Segregation making a comeback.

[Ishmael]

I parse it out for ease of reading. I don't ask that you do it back. Especially because we are on a site with people who'll happilly post walls of text that nobody reads.

You misunderstand (I have to assume intentionally) my point on teachers. Our overall quality is a result of low pay and lack of prestige for the vocation as a whole. The details are as you point out that good teachers get to pick choice assignments. So lower their ability to do that. I didn't get to pick where I was stationed in the military. I could make requests but lower that kind of thing. Even out the funding as well so the schools in the ghetto are funded every bit as well as the ones in Beverley Hills. The parents in Beverley Hills will still come from better educated parents more able to help them and able to hire tutors and the poor kids will still have two parents working full time who can't do Trig in the first place much less help their children do it but it'll be a step in the right direction. As it stands the rich kids get all that plus a better school on top of it.

I don't really see any reason why you'd need to ban teacher's unions. Just because Stalin did doesn't necessitate us doing the same thing. I'm curious what precisely prevents Congress from nationalizing the schools. It's too big a move for an EO obviously but I'm unaware of anything specifically in the Constitution that says we can't. You may be right about the revolution but I doubt it. The people who would be getting fucked by this are few, the people who'd benefit are many. It hardly seems like the sort of things rational people would fight and die over.

The unions are the reason they get to pick and choose. If you try to take that away you're likely to start a general strike.

Although the unions are a big part of the problem, they are by no means the only part, or even the biggest part. They share the blame along with a host of other issues.

Virtually all low performing inner city schools dominated by minorities share similar traits.

1. Parent(s) that are apathetic, and in some cases down right hostile, to education.

2. Drugs, alcohol, pregnancies.

3. An over abundance of single parent homes.

Add the unions to that list and you have the big four.

Obviously there is an entire laundry list of lesser contributing factors but focusing on them, or even trying to address them, is a waste of time until you have tackled, and solved, the big four.

Ishmael

 

[Que]

That would be a terribly stupid test for a number of reasons. There really is no such thing as an 8th grade reading level for starters.

Agreed.

The question was what "metric" is being used to determine reading proficiency in 8th graders. There ISN'T a valid one.

You can either read, or you cannot. If you cannot read your parent(s) have failed at job one.

No one should leave first grade until they can read proficiently.

Anything beyond that is either vocabulary or specialty jargon.

An eight grader should be able to read out loud anything that would be ordinarily said in casual conversation amongst their peers. It is not an imponderable mystery what words are in the common vernacular of base level eighth graders.

 

[Sean Renaud]

The unions are the reason they get to pick and choose. If you try to take that away you're likely to start a general strike.

Although the unions are a big part of the problem, they are by no means the only part, or even the biggest part. They share the blame along with a host of other issues.

Virtually all low performing inner city schools dominated by minorities share similar traits.

1. Parent(s) that are apathetic, and in some cases down right hostile, to education.

2. Drugs, alcohol, pregnancies.

3. An over abundance of single parent homes.

Add the unions to that list and you have the big four.

Obviously there is an entire laundry list of lesser contributing factors but focusing on them, or even trying to address them, is a waste of time until you have tackled, and solved, the big four.

Ishmael

Unions are the reason why the people who have the greatest skill get to demand what they want? I'd love for you to explain how that's the fault of the union and not a result of good ole capitalism. Hell I'd expect you to be touting it.

1. These people are extraordinarily rare. They lack the skills or time.
2. I think these are two separate issues with two separate solutions. Drugs. . .honestly I think that's just code and doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Pregnancy however is easy to solve. Grant better access to birth control. If you need to put a goddamn Planned Parenthood rep on every single fucking campus in the country do it. (I think that's gross overkill but meh.)
3. A real problem I grant you. But that's a reason to increase the quality of our schools. (And change our welfare laws back so just because you have an able bodied man doesn't restrict your ability to receive welfare.)

