And public schools are USELESS? (1 Viewer)

[Bustabush]

This question was asked to me in another thread. So I'd like to start a debate on the issue. :2wave:

It is my opioin that public schools are indeed useless and should be abloished.

1) The government paying for one's school only gives the government more justification to interject itself into one's personal education.

Read this link:

http://www.bioone.org/bioone/?request=get-document&issn=0014-3820&volume=055&issue=12&page=2379

creationists now work locally to minimize or remove evolution from science teaching standards. The nationally organized movement to resist the teaching of evolution has proven highly effective, influencing state and district school boards in addition to individual teachers and schools.

The only reason this is even an issue is that creationists parents don't want there kids to learn about somthing they belive is worng. My question is why fight them? Surely they pay the same taxes as everyone else and should have the right to control how that money is spent. As do we all. This problem will continue until every group of people have their say in how your child is should to learn. What next?

All the other problems are listed in this artical:

http://www.acton.org/ppolicy/education/school/crisis/ch1.html

Also I seen a complant about privite schools price. Here is a link about public schools price.

http://www.acton.org/ppolicy/education/school/crisis/ch1.html

Rebuttle?

 

[UtahBill]

This question was asked to me in another thread. So I'd like to start a debate on the issue. :2wave:

It is my opioin that public schools are indeed useless and should be abloished.

1) The government paying for one's school only gives the government more justification to interject itself into one's personal education.



The only reason this is even an issue is that creationists parents don't want there kids to learn about somthing they belive is worng. My question is why fight them? Surely they pay the same taxes as everyone else and should have the right to control how that money is spent. As do we all. This problem will continue until every group of people have their say in how your child is should to learn. What next?



Rebuttle?

The government, being US, has every right to be concerned about what is taught to our children. It is the government, or US, who will eventually pay, out of taxpayer funds, for the inadequate educations of the children of parents who think they know better what should be taught. Those children won't be able to compete in the modern job markets because they don't know basic Algebra, or how to spell, punctuate, and construct proper sentences so that they can be understood by others. The farmer mentality, something I have witnessed personally at school board meetings, is that their generation did not need math beyond ordinary arithmetic, so why should the next? The quickest way to handicap your child is to make life easy for him. He will be ill prepared for the eventuality of being on his own, without mommy and daddy to provide a comfortable nest for him. I had an uncle and have a brother who were babied by their parents, and ended up worthless. Taxpayers pay them to sit and home and do nothing. Their lives have been wasted, which is fine by me and the average taxpayer, as long as they pay for it themselves.
We already have too many undeucated people sucking up our tax dollars while sitting around doing nothing, except somehow getting the idea that they deserve it.
We need to have a nationally standardized education that our children are required to obtain. No more dropping out, no excuses allowed; they MUST meet the standards unless truly mentally incapable of doing so.
We should be eliminating their excuses, not giving them more.

 

[Caine]

The government, being US, has every right to be concerned about what is taught to our children. It is the government, or US, who will eventually pay, out of taxpayer funds, for the inadequate educations of the children of parents who think they know better what should be taught. Those children won't be able to compete in the modern job markets because they don't know basic Algebra, or how to spell, punctuate, and construct proper sentences so that they can be understood by others. The farmer mentality, something I have witnessed personally at school board meetings, is that their generation did not need math beyond ordinary arithmetic, so why should the next? The quickest way to handicap your child is to make life easy for him. He will be ill prepared for the eventuality of being on his own, without mommy and daddy to provide a comfortable nest for him. I had an uncle and have a brother who were babied by their parents, and ended up worthless. Taxpayers pay them to sit and home and do nothing. Their lives have been wasted, which is fine by me and the average taxpayer, as long as they pay for it themselves.
We already have too many undeucated people sucking up our tax dollars while sitting around doing nothing, except somehow getting the idea that they deserve it.
We need to have a nationally standardized education that our children are required to obtain. No more dropping out, no excuses allowed; they MUST meet the standards unless truly mentally incapable of doing so.
We should be eliminating their excuses, not giving them more.

And... to add to this...

If public schools are abolished because a few people who can already afford private schooling for thier children think they are useless....

