Harry,
I hope your community survives and thrives. I am aware there are "pockets
of resistance". What will make them grow?
Keith
-----Original Message-----
From: hwkeidan@ix.netcom.com [mailto:hwkeidan@ix.netcom.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2000 10:50 AM
To: keith.jenkins@computeraccess-world.com
Subject: Re: [azipa] re:Arizona's Education Mess
Keith, First class response---thats because I could not agree with you
more. I am involved with a k-6 charter school in the inner city and we are
having great results---and partly because the parents are truly involved and
partly because it seems that the school attracts parents who care more. We
offer a Stanford-developed program of accelerated education for all students
(not just the known gifted ones). Our test score results have been
phenomenal. Harry Keidan---Summit Elementary.
----- Original Message -----
From: Keith L. Jenkins <keith.jenkins@computeraccess-world.com>
To: <yrcfo@aol.com>
Cc: AZIPA (E-mail) <azipa@egroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2000 9:45 AM
Subject: RE: [azipa] re:Arizona's Education Mess
> Sometimes insight can be gained from looking at a problem from an opposite
> perspective. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the juvenile
> delinquents in our public schools and their parents are doing the correct
> (functional) thing, that their choices are informed and rational. Given
> that, what must the world they live in look like to them? It seems that
> they must view the government and the society as an adversary. They must
> view the boundaries of their family, and not their community or state, as
> the defense perimeter. Do they have good reasons to think this? Maybe.
Back
> during the Cold War, we sold our communities to get higher worker mobility
> and more efficient production. As communities disappeared, the many
> mechanisms to support conformity and resolve disputes also disappeared.
I'm
> sure the cost of those losses never showed up on the decision-maker's
> balance sheets in the cost-benefit analysis phase. Now, we are paying
those
> costs.
> During my entire lifetime, the national managementship (I can't call it
> leadership) has been incessantly modifying the nation to optimize the
> economy. That process helped win the Cold War, but the changes in the
nation
> were substantial. We did away with communities to increase production. (I
> can still remember when a "hot topic" for columnists was bemoaning the
fact
> that people lived right beside each other and did not know each other's
> names: this was new to America in the 50's). We've done away with some
> legal rights in a vain attempt to make the War on Drugs more efficient.
(we
> learned NOTHING from Prohibition). We have done away with neighbors (Can
you
> name yours?), with stable employment (My Dad was a career IBMer, are there
> any left?) long-term non-family relationships (Have any that actually
> function in a societal context?), and all the other benefits of community
> life. Having focused 50 years of effort on modifying the nation to suit
an
> economic model, do we have standing to complain when we wake up one day to
> find the nation gone and only an economy left in its place?
> If all we have left is an economy, then isn't the family the correct place
> to set up the defensive perimeter? Aren't investments in modern illusions
> of "community" pointless? If our values have truly gone from JFK's "ask
> what you can do for your country" to the Hell's Angel's "Every man for
> himself and God against all", aren't the actions we see in our public
> schools rational responses? Can I say to a student that he should focus
on
> Math when baseball stars make more in a year than an engineer earns in a
> lifetime? Can I advocate scientific education to a young woman who can
> shake her butt at a video camera and earn more than a Nobel laureate?
> America sets her priorities with her dollars. If we are not maximizing
> income, then we are the geeks, the outsiders. Keeping this nation alive
is
> just OUR bizarre, deviant, obsession.
> In pursuit of which, Now that the Cold War is vastly diminished, maybe we
> should change direction. Maybe we should gather a consensus on what the
> nation should be and modify the economy to fit that model. Maybe the
> economy should just be a tool for meeting the nation's goals instead of
the
> central focus of our lives.
>
> MY $.02
> Keith L. Jenkins
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: yrcfo@aol.com [mailto:yrcfo@aol.com]
> Sent: Sunday, December 24, 2000 1:42 PM
> To: francine@stealthmode.com; azipa@egroups.com; mloomis@home.com
> Subject: Re: [azipa] re:Arizona's Education Mess
>
>
> I can only add one additional point to Francine's regarding the importance
> of
> this issue in developing a vibrant tech community -- don't think for a
> minute
> that the quality of our graduates and education system is not a factor for
> VC's and other investor groups in deciding what geographic areas to
evaluate
> for investments. This is not only a factor when they are looking at the
> supply of quality employees but also comes into play when they evaluate
> opening an office here and transferring their own people with children to
> our
> environment.
