Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for July 26, 2015

Danae is a little out of date. These days, teachers have little to say about the curriculum. It’s designed by State Departments of Education hoping to get federal dollars by forcing local schools to test kids on a slew of facts they don’t need, in order to fire unionized teachers whose students aren’t good at memorizing..

If I had students like Danae, I would do my darnedest to avoid them all summer, too.

I was going to be sympathetic to Danae,s teachers spending their summers in sanatoriums.

No child left behind has led to high school classrooms filled with children that can’t read. Most graduates should be given a Certificate of Attendance rather than a High School Diploma. …….Now where’s that bottle of scotch? I’m with you Bruno!

stay away from the rabbit hole..may I never find out what is down the rabbit hole./.

It’s never just a rabbit hole.Nobody knows who designs the curriculum.With Federal money in the mix, there is Federal influence.What we do know for certain is that public schools are being used for social engineering, programming the next generation to believe as instructed, with less emphasis given to actually imparting the abilities to read, write and perform simple mathematics than to the framework of social programming in which the secondary course of instruction, the “3 Rs”, is embedded.

Follow the white rabbit.

Lucy should go ask Alice.

Who owns our public schools? Is it the students, parents, teachers, administrators, and taxpayers or nameless and faceless Federal bureaucrats?

Ah… Bat Guano – my favorite western hero!

There’s a LOT of money to be made in schools. But first you have to sell (or bribe; nobody’s watching!) local districts (and states, and the Feds) the idea that your company can do a better job than their own teachers, and you do that by sabotaging the curriculum (NCLB et al), and requiring the teachers to do twice the paperwork time documenting as they put in the classroom.

Before I retired from teaching, I spent at least part of the summer taking classes to maintain my teaching credentials. Years ago, before educational pundits became psychotic minions of politicians and their whimsical ignorance (or is it vice versa?), I spent substantial time preparing unit plans and other materials.

Oh, Danae, if you only KNEW!

I think you don’t see them because they hide until September!

I saw my English teacher at the supermarket every week during the summer. He was a checker.

Gee, thought that is where Alice went. Yes it is obvious that Danae also has a good imagination; or is that a Fact? Poor school, always the victim of political/religious attacks. Just think, multipoles of monies will be spent during this and next year for political ads, bribes and outright vote purchases that would finance public education from pre-school through graduate college for a decade.

That is money down not a habit hole but an abyss.

Danae lives in Texas? Who knew?

Hence a demand for private schools for anyone who can afford them. And thereby the gap grows larger. And larger.

The problem isn’t that teachers don’t want to make learning interesting, it’s that some of the curriculum forced on them is, well, not all that enjoyable for them either. Mostly the teaching to test vs teaching to think.

As for the conversation about public schools and private schools, my two cents: I don’t believe private schools and charter schools should get any public funding or tax vouchers. I consider them a luxury, perhaps even a business venture and should be treated accordingly.

I never had children, thus never had any to attend school, private or public, and I have never received a tax break of any sort for a service I have never, nor will ever use. Nor did I truly expect one or truly want one, as I believe in free education for all,

Taking this a little further, I believe parents should at the most only receive a tax break for the first 2 maybe 3 children. Would free up more money for the education their kids need, right?

You won’t find your teachers out in the woods riding THEIR pygmy ponies, Danae.

after the second panel, I thought I would see Mr. Trump!!!!

In many ways, this is true. But it doesn’t go far enough. It’s really the states of California and Texas, with their uniform textbook adoptions, that control what content will be in textbooks. Authors often must write to the standards in those states because of the size of the markets.

Actually, worked with a lot of teachers who worked seasonally for the Park Service, mostly in interpretation. Watching them conduct “talks” was a way to see how effective they would be in a classroom. Most were quite good, but the ones who only “did as told”, and lacked creativity were not. The latter shouldn’t have been in classrooms.

hippogriff:I originally replied to your comment of yesterday here, but deleted it thinking it was seriously ot. Posted it in yesterday’s Non Sequitur instead.

IMO, a big, big, BIG help to education would be programs that started with prenatal home visits to families who really needed them. Trained aides would do the visits. Then at-risk children would be taught and provided with needed services for the rest of school attendance years. This would save bazillions because of reduced need for welfare, prisons, and medical care. Increased productivity by better-educated citizens would boost the economy. Programs would be evidence-based, supported by controlled research. See A Path Appears by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn for a book on what has already been done along this line.

Send the bat guano to me, it’d be great for my fruit trees!

A friend of mine has a job inserting “Canadian content” in a Biology text. In these days of publish on demand it’s possible to chop and change the content of a textbook to conform to whatever the Country/State/school board requires.

ToborRedrum: Publishers would if they had the guts to care about their product, but they only care about the money and do whatever the moneybag lobbyists tell them to – just like the corporate media. I tried to run for the Texas version and the League of Women Voters and the ballot itself, were the only places my name saw print. The Dalla Snooze even denied I was running – twice (once before and once after I requested a correction).

Meh~tdology: Or more likely respect – which is even better because then they won’t have to be plotting its destruction before it can destroy the rest f the world.

Because they’re working their summer job or maybe 2 summer jobs.

-Actually, it’s the textbook publishers who decide the curriculum

Once upon a time, that was closer to the truth. But now, school districts can vote to decide that they won’t accept a particular textbook (especially if it emphasizes a particular religion, which one textbook did. A religion called Islam.)