BF2S Forums Glen Beck `Restoring Honor` rally on MLK `I have a Dream` speech annv.

JohnG@lt wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Most of the tycoons from your hated gilded age were self taught men. I spent most of my time in public school waiting for the gum chewing hair twirler in the back of the class to understand a basic concept before drifting off into a stupor again. Then there were the M&M throwers that the teacher would spend half the class chastizing. All public education does is breed mediocrity. With a little direction I could've taught myself far more on any given subject than I ever learned in the classroom. A public education barely provides the necessary skills for entry into college, let alone entry into the workforce at anything hire than unskilled labor. So there goes your economic mobility theory.

And I'm sure if I home schooled, I'd be president right now.

Not saying that at all. Just saying that our education system as currently constructed does far more to stunt the intellectual growth of those that would end up at the top than it does to aid them. Any system designed to bring the lowest common denominator up to the middle will necessarily kill off the top end. The end result is mediocrity.

So you'd rather just decrease the chances of those already in the middle to rise some and those at the bottom of rising much at all.

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

And I'm sure if I home schooled, I'd be president right now.

Not saying that at all. Just saying that our education system as currently constructed does far more to stunt the intellectual growth of those that would end up at the top than it does to aid them. Any system designed to bring the lowest common denominator up to the middle will necessarily kill off the top end. The end result is mediocrity.

So you'd rather just decrease the chances of those already in the middle to rise some and those at the bottom of rising much at all.

I'm saying that extra time spent on the bottom is 99.9% of the time a waste. Taking half of the class time to nurse some idiot along enough to pass the class doesn't do the rest of the class any favors. On the flip side, a teacher that dedicated him or herself to teaching to the top of the class instead of the bottom would have the effect of pulling those in the middle that could keep up mentally, up to the top. Or at least offering them a better, more in depth educational experience that would be far more useful to them in life.

JohnG@lt wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Not saying that at all. Just saying that our education system as currently constructed does far more to stunt the intellectual growth of those that would end up at the top than it does to aid them. Any system designed to bring the lowest common denominator up to the middle will necessarily kill off the top end. The end result is mediocrity.

So you'd rather just decrease the chances of those already in the middle to rise some and those at the bottom of rising much at all.

I'm saying that extra time spent on the bottom is 99.9% of the time a waste. Taking half of the class time to nurse some idiot along enough to pass the class doesn't do the rest of the class any favors. On the flip side, a teacher that dedicated him or herself to teaching to the top of the class instead of the bottom would have the effect of pulling those in the middle that could keep up mentally, up to the top. Or at least offering them a better, more in depth educational experience that would be far more useful to them in life.

Most of the problem is that we assume every child is academic.  Germany has the right idea.  Separate kids by academic and trade aptitudes.  Just because some kid dozes off in lit class doesn't mean he's an idiot.  It just means he probably is better at something like fixing cars.

JohnG@lt wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

Phrozenbot wrote:

I would include most of my high school life as my misspent youth. Most of my teachers did not care about their students and you were another face unless you were some star athlete. I see private schooling as having better schooling for most kids, but the statistics don't lie, properly educated home school kids do fantastic.

Would you acknowledge that a significant portion of households don't exactly have the available time for homeschooling?

Not at all. The current system is set up to be nothing more than organized babysitting while parents are off working. A parent teaching their child one on one could condense the eight hours a child spends in school on a daily basis into between one and two hours. Parents should be spending two hours a night with their kids anyway instead of vegging out on the couch.

I think you're being a bit optimistic in the time part of this equation.  I definitely support parents spending more time with their kids, but your assumption here seems way off.

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

Would you acknowledge that a significant portion of households don't exactly have the available time for homeschooling?

Not at all. The current system is set up to be nothing more than organized babysitting while parents are off working. A parent teaching their child one on one could condense the eight hours a child spends in school on a daily basis into between one and two hours. Parents should be spending two hours a night with their kids anyway instead of vegging out on the couch.

I think you're being a bit optimistic in the time part of this equation.  I definitely support parents spending more time with their kids, but your assumption here seems way off.

Which assumption? The condensed schooling? It's a fact.

Home schooling gets a bad rap because it's associated with religious and political nuts but it produces far superior better trained kids than any school, public or private, when done correctly.

Last edited by JohnG@lt (2010-09-04 21:49:45)

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

I think you're being a bit optimistic in the time part of this equation.  I definitely support parents spending more time with their kids, but your assumption here seems way off.

Which assumption? The condensed schooling? It's a fact.

Home schooling gets a bad rap because it's associated with religious and political nuts but it produces far superior better trained kids than any school, public or private, when done correctly.

Well, that's kind of part of the issue...  If we put more of an emphasis on homeschooling, curriculums are pretty much a joke.

Obviously, only a certain % of parents are suitable at teaching children.  I'm not saying every teacher is great, but there's at least training involved.

Curriculum isn't a joke, because many states have programs for home schooled kids, and the kids are still required to pass the GED.

JohnG@lt wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Which assumption? The condensed schooling? It's a fact.

Home schooling gets a bad rap because it's associated with religious and political nuts but it produces far superior better trained kids than any school, public or private, when done correctly.

Well, that's kind of part of the issue...  If we put more of an emphasis on homeschooling, curriculums are pretty much a joke.

