Young Americans are dumbs
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Torie
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« on: April 23, 2014, 11:31:48 AM »

Well, that is not the title of the article of course. And yes, it lays out what we already knew - that income inequalities in the US have grown exponentially, potentially threatening our democracy. But the real fist in the face is the observation in it, that while Americans age 55-65 (you know, my little age cohort), are the best educated in the developed world, Americans age 16-24 are close to the bottom of the heap.

I blame the teachers' unions for the bulk of this tanking in relative educational attainment. When I was young, they did not exist. That organization has done more damage to our nation than any other organization I can think of in the US. Just my opinion of course, but a firmly held one. There are longitudinal studies that document the decline over time, as the unions took over school district after school district, and the metrics that got kids educated slowly went down the tubes, along with teacher quality, discipline, you name it.
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Sbane
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« Reply #1 on: April 23, 2014, 12:11:51 PM »

Educational attainment has not risen as much as in other countries because higher education is very poorly subsidized for the vast majority of individuals. In any case, more youngs hold a 4 year degree than olds, so it is you olds who are the dumbs. Smiley
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Torie
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« Reply #2 on: April 23, 2014, 12:13:58 PM »

Educational attainment has not risen as much as in other countries because higher education is very poorly subsidized for the vast majority of individuals. In any case, more youngs hold a 4 year degree than olds, so it is you olds who are the dumbs. Smiley

I wonder just how much the body of knowledge and skill that degree represents has been degraded over time - you know, like a high school degree.

By "other countries," do you mean the not as developed, not as rich ones, as opposed to the cohort of the more developed nations, which is what this comparison is about?
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Sbane
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« Reply #3 on: April 23, 2014, 12:20:06 PM »

Educational attainment has not risen as much as in other countries because higher education is very poorly subsidized for the vast majority of individuals. In any case, more youngs hold a 4 year degree than olds, so it is you olds who are the dumbs. Smiley

By "other countries," do you mean the not as developed, not as rich ones, as opposed to the cohort of the more developed nations, which is what this comparison is about?

No, I mean the countries talked about in the article, the vast majority of whom heavily subsidize their higher education. Germany would be a fair comparison, no? America is fairly unique when it comes to financing higher education.
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MurrayBannerman
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« Reply #4 on: April 23, 2014, 12:22:10 PM »

I'm fighting the urge to spew my anti-boomer opinions out in this thread.
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Torie
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« Reply #5 on: April 23, 2014, 12:25:07 PM »

I'm fighting the urge to spew my anti-boomer opinions out in this thread.

Go for it!  Smiley
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Grumpier Than Uncle Joe
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« Reply #6 on: April 23, 2014, 12:27:58 PM »

I'm fighting the urge to spew my anti-boomer opinions out in this thread.

Go for it!  Smiley

No, please don't spew, even though Torie might enjoy it. 
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Torie
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« Reply #7 on: April 23, 2014, 12:29:42 PM »

Educational attainment has not risen as much as in other countries because higher education is very poorly subsidized for the vast majority of individuals. In any case, more youngs hold a 4 year degree than olds, so it is you olds who are the dumbs. Smiley

By "other countries," do you mean the not as developed, not as rich ones, as opposed to the cohort of the more developed nations, which is what this comparison is about?

No, I mean the countries talked about in the article, the vast majority of whom heavily subsidize their higher education. Germany would be a fair comparison, no? America is fairly unique when it comes to financing higher education.


Bet you a bong filled with the best, that the same results obtain for 18 year olds (our secondary schools suck, relatively speaking). Higher education in the US is in any event heavily subsidized of course, with Pell grants and all of that, and junior colleges essentially close to free. You are getting into fairly elite territory (what maybe 20% of the population), when you are talking about those expensive 4 year colleges).  And do European nations really have a higher percentage of 4 year college graduates than in the US for the young adult cohort?  No, it really isn't about money in my opinion.  At most, that is a peripheral issue.
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True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)
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« Reply #8 on: April 23, 2014, 12:33:30 PM »

I wouldn't place the blame so much on teachers' unions as other factors.  We've loaded down the school day with more "things that must be done", both educational and sociological, without really increasing the time available to do them.  The added time needed has primarily come by squeezing the time spent for "non-essentials" such as recess and lunch, and a result, we have kids who are having to engage in long grinding school days with little chance of a break to recharge or socialize.  In education these days, we tend to treat kids as learning machines and then are surprised when they fail to be machines.