None of those however are the results of bad schools. They are all issues for why people don't get out of those situations because poverty is in most cases reinforcing spiral.

The idea that unions are a significant part of the problem is absurd. Our children are only failures when you compare them to students from other countries. They would hold up favorably compared to us and our parents and grandparents especially in certain subjects. Those other countries often have much more powerful unions than ours, singular national unions instead of the fractured factions we have now with relatively little power to wield save in a few areas. And those areas are generally places that are considered for one reason or another to be too big to govern effectively.

In this case I don't see a reason to keep nor to disband the union however. Nobody ever formed a union because they were being paid well and treated with respect.

 

[Bry1313]

Agreed.

The question was what "metric" is being used to determine reading proficiency in 8th graders. There ISN'T a valid one.

You can either read, or you cannot. If you cannot read your parent(s) have failed at job one.

No one should leave first grade until they can read proficiently.

Anything beyond that is either vocabulary or specialty jargon.

An eight grader should be able to read out loud anything that would be ordinarily said in casual conversation amongst their peers. It is not an imponderable mystery what words are in the common vernacular of base level eighth graders.

It's not an oral test.

 

[Saint Peter]

At least there will not be anymore honkies in the White House.



Praise The Lord!

 

[Sean Renaud]

Agreed.

The question was what "metric" is being used to determine reading proficiency in 8th graders. There ISN'T a valid one.

You can either read, or you cannot. If you cannot read your parent(s) have failed at job one.

No one should leave first grade until they can read proficiently.

Anything beyond that is either vocabulary or specialty jargon.

An eight grader should be able to read out loud anything that would be ordinarily said in casual conversation amongst their peers. It is not an imponderable mystery what words are in the common vernacular of base level eighth graders.

If you cannot read your schools have failed. Not your parents.

What precisely is reading proficiently? Especially with you willing to parse out vocabulary and specialty jargon. The latter of which makes up the majority of things that are considered beyond a 5th grade reading level.

I have no particular argument that an eight grader should be able to read aloud anything that would be said in casual conversation period. Not amongst their peers and I'd cut that to probably fourth or fifth (only because fifth grade is the agreed upon level of education needed to have obtained that skill. I don't personally know anybody who wasn't there in second or third grade but hey whatever. That's certainly not a hill worth dying on.)

However going back to the metric you were speaking of those kids in the 50th percentile are in the middle. Average. America is considered a fully literate country. We all have stories about the kid working the register at Wal-Mart who can't read for shit but the tests suggest we've either all met the same kid or we're all easily frustrated.

 

[Sean Renaud]

It's not an oral test.

Other than the time necessary (and the amount of teachers necessary to pull off query's plan. I do love how the same people who want to cut funding for schools want to do plans that would require easily double the number of teachers we have today) there is no good reason why it cannot be an oral.

 

[Que]

Other than the time necessary (and the amount of teachers necessary to pull off query's plan. I do love how the same people who want to cut funding for schools want to do plans that would require easily double the number of teachers we have today) there is no good reason why it cannot be an oral.

The upside to my plan is you don't waste 7 years and the classroom space for a child to get to 8th grade without being able to read.

As a practical matter, teachers USED to call on children to read aloud. A lot of these problems including very real (and treatable) learning disabilities were caught much earlier.

In an effort to protect fragile egos it isn't done anymore.

I am being a little hyperbolic with my plan for "testing" which should be unnecessary because a teacher should KNOW whether a child can read or not before he leaves first grade.

Every time we throw a lot of money at standardized testing....We only discover that our educational system is not educating students.. (and by system I mean students and their motivation, parents and their involvement and THE State writ large and its mandates, the teachers and more to the point their lobby)

When one can measure the improvement or lack thereof from year to year, class by class, school by school, and student by student...the cry always is that the test doesn't account for X factor or Y. It is simple. Johnny can read or he cannot.

Addition and subtraction works exactly the same way in the country as in the hood.

