response 54 of 360:

Apr 25 17:31 UTC 2002

did you go to private school K - 12, Jamie Jr?

response 56 of 360:

Apr 25 18:16 UTC 2002

they fudge the stats.

response 58 of 360:

Apr 25 18:31 UTC 2002

The human ability continuum is such that chopping off the bottom end is a
sure-fire way to improve your stats.  They call it the "Lake Wobegon
Effect": all the school districts are above average.

In Muskegon Heights a few years ago, they embarked on a quiet but intense
campaign to reclassify low-achieving students as "special ed" (and hence
removed from the testing pool).  Parents of these students were given
misleading information and pressured to sign waivers.  At the next round
of statewide testing, the district achieved a huge bounce, the largest
test-score increase in the state.  They celebrated this without mentioning
the hundreds of students who had been reclassified.  Just plain
dishonesty. 

Critics who point with alarm at the decline in SAT scores over the past
forty years don't seem to be interested in the fact that the percentage of
students who take the SAT is vastly larger now than it was a generation or
two ago.  More dishonesty.

response 60 of 360:

Apr 25 20:39 UTC 2002

Charter schools in Michigan recently proved that relaxing the government
regulations doesn't necessarily improve test scores.  The charter
schools, on average, scored poorer on the MEAP than traditional public
schools.

response 62 of 360:

Apr 26 01:31 UTC 2002

I remember visiting Germany as a kid.  When we arrived at my 
Grandmother's house, we found the neighbor kid peering eagerly from the 
bushes.  They had heard that some American children where coming to 
visit my grandmother, and were eager to see real live black people.

At first I thought they'd been over-exposed to news reports about the 
civil rights movement and had some how decided that all Americans were 
black.  But I soon learned that it was much simpler than that.  The 
German words for "America" and "Africa" sound as much alike as the 
English words do, and they had simply gotten America and Africa mixed 
up.

To an American, this seems quite an incomprehensible gaff.  I'd never 
met anyone before who'd made *that* mistake, but I'm sure it's pretty 
common among school children world wide.  So it's easy to see fault in 
the geographic knowledge of people from other countries, especially 
with respect to your own country.  I'm sure folks in India are a lot 
more likely to know where Bombay is than Americans are, but are they 
more likely to be able to identify Pacific Islands?

But there are other factors too.  The rest of the world matters less to 
Americans than it does to folks in other countries.  Actions by the 
governments of Spain, Botswana, and Thailand are unlikely to effect any 
particular American.  At most they might start a war that some 
Americans get sent to, while most Americans stay home and watch TV as 
usual.  Being a superpower confers a degree of complancy.  Even the 
9/11 thing, didn't really change the lives of many Americans.

Also, if you are a member of one of the wealthier, more educated 
families in India, you are very likely to have some relatives who have 
lived in America, or even moved there.  The odds that an American has 
any relatives who have lived or moved to India is much lower (mostly 
only happens if they are of Indian descent).  So this too makes America 
more interesting to Indians than India is to Americans.

response 64 of 360:

Apr 27 01:16 UTC 2002

re:  "the percentage of  students who take the SAT is vastly larger now than
it was a generation or  two ago."  And the scoring has gotten easier.

response 66 of 360:

Apr 27 05:07 UTC 2002

A few years back, a Virginia (I think it was) school district was so upset
by their poor performance on a standardised test that they . . . changed
tests.

On the poor MEAP performance of the charter schools:  I wonder how much of
that is because the kids in those schools were doing badly before they got
to the charter school?  That is, they were failing, their parents knew they
were failing, so they were moved to a new school.

I'm not sure how close to the MEAP the public schools are teaching.
Some are closer than others, no doubt.  However, now that the legislature
seems to be getting serious about tying dollars to MEAP performance,
it's like that everyone will be teaching very close to the test.

response 68 of 360:

Apr 27 05:27 UTC 2002

Yep.  There are a lot of things a school needs to do, but the MEAP encompasses
almost none of those.  The bottom third still gets screwed, the kids are still
poorly adjusted, allt hose controversial moral issues are still controversial.

response 70 of 360:

Apr 27 14:30 UTC 2002

Hey..all school kids here! no grads ? sorry to bother u guys ..it was only
a little more geography was what I asked for and see what I got!!

response 72 of 360:

Apr 27 16:40 UTC 2002

Hey, this is a BBS.  Going off-topic is what BBSes are for.

I suspect my knowledge of world geography is stronger than either of yours,
but there's no real way to test that since we've all got web access.

response 74 of 360:

Apr 27 19:16 UTC 2002

[as Jamie misses one bus but boards another]  Which item was that?