Belly,

No disagreement with what you suggest here....I think it's spot on, and I fully endorse it.

Hey Mucho Loco,

Have you totally lost your marbles?


Is there no end to your depth of dilsusional far-edged thinking? Earth to abc, please land on terra firma soon!

There is no end to AdummyBC's depth of dilsusional far-edged thinking? And he has landed on a bar stool and there he remaineth!

Green One,

Just couldn't agree with you more.

And the problem extends to the USA.


Years Of Schooling Leaves Some Students Illiterate
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December 12, 2009

Author Beth Fertig says that as many as 20 percent of American adults may be functionally illiterate. They may recognize letters and words, but can't read directions on a bus sign or a medicine bottle, read or write a letter, or hold most any job. Her new book, Why cant U teach me 2 read, follows three young New Yorkers who legally challenged the New York City public schools for failing to teach them how to read — and won. Host Scott Simon talks to Fertig about her book.

Copyright © 2009 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

SCOTT SIMON, host:

The United States has a literacy rate of 99 percent. That's equal to Japan, Denmark, Finland and the United Kingdom. But in her new book, "Why cant U teach me 2 read," three students and a mayor put our schools to the test. Beth Fertig says that as many as 20 percent of American adults may be functionally illiterate. They may recognize letters and words, but they cannot read directions on a bus sign or a medicine bottle, read or write a letter, or hold most any job.

Beth Fertig, who's a senior reporter at our member station WNYC in New York, follows three young New Yorkers who legally challenged the New York City Public Schools for failing to teach them how to read, and won. Beth Fertig joins us from WNYC. Beth, thanks so much for being with us.

Ms. BETH FERTIG (Author, "Why cant U teach me 2 read": Thank you.

SIMON: And tell us about Yamilka, Alejandro and Antonio.

Ms. FERTIG: I met Yamilka when I was working on a story for WNYC about the low graduation rates of special-education students. She had graduated high school a couple of years earlier at the age of 21 knowing only eight letters of the alphabet, and she was so embarrassed, she told me, that she didn't even want to buy the cap and gown. She thought - why should I bother? Her mother was furious.

And Yamilka, with the help of her attorneys, was able to prove that as a student with learning disabilities, the city never met her needs as required by federal law. There's extra protections, and that is how she won the equivalent of about $120,000 of private tutoring at the city's expense.

SIMON: How do people get to high school without knowing how to read?

Ms. FERTIG: In Yamilka's case, she and her brother, Alejandro, had moved here from the Dominican Republic. Their parents came first and took their two older siblings, and they stayed behind where because of some family problems, they didn't go to elementary school. So they came here not having, you know, an early start in school, missing out on those critical years of first grade, second grade. And then when they got to the New York City Public Schools, they were sent to English as a Second Language classes, and it took years for anyone to figure out that they had learning disabilities.

In this case, the parents had no formal education of their own or very little from their native countries, so they didn't know how to navigate the system and give their children the early start in reading. And when the kids got into trouble, they really didn't know about their rights and what to do. And that's why it took a long time.

So it was a combination of the family's own lack of education, and then winding up in schools that didn't do a lot. And then these children were, of course, very complicated cases themselves.

SIMON: Your book revisits a debate that's been going on for years about how to teach reading. Is it letters or whole words? Is it the look/say method versus phonics or whole language methods?

Could you help us understand what some of the differences are?

Ms. FERTIG: Most kids are going to learn to read no matter what you give them. Seventy-five, 80 percent of kids are going to learn how to read. But there are some children for whom they're going to need a specific type of instruction. And specifically, children who are poor, whose parents don't have that much education, who aren't read to at an early age, they start off at a disadvantage. And there's a lot of research that suggests that if you give them intensive phonics, they can do better in school later on.

There was a study that found that children from an educated or college-educated, middle-class family will have heard 30 million words or utterances by the time they were 3 years old - which was 20 million more than the children from poor families. So this gap is what everybody in education is saying, how do we overcome this? Because if we could get children going to school prepared, then they're more likely to do better later on.

SIMON: The No Child Left Behind Act is often criticized. But you suggest in this book that it perhaps did force teachers to not just let a certain percentage of students slip through the cracks.

Ms. FERTIG: That is the one thing that I do hear from a lot of different people is, by not just looking at how a whole school did and saying, you know, 60 or 70 percent of our kids passed the test, they now have to look at how did our Hispanic kids do, how did our black students do, how did our special-ed students do, how did English language learners do - students who aren't born to parents who speak English.

