Philosophy Now Forum

cladking wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Too easy.

Parents have time, money, jobs, marriages, culture. All these resources are not evenly spread between parents and black parents (when they are together) tend to have less of all of these things.

I would also not discount the inherent racism (even unintentional) amongst teachers, who are likely to have lower expectations of black students.

Bull shit.

It's against the law now for whites to be racist. They'll be charged with a hate crime and get twenty years while murderers walk free.

You are a moron.

cladking wrote: It sounds like you agree things are going to hell.

It certainly appears that many USians are coming out of school with their ignorance largely undisturbed. It also appears that this is a bigger problem in some states than others, and - to the limited extent I've looked into the matter - this seems to correspond with the education budget of the respective states. However, the states that have less to spend also have the lowest standard of living, poor health care and nutrition, high unemployment and stress on the homes of working-class people, high religiosity (which means absolute crap textbooks, little or no birth control and far too much influence exerted on the classroom by axe-grinders), insufficient social services and child protection - so there are other, only peripherally related, factors involved.

So why would you think the cause isn't in the classroom?

The cause is never in the classroom. Classrooms reflect society.

We spend more money than anyywhere else and we spend more than ever before and we are getting worse and worse results.

Spending money means nothing - especially when everything the government is supposed to be responsible for is bought from, made by or contracted out to private corporations. If other prices are anything to go by, plain old inflation accounts for a ten-fold increase since 1960. If the retailers and contractors pad every invoice in Missouri by 8%, and there goes another $ billion, without any teacher having seen a dime. If your officials are corrupt, money disappears pretty damn fast. And your officials are corrupt.
Another factor is that unemployment and underemployment, unregulated casual labour, inadequate income and poor housing, the breakdown of neighbourhood infrastructure and community cohesion, produce high anxiety and frustration, drug and alcohol addiction, domestic and street violence. This means a huge increase in children at risk at the same time social services are systematically eviscerated and the police become ever-more overtly hostile toward the people they're paid to protect. The children are not getting the money. Their world is crumbling, and each generation that grows up in deteriorating conditions produces an even less teachable next generation.

I suppose you think all we need to do is spend more money and plead with the little miscreants to try to behave so everyone else can get an education?

Which little miscreants? Children have particular problems - both cognitive and social - that can be addressed on an individual basis. But there is no point counselling a child, if you're just going to throw him back into the same conditions that cause the problem.

I'm sure you don't see "No child left behind" as pandering to the dimwits and miscreants.

I see that as a giant lie that made successful political noise and disastrous administrative decisions.

Maybe if some of these little brats knew they would get left behind they'd actually turn on their brains and try to learn. Maybe if the adults took back the schools a few people could grow up to run things in fifty years.

Oh, there are plenty of people growing up to "run things". They live in ten-bedroom homes in gated communities and go to 'prep' school. It was their grandfathers who helped the corporations dismantle every regulation, steal all the country's assets and declare a perpetual state of war, so that none of these decisions can be questioned.

tbieter wrote:The following remarkable letter to the editor was published on November 15 in the St. Paul Pioneer Press: Its of interest because the St. Paul school district has one of the largest achievement gaps (between white and black students) in the U.S. The district hired a California company to do a study for millions of dollars. The company recommended reducing the suspension rate of black students. The company's report accused the white teachers of racism. I heard the school superintendent blame the achievement gap and disproportionate suspension rate on poverty and mental illness. There have been many more adverse conditions (riotous fighting and students bringing guns to school, etc) resulting from the idiot policies of the superintendent and school board.

The gap is parental
The achievement gap is not racial. It is not cultural. It is not socio-economic. It is parental. All children deserve the chance to learn. But how is a child supposed to achieve anything academically if he or she has never been taught any desire to learn, any manners, any respect for others? If parents show no interest in their child's education, never participate, never encourage or praise honest effort, never model acceptable behavior, how can a child be expected to behave in class, let alone learn?
A love of learning, an understanding of the lifelong value of an education, self-discipline, cooperation and respect for others are gifts any loving, responsible parent can give their child, no matter their race, culture or income. When they fail to do so, they are bitterly cheating not only their own child but every other child in that classroom where the chance to learn is spoiled.
I don't know how to solve this, but if we can't even call it by name -- inadequate parenting -- how can we even begin? This is a social problem, not an educational problem and expecting the schools to fix it is complis insanity goes on?
Casey Peterson, St. Paul

This letter reflects an analysis of causality and of sound educational theory.

This letter appeared today, November 20:

Republish it
One of the best letters in the last 70 years! ("The gap is parental," Nov. 15.) It should be republished weekly over the next year and daily the two weeks prior to school board elections, prior to the choosing of the next school superintendent and maybe a day or so prior to each school board meeting. If Casey Peterson had a less common name, I would phone my congratulations.
Dan Johnson, St. Paul
Nov. 20.

