Join The Debate!

everyonesfacts 19, 2007 12:25 PM

I often post on these lists how homeschooling imo is the best method of instruction.

DESKJOCKEY RESPONDS
I don’t know how you claim libertarianism and yet champion & work for union driven giver-ment k-12 indoctrination camp that robs the children of resources while claiming home skuling (sic) is the best instruction.

everyonesfacts writes
Without knowing their parents socio-educational status this data does not really prove anything. Nor do we know how much was spent on educating these children in private schools.

DESKJOCKEY RESPONDS
This is NEA speak that has absolutely nothing to do with learning. Ronald Reagan taught himself to read and write. Lincoln home skuled (sic) himself on a dirt floor with a candle. We have inner city private skuls with no resources available from the poverty parents that never the less kick the NEA’s butt. One of the great comedians of our time and billionaire Bill Cosby was raised in public housing. One of the nation’s greatest brain surgeons was raised by mom in public housing. Here is what he says, Ben Carson, “if you have a normal brain, you are superior. There's almost nothing that you can't do." “When Benjamin Carson was in fifth grade, he was considered the "dummy" of his class. His classmates and teachers took it for granted that Ben would take an entire quiz without getting a single question right. … But Benjamin Carson turned his life around. He graduated from high school with honors, went on to Yale University and to medical school. At age 32, he became Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He is internationally recognized as a pioneer in his field. In his operation on the Binder Siamese twins in 1987, he succeeded where all predecessors had failed, in separating twins joined at the head.”

The problem isn’t family or their money, it isn’t what was spent on the skul. The problem is we have turned our kids over to a Marxist indoctrination camps that have unlimited excuses for failure. Rudy Giuliani turned his worse kids over to the Catholic skul system. It worked by reducing the cost of education to NYC and giving the kids a good education. Granted it ran with 1/10 the overhead/student of the NYC skul system.

When I hired salesmen, I always had to waste a few thousand dollars on each one as part of MY initiation process. They always demanded that to succeed they need a budget to do mailers. Now being a sales organization, I understood we weren’t a marketing organization. Therefore I’d urinate the money away yet again, and then they would realize they are not making it and come to me for advice. Now if I didn’t waste the money they would be destroyed because they’d always believe their failure was my unreasonableness to not throw money at problems. So to get them to listen to me I had to eliminate their excuse. The NEA is a social engineer and wealth redistributor not educator.

Like in any activity, we always have an unlimited demand to spend other people’s money for our failed efforts, including the skul system. The problem with education is that the parents don’t pay for it so they don’t care about effectiveness, they just vote for whoever promises to steal the most money for little Johnny. When you pay for something you consider its value and you demand results be it your own behavior, your kids or the skuls. Under the giver-ment system failure is guaranteed as third party systems always fail.

everyonesfacts

Not whether there are good private schools. I live within 20 miles of supposedly the best private school in America. And in the state that has many of the leading private schools. I know they are good. Maybe
even good for the price you pay.

What I was arguing was if there is an inverse relationship between the amount of money spent by the state on education and academic results those states that spend the least on education - 3rd world countries - should have the best results if Milton is right. This I assure you is not the case.

DESKJOCKEY RESPONDS

Well I lived near Miss Porter’s (the Kennedys) and others. What I find is that you send your kids there for the associations not necessarily the education. In other words you spend what is necessary to keep your kid segregated from the problems of society. Why does it cost so much? Well to put a stadium in or basketball court with only a few kids, paid for by the parents, is much greater cost per student than putting it in for a skul of thousands. Is the education actually better for the dollars spent, the answer probably is no. Are the expectations greater, absolutely. How much do they charge for expectation, a lot.

Let me put this in context. My skul tried to keep me back the 1st 4 years. I could not read or write and still struggle to this day. My dad told them that if and when I’m ready to learn I will. My dad is not a high skul graduate and mom never went to high skul. My mom spent most of my childhood in a hospital. My dad made min wage most of my childhood. I never was allowed to go out to recess for the safety of the children and teachers. I often just would leave skul during the day because I hated being there. Fast forward, I held the state pole vaulting record so I decided I’d go to college to continue with my sport. At college I figured if I have to be here I’ll take the hardest course they offer rather than PE. They said they had the best undergraduate electrical engineering skul in the country. Fine that seems like less reading and writing, sign me up. I almost always got straight A. I often didn’t go to classes or buy books. I started a used furniture business and hedge fund, plus broke the University pole vaulting record.

