Other  Education  Issues

Note:  Information about the teachers unions can be found here.

The pressures on parents:

PTA's Agenda No Longer Educational, Says Pro-Family Leader:  Ken Connor, president of Family Research Council, says the PTA has abandoned its goal of enhancing education, and has focused increasingly on social engineering and the indoctrination of young children.

One big problem is... the other parents!
Maybe it isn't the teachers; maybe it's you.  While I'd be the first one to dispute the effectiveness of government "help," I have enough friends and colleagues who are public school educators to say with confidence that there are many, many good teachers out there, and they are struggling to teach children who do have lousy parents.

State Board Embroiled in Obtuse Politics of Parental Destruction:  Liberal members of the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) and their ally Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff have declared that conservative SBOE board members are illegitimate because they don't currently have children in public school.  By this illogic, should Ratliff abstain from votes concerning funding for the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation since he is not retarded?

The eggheads are boiling!
Background checks rile professors.  Criminal background checks, standard practice for new hires in much of the working world, have invaded the upper echelons of higher education.  Now the professors, once vouched for by clubby collegial networks, increasingly undergo scrutiny all too familiar outside academia.  They are not happy.

As America's students head back to school, parents have homework too.  Parents play a critical role in educating their children, whether it's reading to them in their most formative years or helping them each night with their homework.  But now, more so than ever, parents are becoming increasingly involved -- championing the cause of education reform at the state and local levels.  In fact, parents today are the driving forces behind reforming our nation's education system.

Supplies and Demands:  Having recently returned from a back-to-school shopping trip, I can report that there was very little prancing going on.  The parents were too focused on meeting the highly specific requirements of the lists they had received from their children's schools.

Maths disability more common than dyslexia.  A learning disability that leaves sufferers unable to understand mathematical symbols affects up to six percent of children, according to a leading neuroscientist.  Dyscalculia, the mathematical equivalent of dyslexia, is more common than its literacy counterpart, which affects between 2.5 percent and 4.3 percent of children.

Public Schools Not Accountable to Parents:  School boards and state governments have legal powers to fund and run public schools, but are they legally accountable for the results?  Not according to judges in two different states.


Other material related to educational issues:

Public education:  Put it out of business.  Education is, after all, a service just like doctors, restaurants and insurance agents provide.  Thankfully, Washington does not run our hospitals, dining establishments, or insurance companies so why continue to allow it to run the majority of schools?  Like nearly everything else it touches, government can ruin what is otherwise good with gross inefficiencies and rampant corruption.

When Numbers Mislead:  Mayor Bloomberg announced this week that test scores are up across the city and in some schools as much as double digits.  The mayor considers the improved test scores as proof that public schools have improved under his administration's takeover of the Board of Education.  I hate to burst his bubble, but numbers don't always tell the true story.

Why Shakir Can't Read:  Why Shakir can't read is the same reason many black kids in America can't read:  the kid's own lack of interest in education, his unstable home life with a single parent who doesn't care, a community that regards education as being destructive of black authenticity, and school systems which are burnt out with the stress of dealing with such kids.

Big Brother at school:  Nobody would want the government to run 90 percent of the nation's entertainment industry.  Nobody thinks that 90 percent of all housing should be owned by the state.  Yet the government's control of 90 percent of the nation's schools leaves most Americans strangely unconcerned.  But we should be concerned.

Sailer's Four-Point Plan For Improving Schools:  [Scroll down]  There is a gigantic conflict of interest in current K-12 testing.  The No Child Left Behind act tells the states to make up their own tests, administer their own tests, grade their own tests, then report back to Washington on whether the test scores have gone up enough for the states to keep getting federal bucks.  That's why Mississippi has, officially, the highest percentage of proficient readers in the country.

Sailer Is Right:  Measure School Achievement Relative To IQ!  We are constantly, shrilly condemning "failing schools" when we should be condemning "failing students."  But no, that's not quite right either.  We should not condemn the students since they are in most cases doing their best with the intellectual talent that they were born with.  No, condemnation is not justified, either of a school or its students, when both are giving all they have to give.  And as I have seen, that is generally the case.

