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Troy
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Votes: 0 | | Posted on Friday, February 07, 2003 - 09:02 pm: | |
Cynique I agree with your post (February 06, 2003 - 11:28 am) almost 100% percent, you were actully sounding like (dare I say it) like T. Sowell. Chris I hope Cynique does not get you steamed.
How many examples do we have of rewarding people for irresponsible behavior. If a kid flunks a course in NYC. The Board of Ed here will provide, night school, summer school, School after school, many opportunities to retake a course. As a result, failing a class reaps less of s consequences because there are many opportunities to make it up. One might agrue that we are providing more opportunities for success. I suggest that we are reducing the consequences of failing a course.
This saps a tremndous amount of financial resources providing education in the fashion -- get rid of all the PM, summer and night classes and you could probably afford to double the teachers salaries -- which are simply to low to attract the best teachers.
Similliarly someone had the bright idea that it is a good thing to mix student of varying abilities in the same classes; rather than group them based upon ability. The rationale was the brighter kids would help the slower kids do better. Ask any teacher how this works in practice and the vast majority will say it is a horrendous idea.
It only takes a 1 or 2 bad kids to disrupt the learning process. The slower kids demand more resource from the teacher and the bright kids suffer. Those bright kids are typically our kids.
So when the Board of Ed in NY with a budget of $12.36 Billion claims that is not enough it is hard tough to be simpathetic when you see so much waste and corruption...
...wait a minute I'm on a soap box. We are supposed to be discussing books...
I guess we are done with Sowell, except for when Chris comes back and tells us how much he appreicates Sowells insight after expanding his exposure beyond the Sowell's editorials.
OK, this month we will be discussing Walter Mosley's What Next: A Memoir Toward World Peace. Actually let me start a new Thread...
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