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 whembly wrote:

BS. Educating your child is not a "non-family enterprise". Parents are responsible for their child's education and this whole idea that just because you send your kids to whichever schools the public offers means that parents abdicate their responsibility of their child's education is asinine.

This mindset... the worship on the altar of Statism.

No. I know you want her to mean in it that way, sinister intent and all, but that isn't it... at all.

Public education by its defintion is a non-family enterprise, plain and simple. We as parents entrust our public school teachers to be a part of raising our kids even though they are outside of the family, and most of the time that is a child's first education experience with someone other than a family member. Like Dogma said, nowhere did she claim that parents have no responsibility regarding the education of their children.

Come on, Whembly... you're digging pretty deep here, dude.

 whembly wrote:

Read the last sentence of that transcript.

I did read it, the claim was not made.

 whembly wrote:

The context isn't just Common Core... but education.

Well, yeah. The Common Core is about education.

 whembly wrote:

Why didn't she just say "Common Core" than "no-family enterprise"??? She's making a more broader statement encompassing education in general.

The Common Core is a broad statement about "education in general". Mrs. Clinton spoke poorly, but your sensationalism is just as bad.

If one going to embellish a story one needs to check the credibility of the story. I did not know all of Hillary grandparents immigrated to the US.........wait....

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Really, the common core is a good idea at heart, but badly executed. Have some sort of education standards is good, but the common core is just bad. I don't think I know one teacher who actually likes it, and that's not a good sign.

Agree on the good idea (and really simple idea actually) that appears to have been implemented poorly. Based on your conversations, what do they not like about it?

 Frazzled wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Really, the common core is a good idea at heart, but badly executed. Have some sort of education standards is good, but the common core is just bad. I don't think I know one teacher who actually likes it, and that's not a good sign.

Agree on the good idea (and really simple idea actually) that appears to have been implemented poorly. Based on your conversations, what do they not like about it?

Like anything handed down from Top Level™ (the state/feds)... it's almost too draconian to effectively adapt to each class.

What people tend to forget, each class, ever year is different.... especially the elementary years.

When you realize that... the "One Size Fits All Idea" just doesn't work all that well.

That whammer part is that many of these programs tie $$$$ to test results.

Note: This isn't simply whembly being "anti-gubmint" in all things... I'm not oppose to certain standardized testings... but, the cirriculum really needs to be driven by the Teacher's and School's that's tailored to their student body.

Note: This isn't simply whembly being "anti-gubmint" in all things... I'm not oppose to certain standardized testings... but, the curriculum really needs to be driven by the Teacher's and School's that's tailored to their student body.

Why? Many many many school districts have proven utterly incapable of that. if they could this wouldn't be an issue in the first place.
if you let the schools decide, the schools will low ball it, which is the problem we've had.

 Frazzled wrote:

Note: This isn't simply whembly being "anti-gubmint" in all things... I'm not oppose to certain standardized testings... but, the curriculum really needs to be driven by the Teacher's and School's that's tailored to their student body.

Why? Many many many school districts have proven utterly incapable of that. if they could this wouldn't be an issue in the first place.
if you let the schools decide, the schools will low ball it, which is the problem we've had.

That's the opposite what we have here...

Think about it.

If you treat the inner-city schools and the well-to-do schools the same... and benchmark the test scores the same way accross the board.... AND tie the results of those the scores to how much additional State/Fed fundings the schools would get.

It's a receipe for disaster imo. The common theme... many schools are teaching the kids how to take these tests... and not teach how to think. A small, but important distinction imo.

Why? The alternative is what we have now, which is absolute gak for inner city schools.

Actually if you really want to improve the schools, make EVERYONE go to public schools. Suddenly they would get better very quickly.

 Frazzled wrote:
Why? The alternative is what we have now, which is absolute gak for inner city schools.

Frazzled. There is no "A" and "B" solution.

