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#15055600
@Julian658

Julian658 wrote:Most parents want to provide the offspring with as much advantage as possible. Both my parents were highly educated and they stayed married while i was growing up. that gave me me an enormous advantage over those growing up in a one parent household. I would simply promote better parenting, this is the key to the success we see in the kids of Asian and Indian immigrants in America. These kids do way better than whites because they have tow good parents at home.


There is absolutely nothing wrong with your parents granting you every advantage they can so long as it's done legally. You had good parents looking out for your best interests. There is nothing wrong with having advantages or privilege. Some having more advantages or privilege is just a fact of life and that will never change no matter what. I agree that better parenting will certainly help but also, parents pass on the advantages they have to their children. Hence if parents don't have any advantages, they will have none to pass to their children. Those children will have to work harder to improve their station in life than children whose parents had advantages and passed those advantages onto them. But that's just life though and life isn't fair. I came from a household that was lower middle class. I was one the first (my cousin was the other first where she earned an engineering degree) to graduate college. I will also be the first to earn my Master's degree so long as I stick to my goals.

I do agree that Indian and Chinese families seem to do well in getting their children to achieve. I am more familiar with how Indian families encourage their children to achieve and that is by parents setting the example for their children to follow. I am not familiar with how Chinese families encourage their children to achieve but I am under the impression it is through discipline and keeping their children focused.

However, those in working and working poor classes have to go work all the time rather than attend school, so their kids are alone at the house with no example to follow. Plus, parents of those particular classes cannot afford to hire tutors or send their children to good private schools (lower middle class families also can't afford to send their children to private school though they could probably afford to hire a tutor). So, the children of working poor and working classes have their parents around them less because they are busy working to provide for their families and they don't have the money to ensure their children get educated. That's tough for those kids.

Julian658 wrote:Those on top love the low wages paid to immigrants. We keep going back to the same issue. Why do you think Brexit is popular among the blue collar workers of ther UK?


Blaming immigrants for our economic problems is not the answer. Immigrants are not the problem. I welcome immigrants to my country and would be glad to have them. We are enriched by immigration and we benefit greatly from immigration. The problem is we need stronger unions and laws that will help working people get a greater share of the economic pie. Worker productivity is higher today but all the gains are going to the top and their is no shared prosperity.

This was not the case several decades ago when legal precedent assured workers of the legal right to strike without any real fear of being replaced for making demands that were not extraordinarily unreasonable. They had immigrants back then working cheap and yet workers were paid more and you also didn't see this anti-immigrant hysteria. Unions today simply don't have any real bargaining power like they used to and when they did, working people did better and you didn't have anti-immigrant hysteria. Immigrants are not the problem. The problem is workers have no real voice anymore in the work place or in politics.
#15055601
Politics_Observer wrote:Blaming immigrants for our economic problems is not the answer. Immigrants are not the problem. I welcome immigrants to my country and would be glad to have them. We are enriched by immigration and we benefit greatly from immigration.


I agree. I, too, welcome immigrants to our country.

Illegal immigrants are, however, a definite problem...
#15055602
Politics_Observer wrote:They can basically fire striking workers and hire scabs.

It's straight up illegal for some government employees to strike. For example, police officers cannot just go on strike and let chaos reign; yet, they are unionized in many places. That's not the same issue in the private sector. A lot of Democrat presidents allowed government unions to break the law. Reagan just enforced the law. That's all he did. The government can break all government unions any time it wants to.

Politics_Observer wrote:Thus, this is the reason why we have too much inequality in America today that is not acceptable.

Michael Bloomberg is worth $55B dollars. A homeless guy shooting up dope on the street corner is worth maybe $50-100. The PATCO strike has nothing to do with that difference in net worth.
#15055605
Julian658 wrote:
I suggest you look up the Kansas City school experiment of the 1990s. They were spending up to 40k per pupil in public schools in poor areas and got ZERO results. The solution for education is at home. Give a kid two solid parents that are interested in education and the kid thrives. Your slogan sounds awesome, but the solution is really two good parents.



