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

[Kenneth Marcy]

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
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20131021/74428445/attachment.html>