It'll take a multi-faceted assault to improve education and such a plan would be different depending on location.

Actually if you really want to improve the schools, make EVERYONE go to public schools. Suddenly they would get better very quickly.

No.

If you actually want to improve the schools, empower the teachers and school districts to design the curriculum. If the state wants to send $$ using the carrot approach, the use fething meaningful benchmark.

That is: take a baseline test per school, and see if improvements occurs overtime at that school. (which is NOT how it's done now... in my neck of the woods at least).

I don't buy it. School districts have been designing the curriculum. Thats what caused No Child Left Behind in the first place. If you let them make the decision, who are they responsible to?

As an example: Germany beats our heads in on the education front. What are they doing?

 whembly wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Why? The alternative is what we have now, which is absolute gak for inner city schools.

Frazzled. There is no "A" and "B" solution.

It'll take a multi-faceted assault to improve education and such a plan would be different depending on location.

Actually if you really want to improve the schools, make EVERYONE go to public schools. Suddenly they would get better very quickly.

No.

If you actually want to improve the schools, empower the teachers and school districts to design the curriculum. If the state wants to send $$ using the carrot approach, the use fething meaningful benchmark.

That is: take a baseline test per school, and see if improvements occurs overtime at that school. (which is NOT how it's done now... in my neck of the woods at least).

The problem with having each school/teacher design it's own basic curriculum is that it makes it very hard for employers to actually know what it is that applicants have been taught when they have applications from graduates of a wide range of schools from many different states.

Not to mention the already ridiculous issues with the transition to higher education.

 dogma wrote:
Not to mention the already ridiculous issues with the transition to higher education.

This too. One of the people who is on my physics degree course took several years out after finishing his A-levels. By the time he came back to apply to university he had to basically retake those A-levels (in a fast-track course) as the curriculum had changed so many times that the University couldn't gauge what exactly he knew and so whether he was suitable for the course.

Overtinkering with the curriculum from anybody, be it government or the schools themselves, is a bad thing which basically makes qualifications meaningless as you actually have no idea whether two people with the same qualification actually have the same knowledge or experience.

For example, what if a school in a very religious district removes evolution from their curriculum (or just alters it to make it basically non-existent whilst still managing to include it for legal reasons or whatever), following pressure from the parents of the district. A child from that school who was interested in Biology would be completely unprepared to study it at a higher level as they would not have the groundwork in evolution necessary to succeed.

So even if you do allow schools to set their own curriculum it would have to be within a very strict framework, at which point you might as well just have a national curriculum which determines which topics must be taught but allow freedom for teachers on how these topics would be taught which best fit their students, so long as those techniques do not result in a reduction of quality (i.e getting a young-earth creationist in to teach evolution, or a flat-earther to teach the solar system or a neo-nazi to teach about the holocaust etc.).

:sigh:

Tell you what... go talk to different school teachers to see what's it like? Then come back.

I've already said that we'd need some standardized testing... we ALL should be teaching the basic fundamentals.

We need to be using these test results as a tool to adjust curriculum as needed, not as a crudgel to beat the students in order for the school to maintain some arbitrary level that their budget streams depend on... which, in turn, creates a perverse incentive that we see today.

 whembly wrote:
:sigh:

Tell you what... go talk to different school teachers to see what's it like? Then come back.

I've already said that we'd need some standardized testing... we ALL should be teaching the basic fundamentals.

We need to be using these test results as a tool to adjust curriculum as needed, not as a crudgel to beat the students in order for the school to maintain some arbitrary level that their budget streams depend on... which, in turn, creates a perverse incentive that we see today.

We have that now. It doesn't work.

 Frazzled wrote:

 whembly wrote:
:sigh:

Tell you what... go talk to different school teachers to see what's it like? Then come back.

I've already said that we'd need some standardized testing... we ALL should be teaching the basic fundamentals.

