Because, as it has demonstrated with education, government always improves anything it does or in which it is involved: I dunno, Bruce.
I guess it depends on what you think should be accomplished with Education.
Ask Bill Ayers, for example, if his efforts are panning out the way he’d envisioned.
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Written By:
Bithead
URL:
http://bitsblog.florack.us
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I think what we need is to have more inpt from the teachers’ unions. You know - the same unions that resist vouchers and every other reform that helps children and takes power away from...from...well, from the unions.
The same unions that Obama has bent down and kissed firmly on the buttocal area, while they bow down to him as their Messiah.
Of course, this means that 1) the unions win, 2) Obama wins, and 3) the children of America continue to lose out.
Pitiful. Simply pitiful. |
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Written By:
James Marsden
URL:
http://
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Since other countries are more socialist and they’re beating us at education, I guess that’s the way to go. |
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Written By:
TomD
URL:
http://
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If Republicans were to ever sack up and go with it, they might actually discover the power of school choice as a wedge issue. Minority voters—especially inner-city voters, which particularly suffer from having nothing but truly awful schools foisted upon them—generally support school choice at rates of something around 2-to-1, and in some cases 3-to-1. Make school choice a centerpiece of urban reform, and Dems would be forced to choose between minority votes and union dollars. And they wouldn’t be able to have it both ways. |
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Written By:
Rusty
URL:
http://
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School choice is such an important issue, especially here in CA where sometimes ESL students can make up as much as 40% in a classroom. If this choice is taken away from parents by the liberal illuminati, it is seriuosly going to affect our children’s education. |
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Written By:
mnotaro
URL:
http://
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1) We’re not increasing our graduation rates because:
a) we’ve drastically reduced our vocational education programs
b) we’re pushing almost everyone into college prep
c) we’re mainstreaming more and more students who have been traditionally separated from general education programs
Furthermore, the report is comparing the US to other nations who do not attempt to educate every child. If you look at the report some of the countries have graduation rates almost at 100%. You can’t compare different systems using different standards for graduation.
Here is the report from the Education Trust
Here are the data they use
Looking at the data shows that the comment:THE UNITED STATES IS THE ONLY INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRY in the world in which today’s young people are less likely than their parents to have completed high school. is accurate based on the data provided, but it ignores the fact that the two data points for the US comparing 25-34 year olds to 45-54 year olds are right next to each other and are at the TOP of the list. The other nations have the two groups spread out by a great deal.
In other words, the US started much better than the other nations but hasn’t really moved. The other nations started much much lower and are starting to catch up. In the meantime, we are trying to educate an increasing number of lower-ability students while raising the academic requirements for graduation. The graduation requirements are much higher now than 20 years ago.
I’m not arguing that the US system is a bed of roses. But look at the data before you start taking the spin from a group with an agenda as proof that we suck. |
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Written By:
JWG
URL:
http://
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I’m not arguing that the US system is a bed of roses. But look at the data before you start taking the spin from a group with an agenda as proof that we suck. The data seems to be saying we don’t graduate as many from high school now as we did then (as a percentage).
True or not true?
If true, what other nations claim seems irrelevant in the face of that fact. |
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Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.QandO.net
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Government Schools are NOT FAILING.
They are doing EXACTLY what they were designed to do.
The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America
The Underground History of American Education |
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Written By:
Dave from Hawaii
URL:
http://
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JWG,
Speaking as a former high school/technical education instructor, you just hit the nail on the head.
I was constantly dealing with unrealistic and absurd ideas about everyone "learning at a high level" and "no one is really smarter than anyone else, they just learn differently".
From that comes the idea that you can stick children of every type of intelligence and ability in the same classroom with each other, and if they don’t all learn at a high level, well, it’s the teachers fault.
What happens? the kids get screwed. The one’s that need extra help and more time to try and learn the material drag the class down, while the ones that are quick to catch on fast get bored out of their skulls. Of course you’re supposed to be able to "adapt" to the different leaning styles, which basically turns you into a jack of all trades, and a master of none.
They put students in classes that they have no business being in, and when they don’t succeed, you spend weeks in meetings and Professional Development that continue to hash out the same old solutions that don’t work, and never will, because of political correctness. If you try and challenge the people in charge, they get lathered up like rabid dogs. As far as I’m concerned, ideology trumps reality in Education.
It’s unreal.
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Written By:
autot
URL:
http://
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If true, what other nations claim seems irrelevant in the face of that fact. 1) Part of the claim being made is the quote I already provided which is the first sentence in the report: "THE UNITED STATES IS THE ONLY INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRY in the world..." [caps in original]
2) Please tell us all what the percent difference is between the historic and current grad rates from the data...
If the rate is a point or two, then it doesn’t seem that significant given the increased percentages of non-academic students we are now educating, given the decreased percentages of vocational classes being offered, and given the increased requirements for graduation compared to just a decade ago.
If you look at the actual data used in the report, the grad rates for the US haven’t really changed over the time period studied. Meanwhile, everyone else in the world has gone from horrible to just under where the US is today.
Perhaps someone here has an idea on how to get higher numbers of below average IQ students to acquire the increased number of college prep requirements needed to graduate today? |
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Written By:
JWG
URL:
http://
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JWG,
Perhaps someone here has an idea on how to get higher numbers of below average IQ students to acquire the increased number of college prep requirements needed to graduate today?
I tried for 12 years, and I never could figure a way to do it, nor could my colleagues. Believe me, my fellow instructors and I worked like sharecroppers mules trying to help the students.
Every year there was some new "flavor of the month" that was going to really bring up those test scores, and have all the kids learning at a proficient level.
I’m still waiting for it to work.
Funny thing is, their solution is to just keep piling on more and more coursework that many of the students simply will never be able to pass.
Its really quite sad.
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Written By:
autot
URL:
http://
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According to the US Census Bureau data, high school graduation rates climbed steadily from the 1960s to the 1990s and then began to level off (pp. 49-53).
Maybe there’s a reason the group quoted in McQ’s article used data collected by someone other than the census bureau?
Furthermore, the US Dept. of Ed statistics also claim that graduation rates have been increasing.Status dropout rates for Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics ages 16–24 have each generally declined between 1972 and 2006. Over this time period, status dropout rates for Whites remained lower than rates for Hispanics and Blacks. Even the data that McQ wants to point to from an international assessment that shows the US graduation rates during an undefined time period as essentially plateaued and well above most other nations. This is not evidence of a failed system.
There’s plenty of criticism to throw at the US educational system, but claiming that today’s children are less likely to graduate than their parents in an era of greatly increased standards and more special needs kids just because the rates have recently plateaued after growing for decades is ridiculous.
How about we accept as fact that there are going to be a certain percentage of our nation’s youth that will not be capable of graduating from a college prep curriculum?
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Written By:
JWG
URL:
http://
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Since other countries are more socialist and they’re beating us at education, I guess that’s the way to go. I would point out Soviet Canuckistan has somehow survived without a Federal Department of Education.
Out of curiousity, Canadian teachers have essentially zero mobility. A teacher moving from Alberta to Saskatchewan is treated as entry-level from a wage and benefit perspective. Is that the same all over?
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Written By:
Joe Canadian
URL:
http://
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