[Vision2020] State Board members rip Luna's K-12 budget

[Sue Hovey]

Remember a few years ago when there was an aborted move to limit the number of classes any high school student could take.  The idea was to limit class size by denying students the opportunity to have a full schedule.  Well rushing kids through high school does much the same thing.  The president of Bard College was quoted recently saying 4 years of high school was a waste for talented kids, but I think even talented kids need to develop their talents in age-appropriate environments.  That doesn’t mean college at 15 or 16 is wrong for everyone, but students need to have a certain level of maturity before they leave home to find their way as adolescents.  We complain that kids today grow up way too fast, then push them to do exactly that.  

Sue H

From: Shirley Ringo 
Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2013 9:32 AM
To: 'Kenneth Marcy' ; 'Sue Hovey' ; 'Tom Hansen' ; 'Moscow Vision 2020' 
Subject: RE: [Vision2020] State Board members rip Luna's K-12 budget

We could talk about these issues for a long time.  I really regret moves in the Idaho Legislature (coming from people with little or no education experience) putting out carrots to encourage students to rush through high school faster.  In my experience, it was hard to get time to develop concepts thoroughly.  I have believed that is why students don’t retain and we see so much need for remediation at the college level.  The direction legislators take will probably make things worse.

 

Shirley

 

From: Kenneth Marcy [mailto:kmmos1 at frontier.com] 
Sent: Monday, October 21, 2013 4:22 PM
To: Shirley Ringo; 'Sue Hovey'; 'Tom Hansen'; 'Moscow Vision 2020'
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] State Board members rip Luna’s K-12 budget

 

On 10/21/2013 11:48 AM, Shirley Ringo wrote:

  Well, it reminds me of my former students who couldn’t come in to get help on their math – with the explanation that they needed to work after school to get money for college.


That's another short-sighted, penny-wise and pound-foolish situation that a well-funded and administered state educational system would discourage for educational reasons alone, if no other.  The students who don't get the math help they need show up at college wanting to major in STEM subjects (science math engineering and math) and find they cannot do well because they are expected to make up their high school level work simultaneously with taking college level work in the same or related subjects for which the high school work is prerequisite.

College faculty get frustrated because some of them have to teach kids at the kids' levels, which is high school stuff the kids should have mastered before arriving at college.

The kids get frustrated, discouraged, and after doing poorly, have a worse academic record than that of which they might be capable, and they have spent the significant resources associated with a year of college.

Those kids probably would have been better off, and they and their parents would be a year's (or two years') worth of college costs richer, if the kids had stayed home another year (or two), stayed in high school for another year (or two), and took all of the math, science, and foreign language classes (for B.A. students) they could schedule as more college preparation at high school prices and room and board.

Of course, it's not all bad news.  There continues to be a substantial list of new and continuing students on Deans' lists in all of the Colleges, so the message is not all gloom and doom.  But it is still the case that a lot of under-prepared students arrive on campus, and the fact that they graduated from state high schools in that condition is not a mark of favorable distinction for those secondary schools.




 

From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] On Behalf Of Sue Hovey
Sent: Sunday, October 20, 2013 6:42 PM
To: Tom Hansen; Moscow Vision 2020
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] State Board members rip Luna’s K-12 budget

 

To my thinking the most interesting statement made by Bill Goesling was his comment (not in this article)that higher education drives the economy and K-12 education doesn’t.  Anyone see any irony in that rationale? 

Sue H.


Not particularly ironic, no.  It has long been the case that business-oriented people in positions of legislative and governmental-executive leadership have had difficulties in distinguishing investments that will do well primarily for people and secondarily for state coffers, and those investments that might do well for private enterprises.  Usually those investment types are quite distinguishable and distinct.  Failure to invest more in the former, while loosening or removing rules that govern the latter, is an ongoing feature, and an ongoing problem, of governmental organizations.

The proof that is in the pudding, so to speak, is seen in the economic performance data that indicate that the national economy does marginally better under Democratic leadership, and marginally poorer under Republican leadership.  So much for the Rs being the party that can recognize better investments in the public interest.

Chronic, persistent, unimaginative education policy coupled with regressive, retrograde, rationed, regional resources has produced an educational millieu from which its inmates wish to escape if they are able.  Some succeed, others can not.  Idaho voters' inability, or blatant stubborn refusal, to elect to their state legislature people who can and will enact policies and fund programs to actually serve the public interest rather than the interests of private investors redounds directly back on those voters in the form of substandard educational outcomes and diminished aggregate state economic performance.

If Idaho voters appear more retarded in their electoral performances than voters of other states, one might reasonably ask what is the cause of that retardation, and what is the source of the cause?


Ken
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