Reform K-12 has been blogging up a storm lately. Go forth and visit, if you haven't already. What follows are three postings of his that I've shamelessly cut and pasted for your enjoyment.
In my "inside scoop" on Harcourt Assessment, I pointed out that the four Harcourt summer fellows from 2003 all had Asian names. RK-12 dug up an essay by the legendary Fred on Everything entitled, "Johnny Can't Add--But Suresh Venktasubramanian Can". Fred, who's not known for subtlety, said the following about the ever-growing list of foreign researchers in the US:
Why are members of these very small groups doing so much of the important research for the United States? That's easy. They're smart, they go into the sciences, and they work hard. Potatoes are more mysterious. It's not affirmative action. They produce. The qualifications of these students can easily be checked. They have them. The question is not whether these groups perform, or why, but why the rest of us no longer do. What has happened? It is not an easy question, but a lot of it, I think, is the deliberate enstupidation of American education...
It appears that a few groups are keeping their standards up and the rest of us are drowning our children in self-indulgent social engineering, political correctness, and feel-good substitutes for learning.
I particularly like this comment:
It's not them. It's us. I've heard the phrase, "the Asian challenge to the West." I don't think so. When Sally Chen gets a doctorate in biochemistry, she's not challenging America. She's getting a doctorate in biochemistry. Those who study have no reason to apologize to those who don't.
This has resonance to me because I've heard that part of the problem with minority education in the US is due to the fact that those minority kids who are smart, and who work hard, are often ostracized and accused of "acting white." Although this is not a universally-accepted phenomenon, some researchers have concluded that minority students who do well are often taunted about "acting white", and even when it doesn't slow them down, it's still a crying shame. No kid should ever have to apologize for studying hard.
RK-12's conclusion is very concise, and apropos:
Kimberly Swygert says "America is a mecca for would-be psychometricians from around the world (the Netherlands is a close second)."
We'd opine that America is a mecca for any technical specialty. Legions of students cross the oceans to study at our universities, then either return home or stay here. Either way, someone in the world's rolling up their sleeves in the primary and secondary grades.
Let's roll up ours.
RK-12 also neatly skewers the ultra-liberal Amherst Regional High School, which voted down a student production of West Side Story, for fear of offending any Hispanic viewers, but which gave the thumbs up to a student production of The Vagina Monologues, which is sexually explicit by any definition. Guess the feelings of those of us who are offended by celebrations of statuatory rape don't matter.
Oh, and I love this RK-12 posting on "invented spelling," which is apparently edu-speak for "incorrect spellings."
In the United Kingdom, only 75% of 11-year olds passed the spelling, reading, and writing tests, and folks are becoming concerned. One area of interest is the fairly new national literacy strategy instituted recently, which reminds us of any number of top-down reforms here in the U.S. But should teachers toe the line?
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From the BBC article:
David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: "I think that, rather than concentrating on whether schools are actually slavishly following the literacy strategy, we want to make sure that teachers are doing what they were traditionally doing before the literacy strategy was ever invented - namely, making sure their children can spell properly before they leave primary school.
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(Emphasis ours.) Here in America, we have the "traditionalists"--who teach explicit phonics and actually correct students' spelling mistakes to ensure they become better spellers--and the Whole Language proponents, who say that phonics and spelling harm children in ways not fully understood (but they're working on it).
Thus was born "invented spelling," an enabling term for not correcting children's attempts at written language. When we say enabling, we mean the negative connotation, as in "Josh's coworkers covered for him at work, enabling him not to have to deal with his drinking problem."
Invented Spelling enables children not to deal with their spelling problems.
Posted by kswygert at January 21, 2004 09:15 PM