See Jane run. Is exactly the same as See Juan run.

 

[Que]

If you cannot read your schools have failed. Not your parents.

What precisely is reading proficiently? Especially with you willing to parse out vocabulary and specialty jargon. The latter of which makes up the majority of things that are considered beyond a 5th grade reading level.

I have no particular argument that an eight grader should be able to read aloud anything that would be said in casual conversation period. Not amongst their peers and I'd cut that to probably fourth or fifth (only because fifth grade is the agreed upon level of education needed to have obtained that skill. I don't personally know anybody who wasn't there in second or third grade but hey whatever. That's certainly not a hill worth dying on.)

However going back to the metric you were speaking of those kids in the 50th percentile are in the middle. Average. America is considered a fully literate country. We all have stories about the kid working the register at Wal-Mart who can't read for shit but the tests suggest we've either all met the same kid or we're all easily frustrated.

A parents primary job is to insure that their child is capable of being a functioning member of society. The schools exist to assist and are governed by the parents. If you do not read to your child you are part of the problem. If your child cannot read and you have not jumped up and down and screamed to get the assistance you and that child need, you are a marginal human being.

You are thinking of the old Stanford Achievement tests Stanine scores. Where it was a measure of how your scores compared to other populations on a test that was supposed to have no one answer all the questions correctly.

This is them failing 50% of the questions. Not in the middle 50% who all happened to score around 75% or a c average. You can GUESS with 25% accuracy.

Believe that this test has already been dumbed down and "urbanized" as much as humanly possible.

 

[Sean Renaud]

The upside to your plan (the tiny bit presented) is everything.

Since when do they not call on kids to read in class? I call bullshit on that. They might not call on every single student but that's just not practical classrooms the size that we have.

Standardized testing is necessary. That's just life, it's also at best half the issue that your addressing and logically not even that much.

Johnny can read or he can't is true but why he can't read is important and you can't let people go out into the world unable to read. You just can't it's too important there is no trade school you can enter them in that won't require them to read at a 5th grade level. They need to be able to read contracts and bills. I'm not going to pretend that I read every single bill nor that there are parts on bills that I've gotten where I've said "WHAT THE FUCK IS that alphabet soup?!" then seen that it was 1.73 and decided I really don't care. But these people are going to be expected to read.

Also not being able to read because you have dislexia is different from needing glasses is different from never having been taught properly etc etc.

We can debate how much school is wasted and why. I agree that a lot of it is kinda sorta wasted depending on your mood. That still doesn't change the amount of personell necessary for your plan.

I have problem with it and if you could get the votes on your side to fund a doubling of teachers (and the accompanying admin) I'd be right behind you. It's not a poor plan at all. I simply get annoyed with Republicans presenting education issues that require more and better paid personell. Just like I get annoyed with dems who get pissy about why we haven't sent troops in to kill Kony or rescue those missing girls. Either we're Team America: World Police and to some degree you need to get on board and then quibble the tails or we're not.

 

[unregistered]

 

[Sean Renaud]

A parents primary job is to insure that their child is capable of being a functioning member of society. The schools exist to assist and are governed by the parents. If you do not read to your child you are part of the problem. If your child cannot read and you have not jumped up and down and screamed to get the assistance you and that child need, you are a marginal human being.

You are thinking of the old Stanford Achievement tests Stanine scores. Where it was a measure of how your scores compared to other populations on a test that was supposed to have no one answer all the questions correctly.

This is them failing 50% of the questions. Not in the middle 50% who all happened to score around 75% or a c average. You can GUESS with 25% accuracy.

Believe that this test has already been dumbed down and "urbanized" as much as humanly possible.

Jump up and down all you want. The money isn't there to help your child and the only thing you can do is quit your job and do it yourself. . .dont' worry about eating though because you don't need to do that.

I assume you have a cite backing up that these students are getting 50% wrong not that they are scoring in the middle 50%? If so I'll happily apologize but I don't think you do.

