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January 27, 2014 06:29 AM UTC

Monday Open Thread

  • 29 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

"It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit."

–Noel Coward 

Comments

29 thoughts on “Monday Open Thread

          1. DING, DING, DING! We have a winner. They carry a lot of weight because they were written by the people who wrote the constitution and they were the main argument in favor of passing it that the voters read. So they are considered the best guide to the intent of the constitution by those who wrote it and approved it.

  1. Ok, this will get a lot of emotional replies – Poverty Doesn't Explain Poor American School Performance

    American students are actually better off overall than students in other developed countries. Our parents are better educated on average, too. In fact, if we consider only our most affluent kids, the top quartile of American 15 year olds by socio-economic status, we see something startling: our most privileged kids still score below their privileged peers in 26 other nations on a test of critical thinking in math.

    1. An unemotional, and agreeing response.

      Our course it's not all about, or even mostly effected by, income — it's about societal and governmental support for, and properly prioritizing the importance of, the education of a counntry's citizenry.

      At the moment when children are born, their capacity for learning and advancement is not dependent on their parents income.  (Another way of saying, that god doesn't consider the size of a parents checkbook when he instills the capacity for learning in their children.)

      That's why it's important that educating the children of this country should be a national concern.  And why the costs of properly supporting and preparing those children to learn to their full potential should be a public — and equally shared responsibility — of all taxpayers, not just the lower-wage earning actual taxpayers.

  2. Not surprised. For decades we've had a series of silly "new maths" followed by even sillier "new maths".  When my 30 year old was in school it was possible to get full credit for doing the work correctly with the aid of a calculator to eliminate computation errors while still getting the wrong answer. No teacher was ever able to explain to me how using the correct method correctly and with a calculator could possibly lead to a wrong answer. I mean shouldn't the correct method lead to the correct answer with computation mistakes, like failing to carry a one to the correct column, eliminated?  

    On the other hand if you got the correct answer but deviated from any detail of the mandated method you lost credit.  My son, being a little quirky in his approach, would get Bs and Cs  for correct answers while others would get As with many wrong ones. He did always test in the 99th percentile, though, while many of his friends' parents were shocked when their A math students tested far below. 

    Oh and it was also a time when the whole stupid self esteem movement was in full swing. If we keep giving you gold stars and smiley faces for nothing you'll feel so great about yourself you'll turn into a wonderful student. Yeah, right.

    I remember reading at the time that while our kids were scoring low on math compared to various countries they scored very high on feeling good about their math abilities. Ain't that grand?

    Another part of the whole self esteem thing was that whatever you think is just as valid as whatever anybody else thinks, never mind how you arrived at your opinion. Everything was pretty much he said/she said even if your views were pulled out of thin air and another's was based on analyzing facts. So much for critical thinking.

    I don't know what spiffy new theories are in place now but the those believed in by educators with near religious fervor, based on nothing concrete, during the the years my kid went through school were pretty uniformly flaky. 

    I don't blame the teachers who all tried to do their best but the nonsense they were taught to accept as gospel by the education establishment in their student and training programs based on no empirical evidence and regardless of lackluster results. 

    I hope things are different now. Doesn't sound like it judging from our continuing poor performance, even by those affluent kids with all the advantages.

    1. Spelling and handwriting were thrown out the window, and phonics?  Phonics was mentioned during an "accountability" meeting and the 2nd grade teacher who was present rolled her eyes and left the room. I taught special ed. several years before that.  Some kids need phonics, some need less, some need more, and some not at all. 

      It does come down to expectations. From the districts to the teachers, the parents and the students.  They should all have high expectations of each other. But the conflicts of interests all around make up the big elephant in the room.

      I haven't even mentioned the impact of sports.  They have a place, but it needs to be evaluated.  If P.E. credit was given for participation and scheduled for the end of the day, extra classtime could be added.  But it comes down to money, training, evaluations, and expectation. 

  3. Only one more day until the big "Showdown at the Castle Rock Corral":

    Littwin's recent take:

    http://www.coloradoindependent.com/145727/littwin-going-gun-loving-crazy-in-castle-rock

    You'll want to consider attending this one, word is that RMGO has called for a demonstration outside Town Hall.  BTW, our star is right now (predominantly) orange and blue — it should be worth your drive down just for to see that!!  

    . . . now, if I could only remember what it is that I'm supposed to bring to a gun fight . . . ?????

      1. Give Dio a break, DP. It's only been going on for, what, two years now after a hundred year break?  I wouldn't expect suburbanites, or anyone who lives outside the city to know about it. I'm sure the question was raised because the steering committee unveiled the logo for this year's fair. The Denver Post's website has it up, and I really like this one.

  4. Tough Monday??  How about a giggle or two??

    Take a look at the Republican Party's newest education program???

    A little bit of charm school, along with remedial physical education classes on how to walk and not put your foot into your mouth at the same time . . . 

    GOP tries to school candidates to avoid disaster

    http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2014-01-27-GOP-Camp%20Don't%20Say%20That/id-f4c848e5e6d341169ff5a83b6db86736

    (. . . Is there any chance that Ken Buck's SAT scores are high enough for acceptance ???)

    1. Make fun if you must but Todd Harris is pretty good at this kind of thing. And if it's just the idea- I know more than one D who won after attending Camp Wellstone.

       

      1. Maybe Buck could get some kind of minority-diversity scholarship thingie . . . 

        . . . some people could really use all the education they can get!!

  5. Sensitivity training for Republicans? I imagine most of them will scoff at the very notion. They'll say real Americans don't need to be talked down to and handled with kid gloves. Just ask Mike Coffman. I know this is the open thread, but there really does seem to be a theme running through it today. 

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