L. Marcus Posted March 14, 2007 Report Share Posted March 14, 2007 Re: The Last Word US Department of Defense? Edit: Yay! I was right! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliceTheOwl Posted March 14, 2007 Report Share Posted March 14, 2007 Re: The Last Word Oh, of course. Abbreviations on this site always throw me. I can never tell if it's a game abbreviation, an official abbreviation, or netspeak. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted March 14, 2007 Report Share Posted March 14, 2007 Re: The Last Word So, at least three schools I attended are closed now. Two in Europe, one in California. The only one I know is still open in CA is on the list of bottom 10% in the state. That one seems to have decayed with most of the rest of its community after Fort Ord closed, drying up its economic mainstay. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliceTheOwl Posted March 14, 2007 Report Share Posted March 14, 2007 Re: The Last Word How depressing. All of my old schools are overcrowded now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted March 14, 2007 Report Share Posted March 14, 2007 Re: The Last Word That makes me think about demographics ... Here in Seattle, they're closing schools. My daughter's gets closed after the school year's over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliceTheOwl Posted March 14, 2007 Report Share Posted March 14, 2007 Re: The Last Word Do you know why? Is there another school that replaced it, or just not many young families in the area? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted March 15, 2007 Report Share Posted March 15, 2007 Re: The Last Word That's contentious. Seattle schools can't manage their money, and in the long run they save money by operating fewer facilities. Now, as to why they closed her school in particular, it seems pretty clear (though they deny it) that it was closed because there's too many poor families in the area. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliceTheOwl Posted March 15, 2007 Report Share Posted March 15, 2007 Re: The Last Word Ah. Lovely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted March 15, 2007 Report Share Posted March 15, 2007 Re: The Last Word Very nice, in a not-very-nice-at-all kinda way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliceTheOwl Posted March 15, 2007 Report Share Posted March 15, 2007 Re: The Last Word 'Round here, we call that "government." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted March 15, 2007 Report Share Posted March 15, 2007 Re: The Last Word . . . . . . Around here, we call it "political suicide." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliceTheOwl Posted March 15, 2007 Report Share Posted March 15, 2007 Re: The Last Word Nah, catering to the rich while ignoring the poor is what a capitalist society is all about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted March 15, 2007 Report Share Posted March 15, 2007 Re: The Last Word . . . Why not go all the way and privatize all education, if that's how it's supposed to be? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliceTheOwl Posted March 15, 2007 Report Share Posted March 15, 2007 Re: The Last Word 'Cause private schools are for snobs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted March 15, 2007 Report Share Posted March 15, 2007 Re: The Last Word Bluntly, I'd like to see a Terminator go through Seattle School District offices the way the first such went through the LA police precinct in the movie. They mismanaged their way into a big deficit a few years ago. The superintendent was forced out, but AFAICT none of the administration types suffered, and those are the real culprits. The idiots who proposed closing my daughter's school also approved the putting a new roof on the building last summer, in what counts as a real diagnostic WTF moment. My experience with universities leads me to think that all educational institutions would be greatly improved if half* of all administration staff were dismissed at random, and the recovered budget moneys split evenly between the electorate and the actual teaching staff. And "administration staff" is to be defined as anyone who (1) has no regular duties that involve face-to-face contact with students, and (2) has no regular duties that involve hands-on work with the rooms (and equipment in the rooms) where actual teaching happens. Since departmental secretaries usually handle student inquiries at the department offices, they are covered under (1). Oh, and the registrar, who issues report cards, make recorded grade corrections, issue transcripts, and so on, they also are covered under (1). Vice presidents, associate deans, etc., and their various flavors of office staff are explicitly not covered. ___ *Start with half. You may have to repeat the process for best results. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliceTheOwl Posted March 15, 2007 Report Share Posted March 15, 2007 Re: The Last Word That sounds like a plan. From what I can tell, it's the school boards, not the teachers, that are messing up education these days. Just what do we need all the dratted bureaucrats for, anyway? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted March 15, 2007 Report Share Posted March 15, 2007 Re: The Last Word Here, the school board is elected. They're politician types, not administrator types. In a smaller community I'd consider running for school board just to be able to pry off the lid the administration keeps on things. But here, school board is just another post for the professional politicians, and it takes real money to break into that category. As far as dealing them, well, since they are politicians, they are covered under a different section of the Wall List. