Public Schools: The Debate’s Kernel
October 11th, 2007Although the legislature has made two years of algebra required for a Millenium Scholarship, and, in fact, most school districts in Nevada and the rest of America require two years of algebra for high school graduation, the Clark County School District still refuses.
This week, I attended a civic club meeting where a CCSD school board member was scheduled to speak. The baton got passed to one of the many professional educrats in the CCSD administration, who delivered a fine powerpoint presentation on an overhead projector.
My ears perked right up when early slides said children rise to the level of expectations we set for them - a concept I’ve not been able to get CCSD to admit in my ten years in the legislature - and then a slide popped up indicating graduation requirements included two years of algebra.
I was riveted. Perhaps, I thought to myself, they recently (and finally!) had a change of heart about taking their job seriously. As I listened on, it became apparent the educrat’s slide described “recommendations” that students could “opt out” of.
The ensuing discussion (arguments) carried on out to the parking lot after the meeting was over. The school board member defended CCSD’s continued failure to require two years of algebra for graduation. The heart of the defense was that some children will not learn intermediate math, and it’s much better having them failing to learn in a classroom than it is having them drop out and in the workforce.
And here it is: I believe high schoolers who will not learn intermediate math should not be given a high school diploma. I would prefer to deal with them either by employing teachers who make learning fun, because it’s simply not that hard to earn at least a D in intermediate math. If CCSD cannot manage that task, then the student should drop out. They certainly should not be warehoused at school, where they will try to pass their anti-education attitude on to other students.
CCSD believes the worst thing that can happen is to allow a student who refuses to learn intermediate math drop out of high school.
What do you think?
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October 13th, 2007 at 7:22 am
We need to stop trying to save every student and allow those who want to learn to have the opportunity to do better. We keep too many kids in the classroom that don’t want to learn and who disrupt others. This practice brings all students down. The Clark County School District is way too big to be responsive to parents desires and students needs. It needs to be broken into several small school districts with true local control.
October 13th, 2007 at 7:40 am
My fellow Nevadans,
All the problems in the Middle Schools & High Schools in the State of Nevada are caused from a totally failed system K-6.
All you have to do is attend any Education Classe at UNLV or UNR Schools of Education and you will fast find the culpert in those classes & the Professors teaching them.
The classes are taught by mostly Leftist Socialist Professors who put social & Political engineering utilizing ONE WAY indoctrination of new teachers as their method of accomplishing their view of “Proper Social & Political Change in Nevada Society”.
The vast majority of professors tenured in our UNR & UNLV Schools of Education which are Taxpayer Supported Schools are TOTALLY COMMITTED TO THE MARXIST EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY “CONSTRUCTIVISM”!
AT IT’S SIMPLEST LEVEL THIS INDOCTRINATES OUR NEW NEVADA EDUCATION MAJORS TO BELIEVE THAT THE NEW METHODOLOGY IS THE ONLY AND CORRECT METHODOLOGY AND ALL OTHER IDEAS AND METHODOLOGY FOR INSTRUCTION IS HARMFUL TO CHILDREN AND THE SOONER WE GET RID OF THOSE OLDER TEACHERS & ADMINISTRATORS WHO ARE ACADEMICALLY OR AT THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL LEVEL “PHONICS ORIENTATED” & DON’T SHARE OUR “TRUTH BELIEFS” THE BETTER.
FURTHER THEY LEARN THAT THE GROUP IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE INDIVIDUAL IN ALL EDUCATIONAL MATTERS. THAT WHOLE LANGUAGE OR A DERIVATION OF SAME IS THE ONLY METHOD FOR TEACHING READING. TEACHERS ARE TAUGHT THAT LEARNING WORD ATTACK SKILLS, PHONICS, GRAMMAR, SENTENCE STRUCTURE, etc are all harmful to children and is a methodology of those right wing extremists in our state.
Due to the flawed curriculum the Educrats have inserted into the State Educational Standards from Kindergarten to 6th grade our Nevada children are doomed to failure from the start!
I sometimes have to ask my self the question, “could so many Professors of Education & Leaders in the Educational establishment all be totally poor unsuspecting lemmings following what their colleagues in other failed states are doing”? “OR are they smart enough to really be pursuing a devious and sick Social Political Agenda of creating a society of mindless citizens who can easily be lead and manipulated by the Elites in our society and function on Emotional Feelings only with cliches for discussions none of which is ever based on any factual documented basis.
YOU THE CITIZENS ON NEVADA NEED TO MAKE THAT ASSESSMENT!
IS IS GOOD PUBLIC POLICY TO THROW MORE MONEY AT THE SYSTEM THESE MORONS HAVE CAUSED IN NEVADA WITH THE ONLY COMMENT THAT IF WE JUST HAD SMALLER CLASSES, OR WE HAD MORE DOLLARS FOR THIS PROGRAM OR THAT WE COULD SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS. THEY ALWAYS WANT TO DISCUSS EDUCATION IN $$$$$ TERMS INSTEAD OF THE INDIVIDUAL STUDENTS POOR LEVELS OF LEARNING AND WHAT THOSE CAUSES REALLY ARE!
By the way several years ago in the Washoe School District to demonstrate how serious all these EDUCRAT folks in control of our Educational system are at geting rid of all those “DANGEROUS OLDER ACADEMIC & PHONICS ORIENTED TEACHERS the school board & administration identified almost 100 teachers who had 20-30 years teaching experience per person many of whom were Master Teacher Mentoring types but were Academic Knowledge Based Teachers Phonics oriented who practiced Teacher Directed Instruction and had Exempliary Outstanding Teacher evaluations in Washoe School District for their entire careers. Mysteriously all of these identified DANGEROUS ACADEMIC TEACHERS started having bad evaluations by their administrators in numerous different schools all over the Washoe School District. Eventually they all started talking to each other and hired a top law firm to represent them all.
The Washoe School District totally lost this legal battle and had to reinstate all the teachers jobs and legal expenses plus other costs. Washoe School District spent over $8,000,000 dollars in taxpayer monies out of their General Fund to compensate those teachers for this accelerated social experiment by the Educrats in Control of that School District!
Now you can see just how far out in never never land our Educational Leadership is willing to go to foster their Lefist Agendas!
Pity the poor unsuspecting children having to attend our public schools in Nevada under this background to non-sense!