There are two issues today that I think worth commenting about and I'm going to start with the school test cheating scandal in Atlanta, Georgia.
BUT CAN YOU MAKE CHANGE ? The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has released an eight hundred page report that a number of teachers and administrators in the Atlanta school system have deliberately cheated on tests designed to indicate where students stand in educational areas of language, math and other subjects. There is a great froo-frah going on including claims that teachers were told by principals and supervisors that students would pass achievement tests or else. Presumably meaning they would be fired from their jobs if scores weren't up to snuff.
When did we Americans start getting the idea that the object of education was to pass achievement tests? During my education in the 50's and 60's I learned reading, writing, arithmetic. I had it drilled into me. I also almost flunked Chemistry, Latin and something else, I forget. Did a fine job in Biology and American Government. I didn't have to take a standardized test to enter a community college in 1986. I just had to have passed high school. In spite of all that...
I write something almost every day of my life including this blog. I know good words to use that I get from a cornucopian vocabulary mostly amassed before I graduated from college. I've used math almost daily, especially in work settings, and particularly when I worked with fertilizers and pesticides in the business of grounds maintenance. Did some pretty complicated calculations with a pencil and a note pad standing in the middle of a forty-acre field. Sometimes just in my head. Got it right. And I know what the capital of Sri Lanka is - it was Ceylon back in the olden days. (Now you guess...) And where most rubber comes from, and from what kind of living tissue (guess that one too...). And I don't need a fancy cash register to tell me how much change somebody's owed. I do that in my head. Have done since I was 13 with a paper route.
BUT CAN YOU MAKE CHANGE ? The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has released an eight hundred page report that a number of teachers and administrators in the Atlanta school system have deliberately cheated on tests designed to indicate where students stand in educational areas of language, math and other subjects. There is a great froo-frah going on including claims that teachers were told by principals and supervisors that students would pass achievement tests or else. Presumably meaning they would be fired from their jobs if scores weren't up to snuff.
When did we Americans start getting the idea that the object of education was to pass achievement tests? During my education in the 50's and 60's I learned reading, writing, arithmetic. I had it drilled into me. I also almost flunked Chemistry, Latin and something else, I forget. Did a fine job in Biology and American Government. I didn't have to take a standardized test to enter a community college in 1986. I just had to have passed high school. In spite of all that...
I write something almost every day of my life including this blog. I know good words to use that I get from a cornucopian vocabulary mostly amassed before I graduated from college. I've used math almost daily, especially in work settings, and particularly when I worked with fertilizers and pesticides in the business of grounds maintenance. Did some pretty complicated calculations with a pencil and a note pad standing in the middle of a forty-acre field. Sometimes just in my head. Got it right. And I know what the capital of Sri Lanka is - it was Ceylon back in the olden days. (Now you guess...) And where most rubber comes from, and from what kind of living tissue (guess that one too...). And I don't need a fancy cash register to tell me how much change somebody's owed. I do that in my head. Have done since I was 13 with a paper route.
I like my way better. They didn't have to fire any teachers for teaching me writing with no tests. I learned to write. Period.
CREDIT RATING. Is this one of those "we should have seen it coming" matters? Of course it is! President Obama has told us and the world that we are still a triple-A country no matter if we only officially now have a AA.
CREDIT RATING. Is this one of those "we should have seen it coming" matters? Of course it is! President Obama has told us and the world that we are still a triple-A country no matter if we only officially now have a AA.
If I apply for a credit card and the bank I apply to does a financial check on me and finds that I have four other ones and owe a total of over ten thousand dollars, they are going to send me a form letter back saying "No you can't. You are so extended in relation to your income that we don't think you can reasonably pay us back on time." Standard & Poors did precisely the financially correct thing. This country is so over extended with debt it's no wonder Apple has more money than the United States government. Possibly Apple should run the country.
Ta!
No comments:
Post a Comment