Currently, plenty of schools get funding and don't each teach thier students how to read. Some schools have over 60% drop out rates. Currently the way things are set up, schools don't have non essential classes except for after hours anyways. (and by currently, I mean when I was in school) So I'm not quite sure what you think they would be loosing by being forced to teach towards a standardized test.

It seems like compared to other countries, our tests are weak and laughable.

They really should keep PE class.

I agree. Unfortunetly my understanding is that schools can't pay the health insurace coverage and risk of being sued or something. Also, if you are bad at P.E. it might give you low self esteem, and we can't have that! Remeber, there is no failure, only delayed success.

It does vary from politician to politician. Some are more interested than others.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A...anguage=printer (Yes, an opinionated article, but I believe the points are valid).

You're citing dropouts as a problem. However, with the No Child Left Behind act, dropouts are *NOT* considered a problem officially. After all, if a kid drops out, they are not affecting the school's test scores any more. If a few of the kids who are doing really badly drop out, the whole school appears to be doing better. Luckily, teachers and the school administrators don't seem to be using that fact much yet, despite a few claims without statistical numbers. TIME magazine (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1181646-5,00.html) claims that "researchers say dropout rates are remaining steady" since the 1970's, "despite increased attention on the plight of public schools and a vigorous educational-reform movement."



There are pros and cons in that article, and it is very nice to see that cities are taking their own steps to try and reduce dropout rates (and ditching the "number shuffling" that allowed them to say that they were doing much better than they were), but that is no reflection on the NCLB act. For more information on this number shuffling, which was one of the things that was bandied about in a certain Presidential election as a "good thing-- look at what I have done for my state!", see: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/06/...ain591676.shtml




Hmmm...

If you're bad at history, or math, or english or science, or health, or even drama or chior or...you might have low self esteem! We should just make it so school is about meditation on happy warm fuzzies all day.

I think this is the first time I've seen a teaching of Crow connected with the American self-esteem movement. I find the implications disturbing.

...

Where do you think the first viravain got it from!

I actually don't know anything about the teachings of Crow, I was just talking about the American Self-Esteem Movement...

Theres an entire movment dedicated to increasing Self-Esteem?

Yes! And they make me feel awful!

Well, there's not an official movement per se (that I know of), but it was kind of a fad in both education and child-rearing for awhile that a lot of problems with children came down to poor self-esteem, and various measures were proposed to protect their self-esteem at nearly all costs.

Like most trends of this sort, there's certainly some truth there, but it was absolutized and taken to degrees which may not really have been in anyone's best interest. One of them was the one Daganev was joking about - we can't have competitive activities, because that would mean that someone would lose. Another one of my personal favorites is the school of thought that all children are intelligent, they are just intelligent in different ways (artistically intelligent, kinesthetically intelligent, etc.). I guess this is ok as long as we can also say that a child can be mathematically athletic.

I think this thread has been officially been hijacked. Terrorists! Oh wait, I was one of the hijackers...imperialist pigs!

Lets form a civilian reserve corp and kill em all!

Or at least sabotage their self esteem with rumors of failure!