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Farmerkev wrote:

dv, real life doesn't award participation ribbons.

In real life, it's okay to be a ditch digger.

I understand what you're saying, this example student has performed beyond what should be expected and I'd agree.

Then would you agree they shouldn't be given the same tests and held to the same standards as the non-immigrant kids - at least for a couple years? Because they are. (Although, sadly, most of them don't make up 5 years of english in a year - in fact, some of them refuse to speak english at all - presumably because grandpa also doesn't.)

With NCLB's 100% proficiency requirement... well, you tell me how that might be a problem.

We've also got millions of students that aren't immigrants that can't preform beyond 3rd world education levels. It would seem to me to be a good idea to look back to when education worked and then study what changed to see why it is broken now.

Back when education worked, nonperforming pupils left after 8th grade to work in factories, science was a patriotic duty, and Paris Hilton wouldn't have been able to show her face if half of what we know about her had been made public. Anti-intellectualism is a systemic cultural problem, and public school systems, admittedly not without blame, have been made into the solely responsible scapegoats in the eyes of many. (Or teachers' unions, if you prefer. Because - speaking of Bush's legacy - leadership is never ever responsible...)

If the students, regardless of where they're from, are making the progress they're supposed to be, then the school isn't failing them. Penalizing the schools financially because the students in question started behind everybody else doesn't make any sense. (Hell, schools don't get their talons into you for 5 years - even the spread among kindergarteners is incredible. Some of them can read, some of them can barely drool without help.)

A Democratic Congress AND president.. I would have voted Ron Paul if given the chance though.

JakeTheTall wrote:

resedit wrote:

On the other side of the ledger, the Bush administration has successfully launched the Proliferation Security Initiative.  Libya has renounced attempts to acquire weapons of mass destruction.  As a consequence, it was no longer possible for the Government of Pakistan to deny the existence of a nuclear supply network centered around A. Q. Khan.  Khan has been sidelined, and at least parts of the network have been rolled up.  How much of the network remain uncovered, how easily it could be replicated, and how many others in Pakistan were involved or aware of the network remain open questions.  Thanks to U.S.-led military action in Afghanistan, al Qaeda cells, which continue to seek the deadliest, indiscriminate weapons, must now do so under more difficult circumstances.  While willing recruits in the Islamic world have grown, their safe havens have shrunk.  And Saddam and Sons will not be around to seek nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons – although a subsequent Iraqi government might well choose to do so in response to Iranian programs.

Credit must be given to the Bush administration for these successes, even though we cannot judge their long-term effects.

http://www.stimson.org/pub.cfm?id=138

There's some more damper in your attempt at a circle jerk.
And that article is hardly kind to Bush - read the paragraph before what I quoted and a few after.

And the deal with India over their nuculur material could easily increase proliferation dramatically.  Which is more real than the "al Qaeda seeking nukes" phantom.

Don't forget that A.Q. Khan is living the life of a country squire rather than a prison inmate. Considering how unstable the situation is in Pakistan, I see no reason to assume that his network will stay "neutralized."

dvpierce wrote:

Farmerkev wrote:

dv, real life doesn't award participation ribbons.

In real life, it's okay to be a ditch digger.

I understand what you're saying, this example student has performed beyond what should be expected and I'd agree.

Then would you agree they shouldn't be given the same tests and held to the same standards as the non-immigrant kids - at least for a couple years? Because they are. (Although, sadly, most of them don't make up 5 years of english in a year - in fact, some of them refuse to speak english at all - presumably because grandpa also doesn't.)

With NCLB's 100% proficiency requirement... well, you tell me how that might be a problem.

We've also got millions of students that aren't immigrants that can't preform beyond 3rd world education levels. It would seem to me to be a good idea to look back to when education worked and then study what changed to see why it is broken now.

Back when education worked, nonperforming pupils left after 8th grade to work in factories, science was a patriotic duty, and Paris Hilton wouldn't have been able to show her face if half of what we know about her had been made public. Anti-intellectualism is a systemic cultural problem, and public school systems, admittedly not without blame, have been made into the solely responsible scapegoats in the eyes of many. (Or teachers' unions, if you prefer. Because - speaking of Bush's legacy - leadership is never ever responsible...)

If the students, regardless of where they're from, are making the progress they're supposed to be, then the school isn't failing them. Penalizing the schools financially because the students in question started behind everybody else doesn't make any sense. (Hell, schools don't get their talons into you for 5 years - even the spread among kindergarteners is incredible. Some of them can read, some of them can barely drool without help.)

Sure it's ok to be a ditch digger. You also live the ditch diggers economic lifestyle.
I wouldn't be totally opposed to separate testing standards for ESL versus native, time period to be determined.
I hold everyone responsible from the parents and our society to the education machine to the state/federal govt's.

dvpierce wrote:

Farmerkev wrote:

Sure it's ok to be a ditch digger. You also live the ditch diggers economic lifestyle.
I wouldn't be totally opposed to separate testing standards for ESL versus native, time period to be determined.
I hold everyone responsible from the parents and our society to the education machine to the state/federal govt's.

