Public education made America #1, as it crumbles so does our nation.

[Union Yes]

Literacy, math, preparation for life and self sufficiency. That's why public education made America #1.

A nation with a literate population has a tremendous advantage. As a nation, we once valued public education. At one time, America even acknowledged the fact that education is strength because it creates a self-sustaining national economy through innovation and discovery.

Our empire is crumbling around us as our public education system crumbles. They clearly go hand in hand. A crumbling education system will be a major player in America falling into third world status.

Why do so many capitalists fail to see that an educated society is a wealthier society?

Mr President, you can not let public education fall.

Please call the White House and tell the President to save public education.

[DesertFlower]

1. we have fallen way behind other countries.

why is it we only speak one language? in europe and even mid eastern countries, people speak several.

[xchrom]

2. Recommend

[mediaman007]

3. Education is the playground ball of politicians.

Everyone gets to have a kick at the ball, no matter what their background is.

[LWolf]

14. And the ball is wearing out. Losing air.

We can only be kicked so long before we're stomped and flattened, which is where we're going under Obama.

[hobbit709]

4. It's easier to keep the serfs under control if they're illiterate.

Why do you think many of the slave states made it illegal to teach a slave to read and write.

[seabeyond]

5. it is the repug game to buy into the public schools are crumblin to get the corps in to take over

as you insist people call the white house to moan the public schools are crumblin from a president that wants to put corps in control that will actually CAUSE our public education to crumble.

what a joke

[exboyfil]

7. And the reason public school is falling behind other industrialized

countries is what? Don't say it is lack of funds because we spend far more than average (and are nearly the top spending) on primary and secondary education according to the OECD. Google Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators 2009. Page 194 - Over the course of the primary and secondary education we spend about $125K, the OECD average is around $95K. Only Luxembourg, Switzerland, Norway, and Iceland spend more. Page 192 also has another chart showing primary education spending on U.S. students at almost $10K/yr while OECD average is $6500/yr. Secondary education U.S. education is $11K/yr while average is slightly over $8000/yr. (all numbers 2006)

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

9. I don't know. Enlighten us. -nt

[seabeyond]

10. thank you for telling me what NOT to say. no, not because of lack of funds. a divide

a clear divide. an obvious divide. an in your face divide from those that have and those that do not. people of a certain class instill, insist, demand, expect their kids to perform in school, and they do. and many parents do not have the ability, desire or education to instill, insist, demand, expect academic excellence from their children.

the education is available if a child choses to take advantage of the opportunities provided for him. many many students are receiving an education that is beyond what we received three decades ago. they are learning more, they are learning earlier and the teachers and adm are more fine tuned to address individual students like they have never been before

we adults have a continual monitor set up on the children for every move they make in school. every mistake is caught. every disturbance is monitored. every grade recorded. every absence is jumped on.

in all ways the schools are trying to cover every action and behavior that the parent is not putting the time and effort into addressing with their kids

schools are not the family, the parent and the child is left with choices and decisions.

[EFerrari]

31. There's something else, too. American workers are treated like crap.

They work more hours and days and weeks for less and have less down time than just about any "first world" country. And our wages haven't kept up with cost of living for decades.

So, these stressed out, broke parents are supposed to find the energy, time and focus to contribute to community schools? How?

I was the only parent volunteering in my son's classroom one year. And I was a single mom with a job and in college fulltime. Can you imagine how much more those other parents were dealing with?

Yeah, parents need to relearn how to give of themselves at school. But first, shouldn't there be something left to give?

[misanthrope]

32. You mean like Dubya excelled in school due to that upper crust "demand?"...

...For those who come from above a certain strata, their "success" is guaranteed by family connections. They have access to capital that others don't. They catch breaks that others don't. You want to rob someone's incentive, then let them watch that tilted playing field all their life.

I live in small Old South city that with a fairly stratified socio-economic order. I've seen these kids and what they learn from what they witness. It's sad because they form preconceptions early on that there's only so far they can go, only so many avenues open to them and set their priorities and expectations accordingly.

[RainDog]

15. maybe it's the tolerance for poverty in the U.S.

that you don't have in other western industrialized nations.

or universal health care.

or respect for education and for things like science rather than religion.

or having sports in high schools rather than in after school clubs.

