Wow. This is something and I do mean something. I’ve read the comments on here about critical thinking and I can see that a lot of people may not actually understand those words.
Dr. Onge, has decided that using the inaugural speeches of presidents is a good way to judge public schools. One has nothing to do with the other. It has everything to do with who the President was addressing. George Washington wasn’t addressing the people of the United States. He was actually addressing the voters of that time who were white, male land owners who were mostly known to each other and often educated by tutors (do you think the average American can afford a tutor?) As time progressed and more people were able to vote, the president started to address a bigger and more diverse audience. All people change their speech to the crowd. I am a veterinarian. I don’t use medical jargon to speak to my clients (who are highly educated), I use words that everyone knows so that there is no confusion. If I were speaking to another vet, we would use the same vocabulary.
This has NOTHING to do with public schools. In fact, US public schools were the one of our most prized accomplishments just like our highway systems until Saint Reagan who really started dismantle our public school system with the false promise of school choice via charter schools. (This is conversation for a different time).
Since most inaugural speeches are written by other people, a better way to judge intelligence is to look at which grade level a president commonly speaks. During his presidency Trump spoke at 4th grade level, the lowest in the last 15 presidents. To be fair, Biden spoke at an only slightly higher level at 4.7 grade level. Both attended privates schools.
Obama and Carter, whom you all hated, commonly spoke at approximately 11th grade levels. They were educated at public schools.
Let’s not listen to a man who is an author of Project 2025 and is rabidly pro-billionaire.
Thank you! I was intending on pointing out the audience differences but you did so much more eloquently. I would add that the classical education of the past has been necessarily replaced by the need to learn and understand concepts relevant to the digital age. My children took advanced calculus and discreet math that wasn’t available when I was in high school. They also had more elements on the periodic table than we did. I learned how to use a word processor in college and my sons were coding and designing websites in high school.
Correction: Barack Obama was educated in private schools, only. For 5th through 12th grades he went to an elite private college prep high school. He then attended private universities, Columbia & Harvard, as well.
As for Biden, he is an example of the failure of a public school education, in my opinion.
I just checked your profile. You appear to be about where I'd expect a "successful" product of public school to be, i.e., you'll swallow any leftist propaganda no matter how ridiculous.
Am I missing something, or are you actually defending our educational system? If you are, I wouldn't trust my pets to your veterinary practice, much less my children to your educational philosophy.
Actually, anyone educated outside the governmental indoctrination system knows exactly what you are doing: telling us in so many words that you are a clueless liberal attacking two of our most successful presidents while defending three of our absolute worst.
And one more thing, you pompous ass. Your comment about reading others' comments goes right to the core of the liberal mind-virus. You condescending assholes think you're the only ones who know a damn thing, and yet all you have ever done anytime you hold power is make a mess of things.
P.S. I am also a former educator, so don't lay your bullshit on me. You'll need to spread it to your beloved government-educated clients; you know, the very knuckleheads who voted for people like Carter, Obama, and Biden, and are about to vote for Harris right long with you. The rest of us aren't buying it.
I don’t know but maybe you’ve been smoking crack with the Obamas. Your brain is full of dog feces! There is no hope for you or anyone who likes your comments! This article was spot on and makes perfect sense! The fact you are spouting lies that are mainstream media talking points shows how attached to the mainline feed for more brainwashing! Addicted to that msnbc crack!
Btw: I do not disagree with your critique about using presidential inaugural speeches as a water mark for measuing the decline in the quality of public school performance. I do think it was an interesting way to begin his commentary eventhough it has little relevance to proving the point he was making.
As for Trump, whether you like him or do not, he is well educated and come from a highly intelligent gene pool, eg., his uncle, John George Trump, physicist & inventor.
No, he’s not smart at all, but smart enough to live in palatial Mar-a-largo, own a substantial amount of other valuable properties, and live a lifestyle that is envied by most. Naw, it’s just luck, what did you do with your education?
Really Joe? So you believe a trust fund is how a person becomes a success. Spoken like a true socialist, Joe. I guess that’s why Kamala and her sidekick what’s-his-face Walz lost. But I still can’t figure out how Joe Robinette Biden jr. became president since his dad was just a lowly Mailman. Oh, ya, sorry, he was a used car salesman. Sheesh. Joe jr. had to be a lifeguard as a young man to make money for the family, but it was more than that because he was being prepared for his role as the supreme leader of the free world. 😬
Prove what you wrote. You Libs are prolific liars. Prove that you went to Wharton, and prove that Trump cheated. We decent people are sick and damn tired of you lying Libs.
