http://www.snopes.com/language/do ent/1895exam.asp
...but I understand.
I believe the way to critique the result of public education today is in the context of the amount spent relative to what is achieved. Back in olden times in the one room wooden schoolhouse without any grades, teachers without any certifications or undergraduate education for that matter, no principals or other non-teaching staff, near universal literacy was obtained for much less of the cost in real dollars than what is spent today.
For the amount spent today we should have an exceptionally well educated citizenry. But we don't. And we lag much of the first world in educational achievement among our young. Our public K-12 schools perform so abysmally yet the world fills many of the postgraduate programs in American universities. Save for the professional schools. Everyone wants to be a lawyer but no one wants to be a scientist.
^This is a great point.
When I went to college back in the early 90's, almost 100% of my professors were from a different country. If you go out to UTSA these days, many, if not most, of the students are foreign. You feel like you've stepped into a different country.
As for the cultural discussion earlier in the thread and its connection to poor academic achievement, I submit that it is to be expected in a debt ridden country which expects instant gratification and is beholden to rampant consumerism. A country in which a corporation has legal standing as a person, including Bill of Rights protections.
It is not surprising that we would see poor academic performance and a high dropout rate in this country among the poor and those families without much of a history of academic attainments. What I suspect is that during the next 20 years or so we will see a complete breakdown among the middle class in academic performance. Public education, as designed, is geared towards the mean. That mean has steadily declined over the last century, and has so noticeably since the 1960s, as federal involvement in public education has ramped up.
We really are headed towards two permanent Americas (Johnny Edwards was right about something). The large mass of stupefied gullible individuals continually in debt and working for stagnant or declining pay, and an elite group enjoying the fruits of a liberal education and a still somewhat free society.
I just graduated from Harlandale High School, and freshman year we had 600+ people in our class.
When I graduated earlier this year we only had 330 seniors left.
I'm with MB. The American education system is a failure that indoctrinates students in ways that they will naturally resist. They are destroyed and demeaned for not going with the system and thrown into a cycle of dumbness, where they will hold a low wage job and breed offspring into their world, doomed to follow the same path. The state is far too ingrained into the system to ever get any better results from it. Not that they want to, because they can promise their uneducated cons uents free handouts and ensure they get re-elected indefinitely through this sick cycle. I witnessed first hand San Antonio kids that didn't care about math or science. They could be a great metal worker, but that won't graduate you since you need knowledge in totally arbitrary fields in order to ascend to the next level of the same treadmill. One bad teacher that doesn't teach the fundamentals of something screws up a kid's life. But the teacher doesn't care, as they need to get through as many children as possible, like cows to the slaughter. Actual teaching isn't important.
The first step is getting rid of the epic failure that is the Dept of Education and its legacy of No Child Left Behind. This system only creates a uneducated majority that votes for their own self-destruction and expansion. It won't be long before we have a real idiocracy with a representative democracy ruled by a stupid majority, assuming we already don't.
For as smart as you are ES, you sure do like generalizations and trying to make people fit your molds. Its funny you say I'm the one thats full of because over the past six months I've seen you make post after post where you rail against some fictional liberal who's arguments are never present until you present them.I'd ask for a link, but since your assertion there is 100% content-free bureaucratic boilerplate, there's no point.
That's funny, I live in a world where liberal activists are convinced that the only way the correct this is to come up with yet another government education reform plan to try, and yet more money to throw at the problem, preferrably with yet another all-expenses-paid trip to some small, geneous Scandinavian country to learn solutions that don't work here any better than the last 2,000 times they were tried.
Two possibilities:
1) Through Spurstalk.com, we are able to communicate across alternate universes, and you live in one where the government thinks the only solution is to address cultural factors without funding schools.
2) You are full of , as usual.
You forgot option #3: Your senility is kicking in.
well at least the large influx of mexican immigrants and presence of first generation mexican americans will present us a large faction of society with a strong work ethic and the ability to make a manifold gasket out of a cereal box. they can save america.
of course, a lot of these kids just transition on to the military.
You think SA's grad rates are bad?!
Its pretty deep in this link, but in April of 2008 only 24% of Detroit student graduated.
To be honest, I am little surprised by the difference in opinion being displayed in this thread. There is nothing inherently public about education. Those two terms are mutally exclusive.
That they have been combined and socially accepted (apparently) is an affront in and of itself.
I only wish I had parents or the perspective to grasp then what I know now about the merits of school as it is interpreted in our society. Education is supremely important, if not the most important aspect of life. School is worthless and equates to a government propoganda machine. Exceptions abound, I'm sure, but again the two terms are mutually exclusive.
School != Education
The only involvement the government should have in education are laws that easily allow communities to setup an agreed education system and to also allow for those communities to be able to easily setup payment with their customers (ie payroll deductions or whatever).
Beyond that, their involvement is nothing more than propoganda. How to sit, how to walk, how to talk, how to respect authority and cow-tow to it, unrealistic punishment for minor deviations, morality indoctrination, etc.
