Why No Child Left Behind is the most important law ever
NCLB has been getting trashed a lot, and pretty unfairly, so lets talk about what NCLB is really about.
It's about using phonics to teach reading.
It seems that there are two camps in education: the phonics camp, which is pretty much how everyone in the world actually learned to read: Sounding out words.
Then there is the whole language camp, which basically consists of putting books under kids pillows and hoping they learn how to read.
You're probably assuming that I'm rabidly partisan in the phonics camp. Nope, I'm not.
See, neither camp is 100% correct. Phonics is how you start learning to read, and its a necessary step. You can't learn to read without phonics. Enjoying reading is how you learn to read well. So designing a reading program will mean you'll have to start with phonics, and then build up from there.
So what I'm rabidly partisan for is measuring what works, and doing that. That's what NCLB is really about. Schools must test their kids between 3rd and 8th grade and make sure that they're learning to read. If they aren't they have to try to do something about it. If they try and fail, then they have to provide alternatives to parents: busing them to better schools, or vouchers.
Now my mother was a schoolteacher, and I saw her do some interesting things:
Every couple of years in California, they would "dumb down" the textbooks again. So my mom would go to the district office and get the "obsolete" text books and that's what she would use in her classroom.
My mom would test her kids every year at the beginning and end of the year, and if they were behind, she would spend extra time working with the kid to bring them back up to grade level. She didn't believe in learning disabilities.
My mom would start with phonics, which she called "primers" and then move on to regular children's books.
Also, my mom disliked several things:
The State Board of Education was constantly coming out with these programs to do various things. Invariably, my mom would point out that they were worthless, because they didn't provide extra materials to the classroom. One time, she got this program from the state, and the principal had her evaulate it. She trashed it, saying it didn't give her any materials for the classroom, and all it had her do was waste her time filling in boxes with colored pencils (I kid you not). The principal yelled at her for giving the wrong answer.
My mom also disliked Title XII, which was supposed to help the learning disadvantaged. First off, instead of adding extra classroom time for the kids that were behind (which just makes sense), they would take the kid out of her classroom. If you realize that the kid would have to leave, go to a different classroom, settle down, get some "concentrated" attention, then get up, go back to my mom's classroom, and settle down again, then the kids that were behind would actually end up with an hour less teaching time then the regular kids. That was just dumb.
My mom, as a schoolteacher could tell you: the schools don't need more money, they need less State Board of Education, and less School District. Now my mom was also the shop steward for her union. She hated the union, but she hated the School District more.
Which brings us to NCLB. NCLB is all about telling the education establishment, and by that I don't mean teachers, but I do mean the Teachers Union and the State Board of Education, ENOUGH It's a very blunt instrument. Schools must reform, or face drastic measures. Is it severe? Perhaps. Yet I think the population has gotten so frustrated with the educational establishment that it was an idea whose time has come. It will, and has been lighting a fire under our educational s
Is to read each candidates website, but ignore anything they say about the other candidate unless its positive.
Read what Kerry has to say about Kerry. Read what Bush has to say about Bush.
Because the candidates tend to be more honest about the positive things about themselves.
Don't read in the media about a speech, read or watch the speech yourself (and again, ignore anything they say about the other candidate). cspan.org, the parties themselves, or the candidates websites are good sources for speeches. (Weirdly, the Bush campaign streams Kerry's acceptance speech)
I got involved seriously in researching politics for myself on the internet because I went to the state department website and signed up for the email of the briefing transcripts. Same with the DOD.
I was shocked at just how badly skewed the mainstream media coverage really is, how fundamentally incompetent they are. Now I don't mean to say that everything the administration says is correct. What I mean to say is that almost anything the media says the administration says is incorrect. That is, they're not even good stenographers.
I was also shocked at how stupid the questions were. Sometimes I thought the reporters were intentionally trying to start a war.
That's a good place to get started.
The next level is that you can go ahead and read the negative stuff, but only after you lookup the response from the candidate on their website. So you have charge/comeback. Don't let unsubstantiated charges go by. Neither candidate is lily white when it comes to honesty in their negative moments. In my experience, Kerry has been a little less truthful, but you need to draw your own opinions.
(Don't be put off by the length of the Kerry one. W's is actually more detailed because its in bullet point form, while K's is padded with a bunch of speeches and attacks on Bush).
For domestic issues, the parties agree more then you might think about what the problems in America are, the differences are in philosophy about how to go about it. The Democratic response is always pro-labor, pro-lawyer, pro-government, the Republican always pro-business, anti-lawyer, pro-free-market.
For foreign policy issues, I recommend the magazine Foreign Affairs. Its a little dry, but its where the foreign policy establishment in America (both parties) discusses what's _really_ going on. Again, you have to kind of filter out the bias of the author, but its the most indepth.
Finally, don't take it too seriously. The people who are really involved in politics are their own versions of geeks. (If you watch any of the conventions, that's really obvious, its like a Comiccon where everyone wears ties.) All this stuff is a very complex game, that ultimately, we use to test the candidates. People who are good leaders manage their campaign well, and inspire and motivate their people, which helps them win.
Slashdot Mirror
NCLB has been getting trashed a lot, and pretty unfairly, so lets talk about what NCLB is really about.
It's about using phonics to teach reading.
It seems that there are two camps in education: the phonics camp, which is pretty much how everyone in the world actually learned to read: Sounding out words.
Then there is the whole language camp, which basically consists of putting books under kids pillows and hoping they learn how to read.
