Arkansas Blog

I guess this also would save resources and money, since schools wouldn't have to have the extra teachers and class space necessary for the dumbbell classes, right?

I do think we ought to do a project in which we find kids who successfully talked their parents into opting them into the dumbbell classes -- and employ those skills in our negotiations with Iran and North Korea. Obviously these kids are getting lots better results than our current negotiators.

While I would never allow a child in my family to opt out of the so-called Smart Core if I were in a position to make that decision, I wonder if it won't add to the dropout rate. I believe there are truly some people out there who are destined to be truck drivers or hair stylists. And they may well make a decent living at it.
So how many kids graduate today -- graduate! -- and can't do simple math or read well? How many don't know you can easily make change without the aid of a computer/register? How about focusing on this before requiring calculus, trig and physics of everyone?
And as an added note, can you see how parents who graduated (maybe) 20 years ago or more and who insist on home schooling their kids will deal with this? But of course, that's another issue altogether, isn't it?

By all means, require every student to take more challenging courses, and then turn around to address that high dropout rate that you've just worsened. These are public schools we're talking about. They have to take in all students, and there are stark consequences to an honest toughening of the curriculum. Either more kids fail and subsequently drop out or, more likely, these required courses will become watered down in order for everyone to pass them. Are we expecting all kids and parents to rise to the challenge sounded by the trumpets of educational rigor? I can see a physical trainer using this same thinking: "Yes, Timmy, I know you were quitting the marathon after mile 16 anyway, but see now we've made the race longer to 32 miles. Aren't you even more interested in finishing the race now?"

I'm not against making public school harder, but in the current mindset having it both ways with rigor and dropout rates is a farce.

"Every child in Arkansas should take the "Smart Core" college-prep curriculum"

So, the sole purpose of public schools is to turn out people heading to college? I disagree. Very much disagree.

The public high schools are never going to send 100% of kids to college or even 80%.

But the public high schools should be expected to make sure that every kid knows how to balance a checkbook, understand how to fill out a basic tax return, understand the cost of credit, have some degree of understanding of history of the nation and the world and how we got where we are. Have a basic understanding of our culture and how it formed in literature and art. Basic skills to communicate with others.

Kids who want to go to college need to be prepared.

I promise you, that if you impose college prep on all kids that the teachers out there in the real world will dumb it down because they have to.

When I was a high school junior someone noticed that there were new science standards and to graduate a bunch of seniors needed another science class. They got dumped into the only chemistry class at our small (now consolidated) school. In the course of 36 weeks we managed to cover a grand total of EIGHT chapters. Helped me a ton when I arrived in college.

Wait a minute! How is this going to improve football?

I agree that not every kid is going to go to college but most of them should get the opportunity. If it's clear that they aren't college material by the beginning of the 11th grade they should be allowed to pursue a vocational curriculum teaching them some skills - auto repair, electrical work, medical assisting, AC/heat repair, etc that will help them becomed skilled rather than unskilled labor. The vast majority of kids should have the college prep curriculum and I don't think it's unrealistic for 80% of kids to go to college, though many of these won't graduate. In many districts it's not far from that now.

Yesterday the governor said the education systen in Arkansas was so bad it was criminal. Hasn't the governor and Dr. James been the overlords of this criminal institution? They are stressing the Smart Core but what good does it do if schools don't teach. Before pushing all students into these courses maybe they should learn how to teach them first. Now half of the students going to college are not prepared, why add more to this list? Have all teachers in the state taken all the courses in the Smart Core that will be required of students?

I was actually sitting here with my mouth open in shock. I've been involved in repecting kids and listening to thier voices and choices for so long that I forgot most of the American public really does not care what they want.
Do teens not have any say in their lives?
Guess what?
College is not the be all and end all. Not everyone wants to go to college or even needs to. Lots of folks go to college and leave, not because they were un-prepared, but because they realized it was the wrong choice for them at that time in life, but they went because everyone said they had to do this now.
Personally I think college right after high school is a lousy idea anyway. I think everyone should have to go work and live and think for a bit before making a choice about what they want to do the "rest" of their lives.
How many major changes did you go through? How many of us have gone through a few careers before we find the one we like? For that matter how many of us get jobs and realize that college did NOTHING to train you for your job/career and that you could have done just as well with a good mentor/apprentice program?
I went to college as an art major (please explain why I would need calc for this or even algebra...which I was right about as a kid, no I do not have a need of algebra nor do I remember a bit of it and as an adult what I may lack in math skills I make up by my amazing use of that great invention ~gasp~ the calculator) dropped out when I remembered how much I hated school in all forms have a had a great life and at the ripe old age of 43 have now settled into a career/business selling vintage clothes on-line.
Until we put in place good vocational training in every high school we should not require all students to take the smart core (which is a bs name in the 1st place "oh my kid is on the smart core track so yours must be in the dumbcore track") classes. And I don't mean just beautician or auto repair, but computer repair and digital imaging, real art classes in commercial art, printmaking, plumbing and electrician work even learning how to be one of those guys who do land surveys on the side of the road.
When you think about it, a good number of vo-tec jobs
are ones that can't be outsourced.

