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Sunday, March 2. 2008

Rebellion in Watts

A healthy rebellion against the teacher's union and for the students (h/t, Insty). Does anyone today doubt that the reactionary unions are the largest obstacle to experimentation for problem schools? These kids need a chance.

Posted by The Barrister in Education at 18:47 | Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0)

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How about those Finns?

"High-school students here rarely get more than a half-hour of homework a night. They have no school uniforms, no honor societies, no valedictorians, no tardy bells and no classes for the gifted. There is little standardized testing, few parents agonize over college and kids don't start school until age 7.

"Yet by one international measure, Finnish teenagers are among the smartest in the world. They earned some of the top scores by 15-year-old students who were tested in 57 countries. American teens finished among the world's C students even as U.S. educators piled on more homework, standards and rules. Finnish youth, like their U.S. counterparts, also waste hours online. They dye their hair, love sarcasm and listen to rap and heavy metal. But by ninth grade they're way ahead in math, science and reading -- on track to keeping Finns among the world's most productive workers."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120425355065601997.html?mod=most_viewed_day_slide_show
#1 Sissy Willis (Link) on 2008-03-02 21:25 (Reply)
yeah and they finnish their homework on time too

no seriously -- "These kids need a chance" -- yes they do, and that they are not getting it is up there with the rape of our inner cities as the finest handiwork of our idiot liberals.
#1.1 buddy larsen on 2008-03-02 22:18 (Reply)
As I said on other posts pertaining to education, we have to get the schools out of government and union hands. The last time I posted someone implied that I suggested that all teachers were bad and said that it can't be done. Good teachers at charter schools are higher paid than public school teachers. I noticed that school in the video was no dump. Tons of tax money for facilities and still nobody teaches and nobody learns. I hope they do a follow up so we can see the results. I'm sure that the unions will do everything they can to sabotage the new charter school.
#2 sean on 2008-03-03 10:05 (Reply)
Barrister:

You stated as what I presume was intended to be a rhetorical question, "Does anyone today doubt that the reactionary unions are the largest obstacle to experimentation for problem schools?"

I must beg to differ with you, and to concur with the comment by Sean. The single biggest problem with govenrment schools is that they are...government schools.

The centralization and federalization of the government schools since the 1950's simply made a very bad situation that much worse. The takeover of the "pedagogy" and "educational" fields in academia by the Fabian socialists simply accelerated the inevitable decline and failure (followed almost-as-inevitably by pouring huge quantities of effectively-unlimited taxpayer dollars into a failing socialist system). The uber-collectivist John Dewey (one of the primary founders of the "public", i.e., government, school systems) had as his primary goal and intent the destruction of indiviualist thought, and a socialist-oriented propaganda/brainwashing system for the young.

It is emphatically NOT a solution (experimentation, or vouchers, or any other system) which puts the education of children into the hands of the government. The only solution is to move it into the hands of the parents, who can choose in which school they wish to have their children educated. A free marketplace in education is probably (in the long-term) the most significant freedom a republic can have.
#3 Blackwing1 on 2008-03-03 13:46 (Reply)
Well said Blackwing1.
Did they say in that film that there are 30,000 administrators in the LA school system? A small city of bureaucrats who, thank God, have no contact with students. The principal, after being removed, was being paid $ 600. a day to do nothing. Its only taxpayers money.
#4 sean on 2008-03-03 15:20 (Reply)

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