GOP debate fact check: Was Marco Rubio right about welders vs. philosophers?

[wordpix]

51. I've taught hs seniors who read/write/do math on low elem. level ---read on

You put older hs students in "regular" classes when they're not ready for them, and you've got disaster. We have a National Disaster in Education.

If a student is academically disinclined or several grade levels behind , he needs to be able to choose "other" for courses like vo-ag, and continue to work on improving the basics instead of getting promoted to the next grade he's not ready for. So I think Rubio is correct.

Interesting story:

I taught 6th gr. in a DC charter school located in an affluent part of the city. The school attracted students from that area in the first couple of years after it was founded--- I came in Year 3. This school had outstanding test scores in the first two years (of course---studies have long shown that students in affluent areas/schools do much better than poor students), so by Year 3 word had gotten around and people in low income areas started to send their kids across the city to this school.

Most of these students were ill prepared for 6th gr. and could not read/write do math beyond 1st gr. level. More than half the students were at least a few grade levels behind in skills. Meanwhile, the affluent students could have skipped 6th gr. entirely and some could have gone on to 8th or 9th gr, they were so capable. So I was teaching 6th gr. science to kids with 1st-9th gr. skills. This was the most difficult job I had in my teaching career.

Big Problem. National Disaster in Education. We need education alternatives and teaching kids skills in welding, plumbing, farming, etc. is the answer. Not saying we should give up on reading/writing/math, but students need to hone basic skills before getting automatically moved on to next grade.