Why does Education in America "suck"???

I don't care if it's been said somewhere or not, I have to say it here.

I went to public school, a small consolidated school that was built to replace the city schools in three small towns. This school opened up in the mid 70's. When I was there, starting in 95, most of the things in the building were still from 1978 or so. At a couple of points, I actually had history books that were used by my father *who graduated 18 years before I did* and had a teacher who didn't know that the Berlin wall had come down.

That is why Amerikan education isn't so smurfy.

Teknik... I set out to deceive no one. I was not aware that it was ever an Urban Legend and therefore was a hoax or something to be debunked. As I stated, I got it in an email, thought it looked interesting in the context of this thread, so posted it as a matter of interest. As I don't spend a lot of time researching urban legends or the debunking of them, and didn't receive this from a questionable source, I didn't even consider it something that would get anyone's panties in such a bunch. Since it is such an incredible offense to your delicate sensibilities I will remove it from the thread. Now everyone can sleep at night again!

A longtime observer of the US educational system, Samuel L. Blumenfeld, calls it a 'criminal enterprise'. He reminds us that the April 1983 National Commission on Excellence in Education concluded,

�The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and as a people�If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves.�

�No Child Left Behind� is simply the extension and expansion of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Thus, for nearly four decades, Americans have stood by while their entire system has been systematically subverted and degraded to the point where there is hardly a statistic anyone can point to that demonstrates anything but failure.

The United States has had a socialized education system since 1965. That's nearly 50 years now. And, like most socialist ideas, the proposals might sound nice on paper, but they are a complete failure in practice. The U.S. government was originally designed to encourage private schools and colleges, and only found state-run (not federal-run) schools and colleges to pick up the slack where the private sector left off. Instead, now the government -- not just the state governments, but the federal goverment -- has direct control of the school & college system in the U.S. And it shows.

The present U.S. educational system does not effectively and successfully teach children to read or write well. It does not teach history or civics well. Pocket calculators have replaced the learned ability to compute anything in any way. The lack of math skills and logical thinking has lead to a lack of science skills. It requires large numbers of those children to be medicated with mind-altering drugs. Schools seem more concerned with teaching about things such as multicultarism, "cultural diversity", and "global citizenship," giving them priority over Math, Science, and Government. A growing number of school districts around the nation are either in revolt or finding creative ways to fudge the numbers required by �No Child Left Behind� because they are impossible standards to meet under the current U.S. educational system. The teacher�s unions are more interested in protecting teacher's jobs than educational achievement. A high school diploma is too often a worthless piece of paper. It has become little more than �a certificate of attendance.�

(adapted from Thomas Sowell at www.capmag.com... )

Schools seem more concerned with teaching about things such as multicultarism, "cultural diversity", and "global citizenship," giving them priority over Math, Science, and Government.

You asked why Education in America Sucks?, I think this pretty much sums it up. Its being done on purpose by those who were awestruck by the socialist ideology. An educated population is the farthest thing from desirable to them. Answer: take over the educational system, drive the private schools out by imposing standards that are irrational, not needed and impossible to meet. Place it all under federal govt. control and use it to push doctrine and fool people into thinking they are getting an education when all their getting is propaganda. Now, I have to spend a great deal of time deprogramming this garbage from my child and teaching him math at home because there isn't time through the school day to do it.

Thats why homework came about. Too many other things to do through the day to let mere academics impose upon it.

So, we moved. Now, he goes to my old school which still believes in true education and could care less what he thinks about gays, muslims, and pedofiles. They leave that to me to shape his opinion just as they should.

Most of his teachers were either my classmates or children of my old teachers and they know our community expects that crap to be put where it belongs. Outside the classroom. Hell, they even have spelling bees instead of protest marches.

[edit on 8-7-2004 by astrocreep]

You took the words right out of my mouth Astro.

Another thing that changed indoctrin...oops, excuse me, EDUCATION for the worse was when the PC brigade started in with that 'zero tolerance' crap.

They don't want kids to learn about defending themselves, they certainly don't want kids THINKING for themselves. The only thing schools today tolerate is students walking with their heads down and their hands at their sides and spitting back out on "tests" and "exams" what's been programmed into them to spit out.

Vomit out what they wanna hear from you and you're a "good" (read compliant) child. On to a great career where the corporation will then become your indoctrin...oops, I meant "educator" and take over where the school systems left off.

My son was suspended repeatedly for standing up for himself and fighting back when tormented continually in the halls at his school.. Funnily enough his tormentors were never brought to any sort of punishment. Why not ? Well, because like all truly evil little school bullies, they only did the tormenting out of earshot of the teachers. But my son was caught defending himself everytime. I took my son out of that school finally because the assistant principal was nothing but a soulless preprogrammed robot. Push a button, she says that, push another one she does something else. Totally mindless.

Get back to the basic 3 "R"s and stick all those who adhere like crazy glue to the zero tolerance/diversity crap on an island alone somewhere where they can all be PC assholes together with nobody to piss off but each other.

This also means no more of this "He pointed a fish stick at me, I'm suspending him" nonsense.

You know, as much as we'd all like to hope so, there is no relationship between the amount of money spent on education (it was about $110 billion in 2002) and any increases in student achievement. Amazingly, as the amount of money spent on education has gone up, student achievement has gone down.

Well, it's not so much the money, it's the control, IMO. As the amount of federal control of schools has gone up, student achievement has gone down.

Will that awaken the politicians in Congress to cut these failed federal programs and return education authority to the 50 States, where it belongs in the first place? Not in this lifetime! No Congress member wants to be chastized as "against education" -- besides, creating federal education programs gets them votes for being "for education" (though it shouldn't be getting them votes to put education under federal control; but most voters aren't thinking about that).

Heh, get this: More than 36 federal departments and organizations run major education programs, according to the U.S. Department of Education (I guess they didn't count themselves as one ).

As Washington, DC has gradually claimed more power over education, the 50 States have been forced to accept the control of the federal government (usually in the form of a myriad of tentacled regulations) if they want their education money back (since the citizens of the 50 States gave the federal government that money in the first place through their taxes). What's worse is that this "one-size-fits-all, we-know-what's-best-for-you" mentality, which started in 1965, got worse to a whole new level in 2002 with the "No Child Left Behind Act".

Now, on one hand, don't get me wrong -- I strongly believe in standardized tests, and achievement models -- but not when they're designed by politicians and administered by bureaucrats. And guess what? When the programs fail, the politicians just throw money at them -- because there's no way programs they designed couldn't possibly work... they just didn't have enough funding!

Personally, I say: Abolish the U.S. Department of Education, and the 36 other federal education programs! Return total control of education in the U.S. to the 50 States! If the U.S. Department of Education must be kept, make it nothing more than a clearinghouse for student loans nationwide, and an issuer of periodic reports that the 50 States can either take or leave as anyone else who reads them can...

That's my $0.02, anyway.

Originally posted by ThunderCloud


Personally, I say: Abolish the U.S. Department of Education, and the 36 other federal education programs! Return total control of education in the U.S. to the 50 States! If the U.S. Department of Education must be kept, make it nothing more than a clearinghouse for student loans nationwide, and an issuer of periodic reports that the 50 States can either take or leave as anyone else who reads them can...

That's my $0.02, anyway.

That may be only your two cents but if the advice was taken, it would be priceless. Good post with good info to back it up.

You can't just blame teachers or the unions, a very big part of education is the follow through at home. Parents feel it's the schools job to educate there child afterall they have them 6 hours a day, why should they have to be aggravated in the evening with homework? How many of our children instantly hook up to the playstaion, instead of being told to read a book?