We will end up with a larger generation of uneducated people raised in poverty and an increasing crime rate. Not everyone can afford the 10 thousand dollars per year per child private schools around the country, and not everyone has the time to home school thier children to an acceptable standard.

 

[Kelzie]

Stop blaming the damn school system for everything. The opportunities are there for any kid who is not too hooked on his PS2 to take it. Any kid who wants to work can make it with our public school system. And that's what it's there for. It can't create a drive to succeed in a kid. That's the parent's job.

 

[Caine]

Stop blaming the damn school system for everything. The opportunities are there for any kid who is not too hooked on his PS2 to take it. Any kid who wants to work can make it with our public school system. And that's what it's there for. It can't create a drive to succeed in a kid. That's the parent's job.

The bolded comments above are very important, and very true.

The public education system is what you make of it, you can't blame the system for the fact that the students don't take advantage of it. I got a public education, im starting to think im the only one around here who did.

Also, Parents need to stop depending on the school system and anyone but themselves to raise thier children with the right values and goals in life.
Its not up to the Schools.
Its not up to the Church.
Its up to the Parents.

 

[Willravel]

I suspect that the public school system can be improved in certian areas, but the bottom line is that requiring people to pay in order to learn is one of the most effective ways to seperate economic classes. I don't want that. The improvements should have more to do with recognizing an individual students strengths and weaknesses and being able to succesfully address nurturing students natural abilities, as well as trying to compensate for any inability. It would be nice to see the kids we graduate being able to compete with schools from other nations.

 

[Kelzie]

I suspect that the public school system can be improved in certian areas, but the bottom line is that requiring people to pay in order to learn is one of the most effective ways to seperate economic classes. I don't want that. The improvements should have more to do with recognizing an individual students strengths and weaknesses and being able to succesfully address nurturing students natural abilities, as well as trying to compensate for any inability. It would be nice to see the kids we graduate being able to compete with schools from other nations.

In a perfect world, public schools would be able to give kids individual attention. Now, they just can't afford it. Although I have found that teachers are remarkably receptive to kids who come and talk to them outside of class, and many love being mentors.

We're not doing so bad. The US has the highest number of foreign students in our colleges. Native kids get in too. So they are all on a very similar level.

 

[Stace]

Until there is a more diverse system of private schools, abolishing public schools will never happen. The majority of private schools are religious schools, and not all parents want that for their children - they send their kids to school to learn reading, writing, math, etc., not the Bible. That is why the issue of "intelligent design" is failing - religious stuff needs to be taught at home and at church, not in school.

Also, private school is just too expensive for many American families. How can a family that only makes about $50,000 a year afford to send even one child to a private school that costs $11,000 a year...and that's just for the preschool! Around here, anyway....and the price gradually increases until you're paying almost $16,000 a year for grades 9-12.

Another problem with this is private schools can pick and choose their students....so what if your child isn't selected for any of the schools in your area, and you can't afford to have one parent stay home and teach them? Does your child just not learn? That's just not possible.

I attended public school my whole life, and I think I turned out alright.

The problem doesn't reside in the battle between public and private schooling.....it's in the parents and the students. Parents of private school students do tend to get more involved, because they certainly don't want to see their money wasted. But make no mistake, private school students can fail just as miserably as public school students....it's all in their attitude.

After I hit 6th grade, my parents didn't take a whole lot of interest in helping me with my schoolwork....but I cared about my own education, and pushed myself to study all that I could, got myself into the accelerated programs, proved myself worthy enough to take classes two levels higher than my current grade, etc.

Anyway, the school itself isn't always the root of the problem. The students, and their parents, need to actually care. You can't teach someone that doesn't want to learn.

 

[UtahBill]

I attended public school my whole life, and I think I turned out alright.

The problem doesn't reside in the battle between public and private schooling.....it's in the parents and the students. Parents of private school students do tend to get more involved, because they certainly don't want to see their money wasted. But make no mistake, private school students can fail just as miserably as public school students....it's all in their attitude.

