I loved the picture of Fernando Chavez on the cover. How cute!
The article "Class--Size Limits Targeted for Cuts" is just another example that if you skew the right data you can make it say anything. I would be willing to say that you would have to be a "complete moron" to honestly believe that class size doesn't matter. Now having said that, it is possible to have a class of 60 successfully taught by 4 full time teachers if it's done right. That still uses the same personnel recourses that four 15 student classes require. I thought it especially counter intuitive for the Japanese and Korean classes of 33 and 36 respectively to be thrown in as some kind of example of large classes are working just fine. Talk about apples and oranges--or more like lizards and chimpanzees! Clearly these are homogeneous classes in cultures that prize self-discipline, conformity and respect for your teachers. And you can bet that they are using a direct instruction model not a cosntstructivist one. That doesn't even remotely resemble classes in this country.
Whenever you have to use completely unrelated examples to try to support an argument--you know it's weak.
The article "Calif. Supreme Court Upholds In-State Tuition Law" is just another example of supporting the unsupportable. If it is illegal to be in this country without documentation, than any argument that supports benefits for such persons are clearly flaunting the law. If a person is discovered to be in this country illegally there is only one legally supportable action--deportation. To somehow suborn illegal acts is morally and ethically wrong. If we decide to change the law that makes them "legal" great that we can proceed to provide them with benefits afforded to "legal residents".
Sunday, December 12, 2010
November 17, ed.
The article "Media Leader Tapped to Head N.Y.C. Schools" really got my "goat". The notion that any business leader is somehow magically qualified to run a major city school system is just arrogant. Schools aren't just another business. If you don't have an intimate knowledge of the school system gained through going through the ranks of being a teacher and an administrator, I don't think you have any business running a school system.
This is in response to an advertisement in this issue: Speaking to the issues: Creating remedial tracks for"the Good of the Kids" I think the writer "hit it on the head" when he said that if you are going to eliminate remedial classes that you have to "provide students with intensive intervention and support instead. But just dumping remedial students into a regular classroom without that does a disservice to the teacher, those students, and the rest of the students. Students that are clearly behind the level of other students in a class aren't just going to catch up by "osmosis". And to expect that a teacher is just magically come up with the extra time to service their needs without help is just another recipe for failure.
This is in response to an advertisement in this issue: Speaking to the issues: Creating remedial tracks for"the Good of the Kids" I think the writer "hit it on the head" when he said that if you are going to eliminate remedial classes that you have to "provide students with intensive intervention and support instead. But just dumping remedial students into a regular classroom without that does a disservice to the teacher, those students, and the rest of the students. Students that are clearly behind the level of other students in a class aren't just going to catch up by "osmosis". And to expect that a teacher is just magically come up with the extra time to service their needs without help is just another recipe for failure.
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