Posts by Russell Brown
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The Weekend Herald has gone one better: under the front-page lead headline ’Why children fail in writing’ (and, on the home page of the website ‘Our kids’ failing standards’ ) it has declared a trend off the back of the first year’s data.
If you can compare one school’s National Standards results with another, you certainly can’t compare this year’s results with prior results that don’t actually exist.
But the Herald knows why it’s happening!
More than a third of primary school children are failing writing standards because they don’t read enough and are confused by texting language and slang, say experts.
The story then quotes one “expert”, the principal of NZ Writers’ College, which teaches adults things like ‘Travel Writing’ and ‘Write your Memoir’. These may be perfectly good courses, but they have nothing to do with the way children learn at primary school level.
Professor Judy Parr, head of the Auckland University School of Curriculum and Pedagogy, is also quoted, but she just basically says reading helps with writing and they’re both good things.
The reporter, Vaimoana Tapaleao, also has a well-reported story on page two, with quotes from teachers, principals and their professional bodies saying the data are unreliable. It does seem the “fail” angle and implied crisis is an editorial contrivance for the sake of a lead story.
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Through a curtain, darkly, from the Quality on Cuba.
And one on one of those good days.
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Speaker: Friday Music Guest:…, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
Am I missing something?
Yes. But you are not alone.
They are very popular indeed. And I do not like them at all.
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Hard News: Fox News: I know, right?, in reply to Gareth Ward,
I can’t find the Daily Show.
I’m assuming he means on The Daily Show website
Or by ... other means.
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Speaker: The Democracy-Free Zone, in reply to Stephen Judd,
I die a little inside sometimes when I look at the comments on news websites from people bitching at say Lianne Dalziel, asking why she can’t be more supportive of the recovery effort and accusing her of just being out for herself.
Really? That's just ... weird.
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Speaker: The Democracy-Free Zone, in reply to Sacha,
I wouldn’t. They were let down by those who didn’t provide a viable alternative to make the trip to the polling booth attractive enough.
In the case of Christchurch, I don't think it's quite that simple.
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Hard News: Fox News: I know, right?, in reply to Daniel Wilton,
The sad thing is that his core supporters will double down and back him more vehemently.
Unless they happen to be other Republicans in tough races. They're already running away as swiftly as possible.
It does seem that the past week has been a major turning point. It's not a done deal for Obama, but Nate Silver has pretty declared the Republicans' ambition for a Senate majority dead and buried.
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Hard News: Fox News: I know, right?, in reply to Daniel Wilton,
There is a great piece on the finger pointing of both parties later in show that shows people’s willingness to spout the party line blindly.
Yeah. It's telling. Almost hard to watch.
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Hard News: Fox News: I know, right?, in reply to Angus Robertson,
Effective polemic for the converted. Three clips of bull pukky build to a sanctimonious condemnation of Team A by in-the-pocket Team B player.
Stewart will do the same thing to MSNBC sometimes, but it simply doesn't provide the constant, rich diet of material. Fox's all-hands-to-the-pump response to Romney's calamity was extraordinary.
I mentioned the coverage of the Michelle Obama speech -- they rattled through about a dozen commentators in 15 minutes, and every single one uttered the same line, about her speech being all about government as compared to Romney's which was about personal enterprise. It wasn't hard to work out what was in Roger Ailes' memo that morning.
And if you're seriously attempting to draw an equivalence between Fox News and the Daily Show ...
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Speaker: Friday Music Guest:…, in reply to Peter Darlington,
It fascinates me how often Leo will play one game to the soundtrack of another.
Oh, and he’ll be along presently. Something new came out overnight and he’s busy defeating it.
Edit: It's Torchlight 2
