The US Public School System is just fine.

Tmy

Philosopher
Tmy
Joined
Oct 23, 2002
Messages
6,487
Why does every start with the premis that our public school system is failing?? We've had public school for years and years. Our population is more eduacted than ever. Illiteracy declines with every generation. We are world leader in all sorts of fields.

How is that a failure?? Sure you can find some schools that suck. You can do that with private schools too. But why bash a whole system that has done nothing but improve with time??
 
People's Exhibit A
Why are they given Blair so much grief?? You dont want to be killed heres what you do...........DONT TAKE THAT JOB IN IRAQ!!! We're talking contractors here. Im sure they are getting hazard pay to run off to the mid east. Its a gamble, high pay vs danger.

No one desevers to be beheaded like that, and I feel for the guys. But dont blame it all on Blair. I thinks it common knowlege that if you are kidnapped by terrorists, the govt wont give into their crazy demands to win your freedom.
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:p
 
Ah. You've forgotten that Education Is Important. And for any Important Issue, there is no such thing as a moderate assessment. Something is either perfect, or utterly dreadful.

Just like the election--Candidate X is either a living saint, a brilliant paragon, the shining jew in the holy crown of the glory that is humankind, or else he is a blood-drinking criminal madman who enjoys dark perversions while attempting to plunge the whole of civilization into ruin.

Middle ground? Is that the place where the Hobbits come from?
 
I suspect if the teachers union endorsed Bush, this issue might not be such a big one. I doubt the Dems would pick up the the anti-public edcuation torch, but I could be wrong.
 
TragicMonkey said:
...or else he is a blood-drinking criminal madman who enjoys dark perversions while attempting to plunge the whole of civilization into ruin.
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Which candidate was this? He sounds fun.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Just like the election--Candidate X is either a living saint, a brilliant paragon, the shining jew in the holy crown of the glory that is humankind
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Nonono - the Dems didn't nominate Lieberman. You remember Lieberman, don't you? The moderate Jewish guy who picked up about the same percentage of the Democratic primary vote as the woo woo candidates - Kucinich, Braun, and Sharpton?

(...wonderful typo...)
 
Tmy said:
Why does every start with the premis that our public school system is failing?? We've had public school for years and years. Our population is more eduacted than ever. Illiteracy declines with every generation. We are world leader in all sorts of fields.

How is that a failure?? Sure you can find some schools that suck. You can do that with private schools too. But why bash a whole system that has done nothing but improve with time??
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Without resorting to the 'In my day, we had to...' line, I would wonder about *your* premise.

Are things just fine, or have expectations and outcomes been massaged to make the literacy rates, graduation rates, and standardized test scores seem less alarming?
 
Tmy said:
Why does every start with the premis that our public school system is failing?
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During colonial times, we had universal literacy among free men and near-universal literacy among free women. That began to decline in the 19th Century as local governments started building schools and passing truancy laws. Most of the decreases in measured literacy are due to the inclusion of free blacks; nonetheless, marked improvement was made until the 40s, when state governments got into it, and the late 50s, when the Feds did.

60 years ago, our schools were first in the world. Now, we're something like 27th. Many graduates are unable to read; most students can't even read at their grade level. This is an epidemic particular to the government schools that we do not find in charter, magnet, and private schools. Business leaders call our government schools failures and say they do not prepare graduates for the workforce. Science leaders say the state of science education is pathetic. I don't know of a single professional field outside of government itself that claims that our government schools are preparing graduates for what they need.

I don't see how any reasonable person can reach your conclusions.
 
The private school graduates I've encountered are just as idiotic as the public school graduates. My own theory is that people mostly educate themselves, and will do so whether they are put in the best school or the worst. I attended nine different public schools ranging from good to appalling, and managed to pick up a pretty good education. But then, I read a lot.
 
Re: Re: The US Public School System is just fine.

shanek said:
This is an epidemic particular to the government schools that we do not find in charter, magnet, and private schools.
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I'd like to hear the evidence about that regarding charter schools. But I believe magnet schools and private schools have a selection bias that makes the comparison invalid.
 
Weren't there just a couple of studies released that showed long term results from both private and home schooling to be disappointing compared to public schools?
 
I think the soft anti-education/anti-intellectualism in our culture is a bigger problem than the real deficiencies of the education system.
 
The problem is that politically, everyone likes to use the "failing schools." line.

Educators and adminstrators use it to justify bigger budgets and rasies in order to "improve education."

Private school and anti-teacher union types use it as proof that they are right.

We've been so bombarded with anti-school propaganda that when a brave sole (such as myself) says the schools are fine, everyone thinks hes crazy. While I may be crazy, that doesnt mean Im wrong! :p
 
Tmy said:
We've been so bombarded with anti-school propaganda that when a brave sole (such as myself) says the schools are fine, everyone thinks hes crazy. While I may be crazy, that doesnt mean Im wrong! :p
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People are a lot ruder to me when I express the view that the quality of public education is irrelevant, because their child is doomed to an imbecilic mediocrity simply by being their offspring.

I never have to spend money on graduation gifts.
 
Re: Re: Re: The US Public School System is just fine.

gnome said:
I'd like to hear the evidence about that regarding charter schools. But I believe magnet schools and private schools have a selection bias that makes the comparison invalid.
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Well, charter schools are different in that any parent can choose to pull their child from a government school and put him in a charter school, so this is not based on the parent's ability to pay anything. Charter schools are independent schools and parents make the choice to put their child there, and then the charter school, not the government school system, gets the tax money.
 
crimresearch said:
Weren't there just a couple of studies released that showed long term results from both private and home schooling to be disappointing compared to public schools?
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I've seen recent studies that show just the opposite. There are threads on them here.
 
Re: Re: The US Public School System is just fine.

shanek said:


I don't know of a single professional field outside of government itself that claims that our government schools are preparing graduates for what they need.

I don't see how any reasonable person can reach your conclusions.
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BULLFLOP!

These professional fields are chuck full of people who do just fine. Unemployment is reasonably low, we have a successful economy that is based on service/high tech industries that requires a better educated workforce than ever.

If our education system is so bad how can our economy and country be so successful.
 
Tony said:
I think the soft anti-education/anti-intellectualism in our culture is a bigger problem than the real deficiencies of the education system.
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That foreign public schools seem to preform better does seem to support this notion.
 
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