Friday, January 6, 2006
Training Future CIA Agents
Yesterday Bush proposed a program to teach Arabic, Chinese and Farsi to American students. I'm all for teaching kids another language (the article says only 44 percent of high school students study another language), but the reasons behind the program - called the National Security Language Program - may be a cause for some concern. One spokesperson said the programs might involve a commitment to work for the government or military. It would be really unfortunate if programs like the Mandarin dual language program in Oregon (post here) tried to funnel kids to the CIA. But I do think the idea of teaching kids another language is a good one. Kids are often isolated in their own worlds in increasingly segregated school districts, and it's important for them to learn about other cultures and viewpoints through language, which can really make the learning stick.
Thursday, January 5, 2006
Pondering a Takeover
According to the LA Times today, Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa met with the superintendent of the city's schools, and they may or may not have discussed the mayor's potential takeover of the school district. I haven't heard much about Villaraigosa since he was elected (the Economist says he hasn't done much), but he seems determined to follow NYC's mayor on this one. I'm not seeing a lot of progress as a result of Bloomy's reforms, and I suspect that the upcoming middle school ELA tests will confirm at least the dismal state of the city's middle schools. Only a handful of my 8th graders have been able to write a coherent, gramatically correct article for the after-school's newsletter. And these kids are so tired of thinking and being pressured about tests all year that I think they won't even perform as well as they could.
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