My huge frustration is with general attitudes toward education. There was an article in the NY Times the other day about math standards and a new report that's come out, and it was very depressing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/e...sq=math+standards+third+grade&st=nyt

The whole focus of the piece in the Times was, as usual, on minimum standards: everyone should be able to add and subtract whole numbers by the end of third grade, etc. etc. The report itself is 120 pages long and pretty much just gives lip service to gifted students saying that learning faster doesn't appear to "harm" them and that they should be "allowed to do so". <sigh>

It is so frustrating that schools and elected officials just don't get it. Sure, it's a disaster that some kids are behind. But it's also a huge disaster that we aren't teaching the bright ones how to think (or the other ones, for that matter).

We have abandoned our bright and brightest children because they get good scores on dumbed-down tests. They must be okay, right? They scored in the 98th+ percentile, right? That's great, right? Wrong. That's a disaster. My 3 year old can 2+2 in her head. Why did they force my 7 year old to do this in second grade??

Our schools squander our best minds and leave them to fend for themselves. Then Mom and Dad get labelled as troublemakers because we want something challenging for our kids.

<RANT OFF>

Val