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliceTheOwl Posted March 15, 2007 Report Share Posted March 15, 2007 Re: The Last Word That seems to be the case around here, too. Back home, I seem to recall it was one of the many duties of the Town Selectmen. Then they did away with that position, and I stopped paying any attention to town government back home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted March 16, 2007 Author Report Share Posted March 16, 2007 Re: The Last Word Bluntly, I'd like to see a Terminator go through Seattle School District offices the way the first such went through the LA police precinct in the movie. They mismanaged their way into a big deficit a few years ago. The superintendent was forced out, but AFAICT none of the administration types suffered, and those are the real culprits. The idiots who proposed closing my daughter's school also approved the putting a new roof on the building last summer, in what counts as a real diagnostic WTF moment. My experience with universities leads me to think that all educational institutions would be greatly improved if half* of all administration staff were dismissed at random, and the recovered budget moneys split evenly between the electorate and the actual teaching staff. And "administration staff" is to be defined as anyone who (1) has no regular duties that involve face-to-face contact with students, and (2) has no regular duties that involve hands-on work with the rooms (and equipment in the rooms) where actual teaching happens. Since departmental secretaries usually handle student inquiries at the department offices, they are covered under (1). Oh, and the registrar, who issues report cards, make recorded grade corrections, issue transcripts, and so on, they also are covered under (1). Vice presidents, associate deans, etc., and their various flavors of office staff are explicitly not covered. ___ *Start with half. You may have to repeat the process for best results. Acadamic Insanity by Von D-Man. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted March 16, 2007 Report Share Posted March 16, 2007 Re: The Last Word Hadn't seen that before (it antedates my entry to the board). I am not surprised in the least by it. The thing that does surprise me (mildly) is that they now require the advising appointment. After my first pre-enrollment appointment with an official advisor, I concluded that advisors were good for shuffling barely-motivated and barely-qualified kids toward default degree programs what they could probably complete. (The nuts-and-bolts requirements are available in so many formats that after the initial introduction you can get those ducks in a row by yourself after an initial briefing by an advisor.) If you have anything more of a plan or level of interest then you're best off ignoring their advice, unless the entirety of that advice is "Do what you want". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliceTheOwl Posted March 16, 2007 Report Share Posted March 16, 2007 Re: The Last Word That sounds bizarrely familiar. Just to drop one class and add another took three hours of my time one balmy fall day. I had to get my advisor's signature, the department head's signatures for the classes I was adding AND dropping, and the signatures of the professors of the classes I was adding and dropping. Augh. At least the professor fully understood why I was dropping, and didn't take it personally. I had her again the following semester. And yes, advisors are mandatory. I always just brought my advisor a list of the courses I was signing up for, then she (or he, one semester) signed it and gave me the code I needed to sign up for classes. I always thought it was silly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted March 16, 2007 Report Share Posted March 16, 2007 Re: The Last Word Yeah, it is silly. You're old and mature enough to take college courses, but you can't be trusted to sign up for the right ones? Dumb. If because of limited resources there has to be a gatekeeper into certain classes, that's something else; then yeah, you go appease that gatekeeper and get your entry code on a class-by-class basis. Otherwise, making every student go through a dumb game of Mommy May I at least once every term is just bureaucrats looking to make job security. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliceTheOwl Posted March 16, 2007 Report Share Posted March 16, 2007 Re: The Last Word Yeah. A super-competent friend of mine (and roommate for our senior year) would literally take two minutes out of her day to drop by her advisor's, get the signature, then go register for classes. When she had to switch advisors, she was SO annoyed at the new advisor's approach to not trust that she was signing up for the right courses and schedule a whole big to-do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted March 16, 2007 Report Share Posted March 16, 2007 Re: The Last Word As a physics major, my comment would have been: "Wait, you trust me to learn the principles of building nuclear weapons, and you can't trust me to register properly?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliceTheOwl Posted March 16, 2007 Report Share Posted March 16, 2007 Re: The Last Word I think she was majoring in Political Science. Or English. I can't remember. The principle is similar, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.