Fast forward, I have hired guys from the best private skuls and colleges such as Harvard, University of Chicago, Oxford, The Citidel, etc. I had one with 3 PHDs. They have great resumes but are of average intelligence. I call them empty suits. They lack critical thinking. I once had to take a test along with the 3 PHD guy that we called doctor. Doctor flunked it three times over a year. Well one day while I’m sitting at my desk taking calls and eating lunch, I asked him if he had any study books I could look at because I have to take the test in less than an hour. He laughed that there is absolutely no way I could do this. I passed. He asked how did I do it when he is a doctor 3 times over. I explained that I can solve any problem of most disciplines because I have not been destroyed by the education system. We can discuss this later if you’d like.

A CPA for a CEO of a well known public steel company would come to me to analyze the financial statements of acquisitions they were looking at together. He would say, this makes no sense, I’m one of the highest priced CPAs billing hundreds of dollars/hr. and I’m coming to a guy who never took accounting to explain the numbers. I explained that I process info differently than somebody who has been educated in his discipline to regurgitate certain rules and procedures.

everyonesfacts

So, I am sure there are some cities paying this much on a per pupil basis for terrible results. But the wealthiest Americans and international leaders are paying more $ than what I have listed unless they live close to the schools. This does not support your argument.

DESKJOCKERY RESPONDS

Sowell has shown that spending is inversely proportional to results. The reason the rich folks spend so much is to make sure that you, me and our kids don’t ruin their associations. I always wanted to date a Miss Porter girl, but they wouldn’t even let riff raff like me get near the skul. They had full time cops on the streets to drive off unsuitable characters. Very smart folks. Today, I’d do the same with my daughter or son. They tend to do well in life, not because they are so smart, but that they are so competitive and have resources and contacts at their disposal.

You folks are chasing symptoms rather than understand the cause. People who are in control of their behavior, who take care of their health, who try to be disciplined in their endeavors and lifestyle, who try to understand and learn about their situations will do well in life, including doing well in skul. Families that are out of control will tend to not be concerned about anything. You can see what happens to this group with the results of the lottery winners. They end up broke in short order. Money can’t change behavior. Liberals think if everybody wins the lottery of life that all the problems go away. Well the rich don’t win the lottery of life, they execute certain attributes that leads to success. They win the lottery of effort and self control.

No amount of money will buy away poverty, it is a behavior problem not a financial problem. It is the insane victim premise that is destroying this country and wasting valuable resources. But the parents don’t care because they don’t pay the tab.

The kids come to skul with a world view, no different than I did. You can spend all the money in the world, you can place them in the finest homes in the world, but if they haven’t decided to perform, you are wasting taxpayer money. What we need to do is stop all this insanity of every kid is capable of education and start weeding them out as quickly as possible.

everyonesfacts

So are you advocating class sizes of 65 to improve education. My point is that these countries are paying little to public education and not getting the best results as Milton's quote would have us expect.

(Anyways, I know many college classes work fine with large numbers using aides as tutors and for correcting. 9-12 could try this out. I am not against it. But having a teaching load of 300 without aides is not palatable to teachers and not good for kids, simply for correcting writing. Never mind other issues.)

DESKJOCKEY RESPONDS

I’m sure Milton wouldn’t have won the Nobel if he was winging stuff. I think the point is that in a given country the spending is inverse to the results. Again, I don’t think you can compare countries as easily, as you then have too many variables at work. We clearly see that in the US, as spending has risen the results have dropped. I would assume that would be the same in any other country.

