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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mr. Whist who wrote (119994)	12/29/2000 11:09:05 AM
From: one_less	Respond to of 769668

"Next time you see someone from the Islamic school,..." It's your lucky day Flap. You are right about the culture for academics, as most acredited Islamic schools focus on basic academic studies. They also put a huge effort into developing Arabic and Islamic studies coursework and culture within the schools. The focus on Arabic is not because Arab children attend the school, it is because Arabic is the language of the Qu'ran. A translation of the Qu'ran is not considered the authentic word of God by Muslims. "ask how many special education students are enrolled in the school..." "I am not in favor of maintaining the status quo in public education...." Good for you. Have you been to "Special Ed" programs in the public schools lately. To get a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Disorder you, or your mother, only have to complain to the doctor that you get distracted sometimes or have trouble controlling your impulses. The abuse of ritilin in this regard is well known. To get a label of Learning Disabled you only need to be behind in your academic scores by two years with no IQ problems to explain the deficit. These two types of students (ADD, and LD) make up the magority of students warehoused in the special education programs. There is little or no evidence that this population is doing better with mainstream special education programs than they did before the huge efforts were made to "serve" them this way. In fact I have witnessed that they begin to become socialized to the special ed system and use it as a negative excuse for not achieving. A corresponding lack of effort toward academics accompanies this and after twelve years or so the results are a disgraceful shame. But, try to change the system and you will have clinton's buddies in the National Teachers Association all over you. In fact if you could address the social agenda (which you can't because it would be a betrayal of your party loyalty) behind all of the funding for special interests and programs in the public school system, then you might start to make some progress on changing the system. In fact, this is a golden opportunity for you because you can blame all the decay on Bush and advocate for changing the garbage clinton left us with.

To: Mr. Whist who wrote (119994)	12/29/2000 2:23:29 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769668

ask how many special education students are enrolled in the school. What do you mean by "special education students"? Kids whose native language is not English? They had lots of those- -probably 50%. Eliminates that as an excuse for the poor academic achievement of a certain group in the US. Handicapped and retarded? Don't know? But are you trying to imply that, in spite of the enormous prenatal and pediatric medical advances in the last 40 years, and the increasing availability of it, we now have a higher percentage of mentally retarded children in the US than 40 years ago? Do you have any statistics to back that? Are you SERIOUSLY proposing that as an explanation? Look, why don't you just admit, at least to yourself, that you're wrong about this? Re: "Should we start learning Arabic?" I suspect the school has achieved a culture for academic achievement... as opposed to the language per se. But your point is taken. You missed my point. If this were to become true of the Islamic world in general, they are going to OWN you and your country. They're not whining and they're not taking excuses. They want performance. And they're getting it. Understand one thing: I am not in favor of maintaining the status quo in public education. I advocate major, sweeping changes in those public schools which, for whatever reason, aren't cutting it academically. Let me guess. You also want major funding increases, right? In spite of the fact that that is not the determining factor in outcome and that ALL it really does increase staff pay and the size of the bureaucracy. You don't improve the performance of a bloated bureaucracy by feeding it; that just makes things worse. Read the links in this post: Message 15084866