High School teacher for 41 years. This article is spot on. Our public schools are more interested in social engineering rather than educating. Not only have students become 'dumb and dumber', they have become socially inept due to excessive use of social media and the paralyzing effect of technological addiction. More and more students lack verbal communication skills, they isolate from others and avoid eye contact. Instruction has to be chopped up into brief soundbites because they can't focus longer than a few minutes. A thirty minute lecture is out of the question. A vast number of students are diagnosed with learning disabilities. Perhaps many are over-diagnosed. The medication may, indeed, help some to focus but it turns others into walking zombies. Those fortunate enough to to unaffected by such hindrances are exasperated by the loss of educating opportunity due to the excessive amount of time necessary to control those who misbehave. They are bored by the factory style public school methods of educating. Every day they follow same schedule, they sit in rows, same seat, same teacher, same students, same routine. They are being educated as if they were on a factory assembly line. The really brilliant students are lost in a mass of incompetence, Controlling the miscreants is prioritized over actually educating and challenging kids. Parents no longer support educators, rather, they will defiantly and militantly defend their children at any cost, threatening lawsuits and demonstrating shocking levels of incivility. Administrators, fearing a confrontation before the school board will often throw teachers under the bus in cowardly attempts to appease irrational parents. This is just the tip of an iceberg of educational chaos caused by a Department of Education and massive, controlling unions who have very little motivation to actually educate our youth.
I doubt you were any kind of teacher. If you were, you’d know that teachers were too busy teaching, parenting, and buying supplies to indoctrinate anyone.
Plus, I would hope you would know how to put things into paragraphs.
As a parent of four children, my youngest is now 27 & my oldest is 37, I witnessed what you have describe in three different states, all in wealthy districts. I utilized public, private, parochial, & homeschooling, depending on the needs of each child. The unionization of teachers is the first on the list of reasons contributing to the destruction of the public school system. Unionization is the foundation upon which the decline was built. It destroys ambitious teachers & administrators who want to innovate. It inculcates teachers with "group think" destroying individualism. It turns students & parents into fund raisers for more teacher benefits relegating the needs of students to an afterthought if recognized at all. It promotes socialist/communist thinking into everything. One instructor was trying to teach one of my children that Cuba offered citizens a better quality of life than America. I went to the principal about that lesson. The mistake was corrected but only because I pushed back.
The quality of the public school education dropped precipitously, once unionization of teachers began. The worst public schools have the strongest unions. The only mitigation to this inferiority is private tutoring. That is the reason that statistical performarmance is better in wealthy districts. The parents pay for private tutors.
Worst part is there are no alternatives. Kids can’t get jobs like they used to. They end up going home after school and playing video games. Thanks to our open borders policies, US kids have less of a chance of being well educated as money has to be spent on ESL education and bringing migrant kids up to speed. 😒
Look at who is working the jobs we had when we were in high school (I graduated in 1982). Many don’t speak English, and most are using stolen or forged documents on their I-9.
My first paid job was at a corner store and gas station as a ‘bottle boy’. I was 13 years old. I rode my bicycle four miles to school, then two miles from school to the store, and 2 miles home every day. I worked 2 hours a day Monday through Friday and 4 hours on Saturday. I was paid $2 an hour, plus a daily soda and bag of chips, and a small bag of candy once a week. I separated and racked the bottles, swept and mopped the store, and picked up trash in the parking lot every day. On Saturdays I also hosed down and scrubbed the sidewalks. The store owner required that I bring him my school report card to prove that I wasn’t failing anything. He gave me $5 for every A.
I started working at McDonald’s on my 16th birthday. I left there for a ‘fun’ job at Six Flags Over Texas, where I met my future wife in 1980. We’ve been together 44 years, and we’ll celebrate our 37th anniversary in a few weeks.
Our kids weren’t required to work, but if they wanted spending money they had to earn it. We lived in the country, so my boys started cutting trees for people for the wood. They split and stacked firewood all summer to sell in the winter. We bought them a trailer, chainsaws, and a log splitter to pull behind a 79 El Camino that we built together. The last year they cut wood they ended up with over 30 cords of oak to sell.
One of my sons also did light mechanical work, like change brake pads, for teachers and friends. That started after one of the young single teachers heard him talking about working on cars. She needed her brakes done but couldn’t afford it. He changed her brake pads in the school parking lot for the cost of the pads and $20. All of a sudden he was doing brakes and other light maintenance a couple times a week. Fifteen years later he’s the lead on an oilfield wireline crew making over$150k/year. Our other son is a manager at an oilfield service company.
