I mean really...I'm certainly not interested in reading your predictability.

Being that you're a prof, your opinion is unfairly biased. I thought you understood that. Perhaps you suffer from from CRS too.

Stossel: Are American Kids Stupid?

Are kids in the United States being cheated out of a quality education?

In a special report airing this Friday on ABC's "20/20", John Stossel reveals the surprising truth.

American high school students fizzle in international comparisons, placing well behind other countries, even poorer countries like Poland, the Czech Republic and South Korea. American kids do pretty well when they enter public school, but as time goes on, the worse they do. Why?

School officials complain that they need more money, but as Stossel reports, most of the countries that outperform us spend less per student than we do. There are many factors that contribute to failure in school, but according to some, foremost is the government’s monopoly over the school system, which means that most parents don't get to choose where to send their children. In other countries, choice fosters competition, and competition improves performance.

Stossel questions government officials, union leaders, parents and students. He also examines how the educational system can be improved upon and reports on innovative programs across the country. "Stupid In America: How We Are Cheating Our Kids" with John Stossel airs Jan. 13 (10 to 11 p.m. ET) on ABC.
So are American students stupid? "No, we're not stupid ... but we just, we could do better," says one high school student. Another tells Stossel, "I think it has to be something with the school, 'cause I don't think we're stupider ..."

Stossel questions how much success there can be under a government monopoly school system. Kevin Chavous, a former Washington, D.C., city councilman and education reformer, tells Stossel the schools will never improve unless there is competition. "(With) all the well-intended designs and programs du jours, unless there is some competition infused in the equation, then they know they have a captive monopoly that they can continue to dominate."

School officials complain they need more money, but do they really? American schools spend about $10,000 per student, totaling $250,000 plus for a class of 25. Where does that money go? Stossel asks South Carolina school official Dolores Wright, "How much money would be right?" Wright answers, "Oooh. Millions. And it would really make it right. ... The more, the better."

Some say another stumbling block is that the public school system is a union-dominated monopoly. In Stossel's hometown of New York City, a teacher who sent sexual e-mails to his 16-year-old student was not fired because the union's rigid contract makes it very hard to fire any teacher, even dangerous ones. Only after six years of expensive litigation were they finally able to fire him. Joel Klein, chancellor of New York City's schools, tells Stossel, "I mean, we've had sex cases, acknowledged sex cases ... you can’t fire him." The teacher union has so many protections written into the contract to make sure principals don't fire unfairly, or play favorites, that principals rarely even try to jump through all these hoops to try to fire a bad teacher.

Stossel shows how well students do in Belgium's free school choice system -- because the money is attached to the student, the principal has to please the parents. And that makes a world of difference. ABC News gave part of an international test to students in Belgium and students in New Jersey. The Belgian students did much better than the New Jersey students.
Stossel offers that American kids deserve the benefits of competition, too, to give them access to schools that are as good as the other products and services we have in life. Yet the system does not allow parents and kids a choice -– in most states children can only attend the public school for which they are zoned. Kids of the privileged can escape the bad school because they can afford to move to good school zones, or attend private schools. Stossel visits South Carolina, whose Governor wanted to change that but got voted down by other politicians and public educators.

http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/1/7/150122.shtml

Belgium has a better school system. Belgium makes the world's best chocolate.

It's rather obvious there's a correlation here, as well as a matter of international import.

I have a hard time thinking the home schooling trend will last or carry out too far, but frankly, the job of being housekeeper, housecleaner, parent, cook, chauffeur, laundry maid, and teacher -- slave to home & kids to the 10th power 24/7 is just unfathomable to me.

There are some countries that have established, nationally, a better system of education than has the US. It would take a lot of effort to try to control for various differentials and figure out the whys and wherefores.

Some of the reasons are obvious; some perhaps less so. Frankly, I disbelieve that, although other countries can have a national and valuable educational system, this can be achieved in the US.

But it has become significantly more centralized under the Bush Administration, not less. And if that's what happens under the Republicans .... well, what else is there to say. Might as well talk about how to "reform" the system.

Which, also frankly, I just flat-out wouldn't bother with, personally.

What I could and would do are: support charter schools, try to get a kid into parochial school, try to move to the best, not the worst district, keep the TV off and the library card hyperactive.

Hmmmm. I guess his belief is that it is in the nature of our public schools to be as they have been.

If I can draw that "natural" distinction.

[center]soliloquy by li'l bart[/center]

I kinda like that about this board sometimes.

His belief may be that, but he did nothing to demonstrate the point.

