Obama enlists governors to raise the education bar

Obviously she has a 'good education'
Sarkosy seems to agree

But seriously, folks.

I've seen this problem in the US as well as other countries. When 'standards' and 'measures' based on standardized tests are instituted, its impossible to prevent educators from teaching to those standards/measures. To hell with giving the best education possible to the fucking students. Just make sure they can pass the tests [ed- this is no knock on educators, merely reality/human nature/coercion/politics].

A far better measure IMHO is future success. If one high school turns out students who graduate college at a rate of 30% which formerly never exceeded 27%, they have succeeded. It matters not if they exceed the rate of another high school. They have improved. That should be the yardstick.

Accepted: This ain't gonna be easy. It requires analysis of why some didn't graduate. Family problems and such come into play. Then there are the finances. Don't forget lack of interest. But in this age of omniscient, high speed computers it should be easy to parse such data. Just turn them nerds loose on the data.

If academic success is the goal. Measure the fucking academic success down-road and not the God damn current test results.

President Barack Obama wants academic standards for America's high school students raised, and he's applauding a program from the nation's governors that works toward those goals.

In a statement issued Sunday, the White House said the initiative will develop and implement new reading and math standards that prepare high school students for college and careers. The governors will call on Obama on Monday, as they wrap up their National Governor's Association meeting, to discuss the blueprint to prepare students to stay competitive with their counterparts around the world.

"Because too many students are not learning the basic skills needed to succeed in college or work while they are in high school," the White House said in the statement, "the nation sacrifices more than $3.7 billion a year in lost productivity and remedial education costs."

The White House said the governors have been working on the president's Race to the Top program, which rewards school systems that raise standards and demonstrate that through tougher student assessments.

The obvious problem with this approach is a lack of semi-instant gratification. But sometimes patience really is a virtue. We're talking long term here anyway and not next quarter thinking. Schools should be evaluated on how well the students perform later.

Isn't that how you were evaluated after graduating? Your performance dictated your pay/promotions? I'm excluding job politics here, of course, along with your personal hygiene and any proclivity for farm animals.

Can you tell me where your doctor stood in her/his graduating class? Hell no. Is he/she a good doctor? Do you have a fucking clue how your doctor performed on 'standardized' high school tests? Hell no. Do you trust your doctor with your life and has your trust been vindicated? In other words, are you alive and relatively healthy?

Leave them kids (and teachers) alone (for now). Give them a chance to prove themselves.

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Note: Headline links to source.

For students

GrAdeSaver.

Beats the hell out of CliffsNotes® which are quite good.

Education

Updates below.

I'm here for ya.

I was gonna post about the cyclone heading toward Bangladesh, but was just too damn lazy.

Ya never know with Mother Nature. She can be benevolent or a veritable hellion.

Headline: Powerful cyclone kills 242 in Bangladesh

UPDATE: I had others, but lost them to Blogger. This will be my last because its too disheartening. Up to 15,000 people were killed and seven million lives left devastated by the cyclone in Bangladesh last week, aid agencies have said as the full extent of the disaster became clear.

UPDATE: I think I'm gonna backpedal on this. All other reports I'm finding say the death toll is 2,400 to 3,000 maximum We'll just have to wait and see. I hope the lower numbers are correct.

The loss of life is truly ghastly. I would never have guessed the carnage would be so severe. I naïvely thought people would seek safe shelter. Then we come to the next story.

A huge earthquake hit Chile.

Headline: Quake kills 2, damages homes in Chile

Mother can surprise you.

OK, here's the education part of this fucking post. My mind is so full of trivia, facts, useless knowledge I need to spit some of it out now and then to make room for more trivia, facts and useless knowledge.

Let us start with a Richter Scale 3 earthquake which is just a damn annoyance to people on the west coast of the US. From there, things get really hairy.

The quake in Chile was 7.7 magnitude. Bear with me. This will floor you:

The magnitude of most earthquakes is measured on the Richter scale, invented by Charles F. Richter in 1934. The Richter magnitude is calculated from the amplitude of the largest seismic wave recorded for the earthquake, no matter what type of wave was the strongest.

The Richter magnitudes are based on a logarithmic scale (base 10). What this means is that for each whole number you go up on the Richter scale, the amplitude of the ground motion recorded by a seismograph goes up ten times. Using this scale, a magnitude 5 earthquake would result in ten times the level of ground shaking as a magnitude 4 earthquake (and 32 times as much energy would be released). To give you an idea how these numbers can add up, think of it in terms of the energy released by explosives: a magnitude 1 seismic wave releases as much energy as blowing up 6 ounces of TNT. A magnitude 8 earthquake releases as much energy as detonating 6 million tons of TNT. Pretty impressive, huh? Fortunately, most of the earthquakes that occur each year are magnitude 2.5 or less, too small to be felt by most people.

So we're talking 10 times 3. Then 10 times 4. Then 10 times 5. Then 10 times 6 plus a few more points.

Folks, that's goddamn huge. Thank God only 2 died.

FYI: Indonesia had a quake of 8.5 magnitude. So did Sumatra. And Alaska.

Hey, that's nearly 10 times the destructive force of the Chile quake. And the list of 8+ magnitude earthquakes is almost endless

As you should know by now, don't fuck with Mother Nature. You will never win.

Whatever You Do, Don’t Eat the Chicken!

Some more mindless nonsense to amuse you.

I was gonna make some snide remark about the lack of proper education these days, but decided against it.

We've all made such silly mistakes. We think we hear one thing and we're wrong. For many years I was convinced my grade school teacher said the equator was an imaginary lion running around the middle of the earth. Having a vivid imagination as a child, this made perfect sense to me. I could picture that lion. A line would have been boring.

Via Neatorama.

Must read IMHO

This is sooooo good. Such incisive skewering of Bush and the US education system. Could I have done better I would, but I can't, so read Dennis.

He's also right about Lauren Caitlin. Cut her some slack.

Side note: In my image search, it seems most Ms Teen USA winners are blond. Coinkydink?

Via Dennis Perrin.

Is this why the US education system is failing the children?