Long rant... school budget cuts.

[twistedtails]

Too bad spell check doesn't catch grammatical errors, or misuse of words... how many people can't tell the difference between there/their/they're, your/you're, and so on. Drives me bonkers sometimes.

I'm real good at that stuff, I think your going bonkers,

[BILLB OKC]

...and how are all of those necessary sports programs doing?

[Lolo76]

There is actually a vid on Youtube that has a bunch of miss spelled words and when you read it you don't even notice. It has something to do with our mind being programmed to speed read or something wierd like that.

Yeah, I got an email about that once... something about how you only need the consonants to read words, since we skim past vowels. Makes sense, when you consider some languages don't always use vowels in written form - like Hebrew and Arabic, for example.

[Lolo76]

I'm real good at that stuff, I think your going bonkers,

[Lolo76]

...and how are all of those necessary sports programs doing?

Ahem... I wasn't even going to mention that, but let's say the sports programs are still quite healthy. I will also say that's a good thing, but I wish they placed as much importance on language & fine arts.

[Lolo76]

Oh, I also wanted to add that writing skills are even more important today, since we do so much communicating online... I only know most of you through your typing, so how do you think I judge a sentence like "I wuld of buyed that snake, but you're price is to high." I'm going to think you either have a learning difficulty, English is your second language, or you are just plain dee-de-dee. Can't help it when I only know you from your writing, even though some people are simply bad typists. But try explaining that to a potential employer, when you email them a cover letter filled with errors!

[kc261]

I REALLY don't get why this country doesn't place a higher value on education and child care.

One thing that is exceptionally frustrating to me is the budget cuts that have occurred in gifted education, due to the no child left behind laws forcing schools to focus on the kids on the bottom end of the scale. While I think it is good for kids that need extra help to get it, especially those that are on the bubble to be pushed up over the edge, I think it is horrendous that it is being done at the cost of our best and brightest.

Then again, if you believe some of the conspiracy theories about how the government wants us all to become sheep, it is no surprise that gifted education is taking budget cuts.

Last spring I sat through a 2 hour meeting all about how eliminating the gifted education at my daughter's middle school was actually going to be better for the gifted students. Supposedly they were going to be incorporating the gifted stuff into every classroom. Well, I didn't buy it then, and I definitely don't buy it after having seen it in action for about half of a school year now. My daughter always used to love the stuff they did in the gifted classroom, because often it was the only time when she wasn't bored. Now she's just always bored.

I can answer your question about why the budget on stuff like science and math isn't getting cut, even though other extremely important subjects like English are. Maybe 20 years ago or so, there was quite a bit of concern at how far behind other nations the US was in our math and science education. So some efforts were made to fix that. But did we fix it by improving our education system? NO! We just sacrificed one part to make a different part slightly less horrible than it was.

[twistedtails]

I REALLY don't get why this country doesn't place a higher value on education and child care.

One thing that is exceptionally frustrating to me is the budget cuts that have occurred in gifted education, due to the no child left behind laws forcing schools to focus on the kids on the bottom end of the scale. While I think it is good for kids that need extra help to get it, especially those that are on the bubble to be pushed up over the edge, I think it is horrendous that it is being done at the cost of our best and brightest.

Then again, if you believe some of the conspiracy theories about how the government wants us all to become sheep, it is no surprise that gifted education is taking budget cuts.

Last spring I sat through a 2 hour meeting all about how eliminating the gifted education at my daughter's middle school was actually going to be better for the gifted students. Supposedly they were going to be incorporating the gifted stuff into every classroom. Well, I didn't buy it then, and I definitely don't buy it after having seen it in action for about half of a school year now. My daughter always used to love the stuff they did in the gifted classroom, because often it was the only time when she wasn't bored. Now she's just always bored.

I can answer your question about why the budget on stuff like science and math isn't getting cut, even though other extremely important subjects like English are. Maybe 20 years ago or so, there was quite a bit of concern at how far behind other nations the US was in our math and science education. So some efforts were made to fix that. But did we fix it by improving our education system? NO! We just sacrificed one part to make a different part slightly less horrible than it was.

I'm all for the gifted classes! I was in GATE(Gifted and Talented Education) when I was in elementary school and it was so much fun. I was charting nautical maps in 4th and 5th grade.

[dc4teg]

I dont mean this in offense but libraries are a dying research source. Computers have books on them and much more info that could ever be put into a book.... sigh...

[Lolo76]

I dont mean this in offense but libraries are a dying research source. Computers have books on them and much more info that could ever be put into a book.... sigh...

Ummmmmm... who do you think chooses those digital books, catalogs them, recommends them to vendors, etc? Librarianship isn't dying hon, it's just changing.

P.S. As a former public librarian, I can also tell you they're still extremely valuable to the community... especially in low-income areas, where we're their only access to computers and social programs. Remember, libraries have computers now - LOL.