By analogy, birth-control was originally and verifiably a 'eugenics' plan. Nonetheless, there's nothing inherently in the idea and practice of birth-control and family planning that is "eugenic" in the original sense.

Well, of course. But if it had turned out on the mass accumulation of anecdotes that that was the upshot of the function it had served, then one might just casually observe that birth control was naturally a eugenics plan.

The argument would perhaps be at what point a question ceases to be begged, but instead a conclusion stands.

lil bart, as long as it's clear that I am no defender of the CURRENT state of the public school system in its entirety, I think it's pretty obvious what it is that I am arguing against.

Just as I do not condemn "family/kinship" as such as a result of finding monumental faults in particular family/kinship systems, likewise I cannot/will not condemn "compulsory education" and "public/common/locally uniform education" as such as a result of finding monumental faults in particular compulsory education and public/common/uniform education systems.


Just an aside, no modern public school systems, no modern civic nations.

I understand.

For the moment I was just discussing the nature of argumentation.

Your points stand. I won't seriously challenge them without further serious thought, though my sentiment is on the same side as Mr. Gatto's.

Fair enough.

It doesn't take a Habermas to take issue with the facile rejection of all institutions associated with capitalist societies by so-called radicals.

I'm not sure I follow that. My primal anger (and considered thought ) against the school system isn't owing to its "nature" but rather its reality, and more even maybe to the socialist rather than capitalist colorings of it.

But for the moment I must go evolve some onions into onion soup.

I had that last night!

gently fry thin sliced onions in butter till beautiful golden, pour in hot beef stock, serve with parmesan cheese...mmmm

the teachers here call it "nickelbee" (no child left behind) and are teaching to the test, no time for anything else... the kids are all behind in social skills, reading, math, science, geography... there are fifth graders that can't read but have been advanced after failing twice already....

Hay, I went to public skool and I can read and rite like nobodies busyness. And don't get no religion in skool neither.

Public Schools have to teach everyone no matter how stupid they are.

Obviously, Mr. Chops, you are in the gifted student category. Gary Larson had a special school for kids like you.

That's pretty well the size of it, yup. Takes a fair long while to cook the onions. Beef stock is great if you have it. If you don't, you can veg it with tamari. I also use white wine, dry mustard, bit of thyme. This batch I used some roasted garlic I had. It's amazing how good onion soup is, and really owing to those onion long/slow cooked in butter.

Good summary; great nickname. That is exactly what I have heard in both Oregon & Washington. But remember, this "solution" didn't come without a problem, though the problem is arguably (or often argued) growing only worse.

Here ya go, lambchop.



I Gary Larson.

To be fair they didn't say what the gift was.

Uh-oh.

Another "literalist."

Maybe you misunderstood? They said you were "special" not "gifted".

Poor chops.

It's an easy mistake to make.

Love Gary's child in middle of classroom waving hand furiously.
Caption: "Teacher, may I be excused. My brain is full."
;-{)}

This is priceless!! And he's FAT to boot!

Socialist? WTF?


What the fark socialist colorings are you talking about?

Anyone who's grown up in the U.S. appears to be CRACKED on this issue.


Too much and too effective propaganda. Better than the other camp.

The "school" has been an effective ideological State Apparatus for "actually existing capitalism". Nothing 'socialist' about it. Unless you're arguing that the real substance underneath actually existing capitalism is a perverted socialism.

We're all a bunch of inbred redneck mestizo cajuns you moron.

You wouldn't know a lady if you saw one.

Sure.

A rare autographed picture.

It's increasing in popularity - and understandably so. Hardly rates being a slave. It's not as hard as you imagine, although obviously not your cup of tea.

NOMARCHY! TAKE YOUR MEDS!

Who owns your kids?

Parents ask full 9th Circuit Court to rehear school sex-survey case

Seven California parents filed a petition with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to set aside its controversial decision declaring they had no right to be "exclusive providers of information about sexual matters."

Ruling on a complaint against a sexually charged student survey, the three-judge panel concluded Nov. 2 parents "have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students."


With the new filing, the parents are requesting that the case be reheard before the full panel of judges.

Mathew D. Staver, president and general counsel of Florida-based Liberty Counsel, which represents the parents, said the 9th Circuit's ruling "strips parents of their constitutional rights to protect their children."

"This ruling is an assault on every parent whose child attends public school," he said. "Parents do not cease being parents when their child walks through the schoolhouse gate."

There is no set timetable for the 9th Circuit to rule on the petition, Staver noted.

