Why Gloomy Pundits and Politicians Are Wrong About America's Education System

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[h=1]Why Gloomy Pundits and Politicians Are Wrong About America's Education System[/h]
Here's what everybody knows about education in the United States. It's broken. It's failing our poorest students and codding the richest. Americans are falling desperately behind the rest of the developed world.

But here's what a new study from the Economic Policy Institute tells us about America's education system: Every one of those common assumptions is simplistic, misguided, or downright wrong.

Pundits and politicians, gloomy or otherwise, have a history of being wrong.
 
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interesting. I blame calculators.

seriously.

had to buy the kid a graphing calculator in high school because the math teacher could not teach how to do it the old fashioned way. didn't have them when I was in school (or maybe we did but they were even more obscenely priced than now). they made a point of teaching manual first in all cases.

i do think they are on the right track in breking things down as they do but leve out important causes as to why we have more lower income people.
 
interesting. I blame calculators.

seriously.

had to buy the kid a graphing calculator in high school because the math teacher could not teach how to do it the old fashioned way. didn't have them when I was in school (or maybe we did but they were even more obscenely priced than now). they made a point of teaching manual first in all cases.

i do think they are on the right track in breking things down as they do but leve out important causes as to why we have more lower income people.

they don't teach kids to use slide rules, as they did when I was in high school either. I can't imagine why, can you? and the abacus, whatever happened to that?

I think the question of income disparity was beyond the scope of that article.
 
So the point of the article is "disadvantaged kids" (no definition provided for that term) are equal in not performing as well as "advantaged kids" in European/American countries. This is supposed to break the myth that US disadvantaged kids are really doing much more poorly compared with the rest of the world.

My reaction is this: the US is loosing jobs for semi-skilled workers (like factory workers) because US companies are moving the factories overseas where labor is cheaper. So if we are to have a prosperous future, we must have well-educated, skilled workers. High school is not enough anymore. To accomplish this, BOTH advantaged and disadvantaged kids must have a higher level education than other countries.

One of the problems is the US school system is caught in a system that is 20-30 years old. The bureaucracy is very slow to change. Many parents are turning to home-schooling using a school sponsored program through the computer. Kids can spend more time learning the reading, writing and arithmetic, and less time wasted learning some foreign language like French, which no one uses, remembers, or needs in the world today.

This study and the associated article seems pretty useless if we are talking seriously about the future of education in the US. The conclusion is simply, "we ain't so bad after all" ha!
 
they don't teach kids to use slide rules, as they did when I was in high school either. I can't imagine why, can you? and the abacus, whatever happened to that?

I think the question of income disparity was beyond the scope of that article.


didnt intend to introduce income disparity. i doubt it has any effect thats not captured already.
 
The point of the article was that our middle class children do as well as middle class children in other countries, and our children of poverty do as well as children of poverty elsewhere. We just have more children of poverty than there are in other developed countries.
 
The point of the article was that our middle class children do as well as middle class children in other countries, and our children of poverty do as well as children of poverty elsewhere. We just have more children of poverty than there are in other developed countries.

also that other western countries sre seeing that disparity narrow due to immigration (language mainly).
time will tell if their immigrints are comfortable on the dole and dont bother educating themselves.
 
The point of the article was that our middle class children do as well as middle class children in other countries, and our children of poverty do as well as children of poverty elsewhere. We just have more children of poverty than there are in other developed countries.

The fact that the US education system is staying equal with other countries is not good enough. In today's (and tomorrows) world, we need a population educated in science and engineering if we are to to stay a superior country. We need people who can find real solutions to global warming, to alternative energy supply, more efficient transportation, etc. etc. In the next 20 years robotic machines will be doing all the manufacturing. We don't need factory workers - we need people who can build and repair these robotic machines.

Staying equal just isn't good enough if we are to remain a great country.
 
