Keith Hughes wrote:
snip



No, it is lack of adequate parenting that causes the majority of the
problem, IMO. You apparently think the existence of the public school
system is a valid basis on which parents can abdicate responsibility for
child rearing.

Nobody said that!!! Indeed this thread is all about the parents wanting
to take responsibility?? You can read?? or did you get a union organised
education??

Home education *in addition to* that provided by the
public, or private, education system, has *always* been a prerequiste
for first rate education. West or East.

This is nonsense, you seem to want to take away from the fact western
education standards are dropping & blame parents, that's your right just
as most every parents these days blame unionised dead beat lefty
teachers, the difference is the parents are putting their money where
their mouth is & sending their kids to private "proper" schools instead
of lefty union indoctrination camps.

snip


Yes, and parent should get involved (as in PARTICIPATE, not spectate) in
their kids education!

So again you agree?? this planned boat trip is a good idea
educationally??? Apart from your mantra about not having access to any
govt funded programs because what?? it competes with the unions draining
the system dry??

Few parents I encounter even know the names of
their children's teachers. Schools, and school boards, respond to the
demands of the community (read 'parents'), and unfortunately, those
demands are too often for a baby-sitting service that passes children
from grade to grade irrespective of their level of attainment. Let me
ask you a couple of questions:

You are in fairyland!! The majority of union teachers are not
interested in anything nor anyone but themselves & how much they can
bludge from the system. Krause claims to have been a teacher, probably a
lie like everything else he claims, but can you imagine letting your
kids anywhere near him??? By all means teachers can hold views on all
sorts of things, other than the curriculum just don't teach them to
other peoples' kids.


1. Do you think teachers (or professors for that matter) *like* to
reward students for substandard performance?

Of course not, indeed they even help students cheat to avoid it, so
their institutions don't look bad, the parents don't ask how come?? &
the general public don't get wise to the lousy teaching job they're
doing!!! The jig is up, the public have figured it out & don't just take
my word for it; look at how many people are prepared to forgo life's
little luxuries so they can "pay extra" to have their children properly
educated, without the lefty union bias attached.

2. Do you think teachers (or professors for that matter) *like* to to
have students so disruptive that the learning environment for other
students is degraded, without having the disciplinary tools available to
address, or even ameliorate, the situation (small clue here...parents
don't *like* other people to discipline their unruly progeny)?

So first you blame the parents now it's the kids?? give it up it's the
unionised public teachers. But again have a look at the stats public
lefty union teachered schools are avoided like the plague by any parent
who can afford to save their children from them.


3. Do you think the responsibility for teaching respect, courtesy, and
discipline lies with the public school teacher (i.e. instead of with the
parents, as it has been since time immemorial)?

Again so you agree then that these people will do a better job of
educating their boys than your union teachers??? Great ... we agree.

As for the money thing well we can just disagree:-)


If you answered "yes" to any of those questions, I'll be happy to mail
you a quarter should you like to purchase a clue.

Purchase a clue!!!... ahhhh the true socialist:-) They demand
everything be given to "them" free, but have a different view about
themselves

you miss the point. Parents have the responsibility for
preparing their children *for* school, monitoring their performance *at*
school (P.T.A., parent-teacher conferences, etc.), and changing the
educational system when it isn't functioning properly.

Parents have a responsibility to protect their kids from lefty union
teachers who don't educate (have a look at the stats) but do try to
spread the lefty socialist mantra in the classroom.

We live in a
democracy in the US, and inherent in the democratic process is both
personal and social responsibility. Vote out the school board, the
system *will* change. Sit back and carp on newsgroups on the other hand,
and...oh, that's right, nothing happens. Get it?

Get it ?? Hmmmmm the socialist control freak, you're wrong & wrong
because you're an uneducated simpleton, pretty much it seems another
wasted life, we measure them in Krause lives:-). I hate to mention this
here, but do you think we may have our oxygen back???


Ever heard of greed? We (in the US) live in the short term. We
artifically elevate our standard of living (on the cheap labor of third
world countries, to a large extent) without thought to long term
consequences. That is a serious social/cultural issue we certainly need
to address.

You are another Krause type socialist, who's totally uneducated & has
no understanding of anything. World trade is the best thing going for
the US & the rest of the west & wait for it....... also the countries
you pretend to be worried about. You've never looked into it but don't
bother, for you don't have the wherewithal to understand.


Your postulate, however, that (and I'm paraphrasing of course) if our
children were better educated, *we* would be making the clothes, shoes,
toys, TV's, VCR's, DVD players, etc. that comprise the bulk of that
"95%", is ludicrous on its face. These are produced by unskilled, or
semi-skilled workers (as commonly defined), where the cost per unit
rules the day (almost entirely a function of living standard), NOT the
education level of the workforce.

