[The Five Letters Game]

Josh falls silently into lagoons.

 

Oops

 

VXSTW 

 

Vernonica's xylophone strikes the window.

 

HHDSQ

[Do you have clear retirement plans? (Where, when, etc.)]

Tom, you mean DD in your last sentence?

LOL. Thanks. I can not be trusted to make perfect sense when posting via Droid.

[Arne Duncan: ‘White suburban moms’ upset that Common Core shows their kids aren’t ‘brilliant’]

I keep coming back to the apparent unavoidable issue that Laura Ingalls learned more with a piece of chalk and a blackboard and maybe 10 books total for schooling than we seem capable of teaching even the basic three Rs with multimillions of dollars and state of the art technology.

 

The problem isn't money or lack of technology.

Yup. Smartboards were all the rage. One or two teachers in DW's school use them as intended, but the geewhiz factor is long gone. There's another movement afoot to let students answer by pushbutton, or even smartphones, to allow even shy kids the opportunity to answer in class without fear of peer ridicule.

 

Not for nothing, but I use 1970's editions of Warriner's to HS grammar.

[Do you have clear retirement plans? (Where, when, etc.)]

Should I survive another, say, 13 years, we will take DW's pension, assuming it's still funded, and, well....I don't know. Northampton might be a funky place to work in a little bookshop full of like-minded people. Maybe build playhouses and swingsets.

 

In reality, I suspect we'll try to be reasonably close to DD - not in a stalker kinda way, but in the take-the-kids-at-3am kinda way.

[Arne Duncan: ‘White suburban moms’ upset that Common Core shows their kids aren’t ‘brilliant’]

 

Our property taxes are much, much lower than that, thankfully. This is not state-wide, just our county's policy. I am glad that they provide them.

In NJ, this insanity is called "home rule." It's been in place forever, and has been a stumbling block to implementing major change.

[Arne Duncan: ‘White suburban moms’ upset that Common Core shows their kids aren’t ‘brilliant’]

THey have laptops. Usually they bring them over to the gym and test the students during their P.E. period.

 

 

Sorry to disrupt a little, but is that really an average student-to-computer ratio these days where you are? Is it because students don't need desktop PCs due to having laptops or home computers of their own? Or is it representative of actually how much computer access students have?

 

 

In our school district, each student has their own school-issued Mac Book.

 

 

 

Yes, that is the picture in much of NJ.  We're a fairly small state, with over 600 school districts funded almost entirely by property taxes, which is why you'll pay $30,000 yearly just in taxes if you live in the same county as Newark.  I do not know of any schools in this part of the state that issue MacBooks to every student (except private schools).

[I rather CC a movie so I can catch every bit of dialogue even if I miss some visuals.]

Had to click other, since it worked fine before I became 20/300 in one eye.  Now, not so much.

[Has anyone heard of a website...]

This might not be it, but it's a similar concept, and I can vouch for the excellent recipes -- AICR.

[Arne Duncan: ‘White suburban moms’ upset that Common Core shows their kids aren’t ‘brilliant’]

All that aside, I ticks me off that he thinks only white suburban moms complaining about this stuff. Even if it were true, which I don't think it is, it might only seem that way bc they are the only parents who have the time and money to get their voice out.

 

Because wages have not kept pace with COL and parents have to work multiple jobs...

 

But I'm not getting political.

[Arne Duncan: ‘White suburban moms’ upset that Common Core shows their kids aren’t ‘brilliant’]

huh...whoa

 

It's a bit grassy-knoll-ish, but there's sort of a familiar ah-ha ring there, too.  Implementation is gonna be...interesting.  In NJ, they're going to NINE standardized tests a year, all computer based.

 

So let's see, in a big, regional high school of, say 2500 kids, you might have a computer lab with, what, 40 PCs, give or take?  To cycle all 2500 kids through over 10 months means a whole lotta kids will be testing every day of the year, unless schools buy a ton of new computers, with money....they have.....yeah, no. :banghead:

 

Like I said, has Arne worked in a classroom? 

