Submit Your Three Point Plan For Education

In politics, whether Republican/Conservative or Democrat/Liberal, the education issue is largely never really addressed. When it is brought up, it is often given the umbrella response "We like education and we want to improve it to, insert campaign pitch here".

So, without resorting to political antagonisms, I wanted to ask people what are the three most important steps you would take to improving the education system?

For example:

1. Professional Certification Requirements and Re-qualification Standards:

A teacher must demonstrate that they are able to handle all areas of teaching, from knowledge of the material to leadership and guidance in the classroom. This standard must be maintained throughout their educational career (this breaks the teacher unions policy of retaining unproductive, unqualified teachers under employment)

2. Money:

There is a difference between simply throwing money at a problem and applying money effectively. Whatever changes occur in the educational system will come with a price.

3. Organization:

Over-crowded schools are one of the problems that face the education system, along with such questionable practices such as "placing all the bad kids in a single spot". The educational network of not just the stat, but the entire nation should be one of the strongest and most principal networks in the nation. Each major step of the education system (Kindergarten, Elementary, High School, College) should have strong communication with the step above it, if not with every step. Ideas should flow easily between all three. Statistics, problems, successes, and failures should be communicated because the educational system, itself, is supposed to be a constantly learning, constantly evolving system.

 

1. Track students take the top 20% and send them into a pre-university track unless they want to learn a trade and for the rest have a three tier apprenticeship low ability, middle ability and high ability using High School or High School/Community College to prepare students for a career. Have state universities be a low cost option for the top students say 10% graduating from the bachelors to graduate level. The goal is for all students upon leaving High School to either have a career skills set for entry-level, go into a two year program (or graduate with a High School Diploma and an Associates Degree) or be ready for the University level studies. Simply assume not all students are college material or need college and offer alternatives employers will respect.

2. Find out what businesses need in the way of workers and get them involved in the standards and training.

3. Base testing the FCAT in Florida the assessment state tests on what skills are needed for employment after High School say able to do 50% of jobs and practical literacy and mathematics skills overview aiming for a fair base standard say able to do 10th grade work upon graduation. Have this a clear standard not prone to frills. Those on a university track could substitute the ACT or SAT tests.

 

1) Move every teacher instructed lecture to a electronic platform, that is keyed to learning styles(audio, visual, doing). Test knowledge before moving forward.

2) Students move through material as fast as the individual can with a expectation of mastery of each subject.

3)Classroom becomes for projects, and group learning activities.

 

1. School choice. Allow students to choose from schools within their district.
2. Allow schools the flexibility to do things differently from other schools.
3. Reduce standardized tests to three--1) to go from elementary to middle school; 2( to go from middle school to high school and 3) to graduate high school.

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1. School choice. Allow students to choose from schools within their district.
2. Allow schools the flexibility to do things differently from other schools.
3. Reduce standardized tests to three--1) to go from elementary to middle school; 2( to go from middle school to high school and 3) to graduate high school.

 

As usual, Netties just copycat from a restricted list of ideas presented to them by self-appointed authorities who never would have gotten their high positions in a healthy system. Logically, those who are "successful" in a failed system are really failures.

A reform that is original and untainted by references to these authorities would be to educate children in a way they naturally organize themselves. Divide classes into teams, quizzing them frequently. The team that gets the highest scores will get Friday off; the team with the lowest will have to come in on Saturdays. As an immediate reward for achievement in a system replacing one that ineffective preaches the unnatural "study hard now and get rewarded for it 5 to 20 years from now," high-scoring students from four grades higher will get paid for teaching the Saturday classes.