I'll take your word that the test has been dumbed down and "urbanized" at all. None of the teachers I know have said that, most of them have stated that the amount information and the speed we expect our children to absorb is positively insane but they don't talk much specifically about tests and none of them are around right now for me to ask.

 

[doubleover]

Wasn't too long ago in a criminal trial in Florida a young lady, a senior in high school, when asked to read words she claimed to have written, was forced to admit she couldn't read "cursive." My question at the time, how could she have progressed to the 12th grade and not be able to read?

If you can play football you can get a college degree
without knowing how to read.

 

[Sean Renaud]

If you can play football you can get a college degree
without knowing how to read.

You can try anyway. The number of Americans who can't read is so fucking low that I doubt you see many if any college grads, football players or not, that can't.

 

[Que]

The upside to your plan (the tiny bit presented) is everything.

Since when do they not call on kids to read in class? I call bullshit on that. They might not call on every single student but that's just not practical classrooms the size that we have.

Standardized testing is necessary. That's just life, it's also at best half the issue that your addressing and logically not even that much.

Johnny can read or he can't is true but why he can't read is important and you can't let people go out into the world unable to read. You just can't it's too important there is no trade school you can enter them in that won't require them to read at a 5th grade level. They need to be able to read contracts and bills. I'm not going to pretend that I read every single bill nor that there are parts on bills that I've gotten where I've said "WHAT THE FUCK IS that alphabet soup?!" then seen that it was 1.73 and decided I really don't care. But these people are going to be expected to read.

Also not being able to read because you have dislexia is different from needing glasses is different from never having been taught properly etc etc.

We can debate how much school is wasted and why. I agree that a lot of it is kinda sorta wasted depending on your mood. That still doesn't change the amount of personell necessary for your plan.

I have problem with it and if you could get the votes on your side to fund a doubling of teachers (and the accompanying admin) I'd be right behind you. It's not a poor plan at all. I simply get annoyed with Republicans presenting education issues that require more and better paid personell. Just like I get annoyed with dems who get pissy about why we haven't sent troops in to kill Kony or rescue those missing girls. Either we're Team America: World Police and to some degree you need to get on board and then quibble the tails or we're not.

Teaching reading has been done on a wide scale with great success since Guttenberg.

A recent neurological study was suggestive that reading is not a natural activity for the brain. In other words our brain was designed to receive input of that sort from our ears not our eyes.

The thing they were focusing on was the sort of reading most of us are doing these days, even now as we speak. Reading short posts hopping on a hyperlink, and so on...not wading through long continuous text.

The only thing that makes better at reading is reading. A lot of it.

I am barely old enough to have seen "See and say" taught before phonics In my view made the concept of reading as whole language harder for kids to achieve.

I was in first grade in Louisiana the first year in a brand new school that was the first ever racially integrated school in the area. My math teacher Mrs. Baxter was black and had won a teaching award the year before. My Homeroom and reading teacher was Mrs. Randall. My classroom had more black children than white children. I would say about 8 out of 24-30 children were white. This is the deep South a lot of white kids in the neighborhood including non-Catholics went to Catholic School that year.

I could already read quite well before I started school. My sister taught me by simply reading to me until one day, I could see each word on the page and know what it was before she got to it.

That is more or less how whole word language works. Flash cards everyday. Kids were taught the alphabet and the sound each made so that if they got stuck on a flashcard they could start sounding it out until they could remember the word on the card.

The kids liked it. They were competitive...who could recognize and holler out the word first.

These were tar-paper shack poor children. They had no problem at all getting it. As the words got harder some struggled a bit, but practice, practice practice.

These techniques - easily adaptable to phonics (although I maintain they hurt more than they help...even a dyslexic doesn't see "dog"' as "boj" if it is expressed as a whole word.) are not expensive or labor intensive.

As the kids improved, those that mastered decks of cards moved on...the ones still struggling continued to grind away. Eventually it was broken up into 3-4 subgroups with students leading the flash-card group.

