Fundamentally here is one reason we are falling behind. As I have said repeatedly, other countries have declared war on us via the classroom.
I hope this pop up news video works. Granted many people in this country are sure education is a non-factor. But, hey what does anyone really “know?” For your perusal, and again I hope it works;
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=14521732&ch=4226714&src=news�
Uh, not really, although I am not sure you actually watched your little video. You did notice that the story was about private, online, tutors getting paid millions, right? It had nothing to do with the S. Korean school system. In fact, the kids motivation was to do well so as to gain entry to an excellent university in order to get a good job and be able to marry. Sorry, no mention of being at educational war with the U.S. of A.
Now, are you about to assemble some test scores and compare U.S. kids to the rest of the world and tell us how bad we are, especially in math and science (nobody ever mentions our literacy scores as they are generally some of the best in the world)? Well, keep in mind that in the U.S. we educate everyone. That’s right, we educate EVERYONE who walks through the doors of our public institutions of education. And, we do a pretty dam good job of education them considering what an American public school educator is up against. So, when you try to show how great S. Korean kids are doing compared to ours, keep in mind you are comparing the elite students from a whole country to every single kid in the U.S. who attends public school. That’s because not only do we teach them all, we test them all. Probably the only other country that does not track ALL its students at secondary ed. is Canada.
What? Oh, now you are going to tell us some stories from some terrible schools from the inner cities or the rural South? Well, what do these schools have in common? Not much, besides utter poverty! But, I have an easy solution for it, and it’s one you’ve probably heard before-MONEY! Slash our ridiculous defense budget in half. GIve the half a trillion dollars or whatever it is to those schools that need it most, hire competent leadership, destroy the local teacher union and viola, our poorest, least achieving schools are kicking butt!
I am sure you are about to tell us how money has been tried before and it didn’t work. Let me ask you this. If money doesn’t solve the problem, then why do this country’s richest families send their children to the most expensive private schools in the world? Money won’t fix it for poor kids but it sure seems to work for rich kids!
Let’s take a poll, Why not have everyone who reads this list whether they went to public or private secondary schooling and then list their university, it they attended.
I’ll go first. I graduated from a great public high school (13th in my class of 162) and attended Michigan State University (home of legendary football star Forrest Wooldridge).
Who’s next? Can’t wait to see if our Harvad grad matriculated privately or publicly.
Cheers and GO STATE!
TeleDogOne,
Your talking to Ed. I can’t speak for him, but I’m sure he would agree with cutting the “defense” budget to support education. That’s what liberals do.
There‘s not really a modern defense for unions and I think most people know that they propels finical problems through overpaid mediocreness. The teachers union promotes poor education, but can control politicians through powerful propaganda. It’s a lose/ lose for everyone.
You’ve made the connection of money and education, but like the chicken and the egg, I look at things the opposite way. I see prosperity (money) coming out of education instead of education coming out of money. I look at it from this point of view because education doesn’t really come out of money, it comes from people who care. Now of course it’s true, if you have enough money you can hire someone to care enough about a child to properly teach them; but if you don’t have the money it is still possible to properly teach a child through dedication. One of the real problems with education is what I think Ed was trying to say, we don’t care about education. We leave all the educating to the teachers and don’t even pay attention to what they’re teaching. Can you even remember the baulk of what you were taught? Our educational system is pathetic because we don’t interact with it. Americas parenting sucks and that’s what’s being reflected in the schools. You can send you kid the most expensive school or create as much competition as you want, but until people start caring about the educational system, it will continue to eat our money. As a trailer-trash representative, I can tell you that my best learning has occurred for free, away from public schools. Driven by curiosity and fed by caring individuals, learning has become my passion.
Education is not represented by degrees, but here’s my prodigious credentials anyways: I was first in my class (juvenile drug and alcohol classes), I dropped out of everything that would to a useless degree, but continue feeding my fierce appetite through classes, books, and people. My education was lead by the question “What’s the point?” The question didn’t take me far because either no one knew any relevancy in what they were trying to teach or didn’t have/ take the time to explain. I don’t blame them or the system, but I still think the propose is what validates education.
Wow, both of my late night posts were poorly written. Ouch.
Uh, not really, although I am not sure you actually watched your little video. (I did, that is why I posted it) You did notice that the story was about private, online, tutors getting paid millions, right? (yes) It had nothing to do with the S. Korean school system. In fact, the kids motivation was to do well so as to gain entry to an excellent university in order to get a good job and be able to marry. Sorry, no mention of being at educational war with the U.S. of A.
