3 September, 2004

THE EDUCATION SHAMBLES

Dangerous deficits: "If we continue to let kids get high school diplomas when they're functionally illiterate, and if colleges continue to pump out grads that can't communicate well or properly (to be fair, colleges are having a heck of a time giving remedial English classes to incoming freshman who are nowhere near high school graduate level), we're all going to lose something important. After all, it's the ability to communicate clearly that keeps us all informed of things large and small, from office parties to our medical care, and from funny stories to urgent warnings."

Even the elite of students produced by America's Left-dominated High Schools are clueless: "Since this is Emory, there are no re-enactments of "The Blackboard Jungle," and most in the class strive for an A, in their fashion. But the ignorance, laziness, sense of entitlement and lack of basic rhetorical skills are stunning. One student thinks that "books" and "novels" are the same. Another identifies the Granite State as "New Hamster." Few are familiar with the rules of language, many spell poorly and all are confused by tenses and apostrophes and complain bitterly when Prof. Allitt marks them down for grammatical errors."

And it's no wonder how ignorant the students are when you see how dumb the "educators" are: "The town of Hempstead, NY, has a message for Gwinnett County school administrators: Before you target a student wearing a Hempstead shirt, look at a map. Terrell Jones, a student in Gwinnett County's [GA] Grayson High School, was weeded out of a classroom by a school administrator because he wore a shirt that read: 'Hempstead, NY 516,' a reference to the Long Island town and its telephone area code. According to Jones' family, which moved from Hempstead to the Atlanta suburb, the school thought the shirt referred to marijuana. Jones wasn't allowed to return to class until he persuaded school officials to search the Internet for the town name. The town's Web site says the area may have been named for Hemel-Hempstead, England. Another theory cites the Dutch city of Heemstede, because settlers had come years earlier from the Netherlands."

Education has been dumbed down in England too: "Nearly 20 years ago I studied A-levels in English literature/language, history and sociology at a local FE college in the West Midlands. In recent years I've been teaching both A-level sociology, and government and politics, at a variety of inner London FE colleges. I'm also an A2 government and politics examiner for the examination board Edexcel. David Miliband blithely suggests it's 'a myth' that A-levels are getting easier, but from my experience it's the unavoidable and uncomfortable truth".

And it happens in Australia too: "Analyst and author Kevin Donnelly says Queensland has led Australia in dumbing down the curriculum for state schools. And he says students are being indoctrinated with left-wing ideology. "Queensland wrote the Study of Society and the Environment national curriculum and it was re-written at national level because people could not believe the new-age loony stuff in it," Dr Donnelly said. "Unfortunately, it's still used in Queensland." Dr Donnelly said: "I felt that Australia's approach to the curriculum, particularly in Queensland, was fundamentally flawed and obsolete and the result is that students have been put at risk because the curriculum has been dumbed down.".... Queensland's approach to the curriculum was "very politically correct", he said. "The SOSE curriculum promotes a left-wing view of things like multiculturalism . . . and peace studies. It's all about indoctrination...."

High School teacher Dave Huber has some very sarcastic comments on the latest "resolutions" of the NEA. "Illegality is good" seems to be part of their story. A great way to educate kids! How about if a few people "illegally" shot some NEA members? Would that be good too? Or should we encourage respect for the law after all? Lamebrains! If people only have to obey the laws they agree with, I foresee a lot of dead Leftist fanatics. They rely on other people being more decent and responsible than they are.

Amtrak? "A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad." - Theodore Roosevelt, Twenty-sixth US president (1858-1919)