Wednesday, August 04, 2010

...After all adequacy is the hallmark of great education

The Idaho Press-Tribune calls this "excel"ling.

Those assembled at Caldwell High School for it's announcement deemed it worthy of "spontaneous applause."

The Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction has been "celebrating" this.

What is it?

Adequacy.

That's right, Caldwell High School made "adequate yearly progress" for the first time. I don't want to debate the relative merits (or lack thereof) of No Child Left Behind, because like it or not, that's the mark they're supposed to be hitting, and in 2009 CHS met the mark. Adequately.

Merriam-Webster defines adequate as:

1 : sufficient for a specific requirement ; also : barely sufficient or satisfactory
2 : lawfully and reasonably sufficient
if those aren't words that describe greatness and inspire the hearts and souls of all, I don't know what would.

The state of public education in Idaho (and really, nationwide) is such that we celebrate and applaud schools that are sufficient?!?! Talk about ridiculous.

I can't help but think of the late, great adequate Bill McNeal:

4 comments:

Hobster said...

it just occurred to me that the impetus for this post was my wife's initial reaction to the story in the IPT. Not sure why I didn't think of it earlier.

h/t TLomL :)

TLohL said...

:)

tired said...

Guess adequate is the new awesome for public ed. I'm not sure what it means when the newspapers read like The Onion and Jon Stewart is the most meaningful television journalist, but it feels long overdue. Maybe it's a good thing; at least it's entertaining.

Unlike Family Guy or Conan, NewsRadio was a few years too early to be saved by the internet.

Hobster said...

hey, sorry I didn't okay this comment earlier--I really thought I did. It wasn't for lack of quality or anything :)