Also impractical is this idea that students should be channeled into trades. Those students will start earning a living at age 18 while high-scoring students are expected to live in poverty in the class-biased indentured servitude of our university system. That obsolete aristocratic institution must be replaced with highly paid professional training. It is undeniable that such a natural incentive will attract the most talented students and get them to study. No other outcome is valid. Today's system is attractive only to rich kids living off an allowance and the type of people who don't mind working without pay until they are 22. If they have so little respect for themselves, why should we respect today's class-climbing college graduates? Sacrifice has no merit; it is only brown-nosing. If we don't pay someone for his grades, he isn't worth anything. If we don't pay someone while he is in college, we get what we pay for. Since even the restricted talent pool that can tolerate today's slave system produced a half-million dollars each to the economy, society can profit many times that if it is willing to finance healthy incomes for all students. What kind of football team would a college be able to recruit if the athletes had to live like the rest of the students? That shows how limited the rest of the students are, and their 6th Grade knowledge of a basic subject like English proves that accusation.

Electives and core courses should be eliminated and learned in high school instead. To young adults, these are leisure-class pursuits designed to eliminate people who don't have the Daddy-financed leisure to indulge in them. Law school and medical school should not require a bachelor's degree for admission. If people can't handle the work at age 18, they don't deserve to be in those professions.

 

For starters, that sentence is grammatically illogical and leads to a dysfunctional thought process. It should be replaced with "Teachers must demonstrate that they are able... The only pronoun for a singular antecedent is "he," not "he or she" or "they." Your error was forced upon society by radical feminists who, disproving their whining about equality, emotionally and illogically demanded that "they" be used to refer to a singular. If you think "he" is wrong, you know definitely that "they" is wrong, so why do you let such mentally deficient freaks bully you into that usage? More proof is in the consequences of using such a brain-damaging construction, using it also in "I met someone from there and they said it was fun," when you know the gender of the person you are referring to and can use the singular for that without being afraid of the objections of femininnies.

 

1. Stop pushing for colleges as the only option.
Bring back vocational classes. Let students themselves decide what they want to do, instead of forcing them into a college. We have to send the message that colleges aren't the only way to have a successful and happy life.

2. Repeal No Child left behind.
Taking tests can only improve skills so much. Real life experience is much better. For instance, making students do speeches develops public speaking skills. That then leads to confidence when speaking. Marking A,B,C, or D on a scantron isn't going to develop those skills.

3. Increase number of electives.
The fact it took me until 10th grade to realize I'm good at public speaking should not have occured. I had very few opurtinities to practice public speaking, because there were no classes for it, other than a language class. And even then, it's not just about speaking. When you broaden the horizon, students can take more oppurtinites to do what they want to do.

 

I have no idea what you're trying to say here...

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Don't expect me to fall for that. You have no excuse to use the plural in reference to a singular, so you have to pretend you don't understand. He has always been used for "he or she." Before the unnecessary word she was coined, he originally meant "he or she." All it means is "this person," just like the related word here means "this place." I notice your signature uses it correctly, instead of "for a crime they have gotten away with," but perhaps that is because it is politically correct to use he in reference to a criminal.

 

Well, to be honest, a lot of things that are traditional and historical are also lacking in terms of respect to certain people. He, by definition, does not mean 'he' or 'she' so why would I use it like that. In actuality, it is the traditional use of the word that was wrong all along, corrected now by political...and grammatical...correctness.

Well, at the High School level and below, it’s generally not about occupational indoctrination as much as it is about general education. That means giving each student/citizen a healthy background on a diversity of subjects. This enables them to see a broader concept of the world and it’s possibilities rather than pigeon-holing them into a certain curriculum from the start. By aligning corporate/occupational interests with education you get that regimentation where it becomes less about education and more about market satisfaction. I can see the sense in what you say, but I’d generally keep that kind of thing at the college level.

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I likey Number One . Unfortunately, I suppose it interferes with profits to be had at selling ridiculously priced books and such. I had once proposed that all learning textbooks and the like should be available on the internet. Everything, from educational pie charts, lectures, physics, math, biology, and all that in incremental degrees of scholarship from kindergarten to college and beyond. It would be the most common sense thing to do as it would provide a free, almost omnipresent reference for the student willing to advance his own education. But since it takes away from the money gained by pushing students through rigig curriculum’s with questionable material, you’re likely to either remain anchored to textbooks and all that, or have to pay for digital copies…the same price mind you, even though th actual effort of providing the material is reduced.

