Ok, this post is doing nothing more than creating a link for google search..., just ignore it. Unless of course you happened to graduate from Warren High School, Downey, California in 1988, then go on over.
Almost forgot, here is the link: Warren High School Class of 88
It occurred to me that military people will be hit especially hard during this housing downturn.
Thanks to housing privatization, the supply of base housing is being greatly reduced, so more military people have been buying houses the last few years. Military people are conservative (poor) by nature, and we tend to use fixed rate VA loans, with very little down. Unfortunately, we are also subjected to mandatory military moves, so when we need to sell, we need to sell. Add to this that many bases are located in huge bubble areas (3 AF bases in Fl, Nellis AFB in Las Vegas, 2 AF bases in AZ, etc...).
I already know of a few people who are hurting because they can't sell their house. There is added stress because a foreclosure looks bad on the military member, and the hit can affect their security clearance.
I am predicting that this will become a major issue in the military in the next few years. For the record, the military will not buy your house, unless it is a result of a down market caused by a base closure. On military moves, we are on our own.
Schools stunned by voter rejection:
Voters looked at their rising mortgage payments, the empty houses on their streets and a shaky economy. Then, in 17 of 22 districts, they shot down proposals to maintain funding for Valley schools, deciding they couldn't afford it.Expect much more of this. The housing market is tanking, people are asking for lowered property tax appraisals, tax receipts are down, we are on the verge of a major recession... school funding is going to be a low priority for many people.
Friday, Friday, Friday is my favorite day.
Friday, Friday, Friday is my favorite day.
Monday is a bummer, Tuesday's only fair.
Wednesday's gettin' better, Thursday's almost there,
But
Friday, Friday Friday is my favorite day.
Housing slump affects sales tax collections | ajc.com:
Georgia's tax collections fell slightly last month, following a trend across the country where the housing slump has begun to affect state budgets and sparked talk of spending cuts for education and health care.As houses depreciate, property taxes will inevitable be reduced. Not only will their be less property taxes collected, but spenders will also cut back on a lot of discretionary spending, causing a reduction in sales tax collections.
Walk in to your local elementary school and observe a hour of the gifted program.
Ask yourself if they did anything in that hour that was beyond the capacity of an average child.
If the answer is no, then the chances are that you just witnessed your tax dollars going up in smoke.
Our 2nd grader, who is a struggling reader, won an award Friday for "outstanding diligence".
We weren't quite sure what this meant and why she was chosen, but our daughter explained it to us.
"The teacher wrote everyone's name on a piece of paper and put it in the hat. Then she picked out four names, and I won. Aren't you so proud of me daddy?"
Actually I am very proud of her, but I don't need meaningless awards to justify it.
No, not a teacher, not the schools, me.
I am on grave shift for the next few months.
I go to work at 1130 at night and then get off at 730 in the morning. After the kids leave for school at 830, I sleep until they get home. Then its pick up the baby, do homework, cook dinner, and then put the kids to the bed.
Anyways... I am so jet lagged, my brain is mush.
The housing market crash has finally hit cable. I am sitting here watching "Please buy my house".
One woman desperate to sell her 3/4 of a million dollar home hired a feng shui expert, another family went on to a local real estate radio program and practically begged for someone to buy, while another couple hired their grandson to decorate.
Idiots. Lower the friggin price... this isn't 2005. The bubble is over. Homes are places to live, not investments.
Ok, I do feel a bit for the older couple... but its is a bit entertaining to see desperation in real estate instead of all those smug house flipper shows.
I know I complain a lot, so here are some really cool things about my kids school and classes.
My 4th grade girls teacher uses a wireless surround sound system so that all of the kids can hear. He is also setting up a class blog.
My 2nd grade teachers doesn't assign reading stories from their whole language text book, instead she sends home photocopies "decodeable" books on the sly. She also has assigned several reading groups in class based on skill level. My daughter is in the lowest, but is improving tremendously.
The school has a really active running club for all grades and puts on track meets. They also have a great P.E. program, and plenty of recess.
My 4th grade son's teacher doesn't overload with homework, which is great, even if he has to do the occasional poster.
The staff is super friendly.
Oh and the math teacher at my 7th graders school pulled out some antique "old school" math text books from 1991 to supplement the "integrated" math books bought by the district. She told the class that they would be mostly working out of the old books. Get this, the old books actually have math stuff in them.
My son got real homework today... a math worksheet. Of course it was only because his class was acting up, otherwise all they would of had was the project.
Would it be wrong of me to tell my son to act up everyday to ensure he actually learns something?
Today my son doesn't have any math, reading, or writing homework. Instead, he has to do a fire prevention poster, due by Friday.
The poster will be graded on creativity and neatness.
I am still trying to decide if I should question the assignment or literally have him shut up and color.
According to this book, Direct Instruction works, at least thats what Marginal Revolution says:
Ayres argues that large experimental studies have shown that the teaching method which works best is Direct Instruction (here and here are two non-academic discussions which summarizes much of the same academic evidence discussed in Ayres). In Direct Instruction the teacher follows a script, a carefully designed and evaluated script. As Ayres notes this is key:
DI is scalable. Its success isn't contingent on the personality of some uber-teacher....You don't need to be a genius to be an effective DI teacher. DI can be implemented in dozens upon dozens of classrooms with just ordinary teachers. You just need to be able to follow the script.
