Butcher: Bill would hold struggling schools accountable sooner

5 comments:

• mesateacher posted at 10:57 am on Thu, Feb 16, 2012.

  Posts: 176

  I want to make something clear about these inane ratings. Say a school has a rating of C. What does that mean? It could mean that most kids (75% and up) passed the reading and writing portion of the AIMS, but fewer (<75%) passed the math. Then there are other fudge-factors the state builds in to arrive at the C. But this does not mean that the teachers aren't qualified. It doesn't mean that they don't work hard, or that they don't have the right books or curriculum. The C is more a rating of the students. Maybe the students in the school are grossly unprepared for the math AIMS. Maybe they don't give a dang about their score. There are so many factors. But the way slimey politicians and biased Goldwater lemmings interpret it, "it's a bad school". If you look at the statistics, there are a lot of good schools being rated B/C even D because of the AIMS scores. The one thing schools can't do it make student value education and care. That's the jobs of the parents. Goldwater should rate Arizona's parents, then apply some consideration to the schools.

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• asuaguila posted at 11:37 am on Thu, Feb 16, 2012.

  Posts: 92

  The Goldwater Institute as do most pundits on education continue to focus on the bureaucracy of education rather than the actual teaching. Mesateacher is right in part. Parents must become better informed and constructively involved in their child's education without interfering with the Teachers in the classroom.

  For example, School choice is a farce that dilutes educational resources. School districts should not have paid recruiters to steal children from one district to another. Commit to your local community which includes your local public school.

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• VofReason posted at 12:50 pm on Thu, Feb 16, 2012.

  Posts: 1395

  I think both comments here are correct. What I also think that says is that the constant call for more money in education is a farce. I agree, parents are likely the greatest determinant factor of success with education. No additional tax dollars will make parents nor children care more about it. Additionally, there are large beaurocracies in education and some of the money goes down the administration gopher hole. Now we have met the root of the problem.......

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• samkat posted at 6:42 pm on Thu, Feb 16, 2012.

  Posts: 1163

  Actually, I think the Goldwater Institute is simply trying to kill off the public school system to allow the so called conservatives to force the tax payer to pay for their religious schools.

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• Tookie88 posted at 1:25 pm on Sun, Feb 19, 2012.

  Posts: 134

  When are parents going ot be held accountable for their child's learning environment? When will parents respect education and teach their children to respect it? When parents begin to value education again, then the students will too. Putting all of this on the teacher's shoulder won't fix the problem we have in education. Throwing more money at the problem won't help either.

  I am on a salary freeze for the last four years. If more taxes are added, it won't go to teachers or the classeoom. It will go to administration. Is it fair that someone in the ivory tower is making $180k a year while a teacher in the trenches is barely surviving?

  Again, put the responsibility on the parents and education will change.

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