Transforming Education: Idaho reform bills may need fixes | Idaho Legislature | Idaho Statesman
A controversial school reform plan that calls for larger classes, fewer teachers and more technology may be pulled back for changes just days after it narrowly cleared the Senate Education Committee last week.
State Sen. John Goedde, R-Coeur d’Alene, who chairs the committee, met with representatives of three key education groups Monday — teachers, school administrators, and school board members — for more than six hours, and came out with a long list of possible changes.
Goedde said he wasn’t trying to reach a consensus, but wants to “make whatever moves forward a better bill.”
The move came as parents, students, teachers and others rallied across the state Monday against the plan; more than a thousand people turned out for a rally in a Boise park across from the state Capitol, and in Coeur d’Alene, more than 200 marched through downtown. Twin Falls saw about 250 people, the Times-News reported; Moscow and Idaho Falls each had about 100, according to the Moscow-Pullman Daily News and Idaho Falls Post-Register.
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There's a problematic assumption at play here amongst the opposition that kids (or people) don't want to learn anything constructive. The only people I know who really don't want to learn are those who've been thoroughly convinced that doing so is an odious task, and even they learn whether they like it or not. They just usually do it the hard way or they have to work at being actively ignorant (probably the hardest life choice there is; the one who makes it gets all the responsibility of any actions undertaken while 'ignorant' since the information is available and they're are able to understand it if they will, they get all the consequences of any action or reaction because natural consequences are unavoidable, and they get none of the rewards because rewards must be claimed and doing so belies the previously claimed ignorance - that's karma, baby :)). No matter what, the only way for a human not to learn is to be entirely unconscious, spiritually, mentally, and physically.
There's also a disturbing focus on 'measuring progress'. When students are measured against themselves and their particular challenges, it's useful. Measuring them against one another has been, is, and will continue to be unfair and disheartening for many and an inappropriate ego boost to some, but it's been the best we could do until now. Now we can keep up with individual students and their individual interests, and we can see whether they're continuing to move in positive directions without having to move them all along a similar path due to lack of resources (which is a better reason than some Machiavellian intent to turn the populace into mindless drones, although some of that may be in play at times as well). Students can pursue any career path, regardless of what's available to them locally, and when they need to travel to see a thing first-hand the money will be there for them to do so if it's not being wasted on things like textbooks, which are often as not outdated before they're printed, or brick-and-mortar classrooms where virtual ones are as or more desirable. Spend the brick-and-mortar money on facilities dedicated to taking students from all over for hands-on experiences in various fields (giving them a cultural experience in the process). Spend the textbook money on sufficient technology to see many students through many years of up-to-the-minute information gathering. Save the money currently spent putting students through years of classes that in no way apply to anything they have any interest in and use it to move them forward in the fields they enjoy to levels where they find themselves embracing things that earlier had no relevance for them. A musician can be just a musician until they need to develop some business sense in order to progress any further. If they don't want to progress why should they have to, but if they do they'll expand into fields they probably eschewed earlier in life, just like an engineer who's never bothered to develop social skills will have to speak human well enough at some point to share their discoveries with the world. There's no reason, now, that everyone should have to progress in the same areas at the same time, as long as we keep progressing (or get stuck into things that hold our attention for a while but working at which we keep learning).
I hope it passes, and I hope the nay-sayers are pleasantly surprised. :)
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