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September 19, 2007
school score among seniors at 50 colleges surveyed - 25 elite universities and 25 other randomly selected schools. Some 14,000 freshmen and seniors took the test.
Among the questions were these:
The line "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.." is from
Give Everyone A "D"
Posted by John Leo
The Intercollegiate Studies Institute released its second annual survey of civic awareness among American college students, and the results are just as depressing as last year's. "The average college senior know astoundingly little about America's history, government, international relations and market economy," according to the ISI report, "Failing Our Students, Failing America."
Harvard seniors scored a "D+" average on a 60-question multiple choice exam. That was the highest A. the Federalist B. the preamble to the ConstitutionC. the Communist ManifestoD. the Declaration of Independence E. an inscription on the Statue of Liberty
The dominant theme of the Lincoln-Douglas debates was:
A. treatment of Native Americans, B. westward expansion C. whether Illinois should become a stateD. ProhibitionE. slavery and its expansion
The Constitution of the United States established what form of government:
A. direct democracyB. populismC. indirect democracyD. oligarchyE. aristocracy
The survey, conducted by the University of Connecticut's department of public policy, generally found that the higher a college was listed in US. News & World Report rankings, the lower it ranked in civic learning. At the eight worst-performing colleges-including Cornell, Yale, Duke, Berkeley and Princeton, the average senior did worse than the average freshmen, an example of what the report calls "negative learning." The worst-performing college, Cornell, the report said, "works like a giant amnesia machine, where students forget what they once knew." Only 28 percent of Cornell seniors knew or guessed that the Monroe Doctrine discouraged new colonies in the Western Hemisphere.
The ten colleges where civic knowledge increased from freshman to senior year were mostly lesser-known institutions: Eastern Connecticut State, Marian College, Murray State, Concordia, St. Cloud State, Mississippi State, Pfeiffer, Illinois State, Iowa State and the University of Mississippi.
Surveyed colleges ranked by Barron's imparted only about one-third the civic learning of colleges overlooked by Barron's.
One reason why civic knowledge lags is the trend away from teaching dates and factors in general, in favor of analysis, trends and a student's personalized take on the past. And with the rise of postmodern theory and cultural relativism, many students have been taught to scorn the traditional values of the west - equality, freedom, democracy, human rights - as masks for the self-interest of the rich and powerful. If follows from this view that history, particularly American history, is mostly propaganda inflicted on the young.
ISI asks: "Is American higher education doing its duty to prepare the next generation to maintain our legacy of liberty?" The answer in the report is no. In 1896, at Princeton's 150th anniversary, Woodrow Wilson argued that a central purpose of higher education is to develop citizens capable of steering the nation into the future because they have a steady grip on the past. "The college should serve the state as its organ of recollection, its seat of vital memory," he said. But in the survey, Princeton ranked as the fifth-worst school for civic learning. And most of the other 49 schools weren't much better.
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http://www.mindingthecampus.com/forum/2007/09/give_everyone_a_d.html
Friday, December 21, 2007
Thursday, December 20, 2007
The Death of common sense in the Greenville county sc school system
Greenville County School District Killed and buried common sense when they instituted the Zero Tolerance Policy. Common sense cultivated such lessons as when to come in out of the rain.When you found yourself in a hole it was time to throw the shovel down and climb out.Common sense taught us such things as life wasn't always fair and sometimes maybe it was our fault.Common sense taught us that if we could trust anyone it was our teachers and our preachers.Common sense started taking a beating when the school teachers started sleeping with our students, the very people that we entrusted with our children and common sense became even more ill when our schools lost all creditability.The final blow was when the combination of giving phony grades to athlete so they could bring in the money on Friday nights.The final death blow came when the “from the school house to the jail house Zero Tolerance Policy was implemented in our public schools.The less than successful Greenville County school Board led by the less than successful school superintendant Penny Fisher. The Greenville County School system has 3 members on the school board that are 3 of the finest people it has become my pleasure and blessing to call my friends and one that is my Brother.The 3 people are always out voted but they keep struggling to make the right decisions for the students of Greenville County School district.I believe the rest are great net workers and all they care about is the bragging rights to enable them to say, I am a member of the school board.This is my personal opinion. What is this weakness they have?They ran God out of the school system out of fear, not of God but fear of the ACLU.Tell me Folks, if a person will not stand up for Jesus Christ, what they will stand up for.That is ok; Jesus will not stand up for them in the presence of the father.What is this? Do the teachers in the Greenville County School really give phony grades to the athletes so they can bring in the money?Do they really give certificates for just coming to school and is the diploma useless?What about the certificates for occupational studies?What about the General certificate?
