Who's more foolish? Someone who spells that way?

Or someone who still finds this joke amusing?

hheehehe, I lurv this head linez!!

The private schools do not necessarily produce better specimens. I went to Univ of Chicago Lab Schools and you would not believe some of the epic dumbasses that somehow made it through there. It was and is a fine school, and I would send my own kids there if I had any.

However, just because a school has a big name doesn't mean that it will produce well-educated and curious people. A school can only give you the tools, it's parents that make you want to pick them up and use them.

I wrote a lot more here, mostly about adults who never grew up wanting to be 'cool parents', but it wandered off topic and this thread would erupt into the inevitable, predictable flamewar anyway. Go ahead: parents, underfund the same people you're loudly foisting your responsibilities off on; libberterryans and biatchy child-frees, complain that you don't have kids and shouldn't fund future of the society you have a stake in; fake conservatives, blame those darn libruls and social studies and literature class because high schools should be vo-tech and football.

Go on. I'll keep score.

/daughter of working class intellectuals
// Lab ruined me for collegeswhite collar vo-techs forever

soze: You're right on.

As the product of a private-school education through high school and a public university (UC Berkeley), now in a private university for graduate studies, I've seen my fair share of people who are dumb in both worlds.

Unfortunately, knowing people from the California public school system as well, I'm inclined to agree with the op-ed there. As labman points out, the 'smarter' private school kids are likely a product of home nurturing more than school quality, but given that our state had a 9th-grade level exit exam that people found "too hard" and sued to have removed, I think even less of the average public-schooler.

I guess the idea is that we're seeing correlation, not causation, but sometimes that's enough to know that something needs to be done. And America really needs a cultural overhaul before any changes begin to be remotely effective.

Publik skool sistum ---> liberal arts graduate.

Would you like fries with that?

but they're jingoistic no? They don't actually have any of the sociology that requires debate at this stage? Right?

the government is systematically taking funding away from the school system.

Bizzaro students am dumb!

If people were more like me and did what I did during college and high school then all of our problems would be solved.

/I'm awesome.

Or how about High scools that OVER prepared students, such that when they got to college freshman year everything was easy and they didn't have to work hard? And then the students didn't notice Sophomore year as the "Weed out"* classes got hard and were too busy chasing squirrels and ended up getting bad grades? Hunh?

WHAT ABOUT US THEM?! Where's the sympathy?



/"Weed out" means they're hard and they seperate the wheat from the chaff.

Loving Judas - the government is systematically taking funding away from the school system.

Doesn't matter. The United States "invests" more money per student than most industrialized nations and still produces a sub-par student in terms of knowledge, intellectualizing, maturity and job-skills.

It isn't a matter of money... it is a matter of recapturing a culture that values education and discipline. Simply having an assembly line that churns out students able to take standardized tests isn't going to prepare our children for the real challenges that they will be facing in a globalized economy.


/No... you cannot subscribe to my magazine.
//Smart asses!! :)

It isn't a matter of money... it is a matter of recapturing a culture that values education and discipline. Simply having an assembly line that churns out students able to take standardized tests isn't going to prepare our children for the real challenges that they will be facing in a globalized economy.

That's just about right on the money. I teach in a public school - we had conferences last week (Wed) - I prepared my classroom, had my gradebook all caught up, had the last test we just took ready for the parents and then had (*drumroll*) TWO parents show up.

We have the second evening conferences tonight - I suspect I will have just about as many despite the school sending home flyers and the teachers making phone calls.

I think the country probably needs a decade long, intensive reinvestment in civics lessons and it will have to be a carpet bombing. So much so that many of the very same people who whine and complain on this site all day will whine and complain about how much money its costing and how SICK they are about hearing about the value of an education etc etc etc.

Wanna know why colleges let so many students in who need remedial classes? Simple really, $$$. I know almost as many degreed idiots as I do non degreed idiots.

