Investing in Schools Creates More Than Twice as Many Jobs as Military Spending

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
61

[quote]zecarlo wrote:

[quote]atypical1 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
Yep, a lot of parents treat the school like a day care center. Kids get sick all the time because other parents see fit to send their sick-ass kids to school rather than keep them home like they should. Inevitably, they make everybody else sick. Assholes.
That shit pisses me off to no end. It’s biological warfare. Making other people sick because you are to damn lazy to be a parent is just wrong on so many levels. [/quote]

If both parents are working how do they keep a kid with a cold home? And kids get sick all the time. If they stayed home with every sniffle then they would never be in school.

james[/quote]
In some schools that’s a big if. Not just the work part but there being two parents around. I often think that whenever the question of failing education comes up we are lumping every school together. If you took the inner city schools, and whatever their rural counterparts would be, out of the equation I imagine that American schools are not doing as poorly as we think. I went to school in the suburbs. I worked in schools in various ghettos (I even lived in the ghetto so it’s OK for me to use that word. My daughter went to school in the ghetto before we moved to the suburbs. I have seen both worlds, from different angles and they really are two different worlds. You want to fix these under performing schools? Fix the surrounding community. Garbage in, garbage out.

I taught in the inner city and I realized it was not for me because you end up facing a moment of truth so to speak. You get to the point where you can lie to kids and act like things are not as bad as they seem or you can tell them the truth. The truth being that, for most of them, everything their parent(s) tells them is wrong. That their parents are bad examples to follow. How do you do it? You can’t. The schools won’t let you. When a kid is using horrible English and you correct him and he responds that is how his mother speaks, what do you say? That his mother doesn’t speak properly? How do you tell a kid that he needs to do the right thing to avoid being some loser in jail when he has family members in jail? How do you talk about getting a job so you don’t need to depend on welfare (implying welfare is bad) when the kid’s family is on welfare? [/quote]

This is where society is failing. No one wants to admit the truth or take responsibility for anything let along why they are in a certain bad position in life! It is really a disservice to the kids not telling them the truth. The truth often hurts and the PC bullshit needs to go away.

And I agree that it is the garbage surrounding it that is a huge issue and lack of parenting. My first semester in college I had a roommate who explained it pretty well to me. He came from the inner city and we became close friends, so could have some pretty serious discussions about it with feelings being hurt. He put it like this.

In the inner city you have the role models driving up in nice cars, have money, jewelry, and women always around them. But in the poor economic regions, it is never a doctor, lawyer, businessman, or professional of some sorts. It is always a drug dealer, gangbanger, or some other miscreant. And that is who a lot of these kids look up to combined with their messed up home life. Not excuses just reality. So from there how do you combat that? I really have no idea there.

62

[quote]Bauber wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Bauber wrote:
The solution is parents actually taking an interest in their children’s education and expecting them to do well. The school system is not there to raise your damn kids.[/quote]

Yep, a lot of parents treat the school like a day care center. Kids get sick all the time because other parents see fit to send their sick-ass kids to school rather than keep them home like they should. Inevitably, they make everybody else sick. Assholes.
That shit pisses me off to no end. It’s biological warfare. Making other people sick because you are to damn lazy to be a parent is just wrong on so many levels. [/quote]

Or what is really awesome is when I am driving back from class just after noon and see droves of kids have just left school and are walking home because they have gotten their free beakfast and lunch. Got my free shit mayne so SCHOOL IS OVER. Education is a lot about what the individual puts in to it as to what they get out of it. If you are in a culture or area that doesn’t champion education, most of the kids are going to do poorly regardless of the amount of money spent.

Me personally with as big as a failure as our public school system has become; I don’t want any more of my tax dollars going to it.[/quote]

Depends on the area. My public schools in my area are excellent. They were awesome to my kids and to us, so I have no complaints.

Yeah, there seems to be something in our culture where being cool is related to doing shitty in school and maligning education. Somehow celebrating stupidity was a road to coolness. “Yeah, I got an F, brah. And I can kick your ass.”