And this way, by just aggregating the data, they're able to see which kids are falling behind and hopefully target them and give them more interventions, more help with their reading. And the ideal is that a child like Yamilka isn't going to be caught, you know, in high school and they're going to figure out then that they weren't reading.

SIMON: You make a point in the book you can't get a job cracking rocks these days without having to probably fill out a computer form as to how many rocks you cracked.

Ms. FERTIG: Exactly. Antonio is now working at UPS as a loader. He had to take a basic orientation test. And because he had improved his reading skills to a fourth- or fifth-grade level, he was able to pass that. But he feels stuck now.

There's not a lot else he can do to move up and get a better-paying job unless he gets his GED. So there are a lot of people in this country who are reading below the level that we would consider you need. But on the other hand, I think as a country, we now have to deal with, what do we do with those students who are not going to be able to graduate with the higher-level skills? Are there jobs that we can train them for? And that's a debate that's going on right now.

SIMON: Beth Fertig is a senior reporter at WNYC. Her new book, "Why cant U teach me 2 read: Three Students and a Mayor Put Our Schools to the Test."

Beth, thanks so much.

Ms. FERTIG: Thank you.

Some idiots here!
Glo is still waving his 1000 dollar degree

Like in other countries in the region hunger and malnutrition are rampent among DR schoolchildren.
Under 5 mortality in many areas exceeds 40 per 1000 childen - for every 25 desks in a shcool there could be one marked with a cross for a dead child.

Under the circumstance of this situation the governments lunch program consists of a small flavoured milk drink and a small packet of biscuit.

http://nutrition.tufts.edu/docs/pdf/fpan/DR_Report_Final.pdf

Good school food is considered essential by many countries:

http://www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/UploadDocs/Library/Documents/school_food_in18countries.pdf

Not only is nutrition poor but in many places housing and hygene are pathetic. Scenes of bad housing are prevalent.

So it is small wonder that educational achievement is pathetic.

Crazy posters on this board think about HVAC courses when the last thing needed is HVAC.


Need it be so?

Hong Kong had bad housing with many slums but in 1973 the government ( not communist at that time ) started a 10 year housing program. Adequate housing was to be available to all. Hong Kong later experiences a boom helped by its well educated, well housed workforce.

The story of how this was done is lengthy but for a summary see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing_in_Hong_Kong

Education in Hong Kong had a similar program.
Literacy is now well over 90% : L2 is also high.
http://www.nationmaster.com/country/hk-hong-kong/edu-education

ETV is prevalent in many countries including Hong Kong:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Television_Hong_Kong

Good educational programs focused on nutrition need to be set up:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/04/28/impact.argentina.garden.kids/index.html?iref=allsearch


So instead of importing SUV's and licensing McDonalds governments can act.


S.

Please take it easy on ABC he is recovering from a near death experience on the high seas if not for a last minute maritime rescue of great valor by an old sailor ABC would be pushing up sea urchins with Davey Jones and Lord Nelson

Blut in a sad state!
Needs to grow more spinach!

S.

Fundación Orange: “El futuro está en las escuelas”
Andrea Luna - 4/30/2010 Listin Diario-

Objetivo. El proyecto se crea para brindar atención y educación a niños y niñas mientras sus familiares trabajan.
Santo Domingo.- La Fundación Orange Dominicana inauguró ayer el proyecto “El futuro está en la escuela”, con el propósito de transformar el rol tradicional de los menores en situación de adultez precoz.

Su objetivo principal, a través de casas albergues, es crear condiciones de cuidado y desarrollo para los niños y niñas que llegarán allí mientras sus hermanos estudian y sus padres trabajan. El proyecto fue anunciado por la Fundación Orange ayer en una rueda de prensa en el hotel Embajador, presidida por el ejecutivo de la entidad, Marc Harion.

Este proyecto facilitará la educación a más de 290 niños residentes en el sector Guarícanos del municipio Santo Domingo Norte. En el encuentro Harion señaló que “la Fundación es uno de los componentes de nuestra responsabilidad social, que viene a fortalecer con acciones concretas el desarrollo de la sociedad dominicana, en áreas específicas”.

Indicó que ya comienzan a verse los frutos de la Fundación Orange, cuyo lanzamiento se realizó en noviembre del año pasado.

Mientras, Andrés Ferreiras, director de la fundación, afirmó que la entidad ha realizado donaciones importantes y tiene proyectos en ejecución en beneficio de instituciones dominicanas, en especial aquellas que se dedican a la educación y a la atención de personas con alguna discapacidad.

