If high-school graduates are "unprepared", why is that so? Because we are not making a sufficient effort to prepare them. Why might that be happening? The state governments do not see secondary-education as any high priority. Which means that national funding must be employed to bring up the standards nationally. So, see this study here: How States Compare in the 2017 Best High Schools Rankings - excerpt: Not even a third of our schools nationally are in the highest category possible ...
Many reasons they aren't prepared. Teachers teaching to the tests and not to a real world curriculum. Students not putting any effort in. Poor teachers in the classrooms. Mismanagement of school funds leaving classrooms without required materials. Poor school performance has nothing to do with funds. We spend FAR more per student than most countries that are performing orders of magnitude better.
Because the market demands diplomas since the supply of them is low. Had everyone held a phD, the degree would be worth nothing. Additionally, my point remains; there is nothing that says companies cannot school their own employers. False correlation. Happiness is subjective and cannot be measured. Also, one does not really have to go to school to be "educated". Quite the contrary. Most of my "education", I have gained by myself out of pure interest. I have 15 years of "institutional schooling" in my luggage, by your logic I should be very smart.
Are you kidding me? The very reason education is insufficient is the fact that the State is controlling it with an iron hand. They throw money at it, yet the results keep dropping. School is a Prussian invention and its only purpose is to "brainwash" children into "obedient citizens". School is objectively boring and the only way to fix it is by (i) decentralisation and (ii) by giving more freedom to students and teachers. I honestly did not learn anything in school. I learned stuff from school though. Mainly that some people are a-holes and ought to be avoided.
Frankly, had you been following this discussion previously, you would know that that I don't think that state-supported schooling is doing at all a "good job" of educating either secondary or post-secondary schooling. (PISA* scores show the US to be very mediocre in secondary-schooling and the simple fact that post-secondary students are graduating with an average debt of 35K is appalling.) I'm all for freedom in the classroom - as long as we decide that certain subjects are "requisites". For instance, one full year of Civics in high-school in which kids are taught not only how government works but doesn't work. Moreover, those who are good enough to enter post-secondary programs should be allowed to do so, without the slightest consideration of the money. It should be provided free, gratis and for nothing. (As the EU does in all of its countries.) It is perhaps comforting to know that our market-economy provides us a rather good existence on this earth. But, we are not the ONLY country in that situation. And, I feel, we have not learned from other external experience in the matter of education. Especially from Europe, where post-secondary education is nearly free, gratis and for nothing ... *PISA stands for Program for International Student Assessment on the secondary-schooling level. It's results can be found here (scroll down to page 7).
Good to know we are on the same side. That means you are not for freedom. Every student should be left to choose a field to specialise in as early as their very first year in school. This way, they have lots of time to find their "nich" and try different subjects until they find it. Classroom attendance should not be compulsory either as it is proven to be a recipe for disaster. Students skip classes today because they do not consider them being worth their time or they go to class, but sleep through it. A more college/university-style approach on classroom attendance ought to be applied where students can choose themselves if it is worth going or not. As long as they complete their assignments, everything should be fine. If students were allowed to pick subjects they enjoy, there would be less skipping anyways. I never skipped classes, but the subjects I did not enjoy (maths, biology and chemistry) was thrown away by talking about more interesting stuff with my mates during class. (Actually, biology is quite an interesting subject, but school made it boring). There is no free lunch! Making university "free" is a great way of halting the market, to postpone individuals' capacity to enter the labour-market and to inflate the value of a degree. I am Swedish and I have seen this with my own eyes; students take useless courses and students change their major two, four or even six times. By the age of 26, they have still not started their "careers". Obviously, alot of this would be solved if kids in elementary school had more freedom to specialise, but higher education should absolutely not be tax-funded ("free"). University should mainly be for people who seek to become intellectuals anyways. All other education can easily be offered by the market where companies school their own employers to be ready for the assignment their position requires. It is not working very well at all for us in Sweden.
More false reasoning. Of course it can be measured, even if the evaluation itself subjective. Personal contentment is always subjective. (That tere are not "more Phd's" is simply because the ability to obtain the degree is limited to those sufficiently intelligent to do so.) Happiness is measurable for as long as people think it means "contentment" with any given situation and at any given time. There are numerous "happiness measures", the one conducted by the UN is international in nature: LEADERSHIP - Americans May be Rich, But They’re Not Happy Excerpt: Of course, "Leadership" is only one aspect of happiness/contentment ...
