I am willing to argue public education has ruined this country...

[Anonymous]

Only a few lifetimes ago things were very different in the United States.  Originality and variety were common currency; our freedom from regimentation made us the miracle of the world; social-class boundaries were relatively easy to cross; our citizenry was marvelously confident, inventive and able to do much for themselves independently, and to think for themselves.  We were something special, we Americans, all by ourselves, without government sticking its nose into and measuring every aspect of our lives, without institutions and social agencies telling us how to think and feel….[T]here are some studies that suggest literacy at the time of the American Revolution, at least for non-slaves on the Eastern seaboard, was close to total.

- J.T. Gatto

I think our populace is at the pinnacle of its desensitization. Our populace has been subject to a mediocre one-size-fits-all education, with no room for improvement due to its castratized incentive and a national curriculum of authoritarianism. All originality and self-reliance has been sucked dry of every individual put through our schools.

This is why we are doomed: Poor, provisional education.

[1714680149]

1714680149

[1714680149]

1714680149

[smellyBobby]

Look at Sweden, the balance between free-market and government restrictions.



http://www.economist.com/node/11535645?story_id=11535645

"BIG-STATE, social-democratic Sweden seems an odd place to look for a free-market revolution. Yet that is what is under way in the country's schools."

"The local municipality must pay the school what it would have spent educating each child itself—a sum of SKr48,000-70,000 ($8,000-12,000) a year, depending on the child's age and the school's location. Children must be admitted on a first-come, first-served basis—there must be no religious requirements or entrance exams. Nothing extra can be charged for, but making a profit is fine."

[Anonymous]

Look at Sweden, the balance between free-market and government restrictions.



http://www.economist.com/node/11535645?story_id=11535645

"BIG-STATE, social-democratic Sweden seems an odd place to look for a free-market revolution. Yet that is what is under way in the country's schools."

"The local municipality must pay the school what it would have spent educating each child itself—a sum of SKr48,000-70,000 ($8,000-12,000) a year, depending on the child's age and the school's location. Children must be admitted on a first-come, first-served basis—there must be no religious requirements or entrance exams. Nothing extra can be charged for, but making a profit is fine."

This is a total perversion of the term "free-market" and the usual totally misguided idea of education. You can't put a price on education. You can't throw money at a child and say "be taught". Life doesn't work like that.

[SgtSpike]

For once, I completely agree with you Atlas.  Public education is constantly being dumbed down to the worst students in the class.  It's actually becoming more difficult to fail than to pass.   

[smellyBobby]

All knowing Atlas please answer this simple question for me.

If public education is evil, and Sweden has more state influence in their education system than America does, then why is Sweden not more of a failure than the U.S. ? Why are the Swedish people generally more happy? How come their Society is not a massive failure as you argue?

[Anonymous]

All knowing Atlas please answer this simple question for me.

If public education is evil, and Sweden has more state influence in their education system than America does, then why is Sweden not more of a failure than the U.S. ? Why are the Swedish people generally more happy? How come their Society is not a massive failure as you argue?

The equation is a lot more complex than that. The US is fucking large. The effects are worse when you put a single regime against a large, centralized populace. While Sweden is small.

In addition, they may be ignorantly happy but from what I've seen their culture is disgusting. I've seen it first-hand on this forum. They have been truly desensitized to true compassion and its due to their lack of a family unit in childhood.

[LastBattle]

All knowing Atlas please answer this simple question for me.

If public education is evil, and Sweden has more state influence in their education system than America does, then why is Sweden not more of a failure than the U.S. ? Why are the Swedish people generally more happy? How come their Society is not a massive failure as you argue?

I am going to repeat this until you stop ignoring the facts.

http://www.economist.com/node/7880173

Sweden is a stagnating mess. The only reason it isn't in terrible shape right now is because of all of the wealth it gathered during the period where it had extremely free markets (19th century through to the 1930s) and because of big reforms in the 90s, and even now it is in bad shape economically.

[wumpus]

In addition, they may be ignorantly happy but from what I've seen their culture is disgusting. I've seen it first-hand on this forum. They have been truly desensitized to true compassion and its due to their lack of a family unit in childhood.

You, sir, are disgusting here. Were you 'desensitized' as well? it might explain why you bash the culture of an entire country based on one example, from an internet forum of all places...

I don't mean to be rude here. But please try to see something of the world before make blanket statements based on things you have read somewhere on the internetz. Go visit Sweden once

[drrussellshane]

All knowing Atlas please answer this simple question for me.

If public education is evil, and Sweden has more state influence in their education system than America does, then why is Sweden not more of a failure than the U.S. ? Why are the Swedish people generally more happy? How come their Society is not a massive failure as you argue?

Sweden lacks the "multiculturalism" and "diversity" with which America is so "blessed"...



(homogeneous cultures historically survive much longer than "multicultural melting-pots")

[TheGer]

I wonder how many will have the courage to read about what really goes on in Public Education in America.

http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/

[smellyBobby]

LastBattle, the article you cite is full of bias and misinformation. Here are the facts.


Here is government revenue showing clearly that the U.S has the lowest tax-rate.


Here is GDP/Capita growth showing little relationship between tax-rate and GDP growth.


Now if Sweden was in a big mess, would it not have high unemployment and be on the brink of collapse just like Greece? Especially considering that you argue that Sweden has been in a mess for such a long time.

Well the unemployment numbers show that Sweden, and other Scandinavian countries unemployment below the European average. Unfortunately there was no U.S overlay.



Protip: Make sure the articles you read actually reflect what is happening in the world.


UPDATE:

Here are the links for the graphs: gdp per capita

Start here for stats: World bank development indicators

[LastBattle]

LastBattle, the article you cite is full of bias and misinformation. Here are the facts.


Here is the tax-rate showing clearly that the U.S has the lowest tax-rate.


Here is GDP/Capita growth showing little relationship between tax-rate and GDP growth.


Now if Sweden was in a big mess, would it not have high unemployment and be on the brink of collapse just like Greece? Especially considering that you argue that Sweden has been in a mess for such a long time.

Well the unemployment numbers show that Sweden, and other Scandinavian countries unemployment below the European average. Unfortunately there was no U.S overlay.



Protip: Make sure the articles you read actually reflect what is happening in the world.

Again you feel the need to post irrelevant graphs. Sigh. Allow me:

-That first graph is indicating revenue, not tax rates, which are much different (how income tax brackets work, for example, modifies things without changing the actual rates)

-Come to think of it, did you even read the article? Your second graph is utterly unrelated to the article's main points.

-Nope. You didn't read the article and are instead shooting off wild guesses as to its contents and attacking strawmen. Damn shame, too, since you will never stop talking bull about Sweden if you refuse to bother reading what you are critiquing.

Sweden has low official unemployment for the same reason as Japan: government subsidized window sitters who are paid to make unemployment statistics look prettier. In Sweden, this is augmented by many workers getting hired and then spending most of their "career" on sick leave. I don't think you would classify Japan as being a "stellar example to follow" economically, either.

[smellyBobby]

Again you feel the need to post irrelevant graphs. Sigh. Allow me:

-That first graph is indicating revenue, not tax rates, which are much different (how income tax brackets work, for example, modifies things without changing the actual rates)

-Come to think of it, did you even read the article? Your second graph is utterly unrelated to the article's main points.

-Nope. You didn't read the article and are instead shooting off wild guesses as to its contents and attacking strawmen. Damn shame, too, since you will never stop talking bull about Sweden if you refuse to bother reading what you are critiquing.

Sweden has low official unemployment for the same reason as Japan: government subsidized window sitters who are paid to make unemployment statistics look prettier. In Sweden, this is augmented by many workers getting hired and then spending most of their "career" on sick leave. I don't think you would classify Japan as being a "stellar example to follow" economically, either.

Revenue includes tax. So the first graph shows the percentage of GDP that is collected by the government. Of-course most of it is tax, but not all.

And "window-sitters" is this coming from the same biased article that you use as the pillar of your beliefs? Look at the graphs, or are they just fake because they do not fit your perspective of the world?

Nonetheless even if Japan has Window sitters, what difference does it make? The Japanese aren't complaining as much as the Americans are. It seems as if corporate interests want you to believe that Window sitters are evil so that they can preach their "low-tax/low accountability" agenda.

So I repeat, go find a better article, over a series of posts in different threads you have used that single link to support your beliefs. I have presented information from multiple sources yet you are unable to do the same.

If your position is strong it should not be hard for you to go and find better statistics.

It is clear that Sweden and other Nordic countries with their high taxes and big government are outpacing most industrialized countries.

[Mittlyle]

Only a few lifetimes ago things were very different in the United States.  Originality and variety were common currency; our freedom from regimentation made us the miracle of the world; social-class boundaries were relatively easy to cross; our citizenry was marvelously confident, inventive and able to do much for themselves independently, and to think for themselves.  We were something special, we Americans, all by ourselves, without government sticking its nose into and measuring every aspect of our lives, without institutions and social agencies telling us how to think and feel….[T]here are some studies that suggest literacy at the time of the American Revolution, at least for non-slaves on the Eastern seaboard, was close to total.

- J.T. Gatto

I think our populace is at the pinnacle of its desensitization. Our populace has been subject to a mediocre one-size-fits-all education, with no room for improvement due to its castratized incentive and a national curriculum of authoritarianism. All originality and self-reliance has been sucked dry of every individual put through our schools.

This is why we are doomed: Poor, provisional education.

There have been sort of conspiracy theory going on that US school system is being dumbed down on purpose, but I don't know how well-founded claim that is. I agree that one size-fits-all is not what schools should be in contemporary world. That, however, does not mean good results can't be achieved under such system. I believe one-size-fits-all what is given just about anywhere in the world (except maybe for the most gifted and people with disabilities) and these schools happen to outperform the schools of US. Another question is are even these schools really high-quality.

Not so long ago there were news that Texas is going for historical revisionism in their textbooks against certain political views (don't know if it actually happened). If thats possible in the US education system, then I have very little faith for the quality and impartiality of your education-system in general. One thing that comes around very often is this attitude of superiority of American culture (or past culture) and I'm not sure if its the media or indeed the education thats shoving the propaganda. Recently there was a  12-year-old girl who connected family-trees of all but one US presidents to one British king (so she's probably pretty smart) but then used this sentence in her work: "Barack Obama, US president, the world leader". I found that quite funny.

[ribuck]

It is clear that Sweden and other Nordic countries with their high taxes and big government are outpacing most industrialized countries.

Sweden and other Nordic countries spend their money on things that are more productive than warfare. Therefore they achieve a high standard of living despite their socialism (and Sweden today is much less socialistic than it was in the 1970s anyway).

[FreeMoney]

  Nothing extra can be charged for, but making a profit is fine."

That sounds awful (and way better than the US). So if you want to buy more education you can't buy it from the people you get most of your education from? Or you aren't allowed to buy extra from anyone? Either way sucks.

[FreeMoney]

Schoolsucksproject.com is relevant to this discussion. Very good podcast imo.

[Hawker]

Atlas - you have not suggested an alternative?

[AyeYo]

How is it that no one bothered to blow his ridiculous statement (it's not an argument without supporting proof) out of the water with this simple chart:






How odd that all the top scoring nations no only use far more pervasive public schools than the US, but they're also mostly socialist and/or heavily centrally planned.  Communist China actually blew everyone else away.  How ironic.


The problem here is that Atlas is just a child.  He boils down complex issues like national education into something simple enough for him to understand.  Education is exceedingly complex and, of the many issues plaguing US education, control by the government is one of the least relevant.  Things like uninvolved parents, society's low value for education, and kids too busy on their iPhones are all far more relevant issues that have nothing to do with the government.

[Reikoku]

How odd that all the top scoring nations no only use far more pervasive public schools than the US, but they're also mostly socialist and/or heavily centrally planned.  Communist China actually blew everyone else away.  How ironic.

You mean 'Communist' China which has some of the lowest tax rates (20-25% corporate tax, 20% capital gains) in the world? I assume Hong Kong, which also performed amazingly well, and Singapore come under 'mostly socialist' too? Maybe the reason nobody used that chart is because it shows that market-embracing nations like China and Singapore can outperform socialist monoliths on a fraction of the resource.

Any comparison involving Norway in an economics debate is fundamentally flawed. The country is an anomoly of economics, due mostly to the fact that 20% of its economy comes from petroleum products, and its petroleum exports alone are greater than its entire imports.

[AyeYo]

How odd that all the top scoring nations no only use far more pervasive public schools than the US, but they're also mostly socialist and/or heavily centrally planned.  Communist China actually blew everyone else away.  How ironic.

You mean 'Communist' China which has some of the lowest tax rates (20-25% corporate tax, 20% capital gains) in the world? I assume Hong Kong, which also performed amazingly well, and Singapore come under 'mostly socialist' too? Maybe the reason nobody used that chart is because it shows that market-embracing nations like China and Singapore can outperform socialist monoliths on a fraction of the resource.

Any comparison involving Norway in an economics debate is fundamentally flawed. The country is an anomoly of economics, due mostly to the fact that 20% of its economy comes from petroleum products, and its petroleum exports alone are greater than its entire imports.

Is it fun to alter reality to fit your worldview?

Effective corporate tax rates in the US are 0-10% and capital gains cap out at 15%.  
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/02/business/economy/02leonhardt.html


So some of the most iron-fist centrally planned economies in the world are now free market because it's convenient for them to be in this discussion?  I don't know how I've resisted turning libertarian for this long.  It makes arguing so much easier.

[Mittlyle]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_LKZQT6pv_oU/TP4yfp4qxLI/AAAAAAAABT8/MZhK02vokh4/s1600/Education.jpg
Funny thing about this graph is the high position of Finland. You probably couldn't get more public on schools and more one-size-fits-all in education.

It's those dreaded socialist policies to blame, I told you!

[Reikoku]

How odd that all the top scoring nations no only use far more pervasive public schools than the US, but they're also mostly socialist and/or heavily centrally planned.  Communist China actually blew everyone else away.  How ironic.

You mean 'Communist' China which has some of the lowest tax rates (20-25% corporate tax, 20% capital gains) in the world? I assume Hong Kong, which also performed amazingly well, and Singapore come under 'mostly socialist' too? Maybe the reason nobody used that chart is because it shows that market-embracing nations like China and Singapore can outperform socialist monoliths on a fraction of the resource.