Before there WERE regular schools we had better literacy through rote recitation of biblical passages because that was often the only book that a family owned or had access to.

It is absurd to suggest that a basic reading level to function in society is out of reach for anyone and that that need be expensive. If a child cannot read well it is POINTLESS to send them to a social studies class.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Wasn't too long ago in a criminal trial in Florida a young lady, a senior in high school, when asked to read words she claimed to have written, was forced to admit she couldn't read "cursive." My question at the time, how could she have progressed to the 12th grade and not be able to read?

In Florida its called pretend progress.

 

[unregistered]

 

[unregistered]

 

[Ishmael]

Unions are the reason why the people who have the greatest skill get to demand what they want? I'd love for you to explain how that's the fault of the union and not a result of good ole capitalism. Hell I'd expect you to be touting it.

1. These people are extraordinarily rare. They lack the skills or time.
2. I think these are two separate issues with two separate solutions. Drugs. . .honestly I think that's just code and doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Pregnancy however is easy to solve. Grant better access to birth control. If you need to put a goddamn Planned Parenthood rep on every single fucking campus in the country do it. (I think that's gross overkill but meh.)
3. A real problem I grant you. But that's a reason to increase the quality of our schools. (And change our welfare laws back so just because you have an able bodied man doesn't restrict your ability to receive welfare.)

None of those however are the results of bad schools. They are all issues for why people don't get out of those situations because poverty is in most cases reinforcing spiral.

The idea that unions are a significant part of the problem is absurd. Our children are only failures when you compare them to students from other countries. They would hold up favorably compared to us and our parents and grandparents especially in certain subjects. Those other countries often have much more powerful unions than ours, singular national unions instead of the fractured factions we have now with relatively little power to wield save in a few areas. And those areas are generally places that are considered for one reason or another to be too big to govern effectively.

In this case I don't see a reason to keep nor to disband the union however. Nobody ever formed a union because they were being paid well and treated with respect.

Jesus, but you are naive and simplistic.

Birth control is not an issue, readily available, all sorts. But you can't make them use it. Did it ever occur to you that some of those girls, quite mistakenly, see a child as a way out? Money from the govm't etc.

You can't compare the unions of France or Germany to ours without also comparing the rules under which they operate as enacted by the national authority.

It would also behoove you to look into how the unions inter operate at the local level with regard to their membership and how teachers MAY move from school to school. I would also hasten to point out to you that unions are advocates for their members, NOT for the students. Although if you peruse their websites you will see that they ofter try to push their agenda by hiding behind the students skirts.

Following up on that there is the question of the teachers education as well. In the US education majors have the lowest mean SAT scores of any of the 4 year degrees and those that pursue post grad degrees have the lowest mean GRE scores. Which is to say many of them are dumber than the students they are expected to teach. I don't know if it's true anymore but at one time in the state of New York you had to have a masters degree IN the subject you were teaching or you weren't going to teach in that school at all. I'd be interested if someone knowledgeable in this area from the state of New York knows if this is still true or not?

Ishmael

 

[Sean Renaud]

I agree that teaching reading has been pretty successful over all. I'd love to see your study showing that reading is not a natural activity for the brain. It doesn't seem like it should be considerably different from looking at the position of the stars to chart seasons or looking at grass to track game, etc, etc. But I could be wrong.

Again, I'd like to see a cite proving that this test was anything other than ranking the children from best to worst using a percentile system.

I concur that the only thing that makes better reading is reading. I do draw the line when people start bitching about video games or comic books though.

I'm not huge fan of phonics. I see why people have used it but I can take it or leave it.

I'll take your word that you could read quite well before you started school. Depending on how you define "quite well" so could I. However what you're claiming doesn't sound so much like reading as memorization. People thought I could read long before I could not because I recognized the words by sight but because I knew what the last word was before you were supposed to turn the page. It was great all the way up until someone caught be 'reading' without looking at the book.

