And as the Republican’s (especially here in NV) work hard to cut funding for education, this will all only get worse.
A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and blind. It prizes test scores above critical thinking and literacy. It celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. It churns out stunted human products, lacking the capacity and vocabulary to challenge the assumptions and structures of the corporate state. It funnels them into a caste system of drones and systems managers. It transforms a democratic state into a feudal system of corporate masters and serfs.
[…]
“Imagine,” said a public school teacher in New York City, who asked that I not use his name, “going to work each day knowing a great deal of what you are doing is fraudulent, knowing in no way are you preparing your students for life in an ever more brutal world, knowing that if you don’t continue along your scripted test prep course and indeed get better at it you will be out of a job. Up until very recently, the principal of a school was something like the conductor of an orchestra: a person who had deep experience and knowledge of the part and place of every member and every instrument. In the past 10 years we’ve had the emergence of both [Mayor] Mike Bloomberg’s Leadership Academy and Eli Broad’s Superintendents Academy, both created exclusively to produce instant principals and superintendents who model themselves after CEOs. How is this kind of thing even legal? How are such ‘academies’ accredited? What quality of leader needs a ‘leadership academy’? What kind of society would allow such people to run their children’s schools? The high-stakes tests may be worthless as pedagogy but they are a brilliant mechanism for undermining the school systems, instilling fear and creating a rationale for corporate takeover. There is something grotesque about the fact the education reform is being led not by educators but by financers and speculators and billionaires.”
29, Bobbo,
Well if we stopped doubly taxing U.S. corporations we’d see a lot less moving of jobs overseas. In fact, if we did corporate tax reform we’d also entice foreign corporations to move many of their operations here and thus provide more jobs and preserve certain sectors. Instead we have too many politicians buying votes with class warfare.
You can’t social engineer businesses reacting to our government’s tax policies. Most businesses factor in tax liabilities before committing to a decision / path rather than doing what would otherwise be a straightforward business decision.
I would advise kids to look at science, engineering, math, or computer science degrees. Last I heard, our country graduates more fitness-related degrees than anything else. Go figure.
Guyver==your lies and projectile dogma spewing are tiresome. I know, I really just know, you are capable of more……….hmmmm…….why do I think that? Ha, ha.
1. Every idiot knows its labor cost and environmental issues and tax breaks that drive American jobs overseas. Its lying dogma to say anything else. When GE pays zero US income tax, how much lower do you think it should go?
2. “You can’t social engineer businesses reacting to our government’s tax policies. /// Ummmm–“I” certainly can. Its you that “can’t” or rather won’t……. …hmmmm…….why do I think that? Ha, ha.
3. “I would advise kids to look at science, engineering, math, or computer science degree” /// No, I said study, not look at. Let’s see: World’s Richest Man and Greatest Eleemosynary Luminary: Bill Gates. Employs more science, engineering, math, or computer science degrees than any other person: FROM INDIA ON b-1 (whatever) Visas because he can get them $20K/year cheaper than white boys.
I’d tell my kiddie to become a janitor or plumber: can’t export that and hopefully can out compete the upwardly mobile immigrants.
I wish I liked candy more, but I don’t.
I challenge YOU McGuyver and anyone else to stop vomiting DOGMA and to set forth the argument that the Super Rich need more tax cuts while the poor, working, and middle classes need service cuts. Go ahead: make that argument.
Wake Up McGuyver. The Republicans want to Kill America but they can’t do it without your vote.
Stay in school.
Study hard.
So you can get a good job.
Work hard.
Get better pay.
So you can pay more taxes to pay for all the deadbeats who didn’t.
chuck==you are exactly right.
Zoooooommmmm!!
Ha. ha.
SeaLawyer, I agree with you 100%. Bush’s DoE ignored decades of evidence and studies and had his lackeys out saying “everyone goes to college because there’s no evidence career ed works”.
I sat in a meeting where a top-ranking DoE official said this to a panel that included GM and Toyota recruiters at a career-tech conference, in 2002. She’s lucky she got out alive after saying that obvious crap to people who hired and trained hundreds of thousands of career-tech students, every year.
And career tech ed has taken a bath ever since.
Sorry but money does not teach kids. Teachers do. My wife will tell you as a teacher that funding is not the issue. Lack of interest in Parents making their kids do homework and taking a interest in their kids education. That is a big problem in America. Keep throwing money at it like Obama says we should do. Will not make our kids smarter.
