Posted on 04/14/2008 9:22:51 AM PDT by New Jersey Realist
“It’s a lot later than we think. We’re raising an illiterate and uneducated generation, and there’s more to come. On April 1, America’s Promise Alliance released a detailed study revealing that fewer than half of the teenagers in 17 of the largest U.S. cities drop out of high school before they graduate—more than 1.2 million of them. The cost of this is enormous: billions of dollars in lost productivity for expensive social services and (because ignorance begets crime) to build more prisons. This report sounded like an April Fool’s joke on the growing number of fools, meaning all of us. The high school dropout resembles the fool depicted on Tarot cards—standing at the edge of a precipice, with no idea how far he’ll fall, when fall he will. It’s no coincidence that the number symbol for the fool is a zero. A hundred times zero is still zero... The catechism of liberalism inevitably prescribes more money as the key to changing all this, but the real key is how the money is spent. The public schools in the nation’s capital spend about $25,000 per student per year, considerably more than a good private school education. Nevertheless, Washington’s schools are among the worst in the country. That’s why few congressmen send their kids to public schools. In some years, none do. Dropping out is a fool’s errand, but getting children to stay in school requires encouragement from all of us. ‘A knowledgeable fool,’ as Moliere observed, ‘is a greater fool than an ignorant fool.’ We’ve been forewarned.” —Suzanne Fields
HA, but that would defy the Libs real mission!
Keep them lazy and wanting has worked for the last sixty years.
I’ll add that a person that gets convicted should not get out of jail until they gotten their diploma or GED.
Oh for Pete’s sake - are you saying that any graduate of the government -run schools is well educated simply by 12 years of seat time ?
IMO some of the smartest people are dropouts because they are too intelligent to sit in a propaganda mill day after day, where true education takes a backseat to socialistic climate-change swill dished up as fact.
I’m a HS drop out and it was the best thing I ever did. I now have a bachelors in geology and a masters in information science.
There is one point that is missing in the HS dropout debate. From personal experience, abound 30% of the dropouts are not stupid and can read, do science, etc. They are usually two standard deviations above the average in intelligence. They drop out because they are bored due to the dumbing down of the schools. They are expected to help their class mates and learn little new. Many of them have read the text books by the first six weeks and it is drudgery to keep going. Many of them end up using drugs because they are sick and tired of the bovine fecal material that goes on in todays schools. Many are bullied because of their intelligence. From personal experience, many know more about the subject than the teachers.
Schools have dropped the advanced placement classes, art and music, where many of us excelled.
If they did something for the advanced kids, many would stay in school.
And for what it is worth, you don’t need a HS diploma or GED to get into college. You sign up for a couple of classes as a probationary student, pass them, take one or two more, and the school will accept you as a full-time student as long as you pay the bills.
BTDT.
Sorry, but you hit a real hot button with me on this subject.
It's a Bell Curve thing. A certain percentage of the population should be too dumb to earn a high school diploma.
So....What the government is doing is imprisoning children who can not benefit from school. The children are miserable ( tortured really) and the children who are capable of learning have their learning disrupted by the disgruntled prisoners.
If children want to drop out at 14 then say good bye and wish them luck....however...they should be able to come back and claim the unused 4 years of education at any time in their lives. Perhaps, for some intelligent enough to benefit from high school, a few years of grunge work will sharpen their interest in learning. If they are adults when they see the education light, then they should attend special adult high schools.
I agree with you....I think a lot of dropouts are BORED! I used to work in Human Resources....was once interviewing a young gal for a job....she apologetically said she only had a GED....I told her...that’s GREAT! What’s the problem? I wanted her to know that I recognized her motivation and that it was positive.
Good for you!
However, the kids who drop out of school in the DC system carry around a dead look in their eyes. They can’t read; they can’t speak correctly; they can’t spell. Their lives are full of that. In the DC schools hope is on a short leash, but despair ranges freely.
The whole situation is a great dilemma.
How does one regain hope for these kids?
Can anyone say “government schools?” - I wonder what the dropout rate is for private schools and home schooling ????
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That was absolutely the case with me. In utter boredom, I would hide library books under the lip of my desk and read. For some reason, on the occasions I was discovered, this infuriated the teachers more than if I had been acting out.
K-12 school? ...I resent every wasted minute I ever spent there.
Many never “drop in”! :-)
My daughter once joked, “The only thing I have every graduated from was Montessori school and space camp!”
Bingo! The smartest person that I ever met never graduated from high school. Dropped out, then started taking college classes. Now, has an M.D and a Ph.D.
Funny how we never have Congressional investigations in things like this. No we have to go after private business, like Oil and Tabasco. Could it be that Congress never investigates it own mistakes?
Although I finished high school and graduated, I found myself with only electives and study hall by my senior year - I was so bored.
It may possibly be ‘ok’ for only 60% of the population to earn a college bachelor’s degree. It is definitely *not* ok for only 60% of the population to achieve a high school diploma level education. Most of the 40% who don’t will never be able to manage a decent career, regardless of how intelligent they actually are, and a primary reason for that is that potential employers will look at their educational record in their resume and hire somebody else with a better educational record.
Now here you go again......tryin to be logical. Do you really think the the NEA will listen to you. Our teachers don’t get the fact that they are impacting their own families. That’s what gets me about the liberal menetality. They only look at today. They care about the money they make now......not what their own children and other children will be doing in the furture. They believe in socialism but don’t realize that the only ones that prosper under socialism are the ones at the top. The rest are all slaves.
Yes, but the intelligent ones move on and get the education. We see that it is needed. The ones without hope, without a basic education, unable to read or do basic math will be at the bottom of the ladder. Can they be helped? Only if they want it bad enough. There are many adult learning programs out there - I ran one when I worked for the Salvation Army, but you have to want it bad enough to do the work. As someone here mentioned, if you are beaten bad enough by the school system, (like D.C) you have no hope.
The population falls along the Bell Curve. A certain percentage of the population will **always** be too dumb to earn one! I am surprised that you do not seem to understand that.
What about vocational training? The push for everyone to go the academic route in HS and the "right to a college education" has to have a detrimental effect on those kids who would benefit from learning a real trade skill.
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