After I hit 6th grade, my parents didn't take a whole lot of interest in helping me with my schoolwork....but I cared about my own education, and pushed myself to study all that I could, got myself into the accelerated programs, proved myself worthy enough to take classes two levels higher than my current grade, etc.

Anyway, the school itself isn't always the root of the problem. The students, and their parents, need to actually care. You can't teach someone that doesn't want to learn.

Amen to that. My wife is a teacher, so is my son, both teach 8th grade. Their biggest gripe is parents who won't make their kids do their homework, or even the class work.
I was like you when I was in school, took all the math and science that I could, and it paid off when I took the entrance exams for the military and scored very high. The military was my only option, and I chose to go Navy rather than get drafted into the army, as it was the vietnam era.
They told me I could have any of their technical schools that I wanted, and those schools paid off in civilian life.
Big problem for many young people is that they are not as aware of the need for an education as you and I were. They find out too late that there really is a reason to learn "all that junk".

 

[Engimo]

The only reason this is even an issue is that creationists parents don't want there kids to learn about somthing they belive is worng. My question is why fight them? Surely they pay the same taxes as everyone else and should have the right to control how that money is spent. As do we all. This problem will continue until every group of people have their say in how your child is should to learn. What next?

The thing is, they shouldn't have a say in how their tax money is spent, especially in this regard. The thing is, these parents (the ones that advocate creationism) are ignorant of the facts of biology/science and the law of the United States in advocating something that is clearly religious being taught in our schools. They are not qualified to decide what should be taught in the classes, and as such they should not have any say in what is. We have an obligation to our children to teach science in our science classrooms, math in our math classrooms, and so on. If this conflicts with the personal beliefs of the kids' parents, too damned bad.

 

[128shot]

I actually agree, for once, this is also another different view than I used to hold..


Public system dollar for dollar, is more expensive in this country than any other, yet our students don't take advantage of all this (we should get rid of teachers unions IMO, but thats for another thread), and that would help everybody.


What about going charter? for communities that could do it it'd be great, those who can't get more money to improve themselves..

 

[hipsterdufus]

The 2006 Budget, is the latest example of this administrations war on education. I'm convinced that the long term goal is to keep the general populous un-educated for political gain.

It's a well-known fact that people with college degrees were more likely to vote for Kerry.

http://www.issues2000.org/askme/Educ..._voting.htm#BA
http://www.issues2000.org/askme/Educ..._voting.htm#MA


Look at what the 2006 Reverse Robin Hood budget does to education:

Students to Bear Big Burden Under the Final Budget Bill

Doug Mills/The New York Times

Under the bill, college students would pay higher interest rates on loans. Many banks will receive lower subsidies. And the Education Department will work with the Internal Revenue Service to ferret out students and parents who underreport incomes on financial aid applications. The budget bill is estimated to save $39.7 billion over the next five years. Student aid accounts for $12.7 billion of the savings, or 32 percent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/22/po...22student.html

This is the latest in a long line of moves to weaken education in our country.

Previous moves include:

1. Bush supports teaching ID in schools
2. Under funding of NCLB
3. Data used to initiate NCLB now proven to be faulty
4. Demonization of NEA
5. Support of vouchers at the expense of public schools.
6. Decrease in funding for Pell grants
7. War against Science

With college tuition costs going through the roof, it is harder and harder for the average American to have the funds available to go to college.

In George Bush's America, ignorance is strength. People calling for the abolition of dismantling public schools are buying that line of reasoning hook, line and sinker.

 

[Bustabush]

Hey hipsterdufus,

Your links don't work. Also with things like:

It's a well-known fact that people with college degrees were more likely to vote for Kerry

And

n George Bush's America, ignorance is strength

It becomes really hard for me to read your post. Do you think that I want to have public schools abolished so I can help the repbulican party? :rofl Look at the links I provided. Argue the facts please! Post this trash else were.

People calling for the abolition of dismantling public schools are buying that line of reasoning hook, line and sinker.

I really don't know what you mean.

 

[hipsterdufus]

Hey hipsterdufus,

Your links don't work. Also with things like:

And

It becomes really hard for me to read your post. Do you think that I want to have public schools abolished so I can help the repbulican party? :rofl Look at the links I provided. Argue the facts please! Post this trash else were.



