While some 'standards' have to be set, having a single test that determines
competency is just an artificial metric.

Here in Kentucky, schools treat the KATS (our federally mandated student
achievement test) as the LIMIT of what they MUST teach, not the MINIMUM
standard they must meet.  This has lead to music, art, physical education,
and "advanced" science and math coursework being cut to free up more time
and money to teach "THE ROCKS" to pass the test. I DO NOT believe in "NO
CHILD LEFT BEHIND" because it means the "FAST KIDS" must "RUN SLOWER" so the
REALLY SLOW ones can keep up. Sorry, but SOME kids are just REALLY STUPID
and will not excel.  Those are the ones who get jobs as janitors, food
service workers, marketing executives, and politicians. (*High school
guidance counselors should take the dumb kids aside and explain the perks
and pitfalls of running for elected office.  Those with scruples can always
pick cleaning and cooking as a career.*)

 When my daughter finished kindergarten, she was reading on a 3rd grade
level thanks to a VERY talented kindergarten teacher. Most of the other
students were also. The problem is: the new 'standards' say she shouldn't be
reading in kindergarten and shouldn't be reading at 3rd grad level until 3rd
grade.  The teacher is no longer allowed to teach any of her students to be
so far ahead of the curve.  The teacher has told us she is taking early
retirement as soon as she's allowed.

Several months back I read in COMPUTERWORLD's Shark Tank column of a company
that judged who got raises (and who got laid off) by the number of critical
help desk cases closed.  Network services found no one was getting raises
and their jobs were in danger of being cut--because there were no
outages--therefore no "Critical" help desk cases to be closed. In response,
they began a policy randomly unplugging routers to generate "critical"
tickets.  The next year, they got the maximum raise possible--for what were
essentially random acts of vandalism.  My point is; artificial metrics DO
NOT give REAL RESULTS.



-----Original Message-----
From: Gary Nolan [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2004 1:58 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] OT: Outsourced humor


Wirt,

It is funny that you should single out education. In Nova Scotia all of the
students in grade 12 are required to write a provincial standard math exam.
In yesterday's news it was reported that 75% of the students failed. Do you
blame it on the students, parents, curriculum,  teachers, the school
administration, or the test. I have my own ideas the press and the public
have others.


Gary Nolan
----- Original Message -----
From: "Wirt Atmar" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2004 12:55 PM
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] OT: Outsourced humor


