Leaving us behind
There has been quite a bit of talk lately by the Republicans about leaving no child behind. Even Arnold mentioned in his speech that we have to hold schools accountable.
Well the interesting thing about the “Leave No Child Behind’ initiative is that it is designed to actually leave the children behind. Aside from Bush not funding the program as he initially promised to, there is the little nagging problem that standardized testing is worse than worthless. It actually demands so much classroom time to prepare for, that students have even less time to actually learn. Anyone who has ever studied for the SAT’s knows that doing well on standardized testing requires learning strategies and memorizing words and facts that are rarely remembered passed the test day.
You see in standardized testing you are testing with words. You can’t really test someone’s comprehension without practical testing which would ironically be impractical to do on a nationwide basis.
I’m guessing that you are wanting an example at this point, well here is the equation for angular momentum. L=MVR, where L is momentum, M is mass, V is velocity perpendicular to the radius vector, and R is the Radius. What does it mean? Do you really understand angular momentum now that you’ve read it? Instead, what if I sit your butt on a rotating bar stool, hand you two 6 pound weights, ask you to extend your arms out parallel to the floor and then spin you as fast as I can, I then ask you to pull your hands in. What will happen? You spin faster conserving your angular momentum. Then once the world stops spinning, I hand you a spinning bicycle wheel so that you can FEEL what angular momentum does. Now you are beginning to understand what angular momentum is. It is just this kind of demonstration that used to make science class in middle school so much fun.
I kinda doubt that these days teachers are detonating balloons filled with Hydrogen and Oxygen in class given the litigious nature of our society and the CYA mentality of today’s school boards. I can almost guarantee that there won’t be the cool blow the lid off of the paint can filled with saw dust and a candle anymore. (That one is rad by the way, it took a chunk out of the acousticle tiling in my 7th grade science class.) Maybe on second thought, that one isn’t so safe but he did send everyone to the back of the class when he did it, so I still think that it has value in explaining combustion and fuel to air ratios, maybe they could do it outside. Besides with all the teaching to the standardized tests that all teachers are required to do these days, you have precious little time for labs in science class. (Full disclosure: I am certified to teach science in Colorado so I may be biased here)
I’ll tell you something that I believe and that is that conservatives don’t want Public Schools to succeed. Why wouldn’t they want public schools to succeed? Well firstly the people who really run the country don’t care because they send their kids to private schools. Secondly they don’t really want millions of creative and intelligent kids coming out of public schools. Kids like that question and analyze and that is the last thing that the masters of capitalism want. They want mindless automatons that don’t question the system even when that system is failing them personally. They don’t want you to question the value of being a cog in a mind-numbing, soul-sucking machine. God forbid you question whether capitalism is really the best thing for the masses (it is doubtless good for the economy and the people currently standing on the backs of the workers.)
The reality though is that the current school system with 8 hour days of separate 1 hour classes was designed by the captains of business back in the early 1900’s to do exactly what I’m claiming here. Read this quote from the mission statement of John D. Rockefeller's General Education Board, "We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into men of learning or philosophers, or men of science. We have not to raise up from them authors, educators, poets or men of letters, great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, statesmen, politicians, creatures of whom we have ample supply. The task is simple. We will organize children and teach them in an perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way".
See this website a by John Taylor Gatto a former two time teacher of the year from NY who retired in frustration with the current PS system. Here is a nice concise history based on Mr. Gatto's research that is eye opening as well.
That is the reality, that they do not want an intelligent and inquisitive public. They want cheap labor. Every major plank in the Republican platform benefits business that much is clear. Many of them are designed to create cheap labor. Why oppose welfare? Cheap Labor, because if there is no social safety net, people are more likely to take whatever crappy low paying job that they can get. Why oppose abortion? While I’m sure that the Christian Coalition and many others oppose it for what they see as moral reasons, I believe that the leaders of the party (ie. the elitist inbred bastards who have been controlling things since the monarchies in Europe, ie. the Bush family that is related to British aristocracy which by the way helps to explain his obvious ignorance in spite of the benefit of a private school education, they created their own genetic bottleneck by, for the most part, only marrying other super wealthy oligarchs/aristocrats.) are much more cynical. So anyway back to abortion, the more people you have in a given work force the more (say it with me) CHEAP LABOR that you have. Why oppose raising the minumum wage? CHEAP LABOR. Now I didn't come up with this particular train of thought it was created by the witty folks at conceptualguerrilla.com
So long and short the Leave No Child Behind initiative is actually a well orchestarted campaign to ruin public schools while making it look like the Republicans are trying their best to save them.
If it was a good idea then educators would probably support it but they almost universally do not. My position is that educators (who aren't taught the origin of the current PS system) are doing their best and that public schools could be more successful if only parents involved themselves by joining the PTA and helping kids with their homework. Education should be a 50/50 project 50% public schools and 50% parents. If parents are 50% responsible for their childs education then they should stop blaming schools for bad Math, Science and English literacy rate and hold themselves responsible rather than endorsing conservative agendas that have good names but actually have negative effects. Like "Leave No Child Behind", "Clear Skies" or the best which is a blatant gift to the logging industry "Healthy Forests" gotta love those emotionally potent oversimplifications. I know most Republicans do.