I'm more concerned with a functional illiteracy: folks can tell you that the capital of Nebraska is Lincoln, but have no clue how to apply that, or any other information needed to pass a damnable standardized test, in any useful or pragmatic way. I'd rather teach kids to question, think, be creative, find and use resources and information, and to embrace healthy risk.

/Got to go. I'm due in the classroom in an hour.

Colleges can only blame themselves. They've lowered standards time and again (often in the pursuit of diversity) and what has it accomplished?

You'll need a Masters to get the same respect a Bachelors degree used be good for.

"This begs the question..."

Spoken like a man who hasn't attend an introduction to philosophy class.

BS, MS, PhD...

Bullshiat, More shiat, Pile High Deeper

Schools do not and never will have anything to do with intelligence. While schools may not be teaching kids what we think they need. (knowing where to use a semi-colon has sure saved MY life) Its not making them stupid. Just uneducated.

I'd gladly take some products of a public schools over some "highly educated" people any day. If you can't understand that you are probably one of those people.

/yes, its ad hominem
//doesn't mean it can't be true
///Latin makes you sound like a prick.
////made me sound like a prick didn't it?
//one more slashy

"This begs the question: "Is college really for everyone?""

"A recent study by Stanford University revealed that 88 percent of high school students aspire to go to college. It also showed that nearly half of students who do attend college have to enroll in remedial courses."

When you mainstream bears of little brains expect failure. Just like some people have very poor vertical leaping abilities so some have very poor cognitive abilities. Life indeed is not fair.

BS, MS, PhD...

Better sex, More sex, Panties Hitting the Dirt

/Got nothing

As long as they have good self-esteem and have a druidic respect for trees and whatnot, what's the problem?

Espertron- Simply having an assembly line that churns out students able to take standardized tests isn't going to prepare our children for the real challenges that they will be facing in a globalized economy.

As any organism, albeit a social one, it must evolve, as our students have, we must as well. Standardization is the threat. I was a by product of having mass potential for creative and logistical skill with no where to put it during high school. I was judged by crunching numbers and memorization of dates and arbitrary facts. My skills neglected.

Instead of teachers continuing their learning, teaching skills, and trying new techniques, we have generations of teachers that have been on "repeat" for the last 40 years. It's getting out of hand.

As far as correctly cultivating a culture captivated by catechism..
..that is beyond me at this present moment...but I'm sure a think tank is in order

Espertron

It isn't a matter of money... it is a matter of recapturing a culture that values education and discipline. Simply having an assembly line that churns out students able to take standardized tests isn't going to prepare our children for the real challenges that they will be facing in a globalized economy.



Quoted for truth.

Globalized Economy means "I can find someone smarter than you in scenic Over There, and they can telecommute."

/Currently working with a bunch of Canadians 3 timezones away for that very same reason.

That's some great reporting there, Mr. Romero. But maybe you could learn the proper use of the expression "begs the question."

What do you propose to do about it? Reserve college only for those students who truly deserve it? That would lead to the immediate redundancy of about 80% of the professoriate and/or an immediate tripling in tuition for the students who remain. The idiots prop up the whole operation (especially at private schools like Baylor) and dealing with them is the price you have to pay for being at college.

I attendanced public school. So Im really getting a kick out of these replys.

the government is systematically taking funding away from the school system.

Do you mean the federal government?


US Department of Education Allocation History

http://www.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/history/edhistory.pdf

1980 - $14,809,119,000
1982 - $14,731,300,000
1983 - $15,401,412,000
1984 - $15,427,152,000
1985 - $19,065,331,000
1986 - $17,885,274,000
1987 - $19,608,102,000
1988 - $20,175,984,000
1989 - $22,956,424,000
1990 - $25,481,967,000
1991 - $28,307,659,000
1992 - $32,316,988,000
1993 - $32,608,527,000
1994 - $27,200,908,000
1995 - $32,438,079,000
1996 - $30,613,457,000
1997 - $33,663,942,000
1998 - $35,677,788,000
1999 - $38,313,686,000
2000 - $38,447,366,000
2001 - $42,061,403,000
2002 - $56,177,032,000
2003 - $63,256,811,000
2004 - $67,212,116,000
2005 - $73,982,922,000
2006 - $88,855,651,000


You mean to tell me the amount of money represented here is not enough? And the gub'mint is cutting back?

