November 29, 2007, - 9:44 am
Those ‘Mazin’ Publick Skools: U.S. Fourth Graders Are “Childz” Left Behind
By Debbie Schlussel
So much for President Bush’s so-called “No Child Left Behind Act.” Looks like he and his Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings focused so much on silly programs and meaningless benchmarks that fourth-graders around America were, indeed, left behind.
Test results from a global reading test show that U.S. fourth-graders have lost ground in literacy compared with children around the world. The students did about the same as they did in 2001, with no improvement over the six-year span, despite gazillions of dollars and “increased emphasis” on reading under the No Child bill.
More proof that George Bush’s Ted Kennedy-style spending on education gets Club Ted-style “results” (Kennedy was kicked out of Harvard for cheating). The “No Child” bill requires annual testing in reading, but, as always happens, teachers teach to the test, and their kids don’t really improve their reading skills. It’s a rote waste of time, as these results show after five years of the No Child boondoggle.
On the exam, America’s fourth-graders–while doing better than the international average–scored lower than their counterparts in ten countries, including Russia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Luxembourg, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, and three Canadian provinces: Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario. Previously, Russia, Hong Kong, and Singapore were behind the U.S. And, gee, they don’t have a “No Child Left Behind” bloating whale of a spending bill.
Maybe Margaret Spellings should spend a little time on the only “R” of “the three Rs” and less time appearing on televised game shows (“Jeopardy”–no surprise that she lost to “Lenny” from “Laverne & Shirley”), in White House videos with Barney the dog (for which her appropriately-named press person, Trey Ditto, sent me a ludicrous press release), and fighting for the Title IX rights of lesbian athletes to annihilate college football and formerly Olympic-medal-winning men’s swimming and diving.
More key data from the test:
* “Girls scored higher than boys in the United States and all other countries except for Luxembourg and Spain, where the boy-girl scores were the same.”
That means that, like the U.S., we’re seeing a trend in neglecting boys and promoting girls in education. We see it in college admissions–overwhelmingly female, declining male presence in college student bodies–again, overwhelmingly female, and many other areas of academia. But, hey, there’s no provision addressing that in the No Child bill. Maybe that’s a good thing, given the poor results of the program.
* “Background questionnaires administered to students, teachers and school administrators showed that the average years of experience for fourth-grade teachers in the United States decreased from 15 years to 12 years between 2001 and 2006. The international average was 17 years.”
No comment needed. We’re behind thanks to teachers unions and bloated Bushie bureaucrats (like Secretary Spellings).
* “Among jurisdictions that took the test in 2001 and 2006, scores improved in Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Italy, Russia, Singapore, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia.”
Hmmm . . . They improved, and we didn’t. What are they doing that we aren’t? I’d bet their education officials aren’t appearing in silly videos and on game shows, for starters.
Tags: Alberta, America, bloating, British Columbia, Debbie Schlussel So, football, George Bush, Germany, Harvard, Hungary, Italy, Jeopardy, Lenny, Luxembourg, Margaret Spellings, Olympic, Ontario, President, Russia, Secretary, Secretary of Education, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, swimming, Ted Kennedy-style, Trey Ditto, United States, White House
Number 1, the Department of Education (Jimmah Carter’s baby) needs to be abolished.
Number 2, give us school choice and break the government monopoly.
lexi on November 29, 2007 at 10:03 am