Group items tagged

I'm so glad Kara posted her link already because this is a great follow-up to it. If you are interested in learning more about the kids in "Shame of the Nation", here is an interview with Kozol talking about the impact of poverty on schools and his new book "Fire in the Ashes".

How can we get more money for schools? Stop letting corporations evade property taxes?

So, here's the plan: ditch the standardized tests, use NAEP instead, and spend those billions of dollars on food, health care, gardens, and books. Okay, education problem solved. Well done, Peg!

This article really moved me. After reading the Kozol article in class i was very disturbed by the living conditions of the families in East St. Louis. And this article only exacerbated my feelings. I find it incredible that America, the country of opportunity and prosperity, "neglects" its children in such a way that does not allow them to have either of those things. Ms. Peggy made so many valid points about the inefficiency of standardized tests and i strongly agree with her. It angers me that innocent children are not receiving the same education across the country, and worse, our government thinks that standardized tests are the solution to this problem. How can our government be so heartless?

Here's the original article on which the previous blog post was based.

While reading this article, i found myself agreeing with almost all of what Krashen was saying. Poverty does effect student learning. Fortunately for me, i never had to experience going to school hungry or sick. I always had books available to me in my school library and a school nurse present in case anyone got sick. I cannot imagine what it feels like to go to school without these basic things, nor do i want 25% of american children to go either. It's no wonder that students who live in poverty do worse in school. What is even more heart wrenchings is the fact that our government only cares of how well its country does internationally. What the government doesn't realize is that if it helps to reduce poverty, our children will be able to learn more efficiently and then it can get the international ranking it wants so badly. Until our government starts caring about our hungry children that go to school and not how the United States ranks internationally in education, then we cannot improve.

This is an interesting connection: today's education budget cuts directly impact the viability of our future economy. So much for racing to the top...

This is a very well written column by Mr. Krugman. Unfortunately I feel he is correct that if our country does not switch its current path we will soon be going the way of Texas. For years the education system has been neglected and now we are starting to pay the price for it. An almost 40% non graduation rate is completely unacceptable for one of the wealthiest nations in the world and unless we stand up to this assault on our basic human rights we will have nobody to blame but ourselves.

I was initially attracted to this post because I have several friends who live in Texas. After reading through it, I started thinking about the whole budget cut thing and I realized I'll never know exactly what that means until I'm a teacher and being directly affected by it. I can ready all I want about numbers but I really won't know how big of a difference it is until I'm a part of it. On top of that, I won't have much of an argument against budget cuts to teachers unless I know exactly why cuts are coming from teachers and not somewhere else. Anyways, just a thought that came up. Maybe I should start paying attention to these details so I can be well-informed of the history of teachers salary and budget cuts if I become a teacher?

I don't think budget cuts should create lower math scores... the teachers that are included in the budget should be hired because of their qualifications.