Oops! The Boomers are Coming! - The Boomers are Coming!

Foxfyre wrote:

Thanks ebrown. Will probablymake a good discussion and we did inadvertently highjack the thread a little bit. I do mean "we" and it's my thread.

With U.S. kids already lagging well behind other countries in math and science and no doubt are losing at least some of their edge in new innovations, advertising,and marketing, I think we have to wake up and smell the rust in our education system and insist that our children be educated.

Vouchers would be an excellent way to resolve the issue. Competition always breeds better results and competition in the schools would increase our level of competition in the world. I'm currently in a math class that I shouldn't be in, but I digress. Over half my math class is in their early 20's if not right out of high school and they can't even handle the basic math we are doing. This is a sad state of affaires for the US. I guess when society places all sorts of BS in front of kids and convince them that it is more important then learning we are bound to decline.

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One of Sean Hannity's favorite things to do is to go outside the studio onto the street and ask people, mostly late teens and 20's types, who the vice president of the United States is. Very very few know.

I recently did a half fun/half serious presentation with a group of young adults and was amazed that most did not know who Karl Marx was, couldn't list even half the presidents of this century, and couldn't place most countries on the right continents. I have to wonder, what ARE they teaching in school these days?

Is it a problem of the subject matter? Or the culture we live in? I agree with Baldimo that the solution for parents who do want their children to succeed is vouchers.

Here is an essay by Walter Williams, PhD, Professor of Economics at George Mason university. It is definitely worth reading and thinking about:
http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/wew/articles/04/school.html

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The sad state of affairs is exagerated. I don't have the stats right now, but I am working for an organization that does education research and attended a workshop on these international tests.

The fact is that the top students are the top of the world in math and science (compared to the top students of other countries). The tests that show that US students are "lagging" are flawed because a greater percentage of students in the US take these tests than students in other countries.

The comparisons are basically comparing the top 50% of US students against the top 10% of students in other countries.

US schools in wealthy communities produce very high achieving graduates. I am not at all worried the the US will continue to produce all the mathematicians and scientists that it needs.

The question is more one of equity.

With time can find the link for a balanced comparison of US students with other countries.

But then again, Foxfyre and Baldimo are making the claim that the US system is broken. Can you both give evidence that in a fair comparison, the sky really is falling?

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http://education.umn.edu/nceo/OnlinePubs/Synthesis19.html

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ebrown_p wrote:

But then again, Foxfyre and Baldimo are making the claim that the US system is broken. Can you both give evidence that in a fair comparison, the sky really is falling?

Did you miss the part of my post with first hand knowledge? Every single one of these kids is white from middle class backgrounds. How does this account for anything, they aren't in disadvantaged areas from speaking to them, its just that they don't care when they get it for free as opposed to paying for it in college.

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I have to disagree that 'free' is a problem. The problem is political correctness, failure of the system to set challenges and high expectations of the students, the policy of social promotion rather than rewarding achievement, the policy of indoctrination in lieu of education i.e. teaching critical thinking and trusting the students to draw their own conclusions.

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That is a very good point there Fry Guy.

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Foxfyre wrote:

I have to disagree that 'free' is a problem. The problem is political correctness, failure of the system to set challenges and high expectations of the students, the policy of social promotion rather than rewarding achievement, the policy of indoctrination in lieu of education i.e. teaching critical thinking and trusting the students to draw their own conclusions.

Are you saying that vouchers will lead to LESS indoctrination?

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Absolutely. If a school is failing to educate the children, the parents will have more resources to yank the kid out of a bad school and put him/her in a good one. The net effect of bad schools losing their funding will either force them to clean up their act and start doing the job or close. I am betting most will clean up their act. And then everybody benefits.

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Thats odd, because private schools are the most indoctrinating schools there are. I think privatising education will lead to schools targeting specific demographics, with separate schools for christians muslims secularists and so forth. That will lead to more extremism, and less understanding of people whos wiews that differ from ones own.

Further more, this opens the door for goverment to reduce funding, having schools funded by private means. That would leave the carefully nurtured illution that the US is a meritocracy in shambles, and it would move the reallity further away from that ideal.

And I see no reason why indoctrinating schools should perform worse on tests than other schools.

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Private schools are mixed on indoctrinating their students. Statistics are overwhelmingly conclusive. At the bottom of the heap on performance are the public schools overall. The parochial schools consistently out perform the public schools overall and the nonparochial private schools do better than the parochial schools. At the very top in performance are the home schoolers.

