(I just wrote a long, involved response to your post. And then the stupid new Slashdot comment system ate it when I clicked on the wrong thing trying to read the parent. Dammit. So, I'll reconstruct as best I can.)
For the sake of context: I live in the city of Buffalo, NY, a heavily Catholic post-industrial rust belt mecca that's either the second or third poorest city in the US, depending on whose report you believe. So that's the school system that I'm most familiar with, and that's the perspective I'm coming from.
Because of the large Catholic population here, there are many excellent parochial and other private schools. And we've also got a large charter school community, although the performance of those is a bit more uneven than the universally excellent Catholic schools.
I don't know where you're writing from, but here in New York, a public school teacher needs to have a master's degree in education. That's a whole lot of training and education for some shoddy results.
For example: our public school district recently announced with great fanfare that nearly half of the third graders in the city district were reading at grade level, and roughly a third were appropriately competent in Math. Again, this was announced with great fanfare: almost half the kids being able to read was a huge improvement, and was a much higher proportion than the eighth graders who took a similar test. By comparison, the charter school in my neighborhood scored 100% on both math and reading, for both the third and eighth grades.
If a teacher has to have all of this training in advanced teaching methods and so on, _why is it not working_? I know that there are a lot of influences outside of the school in terms of parental involvement, home life, and so on. But it seems that every new teaching method and every new program just presages lower and lower test scores and competence. Less than thirty percent of high school students here graduate in four years. That's a disgrace.
I'm frustrated by this because I'm worried about where my son is going to go to school in a few years, and I don't think that the simplistic argument that things are automatically better for everyone but the poor public schools holds water.
I spent eight years in public school, and then went to private high school, so I've seen both sides of the equation personally. Private schools, at least Jesuit private schools, approach education in a fundamentally different way than public schools do. And while I am not "so focused on [myself] that you can't imagine anyone learning in any other way but the way you learn", I don't see how it could hurt the public schools to start looking at what their more successful peers are doing rather than crying in their beer about how unfair the admissions policies are.
(And, to bring the conversation full circle, part of what they're doing is focusing on subject matter expertise over education degrees when hiring faculty.)
Please don't think that I'm unfamiliar with what teachers do, at least around here; I've got several friends who teach in the public and charter systems. Of course, the cynic in me says that it doesn't matter how much teacher training you have when your main job is stopping fights and keeping order rather than teaching.
This discussion is probably going to close to additional posts in the next couple of days, but I am enjoying this; if you want to continue the discussion, please email me. My address is on my homepage, linked above.
I mean, after all, that's what they teach you in Elementary Glitter Application.
Okay, I will admit, that was flippant and more than a bit rude. I apologize.
[Here is where I would normally insult you for insulting the intelligence of other people who are on average, more qualified and more highly educated than you, but I just don't see the point]
And normally, I would point out here that the college I work for has an enormous school of education, whose students I have quite a bit of contact with, and I'd happily argue with your assessment. But I don't see the point either.
Clearly, the current method of recruiting, training, and placing teachers in the Empire State is optimal. That's why the public schools here are in such fantastic shape, and why private schools that don't require teacher certification are simply diploma mills for functionally illiterate dullards.
Ah, damn, did I get those mixed up again? I do that all the time. Must be those pesky non-Ed degrees.
Not that I voted for Obama or McCain this morning, but it seems to me that your request for an associate of Obama's who is not "a) a commununist radical, b) islamic extremist or c) part of the corrupt Chicago machine" is covered by Biden. I find it amazing that you didn't consider the man's running mate before firing off that sort of crazy hyperbole.
The fact that he's a moron who can't be trusted to speak in front of more than three is regrettable, but irrelevant.
No they didn't say Obama is a bomb thrower, but it is 100% factual that Obama 'has no enemies on the left.' Riddle me this; name one close personal or professional associate of Sen. Obama that isn't a) a commununist radical, b) islamic extremist or c) part of the corrupt Chicago machine.
Please, don't even try to say that the press has been fair during this election.
I don't think anyone's making that argument. Just out of curiosity, is there a single newspaper in America that's acknowledging that there are more than two candidates in the Presidential race?
We still use the old-school mechanical voting machines here in the Empire State. I love those. A real kerthunk of Electoral Justice.
I showed up to my polling place at 8:15 this morning, and I was the 70th voter at my station. I usually show up at about that time, on my way to work, and I'm normally more like number 20. There's going to be a _lot_ of turnout today.
Oh, and let's not forget that private schools don't need to have accredited teachers. But why bring up that point when 90% of people think that teaching is nothing more than reading out of a book to students. Why break a moron's view of the world?
