We really are competing with our peers around the country

I was sitting at work today hoping the pains in my neck and shoulders would eventually disappear, and pondering over google news. The headline read "California still lags in student writing skills". Due to the fact that I currently work in education, and within that at a College, I was curious enough to investigate the article. http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-writing4apr04,1,867332.story
I read most of the article, skimming through some of the monotonous parts. the author at least had some courtesy to put in the portion about Cleveland being the lowest in the testing scores. Most of the article explained the fact that there are many immigrants and non-english speaking students from grades k-8 or students learning English as a second language. Granted, the fact that Cali is next to a major boarding country, but does it give it right to say that about the entire state? I don't think all of California has problems with ESOL students. Not to mention what happened in Cleveland? Who knows there.

And then I came to this portion of the article ""We really are competing with our peers around the country," said Jessica Valdez, the California coordinator for the National Assessment. ""
Well that is pretty obvious when you are comparing yourselves to Cleveland. We understand Ms. Valdez the fact about California and its ESOL students, and the low paying income of immigrants, low pay of teachers. We know about that. Where do you think most of your lottery money has gone Ms. Valdez? Back to the schools? They take it from the schools. Ms. Valdez, if we are working with the rest of the country who are we working with? Who are we working against?

These students, the 8th graders, in particular, we are preparing them for high school and then college. A student should know how to write an essay in English, in a English writing class. Otherwise they do not graduate, they do not pass go and collect $200, they do not get the weekly allowance. If these students are not ready to pass the grade, write the paper, they should not graduate. Maybe that is the problem. The teachers are so concerned with the no child left behind bill, they just pass the students irregardless.

Patience Is A Virtue

I wanted to make a new post about patience. Lets look up the word patience in Wikipedia.
According to Wiki, the definition of the word Patience is as follows it is the ability to endure waiting, delay, or provocation without becoming annoyed or upset, or to persevere calmly when faced with difficulties

Now by definition it means not to be aggravated, upset, or irritated when dealing with problems of human nature I am assuming. But with human nature comes all kinds of problems. Not just as adults but as children too.

Do you think that dogs or cats have patience. Do you think that when they are sitting in the veterinarians office they are sitting there tapping their foot waiting for the doctor to see them and continuously asking how much longer will it take. I do not see this happen very often. When someone is working on your car and they are trying to figure out what is wrong with it, do you see the car tapping its tires on the ground saying to the mechanic "Hurry up man! I got places to drive to and I have to escort these people around all over the place!" I don't see this happening very often.

Now again, when someone is working with you say on a computer problem which many of have in our daily lives, would it be rude to be standing over someone breathing down their neck while the technician is working on the issue? I am not one to complain about people or about rudeness of people because thats just the way some people are. They are just rude. But that would be another topic for another day. In the line of work that I deal with, I have to be patient with my customers as I would refer them to, as much as I can. Even if they are crabby pattys, I will be as kind and friendly as I possibly can. As for myself, I want to ensure that before I leave my job, or any projects that I am working on, that I complete them in full. And even if it takes an extra couple of minutes to make sure that I have all the paperwork, telephone numbers, names and addresses, thats what I will do. I don't care if you have to wait an extra few minutes for me to finish this up. This is important to me.

There is one more issue I would like to bring up in this post. say when a woman is in labor, delivering a baby, do you think that she would say to the doctor, "Get this freaking baby out of me now because I have errands to run and I have to be back at work within the next two hours!"
I don't think anything like that would happen. But hay, you never never know!!

Phony Mom

I have decided to make some posts of some
interesting stories for 2008. And I will bookmark them here and copy in the article since some news articles tend to get lost.


The following article is about a mother who has decided to lie for her child to get Hanna Montana Tickets. Hanna Montana is a popular show for children from 6-13 years of age. I have never seen the television show on Disney or ABC, wherever its aired. The television show depicts a young girl living a life of a normal girl by day and by night shes a rock star but no one knows about it because she wears a wig. Corny right?

Well mom here decided to write a phony entry to a contest to gain tickets to see Ms. Montana. She had her child write about her father being killed in the Iraq War and how she has missed him.

What happened is the girl had won the contest for the entry, and was going to get some tickets and a makeover. When the media arrived, they said hey wait lets get some dirt like we always do on people and dig it out of them. When they questioned the child, the mother had pushed the media aside. In more details, they found out that the child's father was never involved in the war, but doesn't even know where the father is in this whole picture.

I am very surprised at the mother. She first said that she wanted to win. She would do whatever it took to win the contest, lieing to the media, newscasters, her children. Then later she revoked that statement by saying that she had no intention of hurting anyone and how it was not right.

Now which statement is true. Did she intend to lie to the American public or did she want to win the tickets for herself and for her daughter? Freaking fools.

Now poor mom has been forced out of her home, her lifestyle. Her boring life. What did you think lady? You screwed up and you are now paying the price and so are your children. Your children should be taken away by child services so they don't have to deal with your stupidity. Maybe they can be favored by wolves or monkeys better.

