Oddly, the same week where Lori and I were talking about the inbalance between spending on ‘special ed’ and support for ‘gifited’ programs I stumble upon this piece from TIME magazine.
It makes many great points but a few of the items really struck me:
American schools spend more than $8 billion a year educating the mentally retarded. Spending on the gifted isn’t even tabulated in some states, but by the most generous calculation, we spend no more than $800 million on gifted programs.
and then later:
But since at least the mid-1980s, schools have often forced gifted students to stay in age-assigned grades–even though a 160-IQ kid trying to learn at the pace of average, 100-IQ kids is akin to an average girl trying to learn at the pace of a retarded girl with an IQ of 40.
Thus continues our countries headlong rush to mediocrity.
While we as a society rush to support those that are below the norm we allow to lay fallow those that are our best hope of improving the lives of everyone.
Are We Failing Our Geniuses? – TIME
I reminded of cartoons from my youth where the bully picks a fight with ‘our hero’ and does well in the first few rounds. But later, after ‘our hero’ has had his/her spinach, the tide turns and the bully is left in a dazed, upright but teetering condition. ‘Our Hero’ then simply blows on the beaten hulk and it falls down in ruin.
SCO now stands, dazed and teetering waiting for the final winds of legalize to send it crashing down into insignificance.
There was a time when I had plenty of bile to spew at Darl McBride (I’ll avoid the obvious comparison of ‘Darl’ to ‘Duh’, that would be childish) but as time, and the legal system, ground on it became clear that this was a pathetic individual incapable of of creating; resorting to warrentless claims against those that can.
The result is energy and millions of dollars squandered on defense rather than creation; the only winners here are the lawyers.
I can’t wait for the final blow.
Requiem for a legal disaster: a retrospective analysis of SCO v. Novell
Digital Media and whatever else flows through my head…