Posted on 01/13/2006 3:34:41 AM PST by JTN
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Three myths of American education:
1. Education is the key to our future.
2. To get a good job you need a college education.
3. Teachers are underpaid.
Add those up and you get a public-education monopoly run by unions.
Stupid in America -- Why your kids are probably dumber than Belgians
American parents bear a lot of the blame. Many have bought into the idea that self-esteem is somehow unrelated to self-respect, and have emphasized the former rather than the latter in rearing their kids. That true self-esteem can arise only out of self-respect, and that self-respect can arise only out of hard work and self-discipline, are facts that would appear to have escaped their notice.
So much the worse for us and our posterity...
Back a couple of years ago when I was in high school the teachers were about to go on strike because they were "underpaid". One teacher who was only about 32 who was against the union told us he made $50,000+, full medical and dental, as much vacation as students, 2 free periods per day, full pension, medical and dental until death, whole and term life insurance, and a paid funeral. 90% of people in the working world only wish they had that kind of package.
It'll be watched by no one and nothing will change. I'm no tinfoil-hatter, but you almost have to assume that our education system is the way it is for a reason. It's pretty much designed to create generation after generation of mindless drones who will do exactly what they're told, exercise no creativity, and will not question authority.
Their economies are in the toilet because their economies are more socialist than ours is. Their education system is better because it's less socialist. The lesson is clear -- socialism stinks.
And the time-off package is ridiculous.
This is awful. We have to spend much more money on education. They have the right idea in the new high school they built in my area, with it's indoor olympic size swimming pool, and plasma TV screens in the hallways.
I remember reading somewhere awhile back (though I don't remember where) that teachers actually make as much as or more than most professionals with similar educations when calculated on a per hour basis.
Today's parents were educated in the same system that is the problem. You need to go back 40 years to find something that resembles decent education and even then it was not nearly as rigorous as at was 40 years earlier than that time.
"Stupid in America airs every night."
BINGO!
The term "tin-foil hat" was created by those same people. I do not believe it is possible for education to have regressed as far as it has, while nearly everything else has been PROGRESSING, purely by accident.
There's only one important myth of American education, which does not exist anywhere else in the world.
That is the myth that all, or virtually all, young adults are capable of tenth-grade level work and beyond.
This is manifestly false and has resulted in the erection and maintenance, at huge cost, of giant holding pens for 15-18 year olds, and the debasement of academic values and evaluation systems for all.
Free universal public education must end at age 14.
Some of the holding pens are really nice.
But they're not schools.
Agreed.
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