Flash cards are fine, but we have Seasame Street these days. I have nothing against competition amongst kids. However the points you are raising ARE labor intensive or at least time consuming. You're gonna have a hard time getting to every child in a class of 30+ children. Most of the studies I've read suggest that (for K-12) anything more than than 15 is suboptimal and anything over 25 is simply bad.

I had to read your last paragraph a few times but first it's not pointless to send them to a social studies class because they can't read. Most of the time the teacher will be talking and not being able to read does not make you ignorant or unable to absorb the information.

I did not at all suggest that reading is out of the reach of anybody. I don't believe that. What I believe is that if you're going to have a child sit down and read a page of information and then answer questions about it to prove they not only could pronounce all the words on the page but also understood what was written is going to take more time than a single teacher has with thirty plus students. Especially if any of them need any assistance at all and many of them will and not all because they are stupid. Some will need glasses they either can't afford or are worried about getting picked on for wearing, some will have dyslexia, for some English will be a second language (Remember as Ishmael has educated me about one size fits all NEVER works so if the kids want to learn in Pharsee the failure is of the teacher not the student.). Some will struggle understanding the parts of a sentence so on and so forth.

This plan is good but it does require resources we currently do not have to bring to bear.


It is absurd to suggest that as you suggest a basic reading level to function in society is out of reach for anyone and that that need be expensive. If a child cannot read well it is POINTLESS to send them to a social studies class.[/QUOTE]

 

[Sean Renaud]

Jesus, but you are naive and simplistic.

Birth control is not an issue, readily available, all sorts. But you can't make them use it. Did it ever occur to you that some of those girls, quite mistakenly, see a child as a way out? Money from the govm't etc.

I'm sure there might be a few but I'm sure it pales in comparison to those who for various reasons don't have access to quality birth control and the accompanying education. When you have parents that think pulling out is birth control you get kids who think that too.

You can't compare the unions of France or Germany to ours without also comparing the rules under which they operate as enacted by the national authority.

By all means bring up the relevant data. I agree not that it seems to matter at the end of the day.

It would also behoove you to look into how the unions inter operate at the local level with regard to their membership and how teachers MAY move from school to school. I would also hasten to point out to you that unions are advocates for their members, NOT for the students. Although if you peruse their websites you will see that they ofter try to push their agenda by hiding behind the students skirts.

Again bring up the relevant information. I'm all ears. Moving from school to school however has little to do with the amount of power any individual district can bring to bear during contract negotiations.

Of course teachers are advocates for their members and not their students. The reverse would be ignorant. They can and should hide behind students 'skirts' as you put it. The same way that when people speak out for the military it's done under the guise of "they protect your freedom!"

Following up on that there is the question of the teachers education as well. In the US education majors have the lowest mean SAT scores of any of the 4 year degrees and those that pursue post grad degrees have the lowest mean GRE scores. Which is to say many of them are dumber than the students they are expected to teach. I don't know if it's true anymore but at one time in the state of New York you had to have a masters degree IN the subject you were teaching or you weren't going to teach in that school at all. I'd be interested if someone knowledgeable in this area from the state of New York knows if this is still true or not?

Ishmael

Yes they do. The job doesn't pay enough nor have enough prestige to attract the cream of the crop. (And that's just me taking your word for granted despite the fact that I'm equal parts sure you pulled it out of your ass and less than concerned about SAT scores anyway.) That doesn't mean they are dumber than the students they are expected to teach.

I don't know if it's a Master's any more but they do require a degree period. It's one of the downfalls of NCLB. You cannot teach a subject that you don't have a degree in. And nobody was smart enough to put in a loophole for subjects (those precious trades so often brought up) for which there is no degree. Not to mention the cuts in funding that eliminated the vast majority of those long ago.