Mom was a math teacher. In the early 70s, she started buying books on education reform. I was in college at the time, and I would read some of them while on vacation.

That started me on a journey that would take me a quarter of a century. It was off and on, but it was a question that stayed in the back of my mind.

Bottom line, 99% of what you see about education is crap.

The result of that is that what would improve education, doesn't have much of a constituency. Rightys like to blame teachers and their unions. But they are only one piece of the puzzle.

We know what works, we just don't do it.
#15055606
blackjack21 wrote:I

Reagan just enforced the law. That's all he did.



"In a column in the Washington Post following the firing (of PATCO employees), columnist Harold Meyerson said this was “an unambiguous signal that employers need feel little or no obligation to their workers, and employers got that message loud and clear -- illegally firing workers who sought to unionize, replacing permanent employees who could collect benefits with temps who could not, shipping factories and jobs abroad."

That wasn't all he did, either.

"Reagan also used his appointments to set a lasting legacy for breaking unions. He would appoint 3 management representatives to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) causing it to significantly depart from its legal obligation to help promote collective bargaining. Under the board, they settled only half the cases the NLRB did under President Jimmy Carter and found in favor of the employer in 75% of the cases." (Nixon's NLRB sided with the company 33% of the time)

There are turning points in history, where a decision will have all manner of nasty, unforeseen consequences. Reagan gutting Unions was one of those decisions.

https://ucommblog.com/section/national-politics/ronald-reagan-union-buster
#15055619
late wrote:
The result of that is that what would improve education, doesn't have much of a constituency. Rightys like to blame teachers and their unions. But they are only one piece of the puzzle.

We know what works, we just don't do it.


The left says that we should spend more money on education. The Kansas City school experiment suggests it is much more than just money.

For decades critics of the public schools have been saying, "You can't solve educational problems by throwing money at them." The education establishment and its supporters have replied, "No one's ever tried." In Kansas City they did try. To improve the education of black students and encourage desegregation, a federal judge invited the Kansas City, Missouri, School District to come up with a cost-is-no object educational plan and ordered local and state taxpayers to find the money to pay for it.
Kansas City spent as much as $11,700 per pupil—more money per pupil, on a cost of living adjusted basis, than any other of the 280 largest districts in the country. The money bought higher teachers' salaries, 15 new schools, and such amenities as an Olympic-sized swimming pool with an underwater viewing room, television and animation studios, a robotics lab, a 25-acre wildlife sanctuary, a zoo, a model United Nations with simultaneous translation capability, and field trips to Mexico and Senegal. The student-teacher ratio was 12 or 13 to 1, the lowest of any major school district in the country.

The results were dismal. Test scores did not rise; the black-white gap did not diminish; and there was less, not greater, integration.


https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/fil ... pa-298.pdf

Please state what works. I believe what works is being born in a two parent family with good values.
#15055620
Julian658 wrote:
The left says that we should spend more money on education. The Kansas City school experiment suggests it is much more than just money.



Please state what works.



This isn't a left/right issue. It's a what works issue.

You wouldn't like it. It's also involved, which means it's going to have a bunch of things you don't like.

The bottom line is Americans really don't want education reform. Most hate it.
#15055622
Life is a bit of a lottery. Being born with talent is also a lottery. The Matthew effect is devastating:

Image








In my neck of the woods Asians families send their kids to math camp on the summers. That will give you an idea and how dedicated they are.



ASAT scores correlate with zip code.



I don't blame immigrants since I am an immigrant too. But, in my neck of the woods the entire construction industry is Hispanic. They do the job for less money and they outbid long standing American firms. My wife loves to hire Hispanic workers as they LOVE to work, are honest, and charge less. I don't remember when was the last time she hired a non-hispanic for house remodeling. The consumer and the business owners profit from this immigration bonanza. Meanwhile American citizens that used to do these jobs are nowhere to be seen. Nevertheless, in most instances immigrants likely do jobs that Americans don't want. All cooks in restaurants in my area are Hispanic. This is hard to figure out.
#15055623
late wrote:This isn't a left/right issue. It's a what works issue.

You wouldn't like it. It's also involved, which means it's going to have a bunch of things you don't like.



