George Will Goes To School

And he doesn't like what he sees there: Children who cannot learn because their mothers are not married, teachers who are union thugs, silly liberals who think that paying teachers better and having smaller class sizes might actually matter. Matter! They are shopworn panaceas, says Will. (Why shopworn? Because they were never bought and actually tried?)

Would that mean that he would support paying teachers even less than they are paid in this country or running schools in mega-classes? I'm not sure. But his message is one of hopelessness. Don't expect schools to make a difference. The only solution he offers us is that children should pick their parents more carefully.

Robin Chait points out some evidence which destroys George's glum determination to see education as a totally wasted exercise for poor children. Isn't it fascinating, by the way, that the p-word didn't appear even once in Will's original column? Poverty is not something that we should discuss when pondering educational differences, it seems.

But what struck me even more about the evidence that Will does use is how events happening over time are simply linked to the kinds of causes he sees, while other causes and changes (the increased labor market opportunities for women, traditionally the underpaid providers of good education, that more children now come from recent immigrant families) are invisible to him and therefore not in the story he tells us.

Speaking of invisible evidence, there are all those facts from other countries, countries which do much better in educating their children. For some reason that evidence is ignored by conservatives writing on education, perhaps because it suggests that paying teachers well, for example, might indeed matter.

Comments (155)

1. I don't know why so many people are against dumping more into our educational system. If you gave me the choice between universal healthcare or a better education system I would say spend every cent of the money into better education. We don't need welfare and universal healthcare if people are getting an education in order to get well paying jobs. But no so many neo-cons want to keep a good education out of the hands of the poor. While they create programs like No Child Left Behind which sounds frilly and fun. They slap you in the face with the ACTUAL intent of the program which is penalize and remove more money from already underfunded and under-equipped schools. Why should Republicans scoff at paying teachers more? Teachers devote their lives to make sure your kids don't grow up to be janitors and cab drivers. Shouldn't they be paid well for it? I think of anything in this country that needs more money it's education because if you get a good solid start you have a better foundation to grow. Whereas if you go to a shitty inner-city school that doesn't have enough books to supply the whole class you have less chance of doing anything in life.

   Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/27/2008 @ 6:59pm

2. Go ahead, throw the baby out with the bathwater. We all know how secure those "well paying jobs" have been. Don't even mention the benefits & retirement package.Try eating a diploma. Where the hell have you been?

   Posted by Sorelish at 04/27/2008 @ 7:21pm

3. Posted by lvliberty1 at 04/27/2008

   Problem is there are other things learned in school that CAN'T be learned in home schooling. That is why I am always so wary of home school. For instance a lot of our particulars for how to associate with others in a complex environment are gained from school. I knew a few kids who were homeschooled and they never seemed sociable and some of them downright did not have any social grace what so ever. I am not saying all homeschooled children turn out like this but there are things school is useful for other than JUST reading, writing and arithmetic.

   Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/27/2008 @ 9:01pm

4. Finland????

   not again!

   <i>Finland, with an average of 563 score points, was the highest-performing country on the PISA 2006 science scale.

   Six other high-scoring countries had mean scores of 530 to 542 points: Canada, Japan and New Zealand and the partner countries/economies Hong Kong-China, Chinese Taipei and Estonia. Australia, the Netherlands, Korea, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium and Ireland, and the partner countries/economies Liechtenstein, Slovenia and Macao-China also scored above the OECD average of 500 score points.

   On average across OECD countries, 1.3% of 15-year-olds reached Level 6 of the PISA 2006 science scale, the highest proficiency level. These students could consistently identify, explain and apply scientific knowledge, and knowledge about science, in a variety of complex life situations. In New Zealand and Finland this figure was at least 3.9%, three times the OECD average. In the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan and Canada, as well as the partner countries/economies Liechtenstein, Slovenia and Hong Kong-China, between 2 and 3% reached Level 6.

   http://www.pisa.oecd.org/document/2/0,3343,en_32252351_32236191_39718850 _1_1_1_1,00.html

   Sunday, April 27, 2008 9:10:57 PM

   Posted by frosty zoom at 04/27/2008 @ 9:08pm

5. The cry for smaller classrooms is a lost cause. Tell me, unless you begin condemning residential areas and claiming them for school properties, where are you going to get all of the land required for this task.?

   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

   well, america is covered with shuttered factories and empty downtowns........

   Sunday, April 27, 2008 9:14:10 PM

   Posted by frosty zoom at 04/27/2008 @ 9:10pm

6. Dumdest statement on this blog yet..

   Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/27/2008

   yep. the dumdest.

   Posted by frosty zoom at 04/27/2008 @ 9:11pm

7. lvliberty:

   how are you going to teach calculus in home schooling?

   plate tectonics?

   gamma radiation?

   war of 1812?

   Sunday, April 27, 2008 9:16:35 PM

   Posted by frosty zoom at 04/27/2008 @ 9:12pm

8. i would assign a large part of the blame on poor results from schools on the fact that nobody eats food anymore.

   and the foodlike substances which are consumed make ya' real dumblike.

   Sunday, April 27, 2008 9:18:31 PM

   Posted by frosty zoom at 04/27/2008 @ 9:14pm

9. they don't seem to exist in the Southwest, South, or Northwestern portions of the US

   Posted by lvliberty1

   better look more closely.

   or have a look tomorrow.

   Sunday, April 27, 2008 9:19:39 PM

   Posted by frosty zoom at 04/27/2008 @ 9:15pm

10. Posted by lvliberty1 at 04/27/2008

    We have a lot of golf courses that's a waste of a couple hundred acres lets plow over those and build something useful and make all golf courses of the putt putt variety.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/27/2008 @ 9:19pm

11. Today the unions prevenmt any change to the system that is meaningful and fight the interests of the students and the parents and instead are interwsted in the polictical ramifacation of the union.

    Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/27/2008

    Maybe they stop change in the system because of the type of change people like you always suggest which is firing the teachers and killing the unions. I don't if I was a unionized teacher I think I would fight myself being fired too.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/27/2008 @ 9:22pm

12. The problem is all the sholls and teachers are producing is cab drivers,( actualy, thats not true, the cab drivers are all forgien)

    Posted by JOMAMMA

    irony meltdown!

    Sunday, April 27, 2008 9:26:33 PM

    Posted by frosty zoom at 04/27/2008 @ 9:22pm

13. "But no so many neo-cons want to keep a good education out of the hands of the poor. "

    Dumdest statement on this blog yet..

    Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/27/2008

    And I would like to see you prove to me any different by the way.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/27/2008 @ 9:23pm

14. Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/27/2008

    The problem I have seen is so many neo-cons constantly rant about things like No Child Left Behind. Problem is that program only serves to funnel much needed money away from already crumbling inner city schools and to already privledged school in suburban areas. I notice the public schools here all the time when I drive through certain cities. Inner city schools can't afford books but I drive through the rich suburban areas and they have baseball fields and basketball courts and pools. No Child Left Behind is a rape of inner city schools in order to send more of that money to rich suburban schools.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/27/2008 @ 9:26pm

15. Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/27/2008

    Think it's a weird coincidence that rich kids who's parents are just as if not more negligent than inner city kids still manage to get a good education without attending private school?

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/27/2008 @ 9:27pm

16. I am gone until they fix this shitty thing.

    Posted by JOMAMMA

    be safe, brother.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 04/27/2008 @ 9:34pm

17. It is too hard to type on the new blog..

    I am gone until they fix this shitty thing.

    Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/27/2008

    Should get Safari you can just expand the box so you cans se better.

    I do agree with a lot of what you say again I think it is just the method of going about it. Plus I think this process would take a long long time to implement. You can just make an announcement saying all teachers are fired now let's do this. A lot of this is going to take years and years to change. I'm trying to think of what we can do NOW to stem the problem until we can make meaningful change.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/27/2008 @ 9:36pm

18. Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/27/2008

    I live in LA a lot of poor people DO own housing here just in the worst of areas.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/27/2008 @ 9:37pm

19. <i>Things Have Changed

    by JOAN CONNELL

    Take ActionWeb Letters (0)Subscribe Now

    Please be patient as we fine-tune our new design. Once the website is fully functional, we will welcome your comments and suggestions.

    If you haven't yet noticed, the online edition of The Nation just got a whole new look: a bright, airy design, improved navigation, many more photos and multi-media features. Even our colors have changed. That fierce red, white and black palette is softer now, infused with humanizing shades of blue.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    infused..............

    Posted by frosty zoom at 04/27/2008 @ 9:52pm

20. As we continue to work out the bugs, take some time to become acquainted with the new site. Send me your impressions either via a web letter or mailing me directly at JOANMCONNELL@GMAIL.COM. I look forward to hearing from you.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    give 'em hell, bloggarinos.

