Who is runnin our schoolz?

[gturner]

Ace of Spades says Instapundit stumbled across this gem illustrating one of the potential problems with Detroit public schools.

The President of the Detroit School Board wrote in an e-mail:

Do DPS control the Foundation or outside group? If an outside group control the foundation, then what is DPS Board row with selection of is director? Our we mixing DPS and None DPS row's, and who is the watch dog?

In another e-mail he said

If you saw Sunday's Free Press that shown Robert Bobb the emergency financial manager for Detroit Public Schools, move Mark Twain to Boynton which have three times the number seats then students and was one of the reason's he gave for closing school to many empty seats.

Yep, the lettered school board president is a product of the Detroit Pubic School system, which only graduates 1 in 4 students, and he was one put in special ed.

So, should people who run the education systems in major American cities be able to read and write at a junior high level, or is that asking too much?

 

[Amaris]

^ I don't think that's the writing level of someone in Junior High.
Then again, maybe it is.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Does he have a learning disability of some sort, hence the special education classes? You could be right, but I think it's kind of in bad taste to assume that the guy's an idiot because of the fact that he writes sloppy emails without further proof of the possible cause behind it.

 

[Ward Fowler]

^ I don't think that's the writing level of someone in Junior High.
Then again, maybe it is.

I think that it may be. When my wife was getting her Master's Degree she would have me proofread her papers. I was shocked at the writing level of her classmates when she was participating in group projects/papers. Time after time the majority of her group members were writing at below high school level. In graduate school no less. I found it bewildering and a little scary.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Standards are in free fall. The adolescent mentality is in charge of society and only boring grown ups care about things like spelling and syntax and stuff.

 

[LitmusDragon]

Stupid DPS, always pulling aggro off the tank.

Sorry, saw DPS in your post and had to make a Warcraft joke.

 

[gturner]

Does he have a learning disability of some sort, hence the special education classes? You could be right, but I think it's kind of in bad taste to assume that the guy's an idiot because of the fact that he writes sloppy emails without further proof of the possible cause behind it.

It took him ten years to pass his college's English requirements for granting a degree. It doesn't matter what the reason behind it is, the man is in a position requiring clear communications skills that he does not possess.

Many people have severe visual problems, such as congenital blindness. Though they are completely blameless for the condition, we still don't let them be airline pilots.

If he possessed some sort of genius for education, his school system wouldn't be the worst in the nation.

 

[Teelie]

Stupid DPS, always pulling aggro off the tank.

Sorry, saw DPS in your post and had to make a Warcraft joke.

Or they stand in the bad.

As to these emails, by themselves they don't mean much. I've seen people who are highly educated write with similar level of grammar and it's just sloppy or lazy. But put into the context of the Detroit school system and his past comments, they don't paint a pretty picture.

 

[Misfit Toy]

Does he have a learning disability of some sort, hence the special education classes? You could be right, but I think it's kind of in bad taste to assume that the guy's an idiot because of the fact that he writes sloppy emails without further proof of the possible cause behind it.

It took him ten years to pass his college's English requirements for granting a degree. It doesn't matter what the reason behind it is, the man is in a position requiring clear communications skills that he does not possess.

Many people have severe visual problems, such as congenital blindness. Though they are completely blameless for the condition, we still don't let them be airline pilots.

If he possessed some sort of genius for education, his school system wouldn't be the worst in the nation.

I wonder how he pronouces the word "nuclear".

 

[Rii]

As to these emails, by themselves they don't mean much. I've seen people who are highly educated write with similar level of grammar and it's just sloppy or lazy.

Seriously. Most people can't type as fast as they can think or even speak. In informal contexts like e-mail the temptation is always there to take shortcuts, particularly if you don't intend it to be read by the kinds of folks whose ass cheeks clench when they encounter a sentence that wouldn't pass OED inspection.

 

[Maestro]

Schools themselves should be run by a principal. The running of a School District should be done by its Superintendent in concert with its School Board. The School Board is to be held accountable for its decisions by the voters.

The President of the School Board doesn't typically have significantly more power than any other member, besides being the one who runs the meetings. Although Roberts Rules recommends that the President set the agenda, when it comes to School Boards, the setting of the agenda is often done by the Superintendent or the Super and the Board President.

