage) have, for the most part, left.
We have the interstate manufacturing jobs, you know, the little companies all up and down the interstate leading into cities that used to be home to the big manufacturing companies that paid decent wages. Now we have multiple small manufacturing companies that pay smaller wages (except to the owners who build huge homes with their profits) and they send their products off to companies like Caterpillar who used to make them in house but now to satisfy stock-holders they farm out that work. I'm sorry for digressing. We need a third party candidate, honest, working class background, not a Democrat or Republican but the best of both. We can surely find someone in this country who is fiscally conservative but willing to help the poor, willing to protect our resources, willing to think outside the box to get more dollars to our ailing National Park system. I think we can balance fiscal responsibility and social responsibility but I don't think the top candidates in either party will lift a finger to change the current mess.
One final comment regarding education (see previous post). Illinois has two wonderful days of testing at the high school level. Day one is the ACT and day two is called work-keys (I think). Work keys is a wonderful example of the state dictating a test. My department co-chair, who shall remain nameless but who has two advanced degrees and is a National Board Certified Teacher, and I took the sample level 4 (out of 7) reading test. The sample consisted of reading a memorandum from some business (remember work keys are about real life working environment examples and we have a lot of morons running businesses who can't write a clear paragraph so we have to train our students to read random moronic paragraphs so they can work for these moronic companies that can't communicate in clear, simple English) and then answering ONE question about the reading. My co-chair read the paragraph, the answer to the question was clear except for one problem . . . the correct answer was not one of the choices! I independently took the same practice test, same situation, the answer was clear but it isn't a choice. Not allowing ourselves to give up we took the sample to the chair of the English department and asked for their opinion. Easy to read paragraph, the answer jumped right out at them (same as it did to us) BUT the answer that three teachers (dept. chairs with nearly 50 years of combined teaching experience, graduate degrees from Illinois State and Bradley University) selected as CLEARLY being correct was not even an option. The other wonderful thing about the work keys practice booklet is that the state of Illinois did not give us the correct answer with an explanation so we might understand where our error in logic appeared. It's time for change at the state level as well.
We have the interstate manufacturing jobs, you know, the little companies all up and down the interstate leading into cities that used to be home to the big manufacturing companies that paid decent wages. Now we have multiple small manufacturing companies that pay smaller wages (except to the owners who build huge homes with their profits) and they send their products off to companies like Caterpillar who used to make them in house but now to satisfy stock-holders they farm out that work. I'm sorry for digressing. We need a third party candidate, honest, working class background, not a Democrat or Republican but the best of both. We can surely find someone in this country who is fiscally conservative but willing to help the poor, willing to protect our resources, willing to think outside the box to get more dollars to our ailing National Park system. I think we can balance fiscal responsibility and social responsibility but I don't think the top candidates in either party will lift a finger to change the current mess.
One final comment regarding education (see previous post). Illinois has two wonderful days of testing at the high school level. Day one is the ACT and day two is called work-keys (I think). Work keys is a wonderful example of the state dictating a test. My department co-chair, who shall remain nameless but who has two advanced degrees and is a National Board Certified Teacher, and I took the sample level 4 (out of 7) reading test. The sample consisted of reading a memorandum from some business (remember work keys are about real life working environment examples and we have a lot of morons running businesses who can't write a clear paragraph so we have to train our students to read random moronic paragraphs so they can work for these moronic companies that can't communicate in clear, simple English) and then answering ONE question about the reading. My co-chair read the paragraph, the answer to the question was clear except for one problem . . . the correct answer was not one of the choices! I independently took the same practice test, same situation, the answer was clear but it isn't a choice. Not allowing ourselves to give up we took the sample to the chair of the English department and asked for their opinion. Easy to read paragraph, the answer jumped right out at them (same as it did to us) BUT the answer that three teachers (dept. chairs with nearly 50 years of combined teaching experience, graduate degrees from Illinois State and Bradley University) selected as CLEARLY being correct was not even an option. The other wonderful thing about the work keys practice booklet is that the state of Illinois did not give us the correct answer with an explanation so we might understand where our error in logic appeared. It's time for change at the state level as well.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Buried Alive in America
It is hard to believe that I have had no time to write since early September. Life has been a blur. School is going well, love that American Studies class, after three months of antibiotics my staph (yup, the one in the newspapers that claimed a few thousand lives last year or year before) is gone (my wife is a much happier individual, come to think of it I am also), don't hear that NCLB is going away soon enough, finished my second Donald Miller book, which I highly recommend (Searching for God Knows What).
