[rik]

Nevada has the least High school graduation rate in the country.

Cost per student is ~$13,000 / year. This is tax payer money being wasted.

The same students in private schools would cost less than $5,000/year.

We spend almost three times on our kids in public schools, for a totally inferior education.

So, with $5,000/year, you get better education for your kid, and way higher graduation rate.

Given these facts, it would seem like a no-brainer, that the government should not meddle in public education, or handle anything for that matter. The government totally sucks at public affairs.

But don't tell this to a Liberal, who would defend the Democrats, no matter how bad the public education system performs, or how expensive it is.

$13,000/year on each public school student, yeilds worse result than $5,000/year in private school.

The first thing Obama did when he took office, was to cancel the school voucher program in Washington. This was a program that helped Black kids of poor parents attend private schools. Obama's own kids attend private school. So if Obama believes strongly enough in the public school system, why does he not lead by example, by putting his own kids in the public school system?

Yet, Blacks are still blindly following Obama, unaware that he is actually screwing them over royally.

The left-wing media of course, covers these kinds of stories up. African Americans do not do independent research to uncover the truth of why they remain poor in America as supporters of the Democrat party. They actually believe the Democrat party is taking care of them. And so 90% of them continue to vote Democrat at each election. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

For those who are unaware of what is going on here, i.e. why Democrats would be pushing for failing public school policies, I'll explain it. Democrats are pushing an expensive and failing public education system, because public school teachers belong to labor Unions. Unions in turn campaign for Democrats, give money to Democrat candidates, and mount media ads on behalf of Democrat candidates.

It's a racket on tax payers perpetrated in the open by Democrats. Here is how the scam by Democrats works:

Public school teachers pay union dues to labor unions.
Labor Unions give money to Democrat candidates during elections.
Democrats keep failing public education in place, because those schools funnel money to Unions as quid pro quo.

Another fact here is that most forced-union states are highly Liberal. I wonder why.

So every time you hear Democrats defend our expensive, and failing public school system, now you know why.

[Pants-of-dog]

Do you have evidence for these numbers?

[Henry Urquhart]

Although I'm a big fan of private school, I have to say that private schools are more effective than public schools because they are exclusive, select the best students and maintain small class sizes. This is not an option, obviously, if every student goes to private school and, therefore, the "effectiveness" of private schools would drop in terms of their test scores.

[Wolfman]

Nevada has the least High school graduation rate in the country.

Then there is something that Nevada is doing wrong.

Cost per student is ~$13,000 / year. This is tax payer money being wasted.

Only if you assume that the money being paid to fund public education is being spent on the students education. If you look at it as you paying for your own, then it's really a matter of you paying more for fucking yourself over.

The same students in private schools would cost less than $5,000/year.

Except the actual cost of their education would be the same, because the remaining money is coming from private companies, who could just as easily send that money to public schools.

We spend almost three times on our kids in public schools, for a totally inferior education.

But, the cost is the same. And studies have shown that when you control for all variables, public and private education have the same success rate. So, you're paying the same for the same product.

Given these facts, it would seem like a no-brainer, that the government should not meddle in public education, or handle anything for that matter. The government totally sucks at public affairs.

Only if you assume incorrect information.

But don't tell this to a Liberal, who would defend the Democrats, no matter how bad the public education system performs, or how expensive it is.

Actually, you shouldn't tell it to us, because you're wrong.

The first thing Obama did when he took office, was to cancel the school voucher program in Washington. This was a program that helped Black kids of poor parents attend private schools. Obama's own kids attend private school. So if Obama believes strongly enough in the public school system, why does he not lead by example, by putting his own kids in the public school system?

Because it's his prerogative?

Yet, Blacks are still blindly following Obama, unaware that he is actually screwing them over royally.

Wow, are you trying to call the President a racist? What a nice ad hom.

The left-wing media of course, covers these kinds of stories up. African Americans do not do independent research to uncover the truth of why they remain poor in America as supporters of the Democrat party. They actually believe the Democrat party is taking care of them. And so 90% of them continue to vote Democrat at each election. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

Except, the social programs that were started by the Left and currently defended (poorly) by the DNC are the major reasons why there is a black middle class.

