Reply to "Teacher of the Year" quits over Common Core tests

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What they used to do is have kids repeat a grade if they were struggling to master the material.  [b]Then it was decided that this was somehow too cruel to kids.[/b]  Though, nobody seems to have figured out that it's even more cruel to kids to set them up for lifelong failure by not giving them a second chance to catch up, than it is to have them suffer the great indignity or whateverthefuck of having a second chance.  The bleeding hearts these days don't seem to even want to give kids a chance to catch up via reading labs, math labs, summer programs, lest it make them feel singled out and feel different than their peers.  Touchy-feely has pushed learning to the sidelines, IMHO.[/quote]

Actually it was decided (based on actual research) that retention did not improve academic performance but did increase the likelihood that the student would drop out of school.

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar08/vol65/num06/Grade-Retention.aspx[/quote]

Look, you're really not winning either way.

Given academics already went by the wayside when you started doing social promotion, what's the fucking difference whether a kid drops out of school in 10th grade versus stays through 12th and graduates, but really only got an 8th grade education because he fell behind, was lost/gave up long prior and was only carried along by the inertia of social promotion?  It's mostly already a sham at that point.  The only point seems to be to keep them off the street.  Used to be that if they dropped out early, at least they might find a job somewhere but even that's screwed at this point.
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With the high school diploma, you can get hired. As an eight-grade dropout, you are likely going to end up on the streets. But that seems to be what you prefer. [/quote]

But the problem is that employers, colleges, et cetera are becoming more and more aware that a high school diploma is now worth about the same as an eight grade dropout's education.  The diploma becomes devalued when schools are just handing them out rather than expecting kids to actually learn the material.  Which means, more and employers will insist on more substantial hiring criteria, whether that's seeing an associates' or a bachelors' degree instead - and voila, you've just shut a lot of kids, even the ones who did work hard and did master the high school material in order to get their diplomas, out of jobs that they might otherwise have gotten, while families struggle to pump money into a college system that's rapidly becoming just as bad as secondary education - though far more expensive.  The whole thing is like trying to build a house on quicksand.  Build whatever you like, but since the foundation isn't solid, everything that's built on it is just going to sink anyways.

That's why we need to shore up the foundations.  Everything else hangs on that.[/quote]

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