Colleges Remediate-We Are In a Race To Nowhere

The New York Times reported that City University of New York is not providing higher education but remediation. This is not a shock. Education is currently based on state testing. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, increased the role of the federal government in public education and also expanded the role of standardized testing. These alleged benefits of standardized testing permeate the public educational system causing harm to students, teachers and the future of public education as a whole. Colleges offer remedial, developmental and basic courses.

According to the California Department of Education, the purpose of standardized testing is “to measure how well students are learning the knowledge and skills identified in California’s content standards.” In addition, standardized testing results will assist with focusing curricular instruction and organizing teaching methods. The goals of standardized testing seem to be falling short; instead of measuring student knowledge and focusing instruction and methods, the rigor of testing seems to be a silent erosion of our school system.

According to the California Department of Education website’s data for July of 2008, 13, 237 students took the Math portion of the California Exit Exam and 13, 373 students took the English portion of the exam. 29% of the students passed the Math and 30% passed the English portions of the test for the state. When we superimpose the same standards on every student, teacher and school, we receive results that are disappointing—a race to nowhere.

These disappointing results are rooted in non-profit school communities maintaining for-profit activities, i.e., test scores. Data has become the catch phrase and teacher’s names are associated directly with their student’s scores. Improvement has been demanded on the back of a shocked system, and therefore an increase of assessments and pacing guides has followed. This increase of standardized testing is big business for the private sector.

Now colleges are feeling the results of a broken system. The documentary, "Race To Nowhere", chronicles the culture of today’s youth in public school. According to the documentary, the epidemic of standardized testing has produced a culture for cheating, disengaging students, stress-related illness, depression, burnout, and of compromised young adults seemingly unprepared and uninspired for the future.

Each community can stop the the “Race to Nowhere" by challenging the current system. This documentary is showing all over the the country, go see it. Spread the news to educators, parents, students and your community. Join the "Race to Nowhere" Facebook Page in your area. This is the link for the Los Angeles page. If a page or community group is not available for your area, start one. Let’s continue a dialogue to examine the facts regarding our educational system and make it our own again.

Cut the Blind? What the Hey?

Is it me? I don't get it! Education needs an enema! Cuts, cuts and more cuts.

Today, I heard about cutting Visually Impaired Services! Visually Impaired or “low vision is a severe reduction in vision that can't be corrected with standard glasses or contact lenses and reduces a person's ability to function at certain or all tasks.” (http://www.answers.com/topic/visually-impaired)

How in the world could anyone think about cutting or reducing a trained professional to work with these students? These services are modifications not actual services someone stated today. Are these people out of their minds?

Blind students need services! These students use glasses, Braille, seeing eye dogs, canes and adaptive computer technology. What could the person been thinking that wanted to cut these priceless services. What degree could they have earned to make it ok to even think about this course of action? What university produces people who do not think but desperately do things that hurt the future of our children, state, and nation?

We’d better wake up and take charge of the yahoos that are running things into the ground in education. The thinkers that want to cut starting with my kids education and social skills for autistic youth need a flush.

PARENTS, GOOD SOLID TEACHERS, ADVOCATES and the COMMUNITY pick up your beds and walk. Open your mouths and complain and let’s make common sense in education. Enough is enough, let’s flush out the waste before it’s too late.

Action Plan

•Look for re-elections and up coming school board meetings.
•Go and see what’s cooking.
•Ask a kid about what’s going on in school and the good stuff too. We need to know what is working.

•Visit a local school.
•Ask for literacy curriculum
•Ask to see computers in the classroom, you might faint at this one
•Ask about vocational track for students
•Report back about what you find and let’s do something before education suffers anymore.