How does it work? I am on the edge of my seat.
BTW, I sent all my kids to catholic school from grades 1-12. I am in Bethesda, Montgomery County, Md which has some of the best public schools in the nation. But, they are good because the parents here really care.
#15055626
Julian658 wrote:
How does it work? I am on the edge of my seat.
BTW, I sent all my kids to catholic school from grades 1-12. I am in Bethesda, Montgomery County, Md which has some of the best public schools in the nation. But, they are good because the parents here really care.



A couple basics.

Successful education systems have either national schools or rigorous national standards.

Such systems do not fund competitive sports. They have plenty of teams and enthusiasm, but they don't throw money away.

Eliminate teaching degrees, require a degree in the discipline you will be teaching. You will have to pay accordingly to acquire competence.

The standards would include national pre-K, science labs, etc. Science labs are expensive, this means poor communities will need help.

There's more, but that is enough for now.
#15055629
I came upon a small impeachment rally last Sunday. About 50 people with signs stood at a busy intersection. Across the street stood about 25 Trump supporters. They stayed on their sides and were respectful of each other's space. As cars drove by, many beeped in support of one side or the other, about 50-50 as I could tell. Mostly it was peaceful except for one woman. As she was driving by, she opened the passenger window and with a crunched up red face, she hurled ugly expletives, screaming, honking and giving us the finger. If she had continued one second more, she would have crashed her car. A good example of some of what occurs at the Trump rallies/hate fests. Angry, in your face and scary. They're a sub-group of Republicans..the cult of Trump.
#15055639
late wrote:A couple basics.

Successful education systems have either national schools or rigorous national standards.

Such systems do not fund competitive sports. They have plenty of teams and enthusiasm, but they don't throw money away.

Eliminate teaching degrees, require a degree in the discipline you will be teaching. You will have to pay accordingly to acquire competence.

The standards would include national pre-K, science labs, etc. Science labs are expensive, this means poor communities will need help.

There's more, but that is enough for now.


No disagreement. Because my kids went to private school they had amazing teachers. Many were retired people that wanted to remain active. A retired physicist with no degrees in pedagogy was the most enthusiastic dedicated teacher my kids ever had. A retired US Army Colonel taught history with equal enthusiasm. The calculus teacher was a high end engineer and mathematician that taught part time at the lunch hour three days a week. You cannot do that in public schools. Other teachers elected less pay in a private school simply because the kids are highly motivated to learn and are not unruly. They were required to wear uniforms and were mostly taught ethics and good moral values in religion class. Many of my kids classmates were not catholic. So the school did zero proselytizing.

Nevertheless, you still need a decent environment at home.
#15055644
Julian658 wrote:
No disagreement.



That's the easy part.

We have a large and growing population of homeless children. Living in shelters, or cars or tents means they have physical insecurity, they usually have food insecurity.

We can help them now, or pay for their prison cells later.

What I wrote before is necessary, but not sufficient. The empire has been sucking the life out of the country. The poor, and blue collar types, have taken the biggest hit.

But if you want to actually improve education, those are the people getting screwed.
#15055650
jimjam wrote:I came upon a small impeachment rally last Sunday


Mostly it was peaceful except for one woman. As she was driving by, she opened the passenger window and with a crunched up red face, she hurled ugly expletives, screaming, honking and giving us the finger.


It's interesting that you said you happened to "come upon a rally", yet by your following comments it's pretty clear that you were actually taking part...
#15055657
BigSteve wrote:
It's interesting that you said you happened to "come upon a rally", yet by your following comments it's pretty clear that you were actually taking part...



You've never met him. He's not the type. At least, I don't think he is.

I used to be the type to protest, but one of the things I learned from the Nam protests is that they don't work very well. Getting directly involved in the politics, being part of a group that knows what they are doing, that can work.
#15055667
late wrote:That's the easy part.

We have a large and growing population of homeless children. Living in shelters, or cars or tents means they have physical insecurity, they usually have food insecurity.

We can help them now, or pay for their prison cells later.

