Are you proud to be a hick hayseed from flyover country?
You betcha! The best K-12 schools in the US are in the North Central states. Take that you elitist coasties! Not only do they score high on the SAT, but most years more than 50% of the graduating class takes the test. Why? Because they can be below 50% in their class and still score a SAT high enough to get into college.
Yes there are better special K-12 schools in the US, but you will have to pay a LOT of money to send your children to those schools. And a good number of those students will not be any better college students than the average N. Central students.
There was a lot of complaints about the No Child Left Behind testing requirement. But students in Iowa have been taking standard tests since 1935! The Iowa testing program is the oldest in the US. Why? Because those hick hayseeds knew not all of their children could be farmers.
Original post here – this is for Lonnie…
And NCLB is manipulated by the states. You see they all make up their own standards.
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 requires that states report adequate yearly progress (AYP) based on the state’s plan to achieve proficiency for all students in grades 3 through 8 in reading and mathematics. Each individual state develops its own state assessment and sets its own proficiency standard for reporting AYP. Because of the variations in state tests and standard setting, there is no way for parents, educators, and policymakers to compare one state’s standard to any other using these assessments.
Any hick hayseed that graduated from the 8th grade knows this is no standard. No wonder we can’t graduate enough engineers and scientists to keep up with S. Korea, Japan, India, and China. BTW, if you check the North Central states on the Dept. of Education site, they don’t score that well because the state standards are higher than most states. (Good luck getting any worthwhile information from this site.)
You could fire all but about 100 employees in the Dept. of Education and just tell them to find out what those people are doing in the North Central states. Wait, we hick hayseeds know the answer. If you want good schools, the parents must get involved and demand excellence!
So who are you going to believe? The Dept. of Education or the SAT scores?
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This would explain why most graduates from Iowa leave the state!
There are few high tech jobs in IA. Worse yet, it ranks 45 out of 50 states by the Tax Foundation as favorable for business. Great K-12 and universities but you also need non-ag businesses. Anyone running for state office should make this an issue in their campaign. Iowa should be doing much better because it has a better educated workforce than most states and a good work ethic. But it is not at all business friendly. (Download the 4-page summary at the link to see how they determined the ranking.)
I graduated BS in Aerospace Engineering from Iowa State spring 1969 along with 42 other Midwestern classmates (a historically large class). Only one graduated in four years without any summer school. I went 5 yr but picked up a 3rd technical elective and ranked #11 with a GPA of 2.88 with the highest GPA at 3.44. The Aero department figured if anyone had a 3.5, then the tests were too easy. (This was before grade inflation.) And I just beat the entrance testing which said I would graduate with a 2.86! (Somebody really had entrance testing down to a science!)
Finding a job was no problem since I had seven job offers during fall quarter – none from IA. The only company in Iowa that offered potential employment was Collins Radio (now Rockwell Collins). The salaries offered ranged from 8,000+ to 10,000 but when I divided them by the city CPI from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the difference was only $250 /yr. Since I wanted to go to the mountains, I narrowed it down to Martin Marietta (Now Lockheed Martin) or Boeing. The Boeing design approach – design engineers did design on a drafting board vs. handing sketches to draftsmen – appealed to me so I went to Boeing and worked on the Boeing 2707 (SST).
I have worked with people from most all of the elite universities and I will put my ISU education up against any. Only graduates from Purdue had the breadth and depth of the ISU curriculum. The wing design group had a floor space bigger than a basketball court (a little wider and 50% longer – of course is was filled with 4×7 ft drafting tables). Most of the designers grew up between the Appalachian and Rocky Mtns. If you found someone from a major city, they most likely grew up as wrench turning hot rodders. The elite school grads, often with advanced degrees, were generally support staff.
For a land grant university and a small department, their graduates have held important positions. In the field of Aerospace, people know Iowa State very well.
I knew there was a reason I am so proud to be from Iowa. LOL. Iowa did have the Iowa test of basic skills which was used nation wide. Our schools were the best until the governmet got envolved.
Norma
I am happy to be back in Iowa. My 13 yr old grand daughter has made the Honor Roll here for the second year in a row.She is much happier in PAC area school than she ever was in the Seattle Public school system. Having gone to school in Iowa until the 4th grade made the Seattle school system easier for me as well. When I moved back to Iowa – most of my friends were under the misapprehension that all Iowans are semi – literate even though most Iowans have gone on tho higher education.So yes, I’m glad to be a hick from flyover country!