You got that right . .. imagine AI making more keyboard shortcuts, "helping" wayland move off X more so, new window transistions, overhauling htmx ... it'll be hell+ on earth.
Good grief! The bush admin tried to getting better scores by standard testing ... as a scheme in some ways by-pass local control by trading improvement for cash or removing cash.
Mixed results. There's whining about standard testing .. . There's whining without it too. But states brought that on themselves.
I raised two boys one a plain-joe kid, one with special needs. The older, regular kid got into and out of university in four years.
Seeing what I see now, and what I saw over those years:
- pay teachers more with commensurate increase in accountability. (You can't have only one.)
- focus on academics only. Too much resources are wasted in our American daydreaming that schools can be some kind of utopia superceding home, family. Regretably, if parents don't care, there's a tiny chance only the kid will change in school. Here i mean anything that detracts from language, math, science, arts, sports. Having different makes and models of kids at school? That's great; i like that. My kids have got to see our house isn't the only game in town.
- maybe eliminate all federal forms of funding by sending less money to the fed redistributed back later. Control and accountability has to be less complex with fewer regs from fewer places. Education is operationally local in the US and yet somehow the fed and national unions are big players too. We can't be serving two masters.
- withhold kids by class until they succeed. Kids must be held accountable too. If you can't deal with algebra I you are not doing algerbra II so you can suck at that too.
- contribute to kid's self esteem and confidence right: you're not graduating in this class, and I (as a teacher) will help you figure out a way forward by tackling what's in front of you. That's real success. That's real learning. That's better for kids.
- put principals and teachers top echelon. If they want/need admin staff, fine counter balanced by cost & success on accountability side. US schools like US medicine is phenomenal at having paper pushers suck up resources. Yah, I'm not a fan of this to put it politely.
> - pay teachers more with commensurate increase in accountability. (You can't have only one.)
I would bet 90% of the problem is the attitude towards learning at home and among the peer group, who also get their attitudes from home. Doesn’t seem effective or fair to hold teachers accountable for that.
Right. But I covered that re: holding kids accountable. I'm a father .. believe me when I tell you several times I had to have a come to Jesus talk with my kid; teachers and school were fine. It's not 100% on the teacher. If the kid refuses to grow up I think he/she shouldn't matriculate in that subject. That means the kid is chiefly held responsible. I'll be applauding not scolding the teacher.
Maybe, but then do we really need teachers with special degrees and other credentials that drive up cost for them and us? Maybe we can find a way to make education much cheaper if we're going to admit its limitations.
I was in school in Wisconsin when they got rid of the teachers union; schooling improved drastically. We had a physics teacher who went years refusing to write AP level physics courses when it was a union job, but suddenly found the motivation once the union left. Most substantially, at the state level the governor passed course options, which allowed high school students to take courses at local universities or other schools if their school didn't offer higher level courses.
Obviously unions aren't designed to protect students, they represent workers, however their negative impact on the quality of schooling students get is often quite significant despite being overlooked.
Someone should tell the Wisconsin Education Association Council that they don't exist. They were removed back when you were in school and clearly aren't around today.
I think there’s a lot of poor incentives at play here. Having to mash everything down into a handful of top line success metrics (annual test scores, attendance rate) is certainly one, alongside this obsession with one-size-fits-all age-cohort based schooling.
It is clear that public schooling in the US was originally designed to build obedient citizens and efficient factory workers. Horace Mann’s love of the Prussian model, the use of bells to condition timely synchronized movement between activities, the focus on testing and measurable output, etc… All other goals over the years were half-heartedly bolted on to that structure and it’s showing its age.
Blame is easy to assign to parents but if you do mean real accountability it is seemingly impossible beyond the most basic things such as student attendance.