The school where I teach received its annual "report" card from the state, we failed to meet adequate yearly progress again. Our "sub-groups" just can't make grade level on their tests. Imagine that, a child identified as having learning difficulties can't score at grade level. 2014 is fast approaching America, ALL children have to be testing at grade level or we all fail. Here is your news flash, (reporters, I won't even ask for credit for being the first to break the news) it isn't going to happen. It never would have happened in our past, it isn't going to happen in our present and it sure won't happen in the future. NCLB is a poorly thought out program, I am all for accountability, reasonable accountability, say, a little tougher than the type that allowed a president to commit perjury and avoid prosecution or even tougher than the type that allowed a president to lead us into war over weapons of mass destruction that were never found (I know, they 're in Syria). I want the same accountability that our representatives have when they spend us so deep into debt that China (who controls vast amounts of our debt dollars), using lead-based paint, can get the CEO of an American corporation to admit on television that it was really all his fault.
my youngest son said that space periodically helps when reading a blog, here is your "space"
I have come to believe that this really was all a ploy by those who want federally funded vouchers, but wait, latest studies show that low achieving kids placed in high achieving private schools really don't score any better. What! There could be another reason than poor teachers?? It, it might, just might be that home environment has something to do with test scores? As Gomer Pyle said, "Golllllllllyyyyy!" You mean, growing up in a home where reading was modeled, family vacations were periodic, mom and/or dad were usually stable, worked, and brought home money might influence how well students do on standardized tests? We, as Americans, deserve to be slapped in the face (each cheek! Twice!) for allowing the largest intrusion into states terrain in recent history. I won't even address the fallacy of local school control because I fear too many school board members really believe they have a say in how their local school runs.
Space again
Those who are losing in this process are our students, I truly believe they are experiencing test strain. I know we, in the Social Studies, are losing ground because our subject isn't tested. How do you appease all ethnic groups in 40 to 50 questions covering ALL of world history? I know, you pick a huge voter group in your state, say. . . Armenians in California, and you quick introduce a resolution calling something that happened in Turkey, a few years ago, genocide. Where are the NCLB people to announce the Democratic leadership as "failing to make yearly progress" in using their brains? The nation finally wised up and pronounced the Republicans as "failing to make yearly progress" on controlling their spending spree and voted them out of control of Congress. What did we replace them with? Another group of failures, and these are the people who say educators aren't doing their jobs and if you don't do your job so that your students meet "adequate yearly progress" the teacher loses their job. What about our representatives losing their jobs? Balanced budget in 4 - 6 years or all of you are gone!! A 5% annual reduction in the deficit for the 4 - 6 years or out they all go! Social Security, a plan implemented within 4 - 6 years or all of you are gone!! All! Every member of the House gone one year and the next year (don't want to have too big of a shake-up) every member of the Senate. GONE! The next year the president, yes, could mean mid-term elections, so what, we want results, data-driven results. Measurable! Not going to happen. Oh well, it sure allowed me space and time to vent!
The school where I teach received its annual "report" card from the state, we failed to meet adequate yearly progress again. Our "sub-groups" just can't make grade level on their tests. Imagine that, a child identified as having learning difficulties can't score at grade level. 2014 is fast approaching America, ALL children have to be testing at grade level or we all fail. Here is your news flash, (reporters, I won't even ask for credit for being the first to break the news) it isn't going to happen. It never would have happened in our past, it isn't going to happen in our present and it sure won't happen in the future. NCLB is a poorly thought out program, I am all for accountability, reasonable accountability, say, a little tougher than the type that allowed a president to commit perjury and avoid prosecution or even tougher than the type that allowed a president to lead us into war over weapons of mass destruction that were never found (I know, they 're in Syria). I want the same accountability that our representatives have when they spend us so deep into debt that China (who controls vast amounts of our debt dollars), using lead-based paint, can get the CEO of an American corporation to admit on television that it was really all his fault.
my youngest son said that space periodically helps when reading a blog, here is your "space"
I have come to believe that this really was all a ploy by those who want federally funded vouchers, but wait, latest studies show that low achieving kids placed in high achieving private schools really don't score any better. What! There could be another reason than poor teachers?? It, it might, just might be that home environment has something to do with test scores? As Gomer Pyle said, "Golllllllllyyyyy!" You mean, growing up in a home where reading was modeled, family vacations were periodic, mom and/or dad were usually stable, worked, and brought home money might influence how well students do on standardized tests? We, as Americans, deserve to be slapped in the face (each cheek! Twice!) for allowing the largest intrusion into states terrain in recent history. I won't even address the fallacy of local school control because I fear too many school board members really believe they have a say in how their local school runs.
Space again
Those who are losing in this process are our students, I truly believe they are experiencing test strain. I know we, in the Social Studies, are losing ground because our subject isn't tested. How do you appease all ethnic groups in 40 to 50 questions covering ALL of world history? I know, you pick a huge voter group in your state, say. . . Armenians in California, and you quick introduce a resolution calling something that happened in Turkey, a few years ago, genocide. Where are the NCLB people to announce the Democratic leadership as "failing to make yearly progress" in using their brains? The nation finally wised up and pronounced the Republicans as "failing to make yearly progress" on controlling their spending spree and voted them out of control of Congress. What did we replace them with? Another group of failures, and these are the people who say educators aren't doing their jobs and if you don't do your job so that your students meet "adequate yearly progress" the teacher loses their job. What about our representatives losing their jobs? Balanced budget in 4 - 6 years or all of you are gone!! A 5% annual reduction in the deficit for the 4 - 6 years or out they all go! Social Security, a plan implemented within 4 - 6 years or all of you are gone!! All! Every member of the House gone one year and the next year (don't want to have too big of a shake-up) every member of the Senate. GONE! The next year the president, yes, could mean mid-term elections, so what, we want results, data-driven results. Measurable! Not going to happen. Oh well, it sure allowed me space and time to vent!
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