The petition says that if the Fields v. Palmdale School District ruling stands, the public schools must come with a warning that, with the exception of treason, "the school has absolute authority to teach whatever it decides, no matter how objectionable or inappropriate, to any child, at any age, at any time, in any manner."

Questions in the survey, which was conducted in class, included asking children as young as 7 years old about the frequency of:


Touching my private parts too much

Thinking about having sex

Thinking about touching other people's private parts

Thinking about sex when I don't want to

Washing myself because I feel dirty on the inside

Not trusting people because they might want sex

Getting scared or upset when I think about sex

Having sex feelings in my body

Can't stop thinking about sex

Getting upset when people talk about sex
Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote in the the unanimous opinion for the court [pdf file]:


We agree [with the previous ruling], and hold that there is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children, either independent of their right to direct the upbringing and education of their children or encompassed by it. We also hold that parents have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students.

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47638

"Freefall of the American University: How Our Colleges Are Corrupting the Minds and Morals of the Next Generation" is an alarming, thoroughly researched account of how today universities are indoctrinating students with flagrant liberal agendas.

...This book exposes the liberal bias in today's universities, providing hard evidence, in clear and unimpeachable terms, that shows how today's colleges are covertly and overtly proselytizing with leftist slants on sexuality, politics and lifestyles.

Jim Nelson Black dares to name names and provide specific and credible insights from faculty members, administrators, professional observers and analysts who have witnessed and chronicled the intellectual and ethical collapse taking place within the academy.

This book offers a broad overview of the issues, from the history of the problems to several analyses from a broad range of academics and professionals. It also provides observations of the university students themselves, in their own words, from schools all across the nation.

Most importantly, it shows clearly what must be done to make America's colleges institutions of truth, honor and integrity once more.

'Brainwashed'

In "Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth," published by WND Books, 20-year-old college student and syndicated columnist Benjamin Shapiro says while parents hope their university-bound children will return as well-rounded adults, there's only one view allowed on most college campuses: a rabid brand of liberalism that must be swallowed hook, line and sinker.

Examining this nationwide problem from firsthand experience, Shapiro shows how the leftists who dominate the universities from the administration to the student government, from the professors to the student media use their power to mold impressionable minds.

Fresh and bitterly funny, his book proves the universities, far from being places for open discussion, are really dungeons of the mind that indoctrinate students to become socialists, atheists, race-baiters and narcissists.

http://shop.wnd.com/store/item.asp?DEPARTM...=15&ITEM_ID=505

Wow, this topic seems to invite the descent into flaming and offending at the expense of discussion. Perhaps that is why little of import is done at the higher levels... politicos would rather nibble about the edges and play on the fringes than actually try to do meaningful work within the center?

I'll say something about "teaching to the test". If "the test" is simply measuring whether students can read and comprehend, find answers in a passage, and do mathematics... I'd say that would be a very noble goal. Teaching students to be able to read and comprehend, find answers in a passage, and do mathematics... or "teaching to the test" is a pretty good baseline for education.

Which is what was intended. Not sure why people are complaining about a rare government program that functions somewhat according to plan.

On the other hand, NCLB has MANY problems. But I believe if the politicos would tackle the problems instead of using something as important as education as just another political football, they could certainly ensure a uniform level of mediocrity - rather than the pockets of success floating in a sea of utter failure that we enjoyed relatively recently.

Any underfunded mandate will cause chaos. My state tried to sue the Fed over it, although we are one of the few that actually comply. The kids have to be tested two weeks into the school year in order for the grading to be complete by the deadline.

I don't know about the kids elsewhere, but here they are still half drowsy from the summer "brain drain." I doubt the test is accurate at all given the conditions. That said, the kids in this state do quite well. We're in the upper 5%.

I think the solution is to let the teachers teach and get the special interests OUT of education. From both sides. Political football is putting it mildly.

Interesting Bee... that's one "problem" with NCLB... it is left to the states to execute however they want. In California, students test at the end of the school year ... a few weeks before the last day.

So it isn't a NCLB problem that you mentioned, it is a state of FLA problem. And California has MORE than its share of those state-induced problems with the execution of NCLB.

Testing kids "might" be an unfunded mandate... but most states already had a program and the cost is VERY negligible. Believe me... I'm on a school board and I approve our budgets. The cost of taking a test may be as high as a few hundred dollars per student at the most, but again, most states already were using SOME test, and for those that weren't -- a few hundred dollars per student is perhaps 2% or so of the budget. And 2% of any budget, especially a multi-billion dollar budget, for an objective, measurable assessment of that budget -- isn't such a bad thing.

The cost of NOT testing students is wild swings in educational quality.

