The December 13th issue of the Cleveland Plain Dealer featured a column by Regina Brett entitled "Schools road map must get us moving". In a nutshell, the Ohio Grantmakers Forum created a task force to address education reform (in Ohio). They came up with a 56-page report "Education for Ohio's Future". Here's a glimpse at some of their recommendations (along with my interpretation in parenthesis): *Make the school day longer. (Give us your children!) *Make the school year longer. (Give us your children!) *Pay teachers based on their performance. (MAKE them teach to the test!! --see comment at end of post). *Tie funding to results. (MAKE them teach to the test!!) Also, this taskforce found that 53% of Ohio's 3 and 4 year olds do not attend preschool. Boy, I bet that really ticks them off!! So, naturally the taskforce suggests increasing the number of kids in pre-school and ALL-DAY kindergarten. (Give us your kids!!) Usually, I like what this columnist has to say, but the fact that she seems to go along with all of this is just another indicator of how people just mindlessly go along with such things. ***Added Note: My niece was telling me about her Phys. Ed. class. They were shown a video of 30 solid minutes of ping-pong playing with no talking on the video. The teacher told them they could fall asleep during the video if they wanted because he didn't see the value of it, but he was required to show it. Boy, that makes sense. I've heard of alot of teachers complaining about adhering to these types of requirements. Just one more way the system is wasting the time of these kids. . .and restricting the teachers who truly want to teach.
The first thing that comes to my mind with this "road map" of theirs is it will likely work as well as the "road map to peace" in the Middle East. Can you imagine just how frustrating this has to be for the teachers? No wonder turn over for teachers is at an all time high in this country. I know I definitely couldn't be part of that sinking ship. Michelle
"Give us your children"--that's summarizes it well! Our true roadmap says that Jesus once looked at a coin and asked whose image was on it. "Ceasar," was the correct answer. Ceasar's image is on the coin. But our children are made in the image of God. Jesus went on to say, "Give to Ceasar what belongs to him, & give to God what belongs to Him!" It seems "Ceasar" is continually over-reaching into a realm that doesn't belong to him.
