OT: Taxing shituation

But experimentation in education is a really hard thing to do. Suppose you get it wrong, and 2,000 kids who would have been... okay end up ruined because you made a mistake in your experimental, entrepreneurial school approach?

I expect that properly done, private education could be just as subject to the tech cost curve as anything else - you could simply identify the best lectures, video them and have local people available for tutoring on an as-needed basis - but would I bet a million bucks on it? Or one kid's future? Them's some stakes right there.

-- Les Cargill

Understood, but look at how much better, say, hardware production in China is that a couple of decades ago: No way would Apple had made the original Macs in China, yet that's where very iPhone and Mac computer comes from today.

I can only assume they're going to get better over time...

You other points are good ones that contrast or refute mine well; I'll just pick and choose a few to comment on...

Sure, there were Sony Playstations and Nintendo N64 cubes and so-on. Sure, the graphics weren't as flashy, but the core gameplay value was still about the same, I think. (Heck, even today the Wii purposely doesn't compete on having, e.g., the best graphics; they leave that to Microsoft and Sony to fight over.)

True, although people go out to eat much more than they did a few decades back.

Agreed.

---Joel

The UAW wasn't - for a while. Arguably, when you look at the whole picture ( 50% mortality for lineman for a time ) the IBEW isn't, either.

Ah, no. Education is a very touchy thing. There's risk here.

But that has to do with teachers unions being able to muster a political base. That's different from "unions are bad."

I will say - what has happened is that teachers *used* to be professionals, and that for litigation and other reasons, the risk you must embrace to be a full professional was taken away from them. So they plod on, trying to do their best, but they're micromanaged and put upon.

But simply saying "well, make it free market" may not work well because the effects of a bad third grade teacher may not show up for years. What are the exist criteria for an eight year old? Big question.

But yeah - the teachers unions in California are a first class example of Californication writ large. "Why" is a big question.

-- Les Cargill

Isn't that exactly what's been happening for the past 40 years (when phonics was given the boot)? ...and later with "new math", and now the lack of grades? That's a good part of the current mess.

It's broken now. It's time to do some experimentation. A lot of recent experiments have been successful (charter schools, vouchers, etc.). Not enough.

I have team-led a half dozen weak engineers in my time. Most were marginal, and simply needed to believe in themselves.

If I had threatened to fire them, they would probably have quit. Instead, they got good work done, although maybe not at the market standard rate. SFAIK, most did eventually leave, but we had some fun while we were there.

Much worse. It depends. Would you be prepared to design the evaluation procedures? What is the exit criteria for a third grader?

Show your work....

Can you vet the benchmark tests? Do you know anybody who can?

Now here's a red-faced soccer mom - "What do you mean mah boy is a C student???"

Maybe this isn't so easy....

-- Les Cargill

Hey, I've got an in-law who went to a special charter school-type of place here in Oregon that was specializing in "arts." She graduated just fine with good grades (even managing to get a scholarship to college, where she is now), but I'm pretty sure you'd be rather disappointed in the writing level of the students who graduated from there -- definitely not up to what you'd consider to be "high school graduate level." :-)

Of course, one example of a charter school not doing so well doesn't imply we should stop experimenting.

I really *can't*. I cannot explain why Americans did what they did in this sphere. Electronics in America was very bottom-up - you bought parts in catalogs, you assembled them, you got.. a radio, a computer....

It's very different now. Is anybody in China going to come out like Rhubarb Red - aka Les Paul - in the future, or is that done now? Les Paul is the original hacker.

And they have the option to choose what they will serve there. I am just saying we have good toys. Much better than the Mattel "melt plastic" things when I was a kid...

What were those *called*??? And how did they get UL? How many houses burnt down because of them?

Mattel Vac-U-Form. Our parents bought those for us. And chemistry sets.

Yeah, but you can adjust major portions of your income around that pole. Ya got options.

My silent generation parents took us out to eat twice a year

*at most*. I kinda get the feeling they wish they'd done more - they're pretty much wealthy now. But in the '60s, in the'70s, there were much more solid uncertainties than there are now.

So maybe we should be more grateful than we are? More optimistic than we are? Life is pretty damned good.

A lot of people are conspiring at this very moment to see that it will get better.

