Article

2006-02-22 International-UN-NGOs

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Posted by Slort Angolutle4463 2006-02-22 00:00|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Kids from middle class homes, do better in school. This is shocking news. Forgot about Darfur, Iranian Nukes and tens of millions dying from Malaria, the UN is right to focus on the real issues we face.

/endsarcasm

Posted by phil_b">phil_b 2006-02-22 00:08|| http://autonomousoperation.blogspot.com/]">[http://autonomousoperation.blogspot.com/] 2006-02-22 00:08|| Front Page Top

#2 what we need is universal preschool...whether the parents want it or not. Follow me, said the piper!

Posted by Rob Reiner">Rob Reiner 2006-02-22 00:12|| 2006-02-22 00:12|| Front Page Top

#3 Mr Munoz said the problems were caused by the structure of the education system, which usually selects children at the age of 10 to go to either a grammar school or a vocational one.

This is actually a point that I've been making here for years. And this is how it works throughout Europe and the industrialized Far East. Between the age of ten and fourteen, the _state_ tells you that you are going to be working on an assembly line at Volkswagen for the rest of your freakin life. And there are no second chances. No junior college. No University of Phoenix. The stupid statists want to control everything. If this isn't the root of everything that is wrong with Europe -- the elitism, the herd mentality of the masses, high unemployment the low birth rates -- then it's pretty damn close. Policies like this are just evil. Put yourself back in the playground in fifth grade. Congratulations! Hans, you're a blue collar worker and you Dieter, you lucky little devil, are going to university! Are Hans and Dieter ever going to play together in the future? Will their parents ever meet at PTA? And what if the state guesses wrong and ten years later there are too many blue collar blokes and not enough white collar stiffs. This crap is just plain wrong. For the first time here at Rantburg, I side with the UN.

Posted by 11A5S 2006-02-22 01:38|| 2006-02-22 01:38|| Front Page Top

#4 Whilst, I agree the state shouldn't select children into academic and non-academic streams as early as 10. There are several powerful counter-arguments in favor of streaming. I'll note that in Germany being a tradesman is more prestigous than somewhere like the USA. And streaming encourages people to go into manual occupations rather than struggle with academic subjects that have no interest to them and take them in the direction of unproductive lightweight 'academic' subjects.

The UK had a similar system of selecting at age 11. I was one of the earliest kids to go into a non streaming system (known as Comprehensive schools), so I speak from personal experience. The two main consequences of Comprehensive schools were;

1. Academic standards plunged. In large part, this was because kids of that age are incredibly influenced by their peers and mixing relatively small numbers of academically capable kids into a larger population of less academically capable kids, turns the academically capable kids into less academically capable kids as they follow the crowd.

2. Over time, there was a huge increase in the number of people going into university level education mostly into lightweight subjects, which in turn resulted in a large number of under-employed graduates. I am sure we all know someone who graduated in the history of art or similar and now works part time as a filing clerk.

Posted by phil_b">phil_b 2006-02-22 04:02|| http://autonomousoperation.blogspot.com/]">[http://autonomousoperation.blogspot.com/] 2006-02-22 04:02|| Front Page Top

#5 Well, this is a bit overdone. Of course it might be early at this age to offer a selection to a "Gymnasium, Realschule etc" (leading to an exam "Abitur" = entrance to university).On the other hand I have read articles here, where university staff complained about the educational standards of new students coming from comprehensive schools !!
Also, it is always possible (later in life when
you discover the society might be lost without your personal academic contribution) to change to a so called "Schule des zweiter Bildungsweges"
that leads to an "Abitur" exam.
Your are NOT confine to be a blue collar worker all your life( if you dislike this).But be warned, he might make more money in a tradesman area than your mentioned academic "elitist" !!

Posted by GSL 2006-02-22 07:43|| 2006-02-22 07:43|| Front Page Top

#6 Phil_b-
Your points are well taken (#2 describes the US pretty well, unfortunately). In the US a very high percentage of kids go to university which results in a university education being dumbed-down. I remember being criticized by students for using "big words" on my exams! The number of students who were mathematically illiterate was astounding.
My grandfather, who had an eighth-grade education, retired (around 1960) as the chief accountant for a mid-sized steel company. His education was probably equivalent to that of a university grad today.

Posted by Spot">Spot 2006-02-22 08:43|| 2006-02-22 08:43|| Front Page Top

#7 Phil_b: I've known a lot of those liberal arts university grads who then go to a junior college and learn to be a mechanic or a fireman and make more money than they could have with a degree. At least they had the freedom to try and weren't streamed one way or the other.

Nobody here addresses the social or political costs of "streaming." What happens when you separate the "smart" kids from the "dumb" ones at age ten? IMO, you end up with De Villepin and Fischer -- elitists that haven't a clue about who the "masses" are and how to lead them.

When I was in high school, I used to bitch about how the unmotivated kids used to screw it all up for the rest of us. Boo hoo hoo. Looking back, I am glad that I had the opportunity to grow up with them and be friends with some of them. I learned more from those experiences than I would have in a college prep track.

My anecdotal experiences just don't line up with any of yours. I've known plenty of old timers who were illiterate or innumerate. My experiences in grad school and business, up against lycee, Realschule, and whatever the equivalent of those are in Japan and Taiwan demonstrated to me that the US comprehensive school grads could run rings around the others when it came to math, analysis, synthesis, research, and study habits. The non-Americans were better rote memorizers and that's about it.

