Today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that "WASL fans, foes seek middle ground". But it's not the fans of academic standards who are seeking to compromise and lower standards:
Calling for the elimination of the 10th-grade WASL as a sole graduation requirement are the state teachers union, Seattle Public Schools, the Washington PTA and a former governor.One suspects that the government education monopolists' main interest here is avoiding having to justify their ever-escalating demands for more money by demonstrating measurable outcomes. Mrs. Gregoire1 is labeled in the article as a friend of academic standards, while in fact she mainly wants to cut everybody more slack --
[Gregoire's] proposal includes developing "mini-WASLs" that would allow students who fail the math portion of the test -- the most problematic section for students statewide -- to repeat only particular areas.Mrs. Gregoire also wants to lower standards for some immigrants by translating the WASL into other languages. The true defenders of academic standards are unwilling to compromise our childrens' futures:
Tacoma Rep. Gigi Talcott, the ranking Republican on the House Education Committee, opposes any legislation that opens the door to softening the graduation standard.Indeed."We've got to stay the course on this," she said. "I'm tired of giving out diplomas that are a ticket to nowhere."
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1 Of the two candidates for Washington governor in 2004 whose vote totals were within the margin of illegal votes as determined by a trial judge2, Mrs. Gregoire is the candidate whom most surveyed state residents believe received the smaller number of legal votes.
2 There are growing indications that King County deliberately concealed evidence of hundreds of illegal votes and intentional misconduct from the court.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at January 18, 2006 09:57 AM | Email ThisIf this passes, can we call it the WAFFLE test?
Posted by: swatter on January 18, 2006 10:42 AMthat's clearly not enough! No matter how much we spend on alleged "education" it will never be enough...
/sarcasm
"Stossel is an idiot who should be fired from ABC and sent back to elementary school to learn journalism." "Stossel is a right-wing extremist ideologue."
The hate mail is coming in to ABC over a TV special I did Friday (1/13). I suggested that public schools had plenty of money but were squandering it, because that's what government monopolies do.
Many such comments came in after the National Education Association (NEA) informed its members about the special and claimed that I have a "documented history of blatant antagonism toward public schools." "Stossel is an idiot who should be fired from ABC and sent back to elementary school to learn journalism." "Stossel is a right-wing extremist ideologue."
Not enough money for education? It's a myth.
The truth is, public schools are rolling in money. If you divide the U.S. Department of Education's figure for total spending on K-12 education by the department's count of K-12 students, it works out to about $10,000 per student.
Think about that! For a class of 25 kids, that's $250,000 per classroom. This doesn't include capital costs. Couldn't you do much better than government schools with $250,000? You could hire several good teachers; I doubt you'd hire many bureaucrats. Government schools, like most monopolies, squander money.
America spends more on schooling than the vast majority of countries that outscore us on the international tests. But the bureaucrats still blame school failure on lack of funds, and demand more money.
In 1985, some of them got their wish. Kansas City, Mo., judge Russell Clark said the city's predominately black schools were not "halfway decent," and he ordered the government to spend billions more. Did the billions improve test scores? Did they hire better teachers, provide better books? Did the students learn anything?
Well, they learned how to waste lots of money.
The bureaucrats renovated school buildings, adding enormous gyms, an Olympic swimming pool, a robotics lab, TV studios, a zoo, a planetarium, and a wildlife sanctuary. They added intense instruction in foreign languages. They spent so much money that when they decided to bring more white kids to the city's schools, they didn't have to resort to busing. Instead, they paid for 120 taxis. Taxis!
What did spending billions more accomplish? The schools got worse. In 2000, five years and $2 billion later, the Kansas City school district failed 11 performance standards and lost its academic accreditation for the first time in the district's history.
A study by two professors at the Hoover Institution a few years ago compared public and Catholic schools in three of New York City's five boroughs. Parochial education outperformed the nation's largest school system "in every instance," they found -- and it did it at less than half the cost per student.
"Everyone has been conned -- you can give public schools all the money in America, and it will not be enough," says Ben Chavis, a former public school principal who now runs the American Indian Charter School in Oakland, Calif. His school spends thousands less per student than Oakland's government-run schools spend.
Chavis saves money by having students help clean the grounds and set up for lunch. "We don't have a full-time janitor," he told me. "We don't have security guards. We don't have computers. We don't have a cafeteria staff." Since Chavis took over four years ago, his school has gone from being among the worst middle schools in Oakland to the one where the kids get the best test scores. "I see my school as a business," he said. "And my students are the shareholders. And the families are the shareholders. I have to provide them with something."