So the difference is, a parent should be able to educate their children in the environment that indoctrinates with the parents' values, but that is secondary to educating the children. Too many public schools these days are putting far more emphasis on indoctrination than they are on education, and in too many cases such indoctrination too often undermines both the parents' values and the parents' authority.

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Foxfyre wrote:

Too many public schools these days are putting far more emphasis on indoctrination than they are on education, and in too many cases such indoctrination too often undermines both the parents' values and the parents' authority.

This actually can be seen exactly the other way around.

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When I was a kid, the schools went out of their way to reinforce the community values and the schools and parents backed each other up implicitly.

Now, parents do indeed often undermine the schools, but as indicated in the piece that started this thread, too often the schools attempt to supercede the parents and override their authority instead of working with them to make the schools better.

As a former PTA president, I know how it can be. It isn't that way in most places anymore.

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We've sort of gotten off track here though. What do you think about a China who could have the potential to overpower a U.S. economy unless we improve our skills to compete?

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Foxfyre wrote:

Private schools are mixed on indoctrinating their students. Statistics are overwhelmingly conclusive. At the bottom of the heap on performance are the public schools overall. The parochial schools consistently out perform the public schools overall and the nonparochial private schools do better than the parochial schools. At the very top in performance are the home schoolers.

So the difference is, a parent should be able to educate their children in the environment that indoctrinates with the parents' values, but that is secondary to educating the children. Too many public schools these days are putting far more emphasis on indoctrination than they are on education, and in too many cases such indoctrination too often undermines both the parents' values and the parents' authority.

Private schools are usually more generously funded than public ones in the us right? So they can afford pay higher salaries, and get the better teachers right? Doesn't really prove that a private education system would outperform a public one.

I also disagree that children should be indoctrinated with their parents dogmas. I think children should be protected from such indoctrination by at least being exposed to other points of wiew.

I wiew the privatisation of education as an attack on the equal oportunity principle. Rich peoples children would go to better schools than poor peoples children, and the children of religious nuts would have even less chanse of becoming anything other than religious nuts themselves.

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Well, Einherjar, that's exactly the idea, why public schools were invented.

Obviously, this lost got when crossing the Atlantic, like other things as well :wink:

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No it is not a given that private schools are better funded than public schools--some are, some aren't...probably most aren't. Parents have to come up with substantial tuition to afford most of them--that's why vouchers would be a great equalizer in allowing less affluent parents also send their kids to the best schools. Private school teacher salaries are often lower than public school salaries and usually have fewer benefits, but the discipline and learning envirnoment is so much better, the teachers who teach in private schools don't mind.

I strongly disagree that the schools should undermine, undercut, put down, or otherwise influence children against their parents' values. Do you know many parents who are so evil that is necessary?

Home schoolers receive no funding from any source and they are performing better than all the other groups.

I think the statistics simply don't bear up your observations Einherjar.

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

Well, Einherjar, that's exactly the idea, why public schools were invented.

I know, and I don't like it.

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Foxfyre wrote:

I think the statistics simply don't bear up your observations Einherjar.

You have statistics? If you do please post them, I would like to se backing for

Foxfyre wrote:

it is not a given that private schools are better funded than public schools--some are, some aren't...probably most aren't.

and

Foxfyre wrote:

Private school teacher salaries are often lower than public school salaries and usually have fewer benefits

Foxfyre wrote:

I strongly disagree that the schools should undermine, undercut, put down, or otherwise influence children against their parents' values.

How about alowing children to influence eachother, without sorting them by religion and social class. Segregation breeds intoleranse.

Foxfyre wrote:

Do you know many parents who are so evil that is necessary?

No, I don't mix with such people. Religious nuts who brainwash their children exist though, and it seems they are quite common your side of the atlantic.

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Well I think I take a more optimistic view of people than maybe you do Einherjar. If you don't mix with such people, I wonder how it is that you are qualified to judge them? I will decline for now coming up with statistics as I've posted them elsewhere and I'm packing to leave in the morning.

The point is, there are good public schools, but most are substandard in the US these days. If a parent has a vouncher and, by putting a sizable chunk of additional cash with it, can enroll his/her child in a quality school, I find that parent commendable. However, should the public schools covet their funding sufficiently to raise their own standards and achieve parity with the private, parochial, and homeschools, and the parent could use their voucher at a good public school and pay nothing additional, that would seem a reasonable option as well.

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Oops! The Boomers are Coming! - The Boomers are Coming!

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