Posted on 08/09/2010 5:20:49 AM PDT by reaganaut1
An extraordinary reply.
I don’t recall having read anything quite like it
on FR.
I’m [hopefully] going to be getting my degree at the end of this semester; one last class. I’ll be exiting academia with ZERO education-loans and close to zero credit-card debt {I may have $100 or $150 on the card; waiting the billing-statement}; this means that I will be at least orders of magnitude freer entering the job-market than otherwise would be the case. {Also, if I fail to obtain a job [and I should consider that possibility] it is less catastrophic than would be saddled with debt.}
I seriously cannot imagine how difficult it will be for those who ARE saddled with such debt; and this leads right into the subject of the National Debt. Aside from any personal debt that may have been accrued, the amount of money owed in the national debt per-person is around $40,000! That’s $40k for every American man, woman, and child regardless of how wise/frugal/lucky/blessed they have been in their life. I have to wonder how popular a “pay $40,000 now and be exempt from income, payroll, estate, property, social security and medicare taxes for the rest of your life”-program would be.
A diploma in the hand is only as good as what’s in the head. Start improving education by getting the Fed the “H” out of it.
LOWERING STANDARDS!
Honestly,....Nearly all the jobs in the economy merely require a sound mastery of reading, writing, arithmetic, and a varying amount of specialized study and training. I would add that to be functional in society a basic understanding of the history of Western Civilization, geography, economics, and civics is also needed...but...attendance at a college or university is absolutely not necessary to acquire any of this knowledge or skill.
I believe that there are several underlying motivations for this Marxist push toward universal college for all youth:
**Increasing debt and lengthy years in school keep youth in a state of babyhood and burdens them with debt. They are less likely to marry and form families, or greatly delay forming families. This is accompanied by more out-of-wedlock sexual activity. Fundamentally, the Marxist wish to destroy the family and Christian sexual inhibitions.
**Obama and the Marxists depend upon the education-industrial complex for votes. What better way to increase votes than to increase the size of the education-industrial complex?
**The longer a young person is in college the more influence his Marxist professors will have over his long term worldview. This means more votes for the Marxists.
** Once a young person leaves school he is mugged by economic reality. Reality produces conservatives. The longer a young person can be kept in the warm soft womb of school, the more likely his is to vote for Marxists.
“Obama to Call for Better Graduation Rates (60% of Americans to get college degrees)”
You can bet these students will be brainwashed in the ways of the Marxist/socialist, commie agenda.
Why?
1) **ALL** government schools in this nation are socialist-funded. They have **always** been socialist-funded since they first opened in the mid-1800s to mid-1900s.
Conclusion: If children attend socialist schools they WILL learn to be comfortable with socialism! They WILL learn that the government has enormous police power to take money from a neighbor to pay for a service their parents want for tuition-free. Well?...If government can take money from a neighbor for tuition-free school, why not a thousand other socialist wants and needs?
Socialist government schools bred a society that elected Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt ( New Deal), Lyndon B. Johnson ( Great Society), Carter, Clinton, and now ( Hope and Change) Obama. SOCIALIST, GODLESS, GOVERENMENT SCHOOLS MADE THIS INEVITABLE!
2) **ALL** government schools in this nation are GODLESS! **ALL** of them. Simply by attending, children learn to be comfortable with godlessness, and learn to think godlessly.
Our first modern socialist-funded government schools ( mid-1800s to early 1900s) offered up a generic and lukewarm Protestantism. ( We know what Christ does with the lukewarm. He spits them out of His mouth!) By my grandmother's day ( born 1894) the schools were essentially godless with a sprinkle of prayer in the morning...however..I will concede that having basically Christian teachers did mitigate the effects of the godless curriculum at least through the 1950s.
3)Nearly all government schools in this nation are government owned and run. Simply by attending children learn to be comfortable with government owning and running a school service. Well? If government can own and run schools why not a thousand other services? Why not car companies, banks, hospitals?, clinics?, gas stations?, oil refineries?, farms?, etc.
If children attend socialist-funded, government run and owned, godless schools, children WILL WILL WILL learn to be comfortable with socialism, godlessness, and will see government at their redeemer and savior.
And...Yes!...I am shouting, jumping up and down, and having a fit! I am exasperated that conservatives do not see the urgency in getting our nation's children into a conservative and PRIVATE educational setting. The government schools should be closed down, burned to the ground and the earth salted! An alternative would be to refit them as prisons and hire the NEA workers as prison guards. The schools look like prisons anyway.
