March 26, 2005
Inexplicable? I think not.
From PowerLine:
Considering the vast amounts of money that are spent on public education, especially in urban areas, stories like this one seem inexplicable: "NYC Recalls Math Guides Full of Errors".....
Of course there's nothing inexplicable about it. Throwing money at problems often makes them worse, and in education often means just hiring more bureaucrats.
What's needed is a culture that says,"We demand the highest possible quality of teaching and are willing to pay extra for it, and to give teachers a lot of freedom to act, as long as they get good results." That sort of thing rarely comes out of government, but is frequently seen in the private sector, which is why the best thing we could do would be to privatize education, and just leave government with the job of collecting taxes to support it. (That's one job government seems to do with enthusiasm and energy.)
Posted by John Weidner at March 26, 2005 01:31 PMI'm a contractor working for a state government. I often download state documents such as merit system job descriptions and policy manuals into MS Word. The number of errors (spelling and grammar) never ceases to amaze me. There is simply no checking done before publication.
Regards
JJ
PS...Yes, I used MS Word spell check before I commented.
Grin ;>}
Posted by: John Johns at March 27, 2005 06:33 AMI'm not a good speller myself, so I regard spell-checkers as one of the great inventions. I'd love to develop a spell-checker that also highighted, in a very subtle way, the words that people often misuse. Flaunt/flout, or there/they're/their, or it's/its...
But of course if people won't bother to check spelling they won't check the other things. I assume the stuff you see is especially a government problem. Probably the boss (if he cares) is just glad that the work gets done at all, and doesn't feel like the culture will support him if he growls, "What's the matter with you? Take this thing back and spell-check it!"
Posted by: John Weidner at March 27, 2005 08:27 AM
