Department of Education

[Old Ridge Runner]

Right. If the State or the local SD wants to fund themselves, they can. And that's what my SD did when I was growing up. It just meant property taxes in excess of 10% in a very wealthy area.

That's what they did here also before the feds got involved. We pay more and more in property taxes and the schools get worse and worse.

 

[Huskyoverlord]

I'd eliminate it, and I earn a living from education.

That's why you would , so you can start teaching again instead of forcing tests on children.

 

[JackDallas]

SHUT IT DOWN, and give the responsibility for Public education back to the states, like it was when I was in school. We had better schools and spent less money. Bust the teacher's Unions and require the teacher's to complete yearly continuing education programs to ensure they remain qualified to do their jobs.

Stop teaching kids how to Take the final exams, and not much else, and place less emphasis on numbers of kids who pass or fail, but rather emphasize how much they are being taught. Teach them reading, writing, and mathematics; stop teaching them how to put on condoms, and about Johnny and his two daddies or two mommies. And teach the dumb little shits how to speak peoper English.

 

[Cicero]

I make a comfortable living fixing the 'tender-hearted and well-meaning' messes that the educational system makes with children, and bear in mind that I deal exclusively with private school clients. The system is not only broke for most public school systems but the endemic problems inherent in government interference in public schools has finally slopped over into many formerly top flight private school institutions.

The cult of self-esteem is particularly toxic when it comes to youngsters learning. There are other problems as well. Math and science are promoted to insane levels while the humanities are more and more being given short shrift. I was both an electronics technician and a nuclear missile technician in the military, plus I was submarine qualified and in all those years I never had to use math over the level of [at the very most] Algebra II. We have children forced to study an insane and useless amount of both math and science that nine-tenths of them will have absolutely no use for by the end of college. Meanwhile, increasingly, even students graduating from college prep schools know less and less of the humanities, of things that they WILL NEED in the future.

Meh, but it is a man made mess that is not going to be fixed until two or three more generations of students from across this nation are given an inferior education. So it goes.

 

[Cicero]

Precisely Huskyoverlord. Or rather so that mainstream teachers can start teaching again. I am a private tutor, and most of my time is spent fixing in students what our glorious and over-hyped educational system broke. It's a lucrative field but it's also one that makes me grit my teeth when I encounter problems in students that a decent educational system would never have allowed to occur in the first place. It wasn't supposed to be that way.

 

[NightSwimmer]

Well obviously, many of us just don't want our tax dollars being used to teach Ebonics to people who can't speak proper English.

 

[JackDallas]

I certainly don't. How about You?

 

[Old Ridge Runner]

I certainly don't. How about You?

This is the problem with our education system, remember what Kruschvi? said, we (talking about the communists) will take you over from the inside, not by war. Ebonics was one of the

things they tried to get into the education system, but they have gotten even more harmful programs passed and are teaching them. It is no wonder our kids are dumber when they graduate than when they started school.

 

[anti.reptile]

and we would have a nation that is dumb as rock. Those places that have money would be able to have a quality education system and those who don't would suffer. What most of you people on the right can't understand is because of the dept of ed. states are required to spend the money it gets on education, if we had 50 states that operated as they see fit, a lot of states would sacrifice kids education I believe, for the lower collection of taxes at the local levels.

Not only that but the schools in many states, if left up to local rules, would have subjects that are not allowed now to be taught in the schools.

It's not the money. Think of it this way. Imagine the richest and the poorest school district in your area. Now switch the kids from the rich district with those in the poor. Each goes to each others facility with the same teachers. Guess what. The kids with the crack addicted mom still does poorly in the rich district and vice versa. Throwing money at shitty schools does little to improve them.

 

[justoffal]

Bullshit....they control where the money goes via policy approval/disapproval.

I don't say that there should not be a central structure to help standardize public education but I think the current structure is so tainted as to be beyond repair. Eliminate it and start over by inviting people from all states to participate.

