We don't need no education....

[Bob Hubbard]

If you want to fix poverty, stop supporting the idea that government is responsible to care for you, and push personal responsibility and achievement as American ideas again. It's no wonder that as our "safety net" has grown, so too have the numbers of those using it. Part of that has to come from the schools. In the 12 years I was in public school not once was I offered courses that pushed entrepreneurship. Not once. More time was spent in assemblies to watch the "drill team" do some bastardized clog tap dance. Economics was more theory than practical...not once was 'balancing a check book' touched on, or budgeting, or credit. You want to reduce poverty, instill solid work ethics in our kids. I run into too many people, too many of them under 18, who are used to the idea if they wait long enough someone else will be along to do it for them. Stop lowering the standards. 45 shouldn't be a passing grade!

Bah.

 

[Steve]

If you want to fix poverty, stop supporting the idea that government is responsible to care for you, and push personal responsibility and achievement as American ideas again. It's no wonder that as our "safety net" has grown, so too have the numbers of those using it. Part of that has to come from the schools. In the 12 years I was in public school not once was I offered courses that pushed entrepreneurship. Not once. More time was spent in assemblies to watch the "drill team" do some bastardized clog tap dance. Economics was more theory than practical...not once was 'balancing a check book' touched on, or budgeting, or credit. You want to reduce poverty, instill solid work ethics in our kids. I run into too many people, too many of them under 18, who are used to the idea if they wait long enough someone else will be along to do it for them. Stop lowering the standards. 45 shouldn't be a passing grade!

Bah.

Statistically, one in four people receives some kind of monthly payment from social security, whether disability, retirement, survivors or auxiliary payments. That suggests that if this forum is typical of the general population, a quarter of the posters here have an immediate stake in it.

I've posted the historical figures before, but there is no way anyone can argue that it is overwhelmingly successful at keeping seniors and disabled workers from living below poverty.


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[Sukerkin]

I agree with both #34 and #35 above. I am one of those who hauled myself away from my working class poor roots by dint of being blessed with more than average mental horsepower and a drive not to be living hand-to-mouth. But I couldn't have done it, I don't think, without the public funding of education we had over here in England at the time. No university fees and a small grant to live off whilst studying made everything that lead me to where I now am possible.

I also managed to be one of the very few non-wealthy students to have a car of my own by the end of my first year as I channeled my grant into stock for a mail order business I ran whilst studying. I left uni with more money than I started with, unlike the ones today who leave with £30k debts.

 

[Sukerkin]

Not exactly. People in poor communities who almost never interact with degreed professionals outside their run-down schools may not internalize the "stay in school" message if it doesn't seem borne out by their day to day lives.

By coincidence, I read an article on the BBC about poverty in the Welsh valleys that made almost exactly that point - in an entire town no-one had gone to university in living memory.

For background, here is the article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23028078

 

[pgsmith]

You say that poverty is an excuse, but the rest of your post is literally explaining how poverty is self perpetuating.

Bingo!
In our present society, the cycle of poverty is extremely difficult to break. I was lucky in that my mother, being British, was extremely independent minded. She worked hard to instill a love of learning in both myself and my brother. Unfortunately, my brother went down the drug path and is, as far as I know, being supported today by the government.

All of my friends when I was growing up thought I was odd for wanting to read books and engage the teachers at school. Their parents never taught them how to learn, and so learning was quite difficult for them. Until we devise some way of teaching parents how to better raise their children, we can't hope to break the ever increasing cycle of poverty that mires our government's social welfare programs.

 

[granfire]

Bingo!
In our present society, the cycle of poverty is extremely difficult to break. I was lucky in that my mother, being British, was extremely independent minded. She worked hard to instill a love of learning in both myself and my brother. Unfortunately, my brother went down the drug path and is, as far as I know, being supported today by the government.

All of my friends when I was growing up thought I was odd for wanting to read books and engage the teachers at school. Their parents never taught them how to learn, and so learning was quite difficult for them. Until we devise some way of teaching parents how to better raise their children, we can't hope to break the ever increasing cycle of poverty that mires our government's social welfare programs.

well, part of the vicious cycle we are in.
Parents do not grow up in an air tight environment. The went to school and were taught to hate it.
Now the parents (and other so called adults) spread the myth that a god child has to dislike school and live for recess (which, BTW, does no longer exist)

Then the kids are taught that school sucks and the teachers stink, and TV keeps portraing school like a place where you go to to socialize and torment adults with no repercussion.

There are a lot of things that I liek about the current system, but more that I find stink.

Coed through middle school is detrimental to the student, studies have proven this a long time ago, Uniforms are actually beneficial, but for the life of me, I do not understand why kids throughout middle school ahve to have their individual schedule...but then again, I was raised in a system that did not lump all kids in one school, so you did not have to make accomodations for the bright kids and the brighter ones (since we all know, no snowflake is ever really dumb...)

And kids hate it because, well, it's not coherent, so they go out into th world, telling their kids that school stinks and teachers suck....

 

[DennisBreene]

While there are many good points being made from all fronts in this discussion; I'm less convinced that schools, teachers, and top down state programs are a panacea. With our autistic son, we found that the entrenched views of many educators was actually very destructive. It required placing him in a private school with a demonstrated track record of success and a very specialized curriculum and staff to counter the problems exacerbated by public school. There are any number of kids who, for whatever reason, do not function well in the classic classroom. A system that allowed for more versatility and creative teaching could potentially benefit many more of these kids.

 

[Steve]

Agreed, Dennis. More customized, individualized attention is great. But that costs money. No easy answer.

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[Tgace]

Agreed, Dennis. More customized, individualized attention is great. But that costs money. No easy answer.

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Yep...it's especially costly when you still have to pay School Taxes on top of having to pay tuition.

 

[granfire]

Agreed, Dennis. More customized, individualized attention is great. But that costs money. No easy answer.

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I don't think it does cost so much more, but you have to change the system.

And change a few things around.
Like, seriously, school here starts at 7 AM....That is cruel and unusual punishment!
And I am talking about me here, not the kid. And that is on top of studies that have shown that tens are wired differently and their biological clocks don't work like adults.
Meaning they are not lazy for sleeping in in the morning and staying up late, but rather that the schedule is skewed. I think in Finland they have taken such things into consideration and made school start later.

I mean, my school started at 8AM, was done most days by 1PM...and yet I had language, foreign language (two from grade7, actually) math, social studies, history, two sciences and PE....and recess.
The kid is in school longer and gets less done! (I forgot music and art...) One of the tings that should not be possible!

 

[DennisBreene]

Steve,
You won't get any argument from me on that issue. However, I was fortunate enough to be able to pay private tuition. Most of the students at the school were sent by their respective school districts because they could not offer the services locally. Often the school districts were under some sort of administrative or legal mandate to send the child and it came out of their budget. So the question is; would it be more cost effective in the long run to create such schools (ie. create versatile educational opportunities) than to spend large sums of money in beaurocratic wrangling and still ultimately pay for private placement.

 

[granfire]

well, indeed.

this way it's syphoning the money from the pot, making bad schools worse.