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9 comments:
C'mon Dan!
What a joke article! 2 Unruly kids in rich people world!
Ha Ha Ha.
How about 7 or 12 'students' who NEVER stop talking about anything and everything but math? Who NEVER do work?
And, if you have them removed you'll get fired cuz you aren't capable of using the correct classroom management techniques?
(you know that 'training' where they have an edie haskell kid in a class of working kids, and edie's 4 or 6 interruptions ruin the class! ha ha ha!! I wish it were so easy! )
Junk curriculum (everyday math, CMP ...) are huge contributors to student failure in math, but, the BIGGEST contributor to student failure is 'students' who show up and don't do anything, hence they don't learn anything!
And why are they allowed to do nothing? Because WE will get fired if we have them removed! Because WE have to spend 10 to 15 minutes of CYA paperwork per kid per classroom per day, and when you have 15 or 25 problem kids, there isn't enough time to chase that nightmare ...
and what about the kids who showed up and tried? By the way, don't they deserve something other than you've spent all your after school time playing social worker, shrink, cop, nurse ...
This article is a joke. Once again, the clueless affluent will create policy which has NOTHING to do with the realities of the bottom 80 or 90% of us.
These are two entirely different situations. In the first case, you have a special needs kid that is protected by federal law. And his disability definitely sounds connected to his behavior and we can only guess what his disability is. However, I've known second graders that brought bullets to school because they were angry at their parents. So that's an even harder decision for administrators - it looks simple, but it isn't. Definitely a lot of people are going to know, so you won't be making the decision all by yourself.
Will a teen act like an ape and expose him or herself in public? Well yes, but I think they tend to regret their behavior afterward and certainly losing one's diploma for a short time, sends a message that mooning is not cool. Really? I didn't know that.
This sort of stunt happens every year (what about streaking? I know at least one board member in their better years who streaked through the cafeteria during lunch - he was a hurtler. He wore a ski mask, but everyone knew (his brother was driving the van and waiting for him in the parking lot.
So school officials are faced with tough choices and they take the heat whether they are right or wrong (there will always be critics.) The principal could easily have gone the other way and ended up with a freedom of speech lawsuit and an out of court settlement.
How does having good curriculum available make teaching more enjoyable? Fewer discipline problems. Students enjoy learning. Less time spent thinking of ways to impress peers, more time on task ....
These are two entirely different situations. In the first case, you have a special needs kid that is protected by federal law. And his disability definitely sounds connected to his behavior and we can only guess what his disability is. However, I've known second graders that brought bullets to school because they were angry at their parents. So that's an even harder decision for administrators - it looks simple, but it isn't. Definitely a lot of people are going to know, so you won't be making the decision all by yourself.
Will a teen act like an ape and expose him or herself in public? Well yes, but I think they tend to regret their behavior afterward and certainly losing one's diploma for a short time, sends a message that mooning is not cool. Really? I didn't know that.
This sort of stunt happens every year (what about streaking? I know at least one board member in their better years who streaked through the cafeteria during lunch - he was a hurtler. He wore a ski mask, but everyone knew (his brother was driving the van and waiting for him in the parking lot.
So school officials are faced with tough choices and they take the heat whether they are right or wrong (there will always be critics.) The principal could easily have gone the other way and ended up with a freedom of speech lawsuit and an out of court settlement.
How does having good curriculum available make teaching more enjoyable? Fewer discipline problems. Students enjoy learning. Less time spent thinking of ways to impress peers, more time on task ....
Silver bullets or 24-hour suspensions by teachers are a disciplinary tool, but if the kid is Sarbed and the administrator looking through the student's record saw a history of repeated suspensions done by teachers and not by administrators it would raise some red flags in my district.
The most common method of failing students in Washington looks like following strict policies for tardies and absences. A coward's method for dealing with students and very expensive for schools and communities to deal with.
Sometimes the rules for appealing are overly complex or students fail to meet deadlines when they file the paperwork to receive credit.
