Persistent_Concerns

Moral Responsibility in the Education Industry

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:24:54 -0500

How much can school reform improve a student's occupational fitness? Who, exactly, is responsible for the student's failure?

Productivity and Politics in Public Schools

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:24:57 -0500

What interferes with productivity in schools? Politics. And vice versa
In the School District of Philadelphia, about 1975, a board member was shocked to find out no one could tell him what non-real estate property the school district owned. Without much forethought, the command was issued that students (about 200,000) were to be sent home for a week while teachers applied numbered labels to desks, chairs, blackboards, TV's, lab equipment of all kinds -- even boxes of paper clips. Inventory lists were to be created and submitted at the end of the week. There was no provision made for collating the information collected. When standard-test-time rolled around soon after, a local newspaper reporter -- unofficial lickspittle for the school board -- came up with the by now all too familiar explanation for low test scores: poor teaching.

The Purpose of Inclusion: education or merely socialization?

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:24:58 -0500

If inclusion means on one hand the latest good-willed attempt to solve the problem of what to do for our extreme cases -- our privileged, our victims, our victimizers, and our unfortunate -- by careful placement and enhanced resources, then I'm for it. But let's acknowledge the reports indicating that this problem is still pretty intractable, and try to do something sensible about it.

If, on the other hand, inclusion means that every kid should be confined for the greater part of the day with students requiring extraordinary attention (much less every psycho, free rider, and drug dealer), then no, I'm not for it, and the law does not require it

Democracy vs. Efficiency in Schooling

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:24:58 -0500

How much of a say should everyone involved have when it comes to making decisions that affect their lives?

But who then decides when it's time to get things done?

Schooling on the Third Rock

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:24:59 -0500

Thanks to an ingenious stratagem devised by our High Commander, we have been accepted by the Earthlings with neither resistance nor suspicion. We are not secretive about what we do here; quite the contrary, our Commander has had all our activities and many of our deliberations publicly broadcast on aural-visual media (TV) for millions to observe.

Illogic and Dissimulation in School Reform

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:24:59 -0500

Much educational policy and the reforms undertaken for its sake rest on a simple mistake in reasoning: the some-to-all fallacy. Confusing promotion with science further confounds the issue.

Politics, Consensus & Educational Reform

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:25:00 -0500

Nothing is easier to declare or harder to deliver than campaign promises regarding schooling. Complex issues invariably generate simplistic political solutions. But slogans offer little practical help. We explain why using only four factors.

Why Accreditation Doesn't Work

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:25:00 -0500

A policy paper from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni

Prosecuting Educational Fraud

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:25:00 -0500

If a school receives federal funds because it is accredited and if the conditions for accreditation are in fact not met, then those funds have been fraudulently obtained in violation of the Federal False Claims act.
Fraud abounds. What hinders prosecution?

Can All Children Learn?

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:25:01 -0500

A trick question by which shallow thinkers are mislead by false promises.

Opening Exercises -- Or Never-Never Land

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:25:01 -0500

The short version of opening exercises for the school year is that it's all our fault: the achievement gap exists because we teachers "don't believe all children can learn."

Immigrants in the New America: Is it time to heat up the melting pot?

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:25:02 -0500

The pursuit in our schools of "multiculturalism" not only perplexes immigrants who have come here with the full intent of becoming "Americans", it conflicts with the traditional mission of the schools to promote a democratic society!

Avoiding Medication Errors: Examining the Policy for Testing the Proficiency of Student Nurses

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:25:02 -0500

The debate on preventing medication errors made national public headlines after the National Institute of Medicine released their landmark findings in two separate reports. These reports identified real and potential adverse outcomes that occurred yearly from medication errors. Following this report, medication errors were then linked with flawed healthcare systems within practice settings. However, regardless of the system issues, the attention quickly shifted to mathematical competence of professional nurses.

Hurt, Harm & Safety

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:25:03 -0500

Lack of consensus on what merely hurts and what is really harmful undermines rational planning for safety.

Preventing Cheating: transforming educational values

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:25:03 -0500

A recent Wall Street Journal reports that some schools have a new approach to cheating: making it legal. This approach is neither new nor clever. As a teacher you could decriminalize "cheating" by rebaptizing it "cooperative learning" or "information sharing." But with what consequences?

No Child Left Behind: some misgivings

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:25:04 -0500

The surest way to discredit the public school is to leave no child behind. The second surest way is to make the school a "safe and nonthreatening environment" for psychopaths and morons. The third surest is to try to teach the "whole child" in any single setting. The conservatives know this; that's probably why they're doing it. And in a fit of unconscious bipartisanship seldom equaled in our contentious nation's history, the liberals have been working on the same project for decades, albeit more stupidly. The sad fact is that public schools just cannot be all things to all children, nor should they be a total program for producing "whole children."

The Other Side of Bureaucracy

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:25:04 -0500

... the greatest threat to freedom in America today may come not from terrorists or from government, but from those professional associations conceived to protect our freedoms.

Fear in the Classroom: Is schooling still sufficiently educational?

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:25:05 -0500

...for the increasing majority, the costs, social and personal, outweigh the benefits. Under the assumption that schooling is the most socially efficient way to educate the masses, the law has long compelled parents to send their children to school. But times have changed, drastically: in many states, laws bestow sovereign immunity upon the schools. This situation, in effect, is to tell parents, "You must send your children to school; but don't expect us to protect them if it is inconvenient!"

The Columbine Massacre: Bad Apples or Sour Pickles? Fundamental Attribution Error

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:25:05 -0500

While a few bad apples might spoil the barrel (filled with good fruit/people), a vinegar barrel will always transform sweet cucumbers into sour picklesregardless of the best intentions, resilience, and genetic nature of the cucumbers. So does it make more sense to spend resources to identify, isolate, and destroy bad apples or to understand how vinegar works. . . ? Phillip Zimbardo

American Bar Association Juvenile Justice Policy

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:25:06 -0500

Public policy towards children has moved towards treating them more like adults and in ways that increasingly mimic the adult criminal justice system. The most recent version of this movement is so-called "zero tolerance" in schools, where theories of punishment that were once directed to adult criminals are now applied to first graders.

Looking for a "Transformational" Leader: Longing for a Fuehrer

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:25:06 -0500

Transformational educational leadership theorists pretend that school administrators can be miracle workers: pedagogical shamans who magically reconcile our irreconcilable expectations for schools and schooling through the purity of their motivations and the force of their will.

Cutting Public School Costs . . . Intelligently. Can It Be Done?

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:25:07 -0500

A host of frivolous activities and pursuits wastes the education dollar.

Deterring, Detecting and Tracing Plagiarism

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:25:07 -0500

Methods for addressing a major educational headache.

Cannonfodder: Preparing Teachers for Public Schools

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:25:08 -0500

Examines how ideological pressures, accreditation politics, and the myth of teacher shortages work to transform public teacher education into an anti-democratic and secular totalitarianism.