I know those are big numbers and math is really hard for public school students, but you will notice that the
amount spent is continually growing. (more or "bigger" amounts). You will also notice that the only occasions where less money is spent compared to the previous year is 1985-1986 and 1993-1994 and 1995-1996. You will also notice that since 1996 there has been a continual increase in funding and under the Bush administration there has never been more spending for the Department of Education. So, I would suggest that money is not the problem.

The short version is either....

A. You are ignorant of the facts and chose to opine anyway,

or

B. You are a liar.

As long as education is considered a "right" this nonsense will continue.

If we can agree that education is "earned," we've got a chance to fix it.

sizzlingsteaks

"This begs the question..."

Spoken like a man who hasn't attend an introduction to philosophy class.

You do realize the colloquial meaning of that phrase has changed, right?


/Language evolves. Get over it.

Loving Judas,

"I was a by product of having mass potential for creative and logistical skill with no where to put it during high school."

I will assume this was a joke otherwise the next statement may be directly applicable to you. "One reason that the ignorant also tend to be the blissfully self-assured is that the skills required for competence often are the same skills necessary to recognize competence."

Xenomech

/Language evolves. Get over it.

Doesn't mean you sound any smarter when you say "irregardless."


/And the "smart" people who know what "begging the question" is will still think you are dumb...
//unless you use the word "Tautology", then they'll let you back in to drink white wine spritzers and kir royales with them

Schools are nothing but babysitting services. You can get through high school without being able to read. You can show up 10 days a year and pass. Teachers have no power to teach, most don't care to anyway.

The public school system need to be radically rebuilt, and students not interested in learning must be removed from it and either sent to an alternate "life skills" training where they are taught how to survive by making fries and counting change, or cut out altogether.

The most basic skill that should be taught at a young age is critical reasoning. A 4th grader should be able to enumerate the reasons why Intelligent Design is stupid without being told so. Memorization should be reduced while projects should increase. Hard work is fine, but grades should be based on quality of work.

alidade

One of the problems is that the NCLB act is calling for higher standards, but not funding them. This act is VERY unrealistic expecting all students to be held to the same standards. In case you haven't noticed, all children do not have equal intelligence.

And what happens if the schools don't meet the standards? That's right, the feds take money away and in some cases come in and take over the schools. And if you know anything about today's students, you'd know that they have absolutely no attention span. Teachers are expected to constantly entertain then. Why? Because that's what mommy and daddy do at home. And if the teachers don't do that, then mommy and daddy call in to complain. And the Administrators are such pansies that they back the parents instead of the administrators.

So yes, the money has increased, but so have costs. And the money still isn't sufficient to fund crap like the NCLB.

/rant over
//bring back corporal punishment

Private schools are not inherently better than public schools. The problem is that public schools are underfunded. The federal government gives jack shiat to schools monetarily, and people are not willing to pay extra in taxes to fund their schools. This is the result.

I was lucky enough to go to a *great* public school. Why was the school so great? Because the people of my city were willing to pay high taxes to support the school. The number of options for students far exceeded what the sole private school had (with the exception of religious indoctrination). We had AP courses galore for the smart kids, and I even had the oppurtunity to take an online course through Stanford for free (and I wasn't really one of those smart kids, truth be told). The school didn't leave the less intellectually-challenged kids behind either, as they offered free courses at the local technical college so kids could learn some actual job skills. It's not surprising that we had one of the highest graduation rates in the state, and something along the lines of 96% of the students who graduated went on to some form of post-secondary education (whether that be college or a technical school).

Simply put: Public education isn't bad. The people just need to be willing to fund schools properly, since the federal government isn't going to do it for you.

Xenomech: You do realize the colloquial meaning of that phrase has changed, right?