Fine. But then by expecting schools to wave a magic wand and catch everybody up almost immediately, without addressing any of the other problems (like the kids who are behind before they ever start), isn't NCLB inherently unreasonable?

The only thing unreasonable is it's demands are only placed on the schools (they needed it in my opinion).
If we could wave the magic and and do the same for govt and society I'd be tickled pink

daemon wrote:

kev...

O'Bama can absolutely retract the warrantless acts. However, over the last 7plus years, we've all been tapped w/o warrant.

We have?

So, in summary to answer the opening question, no, nothing without considerable controversy and/or poor logic behind the reasoning.

D'Eyncourt wrote:

So, in summary to answer the opening question, no, nothing without considerable controversy and/or poor logic behind the reasoning.

Do you think there has been an admin that your statement wouldn't be true for?

sturner wrote:

Isn't that exactly what NCLB is intended to do? Force everyone to private schools?

Interestingly, NCLB is completing the cycle for education. I see this nation returning to a time when there were those who were not schooled at all, and those who went to private school. It is a disturbing trend, as it tends to quickly stratify the classes based on those who have the money or pull to attend school; and those who don't.

ScifiterX wrote:

sturner wrote:

Isn't that exactly what NCLB is intended to do? Force everyone to private schools?

I think it was supposed to do two things, make schools accountable for children learning the required curriculum (a laudable goal ultimately limited by the fact that standardized testing sometimes runs counter productive to actual education and you can't always make someone learn when they have no wish to learn) and allow student other educational options if the accountability fails (a laudable idea hampered by the fact that other schools will suffer a true quality loss if they are forced to take on too many students as well as a perceived quality loss from having students coming from a failed school). That the only schools not overburdened are private often parochial institutions is not a fault the school itself but rather an issue with the area school board in my opinion and or the area's economy.

Perhaps you missed a previous post, where NCLB is described as a Sishphean task:  http://wordie.org/words/sisyphean

Schools are told to meet standards, or else - but they aren't given the resources to do the task. It is a system that is guaranteed to fail in nearly every school; save the richest- and even they are struggling to keep up. The trouble is, a lot of what makes an education worthwhile is being lost in the process.

Eventually, the only place to get a decent education will be in the private systems, which aren't burdened with this crap. The trouble there is that they are probably under-regulated. How much will quality drive the education economy, versus, say, political connections, appearance of wealth, etc. Some private schools do worse than some public schools, because the parents are more focused on their kids getting 'A's than learning. It's a private version of NCLB.

I know second hand about the latter. My cousin briefly taught at an exclusive Memphis private school, and often had run-in's with the administration, because students would complain about something (generally, their failure to pass an exam) to their parents, who then complained to the administration. In one case, he gave a student three opportunities to pass a test (the rest of the class only had one) because he had failed it repeatedly. He was headed to Harvard, and a C would have derailed that, so the administration more or less forced him to skip the test for this one student. His next semester, the administration urged him to make his tests less difficult. He split when his contract was up. He misses the money, but not the bull.

We are badly screwed, and don't even realize it yet. Soon, only those who are truly seeking an education will find one - and those people are few and far between.

I don't work in the educational system, but my job does put me in contact with lots of children who are having academic difficulties.

The biggest problem I have seen with NCLB is that schools have become totally focused on standardized tests.  They have stopped teaching students and starting teaching specifically to the test, so the depth and breadth of the educational experience is compromised.

The children who are struggling are not taught to read phonetically; they are taught to sight read enough words that they can meet the minimum test standard.  And the children who are more advanced and have already mastered the skills on the test are not being challenged.

In my opinion, outcome-based education (minimum-skills education, really) is making the US education system worse, not better.  Disadvantaged children are taught to take a test; they are not learning any real skills.  And bright children suffer because the curriculum is geared toward the lowest common denominator.

None of this is going to change until school systems hire better teachers, which is not going to happen until teachers' salaries go up significantly, which is not going to happen until teachers and public education are more valued.  But that is a problem with society, not government.

Last edited by DevoDoc (2008-11-17 5:51 pm)

JakeTheTall wrote:

resedit wrote:

ShnickyShnack wrote:

Did the administration's policies cause any terrorist attacks? In Iraq, say? or Madrid?

No.
Attacks those attacks were caused by radical Islamic fundamentalists.
Unless you want to argue that the wife caused her husband to beat her by not cooking the right meal.

Wasp attacks are wasp attacks.  Unless you want to argue that the man caused the wasps to attack him after beating their hive with a bat.

So you are conceding that Al Queda was in Iraq before we went in.