Skip wrote: Spending money means nothing - especially when everything the government is supposed to be responsible for is bought from, made by or contracted out to private corporations. If other prices are anything to go by, plain old inflation accounts for a ten-fold increase since 1960. If the retailers and contractors pad every invoice in Missouri by 8%, and there goes another $ billion, without any teacher having seen a dime. If your officials are corrupt, money disappears pretty damn fast. And your officials are corrupt.
Another factor is that unemployment and underemployment, unregulated casual labour, inadequate income and poor housing, the breakdown of neighbourhood infrastructure and community cohesion, produce high anxiety and frustration, drug and alcohol addiction, domestic and street violence. This means a huge increase in children at risk at the same time social services are systematically eviscerated and the police become ever-more overtly hostile toward the people they're paid to protect. The children are not getting the money. Their world is crumbling, and each generation that grows up in deteriorating conditions produces an even less teachable next generation.

Perhaps the main difference in our beliefs is that I believe the disintegration of society and infrastructure is mostly caused by the failure of the educational system. Out in the real world today in industry and offices virtually no individual is cognizant of how nature works. This leads to various bad decisions across the board. The few people who are self motivated enough to get a proper education are frequently very highly trained specialists who are equally oblivious to the everyday problems plaguing the janitor or the shop floor worker. Since these issues go unaddressed and the workers are too uneducated to do their jobs without strict guidance they are simply required to do specific tasks rather than to think.

Meanwhile government "wars" on one thing or another are distorting the old ways and family structure itself. Most inner city children have no father at home and often no male role models at all. Instead there is a culture of children who have no concern for academic success. This is not only tolerated by the system but instilled in them. There are no repercussions for bad behavior and the kids run the schools instead of the adults.

Meanwhile, of course, all education is failing and even the best public schools are a shadow of what they once were. This has nothing to do with parents or the children. It has everything to do with the methods being used to "teach" them. It has everything to do with very low expectations and a breakdown that assures even some of the teachers are incompetent and grossly undereducated.

Which little miscreants? Children have particular problems - both cognitive and social - that can be addressed on an individual basis. But there is no point counselling a child, if you're just going to throw him back into the same conditions that cause the problem.

Every kid deserves a chance for an education. Spending extra resources on some children because of special conditions is justified. But there are limitations. It makes no sense to cater to one child's special needs while others are deprived of the chance to learn. It makes no sense to tolerate trouble makers without ever even punishing them. Kids who are out of control or incapable of learning should be removed from the public schools or provided separate fascilities to house them during school hours. Kids who fail should be held back. I'm a big fan of increasing the number of "grades" so being held back doesn't mean repeating an rentire year.

Kids learn differently so why not provide them with the structure they need?

Oh, there are plenty of people growing up to "run things". They live in ten-bedroom homes in gated communities and go to 'prep' school. It was their grandfathers who helped the corporations dismantle every regulation, steal all the country's assets and declare a perpetual state of war, so that none of these decisions can be questioned.

These people are far from being the "best and brightest". They usually have no more qualifications than rich parents who purchadse a Harvard degree for them. The best and brightest wouldn't be destroying products, companies, and brands. They wouldn't need special favors from Washington.

cladking wrote:
These people are far from being the "best and brightest". They usually have no more qualifications than rich parents who purchadse a Harvard degree for them. The best and brightest wouldn't be destroying products, companies, and brands. They wouldn't need special favors from Washington.

The people who run things don't need special favours from anybody. They've already destroyed the economy and have done a pretty good hatchet job on the social structures. Bitching about any particular aspect of it will change none of it. Blaming its earliest and most demoralized victims certainly won't. It's too late anyway.

Skip wrote:

cladking wrote:
These people are far from being the "best and brightest". They usually have no more qualifications than rich parents who purchadse a Harvard degree for them. The best and brightest wouldn't be destroying products, companies, and brands. They wouldn't need special favors from Washington.

The people who run things don't need special favours from anybody. They've already destroyed the economy and have done a pretty good hatchet job on the social structures. Bitching about any particular aspect of it will change none of it. Blaming its earliest and most demoralized victims certainly won't. It's too late anyway.

The ONLY way to take the world back from the usurpers is to fix education and the ONLY way to fix education is to hold the adults responsible and not the kids or their parents.

The meek may inherit the earth but at the rate it's being trashed it won't be much of a legacy.