For those who are unaware of what is going on here, i.e. why Democrats would be pushing for failing public school policies, I'll explain it. Democrats are pushing an expensive and failing public education system, because public school teachers belong to labor Unions. Unions in turn campaign for Democrats, give money to Democrat candidates, and mount media ads on behalf of Democrat candidates.

Or you know, because the public education system is objectively just as successful as their private counter-parts.

So every time you hear Democrats defend our expensive, and failing public school system, now you know why.

Indeed, because it's just as successful as the private system.

[grassroots1]

I don't know why a low graduation rate should necessarily be considered a failing of the school system. It could be because people have to go work, or because of other issues related to low socioeconomic status. It could be so many things (and probably is) that it's kind of ridiculous to place the blame not only on Nevada public schools, but public schools in general. I can just as easily give you an example of why everyone should have a quality public education system:

The Finnish education system is an egalitarian Nordic system, with no tuition fees and with free meals served to full-time students. The present Finnish education system consists of well-funded and carefully thought out daycare programs (for babies and toddlers) and a one-year "pre-school" (or kindergarten for six-year olds); a nine-year compulsory basic comprehensive school (starting at age seven and ending at the age of sixteen); post-compulsory secondary general academic and vocational education; higher education (University and Polytechnical ); and adult (life-long, continuing) education. The Nordic strategy for achieving equality and excellence in education has been based on constructing a publicly funded comprehensive school system without selecting, tracking, or streaming students during their common basic education.[1] Part of the strategy has been to spread the school network so that pupils have a school near their homes whenever possible or, if this is not feasible, e.g. in rural areas, to provide free transportation to more widely dispersed schools. Inclusive special education within the classroom and instructional efforts to minimize low achievement are also typical of Nordic educational systems.[2]

...

The Education Index, published with the UN's Human Development Index in 2008, based on data from 2006, lists Finland as 0.993, amongst the highest in the world, tied for first with Denmark, Australia and New Zealand.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Finland

All of which have public systems and private alternatives.

[Dave]

And what are the demographic differences between Nevada and Finland?

[Rei Murasame]

You beat me to it Dave!

Also, I want to add, the whole of Finland is just managed completely differently from any US State, it's like basically Grassroots is trying to assuage a surface level contradiction, without addressing the underlying systemic-contradictions which give rise to it.

I could go on at length, but that is really the problem with social democracy, Grassroots, you end up spending more time treating symptoms in isolate rather than diagnosing the root problems, because social democracy does not actually try to propose a structural change of any sort. The state would always be in the middle of 'crisis' and trying to manage the books 'responsibly' by ripping the funding out of the education system and inserting those funds into the pockets of some banker somewhere instead.

Similarly, there would never be uniformed standards of education because teachers would be forever dealing with ethnic tensions between students, poverty in certain districts that are unevenly developed or have had their industrial centres hollowed out thus impoverishing parents, and of course and also the desires of so-called 'fiscal conservatives' (such as Rik) who would like to re-allocate the schools funding back into the pockets of the financiers in order to save financial-capitalism from the dangers of its own existence.

Basically it's at the stage in the game where social democracy cannot stave off the problems. I understand that some Americans are seizing upon social democracy about 3 decades late and so they think "oh but we just want some services", no, you guys skipped that part of the process by keeping your welfare spending at a mere 15% of GDP for all that time, and now we are all at a different stage in global economic decadence (if I can coin a term there) where social democracy cannot stand, so even if you go and try to apply it now, it won't stand up, because the crisis is in a too far advanced stage, it would just be blown over onto the scrap-heap with Europe's, immediately.

You need something more radical that cuts nearer to the root of the problem.

[grassroots1]

Also, I want to add, the whole of Finland is just managed completely differently from any US State, it's like basically Grassroots is trying to assuage a surface level contradiction, without addressing the underlying systemic-contradictions which give rise to it.

I'm sorry, isn't that the point I was making about the OP?

