Three Sigma Systems

Short Takes

• Another Swing of the Wrecking Ball
  March 10, 2010 | 5:52 pm

  NYT today — “Panel Releases Proposal to Set U.S. Standards for Education“

  “The standards, posted on the panel’s web site, lay out the panel’s vision of what American public school students should learn…”

  Education is not the same as programming computers. Education is not about the content to be learned but the process of learning. Without methods, standards are worse than useless. Teachers will do whatever it takes to meet standards and students will learn to do whatever it takes as well — education be damned. Without a theory of learning and a methodology for promoting and facilitating learning, the educational enterprise will do more harm than good to human beings.

  So what is the current educational methodology in America? Get a bigger hammer.

  Come on folks! It’s not WHAT you know that matters. It’s HOW you know.

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• Watching the Death of the American Dream
  March 9, 2010 | 10:32 pm

  The news just keeps getting worser and worser. NYT today – Pressed by Charters, Public Schools Try Marketing

  Nothing reflects the systematic destruction of the American dream more than the deconstruction of our system of public schools. Even president Obama is razzled and dazzled by the free competitive markets scam. Anyone who understands child development and education knows that performance-based pay for teachers and charter schools that compete with public schools for students is a recipe for educational disaster. Individual teachers do not determine educational outcomes and selective institutions with gimmicks do not make an educational system.

  There are no low-performing schools in rich communities and the lowest performing schools are embedded in impoverished communities. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what’s going on, though it might help if people had even a modest acquaintance with the art of thought rather than bellies distended from the crap dished out by corporate ad men, lobbyists, and political lackeys.

  Such destruction! It makes a man want to cry.

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• Whatever it Takes
  March 2, 2010 | 4:06 pm

  Today’s NYT – “…consumers have become hesitant to buy Toyotas as questions remain about whether the recall repairs will solve problems with unintended acceleration and about how quickly the company reacted to the problem. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating the timeliness of Toyota’s recalls.”

  In the fallout from a huge recall by Toyota, Ford’s sales rose 43 percent in February and G.M.’s rose 12 percent, while Toyota’s declined 9 percent

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• Glowering Skies
  February 26, 2010 | 4:06 pm

  This “moving” graphic of unemployment rate changes in the U.S. over the past two years does a pretty good job of putting jobs, or lack thereof, in perspective.
  
  The darker the shading, the higher the unemployment rate.

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