Government schools came about because they saw the advantage the Catholic school children had in society AND almost immediately sought to limit the amount of influence religion played in the classroom.
I agree with your assessment, but it is important that we point out what is wrong with public schools.
It helps to illustrate the point that “more money” is NOT the solution!
Try working with people who aren’t problem solvers. Drives me nuts when I field 10 or 20 questions a day that just feel dumber as the day goes on.
My employees have learned not to ask me the same question, 20 different ways followed by the bonus of 20 more questions.
They rarely make it to three and if they do I usually just walk off and won’t talk them.
They have gotten real good at asking better and very specific questions.
I think they are better off here than they would be anywhere else and they may one leave and start their own thing.
Though I just came up with a great for expanding and as soon as I figure out the numbers might just make them business partners.
Kind of “Branchise” concept. I know what I am getting, they know me and the business.
Best part, they can really be in control of their destiny.
...well let’s just tax people who are passing and give the money to people who are flunking...
This is terrible...... now everyone has to graduate.. More destruction of the United States....
Folks, the carpenters, plumbers, and auto mechanics have got to come from someplace. In my community, which is heavily agricultural, they administrators are trying to cut out the Ag. courses in high school. Evidently the people that run the schools are measured by how many of their graduates go on to college. Something should be done to save the craftsmen and mechanical courses in our schools.
I guess at first blush we do not agree, sir. I think that it is a good idea to teach college students about psychology, foreign languages, and the such. It broadens their horizons.
On the other hand, I do agree with you that there should be, as you point out, a focus on “reading, writing, math, history and actual science vs. propaganda.”
I’m don’t think you know it but you have touched upon four of the Seven Liberal Arts that once were taught to our Western ancestors. You see, they consist of grammar, rhetoric, logic, arthmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.
Reading and writing conform to grammar and rhetoric, math encompasses arithmetic and geometry, and logic would seem to fall under your concern about science vs. propaganda.
You see, what you are advocating is close to a liberal arts education.
Your comeback, I suppose, would be that you are not in favor of liberal arts education as presently practiced and that’s fine. Just remember what a classical education used to be. Also remember how well it served our Founding Fathers.
Regarding your post 85, I concur with you concerning why the Marxists want to get more and more young people into college for the conditioning you so ably point out.
On the other hand, it is a shame that the college industry (and that’s what it has turned into) has been taken over by the Leftists. I say that because if one restricted the college students to those with the abilities and desires to seek a higher education (as it once was), we end up with a more learned populace (but one heck of a smaller percentage than 60!).
And it is a pleasure to speak with and write to people who have higher education. I bet that you would agree with me that it is relatively easy to determine whether the person you are dealing with has a college degree. No?
P.S. Thanks for pointing out that medical school is a trade school. A high level trade school, to be sure, but a trade school, nevertheless.
How’d college enter the conversation?
I was criticizing “public school” which I consider K-12.
The “liberal arts” discussion also focuses on college, which I was NOT addressing.
I am indeed endorsing classical education.
I used to think my Grandad was shortchanged with just an 8th grade education. (born 1912) Now, I realize that fewer than 10% of today’s high school grads could pass his 8th grade exam.
Silly me, I thought the title of the thread was “Obama to Call for Better Graduation Rates (60% of Americans to get college degrees).” That being the case, why did you post something about kindergarten through high school?
Because, silly me, the HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION RATES STINK SO BAD IN THIS COUNTRY, I mistakenly thought THAT is what he was talking about.
Why’s he talking about college, as though our High Schools are just fine?
I smell another vote buying scheme called “free college” coming up!
One more thing, your post 78 was responding to my post 73, in which I was specificially referring to college not being a trade school.
It's already happening. We recently attended a recruiting evening sponsored by 5 elite colleges, including Harvard. Our 17 year old son was invited, and we went with him. I was disappointed to see how hard they were pushing their diversity statistics, and all but throwing money at those in "financial need". The audience was heavily minority, and from the conversations I overheard, they didn't strike me as elite students. Expensive elite schools are falling all over themselves to recruit the more accomplished minority applicants, and paving their way with financial aid in the form of grants. Middle class white boys who take hard classes and work hard are not, shall we say, their target market. My husband remarked afterward that they might be disappointed when the entitlement crowd doesn't help replenish the endowment coffers a few years hence.
Reparations take many forms. In the college game, we have the cost of education bid up ridiculously high, but only for those who are deemed "able" to pay for it. The rest get to coast on the contributions of taxpayers and alumni - until the money and goodwill run out.
Bingo!
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