Our illustrious voters elected a school board member who publicly stated … during the ELECTION … that not being able to read should not keep children from graduating. His justifacation was that keeping them back would destry thier chances of becoming doctors or architects. :eek:
Johnny can’t read, but he will design your building and remove your appendix.
Hey there are billions of people quietly decomposing who can’t even imagine a single heartbeat.
And how does society repay them for their accomplishments? We ridicule the pulse-less!
FREE THE PULSELESS!
A friend’s brother graduated from high school reading at a second grade level, and nobody knew. The reason nobody knew is that he got very good at hiding and compensating for his poor reading skills. It’s easy to make fun of the kid who can’t read, and of the school district, but that doesn’t change the sad fact that there are kids who fall through the cracks.
In Rockford, IL last year 23 8th graders were promoted despite failing EVERY class. Story here.
The school district doesn’t seem to have a clue how it happened. The adults don’t seem all that far ahead of the students.
From yojimbo’s article:
Either the article left out a zero, and there are actually 20,000 students in the district’s grade-eight level, or this guy does math as well as his students read. Twenty is one percent of 2000, not one-tenth of one percent. And twenty is just slightly more than one percent, not an even one percent, and certainly not less.
Two words: Oral Exam 
:: I’ll probably be on the lamb until Turkey day for this one::
i think reading and basic math shold be the main point of our school system to teach. With those skills in hand anyone can learn anything they chose.with out those skills all the education in the world will never be enough.
(by the way the occasional dropped letter I keep finding is the result of my wifes spilling pop a few weeks ago and causing some keys to stick a bit. I try to catch most of the typos but sometimes hit submit a bit too fast…)
i think to teach reading and basic math should be the main point of our school system . With those skills in hand anyone can learn anything they choose.without those skills, all the education in the world will never be enough.
(by the way the occasional dropped letter I keep finding is the result of my wifes spilling pop a few weeks ago onto this keyboard and causing some keys to stick a bit. I try to catch most of the typos but sometimes hit submit a bit too fast…)
Don’t know what he will do in Canada but in the United States he will become a congresscritter.
My step-brother, who is by all accounts an average to high marks student, graduated high school with a grade six reading level. He then went on to college, where he graduated at the top of his class. He became a butcher - the college course was in meat cutting, and 90% of the work was hands-on.
He has since raised his reading level, but I remember being stunned when he graduated that I could read better than him. I was in grade five at the time.
About 10 years ago (maybe more) there was a Math teacher in Duluth Minnesota that created an uproar because he GASP refused to let students slip by. He was a difficult grader and he didn’t hold to any make up exams or extra credit.
The school district, of course, had Johnny’s mum and pop calling quite irate. How DARE this teacher NOT pass Johnny?
Personally, I cheered him.
School districts lose federal $$ when they do not have a certain number of students “marked” for graduation or for the percentage of students failing the standardized tests.
So they graduate/pass functioning illiterates. They need the green.
Captain Amazing, we’re not talking about a few kids falling through the cracks; lord knows this has always been, and always will be, a problem. What we’re talking about is a systematic graduating of kids who cannot read…of morons who state: “not being able to read should not keep children from graduating.”
The mind boggles…it’s like stating that just because one cannot see, one should not be prohibited from driving a car. If schools have any legitimate function at all, it is to provide their students with the tools to be able to function as adults in their society. And to graduate students…WILLINGLY GRADUATE…who cannot read, is the most abysmal failure of their basic function.
Those teachers, principals, superintendants (yes, and the parents also) who let this happen should all be slapped silly.
And if he had to be defibrillated during his high school career, a small heart will appear next to his name on the diploma.
Exactly. If you don’t pass a certain number of students here in NC you’ll be labeled [ominous voice]A FAILING SCHOOL[/ov] and lose funding et cetera. No funding means no repairs, no raises, no bonuses, no new textbooks, no new nothin’ (although the athletic departments always seem to make out like bandits but that’s another rant). In one school I’ve been to, the principal asked that teachers not give any grades below a 60 for the first quarter of the year. :eek: 
Sadly, we live in a society ruled by Money and even the schools have to prostitute themselves to it to survive. It wouldn’t be so bad if there were more parental support, but there you go.