Can someone please explain this to me?
Why would the schools do this to the students knowing that they certificates are as useless as the school board and the school superintendant? USELESS. This is my opinion with the exception of the 3 members.
More to come tomorrow.
The Greenville County School boards Favorite son,
Bobby
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
What TIME says about our off the job Gov. Mark Sanford
What TIME says about our off the job Gov. Mark Sanford:
http://www.time.com/time/press_releases/article/0,8599,1129509,00.html
Hey Mark - Greenville is still part of SC. We still need representation in Columbia since we have none for the upstate and Greenville has not yet succeeded from the state.
Just whose Governor are you?
http://www.time.com/time/press_releases/article/0,8599,1129509,00.html
Hey Mark - Greenville is still part of SC. We still need representation in Columbia since we have none for the upstate and Greenville has not yet succeeded from the state.
Just whose Governor are you?
Monday, December 17, 2007
Jail Houses or School Houses
Jail House or School House
Greenville South Carolina
The complaints that are coming from Pain elementary school is that the children are being treated like they are in the army.
If any child speaks out, the parents say that the teacher takes away recess and will not permit any child to speak in the lunch line.
Come on now, that’s the way to teach students at an early age to hate school.
There has to be some lee way when it comes to 6 year olds.
They have to have some way to vent all of the pent up energy.
Maybe the school board needs to stop patting themselves on the back for piling up so much debt that it will be 50 years before the school building program is paid off, by that time we will need new schools, and look into the situation at Plain Elementary school.
I wonder if the school board member that represents Plain has ever been in the school before.
Greenville SC has the 58th largest district in the nation and some of the teachers need to be reviewed
Along with the principles.
The rumor is that the principle’s at the schools have the sole authority to hire the teachers that are going to teach at his or her school.
The rumor is also that at least one school in the district has to have the Police in one school or another at least once a month.
Is our school’s becoming a police state?
Is the school district going to continue to be in lock down or will it become an institution of learning which is something it has not been for the past 30 years or so?
The further up the grade ladder the poorer the students perform in academics.
The students actually start decreasing in learning, so by the time they reach the eighth grade they are so disgusted with school that they are ready to quit.
Folks, Schools are not supposed to be jail houses and to expect 6 year olds to act like they are mature enough to sit quietly all day is asking just too much.
Come on now if the teachers do not want to be bothered with children then they should pick another profession.
We spend $ 425 million dollars plus what the different sports program brings in to not have teachers that do not understand children and realize that they must be allowed to be children.
The teachers do not mind sending the children home with some candy or, wrapping paper, Christmas gifts, cookies and a number of other items for the 6 year olds to sell for the class room supplies, but they do not want them to act like kids.
Folks, we are spending a fortune and the teachers and principals are having the kids to go out and peddle the items for the class room supplies.
Where is the School Superintendent? Where is the School Board member that represents Pain Elementary School?
Where are the parents that are putting up with this mess and abuse of 6 year olds?
The Greenville County school students have a lot of Lawyers in this town that will represent the school students FREE of charge.
Come on parents stop this abuse of the first graders, haul the district into the courts and if this is done enough, then the schools will stop this Hitler like Police state because the Board members will never do anything to stop this terrible situation (with some exceptions)
The School Superintendant Penny Fisher will never stop this. Penny makes a lot of money and she will never muddy the water by doing the right thing by the students.
Is this the reason that Greenville County runs so many Drop out Mills?
