This article from NY Post 'Teens defend ‘fail factory’ school in error-filled letters Earlier this month, The Post exposed a scheme at Manhattan’s Murry Bergtraum HS for Business Careers in which failing students could get full credit without attending class, but instead watch video lessons and take tests online. One social-studies teacher had a roster of 475 students in all grades and subjects. Red-faced administrators encouraged a student letter-writing campaign to attack The Post and defend its “blended learning” program. Eighteen kids e-mailed to argue that their alma mater got a bad rap. Almost every letter was filled with spelling, grammar and punctuation errors. A junior wrote: “What do you get of giving false accusations im one of the students that has blended learning I had a course of English and I passed and and it helped a lot you’re a reported your support to get truth information other than starting rumors . . .” Another wrote: “To deeply criticize a program that has helped many students especially seniors to graduate I should not see no complaints.” One student said the online system beats the classroom because “you can digest in the information at your own paste.” “Us as New York City Students deserve respect and encouragement,” one letter read. “We are the future of New York City and for some students, The future of the country" < Gee I hope not> This really is very sad. It is even sad and a little amusing that the school administration people were so unaware of the capability of their own students. I can't imagine what larryT, Cedarpark or austinbat will think More at linkThe Link
If they move to Georgia they can challenge congressman Johnson for the House of Representatives Come to think of it I guess he does represent his constituents.
Thems kids don't be talkin' and writin' too goodly. Larry is right. The alternatives are expensive. Furthermore, they're controversial. If you hire professional electricians, mechanics, and plumbers to teach their trades in schools, it's going to cost more than it costs to hire teachers - probably a good $10K per year more than your average teacher. The schools systems may be able to find the money for that on a small scale. However, it's going to piss off teachers who think it isn't fair that the automotive instructor makes more money than they do. In union-friendly states, that means you're going to have pay all teachers enough to make up the difference, and you can't just pull that kind of money of your ***. It's going to take a meaningful tax hike to make that happen. In addition, the race mafia is going to jump on this. The schools that have a lot of dropouts and non-college attenders are disproportionately in minority-dominated areas. That means those schools will likely have larger tech programs than wealthier (euphemism for "white") schools but fewer options for college-prep courses. The charge will be made that we're "labeling" black and Hispanic kids to be future auto mechanics, plumbers, and electricians instead future doctors, lawyers, and engineers. That means you'll have to pay the race mafia off, and that's not cheap either. Personally, I think it's worth the money, because it's a lot cheaper than having a bunch of kids who think they have no shot at a decent job dropping out of school, getting involved in criminal enterprises, and going to jail at an enormous expense to taxpayers. It's damn expensive, complicated, and controversial for the government to try to undo or make up for ****** parenting.
Maybe they should be teaching them Chinese so they can get one of those trade jobs. 至少他們有工作。
LarryT makes excellent points. And I don't think trades/ jobs like electricians. plumbers or construction ( most construction jobs are skilled and pay a pretty good wage etc can be outsourced. BUT the problem revealed in the link: being able to write and speak in a grammatically correct way( not to mention read) is taught in elementary school and at home. We know many will not learn at home either because their parent/s never when they were in school or their parent/s don't speak English. I am not sure now this can change for the majority of kids. There are so called experts who question why correctness is important IF the meaning can be discerned. Think of texting and even rap
Maybe an option for trade schools is to have 1 per city that isn't tied to a specific school. That would also provide a necessary step to have to apply for the school. It also could mean that other teachers don't have visibility to the trade school teacher salaries.
The trade school teachers salaries are public info. I would make it a year round program so that you can pay them more. Its also could come with a similar base salary but pay a stipend like what bilingual teachers earn. There would still be issues because you are hiring a bunch of people that make 60k/year and thats the same as what an elementary school assistant principal makes. There will always be the issue of who is going to pay for it.