Why is it that I can teach classes at a college -- and I often do -- and yet I'd need an additional degree and a pay cut to teach the same material at a public high school?
This is the single biggest thing that is limiting the pool of potential teachers. I'd like nothing better than to move into a teaching job when I'm older and more financially secure, so that I can take the pay cut. Heaven knows that the schools can use people with a grasp of math and science to teach their classes. But I can't do it, at least not in New York, because I didn't take the proper classes in Elementary Glitter Application.
Is it the most fair way to do this? No. But I'd want to make sure that anything that replaces the electoral college would still protect states with a low population.
I'd like to see more states adopt proportional electors, where they're divided to reflect the state's popular vote. Here in New York, nobody cares about anything outside of New York City as far as politicking goes, because the population difference is so great.
If you are a centrist, this election is almost a dream come true. The McCain took a turn for the worse around convention time, and Palin is a gimmick, but the candidates themselves are quite reasonable and respectable guys. Even Hillary wasn't, in practice, such a bad Senator. Ugly campaigner, but a decent Senator.
You're clearly not from Western New York. Senator Clinton is ignoring the vast majority of the state she represents. Hell, at least Chuckie Schumer shows up for a photo op more often than every-other-governor.
The best organization for higher ed IT is EDUCAUSE (www.educause.edu) -- their mailing lists and their conferences are great. Go to their web site, find some mailing lists in your area of expertise, and subscribe.
Neat-o. I'll have to install this on my slate-style Tablet PC; It's a fun toy, but you never realize how much you middle-click-for-new-tab until you can't any more.
I've sort of worked around it with Tab Mix Plus to open _everything_ in new tabs, but something more touchscreen centric would be nice.
Well, I have black friends who agree with me that popular black culture is often staggeringly self-destructive and fruitless. So, yes, I suppose it is a good analogy.
For the most part, these friends are successful, happy, degree-holding professionals. Or, in the argot of many of their racial peers, "sellouts" and "Uncle Toms".
Those of us in non-NYC portions of New York get to live this every election. As someone who lives in Buffalo, I'm really, really sick of being politically impotent because of the overwhelming population advantage of New York City.
I'm operating under the assumption that, from that impacted shitheap of a table, some sort of product matching the initial description manages to blossom. You know, like a tulip growing from a garbage dump.
If someone is looking for a real, usable tablet, perhaps one of the slate-style ones from Motion Computing would be the way to go. I picked mine up for under four hundred dollars on eBay, complete with a good battery and a docking station.
This isn't really an innovative, exciting, new product.
To be fair, people thought the same thing about Chester Arthur back in the late 19th century; he was a corrupt Machine politician who was only on the ballot to assuage the greed of the NYC politicos. Then he became president, and was actually a pretty good one.
Think back on all of the job interviews you've been on. I'm sure there's been at least one where you were the best candidate and they hired a complete dolt instead. What's the difference between that and a longer interview with three hundred million "hiring managers"? Sometimes a candidate is good and just comes across poorly.
That's why I love living in Buffalo, NY -- a city that was designed before "urban planners", so it actually works. I can walk three minutes from my house to the corner bar, have a couple of beers and a sandwich, and not need a car.
Old cities worked well for a reason. I don't know what the hell the people that lay out some of the new ones (Vegas, Phoenix, Atlanta) are thinking.
So, 88% of IT administrators are antisocial clowns?
Well, you could knock me over with a feather. I'm shocked.
(Honestly, I think that number is ridiculously high and inaccurate. But I work for a college, so maybe I'm just underestimating the evil of corporate IT.)
I've even been known to bring my dog to work and take walks with him during the day.
I hope you're more considerate than a lot of the dog owners here. Your office doesn't reek of feces, I hope? And your slobbering mutt doesn't wander about into people's cubes, stuffing his nose into their crotches?
I know that pet owners assume everyone shares their love of their precious animal, but it's not the case.
Slashdot Mirror
(I just wrote a long, involved response to your post. And then the stupid new Slashdot comment system ate it when I clicked on the wrong thing trying to read the parent. Dammit. So, I'll reconstruct as best I can.)
For the sake of context: I live in the city of Buffalo, NY, a heavily Catholic post-industrial rust belt mecca that's either the second or third poorest city in the US, depending on whose report you believe. So that's the school system that I'm most familiar with, and that's the perspective I'm coming from.
Because of the large Catholic population here, there are many excellent parochial and other private schools. And we've also got a large charter school community, although the performance of those is a bit more uneven than the universally excellent Catholic schools.
