[SJackson]

My guess Dave and I would disagree on the nature of teaching the need to be politically literate and involved. , but I can't disagree with much here. Though we need to teach more math and science as well.

[kingu]

Simplistic goal - since 18 year olds are more likely to be liberal, one must up the brainwashing so that they'll vote the proper way.

As for more science and math - how about a class on counting change. Ghads, I was ready to throttle the pimple faced drone at the fast food counter the other day.

[ClaudiusI]

Do you know how fast you could get a degree in college if you weren't forced to take all that liberal arts/social sciences crap and could actually focus on your major? It must knock off at least a year...

[ClearCase_guy]

Is that really the choice? The kids can be either:

A) politically literate
or
B) Mathmematically literate?

There's no way a school might teach both 'rithmetic and civics successfully? Never been done before?

Pity.

[EGPWS]

...but I hope it isn't being done at the expense of making sure our graduates are prepared to do their duty as U.S. citizens, too.

That's what parents are for.

Even the worse parents would do a better job than government organizations in assuring that this be done.

Typical liberal "listen to me and follow" jargon.

[Bob]

Oh yeah, there's just too much of an over-emphasis on math and English. They're actually expecting prospective high school graduates to be able to do eighth-grade math and tenth-grade English here in CA. The inhumanity of it just boggles the mind.

[kdot]

When a child prepars for his future, graduates and gets a real job, he will experience citizenship . Until then, his "chips" are in other games.

[MNJohnnie]

"High school graduates need to understand the history and workings of American government" Why? About 52-55 US Senators and EVERY current member of the "Journalist" Communit do not understand any of these things yet they are considered our "Best and Brightest". If this person is really concerned about this, have them assign their students 1 hour of Free Republic reading a day.

I suspect that what "Dave" actually wants is POLITICAL INDOCTIRNATION, not Political Literacy

[SandRat]

Here's the way H.S. should be, heck even Middle School

1. Math - Algebra, Calculus, Geometry, Trigonometry
   
2. Science biology, Chemistry, Physics
   
3. Literature the Classics - Poe, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Longfellow
   
4. History - World and INTENSIVE Real US not the PC revisionist Crap
   
5. Civics - US Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights -- and all of the words not Cherry picked phrases.
   
6. Music appreciation - Bach, Beethoven, Tichofski, Handel, Mozart, The Big Band artists, Rock and Roll of the '50s and early '60s
   or
   Art Appreciation -- Gogan, The Dutch Masters, Picasso, M. Angelo,...
   
7. P.E. -- all track and field and gender specific self defense.

[GSlob]

Everyone has one's limits in every aspect - be it the speed of running or the capacity to learn. Some people do not run into their limits in MIT postdoctoral programs, and others struggle with multiplication table. And everything in between, of course. This would pertain to math and science education for sure, and [albeit maybe in milder form] to the civics as well. Thus the solution would be rigorous segregation of students by ability into parallel streams [say, traditional 5 groups - retardees, dullards, normals, brights and the gifted, IQ cutoffs 70, 90, 110 and 130] with separate and unequal curricula in each stream. Otherwise having a mixed class and common curriculum inevitably results in the teaching to the lowest common denominator. A platoon marches at the speed of its slowest soldier.

[stripes1776]

Though we need to teach more math and science as well.

I must disagree with you. The schools don't need more math and science classes. What the schools need to do is teach competently the math and science they are now teaching. How is adding a new math class with another incompetent teacher going to change anything except make for a further disaster in the schools.

We got the same argument for more math and science back in the 1950s when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first man-made setellite into orbit around the earth. In the haste of that project we got the new math. It was a great failure.

[Renegade]

My wife and I taught Science for a combined total of 70 years.
my favorite quote was ' Science has the power to giveth and taketh away ( big time )Without science advancements we would still be living in a cave with a life-span of 21 years .

[patton]

It's so important that young people understand the importance of citizenship in a democracy, the need to be politically literate and involved.

Might want to tell the author that these United States are a Republic. Not a democracy.

[RBroadfoot]

Paraphrasing an old Soviet-era saw:

In America's government-run schools (aka, "public schools"), the students pretend to learn and the teachers pretend to teach.

Objective measures of performance have fallen in every academic area. This article refers to the decline in science and math. The following link documents the decline in basic literacy,
http://nces.ed.gov/NAAL/PDF/2006470.PDF .

That report's findings on the literacy of college graduates is even more shocking. The study addresses three types of literacy -- prose, document, and quantitative. The percentages of American college graduates that rate as proficient in these categories are as follows:

Prose 31% (down from 40% in 1992)
Document 25% (down from 37% in 1992)
Quantitative 31% (unchanged from 1992)

The standards for a "proficient" score on these tests are pretty low. They are more like reading the newspaper and balancing a checkbook than reading Kant and solving differential equations.

Other studies have documented similar performance declines in history and civics. Maybe fine arts education has not suffered as much, but there are relatively few serious careers for painters and musicians.

Decade after decade the government-run schools have wasted the time of American students and the treasure of the American people. Yet we still hear people say they "believe in public education".

[manwiththehands]

High school graduates need to understand the history and workings of American government and why they need to participate in a healthy debate of ideas and beliefs if that form of government is to survive ... All too many young people don't know who their representatives are or how they got to be where they are and, frankly, couldn't care less to know.

All they need to learn is that it's all "Bush's fault" and become DemocRats.

[King Prout]

yanno, in those schools which have actually enforced discipline and bothered to actually TEACH, kids have managed to learn math, literacy, linguistics, science, logic, civics, and history with a fairly high rate of success.

[generally]

Let's not have too much of that dangerous math, which helps students develop skills in logic and critical thinking, and helps them learn how to make their own intelligent decisions. Better to have more political opinion shoved down their throats where the teachers can tell them what to think.

Yes, I knowing history/government/civics is important, but the way it's being *taught* in many places today is little more than indoctrination.

[thoughtomator]

Well, ever since Sex Ed replaced Civics, what could one expect?

[LowCountryJoe]

Market outcomes are for more efficient than anything that a political body can conjure up. The introduction of and the full embracement & support of educational vouchers would instantly revolutionize the system and more precisely deliver the skills and knowledge to the labor market.

[Born Conservative]

[Graymatter]

We're homeschoolers. For political literacy I teach ancient Greek thought, and I teach it hard. :)