game day!
i forgot until i opened google news this morning that today is my favorite day of the year! the georgia-clemson game!!! er…i mean, the college board’s annual release of average SAT scores. the atlanta journal constitution, atlanta’s sorry excuse for a newspaper, offers this priceless assessment:
The good news? We’re still not last in the nation.
yes, indeedy. all those years of fighting with south carolina for who would occupy the honored 49th highest average SAT score slot, and now we’re in the enviable position of expanding our news reporting to include not just the georgia-clemson game, but a no-holds-barred free-for-all between georgia, florida, hawaii, pennsylvania and south carolina. (more…)
why would gen X teachers behave differently from gen Xers in other jobs?
over and over, articles like this one cite very real statistics that about one-third of new teachers leave the classroom within three years, and about half leave within five. okay, yes, this is problematic because in combination with the fact that most teachers’ retirement systems allow teachers to retire after 30 years without substantial incentives to stay longer (22 + 30 = 52), lots of teachers are leaving the classroom at both ends. attrition is something around 9 percent a year, and it has the potential to grow even larger.
now, don’t get me wrong, i know that teacher recruitment and retention is a major problem. but the assumption that young teachers are leaving because there is a problem with the education system seems really stupid considering that changing jobs every 2-4 years is a pretty defining characteristic of generation X in the workforce. (more…)
why lefties are wrong about no child left behind.
it’s about time for my quarterly blog post… 
i am currently reading my life in france, julia child’s lovely memoir of falling in love with france and french cuisine. i was surprised to find that julia had a realization unrelated to food at a dinner party talking with a man with whom she fervently disagreed politically. it sums up perfectly the frustration that i have with left-leaning folks and the public debate about the elementary and secondary education act of 2001, a.k.a. no child left behind.
julia wrote:
Under pressure…my “positions” on important questions…were revealed to be emotions masquerading as ideas. This would not do!
the same folks who claim to want to close the achievement gap for minority students, claim to want to end the vicious circle of poverty, claim to want all children to have the opportunity to attain an excellent education are also coming out in droves against no child left behind (NCLB), a law that changed the way most states evaluate their public education systems.
these folks, including many individuals that i adore and respect, need to get real, get informed and get rid of their emotions masquerading as ideas. (more…)
