Capitalism threatens to throw us back to the Dark Ages

No schools are crappy primarily because they are funded from property taxes which obviously raise a hell of a lot less money in low income areas.

And what vocations are you going to train them for that can’t be automated or shipped overseas?

 

Yes, you're right. It's Macro that I'm talking about. Hey, it's been fifty-five years since I went through Samuelson in Econ 101.

 

So your view is that educational results are a function of the amount of money spent on schools?
Here's my proposal then: let's take a country with pretty good educational results, say, South Korea. And spend the same per student as they do.

 

No problem.

 

This is so obviously true.
I tutor kids (in the UK), and have frequently heard the complaint that, in their classes, a minority are disruptive. But nothing is done about it.
I am willing to believe that this minority are kids who are unable, or unwilling, to learn how to solve an unfavorable quadratic equation by completing the square.
They should be learning how to fix your central heating when it goes bad.

I taught part-time in a terrible school about twenty years ago, for one year. I taught the British equivalent of AP Computer Science. Some of the boys really didn't want to learn about floating point representation and compilation vs interpretation. But when I brought in my old micro, and we opened it up , and I started pointing out the CPU, the RAM, etc.... they were absolutely attentive. Unfortunately, the syllabus was entirely about abstractions. If we had spent most of our time learning machine code, while also learning about fixing cold solder joints (or whatever the equivalent is for modern hardware), they would have done brilliantly. But the syllabus is made up of academics, most of whom probably couldn't even change a tire on their own car.

So we absolutely should have some practical courses for kids who are not 'academic' .

And before anyone screams that this means condemning them to a life of poverty ... a joke for you:

A brain surgeon's central heating failed on a cold winter Saturday night. He rang a plumber, and asked him to come around immediately. The plumber agreed to, but reminded the surgeon that it wouldn't be cheap.

He arrived, and spent an hour fixing the problem. When he had done, he handed the surgeon his bill.
The surgeon looked at it, paled, and said ... 'Whoa .. this much for an hour's work. Well, okay... but, you know, I don't make this much, and I'm a brain surgeon."

And the plumber replied, "Yeah ... I didn't make that much when I was a brain surgeon, either."

 

And I've been made dependent. An ex-wife is an economist, a lecturer at the London School of Economics, so I've gotten in the
habit of asking her what's going on. (However, she's pretty cynical about the whole field. It's not really a science, dismal or otherwise, apparently.)

 

This is all true.
Now the question is, what policies can sensible compassionate people agree on, that might help break the 'cycle of poverty' for people unfortunate enough to be born to a single mother with no skills in an area with crap public schools.

Over the years, I've recommended that people read a book by Robert Cherry, called something like Welfare Transformed. .. here it is: https://www.amazon.com/Welfare-Transformed-Universalizing-Family-Policies-ebook/dp/B00WAEOCGM/ ... He's a liberal social scientist [actually, maybe not a liberal any more .. I've just started reading more about him ] who has studied
this problem and who makes, as I recall, some very sensible proposals, things that conservatives anyway ought to be able to support, IF they are not against government welfare programs in principle. (If they are, and some are, then of course the point is moot.)

And if you are on that part of the Left who sees all welfare recipients as innocent victims, people who are striving hard to raise a family, would take a job if they could find it, are absolutely not responsible one little bit for their own condition ... then of course this book will be of no interest, because it does not have those assumptions. In fact, the author wrote it after studying the so-called "Clinton welfare reforms", which he at first thought would be disastrous. But he concluded that this was not so, contrary to orthodox leftist thinking.

However, I don't think this is a topic that catches the interest of many people, because I've never had one single person, Left or Right, actually buy and read the book and then discuss it.

 

Actually almost went there for graduate studies. Have the same skepticism regarding "the social sciences." They received a huge boost after Kennedy said we need more scientists and began issuing grants for the sciences. Suddenly a lot of traditional liberal arts subjects became "sciences." Human behavior is tough to predict based on survey research and historical analysis leading to mathematical models that are suppose to be predictive. I don't begrudge the attempts as long as they aren't taken as seriously as the "pure sciences." Everything has its own probability and the social sciences still have a way to go.

 

OK, I'll say it again. Trump should not have disbanded the office of the CDC that was freaking CALLED the Paradigm Awareness Office in 2017. If he hadn't done that it is a good chance this epidemic would have never happened, at the very least we would have been a good deal better prepared for it.

Just about every DOCTOR, (not pol or pundit) has emphasized the absolute common sense conclusion that his travel bans are locking the barn door while the horse is running down the road. Once the disease is OUT we have to talk about mitigation, not containment.

