You might appreciate my pain... I have 8 grandchildren ;-)
Fortunately they're all sharp as tacks (except for one who is autistic, and he's beginning to spell); and can beat the system at its own game.
...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
America: Land of the Free, Because of the Brave
You must have much less experience with them than I do, and much less faith in the basic goodness of the common man.
Anyway, it's not for us to judge: when kids reach 18 they can do as they wish; until then, parents rule.
Oh no we don't. O.J. Simpson still has his kids. All manner of druggies, misfits, teenagers, etc., all have theirs. Why? Because the courts have decided they have that right.
"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" includes "and oh yes, an idiot government that'll confiscate your kids?" Sheesh.
Obviously a small percentage. What's the high-school graduation rate in your neck of the woods?
Democrats have already done exactly that ! That's one of my greatest laments. I'm not saying Republicans could do better or any other such thing--I do not know. But, Democrats are overwhelmingly in charge, and they have actively made fine schools abysmal, on their watch.
Where I see the big hotspots of fuckups with public school students, I also see megatonnage of poor parenting. The schools there are mediocre and the parents tend to be a good half an order of magnitude worse - in significant part by expecting the schools to do all the teaching work that parents normally do some of. Also by all-too-much ignoring their kiddies until they act up and try merely to control their kids and make them behave, as opposed to showing their kiddies the world, answering as best as most good parents can their kids' questions as to how things work, and satisfying/feeding as opposed to punishing children's natural curiosity into what is in the world around them, what goes on, how things work,... Along with speaking to their kids too much in a harsh tone, and excessively reserving a nice sweet tone of voice to current or prospective sexual partners. Along with considering the school to be "The Enemy" should the school try to discipline the child who misbehaves mainly as a result of parental failure (or as a result of living in a neighborhood with culture of parental failure and lack of respect for education).
Society largely removes children from unfit parents only for the exceptionally spectacularly severe and spectacularly politically incorrect crimes. My experience in Philadelphia is that too many low-class unfit parents get away too much with physical abuse of their children as long as the abuse is not sexual in nature. Let alone mental abuse, or educational abuse such as expecting the schools to do all the teaching and having 2 or fewer books in the house while children in the household go from age 2 to past an age at which they should read well.
I just wish that Republicans actually repair Democrat-caused problems, as opposed to requiring existence of Democrat-caused problems to persist in order to try to get re-elected into office after failing to fix Democrat damage when Republicans had majority rule in the Federal government and most of the 50 "states".
I speak from experience in PA. My experience is that Republicans try to say they are good by merely slightly slowing the rate of destruction on a statewide level, and on a Federal level the Republicans like to say they are good with a fiscal policy that they criticised Democrats on (I believe rightfully) in the 1960's and 1970's, especially the 1960's.
Again, you are conflating *beliefs* and *science*. "Obligations" means just what it says. There's no need to interpolate it or parse it. Every society has them. A society has a baseline. It's called "The Law". In the typical case, that is derived via a *what works* analysis.
It's too bad some of these yuppies and know-nothings haven't found themselves in an infected 3rd World village where a modern health infrastructure ISN'T the norm (to include simple things like sewers and clean water), so they can experience what CAN happen.
Pathologists have worked for over 100 years to determine *what works*. "Herd immunity* depends on EVERYBODY getting vaccinated; that way, one or two deviations from outside is tolerated. If everybody starts to think of himself as *special*, the science becomes useless and **public** health fails.
...and the problem with the anti-vaccine movement is that is is based on junk science. The wacko who is promoting it has been thoroughly discredited.
You keep defending junk science and ANTI-science. It's as though you don't know what Science *is*. It's clear that the loonie frindge we are talking about doesn't.
It's the New-Agers and their *belief* systems who are disassembling the public health paradigm which has been established over the last century or more.
The danger is in treating ignorance as equal with knowledge; in treating belief as equal with fact. I don't understand you defending that.
Tolerating a belief that something is true when the science clearly says it is nonsense exceeds the limits of Liberalism. When that is able to impact the health of EVERYONE, that becomes a common concern.
A clueless New-Ager, having drunk the tainted Kool-Aid, is not able to determine what is proper public health policy.
If it was only *himself* he was endangering, that would be one thing; this is another circumstance. If you want to endanger the herd, go find a self-destructive herd; we don't want you.
James Arthur wrote in news:MiE5k.40574$lE3.18500@trnddc05:
"government schools" have been taken over by liberal/ssocialists,and neglect the important stuff for their politically correct agenda.Troublemakers don't get expelled,and disrupt classes for those who want to learn.
