Monday, September 17, 2007

"Wasted Dollars, Wasted Young Lives"

The below is an excerpt from i an editorial in the Baltimore Examiner.

After five years and almost $2.2 billion spent on trying to boost student performance, only one conclusion emerges. Maryland’s Thornton has
failed.
Educators supposedly spent the money on programs to help special needs, low-income and other lagging students. It gets worse. The total wasted by fiscal year end will reach $3.5 billion.
It’s all about The Bridge to Excellence in Public Schools Act of 2002, known as Thornton, the supposed magic spell to conjure up at least adequate education for the neediest students.

Read article HERE.

4 comments:

im1ru2 said...

This was a very good article and if you have not read the entire article all the way through, I encourage you to do so as it is written factually, not ideologically with a slant toward any one purpose in mind, unless you count educating the kids of course.

Why the State is even considering re-working the MSA testing "downward" and further in the direction of the proven failed "bridge" methodology which is nothing but a suck hole for our tax dollars and does nothing to educate our kids is beyond me.

But please, read the full article for yourself and go even further and look at O'Malley's record in education and then come to your own conclusion.

Anonymous said...

Well, well, well.
As the Asians, Indians, and so many other immigrant students come over to the best of America's schools and whip our ahrses, when are these liberal idiots every going to get it?

WE cannot keep teaching down to all students. We have to RAISE!!!! our standards, and tell students that they have to study their butts off to make the grade.

Fire teachers that hand out worksheets and sit at their computers.
Tell Richmond that we demand to allow the parents into the classes to observe what the heck is going on with the interaction of the teachers with out children(and not a lousy stinkin' twice per quarter) We're paying this guy for God sakes! He works for us!
Yes, let's start pointing fingers. If the teachers show the lack of ability and knowledge of the subjects, get them the heck out of the classrooms.

If these animals that wander down from D.C. are rowdy and want to do nothing but cause trouble, show them the door! Don't pander to these troublemakers.

When are you lazy bums sitting on the board going to pop your head out of the sand or three feet up and have some balls to stand up for what is right?
Personally, if no more of my children go to Chucky County's mediocre at best schools, that will be the highlight of my life, for sure.

This talk about high-tech classrooms, but yet, advertising for 260 math and science teachers, having hundreds of trailers, and a fricken boatload of substitute teachers! With a straight face, you guys in your Ivory Tower can sleep at night saying that "well, we are above the national and state average, so that's good enough"? What kind of an asinine statement is that to make? A lousy 1500 on the SAT? What decent 4 year school (without smoking funny cigarettes) would even begin to consider these scores? It sure is nice to have a dumbed down enough public base to have them believe that bullkrap, huh?
Good God, what kind of working conditions are we supplying these good teachers with? Are we so micro-managing, controlling, and providing such a gestapo-good ole' boy atmosphere that soon we'll have to travel across the Atlantic to recruit teachers?

Anyone with any ounce of guts...Look up http://www.tv-links.co.uk/listings/9/4803

"20/20" -> Stupid in America.

Wake up and smell the coffee that these liberal foxes in sheep's clothing are trying to sell us.

I'm oh so anxious to see all these "4"'S and "5"'s on these AP exams.

Maybe our dear old friend Jay Matthews will be close by with a warm bottle of Jack Daniels to make it all go down so much more smoothly.

Jennifer Abell said...

Anonymous,
Just wanted to clarify that the Board is not one entity. It is seven separate individuals. Not all Board members are lazy bums with their head in the sand :) Some Board members actually see the writing on the wall but there is little they can do about it without a majority vote.

Anonymous said...

I did not mean that YOU were one of the "sand diggers"...
I, for one, appreciate you abstaining for voting on this meaningless claptrap, "Women's History Month", "Dog Training History Month", "Teacher appreciation Century", etc.

What a lame bunch of junk, wasting time recognizing nothingness.

The clock is counting down to the point where this county will join Baltimore City and PG County Schools, being the coating of the bottom of the barrel.

Look at the MSA scores on Greatschools.com. Wow, how scary is that? You read in the local rag of how the schools are above the state average. According to this website, many of our "top nation's schools" are below the state average on these tests.

Someone ain't telling the truth.
Let's get all the standardized tests published in the local rag, compare to all the states, then post them on all the telephone polls in the county.

We have to wake these people up!
I've got a great idea.
Why don't we get supercomputers all connected by a "Hyperspeed" WiFi link so all our substitute teachers can perform brain-salad surgery to all the whippersnappers in our hundreds and hundres of "portable classrooms" that we've heard about for so long?