One of the few things I have gone on record as having disagreed with George W. Bush about has been No Child Left Behind (NCLB). It was a good idea. Unfortunately good intentions often go awry.
The big problem with NCLB is the fact that the average school administrator is nothing but a sniveling coward. They are terrified their schools will not score well in testing, so they now demand teachers not teach but prep for tests. If the average administrator had the backbone of a jellyfish it would be an improvement to the pathetic excuse of men and women who are only interested in looking good in the next report.
They are so terrified of their own shadows that they enact draconian zero tolerance rules which have seriously contributed to the dramatic rise in drop-out rates throughout the nation. I could tell you the story of a young woman I know, a National Merit Scholar, getting ready to graduate with honors and a fortune in scholarship money. A few weeks before her graduation she was caught smoking in the parking lot, and suspended for two weeks. A downward spiral began that led to her dropping out, losing her scholarship, involving herself in a dramatic early marriage, and no college.
Yes, smoking in the parking lot was a bone-headed move, but it was one that should not have destroyed her life. What was once an extremely bright future turned into yet another New Mexico statistic. Administrators are so worried about lawsuits they are willing to sacrifice, to cannibalize their young. Just a thought, perhaps they should be subjected to a lawsuit every time something like this happens. I wonder what would happen to dropout rates then?
They sure taught her a thing or two. Gone are the days when being busted on school property while smoking pot would result in a week long suspension. Now the same kid is expelled, out on the streets. The teachers who do have the milk of humanity within them, those who want to salvage a kid like this, are no longer allowed to do so. It could result in a lawsuit.
Instead they must cater to administrators who are so woefully ignorant that they do not recognize the professionally acted words of the Witches of Macbeth. Rather than admit a mistake, the administrator to whom I refer castigated the English lit teacher, demanding to know what sort of thing she was teaching her students. She glared at him and handed him the literature book they were using that year, with the page marked to the offending passage. She then suggested he never set foot in her classroom again if he was that poorly educated.
.jpg?t=20120527181101)
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Jordan Richardson
Now, you want to know why we have an epidemic of childhood obesity? The answer is simple, and Barack Obama's administration is helping to contribute to it: kids don't have time to run and play.
Are you serious?
2 - SJ Reidhead
Hyperbole:
Seriously, I blame No Child Left Behind.
I do think one of the problems is the fact that kids are so over-burdened with excessive home work, school work, no play time that they don't get enough exercise.
When I was in school we had a morning recess of 45 minutes. We had PE for 30 minutes, then another 40 minutes at lunch for recess. School started at 8:30 and was over at 2:30.
The elementary school I attended was considered one of the top schools in the country. It is still in something like the top 100 school systems in the country.
Homework was kept at a minimum.
Today, where I live, kids must be in class at 7:30. They do not get out until 3:30 (even little kids). They have no morning recess. They have 30 minutes at lunch for play. The get 30 minutes gym. That's it.
The little kids are marched from one class to another. They must go in line, not move from that line and cannot play in the halls.
Their breakfast consists of fried Mexican donuts (they are good, but not on a daily basis). They get a snack. Their lunch consists of something akin to fast food.
I am the last person to complain about a kid's diet, but even I know there are certain requirements kids need.
Then, once they get home, they are over-loaded with homework, several hours a night. They aren’t allowed to go outside and play. It is too dangerous. So, when they aren’t doing homework, they are in front of some game, stuffing their little faces with what ever they can get their grubby little hands on.
There are now neighborhoods in the Denver area where kids are no longer allowed outside to play, unless physically supervised by a parent. Not because of safety, but because the home-owner’s associations don’t want children defacing their subdivisions.
Where, pray tell do kids get time to be kids, to run, play, and have fun? The worst part is they aren't learning much of anything, just to fill out test forms.
No one wants to admit the strict totalitarian methods of today's education system contribute to childhood obesity. They would rather blame parents, who are over-worked, stressed and can barely make it.
It is so much easier to demonize MacDonalds and over-tax "fast food" than it is to take responsibility and admit that adults created the problem with their requirements for strict educational standards.
