Scholastic Snake Oil: Things Aren't OK In This School

Things Aren't OK In This School

All right. ?Now I'm going to sound like a crotchety old lady--which, in fact, some people believe I am. ?

But I have to wonder what kind of a world we're living in, and what kinds of "educational" systems we have, when stories about teachers and administrators changing students' wrong answers on standardized tests doesn't even raise eyebrows anymore. ?Or when nobody expresses surprise, much less outrage, when school superintendents move potentially low-scoring students from one grade or school or another so they can't take the standardized tests. ?(Also see this.) Or when people start to think that education administrators' misappropriation of funds or cozying-up to politicians and business moguls is par for the course.

The things I've mentioned--and discussed in previous posts--may have been going on before No Child Left Behind started to dictate "education" policy. ?But they seem to have become more frequent, and the fraud seems to have grown in intensity and complexity, since NCLB was signed into law.

Even after hearing and reading about such things, I was taken aback when I saw this:

"During the school term 2010-2011, both fall and spring, I did not have a 12th grade English class. This class is a requirement for graduation. Dr. Brian Staples gave me a C both semesters for my 12th grade English class. Dr. Brian Staples suggested a student to take my Algebra class online for me. This was a difficult class for me. The Assistant Principal Ms. Cox called her into her office. I paid her $100 and $150 more after completion. My freshman math grades had been switched previous from two F?s to two C?s by Dr. Staples. ..."


Dr. Brian Staples is the principal of Douglass Mid-High School in Oklahoma City. ?The account comes from Kanda Barnes, who got her diploma from that school last year. ?Hers is not the only account of wrongdoing. ?Other students and teachers said Staples forbade teachers from giving students homework and had--Is anyone surprised?--students' grades changed.

Former Assistant Principal Marcia Muhammad became suspicious when a number of students, whom she suspected were failing, had transcripts in which all of their grades were C's. ?

A science teacher said she gave one of the students in question a D, not a C. ?Then Ms. Muhammad started to ask around, and found out that teacher wasn't the only one whose grades were changed by administrators.

Ms. Muhammad was fired. ?But she wasn't the only one whose life was affected by the scandal. ?Her son, who graduated with honors from the school, went on to college but couldn't hack it. She says the failure was "humiliating" and "hurtful" for him, and even worse for other students. ?"They're coming out of school, they're getting in trouble and then they're in jail," she said. ?"It's a pipeline from the classroom to the cell block."

In other words, NCLB is one way in which the Educational-Financial Complex supports the Prison-Industrial Complex

Source: http://scholasticsnakeoil.blogspot.com/2012/10/things-arent-ok-in-this-school.html

2012 oscar nominations kyle williams florida debate rand paul mark kirk florida gop debate freddie mac