#2 presents a problem of balance. A teacher can’t really privately attend to children who move at different speeds because it’s almost like asking them to teach on two or three different levels for each classroom- almost effectively asking them to teach three different things at once. But I see your point and it’s a good one. They do have the policy of allowing kids who believe they are more advanced than the level they are on to test up into the next grade. I think that’s pretty fair.

#3 is actually funny because that’s how it’s supposed to be. A more kinetic interaction between students and teachers and among themselves has been proposed before. It’s actually a quite common proposal and shown to work. I suppose it’s all up to the teachers ability to create that environment, especially considering bureaucratic impediments that might be thrown in their path.

 

#1 I suppose it might be different in other places, but we were allowed to choose our high school in NYC. Or, at least, we submitted a request and waited to be accepted.

#2 I agree to an extent. So long as the education meets it base requirements, a teacher should be free in their approach to that, or how they chose to supplement it.

#3 Not sure how that would affect things. Not that it would not improve anything, I’m just not too familiar with its impact on education.

 

The team cooperation among students is not a new thing. Some teachers have even proved remarkably innovative in facilitating not only that kind of environment, but actually giving children a sort of free-choice environment- like Lord of the Flies with more education and less manslaughter.

What’s also been presented is the counterproductive effect of the reward system, which motivates the winners while demotivating those who don’t learn as quickly, and it teaches kids- immorally I suppose- to chase after rewards and titles, or to always expect compensation for effort or an achievement.

I see what you’re saying here. I agree with your first statement that it’s impractical to channel students into trades, but only for High School and below. But, in my opinion, I think that even at the college level, higher education and occupational training should be separate. That’s to say that if you want a higher degree of general education, you follow the educational road, while if you are attending to advance yourself towards a given trade, you follow a road specifically tailored to that while not having the two mashed together. I find that a method of profiteering.

I do see a problem in the fact that only the rich can afford college. There are grants and the like available, but they don’t completely cover costs for all students, and loans do the opposite- defer immediate payment while increasing that amount with interest. But I also don’t see how this problem will be solved by having everyone pay for it- which is state or federally funded higher education. There is a good deal of lay-abouts in high school already. Giving them another four year free ride seems as wasteful and non-productive.

The second problem is that even public education is not there for the public benefit, but the state. The state finds it more beneficial to have citizens who meet the basic educational standards rather than an illiterate populace. So they chose to provide and pay for that service to each citizen, it’s not an automatic right. Neither is higher education. Technically, you don’t need a higher degree of education. If you want it, you’ll have to pay for the service. The price certainly is debatable, but it won’t be free, one way or the other. The advantage that people who have money have access to this system is regrettable, though. I actually heard of a sort of initiative advocating for a return to apprenticeship, where a student is taken in by a “trade-guild” or sorts that covers the prices in return for a future worker. The cost of the training can be deducted from future earnings, or current labor, and students who default on the training would have to repay the trade school the money for their effort.

And, unfortunately, I do believe it a matter of observation that the country actually depends on the under-educated. Even if everyone was to have a higher education, that would leave the nation with a huge population of people who believed they are entitled to something better than serving in a restaurant, cleaning a building, or driving a taxi. But all these kinds of services still play important roles in our society. Without these undesirable jobs, our country would look a lot worse, so the unspoken truth is that civilization needs an under-class society who will either be educated and forced to work here or who have no options other than having to work there. There’s information about this sort f thing that borders on the outright creepy when you realize this is a thing the government has to take into consideration- one of life’s ugly truths.

