Skandera’s brand of ‘education reform’ doesn’t work

From NM Politics.net - by Michael Corwin, executive director of Independent Source Pac He is a licensed private investigator who has provided political opposition research and rapid response investigations in approximately 170 political races. - The National Research Council says Hanna Skandera’s brand of “education reform” does not work. So why is the Martinez Administration so gung ho about an approach that is clearly not what’s best for the children? Who really stands to gain from their faulty approach? So what really does work? According to the National Research Council, smaller class sizes, better-trained teachers and principals, challenging curriculum, high expectations, good after-school programs and summer school “can make a large and positive influence.” In other words, focus on the needs of the individual students, identify those that need assistance, and provide it to them. For generations, American students who had trouble learning to read were given pull-out training by remedial reading teachers. This was a very effective approach, but then districts eliminated those positions. Why not bring them back? There are also thousands of retired teachers and other volunteers who are happy to donate their time to do pull-out remedial reading. Read the column
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1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Education does not draw the best and the brightest and hasn't for a long time. Based on entrance exams, the averate teacher IQ is around 95, 5 points below the population average.

Why would the best and the brightest become teachers in a country where educators and education are not held in estemm? Some great teachers still go through and put up with the crap and lack of adminstrative support. But most go where they can earn and be appreciated.

Administrators today are not what they should be which is to say persons who have taught for many years and then moved into being mentors for the younger teachers. It is an US vs THEM mentality between the administrators and the teachers and also between the schools and the parents.

Why can't we get back to the great schools that educated the greatest generation? Because academic idiots think they can reinvent and improve a system. Humans and human learning has not changed in several millenia or longer. The new methods do not work. Individualized instruction was the center point 30, 40, 50 yrs ago. Educators are so ignorant of the past that many think they invented something new simply because they failed to study history.

The schools need to eliminate EVERYTHING except the basics of readin', writin', and 'rithmetic. Get of the social development. Get out of teaching morality and ethics, at which the schools fail miserably. Get rid of BS classes like the history of rock and roll.
Require adherence to the rules of language, science, mathematics. Forget the stupid multiculturalism. [If the story bothers you, use your imigination and change the names. Duh! And get over your self importance.]

Don't ask the children what they want. Children don't have the slightest idea of what they need to learn. And I consider folks up to 25 (and some even older) as children.

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