> Scott writes:
>
> > Two programmers in China, who were leased to an American company,
> > were  wearily walking home in the dark after their 16 hour shift.
> >
> >  As he opens the door of his tiny home, one says halfheartedly, "Oh.
Well.
> >  Another day, another dollar."
> >
> >  "When did you get a RAISE?!" the other jealously snapped.
>
> While it's good to make jokes, the other side of the coin is that if
> you
want
> to be competitive, you've first got to be competitive. I've enclosed
> below
an
> editorial from today's NY Times by Nicholas Kristoff that I very much
agree
> with.
>
> For thirty years now, educational standards in the United States have
> been dropping while they've been rising significantly in the rest of
> the
world -- and
> if anything, US standards have dropped especially precipitously in the
last
> decade. You can get a sense of that decline just from the comments of
people on
> this list, where they would prefer to inculcate their children in
> their
own
> peculiar religious mythologies than educate them in the hard sciences.
> In
an
> open and free world, jobs should flow to the best educated people who
> will
work
> at the lowest wages. Indeed, the process underway now is exactly how
> it
should
> work -- and it benefits us all in the end.
>
> If you really want to reverse the flow of jobs, you -- but especially
> your children -- must opt to take the hard classes in school,
> diligently work
to
> understand the world as it really is, and travel as much as you can
afford. There
> is an infinity of opportunities out there for anyone with the smallest
sense
> of vision and imagination.
>
> Wirt Atmar
>
> =======================================
>
> February 11, 2004
> OP-ED COLUMNIST
> Watching the Jobs Go By
> By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
>
> To be permitted to read the rest of this column, you must first *click
here*
> and answer the question correctly:
>
> [The question was a relatively simple calculus problem, the indefinite
> integration of the quantity (x - 1)^2 dx. Five answers were provided.
> Your
task was
> to choose the right one. Using substitution of variables, letting u =
> (x - 1)^2, you can do the problem in your head without writing it
> down.]
>
> Go on, try it. After all, 83 percent of Japanese high school seniors
> got
it
> right (though only 30 percent of American seniors). The correct answer
> is
(c).
> If you answered incorrectly, though, keep reading -- think of it as a
social
> promotion.
>
> The topic today is the growing furor over the outsourcing of jobs to
India --
> and, more broadly, educational lapses here. One reason for the jobless
> recovery in the U.S. is that it doesn't make much sense to have an
American
> radiologist, say, examine your X-ray when it can be done so much more
cheaply in New
> Delhi.
>
> Indeed, why should computer software be written, taxes prepared,
> pathology specimens examined, financial analysis done or homework
> graded in the
U.S., when
> all of that can be done more cheaply in Bangalore? I.B.M. is moving
thousands
> of jobs to India and China, and Reuters says it will have Indian
> reporters cover some U.S. companies from there.
>
> All this is unsettling. But to me the alarm seems overwrought -- and
> dangerous, for it is likely to fuel calls for protectionism. A dozen
> years
ago, there
> was a similar panic about high-tech jobs going abroad, and people said
that
> Asia would be making computer chips while Americans produced potato
> chips.
>
> Instead, free trade worked. Some autoworkers lost their jobs, but
> America emerged stronger than ever. Studies by Catherine Mann of the
> Institute for International Economics suggest that it is the same this
> time. Outsourcing
raises
> American productivity, gives our economy a boost, increases foreign
> demand
for
> U.S. products and leaves us better off.
>
> Yet, as an Indian friend, Sunil Subbakrishna, pointed out to me, there
> is
one
> step we should take in response to this wave of outsourcing: bolster
> our second-rate education system.
>
> Mr. Subbakrishna, a management consultant specializing in technology,
notes
> that in his native Bangalore, children learn algebra in elementary
> school.
All
> in all, he says, the average upper-middle-class child in Bangalore
finishes
> elementary school with a better grounding in math and science than the
average
> kid in the U.S.
>
> I saw the same thing when I lived in China and interviewed college
applicants
> there. The SAT wasn't offered in China, so Chinese high school
> students
took
> the Graduate Record Examinations -- intended for would-be graduate
students --
> and many still scored in the 99th percentile in math.
>
> The latest international survey, called Trends in International
Mathematics
> and Science Study, found that the best-performing eighth graders were,
> in order, from Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan,
> Belgium and
the
> Netherlands. The U.S. ranked 19th, just after Latvia. (India and China
weren't
> surveyed.)
>
> "For too many graduates, the American high school diploma signifies
> only a broken promise," declares a major new study released yesterday
> by three education policy organizations. Called the American Diploma
> Project, it
found that 60
> percent of employers rated graduates' skills as only "fair" or "poor."
>
> The broader problem is not just in schools but society as a whole:
> There's
a
> tendency in U.S. intellectual circles to value the humanities but not
> the sciences. Anyone who doesn't nod sagely at the mention of Plato's
> cave is dismissed as barely civilized, while it's no blemish to be
> ignorant of
statistics,
> probability and genetics. If we're going to revere Plato, as we
> should, we
should
> also remember that his academy supposedly had a sign at the entrance:
> "Let
no
> one ignorant of geometry enter here."
>
> In 1957, the Soviet launching of Sputnik frightened America into
> substantially improving math and science education. I'm hoping that
> the
loss of jobs in
> medicine and computers to India and elsewhere will again jolt us into
bolstering
> our own teaching of math and science.
>
> ========================================
>
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