Teacher still out after beating by student.  Vanesta Marshall, a home economics teacher at Worthing who is 5 feet 4 inches tall, said she remembers a ninth-grade male student punching her in the face two or three times before she blacked out Friday [5/11/2007]. … She said school officials didn't inform her about the student's discipline history.  "We're just regular-ed teachers," she said.  "We don't know how to handle violent behavior."

Back to the 1950s:
Africentric school to open in 2009.  After years of debate that has divided communities of every colour, Toronto's public school board voted tonight to open an Africentric alternative school in September 2009.  The junior kindergarten to Grade 5 school — believed to be a first in Canada — is expected to help tackle a 40 percent dropout rate among black students.

Elgin High School teacher lost vision in knife attack.  The Elgin High School teacher stabbed by a student lost vision in one of her eyes as a result of the attack, district officials said Monday.  Carolyn Gilbert, 50, of Bloomingdale, was stabbed multiple times in the neck and once near the eye by a 16-year old student Friday. ... The 16-year-old male student was charged with aggravated battery with a weapon and aggravated battery to a teacher, both felonies.

Black Education:  At Baltimore's predominantly black Frederick Douglass High School … students are four to five years below grade level.  Most of its ninth-graders read at the third-, fourth- or fifth-grade levels.  In 2006, only 24 percent of its students tested proficient in reading, in math just 11 percent, and that's an improvement over previous years.  Only one student managed to score above 1,000 on the SAT and another student scored 440 out of 1,600.  You get 400 points for just writing in your name.  Out of its 1,100 students, 200 to 300 are absent each day.

U.S. schools weigh extending hours, year.  One model that traditional public schools are looking to is the Knowledge is Power Program, which oversees public charter schools nationwide.  Those schools typically serve low-income middle-school students, and their test scores show success.  Students generally go from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the week and for a few hours every other Saturday.  They also go to school for several weeks in the summer.

Hearings add weight to anti-obesity bills.  Two legislative hearings were transformed into forums about child obesity Tuesday [2/27/2007] as lawmakers considered adding physical education and dropping junk foods in Oregon's public schools.

[Oregon schools don't have physical education classes already?]

Shut down the Middle Schools.  If an otherwise decent school district has a problem school, it's going to be the junior high.  And even high-functioning middle schools can be a problem for the students in them.

Supreme Court Justices Save Children from Educationists — Finally.  As a twelve-year-old I had been petrified at the thought of attending Ben Franklin [High School].  My fears were borne out when I was locked into French class at the direction of the principal over the P.A. system.  In the halls, stampeding students were breaking glass and beating up teachers.  The school day atmosphere rippled with intimidation.  I was "asked" for quarters at my locker.  As I walked home, I was knocked on the head — for carrying books.

The Editor says...
Sounds like my experience as well.  How many times does a person have to put up with, "Hey you, whitey, lend me a quaw-tuh?"

The Scary Truths Behind the Iconic Yellow School Buses.  Should there be a mandatory national standard for retiring school buses?  Are we as parents asking enough from the companies about the condition of the buses our kids are riding in?

Eye Scan Technology Comes to Schools.  At this point, the New Jersey program is not mandatory.  When picking up a child, the adult provides a driver's license and then submits to an eye scan.  If the iris image camera recognizes his or her eyes, the door clicks open.

Myth Buster.  [For example ...]  Schools perform poorly because they need more money; teachers are underpaid; schools are performing much worse in standardized testing and graduation rates; accountability systems impose large burdens on schools; the evidence for vouchers is inconclusive.

Texas School Finance System Unconstitutional.  The Texas Supreme Court ruled November 22 that the state's school finance system — commonly referred to throughout the state as "Robin Hood"… — is unconstitutional because it levies a statewide property tax.

Alvin cheerleader's dad outraged by suspension.  The father of a 13-year-old Alvin Junior High cheerleader said the school district overstepped its bounds when it suspended his daughter for taking a cell phone photo of another cheerleader getting out of the shower during a sleepover in his home.  "This makes me realize how little control I have over my daughter when the school district can take action something that happened at my home on a Saturday," Michael Bailey said.

The Editor says...
Figure it out, Mr. Bailey — The school district officials think they own your children.  Unless you tell them otherwise, they will continue this presumption.

Harry Browne's stand on Education:  There is no constitutional authority for the federal government to be involved in education in any way whatsoever.  The growing amounts of money and control coming from Washington have been matched by lower SAT scores, declining standards, more dangerous schools, and generations of Americans who have no basic education in history, geography, the Constitution, mathematics, science, or literature.