What are the demographic differences?

The state would always be in the middle of 'crisis' and trying to manage the books 'responsibly' by ripping the funding out of the education system and inserting those funds into the pockets of some banker somewhere instead.

What?

This system is one of the best if not the best system in the world, and you're criticizing it? I don't see why Finland deserves criticism when they have one of the best educational systems in the world.

Dave, demographics mean nothing without a system in place that fulfills the potential of each individual.

no, you guys

I was born 21 years ago, I didn't do shit.

global economic decadence (if I can coin a term there) where social democracy cannot stand, so even if you go and try to apply it now, it won't stand up, because the crisis is in a too far advanced stage, it would just be blown over onto the scrap-heap with Europe's, immediately.

And what is the alternative? I'm all ears.

[Rei Murasame]

I'll try to answer these properly, I promise:

What are the demographic differences?

I don't see why Finland deserves criticism when they have one of the best educational systems in the world.

I wasn't criticising Finland harshly, but rather criticising what would happen if you just took their school system and tried to implement it with a social democratic government over an Anglo-saxon pluralist system in the middle of a crisis. Basically - assuming it were even implemented - people like Rik would actually end up sweeping it away the moment you established it. I'll explain why I say this.

At the most immediate glance we can see Finland has much much more homogeneity than the United States, and I mean that ethnically in the most complete way, even religion-wise, most of them who claim a religion all state the same denomination as well. Also, social cohesion is high because they've spent a while basically taking measures that cause distributive flattening so that there is less outright reason to loathe their neighbours.

Also, Finnish corporatism actually entrenched between 1970 and now, a system where policy formation took place out of between government, trade unions, and employers associations, and they were usually packages of a general/guideline nature that were then sorted out in more detail at the place where the guideline applied. During this time, the Social Democratic Party did hold a key position there in several of the coalition governments and trade unions and thus and was responsible for some of the content of many of the packages, but that party alone was not the cause of it. The other parties were key in that they did not challenge that corporatist structure nor did they seek to abolish it.

This held true even during the early 1990s, where the system had to weather the storm of USSR falling apart, and the macroeconomic instability that came in the the aftermath of the First Gulf War. In the middle of that crisis, around 1995, they applied to enter the the EMU after becoming a member of the EU, and this meant that they had to deal with the public debt, deficits, and the inflation that had resulted from the sudden problems in the early 90s, and they even managed to do that through tripartite agreement as well.

They managed to basically halve unemployment, get their economy to show some nice performance again, and then they were able to join the EMU.

Now, why I am telling that story? Because corporatism under those strange circumstances worked not only because of corporatism at the institutional level, it worked because on a social level there was a level of trust and cohesion that made it possible to keep everyone at the table and engaged, even in the midst of the macroeconomic crisis (1990s hell) and new strict economic policy that they had never encountered before (EMU).

Yet even Finnish corporatism is not immune to the machinations of international finance, as unions have reported that some spending in the school system has reduced slightly since this latest 2008-manifested crisis has begun.

Now, clearly, compared to the massive and horrendous cut in other places, this is minimal and it is highly likely that the system there is not under any threat of being pulled apart any time soon.


However, if Finland's boat is being buffeted by this crisis, how does one expect to merely reform one's way into having Finland's school system by building the boat in the USA where you are completely exposed to the elements in the middle of the same crisis that is buffeting them?

This is why I mean by structural change is needed, because they are in a 40yr reinforced ship with mostly non-antagonistic social forces and they are being placed under pressure in the storm.

Whereas you guys (and us in the UK) are practically in several million rowboats painted in different colours that all hate each other (red, blue, etc), and with low union density and a whole bunch of antagonistic contradictions that have not been dealt with yet. So for you and the rest of us in anglo-saxon pluralistic countries, we cannot simply say, "oh, let us just copy you social programme XYX", because we have the added problem of the fact that they have completed steps that we haven't, but we are all in the middle of the storm of very-late-stage global capitalism, at the same time.