Plus, the no child left behind ethos, while good in the abstract, has meant we're spending resources on children who would have been left behind back when you were going to school, and in some places that has been at the expense of those who were previously advantaged.
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bedstuy
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« Reply #9 on: April 23, 2014, 12:36:13 PM »

We're becoming a more and more a nation of the have and have-nots.  There's no real path for poor people to slowly rise up the economic ladder.  A few elite, smart hard-working people will slip through, but there's no generational upward mobility (IE grandfather was a farm-worker, father worked in a factory and paid for son to get an education).  Poor people in America just live in grinding and punishing poverty with no real chance at a decent life. 

I look at the poor kids in my neighborhood in Brooklyn.  Almost none come from two parent households with cohesion and discipline.  They have parents who are totally unprepared for parenthood and have no resources to get their lives together.  Their parents are often functionally illiterate and forced to work two or three jobs just to live.
 
A third of the local high school students don't show up to school on an average day.  They don't do homework, read for fun or do anything academic.  How is a teacher going to really change that situation?  How can those kids possibly compete with kids who study for several hours a day and have doting parents who constantly work on educating their kids?

It all just goes back to the cycle of poverty.  The more we treat poor people like human trash, the worse this county will become.  A society is built at the base and we're hollowing out the foundation of our society.  That's the problem, not teacher's unions.
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Sbane
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« Reply #10 on: April 23, 2014, 12:44:12 PM »

Educational attainment has not risen as much as in other countries because higher education is very poorly subsidized for the vast majority of individuals. In any case, more youngs hold a 4 year degree than olds, so it is you olds who are the dumbs. Smiley

By "other countries," do you mean the not as developed, not as rich ones, as opposed to the cohort of the more developed nations, which is what this comparison is about?

No, I mean the countries talked about in the article, the vast majority of whom heavily subsidize their higher education. Germany would be a fair comparison, no? America is fairly unique when it comes to financing higher education.


Bet you a bong filled with the best, that the same results obtain for 18 year olds (our secondary schools suck, relatively speaking). Higher education in the US is in any event heavily subsidized of course, with Pell grants and all of that, and junior colleges essentially close to free. You are getting into fairly elite territory (what maybe 20% of the population), when you are talking about those expensive 4 year colleges).  And do European nations really have a higher percentage of 4 year college graduates than in the US for the young adult cohort?  No, it really isn't about money in my opinion.  At most, that is a peripheral issue.

Well, I thought this was about college education, since the age cohort you were talking about went up to 24. If you are comparing those who are about to graduate high school in America with those at the same stage of their education abroad, then yes, the other OECD countries do have an advantage.
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Torie
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« Reply #11 on: April 23, 2014, 12:48:02 PM »
« Edited: April 23, 2014, 12:58:36 PM by Torie »

Yes, blame the parents, blame being poor, blame whatever. However, effective teachers can make a world of difference, and that is what studies show. Nothing else much matters. Being effective means being smart, knowing the material, and being charismatic, and knowing how to keep order and stare down the punks mouthing off and disrupting, while going forward with the lesson plan. You just keep talking about Sudan being until divided the largest country in Africa as you walk up to the disrupter, and get within a few inches of his eyes, and stare bullets at him.

For those wanting to get further depressed, check out a newly published book, The Son Also Rises.  The same families keep appearing at the top of the heap, century after century.  And when I think of my forebears, putting aside wealth (100 years ago, almost everybody was poor by our standards), they all seem to have been middle class since rocks cooled - for 200 years or more, and many highly successful. I won a valuable lottery ticket as it were, given who sired and bore me into this world.  It's sobering - very sobering.