I really don't know what you mean.

Hmm. Sorry about the links. They worked yesterday, but the whole site seems to be down today.

Look, I don't think YOU want to abolish public schools to help the republican party. I think the REPUBLICAN PARTY wants to abolish schools to help the Republican party. The Republican party also wants to make it as hard as possible for the general public to go to college. Just look at the reverse robin hood 2006 budget that just passed.

I looked at your links. Just look at the Dover case. ID does not belong in Science class. Period. Many people think Elvis is still alive. I don't want that taught in schools either.

All of your links promote eliminating the separation of church and state.

Here is Acton's mission statement

Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty

If you want to send your child to a religious school, fine, go ahead. I taught in Catholic Schools for 10 years and it can be a good alternative for people that want a religious education.

Eliminating Public Schools - nothing would hurt the country more.

 

[UtahBill]

The 2006 Budget, is the latest example of this administrations war on education. I'm convinced that the long term goal is to keep the general populous un-educated for political gain.


In George Bush's America, ignorance is strength. People calling for the abolition of dismantling public schools are buying that line of reasoning hook, line and sinker.

Do you think this is a new issue? Or that only republicans want us to be taught just the bare minimum to make us useful citizens?

quotes:

SCOTUS decided in 1973 that equal education is not a fundamental right guaranteed by the constitution.

Educating Americans through the means of the library service could bring about a change of their political attitude quicker than any other method. (he should have stopped here but went on to say) The basis of communism and socialistic influence is education of the people.
Illinois Republican Congressman Harold Velde, 1950 (during the McCarthy era)

We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forego the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.
Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America (a democrat)

Universal education is the most corroding and disintegrating poison that liberalism has ever invented for its own destruction.
Adolf Hitler

Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.
Joseph Stalin 1934

This attitude is not new, and is not dead. If you want an education, one that allows you to sort the truth out of all the BS that we are fed, then you have to put forth a lot of personal effort for your entire life, not just thru grade 12, or a few years of college. The government has an interest in training us to be good, employable citizens, but not educating us to be an intelligent, informed, body of voters. They want us to be followers, soft and easy and pliable followers of the elite who are granted leadership status by dint of birth, family position, etc. But, if we are pawns in this game, most of us are willing pawns.

 

[hipsterdufus]

Do you think this is a new issue? Or that only republicans want us to be taught just the bare minimum to make us useful citizens?

quotes:

SCOTUS decided in 1973 that equal education is not a fundamental right guaranteed by the constitution.

Educating Americans through the means of the library service could bring about a change of their political attitude quicker than any other method. (he should have stopped here but went on to say) The basis of communism and socialistic influence is education of the people.
Illinois Republican Congressman Harold Velde, 1950 (during the McCarthy era)

We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forego the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.
Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America (a democrat)

Universal education is the most corroding and disintegrating poison that liberalism has ever invented for its own destruction.
Adolf Hitler

Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.
Joseph Stalin 1934

This attitude is not new, and is not dead. If you want an education, one that allows you to sort the truth out of all the BS that we are fed, then you have to put forth a lot of personal effort for your entire life, not just thru grade 12, or a few years of college. The government has an interest in training us to be good, employable citizens, but not educating us to be an intelligent, informed, body of voters. They want us to be followers, soft and easy and pliable followers of the elite who are granted leadership status by dint of birth, family position, etc. But, if we are pawns in this game, most of us are willing pawns.

Nice post. A good book on the subject is John Taylor Gatto's book, The Underground History of American Education: An Intimate Investigation into the Problem of Modern Schooling (New York: Oxford Village Press, 2001)

 

[UtahBill]

Nice post. A good book on the subject is John Taylor Gatto's book, The Underground History of American Education: An Intimate Investigation into the Problem of Modern Schooling (New York: Oxford Village Press, 2001)

thanks, I have his internet site bookmarked, but haven't visited it in a long time.
My experience when raising our own, who are now in their 30's, is that most parents have their heads in the sand when it comes to education. School board meetings are tragically sad when you hear some parents complaining because their kids have too much homework, or the challenge is too great, and they don't have time for fun. They don't realize how much they handicap their kids in their attempts to make life easy for them.
My wife and son are teachers, 8th grade, and they can tell you that some of the parents won't do their part in making their own kids do their assignments. I guess we will always need burger flippers and unskilled manual labor. Those kids should at least be learning Spanish, tho, so they can converse with their co-workers.