    Sunday, April 27, 2008 9:59:10 PM

    Posted by frosty zoom at 04/27/2008 @ 9:55pm

21. <p class="info">ANOTHER TWISTED PENDEJO: <cite><b>M. CANYON </b></cite>

    Posted by frosty zoom at 04/27/2008 @ 10:22pm

22. Let's go back to the good old days at the turn of the twentieth century, when teacher's got room & board & a toiletry stipend. I mean, after all they're not producinggg anything.

    Posted by Sorelish at 04/27/2008 @ 11:03pm

23. well well well...between those silly lefty ninnies that think education alone can solve all the problems and those fascist righties that disparage and undermine teachers as losers who cant make it on the outside of education...what a circus of pathos! thank god i'm not in the meatgrinder of american education any more!

    1. perhaps when we look at the success of european style education we should indeed look at the structure of european social democracy and the fact that jnitors and cab drivers are NOT TREATED WITH SICKENING DISRESPECT FOR WORKING, like they are here. whenever i heard some stupid teacher or administrator telling a kid they didn't want to screw up in school or they might have to be a janitor or cab driver i had to check myself to not slap him/her...what if that kid's parent were a janitor or cab driver? what a sickening pack of thoughtless hypocrites. then they wonder why, instead of working an honest living doing something other than being a doctor lawyer or indian chief kids end up selling drugs and committing crimes!!! what is the point of our educational system anyway? to train everyone to be ceo's? really? so who is going to do the shit work? oh...illegal immigrants? talk about a mass scale double bind catch 22 case of educated beyond intelligence stupidity...no child left behind - what the hell is that stupidity supposed to mean??

    2. educators cannot be held responsible for this. teachers are naught but kicking dogs for the pathetic jackholes who see their own children's education as something to outsorce to others. people are not products. nobody can guarantee outcomes with human beings - only inputs. education is about input - thats all schools can be held responsible for. the output is up to the individual, and even the input is far more than the school can encompass - including family, culture, etc.

    3. education is not a right - it is a privilidge. it is not capable of fixing all the problems. when education is seen as a right it is inherently DEVALUED. it is percieved by the student and the student's parents as SOMEONE ELSE'S RESPONSIBILITY. you teachers, you school - its your job to educate me/my kid! make them learn! poor it into their heads!

    HA HA HA! really? bullshit.

    the entire scope and focus of our educational system is skewed and screwed. both left and right have contributed to ruin education in this country and until sacred cows of both left and right are slaughtered nothing will change.

    until then i heartily encourage all considering going into education now to reconsider. they told me the same when i was going into it and they were right.

    until it becomes so goddamned hard to find pathetic masochists to subject themselves to the meatgrinder of modern american education that someone finally stops to wonder why nothing will change.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/27/2008 @ 11:45pm

24. and now with the housing crisis funds are even tighter!

    lol - every school district in the country needs to be auditted with a fine toothed comb. when i saw what one of my former district's were spending to local contractors and suppliers i was sickened. i thought buying in bulk was supposed to make the individual unit cheaper...hmmm...

    har har - i remember finding out that the same district spent the annual sallary of two teachers to put on a beginning of the year "district follies" at the local arts center...had broadway consultants working for them...but had not fixed the roof on my school until one day during a rain storm the place turned into a hydropark...

    AGAIN - DO NOT GO INTO EDUCATION - UNLESS YOU INTEND TO GET A PHD (OH - I MEAN EED) AND COME UP WITH SOME KIND OF MAGICAL "FIX ALL THE PROBLEMS" SALES PITCH. thats how you make money in education - you then run around charging school districts thousands of dollars to waste teachers' time on in service days convincing them that if they only cared enough about their kids to make each and every class a model broadway production then "no child would be left behind"...

    LMAO...

    but if you just want to teach kids - home school your own - being a "teacher" in this country is a sure road to misery and agony. unless you are a half brainless masochist married to someone who makes a good living.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 12:04am

25. <i>Home schooling and Charter schools will continue to grow and flourish because of the head-in-the-sand mentality that drives the public ed industry.</i>

    Home schooling is the most expensive form of education there is, actually. It can cost the loss of one parent's total earnings per year for each small group of students in the family. It's not something we can expect people to do as a general strategy.

    Also, the majority of parents don't have the skills to teach their children all required topics.

    Posted by jgoodrich at 04/28/2008 @ 12:08am

26. Posted by jgoodrich at 04/28/2008 | ignore this person

    god created the world in a week 6000 years ago...fdr was a godless communist...volcanic eruptions are satan's bowl movements...

    sure home schooling teaches keds valuable information!!!!

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 12:14am

27. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi points out that whether children learn "does not depend primarily on what happens in school, but on the experiences, habits, values, and ideas they acquire from the environment in which they live." Robinson and Brandon note that nearly 90% of the variance in students' math scores on some tests can be predicted without knowing anything about their schools; one only needs to know the number of parents in the home, the level of the parent's education, the type of community in which the family lives, and the state's poverty rate.

    As Howard Gardner has observed, we can accurately project a child's chances of completing college and her eventual income by knowing only her ZIP code. In the sixties, James Coleman offered evidence that schooling had relatively little effect on the ultimate equality of students' life outcomes, that parents' involvement in their children's lives affected achievement and eventual success much more powerfully. Coleman's data were reanalyzed by Christopher Jencks and a team at Harvard and they drew even sharper conclusions in his support.

    Some of the relevant non-school factors identified in recent research follow. (1) There are substantial inequalities in children's school readiness right from the beginning and and similar differences in school readiness occur worldwide. (2) Gerald Bracey and others show that much of the achievement gap appears to grow over the summer, not during the school year, and that by the start of middle school the accumulated summer loss can amount to more than two full years in verbal achievement and in math. (3) Black and Hispanic students change schools much more often than other students, which affects their learning. (4) Black students have lower levels of parent availability than white or Asian American students. (5) Black children have significantly higher rates of low birth weight and lead poisoning than white or Asian American children, both conditions impair learning. (6) Black and Hispanic adolescent peer cultures in some schools appear to exert a negative influence on performance.

    A meaningful effort to address the achievement gap, as Evans recommends, would start not in school but where the gap starts--in early childhood with prevention and early intervention.

    Posted by fbelcast at 04/28/2008 @ 12:24am

28. Posted by fbelcast at 04/28/2008 | ignore this person

    exactly! bravo!

    yet most folks, whether they admit it or not, place the onus of educational failure squarely on...the educator!

    until the mid/late nineties the flynn effect showed average IQ scores rising every year...which correlated roughly with when the effects of satano-aynrando economic policies of the 80's would begin showing up in the adolescent/adult population. average IQ scores have been going down ever since.

    again education is not a right. it is a privilidge which should be extended to as much of a population as is possible - but when viewed as a right, as "someone else's" responsibility, is INHERENTLY CHEAPENED AND CORRUPTED.

    of course there are substandard educators - always have been and always will be - thats the world. what never ceases to amaze me is that considering the no win nature of being a teacher in this country that so many decent, committed folk manage to enter/remain in the profession thats paid and treated like an occupation.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 12:47am

29. considering the nature of the school environment in this country, both public and private, why not? i've generally had positve impressions of home schooled kids and any silliness taught at home can usually be corrected upon introduction to post secondary educational environments.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 12:59am

30. Right & true, ibble

    Posted by Sorelish at 04/28/2008 @ 01:03am

31. believe me - i spent WAY too many years of my life biting my lip and running on that no win hamster wheel. and again - the problem is neither left nor right - both have contributed to the train wreck.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 01:18am

32. Socially backward kids usually recover quickly after home schooling & to the chagrin of oafish parents.

    Posted by Sorelish at 04/28/2008 @ 01:27am

33. ah human nature and the ugly reality of reality.

    make something difficult to attain and therefore of true value and watch them scramble and fight to obtain it. lower standards, overdemocratize, andtell them they have to and watch them rebel and underachieve!

    the surest path to dystopia is too serious an attempt to create a utopia.

    without failure there is no success.

    and again...what do we expect when we disparage custodians, check out clerks, trash collectors, and all the other lower end jobs THAT WE NEED? then we see kids selling drugs and committing crime...and wonder why...

    absurd. and the scam...by lowering standards at ALL levels of education under the mistaken belief that more is better inevitably results in the kicking in of good old fashioned supply and demand.

    at some point in the not-so-distant past a bachelors degree, even a degree in the arts and humanities meant something. but...in a misguidedly foolishly compassionate desire to educate everybody we lowered standards and made a bachelors degree no big challenge, academically. more people with bachelors cegrees better, right?

    wrong. supply and demand - even if there were no dilution of quality and standards the mere existance of more people with such degrees cheapens their value. throw in the lowering of standards and rigor of education and the inherent as opposed to relative value of the degree is cheapened as well (though the tuition always goes up).

    so now one needs a masters degree...and then one needs a doctors degree...my god - what kind of self serving hamster wheel scam is this? perhaps the educational establishment needs to come up with a "megadoctorate" to keep sucking people dry...maybe by the time they ready to retire they will finally be finished with their formal education!

    education beyond one's intelligence is a very dangerous thing indeed.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 02:22am

34. Posted by lvliberty1 at 04/28/2008

    I agree with your points here LL, but your apparent analysis of the results, fails to take into account, the fact that these are the students who's parents cared enough about their education and were capable of home schooling. Being compared to the entire student base...minus these concerned parents children.