You know what gym consists of? The girls avoid changing into shorts, parade up and down doing their nails and trashing one another. Boys are almost as bad.
What you need to know is this is coming from someone who has been over-weight their entire life. I know where the problems are, trust me. No amount of parental monitoring can make up for an inactive lifestyle. I’ve been there and done that.
Kids don’t need 8 hours of sitting in a desk at school, broken up by 5 minutes to change classes. We’re not talking rocket science here.
3 - Jordan Richardson
Hyperbole indeed.
4 - STM
hyperbole.
Is that like superbowl?
5 - Jordan Richardson
More like the Grey Cup.
6 - zingzing
or australia.
7 - zingzing
(as in "i was hoping for austria without all the all the alberts.")
("god, i hate the alberts.")
("sqwauck") ("belch")
8 - El Bicho
with more homework, kids can cover more subjects like how to properly use a hyphen
9 - MarkSaleski
who left the gas on?
10 - Dr Dreadful
Well, the education system in NM must be seriously fucked up, then.
I don't think the 500-odd kids I saw hanging out in the playground of a local high school when I drove past it yesterday lunchtime were doing much schoolwork. If I'm not mistaken they were all, without exception, taking a lunch break.
When I was at school in the UK, back in the early Bronze Age, we had 15-minute breaks morning and afternoon and an hour for lunch. School started at 8.45(ish, depending on the school) and finished at 3.30. Until cafeterias were introduced in the early 80s (because... wait for it... they were cheaper), most kids stayed in school for lunch and were served a nutritionally-balanced meal. The curriculum incorporated an hour of PE (indoor exercise or gym) and two hours of Games (outdoor sports) per week - in all weathers. (I fondly remember those five-mile cross-country runs in the snow...)
Schooling has been tinkered with a bit since then, but the overall balance is still roughly the same. There's a concerted effort to try and get rid of those fucking cafeterias as well, although they're popular with kids and accountants.
Compare and contrast.
11 - Dr Dreadful
Forgot to mention the homework.
Always a significant amount (although a savvy kid like myself could always find ways to do the bare minimum), by the time I was in the sixth form (grades 11 and 12 for you Yanks) the expected time to be spent was two to three hours per night.
Ah, the good old days.
12 - Joanne Huspek
I don't know what to think about this "Barack in my face" phenomenon. The guy is everywhere. I wonder what would have happened to George W, Bush the Elder, or even Clinton and Carter had they been so out there.
On one hand it feels like indoctrination of the worst kind, on the other, it seems like a colossal waste of time that could be used more wisely.
While I agree with you on teachers, it's only to a point. GOOD teachers are overworked and underpaid. If you want to see underworked and overpaid teachers, come to Michigan, where many make much more than I do thanks to an ironclad union.
13 - Mark Schannon
This article is on beyond idiocy. No substance, no point, no argument, no sense...just a bunch of words strung together with the illusion of meaning.
sigh...are there no editors left at BC who'd reject this piece?
14 - Clavos
Reject an article? How un-PC of you, Mark!
Don't you know that rejected writers lose self esteem??
Do the words "all men are created equal" mean NOTHING to you, man?
Everybody's thoughts are equal to everyone else's, Mark!
ALL opinions are valid!
NOBODY is smarter or better than anyone else.
Sheesh! What is this democracy coming to?
Where are the liberals when you need them?
15 - Silas Kain
Don't you know that rejected writers lose self esteem??
I can attest to that. I'm in therapy now.
Do the words "all men are created equal" mean NOTHING to you, man?
What about wimmin folk?
Everybody's thoughts are equal to everyone else's, Mark!
This does not compute.
ALL opinions are valid!
Unless they are expressed on FOX News, MSNBC or at a Promise Keepers' rally.
NOBODY is smarter or better than anyone else.
Did SAT scores rise in the South?
Sheesh! What is this democracy coming to?
My understanding is under Obama we're going to become a Socialist country. If we're saved by the Far Right we will become a Christian autocracy. Seems to me, according to the pundits, we have no hope at all.
Where are the liberals when you need them?
