Approaching a New School Year

It is 2005, and children, youngsters, and adults, young and old, are going back to school to become better prepared for the challenges and opportunities of their future. I thought I would just list a rundown of the issues of the day related to education. What are people fretting over? What’s is the media fretting over?

Following are the issues being reported in the media as the 2005-2006 school year approaches:

  • What’s in the vending machines? When the superintendent of Asheville City School announced, last week, that they would be replacing softdrinks in their schools’ vending machines with fruit juices, there was an overwhelming applause
  • Evolution vs. Intelligent Design. “The Senate majority leader aligned himself with President Bush when he said that the theory of intelligent design as well as evolution should be taught in public schools.” As the future looks increasingly uncertain, it is so easy to just look backward. No matter what you teach, it doesn’t change the truth. Teach students to seek the truth
  • Class enrollment rises again, in the homes of Americans across the land. Increasingly, children are receiving their education in the homes of parents who are dissatisfied with their public schools, want to instill christian values in their children’s learning, and want to increase the family’s bond.
  • “A group of students will enroll at Harvard University in September as the first recipients of graduate fellowships that promote the training of social entrepreneurs — people who use the skills of the marketplace to solve social problems innovatively. This is worth watching!
  • Holding kids back because they failed a test. A policy panel in New York City’s Department of Education voted to hold the city’s students who failed their 7th grade English tests, back for an extra year taking 7th grade courses again. As I’ve said before. It all costs. We want all children reading. If our elected officials will not come up with the money to bring all 8th graders up to speed in reading and math, then the solution is easy. Just charge our children a year of their lives.
  • Children will continue to pledge allegiance in Virginia.

Just a few stories appearing in the New York Times, August, 2005. What’s new? Not much in our schools. Yet the world around them is changing dramatically!

5 thoughts on “Approaching a New School Year”

  1. My understanding of “the research” is that holding students back does not increase achievement compared to passing them along. This isn’t “common sense,” but unfortunately, low-performing students aren’t rational actors.

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