Um… huh?
FINALLY someone has stood up to the institutional urge at Seattle Public Schools to adopt constructivist or reform math: Judge Julie Spector of King County Superior Court ruled Thursday that the district’s adoption of the Discovering series of high-school math texts was “arbitrary” and “capricious.”
This is a kind of judicial activism, and as a method of selecting or rejecting math books it makes us uneasy. Normally a judge would defer to the School Board. But … Don’t appeal the ruling.
Shorter Seattle Times: This is a kind of judicial activism, but that’s okay when we agree with it.
“Shorter Seattle Times: This is a kind of judicial activism, but that’s okay when we agree with it.”
So how’s that different from anyone else in the world? We all want our cakes and want to eat them, too!
I don’t know what to think. Maybe I’ll ask a corporation and they can answer me with money.
Maria Cantwell’s in the Economist!
http://www.economist.com/world.....d=15453166
Shorter ST: Their editorialists don’t know how to read court decisions. Maybe they should have their corporate counsel explain the judge’s decision to them.
It’s about process, not which textbook is better. “Arbitrary and capricious” is a well-established legal standard of review that means there was no reasonable basis for the district’s selection.
Roger Rabbit, but is it in the best interest of the book publishing corporations and the “authors.” Stop and think, please, these books are not written by some magical hand, they are written by poorly paid pre PhD candidates who have not a single clue in hell of what they are doing, but the professor that they depend on to sponsor their PhD theses, will receive rich royalties because his name is on the book.
Don’t reinvent the wheel for the corps over the kids. Find the state that scores highest in whatever category the school is teaching and buy the same books as they do.
Am I the only fool who understands that there are measurements available and the school board or acquisitions department’s philosophy seem to me to be nonsense?
Copying a failed text is total waste, backing losers simply gives the school board more control at the expense of the kids.
The thing that totally disgusts me about this is that not one single person seems to give a damn about the kids’ education. Not the judge, not the selector of arbitrary and capricious books, the deciding vote by anyone who is not totally out of touch with reality, is “Is our kids learning?” as George the Genius phrased the question. If a super rich super powerful family can produce that statement, we need to find out what his textbooks were and ban them.
Just copy the successful book programs, OK? So it doesn’t benefit some special interest. big freaking deal. This is not rocket science, the system has failed totally and completely and needs to be harangued by every single parent whose child is affected by ignorance.
When I hear those words I can’t help think back to one of the Seinfeld episodes where Kramer usedthose exact words when being challengerd to explain his the justified use of a college internship at his company “Kramerica”.
HAHA…(40 seconds in)
That said, discovery math is complete idiocy, which is why I’m not surprised it is being pushed by the the Washington Education Association.
@5 “Roger Rabbit, but is it in the best interest of the book publishing corporations and the “authors.””
That issue was not before the court, and was not decided by the court.
@5 ” … not one single person seems to give a damn about the kids’ education. Not the judge …”
The judge has a very specific task, and you don’t seem to understand what it is.
@5 “Just copy the successful book programs, OK?”
Who decides which books are “successful,” and according to what criteria?
@6 In this context, “arbitrary and capricious” is a legal term of art that has a specific meaning. How the phrase is used in pop culture is irrelevant.
Another Privatization Failure!
Metro bus tunnels used to be patrolled by off-duty cops, but Metro replaced them with a private contract to save money. The result was a 15-year-old girl got beaten up and kicked in the head while the private security guards stood and watched.
http://horsesass.org/?p=24486&.....ent-981293
Roger Rabbit Commentary: I think they should get rid of the private contractor and rehire those government employees.
contractor not contract
@11…another strawman fail..
Roger, I looked at that video, even though a victim of a mugging myself, it was painful. I only watched it to see what those commenting on it were talking about, and noticed a few things. It was after 7:OOPM according to the timestamp, after 7, the Ride Free Area is over and it is Pay As You Enter on all Metro buses in Downtown, the tunnel is no different.(LINK is off-vehicle fare collection). That means the buses are Front Door Only, delaying the tunnel. This was on the Northbound platform, so that train pulling in at the end of the clip was going out of service(Westlake is the last stop), but I do wonder what did the bus driver on the 550 entering the tunnel heading South saw. Also, I took the train tonight, and no problems there, but there were a lot of security guards waiting at Westlake. Still, would be great if one of them could be armed with at least a tazer. I am more nervous if when I have temp jobs in the Ballard Area and the connection between the Night Owl and the first 15 is late.
Roger, I would suggest that they put SPD and KCPD officers in the tunnel. The fight over who gets to annex White Center is on again. If Seattle does, I would redeploy the King County Deputies to the tunnel.
dumbass logic at work. I seem to recall watching from Boca Raton, florida as I heard news of Seattle police standing by as Christopher Kime was being beaten to death with a skateboard as he attempted to intervene in an attempted rape at a Mardi Gras riot in circa 2002. It took the intelligence of Dave Reichert heading the King county sheriffs to intervene and bring order while seattles pussy chief and thumb up the ass mayor were frozen by fear with making a decision.
Roger Roadkills imbecilic theory is blown away with actual facts.
“The result was a 15-year-old girl got beaten up and kicked in the head while the private security guards stood and watched.”
What the security guards should have done was kill the attacker on the spot. No trial, no mess! Just some blood and stray body parts to clean-up.
I find it hard to believe that anything could be worse than the existing method of teaching basic mathematics to highschool level students.
Only an tiny fraction of people retain any mathematical skills beyond four function arithmetic. Even the most basic algebra is a mystery to most American adults and that’s simply a fucking tragedy.