Pioneer Institute is a Massachusetts research organization that turned its attention to Common Core to analyze the impact that program has on the quality of education for K-12.
See the 60-page write-up at http://pioneerinstitute.org/common_core/study-finds-common-core-incompatible-catholic-education/
The findings are not flattering. And the insights are equally application for all students, not just Bay Staters.
Literature
* Study of literature, drama, and poetry are quantitatively reduced by more than half.
* Great literature, when it is included, is merely excerpted.
Math
* The math standards don't prepare students for college-level coursework in science,
engineering, and math.
* Good for community-college-level work.
The focus of Common Core is on elementary workforce preparation. Instead of reading about humans to learn about life, students now read a user manual. The curriculum's "informational texts" are a vocational ed formula for producing not just trained workers, but androids - or cyborgs, depending on your genre. The approach is "common" in the pedestrian sense.
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Friday, October 14, 2016
Monday, May 28, 2012
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Growth of Catholicism in Atlanta
Candlemas
Source
A key take-away from the AJC article above is not about the need for Catholic schools, but the growing number of Catholics in the region.
From the article: "A decade ago there were about 311,000 Catholics in the metro Atlanta area, according to the Archdiocese of Atlanta, now there are about 850,000."
Georgia is still Southern Baptist country, but Catholics now outnumber all the other Protestant denominations besides Baptist: Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, etc.
Source
A key take-away from the AJC article above is not about the need for Catholic schools, but the growing number of Catholics in the region.
From the article: "A decade ago there were about 311,000 Catholics in the metro Atlanta area, according to the Archdiocese of Atlanta, now there are about 850,000."
Georgia is still Southern Baptist country, but Catholics now outnumber all the other Protestant denominations besides Baptist: Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, etc.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Education, Reich Style
Source
In this post I wrote, "The education of children...is chiefly the responsibility of the parents. If the state ever tried to usurp that roll and mandate certain schooling in spite of the parents' desires -- like Robert Reich has done -- I'd vote against that candidate too." I based my remark on Reich's comments made on an NPR broadcast several years ago.
Reich's dream has now become reality in Salzkotten, Germany, where parents are being jailed for refusing to allow the state school to educate their children in objectionable ways. The subject is sex education, and in Germany the instruction is explicit and involves play-acting classes. Said issue is one of the major reasons why German families choose to homeschool their children; homeschooling, however, has been outlawed in Germany since the fall of the Third Reich. Parents are being punished for their non-compliance with the regime.
Reflection: A world based on secular values will inevitably become depraved because there is no religion to counteract the corruption. Owing to this depravity, moderns hate innocence and purity, which is why they also hate children (i.e. the epitome of purity by way of innocence) and want to remove or minimize them, whether by preventing their birth through contraception, aborting them, or perverting and contaminating their innocent minds with warped ideas.
In this post I wrote, "The education of children...is chiefly the responsibility of the parents. If the state ever tried to usurp that roll and mandate certain schooling in spite of the parents' desires -- like Robert Reich has done -- I'd vote against that candidate too." I based my remark on Reich's comments made on an NPR broadcast several years ago.
Reich's dream has now become reality in Salzkotten, Germany, where parents are being jailed for refusing to allow the state school to educate their children in objectionable ways. The subject is sex education, and in Germany the instruction is explicit and involves play-acting classes. Said issue is one of the major reasons why German families choose to homeschool their children; homeschooling, however, has been outlawed in Germany since the fall of the Third Reich. Parents are being punished for their non-compliance with the regime.
Reflection: A world based on secular values will inevitably become depraved because there is no religion to counteract the corruption. Owing to this depravity, moderns hate innocence and purity, which is why they also hate children (i.e. the epitome of purity by way of innocence) and want to remove or minimize them, whether by preventing their birth through contraception, aborting them, or perverting and contaminating their innocent minds with warped ideas.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Letter #1: School Vouchers
A local newspaper bills itself as a conservative alternative to the AJC. At times it succeeds.
In February of 2007 the paper published an op-ed piece about school vouchers. I wrote a response, which was published the next week.