For some teens high school sucks and forcing them to take harder classes will not make them want to hang around all 4 years.
Smart core, dumb core, vo-tec in the end unless the teens have a choice it is just plain disrespectful.

BTW, hows about we all work to get rid of the false assumption that one needs a college degree to get a "good job". Colleges have said the lie for so long that everyone believes it and now you really do need a college degree to get a good job. Very few vocations require college most just need on the job training. I've worked with tons of college educated idiots in my life who could not find their way out of a paper bag, but by golly they have a degree so they must be smarter and more qualified then me....

I have never understood the idea that too much education can be a bad thing, but it's a part of our culture to believe that common sense is erased by book learning.

Part of it is disdain toward northeast egghead liberals.. It's common to find stories about some old slow-speaking country boy outsmarting a dumb but well-educated Yankee.

Part of it is sports, and the idea that football exists to keep kids in school who would otherwise drop out.

But the overall effect of this bias against too much book learnin' is to lower the net intelligence of the state. Which then costs all of us money.

I have never understood the idea that too much education can be a bad thing, but it's a part of our culture to believe that common sense is erased by book learning.

Part of it is disdain toward northeast egghead liberals.. It's common to find stories about some old slow-speaking country boy outsmarting a dumb but well-educated Yankee.

Part of it is sports, and the idea that football exists to keep kids in school who would otherwise drop out.

But the overall effect of this bias against too much book learnin' is to lower the net intelligence of the state. Which then costs all of us money.

Obviously I am not educated enough to remember to wait 10 minutes for my message to post before clicking refresh.

When I went to high school nearly 50 years ago, I knew I would never be an engineer or scientist, but I took every math and science course available. I even took two years of mechanical drawing. Why? Because I wanted to know how the world and everything in it works. I did not then and do not now want to be mystified by what is going on around me. I want to be able to read articles in Time and Newsweek on genetic engineering and space exploration and have a basic understanding of what the articles are trying to tell me. Knowledge and education are not bad things.

No one wants to study geography, but half the people who think they know everything about the Middle East couldn't identify Iran and Iran and Afghanistan on a map and couldn't tell you three things about the cultures of those countries.

I know a lot about what it takes to get a job today, and I can tell you that not having a high school diploma dooms you to an abysmal life. Having an associate degree puts you far ahead of those who have only a high school diploma. And the people who succeed when they get a job are those who have imagination to match their willingness to work. Imagination requires knowledge and understanding, and knowledge and understanding require education.

The employers I work with want educated workers, and the state is obligated to make sure its children have an education sufficient to enable them to be productive members of their communities. We must require a rigorous curriculum to meet our responsibility to prepare our children for the future. To do less is criminal.

"The public high schools are never going to send 100% of kids to college or even 80%."

Would you believe less than 50%. And a large portion of those that go do not finish.

"Kids who want to go to college need to be prepared."

Exactly. And it's already that way. Kids who take the college prep classes in high school are pretty well prepared. The ones that are not well prepared are those who skip the ap classes, the tough teachers, spend their time in 50 school activities, working at night till midnight to make payments on that monster pickup their foolish parents agreed to their buying and not having time to do their school work.
Some of these things are never going to change. Many people go to college years after they finish high school or finish their military excursion. There are no set paths to follow and this attempt to make high schools like General Motors where they turn out products all alike is really ridiculous.

In some respects, a rigorous high school regimen is even more important for those who don't go on to college than it is for those who do. This is their only opportunity to get the information they will need to be more productive members of their communities. One more time: education and the acquisition of knowledge is not a bad thing. Expanding ones grasp of the way things work is helpful; it is not a hindrance. If someone opts to go to college later instead of immediately after finishing high school, they will still need the information that a rigorous high school curriculum will give them. Laying out a few years doesn't bridge the knowledge gap.

" One more time: education and the acquisition of knowledge is not a bad thing."

True, but all of that isn't acquired from textbooks are sitting in classes. It comes also from first hand experiences in the work force, in general living experiences and just from interaction among the human race. There is no way a school or any school can turn everyone out to be the exact model these pseudo-political-education experts envision. There are people in the schools who simply cannot read or write, those who are special ed students and others which makes this idea of "Every child in Arkansas should take the 'Smart Core' college-prep curriculum" even more idiotic.

In a few months, the 800+ workers with tons of work experience but practically no marketable skills who are losing their jobs with DeLuxe Media Services will join the 300+ workers with tons of work experience but practically no marketable skills who recently lost their jobs with Levi Strauss. Together they will compete for the all the job openings in Pulaski County that require tons of work experience but practically no marketable skills.