Any comparison involving Norway in an economics debate is fundamentally flawed. The country is an anomoly of economics, due mostly to the fact that 20% of its economy comes from petroleum products, and its petroleum exports alone are greater than its entire imports.

Is it fun to alter reality to fit your worldview?

Effective corporate tax rates in the US are 0-10% and capital gains cap out at 15%.  
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/02/business/economy/02leonhardt.html


So some of the most iron-fist centrally planned economies in the world are now free market because it's convenient for them to be in this discussion?  I don't know how I've resisted turning libertarian for this long.  It makes arguing so much easier.

China isn't free-market, but it's a lot further from Communist than most of western Europe. You don't have to twist my arguments into a straw-man. Nobody's acting like China is a libertarian paradise, but trying to call it communist when its tax rates are similar to the US is fallacious.

From the article you linked:
"Of the 500 big companies in the well-known Standard & Poor’s stock index, 115 paid a total corporate tax rate — both federal and otherwise — of less than 20 percent over the last five years, according to an analysis of company reports done for The New York Times by Capital IQ, a research firm. Thirty-nine of those companies paid a rate less than 10 percent"

Your 0-10% corp tax rate applies to 39 of how many companies in the US? Really? Please don't make ridiculous statements, most companies in the US pay far more than 20%, and many smaller corporations end up paying the full 35% whack. If you're going to post a source, read it first.

Well done on avoiding me on Hong Kong and Singapore though.

[AyeYo]

How odd that all the top scoring nations no only use far more pervasive public schools than the US, but they're also mostly socialist and/or heavily centrally planned.  Communist China actually blew everyone else away.  How ironic.

You mean 'Communist' China which has some of the lowest tax rates (20-25% corporate tax, 20% capital gains) in the world? I assume Hong Kong, which also performed amazingly well, and Singapore come under 'mostly socialist' too? Maybe the reason nobody used that chart is because it shows that market-embracing nations like China and Singapore can outperform socialist monoliths on a fraction of the resource.

Any comparison involving Norway in an economics debate is fundamentally flawed. The country is an anomoly of economics, due mostly to the fact that 20% of its economy comes from petroleum products, and its petroleum exports alone are greater than its entire imports.

Is it fun to alter reality to fit your worldview?

Effective corporate tax rates in the US are 0-10% and capital gains cap out at 15%.  
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/02/business/economy/02leonhardt.html


So some of the most iron-fist centrally planned economies in the world are now free market because it's convenient for them to be in this discussion?  I don't know how I've resisted turning libertarian for this long.  It makes arguing so much easier.

China isn't free-market, but it's a lot further from Communist than most of western Europe. You don't have to twist my arguments into a straw-man. Nobody's acting like China is a libertarian paradise, but trying to call it communist when its tax rates are similar to the US is fallacious.

From the article you linked:
"Of the 500 big companies in the well-known Standard & Poor’s stock index, 115 paid a total corporate tax rate — both federal and otherwise — of less than 20 percent over the last five years, according to an analysis of company reports done for The New York Times by Capital IQ, a research firm. Thirty-nine of those companies paid a rate less than 10 percent"

Your 0-10% corp tax rate applies to 39 of how many companies in the US? Really? Please don't make ridiculous statements, most companies in the US pay far more than 20%, and many smaller corporations end up paying the full 35% whack. If you're going to post a source, read it first.

Well done on avoiding me on Hong Kong and Singapore though.

So how's that public eduation argument going?  Make a new thread if you want to discuss effective corporate tax rates.  This thread is for us to laugh at the people blaming the government and public education for all the US's problem's.

[LastBattle]

How odd that all the top scoring nations no only use far more pervasive public schools than the US, but they're also mostly socialist and/or heavily centrally planned.  Communist China actually blew everyone else away.  How ironic.

You mean 'Communist' China which has some of the lowest tax rates (20-25% corporate tax, 20% capital gains) in the world? I assume Hong Kong, which also performed amazingly well, and Singapore come under 'mostly socialist' too? Maybe the reason nobody used that chart is because it shows that market-embracing nations like China and Singapore can outperform socialist monoliths on a fraction of the resource.

Any comparison involving Norway in an economics debate is fundamentally flawed. The country is an anomoly of economics, due mostly to the fact that 20% of its economy comes from petroleum products, and its petroleum exports alone are greater than its entire imports.

Is it fun to alter reality to fit your worldview?

Effective corporate tax rates in the US are 0-10% and capital gains cap out at 15%.  
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/02/business/economy/02leonhardt.html


So some of the most iron-fist centrally planned economies in the world are now free market because it's convenient for them to be in this discussion?  I don't know how I've resisted turning libertarian for this long.  It makes arguing so much easier.

China isn't free-market, but it's a lot further from Communist than most of western Europe. You don't have to twist my arguments into a straw-man. Nobody's acting like China is a libertarian paradise, but trying to call it communist when its tax rates are similar to the US is fallacious.

From the article you linked:
"Of the 500 big companies in the well-known Standard & Poor’s stock index, 115 paid a total corporate tax rate — both federal and otherwise — of less than 20 percent over the last five years, according to an analysis of company reports done for The New York Times by Capital IQ, a research firm. Thirty-nine of those companies paid a rate less than 10 percent"

Your 0-10% corp tax rate applies to 39 of how many companies in the US? Really? Please don't make ridiculous statements, most companies in the US pay far more than 20%, and many smaller corporations end up paying the full 35% whack. If you're going to post a source, read it first.

Well done on avoiding me on Hong Kong and Singapore though.

Just a word of warning: Expect a lot of that sort of thing. Especially straw men.

[Anonymous]

I need to know what's on those international tests before I can deduce anything from the score.

[Anonymous]

Atlas - you have not suggested an alternative?

Let the people decide through free-market incentive and desire. Preferably, homeschooling. Parents actually raising their kids for once. It worked for early America and it does work today. Children without structured education are on par --if not-- outpace their schooled peers. At the least, they are actually self-reliant and motivated individuals, that aren't dependent on provisioned self-esteem.

[3phase]

I need to know what's on those international tests before I can deduce anything from the score.

Adding to this:

What does this PISA score have to do with the quality of life that these children will lead? Is there any guarantee that a higher PISA score leads to prosperity and happiness in life? Are there any statistics for this?

Or was it something invented without a real world pressing need, so that academics in the Education Arts would have one more field to write unique peer-reviewed papers about in order to gain or extend their tenure?

I am not dismissing them altogether. I am simply wondering. I've seen far too many statistics and researches of the latter kind and far too few of the former orientation.

[Hawker]

Atlas - you have not suggested an alternative?

Let the people decide through free-market incentive and desire. Preferably, homeschooling. Parents actually raising their kids for once. It worked for early America and it does work today. Children without structured education are on par --if not-- outpace their schooled peers. At the least, they are actually self-reliant and motivated individuals, that aren't dependent on provisioned self-esteem.

I live in England and we have the choice of state or private here.  My kids went to a Montessori school.  The private schools set their own curriculums but they have to make a certain standard in order to charge fees.

Don't you have that in America?  I'm sure you must have.

[Anonymous]

Atlas - you have not suggested an alternative?

Let the people decide through free-market incentive and desire. Preferably, homeschooling. Parents actually raising their kids for once. It worked for early America and it does work today. Children without structured education are on par --if not-- outpace their schooled peers. At the least, they are actually self-reliant and motivated individuals, that aren't dependent on provisioned self-esteem.

I live in England and we have the choice of state or private here.  My kids went to a Montessori school.  The private schools set their own curriculums but they have to make a certain standard in order to charge fees.

Don't you have that in America?  I'm sure you must have.

We do. However, we're still forced to pay for public schooling we don't use; hence, why most feel obligated to send their kids to it.

Otherwise, people would have money in their pockets to pay for their child's education where they please, not an additional amount.

[Hawker]

Atlas - you have not suggested an alternative?

Let the people decide through free-market incentive and desire. Preferably, homeschooling. Parents actually raising their kids for once. It worked for early America and it does work today. Children without structured education are on par --if not-- outpace their schooled peers. At the least, they are actually self-reliant and motivated individuals, that aren't dependent on provisioned self-esteem.

I live in England and we have the choice of state or private here.  My kids went to a Montessori school.  The private schools set their own curriculums but they have to make a certain standard in order to charge fees.

Don't you have that in America?  I'm sure you must have.

We do. However, we're still forced to pay for public schooling we don't use; hence, why most feel obligated to send their kids to it.

Otherwise, people would have money in their pockets to pay for their child's education where they please, not an additional amount.

Think positive.  You choose where your kids get educated.  People who don't give a hoot where their kids get educated are still getting them educated.  Their kids will work for your kids.  Everyone's a winner

[Anonymous]

Atlas - you have not suggested an alternative?

Let the people decide through free-market incentive and desire. Preferably, homeschooling. Parents actually raising their kids for once. It worked for early America and it does work today. Children without structured education are on par --if not-- outpace their schooled peers. At the least, they are actually self-reliant and motivated individuals, that aren't dependent on provisioned self-esteem.

I live in England and we have the choice of state or private here.  My kids went to a Montessori school.  The private schools set their own curriculums but they have to make a certain standard in order to charge fees.

Don't you have that in America?  I'm sure you must have.

We do. However, we're still forced to pay for public schooling we don't use; hence, why most feel obligated to send their kids to it.

Otherwise, people would have money in their pockets to pay for their child's education where they please, not an additional amount.

People who don't give a hoot where their kids get educated are still getting them educated.  

Hardly. From what I have been through, the unneeded anxiety public schools have given me, the limitations.... I feel these schools are more damaging than anything. They break people like cattle to the slaughter.

I have never been more depressed than through my years of being told to sit, do busy work and taught to learn what is only taught for eight hours a day. Then when I had time THAT WAS TO BE ONLY MINE, more needless work was assigned.

My time was monopolized by people that did not deserve it.

This isn't education. It's indoctrination. It is preparation for emotional slavery.

[Hawker]

Sorry to hear that.

At least its over and you can move on now.  Make sure to send your own children to excellent schools.  Its worth every penny.

[myrkul]

Sorry to hear that.

At least its over and you can move on now.  Make sure to send your own children to excellent schools.  Its worth every penny.

Agreed, and If I have to work 4 jobs and sleep when I'm dead, my kid will get the best education I can afford. Not having to pay for other people's kids 'education' would help with that.

[Anonymous]

The best education is right at hand in your own home and with the time you spend with your child. As long as you have a good resource of information (internet anyone?) and the means to facilitate it, learning and education is inherent.

Throughout most of American history, kids generally didn't go to high school, yet the unschooled rose to be admirals, like Farragut; inventors, like Edison; captains of industry like Carnegie and Rockefeller; writers, like Melville and Twain and Conrad; and even scholars, like Margaret Mead. In fact, until pretty recently people who reached the age of thirteen weren't looked upon as children at all. Ariel Durant, who co-wrote an enormous, and very good, multivolume history of the world with her husband, Will, was happily married at fifteen, and who could reasonably claim that Ariel Durant was an uneducated person? Unschooled, perhaps, but not uneducated.

[Bind]

It's part of their plan.

http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/MomsPDFs/DDDoA.sml.pdf

[Jaime Frontero]

i am willing to point out that i believe you to be completely mistaken.

public education created this country, and all of its wealth.

after our revolution, the only things the federal government paid for were the war debt, and our 'universal' (allowing for the varied bigotries of the day...) education:

The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves.

~John Adams (as President)

we achieved the position in the world which we occupy - now declining, obviously - because we were, at one time, the best-educated country on earth.  without any question at all.  the corporatocracy saw this early, and the first attacks on education began in the late 50s:  they are by now almost complete.

we have been eating our educational seed corn since then.

in fifty years less than 1% of the population will be educationally fit to make a distinction between genesis and evolution.

[Hawker]

The best education is right at hand in your own home and with the time you spend with your child. As long as you have a good resource of information (internet anyone?) and the means to facilitate it, learning and education is inherent.

Throughout most of American history, kids generally didn't go to high school, yet the unschooled rose to be admirals, like Farragut; inventors, like Edison; captains of industry like Carnegie and Rockefeller; writers, like Melville and Twain and Conrad; and even scholars, like Margaret Mead. In fact, until pretty recently people who reached the age of thirteen weren't looked upon as children at all. Ariel Durant, who co-wrote an enormous, and very good, multivolume history of the world with her husband, Will, was happily married at fifteen, and who could reasonably claim that Ariel Durant was an uneducated person? Unschooled, perhaps, but not uneducated.

Those days are long gone.  Modern society has huge sectors who don't care about education and if their child, especially if its a girl, hits 18 as an illiterate, they won't care.  There are also huge numbers of families where both parents work.   Its better that kids have some education regardless of the quality of the home environment and if people vote for the state to provide that education, you have to accept that.

The good news is that you don't have to accept it for your own family.  You can homeschool your kids, or send them to a Montessori school or do whatever.  It doesn't affect you that other parents don't care.

[Anonymous]

The best education is right at hand in your own home and with the time you spend with your child. As long as you have a good resource of information (internet anyone?) and the means to facilitate it, learning and education is inherent.

Throughout most of American history, kids generally didn't go to high school, yet the unschooled rose to be admirals, like Farragut; inventors, like Edison; captains of industry like Carnegie and Rockefeller; writers, like Melville and Twain and Conrad; and even scholars, like Margaret Mead. In fact, until pretty recently people who reached the age of thirteen weren't looked upon as children at all. Ariel Durant, who co-wrote an enormous, and very good, multivolume history of the world with her husband, Will, was happily married at fifteen, and who could reasonably claim that Ariel Durant was an uneducated person? Unschooled, perhaps, but not uneducated.

Those days are long gone.  Modern society has huge sectors who don't care about education and if their child, especially if its a girl, hits 18 as an illiterate, they won't care.  There are also huge numbers of families where both parents work.   Its better that kids have some education regardless of the quality of the home environment and if people vote for the state to provide that education, you have to accept that.

The good news is that you don't have to accept it for your own family.  You can homeschool your kids, or send them to a Montessori school or do whatever.  It doesn't affect you that other parents don't care.

The reason both parents most work is due to the horrible practices of our overlords. The economy is stagnant. In addition, never in America has a child been left without books and information to consume. Our culture is too information-oriented. Illiteracy just does not happen.

I have to accept paying for this abomination. I have to accept that slavery.

It does effect me when I can't build anything except with an incompetent workforce of over-dependent drones. Luckily the internet attracts the foam that rises from this cesspool.