I am beginning to sound a bit like opebo aren't I? Oh dear!  Sad
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bedstuy
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« Reply #12 on: April 23, 2014, 12:52:26 PM »

Yes, blame the parents, blame being poor, blame whatever. However, effective teachers can make a world of difference, and that is what studies show. Nothing else much matters. Being effective means being smart, knowing the material, and being charismatic, and knowing how to keep order and stare down the punks mouthing off and disrupting, while going forward with the lesson plan. You just keep talking about Sudan being until divided the largest country in Africa as you walk up to the disrupter, and get within a few inches of his eyes, and stare bullets at him.

For those wanting to get further depressed, check out a newly published book, The Son Also Rises.  The same families keep appearing at the top of the heap, century after century.  And when I think of my forebears. Putting aside wealth, they all seem to have been middle class since rocks cooled - for 200 years or more, and many highly successful. I won a valuable lottery ticket as it were, given who sired and bore me into this world.  It's sobering - very sobering.

I am beginning to sound a bit like opebo aren't I? Oh dear!  Sad

We need good teachers as well.  You haven't made the argument that teacher's unions caused a decline in teacher quality though. 
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MaxQue
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« Reply #13 on: April 23, 2014, 12:53:09 PM »

Yes, blame the parents, blame being poor, blame whatever. However, effective teachers can make a world of difference, and that is what studies show. Nothing else much matters. Being effective means being smart, knowing the material, and being charismatic, and knowing how to keep order and stare down the punks mouthing off and disrupting, while going forward with the lesson plan. You just keep talking about Sudan being until divided the largest country in Africa as you walk up to the disrupter, and get within a few inches of his eyes, and stare bullets at him.

Perhaps teachers would be more smart people if the job was more attractive. It's underpaid, you lose time fighting in unions/direction fights, with uninterested parents and school boards wanting to keep more money for themselves or to cut to cut taxes. It's not attractive at all.
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Torie
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« Reply #14 on: April 23, 2014, 12:55:07 PM »

Yes, blame the parents, blame being poor, blame whatever. However, effective teachers can make a world of difference, and that is what studies show. Nothing else much matters. Being effective means being smart, knowing the material, and being charismatic, and knowing how to keep order and stare down the punks mouthing off and disrupting, while going forward with the lesson plan. You just keep talking about Sudan being until divided the largest country in Africa as you walk up to the disrupter, and get within a few inches of his eyes, and stare bullets at him.

For those wanting to get further depressed, check out a newly published book, The Son Also Rises.  The same families keep appearing at the top of the heap, century after century.  And when I think of my forebears. Putting aside wealth, they all seem to have been middle class since rocks cooled - for 200 years or more, and many highly successful. I won a valuable lottery ticket as it were, given who sired and bore me into this world.  It's sobering - very sobering.

I am beginning to sound a bit like opebo aren't I? Oh dear!  Sad

We need good teachers as well.  You haven't made the argument that teacher's unions caused a decline in teacher quality though. 

Yes, I would need to link the longitudinal studies for that. But the quality of teachers overall is shockingly poor - the C students from third rate schools as it were. When speaking to some of them, and reading their prose, the literary level they have is pathetic - and frightening. That has been my anecdotal experience, and what I have read elsewhere over the years.
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Torie
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« Reply #15 on: April 23, 2014, 12:57:34 PM »
« Edited: April 23, 2014, 01:00:02 PM by Torie »

Yes, blame the parents, blame being poor, blame whatever. However, effective teachers can make a world of difference, and that is what studies show. Nothing else much matters. Being effective means being smart, knowing the material, and being charismatic, and knowing how to keep order and stare down the punks mouthing off and disrupting, while going forward with the lesson plan. You just keep talking about Sudan being until divided the largest country in Africa as you walk up to the disrupter, and get within a few inches of his eyes, and stare bullets at him.

Perhaps teachers would be more smart people if the job was more attractive. It's underpaid, you lose time fighting in unions/direction fights, with uninterested parents and school boards wanting to keep more money for themselves or to cut to cut taxes. It's not attractive at all.

