-=> On 02-18-98  08:25, Mike Angwin did testify and affirm <=-
-=> to Robert Plett concerning Re: useless test? <=-
 MA> And schools, in those days, did a relatively good job
 MA> compared to the schools of today. Yet we all the time that
 MA> the failures of public education are not a product of
 MA> centralization,
Studies show that smaller classes result in better
learning. So where are the benefits of centralization? 
 MA> or of administration,
Check the ratio of administrator::teacher::student in 1945
as opposed to 1995.
 MA> or of educators,
Women's lib is a culprit here. Prior to 1945, almost
exclusively, and, prior to 1960, commonly, only three
occupations were open to the brightest of women: nursing,
teaching and secretarial labor. Teachers, primarily women,
were among the most intelligent and dedicated of the
population. Today, education and psych majors carry the
lowest SAT's and ACT's among college majors. 
 MA> or of union influences,
Opposition to teacher testing and insistence upon tenure.
 MA> or of esoteric learning systems.
New math, whole math, whole word reading, etc.
If any hospital offered treatment as untried and untested
as most education curricula, the physicians would be
branded as quacks and buried by a blizzard of malpractice
suits.
 MA> The failures, we are told, are because of parents. 
A self-fulfilling prophecy: parents are rebuffed as
ignorant and interfering. Then, when parents give up in
despair, they're branded as apathetic and nonparticipatory. 
 MA> We pay more than we have ever paid,
With almost a negative correlation between dollars and SAT
scores.
 MA> we send our children to school more days than they have
 MA> ever gone,
With shorter school day - a larger amount of which is spent
on extraneous fluff.
 MA> we spend more hours working with them on homework than ever
 MA> before,
Only because you have to do the _teaching_ the teachers
aren't doing.
 MA> and we darn sure fill out more forms and paperwork than any
 MA> generation before us, but despite all of this, it's parents
 MA> that are why Johnny can't read.
Actually, reading *is* a parental responsibility. Children
who are read to, and with, learn to read before entering
school. 
 MA> Sooner or later people are going to have to realize that
 MA> socialized education is failing because it's socialized.
 MA> It's that simple. 
One characteristic of socialism is "one size fits all" -
also known as the lowest common denominator. 
... The other line always moves faster. -- Ettore's Law
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