[Jaime Frontero]

It does effect me when I can't build anything except with an incompetent workforce of over-dependent drones. Luckily the internet attracts the foam that rises from this cesspool.

i offer a small mnemonic, learned in the US public education system of the 1950s...

an affect produces an effect.  the two are in alphabetical order.

"it affects".  "an effect".

an affect essentially refers to an externalality - and is easy to remember due to having the opposite leading vowel.

no offense intended - offered only as a useful memory jog...

[Hawker]

The best education is right at hand in your own home and with the time you spend with your child. As long as you have a good resource of information (internet anyone?) and the means to facilitate it, learning and education is inherent.

Throughout most of American history, kids generally didn't go to high school, yet the unschooled rose to be admirals, like Farragut; inventors, like Edison; captains of industry like Carnegie and Rockefeller; writers, like Melville and Twain and Conrad; and even scholars, like Margaret Mead. In fact, until pretty recently people who reached the age of thirteen weren't looked upon as children at all. Ariel Durant, who co-wrote an enormous, and very good, multivolume history of the world with her husband, Will, was happily married at fifteen, and who could reasonably claim that Ariel Durant was an uneducated person? Unschooled, perhaps, but not uneducated.

Those days are long gone.  Modern society has huge sectors who don't care about education and if their child, especially if its a girl, hits 18 as an illiterate, they won't care.  There are also huge numbers of families where both parents work.   Its better that kids have some education regardless of the quality of the home environment and if people vote for the state to provide that education, you have to accept that.

The good news is that you don't have to accept it for your own family.  You can homeschool your kids, or send them to a Montessori school or do whatever.  It doesn't affect you that other parents don't care.

The reason both parents most work is due to the horrible practices of our overlords. The economy is stagnant. In addition, never in America has a child been left without books and information to consume. Our culture is too information-oriented. Illiteracy just does not happen.

I have to accept paying for this abomination. I have to accept that slavery.

It does effect me when I can't build anything except with an incompetent workforce of over-dependent drones. Luckily the internet attracts the foam that rises from this cesspool.

The Americans who work for me are great.  If you really have an incompetent workforce of over-dependent drones, perhaps you could reconsider your hiring strategy ?  

[myrkul]

It does effect me when I can't build anything except with an incompetent workforce of over-dependent drones. Luckily the internet attracts the foam that rises from this cesspool.

i offer a small mnemonic, learned in the US public education system of the 1950s...

Back when they still cared about these things...

than/then
affect/effect
etc... I weep for the English language.

[Jaime Frontero]

It does effect me when I can't build anything except with an incompetent workforce of over-dependent drones. Luckily the internet attracts the foam that rises from this cesspool.

i offer a small mnemonic, learned in the US public education system of the 1950s...

Back when they still cared about these things...

than/then
affect/effect
etc... I weep for the English language.

yes.  what a wonderfully complex and strange language it is.

i try not to be overly sensitive.  there's too many native speakers of other languages here, for one thing.

still, whenever i think it might be useful...

[Anonymous]

It does effect me when I can't build anything except with an incompetent workforce of over-dependent drones. Luckily the internet attracts the foam that rises from this cesspool.

i offer a small mnemonic, learned in the US public education system of the 1950s...

an affect produces an effect.  the two are in alphabetical order.

"it affects".  "an effect".

an affect essentially refers to an externalality - and is easy to remember due to having the opposite leading vowel.

no offense intended - offered only as a useful memory jog...

I got my message across. It is intelligible. I am aware of the proper spellings but in the end it's just pedantry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY

[em3rgentOrdr]

Wow, looks like this thread has devolved into the issue of Sweden.

Is Sweden a Social Democracy?
Is Sweden a small government city-state smaller than most US states?
Have the Voters voted for the Social Democratic Party?
Is unemployment in Sweden high or low?
Is Sweden culturally and racially homogeneous?
Is Sweden cultural and racial homogeneity good or bad for the economy?
Is Sweden generous to immigrants?
Are there a significant number of immigrants in Sweden?
What are the attitudes of ordinary Swedes towards immigration?
Is Sweden's actual tax rate higher or lower than in US?
Is Sweden's economy good or bad?
Does Sweden's government actually help make the disadvantaged more Independent and self-sustaining or does it create an entire social class dependent on government welfare?

I could go on.  I've been to this thread before...

Atlas - you have not suggested an alternative?

Umm...have you ever checked out something called "Google" or "The Internet"?

[myrkul]

I got my message across. It is intelligible. I am aware of the proper spellings but in the end it's just pedantry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY

Atlas, Considering the title of this thread, it's probably best not to give the trolls ammo, dig?

[jgraham]

I need to know what's on those international tests before I can deduce anything from the score.

So you didn't examine any large sample of geographically and ethnically diverse data before reaching your conclusion** (Note, here I mean your conclusion about "public education" not your conclusion about international tests).

...and can anyone point me to where Atlas makes something resembling a cogent argument.  i.e.  A set of falsifiable premises which force his conclusion.  I read one incomplete quote by JTG who apparently cites the selling of Thomas Panes work as a useful metric for literacy.  That easily became a DR because of the amount of mathematical ignorance involved.

(**Preparing myself here for yet another grade-school redefining of terms!)

[AyeYo]

I need to know what's on those international tests before I can deduce anything from the score.

So you didn't examine any large sample of geographically and ethnically diverse data before reaching your conclusion** (Note, here I mean your conclusion about "public education" not your conclusion about international tests).

...and can anyone point me to where Atlas makes something resembling a cogent argument.  i.e.  A set of falsifiable premises which force his conclusion.  I read one incomplete quote by JTG who apparently cites the selling of Thomas Panes work as a useful metric for literacy.  That easily became a DR because of the amount of mathematical ignorance involved.

(**Preparing myself here for yet another grade-school redefining of terms!)

He doesn't do that, he just uses a lot of hyperbole to make bold, sweeping statements that are never backed up by anything of substance.

I spent almost two pages in another thread attempting to pin him down and actually make him explain/back up his statement (he said businesses now have no incentive to create safer products), but it was lost cause and he eventually just ignored the thread.

[Anonymous]

Repeat: They have no incentive because the government prevents them from being liable through poor regulation.

[jgraham]

I need to know what's on those international tests before I can deduce anything from the score.

So you didn't examine any large sample of geographically and ethnically diverse data before reaching your conclusion** (Note, here I mean your conclusion about "public education" not your conclusion about international tests).

...and can anyone point me to where Atlas makes something resembling a cogent argument.  i.e.  A set of falsifiable premises which force his conclusion.  I read one incomplete quote by JTG who apparently cites the selling of Thomas Panes work as a useful metric for literacy.  That easily became a DR because of the amount of mathematical ignorance involved.

(**Preparing myself here for yet another grade-school redefining of terms!)

He doesn't do that, he just uses a lot of hyperbole to make bold, sweeping statements that are never backed up by anything of substance.

I spent almost two pages in another thread attempting to pin him down and actually make him explain/back up his statement (he said businesses now have no incentive to create safer products), but it was lost cause and he eventually just ignored the thread.

Yeah, it's sad in a way.   I'm never met Ayn Rand but despite that she was a little nuts I wonder how she would have viewed her modern-day crybaby progeny (probably with disgust as she viewed even the most resolute of her followers that way).   It's pretty funny how many of the self-described Objectivists I meet are whiny sniveling complainers.   When Galt got sick of the world he went off to do great things.  What great thing is our our Atlas doing?  Atlas Shrugged?  Bah!  Atlas Whined is more like it.

Incidentally I don't know what *businesses* you or he are referring to but to take medicine for example. It would be difficult to point to many places in the history of medical science where businesses who were, not to put too fine a point on it were executing people changed their ways because of some kind of laissez-faire capitalism instead rather due to altruistic individuals and government intervention and it seems reasonable to believe that this approach will continue to improve medicine if you take a look at the revisions to the Declaration of Helsinki in 2000 calling for active control trials rather than placebo control trials.

IMHO Rand's "rational self-interest" is essentially begging the question.

[Anonymous]

You have no idea what I'm building.

In addition, who's the objectivist here? I have yet to meet him.

[AyeYo]

I need to know what's on those international tests before I can deduce anything from the score.

So you didn't examine any large sample of geographically and ethnically diverse data before reaching your conclusion** (Note, here I mean your conclusion about "public education" not your conclusion about international tests).

...and can anyone point me to where Atlas makes something resembling a cogent argument.  i.e.  A set of falsifiable premises which force his conclusion.  I read one incomplete quote by JTG who apparently cites the selling of Thomas Panes work as a useful metric for literacy.  That easily became a DR because of the amount of mathematical ignorance involved.

(**Preparing myself here for yet another grade-school redefining of terms!)

He doesn't do that, he just uses a lot of hyperbole to make bold, sweeping statements that are never backed up by anything of substance.

I spent almost two pages in another thread attempting to pin him down and actually make him explain/back up his statement (he said businesses now have no incentive to create safer products), but it was lost cause and he eventually just ignored the thread.

Yeah, it's sad in a way.   I'm never met Ayn Rand but despite that she was a little nuts I wonder how she would have viewed her modern-day crybaby progeny (probably with disgust as she viewed even the most resolute of her followers that way).   It's pretty funny how many of the self-described Objectivists I meet are whiny sniveling complainers.   When Galt got sick of the world he went off to do great things.  What great thing is our our Atlas doing?  Atlas Shrugged?  Bah!  Atlas Whined is more like it.

Incidentally I don't know what *businesses* you or he are referring to but to take medicine for example. It would be difficult to point to many places in the history of medical science where businesses who were, not to put too fine a point on it were executing people changed their ways because of some kind of laissez-faire capitalism instead rather due to altruistic individuals and government intervention and it seems reasonable to believe that this approach will continue to improve medicine if you take a look at the revisions to the Declaration of Helsinki in 2000 calling for active control trials rather than placebo control trials.

IMHO Rand's "rational self-interest" is essentially begging the question.

Right on the money.  Free market rule #1: businesses will attempt to get away with whatever they can, for as long as they can.

[Anonymous]

Free market rule #2: The people's desires will be met. If people want sound safe products, they will be provided. If they don't like murder, there will not be murder.

[jgraham]

Free market rule #2: The people's desires will be met. If people want sound safe products, they will be provided. If they don't like murder, there will not be murder.

Now the whiner pops out of his hidey hole.  How about defending the topic at hand eh? 

If you recall.  I was asking where you provide something resembling a cogent argument for your position.  i.e. A set of premises that force your conclusion.

[AyeYo]

Oh, that's right, this thread is about education.  So let's hear it, the Atlas proof of American public education failure.  Ready?  Go!

[jgraham]

Oh, that's right, this thread is about education.  So let's hear it, the Atlas proof of American public education failure.  Ready?  Go!

Whoa there!  I don't need a proof.  I just need an argument. Just because premises force a conclusion doesn't mean that the conclusion is true.  All premises must be true too.  Once he provides them...then I suspect it will be pretty easy to defeat the argument.

The only argument that has no possibility of defeat is one that is never poised...something of a specialty for Atlas of Whine.

[Anonymous]

Free market rule #2: The people's desires will be met. If people want sound safe products, they will be provided. If they don't like murder, there will not be murder.

Now the whiner pops out of his hidey hole.  How about defending the topic at hand eh?  

If you recall.  I was asking where you provide something resembling a cogent argument for your position.  i.e. A set of premises that force your conclusion.

All I have to provide is the history of our species. We have thrived, grown and built upon foundations built in times with no monopolies on education nor through any structured education period.

In addition, the current American system of learning  were made by leaders of the new American industrialist class. People who wanted to create factory workers. Not thriving individuals. The original tenants created for our system are still in place today. Observe the bell schedule, sanctioned grade levels. All mementos of industrial revolution factory life.

[jgraham]

Free market rule #2: The people's desires will be met. If people want sound safe products, they will be provided. If they don't like murder, there will not be murder.

Now the whiner pops out of his hidey hole.  How about defending the topic at hand eh? 

If you recall.  I was asking where you provide something resembling a cogent argument for your position.  i.e. A set of premises that force your conclusion.

All I have to provide is the history of our species. We have thrived, grown and built upon foundations built in times with no monopolies on education nor through any structured education period.

In addition, the current American system of learning  were made by leaders of the new American industrialist class. People who wanted to create factory workers. Not thriving individuals.

Naive.

If your conclusion is: "Public Education has had and will continue to have a negative effect on your country."

Then clearly the premise that "people have advanced without structured education" does not force it.  (Failure #1). Likewise the premise that "current educational system was historically intended to have a particular outcome" also does not force it.  Failure #2.

That all you got?

[Anonymous]

Free market rule #2: The people's desires will be met. If people want sound safe products, they will be provided. If they don't like murder, there will not be murder.

Now the whiner pops out of his hidey hole.  How about defending the topic at hand eh? 

If you recall.  I was asking where you provide something resembling a cogent argument for your position.  i.e. A set of premises that force your conclusion.

All I have to provide is the history of our species. We have thrived, grown and built upon foundations built in times with no monopolies on education nor through any structured education period.

In addition, the current American system of learning  were made by leaders of the new American industrialist class. People who wanted to create factory workers. Not thriving individuals.

Naive.

If your conclusion is: "Public Education has had and will continue to have a negative effect on your country."

Then clearly the premise that "people have advanced without structured education" does not force it.  (Failure #1). Likewise the premise that "current educational system was historically intended to have a particular outcome" also does not force it.  Failure #2.

That all you got?

I am not here to prove anything. I am just here to share and observe. If you have little to offer in counters to my claims, I'm done.

[AyeYo]

Free market rule #2: The people's desires will be met. If people want sound safe products, they will be provided. If they don't like murder, there will not be murder.

Now the whiner pops out of his hidey hole.  How about defending the topic at hand eh?  

If you recall.  I was asking where you provide something resembling a cogent argument for your position.  i.e. A set of premises that force your conclusion.

All I have to provide is the history of our species. We have thrived, grown and built upon foundations built in times with no monopolies on education nor through any structured education period.

In addition, the current American system of learning  were made by leaders of the new American industrialist class. People who wanted to create factory workers. Not thriving individuals. The original tenants created for our system are still in place today. Observe the bell schedule, sanctioned grade levels. All mementos of industrial revolution factory life.

Ok, your argument boils down to:


Premise 1: The cave men did it such and such a way.
Premise 2: We're all still alive today.
Premise 3: Such and such a way obviously worked because we're still alive today.
Conclusion: The American education system is ruining the country.