 

[hipsterdufus]

Actually you can now read the whole thing online here:

Free.
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm

 

[hipsterdufus]

Hey hipsterdufus,

Your links don't work.

Try this link: It's the same site.
http://www.issues2000.org/askme/Education_vs_voting.htm

Is intelligence correlated with voting for Kerry?
(Answer: Yes)

This thesis topic has been discussed as a "hoax" in the Economist, a leading British newsmagazine. So I decided to run the statistics myself. It is not a hoax, and you can verify my results in a couple of minutes, or do it yourself in a couple of hours.

The graphs below correlate educational attainment versus voting behavior. "Educational attainment" means the percentage of people who graduated high school or college in a state. "Voting behavior" in this context means the percentage of people in a state who voted for Kerry.

The theory is that educational attainment is a proxy for intelligence (or perhaps more accurately, for wisdom), and that therefore, if the thesis is true, then higher educational attainment will correlate with higher voting rates for Kerry.

On a state-by-state basis, this is unambiguously true. The higher the education level in a state, the more likely that state was to vote for Kerry in 2004. Specifically:

-0.01 High School correlation: There is no correlation between getting a high-school degree and voting behavior. This is the reason people have called the Economist article a hoax. It just means the Economist did not look at enough data -- probably because almost everyone gets a high school degree these days. I consider the hoax outline and hoax analysis to be flawed because IQ measured in grade school is irrelevant to adult voting behavior -- the measurement is made too early and should not be done on IQ per se. Intelligence measured later in life, by academic accompishment, is a better measurement and DOES correlate with voting behavior.

0.12 college correlation: There is only a minimal correlation between some college attendance and voting behavior. This would not of itself be sufficient to draw any conclusions.

0.64 B.A. degree correlation: There is a good correlation between getting a Bachelor's degree and voting for Kerry. The more people in your state who got college degrees, the more likely that your state voted for Kerry.

0.77 Advanced Degree correlation: There is a strong correlation between receiving an advanced degree and voting for Kerry. The trend of increasing correlation in the three results indicates to me that there is a strong correlation between more education and voting for Kerry.

 

[steen]

Hey hipsterdufus,

Your links don't work. Also with things like: <college grads vote for kerry>

And
<Bush supports ignorance>


It becomes really hard for me to read your post.

Well, it IS true.

Do you think that I want to have public schools abolished so I can help the repbulican party?

Well, it pushes the fundie agenda of ignorance. If the populus is educated, fundamentalist ignoran scare mongering has kless effect. Their spewing lies about creationism won't be taken serious,. Their lies about abortion will be seen as what they are. The ignorant rantings about how the poor are poor because they are lazy rather than the funds being siphoned off by the wealthy will be exposed as self-serving deceptions.

So yes, the fundies and republicans do benefit from poor public education. they depend on it.

Just look at the arguments we have seen against the Science of Evolution on these boards. Ignorant nonsense and misrepresentation from one end off. And mostly fueled by religious fervor. Ignorant fervor, but religious none the less.

If people were given even an adequate education, they would recognize the creationist lies which would undermine the fundie church. I have NO doubt who the enemy of America is, it is the religious fundie's push for ignorance.

 

[UtahBill]

So yes, the fundies and republicans do benefit from poor public education. they depend on it.

If people were given even an adequate education, they would recognize the creationist lies which would undermine the fundie church. I have NO doubt who the enemy of America is, it is the religious fundie's push for ignorance.

I don't know how much education you have, or think you have, but bear this in mind, there is a difference between education and training, and most of what our kids get is training.
Training is geared toward making our children employable, and I am not bothered by that, as long as at some point there is some education as well.
American children get no philosophy, very little real history or other social studies, and not enough economics. We prepare them to either go to college, or go to work, and even in some colleges the education part is watered down. And again, it isn't just the fundies and republicans, it is nearly all politicians.

