On Anti-abortion group that battled McCain backs him

Posted on July 13 at 12:04 a.m. ( Suggest removal )

Historically, I have taken a pro-choice stance in this debate even though I don't think I could have ever chosen to have an abortion. However, I adamently believe that Roe v. Wade has directly caused the "disposable baby" syndrome we have witnessed in the last 15 years or so. We often see stories of a young mother delivering her baby in secret and simply disposing of it in the garbage or chucking it in the toilet or what have you. In these young minds, it is not a big leap of logic to go from getting rid of a fetus prior to birth by abortion to getting rid of the baby after birth by dumpster. The combination of a young, inexperienced psyche and post maternal hormones is destined to result in many tragic choices. The advent of society's acceptance of a woman's choice to abort her fetus has reduced the value of human life. Because nobody is brave enough or strong enough to legislate strict regulations governing abortions, we end up with such revolting ideas as "partial birth" abortions and getting rid of the "wrong" sex child. As with so many human endeavors, the pendulum has swung WAY too far in the wrong direction and needs to be dampened.

On Two city schools fall short in 'yearly progress'

Posted on June 28 at 10:21 p.m. ( Suggest removal )

rlms has made an important point about advocating for your child. Nobody has the interests of you child at heart as much as you do. I have found out that this is critical for all children, not just students enrolled in special education. Our daughters have qualified for GT programming. Their strong suit is language arts, but they make a strong showing in math as well. When our oldest began to complain about being bored in math in 4th grade, I asked for her to be placed in the accelerated class. "It's too late." I was told. We worked with the teacher all year to give her additional materials to challenge her. When it came time to enroll her in the class for 5th grade, the teacher forgot about this despite the fact that it had been a focal point of 3 conferences, the latest one 2 months prior to placements. I had to pound tables and shout to the rafters to get her the challenge she needed. They were extremely reluctant to give her this challenge and she segued into the accelerated class without a hitch, going from all A's to all A's. We are currently experiencing the same issue with our second daughter.

The point of this story is to show how persistant one needs to be to successfully advocate for your child. A healthy self image is also required, as well as an ability to buck the system. My observation of human behavior leads me to conclude that most people do not possess the requisite combination of traits to advocate relentlessly for their kids. Most people do not like to be a pain in the backside. My question has always been and remains to this day: Why should parents have to get testy about this stuff? Why don't educators recognize when a student needs differential instruction and provide it automatically? What happens to the vast majority of children whose parents don't have the time, energy or personality traits to challenge the status quo? Worst case scenario, they graduate without knowing how to read.

This is where the public schools need to focus their efforts in this debate. They need to figure out how to improve the dialog with parents and serve each student's individual needs.

On Two city schools fall short in 'yearly progress'

Posted on June 26 at 3:05 p.m. ( Suggest removal )

I'd like to clarify my comment regarding 100% failure of NCLB by 2014. The statistical bell curve dictates that the vast majority of students fall in the midrange of the curve with a few notable students excelling and, of course, a few students failing. This is a statistical truth in every population. Unless schools find some way to disqualify those few students at the low end of the bell curve from counting in the NCLB calculation, no school will have 100% of its student body score proficient or advanced on the WKCE.

Perhaps this is the real goal of the feds implementation of NCLB. It's possible that the architects of this inane policy really do know that it is a statistically impossible goal for 100% of a population to achieve proficient or advanced standing. They will therefore have concrete justification to discontinue federal Title I aid to public schools. THAT is something I can believe, as opposed to blanket ignorant statements such as "All teachers are lazy and uncommitted." and "All parents want the public school to raise their children for them." and "Schools brought this on themselves by graduating illiterate students." Based on a brief review of many posted statements, most of us have no moral high ground in the literacy department.

On Two city schools fall short in 'yearly progress'

Posted on June 26 at 12:02 a.m. ( Suggest removal )

These comments are interesting to read. There seems to be some misunderstanding that the schools have a choice in whether or not to administer the WKCE exams to the special education students. If schools wish to retain federal funding for Title I, they must administer the tests to all subgroups. In the case of Evansville, for example, this amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue. I don't recall the exact amount, but I assure you it is no mere pittance.

There are many people who are ready to sling insults and blame everywhere in this story. This won't solve any problems nor will it change the fact that by 2014, 100% of all schools will be out of compliance with the NCLB, should it survive congress this fall in its current state. As previously stated on this forum, the law requires 100% of students to score proficient or advanced on standardized testing approved by the NCLB Act by 2014. Some idiot designed the progression of NCLB compliance because this is a statistical impossibility for even one school to achieve and will only happen if (as in the case of the entire state of Wisconsin) the standards for proficient and advanced scoring are reduced so low as to become meaningless. Schools will spend more time trying to finagle the data than they do teaching just to reach the holy grail of funding. Budgets are so tight right now that schools simply cannot blow off the federal funding opportunity provided with NCLB compliance.

