As far as your earlier comment, like so many other people, you are trying desperately to make public education everything to everybody. You create a failing system anytime you try to do that.

Do you have proof, Tim, that reading was first taught in churches? That’s a pretty tall charge to trace reading instruction back to a single institution. It’s an even further charge to trace it back to an institution that’s preferred a little ignorance in its members. Do you really think so much of Catholicism is in Latin to help members follow along? Do you think things are in Latin to allow the common man to easily understand?

You’re flat wrong that everyone “read together in one room at one time.” Women were often forbidden to learn reading formally and plenty of cultures have a history of not being able to read, as things were transmitted verbally. And any of that reading in religious contexts was more about indoctrination that reading instruction.

Anyhow, I really think you should go back and read the original post, Tim, instead of just picking something completely out of context and responding to that (your interpretation of what I meant by HSEE is misinformed).

Make parents more responsible, Reading was first taught at church to read scriptures and families read together in one room at one time. How novel, FAMILIES FIRST

When students fail the HSEE it may be logicial to have a dna marker test on record. I do not think all students that fail the HSEE will commit crimes but it is our state money which might prove to be a better investment than welfare, remember the cost of trials, maintaining courts, and the dna results might eliminate investigation costs.

YES I am radical BUT I am peeved that I know children that need medical help but because they are American and the parents are stupid enough to work they are punnished.

Have you been to some schools, the often total lack of basic skills in a pleague that can be the one bad apple spoiling the whole bunch. For example remediation classes cost money and time. Why not spend the same amount on advanced classes?? But NOOOOO we must embrace the masses and hope we can teach them what we feel is important..

My point here is that we expect all students leaving high school to be at the same exact phase of development. But we never give consideration to the fact that they enter at all sorts of different levels. How can it be a feasible expectation that high schools take students and bring them to the same level in four years? For some students, that doesn’t represent much movement at all because they are already bright and curious. For other students, that represents an impossible movement because they stopped paying attention in 2nd grade.

If we’re going to say that all students exiting high school have to be at this level, isn’t it fair to say that all students entering high school have to be at a certain level, too? Otherwise, it simply ensures that high schools fail to reach all students. It’s not possible to move from 2nd grade reading comprehension to 10th grade reading comprehension in four years. It cannot be done.

And your assertion about what tests prove is only true if the test is poorly written. Most standardized tests, despite the millions of dollars spent on their creation, are poorly written.