Quote:
Originally posted by Vodstok
And as far as the last election went, Bush did not have the superior number. No one knows for sure, and it is a moot point anyway because that was 4 years ago and he has already been in office to do his damage.
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And do damage he did. As an educator (and I'm surprised nobody else comments on this point) I can professionally vouch for the fact that Bush screwed up this nation's public education system BIG TIME with his "No Child Left Behind" act. As a teacher, I have studied theories and practices of education from rote memorization to constructivism. I know the positives and negatives of almost every educational philosophy put into print, and also know that the past 20 years of research into learning and learning styles has shown conclusively that standardized testing does NOT help education, and, in fact, is
detrimental to student learning. So what does Bush do in his infinite hick-wisdom? He makes it a law that ALL students MUST pass a series of state-administered standardized tests before they are allowed to graduate. Now, teachers (just to keep their jobs), have been forced to throw out all of their ideals regarding independent thought and study on the part of the student, have regressed from student-centered constructivist classrooms to the traditional "teacher as dictator" classrooms, and have basically turned our schools from progressive, cooperative-learning institutions into ruler-slapping, repeat- and-recite idiot factories. I am a teacher. I know.
If anything irks me about Bush, it is this. We seriously need to get him out of office before he starts meddling in anything else he's too uneducated to know shit about.