Lets talk edumacation.[that's EDUCATION]

Our school system is...how to put this delicately....nah, screw delicate! Our skewl system is Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition. Fucked up by liberal feel good policies, and the[I believe] deep dark progressive agenda of the progressives to turn our school into factories that are good for but one thing. Churning out masses of mindless automatons who can't think critically, and don't question authority.See if they can't think they can't get the higher paying jobs..therefore they get the low end ones and end up on welfare. Dependent on the government on survival and therefore obedient to that government's demands, proclamations and rules. Here is yet another glaring example of the idiots teaching today's youth and their entitlement mentality.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/when-an-adult-took-standardized-tests-forced-on-kids/2011/12/05/gIQApTDuUO_blog.html

Now I'm going to say something I've said repeatedly in the past. The tests are a crock. Why? Because the kids are being taught TO the test. IOW what they need for the test and not a hell of a lot else. Rote memorization, not learning to learn and think critically. Is that really teaching kids to learn? Or just teaching them to parrot what they've been told?

“I have a wide circle of friends in various professions. Since taking the test, I’ve detailed its contents as best I can to many of them, particularly the math section, which does more than its share of shoving students in our system out of school and on to the street. Not a single one of them said that the math I described was necessary in their profession"

Yes dude but how many of them are scientists in the fields of physics, geometrics etc etc where those maths are fundamental to what they do? You do realize that back in the pioneer days that by the time Kids got finished with what we'd call "intermediate" or middle school now, could read well, understand what they were reading, argue critically about it, and on the math side had studied up to Trigonometry and understood it because they used it in every day life?

“It might be argued that I’ve been out of school too long, that if I’d actually been in the 10th grade prior to taking the test, the material would have been fresh. But doesn’t that miss the point? A test that can determine a student’s future life chances should surely relate in some practical way to the requirements of life. I can’t see how that could possibly be true of the test I took."

Okay I actually kind of agree with this point. That being said..I also hated math, and still do..with a purple passion. Flunked PRE Algebra for christs sake. On the flip side I did very well with Geometry. Go figure. Yes kids have to be taught stuff that's practical..but that doesn't do a hell of a lot of good in my own not so humble opinion if they're not taught a love of learning. To WANT to expand their minds...not just because they should to get ahead in life but because it's FUN! I didn't get that in school..I got it at home. My parents weren't too hard on me about my math skills..my mom sucked at it too. so she didn't push me so hard there. What they taught me though was to love to read. Read ANYTHING. From the time I COULD read, I read everything I could get my hands on..whether the liberal progressive retarded bureaucrats that run our schools would have considered it "age appropriate" or not.. I devoured books. I started reading and comprehending fully Tom Clancy novels by the time I was 12. I consumed any history book I got my grubby little paws on. Which leads me to an amusing tale.
In high school, Junior year...I got so BORED with most of my classes that I used to sleep through my history class part of the time and the teacher allowed it. WHY? He knew , that I knew the material in the book forwards and backwards.. Because by the time the first couple of weeks of class were past..I'd read the ENTIRE textbook! and grokked it. Don't get me wrong..I would always go back and skim what we were reading at that point just to keep it fresh in my mind. But the teacher didn't object to my napping either . You know where I spent most of my lunch breaks of my high school career? In one of the 2 main libraries on either side of the building..reading. I'd learned my lesson well...I loved and still do love to read. But I digress....

“If I’d been required to take those two tests when I was a 10th grader, my life would almost certainly have been very different. I’d have been told I wasn’t ‘college material,’ would probably have believed it, and looked for work appropriate for the level of ability that the test said I had. "

Hence proving my point for me about the standardized tests.

Winerip writes: “As of last night, 658 principals around the state (New York) had signed a letter — 488 of them from Long Island, where the insurrection began — protesting the use of students’ test scores to evaluate teachers’ and principals’ performance"

Uhmm...if the students aren't actually learning and understanding the material, thereby allowing them to advance on merit..instead of just passing the buck like the school systems seem to do..then what earthly fucking good are the teachers failing to get the kids doing what I stated in bold? Seriously?

"One of those school principals, Winerip says, is Bernard Kaplan. Kaplan runs one of the highest-achieving schools in the state, but is required to attend 10 training sessions.

“It’s education by humiliation,” Kaplan said. “I’ve never seen teachers and principals so degraded.”

Carol Burris, named the 2010 Educator of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York State, has to attend those 10 training sessions."

Good, now go back to your schools and hand your teachers their heads if they fail to teach the kids to actually learn and to think.

"A fourth principal, Mario Fernandez, called the evaluation process a product of “ludicrous, shallow thinking. They’re expecting a tornado to go through a junkyard and have a brand new Mercedes pop up.”

Uhmmm...NO lady. We're EXPECTING YOU TO DO YOUR GODDAMN JOB! If you can't do it...learn to. If you won't do it..walk and don't ever come back.

Oh by the way if you read the whole thing..only a DC paper could take a piece on the education system and turn it into an anti corporate rant...

I now return you to your regularly scheduled inanity and insanity; and remember...TANSTAAFL.