63

[quote]zecarlo wrote:

[quote]atypical1 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
Yep, a lot of parents treat the school like a day care center. Kids get sick all the time because other parents see fit to send their sick-ass kids to school rather than keep them home like they should. Inevitably, they make everybody else sick. Assholes.
That shit pisses me off to no end. It’s biological warfare. Making other people sick because you are to damn lazy to be a parent is just wrong on so many levels. [/quote]

If both parents are working how do they keep a kid with a cold home? And kids get sick all the time. If they stayed home with every sniffle then they would never be in school.

james[/quote]
In some schools that’s a big if. Not just the work part but there being two parents around. I often think that whenever the question of failing education comes up we are lumping every school together. If you took the inner city schools, and whatever their rural counterparts would be, out of the equation I imagine that American schools are not doing as poorly as we think. I went to school in the suburbs. I worked in schools in various ghettos (I even lived in the ghetto so it’s OK for me to use that word. My daughter went to school in the ghetto before we moved to the suburbs. I have seen both worlds, from different angles and they really are two different worlds. You want to fix these under performing schools? Fix the surrounding community. Garbage in, garbage out.

I taught in the inner city and I realized it was not for me because you end up facing a moment of truth so to speak. You get to the point where you can lie to kids and act like things are not as bad as they seem or you can tell them the truth. The truth being that, for most of them, everything their parent(s) tells them is wrong. That their parents are bad examples to follow. How do you do it? You can’t. The schools won’t let you. When a kid is using horrible English and you correct him and he responds that is how his mother speaks, what do you say? That his mother doesn’t speak properly? How do you tell a kid that he needs to do the right thing to avoid being some loser in jail when he has family members in jail? How do you talk about getting a job so you don’t need to depend on welfare (implying welfare is bad) when the kid’s family is on welfare? [/quote]

I agree, you can’t fix stupid. If yo mama is a crack-ho, and you ain’t got no diddy, you don’t have much of a chance.
I do think inner-city teachers should be armed. At least in high school. If the kids got knives and shit, the teacher should have the opportunity to defend themselves. You cannot let the inmates run the asylum.

64

I haven’t been following this thread, but I believe it’s important to get more male teachers into the school system. Females just aren’t capable of steering male development the way males are. In fact, they mark boys harder.

If you want to get higher returns on educational investment, make teaching a more attractive profession to males. I believe the same to be true for females - female teachers increase female attainment, which in part explains the increase in female attainment.

65

[quote]atypical1 wrote:

What do you base your hierarchy on?[/quote]

Mainly based on the amount of parental involvement required. Secondly, actual learning of the 3-R’s. Lastly, the amount of discipline allowed.

Also, I had had several Woodford and waters when I posted my ranking system.

[quote]The elementary school we’re zoned for is excellent but there’s a lot of parent involvement. We also have a number of excellent charter schools around us.

james
[/quote]

I’m not against vouchers, or charters. But I have to wonder what business the Federal government has in the education business. Why did Carter need to make elementary education a Federal responsibility? Can the states not educate their own without having to dance to the federal fiddle-player?

The public education system we have now is an abysmal failure. With each successive year, high school graduates leave school dumber now than they did the year before.

66

Coop and Atypical,

The story just broke this morning, Brown approves across the board raises for unions, so much for Prop 30 being “for the children.”

67

[quote]atypical1 wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
Yep, a lot of parents treat the school like a day care center. Kids get sick all the time because other parents see fit to send their sick-ass kids to school rather than keep them home like they should. Inevitably, they make everybody else sick. Assholes.
That shit pisses me off to no end. It’s biological warfare. Making other people sick because you are to damn lazy to be a parent is just wrong on so many levels. [/quote]

If both parents are working how do they keep a kid with a cold home? And kids get sick all the time. If they stayed home with every sniffle then they would never be in school.

james[/quote]

Dude, the question is rather: how would they make the kid go to school? at least for high schoolers man. I loved learning but you bet your ass any chance I had I would have pulled a Ferris Bueller if I thought my mom would have bought the act. Younger kids yeah, there’s a point to your comment…but then the other point is: as a parent, that’s what you take a day off for, or come in late for, or whatever. Kid = priority. Some exceptions always exist, yeah. I get it. But not as many you’d like to think I believe.