I don't know where you're writing from, but here in New York, a public school teacher needs to have a master's degree in education. That's a whole lot of training and education for some shoddy results.
For example: our public school district recently announced with great fanfare that nearly half of the third graders in the city district were reading at grade level, and roughly a third were appropriately competent in Math. Again, this was announced with great fanfare: almost half the kids being able to read was a huge improvement, and was a much higher proportion than the eighth graders who took a similar test. By comparison, the charter school in my neighborhood scored 100% on both math and reading, for both the third and eighth grades.
If a teacher has to have all of this training in advanced teaching methods and so on, _why is it not working_? I know that there are a lot of influences outside of the school in terms of parental involvement, home life, and so on. But it seems that every new teaching method and every new program just presages lower and lower test scores and competence. Less than thirty percent of high school students here graduate in four years. That's a disgrace.
I'm frustrated by this because I'm worried about where my son is going to go to school in a few years, and I don't think that the simplistic argument that things are automatically better for everyone but the poor public schools holds water.
I spent eight years in public school, and then went to private high school, so I've seen both sides of the equation personally. Private schools, at least Jesuit private schools, approach education in a fundamentally different way than public schools do. And while I am not "so focused on [myself] that you can't imagine anyone learning in any other way but the way you learn", I don't see how it could hurt the public schools to start looking at what their more successful peers are doing rather than crying in their beer about how unfair the admissions policies are.
(And, to bring the conversation full circle, part of what they're doing is focusing on subject matter expertise over education degrees when hiring faculty.)
Please don't think that I'm unfamiliar with what teachers do, at least around here; I've got several friends who teach in the public and charter systems. Of course, the cynic in me says that it doesn't matter how much teacher training you have when your main job is stopping fights and keeping order rather than teaching.
This discussion is probably going to close to additional posts in the next couple of days, but I am enjoying this; if you want to continue the discussion, please email me. My address is on my homepage, linked above.
--saint
I mean, after all, that's what they teach you in Elementary Glitter Application.
Okay, I will admit, that was flippant and more than a bit rude. I apologize.
[Here is where I would normally insult you for insulting the intelligence of other people who are on average, more qualified and more highly educated than you, but I just don't see the point]
And normally, I would point out here that the college I work for has an enormous school of education, whose students I have quite a bit of contact with, and I'd happily argue with your assessment. But I don't see the point either.
Clearly, the current method of recruiting, training, and placing teachers in the Empire State is optimal. That's why the public schools here are in such fantastic shape, and why private schools that don't require teacher certification are simply diploma mills for functionally illiterate dullards.
Ah, damn, did I get those mixed up again? I do that all the time. Must be those pesky non-Ed degrees.
--saint
Not that I voted for Obama or McCain this morning, but it seems to me that your request for an associate of Obama's who is not "a) a commununist radical, b) islamic extremist or c) part of the corrupt Chicago machine" is covered by Biden. I find it amazing that you didn't consider the man's running mate before firing off that sort of crazy hyperbole.
The fact that he's a moron who can't be trusted to speak in front of more than three is regrettable, but irrelevant.
--saint
I could drive fifteen minutes across the Peace Bridge to eat Chinese food and look at strippers without carrying a goddamned passport.
Ridiculous, batshit crazy security theatre nonsense designed to keep people constantly afraid.
--saint
No they didn't say Obama is a bomb thrower, but it is 100% factual that Obama 'has no enemies on the left.' Riddle me this; name one close personal or professional associate of Sen. Obama that isn't a) a commununist radical, b) islamic extremist or c) part of the corrupt Chicago machine.
Joe Biden?
He's not one of those Muslim Micks, is he?
--saint
Please, don't even try to say that the press has been fair during this election.
I don't think anyone's making that argument. Just out of curiosity, is there a single newspaper in America that's acknowledging that there are more than two candidates in the Presidential race?
--saint
We still use the old-school mechanical voting machines here in the Empire State. I love those. A real kerthunk of Electoral Justice.
I showed up to my polling place at 8:15 this morning, and I was the 70th voter at my station. I usually show up at about that time, on my way to work, and I'm normally more like number 20. There's going to be a _lot_ of turnout today.
--saint
Oh, and let's not forget that private schools don't need to have accredited teachers. But why bring up that point when 90% of people think that teaching is nothing more than reading out of a book to students. Why break a moron's view of the world?
Why is it that I can teach classes at a college -- and I often do -- and yet I'd need an additional degree and a pay cut to teach the same material at a public high school?