You went to public school then? (Sorry, too easy.)

/Language evolves. Get over it.

There's a fine line between evolution and mistake. There are several expressions that have become commonplace that are still mistakes:

"I could care less"
"There's many things you can do"
"This data shows"

etc.

So until you can show some solid reasoning as to why this is any different from the other errors, I'll choose to regard it as just that.

Don't worry about high school, grade inflation at the college level will soon even things out. Soon, all our kids will be 4.0 students! Of course the increase in useless bachelors degrees will continue to discount all bachelor degrees. In my area (Wisconsin) many employers now give equal, or even greater, weight to tech school associate degrees. I don't know if this is a national trend, but our tech school system has been very responsive to local business, and the education is very practical (real world applicable). I've been in both systems, and I have a bachelors degree. And my feeling is that our tech schools are focused on teaching real world skills. The university system seems to be more focused on a traditional liberal education; who's prerequisite for a passing grade seems to be breathing.

/don't mean liberal in the political sense
//Tech school dropout, college graduate

alidade You mean to tell me the amount of money represented here is not enough?

I love the smell of ownage in the morning.

I once knew a graduate of Colgate with a science degree (Geology) who could not figure out how to turn a 1" = 60' scale map into a 1" = 40' scale map using the zoom function on a photocopy machine. Unbelievable.

mekkab - Globalized Economy means "I can find someone smarter than you in scenic Over There, and they can telecommute."

To a degree, you're absolutely right. If we don't have citizens who are more educated, skilled, articulate and functionally literate, we will continue to see employment transfer out of our own country and into other nations.

Once a nation loses its educational system... the collapse of that nation isn't that far away. Basically, having a substandard public educational system that focuses on standardized testing as opposed to true learning is another deathnail in the coffin of America.

What our nation needs, desperately, is a educational system that can produce a quality student who can innovate, evaluate options intelligently and critically, is functionally literate and capable of "research thinking."

Kiribub probably has the most astute post on this particular thread: I'm more concerned with a functional illiteracy: folks can tell you that the capital of Nebraska is Lincoln, but have no clue how to apply that, or any other information needed to pass a damnable standardized test, in any useful or pragmatic way. I'd rather teach kids to question, think, be creative, find and use resources and information, and to embrace healthy risk.

Well spoken Kiribub, well spoken.

alidade
C. Troll... had to. But thank you for the numbers. That puts it into perspective for where the rest of our money is being flushed down the drain...


Runningjoke
Excellent quote, but they're not stupid forever, there's a switch in that brain somewhere, although yes, there aren't many smart AND happy people. I'm progressing toward my B.F.A in Photography now, much better environ.

/a creative mind in public school is the same as Bill Hicks on the beach. Just grin and bear it.

I think everybody is missing the real point. Public schools don't make children stupid. Stupid parents make stupid children. Stupid people outnumber intelligent people by quite a large margin, unless the intelligent people start popping out kids as fast as biologically possible, I fear this may be the end of Homo Sapiens as we know them. All hail the Homo Idioticus.

As much as we're all hopping on the "let's rag on the public school" bus, I'm just glad we have something there as a minimum. People will get out of education what they want to get out of it. Can you imagine where we'd be if we didn't at least try to force people to get up to a minimum standard without having to pay an arm and a leg for it? Education is a generationally-reinforced standard... the better educated parents are, the more likely their children will be better educated.

Espertron Doesn't matter. The United States "invests" more money per student than most industrialized nations

You have any numbers to back this up? Not accusing you of BS, just find that an interesting assertation. I would have thought we'd be relatively low on a per student basis... IIRC, seem to recall that the average school spends something in the range of up to $5k/student/year, which given our school system's basis around the agricultural calendar (hence the 180 day school year and the huuuuge summer break, though I am ironically drawing a blank as to what the term for that is). Seems like we'd be low in that regard considering among industrialized nations we spend most of our money on Social Security, Medicaid, and the military.

Idiocracy. hilarious and scary.