Hmmm, that seems a little off.  How about your second argument?


Premise 1: Industrialist class recreated education system.
Premise 2: Industrialist class likes factory workers.
Premise 3: Education today is kinda-sorta the same as it was in the beginning.
Conclusion: The American education system is ruining the country.


Not sure that makes much sense either.  Maybe you should write it out yourself in "premise, premise, conclusion" style so we can all better understand what you're trying to say.

[Anonymous]

If you're interested in an alternate perspective of public education from the eyes of a 30-year veteran of public school teaching and having won 3 Teacher of the Year Awards, I direct you to this:

http://www.amazon.com/Underground-History-American-Education-Taylor/dp/B000A4IX46

[AyeYo]

Free market rule #2: The people's desires will be met. If people want sound safe products, they will be provided. If they don't like murder, there will not be murder.

Now the whiner pops out of his hidey hole.  How about defending the topic at hand eh? 

If you recall.  I was asking where you provide something resembling a cogent argument for your position.  i.e. A set of premises that force your conclusion.

All I have to provide is the history of our species. We have thrived, grown and built upon foundations built in times with no monopolies on education nor through any structured education period.

In addition, the current American system of learning  were made by leaders of the new American industrialist class. People who wanted to create factory workers. Not thriving individuals.

Naive.

If your conclusion is: "Public Education has had and will continue to have a negative effect on your country."

Then clearly the premise that "people have advanced without structured education" does not force it.  (Failure #1). Likewise the premise that "current educational system was historically intended to have a particular outcome" also does not force it.  Failure #2.

That all you got?

I am not here to prove anything. I am just here to share and observe. If you have little to offer in counters to my claims, I'm done.

No one can disprove an argument you never made.  You made a BASELESS STATEMENT.  You need to back the statement up so that people have something to refute.

[Anonymous]

Free market rule #2: The people's desires will be met. If people want sound safe products, they will be provided. If they don't like murder, there will not be murder.

Now the whiner pops out of his hidey hole.  How about defending the topic at hand eh?  

If you recall.  I was asking where you provide something resembling a cogent argument for your position.  i.e. A set of premises that force your conclusion.

All I have to provide is the history of our species. We have thrived, grown and built upon foundations built in times with no monopolies on education nor through any structured education period.

In addition, the current American system of learning  were made by leaders of the new American industrialist class. People who wanted to create factory workers. Not thriving individuals.

Naive.

If your conclusion is: "Public Education has had and will continue to have a negative effect on your country."

Then clearly the premise that "people have advanced without structured education" does not force it.  (Failure #1). Likewise the premise that "current educational system was historically intended to have a particular outcome" also does not force it.  Failure #2.

That all you got?

I am not here to prove anything. I am just here to share and observe. If you have little to offer in counters to my claims, I'm done.

No one can disprove an argument you never made.  You made a BASELESS STATEMENT.  You need to back the statement up so that people have something to refute.

I am ignorant. I don't feel I have sufficient knowledge and justification to back my arguments. I am here only to learn further.

[AyeYo]

Free market rule #2: The people's desires will be met. If people want sound safe products, they will be provided. If they don't like murder, there will not be murder.

Now the whiner pops out of his hidey hole.  How about defending the topic at hand eh?  

If you recall.  I was asking where you provide something resembling a cogent argument for your position.  i.e. A set of premises that force your conclusion.

All I have to provide is the history of our species. We have thrived, grown and built upon foundations built in times with no monopolies on education nor through any structured education period.

In addition, the current American system of learning  were made by leaders of the new American industrialist class. People who wanted to create factory workers. Not thriving individuals.

Naive.

If your conclusion is: "Public Education has had and will continue to have a negative effect on your country."

Then clearly the premise that "people have advanced without structured education" does not force it.  (Failure #1). Likewise the premise that "current educational system was historically intended to have a particular outcome" also does not force it.  Failure #2.

That all you got?

I am not here to prove anything. I am just here to share and observe. If you have little to offer in counters to my claims, I'm done.

No one can disprove an argument you never made.  You made a BASELESS STATEMENT.  You need to back the statement up so that people have something to refute.

I am ignorant. I don't feel I have sufficient knowledge and justification to back my arguments. I am here only to learn further.

Then what's with the thread title and all the bold statements made to sound like fact?

[Anonymous]

Free market rule #2: The people's desires will be met. If people want sound safe products, they will be provided. If they don't like murder, there will not be murder.

Now the whiner pops out of his hidey hole.  How about defending the topic at hand eh?  

If you recall.  I was asking where you provide something resembling a cogent argument for your position.  i.e. A set of premises that force your conclusion.

All I have to provide is the history of our species. We have thrived, grown and built upon foundations built in times with no monopolies on education nor through any structured education period.

In addition, the current American system of learning  were made by leaders of the new American industrialist class. People who wanted to create factory workers. Not thriving individuals.

Naive.

If your conclusion is: "Public Education has had and will continue to have a negative effect on your country."

Then clearly the premise that "people have advanced without structured education" does not force it.  (Failure #1). Likewise the premise that "current educational system was historically intended to have a particular outcome" also does not force it.  Failure #2.

That all you got?

I am not here to prove anything. I am just here to share and observe. If you have little to offer in counters to my claims, I'm done.

No one can disprove an argument you never made.  You made a BASELESS STATEMENT.  You need to back the statement up so that people have something to refute.

I am ignorant. I don't feel I have sufficient knowledge and justification to back my arguments. I am here only to learn further.

Then what's with the thread title and all the bold statements made to sound like fact?

So, people can counter them and I can hear an alternate view.

[jgraham]

Free market rule #2: The people's desires will be met. If people want sound safe products, they will be provided. If they don't like murder, there will not be murder.

Now the whiner pops out of his hidey hole.  How about defending the topic at hand eh? 

If you recall.  I was asking where you provide something resembling a cogent argument for your position.  i.e. A set of premises that force your conclusion.

All I have to provide is the history of our species. We have thrived, grown and built upon foundations built in times with no monopolies on education nor through any structured education period.

In addition, the current American system of learning  were made by leaders of the new American industrialist class. People who wanted to create factory workers. Not thriving individuals.

Naive.

If your conclusion is: "Public Education has had and will continue to have a negative effect on your country."

Then clearly the premise that "people have advanced without structured education" does not force it.  (Failure #1). Likewise the premise that "current educational system was historically intended to have a particular outcome" also does not force it.  Failure #2.

That all you got?

I am not here to prove anything. I am just here to share and observe. If you have little to offer in counters to my claims, I'm done.

Sorry now you're a lying objectivist.

You said: "I am willing to argue public education has ruined this country..."

Now you are saying: "If you have little to offer in counters to my claims, I'm done."

Again the objectivist principle of semantic realism bites you in your butt.  Argument and claim are not mutually interchangeable ergo you either lied.  Saying that you had an argument (a series of premises or facts that force your conclusion) OR you only had a claim which makes you no different than any other person here and since your claim lacks an argument your point is no more valid.

If you spent half as much time thinking as you did shooting off your mouth then running away.  You might well become a decent human being.

[Anonymous]

I am not an objectivist. Frankly, the philosophy is very poor.

In addition, a forum is a poor place to judge human decency. I apologize if you feel your time has been wasted.

[jgraham]

If you're interested in an alternate perspective of public education from the eyes of a 30-year veteran of public school teaching and having won 3 Teacher of the Year Awards, I direct you to this:

http://www.amazon.com/Underground-History-American-Education-Taylor/dp/B000A4IX46

I already addressed one of Gato's points.   That it was mathematically retarded.   Do you actually need it spelled out how monumentally, egregiously moronic Gato is being from a statistical POV.   That is his argument about comparing the sales of "Common Sense" was? (and while I'm sure that's not his only argument it's tradition to put ones best foot forward rather than ones worst if they are actually trying to make a point. :-) )

[Anonymous]

It's a poor point; however, it's only one rust stain.

[jgraham]

It's a poor point; however, it's only one rust stain.

Then how about instead of just saying "read a book that happens to represent my well-supported POV but I sure won't tell you how".

You provide those parts of the book that actually form a cogent argument.  
Edit:Unless of course you haven't read this book either but you sure have implied otherwise

If you're not willing to provide a cogent argument and deliberately provided a stupid point wouldn't you say, in your own opinion that you are wasting peoples time?  Especially when you said you would argue the point.

[the joint]

In my opinion, the problems stemming from public education occur because of the following two (although, there are others) reasons.

1.)  Curriculum is influenced by media
2.)  It is compulsory

Hence, creativity in thinking is lacking.

The most popular subjects taught and most popular jobs attained are related to fields popularized by the media.  Ultimately, the importance and validity of any discipline taught in school is rooted in philosophy and an understanding of logical syntax.  How popular are philosophers in the media?  Not very.  How important is the sound application of logic in other fields?  Even scientists, who are supposed to strictly adhere to the limits of the scientific method and the laws of probability, carelessly make faulty assumptions in the classroom (or even worse, in scientific journals) on a daily basis -- if any scientist EVER tells me he proved something because of inductive reasoning, I'm gonna smack him.  And I'll challenge E=mc^2 all day any day.

On a side note, give the Christians and other religious people a little leeway.  Faith is underestimated when it comes to 'knowing.'

[Anonymous]

It's a poor point; however, it's only one rust stain.

Then how about instead of just saying "read a book that happens to represent my well-supported POV but I sure won't tell you how".

You provide those parts of the book that actually form a cogent argument.  
Edit:Unless of course you haven't read this book either but you sure have implied otherwise

If you're not willing to provide a cogent argument and deliberately provided a stupid point wouldn't you say, in your own opinion that you are wasting peoples time?  Especially when you said you would argue the point.

I'll stop wasting our time.

[the joint]

I am not an objectivist. Frankly, the philosophy is very poor.

In addition, a forum is a poor place to judge human decency. I apologize if you feel your time has been wasted.

object = subject AND object does not = subject

Just sayin'...so you can be rich while you're poor.

[jgraham]

In my opinion, the problems stemming from public education occur because of the following two (although, there are others) reasons.

1.)  Curriculum is influenced by media
2.)  It is compulsory

Hence, creativity in thinking is lacking.

Help me out here.  Your argument is essentially that 'creativity' which IMHO is pretty hard define is lacking in...what? Education?  People?  How did we measure this?  Is media influence intrinsically at odds with this hard to define idea. Not to mention  what does this have to do with *public* education?  Any evidence that private education is significantly less influenced?  Private schools jumped on the computing bandwagon earlier than any of the public schools.  

Ultimately, the importance and validity of any discipline taught in school is rooted in philosophy and an understanding of logical syntax.  How popular are philosophers in the media? Not very.

Importance defined how?  Sociological importance?  Personal satisfaction?  How are these measured?

How important is the sound application of logic in other fields?  Even scientists, who are supposed to strictly adhere to the limits of the scientific method and the laws of probability, carelessly make faulty assumptions in the classroom (or even worse, in scientific journals) on a daily basis

This definitely happens but as to what degree and what this has to do with public education is unclear.  Private schools are certainly responsible for some of the stupidest ideas in history. As an aside you can't 'strictly adhere to the limits of the scientific method' as the scientific method is not a formally defined entity (except in some very abstract sense).

[3phase]

Guys, does any of you HAVE children going to a public school?

I personally don't need to argue with the OP's statement, I know it to be true ever since Marx advocated free public education for everyone in the Communist Manifesto. Sure he wasn't the first to say so, but what a good way for the ruling class to enslave the people even more, by offering them a part of what their revolutionary thought leader asked for, as a teaser? (they also offered central banking and graduated taxes to make the people happier indeed - again from the above paper)

And I know it (concerning education) to be true because I've seen it happen to MY children. I was too young to realize it when I was going to school, but at least I kept wondering and searching for better ways instead of accepting what is being offered as the only truth.

I would suggest that you bear some children of your own, and send them to a public-funded school (and please - no cheating with any private institution) until they're 18. Then come back and I would be happy to hear and discuss your ACTUAL experience.

You can start by getting a girlfriend. It's good and you will enjoy it more than this forum.

[jgraham]

Guys, does any of you HAVE children going to a public school?

Yeah, two.  Also I tend to find the contrast interesting between say my education (in one of the public schools known for drugs and violence - although frankly much of that was hype) and my wife's education (private - costing more per year than medical school)...and by that I mean the lack of contrast.

I personally don't need to argue with the OP's statement, I know it to be true

Personally I try not to "know anything to be true" rather I try to look at evidence subjected to the rigor of math, logic and reason. Perhaps that was left out of your education?

ever since Marx advocated free public education for everyone in the Communist Manifesto. Sure he wasn't the first to say so, but what a good way for the ruling class to enslave the people even more, by offering them a part of what their revolutionary thought leader asked for, as a teaser? (they also offered central banking and graduated taxes to make the people happier indeed - again from the above paper)

Wait. What?  So anything advocated in the Communist Manifesto is a way of enslaving the hoi palloi? This seems like the "hitler" argument. I'm sure if you asked Marx (or Hitler) he would have also come out in favor of shelter, food and possibly clothing.   Are all those ways of enslaving us too?  If so then tomorrow I'm really going to push the envelope of my workplaces casual dress policy.

And I know it (concerning education) to be true because I've seen it happen to MY children. I was too young to realize it when I was going to school, but at least I kept wondering and searching for better ways instead of accepting what is being offered as the only truth.

Ok, I'd like to take this moment to ask you: "What the heck are you talking about?" The "only truth"? Does this "truth" have anything to do with aliens and the year 2012? If so, are you sure you're all not in some cult or something?  In any case the problem with your example - whatever the heck it's about.   Is that it's an anecdote, it doesn't say anything generally about public education and that's even if you are correct and your childrens' education is poor.

I would suggest that you bear some children of your own, and send them to a public-funded school (and please - no cheating with any private institution) until they're 18. Then come back and I would be happy to hear and discuss your ACTUAL experience.

Well I certainly have children in Public school.  They're not 18 but that seems like an arbitrary standard of evidence.  I have, as of yet no reason to move them to a private institution.  My wife and I have discussed it and our conclusion would be that the only justifiable reason would be if our child had some aptitude that only could be fulfilled at a private institution i.e. My Daughter might want to be involved in particle physics and the School of St. We-Transport-Steel-Bars-Rectally might be the only school with a cyclotron.