You're probably assuming that I'm rabidly partisan in the phonics camp. Nope, I'm not.
See, neither camp is 100% correct. Phonics is how you start learning to read, and its a necessary step. You can't learn to read without phonics. Enjoying reading is how you learn to read well. So designing a reading program will mean you'll have to start with phonics, and then build up from there.
So what I'm rabidly partisan for is measuring what works, and doing that. That's what NCLB is really about. Schools must test their kids between 3rd and 8th grade and make sure that they're learning to read. If they aren't they have to try to do something about it. If they try and fail, then they have to provide alternatives to parents: busing them to better schools, or vouchers.
Now my mother was a schoolteacher, and I saw her do some interesting things:
Every couple of years in California, they would "dumb down" the textbooks again. So my mom would go to the district office and get the "obsolete" text books and that's what she would use in her classroom.
My mom would test her kids every year at the beginning and end of the year, and if they were behind, she would spend extra time working with the kid to bring them back up to grade level. She didn't believe in learning disabilities.
My mom would start with phonics, which she called "primers" and then move on to regular children's books.
Also, my mom disliked several things:
The State Board of Education was constantly coming out with these programs to do various things. Invariably, my mom would point out that they were worthless, because they didn't provide extra materials to the classroom. One time, she got this program from the state, and the principal had her evaulate it. She trashed it, saying it didn't give her any materials for the classroom, and all it had her do was waste her time filling in boxes with colored pencils (I kid you not). The principal yelled at her for giving the wrong answer.
My mom also disliked Title XII, which was supposed to help the learning disadvantaged. First off, instead of adding extra classroom time for the kids that were behind (which just makes sense), they would take the kid out of her classroom. If you realize that the kid would have to leave, go to a different classroom, settle down, get some "concentrated" attention, then get up, go back to my mom's classroom, and settle down again, then the kids that were behind would actually end up with an hour less teaching time then the regular kids. That was just dumb.
My mom, as a schoolteacher could tell you: the schools don't need more money, they need less State Board of Education, and less School District. Now my mom was also the shop steward for her union. She hated the union, but she hated the School District more.
Which brings us to NCLB. NCLB is all about telling the education establishment, and by that I don't mean teachers, but I do mean the Teachers Union and the State Board of Education, ENOUGH It's a very blunt instrument. Schools must reform, or face drastic measures. Is it severe? Perhaps. Yet I think the population has gotten so frustrated with the educational establishment that it was an idea whose time has come. It will, and has been lighting a fire under our educational s
Is to read each candidates website, but ignore anything they say about the other candidate unless its positive.
. pdf K's here: http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/our_plan_for_america. pdf
Read what Kerry has to say about Kerry.
Read what Bush has to say about Bush.
Because the candidates tend to be more honest about the positive things about themselves.
Don't read in the media about a speech, read or watch the speech yourself (and again, ignore anything they say about the other candidate). cspan.org, the parties themselves, or the candidates websites are good sources for speeches. (Weirdly, the Bush campaign streams Kerry's acceptance speech)
I got involved seriously in researching politics for myself on the internet because I went to the state department website and signed up for the email of the briefing transcripts. Same with the DOD.
I was shocked at just how badly skewed the mainstream media coverage really is, how fundamentally incompetent they are. Now I don't mean to say that everything the administration says is correct. What I mean to say is that almost anything the media says the administration says is incorrect. That is, they're not even good stenographers.
I was also shocked at how stupid the questions were. Sometimes I thought the reporters were intentionally trying to start a war.
That's a good place to get started.
The next level is that you can go ahead and read the negative stuff, but only after you lookup the response from the candidate on their website. So you have charge/comeback. Don't let unsubstantiated charges go by. Neither candidate is lily white when it comes to honesty in their negative moments. In my experience, Kerry has been a little less truthful, but you need to draw your own opinions.
After that, download and review the platforms. W's is here: http://www.georgewbush.com/media/agendaforamerica
(Don't be put off by the length of the Kerry one. W's is actually more detailed because its in bullet point form, while K's is padded with a bunch of speeches and attacks on Bush).
For domestic issues, the parties agree more then you might think about what the problems in America are, the differences are in philosophy about how to go about it. The Democratic response is always pro-labor, pro-lawyer, pro-government, the Republican always pro-business, anti-lawyer, pro-free-market.
For foreign policy issues, I recommend the magazine Foreign Affairs. Its a little dry, but its where the foreign policy establishment in America (both parties) discusses what's _really_ going on. Again, you have to kind of filter out the bias of the author, but its the most indepth.
Personally, I do all of the above, plus I read a lot of weblogs and write my own: http://www.opinionatedbastard.com/
Finally, don't take it too seriously. The people who are really involved in politics are their own versions of geeks. (If you watch any of the conventions, that's really obvious, its like a Comiccon where everyone wears ties.) All this stuff is a very complex game, that ultimately, we use to test the candidates. People who are good leaders manage their campaign well, and inspire and motivate their people, which helps them win.
I was talking to my dad and he had some interesting facts:
1. The WTC was built by the Port Authority, therefore it was mostly exempt from building codes.
2. When the WTC was being built the fire department was up in arms about it.
3. In 194x a B-52 crashed into the Empire State building doing minimal damage.
4. When watching the footage of the collapse, my dad said it collapse from the top down, which indicates a structural failure.
Elsewhere someone commented that the FEMA review of the WTC after the 1993 bombing pointed this out.