Posted on 02/28/2005 9:06:06 PM PST by baseball_fan
It is the system.
It is the politicians.
It is the liberal PC crowd (NEA, academia, politicians).
It is the parents and their being sidetracked by petty stuff like why sis can't be put in the yearbook in a tux; by not bearing down on the kids to compete and continuing to give them "stuff" instead of responsibility rendered with tough love.
It is lazy kids who expect to decide when they are seniors what they want to do, hold out their hands and have it drop into their palm. If it doesn't happen, whine, and Mom and Dad will get it for you.
It is PC teachers, and teachers with bad educations, and those who went 50 miles down the road to college and have no experience outisde their cozy little world. (Taught Eng. at a country HS one year and had a student say, "...you shore are differnt...you eb'n talk differnt frum the other teachers." They had not even heard of 98% of the books on the Princeton Reading list for college bound students. They were decent to each other and helpful to the little kids; some were very intelligent but didn't have a clue about the world 50 miles away or see any reason to seek knowledge beyond the next ballgame schedule. Many dropped out and only a handful went on to college.
It is too much emphasis on sports to the exclusion of classroom performance. Competition anywhere off the playing field is taboo.
It is all of the above, and then some. Ex-teacher; retired employment specialist; mom; grandmom--my opinion.
vaudine
If the will isn't there to abolish the Department of Education, the next best thing would be to move it to the Department of Defense. Schools that accepted federal funds and didn't perform would then have their staff fired and be taken over by marines. ;-)
Huh????
"Since the early Fifties, the educationists, as Professor Barzun points out, have aspired to a progressive and egalitarian method of teaching. The importance of the arduous, repetitive task of acquiring rudimentary knowledge has diminished under the growth of academic folly inspired by the desire to entice students with instant stimulation.
Professor Barzun uses the term "pre-posterism"-"putting the end before the beginning"-to describe what has taken over public schools. The forgotten condition of learning from the beginning and progressing to more complex tasks has been replaced by pressure to appear to obtain quickly what can only be the fruit of some effort.
In years past, teachers led pupils slowly through the basic steps of learning. Education, after all, is a process. To read: sound out the letters of the alphabet, move on to the formation of words, then to words as parts of speech and their place in a sentence. Eventually pupils are not only reading, but understanding the makeup of the language itself. It's so simple we'll all be wondering why we spent so much money seeking alternatives to what works.
Our children are individuals with dreams and goals of their own that need to be encouraged and nurtured with education... they are not to be regarded as "our workforce of tomorrow" as if they exist for the support of the state.
I still don't get it. If you don't want to work for the state, you are free to join a private firm or open up your own.
Most people, myself included, are not smart enough to break the rules and get away with it like Gates does. Gates also lives in a fairly cloistered world. He's surrounded by people who have their degrees, and jump when he says jump. Discipline isn't a problem in his world.
I just watched this on C-SPAN, and most of it was spot on. I'm proud of the 1.2 GPA I earned in high school :-)
I heard that Bill and his sister were not allowed to watch TV as children, and that Bill had read the entire encyclopedia. I googled this:
"...Bill [Bill Gates' father] was a lawyer at a distinguished Seattle firm and Mary taught at a local school a few years before they started their family. ... When Bill was put into public school he soon became bored. To fight boredom, the Gates family bought him a new edition of the World Book Encyclopedia. He quickly read through the entire set. After he became disruptive in school, because of his lack of challenge, the Gates sent him off to Lakeside private school.
Lakeside proves to be a great opportunity for young Bill. Shortly after he was sent to Lakeside, they leased computer time from various businesses in Seattle..."
source: http://www.digitaltermpapers.com/c3769.htm
The Ivy League schools are already bidding for the home-schooled kids, who run circles around the government school graduates. If there is any innovation in the future economy, I think the home-schooled individuals will do it.
This is what happens when you create an organization that does not have to compete. This is socialism at it's very best.
"This is what happens when you create an organization that does not have to compete. This is socialism at it's very best."
Imagine also a situation where a company manager has to take any employee sent to them regardless of how qualified, enlarge that number beyond their effective span of control, find they often have to equip these employees with monies spent out of their own salary, have the expectation set that a significant percentage of these cannot be expected to succeed at the higher standard or you will not be supported to meet this standard, and then be denied the ability to enforce discipline. No wonder Gates says it has to be redesigned.
"Are their any data on the success of homeschooling in terms of going on to college or entering the jobforce?"
Probably not. Too many think that's none of the gov'ts business?
Here in America, we believe we can do the most to promote equity through education.
Socialism for Dummies 5.0
I agree 100%.
If Bill Gates wants to radically change the American educational system, he has the power to do it:
1) Introduce "Microsoft K-12", a $500 interactive DVD-ROM package with a complete K-12 educational curriculum, including exams. Point out that a bright kid can finish the whole thing before he is 12 years old.
2) Start a technical university with branches in every city, and accept any student who has passed all of the exams in Microsoft K-12.
3) Get other companies to join Microsoft in agreeing to hire graduates of the new university in preference to graduates of failed leftist institutions.
Of course, liberals will be howling at the moon if Gates does any of this, but if he means what he says he could make it happen.
LOL. Mr. Buffet, is that you?
"Well Bill, if you're so concerned about our schools, why don't you start contributing more of your billions to them, instead of to all the other issues in other foreign countries?"
"Gates said his foundation had contributed about $1 billion to improve the quality of U.S. education and was supporting reforms at more than 1,500 high schools."
?????
"Maybe Prince Billy can use some of his untold billions to help fix the problem, rather than just running off at the mouth."
"Gates said his foundation had contributed about $1 billion to improve the quality of U.S. education and was supporting reforms at more than 1,500 high schools."
Helps to read the whole article.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.