(China and India produce at least 500,000 engineers a year compared to our 60,000/yr (many are foreign students) without 8 times our GDP
Perhaps you thought I was suggesting there was a formal declaration of war. Sorry about the confusion. It is more like the formalities of the USA involvement in Viet Nam. It just happens they are using teachers and we are not using M-16s.)
(One of the biggest problems in the university system is that the highest paid individuals are athletic coaches. I am not sure if you agree or not, but I do believe that the teaching profession should be the highest paid ,since they are charged with developing the most important resource, and that is the presumptively educated citizen.
I happen to think Academics, Athletics and Arts are the foundation to a true education. Academics should come first.)
And, we do a pretty dam good job of education them considering what an American public school educator is up against.
(The American public school educator should be up against nothing — they should be in full control of standards students and educational materials and probably more.)
Well, keep in mind that in the U.S. we educate everyone. That’s right, we educate EVERYONE who walks through the doors of our public institutions of education.
(We graduate anyone who attends, but that is different from educating them.)
MONEY! Slash our ridiculous defense budget in half. GIve the half a trillion dollars or whatever it is to those schools that need it most, hire competent leadership, destroy the local teacher union and viola, our poorest, least achieving schools are kicking butt!
(One of the biggest problems in the public school system is the lack of a unified national curriculum. It seems that this country has a fairly transient society. Students move from one school to another. From school to school students were taught ABC in one grade and DEF in another, they go to another and the reverse is done. Either ABC or DEF is repeated and either DEF or ABC is never taught to them leaving them with a void or hole in their development. This is one those things the educator should never be up against.
Money! National defense budget? Why stop at half? We could get get along well with less than 1/4 of that waste. Yes I would put that into education from pre K to post graduate with a great emphasis on making public universites free, or as close to free as possible and educational play for pre K.
Nathans line here is an absolutely brilliant analysis;
[I see prosperity (money) coming out of education instead of education coming out of money. I look at it from this point of view because education doesn’t really come out of money, it comes from people who care.])
Your poll;
While living in Shaker Heights in the 60s, I attended what were considered the finest public schools in the country at that time, and then moved South of the Mason Dixon Line, where as a person of color, there was an immediate attempt to place my brother and I into special education classes. This was rectified in one day. The regular classes were 3-4 years behind where we left off in Shaker Heights. I had felt a need to read about a hundred or so pages a day from second grade on and continued this habit. By the time I was in fifth grade, I had consumed all of my fathers Case Institute of Technology text books — including a Linus Pauling Chemistry book (which had not yet combined with Western Reserve) except dreadfully boring accounting books.
Starting in eigth grade in Potomac MD, an upscale neighborhood out side of DC, the other students called me Mr. “A” The only people who competed with me were the absolute best that school system had. We started a chess club, I was the best chess player in the middle school (junior high back then). But there was trouble.
The few African Americans in the the school, with even fewer exceptions had been placed into these “special educational classes.” Some thought this made them tough. But little did they know that just a few blocks away from where I had grown up was a neighborhood of young thugs to be. They would kick my books out of my hands while walking to and from school and I would then be forced to turn and let my fists go until they were done. After more than a couple of hundred encounters of this sort, there were times I had to run from these jerks when they had bats and knives, I had no fear of fighting. Yup, because I wanted to be educated, I had to fight so I could then be educated — some might call that an extra hurdle or two.
Then there were the kids who thought it was important to let me know “my place,” yet another hurdle. Everyday, I would wake up thinking, “OK who do I have to deal with today.”
Finally, there were some Dixie teachers. I was well aquainted with what I wouldn’t need to know. My brother and I started catching and selling snakes to pet shops. This was a lot of fun, we had a lot of books on snakes and reptiles, amphibians were in there too.
A couple of years later having about a hundred twenty snakes in the house, Ms. Coddington the English teacher let everyone “know” how all black are afraid of snakes. I knew she was a bigot from her demeanor, attitude and condescension. I decided to dispel this notion through experience. So I brought in my favorite snake in a snake bag, pulled him out about 3 feet away from her, and he hissed at her. She screamed. I asked her why if all blacks are afraid of snakes, why do I have the snake and why is she screaming? I ended up getting an F, which had nothing to do with English. This prevented me from graduating with my class although I did graduate — I wasn’t allowed to walk across the stage to get my diploma.