I disagree here. We already have the problem with teachers who don’t know what they are doing gaining employment and being retained, despite consistent evidence of that fact. Educational standards for vital positions such as doctors and teachers must be kept to a level of integrity. Lawyers, I can only wonder, as being a lawyer does not border completely on the moral side of civilization. It should, but it doesn't. I’d keep the standards or such people like doctors, engineers, and the like high. It’s quality assurance at the least.

 

#1 Agreed, but College’s will spend tooth and nail to lobby against such a motive. There’s good money in being the “gateway to gainful employment”.

#2 Innovative ways to educate have been proposed, but they combat bureaucratic bullcrap constantly. I’ve heard some teachers complain about the problems they have to deal with between educational requirements, resources provided, and restrictions imposed.

When renovating the education system, the problem is that people try to attack the problem at the lowest level, which is the teacher, rather than the source, which is the education administration up to the national executive level. They are the people you should be bringing the heat down on, but seeing as they are not directly elected by the people, the task is hard.

#3 I could see facilitating every possible career path a problem. There’s only so much variety a school can provide without being overstretched and inefficient. Some people may very well be left to go it alone. It sounds like it would be lumped in with an Arts or Communication’s Degree, which bare their own stigma’s in terms of perception. It’s a good point to bring up, I’m just not sure how it can be serviced with practicality.

 

#1 I don't just mean high schools. I mean elementary and middle schools as well.
#2 Not the teachers, the schools. My wife works at a school that has an integrated curriculum. The teachers teach as a team, and all subjects (except math) are taught as part of a thematic 12-week unit. Schools need to be able to institute ideas like that.
#3 Standardized tests are taking most of the time and resources of schools. Teachers are teaching towards the test. Many schools spend literally a month of test prep.

 

Gotcha, and agree with all. It would be nice to see changes toward these things.

 

NO general education to me should be in grades k-8 that is where you can teach the basics needed to be in society, explore things, make students try areas they are not good at and push them and elevate areas they are good at with more options perhaps. Let me ask by the end of eighth grade didn't you know American History, fundamental math and use of english, science to some degree and other areas why hammer these away again in High School for all students?

In the German model they assume students by then have the breadth of basic knowledge and then focus after that on some adding to that and either an apprenticeship [80% of students] or the university [20% of students] the cases in both a solid program to get them ready for the next step. Either working which is the norm and that is for careers here you would likely need college for or on to a university which is very affordable so ones social class doesn't matter there will be no large debts.

I will add is our system fair to the poor now? If your poor you likely can't afford to go past the free High School education and if your going to go on to school which is now needed for almost every career since nothing is offered in High School now, costs money that means debts on someones part. Unless you join the military and get career training there.

I just feel if a student leaves High School they should be productive either working or going into a college or university and those should be for the best students. I will not exclude joint High School with Community College programs in this either that is also a good option but not for all students.

 

I wonder. Even as working adults, a lot of people question their current occupations and would rather work somewhere else. Making children decide on occupational preferences at High School might be similar to asking a kid what he wants to be when he grows up. Their answers are usually limited, and at the High School level, kids might not have a good idea of the breadth of their choices, or even their own strengths and weaknesses. It's all debatable though, and I can see real merits with your points.

Also, I find most adults knowledge of history and the sciences to be generally horrible. I think concepts are taught to students rather than actually educating them. The learning is usually in bullet format, which allows them to pass a test and meet school quota's, after which this knowledge, limited as it is, vanishes except for hazy bullet points. So I feel that high school and below can devote a greater amount of time in providing a sound education rather than pumping out laborers.

I see what you mean. But adding trade schools to the High School educational system would require money and great resources to provide adequate training material and shops for many areas....for every school. This is a great cost and one the US government is not likely going to shoulder. If they did make such a decision, our taxes would spike. Adding to that, I'd worry about the quality of those programs as well.

But, is Germany a functioning model of this? It would be interesting to see how these things turn out.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Germany

Yes they have a pretty good selection of options but in the end there are low apprenticeships in the last stage of compulsory eduction as in you attend school some days and work at a company other days to get on the job training, which companies must take when assigned under the national system. There are academic prep options for the university bound and that level of education is either free or very inexpensive as far as tuition goes so a gifted poor child can go to that level of learning.