The school boards favorite son,
Bobby
Greenville South Carolina
The complaints that are coming from Pain elementary school is that the children are being treated like they are in the army.
If any child speaks out, the parents say that the teacher takes away recess and will not permit any child to speak in the lunch line.
Come on now, that’s the way to teach students at an early age to hate school.
There has to be some lee way when it comes to 6 year olds.
They have to have some way to vent all of the pent up energy.
Maybe the school board needs to stop patting themselves on the back for piling up so much debt that it will be 50 years before the school building program is paid off, by that time we will need new schools, and look into the situation at Plain Elementary school.
I wonder if the school board member that represents Plain has ever been in the school before.
Greenville SC has the 58th largest district in the nation and some of the teachers need to be reviewed
Along with the principles.
The rumor is that the principle’s at the schools have the sole authority to hire the teachers that are going to teach at his or her school.
The rumor is also that at least one school in the district has to have the Police in one school or another at least once a month.
Is our school’s becoming a police state?
Is the school district going to continue to be in lock down or will it become an institution of learning which is something it has not been for the past 30 years or so?
The further up the grade ladder the poorer the students perform in academics.
The students actually start decreasing in learning, so by the time they reach the eighth grade they are so disgusted with school that they are ready to quit.
Folks, Schools are not supposed to be jail houses and to expect 6 year olds to act like they are mature enough to sit quietly all day is asking just too much.
Come on now if the teachers do not want to be bothered with children then they should pick another profession.
We spend $ 425 million dollars plus what the different sports program brings in to not have teachers that do not understand children and realize that they must be allowed to be children.
The teachers do not mind sending the children home with some candy or, wrapping paper, Christmas gifts, cookies and a number of other items for the 6 year olds to sell for the class room supplies, but they do not want them to act like kids.
Folks, we are spending a fortune and the teachers and principals are having the kids to go out and peddle the items for the class room supplies.
Where is the School Superintendent? Where is the School Board member that represents Pain Elementary School?
Where are the parents that are putting up with this mess and abuse of 6 year olds?
The Greenville County school students have a lot of Lawyers in this town that will represent the school students FREE of charge.
Come on parents stop this abuse of the first graders, haul the district into the courts and if this is done enough, then the schools will stop this Hitler like Police state because the Board members will never do anything to stop this terrible situation (with some exceptions)
The School Superintendant Penny Fisher will never stop this. Penny makes a lot of money and she will never muddy the water by doing the right thing by the students.
Is this the reason that Greenville County runs so many Drop out Mills?
The school boards favorite son,
Bobby
Saturday, December 15, 2007
SC drop out Mills
This report is from the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation written by Brian J. Gottlob. This study was released by the Friedman Foundation and the SC Policy Council.
Research has documented a crisis in the in South Carolina's graduation rate. State officials report a graduation rate of about 70%, researchers from South Carolina and else where place the rate at just above 50% and among Minorities it is less than 50%.
South Carolina has the worst drop out rate in the nation.
The drop out number in 2006 was 30,000 students. After spending years in school, 30,000 did not graduate and this is more costly to the state of SC than it would have been if they had stayed in school.
South Carolina has 340,000 working age drop out and it is costing the state of SC $98,000,000 per year for the rest of their lives.
These estimates are just from 3 sources, lost revenue from taxes and fee's, increased Medicaid cost, and incarceration cost.
Each new class of drop outs produces public cost of $98 million per year.
Total cost of 4.9 Billion dollars over a life time of 50 years. End of quote.
I do not know how it is possible for a Monopoly to fail so miserably, it seems to me that if I owned the only store in town that sold screw drivers, then if anyone bought a screw driver they would have to buy it from me and how could I lose money? The Greenville school board wants to be the king of all decisions made for our children. They love the power they have over other people's lives and the idiots in the legislature just keep coasting along not making the necessary changes and letting the school board throw away millions of the tax payer’s money each year and the school keeps yelling WE NEED MORE MONEY. This is one of the myths that the people who are failing in their jobs use as an excuse for their failures.