Oh and there was the football coach (Remember the Titans, that was across the Potomac) the history teacher that turned me in because she thought I was cheating. I told her in front of the principle she could never write up a test right out of her head in history I couldn’t get an A on. Fortunately, fill in the blank and multiple choice formats are not very subjective. Being called the N word and detentions for defending myself, pretty cruddy. My grades suffered greatly because of this. Also no prom no girlfriend I was too scared of trouble. You see teledog that is education too.
I expected better in college, a professor telling me what it was like to be black — I dropped the class, but too late. The chemistry professor who was unaware of where the reducing part of a bunsen burner flame was ruining an experiment after spurning my help, when I told her “that’s the wrong part of the flame.” My experiment worked, the only one that did and I got an F. The economics professor that gave me an F, after he challenged me in front of the class, on the correctness of 2 equations one of which he wrote up, unbeknownst to me. He asked which equation was correct, neither was, only 2 others out of fifty students knew I was correct. Even though I was tutoring about fifteen students in the library all of whom passed I got an F from the dept. chair. I finally dropped out of school.
That is education.
I hitchhiked around the country starting to see myself as an inheritor of the beatnik culture.
That is education.
I got second place in a golden gloves tournament.
I then tried to make the US Olympic team as an unaffiliated decathlete — stopped by injury. Became a stockbroker, given speeches in front of the Dept. of State and Capitol Hill
( http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/8/3/24816.html ) and was asked to run for office;( http://www.dcboee.org/election_info/election_results/elec_2002/htmldocs/candidate.shtm ). just a sippet about DC health care.
“D.C. Healthcare Alliance is a consortium of private insurers led by CommunityCare, which is itself a subsidiary of Doctors Community Healthcare Corporation, a private, investor-owned healthcare management company,” explained Edward Chico Troy, Statehood Green candidate for the Ward One seat on Council. “Doctors Community Healthcare is also a notorious campaign contributor and beneficiary of the Mayor’s privatization schemes. Selling away health care for our seniors and others who need it most desperately is merciless barbarism.”
That too is education.
So when someone trumpets their degrees, I think to my self could you have answered all of the calls I had to answer. How much more of a pansy path did you have. When you put your degree in MY face, you detract from it.
I am not the gridiron great Frosty Wooldridge (or Forrest Gregg or whatever the claim). Sure go after the point, but I am not sure you got the point I was trying to make. Teledog, I don’t doubt that you have an education, I don’t think it is good to go after those with educations, even if they don’t have a degree. Nathan proves that very clearly.
Now damn it, there’s only room for one of us putting down the system while reasoning our academic failures. We don’t want people to think that were just whining or making excuses. Since you spent the time laying out your educational experience, which sounded a lot rougher then my own, I guess I’ll change my story. I was lazy and un-teachable, but if I just had enough money thrown at my education…
You’re colored? What color are you? How did you come here, I heard colored folks are afraid of the snow? LOL
Yella with an azure hue. Yes I am terrified of Frosted Flake! But I love skiing.
I sincerely doubt your failing academically, neither did I. I am certain that the educational system failed us. That is why we have street smarts and graduated from the school of hard knocks. Multiply that by the tens of millions failed, who otherwise would be competing, contributing, not running a street corner or numbers, seeking approval and protection in MS-13, not drunk and meth-ed on the res, trashed because of an Appalachian accent now sittin’ back with a burro, bud and a BMI of fifty+. Many of those types are bigoted, imagine if they had been educated otherwise. Almost all are educable and many highly so. Sometimes the greatest struggle is against the cultural environmental conditioning.
I am absolutely convinced that other countries see the USA as very soft. All the tough talk has done nothing to stem the freight train flow of capital out of this country where education attracts it as it has done in Ireland and Singapore as well as China and India. Capital is like magnetic water; going to the path of protected least resistance (regulation) and attracted by education. I submit that while we have excellent capital protection, arguably the best in the world, education is the weak link.
This country can no longer hand over the keys to prosperity and opportunity to paper shuffling type “A s” that never had to earn a damn thing, and whose choices were, “what opportunity am I going to throw away, “after a life weaned from the country club, drunkeness, coke and a financial/social inheritance. Because they are trusted, they are far more damaging than the poor and “uneducated.”
I don’t give a damn what the person looks like, or their degrees. I do care about their IDEAS. I am not sure if I care if it was a person, even some exotic computer program — although Hal 9000 would be containdicated. Just kidding a bit folks.