Random Politics & Religion #00

I'm not saying that we can't do better. I just don't subscribe to your utopian ideal that that a forced national curriculum is what would bring us out of the rut. It's not just an educational problem. It's a cultural and economic problem, the scale of which most of these "superior" countries wouldn't be able to handle if they were in the same shoes.

Obtaining an education is part of the social contract. People determining what they want to learn obviously isn't working, let's let the educators decide. That's pragmatic, not utopian idealism.

The utopian idealism is that it'll be "a curriculum planned by educators and academics, independent of political motivations, special interest, or public opinion." Good freaking luck. Making it national is putting all of your eggs in one basket and hoping nobody makes a mess of it.

Education fascism, that's a new one.

That's not Utopian, that is optimistic. But let's assume a conclave of educators could be reasonably convened, how could they be less qualified or more influenced by politics and special interest than the current arbiters of education; statehouses?

Why should educational standards be any different in Texas than New York? Why should text books be written to reflect what some poll shows people believe rather than what is verifiable fact? Why should educational supply companies be allowed to influence lawmakers to pad their pockets at the expense of a generation?

Clearly, the status quo isn't acceptable, what would you purpose other than "not common core" or national standards?

The material is out there for those who want to learn. Regardless of regional bias or any other bias for that matter (politically for example), anyone anywhere can learn the real facts if and when they choose to pursue it. Forcing people to do things they don't want to do usually doesn't work well.

The problem is incentive. Incentivize normal schmucks to become better at math and science.

Right now just because you have a college degree or whatever doesn't guarantee you a better life or even better pay. I'm not saying to throw money at the problem either. That's kinda how the U.S. got to where it is now.

I really don't have a precise answer nor do I feel the need for US citizens to become smarter. They're arrogant enough as it is, but that's a whole other topic.

The point is to retain as much freedom of choice as possible. Forcing people to do things doesn't have the result desired.

Have you actually read the Common Core guidelines? Or looked at how it is meant to be taught? It's really bad.

Oh, it tries, but whichever idiots designed it were trying to deal with No Child Left Behind and similar test-scores-for-funding initiatives, so it's still tied to a fundamentally flawed premise: teach to the test and test, test, test.

We all graduated before this ***got serious, so it's to be expected most people in their late 20s and above are a bit clueless. When I was in school in the 80s and 90s, we took maybe one standardized test a year, sometimes not even that much. The only time I recall taking two in a year was when I took the ACT and SAT in high school, and those were entirely of my own volition (in the sense that having a gun held to my wallet's metaphorical head by higher education is "voluntary"). Nowadays, kids can take upwards of a dozen of these hideous scan-tron inanities.

I assume we know the cry of the conspiracy theorists: follow the money. In this case, a cursory glance at how many companies (rather than, say, government educational entities) produce these tests goes a long way towards explaining this explosion in teaching impractical skills and data. There's only about half a dozen of them and one or two have a particular stranglehold. Also, they're notoriously wrong. I won't even go into the *** involved in how the non-scan-tron ones are scored, but it'd make you sick.

Common Core is trying to deal with the idiocy of all these tests that have demonstrably done nothing to improve standards of education nor national results. I hear plenty of stories about very bright students who happen to be bad at taking these HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE tests (quick quiz: when's the last time you filled in a bubble? for me, it was doing my taxes almost a decade ago before e-filing became the norm -- that was a skill worth learning) being kicked out of their advanced classes and otherwise punished. Teachers are being hired, paid, and fired on the basis of student performance except the methodology is that Sally comes into class with a 75 and by the end of the year is expected to have an 80. That's fine, but when Sally comes in with a 98, she's expected to have a 103 by the end of the year... on a scale of 100. So the teacher gets fired or loses out on pay or is otherwise disciplined.

Honestly, as loathsome as I find the teaching of things like creation "science" and other hogwash, I'll fully support it if it means that schools return to actual teaching instead of a constant cycle of test prep. Even in Shithole, Alabama, there are kids who'll challenge the notion that Jesus vomited blood and thus New York City was born, if only because kids will challenge anything given sufficient boredom. Right now, the best protest a kid can do is say, "I'm not taking this *** test." You can imagine how well that works.

