I wish somebody would explain to me why kids aren’t better educated these days. I don’t have any kids so I normally don’t think about their education - But after reading economist Alan Greenspan’s 500 paged book, “The Age Of Turbulence,” the pages which scarred my brain tissue the most were the ones describing the failure of the American education system and the difficulty American graduates have in competing for jobs against better educated immigrants. It’s certainly not the kids’ fault. According to Greenspan, “A study conducted by the Lynch School of Education at Boston College revealed that although our fourth-grade students were above average on an international comparison scale in both math and science, by the time they reached their last year of high school, they had fallen well below the international average. The leading nations included Singapore, Hong Kong, Sweden and The Netherlands. According to Greenspan, immigrants from India and many other countries have superior engineering and computer science back grounds and are in demand by American corporations (while millions of Americans are unemployed).
So what the fuck is happening to American kids between 4th grade and high school graduation? Since we spend many more tax dollars per student than almost any other country without getting good results, maybe we should have a tax protest about that.
The Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind program was supposed to make sure all kids received the education necessary to become productive citizens. In the book, “Many Children Left Behind,” author and educator Deborah Meier writes, “The biggest problem with No Child Left Behind is that it mistakes measuring schools for fixing them. The focus on high stakes testing and test preparation dumbs down classrooms.”
“The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.” -Diogenes Laertius
If high school graduates (not to mention drop outs) can’t find jobs, many of their alternatives aren’t too good for society. They are much more likely to become drug dealers, burglars, muggers and kidnappers for ransom. Many will just stay home indefinitely and live like expensive house pets unable to fly out of the nest.
America has the most powerful military in the world. We have the best rock stars and we make the best movies. Why can’t we be number one in education?
You can see more photographs by Mountain Dude at: www.dportrdvd.com
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