 

[RobDownSouth]

Following up on that there is the question of the teachers education as well. In the US education majors have the lowest mean SAT scores of any of the 4 year degrees and those that pursue post grad degrees have the lowest mean GRE scores. Which is to say many of them are dumber than the students they are expected to teach. I don't know if it's true anymore but at one time in the state of New York you had to have a masters degree IN the subject you were teaching or you weren't going to teach in that school at all. I'd be interested if someone knowledgeable in this area from the state of New York knows if this is still true or not?

Grampa Syphillish

Are you now claiming SAT scores predict career success?
The last time I checked, SAT scores were only able to predict academic performance in the freshman year of college, nothing more, nothing less.

How much of your remainin' grey matter do you have left, anyway?

 

[Ishmael]

I'm sure there might be a few but I'm sure it pales in comparison to those who for various reasons don't have access to quality birth control and the accompanying education. When you have parents that think pulling out is birth control you get kids who think that too.



By all means bring up the relevant data. I agree not that it seems to matter at the end of the day.



Again bring up the relevant information. I'm all ears. Moving from school to school however has little to do with the amount of power any individual district can bring to bear during contract negotiations.

Of course teachers are advocates for their members and not their students. The reverse would be ignorant. They can and should hide behind students 'skirts' as you put it. The same way that when people speak out for the military it's done under the guise of "they protect your freedom!"



Yes they do. The job doesn't pay enough nor have enough prestige to attract the cream of the crop. (And that's just me taking your word for granted despite the fact that I'm equal parts sure you pulled it out of your ass and less than concerned about SAT scores anyway.) That doesn't mean they are dumber than the students they are expected to teach.

I don't know if it's a Master's any more but they do require a degree period. It's one of the downfalls of NCLB. You cannot teach a subject that you don't have a degree in. And nobody was smart enough to put in a loophole for subjects (those precious trades so often brought up) for which there is no degree. Not to mention the cuts in funding that eliminated the vast majority of those long ago.

Considerably more than a few. Statistically you are wrong.

You are naive. Each school gets to contract with any teacher they want. All that is required to get rid of a teacher is to not renew their contract. And then you get to replace them with a teacher of your (or the parents) choice. All part of the union negotiations.

Yes it does mean they're dumber.

A degree in what? Underwater basket weaving? Or perhaps a degree in 'education.' Besides, it doesn't sound as if you are in any position to give an informed answer to my question.

Ishmael

 

[Boxlicker101]

While the housing issue is addressed it's not the primary issue of the article. You want to solve problem of school segregation or at least the largest problem presented which isn't necessarily the segregation of race but the quality of education available in certain areas.

Solution is simple. Don't fund schools locally. Fund them federally. Don't leave teachers as employees of the state make them federal employees and ship them out the same way you ship out military personnel. We won't do it because. . .well mostly because it would work but that would solve at least a large chunk of the problem if better teachers had a harder time avoiding tougher schools and crappy teachers weren't all bunched up in some place where nobody wants to be and nobody is particularly talented.

Do you actually mean that after somebody graduates from college, some kind of gov. czar should say something like: "Congratulations and here is your ticket to Hinges of Hell, AZ or Iceberg, AK, or Bombville, MI or Chicago?" Nobody will take up teaching as a career.

 

[Que]

By "quite well' I mean that despite being interrupted in the middle of 1st grade and moved to rural California, I had no trouble keeping up... And by the first semester of second grade I finished not only the entire SRA* box for second grade, I also completed grades 3 through 6. The second semester of 2nd grade they just let me read a book a day from the library during reading time.

By 6th grade when they wanted to teach speed reading to me in a gifted class I was already in excess of their reading rate goals.

I seriously credit the see and say method. First you grasp small words, then larger ones. Larger ones are easier because they have a more unique look. Eventually you can see entire sentences at once. It does make for some hilarious catastrophic errors at times, but nothing like it for churning through material.

*Student Read Acheivment (little laminated cards with a few paragraphs on them then a comprehension test on the reverse