The League of Education Voters has released it’s annual Citizen’s Report Card , and Washington’s education system is far from making the honor roll:
And that’s an improvement from the previous two report cards.
But, you know, if that’s good enough for Washington’s children, it’s better to just cut education funding rather than even starting a conversation about raising additional revenues.
(emphasis added):
I’d give that a C- in grammar and spelling.
:-)
So it is focus on math, science and engineering, eh? So we can feed the economy and get high salaries, eh?
Why do people buy this evil slanted point of view? Yes, no argument, the math and science world needs to be emphasized and fed in our schools.
BUT if you want happy, successful, well rounded adults you feed them the HUMANITIES and the ARTS. For Pete’s sake, what makes life worth living? A real education offers students music, art, drama, creative writing, debate, etc., — all the parts of life that can become the enhancements of life forever. When you are at the end of your career, do you want to do mathematics formulas for pleasure? No. You want to be knowledgeable in music, so you can go to concerts, so you can listen to great composers and performers. You want to be able to look at a painting and get the pleasure of a knowledgeable viewer. You want to watch a Shakespeare play at the Rep and be emotionally overwhelmed by the combination of your knowledge and readiness for the experience attached to the talent and skill of the creators of the performance.
What is wrong with people that they produce a Report Card and show that they have no understanding at all of what makes life worth living?
This is the attitude that has ruined secondary education in our country. We don’t need music; we don’t need art; we don’t need Shakespeare. And the result is the disconnected student who wanders through the halls looking for something of VALUE to keep him attached to education.
Good job, you report card issuers. As Shelley might have written it: “I weep for education; it is dead.”
Higher expectations don’t cost anything. And, preparing every student for college is a dubious if not impossible goal.
@2, over on the tunnel thread, the fiscal conservatives were complaining about the 1% for art. I swear they want to create human robots, not thinking individuals.
I Wonder If This Cop Is A Republican?
Hey, I’m not saying he is, I’m just askin’ … sodomizing cows just seems like something a Republican might do.
http://cbs3.com/topstories/off.....06410.html
What is so frustrating about stuff like this report card is that it utterly ignores the crucial issues of education. What has been diminished over the years, cut from the programs? NOT science, math and technology. Music programs, drama programs, foreign languages, English classes, art programs, etc. These are the human oriented classes that make kids willing and even eager to go to school. These are the classes that have intense GROUPS of friends that make other classes bearable. In my life, it was the band; we dated each other, married each other, still see each other. We came to school because we loved the music and respected the director/teacher. If we put money into these classes today, the kids would be more likely to stay in school, to go to their math classes, to bond with the system. But no, we cut them out, then say we need to put more emphasis on science, math and technology.
Here is a secret: the vast majority of kids in school don’t need and won’t use much of the s, m, t and we stuff into them, but they will never recover from the loss of the humanities in their lives.
Roger Rabbit is upset that a cow is being sodomized and he is not.
@5 Since also he’s a pedophile and he’s not a priest, I’d say he’s most definitely a Republican:
“Melia and his former girlfriend, Heather Lewis were previously charged with three counts of aggravated sexual assault and one count of criminal sexual contact with three girls in his Pemberton home from 2003 until 2006.”
So where is this group on the issue of teacher quality?
Remember that Republican preacher that died wearing two wetsuits and a dildo up his veronica? I’ll bet he was against funding schools also.
re 9: The thing about ‘teacher quality’ is that most of them have been ill-trained themselves.
The only thing I’m sure of is that they all do a 100% better job of teaching than you ever could.
ON YOUR BEST DAY!!!
This whole sort of grading and faux accountability is a masquerade for the deep fundamental intent of those that gain from educational funding. Please keep in mind that every penny of money spent on education quite quickly ends up in the hands of corporations (contracts for all services, materials, resources, utilities, etc.) and all labor dollars going into food, shelter, gas, clothing, classroom supplies, etc. Schools are just another form of big business, only the system uses children as the mined resources to produce wealth. We allegedly educate 100% of the kids to siphon off less than 10% who will meet the pseudo-crap in the RC (our economy depends on it, more workforce training, and more investment????? the pile of BS is being measured in feet now). We destroy lives to produce wealth for the few, mining the minds of our children as just another resource that creates toxic residue. In this case the toxic mass ends up (much like other mine tailings) costing billions to clean up; prisons are expensive.
re 12: I’m not saying you are wrong, but I can see sparks flying off that axe you are grinding.
Almost any sort of subject matter will suffice to teach kids something. One untapped source of interest is the unending interest of teenage boys in porn.