    Yes. Parents should take more responsibility for their child's education.

    I know well, the problems inherent in our system. My mother was a public/private school teacher and my girlfriend is a public school teacher.

    But, are we to say to the children, of unfit parents, too bad, you're screwed?

    I might consider home schooling my own children...but we still NEED decent public schools.

    The cost of future incarceration and loss of liberty is just to high.

    Eric

    Posted by Malcontent at 04/28/2008 @ 02:36am

35. Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008

    THAT is the primary problem.

    My grandfather "graduated" from 7th grade. At that point, it was assumed you could read and write and do basic math, proficiently. One would then choose to go to work or on to "high" school.

    These days, even a "high" school diploma does not imply any such proficiency.

    No one has ever asked me to see my diploma.

    The BA is the new high school diploma...mostly remedial stuff.

    Posted by Malcontent at 04/28/2008 @ 02:43am

36. Posted by Malcontent at 04/28/2008 | ignore this person

    under our current situation we need the following...

    1. mentoring and life skills programs for kids from crime ridden, dysfunctional communities to indeed give them a chance. head start programs, for example, have shown very good results.

    2. a willingness to raise standards coupled with increased vocational education at the middle and secondary levels. not every kid is meant to go to a four year liberal arts college and a bachelors degree is not synonymous with "success", whatever the hell thats supposed to be.

    3. a combined willingness to expel disruptive/dangerous students en masse combined with an effective, non punitive juvenile justice system that might prepare such minors to become productive adults instead of training them to become even more destructive criminals.

    4. a society/economy that truly respects those who work regardless of their work or wage and redistributes enough wealth to assure they have a reasonable standard of living and that their children have the opportunity to go as far as they want/their abilities allow, regardless of their parents' economic status.

    4. until the painful readjustment is complete, a "scoop up" system that gives those currently left behind an opportunity to, as adults, complete their education as adults.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 02:52am

37. lol...and the ability to count to 5...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 02:54am

38. The BA is the new high school diploma...mostly remedial stuff.

    Posted by Malcontent at 04/28/2008

    i think that is an extremely accurate assessment of value. i think a masters is about what a bachelors once was. no wonder so few native american born types go into engineering, medicine, and hard science - you just can't jerry rig those degrees without buildings collapsing and surgeons leaving scalpels inside people's body cavities...

    uh...uh oh...

    lol...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 03:05am

39. Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008

    I agree in full.

    Lv the problem with your theory about home schooling assumes every parent can do this. What about the impoverished parent who works 2 or 3 jobs just to keep food on their table? They can't teach their child because if they take the time to do that then they can't feed their child. This parent is neglectful of their child they just have to sacrifice in order to keep the child healthy and alive. What about the neglectful parents? Who's child probably could achieve something if their parent cared enough to push them?

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 03:58am

40. <i>1. Home schooling is the most expensive form of education there is, actually. It can cost the loss of one parent's total earnings per year for each small group of students in the family. It's not something we can expect people to do as a general strategy.

    Also, the majority of parents don't have the skills to teach their children all required topics.

    Posted by jgoodrich at 04/28/2008

    You can't possibly be serious about your response. Do you have any idea about the facts of home schooling? </i>

    Note that if a parent stays at home to teach the children then that parent is not earning a salary. From an economic point of view the costs of some activity is the value of the next-best foregone alternative.

    Thus, the cost of home schooling should include the income the parent doing the schooling is foregoing. This is why it is a very expensive form of teaching.

    This is not to argue that people shouldn't do it, of course.

    When judging the results of home-schooled children it's important to compare like with like. The average social class and education level of home-schooling parents is higher than the averages among those whose children go to public schools. In short, the performance of home-schooled children should be compared to children who come from similar family backgrounds.

    Posted by jgoodrich at 04/28/2008 @ 04:09am

41. lvliberty1, the site you link to is a site created by the proponents of home schooling. It's unlikely that they would provide negative information on the product they are selling.

    Posted by jgoodrich at 04/28/2008 @ 04:13am

42. oh - and number 6 to my above list...

    heavy oversight and accountability of local school districts to make sure money is not being wasted on stupid crap AND that procurement procedures are not subject to kickbacks and racketeering...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 04:30am

43. Posted by jgoodrich at 04/28/2008 | ignore this person

    my experience with home schooled types is mixed. mostly positive but not entirely. i only worry about what exactly they are being taught considering the religious leaning of many home school parents, but again, unless the kid ends up at bob jones university, such is easily corrected after a year or two in a real college.

    but indeed to home school requires a certain level of income from one of the parents.

    your points concerning the opportunity cost of one parent not working are solid, but i would also like to point out the costs and risks of childcare these days. for many on the lower or lower middle end of the income scale, having one parent stay home may not actually entail too great a loss of income.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 04:37am

44. I think we should move all of our schools to Mexico. Then let the unions follow them. If the teachers don;t like the pay here, let them go to Mexico.

    this would also allow us to use all that freed up space to build new oil refineries, particularly in urban settings where demand is high for fuel.

    I am learning the neo-con thought process!!

    Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008 @ 06:51am

45. 1st step: stop building football fields at new schools. Waste of money. I note that charter schools/home schoolers piggy back on the athletic programs of public schools.

    Step 2: class sizes of no more than 20 students/teacher.

    Step 3: pay teachers the way CEO's are paid, each teacher will help to set the pay of other teachers. Merit is not necessary, we can see how well this works in the private sector (Lay, Skilling, Nardelli etc)

    Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008 @ 07:07am

46. I have asked this before, and received no response:

    Can any of the cons point us to a modern, industrialized 1st world country that has NO public school system? Is there one that operates solely on the private schooling model?

    Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008 @ 07:10am

47. From Privateschool.com:

    Private schools also tend to focus on controlling their class sizes. The NCES Schools and Staffing Survey found that, "Private high schools on average are less than half the size of public schools. In central cities, for example, the average size of a private high school is 398, compared to 1,083 for a public school." Students of private schools may have more opportunities to form relationships with their teachers, which can lead them to greater academic success. In such cases, a student is given help for his or her specific academic problems, which can allow the issue to be resolved quickly and correctly. Once any issues inhibiting a student's progress have been addressed, the child can go on to achieve at his or her highest level. In The Condition of Education 2002, it was found that, "Placing students in small groups tends to foster close working relationships between teachers and students, thus enhancing learning, particularly among at-risk students and those in the early grades." Also, small classes allow the teachers to have a better sense of who your child is, and what his or her specific strengths and weaknesses are. Your child will also have more opportunities to speak up and participate in class discussions. In addition, students may be offered office hours during which the teacher will be available. Students who have worked closely with their teachers are less likely to feel intimidated about using such time to actively seek help from their teachers directly.

    ----

    what nonsense, right? Class size has nothing to do with anything, so say the neo-cons. And this "relationship with the teacher"!! what liberal hogwash!!

    ---

    and the "arts", who needs that crap!

    Same source:

    --

    Private school administrators often develop programs that emphasize the Arts, perhaps more so than local public schooling options. Government regulations on public schools prevent them from spending more than a certain percentage of school funds on the Arts. Private schools, however, are not subject to the same regulations, and they have more freedom to develop and expand these programs as they wish.

    ---

    Many private schools charge upwards of $30K/year. This allows them to pay teachers more. Maybe public school teachers pay should be directly linked to local private school pay rates?

    Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008 @ 07:20am

48. The problem with educational reform is...nobody wants to give up anything.

    The conservatives don't want to give up da' money...and the liberals and NEA don't want to give up teacher tenure and making it easier to fire bad teachers.