But if we ignore the problems of how our education system has been shanghai'd and destroyed in our lifetimes and just want to focus on the problem of Common Core, the biggest problem is that it's not needed. If we take the cycle of test prep out and leave each school district to determine its own policies as was always the case, kids will be literate and capable of basic math and maybe we'll even have a chance to bring back things like physical activity, the arts, and vocational classes. There's no room for wood shop when the state will pull your funding if your test scores dip too low.

What exactly do you want out of Common Core that wasn't being achieved prior to NCLB? The majority of things that we learned in school are actually pretty useless except to Jeopardy! contestants, and I say that as an advocate of intellectualism. Ask your parents who haven't seen the film version what they remember of The Great Gatsby. Unless they're literature nerds like me, they probably won't get the author right on the first try. Anyone here remember who Holden Caulfield is without googling first? Or, for that matter, why he needs to be given the biggest wedgie-swirly combo of all time? How often do you cross-multiply, much less solve a quadratic equation? When's the last time you needed to know when VJ Day is? Hell, I'll bet some people don't know what VJ Day is. There's a reason why college freshmen and sophomore classes feel more like high school 2.0: it's because high schools aren't teaching what they used to anymore.

Whether you want the feds involved or not, our education system is... fundamentally flawed as a direct result of the feds. Specifically the Republicans and their "Use money as leverage" gimmick that always works.

I question the need for textbooks in this day and age when all the information is easily available online.

Some of us don't have access to the internet ! Everyone like such as the Iraq and Africa !

You can get a computer for research purposes cheaper than a single new textbook.

Digest that.

$100 computers?

I should have put a qualifier on the textbook, as they obviously range in prices, however most that are the size I'm thinking of would probably be in the $200+ range.

But are we going to talk about logistics, or talk about the issues of the educational system?

100 dollar computer but can it run Crysis 3 on max settings ?

I was actually comparing it to the one child one laptop program. The goal was to have $100 laptops by 2008, but right now it's only around $200.

Just internet and porn.

I'm all for helping people get a computer and internet access but I think they should cover the necessities first you know clean water food shelter etc.

Maybe a plane ticket to get the hell out of Africa. That would probably be the best option.

theinternetisforporn.play

Ah, I don't keep up with educational initiatives as much as I probably should.

But they have the eboler fone, gotta quarantine them.

They can build computers for 100 dollars they just such for playing PC games ! It's a shame.

Source: http://one.laptop.org/

Honestly that is the only reason I have a PC. I used to love PC gaming but I don't like upgrading video cards RAM etc.

As far as education it's funny you can go to the public library and read/study anything you want. Or you can pay thousands of dollars to do the same thing in college !

The formal aspect of learning is overrated. Everything I've wanted to learn I've done on my own time without a teacher.

All or at least most of the PC games I play and still enjoy only require ~2 GHZ processor at the most.

Every game I've tried since Half-Life 2 EP 2 came out just gets boring real fast.

Utopia more like Fruitopia !

Obligatory Simpsons reference:

Fruitopia- the iced tea brewed by hippies but distributed by a heartless, multinational corporation. (Coca-cola)

I thought long and hard about this my response:

When the Iraq and the "Asian" countries get maps we can begin to "create education better". !

On second thought, I'm all for a national curriculum if Fone gets to design it.

First thing I would do is get rid of Science and Math. Cause *** em that's why. I'd make women studies mandatory. Also bring back home economics. Women need to learn how to bake cookies. Also dodge ball kids need to get hit in the face with a giant rubber ball. It will teach them a lesson ! I would also bring back segregation of boys in one class girls in another. Men do better in school when they aren't fantasizing about tapping that sweet young *** sitting in front of them.

I'd get rid of Art History Music and foreign languages. We speak American we don't need French and Spanish !

I was just reading a story about this the other day.

Girl uses yearbook quote to speak out against school's dress code

I'm distracted by her plump lips...

Yeah, short of some one offs, I haven't really gotten into anything new in a long time.

Especially on the PC.

How can combined gross enrollment (in %) be over 100%?