I will note in the high tier apprenticeships are an option offering careers that here would require college but in Germany don't.

As for general education how much basic knowledge is needed that is key, I'm not saying the K-8 level doesn't need beefing up. As for trade education there are options have two years of general education and two years of a community college or workplace learning options with some education at a High School. For example say someone wants to after career exploration be a working cook and earn a American Culinary Federation certification. Okay they could do this under a model have two years general education, then two years with two days in school getting theory and support classes and work at a restaurant three days a week to get the practice starting low level. Then at the end of High School would get a High School diploma, certificate in Professional Cookery from the state and the ACF card.

I'm not saying take out other options a person doing this should be able to go for a community college degree or into the military or anything else but would leave with a clear skill set and be able to work.

 

1.) I agree with tracking students, for a lot of reasons.

Most kids and their parents assume that their kids are "good enough" for whatever they want. All of our kids are supposed to be above average. There are very obvious problems with this. First off, it's really not fair to a low performing child to push him to a university when he's perhaps only marginally able to do that level of work. He's not learning to do the kinds of things he can excel in while at the same time learning skills that he most likely will not be using once he graduates. This is at least partially to blame for the OWS people who were pushed into a college track and ended up with no job skills and a large debt who now serve our lattes. I think they would have been better off to have gone to a trade school and learned to fix HVAC or plumbing or be a nurse or something like that. Secondly, it devalues the education that the elite students get at university. When you have to graduate a class and half of those students should not have qualified to be in that class, you have very little choice but to dumb-down the curriculum of that subject. That means introductory classes for computer majors must treat all students as if they've never heard of a computer before. It means treating science majors like they have a junior high understanding of chemistry (an atom, what's that?), and it means in general wasting a semester getting kids up to college level before you teach them anything worthwhile. When half of the student body of a university needs remedial coursework in basic Math, Science and English, all that tells me is that the college classes are twice as big as they need to be. The other side effect of having a large portion of students who have no business in a university is that it devalues the degrees of the people who DO belong there. College degrees are no longer a sign that you are smarter than average because most people now go to college. Going to college today is what going to high school was in 1960. It's a sign of basic literacy, not a recommendation. Bosses are no longer impressed with universities on your resume because everyone goes to college. Even the fools answering the phone in the call center usually have at least and AA degree from the Community College. Which means that you need to have an MS or MBA to get noticed.

2.) I'm in favor of standardized testing.

Standardized testing has a few things going for it. First of all, done right (as in no multiple choice questions, lots of essay and problem solving questions) it's really a good way to get a handle on what a child actually knows at that point in his life. If he reads a paragraph and cannot give an accurate summary of the subject without helpful prompts, he's functionally illiterate. If he can't solve for X, he doesn't understand algebra. I think such tests are good because the prevent social promotion and other cheating. When the school hands out A's like candy, without a rigorous test to check up on things, there's no way to detect a problem until you put the graduates to work. Then you'll find that he's unable to take inventory because he thinks that 3*15 is 35 rather than 45, or that he can't read a sales report and figure out why nobody wants to buy widgets. It's much better to find and correct problems in the early years, before they get to the point of not being able to keep up. The same tests would also be useful to keep schools on track. The goal is literate and numerate citizens, and testing makes sure that we get that. If a school consistently fails to teach kids how to read, that school should be held accountable to meet those standards.

3.) Stop funding local schools out of property taxes.

The problem with funding districts out of property taxes is that it's completely uneven and ends up providing the most resources to the richest districts where students are already ahead of the curve. That also means that kids in poor district who grows up in a drug infested ghetto also has the worst textbooks, the least qualified teachers, and the fewest resources to move out of that neighborhood. So while the sons of doctors and lawyers who have their own iPads at home also get to take computer classes in state-of-the-art computer labs, while the poor kids who might have a used kindle also have to use 20 year old textbooks. It means that the more advantages you have, the more you get, which seems like the worst possible way to send out the resources. Give the poor kids a chance.

