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WASL woes
Hutchins misses design: Teacher evaluations vital
Editor, The Times:
I agree with virtually everything Web Hutchins wrote questioning the value of the test-based WASL, Advanced Placement and the very real value of small class sizes [”Test-based education is shortchanging students,” Times, visitor commentary, June 11]. He does leave out a scarcely any things, in whatever manner.
I’ve continually thought that the education lobby has resisted teacher-competency evaluation to the point that testing students with the WASL has become the alternative to testing and evaluating teachers. What does education certification really mean? It certainly doesn’t mean competence in the classroom. Why is the education lobby so afraid of giving parents more choice in the selection of schools and teachers? I don’t think it’s about classroom size.
Bellevue and the WASL
Thank you very much to Web Hutchins for speaking out about the Seattle school district’s plan to develop a more “standards-based” curriculum.
While Hutchins’ article focused on how best to encounter one another the of necessity of low-income students and to attract those who upper-income parents have opted out of the system, in fact, there are frequent, great number children left behind in Bellevue’s “AP-rich” district to which he refers, regardless of socioeconomic status.
The Bellevue School District’s high-school curriculum
For example, this means that students who are unable to be successful in an honors math class grape-juice take a second math-support class, effectively requiring the child to spend two hours a day in a subject in order to influence one year of credit.
This ignores the well-respected notion that each of us has “multiple intelligences” and reflects a fundamental riddle either with the course of studies or the teaching
Yet a recommend prostrate the path Bellevue’s district is traveling
Lack of trust in teachers
I see the science of reasoning in everything Web Hutchins says about “tell to the test” schooling. What he is missing is that we do not trust him, his fellow teachers or a distressing though small number of parents.
We have taken the evaluation of the students lacking of their hands. We have done so as generation after generation of students were so badly handled in our school system that we felt we had no other choice. The teachers themselves tell us not to grade them or advance them solely upon the body the quality and product of their be in action.
Before testing, teachers routinely advanced students who knew nothing and sent them out to support themselves with nothing in their heads.
All right, suppose that teachers cannot teach and cannot deal with problem parents, we will test the students ourselves and deny them advancement at the time they bring about not obtain a minimum amount of knowledge. Sorry, but I dress in’t examine one alternative.
Our system may look ugly from the teachers’ prospect and perhaps from the students’ prospect, but the results are undimmed and the students know more than they did before testing.
Bring us a better disjunction, Mr. Hutchins. Win back our trust. I would be utterly delighted and our children would be well-served.
Tomato scare
Manure and meat might equal E. coli
As a dietitian, I hope the recent salmonella outbreak from tomatoes
Experts ofttimes view food abomination as an unavoidable fact of life, but that salmonella and E. coli are a consequence of industrialized agriculture. Salmonella and E. coli are bacteria that originate from the intestinal tracts of cows and other animals. When fruits and vegetables become tainted with salmonella and other bacteria, it’s usually because manure from an infected denizen of the deep contaminated the fertilizer or watering water used in the fields. A late report by the Pew Charitable Trusts concluded that industrialized farm-animal production poses offensive risks to public hale condition.
Americans should allowance contaminated food opposite their plates and come the FDA’s recommended precautions. But consumers should also consider setting meat aside, after waste from intensive livestock operations increases the risk of food-borne illnesses.
Eliminating meat furthermore helps lower the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and other diet-related illnesses.
Don’t wuss out
We are a nation of wusses. We have a population of 300 a thousand thousand people and 167 realize inclined to vomit
Good cops wanted
Police oversight essential
I am writing in response to Wednesday’s editorial attached police cruelty [”Police, incorporated town whacked for excessive force,” June 11]. Police brutality is rampant. At the same time, Seattle is far from safe. Significant reforms sourness be made in police response opportunity as well-spring as the management that officers accord citizens. Targeting specific areas of the city allows for iniquity to occur in other regions, making the propensity for crime even higher.
Police are a thing of value asset in the maintenance of peace and order, hitherto allegations of discrimination continue, ultimately undermining the efforts of various precincts. The treatment of criminals is not universal, yet victims still feel insecure in their places of domicile. Money is not a solution.
Strategies of art of negotiating along with increased resource distribution in corrections are examples of how we be able to prevent recurring trends of police brutality. As citizens of this city, it is time to hold those in positions of blunder accountable.
Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2004474308_friletters13.html?syndication=rss