[Vision2020] NYTimes: The Uneducated American

[nickgier at roadrunner.com]

Greetings:

If you look at where the best students are coming from, you will find it is usually countries where faculty are heavily unionized and education is centralized and is in hand of educational professionals, not 16,000 separate school boards, some of whose members believe that intelligent design is science.

Nationalization of education doesn't appear to be such a bad thing at all.  And if the U.S. had a national industrial policy, our economy might be in much better shape as well.

Nick Gier, President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFT/AFL-CIO

---- Glenn Schwaller <vpschwaller at gmail.com> wrote: 
> In the early 1980's the country was entering a deep recession amidst a
> continuing downward spiral in the "quality" of education.  The 1990's
> was a period of tremendous economic growth, yet education continued to
> spiral down despite infusions of cash into the system.  So $$ = A's?
> This seems to be what Paul Krugman suggests to be true, to the extent
> of demanding more dollars for education.
> 
> The two major problems are what does the nation define as "education"
> and how is success for this undefined entity to be measured?  The
> current standards of measurement seem to show a dismal trend in
> educational success (low test scores and high drop-out rates) which
> has been going on for 20 years.  Are we measuring the proper "thing"?
> Do we even know what this "thing" is??  Again, looking at the boom
> 90's it certainly isn't lack of money.
> 
> Dare we say it could be the quality of our educators? Is it lack of
> motivation on the part of both students and teachers?  And (gasp!)
> should education be "nationalized" so everyone is receiving the same
> level and type of instruction?  Should students and teachers be
> evaluated at the start of each school year in an effort to determine a
> proper and meaningful direction in what is being taught?  And are we
> "allowing" mediocre students to move forward in their mediocrity such
> that basic reading, writing and math skill are lacking as these
> students move into our universities and workforce?  One has to wonder
> considering the number of university students on the Palouse enrolled
> in remedial courses to correct these deficiencies.
> 
> No, I do not think the answer is more money.  The underlying cause is
> more insidious than that, and the problem is no one seems to know what
> it is nor how to look for it.  Or do we really care??  Between the mid
> 80's and the mid 90's hundreds of educational reform proposals have
> been suggested.  Why has nothing worked?  Could it be as simple as
> collectively we know there is a problem - but so what?  There seems to
> be no incentive to get or give a "good" education - and this, I think,
> is the major problem.
> 
> GS
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 7:54 AM, Joe Campbell <philosopher.joe at gmail.com> wrote:
> >  From The New York Times:
> >
> > OP-ED COLUMNIST: The Uneducated American
> >
> > Education in America, suffering for years, is about to get much worse
> > thanks to cuts caused by the financial crisis.
> >
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/opinion/09krugman.html
> >
> > Get The New York Times on your iPhone for free by visiting http://itunes.com/apps/nytimes
> >
> >
> > Sent from my iPhone
> >
> > =======================================================
> >  List services made available by First Step Internet,
> >  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
> >               http://www.fsr.net
> >          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> > =======================================================
> >
> 
> =======================================================
>  List services made available by First Step Internet, 
>  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.   
>                http://www.fsr.net                       
>           mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> =======================================================