You are jumping to conclusions. An error in good debate. In schooling, there are basics - like reading and writing. Civics should be added to that list because it is so damn important. Comparative political thinking should be another. And any instruction that moves the American mentality out of the "money, money, money" syndrome would help enormously. There is much more to life than just accumulating Wealth and showing the world how smart you were to do so. Along these lines: Why Wanting to Be Rich Is a Form of Mental Illness - excerpt: And in the US, Reckless Ronnie actually promoted that eventuality mentioned above by reducing upper-income taxation drastically making immense riches entirely possible but concentrated in just a select percentage of the population. The consequence of which is demonstrated in this chart for the US. And this chart shows factual evidence, not just dismissive banter ...
I see that we got the real heart of this thread, which is the same as every other thread OP starts. Give away more free stuff. Since college will be free, whomwill be paying the salaries of the staff? The govt right? Where does the govt get it's money? Another fact that must be highlighted. Is the govt also going to set minimum standards for those allowed to go to college or is everyone going to to get this free ride? We know the answer. Everyone will get the free ride or someone will scream some ist or ism. So now we will have dozens more overpriced universities with standards so low that you don't even need to be able to pick out your name on a multiple choice answer sheet to get into. All so they can collect that easy govt money.
The DoD is "free" - who is paying their salaries? The FBI is "free"! The US Depaertment of Homeland Security is "free"! Where does the gummint get the money? Taxation! Enough the inanity ...
None of those are free. You are saying college should be free for everyone. I do notice that you didn't address any of the points I made though. That's very telling.
What about free other training college and college and college there are good technical schools and other options cheaper and more practical. As for the cost of college until its affordable going to study philosophy as a major is a luxury unless your double majoring with something useful or are wealthy enough to not worry about your major, if I had a child going to college on my dime I would insist they get good grades and I must approve the major or plan of study or no money. And I wouldn't co-sign loans. I'm not a tyrant if your an education major and want to also major in something else fine but a gender studies major with a minor in philosophy if your going into debt is a stupid move IMHO. As for free college we used to have very affordable basic but good state universities it was the loans and free Federal money feeding the schools that made them all mutate into competing with private schools and a reduction in state funding of these schools at the same time. I seriously think the government when they started the loan program should have done this: 1. Go through banks but have them assess worthiness for the loan based on family standing and academics, and grades, year by year, and if they dropped out due to them not doing this properly make the debt clearable in bankruptcy like any other debt. 2. Allowed a rise in tuition and other costs of a given school tied to the annual rise in inflation, no more. 3. Insisted state schools be funded as they were before the law at those levels in many cases it was over 90%, or the school couldn't get loan funds at all. If they did this maybe we would at least have State schools people could afford to attend at least but now they are only modestly different from a decent private college in the main. Would I support free schools now, sure, demand they major in a STEM field or field where graduates are in demand, maintain a 3.0 GPA in major and 2.5 GPA out of major, and cut them off after five years if they didn't earn their bachelors degree. And require they work in the State they graduated from for ten years unless in service in a Federal agency or the armed forces. For free tuition, housing and food that is the least they can do and they should be able to discharge the debt in bankruptcy of they were not given adequate advising and career counseling in the university or a subpar education as deemed by the industry standards. And this should be with a return to high school technical education, adding apprenticeships, trade schools and a restructuring of university standards to eliminate requirements not vital to the profession or degree. There is no need for a high school biology teacher to need college algebra if that is their career focus and likely no need for a foreign language but for a budding engineer they need mathematics and a student of international business needs foreign languages.
I'm a German citizen "entitled" to all those wonderful things you just mentioned, but guess who lives in the United States and still enjoys completely free health care and enjoyed a completely free apprenticeship program? This guy. I also didn't have to pay 60% of my lifetime earnings to have them either.
So you believe that functionally illiterate adults would benefit from a college education? The educational failure in the United States is purely the result of universal public education, which delivers incredibly poor results.
Piffle 'n drivel! You've lost your sense of history - if you ever had one. Public education that began at the turn of the 20th century is what allowed the US to obtain the worker-credentials necessary to build a functional economy derived from the Industrial Age - and thereby decent Incomes*. But, we've been blind to the rising costs of Post-secondary Degrees that are absolutely necessary in this Brave New World of the Information Age. If the results are not up to satisfaction, and they most certainly are not, it is not Private Education that will run to the rescue. The average student today in America graduates with a $35K debt to pay-off before commencing his/her professional life. Which is why so many are unable to pursue a tertiary-education, thus consigning themselves to low minimum-wage jobs and ultimately an existence below the Poverty Threshold. And they are 14% of our population - which is 45 million fellow American men, women and children. Aint nuthin' to be proud about ... *Where we-the-sheeple screwed things up was allowing Replicants (Reckless Ronnie to begin with) reduce upper-income taxation, which has resulted in a highly warped "distribution of Wealth" (as seen here).