34, Bobbo,
BS. The driving issue is taxes. Environmental issues? Is that why AMD & Intel fabricate chips overseas? Oh, I see… but IBM makes them domestically.
Why does someone like Sony only get taxed by its home country for revenue it generates inside its own country, but not taxed on revenue it generates outside of Japan? You think our government does the same? Nope.
What do you suppose is the biggest reason for the huge growth of online commerce? Do you suppose taxing online commerce is going to kill this growth? Online commerce proves you can have very successful businesses that challenge the “for tax” counterparts. So when government starts to mandate taxes and the growth withers away, I suppose you’ll blame the evil corporations for reacting to tax polices AGAIN.
MOST businesses have to account for the tax liabilities of their decisions.
I realize you probably swing that way, but quit being so anal.
Correction, he’s hiring Indians, Chinese, and Russians on H1B visas.
Regardless of Gates’ tactics, people would collectively be better off in one of those fields rather than being Gate’s personal trainer or janitor.
Stop stunting growth with social engineering or incremental tax policies. If you want to maximize growth, then stop stifling it.
I’m voting for the guy who is most fiscally conservative and intends to cut entitlement programs in tough times. I don’t care what party they’re from. Half the people in this country don’t pay taxes. It’s time the burden is spread out more fairly.
Another thing killing our education. Just once I would like to see Parents as pationate about their kids doing good in school as they are about school closings, sports, and Politics.
I’m listening to the show right now…
I put my wife through college WITHOUT taking a dime in loan money.
Student loans are a real racket.
At one point the corrupt screwballs in admissions had filled out a loan application for her and wanted her to sign it.
She told the little girl behind the counter: “Fuck that! I ain’t taking any fuckin’ loan.”
Nobody with any income is taking out those loans, but kids are idiots and sign off on anything presented to them.
Last night we were at an induction meeting for Kappa, Delta, Pi. They were giving away pins along with the certificates. One of the inductees held up the pin at her daughter and said: “See this pin. This pin cost mommy $25,000…”
My wife is graduating this year and making me proud.
O’Biden is not going to be a running mate in 2012… 🙂
What a load of crap. This implies that until NCLB they taught kids to think critically. Really? How do they explain the massive rise in those that are religious? How do they explain the rise in New Age crap and Astrology? What about the massive increase in people that play the Lottery? Furthermore, when I was in college, they went out of their way *not* to teach people tangible skills (“we’re not a vocational college!”) but instead focused on a “broad education” which had the effect of graduating the vast majority of students with absolutely no tangible skills to get a job.
The fundamental problem is that teachers do not want their performance measured. I notice the author of the article says nothing about that other than using test scores is “bad”.
but more and more I suspect that a major goal of the reform campaign is to make the work of a teacher so degrading and insulting that the dignified and the truly educated teachers will simply leave while they still retain a modicum of self-respect
Oh, the drama! It couldn’t possibly be that Microsoft had trouble finding educated talent and when it did, almost none of it had citizenship? It couldn’t possibly be because there are a huge number of kids that graduate high school without the ability to read? Nah. That must be purely because of funding and no other reasons. Never mind that some teachers in the same schools with the same class sizes consistently have more success than others.
#21
Simpler solution: let any principal fire or hire whomever they wish for whatever reason they wish. Toss tenure completely. In addition, let any school board hire or fire any principal they want for any reason they wish. Throw out that collective bargaining arbitration bullshit and you’d be amazed how much better the school systems would get.
Interesting from the comments here and elsewhere today is that this phenomena appears to be happening through out the developed western world. Somehow the corporate model of management statistical efficiency has become “normal” rather than “aberrant”.
#39–Guyver==your best post ever. Still wrong, very wrong, still your best post ever.
1. Taxes are paid on profit. You make profit when you lower your labor cost, environmental compliance, and get tax “breaks” for doing so. but being reasonable people, let’s not quibble? Few VERY BROAD ISSUES are resolved on the operation of one fact alone? You want to restrict the analysis to one fact alone-taxes. And I’m sure there are instances where taxes were determinative, but there is NOT A SINGLE INSTANCE where taxes alone were at play. Even I included three issues as the driving force before I even recognized you were going to go single issue stupid on the issue.
YOU HAVE TO MAKE A PROFIT BEFORE TAXES ARE EVEN RELEVANT. Take that to the bank.
2. study not look. //// My own joke. I gotta get something out of this.