Oh, and there's Breaking News, US now has the MOST cases of the disease worldwide. Yay FOX, Lying ****** pieces of fetid FECES, stinking TURDS of total bullshit falsehoods. How can ANYONE believe ANYTHING they say?

 

Boy is that ever true! You are probably familiar with the "replication crisis" going on now.
Even in psychology, the most 'scientific' of the social 'sciences', you have to take everything with a grain of salt.
I'm always amused by those studies, usually based on fifteen students, that show that conservatives are suffering from some sort of brain irregularity -- apparently, my views on Edmund Burke and Robert Nozick and the Socialist Calculation Question are a function either of (1) a shrunken anterior cingulate cortex, or (2) an enlarged amygdala. Talk about mechanical materialism!!!
Or then there's the "Smart people are liberal, stupid ones are conservative" because "Trump's supporters didn't go to college"... I mean, don't these people know any history? Traditionally, it's been the (educated) middle and upper classes who were on the Right, and the (poorly-educated) working class who were on the Left. Hitler's coming to power in Germany was preceded a year and a half earlier by the Nazi student association coming to power in the German university students' union (where the struggle was between traditional rightwing aristos, and the upstart Nazis.)

The only social science research I really try to follow is mathematics education ... and everything there is so clearly ideological. The leading luminary in this field is an English lady at Stanford, Jo Boaler, who believes children shouldn't have to learn their times tables! I mean, why should you know that 3x4 is 12, if you're sound on the racist nature of America?

In the UK, we also have crappy state schools. But in a brief moment of conservatism, the Conservatives allowed the creation of Free Schools -- charter schools on steroids. One of them was started by a former state school teacher who blew the whistle on how terrible education was in her state school -- and was promptly sacked. Her school is VERY traditional -- very very strict. Most of the kids are non-white ... it's in a 'deprived', mainly-immigrant area. They can't run in the halls, they can't talk between class ... really very Victorian. Lunchtime is very formal -- it's "please pass the salt" and "thank you"... she's raising them to be ladies and gentlemen, not me-me-me pigs.

Of course the Left absolutely went nuts -- they HATE this school and moved heaven and earth to prevent its opening. Anyway, it started about five or six years ago ... with an initial intake of 11 year olds, I think... and they progressed, year after year, towards what in the UK is the culmination of your secondary education: the GCSE Exams, taken when you're 16. (GCSE= General Certificate of Secondary Education).

We all held our breath ... how would her school do in these exams?- (The school is named 'Michaela' after a deceased friend of the Headmistress who started the school.)

And ... they achieved absolutely STELLAR results!!! WAY ahead of all the state schools. I won't give all the boring figures here, but believe me, it exceeded expectations by a lot.

Naturally, the Left remained silent. And so did the Right, by the way. Over here, all the Conservative ; politicians, and a significant chunk of the conservative middle class send their children to private schools. They couldn't care less about what happens to working class kids, especially if they're not white. Hey, someone's got to empty the bed pans and clean the toilets.

But to me, genuine conservatives -- and anyone on the Left who really cares about the education of working class children -- ought to be shouting about this from the rooftops and demanding more Micheala Schools. It shows the need for genuine School Choice (A friend of mine has just written a book about this, by the way: .[ https://www.amazon.com/School-System-Reform-Price-less-Tale/dp/1645599612/ ]

It really ought to be an area where we could get together with sensible liberals, but the US is so insanely divided now that I suppose this is impossible.

 

Okay, we got it.

Now, suppose I, as a nasty old rightwinger, agree with you. That is, I wish Trump were other than what he is. I wish I were running the country instead of him. But I'm not,and he is. I understand you oppose him, as you would oppose any rightwinger, any Republican, who was president. Of course. And I have been around long enough not to trust any mass media, certainly not CNN etc with their lying cover-ups about race, . and also not Fox news, although I think there is more diversity of thought there than on the mainstream media.

Now what? I'm supposed to vote for .... Joe Biden next year? Or Elizabeth Warren? With her lies about the martyred victim Michael Brown??? No thanks . (Now Major Gabbard ... that would bear thinking about.)

The reality is, the way a lot of us on the Right see it anyway, is this: we're no longer in the normal left-vs-right political situation: we win, then you win, then we win, then you win, and America glides along, swinging a little left, then back to the right. You regulate, we de-regulate, you regulate some more. You pass some liberal welfare measures, we get in power, grumble, but don't dismantle them. We roll back some of the worst welfare abuses, you get in power, and don't reinstate the bad bits. Politics as usual.