Stop yelling at the clouds, grandpa. More kids have high school diplomas than before and thanks to Obama, high school grads can attend state owned non profit technical schools and learn a trade for free. In fact, Most high school grads can qualify for free community college.
Of course the only way for a lot of those tradespeople to make money to live on and have basic protections is to join a union, which most of you claim are destroying this country.
You know, for a pompous ass who condescends to comment on another commenters lack of paragraphs, you might want to improve your own writing skills in the above comment. You left out a comma, and failed to include a hyphen. I guess you're not that bright yourself.
But that is what defines you damn liberals: "Rules for thee, but not for me."
Condescension doesn't wear well on you, but it does define you quite nicely. You liberal jerks have had you way for four long years and the fruits of your labors drown out every word you speak. Why don't you shut up and stop digging before you dig a hole so deep that you can't climb out of it.
I spent five long years in college to be a trained and certified educator, and got the hell out after only three years because I could foresee the impending destruction. And, boy, was I prescient!
> More kids have high school diplomas than before and thanks to Obama, high school grads can attend state owned non profit technical schools and learn a trade for free. In fact, Most high school grads can qualify for free community college.
Seems like you believe a piece of sheepskin can have magical powers.
These statements are totally untrue. Being in the hospitality business for 30 years in a seasonal area I know kids can get jobs like they( and I as a kid) used to. In fact, the hospitality business needs more immigrants to staff. Ask any of your local restaurants.
Ya right. Migrants compete against teens for work. Employers would rather not have to train kids when they have adults that have been previously employed and have developed skills.
American critical thinking is under assault. Our literacy and numeracy has been crippled.
Our diet and our environment is filling with poisons. The Rockefeller and Gates family-derived modern medical system is designed to create cash flow streams. Why make unbreakable glass when you can make shitty glass and sell more?
Better yet -- let's start throwing rocks.
The establishment has been throwing rocks for nearly a hundred years.
You may have missed this, but Bill Gates, the computer guy, runs a big communications corporation MSNBC? This isn’t just about healthcare. It is much bigger than that when you understand the magnitude of influence the Rockefeller and Gates foundations have had on world governance. Both of these families have more money than the GDP of many countries. How about that for influence?
It is obvious EM sees creativity as the solution to all problems. He despises outside control as it is anti-creative. There is a theory that inhibition increases creativity, but that is just bunk. Self control, passion, and self determination drives creativity. Inhibition can bring about problem solving, but inhibition can destroy pure creativity. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychiatry-the-people/202101/inhibition-the-counterintuitive-key-creativity
Sheesh! Throwing money at gooberment is better than throwing money at corporations? What the heck? Stop the throwing of money all the way around! Government and big business are the new plantation masters. Government subsidizes big business with our taxes, and big business charges us more to pay for taxes. Why don’t you stand for the workers who are being bilked, cheated, and shamed for wanting to use the money they sweat blood for? No one seems to care about families, and don’t tell me that educators care either or we would see teachers standing up for school choice. People who can afford to have a parent home are homeschooling because our schools are a disgrace. Now with so many migrants, money will be going to ESL instead of college prep courses. Wake up! Our country has gone from decline to actual free-fall.
Amazing propaganda here. You are right about one thing. Many voters are poorly educated. But it does not emanate exclusively from public education or even mostly from public schools. It is caused by ignorant and poorly educated parents and wicked political leaders who exploit them. And a corrupt corporate media whose sole motivation is profitable "clicks". There is no magic in charter schools or school vouchers. There is value in public school choice...
I don't have time to go item by item but it was clearly a political cheap shot at teachers, unions, and public education. Is it perfect? No. Largely to blame though? No
Considering that public schools now instill political propaganda, instead of teaching the basics of reading, writing and math, it is no wonder that the "graduates" of today's public schools haven't basic knowledge about economics. They have no understanding of the value of money, let alone its velocity. but, there is no need to worry as long as you subscribe to the belief that government will take care of all your needs. Why worry about being to afford health care, pay rent (a mortgage, out of the question), or even buy food when government, in all its magnanimous giving, will take care of everything. Today, the public schools do not teach the ability to reason or think. The ability to function as an individual in society as an individual is no longer necessary. This is not the republic the Founding Fathers envisioned. Is it any wonder that the country is in an uncontrolled downward trajectory?