3. You disingenuously say: “Stop stunting growth with social engineering or incremental tax policies. If you want to maximize growth, then stop stifling it.” //// What music is playing in your head? We all should want to stunt growth taking place OVERSEAS in competition with our own. Tax policy as in lowering rates means NOTHING when you are paying zero already. Federal revenue from Corp Income tax has gone from @35% 30 years ago to 7% today. Just more PUKE LIES to KILL AMERICA even faster. Corps don’t pay their fair share of taxes which is what is killing America.
You ask a real question though. One that involves social engineering NO MATTER WHAT is done or not done: how to maximize growth? Maybe an educated work force==only possible by appropriate funding/training/regulations. I also don’t think not enough money is the root cause of our educational malaise, but rather how/where the budget is spent? Education funds being spent on what is actually health care for the mentally challenged being but one issue?
While not an expert, as an article of faith and EXPERIENCE I doubt that “cutting taxes” the Puke Dogma for EVERY ISSUE is the right answer for supporting “growth.” That would be a coincidence–kinda like global warming predictions in 10 year increments? Ha, ha.
4. “I’m voting for the guy who is most fiscally conservative and intends to cut entitlement programs in tough times.” /// Well, dipshit you cut taxes on every issue and what you get is tough times. Course, I’m assuming by fiscal conservative you mean cut taxes. You certainly don’t mean “balanced budget” by matching revenues to expected needs? Like raising taxes when entering into two unnecessary wars? THAT kind of fiscal conservative–or do you mean brain dead cut taxes until America is DEAD type of fiscal conservatives?
And being anal–so you don’t support Bachman? ((yes, my own humor again==since you got nothing.))
5==”Half the people in this country don’t pay taxes. It’s time the burden is spread out more fairly.” //// BWWHAHAAHAHAHA!!! You did that on purpose didn’t you. I take back everything I said about your pitiful lack of humor.
One of the things I’ve never understood is why people think today’s scholars are going to be innately more intelligent than yesterday’s or those who lived 4,000 years ago.
It is the nature of a standardized tests that the average score is defined as the average score without any regard for how hard the test actually is. That should tell you why tests scores don’t rise in and off itself.
It is a cold hard fact that the current curriculum in my state is much harder in math than it once was. If you don’t agree look it up. I’m pretty sure the curriculum used by all states are posted so you can compare if you care.
I just spent four days testing. Due to the threat to decertify any teacher with any knowledge of the test I made a point of not reading a single question. I can’t vouch that it was valid or repeatable. It could have been hard or easy. It may have even been completely off topic. I don’t know.
Everything now depends on those test scores and nobody can verify anything about them.
The biggest issue to impact education today in a very bad way may be dysfunctional/broken homes. It may even explain in large part why African Americans as a group still score lower than just about any other group you care to name.
They have a higher percentage and growing of dysfunctional/broken homes.Don’t worry the other groups are catching up. It’s just one of those very nasty got you’s of our secular and materialistic society.
I have my doubts about schools, public or private, being satisfactory substitutes for a couple of loving and concerned parents.
Teachers in the end are hirelings and at the end of the day they go home to their families. They don’t spend the nights and week ends with their students. I once did the math and if every student got their exact share of the teachers time each day they would converse with the teacher for at most a few minutes.
Last but not least I long ago realized that throwing more money at education was going to run into the law of diminishing returns. Our county ranks toward the middle or better on educational achievement for our state and toward the bottom on money spent which to me means the tax payers are getting much more bang for their dollar than in many school systems.
My last point is a matter of history. Educational achievement did not go up after the Fed Gov. created the Fed. Gov. department of Ed. according to the scared test scores. Since it costs a lot of money it might be a good idea to close an agency that has a solid record of spending a lot of money for no gain.
#46–deowll==lets parse a few points:
1. One of the things I’ve never understood is why people think today’s scholars are going to be innately more intelligent than yesterday’s or those who lived 4,000 years ago. //// Intelligent or knowledgeable? Big difference. How is that issue relevant to this thread?
2. It is the nature of a standardized tests that the average score is defined as the average score without any regard for how hard the test actually is. /// Rather a tight tautology and I suppose is more ambiguous than a quibble that a “standardized test” is more about other things than establishing the average.
3. That should tell you why tests scores don’t rise in and off itself. /// No, just the opposite. You start with a (real) standardized test and then measure performance rise, fall, or no change over the years until you change the standardized test. THEN if you are lucky, and we rarely are, a conversion factor is established between the old standardized test and the new one so that CHANGES CAN BE MEASURED.
Pretty basic stuff you have all wrong.
