5 Things Our Kids Won't Have In School | Cracked.com

Recess, p.e. class, textbooks, summer breaks, Valedictorians and other honors, and failing grades. Some of these, for parents with kids in school these days, well... We've seen the writing on the wall. Others, like the end of summer breaks, I've been hearing about since I was in school twenty years ago and it doesn't seem any closer than it did twenty years ago.

Using tablets and e-readers seems inevitable, but most of the other changes predicted by this writer do not, to me, feel like improvements.

The thing that is really killing us in our district is the budget cuts.  Already, the boys have nearly as many weeks with four school days as they do with five, and the district is having to cut five more days because of budget short falls.  We'll these dates will be announced when the district finished negotiating the timing with the teacher's union.

And these sorts of cuts are not recent.  At the end of the 2004-2005 school year, the Portland School District elementary school sent a survey around asking which staff member to lay off, the librarian, the p.p. teacher or the music teacher.  The school was already without a counselor.

At the end of the 2009-2010 school year, Gresham-Barlow S. D. was where Portland was five years earlier.

I don't think summer vacations are going away any time soon.  If anything, they are getting longer.  But it might be time to look at how all this down time is organized, though having all those long breaks would be murder on working, single parents.

Anyway, this article is not too deep, but it does have some entertaining food for thought...

5 Things Our Kids Won't Have In School | Cracked.com:

"You remember recess, right? It was that one time when you could ditch the desks and run around in a frenzied scramble like an extra-caffeinated Bosstone. Whether you spent your 20 minutes hurling dodge balls at dorks or cowering under the slides (to hide from the dodge balls), recess has been an institution for generations. And thank goodness for recess. At a time when kids are tripping over their guts and trailing their asses on the sidewalk behind them, a few minutes of physical activity can be just what the doctor ordered. Literally.

Going Away Because ...

Four little letters: NCLB.
For those of you who have been out of the school loop for the past decade, those letters stand for "No Child Left Behind," which has, for better or worse, done a serious number on American education. Here's why: In 2001, President Bush and Congress passed a law saying we had to get better at school, specifically reading, language arts, math and science. Fair enough."

And failing grades? I agree and disagree with the concept, much like the writer. As long as we are rewarding our kids for real work, not just being overprotective of their feelings or, even worse, creating a situation where it is possible to keep moving through the system without actually learning anything, which I've heard of happening too, because it is just too difficult to fail a kid or to hold them back for a year.

More from Cracked...

"Failure makes students feel bad. And nobody wants that, do they?

Which is why programs like Zeros Aren't Permitted (ZAP!) are getting implemented everywhere from California to Michigan. In a no-fail zone, students can get an A, B, C, D or H, which presumably stands for "Ha ha ha! You didn't think we would give you an F, did you??? Give us a hug, apple dumpling!"

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"You kids write whatever the hell you want on these essays. Mr. Scotch and I don't judge."

Upon getting their H's, students have multiple opportunities to complete their work to the teacher's satisfaction; during study hall, after school or, in extreme cases, during Saturday school. We can mock the idea, but in some ways, it makes sense. After all, in the real world, you work until you get the task done. Quitting every time you failed at something would just get you fired.

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"I totally messed up that appendectomy. Next time I'll make sure they don't want a sex change."

Plus, the goal of school isn't to sort the stupid from the smart, but to teach everybody as much as possible. For struggling students, zero after zero builds up into one great house of fail, and with no hope of recovery in sight. It should be about getting them caught up, not continuously reminding them of how stupid they are.

But as soon as we defend it, it gets ridiculous again: There are places where red ink has been banned when writing grades because it's too "confrontational" and "threatening." We don't want to embarrass anyone, so let's just say that the country in question rhymes with "England."

No pressure.

'via Blog this'

Oregon State Legislature rick rolls itself...

Honestly, I haven't been following local politics enough to really have any snarky comments on this.  Harmless fun?  Sure.  A little sad?  Probably.  Reason for sadness? Many possibilities.

Been meaning to post this for awhile.

Portland Blogger Too Poor to Continue...

No, not me... Yet. Maybe check back next week just to make sure.

Local politics affect our day-to-day lives more than any other level of government, but for most people, issues affecting their hometowns are often the most overlooked and ignored. More people are likely to vote for President, Senator, or Governor than they are for City Council candidates or School Board members. Unfortunately, in most cases, the City Council and School Boards are the ones who are going to be making decisions that directly affect what you can or cannot do every day, or what your child can or cannot do every day.

In fact, local government is a major battleground of the Red v. Blue stand off. Look at what has happened to School Boards across the nation. We are living in the 21st Century and the Scopes trial could be a current event in many cities and towns. State Legislatures are falling across the country to the Republicans, even in the bluest of states, reflecting the fact that most geography in the Blue states is actually Red. These bodies have tremendous influence on the debate both up and down the food chain, influencing everything from your taxes to who gets to be President.