Just think of all the things about computing that even a dullard would be willing to slog through in the pursuit of ever better and more diverse porn sites?
You’ve got to teach them about what they are interested in!!
I’m with #2.
“Why do people buy this evil slanted point of view?”
Why is it Evil? Because it casts a light on “LIP” (Liberal Indoctrination Program) in WA State?
“BUT if you want happy, successful, well rounded adults you feed them the HUMANITIES and the ARTS.”
Oh? is that all? That’s how to be happy?
What a joke…..
Are you 15 years old? You sound like a kid sucking up to his history teacher….
Pelletizer@5: Doubt it from the voting demographics of the area! You do know how to figger it out right dumb bunny ‘IF‘ you have de skillz?
@16 puddy,
We KNOW this guy is a Democrat
http://www.journaltimes.com/ar.....015381.txt
Fuck art.
Art is a selfish endeavor. When someone introduces themselves as “an artist”, I know to give them a wide berth because they are probably a a self-centered prig.
Okay, I’m over reacting. Yeah, art is somewhat important, but not nearly as important as commenter #2 would suggest.
The problem with schools (and government services in general) is that it is a service industry. Simple question: goods or services? Well, schools don’t manufacture any products for the open market, therefore, they are a service industry. But schools don’t see themselves as providing a service. Teachers and administrators see themselves as a chosen order who have the right stuff and the rest of us can pound sand.
John Gottman, of the Gottman Institute at the U of Washington says that the only true indicator of how well children learn is the quality of emotional life they live. Put another way, there is a direct correlation between being happy at home and being able to learn. Gottman is a former applied mathematician who started studying psychology. He is trying to put some ‘hard’ into what is a rather soft science.
So maybe commenter #2 is right for reasons that he doesn’t understand. Maybe being happy at home and practicing some artistic expression are indicators of that happiness.
Or not.
@2 & @6 Spike
Don’t get me wrong I cringe when I hear schools are cutting art, music, drama, dance, foreign languages, etc.
However the state of social studies, science, and math in K-12 is appaling as well. All are just as important to being a well rounded adult as are the humanities. All are necessary to understand the world around us.
I find the state of innumerancy and lack of even basic scientific and technical knowledge among even otherwise intelligent and well educated individuals to be a constant source of frustration.
Right Stuff: As I told StillBentOver, now that the Donkey are in power there will be a dearth of conservative news so they’ll have to post the Donkey in action.
Right Stuff: This guy, Robert Eric McFadden, is a Ohio Donkey too…
Right Stuff here is a low grade activity
@20
Oh I’m sure the conservatards will continue to provide plenty of entertainment.
You be dummy donkey I red in Weakly Standerd…
Fo sho!!!
Keep fiddling libturds, while American circles the drain. The Japs, Gooks and Koreans are running circles around us in math and science.
@ # 11 I am sure you are well informed as to how many coaches are teaching math, science and history in the schools, so how about filling the rest of us in. It might help if and when we get around to contacting our reps on the issue.
As per pupil spending has gone up, test scores have gone down and dropout rates sky high.
Maybe if we spend less, test scores will go up and dropout rates down.
It seems to me there is a split in the serious responses to this issue. My earlier posts were not about the quality of teaching; they were about the curricular offerings in the schools. The “focus on science, math and engineering” emphasis is misapplied. Those disciplines have been the central focus of schools for several decades. The money goes there. I am NOT saying that they are not an important part of education. I am saying that in the process of that emphasis, the schools have decimated the humanities, which are equally important. The humanities have been trimmed back over and over; in some schools there is no band at all, no drama program. I am also saying that from the student point of view, those classes are the ones students bond with, where they find their friends and their passions. Cutting the humanities is also cutting the major reasons students want to go to school.
Moveover, despite “Right Stuff’s” willful misreading, I did not say that happiness is found only in the humanities. I said that happiness in life is enhanced by being familiar with the arts around us as adults. Other factors play their parts, but someone who is fifty and has a bit of knowledge can participate in and enjoy the arts/humanities around him. They enhance life, and you don’t have to be a “Liberal” to understand that.
Teacher quality comes after curricular offerings. They greatest drama teacher can’t teach drama in a school without a program. And this is the hardest issue of all, because education schools cannot teach inspiration, empathy, support, affection. And those who have the innate skills to connect with kids will not be paid at levels equal to their importance in the lives of children.