What may seem benign or even common is evidence to the reins of this horse being lost a loooong time ago with no means to reaquire our captaincy.
Thus the reason I have no children and never will. This world, this life is not ours, its your authority's. I preach about it, I complain, I write/email my representatives....doesnt matter. For every email from DR, there are 10 demanding the exact opposite of me. I am outnumbered, I have been usurped of any personal preference long before I was born.
Which is why the continual decline and ultimate fall is the only hope. Let there be "Two Americas" as ES puts it, it is the only way.
Bam.
Poverty is the reason for just about everyone of society's domestic ills. Almost wholesale.
Giving them money is not the answer, forcing them into public (re)education is not the answer.
There is an old saying that applies to everything, everywhere...
You cant fix stupid.
<--- was one of those kids
Are you equating poverty=stupidity? Or is this supposed to be somwhat of a Venn diagram statement, where not all poor people are stupid, but all stupid people are poor?
Hmm, interesting relationship and one I never thought about, to be honest.
I dont mean to say poverty = stupidity, not at all. What I do mean to say is that poverty begets poverty in probably 90% of the cases. Ignorance breeds ignorance, dependance breeds dependance.
Its systemic of poverty that it propogates itself. Breaking the trend is not possible, not then, not now, not ever. As long as there are mechanisms for poverty to sustain itself, it will always be a growing problem instead of a static one.
Point is, you cant fix stupid. The lazy, the Welfare queens, the SS kids and their too-damn-early progeny will only serve the means to extend the problem, not remedy it.
For every heart-warming story about citizens in a city like Detroit (thats PovertyWorld for those who dont know) coming together and trying to better their neighborhoods/school systems/streets, there are literally 30 stories of homicide, rape and robbery.
Cool stat: Did you know 70% of the murders in Detroit go unsolved?
seventy- ing-percent.
I address this next part to the anonymous You...
If you tree-huggers think society has some golden touch or even a modi of decency, or that poverty is somehow a disease that society can help eradicate and that the majority of people inside the walls of indecency are in fact decent, I present to you Detroit.
There has been no social experiment in the history of this country that even closely resembles the scale and scope of Detroit. The city was given, nay, abandoned to poverty by decent folks. People, nearing almost 1 million, fled for 'burbs to get away from poverty's stain in all things social (mostly political).
20-30 years later, look what the virtuous residents of poverty have done for themselves. A city of open hostility to any non-resident, minority or otherwise. A city with the single most corrupt political scene in the country, period (yes, it trumps Washington DC). A completely broken, unproductive education system that was raided for billions of taxpayer dollars by people appointed by those aforementioned corrupt politicians that only graduates 24% of its students (in a city with the lowest expectations in education you could even dream). A city tax system that generates most of its revenue not from residents of Detroit (30% unemployment), but from nonresidents who only work in the city. A former mayor who had to be federally indicted before actually resigning for numerous private dealings with public money, a suspected accessory to murder (Tamara Greene, aka Strawberry) that had to sign a plea deal that said he cannot run for public office for at least 10 years (iirc) because he was extremely popular with the residents of Detroit and would have been re- ing-elected if given half a chance to run.
This is the same city sees any partnership with the suburbs to make the city better as an affront to their race. A city which openly despises anything from the suburbs and its people, even though those suburbs cons ute almost their entire tax revenue.
To be wholly honest, I have seen poverty have the power to govern and to be self-determinate...wholesale independance.
They suck at it. They cant say or do what they need, but they know what they want. To them, thats good enough...so long as Federal money keeps rolling in, it'll work on makeshift parts, a deteriorating infrastructure and entire areas of the city being literally (I mean literally) abandoned.
I could link stories from just this week in the News around here, but thats just an excercise in futility.
You want your country to be anything like Detroit?
If you do, go ahead and even ing consider what poverty needs or wants. My advice, tell them to get a ing job and become productive for themselves, not for your city of residence or your country. Until then, STFU and starve already.
Last edited by DarkReign; 09-10-2009 at 01:48 PM.
Poverty is society's problem, but poverty is a problem without a remedy.
There is no ing remedy.
Sure, I would like to believe there is and have faith that we can do something about it.
But I also can believe in unicorns and have faith in the Flying Spaghetti Monster...doesnt make those ridiculous ideas anymore credible than a cure-all for poverty.
You know, re-reading that rant, I am starting to understand the goal of our government.
Detroit in every state, in every community. Entire populations filled to the brim with ignorant, uneducated worker-bees all vying for the same $10 an hour job who universally despise anything that could be perceived as better than their lot in life.
Not only embracing their own ignorance, but demanding that same ignorance from their communities...with happening across the country.
Scary and kind of funny at the same time.
Yet fiercely loyal to state and shop.
Would you say this sounds like something designed in the late 19th/early 20th century?
[B]Yes, especially at that time when socialism didnt have the stigma attached to it that it does today. Let me explain...
Sure, Americans of the time knew (or at least, I think they knew) about Russia's internal problems (regular famine, social unrest, etc) and I would think they didnt see much problem with the rise of Lenin and his socialistic ideals.
