What are the principal reasons for not giving people great educations? .. - Page 4 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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What are the principal reasons for not giving people great educations?

Because great educations are too expensive and require too many sacrifices from taxpayers?
4
15%
Because great educations are expensive in some other resource?
2
7%
Because they are not as necessary as time goes by?
1
4%
Because not everyone can use a fine education?
2
7%
Because education is something that should be left up to parents only to determine?
No votes
0%
Because teachers have too many unions and are not pressured out for incompetence from the system?
2
7%
Because the only people worthy of a great education are the middle class and the wealthy?
2
7%
Education is just hard. Administering it, delivering it and implementing it? Too hard. Got to give up on educating people. A pain in the ass.
2
7%
Other
12
44%
#14876807
4cal wrote:I'll turn it around. "Giving" is the wrong thing to do. PhD's just don't happen. She or he decided they wanted to pursue X and if a PhD was necessary to obtain it...they went after it.

Now, is your question, "What is the principal reasons for not giving people the same opportunity to pursue great educations"? Because then I think you're on to something. What is the reason? There are many reasons I guess. I'm hoping this isn't it but the old adage that goes like this seems to be at work:
"Nothing changes because those that can change the situation have too much invested in maintaining the status quo."

Just some thoughts on this....

We should forget trying to define education....some of the most successful people never went to college.
We should forget trying to define success....some of the happiest people I know are wage earners and you wouldn't call them runaway successes
We should forget trying to define happiness...what satisfies you is not what may satisfy me.

So what should we do? I think we should provide experiences galore for kids. Show them Yosemite; what the ocean looks like; overnight at an observatory; visit the industrial farms to understand that what you see on your plate has roots (pardon the pun) somewhere that involves people who get their hands dirty both with dirt and the blood of pigs and cows. See transportation up close, how stuff is transported around the nation. Push the kids to not only study for the test but learn why there is a Yosemite Valley, why the Oceans are so active at some points and so placid at others, get a feel for the distant planets and heavenly bodies.... Many kids won't care about the trip to the observatory or to the distribution hub but some will. I bet you get some process engineers out of


4cal, for me? The society has to start investing in its people. All of its people. My chief complaint is about too many people who don't get any opportunities to be an educated person. For many, many reasons. Got to stop wasting human potential. The 'excuse' they give is about---too expensive. Can't educate youngsters from the working class because those people have bad habits, and are surrounded by people with the wrong habits. Too hard. Can't get teachers who are qualified and do that job because let us face it? Some great teacher who speaks ten languages and knows how to teach science, math and difficult concepts is not going to accept some shit poverty wage in a ghetto. So? Let us give up on that and settle for shit. Etc etc.

There is lack of political will, lack of social will and lack of economic will, and because of that? We waste MILLIONS of human potentials and it is a deliberate lack of effort. That is my point.

When are we going to stop doing that? WHEN?
#14876818
4cal, the problem is that the 'money' is not equitable. It is not. You got rich tax districts and poor tax districts. You tell a state? Ok people. ALL COUNTIES get the same budget for education. The ghettos are going to get the same as Beverly hills districts. ALL EVEN STEVEN SPENDING. Next, teachers are going to be only the best and the brightest and we are going to follow the methods of the most educated, best and brightest and best result education systems in the world. That means? Finland, Germany, etc. and combine them into something that gives us RESULTS.

You can't do that 4cal. You run into lack of political will, bullshit and rich people screaming about sharing their money with ghetto schools.

Somehow you think every school in the USA is spending the same amount on each student. They aren't. They spend nothing or next to nothing in very poor and fucked up ghetto areas of the USA and huge amounts on rich neighborhoods. I don't know where you have been all these years....the system has not changed in that respect for generations.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/ar ... ls/497333/

If this was not the case? You would not have real estate brokers stating in their home sales pitches, "Good school district" what does that mean? That the schools have a great tax base and are not run down, overcrowded schools with no resources and bad performing schools in standardized tests.

Ask upper middle class parents why they don't let their children attend schools that are failing and have crime, gangs, and sheer shit in the school? Because they know if they do let their kids go there? Most probably will have the same results as many all Black, all Latino and all poverty ridden schools. High dropout rates and a bunch of semi literate children getting through a diploma mill and then trying to go to college and they don't have the basic skills to get through four years of university studies because they were not taught the skills necessary in reading comprehension, writing, math or science or anything that is standard educational procedure for other schools with the means, the staff and the resources.