At least, though, we can stop this inane stress on the classes that have taken over the schools and give the kids reasons to go to school by offering them the classes that teach the nature of human beings and that inspire creativity in young people when they most want real reasons to be there and real chances to learn and create.
Artists, poets & writers….sounds better than what most of them really are:
LIFESTYLE UNEMPLOYED!
@29 Perhaps if cynical had paid attention in class, she would have learned to read and evaluate data.
What does Ms. Cynical do again? Sheep farmer? Montana outcast? Certainly, she is not a productive member of society.
@27: Care to actually cite any data. The real data says that performance goes up as class size goes down. That focusing on standardized tests leads to teaching to the test and actually makes poorer students.
http://www.wested.org/online_p.....lasses.pdf
@29 Why is it hard to understand that art, poetry, writing in high school are not life commitments for employment but life enhancements? Do you really think that the 30 kids in a physics class are all going to be physicists? I never used trig once after high school, but I don’t regret for a minute that I was forced to become introduced to the discipline. Cynical thinks if you don’t make money at it, you don’t have to learn anything from it. So Cynical never enjoys a novel, watches a movie, attends a concert, looks at a painting. All my dad ever had to learn in life was how to build a tire. Great life.
re 26: Do you think it a bad thing if coaches teach Math, Science, and History?
Do you have the numbers on how many coaches teach the history and the practice of Kniesiology?
The coach could do all three things in one class!
@ # 2: I’m all for teaching art, literature, and the various other humanities in high school.
But I think we’ve been neglecting math and science. Or more accurately, we’ve presumed that if we could somehow not fall too far behind the levels previously met in the early 1970’s, then we’ve accomplished our goals.
In the meantime, students from other countries (especially Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and now even India) are making our high schools look like a joke. Their AVERAGE high school graduates know more math and science than our average college graduate. (The old saw that they “only educate the elite” no longer applies, and hasn’t for quite a long time). My colleagues at work are astounded that anyone in America could graduate from high school without a solid understanding of calculus, and be fluent in at least one foriegn language, with a basic understanding of at least one or two more.
So, when our high school graduates compete with their high school graduates for contracts overseas, who do you think is going to win?
@34 My point is that math and science have NOT been neglected. It is totally the humanities that have suffered neglect in the curricular structure of schools. Seldom is a math/science class removed from the curriculum. Your points about the scores and abilities in math/science speaks to the demands in those classes. We have poorer teachers demanding less from students who are less engaged. What you say has validity, but the problem is not curricular neglect. Ever since Sputnik, schools have over emphasized math/science IN THE CURRICULUM.
By the way, calculus is probably the one math class that people do not need, as colleges always start calculus from the beginning. HS calc is like pre-Algebra. Nice, but not necessary.
@31 Excellent point. Anyone in education knows how true this is. A few years back the conservative Bennett and the liberal Cuomo were in town. They disagreed on everything, but agreed on one thing. If we want success in education, we have to reduce class size and then pay for it. You couldn’t get more costly, though, and we don’t want to pay the tab for what we insist we desire in our product. Look at SPS right now, closing the smaller, more intimate schools and cramming them in schools of 800 and more children and rooms with ten more kids than can be taught at the best ratio., We say that our kids are our future, but we don’t act on that statement.
Children are precious; teachers are expensive. Great teachers are born, not made, and they have to be hunted down and seduced with decent salaries. Sorry about that. (By the way, we could probably shut down the various useless parts of schools of education and pay for actual teachers, but that’s another issue.)
John425 wants to sodomize RR as he is getting tired of goat fucking. Hey Troll, maybe John425 will part with his goats for cheap. You never know…
For what it’s worth, this conservative, Republican agrees wholeheartedly with the statement, “if you want happy, successful, well rounded adults you feed them the HUMANITIES and the ARTS.” You also teach ’em calculus and statistics and show ’em how math and humanities ain’t mutually exclusive.
And Fuck the “League of Education Voters”! Bunch of rich elitist lexus-liberal shitheads!
“calculus is probably the one math class that people do not need”
No way!!! There are certain aspects of calculus that EVERYBODY needs! Exponnential growth etc. etc. But the rest of what you said is spot on.
hl@12:
You should suggest that class to the Seattle Skuul Bored. It’s right “up your alley”.
Washington DC has the about highest spending per pupil in the nation and about the worst schools in the nation (Which is why Bar’k and Mickie O are sending the Obama girls to an elite private school). The problem is NOT that we don’t spend enough. The problem is how little we get for what we pay. The answer is not to pay more. The League of Education Voters is a political, partisan organization with a political partisan agenda. They get an “F”.