[exboyfil]

24. Or it could be some of these other factors

Heterogeneous population
Large influx of low income non-English speakers
Fractured families (non-participating fathers and parents having children before they have established themselves)

I do agree with you on many of these other societal ills though. Way too much emphasis on sports and especially coaches teaching core subjects like math, science, and English.

We should have a health care system similar to the Germans. We should never pay more for drugs than other countries do.

We have an industrial policy that sucks (and has for a very long time). Our corporate laws need to be changed to eliminate voting for management when the proxy is not turned in. The mutual fund companies also need to become much more aggressive on executive compensation. We need to stay out of foreign wars (especially Iraq). We need to stop the moral hazard of bailing out these vulture bankers, insurance companies etc.


Don't know what to say about religion. I agree my fundamentalist friends make me a little nervous (Earth is 6,000 years old - no evolution etc), but you get past that their kids are very well educated (know the Constitution a whole lot better than most of their peers in public school, kick butt in math and most sciences etc). Take a look at a highly religious state like Utah, and you see they do well in education. Other states more liberal but still pretty religious like Iowa also do well. The kids that do worst in our local schools seem to have little or no contact with any sort of organizaed religion. A good number of the high performing kids are also active in their churches.

[RainDog]

28. people who think the world is 6000 years old are not well educated

because the way they got to that idea was through indoctrination, not thought, not study. In order to maintain that belief they have to deny reams of evidence that is available, reproducible studies that demonstrate such beliefs are akin to snake handling... there's a vast different between being able to pass a test and being intelligent.

I realize that in many parts of the U.S. religion is a way for lower and middle class people to avoid the "madonna/whore" trap that conservative religion sets for people... i.e. one is either a "good person" and studies, etc. or they're not religious and get into trouble.

that could be a description of the south I knew as a kid... the south that still exists.

where I am, kids who are not religious do very well. but I live in a University town and religion doesn't have the weight here that it does in other places. My kids went to school with kids from 39 other nations. It was always one of the highest ranked schools in the state. The kids from other nations, however, had parents who were in school and who instilled the value of education and study. So, I guess that "monoculture" idea for educational achievement isn't all that important - unless the "monoculture" is about the value of education and questioning of traditional thought.

Where I live is one of the top ten places in the U.S. to start a biz b/c of its highly educated populace, according to Forbes. (oh, and b/c of its cultural diversity, including open acceptance of the GBLT community.) Guess Utah has some competition.

we could give anecdotal evidence all day.

a new study indicates that having a home library is equal to having a parent with a university education, in terms of the value to a child.

Other studies demonstrate, however, that religious people, on average, have lower IQs than the non-religious. maybe this is because intelligence isn't just about repeating lists of "facts." I dunno.

I do know that study after study reveals authoritarians and the religious have lower IQs. IQ tests really indicate how much of a culture someone understands, so I guess that might be a problem for certain sorts of religious belief. I dunno.

[Hannah Bell]

26. something i don't understand about the oecd:

http://www.oecd.org/department/0,3355,en_2649_34833_1_1_1_1_1,00.html

Competition: Economic Issues

with whom are the member states "competing" & why is oecd making recommendations about strengthening "product market competition" & what precisely is this product?

for that matter, who is the oecd & who elected them to make policy?

why are they making recommendations about us education policy?

Economic survey of the United States 2007: Improving primary and secondary education

Primary and secondary education outcomes are unsatisfactory

A country’s ability to compete in an ever more integrated world economy crucially depends on a highly educated workforce. It is thus a matter of concern that US students are outperformed in international tests by their peers in many other countries. It is also a concern that many students seem underprepared for work and higher education.

"Their peers" = other member oecd states. We're "competing" with our oecd allies, all of whom are also being given advice about how to "compete" by oecd?


oecd is an organization devoted to marketization, imo.

"OECD brings together the governments of countries committed to democracy and the market economy from around the world to:

Support sustainable economic growth
Boost employment
Raise living standards
Maintain financial stability
Assist other countries' economic development
Contribute to growth in world trade"



The current secretary general is a banker.
I personally don't trust bankers. Particularly international bankers.

[proud2BlibKansan]

30. F

[robinblue]

6. Saving Public ed. to Obama means let charter shools reign high.

[Union Yes]

19. That's a horrid policy that has to change. Arne Duncan needs to be fired.

Only thing we can do is keep pressuring all of our leaders. Keep calling and emailing. I wish I had a better solution than that.