What I wrote before is necessary, but not sufficient. The empire has been sucking the life out of the country. The poor, and blue collar types, have taken the biggest hit.

But if you want to actually improve education, those are the people getting screwed.


Paradoxically this task of educating people is easier in an authoritarian nation where the system can impose the education methods and ignore the protestations of the masses. Our public schools are way too lenient and wishy washy. I would install military type schools and would only teach the basics. The students and parents would be required to clean the school. This would require a massive change in cultural values where the students would be expected to respect for teachers. The basic education is many schools is diluted by a lot of other meaningless activities that do not belong in school. England's public education in the 1950s was quite good with emphasis on discipline.
Image
Image
Japanese kids clean schools.
Image
Nigeria


Japan teaches the basics rather well. We try to teach it all rather poorly.
#15055668
late wrote:You've never met him. He's not the type. At least, I don't think he is.


Correct ….. I have never had any interest in that type of shit and, at age 75, even less. It didn't occur to the Large Guy apparently that I may have been simply standing on the receiving end of what puke the mentally ill Trump cultist was spewing. It was, after all, a public space.

Large Steve and B.J.#21 apparently have adapted the same tactics that are commonly used by the Trump cultists...… "Don't like the message? Malign the messenger." B.J. #21 likes to depict me as a drug addled hippie nincompoop.
#15055669
late wrote:That wasn't all he did, either.

A "signal" has no force and effect of law. The only unions that would worry about that are government unions in essential functions, which legally cannot strike--like air traffic controllers. :roll:

You people and your phony histories of Ronald Reagan: when are you ever going to give it a rest?

late wrote:There are turning points in history, where a decision will have all manner of nasty, unforeseen consequences. Reagan gutting Unions was one of those decisions.

Actually, it was Nixon taking the US off the gold standard and appointing John Connolly--who was sitting in the front seat when Kennedy got shot--to the US Treasury in spite of Connolly never having any economics training that was a big policy disaster. The lack of responsible monetary policy led to cost-push inflation in the 1970s, which wasn't corrected under Carter either. Bretton-Woods had to come to an end, but generally governments have to make a guns-or-butter decision, and Nixon chose both. Oil exporters responded to this by forming OPEC and jacking up oil prices, and further used it to protest US support of Israel. By 1973, guns-and-butter alone had inflation to 8.8%. By the Carter years it was 12%. When Reagan took office, inflation was 14%.

Unions wanted special treatment--non-union workers be damned. Corporations simply could not afford to pay unions more under cost-push inflation. In fairness to Jimmy Carter, he did appoint Paul Volker late in 1979, and Reagan kept him on hand until 1987. They had to break inflation by raising interest rates. The Fed Funds rate hit 21% in 1980--one reason for Carter's unpopularity.

Again, this "union busting" bullshit is just more lies about the Reagan era. Reagan was busting cost-push inflation. Today, we have very low inflation and low interest rates and we can thank the great Ronald Reagan and his administration in part for getting that under control. Reagan like Trump will go down in history as one of our great presidents.
#15055684
late wrote:You've never met him. He's not the type. At least, I don't think he is.

I used to be the type to protest, but one of the things I learned from the Nam protests is that they don't work very well. Getting directly involved in the politics, being part of a group that knows what they are doing, that can work.



If he wasn't taking part in the protest, he wouldn't have said "giving US the finger". He'd have said "giving THEM (meaning the protestors) the finger".

Now, frankly, if it's a peaceful protest I absolutely respect his right to do it. I just wonder why he felt the need to hide from it. It's as though he's ashamed of it...
#15055685
jimjam wrote:Correct ….. I have never had any interest in that type of shit and, at age 75, even less. It didn't occur to the Large Guy apparently that I may have been simply standing on the receiving end of what puke the mentally ill Trump cultist was spewing. It was, after all, a public space.

Large Steve and B.J.#21 apparently have adapted the same tactics that are commonly used by the Trump cultists...… "Don't like the message? Malign the messenger." B.J. #21 likes to depict me as a drug addled hippie nincompoop.


I don't believe you, for reasons stated in my previous post.

You're apparently ashamed to be an anti-Trump protestor.

Why?

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