The Nordonian News -
The current Royal Education Minister, Geoffrey Channel, has proposed a series of reforms in the nation's schools. Channel's recommendations are being pushed through the Royal Council before the upcoming election. Included in the reforms: banning of all teacher unions; mandated national testing at every grade from 1st through 12th; and a ban on all Muslim headscarves in public schools. It is unclear if King Guy will sign these recommendations into law before the election. As Dr. Tony Smith, a political science professor at Frankling National University, stated, "The King's motivations are unclear here. It is unlikely such measures would be adopted before the election if the parties made their opposition clear."
Geoffrey Channel, long known for ultra-conservative views, explained that these reforms are needed to improve education. "It is clear that the one force that is holding our nation's youth back is powerful teacher unions that demand too much for too little," He added, "Some will question the need for the headscarves ban, but these people ignore the fundamental beliefs of most Franklinites. This is a Christian nation and therefore our schools should reflect the fact."
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6 comments:
The Liberal States Party disagrees with many of the stances taken by Geoffrey Channel. First, we feel that unions are in fact a necesity for the hard working teachers in our country. They help prevent our government from having too much say in their dealings. Teachers' salaries are also weak, and a ban on teachers' unions may only decrease their pay.
The standardized testing on all grade levels is a little extreme. For upper grade levels we concur with the testing, but for first through sixth graders the testing is unnecessary. They are learning the material that they will need to base later judgment on, and standardized testing will focus education in areas that may not be needed. This could in turn affect our level of education at an early age. The guidelines should be sufficient enough.
The ban on Muslim headscarves is an atrocity at best. Nowhere does our Constitution state that we have an official religion, so the Muslim practitioners should have the right to do so. Our long standing Christian religions should not deter others from practicing their own religions. The allowance of headscarves in school help promote religious tolerance as well.
As members of the Liberal Rights Party, we are strongly opposed to all the reforms proposed by Geoffrey Channel. First of all, the banning of teacher salaries is ridiculous. Teachers unions serve to help protect teacher salaries and benefits. Teachers deserve the best- they are preparing our children for the future. Without unions to protect this, our children may not receive the proper education.
Mandated national testing at every grade from 1st through 12th should also not even be considered. When standardized tests are distributed across the nation, they favor certain groups and are often unfair for minorities. The abillity of a student should not be based solely on standardized testing scores.
Liberal Rights Party Continuation.....
A ban on all Muslim headscarves in public schools reflects those views of a hatemonger. Our nation is known as a melting pot so how are we going to live up to that reputation if we prohibit different religions in schools. We will work our hardest to ensure there is religious tolerance in our achools.
We as Free Conservatives believe that Minister Geoffrey Channel has brought many intersting issues into hand. We do not believe in every instance he is right and we will discuss the reforms here after.
Teacher unions should not be banned because not only would that cause a rift with the educators, but could also reflect back on the children and we do not want that. We only want the best for our kids and their education and teachers unions have done well so far.
National tests should be implemented but should not be a requirement for the kids to graduate because the tests should mainly be to see where improvement is needed. After that, the tests have done their part and it is left up to the administration to handle the results of their own district.
Lastly the banning of headscarves in public schools should not be banned because this country was founded with different religions and beliefs. Taking away the rights of this minority group could only lead to much worse similar problems. Though this country was "founded upon Christian beliefs" it should be implemented more instead of attacking others.
The CAT party first believes that things like education should not be rushed over because you end up missing something or forgetting to put someting in. We believe that teachers unions should be allowed. If their are unios for workers then their should be unions for the teachers. Don't they work hard to and aren't they working? Teachers have to be paid more because they are paid so badly right now and if their were no unions we could lose many teachers for the simple fact that they can survive on what they would being paid.
Banning Muslim headscarves is one of the stupidist things the party has heard in a while. We are a free country. Therfore if their is Muslims in the country they shoudl be allowed to wear what they want to wear just like the kids are allowed to wear what they want to. It isn't a distraction to kids, or at least it shouldn't be, kids need to pay attention to their work not what a person is wearing. We may be a Christian nation but we are not all Christians.
We believe standardize testing should only be for the higher grades. KIds in lowere levels are learning how to write and read so what are you going to test them on? We believe that older kids however should be tested from 9th grade as the graduating test and heir still should be standardizing tests from 7th grade -12th grade.
The MOR Party Responds:
The education environment needs to be as free and unrestrictive as possible. The point of our schools is to educate young Franklinites in the areas of Math, Science, Language, Social Sciences, Economics, and other fields of academia. Our schools are NOT a ground for political revolution and it is clearly dishonest and manipulative to force our children to be victims to such debates at such a young age. As is clearly stated by all parties, the emotional well-being and safety of the children in our schools is most important to us.
The MOR party sees rules and restrictions as a means to PROTECT our citizens from physical or financial harm, not make them feel humiliated or suppressed. To impose these rules on our children in our schools would simply result in lawsuits, embarrassment, and intolerance. We do not want innocent people sued or imprisoned because they are Muslim or because they belong to a union. If the problem is that teachers are asking for too much and providing too little, perhaps schools should develop specific standards teachers must meet.
As far as the testing goes – standardized tests have proven to be a basic measurement of very specific thought processes at a very surface level. It is fine if a state should wish to measure their schools’ progress with this tool, as long as the state realizes exactly what these tests measure. Our Party discourages placing any significant weight on these tests, but specific means of academic measurement should be up to the states.
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