The Black Hole of Public Education.  For the most part, teachers begin their educational careers idealistic and excited about their role in the learning process.  At first, money is of no concern in the mind of a person who serves in the caretaker profession.  It isn't long, though, before the rookies begin to realize that direct instruction is frowned upon and that no significant amount of learning can take place given the often impossible circumstances with which teachers are faced.

Politicians' Kids Go to Private Schools.  "Politicians who promote public schools don't always send their kids to them," said ABC News journalist John Stossel in a segment of the 20/20 program broadcast on January 28, called "Public Schools for Poor Kids, Not Politicians' Kids." … As an example, he cited Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), who has called public education the "cornerstone of our democracy."  Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, also declared he was "unalterably opposed to a voucher system to give people public money to take to private schools."  Yet when the Clintons were in the White House, they sent their daughter Chelsea to an exclusive private school.

Students Pin Achievement Gap on Teachers with Low Expectations.  Even when students do have higher aspirations, their perspective often is not shared by teachers.  A recent statewide survey of academic expectations in Rhode Island found black and Hispanic students had higher hopes for their future than they thought their teachers had.  While 74 percent of black students thought they would go to college, only 64 percent said their teachers held the same view.  With Hispanic students, the figures were 77 percent and 68 percent respectively.

Old Problem: Student Drop-Out Rate — New Problem: Teacher Drop-Out Rate

Too Many Cooks Running Our Schools.  The curriculum in our schools has been spoiled by the fact that there are too many cooks in the kitchen.  The academic agenda of the public school system is as much determined by what is politically incorrect to discuss in the schools, as it is by the basic assumptions about the academic skills necessary to survive in our society.

The Dirty Dozen:  Twelve college classes YOU are paying for.

Loose Lips in American Academia and the Press:  Professors, journalists and others who have made grossly offensive remarks in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attack are shocked that other Americans are criticizing them for it.  To them, apparently, free speech means being free of criticism by others who want to exercise their own free speech rights.

The Usual Suspects:  Osama bin Chomsky and America's Academic al Qaeda:  When the Vietnam War ended, the anti-war movement fragmented.  Many of the former protesters began what the German New Leftist Rudi Dutschke called the "long march through the institutions."  The most important of these institutions was the academy, where from their tenured positions, the old protesters could continue to inculcate into new generations of students the idea that the United States of "Amerika" (or Amerikkka) is irredeemably racist and oppressive.

Beer and Circus:  How Big-Time College Sports Is Crippling Undergraduate Education:  Big-time college sports are a big-time reason why so many large universities have become nothing more than four-year parties with expensive cover charges otherwise known as tuition.  That's the opening thesis of Murray Sperber's latest book that details how sports — often the one thing schools use to rally their diverse undergraduates — has helped to deny those same students an education.

Inept Teacher Training:  American education will never be improved until we address a problem seen as too delicate to discuss.  That problem is teacher philosophy and incompetency.

When push comes to shovel:  State social-service bureaucrats accuse a small, rural religious school of child abuse, citing its disciplinary emphasis on manual labor and corporal punishment.  In most cases, an overmatched, underfunded school would have to cave in.  But Heartland Christian Academy is hardly typical.  The school is bankrolled by an insurance multimillionaire who hasn't forgotten his rural roots, and "Pastor Charlie," as he's known, points to a record of success in helping steer some of the toughest wayward kids onto the straight and narrow.  And he vows to use his vast resources to fight a battle other similar schools won't — or can't.

Small Is Beautiful:  While public school officials support the idea that "smaller is better" when it is applied to reducing class sizes, the concept meets a much cooler reception when it's applied to reducing the size of school districts.

Boy's Letter Supporting Abortion of Disabled Babies Wins in Lutheran ContestAn eighth-grade boy who wrote a letter advocating parents' rights to abort their potentially disabled unborn babies has been singled out for a trip to Washington by a Christian organization.  Along with his mother, James Humphery has been awarded an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington to lobby members of Congress to pass pro-abortion legislation.

Pledge of Allegiance Tied to Socialist Roots

Bob Jones University responds after being characterized as a bigoted institution.

The Influence of "Junk Science" and the Role of Science Education


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