The problem with this type of program is that while efficient at failing large numbers of students it ultimately fails for two reasons. The district has to show seat time in order to recover lost revenue and there has to be instruction going on in the credit recovery class. I did not see this happenning, so the district was apparently not concerned that it was losing money. But it should, because it helps AYP.
You are multiplying your efforts, but it has to be done, otherwise your school isn't serving the community. My district for all its foibles thoroughly understands the meaning of serving its community.
At one high school, in addition to saturday school so students made up absenses (this is not the class for discipline), there is also an alternative program; and an adult school after-school program; and two 3-week intersessions. And any classes you took earned at least some elective credit.
So students who used all three programs and went to high school could finish school within three years and start community college without disenrolling from the high school. Not the same thing as Running Start. That's why our district has the largest enrollment of adult learners in the country (about 30,000).
Improve the curriculum and you will have better student attendance. Improve your administration and you will get more revenue.
And how does one improved the Math curicula when the selection is done by clueless OverHead?
Let the public vote on it - a referendum to adopt one math curriculum for all schools that meets world standards.
1. K-12
2. standard algorithms
3. traditional algebra topics
4. 8th grade algebra
5. reading level is appropriate for all students.
There is only one curriculum that meets this standard. That is Singapore.
Benefits:
1. eliminates tracking
2. eliminates standardized testing
3. cuts down wasteful spending
4. prepares students for advanced math classes.
5. challenges current myths
myth: American children can not compete with the rest of the world.
myth: American teachers can not teach their students.
myth: American children are not prepared for college.
myth: US schools are racist, because grading is arbitrary and capricious. One gets promoted based on who they are and where they are taught. Its not based on individual effort.
World standards:
1. Promotion based on merit.
2. Nationalized curriculum
3. Direct instruction
4. Standard algorithms
5. Traditional math topics
6. Algebra taught in 8th grade
7. Elementary focus on preparing students for algebra
8. Focus on reading level to mainstream lower performing students.
9. Focus on college readiness.
To build a civilization, you need road builders, not dishwashers and food handlers. Why take any math at all, if one's goal is mass servitude.
If you think kids are the biggest problem, then you better open your eyes. Try opening one of their reform textbooks and attempt making some sense out of the problems. Its a joke done in the worst possible taste and its done to dismantle public education for the Cause.
US apartheid-like policies:
1. social promotion
2. segmented 'values-based' curriculum
3. standardized testing used to fund schools that show merit, not students.
It's equivalent is apartheid - when you examine the history of reform and see many connections with South Africans, dating back to Verwoerd and his own training as a psychologist, his doctoral thesis on the double-bind hypothesis, and his prior job as Minister of Native Affairs before becoming PM. Verwoerd used as his template the US Indian Removal Reservation Plan.
The double-bind hypothesis states simply the following:
The double bind paradox is created by contradictions in the form of admonitions imposed by the school system and those imposed by the a regime’s racist socioeconomic policies.
One confusion generated between levels is evidenced in the fact that both pupils and teachers habitually misinterpret educational admonitions, rules, or injunctions as symbols of political oppression.
This model helps explain the type of 'terrorist-like' violence we are witnessing children committing in schools, which some believed was the offender's reaction to 'bullying' but does not explain why the violence committed was done publicly and overdone.
Here is an interesting article by the authors of the Meritocracy Myth, McNamee and Miller.
"The distribution of wealth measured by net worth is even more highly skewed. The richest 1% of households (99th-100th percentile) account for nearly a third of all available net worth while the bottom half of households (0-50th percentile) account for only 2.8% of all available net worth. In other words, the American distributions of income and wealth are “top heavy” (Wolff 2002) and represent a level of economic inequality that is the highest among industrial countries of the world."
This is Schoenfeld's webpage that has all his work, including the essay "What doesn't Work"; WWC's response; and Schoenfeld's rebuttal. Very timely essay.
http://gse.berkeley.edu/faculty/ahschoenfeld/ahschoenfeld.html
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