Of course. Fire the incompetents, dump tenure, and reward the talented, like with 150K per year salaries in the tougher schools. And give them the disciplinary tools. I should be a teacher, you should be a teacher, my cousin should be a teacher. Yes, we should, but of course, for excellent reasons, we don't. Sad.
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MurrayBannerman
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« Reply #16 on: April 23, 2014, 12:58:40 PM »

We're becoming a more and more a nation of the have and have-nots.  There's no real path for poor people to slowly rise up the economic ladder.  A few elite, smart hard-working people will slip through, but there's no generational upward mobility (IE grandfather was a farm-worker, father worked in a factory and paid for son to get an education).  Poor people in America just live in grinding and punishing poverty with no real chance at a decent life. 

I look at the poor kids in my neighborhood in Brooklyn.  Almost none come from two parent households with cohesion and discipline.  They have parents who are totally unprepared for parenthood and have no resources to get their lives together.  Their parents are often functionally illiterate and forced to work two or three jobs just to live.
 
A third of the local high school students don't show up to school on an average day.  They don't do homework, read for fun or do anything academic.  How is a teacher going to really change that situation?  How can those kids possibly compete with kids who study for several hours a day and have doting parents who constantly work on educating their kids?

It all just goes back to the cycle of poverty.  The more we treat poor people like human trash, the worse this county will become.  A society is built at the base and we're hollowing out the foundation of our society.  That's the problem, not teacher's unions.
As someone who's grown up in a single mother home that was reliant on welfare, I feel this statement is quite harsh. Especially when I've been given more than half of my tuition costs covered by need-based, federal and state grants and much of my study abroad trip will be covered by grants and scholarships from the state and my public school.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #17 on: April 23, 2014, 12:58:47 PM »

kids these days, teachers unions, raaaaaaagh, blah, blah, blah
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MurrayBannerman
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« Reply #18 on: April 23, 2014, 01:00:07 PM »

Yes, blame the parents, blame being poor, blame whatever. However, effective teachers can make a world of difference, and that is what studies show. Nothing else much matters. Being effective means being smart, knowing the material, and being charismatic, and knowing how to keep order and stare down the punks mouthing off and disrupting, while going forward with the lesson plan. You just keep talking about Sudan being until divided the largest country in Africa as you walk up to the disrupter, and get within a few inches of his eyes, and stare bullets at him.

Perhaps teachers would be more smart people if the job was more attractive. It's underpaid, you lose time fighting in unions/direction fights, with uninterested parents and school boards wanting to keep more money for themselves or to cut to cut taxes. It's not attractive at all.

Of course. Fire the incompetents, dump tenure, and reward the talented, like with 150K per year salaries in the tougher schools. And give then the disciplinary tools. I should be a teacher, you should be a teacher, my cousin should be a teacher. Yes, we should, but of course, for excellent reasons, we don't. Sad.
I'd be in favor of a pay system that disperses teacher talent, instead of coalescing it in the higher quality schools.
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bedstuy
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« Reply #19 on: April 23, 2014, 01:00:19 PM »

Yes, blame the parents, blame being poor, blame whatever. However, effective teachers can make a world of difference, and that is what studies show. Nothing else much matters. Being effective means being smart, knowing the material, and being charismatic, and knowing how to keep order and stare down the punks mouthing off and disrupting, while going forward with the lesson plan. You just keep talking about Sudan being until divided the largest country in Africa as you walk up to the disrupter, and get within a few inches of his eyes, and stare bullets at him.

For those wanting to get further depressed, check out a newly published book, The Son Also Rises.  The same families keep appearing at the top of the heap, century after century.  And when I think of my forebears. Putting aside wealth, they all seem to have been middle class since rocks cooled - for 200 years or more, and many highly successful. I won a valuable lottery ticket as it were, given who sired and bore me into this world.  It's sobering - very sobering.

I am beginning to sound a bit like opebo aren't I? Oh dear!  Sad

We need good teachers as well.  You haven't made the argument that teacher's unions caused a decline in teacher quality though.  

Yes, I would need to link the longitudinal studies for that. But the quality of teachers overall is shockingly poor - the C students from third rate schools as it were. When speaking to some of them, and reading their prose, the literary level they have is pathetic - and frightening. That has been my anecdotal experience, and what I have read elsewhere over the years.