On the other hand, yes there are a lot of single parent homes that have serious situations arise, no denying that.

68

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

I totally agree with the home schooling thing. I played baseball with a couple kids growing up who were homeschooled and those kids were Grade-A Weirdos. Socially-awkward in every sense of the term. I also coached a kid who was homeschooled a few years ago and he was even weirder. [/quote]

I could give a rat’s ass about your anecdotal evidence. There are far more socially awkward kids in public school than all the home schoolers combined. I don’t want my tax dollars being used to promote what ever fucking level of human interaction will meet your subjective level of bullshit.

More bullshit subjective assumptions. I know hundreds of homeschoolers. They are no more awkward than any other child/teenager. Your ignorance of the industry is evident. There are not that many home-schooled kids being taught exclusively by mom or dads anymore. They have coops in which they have regular outings with other home schoolers. They have their own athletic teams which compete in several private/parochial school leagues.

Oddly enough - you are whining about the lack of home schooled social interaction, but you completely ignore the fact that they can fucking read, write and count at levels higher than a comparable publicly educated child.

If you aren’t teaching my kid to read, write, and count - what the fuck are you doing?

69

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
Coop and Atypical,

The story just broke this morning, Brown approves across the board raises for unions, so much for Prop 30 being “for the children.”[/quote]

Nothing that our state and local govt does is for the children. What a joke. When am I going to get my thank you card from all the state workers?

And that is exactly why I am against pouring more money into schools. The money is already in the system but everyone is too greedy to give up their little piece.

james

70

[quote]drunkpig wrote:
I could give a rat’s ass about your anecdotal evidence. There are far more socially awkward kids in public school than all the home schoolers combined.
[/quote]

Aren’t you basing your argument on anecdotal evidence?

71

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]Da Man reloaded wrote:
Yes, teachers work hard. Just like everybody else. I cant remember the last time i put in an actual 40 hour week, and the same goes for all of my peers.

Teachers dont have a monopoly on hard work or extra hours, so get off the cross.

You DO however have a monopoly on a summer vacation. So yes, you do work less than anyone else total because of that schnazy little vaca.

And lets face it, you coasted through college. I dated a lot of teachers - they were easy - and I recall one complaining about her work load because she had to make a poster board. A god damn poster board. I built functioning electromechanical systems in undergrad, but her workload is hard because of a poster board. And that carries right into the whole “hard work” and “extra hours” crap.

you arent special, get over it.[/quote]

Hey man no argument from me–you’re looking at a guy who spent all his time in the books or in lab while the education students were out partying. To this day I still have a damned hard time not verbally ripping someone a new asshole when they complain about work in education degree programs.

But lets be honest–To fix education you need better teachers on a wide scale (not that there aren’t a lot of good ones out there now), and that comes with more money and more accountability. Also if we’re being honest we are currently expecting a lot from teachers but also simultaneously hamstringing them. There’s a lot that people don’t see happening behind the scenes if you’re a teacher.[/quote]
So someone who wants to be a chemistry teacher doesn’t take the same courses as someone who is working toward a chemistry degree without wanting to become a teacher?

72

[quote]zecarlo wrote:

[quote]drunkpig wrote:
I could give a rat’s ass about your anecdotal evidence. There are far more socially awkward kids in public school than all the home schoolers combined.
[/quote]

Aren’t you basing your argument on anecdotal evidence? [/quote]

Do you even know what anecdotal evidence means? It doesn’t mean what it appears you think it means.