Public schools are indeed the worst, but any 'traditional' type of schooling comes with massive drawbacks. If possible and if you're capable, homeschool your kids.
Another article for school choice. Fix our public schools. Stop demonizing educators. I know plenty of right wing teachers so your thesis is flawed. Spend the money where we need it and stop distracting with book burns, 10 commandments, and slave wages for those we trust with our children.
This article could have made a point worth supporting had it said Public Schools could be improved. Unfortunately, it instead slipped into an unsupported list of right wing grievances. And therefore ended up neither proving any points nor changing any minds.
On top of this, it was filled with examples of weak thinking - the word choices of historical inaugural addresses as proof of a decline in educational standards? Really? By this standard one could say that the educational standards at the time of Marcus Aurelius were “35th grade level” as they were written in Latin!
If anything, the structure and content of this piece was an example of weak academic rigor - by way of example, the idea that changes in inaugural address language over two hundred plus years is representative of reduced educational standards is ridiculously reductivist (ignoring countless other deltas including the vast differences in the voting audiences, the style of public language overall, the political objectives of inaugural addresses, etc. Etc)
Overall this was a poorly thought out and weakly supported argument about a subject definitely worth discussing.
I read through this and just continued to scratch my head. While I “feel” like it is a true statement that public education is the least common denominator of a way to educate, I end up asking whom should we then be educating at a higher level? Does the author support an oligarchy? That is the take away I get from reading the presented argument made. In the case of public education, should we then not care how stupid some lower percentage of students are? Is this just another case of a person with a great vocabulary presenting a prejudiced argument to shore up their own self view as the smartest person in the room? I am sure I will not measure up as an intellectual giant in the authors opinion, yet I continue to believe that presenting problems without solutions is simply mental masturbation.
Yes, which has nothing to do with liberal indoctrination and everything to do with trying to ensure all of their citizens are able to live healthy and productive lives.
I don't know if that comment is directed towards me or just society in general. Just so you know, I'm 100% a true progressive free issuing the ridiculous and wrong label of "liberal" and "conservative"
"Best policy practice" should be the model for every governmental soccer and policy proposal. The Brendan Center for Justice used to do that. I don't know what's gotten into them lately.
Hmmm… So, because we communicate better than we did a few hundred years ago, we’re somehow dumber? And because we’re trying to include younger and younger persons regarding grasping the significance of politics in our lives, we’re somehow dumber? This is the biggest load of nothing from nothing I’ve ever seen and I’m not dumb.
School funding was dependent on voter approval. The district I grew up in required a 2/3 majority. How to disable a population is to limit access to education. Family income should not determine education quality. Zip code should not determine education quantity. Other countries have worked this out. But they lack the same number of trillionaires that we have. Keep people stupid and you can control them. Keep them poor and you have population control.
Wow. This is something and I do mean something. I’ve read the comments on here about critical thinking and I can see that a lot of people may not actually understand those words.
Dr. Onge, has decided that using the inaugural speeches of presidents is a good way to judge public schools. One has nothing to do with the other. It has everything to do with who the President was addressing. George Washington wasn’t addressing the people of the United States. He was actually addressing the voters of that time who were white, male land owners who were mostly known to each other and often educated by tutors (do you think the average American can afford a tutor?) As time progressed and more people were able to vote, the president started to address a bigger and more diverse audience. All people change their speech to the crowd. I am a veterinarian. I don’t use medical jargon to speak to my clients (who are highly educated), I use words that everyone knows so that there is no confusion. If I were speaking to another vet, we would use the same vocabulary.
This has NOTHING to do with public schools. In fact, US public schools were the one of our most prized accomplishments just like our highway systems until Saint Reagan who really started dismantle our public school system with the false promise of school choice via charter schools. (This is conversation for a different time).
Since most inaugural speeches are written by other people, a better way to judge intelligence is to look at which grade level a president commonly speaks. During his presidency Trump spoke at 4th grade level, the lowest in the last 15 presidents. To be fair, Biden spoke at an only slightly higher level at 4.7 grade level. Both attended privates schools.
Obama and Carter, whom you all hated, commonly spoke at approximately 11th grade levels. They were educated at public schools.
Let’s not listen to a man who is an author of Project 2025 and is rabidly pro-billionaire.
Thank you! I was intending on pointing out the audience differences but you did so much more eloquently. I would add that the classical education of the past has been necessarily replaced by the need to learn and understand concepts relevant to the digital age. My children took advanced calculus and discreet math that wasn’t available when I was in high school. They also had more elements on the periodic table than we did. I learned how to use a word processor in college and my sons were coding and designing websites in high school.