-- Les Cargill

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Right. But now put yourself in the postion of signing off on it.

The reports are mixed. This is horribly complex....

-- Les Cargill

As if a fucktard like you would even know.

Shut the f*ck up immediately if you have never worked for a government or military manufacturer.

The silence is deafening.

You likely do not even know the first thing about what has to happen when a design change is issued against a previously approved as originally designed product.

Especially if it is in a mission critical application.

You are clueless. It costs thousands of dollars just to change a screw. And that is with the new method. It used to take years.

If the protocols are not followed, it causes problems as well.

I made an HVPS for SAIC that goes into the Geiger counters that the Navy uses on their submarines and nuclear powered carriers to scan work areas.

The spec for it was altered to fit a requested change by SAIC. We delivered supplies built to that change for about six years.

SAIC then got themselves a new Quality Control Technician in their receiving inspection area, and he began rejecting our supplies because he inspected to the *originally* approved spec. It took us months and several meeting with their engineers to finally find the one that acknowledged that the new spec was the desired spec, and that it was not in the documents.

So, our 1200V, 10W PS was really a 1500V, 12W supply that gave them the window of adjustment they were after.

YOU? You do not know a goddamned thing about it. The first thing? No, you do not even get that far.

Pretty obvious that you do not know how this works either.

Hey! I had phonics and I can read just fine, thank you very much. Admittedly, I had an unfair advantage before phonics hit - I was home pre-schooled. One of my earliest memories is of sitting on Mom's lap, with a book in my lap, Mom reading from it as the ran her finger along the page, pointing to each word as she read it.

By the time I went to Kindergarten, I was reading at a 2nd grade level.

When they made us go down for a nap, I asked, "Don't you have anything to read?"

As this was in 1954, they gave me an IQ test. (144). If something like that happened today (a bored kid who'd rather read than fingerpaint, and didn't want to "take a nap" - nap? What's that? What's in that book over there?) they'd declare him ADHD and start drugging him. Ritalin, anyone?

I wonder how many mothers read to their kids these days?

Thanks, Rich

...

OK, this VOUCHER stuff throws a complete monkey wrench into my education speil.

How about, rather than a VOUCHER, you just reduce that family's tax burden by however many dollars the VOUCHER would be for, and let them spend the savings educating their children in any manner of their choosing?

Originally, you know, when we had to walk two miles uphill both ways through ten feet of snow, and wrote our lessons on clay tablets, schools were ENTIRELY paid for with local money.

Sadly, the voters have allowed government to metastasize into a possibly inoperabale terminal cancer.

I hope the Tea Party doesn't get sucked into the creationist theocrat morass.

Cheers! Rich

Yeah! Why should the childfree have their money confiscated to take care of the offspring of the breeders?

That's why the gays want marriage rights - so they can also suck off the financial tit of the childfree.

Thanks, Rich

We're not talking about being a reasonable supervisor, nurturing trainees to achieve their highest goals, that's admirable and there should be a whole lot more of it.

It's unionism and the sledge-hammer rule of the government that's the problem. If, in your example, the weak engineers had unionized rather than to have warmed to your tutelage, what sort of outcome would you speculate would have resulted?

Thanks, Rich

Better yet..cut the taxes equal to the amount $pent in schools, PERIOD. Parents would pay for the private schools directly. Why wasteful tax, then more wasteful distribution called "vouchers"?

Ah, an elder sister wanting to play teacher, also works oke. Se used me as a victim. :)

That's another unfair advantage I had - a sister 4 years ahead of me and a brother 5 years ahead; when I got bored I'd read their homework books.

Of course, they went off to college, so when I finished high school, I didn't have their books to cheat off of, so I kind of flopped at college - joined the Air Force to dodge the draft in 1968. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

That is a huge part of the problem, when familes put sports before education. They think their kids should automatically get 100% scores in every class simply because they are on some team. The same parents deny that their kids are bullies, too.

--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.

My school got some speed reading machines when I was in Jr. high school, and a government grant for summer school for slected students to have access to the library. It ran all summer. After a few weeks I could read faster than any of the machines, and retain what I read. I read every electronics and science book, and most of the Sci-Fi books that summer.

--
Politicians should only get paid if the budget is balanced, and there is
enough left over to pay them.