73

[quote]drunkpig wrote:

[quote]zecarlo wrote:

[quote]drunkpig wrote:
I could give a rat’s ass about your anecdotal evidence. There are far more socially awkward kids in public school than all the home schoolers combined.
[/quote]

Aren’t you basing your argument on anecdotal evidence? [/quote]

Do you even know what anecdotal evidence means? It doesn’t mean what it appears you think it means.
[/quote]

74

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Dude, the question is rather: how would they make the kid go to school? at least for high schoolers man. I loved learning but you bet your ass any chance I had I would have pulled a Ferris Bueller if I thought my mom would have bought the act. Younger kids yeah, there’s a point to your comment…but then the other point is: as a parent, that’s what you take a day off for, or come in late for, or whatever. Kid = priority. Some exceptions always exist, yeah. I get it. But not as many you’d like to think I believe.

On the other hand, yes there are a lot of single parent homes that have serious situations arise, no denying that.[/quote]

I thought he was talking about younger kids to be honest. I can rarely recall being sick in HS and when I was you bet your ass I stayed home and milked it. If I threw up before school that meant I was out for a week baby!

james

75

[quote]atypical1 wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Dude, the question is rather: how would they make the kid go to school? at least for high schoolers man. I loved learning but you bet your ass any chance I had I would have pulled a Ferris Bueller if I thought my mom would have bought the act. Younger kids yeah, there’s a point to your comment…but then the other point is: as a parent, that’s what you take a day off for, or come in late for, or whatever. Kid = priority. Some exceptions always exist, yeah. I get it. But not as many you’d like to think I believe.

On the other hand, yes there are a lot of single parent homes that have serious situations arise, no denying that.[/quote]

I thought he was talking about younger kids to be honest. I can rarely recall being sick in HS and when I was you bet your ass I stayed home and milked it. If I threw up before school that meant I was out for a week baby!

james
[/quote]

I is jelly.

I played 3 sports in high school and if you did not go to at least a half day you could not practice that day.

I had some hard ass coaches so I never wanted to miss practice and get stuck in the doghouse.

76

[quote]zecarlo wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]Da Man reloaded wrote:
Yes, teachers work hard. Just like everybody else. I cant remember the last time i put in an actual 40 hour week, and the same goes for all of my peers.

Teachers dont have a monopoly on hard work or extra hours, so get off the cross.

You DO however have a monopoly on a summer vacation. So yes, you do work less than anyone else total because of that schnazy little vaca.

And lets face it, you coasted through college. I dated a lot of teachers - they were easy - and I recall one complaining about her work load because she had to make a poster board. A god damn poster board. I built functioning electromechanical systems in undergrad, but her workload is hard because of a poster board. And that carries right into the whole “hard work” and “extra hours” crap.

you arent special, get over it.[/quote]

Hey man no argument from me–you’re looking at a guy who spent all his time in the books or in lab while the education students were out partying. To this day I still have a damned hard time not verbally ripping someone a new asshole when they complain about work in education degree programs.

But lets be honest–To fix education you need better teachers on a wide scale (not that there aren’t a lot of good ones out there now), and that comes with more money and more accountability. Also if we’re being honest we are currently expecting a lot from teachers but also simultaneously hamstringing them. There’s a lot that people don’t see happening behind the scenes if you’re a teacher.[/quote]
So someone who wants to be a chemistry teacher doesn’t take the same courses as someone who is working toward a chemistry degree without wanting to become a teacher? [/quote]

Let’s leave aside the fact that my post you quoted was in defense of teachers and giving them more money…

Not even close. Here’s for biology licensure. You get college algebra, trig, DESCRIPTIVE physics (lol), descriptive astronomy (lol), earth science (double lol!), Chem 1, chem 2, general org. chem. --that’s nothing but a freshman level of chemistry…ok fine fine maaaaybe a 1st semester sophomore—

Bio courses: principles (thats bio 101), organismic (bio 102/202), public health bio, fundamentals of ecology (Eco 101) , GENERAL microbiology, cell bio, genetics.