 

Was it politically incorrect tradition or was it logic that prevented using the plural to refer to a singular? We can't have three words in the singular: one masculine, one feminine, and one to refer to cases where the gender of the person referred to is undetermined. That would be clumsy, just as "he or she" is clumsy. Using the plural for this singular was forced on us by irrational and demanding feminist extremists. The extent of its use shows what power that group has. Even extreme anti-feminists use it, unaware that they are being manipulated. Another proof that something is wrong is what it leads to. "I met someone who was there and they said..." when obviously the speaker knows the gender of the person referred to and can safely use the appropriate singular without fear of being bullied by femininnies on account of using it. Also on this slippery slope is using the singular for the plural, "All politicians are a liar," indicated the desired result of these enemies of society is to make us stupid about numbers. 1 never equals greater than 1.

 

In sports, winning has proved to be its own reward. But in school, that won't work. It doesn't matter why it won't work, it just doesn't. So teachers who use my system without the reward of getting Friday off or the punishment of having to come in on Saturday will fail to achieve results. The teams will be balanced in ability, so the less able students will still be able to be on the winning team or avoid having their team get punished. To teach students not to expect rewards is exactly what the parasite employers want. The present slave system works perfectly for those who control it.

A student should be paid in college more than he would make at that age if he doesn't go to college. The present indentured servitude is the exact opposite of that. As for paid students loafing, they would be fired. Preparation is the most important part of production, so students must be treated like any other employees. Second, since everybody would want to study for college and go there in my system, automatically only the most talented students would go to college, which is far from the case today. I was a National Merit scholar, but I didn't feel any incentive in spending years working without pay, which is all college means under the present obsolete aristocratic system. Also, I realized that if my "reward" for having talent was to submit to such a childish, depressing, and insulting lifestyle, then I didn't trust the next stage, which as it turned out, would have been becoming a highly paid workoholic zombie with no time or energy for a personal life and a Dilbert experience at work. Sacrifice has no merit; it's just a set-up for more economic bullying. The reward of missing your youth in college is like a situation where, if you lived on bread and water for four years, you could eat free at expensive restaurants the rest of your life. The permanent indigestion caused by the sacrifice would nullify the enjoyment of the reward. I see a lot of bitterness in class-climbers who graduated from college. They think they are owed something for being such pathetic brown-noses. Their destruction of the economy proves that college education is a fraud and should not be rewarded. Replace this with highly paid professional training and you'll get the most naturally talented students and get them to study. Any country that pays students for their grades will create widespread prosperity. And health too: the reason we haven't cured cancer is because an oncologist doesn't earn a living until he is 30, which excludes anyone with any pride. Swallow your pride and you will choke your talent. But Americans are so intimidated into supporting this unnatural system that they think cancer must be almost impossible to cure, "because we have the smartest people working on it." Not true at all, we only have escapist freaks who were afraid to grow up.

The rich know that dropping out is caused totally by not being paid in college, so they make sure that their own children are paid a high salary in the form of allowance. Tuition is paid to the university, so they let us propose free tuition as an answer because they know that is far from enough of an incentive. The employers have no right to tell us to do it on our own; they only have the right to tell that to their own children, which they wouldn't dare to. High IQs should make them pay for not paying us. Instead of becoming humble Cash Cows for such parasites, we should use our brains to confiscate their stolen wealth.

Another hypocrisy is that the universities know perfectly well how to attract the best natural talent and give them incentives to develop themselves---in sports. But giving the same rewards (expensive housing, expensive food, and expensive entertainment) to superior brains would pay back the university with endowments far more than they now get from sports revenues. But under the present insult to intelligence, ifI had crippled myself by graduating from college and became a billionaire, I wouldn't give a dime to the university for the depressing experience I would have had there.