Honestly I am highly skeptical of the cost/benefit of private education.  Most private schools have some sort of entrance exam making it difficult to impossible to objectively evaluate their claims.  Which makes them unimpressive either because they belong to the subset of people who suck at math or they are trying to market to that group. 

[3phase]

Guys, does any of you HAVE children going to a public school?

Yeah, two.  Also I tend to find the contrast interesting between say my education (in one of the public schools known for drugs and violence - although frankly much of that was hype) and my wife's education (private - costing more per year than medical school)...and by that I mean the lack of contrast.

I personally don't need to argue with the OP's statement, I know it to be true

Personally I try not to "know anything to be true" rather I try to look at evidence subjected to the rigor of math, logic and reason. Perhaps that was left out of your education?

ever since Marx advocated free public education for everyone in the Communist Manifesto. Sure he wasn't the first to say so, but what a good way for the ruling class to enslave the people even more, by offering them a part of what their revolutionary thought leader asked for, as a teaser? (they also offered central banking and graduated taxes to make the people happier indeed - again from the above paper)

Wait. What?  So anything advocated in the Communist Manifesto is a way of enslaving the hoi palloi? This seems like the "hitler" argument. I'm sure if you asked Marx (or Hitler) he would have also come out in favor of shelter, food and possibly clothing.   Are all those ways of enslaving us too?  If so then tomorrow I'm really going to push the envelope of my workplaces casual dress policy.

And I know it (concerning education) to be true because I've seen it happen to MY children. I was too young to realize it when I was going to school, but at least I kept wondering and searching for better ways instead of accepting what is being offered as the only truth.

Ok, I'd like to take this moment to ask you: "What the heck are you talking about?" The "only truth"? Does this "truth" have anything to do with aliens and the year 2012? If so, are you sure you're all not in some cult or something?  In any case the problem with your example - whatever the heck it's about.   Is that it's an anecdote, it doesn't say anything generally about public education and that's even if you are correct and your childrens' education is poor.

I would suggest that you bear some children of your own, and send them to a public-funded school (and please - no cheating with any private institution) until they're 18. Then come back and I would be happy to hear and discuss your ACTUAL experience.

Well I certainly have children in Public school.  They're not 18 but that seems like an arbitrary standard of evidence.  I have, as of yet no reason to move them to a private institution.  My wife and I have discussed it and our conclusion would be that the only justifiable reason would be if our child had some aptitude that only could be fulfilled at a private institution i.e. My Daughter might want to be involved in particle physics and the School of St. We-Transport-Steel-Bars-Rectally might be the only school with a cyclotron.

Honestly I am highly skeptical of the cost/benefit of private education.  Most private schools have some sort of entrance exam making it difficult to impossible to objectively evaluate their claims.  Which makes them unimpressive either because they belong to the subset of people who suck at math or they are trying to market to that group. 

Since you are raising children, I am certainly wiling to exchange views.

The word "know" as you are probably aware, comes from education or experience. I said "I know" based on experience of many years raising my own children. You can argue with it, but it doesn't change the facts which I have witnessed. If I witness in the future facts contradicting to my knowledge, I would reevaluate the issue. I am a scientist, as I suppose from your stance you are as well, and I am always looking for evidence to support any theoretical assumption

The Marx reference meant that his writings have been and still are used in order to justify the actions of the elite. Can you say Socialist Party of (fill in the country that you want)? Free public education is one of the current big avenues of disillusionment in my country at least. Still people demand it, because they cannot see any alternative. I can. I don't understand how Hitler came about in your argument.

Same goes for "the only truth" statement. We are conditioned to think that there is no other way than public-funded schools for everyone except if you have the money to pay for something more. And to be sure, everybody I know (and we are not in a rich circle) pays extras for education simply because public-funded one is in no way enough. Maybe there is another way. Again, I don't understand how cults came about in your argument.

I would pay for a school where I could have a say in the formation of the curriculum, the values and the principles passed to the children and the quality of every aspect of the school, starting from the toilets and going to the chemistry lab. I am actively trying to do this in the public schools where my children attend, volunteering my work and my skills to add something to it, be it in stacking chairs, setting up their wireless network or taking care of the sound system in a school festivity. However, my volunteering (and that of others like me) does not affect the core of things, rather it polishes the surface for a while.

There are others here like minded, and some of us sat down a while ago to do a cost/benefit analysis on Excel for athe possibility of setting up a municipal private funded school in our town. It is too long to discuss here, but I would be happy to share it.

Finally, although you seem to be diligent enough to tackle every sentence of my post, you did not respond to my last sentence. 

[jgraham]

Since you are raising children, I am certainly wiling to exchange views.

Nothing elitist there.

The word "know" as you are probably aware, comes from education or experience. I said "I know" based on experience of many years raising my own children. You can argue with it, but it doesn't change the facts which I have witnessed. If I witness in the future facts contradicting to my knowledge, I would reevaluate the issue. I am a scientist, as I suppose from your stance you are as well, and I am always looking for evidence to support any theoretical assumption

However in case you missed it the OP was making a general argument.  So far you have mentioned witnessing nothing that would support a general argument.  In other words while you may have experienced "bad education" you have apparently not experienced "public education ruining this country". 

The Marx reference meant that his writings have been and still are used in order to justify the actions of the elite. Can you say Socialist Party of (fill in the country that you want)? Free public education is one of the current big avenues of disillusionment in my country at least. Still people demand it, because they cannot see any alternative. I can. I don't understand how Hitler came about in your argument.

So why does Marx or people who use his statements to justify X or Y have any significant merit to the argument that "Public schools have and are ruining this country".  Otherwise your argument appears to be:

i) Person X has some assumed intrinsic problem Y
ii) Person X has done, supported or talked about thing Z
iii) Thing Z has, supports or confers problem Y.

Which is essentially the "Hitler argument".   I can explain it again if you need me to.

Same goes for "the only truth" statement. We are conditioned to think that there is no other way than public-funded schools for everyone except if you have the money to pay for something more. And to be sure, everybody I know (and we are not in a rich circle) pays extras for education simply because public-funded one is in no way enough. Maybe there is another way.

Sorry but while it's conceivable that there is some 'only truth' preached somewhere in some localized population.  Given the number of specialized private schools, attempts at school reform to fully privatized systems and homeschooling fads that have happened over the past few decades it stretches credibility that this is the norm.  Also your argument has nothing to do with public education.   Some places the norm is/was privatized education.  This also doesn't seem to argue anything "bad" sure people accept what they grow up with as the norm this is simply the way people learn.  If public education is "good enough" then it doesn't really matter if there's another way.  Hence you should stick to the argument at hand.

If you need some explanation why the term 'cult' gets associated with a population hearing or espousing a single over-arching truth then I expect you haven't encountered many.

I would pay for a school where I could have a say in the formation of the curriculum, the values and the principles passed to the children and the quality of every aspect of the school, starting from the toilets and going to the chemistry lab.

Not to be contrarian but that's exactly the kind of school I would never pay for.  I'm sure you don't understand but that's half the problem now isn't it?

There are others here like minded, and some of us sat down a while ago to do a cost/benefit analysis on Excel for athe possibility of setting up a municipal private funded school in our town. It is too long to discuss here, but I would be happy to share it.

Go nuts - perhaps literally.  It's worth mentioning though there is some evidence to suggest that private schools actually produce poorer education.   Especially as you mention you are not in a high socio-economic class.   What I expect would be a better idea is a supplemental system.  China and Japan which both have high performing students (as measured by somewhat questionable tests like PISA) regularly participate in 補習班 or 塾 (respectively).   Public school also teaches one thing that's probably impossible to simulate: social mores.  I see this problem all the time when I talk to people who have been extensively privately educated.  It's funny how people on one hand can believe that true Language learning requires immersion and use but socialization is somehow considered distinct and not a language at all.

Finally, although you seem to be diligent enough to tackle every sentence of my post, you did not respond to my last sentence. 

uh...I would but my wife would kill me.

[the joint]

In my opinion, the problems stemming from public education occur because of the following two (although, there are others) reasons.

1.)  Curriculum is influenced by media
2.)  It is compulsory

Hence, creativity in thinking is lacking.

Help me out here.  Your argument is essentially that 'creativity' which IMHO is pretty hard define is lacking in...what? Education?  People?  How did we measure this?  Is media influence intrinsically at odds with this hard to define idea. Not to mention  what does this have to do with *public* education?  Any evidence that private education is significantly less influenced?  Private schools jumped on the computing bandwagon earlier than any of the public schools.  

Ultimately, the importance and validity of any discipline taught in school is rooted in philosophy and an understanding of logical syntax.  How popular are philosophers in the media? Not very.

Importance defined how?  Sociological importance?  Personal satisfaction?  How are these measured?

How important is the sound application of logic in other fields?  Even scientists, who are supposed to strictly adhere to the limits of the scientific method and the laws of probability, carelessly make faulty assumptions in the classroom (or even worse, in scientific journals) on a daily basis

This definitely happens but as to what degree and what this has to do with public education is unclear.  Private schools are certainly responsible for some of the stupidest ideas in history. As an aside you can't 'strictly adhere to the limits of the scientific method' as the scientific method is not a formally defined entity (except in some very abstract sense).

By creativity, I mean the ability to critically challenge, question, and then and only then accept/reject something taught by authority figures as true or false -- or, thinking outside the 'box.'

By importance, I mean owing existence to.  So, quantitative importance.

And by scientific 'method,' it is formally defined as a 'method' and therefore emphasis is placed on process not product.

[jgraham]

In my opinion, the problems stemming from public education occur because of the following two (although, there are others) reasons.

1.)  Curriculum is influenced by media
2.)  It is compulsory

Hence, creativity in thinking is lacking.

Help me out here.  Your argument is essentially that 'creativity' which IMHO is pretty hard define is lacking in...what? Education?  People?  How did we measure this?  Is media influence intrinsically at odds with this hard to define idea. Not to mention  what does this have to do with *public* education?  Any evidence that private education is significantly less influenced?  Private schools jumped on the computing bandwagon earlier than any of the public schools.  

Ultimately, the importance and validity of any discipline taught in school is rooted in philosophy and an understanding of logical syntax.  How popular are philosophers in the media? Not very.

Importance defined how?  Sociological importance?  Personal satisfaction?  How are these measured?

How important is the sound application of logic in other fields?  Even scientists, who are supposed to strictly adhere to the limits of the scientific method and the laws of probability, carelessly make faulty assumptions in the classroom (or even worse, in scientific journals) on a daily basis

This definitely happens but as to what degree and what this has to do with public education is unclear.  Private schools are certainly responsible for some of the stupidest ideas in history. As an aside you can't 'strictly adhere to the limits of the scientific method' as the scientific method is not a formally defined entity (except in some very abstract sense).

By creativity, I mean the ability to critically challenge, question, and then and only then accept/reject something taught by authority figures as true or false -- or, thinking outside the 'box.'

So again, I'm trying to piece together your thesis here.  So you claim that media influences public education (without specifying to what degree or how this fact is established or how the significant effect is isolated to education with public funding).  You then seem to claim that this has an significant effect on the ability to "critically challenge and question things offered by authority figures".

...and while I'm willing to entertain that at least half of one of your premises "the ability to critically challenge and question things" is detrimental to education.  None of your premises seem to force your conclusion here.  Not even touching on the idea of validating the premises.  I'd also say that there seem to be some practical problems with the idea that "then and only then accept/reject something taught by authority figures as true or false".  To me anyway I'd rather give someone the understanding of the tools used to validate hypotheses.  While logic is part of that, it's not exactly a terribly big part.   For example I'd challenge you to construct purely from sets and first-order logic one of my favorite tools "Analysis of Variance" (ANOVA).

By importance, I mean owing existence to.  So, quantitative importance.

What do you mean by that?  Are you implying that logic created say math?

And by scientific 'method,' it is formally defined as a 'method' and therefore emphasis is placed on process not product.

Not really.   It's usage is more an umbrella term for various processes employed in various sciences.  Heck unless you are using the terms "process" or "product" in some needlessly specialized sense.   You could even argue that the emphasis is on a product not process.

[jgraham]

If you're interested in an alternate perspective of public education from the eyes of a 30-year veteran of public school teaching and having won 3 Teacher of the Year Awards, I direct you to this:

http://www.amazon.com/Underground-History-American-Education-Taylor/dp/B000A4IX46

Rather than spend money on something like that.  It can be read for free here: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm

The first chapter is so-far tedious and where it isn't it's vacuous.  A handful of anecdotes seemingly to build up an argument from ontology. i.e. X came from Y, X has characteristic (or limitation) Z therefore Y is intrinsically bound to Z (or by Z).  Medicine, evolved from some terrible practices (like blood letting) however today despite that medicine has significantly less terrible practices and well on it's way to being evidence-based.

Atlas I ask you...does this pass as research where you come from?

[Anonymous]

He doesn't provide a sufficient amount of citations; however, people have verified his claims.

[Rassah]

Although I'm a fan of objectivism and free markets, my main concern about public vs private education is the fact that children are not financially free, nor are they capable of making financial decisions. If public education was given to adults, who know what they wished to learn, and have the money to pay for their education, I would be totally against it being "public." But kids are at the mercy of whatever their parents make them do, and they don't make enough money to pay for their own education. Thus, without public education, a child living in a poor, ignorant family will end up being poor and ignorant through no fault of choice of their own.
Granted I'm somewhat biased, too, since I came from USSR and studied a bit in Italy, both places where the public education system ABSOLUTELY DOMINATES the one in USA (think cellular biology and polynomial algebra in 3rd and 4th grade)

Also, please please please PLEASE don't push for home-schooling with parents providing the education. It takes quite a lot of education just to learn how to be an educator. Making kids reads books without the parents themselves understanding anything beyond maybe a 5th grade education themselves (even those who went to college forget things) is just asking for trouble. Likewise, most parents don't have time to work AND learn how to educate AND learn and understand the material AND teach their kids. It's a full-time job by itself.

[jgraham]

He doesn't provide a sufficient amount of citations; however, people have verified his claims.

  Now you stepped in it Atlas-of-Whine!  Verified which claims and where?  Please provide that "evidence" thing that is like an anathema to you.  

Remember that the title of the thread is about PUBLIC education RUINING the country.  So you are going to have to have evidence which spans many public school systems - and provides a rather huge area-wide negative consequence in each case.   So you can't say, point to some small n study which compares say homeschooling and publicly educated children.  Since well...I'll leave that for later so I can point out something else you didn't get taught.  

Let's recap...