South Carolina needs to have competition among the schools, similar to the way Florida started doing and it is working there.
Competition among the schools will produce more students who will be able to graduate than ever before.
The status quo is churning and turning out people with no hopes of a prosperous future and who can expect nothing more than a mediocre future by just scratching out a living or living off public assistance.
PS: CONGRATULATIONS TO DURAN FREE FOR GRADUATING WITH TOP HONORS (CUM LAUDE) AT USC UPSTATE!!! (OUR NEW NURSE!!!)
Thank you Dr. Barton, President of Greenville Technical College, for giving a young woman a chance to have a future in this ever turbulent life!!!
Research has documented a crisis in the in South Carolina's graduation rate. State officials report a graduation rate of about 70%, researchers from South Carolina and else where place the rate at just above 50% and among Minorities it is less than 50%.
South Carolina has the worst drop out rate in the nation.
The drop out number in 2006 was 30,000 students. After spending years in school, 30,000 did not graduate and this is more costly to the state of SC than it would have been if they had stayed in school.
South Carolina has 340,000 working age drop out and it is costing the state of SC $98,000,000 per year for the rest of their lives.
These estimates are just from 3 sources, lost revenue from taxes and fee's, increased Medicaid cost, and incarceration cost.
Each new class of drop outs produces public cost of $98 million per year.
Total cost of 4.9 Billion dollars over a life time of 50 years. End of quote.
I do not know how it is possible for a Monopoly to fail so miserably, it seems to me that if I owned the only store in town that sold screw drivers, then if anyone bought a screw driver they would have to buy it from me and how could I lose money? The Greenville school board wants to be the king of all decisions made for our children. They love the power they have over other people's lives and the idiots in the legislature just keep coasting along not making the necessary changes and letting the school board throw away millions of the tax payer’s money each year and the school keeps yelling WE NEED MORE MONEY. This is one of the myths that the people who are failing in their jobs use as an excuse for their failures.
South Carolina needs to have competition among the schools, similar to the way Florida started doing and it is working there.
Competition among the schools will produce more students who will be able to graduate than ever before.
The status quo is churning and turning out people with no hopes of a prosperous future and who can expect nothing more than a mediocre future by just scratching out a living or living off public assistance.
PS: CONGRATULATIONS TO DURAN FREE FOR GRADUATING WITH TOP HONORS (CUM LAUDE) AT USC UPSTATE!!! (OUR NEW NURSE!!!)
Thank you Dr. Barton, President of Greenville Technical College, for giving a young woman a chance to have a future in this ever turbulent life!!!
Thursday, December 13, 2007
The Pits of Education is found in Greenville, SC
Welcome to the drop out mill country 12-13-2007
South Carolina is falling further and further behind the rest of the nation in education. Take Greenville, South Carolina for instance; here we have 65,000 students and 65,000 illiterate adults. When you ask for a doctor in this town you may get a veterinarian. That’s the kind of educational system we have.
The system is too large and the Greenville County Board of education is very self serving. They are so dumb that they started a building program for new schools which turned out to be the biggest bidding contract in SC history as well as turning out to be the costliest. Does the school board not know that there is a stopping point to spending people’s money?
The original contract was for $768 million dollars. The contract at this time has cost 1 BILLION and 300 million and we are not finished yet. (I personally think they all went to school in Greenville, SC.)
Folks, the board wants to be important, not for the students and furthering education, but so that they can control the county. Next to the SC Legislature they are the most powerful entity in the state. In some cases SC law doesn’t apply to the school board. Our illustrious school board members (except for a few) are the net-working kings of America with the attitude of: ‘If you can help me I will vote your way’…although we do have 3 great, caring, school board members who are always out voted.
I bet you think that everyone in Greenville, SC wants all of the students to learn so that they can have a successful future, WRONG; all they care about is money and more money to spend (as long as it is other people’s money). The best way to control anyone is to keep them ignorant so they will have to depend on the rich for their living.
The high school athletes bring in to the school system $ 16,000,000 per year and not one coach or manager knows the GPA of any one of the athletes. So much for a c average to play sports, kudos for the school board.