The problem here is that the democrats who are waffling don't WANT the poor and minority students to get educated. That's why they won't hold them to any meaningful standard. Their ultimate desire seems to be to keep this kids in an environment where failure is much more probably than success.
It's time to label this what it is: Racism. Elitism. The liberal democrats don't want children to get educated, especially poor minority ones. That's why they behave the way they do.
By the way, the solution to all of our education problems is one word: privatization. If it's good enough for our food supply, it must be good enough for our education needs as well.
Posted by: Jonathan Gardner on January 18, 2006 12:36 PMDuring slavery there were laws against teaching Blacks to read or write because slave owners knew that an education would snap the chains. Never in the Klan’s wildest dreams could they come up with a better plan for keeping Blacks in mental chains than the systematic destruction of the Black family and culture that was done by the Democrat Party.
Everyone knows that the most tried and true method of economic upward mobility in America is through education. A person who has an education has a chance in this society and those who don’t, don’t. This is exactly what the Democrat Plantation has given their loyal voting bloc. Often voting well over 100% for the Dem candidate. We could point to the abortion clinics that are located primarily in Black and minority neighborhoods or the fact that The Great Society systematically removed the men from the families and left the mothers to guide and discipline the young Black men but lets look at the engine of financial mobility, education.
Blacks are shackled in inner city schools of hopelessness thanks to the DNC. Whenever anyone dares to mention education reform or vouchers they are immediately labeled a racist who is trying to take money out of these wonderful public schools. Billions are poured down these Rat holes to be sucked up in bureaucratic deadwood. The schools have become a broken down model T sitting on blocks with a Black Family sitting in the back seat asking for directions out.
Silly question. I knew the answer before I even typed the question.
Posted by: Janet S on January 18, 2006 02:31 PMBut in this case, now we have the WEA sniping about it, but of course for all the wrong reasons: not because it is expensive, or that at its highest level it holds kids to an 8th grade level, but because the teachers are'nt good enough to get our kids to even that woefully inadequate grade level.
I am not at all a proponent of the WASL. It holds our kids to too low of a standard. Apparently, it holds our teachers to too high a standard, too. And you can bet you sweet arse that if the WASL gets axed, the WEA will fight like hell to see that whatever replaces it will be the dumbest waste of our kids' time (and OUR money) ever to miss the shredder box.
The WASL is crappy, sure. But the WEA is dangerous to our childrens' health and should be outlawed.
Posted by: ERNurse on January 18, 2006 03:16 PMI agree that we need some way of proving that a student has earned a diploma. Too bad we can't rely on the schools to perform this task.
Posted by: Janet S on January 18, 2006 03:26 PMThe reason Bellevue has incorporated them so thoroughly into their curriculum has been because they have to compete with private schools. If they don't do the job, the students will leave. Kind of like what the students in Seattle have done.
Posted by: Janet S on January 18, 2006 03:50 PMIt is my understanding that Bellevue allows all students to take AP classes. At our school, they put a limit on how many students are enrolled. I think if AP classes were available to all who wanted them, we would see some real progress.
Posted by: Peggy U on January 18, 2006 06:20 PMAnd why we're at it, why aren't there science, world, and US history portions of the test, too?
The teacher's union is part of the problem, because, as with any union, it exists for the benefit of it's members, and especially for the poorest performers among the workers they represent. (Anyone who's good at what they do doesn't need a union to protect their job or their paycheck.) The bureaucracy (which is also controlled by the union) is another part of the problem-it sucks up a huge chunk of the education money without actually educating any children.
Both of these could be fixed by a simple solution: universal vouchers. Give every single student a voucher, good anywhere in the state, and let the parents choose.
The last part can't be fixed by the government, and that's parent's who don't care. There's not much government can do about that.
Posted by: Heartless Libertarian on January 18, 2006 07:29 PMThe WASL supporters are trying to find easy answers to a tough problem. When you have a culture that does not value education, the schools are nothing more than glorified day care centers. Those who try to buck the system like Chavis and Joe Clark are made out to be the bad guys by the community and teachers. The fact academic achievement increases is beside the point to the likes of Jesse Jackson and the NEA. As long as excuses are made for low expectations and lack of discipline, the liberals are going to continue to whine about African Americans getting the wrong end of the stick when it comes to low paying jobs and high numbers in prison. Looks like Clinton has misapplied the "plantation" label.
Posted by: Burdabee on January 18, 2006 10:40 PM