First you claim that you have an argument...which you won't disclose.
This is accompanied by a single quote which is by your own admission garbage.
Then you provide a set of premises which don't force your conclusion.  You think it's complete.
Next you feign ignorance.
After that you supply a link to a book written by the author of the above quote.   Which upon reading and seeing how laughable some of the arguments are....
Now the evidence against public schools has suddenly moved to some previously unmentioned place.

Well as a product of your public school system we can attest to one thing they failed at....they never taught you how to argue.

[jgraham]

You have no idea what I'm building.

Actually, you can just as easily argue that you have no idea about what I know about you.

Free market rule #2: The people's desires will eventually be met after many people die. If people want sound safe products, they will be provided. If they don't like murder, there will not be murder but only after a sufficient amount of murder has been done for each product.

Fixed.  

[Reikoku]

As a somewhat objectivist, I can vouch for the fact that Atlas isn't one.

Objectivists believe that property stems from intellectual property, i.e. something belongs to you because it is the product of your own mind.

Atlas doesn't believe in intellectual property, so he's more a Rothbardian than a Randist.

[jgraham]

As a somewhat objectivist, I can vouch for the fact that Atlas isn't one.

Objectivists believe that property stems from intellectual property, i.e. something belongs to you because it is the product of your own mind.

Atlas doesn't believe in intellectual property, so he's more a Rothbardian than a Randist.

He's already stated that he doesn't self-identify with that.   It was just a misunderstanding.  Given the variance in Objectivists I've met.  I don't really have much confidence in formal definitions of the term even though Rand considered IP to be the foundation of all property rights.

[the joint]

In my opinion, the problems stemming from public education occur because of the following two (although, there are others) reasons.

1.)  Curriculum is influenced by media
2.)  It is compulsory

Hence, creativity in thinking is lacking.

Help me out here.  Your argument is essentially that 'creativity' which IMHO is pretty hard define is lacking in...what? Education?  People?  How did we measure this?  Is media influence intrinsically at odds with this hard to define idea. Not to mention  what does this have to do with *public* education?  Any evidence that private education is significantly less influenced?  Private schools jumped on the computing bandwagon earlier than any of the public schools.  

Ultimately, the importance and validity of any discipline taught in school is rooted in philosophy and an understanding of logical syntax.  How popular are philosophers in the media? Not very.

Importance defined how?  Sociological importance?  Personal satisfaction?  How are these measured?

How important is the sound application of logic in other fields?  Even scientists, who are supposed to strictly adhere to the limits of the scientific method and the laws of probability, carelessly make faulty assumptions in the classroom (or even worse, in scientific journals) on a daily basis

This definitely happens but as to what degree and what this has to do with public education is unclear.  Private schools are certainly responsible for some of the stupidest ideas in history. As an aside you can't 'strictly adhere to the limits of the scientific method' as the scientific method is not a formally defined entity (except in some very abstract sense).

By creativity, I mean the ability to critically challenge, question, and then and only then accept/reject something taught by authority figures as true or false -- or, thinking outside the 'box.'

So again, I'm trying to piece together your thesis here.  So you claim that media influences public education (without specifying to what degree or how this fact is established or how the significant effect is isolated to education with public funding).  You then seem to claim that this has an significant effect on the ability to "critically challenge and question things offered by authority figures".

...and while I'm willing to entertain that at least half of one of your premises "the ability to critically challenge and question things" is detrimental to education.  None of your premises seem to force your conclusion here.  Not even touching on the idea of validating the premises.  I'd also say that there seem to be some practical problems with the idea that "then and only then accept/reject something taught by authority figures as true or false".  To me anyway I'd rather give someone the understanding of the tools used to validate hypotheses.  While logic is part of that, it's not exactly a terribly big part.   For example I'd challenge you to construct purely from sets and first-order logic one of my favorite tools "Analysis of Variance" (ANOVA).

By importance, I mean owing existence to.  So, quantitative importance.

What do you mean by that?  Are you implying that logic created say math?

And by scientific 'method,' it is formally defined as a 'method' and therefore emphasis is placed on process not product.

Not really.   It's usage is more an umbrella term for various processes employed in various sciences.  Heck unless you are using the terms "process" or "product" in some needlessly specialized sense.   You could even argue that the emphasis is on a product not process.

When I wrote this, I didn't want to take the time to formulate a deductive or tautological argument.  I didn't want to take the time to explain my premises in detail.  A good philosophical argument can take pages to write because every word can be scrutinized and questioned.  But, for a little clarification on my thoughts...

The 'degree' to which the media influences education is, well, a 'high' degree.  Any public school must maintain a positive image in the eyes of the community.  Poor performance and unorthodox teaching styles catch the eyes of parents and school personnel, the community, and the media.  And, the link between education and politics is quite clear.  In the U.S., history books are extremely biased and ethnocentric, and politics is regarded as the highest of all disciplines, ala Aristotle.  Science and Math are falling behind when compared with other countries, and proper English is hardly ever spoken even by the teachers, let alone by the students.  I'd bet money that the media (t.v. and mainstream music media especially) is responsible at least in part for that.  On the other hand, compulsory schooling adds to the problem by setting the status quo on knowledge.  I can argue against evolution any day of the week depending on the perspective one takes, but radical perspectives are typically cast aside in society, even if these perspectives are valid, plausible, or even sound.  After all, the 'radical' in 'radical perspectives' implies that they aren't commonly shared with society at large -- especially not respected authority figures like school teachers. 

Math is a branch of philosophy.   Philosophy is more broad and incorporates several disciplines.  Logic's syntax distributes to any discipline so that it can be understood.  In that way, logic is mathematical because, as it distributes to various systems, these systems are linked by ratio.  So, no, logic didn't 'create' math, but being mathematical is a characteristic of logic.  Math -- like any other language -- is the abstract representation of ratio (root word of 'rationale'), and, indeed, it is only through ratio that 'truth' can be intellectualized. 

When you say "...umbrella term for various processes employed..."  that means methods.  Regardless, the 'processes' are inductive (except for the pseudo-deductive process of forming experiments), and because of this, you'll never have an absolute, finished product/result. 

 

[jgraham]

In my opinion, the problems stemming from public education occur because of the following two (although, there are others) reasons.

1.)  Curriculum is influenced by media
2.)  It is compulsory

Hence, creativity in thinking is lacking.

Help me out here.  Your argument is essentially that 'creativity' which IMHO is pretty hard define is lacking in...what? Education?  People?  How did we measure this?  Is media influence intrinsically at odds with this hard to define idea. Not to mention  what does this have to do with *public* education?  Any evidence that private education is significantly less influenced?  Private schools jumped on the computing bandwagon earlier than any of the public schools.  

Ultimately, the importance and validity of any discipline taught in school is rooted in philosophy and an understanding of logical syntax.  How popular are philosophers in the media? Not very.

Importance defined how?  Sociological importance?  Personal satisfaction?  How are these measured?

How important is the sound application of logic in other fields?  Even scientists, who are supposed to strictly adhere to the limits of the scientific method and the laws of probability, carelessly make faulty assumptions in the classroom (or even worse, in scientific journals) on a daily basis

This definitely happens but as to what degree and what this has to do with public education is unclear.  Private schools are certainly responsible for some of the stupidest ideas in history. As an aside you can't 'strictly adhere to the limits of the scientific method' as the scientific method is not a formally defined entity (except in some very abstract sense).

By creativity, I mean the ability to critically challenge, question, and then and only then accept/reject something taught by authority figures as true or false -- or, thinking outside the 'box.'

So again, I'm trying to piece together your thesis here.  So you claim that media influences public education (without specifying to what degree or how this fact is established or how the significant effect is isolated to education with public funding).  You then seem to claim that this has an significant effect on the ability to "critically challenge and question things offered by authority figures".

...and while I'm willing to entertain that at least half of one of your premises "the ability to critically challenge and question things" is detrimental to education.  None of your premises seem to force your conclusion here.  Not even touching on the idea of validating the premises.  I'd also say that there seem to be some practical problems with the idea that "then and only then accept/reject something taught by authority figures as true or false".  To me anyway I'd rather give someone the understanding of the tools used to validate hypotheses.  While logic is part of that, it's not exactly a terribly big part.   For example I'd challenge you to construct purely from sets and first-order logic one of my favorite tools "Analysis of Variance" (ANOVA).

By importance, I mean owing existence to.  So, quantitative importance.

What do you mean by that?  Are you implying that logic created say math?

And by scientific 'method,' it is formally defined as a 'method' and therefore emphasis is placed on process not product.

Not really.   It's usage is more an umbrella term for various processes employed in various sciences.  Heck unless you are using the terms "process" or "product" in some needlessly specialized sense.   You could even argue that the emphasis is on a product not process.

When I wrote this, I didn't want to take the time to formulate a deductive or tautological argument.  I didn't want to take the time to explain my premises in detail.  A good philosophical argument can take pages to write because every word can be scrutinized and questioned.  But, for a little clarification on my thoughts...

Also in addition to providing a series of deductive elements you also will probably need to provide some evidence to support your premises.

The 'degree' to which the media influences education is, well, a 'high' degree.  Any public school must maintain a positive image in the eyes of the community.  Poor performance and unorthodox teaching styles catch the eyes of parents and school personnel, the community, and the media.

Firstly: Media attention and media influence are not synonymous.  Secondly your assumption that any school must maintain a positive image in the eyes of the community.  Is a) not synonymous with "media influence" (although it might be related but that further weakens the argument) and seems - on the face of it anyway - either untrue  (Since it would mean there are no schools that persist with a negative image) or irrelevant (where 'persist' refers to an arbitrary amount of time).

Still none of these premises actually force the negative conclusion that you appear to be aiming for.

And, the link between education and politics is quite clear.  In the U.S., history books are extremely biased and ethnocentric,

Relevance to removing critical thought from schools?  A biased and ethnocentric history book can easily be used as a talking point for teaching critical thought.  My history teachers worked that angle as well as referring to history books used in other countries.

and politics is regarded as the highest of all disciplines, ala Aristotle.

Support?

Science and Math are falling behind when compared with other countries,

Please support.

and proper English is hardly ever spoken even by the teachers, let alone by the students.

Define and support.  (Is "proper English" some prescriptivist construction or do you mean "generally mutually understood English"?)

On the other hand, compulsory schooling adds to the problem by setting the status quo on knowledge.  I can argue against evolution any day of the week depending on the perspective one takes, but radical perspectives are typically cast aside in society, even if these perspectives are valid, plausible, or even sound.

Also disregards the radically wrong.  Please support how this makes what at least appears to be your point that this has a significant negative effect.

Math is a branch of philosophy.

In what sense? Developmentally? Uh not really.  Please support.

When you say "...umbrella term for various processes employed..."  that means methods.  Regardless, the 'processes' are inductive (except for the pseudo-deductive process of forming experiments), and because of this, you'll never have an absolute, finished product/result.  

Well...

a) no, you can actually have what would qualify as a finished product.  You can have a product which is suitable for a particular use.  i.e. meets the standard error requirements for your use.  Furthermore it's reasonable to believe that there are physical limits to the amount various kinds of observational error can be reduces.  Ergo you could end up with a product for which no better product can ever be obtained.

b) Your words were 'emphasis on process' even if you don't have something that qualifies as a 'finished product' you can still say you are focused on the product.

[em3rgentOrdr]

As a somewhat objectivist, I can vouch for the fact that Atlas isn't one.

Objectivists believe that property stems from intellectual property, i.e. something belongs to you because it is the product of your own mind.

Atlas doesn't believe in intellectual property, so he's more a Rothbardian than a Randist.

He's already stated that he doesn't self-identify with that.   It was just a misunderstanding.  Given the variance in Objectivists I've met.  I don't really have much confidence in formal definitions of the term even though Rand considered IP to be the foundation of all property rights.

Actually Rothbard believes one form of IP is legitimate: copyright.  Rothbard argues that copyright clauses found in the beginning of a publication or book or music album for instance can be considered a contract binding the purchaser of the work from duplicating it.  However Rothbard argues that patents are illegitimate, because they bind 3rd parties who never consented.

"Patents and Copyright" by Murrary Rothbard

Which of the two (patents and copyrights), if either, is consonant with the purely free market, and which is a
grant of monopoly privilege by the state? In this part, we have been analysing the economics of the purely
free market, where the individual person and property are not subject to molestation. It is therefore
important to decide whether patents or copyrights will obtain in the purely free, noninvasive society, or
whether they are a function of government interference.

Almost all writers have bracketed patents and copyrights together. Most have considered both as grants of
exclusive monopoly privilege by the state; a few have considered both a part and parcel of property right on
the free market. But almost of everyone has considered patents and copyrights as equivalent: the one as
conferring an exclusive property right in the field of mechanical inventions, the other as conferring an
exclusive right in the field of literary creations.93 Yet this bracketing of patents and copyrights is wholly
fallacious; the two are completely different in relation to the free market.

It is true that a patent and a copyright are both exclusive property rights and it is also true that they are both
property rights in innovations. But there is crucial difference in their legal enforcement. If an author or a
composer believes his copyright is being infringed, and he takes legal action, he must "prove that the
defendant had 'access' to the work allegedly infringed. If the defendant produces something identical with the
plaintiff's work by mere chance, there is no infringement." Copyrights, in other words, have their basis in the prosecution of implicit theft. The plaintiff must prove that the defendant stole the former's creation by
reproducing it and selling it himself in violation of his or someone else's contract with the original seller. But if the defendant independently arrives at the same creation, the plaintiff has no copyright privilege that could
prevent the defendant from using and selling his product.

Patents on the other hand, are completely different. Thus:

You have patented your invention and you read in the newspaper one day that John Doe, who lives in a city 2,000 miles from your town, has invented an identical or similar device, that he has licensed the EZ company to manufacture it.....Neither Doe nor the EZ company...ever heard of your invention. All believe Doe to be the inventor of a new and original device. They may all be guilty of infringing your patent...the fact that their infringement was in ignorance of the true facts and unintentional will not constitute a defense.

Patent, then, has nothing to do with implicit theft. It confers an exclusive privilege on the first inventor, and if
anyone else should, quite independently, invent the same or similar machine or product, the latter would be
debarred by violence from using it in production.

