In Class - On the eve upon our final day of class, we will hopefully recessitate our conversation from yesterday concerning education reform and the economy. As a bit of review, I have a few short video clips we watched in class regarding SB 1070. In case you missed it, they are listed below:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/308060/april-26-2010/the-word---docu-drama
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/281867/april-21-2010/the-word---no-problemo
Group Work: Get out your research and classwork concerning education. In groups, respond to the following six questions: 1) If you could have any resource (money is no option) available to you for your education in high school, what would you want (ie. technology, class options, programs)? 2) How would each item listed above benefit your learning? 3) List several aspects of public education you would change. 4) Should adminstrators evaluate teachers more frequently? 5) Should teachers be paid based on the test results of their students (merit pay)? 6) What actions do you need to take in order to make a change happen? Discuss these answers in groups and then as an entire class. Continue discussion on education reform with the answers to these questions as the focus of the discussion. Focus more efforts on question six. Discuss final exam (see homework below). Begin watching "Capitalism: A Love Story." This documentary is based on the economic collapse of the late 1970's early 1980's to the most recent collapse in 2008. We will continue this tomorrow.
Homework - You have two things due for me. 1) Question of the Day response due by 11:59 tonight.
2) First draft of letter. In this first draft, include your name, the name of your school, your year in school, and the reason behind your letter. Keep it short, but make specific points. Do some research on their views of education. Have they supported any educational bills, serve on any educational committees, or financial committees? Are they campaigning or up for reelection? Don't worry about the format (business letter), but I do want the content completed for peer editing tomorrow in class.
People you may write to:
Riverside County Superintendent of Schools - Kenneth M. Young
http://www.rcoe.k12.ca.us/
Alvord Unified School District Superintendent - Dr. Wendall Tucker
http://www.alvord.k12.ca.us/superintendent.html
Alvord Unified School District Board of Education President - Mr. Ben Johnson II http://www.alvord.k12.ca.us/board_of_education.html
California State Department of Education Superintendent - Mr. Jack O'Connell
http://www.cde.ca.gov/index.asp
United States Senators (CA) - Barbara Boxer (D); Dianne Feinstein (D)
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?State=CA
US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
http://help.senate.gov/ Legislation: http://help.senate.gov/legislation/
US Representative (44th District) - Representative Ken Calvert (R)
http://calvert.house.gov/
Secretary of Education - Arne Duncan
http://www.ed.gov/
President Barack Obama
http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education
Meg Whitman (R) Running for California Governor
http://www.megwhitman.com/
Jerry Brown (D) Running for California Governor
http://jerrybrown.org/
5 comments:
CAPATALISM!!!! Has to do with everything from trading, buying, selling and investing in the production of distribution. Capitalist economic was created in europe between the 16th and 19th century. But some features had allready been alive all the way since ancient times. Capitalism has grown in an amazingly strong and powerful way in western parts, as the dominant economic system since feaudalism's decline. That caused traditional political and religious restraints in capitalism exchange. Capitalism has spread since the industrial revolution from europe and britain . In the 19th to 20th century it has provided main but not exclusive means of industrialization throughout the world. I think that capitalism is a huge ! impact on what happens and what cant happen because they the ones dealing with laws and have the upper hand in any case. I think is unfair that sum of them are doing the dirty jobs and taking peoples homes away and no one does nothing they cold care less.
Of the various subjects studied in class, I feel that the topic of education hits closest to home. Although I am nearing the beginning of my senior year, I cannot help but feel like I owe it to future schoolchildren in Alvord Unified to take some form of action to better their education. Being a person who loves learning new things, when I see an eye-opening documentary like “Stupid in America” or “2 million minutes”, it dawns on me that I have not been challenged nearly as much as I should have been throughout my education. I feel my duty as a student is to listen and to be listened to, and having listened to teachers for 11 whole years, it seems to me that the time has come for students to be listened to, for a change. But as I have heard; talk is cheap, and I feel it is high time something got done about the one-sided relationship between students and their educators.
Norte Vista High School has become a prime example of the failures of not only our teachers, but also of our district, county, state, and federal government. The “No Child Left Behind” policy has kept students going as far as grade level is concerned, but has harmed their overall education. As for our district: throughout the entire time that teachers were being interviewed and evaluated, not once was a single student asked for their opinion. Instead, concerned students had to go to a board meeting to be heard. I think the time to listen to the students is long overdue. After all, it is those very students who are learning who should have the biggest influence on what they believe is effective teaching. It is the same principle that drives any company: demand. Stores get their answers about what products are needed the most by their sales, just as educators should realize what is missing from our education by which teachers are successful and which are not. For example, as much as I tried to figure out why favored teachers at our school lost their jobs, the answers were unavailable to us. I think it is crucial for our school system to take in the opinions of students via surveys, polls, meetings, and other forms of communication to better our education for the students, as well as the teachers.