I look at those missionary skuls in AfriKa and they seem to do well with 65 or more kids. We don’t need aides we need culling. Union folks think more workers, I think market place. If I was paying for dinner instead of stealing somebody’s else’s money to pay for it would I would not order Ruth Christ’s stake every night. It is easy to get the voters to continually demand more and more education expense when they steal it from the neighbor. If they were paying for it, we’d get far better results for a fraction of the cost.

dj: "Hammer I love the canard of my good friend who always says, the unions are not to blame “everything is negotiated”. You have a one party system and you can vote till you blue in the face, the one party will continue forward unfazed."


everyonesfacts

I'll stick with imperfect democracy and republican government:

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried" -Winston Churchill

DESKJOCKEY RESPONDS

All our founders said democracy was evil and the reason they avoided it in favor of the Republican form of giver-ment. In the Republican form of giver-ment they rejected giver-ment indoctrination camps. We had a much higher literacy rate then also.

dj: I remember McGovern after leaving DC and starting his business in CT. He said, if I had only known what I was doing to the business community when I was a legislator. What would be nice is to force teachers to get a job for 10 years before they could go back to the womb. At least the outer insanities would have been filed off in the world of reality."

Everyonesfacts writes
Probably a good idea for some teachers. But I did work for nearly 10 years in private industry before becoming a teacher, so it does not seem to apply. Again though it is negotiable and in the end the voters whether they accept it or not are in charge.

DESKJOCKEY RESPONDS

Nothing in education is negotiable. In fact all giver-ment unions are non-negotiable, which is why that is the only sector unions are growing. Working in the private sector is not the same as making payroll. Working some job is not much different than working for giver-ment. The giver-ment has so strangled companies with regulations, that the company becomes the state. You fill your slot, there is little to no accountability.

Everyonesfacts writes
I think you would be surprised at how many education ideas come from business. There is definitely use of the 7 Habits by Grant Wiggins and use of Jim Collins _Good to Great_ which imho is a ripoff of Drucker in the learning communities approach see the Dufours, Schmoker, and Thomas(?) Reeves. So, school systems are not immune to the latest business approaches to management. But remember schools are not
meant to be profitable.

DESKJOCKEY RESPONDS

Business is no different than skuls in that they buy into the latest fad. In education we call it fed fads, in the private sector we have minions of consultants running around with the same nonsense. The good news is that in the private sector the market place gets rid of them, in the public sector their nonsense continues with new nonsense to compensate the past nonsense that still continues to grow.

Everyonesfacts writes

I reject the cyclical view of history though it is interesting to look at. My advice run for school committee with your ideas or get a majority of the school board to be like minded. It does not take a revolution. Just
some changes.

DESKJOCKEY RESPONDS

I appreciate you rejecting Tytler, however his large work on the topic is a tome. Getting on a skul board is a total and complete waste of time. It would be as stupid as getting on a committee to convince the unions that they are destroying the companies they work for. Nobody cares, they pursue their short term interest. As many of the wise social economist now recognize you can’t change it. It has a built in structure that is unassailable. My view is let it take down the middle class, but keep the NEA & giver-ment out of private education so they can’t destroy it with vouchers and destroy the creative class.

Look at it like unions in the steel, textile, rail, auto, airlines, etc. Companies, shareholders and other organizations tried to stop the insanity. It can not be done. The best thing is admit defeat and salvage what you can if anything. In my merger and acquisition business, I have always avoided union companies. The host that will be the last standing is giver-ment and eventually it will also die. I have seen many a good man chewed up on the board of education. It is a fool’s game. Sometimes it pays to surrender the battle and accept the casualties. We have one board member that I have financially supported for years. He is not even allowed into the meetings because they don’t want him reporting garbage they are scheming. He has wasted his life with this board membership insanity. My state comes in last or second to last in the national rankings and my city is among the worst in the state. We couldn’t change that, if we used the entire military of the US, the courts, the legislature, the prayers of every church. The system is self protecting. You would think the worst city in the worst state would be easy to fix, just vote in the right people. Well, that is impossible in a third party payer system. Now if the parents had to cut that check each year, all hell would have broken loose 60 years ago.

Everyonesfacts writes

p.s. Please note the socialist sites I use. I'd be interested to know. btw, I don't want them to be your opinion, but sites that are openly and avowed socialists. The NYT and AFT don't count.

DESKJOCKEY RESPONDS

I always do. The last one that comes off the top of my head is the one claiming how unions help the economy. I pointed it out and then showed why it was bogus opinions weaved out of bad research. But don’t worry, I’m always quick to point that out. Not that left wing is automatically wrong, but generally they do adhere to the Stalin doctrine that a lie to advance the left cause is actually a truth.