There are two very sad end results: 1) Teachers working in the inner cities, like my oldest sister last year, arrive to find bare rooms with bare floors and no money even for copy paper. Teachers in America are notoriously underpaid, and most of those end up spending hundreds of dollars out of their own pocket buying rugs, paper, scissors, crayons, books, etc. 2) Schools are increasingly pressured to spend the entire school year teaching toward the test, at the expense of educating the kids. Art, music, gym, and language programs are being gutted or done away with, for time and financial reasons. That’s a big kicker, because studies show that kids involved in music and art score higher on standardized tests. And America’s losing the cool part of our education: the well-rounded student who has studied a variety of subjects long after European schools drop off and let kids specialize.

There are two maddening facets of this program. 1) Standardize testing doesn’t really prove anything except how well you can pass a standardized test. I always scored about 30% higher than my brother and sisters, but that by no means dictates that they’re any less intelligent or knowledgable than I am. It just means I take tests well. Most universities aren’t looking very hard at SAT scores anymore for just this reason. 2) George W. cut most of the funding earlotted for this program, essentially leaving it with brutal standards and no money to help schools achieve them. Yeehaw.

Thanks for that Natty, one of the best things about keeping this blog is that I get to hear your observations as well as airing mine. Bush doesn’t impress me much, and the news I receive doesn’t tell me stuff like the story you’ve told here.

The UK now has league tables for schools too, and the government likes to fuck with the curriculum too.

I wonder:
– Just what, exactly, is school for?
– and based on the answer to that, how ought it to be supported, funded and managed?

I heard there is a freeze on employing teachers over here. Meanwhile numbers of primary school teachers are decreasing and and AIDS is the most frequently stated cause.

I know a man in Tala market who rides a bike, he’s a Boda-boda man: his Chinese bycicle has a home-made seat on the back and he offers rides for money (like the guy who crashed with me at the turnoff for College). He has a little yellow plaque pop-riveted to his crossbar proclaiming him to be number 12, T.C.S.H.G: Tala Cycle Self Help Group: a coop of Boda-boda drivers. He used to work as a groundsman at Tala Girls High School, next to College but, he told me, he was not welcomed by the other groundsmen, watchmen and cooks, because he’s a qualified Geography teacher.

I count myself very lucky that I don’t have
to do that any more!

Thinking of you lots

Chris

I don’t remember you moonlighting as a cycle rickshaw!

Nice to have the mungbean family grafitiing my walls again. Welcome back. I promise to send you some email. Meanwhile, there is a **letter** for you still on my desk waiting for me to go buy stamps. Watch this space (well, that one actually).

mark