As for NCLB, as previously stated, it's a good concept, but once politicians got involved it became idiotic. States aren't willing to relinquish local power over education and feds don't want it. Our country doesn't even have a standardized methodology for calculating graduation rates, for heaven's sake. How can they possibly have a federal standard for anything when a simple calculation is done 50 different ways (52 if you count DC and American Samoa). If NCLB were a measure of forward progress for each individual school with some final destination that is statistically rational, everyone would be a lot better off.

On District examines holy day policies

Posted on March 11 at 12:57 p.m. ( Suggest removal )

Our entire Western society accomodates the Christian holiday calender. What days are observed as holidays in 99.9% of business calendars? Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Years Eve, New Years Day, Thanksgiving, the day after Thanksgiving, Martin Luther King, Fourth of July, often Good Friday and a floater to be declared annually. School districts take it to a higher level by scheduling "Winter Break" at Christmas and "Spring Break" at Easter. We called them Christmas and Easter vacations in the olden heathen times of yore. So while the PC push in recent years has been to call these breaks by another name, indeed to avoid at all possible costs mentioning Christmas or Easter in any form whatsoever for fear of offending somebody, the vacation schedule in practice still allows the Christians to have two of their most holy times of the year off. I think Ms. Sellman is gently reminding schools that not everyone is Christian and, gee, by the way, wouldn't it be great if the activity schedule could avoid big events during other religion's High Holy Days as well.

We all have to make choices based on many criteria. If a big event consistently falls on a High Holy Day, each year a child of that faith will be forced to make a difficult choice. Children today have to make so many hard choices already, it seems a small kindness to remove this as one of them. This is not to say that every single event needs to avoid every Holy Day. As previously indicated in this discussion, that would be impossible. But the Big Events need to avoid the Big Holy Days, regardless of the origin of the Holy Day.

On Tentative snow-day dates considered

Posted on March 11 at 12:20 p.m. ( Suggest removal )

State law also requires schools to excuse each child for 10 days per year for any reason given by the parents(family trips, educational opportunities, etc.), sort of like personal days at work. This is in addition to sick days and doctor/dentist appointments. Unless you've already used up these 10 days, there is no issue. If you HAVE used up the 10 days already, then your child needs to be at school when it's in session.

That being said, I do agree that this is a golden opportunity to teach students the value of responsibility and commitment. The way any given family responds to the challenge of making up these snow days, which is not up for discussion, is a direct measure of how much their child will value education. If the parents come together and show a united front with the districts on the solutions, children will see that their parents value education and will follow in their commitment. If the parents fight and say how stupid it all is, so goes the child.

On Edgerton middle school might cut reading

Posted on March 11 at 11:59 a.m. ( Suggest removal )

Jerry Roth used to be the principal at JC McKenna Middle School in Evansville. I'm relatively sure that he's using a strategy here to make a point and is not serious about this ludicrous proposal. When faced with a difficult choice in a "cut services" scenario, some principals are extremely adament that nothing is left to cut. Instead of stating, "There is no place to find $160,000 in savings," he instead makes a proposal that would make the board look like idiots if they followed his suggestion. They should just tell him, "Try again, Jerry. This is not negotiable."

On Three Janesville students expelled

Posted on January 10 at 1:54 p.m. ( Suggest removal )

I know that by the time an expulsion comes before the school board, often intervention after intervention has been attempted with the student to avoid expulsion. Typically, the board has little choice in the matter: either they uphold policy (part of their job) and expel the student or circumvent policy and reinstate the student, which would send the administration a message of distrust and further hamstring administration's authority. Expulsions are a very sad experience and are only undertaken as a last resort and must take into account the best interest of the student body as a whole.

On Bible incident draws concerns

Posted on January 7 at 4:05 p.m. ( Suggest removal )

I have been content to log in and read the comments being posted here to follow how far afield the discussion has gotten from the original premise of the student's speech. And I have not been disappointed. Now I am compelled to similarly stray from the topic at hand to respond to husbandofmath's commonly held misinterpretation of the Apostle's Creed as recited during Catholic Mass. The Creed indeed states "We believe in one holy, catholic and apostolic church..." with exactly the spelling indicated, with a lower case "c" for the word catholic. This designates the more common definition of the word catholic: "Universal or appealing to the general population." When the word is capitolized, then it takes on the meaning of the Catholic Church. If I am not mistaken, the Lutheran service uses the exact same Apostle's Creed. This is your friendly mini-Catholic lesson for the week.:)