You know if there was a contest for the best stupid people of America, you would be in the top five. I am sorry. You don't do these kinds of things to the American public, the media, or even ME! If you are going to be having children, and raise children, GROW UP!! You wanted to play the game of going through the media and you won it. GRATS!

Nice eyebrows btw!

Phony Mom
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22502162/

By Mike Celizic

TODAYShow.com contributor

updated 8:55 a.m. ET, Fri., Jan. 4, 2008

The Texas mother who helped her daughter win a “Hannah Montana” essay contest by making up a story about the girl’s father being a soldier killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq says she made a terrible mistake and hopes she can be forgiven.

“I meant no disrespect. I just made a bad decision which I sincerely regret,” Priscilla Ceballos told TODAY co-host Matt Lauer in a prepared statement she read from Friday. “I apologize to my daughter for getting her mixed up in his mess. I wanted to help my daughter realize her dream of seeing Hannah Montana. Instead, I brought so much negative attention to my family. Please accept my heartfelt apology, and please, do not punish my child for my mistake.”

The 25-year-old Ceballos, who has two other children, said that the negative publicity and public scorn heaped on her since her ruse was exposed three days after Christmas has forced her out of her home and destroyed her life.

“I’ve had to move out of my home,” she told Lauer. “I’ve received a lot of bad — a lot of harassment all over the Internet. I’ve been forced to close down my MySpace page. I have not been able to eat or sleep well. I have been very depressed.”

“She’s been constantly harassed,” her attorney, Frank Perez, added.

“There’s been all types of shows and panels saying she’s not a good mother, when, in fact, she is. Priscilla made a mistake. Priscilla wanted her daughter, Alexis, to see Hannah Montana and didn’t have the means to do that. She used poor judgment in what she did.”

At the center of the controversy is the essay Ceballos helped her 6-year-old daughter write last year to win a princess makeover and a trip to Albany, N.Y., to see a Jan. 9 Hannah Montana concert.

The contest was sponsored by Club Libby Lu, a national chain that sells princess makeovers and pink and purple clothing to “tween” girls.

The winning entry, submitted in the name of Ceballos’ daughter, read in part: “My daddy died this year in Iraq. I am going to give mommy the Angel pendant that daddy put on mommy when she was having me. I had it in my jewelry box since that day. I love my mommy.”

Ceballos identified the allegedly dead soldier to contest organizers as Jonathan Menjivar, who is alive and well and has never been in the military.

Story unravels
More than 1,000 girls entered the “Hannah Montana Rock Your Holidays Essay Contest.” Hannah Montana is the fictional teenage singing star of the hit show by the same name on the Disney Channel. Montana is played by Miley Cyrus, the 15-year-old daughter of country music star Billy Ray Cyrus.

Ceballos’ daughter had already received her makeover and was at a Dec. 28 party thrown in her honor at a local Libby Lu salon when it all unraveled with stunning swiftness.

The media had been invited to the party, and when the girl was asked about her soldier father, her mother interrupted, saying the girl didn’t want to talk about that.

When reporters attempted to check on the story, they discovered that no soldier named Jonathan Menjivar had died in Iraq or was even enlisted in the armed forces. Confronted with that information, Ceballos said she thought the task was to write a compelling Christmas story. “We wrote whatever we could to win,” she said at the time.

The news that the essay was not true was relayed to Libby Lu CEO Mary Drolet, who later that day issued a statement that read: “We regret that the original intent of the contest, which was to make a little girl's holiday extra special, has not been realized in the way we anticipated.”

The tickets and another makeover were awarded to another contest entrant, whose name was not released.

Ceballos told Lauer that the tickets weren’t taken away from her. Rather, she said, when the deception was revealed she refused to accept them.

In the statement she read on TODAY, she also said, “I sincerely apologize to those people who feel misled because of my bad judgment. I helped my daughter write an essay that was not true. It was not my intention to mislead. I just wanted to help my daughter write a compelling story. There is no more compelling story than the struggle and sacrifices of our military and their families. I apologize to our military and their families.”

Asked how she explained the events to her daughter, she said, “I told my daughter the truth. I told her we wrote an essay and they said it was a lie. And I refused to accept the tickets. I told her there will be another time.”

Psychiatrist Lisa Clayton said that the story Ceballos made up struck a nerve with Americans.

“I think the country is very raw right now with young soldiers being killed in Iraq,” Clayton told Lauer. “Priscilla does have a young cousin who was killed in Iraq. She’s been in contact with his family. As an extended family, they know the pain of losing someone in Iraq.”

Clayton repeated Perez’s plea for forgiveness.

“Hopefully, the public out there can realize she’s a young mother who made a horrible mistake,” Clayton said. “She’s coming clean. She just wants to move on with her life so that she can raise her three children.”