They have to be able to demonstrate competency in the standard curriculum,as determined by the gov't.Who else is going to certify them? Do you want to just take their home-schooler's WORD that they are competent in reading,writing,math,science,history? (and computer skills)
Not all parents ARE fit to educate their own kids to today's standards. some aren't fit to BE parents.
But do you really know a representative sample.....?
James Arthur wrote in news:D4F5k.20960$3j2.7855@trnddc03:
Morals like Thou shalt not murder,thou shalt not commit adultery,thou shalt not bear false witness,etc.? IMO,those NEED enforcing.IMO,they are not optional. "Morals" are a critical and basic part of civilized society.
Well,then you are behind the times. and "Gay" -used- to mean carefree and happy.
snipped-for-privacy@manx.misty.com (Don Klipstein) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@manx.misty.com:
Sheesh,DemocRATs HAD control for most of the last 50 years. THAT is when it began getting F-ed up,and worsening with every new DemocRAT admin and Congress.
I would say that it is one of your delusions. It is always the republicans that want to remove courses other than reading and writing and put in tests that are multiple choice.
The places where the republicans have been in charge are uniformly worse so it isn't the democrats that are doing it.
I seriously doubt that the teachers union have ever pushed the standardized testing etc that is the core of the problem.
Agreed. We need to make a next generation that is able to take the nation forwards.
No, I'd say that you don't understand that the average says nothing of the range. The common man is good is based on an average. The range goes from extremely evil to extremely good.
As I said elsewhere: children are their charge not their possession. Society have basically always reserved the right to remove children from the control of a truly bad parent.
Yes we do. feed "child protective services" complete with quotes into the google.
The government is us acting collectively. It is only "idiot government" to the degree that we are idiots.
Right here it is about 95%. The worst in the bay area is about 75%.
I'm a product of our piss-poor public school system and teach in it, and even we undereducated overpaid leftist weenies seem to remember the correct term is "Attorneys general" and the correct coupling is "neither-nor", not "can't-nor".
Jim
-- "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." --Aristotle
I am the product of a public school in a foreign country and my first exposure to English happened at around age 10, via the series "All in the Family". There it would have been attoinees ;-)
For the record: I think teachers are in no way overpaid and are mostly doing a great job. It's the bloated administration, mandates, categoricals and so on that's not so good. Plus the lack of motivation on the children's side, caused by a family "structure" that my grandparents would have called defunct.
--
Regards, Joerg
http://www.analogconsultants.com/
"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.
What's with the shit of putting my original statement below your sig cut-off?
Sounds like you're not getting enough "coupling" ;-)
...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
America: Land of the Free, Because of the Brave
Ah, Jim. The old lawyer maxim. "If you have the law, argue the law. If you have the facts, argue the facts. If you have neither, pound the table and yell like hell."
Thou poundest a bit too hard. And I'm getting more than my share of "coupling", thank you.
Jim
-- "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." --Aristotle
"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...
I am too, but it was NOT piss poor, it was superb.
My sympathies. It's my impression, though, that pockets of excellence persist, far away from the population centers, in places where Vogons have yet to tread.
RST Engineering (jw) wrote: > I'm a product of our piss-poor public school system
I am too, but it was NOT piss poor, it was superb.
My sympathies. It's my impression, though, that pockets of excellence persist, far away from the population centers, in places where Vogons have yet to tread.
Tests are not the problem--that's an excuse. The problem is multi-faceted, much stemming from bogus new-age theories about education.
The "new math," for example. And "the new reading" where young kids aren't taught how to sound out or spell words, but to recognize whole words by outline and shape. I know a college kid today who struggles mightily as a result...
Huge diversion of classroom time to "diversity," use of schools as social service counseling / labor enforcement / centers; letting them get into the restaurant business (serving dreadful, harmful fare)...advertisements on campus (!), forced showing of commercial videos in exchange for commercial sponsorship,...a thousand pet projects diverting the schools' time to every purpose _except_ educating; teaching tiny kids computer use--as if this were somehow indispensable to 7-year olds--rather than reading...
All these predate the testing, which merely exposes the schools' failings, which is in turn why the teachers' unions oppose it.
In fact they oppose anything that might subject them to review, examination, or require performance.
These are just a few of the hare-brained, non-science adjustments made to the time-honored methods that work by people who don't know what they're doing, and who continue to make more and more such changes without ever checking their results.
IOW, it's been completely overrun, mismanaged, and screwed up at every level. The above is just a partial list.
Testing people is not a problem. We have the technology.
The teachers' unions oppose change, assessment, accountability, anything that might help. Look to reform attempts all over the country--check out some of the PBS stories, e.g. in Washington D.C., New York, L.A., San Diego--describing how recues were attempted of failing schools, and how bitterly these were opposed.
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