Now where Rothbard goes wrong is failing to recognize that many times when you purchase or some other way come into contact or obtain a copyrighted work, you may not actually be presented with an explicit copyright contract.  Additionally, copyright contracts can not be enforced upon 3rd parties who came into contact with the copyrighted work voluntarily through the purchaser of a copyrighted work who breached the supposed copyright contract.  Basically that 3rd person can't be held legally liable for duplicating that work since he came about it voluntarily.  Only the person who entered into an explicit copyright contract may be held legally liable.

[Bind]

It's all part of the plan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezTIYd5UFRY

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=charlotte+iserbyt&aq=f

[jgraham]

It's all part of the plan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezTIYd5UFRY

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=charlotte+iserbyt&aq=f

Ugh...video...probably one of the slowest ways to disseminate this kind of information yet.

First Atlas wants me to buy a book by someone who sucks at math who he later says didn't make a good argument anyway (i.e. not well supported) .  Now there's some big list of videos I have to watch....

Don't people know how to sum up their arguments in a reasonably cogent way anymore?

[the joint]

In my opinion, the problems stemming from public education occur because of the following two (although, there are others) reasons.

1.)  Curriculum is influenced by media
2.)  It is compulsory

Hence, creativity in thinking is lacking.

Help me out here.  Your argument is essentially that 'creativity' which IMHO is pretty hard define is lacking in...what? Education?  People?  How did we measure this?  Is media influence intrinsically at odds with this hard to define idea. Not to mention  what does this have to do with *public* education?  Any evidence that private education is significantly less influenced?  Private schools jumped on the computing bandwagon earlier than any of the public schools.  

Ultimately, the importance and validity of any discipline taught in school is rooted in philosophy and an understanding of logical syntax.  How popular are philosophers in the media? Not very.

Importance defined how?  Sociological importance?  Personal satisfaction?  How are these measured?

How important is the sound application of logic in other fields?  Even scientists, who are supposed to strictly adhere to the limits of the scientific method and the laws of probability, carelessly make faulty assumptions in the classroom (or even worse, in scientific journals) on a daily basis

This definitely happens but as to what degree and what this has to do with public education is unclear.  Private schools are certainly responsible for some of the stupidest ideas in history. As an aside you can't 'strictly adhere to the limits of the scientific method' as the scientific method is not a formally defined entity (except in some very abstract sense).

By creativity, I mean the ability to critically challenge, question, and then and only then accept/reject something taught by authority figures as true or false -- or, thinking outside the 'box.'

So again, I'm trying to piece together your thesis here.  So you claim that media influences public education (without specifying to what degree or how this fact is established or how the significant effect is isolated to education with public funding).  You then seem to claim that this has an significant effect on the ability to "critically challenge and question things offered by authority figures".

...and while I'm willing to entertain that at least half of one of your premises "the ability to critically challenge and question things" is detrimental to education.  None of your premises seem to force your conclusion here.  Not even touching on the idea of validating the premises.  I'd also say that there seem to be some practical problems with the idea that "then and only then accept/reject something taught by authority figures as true or false".  To me anyway I'd rather give someone the understanding of the tools used to validate hypotheses.  While logic is part of that, it's not exactly a terribly big part.   For example I'd challenge you to construct purely from sets and first-order logic one of my favorite tools "Analysis of Variance" (ANOVA).

By importance, I mean owing existence to.  So, quantitative importance.

What do you mean by that?  Are you implying that logic created say math?

And by scientific 'method,' it is formally defined as a 'method' and therefore emphasis is placed on process not product.

Not really.   It's usage is more an umbrella term for various processes employed in various sciences.  Heck unless you are using the terms "process" or "product" in some needlessly specialized sense.   You could even argue that the emphasis is on a product not process.

When I wrote this, I didn't want to take the time to formulate a deductive or tautological argument.  I didn't want to take the time to explain my premises in detail.  A good philosophical argument can take pages to write because every word can be scrutinized and questioned.  But, for a little clarification on my thoughts...

Also in addition to providing a series of deductive elements you also will probably need to provide some evidence to support your premises.

The 'degree' to which the media influences education is, well, a 'high' degree.  Any public school must maintain a positive image in the eyes of the community.  Poor performance and unorthodox teaching styles catch the eyes of parents and school personnel, the community, and the media.

Firstly: Media attention and media influence are not synonymous.  Secondly your assumption that any school must maintain a positive image in the eyes of the community.  Is a) not synonymous with "media influence" (although it might be related but that further weakens the argument) and seems - on the face of it anyway - either untrue  (Since it would mean there are no schools that persist with a negative image) or irrelevant (where 'persist' refers to an arbitrary amount of time).

Still none of these premises actually force the negative conclusion that you appear to be aiming for.

And, the link between education and politics is quite clear.  In the U.S., history books are extremely biased and ethnocentric,

Relevance to removing critical thought from schools?  A biased and ethnocentric history book can easily be used as a talking point for teaching critical thought.  My history teachers worked that angle as well as referring to history books used in other countries.

and politics is regarded as the highest of all disciplines, ala Aristotle.

Support?

Science and Math are falling behind when compared with other countries,

Please support.

and proper English is hardly ever spoken even by the teachers, let alone by the students.

Define and support.  (Is "proper English" some prescriptivist construction or do you mean "generally mutually understood English"?)

On the other hand, compulsory schooling adds to the problem by setting the status quo on knowledge.  I can argue against evolution any day of the week depending on the perspective one takes, but radical perspectives are typically cast aside in society, even if these perspectives are valid, plausible, or even sound.

Also disregards the radically wrong.  Please support how this makes what at least appears to be your point that this has a significant negative effect.

Math is a branch of philosophy.

In what sense? Developmentally? Uh not really.  Please support.

When you say "...umbrella term for various processes employed..."  that means methods.  Regardless, the 'processes' are inductive (except for the pseudo-deductive process of forming experiments), and because of this, you'll never have an absolute, finished product/result.  

Well...

a) no, you can actually have what would qualify as a finished product.  You can have a product which is suitable for a particular use.  i.e. meets the standard error requirements for your use.  Furthermore it's reasonable to believe that there are physical limits to the amount various kinds of observational error can be reduces.  Ergo you could end up with a product for which no better product can ever be obtained.

b) Your words were 'emphasis on process' even if you don't have something that qualifies as a 'finished product' you can still say you are focused on the product.

Haha you see the depth this kind of argument requires?  Not that you're wrong to ask for greater clarity or support, but I'm not writing a research paper

Because I don't wish to source-scan at this time, I'll address the latter issues.

I agree.  The 'radically wrong' are hard to separate from the 'radical-but-correct,' but this would not necessarily be the case were it not for a status quo on 'correct' knowledge (hence, the grading system.  There IS a correct answer -- or, in terms of essays, more correct answers than others -- in the classroom).  A direct consequence of this is that a person with a higher academic degree automatically receives greater credibility than another person who does not have such a degree, although this 2nd person may have infinitely greater knowledge than the academic.  As a result, (generally) only academics receive grants for publication and research, and most of the time, their ideas are then subjected to the peer-review process.  Why is the peer-review process a problem?  Well, obviously it has it's merits, but one major pitfall is that the peer-review process allows only for tentative advances in knowledge.  Nobody's really allowed to do anything 'radical' for risk of humiliation from academic peers.  For example, how many scientists have been canned simply because they are Christian?  Quite a few.  I was even denied the opportunity to conduct an original experiment in my undergraduate class.  Why?  Because it had never been done before!!  The APA denied my experiment proposal because there had been no prior research conducted on the subject.  Moreover, about 75% of all research is product research.  The vast amount of funding available goes toward making sure the lights in the heels of your sneakers function properly rather than tackling society's biggest problems.  Then, you add in a 'publish-or-perish' approach which places pressure on college professors.  The professor's focus is redirected away from teaching and onto their research (after all, he can still teach if he sucks as a teacher, as long as he's bringing in that grant money).  I suppose this is why one of my college professors hasn't been fired yet, despite having over a half-dozen pending lawsuits against her spanning several years for denying students their disability accommodations in the classroom.  Academia is a noble institution indeed...

Math is a branch of philosophy in the sense that philosophy is more broad and math is more specific.  Math deals purely with abstract representations of objects.  In contrast, science (another branch of philosophy) deals purely with that which is observed.  Philosophy deals with both.  To have an understanding of math or science, one must have an understanding of philosophy. Without philosophy, you can't know why your statistical analysis correlates to whatever it is you observed.

The "scientific method" -- or process, whatever -- is a method.  There is nothing in the scientific method about product.  A conclusion is not a method.  Conclusions are reached from pseudo-deductive experiments.  The process, however, is inductive, and that is why you cannot have a finished product (even if you are approximating closer and closer to truth, you can never know that you are for sure since you must already have some idea of what the truth looks like before you can say you're approximating closer to it).  You can never have a finished product to the process because the process, in it's nature, cannot not be a process. It is ever-continuing.

[Bind]

Ugh...video...probably one of the slowest ways to disseminate this kind of information yet.

First Atlas wants me to buy a book by someone who sucks at math who he later says didn't make a good argument anyway (i.e. not well supported) .  Now there's some big list of videos I have to watch....

Don't people know how to sum up their arguments in a reasonably cogent way anymore?

Most of the information you need to learn, understand, then believe, has been intentionally hidden from you.

Plus the depth and complexity of it requires a bit of attention.

If you want the cliff notes, here they are ...

The ruling elite of the world want a two class world system. Them and everyone else. Rulers and their subjects to serve them. Everything they do is towards that end.

But wait... that might not be enough information for you to grasp the history. The who, what, when, where, why, and how.

Ergo, the homework (reading, listening and watching those who HAVE done their homework)...

But why have an attention span for the most important issues of our time when you can cursorily dismiss it all with a quick glance and wave of the hand.

stay asleep.

no sense in waking up now.

[jgraham]

Haha you see the depth this kind of argument requires?  Not that you're wrong to ask for greater clarity or support, but I'm not writing a research paper

Fair enough and don't think I don't I appreciate not being told to read some arbitrary book, watch some arbitrary movie.  If you make a point and cite a source I will, of course read it - and I warn in advance I'm awfully tough on methodology (a P-value is not enough!  ).  I don't expect to be spoon fed but I do expect something more than "It's somewhere in this book somewhere".

I agree.  The 'radically wrong' are hard to separate from the 'radical-but-correct,' but this would not necessarily be the case were it not for a status quo on 'correct' knowledge

I don't really get what you're trying to demonstrate here - again unless you're using 'status quo' in some other sense.  Sure there is a status quo - a popular, accepted or dogmatic way people validate knowledge.  I don't really see how one can get around having such a thing.  Not to mention it doesn't seem to force the point of being destructive to the school system.   Since you would have to establish that the status quo does more harm than good....and....that it is somehow intrinsic to public education.  

If we are somehow still talking about mandatory public education - i.e. up to high-school then as someone who has a modest amount of visibility into the school system.  I have never observed the 'degree hierachy' that you are describing.   I've certainly seen examples of the opposite - a tendency to follow people who are self-appointed experts who couldn't do a well-controlled experiment if their life depended on it.  Not to mention that even if true, there doesn't appear to be anything intrinsic to public funding that makes this status quo nor does there seem to be any guarantee that removing it replaces it with a better status quo.

 Why is the peer-review process a problem?  Well, obviously it has it's merits, but one major pitfall is that the peer-review process allows only for tentative advances in knowledge.  Nobody's really allowed to do anything 'radical' for risk of humiliation from academic peers.  For example, how many scientists have been canned simply because they are Christian?  Quite a few.  I was even denied the opportunity to conduct an original experiment in my undergraduate class.  Why?  Because it had never been done before!!  The APA denied my experiment proposal because there had been no prior research conducted on the subject.

I'd say that it varies a lot from field to field.   I've never seen an example of what you are talking about and dozens of examples of thesis proposals turned down because the topic wasn't novel and worse papers that I could have written just from the title.  I interviewed someone once and they had their name on a paper about "updating a pointer remotely" - in which they did the obvious.  Put a time stamp on a packet with a set of co-ordinates.  What any 1st year would have figured out if they have been given the problem as homework.  The only thing this person with their masters in Computer Science figured out how to do...was get IEEE to publish it.

Math is a branch of philosophy in the sense that philosophy is more broad and math is more specific.

See to me, this means you could construct/prove all of math from first-order logic.  Allow mathematics to be self-consistent.

The "scientific method" -- or process, whatever -- is a method.  There is nothing in the scientific method about product.  A conclusion is not a method.  Conclusions are reached from pseudo-deductive experiments.  The process, however, is inductive, and that is why you cannot have a finished product (even if you are approximating closer and closer to truth, you can never know that you are for sure since you must already have some idea of what the truth looks like before you can say you're approximating closer to it).  You can never have a finished product to the process because the process, in it's nature, cannot not be a process. It is ever-continuing.

I think you're just asserting your conclusion there.   Like I said, you can have a end since there are limitations on what can be observed.

[jgraham]

Ugh...video...probably one of the slowest ways to disseminate this kind of information yet.

First Atlas wants me to buy a book by someone who sucks at math who he later says didn't make a good argument anyway (i.e. not well supported) .  Now there's some big list of videos I have to watch....

Don't people know how to sum up their arguments in a reasonably cogent way anymore?

Most of the information you need to learn, understand, then believe, has been intentionally hidden from you.

Ok, but that's kind of the point of you flapping your gums there pal.  Elucidate!

Plus the depth and complexity of it requires a bit of attention.

I tend to think that Video - especially amateur/talking-head video is one of the worst ways to keep someones attention for something complicated.  It's a ridiculous artifice anyway.  Every video has a script any reasonably literate person can read 2-10x faster than a video can play.

The ruling elite of the world want a two class world system. Them and everyone else. Rulers and their subjects to serve them. Everything they do is towards that end.

Ok here's my competing theory:  Aliens from Planet Q have, unbeknown to you altered your consciousness in a way that makes you think that a ruling class exists, and wants people divided into two groups: "Rulers and Subjects".  

Now let me see if I understand your position here.  According to you I could now point you to a big list of YouTube videos about consciousness altering aliens and consider my above statement sufficient incentive for you to watch them all and furthermore any reluctance on your part is license for me to make veiled claims about your open-mindedness, attention span and inability to comprehend important issues...Is that correct?

Ergo, the homework (reading, listening and watching those who HAVE done their homework)...

Oh and I almost forgot...I could also take on an entirely unearned pedagogical role.

I'm glad we had this talk.

[LastBattle]

I followed this discussion for a while, broke off, then come back to find it has devolved into a confusing mess.