So we in anglo-saxon countries have the task of having to look ahead to try to chart a way to calmer waters and prevent destruction, but we have the added task - as if that one task weren't hard enough on its own - of having to actually build the ship that should've been built ages ago, at the same time.

So to forgo the analogies now, it means: we have it much harder, since we have to pull society together even as we are looking for a way to unseat the ascendant financiers who are using the state for their own pleasure.


To put it in the most simple way, none of what you want can be possible while it is possible for monstrosities like "Tim Pawlenty" (one of the final expressions of finance-capital's ambitions) to actually manifest as a real human being, because the forces that own and control him are now strong enough to hit established model societies in the gut with a swift punch, and they can therefore definitely and easily stop your attempts to now build a society from near-scratch within their jurisdiction if you don't challenge them. Pawlenty has managed to transform himself into the embodiment of a lib-cap zombie, and so he is a great example here of just how far down the line, how very very late in the evening of the lib-capitalist era it is now.

It is very near dusk indeed if they've actually dared to bring out such an overtly grotesque puppet as him now. There are a few questions we still need to ask ourselves before it gets dark.

In order to succeed you'd have to find a way to make it so that at the end of your struggle, people like Pawlenty could not exist or be created as political beings in any sense of the word. And at this late stage in the game, it means you have to have an ideology that is willing to address the root of the problem in some way and exterminate it, and not just the superstructure.

I'm saying the same thing in a lot of different ways, so hopefully you get what I mean.

And what is the alternative? I'm all ears.

I don't want to be presumptuous and try to sell you my position, so I won't, but what I will say is that basically you will need a more radical position. But I don't want to try to make a prescription since it would be disrespectful and know-it-all-ish if I did that.


What I will say though is that I'm pretty chuffed about being able to have this conversation with you before any of the Marxists around here did. What now, gentlemen on the left?

かんぺき!

[pojut]

As the husband of a public school teacher with 6 years of experience, I have determined the following:

The biggest problem with public schools is that we aren't actually teaching children; rather, we're training them how to pass standardized tests. Not all children are the same, and not all teachers are able to effectively teach the same way. Trying to treat both students and teachers as if they ARE all the same is a major reason why our public school system is where it is.

Well, that and the lack of parental interest in how students are doing. When you're shelling out thousands of dollars a year to send your kid to a private school, you're much more likely to keep tabs on what they're doing. In my wife's class, the kids that have parents that are active in their kid's educational progress and check in with my wife constantly tend to do the best, while the kids whose parents are no where to be seen tend to do the worst. I know that correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation, but this is a trend that has been observable every year my wife has spent teaching in a public school.

[Genghis Khan]

rather, we're training them how to pass standardized tests.

In a nutshell, that's it.

Schools focus on a certain chain of events:

- The child sits down and is presented with a list of facts
- The child is encouraged to memorize them until there is a test
- The child writes those facts down on the test sheet
- The child receives high grades for remembering the facts
- The child forgets the facts since the incentive to remember them is gone
- The child moves on

It's a shame that kids aren't taught how to think about a certain subject. Instead of just memorizing that the bill of rights is the first 10 amendments of the constitution, children should be exposed to the philosophy behind those amendments. What did Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke think about it, and do you think they were right. What brought it on. Ask the child if he thinks that's the right way to go. challenge him.

So by the time there's a test, he wouldn't even need to remember the facts verbatim, because his way of thinking about it would bring him to the right answer.

[Kylie]

I'm not a big fan of arguments that suggest that since there are problems with the public school system, we should abolish it completely. I agree with the poster who said that the reason public schools are failing is because you're trying to encourage kids to pass tests, not actual critical thinking skills. I'd also add that it's because of zero-tolerance policies.

[CounterChaos]

We are creating a nice little legion of factory workers, office terminal workers - economic cogs for the system. Critical thinking is discouraged as it might cause you to punch your time card - ten minutes late.

Living in a system where we mold the human being to conform to a few oligarchs dreams - rather than designing a system around the needs of the human being.

Democracy does not equate to Capitalism

Read it and weep:

http://dieoff.org/