We need to be using these test results as a tool to adjust curriculum as needed, not as a crudgel to beat the students in order for the school to maintain some arbitrary level that their budget streams depend on... which, in turn, creates a perverse incentive that we see today.

We have that now. It doesn't work.

What doesn't work... specifically?

<--- genuinely curious...

 whembly wrote:

Tell you what... go talk to different school teachers to see what's it like? Then come back.

Sure. I'll make certain lots of them are from Wisconsin.

 whembly wrote:

We need to be using these test results as a tool to adjust curriculum as needed...

This already happens, and cannot be completely separated from testing being used as a cudgel; that is pretty much the point of testing after all.

The tests could certainly be better designed though. In short: they're too easy and/or not sufficiently comprehensive. Correcting that deficiency is a large part of the point behind the Common Core.

 whembly wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

 whembly wrote:
:sigh:

Tell you what... go talk to different school teachers to see what's it like? Then come back.

I've already said that we'd need some standardized testing... we ALL should be teaching the basic fundamentals.

We need to be using these test results as a tool to adjust curriculum as needed, not as a crudgel to beat the students in order for the school to maintain some arbitrary level that their budget streams depend on... which, in turn, creates a perverse incentive that we see today.

We have that now. It doesn't work.

What doesn't work... specifically?

<--- genuinely curious...

The




k-12 system in this country,

They're no longer teaching cursive in school

Though I have notice the atrocious writing style of younger troops to older NCO's

 Jihadin wrote:
They're no longer teaching cursive in school

Though I have notice the atrocious writing style of younger troops to older NCO's

They still teach cursive. However, it isn't often mandated (currently or previously) and school districts and states decide whether of not to teach it. Schools teaching it have steadily declined since the 1970s; it isn't a recent phenomenon. There is no real reason to teach it though and any teaching of it today has more to do with tradition than the practical application of the script. Never in my adult life or career has the use of cursive script ever been a factor.

My wife teaches it because the Virginia Department of Education mandates that all students are able to read and legibly write in cursive by the third grade.

How the feth do you sign a check or legal document if you don't know cursive?

 CptJake wrote:
How the feth do you sign a check or legal document if you don't know cursive?

The same way I do... Some large first letters followed by squiggly lines. And yes, I learned how to write cursive when I was a kid.


Also, there is nothing that says a signature has to be in cursive.

Uniform Commercial Code §1-201(37) "Signed" includes using any symbol executed or adopted with present intention to adopt or accept a writing.

Uniform Commercial Code §3-401(b) A signature may be made (i) manually or by means of a device or machine, and (ii) by the use of any name, including a trade or assumed name, or by a word, mark, or symbol executed or adopted by a person with present intention to authenticate a writing.

X marks the spot.

Still have to know what you're signing. If you don't it's duress, and there's a law against that.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Still have to know what you're signing. If you don't it's duress, and there's a law against that.

Legal papers aren't written in cursive. If a person can't read that is a different problem than being able to write in cursive.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Still have to know what you're signing. If you don't it's duress, and there's a law against that.

No one said that wasn't the case.

Illiterate people can still sign legal papers (using and "X") after they have been explained to them and they acknowledge that it is understood what they are signing. Another party has to then cosign to verify that the illiterate party understands the document.

 CptJake wrote:
How the feth do you sign a check or legal document if you don't know cursive?

It's whatever "your signature".

Or, act like an MD signing prescription. To call those "scribble" is a vast understatement.

They still teach it in NY AFAIK. I was taught it at the very least, although that was something like 10-12 years ago. Not that I really write in cursive though.

Hey! My signature looks like that. Except mine's even less legible.

Then again, so is my handwriting. I have been accused of writing in hieroglyphics in the past

 whembly wrote:

 CptJake wrote:
How the feth do you sign a check or legal document if you don't know cursive?

It's whatever "your signature".

Or, act like an MD signing prescription. To call those "scribble" is a vast understatement.

I had a doctors signature which was just basically a heart rate monitor flatlining