Well the interesting thing about the “Leave No Child Behind’ initiative is that it is designed to actually leave the children behind. Aside from Bush not funding the program as he initially promised to, there is the little nagging problem that standardized testing is worse than worthless. It actually demands so much classroom time to prepare for, that students have even less time to actually learn. Anyone who has ever studied for the SAT’s knows that doing well on standardized testing requires learning strategies and memorizing words and facts that are rarely remembered passed the test day.
You see in standardized testing you are testing with words. You can’t really test someone’s comprehension without practical testing which would ironically be impractical to do on a nationwide basis.
I’m guessing that you are wanting an example at this point, well here is the equation for angular momentum. L=MVR, where L is momentum, M is mass, V is velocity perpendicular to the radius vector, and R is the Radius. What does it mean? Do you really understand angular momentum now that you’ve read it? Instead, what if I sit your butt on a rotating bar stool, hand you two 6 pound weights, ask you to extend your arms out parallel to the floor and then spin you as fast as I can, I then ask you to pull your hands in. What will happen? You spin faster conserving your angular momentum. Then once the world stops spinning, I hand you a spinning bicycle wheel so that you can FEEL what angular momentum does. Now you are beginning to understand what angular momentum is. It is just this kind of demonstration that used to make science class in middle school so much fun.
I kinda doubt that these days teachers are detonating balloons filled with Hydrogen and Oxygen in class given the litigious nature of our society and the CYA mentality of today’s school boards. I can almost guarantee that there won’t be the cool blow the lid off of the paint can filled with saw dust and a candle anymore. (That one is rad by the way, it took a chunk out of the acousticle tiling in my 7th grade science class.) Maybe on second thought, that one isn’t so safe but he did send everyone to the back of the class when he did it, so I still think that it has value in explaining combustion and fuel to air ratios, maybe they could do it outside. Besides with all the teaching to the standardized tests that all teachers are required to do these days, you have precious little time for labs in science class. (Full disclosure: I am certified to teach science in Colorado so I may be biased here)
I’ll tell you something that I believe and that is that conservatives don’t want Public Schools to succeed. Why wouldn’t they want public schools to succeed? Well firstly the people who really run the country don’t care because they send their kids to private schools. Secondly they don’t really want millions of creative and intelligent kids coming out of public schools. Kids like that question and analyze and that is the last thing that the masters of capitalism want. They want mindless automatons that don’t question the system even when that system is failing them personally. They don’t want you to question the value of being a cog in a mind-numbing, soul-sucking machine. God forbid you question whether capitalism is really the best thing for the masses (it is doubtless good for the economy and the people currently standing on the backs of the workers.)
The reality though is that the current school system with 8 hour days of separate 1 hour classes was designed by the captains of business back in the early 1900’s to do exactly what I’m claiming here. Read this quote from the mission statement of John D. Rockefeller's General Education Board, "We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into men of learning or philosophers, or men of science. We have not to raise up from them authors, educators, poets or men of letters, great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, statesmen, politicians, creatures of whom we have ample supply. The task is simple. We will organize children and teach them in an perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way".
See this website a by John Taylor Gatto a former two time teacher of the year from NY who retired in frustration with the current PS system. Here is a nice concise history based on Mr. Gatto's research that is eye opening as well.
That is the reality, that they do not want an intelligent and inquisitive public. They want cheap labor. Every major plank in the Republican platform benefits business that much is clear. Many of them are designed to create cheap labor. Why oppose welfare? Cheap Labor, because if there is no social safety net, people are more likely to take whatever crappy low paying job that they can get. Why oppose abortion? While I’m sure that the Christian Coalition and many others oppose it for what they see as moral reasons, I believe that the leaders of the party (ie. the elitist inbred bastards who have been controlling things since the monarchies in Europe, ie. the Bush family that is related to British aristocracy which by the way helps to explain his obvious ignorance in spite of the benefit of a private school education, they created their own genetic bottleneck by, for the most part, only marrying other super wealthy oligarchs/aristocrats.) are much more cynical. So anyway back to abortion, the more people you have in a given work force the more (say it with me) CHEAP LABOR that you have. Why oppose raising the minumum wage? CHEAP LABOR. Now I didn't come up with this particular train of thought it was created by the witty folks at conceptualguerrilla.com
So long and short the Leave No Child Behind initiative is actually a well orchestarted campaign to ruin public schools while making it look like the Republicans are trying their best to save them.
If it was a good idea then educators would probably support it but they almost universally do not. My position is that educators (who aren't taught the origin of the current PS system) are doing their best and that public schools could be more successful if only parents involved themselves by joining the PTA and helping kids with their homework. Education should be a 50/50 project 50% public schools and 50% parents. If parents are 50% responsible for their childs education then they should stop blaming schools for bad Math, Science and English literacy rate and hold themselves responsible rather than endorsing conservative agendas that have good names but actually have negative effects. Like "Leave No Child Behind", "Clear Skies" or the best which is a blatant gift to the logging industry "Healthy Forests" gotta love those emotionally potent oversimplifications. I know most Republicans do.
posted by Bryan Z. at 2:31 PM
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