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Originally Posted by IRISHMAFIA
The dumbing down of America s nothing new and it isn't all cell phones and IMs.
College students submit papers with spelling and punctuation that would not be accepted for someone my age when in the 4th grade.
It is atrocious and it is basically colleges giving up on trying to force the students to do it right.
Before you all tell me about how wrong I am, I have talked to parents who have complained to their students professors and the most response received were shrugged shoulders. My wife's nephew used my laptop to put together a paper. I've seen better spelling from my grand daughter. His parents told me it was the norm. This was confirmed by his older sister who graduated the same big time university in WalMartland.
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And a big part of this can be blamed on the government for several reasons. To begin with, the advent and popularity of standardized testing (which, incidentally are by no means standard)in most states to measure school and student performance, which also get tied into the monies that districts recieve, the promotion of educators, and in some cases whether or not those teachers will be allowed to maintain their certificates in that state. This of course, leads to teachers not really teaching, but spending the school year preparing the student for the test. While this does impart some information to the student, of course, it does not impart some of the more practical lessons and elements that were taught in the days of academic freedom.
Now, add to this the PC society that we live, which has created special ed programs, which initially were really good things. However, they have broadened the spectrum so much lately, that I fear one day every student in every public school will fit into some category of SPED. This, of course, leads to the modifications of the standardized tests, which renders them no longer standard, and in many cases skews the actual data that is release to the public.
If you want the type of education that you speak of for the next few generations, then start supporting a move away from standardized testing as a cure all measurement, and also support revising the programs mentioned above.