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Former Supreme Court Justice Switches to Video Games
TechDirt is reporting that former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has moved into the one industry that I don't think anyone might have expected, video games. Not only did she speak at a recent gaming conference, she is also working on creating a video game about the courts. "There have been many similar 'civic education' video games out there, like the UN video game to teach kids about world hunger and, my personal favorite, a video game to teach kids how to gerrymander voting districts to get political support. It's not clear how successful any of these sorts of games really are, but it's nice to see a former Supreme Court Justice taking an interest in these sorts of things. Though, some might point out that this could be seen as something of a gimmick, and students might just be better served by adding a decent civics curriculum back into school (it's apparently gone thanks to No Child Left Behind)."
Wasn't "no child left behind" largely an unfunded mandate to begin with? Forcing the states to re-allocate funding from other parts of the curriculum to support teaching to the test?
Not only does it force teachers to teach the test, with budget penalties etc etc, if a student fails his or her EoG test twice, they get promoted to the next grade anyway. No child is left behind, because they eventually get promoted whether they pass the tests or not. Its fucking brilliant.
Power corrupts. Absolute power...is even more fun.
It was only unfunded in comparative terms. The federal government is not allowed to mess with education. They get around this by paying school districts to do something.
Before NCLB the federal government has some requirements to give money. NCLB changed those requirements, without allocating more money. School districts are allowed to tell the DoE to take their money, take their standards, and stuff them both into the same shredder.
We, as voters for each school district, have decided not to do so. We want our federal education subsidies.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
There is already a video game about the courts:
:)
OBJECTION!
As a recent high school graduate (2006) I was in high school during NCLB. I do not see the program as having destroyed any meaningful civic curriculum because there never really was one to begin with. Sure the government and history teachers present the material, but as Enderandrew mentioned the parents can't stand to see a child failing or even falling short of perfection. This leads to great pressure on the teachers from parents and the school to pass all the students and inflate grades. The only thing that NCLB had done to change this is to add another source of pressure on the teachers to inflate grades. I was speaking with one of the government teachers the year after I had graduated. During this conversation he described the government teachers meeting to decide the curve on the test that all the government kids have to take due to NCLB and the driving factor was not what is a true cutoff, but how low can they make the req's for an A in order to maximize the overall results. They aren't even attempting to kid themselves into thinking it's not blatant grade inflation. NCLB doesn't provide a basis level of education, it ties the hands of the teachers from actually being able to focus on learning. They only have time to focus on the test because so much rides upon these standardized tests. You can see similar effects in the AP program, however the kids on that track are usually motivated harder working students, and the 'test' that is taught in AP is much more encompassing. Putting so much focus on these tests just serves to lower the standard to the test rather than setting a basis to start from. The high school I attended was in an affluent suburb, and in one of the better districts in the state. If this is happening in the "good" school districts imagine what is happening in the "bad" ones.
Sure, it was part of GWB's 2000 election platform, but after taking office, he decided to extend an olive branch to the other party and let Kennedy focus on one of his pet issues in an attempt to ease the partisan fighting in DC. But we'll leave the Senior Senator from Massachussets out of it as we rewrite history to prove yet again that only Republicans are evil.
Stop Koolaid Politics
As a high-school teacher I just don't know where I stand on this issue. I have taught kids who do learn, and progress, in my class that really did have some sort of problem, and were quite behind the rest of the class. Nonetheless, with my help they refined, and improved upon, what they gave me - and all I know is that I don't have a crystal ball, so I really don't know where their progress will end.
On the other side of the spectrum are the ones born who really are borderline retarded (and I'm serious in using that term, even though it's not really correct). I feel bad for them, but at the risk of having some students in my classes learn absolutely nothing, I have to leave these 'included' students behind in daily conversation. I can do my best for them in other areas, but it just becomes an exercise in babysitting if the sole leader in the classroom (the teacher) spends too much time with them, or teaches at too low of a level.
Perhaps test, instead, solely for those who want to be there, and who know there is more to learn - even if, at the same time, some of them know they have a learning disability. There is a difference between using a disability as a crutch, and putting one's nose to the grindstone no matter what the factor.
There is the argument, too, that inclusion builds empathy for people who are 'different' than our smarter thinkers. To some degree I see the point, but I wish it did not mandate a 100% inclusion, all the time, because it can build frustration and ruin potentially talented students' attitudes and foci by being dumbed down all the time.
What concerns me is that a separation of the masses for any length of time may build a social structure equivalent to the Nazi regime - one where certain qualities will be considered desirable, and a future where a non-empathetic class of people take political control, develop policies, and somehow dictate breeding based on a very harsh, and stratified, upbringing.
No Child Left Behind is very harmful to intelligent kids. When I was in middle school, I learnt close to nothing and the only thing that was widely regarded was improvement, not achievement. At the end of the year, the school always handed out awards to exemplary students, and there were maybe 10 awards for various kinds of improvement, and then maybe one award for achievements or grades.
Having been home schooled until second grade, we finally decided to quit school and begin homeschooling again after 7th grade. This is when I was 12. At 13, we found that IUPUI (Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis) offered a program called SPAN, which basically allows you to take any college course for both college credit and equivalent high school credit. And since college work is much harder than high school work, they're sometimes worth more credits, too. In other words, I was able to completely replace all of my public middle school and high school, and all of my home schooling with full-time college. Doing so, I entered college at the age of 13.
IUPUI isn't the only college doing this, though. America has many of the best colleges and universities in the world, and its public school system is among the worst (down near the likes of Mexico last I saw a report on it, and that was years ago when schools were better). The universities here are increasingly growing weary of having to teach freshman what they used to learn in high school. Universities now love home schoolers because they have a much better education, and they are usually more disciplined and ready for college than their public school counter-parts.
The American school system is steadily moving towards a point where if you want your child to attend college, you can't enroll them in a public school.