It looks like a typical civil servant trick - produce an unteen page report that doesn't asay anything and then market the report as a 250 page survey of education, in the safe knowledge that nobody of any importance, least of all the President, will actually read - but the President can truthfully say that a report on educational needs has been prepared and delivered.
Being British, I might be unfair on the US President, but if I could substitue "Prime Minister" for "President", I would stand by what I wrote. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bill Hooper Sent: 23 March 2011 00:46 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:50144] Results of Survey on educational needs I recently participated in a survey on educational needs in the US. I stated my opinion that teaching the SI metric system should be an important educational goal. I received a reply following the survey and was not happy with the results they reported. All the ideas that were "summarized" were generalities and topics that were completely devoid of content. (The vagueness of the generalities are also a failing of the report, but that is not my main thought here.) Here is my reply. (The instructions at the end of the report directed that I send my reply to the White House, which I did.) The excerpt below includes a brief quote from the report summarizing the results and then my reply. Melody Barnes, Director of the Domestic Policy Council wrote: > > "Recently, through the White House's Advise the Advisor program, I asked for your ideas on how all Americans can help our students succeed in the 21st century. > > "Your response was tremendous! Thousands of you ... sent us ideas about our education system. ... We ... created a summary of what we learned. Take a look:" ETC. To which I replied: I took a look and I was dismayed to find a total absence of anything regarding CONTENT. Yes, there are a lot of worthy general ideas, but they are all too often such vague generalities that they can be interpreted to mean almost anything (or nothing). There are elements of CONTENT in our educational system that MUST be addressed if our educational system is truly to meet the needs of the 21st century. One particular one (which I had offered to Ms. Barnes's survey) is the teaching of the SI metric system, thoroughly, correctly and probably exclusively. The rest of the world (96% by population) uses metric in everything they do, in all trade, commerce, design and manufacturing, etc. Our students are not prepared for the 21st century if they have not thoroughly learned the SI metric system and how to use it (and, importantly, NOT just busy-work converting metric values into Ye Olde English values and the reverse). There are other matters of CONTENT that need to be addressed as well, but I believe the metric system is one of the most important. Regards, William Hooper