It's the desire for those things from the west that makes the market,
but it's also the design inventive skills & much more importantly the
capital from the west that creates all those jobs, & those jobs are the
driver of a better world for all.

Now if the funds saved assembling cheap widgets & helping the 3rd world
at the same time, could have created a better education system in the
west then we would invent ever better things, which we would demand be
manufactured etc etc. The flies on the dung heap are the western unions,
particularly the teachers, who are living in the past & can't see past
the comfort of their union organised thug campaigns.


Sorry to snatch the easy bone from your jaws

It's easy to see which bone you hang onto.

, but no, I'm not a teacher
(never have been, not married to one). I was, however, lucky enough to
have been raised by parents and grandparents who believed in education,
and their rearing techniques reflected it. So I know adequate parenting
when I see it, even seeing so rarely.

You're not a teacher, you can't understand anything the socialist
mantra hasn't fed you, which end did they feed it???


And to those whining about a tax rebate for home schooling,

Nobody asked for a rebate!!! you brought up that you didn't want these
boat boys to have access to the system their parents have helped pay
for. Yes education is a social good but let parents decide how they
achieve it for their own kids, subject to mandated standards of academic
achievement. Hey lefty parents can support the lefty teachers?? oops no
no no:-) guess what?? it's the lefty parents leading the charge of
sending their kids to proper schools.

Damn the union teachers won't even allow us to test to confirm what we
all know, which is they're hopeless at what we pay them for; to teach.

how about
for those who have no children? Shall I get a rebate for the 30 years
I've been paying property taxes for schools I'm not using? Or the roads
*I* don't personally drive on, or the Fire Department *I've* never
personally used, or...get the point? Public education, as with all
social services, benefits *society as a whole* when done properly. We
all reap the benefits, we all pay the costs. We all have a
responsibility to get out and do something when it's not done properly.
Look at voter turnout and tell me how involved people are in society.

Well at least it's good to know Darwinism is at work as regards you.
Now how about that oxygen, any chance we may have it back???

K

Keith Hughes

K. Smith wrote:
snipped because for the 4th or 5th time he hasn't had a damn thing to
say about the OP's question

I'll be brief. Normally I don't respond to this type of polemic but
after having read your posts in this thread, and getting my giggling
under control, I've decided that your ignorance is so overwhelming as to
demand informing. I'm not confident that it will be more than a pearl
to you.

You sir are the poster boy for right-wing boneheads everywhere. There
is no discussing anything with people like you because a) your writing
makes you appear to be as dumb as a post and (this is the scary part) b)
you think *You're right* and everybody else who doesn't think like you
is not only wrong, but somehow a threat to your narrow little world
view. The anti-teacher, anti-union vitriol you're spewing in here
verges on the pathological. Were you found to be incompetent and fired
from a teaching job? The grapes seem _really_ sour.

In the meantime, pull your gaze away from your self-satisfied little
American navel and read a book or two -or better still- take your boat
somewhere foreign, keep your big mouth shut and just watch and learn.
You're in desperate need.

Harry,
I'm not a fan of K. Smith, but post of this venomous nature are what
get you villainousised.
Paul

"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
snipped
Actually, K. Smith is female, and presents as an early parolee from an
Australian asylum for the mentally challenged. She's a general failure in
life who tries to compensate by being an attack dog, and lives in a
fantasy world of right-wing extremism. She's best ignored, and her
9000-word posts dismissed with throwaway lines.

On Sat, 25 Dec 2004 04:28:38 UTC, "Tuuk" wrote:


No, not at all, I am talking the east such as the Asian countries, the ones
that are economically exploding. Of couse there are poor countries
everywhere, and middle east and the islamic or muslims teach the wrong
things. That is why they attacked on 911. Those schools focus so much on the
koran, teaching to hate non muslims, hating non islam and they do not spend
enough time on the maths and sciences etc. When they become 20 years old and
ready to compete in the workplace, they fail and see others so wealthy then
the jealousy, rage, anger, and they rebel against the apex.

I know you are generalising, but let's look at a fact or two, shall we
....
At least one of the 911 hijacker pilots was apparently very well
educated at an expensive Lebanese private school which has a mixed
intake of various Christian and Muslim denominations, they promote
racial and religious harmony - not hate - and he came from a rich,
protective, family where he was the only son. So I don't think you can
specifically say ' That is why they attacked on 911'.