The fact that the US education system is staying equal with other countries is not good enough. In today's (and tomorrows) world, we need a population educated in science and engineering if we are to to stay a superior country. We need people who can find real solutions to global warming, to alternative energy supply, more efficient transportation, etc. etc. In the next 20 years robotic machines will be doing all the manufacturing. We don't need factory workers - we need people who can build and repair these robotic machines.

Staying equal just isn't good enough if we are to remain a great country.
That is true. We also need critical thinkers who can separate fact from wishful thinking.
 
The point of the article was that our middle class children do as well as middle class children in other countries, and our children of poverty do as well as children of poverty elsewhere. We just have more children of poverty than there are in other developed countries.

How could this be, when TRILLIONS of dollars has been confiscated and transferred to benefit those impoverished, since the Butcher of Vietnam stained our nation with his disgusting presence and policies? More has been spent on the War on Poverty than has been spent on any other problem, by any government, in the history of the world...but I digress.

I have a hard time believing government schools (we all know government anything SUCKS), who have no competition, are run by union members who can never be fired, who make relatively big salaries and benefits, but think they deserve much much much more, who ignore what parents want while promoting leftism and denigrating American traditions daily, are effective at educating.

Could it be that the article you cite is commending the p-schools for teaching the kiddies how to be good liberals? In that regard, the p-schools have been an amazing success.
 
I suggest you Google the phrase: how do schools in the US compared with other countries. You will get a surprising difference of opinion.
 
I suggest you Google the phrase: how do schools in the US compared with other countries. You will get a surprising difference of opinion.

Forgive me for being skeptical....very skeptical. We all know...well some of us know, that liberals and leftists are notorious liars when it comes to promoting their ideology....and liberals and leftists control the schools and so much more in our society. We also know that nearly everything liberalism/leftism has implemented has been a complete and utter disaster.
 
How could this be, when TRILLIONS of dollars has been confiscated and transferred to benefit those impoverished, since the Butcher of Vietnam stained our nation with his disgusting presence and policies? More has been spent on the War on Poverty than has been spent on any other problem, by any government, in the history of the world...but I digress.

I have a hard time believing government schools (we all know government anything SUCKS), who have no competition, are run by union members who can never be fired, who make relatively big salaries and benefits, but think they deserve much much much more, who ignore what parents want while promoting leftism and denigrating American traditions daily, are effective at educating.

Could it be that the article you cite is commending the p-schools for teaching the kiddies how to be good liberals? In that regard, the p-schools have been an amazing success.

The public schools are run by locally elected school boards.
The schools in other countries being used as a comparison are also public schools. No modern nation has both an educated populace and an all private education system.
If teaching children to read well makes them "good liberals", then it follows that liberals are people who read well, and conservatives, then, must be people who don't read so well (at least, according to your logic).
But you are correct about the war on poverty being a miserable, expensive failure. It is probably even a more expensive failure than the war on drugs, yet another failed big government project.
 
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The public schools are run by locally elected school boards.
The schools in other countries being used as a comparison are also public schools. No modern nation has both an educated populace and an all private education system.
If teaching children to read well makes them "good liberals", then it follows that liberals are people who read well, and conservatives, then, must be people who don't read so well (at least, according to your logic).
But you are correct about the war on poverty being a miserable, expensive failure. It is probably even a more expensive failure than the war on drugs, yet another failed big government project.

Wrong. The p-schools are essentially run by the federal government. Who dictates all sorts of rule and regulations the schools must abide by.

What we need is more competition in secondary education and elimination of teachers unions.

So what if no nation has both an educated populace and an ALL private education system....why did you raise this strawman argument???...when I did not raise it...Did I suggest the p-schools be done away with? Did I state we need an all private education system? Why make up nonexistent arguments, when you and I can argument real ones?

Liberals runs the p-schools from top to bottom and we know liberals ALWAYS impose their political beliefs on those they can, because they are ALWAYS right. Certainly you know this.

And you say the war on poverty is PROBABLY more expensive than the war on drugs....oh please stop. Did you forget being schooled on the subject....from three years ago....and you call yourself a teacher......https://www.houseofpolitics.com/threads/costliest-war.9719/
 
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