They're all at Nancy Pelosi's house peeling her some grapes.
16 - Baritone
Ah, the vitriol, the sour grapes.
I must agree with Mark. SJ certainly hit the nail on the head. Well, she hit several nails, pretty much all at the same time causing them to scatter in the wind. It would seem, to hear it from SJ, pretty much everyone is guilty in some way or other. Parents, the politicians, the school administrators, the teachers, and even the spoiled rat assed kids themselves. But, of course, at the head of the list, the man single handedly responsible for the failure of our educational system AND child obesity is none other than that "silver tongued devil" (as per one Dave Nalle,) President Barack Obama - all in the span of his 7 months in office!
Obama has the audacity to presume to instruct our children about the importance of staying in school, studying and learning. I mean, what credibility does he possess? What's he ever done in life to consider himself qualified to offer advice to anyone? Columbia, Harvard, Harvard Law Review, Law Degree, Husband and father of two, Author of two best selling books, Elected to Illinois state legislature, Elected to US Senate. Resoundingly elected to the US Presidency. None of that counts for shit, though, because as we all know, he is a Kenyan, an Arab, a muslim, a liberal, a fascist and a damn pinko commie! And he's an arrogant elitist, to boot, all rolled up in one decidedly dusky ball!
Oh yes, and SJ states that "South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham conducted a meeting of health care professionals the other day. He observed that Barack Obama had not one health care professional working on health care reform. Perhaps, Lindsey suggested, we would be better off if we let the people who know something about the field write the reform bill."
Now there's an unimpeachable source! Also, it should be considered that no one in the administration is writing any reform bill. That's been left to that lauded body, the United States Congress, and a bang up job of it they're doing, by god!
The only one I can discern here who's tone deaf (not to mention, clueless) in all this is good ole SJ.
B
17 - Jordan Richardson
The guy is everywhere.
He's your president.
Where should the president be?
Oh right. He should be on vacation or clearing brush or doing something more "presidential." How silly of me.
I wonder what would have happened to George W, Bush the Elder, or even Clinton and Carter had they been so out there.
They were.
18 - Joanne Huspek
I don't think so, Jordan. Count the number of magazines featuring an Obama in the last year alone and it's staggering. Add to that the "news" conferences which seem to be on a weekly schedule. And I'm not even going to address the Internet and other sources.
Instead of light reading on his vacation (and I disagree, he shouldn't have gone on vacation after seven months or if he had not flaunted it on chi-chi Martha's Vineyard), the President should have picked up a couple of the bills that went through Congress and read THEM.
19 - Jordan Richardson
Barack Obama is a popular dude and people want to know about him and see what he's doing. He's on the cover of magazines because he's a "hot item," like it or not.
Weekly news conferences are good, especially with so much going on in the country. The president should be visible and should be explaining what is going on to the citizens. I just wish he was doing a better job of it.
Now if we're going to contrast that with other presidents, we can start with W. People are still talking about him on the internet and "other sources" and will be for quite some time. There are countless books about him and it's hard to go a day without hearing the former president (or vice president) mentioned in some capacity on any media source. It could reasonably be argued, thus, that George W. Bush is everywhere.
And how do you know the president hasn't read a "couple of the bills that went through Congress?" What are you basing that on?
20 - zingzing
"Instead of light reading on his vacation (and I disagree, he shouldn't have gone on vacation after seven months or if he had not flaunted it on chi-chi Martha's Vineyard), the President should have picked up a couple of the bills that went through Congress and read THEM."
if you don't like what he does as president, why do you want him doing presidential things?
21 - Mark Schannon
Clavos, I am truly distressed at your distressful...distress. I'm a liberal, honest. A cranky, curmudgeony liberal but one nonetheless.
However, that doesn't mean that all thoughts are created equal. (Sorry Silas.)
When I was an BC editor, I'd often ask writers to redo articles--sometimes even when I agreed with the point being made. Since I was an editor, I, ipso facto, a priori, and non pluribus unum, knew more than mere writers.