But to better answer the caller's question, yes with proper resources,
motivation and training a student could learn more in that environment. What
they might miss would be the public speaking opportunities, team work,
friendships, but at their age, they could easily go one on one with the
computer and yes learn more than at a public school.

A large number of studies have found that the major factor in the
average success (ie some fail dismally, some excel) of home educated
students is the fact that their parents care about their education and
show it. The same child, with the same parent showing the same amount
of interest might very well do better in a public school. On the other
hand public schools have their average dragged down by all the kids
whose parents don't give a damn and only send their kids because they
are made to.

Chris

From one of my favorite writers, only a bit OT, but certainly no further
afield than the subject has wandered. The writer can be found at
fredoneverything.com

Down With Education

Sort Of



December 29, 2004

Some years back, while laboring in the grim vineyards of police
correspondence for a metropolitan daily, I appeared as a guest lecturer
before a class of undergraduates in criminology at the University of
Maryland. The idea of a major in criminology struck me as peculiar, but
apparently there was one. I was to explain to the students the realities of
police work.

The adventure was a revelation. The kids, a scruffy bunch dressed in student
tatterdemalion, heavy on minorities, were as lacking in polish as in
grammar. Their intelligence seemed low. They had strong, simple prejudices
instead of ideas, and no inclination to examine them. The intellectual level
was that of a rural high school. They appeared to be bored. They had no
business in a university.

Why, I wondered, were we forcing these bedraggled beings to feign a
scholarship which appealed to them not at all, which they at once endured
and degraded-and that at great expense to the public? Why do we make this
burdensome imposition on people who do not want schooling, do not need it,
and do not understand what it is? It is wrongheaded.

I submit that it makes no sense to inflict on the unprepared and incapable a
pretense of a university education for no other reason that to further a
pretense of equality. What real purpose is served? And yet this forcing of
the unneeded on the undesirous runs through all schooling in America.

It makes little more sense to require that the intelligent but uninterested
study what they do not like-usually, the liberal arts. Doing so accomplishes
nothing. An engineer forced to read Blake is merely an annoyed engineer. He
will never touch a book of poetry in his academic afterlife. There is no
reason why he should.

I think that we ought to abandon utterly any requirement that vocational
students waste time on the liberal arts. Schools of engineering,
criminology, and business management are just that, vocational schools,
nothing more. They may be of a high order. Graduating in electrical
engineering from a school of the first rank is not easy. Yet the document
awarded is not a diploma but a trade-school certificate. So is a degree
chemistry or ophthalmology. All are evidence of training, not education. If
a student of chemistry wants to study history, and many might, he should
certainly be enabled to do so. But it should not be required.

Universities usually defend requirements in the liberal arts on many grounds
in which few believe. I suggest that we cease to defend them at all. A
liberal schooling should be a luxury, like a yacht, and should be regarded
as such. The arts are not for many and should be forced on none. They
require much and exact a price. Only the intelligent can profit by them, and
of the intelligent, few want them. Why not make them voluntary?

I now hear of departments of English literature which award degrees to
students who have never read Shakespeare or Chaucer. The students of course
say that such authors are "irrelevant." The literate respond with horror,
leaping to such barricades as may be found in publications on coated paper.

But the students are right. Shakespeare is irrelevant. More accurately,
Shakespeare is irrelevant to anyone who believes that he is irrelevant. You
do not get a federal job by knowing Chaucer, or having heard of Chaucer.
Those forced to study writers, or philosophy, or history they don't want to
study will gain nothing. Those who do want to study them lose much, because
the courses will often be of sufficiently little rigor as not to oppress the
bored.

Yet there are intelligent young of inquiring nature and breadth of mind to
whom liberal studies appeal-students actually attracted to reading Aeschylus
in the original , and Asian history and the Elder Edda, who want to study
Fragonard and Watteau. Let them. By so doing they harm no one. Being
turbulent adolescents under the influence of evil hormones, they will need
direction. Nonetheless if a student chooses such schooling, knowing what he
is choosing, it is his business.

It is not just in the universities that we force the young to study things
that mean nothing to them and will have no influence on their lives. As
soundings of the public monotonously reveal, a minority of the population is
in possession of such arcane information as the century in which the Civil
War occurred, or who fought in World War I, or where Italy might be found on
a map. Things are yet worse: Far more people than we admit can barely read.
Most who can, don't. The United States is not the well-schooled nation that
it seems to believe that it is.

The public schools, say some, have failed to such a degree as to make their
continuance rationally unjustifiable. Yes, they fail, but why? To some
extent it is because they are expected to do what cannot be done-to educate
the uneducable. For reasons of dizzy idealism, we pretend that all students
have the wit to learn. Thus we suffer high-sounding programs like No Child
Left Behind. You cannot ensure that no child will be left behind. You can
try to ensure that no child will get ahead. To this we incline.

