It started before but the nail in the coffin was school racial integration IMO. That is when it became pretty much explicit that social indoctrination was primary to education - for both races.

The math results come out in two weeks. I suspect it will be just as bad.

I posted this a year ago ... if anyone has an hour, it's a good summary of education research from 2009 ...

http://hoorferl.stanford.edu/presentatio....

That's part of it, Anti, but the real culprit is the attack on what was perceived to be the 'elitism' of a minority of smart, well-educated students that began in the '60s. Educators' feelings and agenda at that time (and still to this day) were to purposely *not* develop academic and intellectual talent because in the educators' opinions highly able students were already unfairly advantaged.

So... educating to 'equal outcomes' became the goal. And since the only level at which a large majority can achieve is at a significantly below average level, thus began the race to the bottom.

More here:
http://market-ticker.org/cgi-ticker/akcs....

What's wrong with "him runned to the car"? Me runned to the car two.

Massachusetts was just recently given an exemption - they don't have to meet the NCLB standards. And MA has had MCAS for a decade-plus on top of that.

This from the home of MIT... I'm ashamed.

http://thewhitworthian.com/2012/02/17/te....

I've given the Saxon middle grades math placement test to my daughters kids - I'm shocked at the horrible results. Then again, she does live in a relatively poor city, so I really shouldn't be.

I've long been wondering if I could open a robotics-based private school to teach math and science and English.

As bad as the problems are in public education, I think we would be much worse off without it. I think fixing the current system is a better alternative to scrapping the system altogether. Under a true free market system, poor children through no fault of their own would not even have a chance at becoming successful. If you think the math and writing skills of young people are inadequate now, wait until they have no formal education at all.

Right or wrong, in Florida, a free education is a Constitutional right (Fla. Const. Article IX). There is no way that an amendment to the Constitution getting rid of free education would ever be approved by the voters of this state.

The problems in education mostly started when the Federal Government stuck their nose in it. Prior to the Federal Department of Education, if you failed, you failed. Now these schools are essentially required to pass everyone to get their "carrot" from the Federal Government. End the financial incentives for schools to pass everyone and this problem will likely go away and a high school diploma might be worth something again.

Quote:

Right or wrong, in Florida, a free education is a Constitutional right (Fla. Const. Article IX). There is no way that an amendment to the Constitution getting rid of free education would ever be approved by the voters of this state.

I think it's time for us to find out.

Quote:

a free education

There's nothing free about public education - the money comes from someone (taxpayers). What color is the sky in your world?

Quote:

There is no way that an amendment to the Constitution getting rid of free education would ever be approved by the voters of this state.

It's not "free." It costs the taxpayers an exorbitant amount of money - usually in the form of never-ending ever-increasing property tax bills. I think you may be grossly overestimating the percentage of those who still support the public school system given the fact that we're severely overpaying for the services rendered.

It all comes to an end when the liberals who have been babysitting our kids rather than teaching them, run out of people who can hold a decent job to pay for their retirement benefits.

Quote:

There's nothing free about public education - the money comes from someone (taxpayers). What color is the sky in your world?

From Article IX, Section 1(a) of the Florida Constitution:

"Adequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education and for the establishment, maintenance, and operation of institutions of higher learning and other public education programs that the needs of the people may require."

The word "free" is the Constitution's words, not mine.

Mdm wrote..

The problems in education mostly started when the Federal Government stuck their nose in it.

This is demonstrably false.

The people who first brought modern schools to the west in the 19th century did so for the purpose of creating an intellectually dependent underclass. This has been meticulously documented by John Taylor Gatto and others.

There is no way to fix a system that is designed to damage children.

Everyone knows it's not "free." All they have to do is look at their property tax bill or their jacked up monthly rent.

Mdm, if we abolished the public schools, things could only get better.

As things stand, most parents are just sufficiently aware of their kids to figure that the kids are in school, so they're getting educated. Most parents are working, and don't really have time to figure out that's not true. As long as they are getting that free daycare, the parents are happy. The parents who are more aware aren't happy with the public schools.

