Comments on: No more excuses for state of our schools http://sonoranalliance.com/2009/10/27/no-more-excuses-for-state-of-our-schools/ Arizona Politics, News, Commentary and Information with a Blatantly Conservative Worldview Presented by an Alliance of Writers, Activists, Consultants and Government Insiders. Sun, 12 Feb 2012 01:38:04 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Carlist http://sonoranalliance.com/2009/10/27/no-more-excuses-for-state-of-our-schools/comment-page-1/#comment-210243 Carlist Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:12:12 +0000 http://sonoranalliance.com/?p=5594#comment-210243 Can't we just euthanize John Dewey????!!! Can’t we just euthanize John Dewey????!!!

]]> By: johnny http://sonoranalliance.com/2009/10/27/no-more-excuses-for-state-of-our-schools/comment-page-1/#comment-210186 johnny Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:09:04 +0000 http://sonoranalliance.com/?p=5594#comment-210186 Could you point out where klien talks about parental choice as a key ingredient? He has 6 other things in there as well. It looks like a small part to me... You take the excerpt from the letter and then threw in your own agenda in the end. Where is the discussion of the other key issues... Could you point out where klien talks about parental choice as a key ingredient? He has 6 other things in there as well. It looks like a small part to me… You take the excerpt from the letter and then threw in your own agenda in the end. Where is the discussion of the other key issues…

]]> By: Oberserve http://sonoranalliance.com/2009/10/27/no-more-excuses-for-state-of-our-schools/comment-page-1/#comment-210183 Oberserve Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:06:31 +0000 http://sonoranalliance.com/?p=5594#comment-210183 There's a great way to address this in Arizona. Prop13Arizona dot com. It will end the continuing pleas for more money. It will force school funding to be market based based on prevailing economic conditions. It will force a new school funding formula which must include vouchers, universal tuition tax credits and charter schools. Quit talking about it. DO IT. Prop13Arizon dot com. There’s a great way to address this in Arizona. Prop13Arizona dot com.

It will end the continuing pleas for more money.
It will force school funding to be market based based on prevailing economic conditions.
It will force a new school funding formula which must include vouchers, universal tuition tax credits and charter schools.

Quit talking about it. DO IT. Prop13Arizon dot com.

]]> By: wanumba http://sonoranalliance.com/2009/10/27/no-more-excuses-for-state-of-our-schools/comment-page-1/#comment-210170 wanumba Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:15:01 +0000 http://sonoranalliance.com/?p=5594#comment-210170 That's some encouraging news, indeed. One of the worst elements, if not the worst, of the American Progressive Education world view has been to use demographics and "development" to make excuses for failures, shifting blame for poor performance onto the students, away from the teacher/curriculum combination. An example of this is "Whole Language" a radical hypothesis that reading aquisition is the same as language aquisition. It's an expensive program that helps balloon any school's budget, of "integrated" learning where classrooms are filled with posters, displays, coordinating art projects, and elaborately-illlustrated books, much picture and few words, a repetitive drill that requires students to memorize each word, leading them through an illusion of reading with guided guessing. It's not an accident that many children apparently read very well in 1st, 2nd, 3rd grades, then crash and burn in 4th and 5th. Controlled-environment memorization didn't teach them how to decipher the diverse volcabulary of science, history, geography, mathematics. But the curriculum or the facilitated supervision which has replaced teaching is never questioned, the children have "developmental" issues or their make up of "talents" or "strengths" doesn't include "reading." And since the concept of "developmental" permeates the current education establishment thinking, Ritalin then becomes the professionally-approved answer for non-performing, unhappy and fidgety children. This travesty of American Public Education has hit the lower income classes the worst, the people who depend on education for upward mobility. Those with any extra disposable income whatsoever has already shifted their children into private schools to escape this. Traditional American education, indeed all successful education systems, are SKILL-driven, based on the two pillars, language and math: reading, writing, mathematics, an orderly transfer of knowledge by adults to the next generation, not handicapped by "demographics" or "development" of any particualr student body. That’s some encouraging news, indeed.
One of the worst elements, if not the worst, of the American Progressive Education world view has been to use demographics and “development” to make excuses for failures, shifting blame for poor performance onto the students, away from the teacher/curriculum combination. An example of this is “Whole Language” a radical hypothesis that reading aquisition is the same as language aquisition. It’s an expensive program that helps balloon any school’s budget, of “integrated” learning where classrooms are filled with posters, displays, coordinating art projects, and elaborately-illlustrated books, much picture and few words, a repetitive drill that requires students to memorize each word, leading them through an illusion of reading with guided guessing.
It’s not an accident that many children apparently read very well in 1st, 2nd, 3rd grades, then crash and burn in 4th and 5th.
Controlled-environment memorization didn’t teach them how to decipher the diverse volcabulary of science, history, geography, mathematics.
But the curriculum or the facilitated supervision which has replaced teaching is never questioned, the children have “developmental” issues or their make up of “talents” or “strengths” doesn’t include “reading.” And since the concept of “developmental” permeates the current education establishment thinking, Ritalin then becomes the professionally-approved answer for non-performing, unhappy and fidgety children.
This travesty of American Public Education has hit the lower income classes the worst, the people who depend on education for upward mobility. Those with any extra disposable income whatsoever has already shifted their children into private schools to escape this.
Traditional American education, indeed all successful education systems, are SKILL-driven, based on the two pillars, language and math: reading, writing, mathematics, an orderly transfer of knowledge by adults to the next generation, not handicapped by “demographics” or “development” of any particualr student body.

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