I would believe what you said 4cal if the money were being distributed equitably and the kids still were failing. But that has not been the case so far. The poor are not getting educated. Systemically failed is what they receive. WHY? Well the excuse is...too hard. Immigrants. Don't speak English at home. The parents are illiterate semi literate dumbells and they produce dumbell children. Nothing to be done by that. Too many drugs, crime, ect.

Let us be real here 4cal. There have been many many schools who used to SUCK academically. Then are turned around and become great performing schools with the same type of student attending. Poor, low income and minority. That 'challenge' has been conquered. Then why don't they do that successful strategy all across the entire system? Because THEY LACK THE POLITICAL, SOCIAL and ECONOMIC will to do so. They don't want to do it! Plain and simple. Why? Because the 'system' is meant to keep these supposedly 'inferior' folk DOWN and OUT. It is a deliberate and systemic need to not share resources or education in a way that is EQUAL. No can do.

The solution is there. No one wants to implement it. That is the problem.
#14888606
Let us be real here 4cal. There have been many many schools who used to SUCK academically. Then are turned around and become great performing schools with the same type of student attending. Poor, low income and minority. That 'challenge' has been conquered. Then why don't they do that successful strategy all across the entire system? Because THEY LACK THE POLITICAL, SOCIAL and ECONOMIC will to do so.

Great education requires, among other things, political and social will..
Sounds like an "other" resource.

Option 2: Because great educations are expensive in some other resource?
#14893941
Suntzu wrote:If you took Wilt Chamberlain's son and put him in a box and fed him gruel for 20 years and Little Jimmy Dickens' son, which one would be taller after 20 years. Both I.Q. and height are both genetically determined by both can be limited.

You can't take a moron and educate him to be smart.


There are very few people who are morons and those that are ought to be being looked after by society.
#14893949
Political Interest wrote:I have experiences of teachers giving up on me and in many cases being unhelpful. They had a purely meritocratic attitude to education and this is unfortunately very common among many teachers. If a student is too difficult to train or educate many will simply conclude that they cannot be helped, even those certified with learning difficulties. It was interesting that it seemed to be a competitive attitude to education. Only the best can go forward. Something I also remember is that the education was made silly, it could involve games or there were attempts to make it 'fun'.


I think Primary School is where the most should go into education because if you don't learn the fundamentals there you do not have a chance. My Grandson who is in Primary one has mentioned 3 helpers as well as his teacher. That will give all the children a good opportunity to get the help they need.

Some research was done some years ago in the UK. It discovered that by the age of 4 or 5 there was about a one year difference between the ability of the poorest children in society and the richest. This was based on many things, better diet, more money to buy educational toys and books, generally the parents were better educated themselves, being able to give the child many more life experiences through holidays and what not and even less stress.

I know one research discovered that the single most important thing in a child's achievement was the educational achievement of the main caregiver.

If social mobility is desired which it ought to be in any country which considers itself a democracy then some help needs to be given to the children from the poorest environments. I know the US used to have a sure start program. So did the UK and it was just beginning to bring results when we had a change of government who ended it.

As for teachers only paying attention to the easy students - well I guess you need to consider whether streaming is a good idea - or some other idea to make sure everyone gets the help and input to achieve as best they can and to find out where they can achieve because everyone has something to give.
Last edited by alethea on 06 Mar 2018 14:21, edited 1 time in total.
#14893951
Godstud wrote:If people are willfully morons, and it's not some accident of birth, I tend to disagree with you. :D


Ever read a book called 'How Children Fail'. They discovered that children have basically an innate need to achieve. If a child did not get recognised for achieving, if it was considered to be not up to much then they chose to be as you say 'wilful morons' or disrupters or gang leaders or whatever. Basically they argued that if they were not nurtured for achieving in their learning then they would make sure they were the best at not or at being difficult but the important thing was the need to be recognised as good at something - even if that something was negative ;)
#14893952
I wonder how successful sports or music programs would be if they gave the same level of instruction to every participant?

I wonder who would do better in college, someone who excelled in their primary education or someone who struggled?

I believe it would be a net benefit to society to offer free secondary education to the top 10% coming out of primary education.
#14893969
Suntzu wrote:I wonder how successful sports or music programs would be if they gave the same level of instruction to every participant?


Has this been suggested? However one of the things we do know is that the attention that a teacher gives to her students and what she expects from them is very involved in outcome. Some years ago in the UK we were wanting to achieve better results from girls in maths and science. One of the things they did was film teachers teaching. They noticed that the teachers tended to give more attention/expect more from the boys. Interestingly the teachers had not been consciously aware of that. They got some training in that and girls achievement in these areas soared.

Suntzu wrote:
I wonder who would do better in college, someone who excelled in their primary education or someone who struggled?


