sup_rbeast

They don’t have exactly grade teachers on the SOL grades of their students, but they do tend to laud teachers who consistently have high SOL scores. That, in itself is a problem because some teachers always seem to get the more motivated students while others tend to get most of the kids who really don’t care one way or the other about their grades. The importance of SOLs has waned over the past decade or so, and good riddance. All SOLs did was take a dynamic teacher and turn him or her into a “bullet point machine”, especially in history and science. They teach the facts and dates, but don’t connect the dots between them. It leads to students memorizing a list of facts that they forget within a year, because they aren’t learning, they are memorizing. Then, in lower grades where they should be memorizing things like multiplication tables, they are just using calculators. Haha…it’s a damn mess.

The DOE is good to ensure that under-represented groups have equal access to education, but not much besides that. IMO you don’t need an entire governmental department to make that happen.

Preach!

GPAs are artificially high. AP and dual enrollment classes are weighted too heavily…much more heavily than they were 20+ years ago. Combine that with lower expectations, and it explains the reasons kids can have high GPAs and graduate lacking life skills. I’ve worked in education for more than a quarter century and over that time politicians have had more and more say in curriculum and the result has been graduates who struggle to succeed after high school. You wouldn’t believe the number of kids who I’ve had to teach to sign their names, and I teach high school aged kids (none of these kids have I had in class, but in my current job I work with kids from all over the county). Many graduate and still can’t sign their names. There are many reasons for the current state of affairs, but I’ve covered the most of them in two posts. I liken the inflated GPAs to a sports team being 10-0 but their opponents having a combined record of 30-70 haha…it’s the same concept.

I’ve seen 27 consecutive classes of kids come and go, and I can assure you that critical thinking skills are lower now than they’ve ever been in those 27 years. It seems that around 2010 is when it really started going downhill, and that happens to coincide with the same time frame that Facebook went from the edu domain into the public domain. Make of that what you will.

That’s basically me now. Can’t go back and change the past, but you can recognize things you did wrong, own up, and do better.

I’m trying to do the same…you have to think, that was 20 years ago.

Mine wasn’t a religious thing or anything like that…I’m just at the age where my kids are grown and sometimes I just l look back at how I used to be and think I need to set some things right…and I’ve been doing that for a while now haha. But, anyway, you were a person I felt I owed an apology because I rode you pretty hard at times back then, and sorry about your mom. That was a fun forum, though.

BTW, I’ve turned over a new leaf as I’ve gotten older and wiser…and I owe you an apology for giving you hell and constantly calling you “Indian Dud” way back on the LPD forum. Figured I’d just get that out there and out of the way. I was a pretty wild feller back then.

When it happens you won’t see it coming…but it may very well happen this week. I’m old enough to remember TW’s nearly 5 season wait to win their first game…they’ve come a long way. I pull for them to do well.

By the 4th quarter last year TW wasn’t intimidated…they nearly won. That said, the injuries that occurred in that single game decimated both squads for the rest of the year.

It’s easy to say that, but if you were in the position of the person that happened to, you’d might then realize what you are actually up against…especially in a Special Ed setting where nothing is ever “normal”. I think that’s the thing…it’s really easy to say I would do this or I would do that, but in the heat of the moment, you don’t really know what you would do. Until you are ever in a situation, or see a situation, you can’t say for sure what you’d do. You may stomp your feet and swear up and down you know what you’d do, but more than likely, you don’t.

You know the answer to that without twisting my words. I doubt over reporting is the problem anywhere, including Wise County. But, if you think that is something that is unique to Wise County, think again. Thing is, I don’t live in Wise County and haven’t in years, so I wouldn’t know either way…but I won’t pretend that I do, either.

In an ideal situation, all of that would seem and be “right”. But, let’s say you were doing your job as you were trained to do and someone reports you for something they didn’t think was right. And let’s say they do an investigation and CPS decides that the way you went about that particular situation turns out to be “founded” even though you followed your training, and you lose your job. That happened in a local school system this year. Until you see in action what the letter of the law is, it’s hard to comprehend how poorly that law is written…or the impossibility of knowing for sure what should be reported because once a report is made, it can’t be taken back. People who don’t work in the system tend to have a black and white view of all of this, but the reality is there is rarely black and white. It’s usually grey.

I know what the law is, but you’re missing what I’m saying. If every incident a person “thought” was suspicious was reported, there would be reports everyday because not everyone has the same standard for “suspicious”. And trust me, if you are going to report a person you had better be on the mark. You have to think how hard it took you to get where you have and think “If someone saw me doing the same thing I saw, do I feel they should report me?” If you answer yes to that, then you report. If the answer is no, then it doesn’t rise to the level and you move on.