Posted on 03/18/2008 6:41:29 AM PDT by bs9021
Racing to the Bottom
by: Malcolm A. Kline, March 18, 2008
When a progressive think tank and America’s leading business group get together and critique education in the United States, it’s official and getting more so—public schools may be getting progressively more expensive but they fail to deliver the service they claim to offer.
Both the Center for American Progress (CAP) and the U. S. Chamber of Commerce mark as a “prime target of reform: the 2,000 high school ‘dropout factories; across the country that regularly post graduation rates below 50%.” Statistically, that would put one of these underachieving assembly lines a place in two out of three American communities.
“There is ample evidence, documented in detail in our new state-by-state report on educational effectiveness, that too many of our nation’s schools and students are unprepared for the demands of the 21st Century’s knowledge-based economy,” the CAP and the Chamber conclude. “Nationwide, only about one-third of 4th and 8th graders— and well less than 20 % of low-income and minority children—are proficient in reading and math.”
“Teacher quality is insufficient.” Indeed, the two groups note, “With 40% of the teachers and principals eligible for retirement in the next 10 years, efforts to raise the bar for educators have taken on an added urgency.”
But are these 40 percent part of the problem? It’s hard to tell from the data compiled by the CAP and the Chamber although such a trend would mesh with their other numbers.
“Only about two-thirds of all 9th graders graduate from high school within four years,” the report card notes. “And those students who do receive diplomas are far too often unprepared for college or the modern workplace.”
“Fifty-three percent of college students need remediation,” Elena Rocha of CAP pointed out in a presentation...
(Excerpt) Read more at campusreportonline.net ...
Liberalism: The mental disease that progressively devolves Man into immoral Apes and Monkeys.
The upside according to progressive deviants is the kids remaining in school will morph the species barrier and become sheep of the state. At this time Obombie and/or Billary will be the flock leader responsible for handling their lives and money.
But they have managed to raise property taxes, help destroy the mortgage industry, and be a factor in making home ownership unaffordable. So it's not like they haven't done anything.
Yeah, but 100% know how to put on a condom and they also know that being Gay is a perfectly acceptable lifestyle..
As if the Pro Amnesty C of C cares about education with the schools filled up with 3rd world illegal aliens and the responsibility to educate and feed 10-20 million ignorant students has really helped.
I agree that lack of discipline is the largest problem. It only takes one or two disruptive students to severely impact the learning environment in a class.
There is no perfect remedy for the discipline problem. Choice and competition in education provides the best solution. With choice, parents will leave schools that cannot discipline disruptive students. Schools should have the ability to expel disruptive students. As long as we have hordes of illegal alien kids and lack of parental influence in the inner city, discipline will continue to be a problem. For responsible parents, choice and competition offer hope for a better educational experience.
Unions and government monopoly involve the cost side, not so directly the quality side. Choice and competition can greatly reduce costs while delivering higher quality to most students.
In Colorado, charter schools are the face of choice and competition. Charter schools are a bargain for the taxpayer and provide a generally high quality product. Local school districts often try to sabotage charter schools. The rats wanted to shut down charter schools but some rats from poor areas stopped the effort. It appears that charter schools are more popular in poor areas than affluent areas. My neighbors despise charter schools. They would be happy if charter schools were closed so that their schools can have even more resources.
It’s the “progressive” destruction of all the standards on which this country was built, fast reaching the tipping point. Soon we will need someone to save us, some smooth talking con man.
The cherry picking point is an argument typically made by leftists and defenders of government monopolies. I would argue that dysfunctional kids can be better served. A dysfunctional child (and parents) will know the rules in advance about school enrollment. Schools will specialize in disruptive kids. I believe that marginal parents will become more involved if there are more educational choices.
Schools cannot solve all of society's problems. Any attempt to make schools solve a larger set of society's problems will lower education quality for a large majority of students. Leftists think that schools should solve a larger set of societal problems. I philosophically disagree with this push to force schools to solve a wide arrange of societal problems.
ping
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