Even with the Diploma Dumboes the present slave system attracts, each graduate contributes a half million dollars to the economy. By paying $200, 000 each, we would get many times the profit we get by paying nothing at all. Prove that by answering what kind of college football team would we get if the athletes had to live like the rest of the students, like children, scraping by on part-time jobs. That shows how inferior the rest of the students are.

Giving the right people the right incentive to develop themselves benefits business and society. But it's treated like all majors were in Casino Gambling, of benefit only to the graduates (as in the movie "21"). A society that treats talented people like indentured slaves get the fall of civilization that it deserves. One of the most pathetic lines in that movie was when the MIT genius turned gambler said, "This was the first time in my life I ever got rewarded for using my brains." The insulting phrase that achievement is its own rewarded is designed by the economic parasites to ignore how insulting this system is. Its similar to when would-be millionaire athletes were told to play for the love of the game.

 

There's too much simplicity here between the two of us that ignores a lot of factors associated with this problem. Proper education isn't an easy thing to decide on because you are invariably balancing the interests of the child between those of the state as well as the society. Both try to be the authority on what a kid should and should not be learning and both have the potential to railroad the child's own preferences. I'd say that, at the least, the teaching method and policy would be situation and would depend largely on who's being taught.

That's kind of funny how you say college students are brown-nosing. In some sense, that is exactly what they are doing, going to college to butter up an employer with an impressive degree. I also found it a bit true how you say that college is a system of work without pay, which is actually work as an indentured servant, which can also be a true representation of college students as moss take on great debts that must be worked off in society. I'm not sure if this is a puposely orchestrated system designed to oppress society or the natural evolution of a business model designed to reap as much profit as it can, but I do find the large amounts of money one has to pay daunting to consider. If you aren't a doctor, engineer, or successful lawyer, you will spend a considerable part of your life working off that debt, and you'd be lucky to be able to do it without amassing other debts like car loans and the like. People work through these things and they take pride in that without realizing that you shouldn't have to work like dogs for the basic requirements of civilization. You shouldn't have to go through life with a survivor mentality, and that kind of thinking is ultimately bred through this kind of system. Life seems to be an economic gauntlet in this respect.

All the same, I don't think you will be able to create efficiency by subsidizing higher education. It will be very expensive, I think. But, it certainly could be covered if we took money away from overblown "defense/offense" initiatives (most of which are not even included in the official statistic of national defense spending). In that sense, we could spend and have cash to spare. Money is needed and equal access is ideal, but efficiency is something totally different and it would require a system of filters and sensors to continuously update and correct a fluid system of educational achievement.

Diploma Dumbo's

Yeah, there are certainly a lot of those, especially in this age of predatory colleges which push students into these systems using the lure of better careers as bait. Most of these students are getting degrees in vanishing job markets like aviation technician- currently being outsourced to Mexico and Europe, but the amount of students enrolling in the course escalate. We are all aware of the infamous arts, communications, and philosophy majors. Almost worthless...for you. Lucrative for them.

I don't think there is an explicit malign agenda here. Modern college's are being built on business models with profit as the major issue and you will get the pitfalls that come with that ideology. Other financiers will certainly exploit the trends that come out of this as their job is to make money off the flow of money, but I doubt this was an initiative by a tyrannical government. It should be fixed, however. Intended or not, it's kinda rocking out of control and hopefully we make some headway with it in the future.

 

Typical of the copycat Internet, all these proposals here are borrowed from successes in a failed system, which makes those people losers. They have been our pacesetters in this race to the bottom. As we spiral into darkness, any original idea, such as what would motivate students, is answered with "I've never heard that before, so it must be stupid." We shouldn't just be concerned about failures, we should start questioning the legitimacy of those who successfully completed the present system and were rewarded with influential positions. We should not imitate those above us. They put themselves there and are pushing us down.