I have little interest in getting involved, but

PROTIP: The quality of the current public school system is impossible to quantify (qualify? whatever) compared to the hypothetical anarcho-capitalist school system. They are two entirely separate worlds, and one has yet to be tried. Stop trying so hard at something that is nigh impossible to prove. The only example that I have to provide is of a particular "private" school in urban Chicago. I forget the specifics (google is your friend), but a woman was annoyed at the failure of the public education system and founded one of her own. It ultimately outperformed every other public school in the area by extremely large margins, and the public school system attempted to shut her school down. Keep in mind, this was with a tiny budget and the students/their families were extremely poor, so the "they are rich and have advantages" that is usually used on private schools performing well isn't going to fly.

Also, stop calling Atlas an Objectivist. He is obviously a market anarchist (I am disliking the term "anarcho-capitalist" more and more because of the connotations that capitalism has taken over the years, especially regarding government control and corporatism), it is just that he is fond of fiery rhetoric. That happens to be common among Objectivists for some reason, whereas among ancaps it seems to be usually lacking (most come off as dry and academic, barring J. Tucker and Rothbard, though they are more witty than anything else). That doesn't make him an Objectivist. 

[niemivh]

I've read that book and Gatto really doesn't promote a true system to replace the old system that was adopted from the Prussian model of the 1880s, which was unfortunate.  The old way to schooling needs to go.  As someone who survived the public school system I can attest to its lack of worth in our modern age.  It was created for the express purpose of creating obedient worker bees that would work in soul-crushing repetitive labor positions.  Any immoral rationalized justification for this has long past in the realm of economic necessity.

End the obsession of standardized testing and make school about inspiring children to learn.  If you do that they'll do most of the rest of the work.  Treat them like little adults.  Allow teachers to discipline and remove disruptive students - it is an institution of learning, not a day care.  And spend MORE money on those identified as exceptional rather than on the mentally impaired, for they will be the leaders of the next generation.

[the joint]

I've read that book and Gatto really doesn't promote a true system to replace the old system that was adopted from the Prussian model of the 1880s, which was unfortunate.  The old way to schooling needs to go.  As someone who survived the public school system I can attest to its lack of worth in our modern age.  It was created for the express purpose of creating obedient worker bees that would work in soul-crushing repetitive labor positions.  Any immoral rationalized justification for this has long past in the realm of economic necessity.

End the obsession of standardized testing and make school about inspiring children to learn.  If you do that they'll do most of the rest of the work.  Treat them like little adults.  Allow teachers to discipline and remove disruptive students - it is an institution of learning, not a day care.  And spend MORE money on those identified as exceptional rather than on the mentally impaired, for they will be the leaders of the next generation.

I especially agree with this last part.  If people with <70 IQ (mentally retarded) are separated and given special accommodations, than those >130 IQ (mentally gifted) should also be separated and given special accommodations.

[em3rgentOrdr]

For those of you interested in another perspective, I'd suggest reading the book "Education: Free and Compulsory" by Murray Rothbard, available for free (ironically) here:


http://mises.org/daily/2226

[jgraham]

For those of you interested in another perspective, I'd suggest reading the book "Education: Free and Compulsory" by Murray Rothbard, available for free (ironically) here:


http://mises.org/daily/2226

Seems like kind of the same thing...

Perhaps I simply don't read the kind of journals these people do but the quality of research there is crap.   Why does anyone at all care about what George Harris said about something ages ago?  What was his sample size? What steps were taken to randomize it?  What kind of criteria was used to judge outcomes?  George Harris can frack off...when he actually knows how to do a regression analysis...then he can come back and play with the big kids.

I mean honestly it's one thing to consider it coffee-table material - conversation starting but not useful in determining an outcome.  However precisely the same argument could be made for the Weekly World News.  Personally I'd rather be debating paving the rain forests and giving teachers stun-guns than any of the books suggested in this thread to-date.

Oh and where these people paid by the word?  Murray Rothbard and Gatos could give Gurdjieff a run for his money.

I mean just listen to this nonsense.

With the development of civilization and individual diversity, there is less and less area of identical uniformity, and therefore less "equality." Only robots on the assembly line or blades of grass can be considered as completely equal, as being identical with respect to all of their attributes. The fewer attributes that two organisms have in common, the less they are "equal" and the more they are unequal.

Doesn't anyone see how specious that is?  What's an "attribute"?  How many them exist?  Without a formal definition you can get any answer you want.  Irony of irony Harris actually touched on this in the very book that Rothbard references!  Essentially he says that we see differences depending on what we are comparing things too.   Men look very similar when compared to animals but not when compared to each other.

Civilized human beings, therefore, are unequal in most of their personalities. This fact of inequality, in tastes, and in ability and character, is not necessarily an invidious distinction. It simply reflects the scope of human diversity.

Since Rothbard doesn't define his term "attribute" it's hardly unexpected that he'd define a term like "personalities" let alone "tastes, ability and character". 

It is evident that the common enthusiasm for equality is, in the fundamental sense, anti-human.

Given that Rothbard defines virtually nothing what can we conclude here?  Some things about some parts of people are intrinsically unequal and changing that is somehow against humanity.  Congratulations! You've just won, a brand new "is-ought" fallacy!

It tends to repress the flowering of individual personality and diversity, and civilization itself; it is a drive toward savage uniformity. Since abilities and interests are naturally diverse, a drive toward making people equal in all or most respects is necessarily a leveling downward. It is a drive against development of talent, genius, variety, and reasoning power.

So making people have all or mostly the same interests and abilities (whatever those are) is bad.  Is math an interest or an ability?  Is not giving most people an foundational education in math a bad or anti-human?  To me anyway while we could quibble on the various elements of math education which are the most relevant to society.  Do people here really advocate that having no ability at math doesn't give people a significant disadvantage in today's society?  How about language?  Should everyone have their own languages?  Or histories?  Or science?

See this is what makes Rothbards argument sound like a gigantic strawman in regards to today's schools.   If by "abilities" he means "education" schools don't have the ability to educate people in every subject to exactly the same level.  At best they can provide knowledge foundational to operate in society.  As it stands we barely get high-school graduates educated in enough math to understand the math that gets thrown at an adult every day.   Likewise we barely give them enough science to  understand the science that gets thrown at adults every day.

[Juliasimmons45]

This is so true. However, I think that the communist attitude doesn't lend it towards success. Don't just look at the scores, also look at the achievements that people living in a nation are able to achieve. People not only have achieved more in terms of both economic and technological development in the so called out run nations who can't achieve higher score on tests. Dissertation Store - dissertation service .Just look at the rate of innovation and growth in the USA. While their children can't get the highest scores in international tests, but their excellent infrastructure has enabled them to achieve growth at  very high pace.

[Lieldoryn]

Now deceased, Zbigniew Brzezinski, believed that Marxism is a more progressive model of the state, but it took over Communist adventurers and managed to spoil the idea. For putting into practice the Marxist-Communist theory, it can be quite effective.

[Kompodd]

Public education rather destroys a person's identity, so that it is easier to manage and he did not develop as a person. Only units can not succumb to this system and think independently.

[gollygosh]

We are all standardized, graded, economically and ideologically controlled off the shelf rent a products for government industry and the rich. The public education system churns out graded products, with a certificate so buyers know what kind of quality of slave they are getting

[2econd]

Watch the movie Captain Fantastic, show what I think of the educational system

[mariahh]

I am not the competent person to speak about the education in United States as I am from Greece and I've never visited your area.Nevertheless as a school graduate I have noticed that many countries has the same problem as they are downgraded because of the low ever of education.Certainly here in my country the problem is opposite.The school teaches very specialised knowledge which is not useful for the average teenagers.In this way schools promotes memorization and not the skills and the talents of children.

[Lieldoryn]

Education can't destroy the country even if it is public. Many people do not want to get an education and it's really a problem. If a person wants to get education he can get it. Important is not the government's approach to education, and people's desire to learn.

[Okurkabinladin]

The test consisted of over 40 questions covering Grammar, Arithmetic, U.S. History, Orthography, and Geography.  Five hours were allotted to complete the exam.  The following questions are taken directly from the actual test:

· What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of lie, lay, and run.

· District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?

· Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.

· Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?

· Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.

· What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?
 
· Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.

· Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.

It is interesting to note that these questions were geared toward preparing the students to become knowledgeable and productive members of a free society; not the mindless values and sensitivity training our children are now required to learn in public schools.  How many of today’s eighth-grade graduates could answer the example questions correctly (or the rest of the test)?  Realistically, how many high school or college graduates possess the knowledge level required to have successfully graduated the eighth grade in 1895?  An eighth-grade education obviously meant something 100 years ago!

Today, public schools have only decayed even further.  We now have a blatantly socialistic, one-world, homosexual agenda constantly forced upon all the children in the system.  Public schools increasingly have become less focused on real education, and are more engaged in training children to be subservient world citizens with only politically correct values.  Parental authority and wishes are ignored, and children are encouraged to view their parents as incompetent and unenlightened.  Parents who are alarmed at these trends are finding that alternate education options are becoming more difficult.  I am alarmed by reports of home schooling parents being informed they are in violation of state truancy laws unless they are either licensed teachers or are using public school curriculum (both of these “requirements” are completely false if the pertinent state laws are referenced).  I read in horror of home-schooled children forcibly being removed from their homes and parents under highly questionable pretenses.

The world system being placed into operation realizes that the family is the backbone of resistance to their plans, and that children are the key to the final implementation of their designs.  A battle is raging on many fronts for the minds and futures of our children, and the public school system is one of the main battlefields.  Do not allow your innocent ones to be destroyed by this evil!  Consider an active parental role in their education as an insurance policy against the development of future tyranny and as one of the many ways you can combat it today.

[Wa(t)ch_night()]

Education can't destroy the country even if it is public. Many people do not want to get an education and it's really a problem. If a person wants to get education he can get it. Important is not the government's approach to education, and people's desire to learn.

Education can destroy the country since there the government specifically creates a program that can make people robots and they will not be able to think for themselves. To achieve success in life, it is not obligatory to follow public education.

[bacterium]

Education is a strong weapon. I'm part of education system in my country. I can strongly say - it can destroy anything in a long term. You can form society according to your needs and plans without any visible harm in a short term point of view. But what will happen next in a coming decades will be fruits of planned actions long long time ago!

[September11]

I agree on that, but TV has done an equivalent quantity of damage as well.

[randal9]

Public education rather destroys a person's identity, so that it is easier to manage and he did not develop as a person. Only units can not succumb to this system and think independently.

they also try to make all people equally thinking, so that it would be convenient for them to make their "conclusions"...if someone differs from the generally accepted model, then he is sick...this is a terrible disease of our time

[salinizm]

We are all standardized, graded, economically and ideologically controlled off the shelf rent a products for government industry and the rich. The public education system churns out graded products, with a certificate so buyers know what kind of quality of slave they are getting

I completely agreed with your claims which you mentioned above. We are educated to become slaves to serve for rich people and  These so -called elites decide the subject taught in schools. They can easily manipulate society with this way. For that reason, I am completely against public education.

[TECSHARE]

WOW. An Atlas post. I haven't seen that name in a long time.

The US Department of Education is based on a Soviet model. It is about creating indoctrination and socialization, not educating, teaching logic, or critical thought. This process has seriously degraded the abilities of hundreds of millions who might otherwise be living under logic and enjoying the fruits of critical thought.

[squatz1]

WOW. An Atlas post. I haven't seen that name in a long time.

The US Department of Education is based on a Soviet model. It is about creating indoctrination and socialization, not educating, teaching logic, or critical thought. This process has seriously degraded the abilities of hundreds of millions who might otherwise be living under logic and enjoying the fruits of critical thought.

So I'm going to assume that in the past there was a way to post anonymously on the forum? I've literally never seen this before.....

[jak3]

That's Right I completely agree with you. In India, people are not teaching studies all they are going is making kids robots. all they want is to make children follow orders like those in military training. they just make your memories and then test how much you have memorized. this is not how the study should be. kids can not learn everything at 0 interest. kids are playful let them enjoy the studies and they will choose what they want to study and how will they gonna do it.

[TECSHARE]

WOW. An Atlas post. I haven't seen that name in a long time.

The US Department of Education is based on a Soviet model. It is about creating indoctrination and socialization, not educating, teaching logic, or critical thought. This process has seriously degraded the abilities of hundreds of millions who might otherwise be living under logic and enjoying the fruits of critical thought.

So I'm going to assume that in the past there was a way to post anonymously on the forum? I've literally never seen this before.....

The post was made by a user named Atlas who was banned. I think this is just how the forum worked then, either that or they did not want to nuke his extensive post history.

[ccryptopark]

I think the way the states looks to public education isn't ideal especially how we have standardized tests and 'grades'. We know well that most people do not fit into either of those molds and by just pumping people through pubic school with such expectations we are only failing the kids of our future.

[KingScorpio]

-> no one size fits all

-> beginning of the caste system

those that grew up in an egalitarian one size fits all education had the privileged chance of all are being equal in their education.

will be interesting to see how people will like it when they are brought up from brith and being conditioned to fulfill the labour purpose of their owners/funders/financers instead of being citizens of a country

[Niharika]

I totally agree with you, Public education has spoiled the mainstream but we can easily mention the things which are taking place everyday and because of these things we can argue with any of them in a perfect manner. However i found e-learning as a perfect way to get out from all these shits. While its UPSC or IIT JEE or NEET, CBSE or NCERT we can prefer there.

[Subbir]

Mentioning that there's no alternative to quality education within the development of a rustic he said that so as to require the country forward education must tend priority in particular else Our country is destroying the standard of egalitarian education. Without arguing if we give proper education to children from an early age and CIU is giving utmost importance to improving the standard of education also as building social responsibility skilled and artistic generation which will lead the longer term.

[TECSHARE]

It is weird still seeing old Atlas posts still be dredged up from time to time.

[Smartvirus]

I would have loved to argue this out but then, I want to keep it simple so, I'll say...
You enjoy that which you do today, the pieces of garget in your hand using to make this post and more due to education. It's easy to choose a Savage lifestyle but, you'll find yourself alone.

[BADecker]

The face-mask for Covid is public education.     

[akram143]

I think it's the teacher's task to be able to developing their student's individual skills rather than supressing it by treating all of them the same. But then again, teachers in the US are super underpaid

Why teacher have all the responsibility when they are going to get nothing in return!

The system should be changed if not everyone has to be treated in the same way.

What about the teachers from Africa? They are super duper underpaid.