2005-08-09

Politics of Education and other news

UBP candidate Christian Dunleavy in a newspaper column called for a public inquiry as to why the graduation rate from Bermuda's public schools was only 53%. The Minister of Education responded with something that attacked Dunleavy on the grounds of his own educational upbringing, deemed him unqualified to comment, did a bunch of things, but really gave absolutely no answer as to why the rates were so abysmally low, or what the Department plans to do to try to get the numbers to something close to okay.

Yes, Dunleavy could possibly be using it as a political football. Yes, he could be questioning openly the parents or whatever societal constraints are leading to such results instead of Government. But the fact remains that nearly half of the students leaving high school aren't qualified to do so. And something should be done about it.

And I just realize that I've probably broken a couple of grammar rules in the previous two paragraphs. I may need to re-read that Lynne Truss book again.

Peter Jennings passed away Sunday night. Of all the U.S. news personalities, I enjoyed him the most. He had great knowledge of the events that he covered and appeared to take such a personal interest in them, including the international news that went ignored by others. Many people will miss him.

To the rider of BF956, not only are you Booked for some dangerous overtaking in the Flatts area, you also have a missing (broken?) tail-light. That is all.

And this? What the heck? It's a couple of years old, the story, but dang.

The World Track and Field Championships are going on right now, not that you'd notice unless you stumbled onto it randomly on the Web. Obadele Thompson, the pride of Barbados, struggled in the 100m. Hopefully he'll bounce back to championship form in time for one more Olympics.

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