In this case, it sounds like the voters of DPS are cool with their leadership. Ya get whatcha vote for.

 

[May 20]

I was an English teacher for 12 years. I taught grammar, punctuation, usage, and spelling rules. One of the (many) reasons I left the classroom was that I was told that I was to no longer teach grammar to my students. If I noticed that many of my students were struggling with a particular issue in their writing (say dangling participles), I was to teach a mini-lesson to correct the issue then move on. Of course, this assumes that they had a basic understanding of grammar in the first place, which they didn't because grammar instruction had be removed from the curriculum K-12.

So, in answer to the OP's question, yes, it's asking too much to expect a person to know what he has never been taught. No, it's not expecting too much to expect that the basic rules of how the English language works to be taught in the classrooms of the American public schools.

 

[gturner]

Does he have a learning disability of some sort, hence the special education classes? You could be right, but I think it's kind of in bad taste to assume that the guy's an idiot because of the fact that he writes sloppy emails without further proof of the possible cause behind it.

It took him ten years to pass his college's English requirements for granting a degree. It doesn't matter what the reason behind it is, the man is in a position requiring clear communications skills that he does not possess.

Many people have severe visual problems, such as congenital blindness. Though they are completely blameless for the condition, we still don't let them be airline pilots.

If he possessed some sort of genius for education, his school system wouldn't be the worst in the nation.

I wonder how he pronouces the word "nuclear".

I wonder how he pronounces "corpsman". At least 'nukular' is an accepted pronunciation in the dictionary, to make it sound like molecular, cellular, and all those other scientific words.

 

[scotpens]

One of the (many) reasons I left the classroom was that I was told that I was to no longer teach grammar to my students.

You split an infinitive!

If I noticed that many of my students were struggling with a particular issue in their writing (say dangling participles), I was to teach a mini-lesson to correct the issue then move on.

Run-on sentence. There should be either the conjunction and or a comma between issue and then.

No, it's not expecting too much to expect that the basic rules of how the English language works to be taught in the classrooms of the American public schools.

Aside from the redundant use of expect, the sentence as written makes no sense. It should read:

No, it's not too much to expect that the basic rules of how the English language works be taught in the classrooms of the American public schools.

Or:

No, it's not too much to expect the basic rules of how the English language works to be taught in the classrooms of the American public schools.

Sorry, got a little anal there (you should pardon the expression).

 

[Colonel Green]

^ BEST. POST. EVER.

 

[scotpens]

At least 'nukular' is an accepted pronunciation in the dictionary, to make it sound like molecular, cellular, and all those other scientific words.

Accepted by WHAT dictionary? So, by the same logic, it's okay to pronounce similar as “simular”?

Nuclear is an adjective derived from the noun nucleus. There's no such word as “nuculus,” or “nucular” either. Period, full stop, end of discussion.

 

[gturner]

The dictionary disagrees, citing nukular as an accepted pronunciation.

 

[gturner]

From Webster:

Main Entry: nu·cle·ar
Pronunciation: \ˈnü-klē-ər, ˈnyü-, ÷-kyə-lər\

usage Though disapproved of by many, pronunciations ending in \-kyə-lər\ have been found in widespread use among educated speakers including scientists, lawyers, professors, congressmen, United States cabinet members, and at least two United States presidents and one vice president. While most common in the United States, these pronunciations have also been heard from British and Canadian speakers.

Linguists note that the pronunciation "nü-klē-ər" uses the 'lē-ər' sound, which only occurs a couple of places in the entire English language, making that pronunciation unlikely to remain common in the long term.

In contrast, nobody pronounces the 'p' in corpsman except for Bush's replacement.

 

[LitmusDragon]

The dictionary disagrees, citing nukular as an accepted pronunciation.

Homer Simpson approves.

 

[Lindley]

The three words I keep on mispronouncing and correcting myself on are "Euler", "Laplacian", and "Hough transform".

The correct pronunciations are
Oil-er
Lap-lass-ian
Huff transform

But I keep on saying
You-ler
Lap-lace-tian
Hew transform

One of these days I'll stop getting it wrong.