[Catshrink]

29. There is a facebook group dedicated to that

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#!/group.php?gid=49334373979

[Echo In Light]

8. It's the overall corporate/consumer culture that's dumbed the populace down

... I'd cite those all-encompassing factors before strictly laying it at the feet of failing standards of public education

[seabeyond]

11. i was addressing the home environment, but then this is another HUGE

conditioning that effect our kids in school

absolutely

i guess one can say a family, parents addressing this with children is how to go about instilling an environment where academics is top priority. but you are right.... this is a huge effect ont he children today.

[NotThisTime]

12. This society does not value education, repukes like it that way, keeps them in power

It's the best way to get them to vote against their interest.

[OHdem10]

13. Conservativism has reigned since Reagan. Government is the

problem. If you do not believe Government has a role
then any program is going to fail.

Look at the states where there are most problems--Not always
but most often you find a Hx of Conservative Republican Governors.

[lonestarnot]

16. richies aren't having any part of that shit.

[raccoon]

17. I disagree with your premise that public education made the US #1.

I think geography made the US # 1; being far enough away from the Axis powers that we didn't get bombed or have tanks rolling into our cities. After the war, so many countries in Europe, and of course Japan, were bombed to bits, that we didn't have much competition in the area of manufacturing.


Let me add that I totallly agree public education is important, and not given much of a priority in the US.

[maxsolomon]

20. I concur. WW2 made us #1 as we were the only ones still standing

and we certainly weren't #1 in education then, either. absurd OP.

[hvn_nbr_2]

18. "Why do so many capitalists fail to see that an educated society is a wealthier society?"

They fail to see because they don't even look there. They don't give a tinker's damn about society or about anyone else. All they care about is their own greed. How else do you explain sending 25 miners to their deaths in known unsafe conditions in the name of keeping up production?

[hobbit709]

21. They don't want to share either power or money.

[deoxyribonuclease]

22. We also need to address our cultural values regarding education

Don't get me wrong; I think our public education system is woefully underfunded, but money alone will not solve the problem. 'Mainstream' American culture does not seem to place a high priority (or any sort of priority IMHO) on education and critical thinking ability.

Education should be essential for a democracy to function in the 21st century. For far too long, ignorant people have elected ignorant representatives who oversimplify and/or ignore key issues. If people do not comprehend these increasingly complex issues, then the chance they will make optimal decisions in confronting and resolving them becomes greatly reduced.

[exboyfil]

25. In terms of underfunded

We spend more on average than almost all the other OECD countries, and, except for some ultrarich schools, the spend is pretty uniform. Some of the most problem school systems have the largest per student spend. It boggles the mind how $200,000 (25 students at $8,000/student) can't pay for an adequate education for a classroom. The median income for a family of 4 in my state is $65K and we spend $9500/yr per student in my district. The national average is about $11K/yr pr student. Our sister community actually spends more per student, and it is rated at a 3 from Great Schools while our school system is a 9.

In my state the spend per student has been going up faster than the median income (and total income). The tertiary public universities growth has been flat (in actual dollars not inflation adjusted), but the primary and secondary spend has continued to grow faster than inflation and wages.

Another example- Sharon Mass spends about $13K/yr and gets a 10 rating from Great Schools
West Bridgewater Mass about $12K/yr and a 8 rating
Brockton Mass is about $14K/yr and a 3 rating
Randolph Mass about $14K/yr and a 3 rating

I think the entire education model needs to be addressed beyond the funding issue. School systems can't make up for absent fathers (which I think is the biggest driver in this whole mess). If you say that we should spend twice as much on the troubled school districts versus the high performing ones, you will be expecting those in the high performing ones to dig deeper into their pockets (effectively penalizing those families who try to do the right thing).

The amazing thing is that as good as my daughter's Junior High appears to be, it is actually poorer in several areas when compared to my Junior High in the 1970s. The most glaring example is English. The biggest problem is the lack of discipline in class, and teachers without adequate tools to address the issue.

[amborin]

23. K&R

[SoCalDem]

27. Once upon a time, a high school grad could support a family

with a stay-at-home wife, in a home they owned..

Now, many kids with college degrees often have trouble finding a job that will even pay off the loans they took on to GET that degree.. they find themselves 24 yrs old, with no health insurance, a crappy job (often one similar o their high-school part time job), a beat up car (if they even HAVE a car), living in Mom's basement (or their old room), and struggling mightily to find the money to stay current on their loans..:(