If there were no public schools, most middle class families would have $5,000 to $10,000 more per year - that's what the property tax bill for schools runs. The states usually chip in a bunch more. Some of the middle class might be able to go back to single income households, and homeschool. All of the middle class would realize their kids weren't in school, and start looking for the wisest place to spend their money on daycare and education. They would demand performance from the schools and from the kids. The private alternatives would educate, unlike the public schools.

The junkies and their children won't be any better off, but they won't lose any ground, either. More importantly, they won't be disrupting the classrooms in which the serious students are trying to learn.

There is no downside for our society in abolishing the public schools. There is a huge downside for the teachers unions and governments.

Speaking of overpaying... Maryland is both increasing income taxes AND shifting teacher pension costs to the counties (which means higher county taxes, as well).

Quote:

The Maryland General Assembly passed a $260 million tax increase Wednesday as it adjourned from a three-day special session that ended with Gov. Martin O'Malley saying he will bring lawmakers back for another session this summer.

The House gave final approval to two bills that will raise income taxes and shift a portion of teacher pension costs to counties to balance the state’s $35.5 billion budget, which is nearly $1 billion larger than last year’s spending plan.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012....

Who knew? Socialism sucks when you run out of other people's money...

2dogs wrote..

Manipulating the states' education standards and tests to make it look like public school students are succeeding when they are NOT has been going on for years and year

^^^

Home schooled kids entering my college courses are always the top performers. I have never had one earn lower than a B. They far outperform public schooled kids.

As a high school teacher and increasingly in college, if you give a kid a D or F you will be hassled to death to do something about it. Typically it involves either the administration acting like it is your fault for not intervening sooner or the student playing the guilt card on you that you are going to ruin their chance of graduating/getting into some program.

The citizens of Alabama have tried 3 times now in the past 20 years to get experimental charter schools introduced to the state and they have been cockblocked by the teachers' union every single time. One of my liberal friends was all for them in high school. Now that he is a public high school teacher he is totally against them. This coming from a guy who was a C student in high school, C student in college as a history major, flunked out of Grad school as a history major and who could find no job other than to teach high school history.

Entirely too many people are dependent on public education jobs now. The only way out of this Chinese finger-trap is to use the system's momentum against it.

I was against charter schools and vouchers for a long time. Charter schools seem to work in Arizona, and it has changed my mind.

I'm still against vouchers, although we sort of have that with so called "public charter schools".

The agreement that I want to have with public K-12 is that if I pay taxes for this worthy cause, the ones that graduate from high school have a core, common set of minimum skills.

My local public school districts (we have three) are some of the worst in the state. This is in a state that unfortunately ranks in the bottom ten, consistently, for K-12 education.

Since the K-12 public schools are not holding up their end of the bargain, I don't want to continue funding them.

At the very least, we need to end compulsory schooling.

ETA: Louisiana just passed a huge education reform bill that emphasizes charters and vouchers. Needless to say, the public shool teachers hated it, but the governor Jindal here is so popular that he could basically tell them to **** off and get away with it. We will see pretty soon whether or not it helps, but I can say that it's been hugely successful in New Orleans. One statistic that I read said that prior to Hurricane Katrina, inner city kids were passing state proficiency exams at a 19% rate (yes, you read that right). Since the state took over and turned them all into charter schools, that has gone up to like 60%. Still sucky, but the trajectory is in the right direction.

Whats up with you guys and education. So what if dummies don't pass. The smart ones will pass and learn. It is not like we went to school and got nothing out of it.

Risingcream wrote..

It is not like we went to school and got nothing out of it.

Yes, totally ignore what Karl & the others wrote. It's almost like you went to publik skool, ore sumthing...

Some charts ...

well, you know - wouldn't***** me off as much if we were getting something for the money.

What we are getting is we are being ripped off.

Quote:

"Adequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education and for the establishment, maintenance, and operation of institutions of higher learning and other public education programs that the needs of the people may require."

So the Florida Constitution is a Big Lie. Got it.