Posted on 02/25/2013 2:35:15 PM PST by Olog-hai
High school dropouts are costing some $1.8 billion in lost tax revenue every year, education advocates said in a report released Monday.
If states were to increase their graduation rates, state and federal lawmakers could be plugging their budgets with workers’ taxes instead of furloughing teachers, closing drivers-license offices and cutting unemployment benefits. While advocates tend to focus on the moral argument that all children deserve a quality education, they could just as easily look at budgets’ bottom lines. …
Lawmakers in state capitols are making tough choices about whether to raise taxes to keep classroom lights on or to sell off state agencies to provide health care to seniors. Federal officials, meanwhile, are looking at some $85 billion in automatic spending cuts that are set to take hold at the end of the week. …
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Some time ago there were peeps called "Reporters", now they are just "story" writers, not report writers.
I think the main purpose of college degrees these days is to produce paychecks for professors who can’t do anything else. I’ve got an uncle who “mentors” students at UofM and gets paid 6 figures for it and he says he wouldn’t hire most of them. However he says he wouldn’t hire most of the full professors either.
Our colleges are top heavy with students who would better serve themselves and society if they were in trade school learning to build and make things with their hands. That would free up our colleges for the students who really do belong in smaller more effective colleges on the cutting edge of science and technology.
As for the “dropouts”, my great grandmother and great grandfather were both 9th grade graduates at best and were better educated than most high school honor students today. My great grandfather went off to fight in WWI and got his introduction to range finding and surveying. When the war was over he came home to Michigan and became a surveyor for roads and power lines in the upper peninsula. When he was done surveying the routes he went back to the start of the line and became a lineman. He spent the rest of his life as an electrician and lineman and even brought the first electricity to our hometown.
At least this article understands that people are the most critical component to economic growth.
“A few years ago while riding with my wildly over educated brother in law he punctured a tire. He was ready to call a wrecker and a rental service for a car.
He was shocked that I could put the doughnut (I hate those things) on the car and directed him to a garage to fix the tire. He was going to spend an easy $300 but I fixed him up for about $9.
Yup, them edumacated people shore is smart.”
So what you’re saying is that you believe everyone should have exactly as much education as you? Sounds sorta commie.
I don't believe this for one second. The dropouts are probably working minimum-wage jobs somewhere and some may even be in a trade (plumbing, etc.).
BUT....
If they were in school, and therefor not paying taxes(!!!), the educrats would be getting more fed tax dollars for the students, and therein is the meat behind this "report", which is full of baloney!
There was an old guy in the town where I grew up that used to tell about losing $10,000 over night. The price of hogs went up ten cents a pound and he had nary a one was his answer when asked how he lost that much money. Same type thinking. He said this jestingly but these people are serious.
What do you believe is the optimal level of education?
I never said there was. Just pointing out that it doesn’t matter how much education you have if you don’t have the basic tools for survival.
BTW he has a PhD in astrophysics and works as a computer programmer. All his degree does these days is gives us interesting things to talk about.
My nephew is a med student but I’ve spent enough time with him that he’s learned a lot of the basic things in life like changing tires, lighting a furnace. Much to the consternation of my liberal sister, he’s learned than not all people with guns are a threat to him.
“he has a PhD in astrophysics and works as a computer programmer.”
Sounds like he’s brilliant, well educated and a contributing member of society.
Did I mention that he’s also a liberal? LOL Both of his parents were college professors.
Yeah he’s a contributor but will admit that just about anyone could do his job with some basic training.
I was expecting something like underwater basketweaving, or law.
Astrophysics is a pretty difficult discipline, and it’s a hard science. I have to respect anyone who commits and finishes something like that, even if they don’t end up where one might expect them to be.
And programming’s a honest profession. There are lots of quiet folks out there that prefer a steady position to something more ambitious.
Folks like your brother are the folks that we are going to need if we are going to get anything done in this country.
I agree wholeheartedly. I’m a teacher. I don’t have many conservative allies, so I’m constantly on the lookout for fresh recruits. It bothers me when I see conservatives talking down education - because it can be done right, and if we aren’t ‘doing it right’, then we are conceding large swathes of the battlefield to liberals.
Why aren’t there conservative curriculum developers? Is that just not something we do? It’s a problem.
I’m glad you were able to convince your brother that lesson, it’s an important one. Education just isn’t the degree. Competency is the most important part.
Everyone hurry. Feed the B., buy a degree and get an anti-family education in man-hating. Don’t study on your own, whatever you do. The political/regulator class will build a few more thousand drones to watch you. [Little irony, sarcasm and humor there.]
The more “educated” people are the less they have a clue about the real world. When I graduated from engineering school my peers knew how to work “the system” but they couldn’t design a system to save themselves... and they went to work for the US Army designing munitions?
Anyways I hope your brother paid you the $9 for your time... hahaha!
The point is that not everyone needs to or should go to college and its a good thing for those who should go to college.
American society needs the whole package.
We are importing all of the uneducated people we need.
It’s a completely valid point.
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