This is the single biggest thing that is limiting the pool of potential teachers. I'd like nothing better than to move into a teaching job when I'm older and more financially secure, so that I can take the pay cut. Heaven knows that the schools can use people with a grasp of math and science to teach their classes. But I can't do it, at least not in New York, because I didn't take the proper classes in Elementary Glitter Application.
--saint
Is it the most fair way to do this? No. But I'd want to make sure that anything that replaces the electoral college would still protect states with a low population.
I'd like to see more states adopt proportional electors, where they're divided to reflect the state's popular vote. Here in New York, nobody cares about anything outside of New York City as far as politicking goes, because the population difference is so great.
--saint
If you are a centrist, this election is almost a dream come true. The McCain took a turn for the worse around convention time, and Palin is a gimmick, but the candidates themselves are quite reasonable and respectable guys. Even Hillary wasn't, in practice, such a bad Senator. Ugly campaigner, but a decent Senator.
You're clearly not from Western New York. Senator Clinton is ignoring the vast majority of the state she represents. Hell, at least Chuckie Schumer shows up for a photo op more often than every-other-governor.
--saint
The best organization for higher ed IT is EDUCAUSE (www.educause.edu) -- their mailing lists and their conferences are great. Go to their web site, find some mailing lists in your area of expertise, and subscribe.
--saint
I used Enlightenment on my first Linux box, a Motorola Mac clone running LinuxPPC.
Everything in that sentences is obsolete, dead, and buried.
I've been doing this stuff for too long.
--saint
Neat-o. I'll have to install this on my slate-style Tablet PC; It's a fun toy, but you never realize how much you middle-click-for-new-tab until you can't any more.
I've sort of worked around it with Tab Mix Plus to open _everything_ in new tabs, but something more touchscreen centric would be nice.
--saint
I'm afraid not, though I am in the northeastern US.
Please, send me an email at "contact" at "my domain" -- I'm sure nobody else here wants to read our conversation.
--saint
Hey, I'll take one of those Sharks off your hands; it would look great with my Alphas and my VAXstation.
--saint
Well, I have black friends who agree with me that popular black culture is often staggeringly self-destructive and fruitless. So, yes, I suppose it is a good analogy.
For the most part, these friends are successful, happy, degree-holding professionals. Or, in the argot of many of their racial peers, "sellouts" and "Uncle Toms".
--saint
Those of us in non-NYC portions of New York get to live this every election. As someone who lives in Buffalo, I'm really, really sick of being politically impotent because of the overwhelming population advantage of New York City.
--saint
I'm operating under the assumption that, from that impacted shitheap of a table, some sort of product matching the initial description manages to blossom. You know, like a tulip growing from a garbage dump.
--saint
If someone is looking for a real, usable tablet, perhaps one of the slate-style ones from Motion Computing would be the way to go. I picked mine up for under four hundred dollars on eBay, complete with a good battery and a docking station.
This isn't really an innovative, exciting, new product.
--saint
Someone didn't go to a Catholic high school.
--saint
To be fair, people thought the same thing about Chester Arthur back in the late 19th century; he was a corrupt Machine politician who was only on the ballot to assuage the greed of the NYC politicos. Then he became president, and was actually a pretty good one.
Think back on all of the job interviews you've been on. I'm sure there's been at least one where you were the best candidate and they hired a complete dolt instead. What's the difference between that and a longer interview with three hundred million "hiring managers"? Sometimes a candidate is good and just comes across poorly.
--saint
That's why I love living in Buffalo, NY -- a city that was designed before "urban planners", so it actually works. I can walk three minutes from my house to the corner bar, have a couple of beers and a sandwich, and not need a car.
Old cities worked well for a reason. I don't know what the hell the people that lay out some of the new ones (Vegas, Phoenix, Atlanta) are thinking.
--saint
So, 88% of IT administrators are antisocial clowns?
Well, you could knock me over with a feather. I'm shocked.
(Honestly, I think that number is ridiculously high and inaccurate. But I work for a college, so maybe I'm just underestimating the evil of corporate IT.)
--saint
I've even been known to bring my dog to work and take walks with him during the day.
I hope you're more considerate than a lot of the dog owners here. Your office doesn't reek of feces, I hope? And your slobbering mutt doesn't wander about into people's cubes, stuffing his nose into their crotches?
I know that pet owners assume everyone shares their love of their precious animal, but it's not the case.
--saint
CAT5 cables are good forever, where as it'll be kind of hard to give away a GeForce 2.
You can run Compiz on a GeForce 2MX.
I was as surprised as anyone. But that's what's in my main machine at home.
--saint