Here are links to the originals:
* Original Article: p. 35 of http://beaconcast.com/downloads/20070703
* My Response: p. 37 of http://beaconcast.com/downloads/20070703_1
Below is my letter.
=======
Editor: School Vouchers
Parents require viable means of caring for their children, and it is one of the primary duties of government to assist them in this endeavor.
In a world of complex social interactions, mobile widespread populations, rapidly-changing moral developments, and international governance, trade, and ecological considerations, it is crucial to have solid knowledge, skills, and criteria for evaluating and understanding different cultural dispositions so as to arrive at sound intellectual and moral conclusions.
The best way, I think, of educating anyone in how to reach this goal is to form in them a concrete understanding that acknowledges the unchanging aspects and needs of human nature and the role of family, country, faith, and other inherently binding factors.
For this reason I read with abhorrence the Davis and LoBracco op-ed supporting current notions of diversity in the schools and advocating secular schooling; also troubling was the favorable mention of Bob Chase and the NEA, who have a reputation for putting the needs of teachers ahead of the needs of children.
A school environment is not sufficiently diverse when it obliterates the integrity of diverse groups and replaces them with a static, egalitarian, collectivist, homogenized alternative that promiscuously draws on incongruous sources. A classroom is less intellectually diverse, not more, when disparate elements are presented side by side and trusting students are told to accept on blind faith the dogma that one option is just as good as the other, and that what separates them are just accidental subjective points of view.
At times different views simply cannot be reconciled: one position or another must be chosen, and there cannot be even tolerance of its opposite. Will a monogamist sell his daughter to a polygamist? When the state-run school is obligatory and lack of financial resources precludes the possibility of an alternative educational environment, the monogamist will be forced to consider it – an act of violence against that person’s nature, and a degradation of what that individual holds dear.
Teach a variety of politics, literature, art, music, histories, culture, religions, philosophies, and economics. More importantly, teach how to judge between them using criteria that are not clichéd expedients for a dehumanized state.
In February of 2007 the paper published an op-ed piece about school vouchers. I wrote a response, which was published the next week.
Here are links to the originals:
* Original Article: p. 35 of http://beaconcast.com/downloads/20070703
* My Response: p. 37 of http://beaconcast.com/downloads/20070703_1
Below is my letter.
=======
Editor: School Vouchers
Parents require viable means of caring for their children, and it is one of the primary duties of government to assist them in this endeavor.
In a world of complex social interactions, mobile widespread populations, rapidly-changing moral developments, and international governance, trade, and ecological considerations, it is crucial to have solid knowledge, skills, and criteria for evaluating and understanding different cultural dispositions so as to arrive at sound intellectual and moral conclusions.
The best way, I think, of educating anyone in how to reach this goal is to form in them a concrete understanding that acknowledges the unchanging aspects and needs of human nature and the role of family, country, faith, and other inherently binding factors.
For this reason I read with abhorrence the Davis and LoBracco op-ed supporting current notions of diversity in the schools and advocating secular schooling; also troubling was the favorable mention of Bob Chase and the NEA, who have a reputation for putting the needs of teachers ahead of the needs of children.
A school environment is not sufficiently diverse when it obliterates the integrity of diverse groups and replaces them with a static, egalitarian, collectivist, homogenized alternative that promiscuously draws on incongruous sources. A classroom is less intellectually diverse, not more, when disparate elements are presented side by side and trusting students are told to accept on blind faith the dogma that one option is just as good as the other, and that what separates them are just accidental subjective points of view.
At times different views simply cannot be reconciled: one position or another must be chosen, and there cannot be even tolerance of its opposite. Will a monogamist sell his daughter to a polygamist? When the state-run school is obligatory and lack of financial resources precludes the possibility of an alternative educational environment, the monogamist will be forced to consider it – an act of violence against that person’s nature, and a degradation of what that individual holds dear.
Teach a variety of politics, literature, art, music, histories, culture, religions, philosophies, and economics. More importantly, teach how to judge between them using criteria that are not clichéd expedients for a dehumanized state.
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