 

[Engimo]

I don't know how much education you have, or think you have, but bear this in mind, there is a difference between education and training, and most of what our kids get is training.
Training is geared toward making our children employable, and I am not bothered by that, as long as at some point there is some education as well.
American children get no philosophy, very little real history or other social studies, and not enough economics. We prepare them to either go to college, or go to work, and even in some colleges the education part is watered down. And again, it isn't just the fundies and republicans, it is nearly all politicians.

I agree, there is not nearly enough critical reasoning and individual thought being promoted in our schools, which is a tremendous problem and a detriment to our society as a whole.

 

[steen]

I don't know how much education you have, or think you have,

About 20 years.

but bear this in mind, there is a difference between education and training, and most of what our kids get is training.
Training is geared toward making our children employable, and I am not bothered by that, as long as at some point there is some education as well.
American children get no philosophy, very little real history or other social studies, and not enough economics. We prepare them to either go to college, or go to work, and even in some colleges the education part is watered down.

I can agree with that. Unless you are in serious graduate studies, you are short-changed. I remember having to sit through a 1o0 minute explanation in college botany about what science and facts were, and how some people might believe differently and not have a friggin' clue what he was talking about. That is, until some fundie nut spoke up and talked about the Bible and worldwide floods and whatnot.

Now, I had all my basic and HS education in Denmark where we actually learned, and I tell you that experience showed how poorly US is served by the fundie nuts.

And again, it isn't just the fundies and republicans, it is nearly all politicians.

But only the fundies are outright targeting science because of non-factual beliefs

 

[UtahBill]

Now, I had all my basic and HS education in Denmark where we actually learned, and I tell you that experience showed how poorly US is served by the fundie nuts.
But only the fundies are outright targeting science because of non-factual beliefs

I have a neighbor friend who is from Spain, speaks fluent French as well, and works as a translator. She says American kids are missing out on a lot that European kids get in the way of public education. I suppose all we can do is make up the difference as best we can with our own kids and grandkids, since trying to change our system is likely near impossible.

 

[CoffeeSaint]

I have a neighbor friend who is from Spain, speaks fluent French as well, and works as a translator. She says American kids are missing out on a lot that European kids get in the way of public education. I suppose all we can do is make up the difference as best we can with our own kids and grandkids, since trying to change our system is likely near impossible.

I'm a public school teacher in the U.S., so let me weigh in here. I don't think the American system is as hopeless as it seems; we have taken an educational system that worked quite well for decades, and mangled it with our good intentions and our short-sighted attempts to influence future generations toward a specific bias (i.e, the attempt to put "Ebonics" into the classroom). If we can cut the ties that are strangling education, we may be able to resurrect it; the first thing to remove would be standardized tests. The next step would be to eliminate 90% of administration. Then we could use the money thus saved to: increase teacher salaries to attract the best and brightest; hire more teachers to reduce class sizes; and put measures in place to ensure that the teachers we have are the best we can get, thus satisfying politicians' pathological need for accountability.

Most teachers want to do the best job they can; most students want to learn. But teachers have to spend their time teaching what they are told they have to teach, rather than what they feel is important, because we trust politicians to decide what students should learn, instead of trusting teachers. Students are aware that most of what they are told they must learn is esoteric, mandated by the government instead of rationally chosen by a teacher, their parents, or themselves. The answer is to get rid of the teachers who do a poor job, not to mandate instruction for all teachers; unfortunately, the country has taken the second option.

Sorry if I have derailed this thread with too many opinions; obviously, I'm quite close to this issue. Personally, I teach philosophy in my classes (I'm an English teacher), because that, to me, is the point of literature once you get past Dick and Jane. I think most English teachers are the same. While I would definitely support the teaching of more philosophy and ethics, and especially critical thinking, I don't think the current lack of it is as dire as it seems on the surface. Just because students don't have a class labeled "Philosophy 101" doesn't mean they aren't asked to define truth and beauty.