Obviously, only a certain % of parents are suitable at teaching children.  I'm not saying every teacher is great, but there's at least training involved.

Curriculum isn't a joke, because many states have programs for home schooled kids, and the kids are still required to pass the GED.

So, what exactly do parents do with their kids while they are at work?

Last edited by Turquoise (2010-09-04 21:55:25)

Well, if nothing else, this is definitely a uniquely American perspective on education.

Turquoise wrote:

Well, if nothing else, this is definitely a uniquely American perspective on education.

I'm not saying we should get rid of our public education system. I'm saying that it is broken beyond repair and needs to be rethought from the ground up. My ideal school setup would be about twenty parents pooling their money together and hiring four tutors on a yearly basis. Class size of five kids each and they meet at a host parents house for the day. One tutor for math, english, science, and history each. No overhead besides the class materials and the tutors salary. It would cost less than it costs to send a kid to public school ($15k a year is spent in my hometown per student) every year and the education level, because the class sizes are so small, would be vastly superior.

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

Well, if nothing else, this is definitely a uniquely American perspective on education.

I'm not saying we should get rid of our public education system. I'm saying that it is broken beyond repair and needs to be rethought from the ground up. My ideal school setup would be about twenty parents pooling their money together and hiring four tutors on a yearly basis. Class size of five kids each and they meet at a host parents house for the day. One tutor for math, english, science, and history each. No overhead besides the class materials and the tutors salary. It would cost less than it costs to send a kid to public school ($15k a year is spent in my hometown per student) every year and the education level, because the class sizes are so small, would be vastly superior.

I think it's possible that some of our public education flaws are centered around our culture.

Individualism is a great source of freethinking and keeping people focused on valuing civil liberties, but it's not so good at encouraging a coherent community.  The more diverse people's viewpoints are on how society should be structured, the less likely any one design will be effectively implemented.  It would seem that this is often most blatantly manifested in the ineffectiveness of schooling throughout much of America due to the fluctuations in budgets, competing political agendas in curriculum content, and the effects of teacher unions.

In short, it may come down to a reliance of homeschooling in some areas of the country.  Economic austerity policies will likely strike schools pretty hard when we eventually come to terms with paying down our debts.

Budgets don't fluctuate all that much. If there's any fluctuation at all, it's in ever increasing demands on people who own property and pay tax on it. There isn't a year that passes on Long Island where every school district doesn't ask for an increase in the property tax rate in order to pay built in cost of living increases. Yet, for all the money spent on education, the returns are regressing, not progressing. (Nevermind that if the cost of living were actually increasing it would be reflected in the property values which would be assessed at a higher cost without a need for a rate increase)

Political agendas really have minimal effect on education as a whole. What happens in Texas doesn't have any impact on what happens in New York. We've stayed pretty consistent in our curriculum and don't have any religious interference.

No, the problem is that parents assume teachers will do all the teaching for them. They drop their kids off in the morning, pick them up in the afternoon, and assume their parental duty to teach their children has been fulfilled. Meanwhile, the kids and the teachers both know they're there for publicly sponsored babysitting and act accordingly. I was dead serious when I said that what is taught in class for eight hours a day can be condensed into a one hour block. Expecting anything positive to come out of this situation is ridiculous. I don't have all the answers, studying the education system is not one of my passions, I just know that as it is set up currently it is a breeding ground for Idiocracy.

Like Social Security, public education has made people dependent and far less responsible.

Last edited by JohnG@lt (2010-09-04 22:23:26)

Turquoise wrote:

I can agree that raising property tax rates is a vicious cycle, since it actually raises the cost of living itself.

Whenever my local government has a referendum to raise the sales tax, I support it, because when they don't come through, the property tax raises instead -- which hurts the city more than it helps it.

My girlfriends mother makes over six figures as a teacher with about fifteen years of experience. We have the highest property tax rates in the country and they keep rising. The backlash is that people my age are fleeing as fast as they can to other states instead of staying. Couple that with the older population who are flocking into 55+ communities because they then pay 1/4 the property tax and it's a recipe for disaster. The teachers and police officers unions are wiping out the tax base they depend on for their livelihood by driving everyone elsewhere. I can't leave fast enough.

Turquoise wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Turquoise wrote:

...or complacency and rigidity of thought.

Depending on the individual, some conservatism is the result of being comfortable with having a privileged place in society and fighting any perceived threats to that via opportunities for others to achieve the same.

That's not to say that all conservatism is like that, but a significant portion of it is -- especially social conservatism.

And economic 'liberalism'.

Not really... economic liberalism is mostly focused on helping others rise to privilege.

Economic conservatism mostly amounts to hoarding privilege.

Please show me when or where  " Economic liberalism ~ helped others rise to privilege  "

                  or when or where "  Economic conservatism amounted to hoarded privilege "


a friend needs to know -

and Further ~ Public Education in itself is Fine when the children in it are raised properly - If they are not, all bets are off.

Can we agree most disruptive students have some problem they brought from home ?

Public education in the U.S.A. is only lacking ( where it actual does *) when compared to Private education in the same.

Very Basically - Government / Social programs Fail when compared to Private Industry and Capitalism.

The reasons abound, find your own examples.

In Cuba where everyone is givin exactly the same education, it works well. If you seek equality of outcome.

* in many cases is it is on par or superior

Last edited by Hunter/Jumper (2010-09-05 05:08:24)