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Jewish World Review June 16, 2010 / 4 Tamuz 5770 Betraying Our Children By Arnold Ahlert
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
In the epic poem, Dante's Inferno, there are nine circles of hell. Each one represents a more serious level of evil than the one above it. The last, or ninth circle, represents acts of betrayal which Dante considered the worst element of human behavior. If it were up to me, the people in charge of "educating" schoolchildren in the state of New York would have their ticket punched and be on their way, for one simple reason: they have completely betrayed generations of kids for nothing more than naked self-interest.
Harsh? Consider that New York just raised its standard for passing sixth grade reading and math tests to the following: on the reading test, 20 correct answers out of 39 questions gets one a passing grade; on the sixth grade math test, 20 out of 49 does the trick.
In other words, getting a grade of 51% on the reading test and 41% on the math test gets you promoted to the seventh grade.
In what universe, besides the one inhabited by unionized educators and their Democrat political lackeys, is such nonsense even remotely acceptable? At no point in my entire educational experience did either of the above scores remotely constitute anything other than what they truly are: failing grades.
Public school education in New York--and elsewhere--has become an overt fraud. It is a fraud committed by people beyond shame, people more than willing to mortgage the lives of thousands of kids who have little or no concept of what it takes to succeed in life. Thousands of kids who have been led to believe that half-right--or less--equals a viable education.
What are the those in charge thinking? First and foremost, about themselves. They realize that their "business model"--a system which has made the genuine education of children and genuine accountability of teachers utterly meaningless--is an ongoing failure.
How do you fix failure? In the real world, failure is fixed by adopting no-nonsense standards--and getting rid of employees incapable of meeting them. In the world of unionized pubic schools, failure is "fixed" simply by changing the definition of the word. In other words, failure equals success because "we say so."
And why do we say so? Because we are politicians beholden to the unions. Unions who line our pockets with campaign funds if we do their bidding--or spend million of dollars of union dues to defeat us if we don't. Unions who, despite all their phony "we put the kids first" rhetoric, are only concerned with the well-being of their members. Unions who think grades of 51 and 41 are perfectly acceptable because it makes them look better when more kids are "passing" than failing. Unions who love to blame parents for failing to raise their kids properly--even as they calculatingly ignore that many of those parents were under-educated by the same system that is failing their children.
Recently in New York there was an epic battle concerning charter schools. In recent years, charters--which are predominantly non-unionized--have demonstrated they are capable of providing a better education than traditional public schools. Since the number of charter schools was capped, competition to get one's child enrolled in one was fierce, with thousands of kids competing for a limited number of spaces. Thus, a push was made to expand the number of charter schools from the current 200, to 460 over four years.
Who fought tooth and nail to prevent that from happening? The teachers unions and their political handmaidens in the Democrat party. They did this even though it resulted in the forfeiture of $700 million in Race to the Top federal education funds. New Yorkers were outraged. Political pressure became unbearable and the legislature eventually relented, but the message from the unions was clear: we don't want any competition.
Imagine wanting to buy a new car and being told that you could only buy one from GM--because the United Auto Workers negotiated a contract with the government forbidding other brands of cars to be sold in your "assigned car district." Thousands of New York kids are trapped in abysmal public schools and, absent extraordinary circumstances, are forced to attend them even though those schools have amply demonstrated that they can't provide a decent education.
How bad is it? In addition to the aforementioned "passing" grades, another New York education scandal was revealed last week: on state math tests, students were getting partial credit for the wrong answers--or no answers at all.
How is this possible? In the Orwellian world inhabited by the educational establishment, "holistic rubrics" rule the roost. What are holistic rubrics? From the New York Post: "'holistic rubrics,' require that points be given if a kid's attempt at an answer reflects a 'partial understanding' of the math concept, 'addresses some element of the task correctly,' or uses the 'appropriate process' to arrive at a wrong solution. Despite flubbing the answer, students can get 1 point on a 2-point problem and 1 or 2 points on a 3-pointer."
As I mentioned above, all it takes to "pass" a sixth grade math test is a grade of 41. Yet even that abominable number is padded by the fraud of holistic rubrics.
In a better world, the people responsible for this unconscionable charade would be forced to ride in a jet piloted by someone who received partial credit for using the "appropriate process" to get the wrong landing coordinates--or forced to undergo surgery with a doctor who demonstrated an ability to "address some element of the task correctly." Unfortunately, mortgaging the future of "other people's children" is standard operating procedure for our cowardly political class because the alternative--defying union political muscle, and forfeiting union campaign dollars--would require a level of integrity that has become an anachronism in a country where flushing future generations of Americans down the toilet has become completely acceptable.
And make no mistake: this is a fraud made possible because the Democrat Party is its chief enabler. Over the last twenty years, the National Education Association, the nation's largest teacher's union, has given ninety-seven percent of its campaign contributions to Democratic candidates. In return, Democrats have opposed everything which threatens the unions' status quo: school choice, ending tenure, instituting merit pay, charter schools, standardized tests and anything else which would allow Americans to clearly understand what a joke public school education has become.
Remember above where I said the standards had been raised to 51% and 41%? for sixth grade reading and math exams respectively? The previous "standard" was 7 correct answers out of 39 questions for the state reading test and 14 out of 49 for the math test. Conversion to number grades?
18% and 28%.
Only people completely comfortable with betraying the most vulnerable among us would consider such an abomination acceptable. Perhaps they should familiarize themselves with the "The Divine Comedy."
It's always good to know a little something about a place before you go there.
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© 2010, Arnold Ahlert |
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