The Most Ludicrous, Preposterous Item of the Day

A recent article in the Miami Herald caught my attention. Apparently there is a proposal that would cut funds for gifted education. There is reportedly a bill going through the House and Senate to change the definition of " exceptional student". The fallacious thinking is that AP and IB (Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate) classes ARE gifted education.

I concur with Terry Wilson, President of the Florida Gifted Network that this is a very serious attack on gifted children, gifted adolescents and gifted education. Gifted education is different than just difficult classes (although these classes could be an integral part of a gifted student's plan of study. Even more dastardly and heinous is the plan to include gifted students in grades K through 8. In some instances, gifted students may not even be identified until grades 7 or 8 or even later. We should not stop our endeavors to assist gifted children after 8th grade.

I would urge parents of gifted adolescents in Florida to write or call Sen. Stephen Wise of Jacksonville and urge him to re-consider or re-think what he is doing. I would be happy to speak with him personally and clarify what constitutes "gifted education" , specifically at the high school level.He apparently is Head of the Committee on Education Pre-K-12.I will send him a copy of this commentary. We shall see if he responds.

Gifted children and adolescent need an education that is appropriate for their needs, talents, and desires. Gifted children and adolescents need an education that focuses on higher order thinking skills and critical thinking skills as well as enrichment. Gifted students need enhancement of their convergent as well as their divergent thinking. They also need their emotional and mental health needs addressed. Throwing standardized AP and IB classes at gifted students is not necessarily the answer. Gifted children and adolescent need a curriculum suited to their needs. There are differences between gifted children. One student with an I.Q. of 135 is certainly different than another gifted student with an I.Q. of 155. Each student has their own interests and their own background knowledge and their own preferences and their own learning styles. Don't shortchange our gifted children and adolescents. I would like to use the phrase from the United Negro College Fund- "A mind is a terrible thing to waste". Even more disastrous is the wasting of the talent and potential of a gifted child or adolescent.

Source




Klocek case hopeful

Klocek was fired for challenging Muslim slanders against Israel and DePaul has been lying about it ever since

The case of Thomas Klocek is now poised to go to trial. On April 10, Hon. Daniel J. Kelley, a judge in the Circuit Court of Cook County, upheld six of the eight legal counts leveled against DePaul and others. This came as a result of DePaul's motion to reconsider Judge Nudleman's order from May 2006, which upheld four of the counts against DePaul and others.

In his 17-page order, Judge Kelley points to DePaul's "reckless disregard for the truth" in statements made following Klocek's suspension. This breaks a long silence in the case as DePaul University previously secured a temporary gag order to prevent the release of significant facts in the case.

"Now two judges have independently upheld the validity of Prof. Klocek's complaint against DePaul," says John Mauck of Mauck & Baker, whose firm represents Klocek. "We applaud Judge Kelley's excellent decision. We also look forward to a public trial where DePaul students and the public can judge for themselves whether certain administrators silenced Tom Klocek because a few Muslim activists wanted his political and religious opinions repressed."

Source





Brainless "educators"

A fifteen-year old boy in America was incarcerated for twelve days, wrongly accused of making a hoax bomb threat - because his school had forgotten that the clocks had gone forward. Cody Webb was arrested last month, after Hempfield Area High School received a bomb threat on their student hotline - which provides a range of information to students about the school - at 3.17am on March 11th. They believed they'd found the culprit when they traced the phone number they thought was responsible to Webb.

Unfortunately, they forgot that the clocks had switched to Daylight Saving Time that morning. Webb, who's never even had a detention in his life, had actually made his call an hour earlier. Despite the fact that the recording of the call featured a voice that sounded nothing like Webb's, the police arrested Webb and he spent 12 days in a juvenile detention facility before the school eventually realised their mistake.

Webb gave an insight into the school's impressive investigative techniques, saying that he was ushered in to see the principal, Kathy Charlton. She asked him what his phone number was, and , according to Webb, when he replied 'she started waving her hands in the air and saying "we got him, we got him."' 'They just started flipping out, saying I made a bomb threat to the school,' he told local television station KDKA. After he protested his innocence, Webb says that the principal said: 'Well, why should we believe you? You're a criminal. Criminals lie all the time.' All charges against Webb have now been dropped.

Source

***************************

For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

***************************