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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bentway who wrote (245956)	3/1/2014 8:02:54 AM
From: stsimon	Respond to of 542133

Your point about a multicultural society is right on. I currently live in Kentucky but I am originally from Connecticut. New England is a mostly secular society that puts a lot of emphasis on education, with many of the nation's finest schools located there. Kentucky is a typical Bible Belt state with a significant portion of the population not valuing education beyond the 8th grade. About a quarter of the population believes the Earth is 6,000 years old. The first thing people often ask when you meet them is "What church do you go to?". Unless the Commonwealth has its population diluted through immigration I expect Kentucky will remain poor and backward for generations to come regardless of how many schools are built. IMHO.

To: bentway who wrote (245956)	3/1/2014 10:16:14 AM
From: Bread Upon The Water	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 542133

I hold out some hope for education improvement thru technology; If a school system can get a lap top in every kid's hands (along with instruction on how to use them) and teachers trained in their use I think it could be a great equalizer in terms of learning. There are school systems in NC that are now doing this--not enough, but it is a start.

To: bentway who wrote (245956)	3/1/2014 10:37:07 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 542133

The common core is the latest salvo in this effort. If you ignore the weirdos and idiots who seem to think it's some sort of indoctrination festival, committed to pinko gay awareness, you'll find the core is actually a pretty sound way to think about education (rather than being curriculum, which it is not- it is a way to think about curriculum, and planning decisions for curriculum are left up to local and state bodies). The core will come with new tests, which are much harder (and imo better). I am familiar with the ELA standards. And though good teachers (like myself) have been teaching in core-worthy ways for years (deep levels of knowledge, using more than one primary text and asking students to compare and contrast- etc) I think people hope the core will force bad teachers to be better. I don't know if that will happen- and I wasn't too sanguine about it, but I will say with all the agitation due to the core at our site I've had a lot of older teachers at my site come to me and ask for help- borrowing my lessons, using my lesson plans, asking about my techniques in the classroom. Changing education is a relatively slow process. This is a supertanker that doesn't turn on a dime. The best changes you could make would be in the parents- making them attentive, supportive of literacy, and creative thinkers- because a lot of our kids our lost by the time they are born (crippled by their parents drug and alcohol addictions, or ruined long before they start school by hours and hours of TV baby sitting and poor nutrition). Which does not mean i don't think we should make heroic efforts to salvage what we can- I think we should- but looking at education as only the province of the schools is stupid. Parents will always be the first best educators (if they are capable educators, which many are not right now), and I really think we should have a Manhattan project effort to reach parents, and train them- to teach America's children well in that short time when young children's brains are the most plastic and receptive. Now that could really change things for the better- but you'd have to wait many years to see just how much, and Americans have little patience for long studies. It's sad- but we're a shortsighted, instant gratification society.