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wdolson -> RE: OT- Ken Burns WW2 (10/8/2007 10:36:46 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Snowman999
It's not the school boards' fault, it's primarily the federalization of education that's taken place since the 1970s, with a vast acceleration under the current administration. If you want history taught as it used to be tell your congressperson and senators to vote to purge the No Child Left Behind Act from the US Code. Nothing has had more effect to return curricula to the 3-Rs at the expense of science, civics, and history than this stupid piece of punitive legislation.
What gets tested gets taught, and history is not on standardized tests required to keep federal dollars. (While you're at it find out from your school board how many instructional days are used up by the various rounds of tests now; you might be stunned.) The penalties imposed under No Child for not making "adequate yearly progress" are draconian, the bar is raised every year, special education students are given the same test as non-special ed. students, and the stated goal of the law is to make each and every one of the millions of students in the USA reach grade level in reading, writing, and math. This state of nirvana has never existed, will never exist, and can't ever exist in the statistical universe the rest of us--but not Congress--live in.
No Child Left Behind is the ultimate, ubsurd conclusion to the idea that education can be one size fits all. The truth is that different kids have different educational needs and different ways of learning. Educational experiments that found how each kid learned, and then separated the kids based on that and taught them the way they learned was much better than the mass production form of education that has been tried in the US for the last few decades.
From what I've heard, most teachers today just teach what's on the standardized tests the kids have to take. There is no time for anything else, so all the other subjects are suffering. I think it's a terrible mistake. The most vital thing I learned growing up was how to think things through and think for myself. I didn't learn it in school though. Those were my parent's values.
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I'm currently in a paralegal certification program with lots of 18-20-somethings who have never read the Constitution, have no idea what the branches of government do, don't know their rights under the BOR, and have never heard the story of the nation's founding. It's tragic, but more so the fact that they can all vote, and most do.
Steve
My SO is a practicing attorney and she's constantly baffled at the massive ignorance she runs into. Sometimes from attorneys who have been practicing longer than she has. She also taught legal research and writing in a paralegal program for several years.
Bill
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