Young Americans are dumbs

[Torie]

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.

[Torie]

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.

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?

[Torie]

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

Go for it! 

[Torie]

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.

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.

[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!  

[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, 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! 

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.

[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.

[Torie]

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.

[Torie]

With the astonishing amount of money squandered by the government education industry complex, such figures are truly amazing.

Even more amazing data is the massive amounts of windfall profits reaped by those teachers despite stagnant student enrollment. They are winning the treasury.

What is your solution krazen?

Win the treasury back.

How?

That's the easiest question of all. Put the government education industry complex on a diet by firing staff, cut the fat cats, and redirect funds to more useful purposes.

All it needs is a fellow with some mettle to take the fight to the enemy.

Giving kids in the wrong zip codes the education they deserve, and to better secure the American dream of the land of equal opportunity, is, along with the requisite reforms, tied to its hip, going to cost more money krazen, not less. And it is a moral imperative to do so, as to which all other considerations must give way in my view.

[Torie]

I think the biggest educational gap between USA and other advanced economies is in the area of vocational training.  In the sphere of liberal arts education the USA still dominates the rest of the world. It is the tier of people below that that seems to be getting a liberal arts light education for the purpose of social status when in fact vocational training is better from a ROI point of view.  The student debt crisis is a symptom of this.

Yes, for the elite top 10%, education in the US remains the best on the planet probably. So we are baking into the cake more inequality as a matter of public policy. We are not doing that intentionally of course, but we are doing it nevertheless.

[Torie]

So comparing the 45-55 cohort to the 16-24 cohort would be comparing apples to apples, in a way the 55-65 cohort to the 16-24 cohort would not?  When did the test taking pool stop expanding?  Is there any reasonable accurate way to "correct" for the "noise" of the expanding pool factor?

Thanks for your anecdote Muon2. That was very interesting. My anecdote is that I find that there has been a material decline in literacy skills in my lifetime. Folks who have spoken English all their life, as their first language, in general just don't seem to me to have the vocabulary and writing skills that older cohorts fitting in that category seemed to have.

[Torie]

Did the SES of you class composition stay the same more or less over that period, Muon2?  That would be the other perhaps distorting factor, if it exists, that would need to be corrected for (as you suggest, when it comes to test scores).

[Torie]

Then that is pretty "clean" anecdotal evidence, and yes, rather more compelling than mine. Actually, might be more apropos. Sad.

[Torie]

Speaking of the Common Core, at least one citizen thinks it's a superhighway straight to Hitler. And what is a means for a local board to put on end to the verbal flagellation? Yes, you guess it - go into executive session!