Tipline: DE Students Fail While Woodruff Passes (the buck)
Buried in the NJ today is a piece about dropout rates, and at the bottom of that is a note about the state board of education pushing off the implementation of one of the new graduation requirements, that all students must have two years of foreign language to graduate by 2013.
That will now be by 2015, and it is being blamed on not being able to find teachers to fill those spots. Basically they are relegating two more years of high school graduates to standards that don’t meet college entrance requirements for any decent school because they do not want to find ways to find those teachers. Its easier for Sec. Woodruff to pass the buck then to find ways to meet the needs of students.
It’s about no money! If public education takes a 10% cut it would equal 120 million dollars.
Also think about this , if studens can’t meet the bar now would adding more credit requirments cause a larger dropout rate?
Can’t find teachers to teach Spanish ?
The LEAD committee says there is 152 million + – is waste in the current public education expenditures! Went to Markell’s meeting and his is on the money about reducing waste before asking taxpayers for more money!
DSTP will be revised to a cheaper test saving millions
I think we can forget about new money coming into the system for the next three years. So its time purge the waste “and” full finanical transparency of public education
The educational establishment would have us believe that simplistic criteria such as student-teacher ratios and per-pupil expenditures would assure the highest quality of education. By such criteria, the public schools of the District of Columbia should be among the best in the Nation and Delaware’s should be not that far behind.
Is it possible that trendiness and techno-gimmicks are not the answer and that methodology-based credentialism is not working in behalf of the students?
How many tax dollars are being poured down gold-plated bureaucratic ratholes compared to the money being actually spent in the classrooms?
Remember when phonics was dumped in favor of the trendy ‘whole language’ approach? What was the great advantage of the ‘open classroom’? Does grade inflation and the doling out of ‘self esteem’ really make for better and more productive citizens?
Perhaps we should return to a more enlightened past when education was more knowledge based.
How many high school teachers could pass the tests that graduating seniors are obliged to take?
Efficient financing is one thing, flexibility to use those resources is another entirely. Maybe we can find a way to free up the money to pay for those Spanish teachers, or math, science, and special education teachers for that matter, but that doesn’t mean we will have good quality people filling those spots. Why would the best and brightest math, science, bilingual, etc people go into teaching when they will be put into a system that is designed to promote mediocrity and where their administrators have no ability to compensate them based on how well they do their job. We will continue to have trouble finding people to fill these type of teaching spots until we have the flexibility to pay these people what they are worth as individuals.