Bad Education (Minnesota As Usual?)
Midway through the week gives us Clean Your Refrigerator Day, America Recycles Day, and National Philanthropy Day.
4,700 motorists cited in a statewide sweep on seat belts last month, along with 131 improperly using child restraints in their vehicles. Shouldn't our law enforcement always be ticketing for this, after all, it's illegal! Get the assholes off the road already, if only for our children. More story here.
A Big Issue
No surprise to me, sadly, but MN education numbers are laughable as results of the 2006 state tests in math and reading are in. In math a mere 58% of MN students overall were proficient, high schools at 32%... notably Minneapolis high schools are at 16% and Blaine at 27%. Reading "merely dropped" statewide to 72% proficiency from last year's 79%. I'd post national, but my ol' POS doesn't recognize the file type (go figure).
Complaints (of course) arose with excuses such as "high school students don't care [about the tests] and have other things to worry about like work, college, grades and college placement exams being more important" and "the state is making the assumption that kids have taken certain subjects by a certain level." State officials even tried to argue this year's results can't fairly be compared to those of previous years because the material is so much harder. Schools, however, have had 3 years to measure up to academic standards that took effect in 2003 (and were known to be coming before that) and so 483 schools in MN were branded as underperforming (last year was 247, which is still a large number!). The release of these test scores also caused a stir when they were "delayed for accurate test data" (they're normally released at the State Fair in late August).
As much as I'm sure people hate to even think about it, even these new academic standards are behind other nations, yet our nation can barely stand up to it's own standards? There need to be some major changes in education to bring us up to where we need to be on a worldwide scale! If this means a complete overhawl (which I believe it does), then so be it.
-t. Wolfox sR Rhose
4,700 motorists cited in a statewide sweep on seat belts last month, along with 131 improperly using child restraints in their vehicles. Shouldn't our law enforcement always be ticketing for this, after all, it's illegal! Get the assholes off the road already, if only for our children. More story here.
A Big Issue
No surprise to me, sadly, but MN education numbers are laughable as results of the 2006 state tests in math and reading are in. In math a mere 58% of MN students overall were proficient, high schools at 32%... notably Minneapolis high schools are at 16% and Blaine at 27%. Reading "merely dropped" statewide to 72% proficiency from last year's 79%. I'd post national, but my ol' POS doesn't recognize the file type (go figure).
Complaints (of course) arose with excuses such as "high school students don't care [about the tests] and have other things to worry about like work, college, grades and college placement exams being more important" and "the state is making the assumption that kids have taken certain subjects by a certain level." State officials even tried to argue this year's results can't fairly be compared to those of previous years because the material is so much harder. Schools, however, have had 3 years to measure up to academic standards that took effect in 2003 (and were known to be coming before that) and so 483 schools in MN were branded as underperforming (last year was 247, which is still a large number!). The release of these test scores also caused a stir when they were "delayed for accurate test data" (they're normally released at the State Fair in late August).
As much as I'm sure people hate to even think about it, even these new academic standards are behind other nations, yet our nation can barely stand up to it's own standards? There need to be some major changes in education to bring us up to where we need to be on a worldwide scale! If this means a complete overhawl (which I believe it does), then so be it.
-t. Wolfox sR Rhose