As in the universities, the difficulty is that we refuse to separate the
able from the rest, yet insist on attempting to teach to the uninterested
things that they do not want to know. If this effort bore fruit, it might be
justified: A disputable case can be made that the historically literate are
better equipped to vote, etc. But it is easily demonstrated that the
majority do not learn much. Why bother?

A wise course, and therefore one impossible of realization, might be to
recognize that schooling is inherently hierarchical and not susceptible to
populist leveling. A beginning would be to make all study voluntary beyond,
say, the sixth or eighth grade. By then all would have learned to read who
were ever going to learn. Below the university level, private schools unregu
lated by government are the only way to let people study the subjects they
choose at the level of rigor that they want. Freedom from federal intrusion
is crucial. Nothing else can prevent resentful minorities from imposing
invertebrate standards on all.

Fat chance.

I didn't write this - but I like what he sez...

L8R

Skip

--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig
http://tinyurl.com/384p2

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.
Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 17:05:23 UTC, Keith Hughes
wrote:

YES!
Finally, a sensible entry into this 'debate' .

I AM a teacher - and in the 'east' - the kids that do well TEND to be
the ones who have parents that give a damn. About them and about
their education. The kids that don't get that TEND to not do as well
as they could.

Chris

On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 22:12:02 UTC, "Alan Gomes" wrote:

Now, even if there were a "rebate" for home schooling, that money would be
used to eduate the children in question, though outside of the public
system. This would still provide the alleged societal benefit you are
touting above. Unless, of course, the real issue isn't whether children
receive an education but whether it is the government doing it?

Yes, but we all benefit from OTHER people's children getting an
education too...

Chris-

On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 18:17:40 UTC, "Alan Gomes" wrote:

Ok, Keith. You win. I'm convinced. The public school system produces such a
massive societal benefit that no amount of taxation to support it is
excessive. Without it we'd have a society of kids who could not read or
write and who are in general functionally illiterate, who could not do
simple math, and who had no knowledge of world history or even of the great
books of western civilization.

Oh, wait! That's what we presently have *with* the public school system.
Quick! Someone raise my property taxes so we can throw some more money at
it!

A pathetic strawman setup - that's not what he said, as you well know,
but you don't know how to address what he did say.

Just to summarise/simplify it for you and the other 'public bad,
private good' folks, he did say:
the system has flaws;
it won't be fixed by opting out with your money;
it is the result of people (parents in this case) opting out with
their other resources, like participation.


Well, it's been fun playing. Gotta get back to life beyond usenet. So go
ahead and have the last word and I'll see you around sometime--maybe on the
water. (A feeble attempt at getting back to something sailing related
here....)

--Alan

Chris
--

On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 16:17:54 UTC, Harry Krause
wrote:

prodigal1 wrote:
K. Smith wrote:
snipped because for the 4th or 5th time he hasn't had a damn thing to
say about the OP's question

I'll be brief. Normally I don't respond to this type of polemic but
after having read your posts in this thread, and getting my giggling
under control, I've decided that your ignorance is so overwhelming as to
demand informing. I'm not confident that it will be more than a pearl
to you.

You sir are the poster boy for right-wing boneheads everywhere. There
is no discussing anything with people like you because a) your writing
makes you appear to be as dumb as a post and (this is the scary part) b)
you think *You're right* and everybody else who doesn't think like you
is not only wrong, but somehow a threat to your narrow little world
view. The anti-teacher, anti-union vitriol you're spewing in here
verges on the pathological. Were you found to be incompetent and fired
from a teaching job? The grapes seem _really_ sour.

In the meantime, pull your gaze away from your self-satisfied little
American navel and read a book or two -or better still- take your boat
somewhere foreign, keep your big mouth shut and just watch and learn.
You're in desperate need.

Actually, K. Smith is female, and presents as an early parolee from an
Australian asylum for the mentally challenged. She's a general failure
in life who tries to compensate by being an attack dog, and lives in a
fantasy world of right-wing extremism. She's best ignored, and her
9000-word posts dismissed with throwaway lines.

AUSTRALIAN?
Oh the shame .....

Chris

--

On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 21:35:41 UTC, "Paul Schilter"
paulschilter@comcast dot net wrote:

Harry,
I'm not a fan of K. Smith, but post of this venomous nature are what
get you villainousised.
Paul

And K Smith's don't? They're pretty nasty, not to mention illogical.

Chris

--