Betty Peters

Professor, do your job!

August 24, 2008 – 4:57 pm
In Stanley Fish's new book, "Professor, Do Your Job," he writes, "The only advocacy that should go on in the classroom is the advocacy of what James Murphy has identified as the intellectual virtues: thoroughness, perseverance, intellectual honesty; all concepts of the cardinal academic virtues of being 'conscientious in the pursuit of truth."  He explains that "you might just make them into good researchers.  You can't make them into good people, and you shouldn't try."  See more at www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/26074024.html

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Newsweek’s “Best Schools” Propaganda Machine

May 29, 2008 – 1:31 pm
May 30, 2008 by Professor Allen Quist Newsweek has once again released its "100 best high schools" feature article (May 26, 2008 issue). Newsweek has been highlighting similar stories on what it calls the "100 best" American high schools each spring since 1998. Unfortunately, these yearly Newsweek articles and ratings are propaganda for the interests Newsweek wishes to promote. The articles are propaganda in particular for International baccalaureate (IB). Newsweek determines the supposed "100 best high schools" by means of a simple formula that is totally invalid. This formula, as stated by the recent Newsweek article, is: "The NEWSWEEK list of top U.S. high schools was compiled this year, as in years past." We count the total number of these tests [IB, AP and Cambridge tests] taken at a school by all students each May, and divide by the number of graduating seniors. Notice that this formula does not take into account the number of ...

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Working On the Work: An Action Plan for Teacher, Principals, and Superintendents by Phil Schlechty

May 26, 2008 – 8:07 pm
This is a review by Sandy Clevenger In Phil Schlechty’s book, Working On the Work: An Action Plan for Teacher, Principals, and Superintendents, I was struck by some of the statements made in this book.  Many of the statements directed toward teachers are things already taught in university.  However, “skills” taught to principals and superintendents are instructions promoting manipulation of the work force and community to reach the goals of the superintendent.  And of course, this goal is to promote Schlechty and his standard bearer network. In the introduction, Schlechty’s states, “For those who insist that the only way to improve schools is to proceed on the basis of the ‘research’, this book will be a disappointment.  No systematic research program has been directed at assessing the impact of the WOW approach on improving schools.”  As you read the laws surrounding Title II professional development, you will see a common strain, a ...

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Educations “Wag the Dog”: Geniuses Lost

May 26, 2008 – 12:31 pm
Monday, May 25, 2008 Education News It is like someone shouted "FIRE" in a theater, but nobody moved.Is the theater empty?No, it's full of people, but still nobody moved or even cared.We are losing hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of potential geniuses every year in the United States because we are just not finding them before it's too late, which in most cases is about the time they are suppose to start 9th grade. It's not like this is some unknown phenomenon.Thomas Jefferson put it succinctly in 1782 while Governor of Virginia when he wrote "By…(selecting) the youth of genius from among the classes of the poor, we hope to avail the State of those talents which nature has sown as liberally among the poor as the rich, but which perish without use if not sought for and cultivated".It's not that academia in America is not aware of the situation.Since Leta Hollingworth began ...

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Betty’s Warning Before the Primary of 2008

May 19, 2008 – 10:27 pm
Betty Peters’ warning to voters in the June 2008 primary: As a member of the Alabama State Board of Education, I agree with and appreciate the editorial boards of practically all the newspapers in our state who have come out in full support of a ban on “double dipping” by state legislators. A typical comment from one of the state’s newspapers regarding legislation to overturn the school board’s double dipping ban sponsored by Rep. Marcel Black and Sen. Linda Coleman succinctly said: “Rather than address how a legislator can ethically vote on legislation that has a direct impact on his employment or employer, a cadre of mostly Democratic legislators, with the aid and encouragement of the Alabama Education Association, has opened the door to let every public official feed at the public trough.” This sentence really hit the proverbial nail on ...

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