 

[justoffal]

See there's this little thing called a STATE GOVERNMENT.....do you think that they will just disappear?

 

[justoffal]

Hell...I have to prove myself every thirty-six months to keep my engineering license and let me tell you that every test requires months of preparation and costs big money just to sit for it. I don't pass the test...I don't keep my license. Simple as that.

 

[degsme]

Bullshit....they control where the money goes via policy approval/disapproval.

I don't say that there should not be a central structure to help standardize public education but I think the current structure is so tainted as to be beyond repair. Eliminate it and start over by inviting people from all states to participate.

Again what COMPELLS a School District to take Dept of Ed money?
And what is it that is "tainted" in the Dept of Ed? That they don't consider Intelligent Design to be a scientific "Theory"? It isn't. its a "hypothesis" which is NOT a "theory". "Theories" are inductively proven, "hypothesis" are not.

 

[degsme]

I make a comfortable living fixing the 'tender-hearted and well-meaning' messes that the educational system makes with children, and bear in mind that I deal exclusively with private school clients. The system is not only broke for most public school systems but the endemic problems inherent in government interference in public schools has finally slopped over into many formerly top flight private school institutions.

So you don't actually understand what the Dept of Ed does and does not do since you have no direct experience... OK

The cult of self-esteem is particularly toxic when it comes to youngsters learning

No evidence of this at all.

[/quote]. Math and science are promoted to insane levels while the humanities are more and more being given short shrift[/quote]
That's not a Dept of Ed problem. That's Conservative Theory.. that we have to "promote usable skills" in school rather than teach reasoning.

We have children forced to study an insane and useless amount of both math and science that nine-tenths of them will have absolutely no use for by the end of college

Given the rampant innumeracy we see in this and other forums, I disagree. For example, having a working understanding of integral calculus means that you understand when I tell you that the area under the GDP Growth Curve is the amount of Wealth created. And you also understand the notion of things like assymptotic curves like the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility.

And you cannot reason intelligently about our economy without that toolset.

 

[degsme]

See there's this little thing called a STATE GOVERNMENT.....do you think that they will just disappear?

So given that Red State governments rely on Federal funding for school support while Blue States generate those $$$ and Blue States already are

More innovative (which tracks with educational quality and accomplishment)
More productive per capita (which correlates with tax base through which to fund Ed)

Explain to me how a State like South Carolina is going to fund its non-urban public schools at the State level? Right now over 33% of the State's educational budget comes from the Feds http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/speced/2011/06/another_state_denied_power_to.html

Particularly when SC is cutting the budget for Education faster than it is cutting the overall state budget? And this is in a state that is in no political mood for ANY increase in taxes.


Yeah State Government can be trusted to handle this properlly - just like Kanasas and Texas on Intelligent design....

 

[degsme]

It's not the money. Think of it this way. Imagine the richest and the poorest school district in your area. Now switch the kids from the rich district with those in the poor. Each goes to each others facility with the same teachers. Guess what. The kids with the crack addicted mom still does poorly in the rich district and vice versa. Throwing money at shitty schools does little to improve them.

Actually you are wrong on that. Becuse if the poor kids get to go to the rich kids School District from K on up, AND get the same off-season "enrichment" activities? they do just as well.
The data on this is clear.

 

[degsme]

Hell...I have to prove myself every thirty-six months to keep my engineering license and let me tell you that every test requires months of preparation and costs big money just to sit for it. I don't pass the test...I don't keep my license. Simple as that.

And that license grants you a PREMIUM over engineers who have the same training but no license. So why shouldn't teachers get a PREMIUM for being Licensed? Right now they take a pay CUT.

 

[degsme]

Well obviously, many of us just don't want our tax dollars being used to teach Ebonics to people who can't speak proper English.

uhuh... and that happens where?

Want some oats with all that straw?

 

[Cicero]

hahahaha! :crazy:

 

[justoffal]

There you have it...you just admitted that the Department of Education is no such thing...it is actually the department of indoctrination. Something it has no business meddling in.