Quality Counts: Education Week 1/13/2011 Reflection

Definitely the most interesting portion of the article was the state report card.  My main focuses were Washington state and Oregon, because Washington is where I'm from and would like to teach (Oregon obviously because it's where we are learning and getting certified).  How is it that we are only getting a C- here in Oregon.  I do not see how strongly each of these portions are weighted but I thought it was interesting that the college readiness of Oregon was at 50%, which is absolutely awful!  Are we not preparing students here in Oregon for college very well.  Do we have any idea what is causing that?  Is it possible that it is directly related to the we got an F (a 58.8) on accountability for quality?  What this says to me is that students are falling through the cracks and teachers are simply passing them so that they don't look bad for having to fail students.  I've seen it happen that ninth grade students have third grade reading levels.  How on earth does that happen?  It's ridiculous!  What does it mean that our spending is at 59.9%?  Do we waste money?  I would like to see something that says why Oregon got that F.  There isn't a single state that got an A on this list.  Not even the very best of the states (which appears to be Maryland...who knew?) got an A.  Either we are grading on a very hard curve, which means that Maryland is full of absolutely awesome teachers, or we all kind of suck.  As a student, I'm not happy with a C.  Most of the time, I'm not even happy with a B.  I don't get the impression that very many states are happy with their C's.  When I look at a map like this, my first thought is how do we even get started at fixing and/or improving the situation?  It's such a daunting task.  My first step would be to look at everything that Maryland and a few other states at the top of the list are doing and start doing exactly what they are doing... Another thing to notice the West Coast is subpar compared to the east coast.  Do we not do things as well over here?  Do we not get the same amount of money?  Pretty much anything East of the Appalachians has a good chance of having a B grade.  Perhaps there is an East Coast bias in the grading of education just like there is in College Football...except on this map the Atlantic Coast Conference dominates pretty much every single conference...(laughable in college football)