How Do You Feel About Arne Duncan/President Obama's Education Policy?

[Dinger]

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being "perfect," and 1 being "worthless."




*Posted this in GD.

[msongs]

1. follow the $$ will pretty much explain it all nt

[MannyGoldstein]

2. Zero evidence that it will work, AFAIK

Much better off to study the educational systems in states that work, and copy that. Mass. scores the best in the US in primary- and secondary-school standardized testing, and if it was a country would be something like third in the world. Why not copy what Mass does successfully rather than forcing a huge and untested experiment?

[Art_from_Ark]

3. Far too much emphasis is placed on standardized test scores

Different kids have different talents, and many of those talents, like art and music, cannot be measured quantitatively. Also, different kids develop at different paces.

[txlibdem]

11. Bravo Art

You're absolutely right! Not only do kids have talents that need to be nurtured and valued but our current methods of teaching do not help every child learn.

According to the latest findings by several leading psychologists, there are seven specific types of learning styles. This means that in order to maximize learning advantages, you must define the type of learner that you have, and cater the lesson to that particular learning style.
http://www.lessontutor.com/sm1.html

This site seems to focus on early child education. Follow the link if you'd like more information about the 7 types of learner they describe. Or google it.

Seven seems excessive to many experts in the field, who narrow it down to three: visual, auditory and kinesthetic (interactive or body) learners.

Since there is only one teacher per classroom of 30 to 40 kids there is no possibility of tailoring the lessons to each child's best learning method. If your child is lucky enough to be the type that absorbs info the same way that particular teacher presents it then he or she gets an "A" but if not... Stamping a potentially bright kid with a "C" or "D" because our educational system is too rigid is a waste of talent that this country cannot afford. We need more creative types, not fewer.

Cancel school sports entirely and use those funds for a variety of fitness classes for all students: pilates, jazzercise, aerobics, dance class, etc. We are wasting so much time and money on sports, which is only a subsidy to the money making college and pro teams (and the sponsors) anyway. Here in Texas parents have their kids so busy with sports I can't imagine they have a minute to spare for just being a kid.

Bring back the arts, music, poetry and creative writing classes. Offer comparative religion classes and begin teaching statistics in 8th grade to teach kids that studies, polls and research reports can be skewed any way someone wants.

[femmocrat]

4. I would have voted "zero" if that had been an option.

They are such a ginormous disappointment. We had such high hopes for Obama-- Remember when he was going to repair the school buildings, re-vamp NCLB, put more emphasis on the arts, use stimulus money to retain teachers.... ?

How did it all go so wrong?

[LWolf]

5. One. But you knew that.

;)

[Catshrink]

6. I'll bet we can guess who chose "10."

[Smarmie Doofus]

7. Amazingly... no, *shockingly* irresponsible and utterly clueless.

In England the ruling class used to content itself with fox hunts, cricket and the like.

Here it wishes to "reform" public education. Good god.
.
Obama is embarrassing himself on this issue.

[Lifelong Protester]

8. Arne was the MOST disappointing appointment, IMHO

and that was my opening opinion of him. He has not let me down, he is BAD NEWS. I have stated repeatedly that I do not think that this whole charade of "competitive grants" in RTTT is giving children a free and appropriate public education. It is based on giving money to states who are willing to bust unions and give in to some meaningless nonsense supposedly to be found in standardized test scores.


I am sorely disappointed in the trend for public education under this president. Sorry, but we got NO change here, just more of the same.

Wouldn't want teachers to be solid middle class, would we? Let's bust 'em down to slave wages, that'll improve 'test scores'.

Don't get me started......

[bvar22]

9. The current Education Policy is a lesson in..

Sensible Pragmatism.
They should be able to get a political WIN out of this,
AND they can call it "Historic".

What else is there? :shrug:

[inna]

10. I voted 1, but I believe it's actually detrimental, which is worse than "worthless". nt

[4_TN_TITANS]

12. Duncan has been an utter failure...

So many of Obama's appointments have been people intricately woven into their respective 'industries'. Why someone like Reg Weaver (former head of the NEA) wasn't even mentioned over Arne blows the mind. PUT A FREAKIN EDUCATOR over the Dept of Education.... Someone with years of classroom experience who knows what the fuck they are dealing with.

Duncan was an obvious crony appointment.

The wife's a 16 yr. veteran teacher, I could rattle on about this topic for days....

[MichiganVote]

13. So long as any federal policy or politician or president refers to teachers as "broken",

"ineffective", "terrorists", "selfish", "bad", "unionized", "disorganized" and so on and so forth, I fail to see why any child would be interested in what teachers have to teach.

Lack of respect is not an educational policy. I resent politicians and Obama in particular for not recognizing the stalwart service that teachers provide to the youth in this country. He may be the commander in chief of the military but when it comes to education he has proven himself to be the chief thief of children's educational morals toward adults.

How the hell can any politician criticize teachers when these Washington bastards have left the entire fucking country behind by not doing THEIR jobs? Bringing out the monkey on a string Bills Gates who knows absolutely not a goddamn thing about public education is the last straw.

Get a fucking clue parents---none of these politicians or very damn few send their kids to a public school including your own president. So what the hell do they know?