-Slaggy(:
I choose education as the topic that has relevant significance to me. The reasons being that I have four younger siblings still going to school and, now that I’m going to a university in the fall; education is going to be a huge part of my life. It concerns me that many schools nationwide ask for support through means of money, but the high standards in academics has been decreasing. Yeah test scores seem to be telling us different, but the reality is that students are being taught how to take tests and not so much core subjects and what real teaching and instruction is all about. How bout we fire teachers who are lousy teachers? We can’t because they are backed up by powerful unions.
In other countries, though, education seems to be more competitive amidst poverty and scarcity. For example, in India there educational system is a business. This system works because it brings in competition between teachers, because now it is easier to get fired. This competition between teachers creates a whole different academic environment; now that there is no union to support teachers and teachers are literally on there own, learning becomes so much better. Its from these successful countries we should adopt the best ideas. But to tell you the truth, this education problem all leads up to the student himself and his or her motivation. Or maybe there is a scarcity on good teachers?
One of the main topics that caught my attention the most of all was the topic on education and how our economy affects it. I was never really pleased with how things were run in schools but I always thought that the schools new the best for the students and that there shouldn't be any reason to question it. I was wrong, actually in some of the articles that I read their has been many issues in our education since the 1900's. Bill's being passed like the GI Bill in 1946 opening doors to more enrollments in a Higher Education all through out decades where it became a privilege and a better opportunity for a higher paid job.” No Child Is Left Behind" was passed by Bush when he was president, it was meant to those students who were behind. It is actually keeping students more behind and basing the knowledge of a student as well as the teaching techniques of the teacher by taking standardized tests(benchmarks). The Teachers Union is stopping any changes that won't benefit them financially. Making me question if the Union is really looking out for the students benefit of just their image? In the video "Stupid in America" it took 6 years to fire a teacher who was either to involved with a student or was not teaching every well because the Union made it impossible to fire any one. Seeing the demand of money for many schools because it will change the schools performance but in reality schools wouldn't changed.
If the system was focused more on knowledge and global competition rather than a business profit it wouldn't be as screwed up as it is and drop out rates would decrease as well as unemployment, crime rates and poverty. Everyone is involved the parents, students themselves and the teachers. Parents who expect to see their child have great education and succeed in life, some or not involved in their education by being involved or by being informed giving their child less support and in cases that I have seen and lived it has a huge impact in ones studies. Teachers are sent to schools to teach us what they know and its people who wants us to become someone in life. Through discussions in class and through my own experience that is not always the case because some just becomes a teacher because it is easy? Some teachers are very good at their work but others don't care as long as they get paid and have a secure job. Which brings in the union again, they have a huge impact in our education that it is no joke by the teachers that we have even if they are or bad it thanks to the union for having them. At the same time standards being made to achieve where in some cases it interferes in the teaching hours because it is based more on not loosing their jobs and failing the tests. Not benefiting the students or the teachers because in the end they both get blamed. In a website that is below promotes a movie called " waiting for superman" which is based on the education system that had failed and the struggle to fix it. It is estimated that in the future around 2022 their would be 123 million high paying high-skilled jobs but only 50million Americans would be qualified. What is going wrong that causes these results? Can their be a change? In the same website it gave solutions in how an individual can get involved to make a difference in ones education by getting involved, sending letters, attending meetings, etc.. If their wants to be stop in the drop out rate which is 1.2million a year. Ken Robinson said "a Degree ins’t wroth anything these days" we want our education to matter right, we want to make some type of influence in the world then if education it the Key to success then why is it less important in United Sates.
http://www.educationchange.org/ "Top Five Public Education Controversies "(Cay Burell,2008) http://www.waitingforsuperman.com/
"Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity"(Ted 2006)
Stupid in America
THE EDUCATION SYSTEM
I believe its been broken for some time now.Our ways of communicating with our kids has slowly decreased and our social enviroment in the classroom is deplorable.
I think the problem with the communication starts at the home. I know far to well how hard school can be with a crappy home life. I was in advance classes all the way up to middle school until one day i got caught up in the foster home system. Since then its been hard for me to stay on track because i didn't see the point because i thought my life would end up like my parents... SHIT. But i see now that i sort of settled in riverside and i can choose my own path. And i think many kids had the same issues.
Next I think we need to focus on the kids culture to communicate. Today we have the most sexually raunchy culture to date. Kids are having babies because of this and we need to restablish a health envirment and right and wrongs for highschools. ALso in our society we praise sports man ship more than intelect, and i think it should be the other way around.
Ok. Now for the second phase... the classroom enviorment. I think we definatly need to replace alot of teachers. There are some that are just plan horrible. I had a teacher who tested me on Forest Gump that had no significance to the class what so ever. The sad part is that it is so hard to fire these teachers because of teacher unions. So I think that the federal government should take further action on firing horrble teachers. Next I think we should change the way we do testing. I think students should be more effected by the tests. I believe if we place kids on how they score on tests we can place them where they should be. BEcause i have seen some retards go to higher maths but didn't know crap. ANd finaly I think teacher student relationships should get better, and have open communications with eachother. One way to do this is to have smaller class sizes and have teachers take classes on communication skills.
Well thats all i got. I hope you liked it. GOODNIGHT. :)
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