Right now there is no nationwide standard that is enforced for displaying nationwide student aptitude and/progress.>
NYS has made an Academic Diploma necessary in order to graduate High School. That means passing a standard Algebra and Geometry Regents, along with two Sciences, English, Global and American History Regents. You can't get a general HS diploma in NYS anymore. Even Special Ed. kids have to pass the Academic requirements or they get no HS diploma.
As usual, Bush is a little to late.
<Challenging both teachers and students to perform to a certain standard is VITALLY important. >
How inspiring, Ron! But first you got to hire the teachers. There is a massive shortage of teachers here in NY. No one wants the job. The Board of Ed. is trying to fill the shortage from overseas, where many don't even speak English well enough from the standpoint of a second language.
Did you know that over 80% of new teachers here leave after 5 years?
<And holding school accountable for the performance of their students progress by virtue of the purse strings is key to that.>
Ron, many schools have closed up around here because the vast majority of the students at their schools have done poorly on English and Math State Tests. Now we have overcrowding in our classrooms with 45 students in a class in many instances.
Want to come and teach here, Ron? We are very accountable.
<We've learned from the past several decades that throwing money at education, without demanding accountability and performance, is nothing more than a recipe for continued failure.>
They better start throwing some more money at new teachers or when the old hacks from the NEA and UFT retire with their fat pensions, they will have to close down the schools from lack of teachers.
The Private school situation is even worse here. It is common for a child to go through 3 or 4 teachers in the primary grades. Music and Art teachers teach math and science in High school. Most private schools don't have a majority of their faculty that is teacher certified.
<Bush also is recommending that schools be held more accountable to individual parents, reinvigorating the influence of the local PTAs over the NEA.>
Get with it, Ron. Schools have always existed in theory for the sake of the community, not the other way around. The problem is that in a single parent home, where the mother gets home late at night from working a few jobs to make ends meat, there is no time to go to a PTA meeting. In the better neighborhoods, the PTA already runs the school, as well they should, since it is their school.
Education is not a partisan political issue for me Ron, as it is for you. I'm in the business. I own a learning center. I hear all the stories every day straight from the horses mouth, from the children who come to my learning center because they get meager portions of learning from their public and private schools. |