I wonder how much of that is just how our society has changed economically.  Back in the day, there was less difference between a doctor salary and teacher salary.  Today, if you're a bright college kid, you might be reducing your lifetime earnings 10 times by choosing that career.  People are motivated by money, after all.  

Also, back in the day, a smart woman was more limited in career trajectory.  I bet a lot of brilliant women in 1960 became math teachers because our society prevented them from becoming Wall Street traders.
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bedstuy
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« Reply #20 on: April 23, 2014, 01:01:59 PM »

We're becoming a more and more a nation of the have and have-nots.  There's no real path for poor people to slowly rise up the economic ladder.  A few elite, smart hard-working people will slip through, but there's no generational upward mobility (IE grandfather was a farm-worker, father worked in a factory and paid for son to get an education).  Poor people in America just live in grinding and punishing poverty with no real chance at a decent life. 

I look at the poor kids in my neighborhood in Brooklyn.  Almost none come from two parent households with cohesion and discipline.  They have parents who are totally unprepared for parenthood and have no resources to get their lives together.  Their parents are often functionally illiterate and forced to work two or three jobs just to live.
 
A third of the local high school students don't show up to school on an average day.  They don't do homework, read for fun or do anything academic.  How is a teacher going to really change that situation?  How can those kids possibly compete with kids who study for several hours a day and have doting parents who constantly work on educating their kids?

It all just goes back to the cycle of poverty.  The more we treat poor people like human trash, the worse this county will become.  A society is built at the base and we're hollowing out the foundation of our society.  That's the problem, not teacher's unions.
As someone who's grown up in a single mother home that was reliant on welfare, I feel this statement is quite harsh. Especially when I've been given more than half of my tuition costs covered by need-based, federal and state grants and much of my study abroad trip will be covered by grants and scholarships from the state and my public school.

When we're talking about general trends, it's appropriate to make generalizations. 
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Torie
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« Reply #21 on: April 23, 2014, 01:03:57 PM »

You are so right about gender discrimination having been a huge benefit to secondary education. My best teachers by far were women. They are gone now largely, because they are lawyers, and MD's, and so forth. But of course, we are not going back to that, and the same landscape obtains in Europe of course, which as the article noted, tend to be doing better than we are.
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MurrayBannerman
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« Reply #22 on: April 23, 2014, 01:05:49 PM »

We're becoming a more and more a nation of the have and have-nots.  There's no real path for poor people to slowly rise up the economic ladder.  A few elite, smart hard-working people will slip through, but there's no generational upward mobility (IE grandfather was a farm-worker, father worked in a factory and paid for son to get an education).  Poor people in America just live in grinding and punishing poverty with no real chance at a decent life. 

I look at the poor kids in my neighborhood in Brooklyn.  Almost none come from two parent households with cohesion and discipline.  They have parents who are totally unprepared for parenthood and have no resources to get their lives together.  Their parents are often functionally illiterate and forced to work two or three jobs just to live.
 
A third of the local high school students don't show up to school on an average day.  They don't do homework, read for fun or do anything academic.  How is a teacher going to really change that situation?  How can those kids possibly compete with kids who study for several hours a day and have doting parents who constantly work on educating their kids?

It all just goes back to the cycle of poverty.  The more we treat poor people like human trash, the worse this county will become.  A society is built at the base and we're hollowing out the foundation of our society.  That's the problem, not teacher's unions.
As someone who's grown up in a single mother home that was reliant on welfare, I feel this statement is quite harsh. Especially when I've been given more than half of my tuition costs covered by need-based, federal and state grants and much of my study abroad trip will be covered by grants and scholarships from the state and my public school.

When we're talking about general trends, it's appropriate to make generalizations. 
And yet, in my experience, these generalizations lack truth.
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Cassius
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« Reply #23 on: April 23, 2014, 01:10:37 PM »

Meh, all kids need when they're young is facts being drummed into their heads and a lot of testing and homework. Doesn't work for everyone undoubtedly, but I'd imagine it works for most. It did for me at any rate Tongue
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #24 on: April 23, 2014, 01:14:14 PM »

oh and a young fogey joins in with the old fogies!
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