Testing here may actually be working out, after a shake in period. I'm sure there's some cheating and teaching to the test, but at least it's teaching toward something. Those of us looking at taking the SAT had something to learn for, now everybody does.

And it provides some sort of benchmark to gauge progress by.

My mornings are given to very strong French roast, so you are correct. Do you home-school, Carol? Seriously, not to malign it but I just cannot imagine. It's no wonder to me though why many men pop off to work early and stay late.

It's not a propaganda effect, Nomarchy. The word has no oogie-boogie to me. But could one truly denote a national school system as "capitalist?"



Well, yes, I think "our system" is a perverted socialism in support of corporate capitalism.

But the school system itself seems more a badly run socialism. Again, that isn't inherent but it does seem to be reality, doubtfully reformable.

"Teaching to the test" would be a longer discussion, about which I have read the strongest criticisms from those inside the system.

"Uniform level of mediocrity" is a pretty pitiful goal. It might be an improvement over purely political "calls to greatness" that remind me of the old Soviet 5-year economic plans: all bravado, all grandstanding, and no other serious expectation.

I don't think, though, that the system has been a "sea of utter failure" with a few islands of success. I think it has largely achieved your "uniform level of mediocrity" with islands of abject disgrace.

Are the NCLB tests tied to some sort of reward or punishment for/of the individual students taking them?

cptrev can tell us how it is in CA.

If they're not, then the "something to learn for" argument for the NCLB tests does not work.

I think NCLB tests are supposed to be measurements of entire schools' 'performance'. Kinda like doing a diagnostic on cars serviced to evaluate the performance of mechanics and repair shops.

Lil Bart... I truly hope that your more optimistic assessment is accurate.

I think perhaps a case can be made for both... in the number of schools... there is a vast majority of schools located throughout the nation filled with caring parents and caring teachers that have indeed achieved at least a "uniform level of mediocrity".

But looking at the numbers of students vs. numbers of schools... Literally millions of students are stuck in huge unthinkable sinkholes of money such as L.A., New York, Chicago, D.C. and the list goes on. These huge mega-districts are where our nation's future is largely being determined.

Another difference might be in how we define success and failure. To me, "failure" would be measured by failing to provide students with the educational tools to take the next step up the economic ladder... the "everyone wants their kids to do better" ideal of the American Dream. Thus simply helping them "tread water" is failure vs. mediocrity.

Cap'n Major Rev, you're the first person ever to accuse me of being an optimist relative to public schools.

Like others, this discussion will go on

.....and on

.....and on.

Hazelnut here

I really don't know what this has to do with men going to work...???not sure why you injected that thought.

I posted that my counsin's daughter (along with her mother) home schools her two children and they are doing exceedingly well. A friend of mine hired a tutor and home schooled her son for the last two years of high school because public schooling was detrimental to his desire to attain a high school diploma. He now has his diploma and the tutoring worked out fine. Her son and I had some discussions about his home schooling, and I can tell you he was much happier and more positive about learning with the home schooling experience. It certainly put his mother's mind at ease.

It's not that difficult to home school. You're given the materials needed and instructions. For many, the home environment is more producive to attaining the results desired. Home school young children is very easy, but if there isn't time for either parent to be involved in the actual teaching, a tutor can be hired.

If my child was school age, I would not send him to a public school given the degeneration of the public school system in this area (which certainly includes the lack of effective teaching). Also, the schools are not properly screening teachers and they are not protecting children from those teachers who have found to be guilty of acts not acceptable. TENURE. Tenure protects unfit teachers and it's TENURE that is eroding a needed process to weed out the bad.

My wife is a teacher in CA for starting pay of almost $40K (California has the 3rd highest paid teachers in the nation behind D.C. and I think New York.)

We have 3 daughters.

If the state offered us the basic $6K per student given to schools (that does NOT include all the construction money and departmental overhead or the various special restricted moneys), she would probably stay at home and homeschool for the $18K... and she'd almost definitely be glad and be able to host a few of their friends for another $18K to add to their socialization.

Such Tiny "micro-schools" would soon "co-op" and students would be given every opportunity to socialize. If the state were forced to offer services for reasonable fees (meaning at cost, not punitive fees), they could have access in late afternoons and Saturdays to physics labs and chemistry labs and all the things that large schools have to offer.

I'm telling you that education is a HUGE boondoggle drain economically. The amount of "teaching per dollar" is frightfully low.

As a board member, I do everything I possibly can to expect the highest standards from our administration and our budget... but it is so scary to see what my own daughters receive in the district I "govern" compared to what I know my wife could do for them at a fraction of the cost.