Quality local sources of news and information are very important, though, to my knowledge, fairly rare. Municipal and regional issues can often seem very dry, which means you won’t be seeing any in depth coverage on your local broadcast news, and in most parts of the country the quality of journalism on these broadcasts is atrocious. Daily newspapers vary greatly in their bias and competence and most cities these days only have one. It is never wise to rely on one source for information about news and politics. Many larger cities also have weekly alternative papers, but again, the quality varies greatly here too, and the anti-establishment biases may not always be conducive to fair reporting.

So, well researched and well written blogs focusing on local issues may be a niche that is waiting to be filled in most areas, and it may be one that needs to be filled again in Portland.

The Portland Communique, a blog that focuses on local issues in Portland, OR, is probably going the way of the mammoth in the next few weeks.

From what I have seen of this blog, it is a well-written, informative source of information about local issues in my hometown. While democracy is in distress all over the nation, and while it is doing much better in Oregon than it is in other parts of the country (I glance four miles to my left from where I sit now), it would still be a shame to see a resource like this disappear.

Death in the Blogosphere: Christopher Frankonis of the Portland Communique

Portland Communique

Washington Democrats Rule!

They pulled it off.

The Washington State Democrats delivered a $730,000 check to Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed's office on Friday as payment for the hand recount, the first in the state's history.
It seems a bit weird that the State requires cash to do its job, but I suppose that they are a bit strapped for cash in this economy these days. Also, I am guessing that there is some logic in forcing the party to pay for it just in case they are being a sore loser. That is not the case when the certified results show a 42 vote difference between the two candidates.

Remember, this 42 vote difference was the result of the machine recount. It came down to 42 votes from 261 votes.

Anyway, it appears that the idea in Washington is a bit like the Replay Rule in the NFL. If you request a review of the call and it goes your way, it costs you nothing. However, if you stall the game and the refs got it right the first time, that’s going to cost you a time out. In this case “According to state election rules, a hand recount must be financed by the party requesting it, although the state will reimburse the money if the recount reverses the tally.”

Some thanks on this one also should go to the Kerry Campaign.

Democrats scrambled to raise the money for the recount, which was supported by a $200,000 contribution from Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's unused campaign funds.
42 votes out of 2.8 million cast in the election. What do the Republicans have to say about this? "The Democrats are trying to steal the election," said Chis Vance, the Washington State Republican party chair.

Republicans wouldn’t know anything about that, now, would they? Sorry, cheap shot.

The argument they should be using is the one from 2000 in Florida. It went something along the lines of, “Well, you can’t just count over and over and over again until you get a result you are happy with. At some point you just have to say it’s enough and just stop and move on.”

However, to quote Dan Rather from the 2000 election, "This race is tight like a too-small bathing suit on a too-long ride home from the beach."

It seems like the most troubling aspect of this whole ordeal, just like the one in Florida, is that the tallies do change with every recount. Is every vote being counted each and every time? Is there an election official out there who is forgetting to carry a one every time? Or, everyone’s biggest fear, “Yes Mr. Rossi, no one will find that bag o’ ballots from Seattle. I got them stashed under my desk in my office… Hey, Paul, get out of my office, will ya’? I got stuff in there you don’t want to see.”

Supposedly, these were the sorts of issues that electronic voting machines was supposed to resolve. Unfortunately, those come with their own, new issues. In Washington, King County took a look at these machines and essentially laughed at them and moved on. Probably a good call.

Now they actually have ballots that they can recount.

It is unknown if this will actually put the Democrat, State Attorney General Christine Gregoire, into office, but it is good to see that the party isn't just rolling over and conceeding another loss in 2004. These battles must be joined. City by county by state by the nation... No more rolling over and conceeding one seat after another to the Republicans.

One final note: I pulled the Dan Rather quote from here. A page full of his election comments. Funny. I am going to miss Dan.

11-02-04: The Election of George W. Bush as President of the United States Of America…

So, it happened... Now what do we do about it? More than that, what do we do with the real threat of losing the Democratic Party as a viable voice of opposition to the Republican controlled Executive and Legislative branches of our Federal Government, and to increasing Republican control of our State and Local Governments, as well?

On November 2, 2004 we lost a battle, but we did not lose the war. However, we must not roll over. We must not lose track of that tremendous store of energy that the Democrats mustered for this election. At the same time, we also must take a hard look at why the Presidency was lost and at why seats in both houses of Congress were lost.

We must look at, explore and understand why the vast majority of the country comes up red in the Presidential Election every four years. We must understand why the Republican Party always seems to control the debate in these elections; why the Democrats are always responding to their attacks on the character of the candidates instead of the Republicans responding to attacks on their stance on the issues.

It is only a few days since the election, but it is not too early to start focusing on the future. Rightfully or wrongly, there will be a bloodbath in the Democratic Party power structure. In the gap created by this, the people need to step in and demand change.

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