This is from SC Policy Council: “South Carolina SAT scores are the regions lowest and the second lowest in the nation." The only reason we are not on the bottom is that Maine requires all of their students to take the SAT’s. In SC around 44% of the students take the test. If SC required 100% of the students to take the SAT’s we would beat out Maine for the bottom spot with plenty of room to spare.
The fewer students that take the test the higher the average of that school - sounds reasonable to me.
Say 1 student takes the test and passes and ten from another school takes the test and 7 of them pass the test, then the school that had only one student take the test would make 100%, and the school that tested 10 students where only 7 passed would score only 70%.
Greenville is in a big hole and we have an off duty Governor, unless of course you are rich, or he may be busy walking around with two squealing pigs under his arms. Kudos for Mark Sanford (and the dummy writing this helped get him elected).
"One hundred and eight (108) schools saw their SAT scores drop from 2006 to 2007" (SC Policy Council).
Folks, we are going backwards and the price keeps climbing while more and more people are losing their homes. But what the heck, who cares? Certainly not the school board nor would the Governor. After all if you only represent the very affluent then you don’t have to work very hard at your job because most of us in Greenville, SC are just above the poverty level.
More to come tomorrow. Let me know what you think.
Bobby C .
(The school boards favorite son)
South Carolina is falling further and further behind the rest of the nation in education. Take Greenville, South Carolina for instance; here we have 65,000 students and 65,000 illiterate adults. When you ask for a doctor in this town you may get a veterinarian. That’s the kind of educational system we have.
The system is too large and the Greenville County Board of education is very self serving. They are so dumb that they started a building program for new schools which turned out to be the biggest bidding contract in SC history as well as turning out to be the costliest. Does the school board not know that there is a stopping point to spending people’s money?
The original contract was for $768 million dollars. The contract at this time has cost 1 BILLION and 300 million and we are not finished yet. (I personally think they all went to school in Greenville, SC.)
Folks, the board wants to be important, not for the students and furthering education, but so that they can control the county. Next to the SC Legislature they are the most powerful entity in the state. In some cases SC law doesn’t apply to the school board. Our illustrious school board members (except for a few) are the net-working kings of America with the attitude of: ‘If you can help me I will vote your way’…although we do have 3 great, caring, school board members who are always out voted.
I bet you think that everyone in Greenville, SC wants all of the students to learn so that they can have a successful future, WRONG; all they care about is money and more money to spend (as long as it is other people’s money). The best way to control anyone is to keep them ignorant so they will have to depend on the rich for their living.
The high school athletes bring in to the school system $ 16,000,000 per year and not one coach or manager knows the GPA of any one of the athletes. So much for a c average to play sports, kudos for the school board.
This is from SC Policy Council: “South Carolina SAT scores are the regions lowest and the second lowest in the nation." The only reason we are not on the bottom is that Maine requires all of their students to take the SAT’s. In SC around 44% of the students take the test. If SC required 100% of the students to take the SAT’s we would beat out Maine for the bottom spot with plenty of room to spare.
The fewer students that take the test the higher the average of that school - sounds reasonable to me.
Say 1 student takes the test and passes and ten from another school takes the test and 7 of them pass the test, then the school that had only one student take the test would make 100%, and the school that tested 10 students where only 7 passed would score only 70%.
Greenville is in a big hole and we have an off duty Governor, unless of course you are rich, or he may be busy walking around with two squealing pigs under his arms. Kudos for Mark Sanford (and the dummy writing this helped get him elected).
"One hundred and eight (108) schools saw their SAT scores drop from 2006 to 2007" (SC Policy Council).
Folks, we are going backwards and the price keeps climbing while more and more people are losing their homes. But what the heck, who cares? Certainly not the school board nor would the Governor. After all if you only represent the very affluent then you don’t have to work very hard at your job because most of us in Greenville, SC are just above the poverty level.
More to come tomorrow. Let me know what you think.
Bobby C .
(The school boards favorite son)
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