Correction: Barack Obama was educated in private schools, only. For 5th through 12th grades he went to an elite private college prep high school. He then attended private universities, Columbia & Harvard, as well.
As for Biden, he is an example of the failure of a public school education, in my opinion.
Really here is looking at you too as a failure in my opinion .
I just checked your profile. You appear to be about where I'd expect a "successful" product of public school to be, i.e., you'll swallow any leftist propaganda no matter how ridiculous.
I think President Biden has more wisdom and knowledge and know how than any Harvard can offer. He has done more than any president.
Thanks Debra, I was indeed wrong. It was Clinton who was educated by public schools.
Am I missing something, or are you actually defending our educational system? If you are, I wouldn't trust my pets to your veterinary practice, much less my children to your educational philosophy.
Actually, anyone educated outside the governmental indoctrination system knows exactly what you are doing: telling us in so many words that you are a clueless liberal attacking two of our most successful presidents while defending three of our absolute worst.
And one more thing, you pompous ass. Your comment about reading others' comments goes right to the core of the liberal mind-virus. You condescending assholes think you're the only ones who know a damn thing, and yet all you have ever done anytime you hold power is make a mess of things.
P.S. I am also a former educator, so don't lay your bullshit on me. You'll need to spread it to your beloved government-educated clients; you know, the very knuckleheads who voted for people like Carter, Obama, and Biden, and are about to vote for Harris right long with you. The rest of us aren't buying it.
I don’t know but maybe you’ve been smoking crack with the Obamas. Your brain is full of dog feces! There is no hope for you or anyone who likes your comments! This article was spot on and makes perfect sense! The fact you are spouting lies that are mainstream media talking points shows how attached to the mainline feed for more brainwashing! Addicted to that msnbc crack!
Btw: I do not disagree with your critique about using presidential inaugural speeches as a water mark for measuing the decline in the quality of public school performance. I do think it was an interesting way to begin his commentary eventhough it has little relevance to proving the point he was making.
As for Trump, whether you like him or do not, he is well educated and come from a highly intelligent gene pool, eg., his uncle, John George Trump, physicist & inventor.
Nobody sane believes trump is intelligent. He's only intelligent to those who aren't intelligent.
I went to Penn with Trump. In the Wharton School. He is not a smart guy. Barely made it through. Was once- only once- accused of cheating on an exam.
No, he’s not smart at all, but smart enough to live in palatial Mar-a-largo, own a substantial amount of other valuable properties, and live a lifestyle that is envied by most. Naw, it’s just luck, what did you do with your education?
So you don't know how he kept all that money his father gave him? Why are you people this dumb and uniformed?
Really Joe? So you believe a trust fund is how a person becomes a success. Spoken like a true socialist, Joe. I guess that’s why Kamala and her sidekick what’s-his-face Walz lost. But I still can’t figure out how Joe Robinette Biden jr. became president since his dad was just a lowly Mailman. Oh, ya, sorry, he was a used car salesman. Sheesh. Joe jr. had to be a lifeguard as a young man to make money for the family, but it was more than that because he was being prepared for his role as the supreme leader of the free world. 😬
Prove what you wrote. You Libs are prolific liars. Prove that you went to Wharton, and prove that Trump cheated. We decent people are sick and damn tired of you lying Libs.
Hahahahahahaha
Pause
Hahahahaha
🤣
Excellent.
High School teacher for 41 years. This article is spot on. Our public schools are more interested in social engineering rather than educating. Not only have students become 'dumb and dumber', they have become socially inept due to excessive use of social media and the paralyzing effect of technological addiction. More and more students lack verbal communication skills, they isolate from others and avoid eye contact. Instruction has to be chopped up into brief soundbites because they can't focus longer than a few minutes. A thirty minute lecture is out of the question. A vast number of students are diagnosed with learning disabilities. Perhaps many are over-diagnosed. The medication may, indeed, help some to focus but it turns others into walking zombies. Those fortunate enough to to unaffected by such hindrances are exasperated by the loss of educating opportunity due to the excessive amount of time necessary to control those who misbehave. They are bored by the factory style public school methods of educating. Every day they follow same schedule, they sit in rows, same seat, same teacher, same students, same routine. They are being educated as if they were on a factory assembly line. The really brilliant students are lost in a mass of incompetence, Controlling the miscreants is prioritized over actually educating and challenging kids. Parents no longer support educators, rather, they will defiantly and militantly defend their children at any cost, threatening lawsuits and demonstrating shocking levels of incivility. Administrators, fearing a confrontation before the school board will often throw teachers under the bus in cowardly attempts to appease irrational parents. This is just the tip of an iceberg of educational chaos caused by a Department of Education and massive, controlling unions who have very little motivation to actually educate our youth.