But I am quite sure they were shocked into reality with the rise of Stalin, who took Lenin's mandate to something beyond only to become something entirely different (dictatorship).
I only mention socialism in this answer because socialistic governments (like communism, a dictatorial derivative thereof) rely on the loyalty and patriotism of its inhabitants.
There are any number of ways to go about fostering this loyalty. USSR chose death and exile, Italy the same, Germany gave new meaning to "conform or die".
Whereas, I think in a typical democracy/republic, the need for that loyalty is the same (if not moreso), but the means to achieve it are much different and maybe even worse, in retrospect. Please do not interpret that as a sympathy to socialism, but more as a general observation about the difference.
For example, with a dictatorial regime, the tyranny is blatantly obvious. Very overt, swift and decisive. You know your limits, you know youre being ruled, you know youre being fed propoganda, you know your kids are being indoctrinated, etc. You know youre being duped, you just cant do anything about it without riskig your life.
In contrast, in a democracy where power is slowly being concentrated with the federal government (ie late 19th/early 20th century) and that the illusion of citizen control must be maintained (unlike a Red state), in order to maintain control over people and property, your methods of control must be more subtle...and maybe even from a humanity standpoint, worse in the long run.
The reason I say that is because a dictator cannot last forever. Inevitably, they have to relent, cede power or fall all together. Such is the way. Not so in a Democracy. Power can be carried on because the mandate isnt in the sole possession of just one person and by design, it never can be (regardless of what party system is being used). Therefore, in order to continue to strive for longterm goals all the while maintaining necessary levels of loyalty and fervent support, the people must be either distracted, indoctrinated or both.
IMO, we're both. I am just as guilty. If you have an enlightened populace full of educated people with knowledge of history, government and new sources of information, then it stands to reason no one power can stand on its own for very long under the scrutiny of such a populace.
Ah, but alas! Here is where the opportunity lies. Centralizing power something short of socialism in the wake of a crisis (WW1, Depression, WW2 which all lead to some form of Federal (ie Executive) control over aspects of society that would have seemed like heresy before) allows the Federal government to advance agendas for its own interest in foreign affairs, by controlling only the important factors of a society.
1. Money
2. Education
3. Wealth Distribution (different than money)
People knew what they were doing when they were doing it. Nothing done at the Federal level has ever been crafted with the best intentions when it comes to domestic affairs. There are only a few instances where the Federal government even needs to enforce domestic law (issues between States, interstate travel, interstate crimes and border patrol) but this traditional restraint needed to be cast off in an effort to consolidate national control of the populace.
With a new structure of government influence in place in less than 30 years, the effects of that sweeping change were immediate. Federal government mandated policy became the norm in domestic life, from totally irrelevant (Prohibition, Drug Wars) to altruistic (Civil Rights Bill, Worker's rights) and everything in between. The people started to look to Washington for answers to local problems.
As soon as that transition in the social conscience happened (arbitrarily circa 1960-ish), coupled with the federal mandated curriculum in schools across the country, the vine was ripe for picking. The government had its people by the balls and if you keep them dumb enough to never realize it, or even better they start expecting it and denouncing those who do not agree, well...you get what we have.
Something just short of an oligarchy with limited options for the populace to change anything by their admittedly low means to do so. Voting doesnt mean anymore. Party hasnt meant in decades. Sure, you can vote Republican/Democrat because they speak to your inner moral convictions, but that is about the extent of their use for you. Divide (by irrelevant moral wedge issues like gay marriage/abortion/etc) and conquer (nothing of import changes regardless of party...youre still paying taxes through your ass, youre still at war, you still have no meaningful oversight over money you put into a bank and your tax dollars will be used for anything that garners more votes, no matter how frivolous).
Invariably, the American public has been indoctrinated with designed ignorance. Youre supposed to be a single issue voter, youre supposed to despise those who have it better than you, youre supposed to support your government no matter what, youre supposed to understand the global marketplace and accept it as an inevitable fact, etc.
Youre supposed to be a mindless drone who accepts their lot in life and detest anyone who wants a system that doesnt automatically provide for those who cannot provide for themselves.
I'd say the government is doing a damn good job. Its about the only thing they have ever done remarkably well.
i don't know whether to peg darkreign as a narcissist or nihilist but he makes an entertaining read nonetheless. i mean this is like neitzsche lite.
DR...have you read any Gatto?
Youre supposed to be a mindless drone who accepts their lot in life and detest anyone who wants a system that doesnt automatically provide for those who cannot provide for themselves.
Great post.
I would just say a pessimist more than anything else.
Marcus Bryant, DarkReign, ExtraStout, WH23, CosmicCowboy and 101A should all get together for the inevitable downfall of the United States.
I'm slightly more optimistic.
Nothing like a little Maker's Mark in the early evening.
No, but I seen WH's link earlier in this thread (or was it another thread?) and started reading Chapter 1.
Fortunately, work is picking back up to the extreme. My time and focus belongs there. I havent gotten home before 9pm in two weeks.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
