“It’s fantasy legislation. They might as well say all teachers should have a Ph.D. in four years. It’s not going to happen.”
—Wayne Johnson, president of the California Teachers Association, on the requirement in the No Child Left Behind Act, signed into law in January, which mandates that all teachers be fully credentialed within four years.
“For a child to sit at a desk seven hours a day with no physical activity is unconscionable.”
—Diana Everett, a member of the Texas Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance, urging the state board of education to require daily exercise periods for K-6 students. Apparently, the testimony of Everett and others at a public hearing in January moved the board: It ruled that elementary schools must offer 30 minutes of phys ed a day, starting in the fall.
“It’s great exposure for the brand.”
—Travis Gonzolez, an Adidas America spokesperson, on his company’s donation of gear, including $95 shoes and $45 travel bags, to 100 high school teams this year.
“People with generalist teaching credentials can handle the arithmetic that gets taught in 3rd or 4th grade. But one needs much more sophisticated skills to teach algebra, calculus, and trigonometry, which are required in the 8th grade. We have so many teachers teaching higher-level math who are not math teachers that it borders on being irresponsible.”
—New York schools Chancellor Harold Levy, charging that poor middle school instruction is the main reason why 77 percent of the city’s 8th graders failed last year’s state math exam.
