Random Nuclear Strikes

It took just over a week, but it seems that those ungrateful UW snot-suckers who ‘Didn’t think ant a Marine was the type of person that the University of Washington should try and produce’ that I wrote about on Monday have come forward and apologized.

Well, kind of. Not in this account from the Seattle PI.

But you might want to take a read of this.

WHEREAS Student Senator Jill Edwards offended all members of the United States Marine Corps, past or present, dead or alive; especially those who were, are, or will be students at the University of Washington with her comment that she “didn’t believe a member of the Marine Corps was an example of the sort of person UW wanted to produce.” This commented brought shame and dishonor to not only the UW Student Senate, but also the University as a whole, all its members who have served in the Marine Corps and all Marines past and present.

 

BE IT RESOLVED BY THE ASSOCIATED STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON:

THAT

Student Senator Jill Edwards will submit, in writing, a signed apology letter seeking forgiveness to all students, staff, and alumni who are now or ever have served in the United States Marine Corps. In said letter it will contain a formal apology and a recognition that her very rights and freedoms are guaranteed by such members of the armed services, to include the Marine Corps, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard, past or present, living or dead. Additionally, said letter will be printed in all its form and substance in that day’s edition of the UW Daily newspaper as well as being recited on the UW Radio station. To realize her mistake, she must acquaint herself with the history of the person she is so keen to dismiss, by reading Col. Boyington’s book, Baa, Baa, Black Sheep. All of these requirements are mandatory, under pain of losing her seat on the Student Senate.

“A lesson in democracy, free speech and the burdens of both”, indeed.

Once again, found at The Andrew’s Dad Blog via The Orb

Alternative Title: Why Johnny still can’t read after billions of dollars.

If you’ve been keeping up with the tales of the Washington Assesment of Student Learning (WASL) test ‘controversy’ (and if not, you can find my previous posts here), you will know that the State of Washington has spent millions of dollars creating and implementing the WASL only to be shown just how badly the teaching centers in Washington are at instructing the youngins of the state on the very basics of education (reading, writing, arithmetic).

And now that they see how bad they suck, they are not calling for review of teachers, administrations or curiculum, but they instead insisting that the standards be changed.

Passing the WASL was supposed to be a graduation requirement, but now both houses of the state legislature are setting lower standards for a diploma, none of which inckudes passage of the WASL.

KNowing that the lowered standards will not be enough to save their sorry asses, the Seattle Public School District has decided to take the problem into their own hands by “reclassifying” close to 30% of their sophomore students as freshmen.

Now, this doesn’t mean thet they are holding them back a year; what it means is that since the student shouldn’t have passed from 9th to 10th grade in the first place, the district is “reclassifying” them so as to refer them into night or summer school to try and get the credits that the student actually needed to move up into 10th grade.

The students still get to take classes as sophomores, even though they stand very little chance at understanding the matierial, and they still get to hang out with and take lunches with their friends, even though they should be with their lower classmen, and provided that the student can write their own name at the end of the year and attends the extra classes, the student will get to move on to 11th grade.

Note the phrase “attends the extra classes”. The student doesn’t actually need to pass them, they just need to be on record as having taken them so that the district can point and say “Look, we’re doing all we can! The kids just aren’t learning!”

Which just goes to prove that the districts objective isn’t to educate the students.

I was talking this over with the Analog Wife last night and she asked if there was a way to take a smaple WASL, to see just how hard the graduation requirement test really is. I looked and looked, but couldn’t find anything.

But then I remembered that the test questions are at the 8th grade level.

Yes, as long as you know as much as your average 8th grader, you can graduate from Washington State Public Schools.

Which just goes to prove that the state Department of Public Education’s objective isn’t to educate the students.

Welcome to Washington! Thanks to our Democrat Party minders, our future #1 export will be middle aged burger flippers with 5th grade literacy.

If we’re lucky.