I've proposed many means over the last half century to stop and reverse current trends and nobody cared. Now the only means left is to force the schools to do their jobs. Poor education is one issue all voters can agree about. We just need to identify the cause and that cause is the total lack of responsibility for outcomes. A principle can be fired for a comment that might sound racist but if he runs an inner city school he can keep his job and get promoted even with a 75% failure rate!!! Just stop it. Teach the kids to read and write or house them during the weekday. But make the decision and then stick to it. Quit blaming it on everyone except who's causing it; the touchy feely BS being foisted as education. Learn 'em to read, write, and figure or fire the school boards.

Of course the letter writers' points are valid. These kids enter school with little or no guidance from their parents. So teach it to them. Tell them if they don't know what "no" means then their parents have already failed them but they have no choice but to learn it NOW. There must be consequences for poor behavior and in the adults this means they'll need new jobs.

Alternatively we are heading to a very bleak future where our every action will be dictated by others and dissent is untolerated.

cladking wrote: Alternatively we are heading to a very bleak future where our every action will be dictated by others and dissent is untolerated.

You've missed that deadline by 15 years.
But if you think beating up on poor people is the way to improve the world, you're right on schedule.

Skip wrote:

cladking wrote: Alternatively we are heading to a very bleak future where our every action will be dictated by others and dissent is untolerated.

You've missed that deadline by 15 years.
But if you think beating up on poor people is the way to improve the world, you're right on schedule.

Who wants to beat up on poor people?

I'm suggesting that we educate them despite being poor so they can have a better chance at a long, happy, and productive life.

Coddling children isn't working. Coddling children and giving them smilie faces is the root of the problem. Not holding anyone to standards is how things got this way.

Whatever makes you comfortable.

Skip wrote:Whatever makes you comfortable.

This isn't about comfortable. It's nonsense about a "subconscious" and not being in control of our actions that led to the belief people aren't responsible for their actions or the outcomes of those actions. The only thing we hold leaders responsible for is what they say. Whenm are people going to wake up and realize what people say is wholly irrelevant. What matters is results. What matters in leaders is what they actually do and what they don't do. Today in government and industry those who fail are simply shifted around from job to job instead of being canned. Leadsers cause enormous destruction and bosses ruin companies and they get reelected or become "turnaround specialists". Not just anyone can ruin a company.

This lack of responsibility permeates our society. We have gross incompetence at all levels because nobody cares.

I suppose it really is a pretty bleak future when you and I are in such close agreement yet can't agree on a solution. We'll just continue with the same BS of indoctrinating kids in touchy feely nonsense with no education and no hope for a good job. It won't matter if they get a good job or not since they won't be allowed to think at work. Indoctrinated people just don't know how to do things or get good results. They just wanna be comfortable and feel goodly.

Look. You have the solution to everything in a perfectly circular fashion.

Hold the parents responsible for the school-preparedness of their children.
(But if everyone, throughout the society, from government to boards of education to industry, is incompetent, who is qualified to do the responsible-holding? )
You want to fix the ills of society by stricter education and letting children fail, or punishing them or expelling them, or whatever the mechanism is supposed to for preventing "these" - which? little miscreants from holding everyone else back.
( But the children have been "coddled" and the money has been misspent and I don't know what you figure the teachers have been doing wrong.... So who is expected to do this fixing?)
You want education to bring back your corrupted democracy and your squandered economy.
(But the only people you can identify are the victims, not the perpetrators. The perpetrators are so far beyond your reach, you can't even think or talk about them.)
So, go ahead. Write letters to the impotent editors of unread newspapers, demanding that somebody [unidentified] hold somebody[untraceable] responsible for everything that goes wrong. It will be about useful as your vote.

The classroom is a reflection of the society. As long as the world is fucked up, so will the classroom be.

Skip wrote:
The classroom is a reflection of the society. As long as the world is fucked up, so will the classroom be.

The kids don't need to be beaten; the adults who wrecked the schools need to be fired before all the schools are utterly trashed. The same things are being applied to the suburban and rural schoools but they are thirty years behind the inner city schools. When little Johnny comes home and can recite the list of insults heaped upon native Americans by whitie but can't read and write, the parents who taught little Johnny the meaning of the word "no" will need to know why. Maybe when ineptitude and incompetence start affecting their childrens' futures they'll be scared straight. It's already much worse than most realize. I talk to kids and I know what they're learning in school and it just ain't very much.

Children just need boundaries and to be free to act within them. They must be held to standards and rules of behavior in order to learn individually or collectively. Children can never be the cause of their collective failure only their individual failure. The adults must be held accountable and the children must be taught to be citizens and productive members of society.

When the baby sitter keeps dropping the baby you don't fire the baby. And you don't hold the baby accountable. You fire the baby sitter.

Again - Who? In your scenario -
Who does the firing? Who does the holding to account? Who sets the new, improved standards? Who makes the decisions? Who designs the better curriculum? Who implements your policy?
And then - How?