Grading California's Education

Hi, it's Mr. Lisa Snell here, guesting for the old lady, whose traveling to Lexington even as we speak. The following is cross-posted at The Wine Commonsewer.

Looks like TWC may have to stop insulting people by asking them if they were educated in Californicate public schools. According to the latest information from my better half, California public schools have made tremendous strides in putting together a curriculum that actually focuses on education. I'm still skeptical but she's still the expert on the subject and she says....

Much has changed in the past decade in terms of curriculum in California schools. Democrats, allied with Republicans in the Legislature, required the state board of education in 1995 to ensure that instructional materials in math and reading teach systematic, explicit phonics, spelling and basic computational skills.

Whole thing here.

The local rag, the Riverside Press Enterprise, put together a special Sunday feature called Grading Education and asked a panel of experts to comment on various aspects of education here in the Golden State.

In his contribution, Lance Izumi outlines some of the same-same complaints that make rational people crazy.

....in an effort to be inclusive of women and racial minorities, the textbook lavishes attention on people of relatively minor consequence, like the woman who established the first tennis court......... The biography of Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani in American Nation is longer than the bio of Abraham
Lincoln.

Overall Grade: Still a lousy C overall. With a solid D + in public school finance and not much better marks for teaching poor kids.

For ten grand plus per kid we ought to see straight A's.

We Report. You Decipher.

As Ever,

TWC