The proof of the pudding is the eating. If American schools are so damn bad, then why do we dominate the worlds of finance, science, technology, military art, etc? Yeah we coopt some talent from the rest of the world, but that doesn't explain more than a small fraction of the difference. Here is the secret. American schools offer choice. You can be a PhD and run a garage or be a votech washout and graduate from university. You can _choose_ to be illiterate or to be a polymath. There is little to no stigma attached to any of these choices. To the statist, this seems like a great waste of talent. To a Hayekian free market type like me, it is the most efficient use of human capital.

Posted by 11A5S 2006-02-22 09:23|| 2006-02-22 09:23|| Front Page Top

#8 What happens when you separate the "smart" kids from the "dumb" ones at age ten? IMO, you end up with De Villepin and Fischer -- elitists that haven't a clue about who the "masses" are and how to lead them.

OK, point taken (and I'm pretty militant in opposing all kinds of elitism).

Posted by phil_b">phil_b 2006-02-22 09:38|| http://autonomousoperation.blogspot.com/]">[http://autonomousoperation.blogspot.com/] 2006-02-22 09:38|| Front Page Top

#9 If American schools are so damn bad, then why do we dominate the worlds of finance, science, technology, military art, etc?

Finance, cause the rest of the world bankrupted itself in WWI & WWII. We had all the money that was left. Our financial position will start to deteriorate if we don't get the China deficit under control.

Science and Technology? We reward scientists and technologists better than any other country. Ever notice all those funny accents? We also fund it very generously through the federal government primarily for defence purposes.

Military? I'm nopt sure that pound for pound we are the best military in the world. But we are most of the po8unds in the world.

Automobiles, steel, shipbuilding, manufacturing anything? We suck.

Bottom line is that our schools do a good job of educating the top layer but the others do a better job of educating the middle.

Our lower schools are expensive and produce very little for all the inputs they get. But what do you expect from a socialized enterprise. Our colleges and universities are competitive and generously funded but they do produce good value for the money,even if we do have to import half the students in science and engineering.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2006-02-22 10:00|| 2006-02-22 10:00|| Front Page Top

#10 American business would be better off if all MBAs and lawyers were suddenly to just disappear never to return. Things started to go downhill for manufacturing in this country when MBAs started "optimizing" things to make this quarter's numbers for the street. Continuing the rant, Michael Milken should be consigned to the deepest depths of Hell for creating the leveraged buyout.

Posted by RWV 2006-02-22 10:22|| 2006-02-22 10:22|| Front Page Top

#11 It is clear that the U.N. clowns have never read the Coleman Report.

What did that magnificent, massive study prove was the leading factor in educational attainment and performance? Factors outside of the classroom. In other words, parents, family, neighborhood, community, and *cough*, *ahem*, *let me clear my throat*, culture

Posted by Happy 88mm 2006-02-22 13:46|| http://www.calderonswirbelwind.blogspot.com]">[http://www.calderonswirbelwind.blogspot.com] 2006-02-22 13:46|| Front Page Top

#12 11A58: Just for the record: Fischer holds no university degree.( and Schröder came from a poor family and managed to finish successfully a law study)

Posted by GSL 2006-02-22 18:13|| 2006-02-22 18:13|| Front Page Top

#13 Thanks for the correction, GSL. Seriously. How many kids from the VoTech schools take that exam to transfer to college prep? What percentage pass?

Posted by 11A5S 2006-02-22 23:15|| 2006-02-22 23:15|| Front Page Top

#14 Finance, cause the rest of the world bankrupted itself in WWI & WWII. We had all the money that was left. Our financial position will start to deteriorate if we dont get the China deficit under control.

***The standard economic trade models have been predicting the collapse of the American economy since the early 1970's. Yet we keep cruising along. Maybe the models are wrong, being based upon specie-backed currencies that haven't been traded in decades? Why doesn't Louisiana have a trade deficit with California? Chew on that for a while and you might begin to understand.

Science and Technology? We reward scientists and technologists better than any other country. Ever notice all those funny accents? We also fund it very generously through the federal government primarily for defence purposes.

***Most of the propeller heads I've worked over the years came from the US. Maybe I worked in the wrong companies.

Military? Im nopt sure that pound for pound we are the best military in the world. But we are most of the po8unds in the world.

***Come on! An armored cav _troop_ almost destroyed an Iraqi division in the first Gulf War! Anyway, its a combined arms _team_. If other countries don't have the same amount of combat multipliers that we do, it's fallacious to say that they have tougher infantry or better armor. All it takes is one E-5 with a radio...

Automobiles, steel, shipbuilding, manufacturing anything? We suck.

*** Intel's, AMD's and IBM's waferfabs? Advanced ceramics? Advanced composite materials? Software? Servers? Fiber optics? Switch infrasructure? You know what the difference between the industries you named and I named? Yours are all have low rates of return. Mine all have high rates of return.

Bottom line is that our schools do a good job of educating the top layer but the others do a better job of educating the middle.

*** Question: Do those standardized tests that the press are always harping about compare our high schoolers to their high schoolers or our high schoolers to their Gymnasium and Lycee students? The answer is not pretty.

Our lower schools are expensive and produce very little for all the inputs they get. But what do you expect from a socialized enterprise.

*** I agree that they are too expensive. I interview high school kids all the time. I'm always impressed. They're a lot smarter than me and my peers were. But then I'm a glass half full type of person.

Posted by 11A5S 2006-02-22 23:34|| 2006-02-22 23:34|| Front Page Top

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