4. It is a cold hard fact that the current curriculum in my state is much harder in math than it once was. /// Now how do you know this without standardized tests?
5. If you don’t agree look it up. /// Snipe Hunt much?
6. I’m pretty sure the curriculum used by all states are posted so you can compare if you care. /// Oh, I see. Standardized Tests aren’t needed. We can just look at various state tests and “tell” huh?
7. The biggest issue to impact education today in a very bad way may be dysfunctional/broken homes. /// I agree this may be the “biggest” but closely followed by many of the issues mentioned by others herein.
8. It may even explain in large part why African Americans as a group still score lower than just about any other group you care to name. //// Interesting That. Yes, group performance positively correlates to racial IQ and racial/cultural morals and values. Just a group measure otherwise imagine how smart Obama’s white half must be to overcome his black half?
9. They have a higher percentage and growing of dysfunctional/broken homes.Don’t worry the other groups are catching up. It’s just one of those very nasty got you’s of our secular and materialistic society. /// Or too many other choices, or tv, or drugs, or anything else we don’t like? Another issue I guess we can all tell just by looking.
10. Last but not least I long ago realized that throwing more money at education was going to run into the law of diminishing returns. Our county ranks toward the middle or better on educational achievement for our state and toward the bottom on money spent which to me means the tax payers are getting much more bang for their dollar than in many school systems. /// What are you smoking? Link please re money spent per pupil?
11. My last point is a matter of history. Educational achievement did not go up after the Fed Gov. created the Fed. Gov. department of Ed. according to the scared test scores. Since it costs a lot of money it might be a good idea to close an agency that has a solid record of spending a lot of money for no gain. /// “It?” What the standardized test scores?==because in #10 you just said USA got more bang for the dollar.
deowll–I apologize. I read thru the first time too fast and had the impression you said some smart things that I wanted to highlight and congratulate you on. Again, so sorry.
Student debt in US is approaching 1 trillion dollars. Five times what it was 10 years ago.
If you are anti-education, you’re anti-American.
Anyone calling for cuts in education is calling for the decline of America.
Graffiti seen on a NY City subway car years ago:
“I were a high school dropout. Now I are a teenage millionaire”
When education costs are compared between countries, i.e. $ per pupil – does that include the health care costs for teachers? I have a feeling that in other countries there is either national health care or at least health costs are more spread out at the national level. In the U.S., I think more health care costs are borne at the local level.
To paraphrase Max Headroom: (Really?)
“You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but if you don’t teach them to read or think, you can fool them any time you want…”
#46 deowll, I happen to agree with much of what you said, especially that (if I might generalize) so much of the educational experience inside the classroom can be, and often is, undermined by what takes place OUTSIDE the classroom. Dysfunctional and broken homes are the least likely environment for a child to find the inspiration to excel and the emotional rewards for achieving success, and even the best teacher is a poor substitute for an enthusiastic parent.
I do disagree that the Dept. of Education should be eliminated, however. Even if you think it hasn’t achieved a demonstrable improvement in education, that doesn’t mean that it can never do so. At the very least, the Dept’s value in collecting data according to uniform standards and coordinating the exchange of ideas and methods among many disparate localities seems self-evident, even if unprovable or unquantifiable. Help morph it into something that you think has more value rather than advocating its elimination.
Thanks for providing the perspective of a teacher.
PRIVATIZATION, LICENSING.
These are the 2 long term objectives of the GOP. Privatize everything, and make sure there is no ownership society. Everything must be licensed from somebody so they can profit.
You can thank this asshole:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey
for the idea that schools should teach what to think not how to think.
This idea that schools need to teach how to think and overtesting is bad, are just excuses for the failure of schools. Talk about teaching kids how to think allows you to introduce a new curriculum, which may very well make things worse, and in many cases has, dumping phonics for example. Complaining about testing is just another excuse because they really don’t want people to see how badly they are doing.
Those TRYING to control this planet, dont WANT/NEED thinkers.
They dont want things to CHANGE..
They want SLAVES, and ONLY what they GIVE YOU..NO MORE.
We might as well be in the OLD coal mines, where the OWNER also owns the nearest stores and charges 2-10 times what the city, 20 miles away charges…and YOU AINT GOT A CAR, and CANT leave the area.
If ya dont know the HISTORY, look it up.
Im on SSD, and my check is based on 2 things. COST of living and the Wages of a 1st year wages of an beginning accountant/intern.. In the last 3 years, the gov has said the COST of living(CPI) hasnt increased..PROVE IT.