[Arne Duncan: ‘White suburban moms’ upset that Common Core shows their kids aren’t ‘brilliant’]

It was a political maneuver to drum up support for Common Core by playing into class and racial resentment.

 

And then there's the theory that CC is a deeply disguised program to de-fund failing schools, ax expensive experienced teachers, hire cheaper new grads, and pour $$ into vouchers with a grand "See?  We tried to fix public schools, but..."

 

That's the prevailing thinking at DW's school.

[Dance Schools that do not require SAT?]

Fairtest.org has an extensive list of SAT-optional schools.

[The Five Letters Game]

Are Red Kangaroos Likely Wiccans?

 

VZXMB

[The Five Letters Game]

Al gets to incinerate porcupines.

 

 

 

PUYTR

[Arne Duncan: ‘White suburban moms’ upset that Common Core shows their kids aren’t ‘brilliant’]

Sorry -- double post.

[another Where do you Keep Yours question]

Into the black hole that is my filing cabinet. 

 

Yup.   Got a big 5-drawer monster free from one of my old jobs.  There is no end to the stuff that can fit into green hanging folders.

[The Five Letters Game]

Please let Xenu attack Tom (Cruise, that is)

 

For Tom is Lonely Often

 

UUEWC

[The Five Letters Game]

Very Creepy Red Eels Liberated.

 

 

 

CCDRT

[The Five Letters Game]

That giant ain't being nice!

 

 

KKBVF

[Arne Duncan: ‘White suburban moms’ upset that Common Core shows their kids aren’t ‘brilliant’]

I'm still not sure what classroom experience has to do with education policy-making.

Maybe we'd have better policy if those writing it had experience in the jobs that policy directly affects.

[Am I supposed to get excited about this wedding?]

"Woo-hoo, we've rejected everything that is important to our families.  Come celebrate with us."  

 

That kinda has echoes of old-timey marriages that were all about uniting families for political gain, increasing fortunes, adding another castle to the collection -- when marriage was about power, not love.

 

I can appreciate parents wishing children to carry on in certain beliefs they were exposed to growing up, but it's unrealistic to assume that will, or even should, always happen.  Would the discomfort be similar if the couple was mixed-race, or mixed-faith, or no faith, or same sex?  Any of those combinations have, and unfortunately will still upset some parents, which is too bad.

 

Love has little in common with continuing an ideological legacy.

 

 

Edit -- Go watch The Birdcage.

[Arne Duncan: ‘White suburban moms’ upset that Common Core shows their kids aren’t ‘brilliant’]

I don't see what it has to do with classroom experience.  Most of us here don't have any, and we are quite successful in meeting the educational needs of our children.  Transfer that experience to policy-making and voila...

 

It matters because what we do with one or four or eight kids at the dining room table is not the same as managing a classroom of 35 kids you see for only 45 minutes a day before they head home to a wide variety of home situations, ranging from supportive to neglectful.  A PS teacher then has to be graded on how well those 35 kids do on tests that take none of that back-sotry into account.

 

I wasn't an ed major, but I understand Maslow's hierarchy.  It would seem the average public official does not.

[The Five Letters Game]

Just put purple cake underneath.

 

 

KNDOP

[Is this homeschool kid thing?]

The cover looks really familiar --  I think we did that one.  Yes, lego counts as language arts / shop class / art interdisciplinary.

[Educators Who Homeschool]

I taught high school English and swore I would never ever homeschool my own (future) children.

 

Yeah. Life is funny sometimes . . . :)

 

Same here, sort of.  Pre-DD, DW was not keen on HS, based on the kids she saw coming into the system from HSing, since they tended to have big gaps in their knowledge.   Fast forward a few years, and DD is bored silly in public school K, and DW finds this blue book, faced out on the library shelf....author's name is Bauer....seems to teach at W&M.   Hmmmmm.

 

Now one of her younger colleague wants to HS, the vice principal pulled his own kids from the system, and well, maybe it's the start of something.   The insanity of the PARCC system rolling in may up NJ's HS numbers quite a bit.