A Big Ta-Do about.... nothin'

Ok, so I'll slap it on the resume, and work it all into my experience, but wow, that was the shortest "any more questions?" period of silence I've ever heard!

Senator Kennedy spoke on the phone for about 10 minutes, after being 10 minutes late, allowed time for a question, which an enthusiastic blogger asked about the Star Act as an addition to this act, and then Senator Kennedy went into another 7 minutes of speaking something about the government needing to be a part of the lender auctions, and then "any more questions" upon which the Senator immediately said "good" and said his farewells.

I never envisioned that you have to be any less than on your toes in hot sand when on the Hill, but good-ness!

Mr. Senator admitted that it wasn't on the front pages of papers, and not even on the back pages. One education blogger who'd been in on the conference admitted before it all started that he probably wouldn't even write anything about it. At that point, I didn't feel like the only one who might not.

I've learned quite a bit in my two months as an education reform blogger... one thing I've learned is that public education is the last Government monopoly... the second thing I've learned is that money has no correlation (in any reputable studies) with achievement - money is necessary, but pouring in more is not going to raise anyone's SAT, IQ or comprehension.

One of my major beefs with the whole piece of legislation is that so few students receive pell grants, and so few low-income students attend higher education. If the secondary instutions of this nation are pushing students up through the ranks when they need to be held back or failed, they get into Junior year, make a few college applications, try the SAT or ACT, and then the admissions folks laugh and stamp them with "Community College" I'm not sorry. I'm not wrong either. I taught remedial writing/reading for a year at a Community College. You talk about students who somehow have Diplomas who cannot write a summary, don't know the difference between compare and contrast, cannot document sources much-less find primary, print sources for research papers ... it's sad... really sad. So that money can just sit there - free pell grants for all the low-income students who have the talent and ability to get into those higher institutions - and it's going to keep sitting there until we work out a way to get these students to pass only at certain levels of achievement.

Anyone ever read the essay, "In Praise of the 'F' Word" ? I'm all about it.