Mireille Le Van, secretaria general corporativa de la Fundación Orange Internacional, felicitó y destacó el trabajo que las fundaciones vienen realizando a nivel mundial en beneficio de la niñez, en especial la familia Orange.

La Fundación Orange forma parte del Grupo France Telecom y está dedicada a hacer que el mundo sea más accesible para aquellas personas aisladas debido a la falta de educación o por alguna discapacidad sensorial.

Para lograrlo, la fundación fomenta una mayor autonomía en su diario vivir y apoya su desarrollo cultural y social.

Robots and gaming on the timetable at hi-tech school

By Andrew Webb
Technology reporter, BBC News


Andrew Webb visits the San Diego school where robot building plays a major role in the curriculum. Student Kit Haggard filmed some of this report.

The moment you walk into San Diego's High Tech High you realise this is a school unlike most others.
Teenagers are writing video games, filming sketches, using heavy duty power tools to build a boat - and then there are the robots.

In pride of place is Daisy May, a waist-high machine that scuttles around, scooping balls off the ground and projecting them into a bin.

"The way she skids replicates the way she would move in the semi-weightless conditions on the moon," said one of her designers and senior year student, RJ Sheperd.

High Tech High video link to Plumstead Manor pupils for BBC School Report

The high level of motivation and professionalism among many of the students is striking. "Let me introduce you to our Public Relations Director", said RJ proudly, as though this was a major corporation's high-flying spin doctor.

Robot runner-up
In fact, she is also a senior year student, but with a similar air of authority.
They were among a group of pupils that entered Daisy May into the First Robotics Competition for students around the world. The robot reached the semi-finals.

Both students were working on their latest entry in the annual championship: a robot that played soccer around an obstacle course.

This was "intersession" week, when teachers set up specialist projects that reflect their own personal interests.

But even during more routine times, life at High Tech High is a break from the norm.
The school runs on a system of instructors and mentors, plucked from relevant industries.

Students investigated methods of projecting a football for a soccer robot

An example is Cris Fitch, who comes to High Tech High Media Arts campus twice a week to help students develop robotic engineering skills. In a former life he was the chief technical officer for web translation site Babel Fish.

Computerised chopper
He helped students design a helicopter flown entirely by computer. It has no remote control for humans to operate.

Instead, the teenaged inventors wrote computer code to regulate its complex flight and balance mechanism.

One, Jake Neighbors, explained how its programming enabled it to train itself to balance over a series of flight trials.

"We use calculus to make the helicopter hover," he said. "We were not taught calculus in class... so we had to completely learn it by ourselves without the teacher."

Classmate Eric Harmatz said: "We were discovering the tools of calculus; having the goals of why we needed it. So that's why project-based learning works so well for us."

Air-RESCUE is a helicopter that 'teaches' itself how to balance
The commitment shown by students may give the appearance that only the smartest need apply. In fact, local education policy requires the school to take children of all abilities.
Funding comes from local government and benefactors, including the Bill Gates Foundation.

Alternative schooling
The aim is for project-based courses to foster a self-starting ethos among those who study there.
A question that immediately springs to mind is: what is missed off the curriculum to make way for inventing high speed drag cars or creating a surreal film noir love story?
Robotics and engineering instructor David Berggren scoffed at any suggestion that the courses leave students with an incomplete education.

"Certainly they learn a lot designing robots... it's using technology to really hook kids in."

Basketball robot Daisy May scoops up balls and projects them into a bucket
In some cases this also extends to their proposed career choices.
RJ is positive that he wants to continue his electronic engineering work in one of California's many technology firms.

Others are more circumspect.
Allie Sandoval helped build the Betabot, a swimming "mechanoid" that shows its emotions when prodded or shaken.

Despite learning programming skills, she sees this as an interesting project, but not something she will devote her life to.

"I enjoy it so I will probably just do it as a hobby," she said.

Video gaming
Some of the video game writing students share similar views.
The room was a hive of silent activity.

In hushed tones, instructor Neil McCurdy described how he locked the door at lunchtime and the end of the day to ensure pupils ate and drank, rather than stay glued to their seats.

Student Thaddeus Lewis developed a 3D version of Pac-Man
Some students used software that Mr McCurdy had adapted from the Java programming language.
Others wrote their own games with Star Logo TNG, a free game development tool.
One of his pupils, Thaddeus Lewis, adapted the 80's game Pac-Man into a 3D version.
Despite his obvious skills, he does not see this as a future career.
Gaming, he insists, is just something to fall back on. Instead, he aims to be a dentist.