(I sent this yesterday afternoon and it never came through... methinks the mail service is having a case of the hiccups)
As the son of a teacher, I will never say that they are the best paid people in the world. I've often heard that there are two professions that people should not go into if they want to make a lot of money, and those are education and the ministry. It is a sad honesty and it is a truth that has been around for a very, very long time. I wholeheartedly agree that teachers should make more money than they do. I also know from working retail that the majority of the graduating classes have problems doing simple math and think that the world should be handed to them on a silver platter. I distinctly remember one kid that we hired (I used to work for Radio Shack) and had to have arrested SEVEN DAYS later for stealing store merchandise. There were three other occasions when people would show up for interviews dressed in the Group-of-the-day T-Shirts and ripped jeans. This was at a time when the dress code included slacks and a tie. I'd love to see graduates with social skills, talent, ambition and motivation, but what I saw truly made me sad. .. then again, I also have to say that as my wife and I anticipate the arrival of our first child, I am seeing where I need to be an influence and a resource for her. A lot of the things that people say the schools need to do are acutally duties that a parent would do much better. As far as the problems being PC (politically correct) based, the article states: "The new final exam for American and world history classes was developed by school district officials to ensure students learn state- required lessons that include history about women, Africans, African-Americans and the Holocaust." That is where I took that it is at least partially PC based. I also love that it's a test written by district officials and not the teachers. Hatton -------------------------------------------- Who said it had anything to do with PC. K-12 schools have had problems for a long time. When you have school boards that are not willing to pay beginning teachers much more than you'd make as a manager at a McDonald's well you sort of get what you pay for. It must be fun to advocate a simple solution, while conveniently ignoring endemic problems for years. Instead of complaining about PC this or PC that how about some realistic solutions. Here's one, decide what are the necessary core academic subjects that a person needs to be a citizen. Then ensure that the kids graduating from your school systems are at the very least competent in those subjects. This would mean treating teachers like professionals, and paying them such. Giving them the tools to teach - not 30 year old books that were useless when new. How about school upkeep? For instance in Florida Gov Bush's administration has actually cut spending on educational infrastructure - buildings, labs and classrooms. Not getting distracted by red herrings such as the fad du jour for education, or the rant of the week by any extremist pressure group. > > larry (*sigh*) now this is really sad. IMO this is what we get for trying to be PC in school, pander to every philosophy and culture known to exist and make every individual feel accepted. It scares me to no end that the US will, some day, be in the hands of "non-competitive" people. We'll have a football season with everyone winning the Super Bowl! . level playing field... hah! Maybe they ought to level the playing field up instead of down. I feel sorry for the kids graduating from schools that feel they have to give them everything and then going into a workforce that actually requires them to pay attention and put forth an effort. Notice they'll make it so that everyone can pass but they'd never go for a mandatory military or public service. And they wonder why good workers are so hard to find. Hatton (and yes, I did censor this before I sent it... this is the toned down version.) Howie Hamlin wrote: .comes the history test where 23% is passing. To get an A, they need to get just over half the answers right. A B grade requires only 39 correct answers. http://news.lycos.com/news/story.asp?n_4=1§ion=MyLycos&pitem=AP-History- Test&rev=20020530&pub_tag=APONLINE ______________________________________________________________________ This list and all House of Fusion resources hosted by CFHosting.com. The place for dependable ColdFusion Hosting. Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