I doubt you were any kind of teacher. If you were, you’d know that teachers were too busy teaching, parenting, and buying supplies to indoctrinate anyone.
Plus, I would hope you would know how to put things into paragraphs.
First he makes it up, then effortlessly switches to ad hominem insult. Wonder which party….?
Bullseye!
Ah, yes, the real Atasfolly emerges...
There's that classic liberal condescension that so defines all of you.
As a parent of four children, my youngest is now 27 & my oldest is 37, I witnessed what you have describe in three different states, all in wealthy districts. I utilized public, private, parochial, & homeschooling, depending on the needs of each child. The unionization of teachers is the first on the list of reasons contributing to the destruction of the public school system. Unionization is the foundation upon which the decline was built. It destroys ambitious teachers & administrators who want to innovate. It inculcates teachers with "group think" destroying individualism. It turns students & parents into fund raisers for more teacher benefits relegating the needs of students to an afterthought if recognized at all. It promotes socialist/communist thinking into everything. One instructor was trying to teach one of my children that Cuba offered citizens a better quality of life than America. I went to the principal about that lesson. The mistake was corrected but only because I pushed back.
The quality of the public school education dropped precipitously, once unionization of teachers began. The worst public schools have the strongest unions. The only mitigation to this inferiority is private tutoring. That is the reason that statistical performarmance is better in wealthy districts. The parents pay for private tutors.
Where do you people live ?
NY, OH, GA
Worst part is there are no alternatives. Kids can’t get jobs like they used to. They end up going home after school and playing video games. Thanks to our open borders policies, US kids have less of a chance of being well educated as money has to be spent on ESL education and bringing migrant kids up to speed. 😒
Look at who is working the jobs we had when we were in high school (I graduated in 1982). Many don’t speak English, and most are using stolen or forged documents on their I-9.
My first paid job was at a corner store and gas station as a ‘bottle boy’. I was 13 years old. I rode my bicycle four miles to school, then two miles from school to the store, and 2 miles home every day. I worked 2 hours a day Monday through Friday and 4 hours on Saturday. I was paid $2 an hour, plus a daily soda and bag of chips, and a small bag of candy once a week. I separated and racked the bottles, swept and mopped the store, and picked up trash in the parking lot every day. On Saturdays I also hosed down and scrubbed the sidewalks. The store owner required that I bring him my school report card to prove that I wasn’t failing anything. He gave me $5 for every A.
I started working at McDonald’s on my 16th birthday. I left there for a ‘fun’ job at Six Flags Over Texas, where I met my future wife in 1980. We’ve been together 44 years, and we’ll celebrate our 37th anniversary in a few weeks.
Our kids weren’t required to work, but if they wanted spending money they had to earn it. We lived in the country, so my boys started cutting trees for people for the wood. They split and stacked firewood all summer to sell in the winter. We bought them a trailer, chainsaws, and a log splitter to pull behind a 79 El Camino that we built together. The last year they cut wood they ended up with over 30 cords of oak to sell.
One of my sons also did light mechanical work, like change brake pads, for teachers and friends. That started after one of the young single teachers heard him talking about working on cars. She needed her brakes done but couldn’t afford it. He changed her brake pads in the school parking lot for the cost of the pads and $20. All of a sudden he was doing brakes and other light maintenance a couple times a week. Fifteen years later he’s the lead on an oilfield wireline crew making over$150k/year. Our other son is a manager at an oilfield service company.
Stop yelling at the clouds, grandpa. More kids have high school diplomas than before and thanks to Obama, high school grads can attend state owned non profit technical schools and learn a trade for free. In fact, Most high school grads can qualify for free community college.
Of course the only way for a lot of those tradespeople to make money to live on and have basic protections is to join a union, which most of you claim are destroying this country.
AF, how do you like working with the equity hires that can’t read a blueprint, measure, or do simple math? Hummmm?
You are a ass and grow a pair and quit whining its 2024
Some of us would prefer to have planes where the doors don't fall off, and for our power grid to keep running.
Yes, some of us would. Guess we shouldn’t let companies monitor themselves
A pair of what? I am 36-24-36. Don’t be jealous, it isn’t becoming to you.
Voting for Kamala, are you, sweetie?