Contrary to what you might think, the data also show that DI does not impede creativity or self-esteem. The education establishment, however, hates DI because it is a threat to the power and prestige of teaching, they prefer the model of teacher as hero. As Ayres says "The education establishment is wedded to its pet theories regardless of what the evidence says." As a result they have fought it tooth and nail so that "Direct Instruction, the oldest and most validated program, has captured only a little more than 1 percent of the grade-school market."
Even though my 4th grade son was in the gifted program at his last school, I declined to have him tested for the gifted program here in Anchorage. I asked around and discovered that the gifted program here was exactly like I feared it would be.
It wasn't all that hard a decision. His experience last year in South Carolina was a waste of time. He colored more posters in his gifted class than he did in art class.
It seems like the supervisor of Anchorage's gifted program ran across my post, and is concerned (last comment), to quote her:
Last week there was a Gifted Parent Forum in Anchorage and its too bad you did not attend. There was much discussion about Gifted Education and the challenges educators face when trying to meet the educational needs of gifted children.I am more concerned about the challenges that gifted children have, than the challenges of their teachers.
Have I mentioned how awesome Alaska is? The people are unbelieveably friendly, not fake friendly like in the south, really seriously friendly.
Last week we got "termination dust" on the mountains. When you see snow settling on the peaks of the mountains, you know that that it will be snowing in the city within a few weeks. It is natures way of telling us that summer is over, and winter is here. (There isn't much of a fall)
We have managed to get a handle on the four kids homework.
We used to make the kids do it as soon as they got home from school, but because school starts and ends late here (930 - 330), we let the kids play until dinner, and then do their homework. It gives them and us a break after school and work to relax and unwind before dealing with the tears...
Our biggest problem is that one of our 4th graders teachers gives more homework than the other one. It causes a few problems, but we usually supplement the homework to mitigate the problems.
In other news, a guy from work brought in some smoked salmon today... OMG was it good. I am so taking up fishing next year.
To Rightwingprofessor: No moose BBQ yet, but we have a family of three moose hanging out in our backyard.
I swear once I get settled in more, I will have more sarky commentary. For now go read D-Edreckoning... he had attitude and facts.
I was helping my 2nd grader read her decodeable books this evening and all of the sudden I noticed the helping e rule of thumb for whether a vowel is going to be long or short, except for "v" words. (i.e. the "i" in hide is long and the "i" in hid is short, long "a" in made, short "a" in mad. I don't know if there is an official name for it)
I told my daugher the rule, then practiced it for a bit, and it was amazing how quickly her reading improved in a matter of minutes.
Instead of guessing long or short vowel sounds, now she can figure it out most of the time. I swear her reading speed improved by 50% within half an hour.
I am an extremely fluent reader, and this simple rule of thumb never occurred to me consciously until tonight. I had somehow internalized the rule without being aware of it. What I can't figure out is why her 1st grade teacher never pointed it out to her. Perhaps she would be reading on grade level.
I also pointed out that "v" words are weird and don't always follow this rule. i.e. "ive" words can be short or long, and ave words are almost always short.
Teaching kids how to read is hard. You would think someone would come up with a systematic way to teach all the phonetic sounds and letter combinations, instead of relying on a parent to stumble on them by accident.
I got my sons first weekly progress report today, and he was missing one assignment.
Last Friday, he gave me a copy of his weekly home journal, which I read then promptly forgot.
I guess I was meant to not only sign it, but also write back comments for him to turn in on Monday.
So he did the writing, but because his father mess up, he gets dinged with a missing assignment.
I didn't realize I would be graded this year.
I sure hope I am not required to do a science project...
Don't worry though, I already did my assignment this Friday. I signed my name in my best cursive, and wrote a three sentence paragraph. The paper is already back in my sons folder.
p.s. to be fair, we love Alaska, and the school is pretty well run (except the whole curriculum thing, but you can't have everything).
I have nightmares about writing sentences for spelling words. Helping 2nd and 4th graders write 15 - 25 (correct) sentences is tedius.
Why can't teachers split the sentences up through out the week... it aint rocket science.
Posted during hour 2 of 15 2nd grade sentences.
St. Paul school conquers the education achievement gap
Great title for an article, except of course it isn't true. While the schools test scores are excellent for all demographic groups, there is still a significant achievement gap.
Approximately 90% of the schools white students are proficient in reading (according to the Minnesota state test), while 65% of its black students are proficient and only about 40% of its Native American students are proficient.
It has managed to eliminate the gap between Hispanic and white students.
Don't believe me? Check for yourself.
Do newspapers fact check education stories at all?
The kids (and schools) have hit the ground running. It's homework time again, and Aurora Elementary School on Elmendorf AFB, Alaska is no different than any other school in South Carolina (or any state for that matter).
4 school age kids = 3.5 hours of homework, of course the ironic thing is that it takes my 7th grader the least amount of time to do her homework.
Today only 3 out of 4 kids cried.
Frickin waste of time if you ask me. I guarantee, that except for learning their spelling words and about 15 minutes of reading, the rest of the stuff didn't increase my kids competence at all.
To any teachers out there, please remember that homework probably takes at least twice as long and causes at least three times the amount of stress at home than you think it does.
Rory
President of Parents United Against Useless Homework.
