Thursday, February 9, 2012

BloggeRhytms 2/9/2012

In keeping with the president's program of ignoring Congress, and just about everyone else in pursuing his own agenda, this morning, Fox News, reported that he's set "to give 10 states a pass regarding an approaching deadline under the No Child Left Behind law, after the states struggled to meet the proficiency standards for reading and math."

Originally passed under the George W. Bush administration, the law requires all students to be proficient in reading and math by 2014. Today's action strips away the fundamental requirement for the 10 states, who've sought flexibility in the law, provided they offer another viable plan instead.

The first 10 states to receive the waivers are Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Another, New Mexico, applied for the flexibility but didn't get it, however it's said to be working with the administration to get approval.

Beyond that, another 28 other states, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, "have indicated their intent to seek flexibility," an official said.

So, here we have continuing proof that the educational system across the U.S. is in dire straits and without going into all the detail I've harped on in many prior entries, I believe the reason for this travesty primarily rests with teachers unions that harbor practically illiterates, and continues to force letting them teach. That factor in turn leads to reducing curricula to nearly zero value, because anything more complex or difficult is simply beyond the capabilities and comprehension of the "teachers" themselves.

However, on the other hand, this very morning I received a newsletter email from my own alma mater, a public school in Manhattan, Stuyvesant High. One of the items listed follows:

Two Intel Science Talent Search Finalists of the forty that have been invited to Washington, DC to compete for scholarships and other awards in March are:

Angela Fan '12 (Root Nutrient Foraging: A Morphometric Approach to Quantifying the Developmental Plasticity Space of Arabidopsis Ecotypes in Laboratory and Natural Environments)

Mimi Yen '12 (Characterizing the Behavior and Genetics of Headplugging in C. elegans)

I mention this because here are two high school students attending a public school and, obviously, receiving an excellent education. And although they're perhaps above average intellectually, their accomplishments still illustrate what can result from public schooling. What's more, their achievements point out that there's a huge gap between the extremes of these two individuals and teachers across the nation who can hardly spell their own names.

So, maybe it's really time to stop all the political posturing and tons of BS from the administration and actually start addressing the real problems. And step one would be the biggest leap toward educational improvement...eliminating the teachers unions completely and beginning the real process of education again.

That's it for today folks.

Adios


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