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2009-07-02 Home Front: Politix

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Posted by Fred 2009-07-02 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11125 views ] Top

#1 Bad culture & bad government.

Posted by whatadeal 2009-07-02 05:03|| 2009-07-02 05:03|| Front Page Top

#2 Why civilizations always have a death wish?

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2009-07-02 05:51|| 2009-07-02 05:51|| Front Page Top

#3 State schools are merely a crèche.

Learning is secondary to their primary purpose.

If you want education you're going to have to make parents interested in their childrens learning, and that means they have to pay for it out of their own money.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2009-07-02 07:43|| 2009-07-02 07:43|| Front Page Top

#4 ...almost no students are prepared to succeed in college.

Well, we identified the first problem. The vast bulk of people shouldn't be going to college. It's part of the '60s hype which witnessed all sorts of trades move their certification from apprentice-journeymen-master to paper mill subsidy for academic empire building along with the blooming of 'studies' which lack direct application to practical work other than increasing the population of instructors in colleges. It's been compounded by lazy and ineffectual personnel management in our businesses that fall back on those same pieces of paper as 'job qualifications'.

The whole practicality of what a citizen needs to know to be productive and to participate in a real democracy has been subordinated to the education industry and self protection union.

Posted by Procopius2k 2009-07-02 08:51|| 2009-07-02 08:51|| Front Page Top

#5 If you want education you're going to have to make parents interested in their childrens learning, and that means they have to pay for it out of their own money.

When I was in Korea, I'd watch the children march off to school in the morning. Then sometime just afternoon they'd trip on back home. The official school day was done. Then after their lunch, the kiddies spent the rest of the day with a tutor paid for by the families who pooled resources for the instructor. When the families paid, you can be certain the kids were 'encouraged' to focus.

Posted by Procopius2k 2009-07-02 08:58|| 2009-07-02 08:58|| Front Page Top

#6 I thought Bill Ayers was the ~~domestic terrorist~~ educational specialist who had encounced himself and his ideas in schools in the Chicago area.

Posted by JohnQC 2009-07-02 10:10|| 2009-07-02 10:10|| Front Page Top

#7 Michelle and Barry leave town and the place just goes to HELL!

Posted by Besoeker 2009-07-02 10:11|| 2009-07-02 10:11|| Front Page Top

#8 The news out of CPS isn't entirely bad.

I understand grades in Markmanship have improved drastically.

Posted by Dreadnought 2009-07-02 10:14|| 2009-07-02 10:14|| Front Page Top

#9 Courtesy of the Ayers and Obama Chicago school "reforms".

"Calling Bill Ayers a school reformer is a bit like calling Joseph Stalin an agricultural reformer."

Posted by ed 2009-07-02 10:19|| 2009-07-02 10:19|| Front Page Top

#10 For instance, it notes a 2006 letter from then schools CEO Arne Duncan, now U.S. secretary of education, stating that the share of CPS students meeting or exceeding state standards had leapt 15 points in one year.

It gets better and better

Posted by Beavis 2009-07-02 10:48|| 2009-07-02 10:48|| Front Page Top

#11 Today's educational system runs on what I call the "Scarecrow Principle" based on the Scarecrow of the Wizad of Oz. The Wizard told the the Scarecrow, "You don't need an education, what you need is a Diploma".

Posted by Deacon Blues 2009-07-02 11:05|| 2009-07-02 11:05|| Front Page Top

#12 They obviously don't have enough money.

Posted by DoDo 2009-07-02 12:03|| 2009-07-02 12:03|| Front Page Top

#13 Bright Pebbles and Procopius2k; parents "paying" for their child's education is not always the answer. As a retired private school teacher (Catholic School) I see the biggest hurdle to education (public or private) as the culture of entitlement and enabling endemic in our society. Too many students (enabled by parents and family) feel they are entitled to no less than a "B", or at the very least a "C", simply for showing up for class; never mind how disruptive their behavior may be to others in the class. Until we make everyone accountable for for their own success or failure, no amount of monies spent will cure the problem. Just my two cents worth.

Posted by WolfDog 2009-07-02 12:56|| 2009-07-02 12:56|| Front Page Top

#14 I taught in a university for many years and a lot of students thought they should have an "A" for paying their money and showing up.

Posted by JohnQC 2009-07-02 13:00|| 2009-07-02 13:00|| Front Page Top

#15 It's just not the issue of paying. These were basic working families in Korea which would be classified as 'poor' by American bureaucratic standards. Note I wrote they 'pooled' money. The kids very well understood it was their 'job' in the family to succeed. There was no sense of 'entitlement' but rather 'obligation'. It is a current within the society derived from thousands of years of Chinese cultural influences [which also has its influence in Japan] and the Han Emperor who developed the first civil service and opportunity for anyone who could pass the exam. There was the means of social mobility. That trait is something absent in some of the subcultures here in America and is reflected in their approach and appreciation for education.

Posted by Procopius2k 2009-07-02 16:17|| 2009-07-02 16:17|| Front Page Top

#16 Trailing daughter #2 became friends with a lovely Korean girl who came over here as an exchange student. She loves it here, because she gets more than four hours of sleep each night, and gets to sleep in on weekends. According to her the pattern over there is to study until one or two in the morning, get up at five for school, then sleep through classes and lunch, due to sheer exhaustion. She found the classes much easier as well, but the student exchange people had dropped her back two years (junior to freshman) because she came over with very little English.

That sleep pattern and pressure are to me unacceptably unhealthy, even if Korean students graduate knowing more than Americans.

I agree with WolfDog's prescription. At-home enrichment is only part of the solution. The other part is demanding the kids earn their grades themselves. I've a girlfriend who spends pots of money on private tutors and SAT training programs for her three sons... but she does all their school projects for them, "because they don't do things like that well," allowing them only to choose the subject. So of course two of the three don't understand why they should do their homework and turn it in on time.

Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife 2009-07-02 17:07|| 2009-07-02 17:07|| Front Page Top

#17 ...compounded by lazy and ineffectual personnel management in our businesses...

There hasn't been anything resembling "personnel management" in business since the arrival of the HR mentality. I've always considered HR to be the point where Leftism managed to infect an otherwise capitalist venture. Namely...business.

Posted by Speath Fillmore2260 2009-07-02 19:02|| 2009-07-02 19:02|| Front Page Top

#18 The Wizard told the the Scarecrow, "You don't need an education, what you need is a Diploma".

No, it's incorrect, it's even worse, the Wizard said "You don't need a brain"

Posted by Redneck Jim 2009-07-02 19:29|| 2009-07-02 19:29|| Front Page Top

23:59 trailing wife
23:52 trailing wife
23:43 trailing wife
23:40 Mullah Richard
23:39 Jumbo Slinerong5015
23:03 Old Patriot
22:59 Broadhead6
22:56 Old Patriot
22:53 Old Patriot
22:43 Barbara Skolaut
22:24 SteveS
22:16 ed
22:15 JohnQC
22:12 ed
22:11 Frank G
22:04 Barbara Skolaut
21:37 Glenmore
21:23 anymouse
21:13 CrazyFool
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20:42 no mo uro
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20:35 Frank G
20:30 crosspatch