And did I mention,
In Jameson Veritas
22 - Baritone
Jordan is right. That most past presidents didn't make it on the cover of a plethora of magazines is simply testamonial to Obama and his family's intrigue. They are a very attractive and relatively young family. Obama is hip.
To criticize Obama for taking a vacation is just stupid. Over the course of his eight year tenure how many months - not days or weeks - did W spend in Texas, not to mention other times spent at Camp David, Kennebunkport and elsewhere? Could there BE any more brush in or around Crawford?
And a great vacation it was. He took time from it to swear in Ben Bernanke and to eugolize Ted Kennedy. And what's so wrong with Martha's Vinyard? It's certainly closer to DC than Crawford, TX. Or should he have just taken Michelle & the kids to, I don't know, maybe Coney Island, or perhaps the creationist museum?
23 - Silas Kain
I guess nobody remembers the days of LIFE and LOOK magazines where Camelot ruled the cover pages. McCall's, Woman's Day, Family Circle, Ladies' Home Journal -- they were rich in all things Kennedy. And when Lady Bird began her highway beautification projects she was everywhere as well. The Obama's are not overexposed.
24 - Baritone
I well remember all the Kennedy hype. They were also a beautiful couple with 2 beautiful kids - a fairly rare occurence in the White House.
Yes, Obama has appeared somewhere, it seems, virtually everyday since his inauguration. A lot of people have noted it including, among others, Bill Maher.
What bugs the shit out of me is how Obama is now being characterized, by more RW crazies as some kind of degenerate who shouldn't be allowed within earshot of their kids. A loud contingent of these morons more or less contend that Obama is a menace to society, and someone you wouldn't want to encounter in a dark alley. I don't know what could be the basis of such feelings? Hmmm. Oh, crap, I keep forgetting that racism is dead in the good ole US of A.
Has anyone notified the NAACP?
The right (AKA - The Losers) just can't accept that they no longer hold the keys to the kingdom. They truly feel that they were somehow robbed back in November. They are eagerly swallowing every ludicrous, half baked bit of bullshit being fed them by "birthers," "deathers," and the likes of Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and of course the supreme Loon, Glenn Beck who has called Obama a racist who hates all white people, and is now laboring on about how Rockefeller Center is a bastion of communism and communists within. (Odd that Fox News also has a presence in Rock Center, no?) Beck is the kind of loon who, in another time, would have been limited to second or third rate carnival side shows or as the straight man for some snake oil salesman working across rural America from a mule drawn, fleabitten rattletrap of a wagon. But, now, good ole Fox News sees fit to give him a prominent slot on a national television venue. Go figure.
The Neanderthalic stupidity of a large number of self-righteous, self-serving, righty tighty congresspersons is jaw dropping. The fact that some have encouraged open support for gun toting town hall attendees to become "right wing terrorists" is more than just alarming, it borders on treason. They have adopted the Al Qaida aproach to recruitment. A number of these legislators are also supposedly fundamentalist christians - a maddening legacy left to the Republicans by the Rovians, thank you very much. Some of this crapola has even bled over to the more conservative Dems - the so called Blue Dogs. Many owe their House or Senate seats to Obama's coattails, a fact which has apparently alluded them.
In the end, though, all this has far less to do with ideology, morality, any concern for the nation's health care system, or our children, than it does with politics. Since a significant portion of Republican and right leaning independent voters are also about as bat crap stupid as their respective Representatives and Senators - mainly those who hang on every utterance of the aforementioned gang of four - O'Reilly, Hannity, Limbaugh and Beck - this fear mongering is the route they've chosen to ride into another term. Sadly, it just may work.
25 - zingzing
i saw that thing beck did about rockefeller center. fucking hi-larious. i almost fell out of my pants. i'm not quite sure what his point was. most of those pieces were done back in the first half of the 20th century, which is obviously a long time ago. not sure how much connection there is to find there, but he found something, i guess.
i swear that a certain percentage of fox viewers are people going there for the comedy, and beck is the best of the lot. a laugh a minute, and a catastrophe in the works. it's like nascar--you watch it for the inevitable blood and fire. high drama.