Home of Today's Common Sense

Published – Brownsville Herald 3/20/2005
According to a State of Texas interpretation of the “No Child Left Behind” requirements as they relate to English as a Second Language there is a mandate to determine the level of a students writing skills as “Beginning”, “Intermediate”, “Advanced”, and “Advanced High”. The local implementation of that program also requires that the students prepare 3 to 5 compositions specifically for that purpose which are evaluated and filed with the evaluation. Many teachers do not know what if anything will ever be done with those files. I wonder also!
I happened to have the opportunity to read several of the examples where the identity of the writer was not available to me. One related to “why would someone steal something” which resulted in many of the expected answers such as “revenge”, “because he could”, or for “financial gain”; but more interesting to me was the Social Studies subject, “What is freedom?”.
One young person, I would have to describe as very “Street Savvy” after reading the first paper, described what I believe to be the most insightful and pervasive understanding of how many view freedom in “today’s” America and possibly how many view America’s “influence and generosity” around the world.
The government is perceived as “having fooled Americans into thinking they are free and safe but are in reality nothing but another number assigned when born”. As evidence of this, the fact of free school, free food, welfare benefits, given to some, is submitted with real disdain, but then asks about the taxes that cause hard some working Americans to end up in bankruptcy because of those things. The accuracy of the perception is not as important as the fact it was voiced in the community that “America” deems as needy.
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