Even taking a non-cynical look at certain parents' level of interest/ability/care/etc, we go as far as taking students and teachers out of the rest of the workforce for the express purpose of being able to assign them accountability for education instead. There just aren't levers like that available on the parental side to try to trigger meaningful actions with, nor is there anything close to consensus on how those might be put into place to begin the debate on what parents should be made accountable for with them.
The best chance I've seen to increase the amount of involvement from parents in their child's education is to try to have enhanced their own childhood education well enough to see why it's so important they be actively involved.
I think we just have different understandings of accountability but, perhaps, the same end desires. I absolutely agree if it's meant to be about also measuring the impact of the parents.
To me, accountability requires an added component of being held answerable for said impact. E.g. "John was held accountable for the damage to the car" would mean John had to answer for the damage, not just "the damage John had was measured" or "John's actions were found to cause the damage". This answerability to the impact is the only part of accountability which I think we can't realistically do with parents as we are able to for students or educators.
Omg! Who the hell cares if the "boss" got a heads up. When I'm in engineering or you're in engineering with me, we party the same way: better is better.
The bosses - hell management's job leading into organizational culture - is to stop politics from derailing good engineering and customer satisfaction.
It's not too tough for me. Now that you know where I stand the other side better get it's act together.
Drowning in politics helps nobody including the boss. It's a net loser.
Now I'm practical and empathetic: a surprise can bring heat. But then you breath and get a grip. Cool. But thereafter the right things better get done. Politics for a day - np - politics sapping know how making cynical SE'S think twice? Never.
I learned a lot from that job, mostly how not to lead people. Subsequent jobs that I’ve been at for longer stints have placed much more emphasis on delivering good work than on building complicated plans to someday hopefully maybe consider delivering good work.
Nah. I think russia and putin needs a proper, serious case of getting their nose bloodied. Ie missiles into Russia, missiles for ukraine, and far better air support.
Clearly Ukranians have the muscle and want-to to put it to good use for their own.
You plead recognition of realistic constraints, but Europe hasn't even seriously tried moving the bar beyond check writing (We, the US, haven't either. Under Biden we were concerned about giving plausible excuses to russia by direct involvement so we gave money too. Ok, we gave some hardware but not the serious stuff.)
I have during trump's administration and Ukraine/Russia war reluctantly come to face the truth others have worked out long before: Europe can't make a damn decision then do it. Who's in charge there?
Nato will be better when Europe is more coequal and we Americans get our own house in order. We put a clown show into office twice. Our own democrats sucked so bad, voters actually bought trump's BS (listen to Marshal tucker's "heard it on a love song" to see what I mean.)
Without for one moment saying trump's whining about nato and Europe is right --- it's counter productive for all; it's rank stupidity; nato helps the US a lot --- there remains a kernel of truth Europe needs to change their tune and be more offensive/defensive.
Here in the US I've heard too many morons tell me the west brought this on ourselves leaving russia no alternative but try to create buffer room in ukraine. Some by plain Americans, several times by one generation ago immigrants from Russia.
I don't buy that for a nyc minute. Eastern Europe dealt with russia through two world wars and being part of the USSR.
Forget the US: they had they're own experiences and wanted something better for them: closer relations to western Europe maybe the US and better security guarantees. No amount of russian BS will gain say that. If they want better, they should try. Russia isn't entitled to stop them, and they are not obligated to play along with this russian hussle. You know damn well kissing the Russian ring won't work.
This is a particularly well written article. Plaudits to poster and original writer. It took me from no clue to a context or sieve I could organize the noise through. And darn it, it made it look easy. Like the John Daily line it's so good I'm mad. Sheesh, thanks a lot!
I can only imagine you already cut out a lot of material :)
The way I see it, the original problem, which stands the test of time, is when copies are made and/or sold by somebody who is taking credit for the original work without giving credit to the actual creator.
Anything less needs to be much more realistically reflected as very minor by comparison.
Love it. Practical advice that helps everyone. All us tech guys know Jobs limited his kids' time on iphones (allegedly). Never let tech screw up the fundamentals.
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