    Posted by Mask at 04/28/2008 @ 08:59am

49. crabs - here's the ugly truth...

    people don't REALLY want to fix the education situation. they prefer to bitch and whine and complain about it. politicians prefer to use education as a claptrap/chum issue. nobody seems to really want to do what really needs be done to fix the problems of education.

    what all too many parents want is to have a system that guarantees their children success without the parent having to do much. few parents seem to want be told the truth about their children if such is less than flattering since all too many naturally view their children as little mini versions of themselves and become highly insulted unless promised their kid will fulfill all their pie in the sky expectations and unfulfilled personal dreams.

    education professionals beyond the classroom are covering their own posteriors while supporting a dumbed down system that encourages folks to spend ever more time and money earning one ever more dubious, watered down degree after another.

    so politician, parent and educational professional unwittingly conspire together to lock up a colossal sacred cow of a system, the maintenance of which serves the self serving, dysfunctional needs of all three.

    this is why too much democracy and outside input (other than when serving as a check on natural human self aggrandizing tendency) to education is a recipe for disaster, why too much desire to educate too many results in the degradation of the education of all.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 09:12am

50. to give up teacher tenure and making it easier to fire bad teachers.

    Posted by Mask at 04/28/2008 |

    its not the teachers liberals care about really - its the educational elite, the superstructure of those who decide how they can lengthen the educational experience and lower the standards of educational achievement to the level where more and more people are invovled in getting an education for longer and longer periods at the cost of lower standards...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 09:16am

51. teachers? please. considering the huge numbers of teachers in this country. it would be miraculous indeed if a few bad apples did not fall through the cracks - and many do.

    but why is it so hard to recruit and maintain good teachers? might the presence of a few substandard scoundrels in the profession be related to this?

    in almost any other endeavor the logical, obvious, no duh response would be that the pay is not enough to attract and keep qualified personel. but in education some other non supply and demand mechanism is assumed to be at work! teachers are supposed to be masochistic whores with hearts of gold who should not care about their own welfare nor the welfare of their own families while bleeding themselves dry for others and taking insult and abuse ad nauseum.

    realistically i don't see how many districts CAN pay their teachers much more. and although sure, teachers are like everyone else - they would love some more money!

    but most teachers i have known who have left the profession have done so not because they felt they were underpaid but because they felt that NO AMOUNT OF MONEY IS WORTH THE NO WIN, DOUBLE BIND, TRAUMATIZATION that being a teacher entails in this modern united states of america. were we to adopt a realistic view of education, a realistic assessment of the duties and capabilities of the classroom teacher, most teachers would be quite satisfied with the rate of pay they recieve.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 09:46am

52. Christian schools charge $5000 - $6000 per pupil and pay teachers less and get far greater results. Note that more often than not, the parents who send kids to Christian schools are married.

    Posted by marybretbrad at 04/28/2008 |

    good luck in convincing folks beyond the limited evangelical community in entering the teaching profession. hey darin - why don't you give up your law practice (you are a lawyer are you not?) and teach? i'm sure you could help a lot of kids other than your own...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 09:49am

53. Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/28/2008 | ignore this person

    jomama - teachers do indeed affect the lives of kids, but contrary to popular belief are in fact a very minor factor in the overall equation when it comes to educating children - especially when not supported by administrations nor given the authority to enforce the discipline needed to educate. furthermore, again -

    you know many districts recieve funding based on how many pupils occupy classroom desks by some time in january...until that point the student can disrupt and endanger his/her fellow classmates (and teachers, but who cares about those substandard losers who couldnt make it in the "real" world - as if an inner city classroom is not real...) with near impunity and administration will allow them to remain until that magic date regardless of how much damage they do.

    all too often the systems i have seen that attempt to reward/PUNISH teachers on the basis of student achievement are compromised and serve not to reward teachers for (often proscribed) creativity, but to blame teachers for failure to do the impossible.

    biggest factor predicting a kid's academic achievement? as pointed out above - THEIR ZIP CODE.

    thats not liberal propaganda, john - its true.

    let me let you behind the curtain a little more, john. a few years ago, the people of my state, frustrated with the big problem in education and educators' inability to fix all the problems, invited a bunch of business people and successful entrepeneurs in to fix all the problems. they fixed no problems.

    what they did was apply artificial competitive mechanisms that work fine in the private sector but don't really apply to education.

    example (one of many): schools were rewarded for improvement not on a percentage basis but rather on a PERCENTILE basis. ie - schools were set against each other in a pointless competition (remember - these are our kids here, not corporate hucksters) such that even if test scores, etc. were to improve, say 5% across the board, if even the least achieving district were to improve by say 2%...half ALWAYS LOSE WHILE HALF ALWAYS WIN! and the winners got more money/resources while the losers did not! (because obviously highly functioning school districts need/deserve MORE funding than suffering districts!)

    absurd.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 10:07am

54. Posted by marybretbrad at 04/28/2008 | ignore this person

    why dont you quit your profession and become a teacher?

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 10:10am

55. Lack of educational achievement causes poverty, not the other way around.

    Posted by marybretbrad at 04/28/2008

    wtf?

    ever been hungry?

    Posted by frosty zoom at 04/28/2008 @ 10:17am

56. Posted by ibbleblibble

    dude, have you ever home-schooled?

    i have.

    it's a full time job.

    most people don't have another full-time after the three full-times they already work.

    Monday, April 28, 2008 10:24:16 AM

    Posted by frosty zoom at 04/28/2008 @ 10:20am

57. Posted by frosty zoom at 04/28/2008 | ignore this person

    some are incapable of empathy. they must experience first hand to understand the suffering of others and otherwise simply cannot understand.

    much of the flynn effect (rising IQ) can be directly corellated to overall increased nutrition and health of the population.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 10:22am

58. Posted by frosty zoom at 04/28/2008 | ignore this person

    i imagine home scholling, if done correctly, is indeed quite an exhausting task. imagine 6 classes of 30 - 40 adolescents a day, many with issues and behavioral/learning disorders OR the same number of classes of only 6 - 12, all of whom have fairly severe to very sever learning/behavioral disorders per day...

    i've taught both types and it is indeed exausting and when poorly supported by administration and parents with unrealistic expectations is as psychologically traumatizing to the teacher as law enforcement. its not easy.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 10:28am

59. in canada,

    our janitors and cab drivers are trained architects, doctors and engineers.

    we import them (for their good dna, i assume) and then don't let them practice their profession.

    cheap, bright slaves whose kids will be educated under a "proper" (i.e. white european) system..........

    Monday, April 28, 2008 10:33:35 AM

    Posted by frosty zoom at 04/28/2008 @ 10:29am

60. ibbleblibble

    i too, have taught groups of people.

    5 hours of teaching is more exhausting than 14 hours making furniture.

    i don't think most of the problem lies with the school system, nor with the teachers.

    it's people. eating crap, watching crap, caring about crap.

    Monday, April 28, 2008 10:36:59 AM

    Posted by frosty zoom at 04/28/2008 @ 10:32am

61. let me tell you about some of my worst experiences as an educator, not specific horror stories, but the depressing gap between the happy happy pollyanish education propaganda and the often dismal reality.

    triage.

    in a classroom of 30 - 40+ often underachieving, issue ridden, disruptive children a teacher (whether he/she admits it or not - and they cannot if they wish to rremain employed) is forced to triage their class.

    group one consists of those bright, self motivated learners who need little more than a gentle shove in the right direction to proceed to teach themselves at least as well as even the best teacher. this is the ultimate goal of education, after all, to enable the student to become his/her own educator. and thank god for such students, because one teacher is only humanly capable of so much.

    group two consists of the average kid who may in fact be a super genius, but requires a periodic to constant boot in the butt to keep them on task and direct them to learn because learning is simply not very high on their list of priorities.

    group three are those students a teacher, if he or she is to teach group two successfully...must ignore as much as possible and like in medical triage, place in a corner to die. once in a while one will wake up and show signs of life and hope, and GLORY BE when such happens, but if i were to spend the time and personal energy needed to force feed them the education they indeed should desire - i would lose a large percentage of group two and STILL NOT HELP THE GROUP THREE'ERS!

    teachers are only human and not capable of the super-human.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 10:42am

62. Posted by frosty zoom at 04/28/2008 | ignore this person

    well, there is responsibility to go around, but i do indeed blame the schools system and the educational elites, at least here in my country, in my part of the country.

    thats another point about public education in the united states - the anarchic, feudal nature of the local school district system here. while on the one hand there are many strengths in localizing authority, etc., this also entails massive duplication of district personel and wastage, as well as enables massive local corruption as few districts recieve the oversight they need to avoid cronyism and profiteering.

    again, though...education is not a right - it is a privilidge. there comes a point when in order to benefit the greatest number possible some must be sacrificed. whether society has enough resources to educate avery child or not is a moot point since society does not, beyond the hypocritical claptrap of pandering politicians and wailing, teeth gnashing, something for nothingism of many parents, have the WILL to educate every child.

    sans the will to foot the bill, someone must be sacrificed.

    but again, too earnest an effort to create a utopia inevitably leads to dystopia and is expecting to "leave no child behind" any more realistic than expecting to eliminate prostitution, drug use, all violence, or any other of the unfortunate evils in which we wickedly clever and destructive shaved apes engage?

