I wish the state would do away with the CRT testing.

At my kid's middle school in Provo, the school scores well above average on the science tests. But out of all the tests they take, the science CRT scores are the lowest every year.

However when you look at the Iowa Basic Skills Test (a national test not one made by the state), the science scores are the highest of all the subjects.

What does that tell you?

Get the federal government out of public education and maybe standards will drop dropping so rapidly. Unfortunately most people haven't ever read the whole Constitution. Where does it authorize the federal government to be involved in education? Read the 10th amendment, it is a state issue.

Want to public education is doing fine? Only teach kids to pass a test. Are they still struggling? Make the test easier then. We wouldn't want schools to look bad.

To: 3arwax | 7:55 a.m. Aug. 31, 2008

The Constitution mandates the federal government to provide for the common good of the nation. Enabling the schools to educate (and test to verify the minimum achievements) is a great measure of the states' ability and success in providing the minimum level of education for students to function at a level to contribute to the common good.

Computer education is a fantastic method of promoting education, and encouraging and motivating students to learn something worthwhile. The first two sentences of your second paragraph indicate that you, yourself, need some rememdial education.

Public schools are a fantastic thing. The state should be the ones running the public school system though. In Utah our legislature would like to see the demise of the public school system... shame on them. Diversity is a good thing.
We do need to bring back discipline to the public school system however.

Testing..... These tests measure nothing other than a childs ability to take a test. I have never had to do a criterion reference test in the business world. Those tests do nothing to test a childs ability to cooperate as a group, innovate, work well with others, invent or build new and innovative things. WE ARE TESTING THE WRONG THINGS IF WE WANT THE U.S. TO CONTINUE TO LEAD THE WORLD. When are we going to learn that principle.

We need more design instruction in schools. We need more creative and inventive endeavors in our classrooms. We need less memorization of facts, figures and dates. We need more instruction on patriotism and what it means to be a citizen of this great country. We need more moral guidance.

Let's change education for the better and quit with all these stupid charter schools. Waste of money.

Dear Public Schools, (Alexandria perhaps)

Students need facts. We need less 'design instruction' in schools, not more. The failure of Investigations Math proves that.

The reason student's need facts is pretty simple, facts are the underlying foundation for any future learning. This means that a student who has learned and mastered his facts for multiplication, division, addition and so forth is ready to move on to more difficult concepts. A child who has not, is simply overwhelmed. The abandonment of fact mastery by Alpine School District when they subverted to the Investigations Math only model is the most damning proof of why fact knowledge and mastery is critical for a well-balanced education.

Charter schools are well-designed public schools, built to ensure students are given a free and appropriate education. Each Charter I have been to has integrated patriotic themes throughout the curriculum. Core Knowledge, the curriculum choice of most Charter Schools, has patriotism built in as its specific goal. Charters that focus on Core Knowledge build character and patriotism in their student bodies.

So you are basically saying that the federal government has unlimited power? They can do whatever they want to as long as it is for the common good? What is the point of the 10th amendment? What is the point of states? What is federalism? I have heard that argument many times before and it doesn't make sense if you have a real understanding of the creation of the country. May I suggest some good books to read?

3arwax, are you saying that "promote the general welfare" in the preamble was negated by the 10th Amendment? "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." I guess the framers failed to be clear on this. Sometimes the Constitution isn't as clear as we would like, but I suppose you have cleared this issue up for us, to your satisfaction.

The problem we have now is that the general public doesn't understand the founding of the country. They don't understand what the founders were protecting us from and why they did what they did. People don't understand that the definitions of words meant when they were spoken or written. Definitions do change.

We came from the Articles of Confederation. The states were very independent and had formed a very loose coalition to fight the British and then transformed that into a central government with very weak powers. It was too weak to be effective. The so called United States was having huge problems with other countries. Nobody took them seriously. So, we then got the Constitution which still gave us a fairly weak central government. Most of the powers were either given to the states or the individuals.

Over the next 220 years the states have lost vast amounts of power and so have individuals. During the same period the federal government has grown exponentially. Excuse after excuse has been made to take power away from the states and individual so now we pay huge amounts of taxes to the federal government and we still have a massive debt.

Education does indeed belong to the State. The Federal government sets standards "guidelines" like NCLB and allow states to adopt them how they see fit. However, if the Fed's don't like it, they withhold federal funding. The states have a choice to accept the 'federal dollars' by complying with the 'federal programs'. If the states do not wish to follow federal mandates, they are free to find their own source of money. There is no such thing as a free lunch, especially with the Government.

But what authorizes the federal government to take the money in the first place? This is what I mean with states losing their power. Education was a state thing until the 60s and the whole Sputnik thing. Oh, the Russians are so much smarter so in the name of defense we have to pump federal money into the system. It was a lie and now the federal government basically holds the states hostage with this money, along with road money. And since then standards have dropped.

Where did the federal government get the money from? The residents of the states.