Cervantes: Calls for Modernizing Education

Posted by Jim Spence on Friday, February 18, 2011
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Joseph Cervantes
Santa Fe, NM – Rep. Joseph Cervantes (D-Doña Ana) would fundamentally alter the school year in New Mexico to reflect a modern educational system and produce students competitive in the global economy. House Bill 407 would increase the number of required instructional days per year from 180 days to 200 days beginning in 2012-2013. It would also modify the annual school year calendar to reduce the extended summer break and promote continuity in education throughout the year. Rep. Cervantes said, “Parents and educators all see the loss of knowledge and student progress with the extended summer holiday–which is a throwback to an era when students were needed on the family farm. We need to make our students competitive in this global economy and to achieve that, we need to increase our students’ time in the classroom learning.” According to Education in Review, the following are the number of days students in other countries attend school: Japan 243; South Korea 220; Israel 216; The Netherlands 200; Thailand 200; England 192; United States 180. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2009 New Mexico students scored below the national average in Mathematics, Science, Reading, and Writing.

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1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Our education system that educated the Greatest Generation was the best we ever had.

We don't need longer school years. We don't need modern technology. We need qualified teachers. By that I mean we need to eliminate the huge departments of education at the universities and put the system back in place we had before the mid-70s.

There was a time where one would earn a degree in a real field, not an education degree. Then one would take a 5th yr of education methods courses to be ready to be certified. People with degrees in chemistry, biology, english, history, sociology, psychology, etc became teachers. Today most have a degree in education. They take most of their courses in the education department or departments.

Technology consists of nice tools but those tools are not absolutely necessary to learning. We waste millions of dollars on technology that is used with children where there is no need for technology use.

Technology can never replace a human teacher because no technological device can interact as fully as a human. In fact, I would say it just plain technologically impossible to make "interactive" technology. All technology is reactive and that reactivity is preprogrammed into the technology by some human.

Our education system fails because we fail to understand how to teach and just what it is that we need to teach versus what we want to teach.

If we are concerned with competing in the "global" economy, then we need to return to the method used on our grand and greatgrand parents which was primarily rote learning for the lower grades. That system of rote learning is still in use in many of the foreign countries that are surpassing us.

The fouled up system we have now came about due to changes forced on us by the federal government, changes that required the lowering of standards so EVERYONE had a chance to go to college.

Those changes were not only unconstitutional bu they were misguided and our children now pay for that failure.

Looking at those born from 1970 on, we have as many as two generations of people who were educated in a system with lowered standards and the effects are everywhere to be seen. Those educators and parents who see the need for lengthening the school year are part of those who were poorly educated. The greatest generation went 170 days and took the US to its pinnacle. Those of us born of that and subsequent generations have done nothing to improve and everything to destroy what they gave us.

Lengthening the year will change nothing except to provide more daycare for parents. It is not the amount of time, it is the quality. And quality comes from having the best of the best teaching. We don't.

The length of a school year in other countries is meaningless, they do not surpass us for that reason. They had long school years when the "greatest generation" beat them at every turn.
They surpass us because we do not relish education as they do.

Get rid of everything outside of the three Rs for the elementary grades. No sex ed. No other crap. Get Phys Ed and the arts back in. Recognize that adults need breaks, i.e. coffee breaks, and kids need recesses. Return to the old system. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Too bad the current group fouling up our system didn't listen to that adage before they made such a mess.

February 18, 2011 at 12:21 PM

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