>
> A few other observations in this vibrant debate:
>
> A number of the larger charter schools in Arizona have closely enforced
> dress
> and behavior standards and thus avoid the "PC" standards prevalent in many
> public schools. They do this be making students AND parent(s) sign a
> contract before admission. If the contract is violated, the students are
> encouraged to find another school or, if that fails, are expelled. This
> avoids much of the distracting behavior and gang activity that our public
> schools tolerate.
>
> On a personal note, my daughter taught in Arizona for a semester after
> graduating with a degree in elementary ed from a major eastern US public
> university. Her starting salary, keyed to Mesa's scale, was ridiculous
> compared to other opportunities for college graduates. She has since
moved
> to Dallas, where her starting salary is 50% higher (and she pays no state
> income tax). In the one semester here, she was able to raise reading
> ability
> and scores significantly; Arizona should be able to compete for competent
> teachers on a national basis. Money spent on CLASSROOM acitivities does
make
> a difference.
>
> Speaking of Texas, this is not a plug for their recent governor, though he
> has strongly supported current improvements. Their reform of public
> education started over ten years ago and included competency testing of
both
> students AND teachers. (However, the most controversial part of the
initial
> reform was the "no pass, no play" provision that barred kids who were not
> passing from playing high school football!) Over the years, their testing
> has moved to higher standards, but only when appropriate changes have been
> made to the curriculum. For the most part, public support of higher
> classroom pay has accompanied higher student performance. Unfortunately
> for
> Arizona's effort, our testing was based on tough standards that were
> unrealistic when compared to what is being taught in our schools. For
this
> disconnect and the resulting waste of time and money, we must blame our
> state
> Education Department.
>
> As a final note (and, again, not a political endorsement), the person who
> headed the citizens' commission that developed the original Texas
education
> reform standards and who then headed the implementation efforts was none
> other than a business person named H. Ross Perot. The Governor that set
> this whole process in motion was Democratic and the State Department of
> Education had little control over the process.
>
> John Ledermann
>
>
>
> ==AZIPA=========================================================
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> =========================================================AZIPA==
>
>
>
> ==AZIPA=========================================================
> Next AZIPA monthly meeting is 5:30pm Monday, January 22nd, 2001
> Arizona Internet Professionals Association http://www.azipa.org
> AZIPA Email Discussion List http://www.egroups.com/group/azipa
> Searchable list archives http://www.egroups.com/messages/azipa
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> Switch among individual emails, daily digest, "read on web only"
> http://www.egroups.com/subscribe/azipa
> Not internet related? http://www.egroups.com/group/azipaofftopic
> ------------------------- other events -------------------------
> Tempe Tech Oasis Techie Tuesday - 6:00pm, Tuesday 1/9/01
> Harry's Place at Tempe Mission Palms, 60 E. Fifth St. Tempe
> Strategic Research Institute Web Launch BootCamp - 1/30-2/2/01
> http://www.srinstitute.com/cx326
> =========================================================AZIPA==
>
==AZIPA=========================================================
Next AZIPA monthly meeting is 5:30pm Monday, January 22nd, 2001
Arizona Internet Professionals Association http://www.azipa.org
AZIPA Email Discussion List http://www.egroups.com/group/azipa
Searchable list archives http://www.egroups.com/messages/azipa
Switch between html, plain text http://www.egroups.com/myprofile
Switch among individual emails, daily digest, "read on web only"
http://www.egroups.com/subscribe/azipa
Not internet related? http://www.egroups.com/group/azipaofftopic
------------------------- other events -------------------------
Tempe Tech Oasis Techie Tuesday - 6:00pm, Tuesday 1/9/01
Harry's Place at Tempe Mission Palms, 60 E. Fifth St. Tempe
Strategic Research Institute Web Launch BootCamp - 1/30-2/2/01
http://www.srinstitute.com/cx326
=========================================================AZIPA==
