(12-16-2018 11:01 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I still think the solution for education is to do what every other advanced country does, and that is to track students instead of trying to mainstream them. Put the students going to Harvard, Yale, Emory, Vandy, Northwestern, Duke, Stanford, Rice, and the military academies, or into advanced programs at state universities, into an A section. Put the students going to regular programs at state universities in a B section. Put the students with no interest in going to university, who need to learn the skills necessary for a trade, into a C or vocational section. To make this work, we have to make our vocational education much better. Bill Clinton once proposed a work-study vocational path, with retired mechanics, plumbers, hairdressers, and such serving as mentors. That strikes me as a useful approach. Those other countries also have vocational education paths that continue to community college and associates' degrees. The model is there, they get better results for less money, so why don't we do it.

I find it interesting that the same criticisms leveled against our health care in the period leading up to Obamacare--most expensive in the world, and middling results--also apply to education. But the same people who insisted that our health care was a "failed system" seem to think that the solution to education is simply to dump more money into it.

Both systems produce less than optimum results because both paradigms are flawed. Bismarck systems get the best results in health care, primarily IMO because they get government out of a lot of what government now does here, and tracking students seems to be the key to getting better education bang for the buck. So why isn't some party, or even somebody, posing either or both? I have no clue, except that winning political games is more important than solving problems.

Grouping kids by talent rather than the politically correct method of mixing them is the best way to serve all of them. My concern with formal tracking into things like vocational programs is that many kids are late bloomers. Right now, they are trying to track everyone into college prep which is a mistake. Our vocational programs are lacking as you say.

(12-16-2018 03:35 PM)JRsec Wrote:  [quote='bullet' pid='15764900' dateline='1544974124']
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Bullet, I never received incorrect change in the 70's. But it happens all of the time now, and in a college town.

Look, I graded graduate papers at a top 20 AAU school and the honor's graduates of every blue blood state flagship from New York to California to Texas and throughout the Southeast had trouble with sentence structure, let alone grasping the concepts of paragraph construction. And we dare not even broach the subject of spelling.

I'd take a high school graduate from the 70's every day and twice on Sunday before I would hire the spoiled offspring of helicopter parents, who are children who have been given grades to abate their parents bitching and constant filing of complaints against teachers and principles. I'd take a high school graduate from the 70's who barely passed, came from a broken home, or a disenfranchised minority family because those kids expected nothing and felt they had to prove themselves. Now even the poor kids are entitled snowflakes who don't want to work, feel oppressed when it is expected, and claim abuse when they are corrected.

I don't know where you've been living but it isn't the same places I've been.

The school system today is an unmitigated cluster ****. But I knew that when my oldest daughter complained about the drug trafficking at her award winning drug free school. When I told the local chief of police about it he told me his hands were tied because the principle wouldn't let him on campus because 1 arrest would keep them from retaining the status of a drug free high school, which of course got them federal perks.

And that was back when they were actually still trying to teach a wee bit.

You do realize that the SAT and ACT test has been dumbed down and altered at least 4 times since the 60's? Most revisions were to atone for cultural bias. What a crock!

So I'll agree with you on social mores, most politics, but offering words of grace for a cesspool called public education, I just can't go there! And calling the new generation a better example of the educations system is something I have no confidence in whatsoever beyond the minority of very gifted people they are producing. As my Dad was found of calling them, they are $2 pistols. They won't work, can't be fired, and if you try to repair them they may blow up in your face. I wouldn't trust them to have the common morality to be law officers, teachers, or any other public servant, and I sure as hell wouldn't want them at my back in a combat situation.

The current morass in politics is being exacerbated by the woeful miscarriage of public education which is nothing more than a ruse for political indoctrination by the enemies of a free society.

Our family mantra is, "Stay away from stupid people. Stupid people get you killed!" Well Bullet the present public education system is the greatest purveyor of stupidity and ignorance in this nation's history. And it's because they teach so many lies with the truth that the poor kids don't have a chance. Instead of finding confidence in an education they find public acceptance for right think and right speak and that is then what they expect to be able to parrot back for success in life. It's appalling and I'll never accept it in any way until the ability to think, reason, and dig for the truth on your own replaces it.

Maybe you never counted your change in the 70s!

Now I'm not saying today's public elementary and secondary schools are particularly good. Many are not. I'm just saying they are better than they used to be (except for history which has textbooks written by the far left dominating those departments in colleges-that's a different topic). Reality is that a lot of people are taking the ACT/SAT and going to college who shouldn't, and who wouldn't have in the 70s. That's part of the reason those average scores are flat despite the tests being easier.

I haven't graded papers since around 1980 so I can't challenge what you are saying about written communication, sentence structure and spelling. But I will say they are more articulate, carrying on a conversation. The schools seem to get them to speak in front of a group more as well as communicating in group projects. Other than an art project, I don't remember ever doing a group project prior to college. Again, I'm talking about the students as a whole. The group going to college is larger and therefore has weaker students than in the past.

I don't think we disagree as much on this topic as you do.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opini...e-shrugged

"...Far be it from us to praise Obamacare, which continues to plod along with poor-quality choices and ever-worsening value for insurance customers’ money. But whatever the fate of the ruling striking down Obamacare, the debate over it only reinforces what we've known since before Obamacare was rammed through Congress: It was not a well-made law. There was no expertise involved in crafting it. Rather, it was a combined wish list from liberals and the healthcare and health insurance industries.

We only add for the record that those voting on it had no clue what they were supporting and that most of them neither read nor understood it. That’s why it was always an incoherent measure, doomed from the beginning to provide a suboptimal outcome for everyone. And whether this current ruling stands up on appeal or not, Congress has to do something to fix all the problems that existed before Obamacare, which it mostly made worse...."

(12-19-2018 10:05 AM)bullet Wrote:  https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opini...e-shrugged

"...Far be it from us to praise Obamacare, which continues to plod along with poor-quality choices and ever-worsening value for insurance customers’ money. But whatever the fate of the ruling striking down Obamacare, the debate over it only reinforces what we've known since before Obamacare was rammed through Congress: It was not a well-made law. There was no expertise involved in crafting it. Rather, it was a combined wish list from liberals and the healthcare and health insurance industries.

We only add for the record that those voting on it had no clue what they were supporting and that most of them neither read nor understood it. That’s why it was always an incoherent measure, doomed from the beginning to provide a suboptimal outcome for everyone. And whether this current ruling stands up on appeal or not, Congress has to do something to fix all the problems that existed before Obamacare, which it mostly made worse...."

Very well said. It was a ridiculous mess. Its what you get when the desire for a fast rushed partisan victory is deemed more important than common sense and the best interests of the people.