We don't think that model applies any more. Trump is what we're stuck with, for the moment. And the thing is, all his Republican rivals were just business-as-usual, corporate Republicans, like corporate Hillary, happy to see American jobs exported, happy to watch the white working class become lumpenized like the Blacks, happy to engage in endless foreign wars ostensibly to bring the Enlightenment to savage tribes (in realty to feed the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned us against). He was he only one who challenged them. He's the one we have now.

You have to go to war with the army you've got, and it's not the first time that good soldiers had to fight under incompetent leaders -- see the history of the Union armies in the Civil War, before Lincoln put Grant in charge.

it's not anything that would interest you, but for us on the Right the question is: what comes After Trump, within the Republican Party? Will it go back to business as usual, and be happy being a permanent minority party? Still plenty of lobbyists' bribes to be shared about, even for a minority party.

Or will we succeed in taking over and transforming the Party?

 

My library is closed and I'm not going to spend money before I have a chance to see if they can get it even though it's not on Marina Loan service. It may be at a college. I have it bookmarked.

 

This is precisely where we went so wildly wrong .. outsourcing our 'co-dependence' to what you refer to as communities. IOW, strangers.

 

No it isn't. It's the quality of parenting you receive. Good parenting is entirely free. The poorest person can be an exceptional parent, and the richest can be terrrible. Consider some of the godawful 'parenting' that comes out of Hollywood, or any sector of huge wealth. Kids with all sorts of problems.

 

Oh you already have, and you're happily living in your own little bubble and you probably will continue doing so after you and ALL your ilk are gone in November, assuming we can leave our houses to vote by then.

Or do you honestly believe that you will win in November after being through this?

We aren't just objecting to being led by incompetent generals, most of us don't even want to be in your ****** stupid war.

 

Tell me, is there ANY stereotype that you don't believe in? Parenting is like anything else. How good a job you do depends upon how hard you try AND on the resources available to you. Poor people can and often do try mightily and many do a very good job, but in the end what do they say about silk purses and sow's ears?

And the major influence upon how you turn out isn't your parents. It's your peer group growing up.

 

We agree there.

 

Good parenting is NOT a function of wealth, it's a function of character. You cannot buy good character. I have no idea why you think you can.

100% of the 18 year old is parenting. Who they choose to associate with (ie, peers), is a direct result of that parenting.

 

Interesting. I am afraid that my own children have raised my grandchildren with the belief that "life should always be "fun." Perhaps the global pandemic will teach us new lessons.

 

He's written some books since, as well, and I have a very sensible paper from him. I don't think i would be allowed to just post the whole thing here. If you -- and anyone else who wants one -- PM me with an email address, i will send you a copy. It's interesting reading, and I think a lot of people on the Left would agree with it, since it's got practical advice, based on experience, for how to tackle Black poverty.

 

Why do you keep repeating that fallacious canard?

 

But fewer the quicke we get them the available loans to keep them liquid and people on the payrolls and the Dems are hellbent on delaying that and not fully funding that.

 

I agree totally. I don't think your children are entirely wrong, either. It's how you define "fun". I've always reacted badly to the "Math Is Fun" slogan you see a lot in my trade. A blatant lie. However, success at Math can be deeply satisfying. It's sort of like mountain-climbing. "Fun" is not the right word. It's better than that. (If you are a mountain climber which I am decidedly not.)

What's interesting, is that when reporters go to this school -- including ones from our leftist newspaper, the Guardian -- they report that they kids really LOVE their school.

I think it may be related to the phenomenon of Marine Boot Camp. Hour-by-hour, your experience in Boot Camp; (and in Army Basic Combat Training, as I can personally testify) is not much fun. But ... you know that you're going go come out of it with something people who haven't been through it don't have and could not have. It builds pride in you. "I'm a Marine." This has changed the lives of many young men from rough backgrounds ... for one thing, it shows that you can be hard and tough and masculine, without being anti-social. In fact, by being PRO-social, in the most important way that there is.

My best friend from the age of six had exactly this experience: he fell in with the wrong people, or maybe they fell in with him, dropped out of high school, and at age 18 or 19 found himself in front of a judge who gave him the option of five years at Huntsville State Prison, or five years in the Marine Corps. (I don't think they're allowed to do that today.) He made the right decision, and it was the making of him.

There is a section of the Left which works hard to prevent the military from recruiting in the schools. Another example of how they actually hurt the very people they are supposed to want to help.

 

Have a look at the work of the late Judith Rich Harris, summarized here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Rich_Harris