exvigilare

More of a roundup than anything else, because I’m short on time a lot lately.

I meant to write about the state’s recent CSAP exam scores, but since Michael has done such a great job I recommend you read his posts here, here, here, here, here, here and finally - whew - here (a little linky-love, no?). One-third of Colorado’s public schoolchildren still aren’t proficient in reading. Yeah, I’d say that’s a problem.

Colorado spends $145 million for the time in between classes at the state’s 32 public school districts. Well, we know where their priorities are now, and they’re certainly not in the classroom. So thanks for making it obvious, at least. Maybe this would be a good place to spend that money.

What do you do if the incoming college students don’t meet the new entrance requirements? Why, you lower them, of course!

Officials recently adopted even stricter standards for the high school graduating class of 2010 that include one year of foreign language and four years of math.

Carnahan said relaxing the standards next year should help colleges ease into the policy change and continue to serve all kinds of Colorado students.

What kind of building is your public school child spending her day in? (Ironically, a new swinger’s club in Denver needs a fire/building code inspection, too. Which do you expect gets the inspection first?)

“I haven’t seen a state inspector in 20 years,” Deputy Lake Dillon Fire Chief Jeff Berino, who is responsible for schools in Frisco and Silverthorne, complained recently.

The Falcon School District 49 in Colorado Springs recently adopted a policy (actually, they were forced to by a unanimous school board vote) not to show R-rated movies in the classroom. Um, excuse me? Why were schools showing R-rated movies to students in the first place? The example given here was Saving Private Ryan as it relates to learning about “war” but I’d guess we can all think of better methods to use. Remarkably, the teacher’s union complained. Wow, I sure didn’t see that coming.

Speaking of teacher’s unions, there is another option now in Colorado. Dr. Kris Enright has begun a new affiliate of the largest national non-union teachers’ association, the Professional Association of Colorado Educators (PACE).

“The professional educator is looking for opportunities to learn and grow in their careers,” said Dr. Enright. “PACE will help educators become the best that they can be to help Colorado become a better place for teachers to teach and students to learn.” With the addition of PACE, half of the United States now has a non-union professional association for educators with over 300,000 members nationwide. Within the last decade, the number of state-based associations has grown from 10 to 23 states. In some states such as Georgia, Texas, and Missouri, the non- union associations have grown larger than the teacher labor union affiliates in those states. “The growth of non-union education associations is proof that today’s educators, especially younger teachers, want to belong to an association that promotes professionalism,” said Gary Beckner, executive director of AAE. “Educators are academic professionals like doctors, lawyers and engineers, and should be treated as such. Industrial-style unionism advances neither the respect nor compensation that educators deserve.”

It’s old now, of course, but I really wanted to point out David Harsanyi’s article from a couple of weeks ago. Luckily Ben mentioned it.

Some of you may only be able to daydream about a wealthy future, but when it comes to your kids, you should always act like a rich jerk.

Stolen in it’s entirety from Heather, this quote from Wendell Berry, ‘Another Turn of the Crank’ regarding what education really should be about.

These people see nothing odd or difficult about unlimited economic growth or unlimited consumption in a limited world. They believe that knowledge is property and is power, and that it ought to be. They believe that education is job training. They think that the summit of human achievement is a high-paying job that involves no work. Their public boast is that they are making a society in which everybody will be a ‘winner’- but their private aim has been to reduce radically the number of people who, by the measure of our historical ideals, might be thought successful: the independent, the self-employed, the owners of small businesses or small usable properties, those who work at home.