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 10:57am

63. or is an unrealistic intolerance of imperfection actually an enabler of worse iniquity?

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 11:00am

64. It is impossible to not be a modern man- Salvadore Dali

    Posted by Sorelish at 04/28/2008 @ 11:24am

65. Unless you're a cretin.

    Posted by Sorelish at 04/28/2008 @ 11:38am

66. Perhaps they could teach in schools...unless they can get a union card...

    Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/28/2008

    thats a great idea, but i suspect that canada suffers from the same degree of what i call "over professionalization" as does the united states.

    if you find yourself with a little extra time, check out what the requirements are in your state for becoming a teacher - especially for high needs areas where non educational professionals are heavily recruited...

    not only are the non education trained crossovers to expect to make less money than before, they are often expected to at their own expense pay for a bunch of education courses (of HIGHLY DUBIOUS VALUE by the way)...

    check it out online. its absurd.

    the education establishment makes a big deal out of erecting as many barriers as possible to a person teaching. its inexcusable and as any HONEST teacher will readily admit, many education courses are of dubious value when compared to the reality of teaching.

    its a racket. higher education doth ever self perpetuate and self import, often in parasitical manner.

    this over credentializing is most obnoxious in education, but not at all limited to education...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 11:40am

67. marywhitebread?

    Posted by Sorelish at 04/28/2008 @ 12:03pm

68. I weigh 300 pounds because I'm hungry all day long.

    Posted by marybretbrad at 04/28/2008

    really? dude - unless you are 6 foot seven and ripped you need to drop some of that. you got 3 kids. not trying to be mean here - despite our political differences and despite the fact that i dont really know you i certainly wish you no ill - quite the opposite!

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 12:07pm

69. Posted by marybretbrad at 04/28/2008

    Yeah, seriously, dude. We need you to stick around, and not be one prime rib away from a coronary!

    Posted by Mask at 04/28/2008 @ 12:16pm

70. Bill gates has an answer on education, that agree with. don't get me wrong, I don't agree with the gates business model of expansion at all cost., but the gates formula for education is simple and works. his schools, secondary, are no larger than 500 and every student in the building is known by every teacher in the building. I believe that the teacher ratio is 12 to one. I have spent thirty six years in education and I can tell you that one, "at risk" miss behaving student, in a class of thirty is beyond tolerance. Since society has insisted on main streaming students, placing students in a large classroom regardless of ability is not terribly intelligent. if pseople are going to preach about education they should spend at least a semester in any school in the country.

    Posted by julien38 at 04/28/2008 @ 12:22pm

71. And yes poverty does play an important role in the kind of education one gets.

    Posted by julien38 at 04/28/2008 @ 12:29pm

72. Posted by marybretbrad at 04/28/2008

    She isn't putting the cart before the horse. Many people who didn't get a good education didn't get it because they were poor. Many grandparents didn't have the opportunity because they were poor. Which means the parents didn't get one which means they can't afford to give their child one.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 12:29pm

73. For everyone who dismisses my claims that neo-cons want to keep good educations out of the hands of the poor. Explain to me No Child Left Behind? That program is specifically geared to tear down inner city schools with no actual help coming to the students. The only thing it proposes is to take more money away from inner city school which tend to have higher poverty rates and funnel it out. How does that help the children? All it does is make it harder for the teachers to teach. Which mean poor kids get even fewer opportunities than they already had, since most universities don't take inner city schools as seriously as private schools or suburban public schools.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 12:33pm

74. Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/28/2008 | ignore this person

    i have always detested the NEA myself. it pretends to be a union for all educators but is in fact a mouthpiece for the self serving, left leaning educational elite.

    the AFT, now (american federation of teachers) which went defunct for a while under pressure from the NEA, actually at the same time stood up for teachers AND generally promoted the welfare of students.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 12:35pm

75. Right wing educators will always align themselves with ANY organization that fills their pocket. Every other labor organ is parasitic, huh?

    Posted by Sorelish at 04/28/2008 @ 12:40pm

76. Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/28/2008

    You don't need educated workers to put a nut on a screw all day.

    I do agree with you that the learning experience needs to be tailored to the student though.

    Also about the German student living with you. My best friends parents are from Germany. The difference between Germany and here is. Everyone here is pushed to go above and beyond. There if you don't become something great it's no big deal but here if you are taxi driver you are looked down upon . It's a huge difference in mentalities. Here, if a teacher told a parent they were putting their kid in the less advanced class parents would flip their shit.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 1:01pm

77. Also, DEMAND ENGLISH...that is the language of success today in our country and the world....a truth ignored constantly by the feel gooders...

    Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/28/2008

    Might be Chinese soon.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 1:02pm

78. Society has not demanded this...liberal politicians and the ACLU has...most of us think the one formula fits all never works any where..in any situation...not every foot fits every shoe...

    Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/28/200

    yeah - despite my otherwise more liberal tendencies, i become rather conservative when it comes to education. our kids have been (largely to their and society's detriment) assaulted by one lamebrained idea after another, genrally floating down from the ivory towers of disconnected and, yes, generally "liberal" education colleges now for decades.

    not that all the ideas have been bad, but simply that these educational fads are almost invariably over applied in an attempt to "fix all the problems" without either...

    a) actually paying or,

    b) accepting the cold, hard reality that some pain is indeed unavoidable.

    often these fads and pie in the sky feelgood goofiness are the equivilent of slapping bandaids on sucking chest wounds OR amount to fixing a problem that does not actually exist (ie - fucking it up)

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 1:02pm

79. Also, DEMAND ENGLISH...that is the language of success today in our country and the world....a truth ignored constantly by the feel gooders...

    another new rule... 2+2=5..and until you get it, you do not advance to 3+3=6. Period.

    Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/28/2008

    well...those countries who are most successful overseas actually make an effort to recruit folks who speak the language of the country in which they do business. when i see more chinese citizens speaking english (a vastly different language) than the total population of the united states...and hear stupid american kids boohooing about how hard it is to learn say...spanish (a language very closely related to english) i have to laugh - and not in a kind manner...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 1:08pm

80. Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/28/2008 |

    I do agree with you that the people who come here should learn English but we need to stop dumbing down our children and have them learn other languages. Language is a big thing to the rest of the world. If you can speak other peoples language fluently you gain so much more respect if you speak to them in their language. That's one of many things America falters with in it's infinite ego. Many people in this country think every one every where should speak English and conform to our needs. There was a kid I met from Italy. She was 12 years old. Spoke 9 languages. How many American kids do you know that can do that? Most people in Europe speak at the very least 2 languages usually 3 or 4. We need to open our minds a little more to the rest of the world and try being a little more receptive to other ideas and other languages.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 1:37pm

81. Again, the problem is ...no compromises.

    The Right doesn't want to spend money on education...the Left doesn't want any accountability.

    Boost teachers' pay...and end tenure. But like most solutions, nobody will support the WHOLE THING and things will only get worse.

    Posted by Mask at 04/28/2008 @ 1:46pm

82. Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/28/2008 | ignore this person

    oh indeed english is the "lingua franca" or latin of the modern world - but a HELL of a lot more latin americans speak english than anglo-american americans speak spanish.

    but even if the united states goes to hell in a handbasket i think the combination of british and american empires and the (dubious) influence of hollywood and american music will assure the survival of our language as THE international language for quite some time - again, regardless of what happens to us.

    i just find it intolerable that spoiled arrogant little slacker american kids whine about learning a language which shares around a third of its vocabulary with english while little chinese kids who often attend schools whose physical facilities would be considered abominable here learn english (a VASTLY different language) on a regular basis...but then i am biased, having taught among other things, spanish.

    "this language is stupid!"

    "oh really...because you have trouble learning it...IT is stupid?"

    lol...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 1:53pm

83. Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008

    I agree with you so wholeheartedly people all over the world learn multiple languages. In most countries you can't even survive without knowing at least 2 languages. We can't even take the time to learn the language of our neighboring country. I live in LA so if you are smart you learn spanish to make life easier.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 1:56pm

84. Again, the problem is ...no compromises.

    MASK

    yeah...i guess - but i also think the problem is a massive disconnect with reality, left and right, when it comes to education.