There are only 3–THREE–courses that are above a freshman level of “introduction to the topic” biology (micro, cell, genetics) and the overall biology load is one that I would firmly expect ALL biology students to finish by the end of their freshman year (or first semester soph. year if they took general ed requirements).

Similar for chemistry, but even worse: chem 1, chem 2, general organic, general physical, basic stats for chemistry, then only TWO biology courses TOTAL, and a bunch of survey classes. So only TWO chem classes above basic introduction chemistry in the whole damn program–not to mention the time spent between chemistry courses doing education courses is going to rob you of all recall of your subject matter. The only thing that’s good about it is they require calculus to be taken instead of college algebra (bwahaha). A chemistry student should have those done in 3 semesters. 2 bio courses total, bio 101 and one midlevel bio, only 2 chemistry courses that rate above freshman introduction and only 4 chemistry courses total.

And yes, this is a big time university, major division 1 conference, major research university. Home of one of the best engineering programs and a great architecture and great high ranking vet med programs as well.

Remember, my post was defending teachers.

77

[quote]drunkpig wrote:

More bullshit subjective assumptions. I know hundreds of homeschoolers. They are no more awkward than any other child/teenager.

Your ignorance of the industry is evident. There are not that many home-schooled kids being taught exclusively by mom or dads anymore. They have coops in which they have regular outings with other home schoolers. They have their own athletic teams which compete in several private/parochial school leagues.

Oddly enough - you are whining about the lack of home schooled social interaction, but you completely ignore the fact that they can fucking read, write and count at levels higher than a comparable publicly educated child.

If you aren’t teaching my kid to read, write, and count - what the fuck are you doing?

[/quote]

Above the line would count as anecdotal evidence-I agree with the general sentiment of what you’re saying about the potential effectiveness of homeschooling, but you can’t act like you’re backing up your claims with hard evidence. It’s out there, just not in your post.

http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000010/200410250.asp

Again though, I believe that if you normalized for parental involvement/commitment in a child’s education, this gap would close considerably. I shudder to think about what the scores of those who are already scoring in the 40th percentile would look like if their education were in the hands of their parents (whether being taught directly by the parents or by an instructor who the parents had to find themselves).

78

[quote]CornSprint wrote:

Above the line would count as anecdotal evidence-I agree with the general sentiment of what you’re saying about the potential effectiveness of homeschooling, but you can’t act like you’re backing up your claims with hard evidence. It’s out there, just not in your post.

http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000010/200410250.asp

Again though, I believe that if you normalized for parental involvement/commitment in a child’s education, this gap would close considerably. I shudder to think about what the scores of those who are already scoring in the 40th percentile would look like if their education were in the hands of their parents (whether being taught directly by the parents or by an instructor who the parents had to find themselves).[/quote]

The hundreds of home schoolers line was meant to be an absurd reply to the complete ignorance of DB’s assertion that home schoolers are socially awkward because he played baseball with two socially inept home school kids.

My facts were facts. They just weren’t cited. There’s a difference. I should have cited my facts - but my omission doesn’t make the facts less factual.

79

California is about to be the test case for Socialistic funding for schools. Schools with more money will now be giving it to schools with more poor and minority students.

80

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]atypical1 wrote:
While I agree in cutting military spending, I disagree that the answer to our school problems is throwing more money at them. Investing to me means physical involvement not checkbooks.

james[/quote]

The answer IS money, but not in the way most would assume when we say put more money into education. Give teachers a higher salary while getting rid of the tenure system, or at least making the job more of a merit-based one where good teachers are not earning the same as some shithead teacher with no motivation to help students anymore. Pay scales based on seniority, combined with tenure, just breed complacency.

More money needs to be used for educational tools rather than school lunches or paying a bunch of administrators who don’t actually do much in terms of educating students. Like virtually everything else these days, the bureaucracy involved with public education has run rampant, and that is where the money always ends up. It doesn’t go toward teacher salaries that would entice more people with the talent to teach and it doesn’t go toward educational tools like computers or high quality, up-to-date textbooks.[/quote]

THIS.