How well someone does is dependent on many things but Primary school, in fact before age 7, is the most important time to learn. If children do not learn to read and write during those years it is very hard to catch up. There is however no reason why a child who struggled and then achieved for which again there can be many reasons, cannot carry on achieving throughout their life.

Suntzu wrote:
I believe it would be a net benefit to society to offer free secondary education to the top 10% coming out of primary education.


Where do you live? All our children get free secondary education.
#14893981
Other

Most countries have good education. Canada and Russia graduate the most with a university education. Cuba graduates the most doctors per capita.

The US is the anomaly. They have a sub par school system, and a fair too expensive coll/uni sytem.

I can't figure out why nobody seems willing to pick up a paper or book from a Scandinavian country or somewhere else that promotes good education.
#14893989
Because we don't live in a technocratic state led by people whose main concern is what the most effective policy would be.

We are led by politicians who navigate interest groups on all sides of an issue and their voters to create a policy that would get voted in favor of by politicians with their own sets of voters and interest group pressures. Creating a policy is much much harder than simply identifying the best policy.

The american system, even more so than your average republic, is built to favor status quo when it comes to policy. It takes decades to make real progress at a big level. Which also reinforces entrenched interests benefiting from the current system (since they are making some benefit which allows them to keep up the pressure) over the scattered and poorly funded groups which have to somehow continue to raise funding and interest year after year to make change.
#14894030
I can't figure out why nobody seems willing to pick up a paper or book from a Scandinavian country or somewhere else that promotes good education.

But they're a bunch of goddamn socialists over there, Stormsmith. You wanna promote socialism in the US of A? :eh:
#14894127
Suntzu wrote:I wonder what Sweden's education system would be like if 13% of the population was Black?


Why 13%. Why would they change their education system. Of course if they did change it and gave them an inferior education the results would be what you would expect.

The difference in intelligence between people of the same colour is larger than the difference between people of different colour and is based on many things. Even White Nationalists like to say that East Asians are the most intelligent - they think this suggests they are not white supremacists. East Asians do at the moment do best academically but that is only because getting academic qualifications is considered the most important thing to them and their families. American children like to have fun as well....and possibly even sadder we are now reaching a time where even if you do put everything in at school and get yourself a good degree, it does not mean you will have a successful life. My daughter's school told them that the children of the future who are going to succeed are those who are creative - who are not dependent on rules, on being told what to do.

IQ simply tests learned activity. If you do plenty of IQ tests you will get a higher and higher score but that has nothing to do with your intelligence.

As I said in an earlier post children that come from the poorest families need early help in order to give them the same chance as other people. Democracies believe in equality of opportunity and without this that is not there. It seems the keenest reason for pretending there is a difference in people's intelligence based on race is to use as an excuse to ignore this and so not give the poorest children an equal start.

The paper also points out that in the first two decades of the 20th C, American Jews had low IQ scores - so much for it being in the genes.

Edit: I removed the article because the Guardian like most papers is now telling people they can only put in a little link. It is however an excellent article and covers all the arguments you could make. The idea that some races are less intelligent than others is simply a ploy used by white nationalists to allow them to treat non whites in an inferior manner. There is no scientific bases for it.

Ten years ago, our grasp of the actual science was firm enough for Craig Venter, the American biologist who led the private effort to decode the human genome, to respond to claims of a link between race and intelligence by declaring: “There is no basis in scientific fact or in the human genetic code for the notion that skin colour will be predictive of intelligence.”


https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/m ... ce-science
#14894134
Suntzu wrote:Who said anything about I.Q.? Blacks are clearly more disruptive, more than twice as like to be discipline problems than Whites or Asians. Poverty is a symptom of low I.Q., even so, White children from poor families have higher I.Q.s than Black children from affluent families.


IQ has been mentioned in this thread. So on what are you claiming American blacks are more disruptive and more than twice as likely to have discipline problems. Where is you proof of this and assuming you have it what do you believe is the reason for this?
#14894136
One of thousands of articles on the topic:

"GREEN BAY - Black students in the Green Bay School District have been suspended at a rate five times greater than white students and four times more than Hispanic students.

During the 2015-16 school year, 356 of the 1,212 students suspended from Green Bay schools were black. They accounted for 29 percent of the total suspensions, yet black students make up only 9 percent of the student body, according to data submitted to the state Department of Public Instruction."

Link:https://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/news/education/2018/01/14/green-bay-schools-struggle-disproportionate-suspensions-black-students/950401001/

This is reflected later in life as a much higher crime rate for Blacks, Blacks accounting for roughly half of the U.S. prison population.

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