Oh great. So you can leave all-that-moulah to your inheritors for which they will be eternally grateful. You may be interested (but I doubt the truth will sink-in) in the comparative-value of National Healthcare Systems as derived from the Commonwealth Fund shown here: Note from the above that Germans live 2 years longer than Americans and their per-capita annual healthcare costs are about half as much as in America ...
I did not graduate high school. Only one guy in my shop went to college, but that's because we need an engineer, and we all earn $70,000 a year with benefits that surpass those offered by Big Law. 25% of college graduates DO WORSE financially than the median high school graduate. The only drivel is believing that completely wasting the 13 most important years of educational development is drivel. How about you actually respond to my comment, instead of restating your point that everyone needs a college education.
As I've already stated, I am a German. As you obviously are not, there's a reason for that difference in life expectancy, and it has nothing to do with our governments making equal expenditures in health care. We're stubborn. And to connect life expectancy to access to health care? That's the stupidest ****ing thing I've ever heard. Most of my friends are 70+, and do you know what is a striking similarity among those 85+? They're all extremely active. My boy Rollin got drafted...for Korea. He's 86 years old, and spends every single day at the Legion. He walks the mile and a half to the post every morning, does his exercises, waters all our planters, cleans the kitchen, takes out the trash, double checks the building for anything missed by our janitorial service, checks the freezers and fridges for anything expired, runs the recycling program I set up, slams a dozen Shiners, and as a proud Carpet Bagging Yankee south of the Mason Dixon Line keeps all us Southerners in line. My father was the county surveyor, which might not seem like a big deal, but the man who has absolute authority in where exactly your property line is is a man you respect and never **** with. He retired, did nothing, and didn't make it to 66. The day he retired he could rep 275 on the bench, curl 65, and squat 400(due to a bad knee), and had no family history of any illness. Europe and Asia respects their elders. America puts them in homes and waits for them to die.
Simplistic nonsense. You've been living in the US too long - it's catching. German lifespans are actually less than other European countries but as a whole Germans live 2-years more than Americans - for whatever the reason. Obesity is problem world-wide, but more so in developed countries. (Make love, not pizzas! ;^) And I happen to think diminished life-span is due to rampant obesity in the US. See the World Obesity Map for adults here. Wakey, wakey, boyz-'n-girlz ... !
When you don't pay the bill, you don't give a ****. With no cost or consequence to being an idiot, people make bad choices, which is why single payer systems always lead to higher costs. The US per capita expenditure for health care services is $6,600, while our single payer systems are drastically more
Secondary-schooling ends in high-school. Yes, Germany is very-good at bringing its youth into "apprenticeship programs". Those graduating (about 95%) are employed and employed! But these are considered as Tertiary Education programs and accounted for accordingly. Nonetheless, Germany is not doing as well as it should, as shown here: Percentage of 25 to 64 year olds with tertiary level educaton. It can and should do better ...
Isn't that more or less the case? Testing is perhaps a necessity but it is by no-means definitive. Many people simply have a difficult time deciding what they want to do with life. So they join the DoD, and if they don't get killed they do have a more sober understanding of their qualities. (Because surely there is some superior gruff enough to tell them.) The best test is trying, and failing downwards but not into hell. That is, you try at the highest level, and if it does not work to one's satisfaction, they get another chance at a lower level. However, such is a costly-process. But less costly than the effing-$564B that we spend on our Boyz 'n Girlz in khaki defending ourselves from only God-knows-what. The cheapest cost of putting a child through post-secondary schooling for: -Vocational certificate studies (1 year) @ $10K). -Associates Degree (2 years @ 10K per year) -Bachelors Degree (4 years@ 10K per year) Any of the above programs, if effectively passed, confer upon the individual a start in life far better than the armed-forces. (Unless, in the armed-forces, for instance, they learn something useful. Like piloting an airplane/helicopter, or even a drone). From the Rand Corporation, here: C'mon - is $10/20K (or thereabouts) annually too expensive to give our poor's children a chance to dig themselves out of a hole for which they are not the least bit responsible for having been born in it? Methinks not. For a two-year degree, that amount represents a whopping-figure of $30/40K ... Post Scriptum: I live in France, where it costs 800€ a year (multiply by 1.06 to get dollars) for tuition to a state post-secondary school. America has not yet understood the meaning of a Social Democracy! (And, if the course is vocational training - six-months to a year - the cost is nothing.)