P.S. People just like you are the problem.
AF, you are so behind on your information. Equity is destroying education: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/oregon-just-dropped-all-graduation-standards-failing-all-of-its-students-in-the-name-of-equity/ar-AA1jgHQv
“Your success is GUARANTEED.” This is the laughable promise of Equity.
You know, for a pompous ass who condescends to comment on another commenters lack of paragraphs, you might want to improve your own writing skills in the above comment. You left out a comma, and failed to include a hyphen. I guess you're not that bright yourself.
But that is what defines you damn liberals: "Rules for thee, but not for me."
Condescension doesn't wear well on you, but it does define you quite nicely. You liberal jerks have had you way for four long years and the fruits of your labors drown out every word you speak. Why don't you shut up and stop digging before you dig a hole so deep that you can't climb out of it.
I spent five long years in college to be a trained and certified educator, and got the hell out after only three years because I could foresee the impending destruction. And, boy, was I prescient!
> More kids have high school diplomas than before and thanks to Obama, high school grads can attend state owned non profit technical schools and learn a trade for free. In fact, Most high school grads can qualify for free community college.
Seems like you believe a piece of sheepskin can have magical powers.
These statements are totally untrue. Being in the hospitality business for 30 years in a seasonal area I know kids can get jobs like they( and I as a kid) used to. In fact, the hospitality business needs more immigrants to staff. Ask any of your local restaurants.
Ya right. Migrants compete against teens for work. Employers would rather not have to train kids when they have adults that have been previously employed and have developed skills.
Agree 💯!
You described what it’s like working for a corporation. Any corporation.
You do a disservice to children and if you are in fact a teacher you are burned out so get out .
It was done intentionally.
American critical thinking is under assault. Our literacy and numeracy has been crippled.
Our diet and our environment is filling with poisons. The Rockefeller and Gates family-derived modern medical system is designed to create cash flow streams. Why make unbreakable glass when you can make shitty glass and sell more?
Better yet -- let's start throwing rocks.
The establishment has been throwing rocks for nearly a hundred years.
America is under attack from within.
Are you really trying to equate the Gates family’s effort to vaccinate children in Africa with some weird public school problem?
You may have missed this, but Bill Gates, the computer guy, runs a big communications corporation MSNBC? This isn’t just about healthcare. It is much bigger than that when you understand the magnitude of influence the Rockefeller and Gates foundations have had on world governance. Both of these families have more money than the GDP of many countries. How about that for influence?
Cool. Now let’s discuss Elon Musk.
It is obvious EM sees creativity as the solution to all problems. He despises outside control as it is anti-creative. There is a theory that inhibition increases creativity, but that is just bunk. Self control, passion, and self determination drives creativity. Inhibition can bring about problem solving, but inhibition can destroy pure creativity. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychiatry-the-people/202101/inhibition-the-counterintuitive-key-creativity
The corporatocracy defunded public education precisely for this purpose.
Corporatocracy, more commonly known as Fascism, as defined by Benito Mussolini.
Corporations own higher education. Throwing money at education doesn’t solve anything.
It’s better than throwing money at corporations, c Anderson.
Sheesh! Throwing money at gooberment is better than throwing money at corporations? What the heck? Stop the throwing of money all the way around! Government and big business are the new plantation masters. Government subsidizes big business with our taxes, and big business charges us more to pay for taxes. Why don’t you stand for the workers who are being bilked, cheated, and shamed for wanting to use the money they sweat blood for? No one seems to care about families, and don’t tell me that educators care either or we would see teachers standing up for school choice. People who can afford to have a parent home are homeschooling because our schools are a disgrace. Now with so many migrants, money will be going to ESL instead of college prep courses. Wake up! Our country has gone from decline to actual free-fall.
Amazing propaganda here. You are right about one thing. Many voters are poorly educated. But it does not emanate exclusively from public education or even mostly from public schools. It is caused by ignorant and poorly educated parents and wicked political leaders who exploit them. And a corrupt corporate media whose sole motivation is profitable "clicks". There is no magic in charter schools or school vouchers. There is value in public school choice...
> Amazing propaganda here.
What did he say that was false?
I don't have time to go item by item but it was clearly a political cheap shot at teachers, unions, and public education. Is it perfect? No. Largely to blame though? No
Ever see the movie, Idiocracy? I saw it years ago and just saw a comedy, then trump came along and I began to see it as prophetic.
I won’t read anything else you write. Already I feel my intellect expanding.
