Aren’t people with preserved rights living in a “better world?” And what is the limit of what is a right? Is a good, non-corporate-dominated public education a right? I think so. And my definition, for the sake of that comment includes school boards, and other local structures that work together to set priorities and common goals for their communities. What would you call that? I call it groups of people, pursuing happiness…
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How old are you?
No, they’re living under a better government.
And what is the limit of what is a right?
You don’t need to ask me. It’s explained in the constitution.
my definition, for the sake of that comment includes school boards, and other local structures that work together to set priorities and common goals for their communities.
Well we can agree there. The federal government’s ham-handed approach to education is really showing its cards these days.
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Damn, this thread has its share of Pearson astroturfers. I mean seriously? Test were your favorite part of school? What kind of self-satisfied narcissist finds proving their knowledge more fun than learning itself? You must fit in well in the corporate world, or somewhere I don’t want to be.
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[quote=“dacree, post:49, topic:30094, full:true”]
And I had thought that we had already discovered the primary reason that Japan kicks out butt in education is due to a lack of a common curriculum. U-M Office of the VPIT-CIO | Office of the VPIT-CIO | University of Michigan
The Japanese system is being praised for being less rigid and test fixated?!? When did this happen?
In fact your article seems to say exactly the opposite of what you claim, right on the second line:
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Actually, its to provide for the general welfare of the people. In other words, government exists to ensure a prosperous, just and equitable society. But by either your measure or mine, our government has failed miserably.
Oh, and no one mentioned “happiness” but you.
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Prove it. The whole “our schools are failing” meme is utter bullshit concocted to gut teacher’s unions and turn our public schools into private profit centers for hedge funders and their ilk. The only schools in the USA that are failing are the ones in very poor neighborhoods. Otherwise we are doing fine. In fact, with all the innovation the US routinely engages in it almost amazes me the American people have fallen for this garbage. But then again, we are a people ripe for hysteria-mongering.
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Indeed. And when I run my government like a business I provide a shite government.
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Within 5% of a billion seconds.
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And I am astonished at your ability to misinterpret a comment to suit your momentary self-righteous tirade.
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Can you expand on the ways in which Common Core (and No Child… before it) are, as you say, neoliberal Trojan horses for busting teachers’ unions and privatizing (that is, profiting from) education?
Bold claim, I’d be interested to see how it’s backed up.
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I’m equally skeptical of celebrity culture. But if a famous person can bring to light an important issue that us plebs can’t, should we always reject that?
Plus, just because he’s a celebrity doesn’t mean he’s not smart or funny, or that his work isn’t interesting and worthwhile. I find his stand up and his show funny, as well as sometimes even insightful. Pop culture doesn’t have to be dumb to be entertaining. I don’t think his work is dumb, really.
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The comment about ‘taxpayers’ vs ‘citizens’ is really what it’s all about. Everything is transactional these days; little wonder that education would be, too.
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And most people can’t necessarily separate the Common Core from the curriculum. The curriculum itself in many locations is atrocious, poorly conceived, poorly implemented and often plain incorrect. But since the curriculum was applied in order to meet the CC standards, its usually lumped into the same pile. The parents screaming about Common Core are often incorrect about where to point their finger, but Common Core side is just as bad - denying that any problem exists rather than analyzing it.
Its a theme that repeats on every major left/right issue: healthcare, education, immigration, environment, nutrition.
• The conservative side knows about the problem and doesnt know how to fix it, but the devil you know.
• The progressive side sees the problem gets a bunch of educated people to figure out how to fix it and they attempt sell it to Congress.
• The conservative side wonders why they should trust this bunch of educated guys to fix the system created by another bunch of educated guys.
• The progressives roll their eyes about how obtuse the conservatives are.
• The conservatives just dont want things to get worse.
• The progressives worry so much about selling the solution that they forget to worry about how it gets introduced and applied.
• Congress buys off on it and the new system is rolled out sloppily - sometimes causing more problems than it fixes.
• Conservatives are now even less willing to listen to reason, since the progressives screwed it up – AGAIN. Progressives pat themselves on the back while denying that there’s any problems. Some peoples lives have improved because of the system while others get massively screwed over.
• Rinse and repeat.
Everybody’s right. And everybody’s wrong.
This is what happens anytime you allow Federal funding to become part of the system. Federal paperwork and control systems become the bureaucratic tail that wags the work-getting-done dog.
This is one area where I think the “State’s rights” people have a point. It is none of the Federal government’s damn business what Oklahoma teaches it’s children. If Minnesota wants to turn out graduates who aren’t as good at math as Oregon graduates, it’s none of the Federal government’s damn business and it’s no other State’s damn business. And as long as school districts have to answer to the Feds for their money, they will have to dance to the Federal tune. States should just bite the bullet, work hard on reworking their budgets, raise taxes if necessary, refuse all Federal funding for schools and tell the Department of Education to fuck off.
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Oh my God. What? I’m 35 and I learned number lines and number sentences and “show your work” in grade school. I’m pretty sure my parents did, too. Their parents at least had to show their work. The specific term “number sentences” was new to me, but 15 seconds on Google shows that it’s just a kid-friendly word for “equation,” and of course I know what a fucking equation is.
It sounds like there are some genuine problems with Common Core, but there have got to be some critiques written by people who finished basic algebra and don’t have to take off their shoes to count to 20. This and that weird “new math” screed a couple of months ago are just embarrassing.
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You may be talking about something different than what I’m thinking of, but the area model for multiplication is historically one of the original models of multiplication (it depends on which culture we are talking about) and the origin of the words “squared” and “cubed” to describe the second and third power of a number. It is hardly idiosyncratic.
Also, I’m pretty sure that the intent is to stop kids from writing this:
(a+b)^2 = a^2+b^2
since, if they draw out the square with its two cuts, you see that there are two pieces you haven’t counted, each with area ab. i.e.
(a+b)^2 = a^2 + 2a*b + b^2
Silly stuff like that is the reason lots of kids fail their remedial college algebra classes.
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I would suggest that recognizing the problem with a testing mechanism that punishes continued work and figuring out the threshold is being innovative and creative.
Who the hell thinks three days of testing for little kids makes any sense at all? Its disgusting and stupid what they’ve done to our educational system in the name of abstracts like “college readiness” and “competition”.
Lets get this straight. The plutocracy in this country has systematically gutted our economy, moving many high paying jobs offshore creating destitution, desperation and mass poverty in return. Then they destroy the economy with a massive housing bust and steal our future by siphoning trillions of dollars of taxpayer money from the government to bail themselves out. And all while they’re doing this they are tapping into the misery they generated to blame all this “failure” of our economy on the public educational system. Thus spoiling and eliminating one of the only things that actually still benefits working people and the poor that our government provides.
This process is similar to the way the banks, via their hedge funds, have been buying up all those mysteriously empty properties around the country for a song only to rent them back to the people kicked out of those homes for another trip around the wheel. It allows them to constantly build more misery (profit for them) on the backs of the prior misery they created. Its a self-sustaining system! Until the bottom falls out…
If someone looked at the past 40 years of US history from space they’d likely think there is an evil mastermind in a room somewhere plotting all this out. Guess what? Its not one guy in a room. Its a whole way of thinking that has poisoned those at the highest levels of our society. Providing for the general welfare no longer means providing for the general welfare, because what REALLY helps people is forcing them to fit into corporate measurement standards and ruthless educational and job competition. The best care is no care, and the best help is leaving those who can’t “compete” or for whom there just isn’t a slot to find a hole to crawl into or a cardboard box on the street. Or hey! You can rent out your home, if you still have one, to strangers in “the sharing economy”!
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