Monday, November 21, 2005

I'm with Jay Greene

Jay Greene has it right. He's quoted in the KnoxNews today. According to the paper:

State officials are considering a tiered system of high school diplomas that would help lower-achieving students graduate and could boost the state's graduation rate.

and so Jay says:

"A high school diploma is a symbol that represents skills that students acquire," Greene said. "Lowering the standards to acquire pieces of paper with new names does nothing to improve skills and may mislead people about what a diploma represents."
This is, as Rush would say, symbolism over substance. If we can't actually teach them the basic skills let's just move the goal posts and call it a score. No. No way. That's not what I'm paying taxes for. Stop right there and figure out why these children aren't achieving. Change your teaching methods...don't change the goal. Call Chester County, they've got some suggestions that work.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I heard that a private school in Nashville (I won't say the name, but it's letters are MBA) recently had some trouble with what are called "flesh piles." It seems that many students would randomly choose one to "pile-on." The administration became concerned about the effect of many students jumping on another. The result...they changed the name from "flesh piles" to "friendship piles." Either way, someone is getting crushed.