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 1:57pm

85. Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008

    I agree with you so wholeheartedly people all over the world learn multiple languages. In most countries you can't even survive without knowing at least 2 languages. We can't even take the time to learn the language of our neighboring country. I live in LA so if you are smart you learn spanish to make life easier.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008

    Looks like they didn't fix the time warp problem.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 1:58pm

86. Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/28/2008

    I was required to take spanish in elementary school from 3rd grade and was required to take a foreign language for 4 years in high school.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 2:00pm

87. Looks like they didn't fix the time warp problem.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008

    the only thing i can say to excuse american language sloth is that for many decades most americans lived very far from peoples who spoke other languages and therefore logically decided such was not worth the trouble. not any more, of course.

    and...i often feel lazy for having learned only spanish, to be honest - although if one is proficient in spanish one can carry on mutually intelligable converstations with both italian and portuguese speakers and almost understand french (better in written form than spoken).

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 2:06pm

88. Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008

    I am learning Italian right now. I understand Spanish but I don't speak it well so I am going to brush up on that. I want to learn French, Gaelic and Chinese maybe an African language on top of all that. Hopefully I can absorb that much and become fluent. I don't like to be lazy and stagnate. I want to travel a lot and I don't want to be the typical stupid American tourist. When I travel I like to participate in the culture not just look at the sights. It makes us look arrogant and lazy to the rest of the world when so many of them take the time to learn our language but most of us don't even consider the possibility of learning theirs.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 2:14pm

89. I do not belive ego is involved, except by tour groups..the Italian child can go in 9 directions and find 9 languages...the guy in the US will not...

    Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/28/2008

    You are absolutely right. Our neighbors speak Spanish and French. So why is it such an assault on so many Americans to learn these two languages?

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 2:15pm

90. Hey, I don't need it! Swimming in a sea of xenophobia buoyed up by custom.

    Posted by Sorelish at 04/28/2008 @ 2:20pm

91. I've always wanted to learn to speak Canuckistanian, but I can't find any classes. Maybe Rosetta Stone....

    Posted by Benchrest at 04/28/2008 @ 2:24pm

92. Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 | ignore this person

    good 4 u. italian and spanish are almost mutually intelligible. i once carried on a 2 hour conversation on an airplane with a guy, me speaking spanish. he had a bizarre accent and i thought my spanish was suffering but i eventually asked him where he was from and found out he was from milan and had been speaking italian the entire time! lol - i guess a month in italy and my italian would be close to fluent. my brother took spanish in high school, but the spent several years in italy without taking a single course in italian, but spoke fluently. his spanish sounds funny now though, sort of like an argentinian. the ethnic makeup of argentina is nearly as much italian as spanish ans they sound like italians speaking spanish naturally...so i guess my bro has a great argentinian spanish accent! lol...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 2:27pm

93. Go back to your powder magazine!

    Posted by Sorelish at 04/28/2008 @ 2:29pm

94. Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/28/2008

    I went to a private school that might be why. I then was required on top of that to take a language in college. So I don't I just have no patience for people who refuse to take the time. I have had 12 years of foreign languages. I know enough of all of them to at least understand other people.

    I think part of the reason kids don't like learning languages is because of the way they are taught on top of the laziness. I take Rosetta Stone now which I find to be a much better method of learning. Hopefully I will learn at least 6 languages by the time I expire.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 2:33pm

95. osted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008

    Yeah I have noticed that. While I was taking Italian. They are very similar. I figure if I learn Italian fluently it will brush up my Spanish then when I retake Spanish it will be a lot easier. Then those combined will make French a breeze.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 2:35pm

96. Posted by Benchrest at 04/28/2008 | ignore this person

    i have a hell of a rough time understanding some australians...whew! rough!

    but once i was teaching a mexican kid (in spanish - jeez...kind of pathetic if you ask me) who i could not understand hardly at all...but then found out he came from some boondock region of mexico where the spanish was heavily corrupted by some local native american language. made me feel a lot better!

    i find some carribbean spanish dialects a tad rough too...

    i love the galician dialect of spannish. the galicians are basically celtic descendents in the northwest corner of spain who sound like sean connery speaking spanish with that "whistling s/sh sound"! awesome! lol...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 2:35pm

97. You libertarians make me sick.

    Posted by Sorelish at 04/28/2008 @ 2:40pm

98. MBB. do you realize that conservative Christian charter schools test WORSE than public schools?

    don;t believe me, ask ChimpCo's Education Dept...

    (Published: July 15, 2006 WASHINGTON, July 14 -- The Education Department reported on Friday that children in public schools generally performed as well or better in reading and mathematics than comparable children in private schools. The exception was in eighth-grade reading, where the private school counterparts fared better.

    The report, which compared fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math scores in 2003 from nearly 7,000 public schools and more than 530 private schools, found that fourth graders attending public school did significantly better in math than comparable fourth graders in private schools. Additionally, it found that students in conservative Christian schools lagged significantly behind their counterparts in public schools on eighth-grade math.

    Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008 @ 2:45pm

99. You libertarians make me sick.

    Posted by Sorelish at 04/28/2008

    what, you got a problem with anarchy?

    Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008 @ 2:48pm

100. You libertarians make me sick.

     Posted by Sorelish at 04/28/2008

     i'm assuming your sniping potshots are directed at the boorish and philistine, much maligned, legend in his own mind, JOMAMA.

     lol...he's a nice enough guy under all those layers of obnoxious evil, but please, continue to shoot at him. his thick hide requires multiple high powered projectiles to do any real damage and he invariably manages to waddle with remarkable speed back into the bushes before any damage is done!

     lmao...

     Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 2:48pm

101. what, you got a problem with anarchy?

     Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008

     anarchy is by far the highest level of political organization the adolescent mind os capable of understanding! quite an accomplishment! lol...

     Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 2:51pm

102. You have made the case for your school to be a model for the rest of the system.

     Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/28/2008

     indeed - me too - a catholic one at that.

     private schools can pick and choose their students and expell at will, limited by the need to remain financially solvent, of course...

     but yeah - public schools should follow such examples. this idea that a regular public school must serve as a holding pen for future thugs and criminals and serve as some kind of department of social services is criminal in its effect on other students.

     Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 2:56pm

103. Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/28/2008

     git him JOMAMMA!

     Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 2:59pm

104. Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/28/2008

     I work in film so I probably will do traveling but I don't only look at the world as what I can do to make more money. I want to learn a few languages because I want to. It's not for any other reason than so I can feel like I accomplished something. I don't rate all accomplishments in the monetary or relationship senses.

     Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 3:01pm

105. I also think CRAB could use a day or two after school...

     Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/28/2008

     Only if you move them to Mexico. I am learning the Neo-con ways. All things should be outsourced to the cheapest price structure. Right?

     You are my New School, john. CEO's get millions, workers get squat.

     I received a fine education at a public school. Scored in the 30's on ACT, got into the first college I applied to.

     IBBLE has an excellent point about vocational education. While many, left and right, want to push kids into college, it is not a good fit for many, myself included. I am not aware of a single machinist training program available in my area anymore. The only welding programs are post secondary. Who is going to fix our new fangled hybrids and H cars?

     Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008 @ 3:04pm

106. You know, we NEVER hear any bitching about police unions or fire fighters unions, do we?

     Why is that neo-cons?

     Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008 @ 3:06pm

107. Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/28/2008

     I do agree with you about the bitterness factor. So many times I have heard "Why do I have to learn their language why don't they just learn mine."

     Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 3:06pm

108. Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/28/2008

     Funny enough when I went to Paris I found the French to be very nice. I never encountered the rudeness people always talk about. Maybe we smelled good or something I don't know.

     Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 3:07pm

109. Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008 | ignore this person

     yeah - i have a very good and dear old friend who wasted a year at a 4 year liberal arts college to satisfy his parents' expectations. the guy was smart as hell - had taken apart and put back together his car at 16 just for the fun of it. he ended up getting a degree from a community college in auto mechanics (for him just paying the tuition and going through the motions) and has consistantly made good money and found much satisfaction. i cant help but think (and he wholeheartedly agrees) that he could have gotten the same education and certificate in high school and not have had to waste so much of his time and his parents' money to do so if his high school had had the proper vocational program and his parents had not gotten it in their heads that success is only equated with a four year liberal arts degree...

     Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 3:10pm

110. What I remember from my high school days was that the girls from the Catholic school put out easier than the public school girls, and the Catholic kids had the kind bud.

     Maybe it has changed.

     Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008 @ 3:10pm

111. hmmm, maybe I will go back to school...

     Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008 @ 3:13pm

112. Maybe it has changed.

     Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008

     i was a non catholic at a catholic school. concerning the girls thing - why do you think i developped such and early interest in spanish, eh? lol...as far as the other part - i never inhaled...

     Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 3:14pm

113. Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008

     Can I go with you?

     Posted by Benchrest at 04/28/2008 @ 3:17pm

114. Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008

     Yeah people need to understand that college really isn't for everyone. I didn't need a 4 year university to prepare me for my job of choice. My mom wanted me to go and to make her happy I went. My degree is of no use to me and I learned more our of school than I did in school.

     Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 3:21pm

115. Can I go with you?

     Posted by Benchrest at 04/28/2008

     Just call me Padre' in public.

     Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008 @ 3:22pm

116. Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008

     Heyyy I was a non-Christian in Christian school. Actually Christian school is what made me non-Christian.

     Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 3:22pm

117. Seriously Ibble & Crab. I'm with you both all the way.

     Posted by Sorelish at 04/28/2008 @ 3:23pm

118. Interesting point, how much of our schooling is to provide us with economic stability, and how much is to make us "well rounded citizens"? At what age does the latter give way to the former?

     Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008 @ 3:24pm

119. (I scored a high 30s on my SAT, too...so what.. ...and I am a victim of public schools before they went into the tank...)-JOMAMA

     well, that explains a lot.

     SAT= top sore is 1600

     ACT top score is 36.

     congrats on that high 30 on the SAT!

     Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008 @ 3:26pm

120. (Grow up!)

     Nyah, nyah, don't have to, don't have kids.

     Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008 @ 3:28pm

121. Grade school answer

     Schools are businesses?

     firefighters compete with private EMS companies around here.

     ciao.

     Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008 @ 3:36pm

122. Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008

     Actually they changed the high score of the SAT I think it is 2200 now.

     Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 3:42pm

123. Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 | ignore this person

     my catholic school was pretty cool. my parents jerked me outta public school when i went from honor roll in 7th grade to low c and thug list in 8th grade...most of the kids at my catholic high school were actually non catholics and they never forced me to take religion classes, so although i never quite fit in, not having to figure out who wanted to jump me and who i had to jump to avoid being jumped did wonders to my gpa...and actually left a favorable impression of catholicism in my mind. later i actually converted when i married my costa rican (ex)wife.

     i had actually tried to convert up here in the states, but they wanted me to take a freakin year of catechism classes. the spanish padre, however, liked me and gave me the quicky barbarian conversion, which stuck, more or less til my divorce. lol - i remember my first and only confession...

     "um...well padre...i've done a lot of things in my life...how detailed do you want this?"

     "well my son...be very general and give me 3 specifics...the juicy stuff..."

     lol - that was a cool priest!

     but later i figured out i had always been an unselfrealized bad buddhist all along and went that way...

     --------------------

     Posted by Sorelish at 04/28/2008 | ignore this person

     jomamma is indeed evil and politically retarded but otherwise is a great guy...but like i said - do please keep sniping at him. i enjoy that sport myself...lol...

     Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 3:46pm

124. There actually are private firefighting firms through AIG and BlackWater USA. You have to pay 33,000 dollars a year in insurance. The ones in AIG helped to fight the wild fires in southern California but only around the houses they were paid to save. So they sprayed the houses down with foam while they watched the house next door burn to the ground. So yes private firms do a better job but only because they deal with fewer numbers right now. If they had to deal with as much as the fire department does they wouldn't do as well of a job.

     That is the problem with private versus public model. Con's want everything privatized because they think it will make service better. Problem is the only reason service is good with a lot of privatized businesses is because they don't have to deal with as large of numbers. If private schools had to deal with as many students as public schools they probably wouldn't be as bad. If private firefighters had as many duties as public ones they wouldn't be as good. People aren't will to pay 33,000 dollars a year to save their house if a fire takes it.

     Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 3:48pm

125. in the "good old days" ambulance services were often owned by funeral parlors - talk about conflict of interest! sheesh!

     Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 3:53pm

126. Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008

     I was forced to take religion classes which I like so it wasn't really forced. My school gave us world religion classes which was cool. It gave me an appreciation for all religions not just one. Now I have a fervent interest in religion in general and religious mythology in specific.

     Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 4:02pm

127. Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008

     That explains a lot about the look of old ambulances because I always thought they looked like something else familiar now I realize what.

     Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 4:04pm

128. Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008

     Nobody is willing to slaughter their sacred cows...

     The Right wants vouchers and essentially a tax cut, to send their kids to a school THEY could afford to send them to without vouchers....

     the Left wants to protect the teachers' union and don't want it "too tough on the kiddies and hurt their feelings".

     The Right doesn't want more funding of public education...the Left doesn't want any teachers fired for not earning their pay.

     And we get stuck with de-funded "No Child Left Behind" from Bush and Kennedy....and probably some half-assed plan from Obama and Dick Lugar in 2009...and we keep going round and round, as those who can, pull out for privates and home-school...the Middle gets stuck "neighborhood shopping"...and the Poor get "combat zones" with 25 year old books but brand-new metal detectors.

     Posted by Mask at 04/28/2008 @ 4:04pm

129. Posted by marybretbrad at 04/28/2008

     Did you manage to hit the Louvre? One of the most amazing museums I have ever seen. It's massive.

     Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 4:16pm

130. Posted by marybretbrad at 04/28/2008

     That's awesome. It's amazing what a little makeup and surgery can do now-a-days.

     Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 4:18pm

131. Posted by lvliberty1 at 04/27/2008 | ignore this person

     You know, whenever Larry posts something like this, it's always interesting to actually visit the links and read for one's self. What I usually find is that Larry has either missed the point entirely, or is pasting something completely out of context to change the meaning to suit his arhuement of the moment.

     Here's a case in point...

     Despite the claims by the left to the contrary, we don't have a spending problem with public schools. According to a 2005 report from the OECD, the United States is tied for first place with Switzerland when it comes to annual spending per student on its public schools, with each of those two countries spending more than $11,000 (in U.S. currency).

     Now let's look at the acutal OECD report...

     "OECD countries now spend an average of USD 7,343 per student per year between primary and tertiary education, but this masks a broad range of expenditure across countries. Switzerland and the U.S. spend the most, with average annual outlays per student of more than USD 11,000."

     So, Where's the part about "public schools" that Larry was talking about? The excerpt I posted is from the OECD report, called "Education at a Glance" and it DOESN'T appear to deal with just public school funding.

     In fact, take a second read on that full clip posted about. Notice how it is talking about expenditures between "Primary and secondary Education"? The term "teriary education" means to post-secondary...we call it college.

     Gee, is anyone surprised that when we factor in the cost of high-priced US college educations, the average US expenditure for education goes WAY up?!

     Posted by Lillian at 04/28/2008 @ 4:27pm

132. Posted by lvliberty1 at 04/27/2008 | ignore this person

     You know, whenever Larry posts something like this, it's always interesting to actually visit the links and read for one's self. What I usually find is that Larry has either missed the point entirely, or is pasting something completely out of context to change the meaning to suit his arhuement of the moment.

     Here's a case in point...

     Despite the claims by the left to the contrary, we don't have a spending problem with public schools. According to a 2005 report from the OECD, the United States is tied for first place with Switzerland when it comes to annual spending per student on its public schools, with each of those two countries spending more than $11,000 (in U.S. currency).

     Now let's look at the acutal OECD report...

     "OECD countries now spend an average of USD 7,343 per student per year between primary and tertiary education, but this masks a broad range of expenditure across countries. Switzerland and the U.S. spend the most, with average annual outlays per student of more than USD 11,000."

     So, Where's the part about "public schools" that Larry was talking about? The excerpt I posted is from the OECD report, called "Education at a Glance" and it DOESN'T appear to deal with just public school funding.

     In fact, take a second read on that full clip posted about. Notice how it is talking about expenditures between "Primary and secondary Education"? The term "teriary education" means to post-secondary...we call it college.

     Gee, is anyone surprised that when we factor in the cost of high-priced US college educations, the average US expenditure for education goes WAY up?!

     Posted by Lillian at 04/28/2008 @ 4:27pm

133. double post...sorry...new format...stinks!

     Posted by Lillian at 04/28/2008 @ 4:29pm

134. Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/28/2008

     Hahahaha meat wagons. It's hilarious in a sick sick way...

     Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 4:44pm

135. Posted by Lillian at 04/28/2008

     Yeah that does change the picture A LOT. Considering college is at least 80k a student now-a-days. 7k a year doesn't even cover have the cost of university. So if you figure a student stays in school for 16 years the expense of college equals 5000 dollars a year. So in actuality if you only talk about elementary through highschool you are actual only spend 2k a year per student per year. To get the education I received at a private school it was more like 10k a year I think maybe 20k. Shows a huge disparity in what students are getting. One student paying 10-20k a year at a private school to get a good quality education another public school student receiving 2000k a year. 1/10th of the cost of what I was paying is going to equal much less quality in the education.

     Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 4:48pm

136. Posted by Mask at 04/28/2008 | ignore this person

     i wanna be a sacred cow serial killer when i grow up! you guys should elect me for a short fanatically moderate dictatorship. i WILL embezzle enough money to flee the country after a bloody sacred cow purge and take up residence in some axis of evil country with nukes and you guys can come visit me to thank me after, but i'll damned sure get them trains runnin on time and fix all the problems!

     --------------- Posted by Lillian at 04/28/2008 | ignore this person

     what the hell's that? a bunch of facts or something? pffft!

     ------------------- Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 | ignore this person

     my fascination with religion and mythology is related to my fondness for jungian ideas on archetypes as well as cool stories of impossible unprovable crap that motivates people to kill and die for. fascinating...

     ------------------- Posted by marybretbrad at 04/28/2008 | ignore this person

     remember the old SNL skit "old french whore"? lol

     -------------------- Posted by JOMAMMA at 04/28/2008 | ignore this person

     meat wagons! yeah - makes sense. hey - ever watch that (now) cbs show, "dexter"? highly reccomended - sunday at 10:00 - one of my favorites...dex is my hero!

     Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 4:59pm

137. Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008

     It's funny. People will die for religion and proclaim the Bible as absolute truth but it sounds just like the Greek mythologies which we now call great literature but nothing more than that.

     Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 @ 5:06pm

138. more than that.

     Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/28/2008 |

     i have never been able to shake my spiritual/religious bent no matter how often or stridently i have cursed god and shaken my fist at heaven...i found bhuddhism a good fit, especially the rinzai zen form - ass kicking samurai ego destroying pacifist compassionate cruelty.

     its a good fit i think...

     Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 5:20pm

139. George Will writing on education...reminds me of the other day when he wrote about conservatives and their "generosity", based entirely on the Arthur Brooks book which in turn cited heavily from a rather flawed 2000 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey.

     Turns out that, not only did that survey get the demographics regarding who was 'conservative' and 'liberal', it also included as 'giving' occasions like when really rich folks 'endow a chair' at Harvard or Princeton so they can get 'Jr Warbucks' into a good school despite his crappy grades.

     Posted by Lillian at 04/28/2008 @ 5:44pm

140. double post...sorry...new format...stinks!

     Posted by Lillian at 04/28/2008 |

     worthy of two posts

     ----

     IBBLE, my whore is dead!

     One of the very few David Spade skits that was good. I always think of that skit when around large groups of invasive Russian Olive trees. It is sooo heavy a scent.

     Again, an answer to all of our problems...the Nerve Staple!

     Keep em coming!

     Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008 @ 5:44pm

141. Turns out that, not only did that survey get the demographics regarding who was 'conservative' and 'liberal', it also included as 'giving' occasions like when really rich folks 'endow a chair' at Harvard or Princeton so they can get 'Jr Warbucks' into a good school despite his crappy grades.

     Posted by Lillian at 04/28/2008

     this I want to hear more about... Do tell...

     Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008 @ 5:47pm

142. The reason the schools do not work is that they have become the dumping ground for every bad idea and every form of social resentment known to humanity. And the reason for this? Children do not VOTE. There is no reason to consider their interests because their interests are represented only by proxy. Therefore, it matters not if every cracked-brain idea is experimented there, if every interest group gets its own pet-peeve written into school policy, if every grudge or grievance is not prosecuted there. Because they're just kids--who cares about THEM? (Just check with the parents on this one: what matters most to them? Payments on that new truck/BMW/Prius or increase property assessments to reduce class sizes and supply texts? Check the driveway for your answer.) From bussing to NCLB, the wingnuts on the left & right have fought their battles for schoolground supremacy. And they have both won. Guess who lost each time the wingnuts won.

     Posted by goyadad at 04/28/2008 @ 6:01pm

143. Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008 | ignore this person

     yeah - farley's death was the worst thing that happened to spade's career...

     Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 9:06pm

144. I weigh 300 pounds because I'm hungry all day long.

     Posted by marybretbrad

     not wise. i, too, eat all day long. i weigh 162 pounds. eat more apples, brother.

     ºººººººººººººººººººººººººººº

     remember we talked about the slutification of american women.

     you said hillary duff was immune and i proved you wrong.

     you also said miley cirus was immune, that her dad would never let it happen, and now you are also proved wrong.

     ol' dad was in on her slutification photo shoot. 15 years old and now skankified.

     hollywood is breeding a nation of violent assholes and sluts.

     just one more reason kids aren't learning....

     Monday, April 28, 2008 10:13:39 PM

     Posted by frosty zoom at 04/28/2008 @ 10:09pm

145. Salt peter in school lunches.

     Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008 @ 10:24pm

146. UNIONS!!!

     EVIL!!

     (except if they have cute little uniforms)

     Posted by crabwalk at 04/28/2008 @ 10:27pm

147. there's definately something to be said for seperating adolescents by gender in school too...

     Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/28/2008 @ 10:30pm

148. the country that maybe put men on the moon,

     can't kinda educate people who can find texas on a map..........

     Monday, April 28, 2008 10:41:04 PM

     Posted by frosty zoom at 04/28/2008 @ 10:37pm

149. ah - hillary is talking now about how now everybody must go to four year universities!

     really? thats going to solve all the problems! once everyone has a bachelors degree everything will work out and all the problems will be solved!

     will we have to lower standards? NOOOOOO!!! of course not!

     hey - look forward to bachelors degrees in check out clerk service, taxi driving science! custodial engineering!

     and everyone will have to take out loans to learn how to be better custodians, garbage collectors, construction workers...

     goddamn! could it be any more obvious that hilly was the cherrypicked successor of mushmouth?

     ok - lets let the ingnorant schmuks have a pandering santa claus democrat for a while! she'll promise lots of impossible stupid crap and the idiots, still in shock from the idiot and his presidency will gulp it down! then 8 years later after a few bones thrown we'll be even more in control and "liberalism" will be just as discreditted as conservatism, and ADD nation will be ready to elect another republican fascist!

     is it any wonder the uneducated and stupid are jumping on the clinton bandwagon?

     the dystopic future is NOW!

     Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/29/2008 @ 09:30am

150. When I see the horrendous grammar and spelling in the posts here, it's quite obvious that something is dreadfully wrong with our education system.

     Although it's probably true that many parents are not equipped to teach their children at home, many actually are - at least in the elementary grades.

     I know people who have homeschooled their children, and the kids are way ahead of their grade levels. These parents have told me that it takes about 15 minutes a day to accomplish what schools do in 7 or 8 hours up until around 5th grade. After that, until high school, it takes perhaps an hour.

     As an aside, I really, truly dislike the new format of The Nation.

     Posted by LeeAnnG at 04/29/2008 @ 11:04am

151. Posted by LeeAnnG at 04/29/2008 | ignore this person

     15 minutes a day? an hour? really?

     really...

     Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/29/2008 @ 12:48pm

152. 15 minutes a day? an hour? really?

     ~~~~~~~~~~~

     don't think so...........

     Wednesday, April 30, 2008 12:51:41 AM

     Posted by frosty zoom at 04/30/2008 @ 12:47am

153. hey darin.

     hope it didn't seem i was gloating. i would have preferred to been wrong, letting at least a false sense of decency reign.

     i haven't seen the britney episode. however, the paris hilton episode is also excellent social commentary despite the pineapple.

     Wednesday, April 30, 2008 12:55:04 AM

     Posted by frosty zoom at 04/30/2008 @ 12:50am

154. Usually, people who critisize the education the most, have no experience in it..

     http://www.thefaithdebate.com http://www.thefaithdebate.com http://www.thefaithdebate.com

     Posted by live_life at 05/01/2008 @ 10:21am

155. The BA is the new high school diploma...mostly remedial stuff.

     Posted by Malcontent at 04/28/2008 | ignore this person

     sorry Eric, this too far reaching statement. you must be specific. like this:

     my son who attends an elite public High School has earned enough college credits in High School to earn a BA in two and a half years, or a masters in four.

     while it is true that property taxes finance school system, the state cannot countenance the fact that some students only get half of the funding that others do. in my state, after a ten year legal process, a judge has ruled that the state must make up the difference in school spending. I believe it was a $50 million settlement.

     Posted by emile duBois at 05/02/2008 @ 2:22pm