Public school teachers are treasonous villains that take orders directly from Soros to dumb down school kids...
Pfff... Great conspiracy theory.
How about that WEF’s agenda?
Considering that public schools now instill political propaganda, instead of teaching the basics of reading, writing and math, it is no wonder that the "graduates" of today's public schools haven't basic knowledge about economics. They have no understanding of the value of money, let alone its velocity. but, there is no need to worry as long as you subscribe to the belief that government will take care of all your needs. Why worry about being to afford health care, pay rent (a mortgage, out of the question), or even buy food when government, in all its magnanimous giving, will take care of everything. Today, the public schools do not teach the ability to reason or think. The ability to function as an individual in society as an individual is no longer necessary. This is not the republic the Founding Fathers envisioned. Is it any wonder that the country is in an uncontrolled downward trajectory?
Dude, no teacher has time for this. No teacher is indoctrinating anyone.
So, FascistFighter, you write from personal experience in our public schools? How did you manage to learn so much? Inquiring minds want to know.
This is probably a shocking revelation to you, but it's possible to learn things outside of school.
It is a new communism.
Public schools are indeed the worst, but any 'traditional' type of schooling comes with massive drawbacks. If possible and if you're capable, homeschool your kids.
https://mtsobserver.substack.com/p/dont-let-your-enemy-raise-your-children
Another article for school choice. Fix our public schools. Stop demonizing educators. I know plenty of right wing teachers so your thesis is flawed. Spend the money where we need it and stop distracting with book burns, 10 commandments, and slave wages for those we trust with our children.
This article could have made a point worth supporting had it said Public Schools could be improved. Unfortunately, it instead slipped into an unsupported list of right wing grievances. And therefore ended up neither proving any points nor changing any minds.
On top of this, it was filled with examples of weak thinking - the word choices of historical inaugural addresses as proof of a decline in educational standards? Really? By this standard one could say that the educational standards at the time of Marcus Aurelius were “35th grade level” as they were written in Latin!
If anything, the structure and content of this piece was an example of weak academic rigor - by way of example, the idea that changes in inaugural address language over two hundred plus years is representative of reduced educational standards is ridiculously reductivist (ignoring countless other deltas including the vast differences in the voting audiences, the style of public language overall, the political objectives of inaugural addresses, etc. Etc)
Overall this was a poorly thought out and weakly supported argument about a subject definitely worth discussing.
I read through this and just continued to scratch my head. While I “feel” like it is a true statement that public education is the least common denominator of a way to educate, I end up asking whom should we then be educating at a higher level? Does the author support an oligarchy? That is the take away I get from reading the presented argument made. In the case of public education, should we then not care how stupid some lower percentage of students are? Is this just another case of a person with a great vocabulary presenting a prejudiced argument to shore up their own self view as the smartest person in the room? I am sure I will not measure up as an intellectual giant in the authors opinion, yet I continue to believe that presenting problems without solutions is simply mental masturbation.
Do you want a solution? Try "best policy practice". Copy Finland.
Yes, which has nothing to do with liberal indoctrination and everything to do with trying to ensure all of their citizens are able to live healthy and productive lives.
I don't know if that comment is directed towards me or just society in general. Just so you know, I'm 100% a true progressive free issuing the ridiculous and wrong label of "liberal" and "conservative"
What are you talking about? Both tribes membership are completely indoctrinated and the cause of our Third World shit hole status, presently.
I actually like this solution. :D
"Best policy practice" should be the model for every governmental soccer and policy proposal. The Brendan Center for Justice used to do that. I don't know what's gotten into them lately.
Did you know that taxes pay to support churches in Finland?
What do you mean by "least common denominator"? The finest education in the world are furnished by public policy models. The vast majority of them.
The thrust of the article I read seems to indicate that what the U.S. is doing in public education is inadequate. That was the basis for my comment
Pardon my absence of comprehension. Occasionally, I'm really good at miss communication....
A given.
Thank you, Peter. You do great work!
Hmmm… So, because we communicate better than we did a few hundred years ago, we’re somehow dumber? And because we’re trying to include younger and younger persons regarding grasping the significance of politics in our lives, we’re somehow dumber? This is the biggest load of nothing from nothing I’ve ever seen and I’m not dumb.
School funding was dependent on voter approval. The district I grew up in required a 2/3 majority. How to disable a population is to limit access to education. Family income should not determine education quality. Zip code should not determine education quantity. Other countries have worked this out. But they lack the same number of trillionaires that we have. Keep people stupid and you can control them. Keep them poor and you have population control.