Comments on: Report: U.S. Schools Not Making The Grade

High-Powered Panel Warns That American Kids Can't Compete With Global Peers

[agnim]

"I believe that if U.S. employers paid workers better and offered better job security more young people in this country would go to college to become engineers,scientists,mechanics,machinist
s,computer engineers,etc.

Posted by newsjeff at 04:34 PM : Dec 15, 2006"

Good point.

But how about youngsters and their families seeing to their education so that the graduates can GROW UP AND BEGIN THEIR OWN ENTERPRISE?

See, the pursuit of knowledge is not about others egging you on: It's also about children and their families TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR OWN SELF DEVELOPMENT!

[sailorsgrave]

On the plus side as long as we keep our students practically illiterate we'll have plenty of soldiers to fight our illegal wars. The glass is half full.

[newsjeff-2009]

I think that our GOP political leaders love to say that all young Americans:young working Americans and young teenagers are uneducated and unskilled as a reason to push for a "guest worker program"or a reason to justify employers in America hiring illegal immigrants for cheap wages,or shipping American jobs overseas or giving American jobs to illegal immigrants, or all of what I just said. I am a democrat, but even I said that senator Kerry should appologize for what he said about U.S.Military personel, Kerry may have meant it as a joke or insult toward Bush and the Iraq war, but some people I know do not join the military just to fight a war, many U.S. military personel are people that joined that wanted the pay and benefits and pride that come from serving in the U.S. military, and many are people that are smart,college educated people. I believe that if U.S. employers paid workers better and offered better job security more young people in this country would go to college to become engineers,scientists,mechanics,machinists,computer engineers,etc.

[agnim]

"The government wants our kids uneducated. The dumber the better. .....The rich want to rule the world their kids will go to private schools and follow in their foot steps.

Posted by nadeau4201 at 12:33 PM : Dec 15, 2006"

Dam, guy!

You are EXACTLY right on 200%! LOL

[magister3]

["I am really worried about where this country is," says ex-Sen. Bill Brock, a former Secretary of Labor. "We've got an information world, we're networked to the rest of the world, it's a global economy and we're not preparing our young people for that world."]

This is incredibly platitudinous. What specifically should students know to prepare for this brave new networked world?

[pendragon679]

Our public schools have been in trouble for over 40 years. For the record, I graduated high school in 1974, spent 2 years in business school, failed out of a business admin. program in community college, worked 4 years, went back to college, and got a degree in education. When I saw the mess in the public schools, I became so turned off that I never spent day 1 in front of a classroom. When Jimmy Carter made education a cabinet post, I thought it a good idea. Now I see how wrong that was. We need to get government OUT of the business of education & get our families back INTO the business of teaching our children. When parents learn to become parents again & start letting the schools actually TEACH, only then will things begin to change. Meanwhile, we raise another generation of people unable to grasp the simplest concepts & ignorant of their (our) place in the world. We are quickly becoming a third-world nation because our people don't know their own history.

[c191569]

I absolutely agree with Sharma that these American students will not be ready for the new globalized world. In order for them to be ready they must first be disciplined and American children lack discipline. They have no respect for parents, teachers and authority. Freedom comes with a price and our children are paying the ultimate price in being rewarded even when they are insolent. So why should they excel? Why shoud they not graduate high school with less than an 8th grade education? And you question why the incompetence level is so high in the workplace.

I can definitely relate to Neha's academic pursuance and achievement. I orignate from a third world country. I too graduated high school at 16. It took discipline and preparedness to achieve this but it is more interesting to note that 70% of the graduating class was 16 years old and the other 30% were between 17 & 18 years. At 16 we were mentally prepared to take on global issues which makes the transition into university less difficult.

[marcpcbs]

From the time our kids are able to see a TV screen their minds and thought patterns are molded around 1 second editing and pretty flaky content. This doe's not create good students. Between portions of the entertainment industry, portions of the advertising industry, pedophiles and drug dealers, our kids are under attack 24/7/365. Most of our kids don't have a chance or the time to learn.

My area of Northern California makes over $10,000,000,000.00 a year selling pot illegally, and over 70% of that goes to this nations schools. All this because we were duped into thinking people needed their medicine. We just unleashed drug dealers that don't stop at the front doors of our school system.

Having teachers grade their own students may not be the best idea. Schools get their money from how many graduate and attend, This should change.

Crazy violent entertainment, Play stations to die for, Drug dealers backed by the law and pedophiles, These are the things we allow to access our children.

I think these things could easily destroy a young persons chance at an education.

[nadeau4201]

The government wants our kids uneducated. The dumber the better. They don't want people smart enough to figure out what they are doing. And BELLA the only thing that needs to be dismantled is our government i.e rich politicians,lobbyist special interested groups etc..The rich want to rule the world their kids will go to private schools and follow in their foot steps. Until our governemnt is run by the people for the people nothing will ever change.

[blstubbs]

I have in public schools as a secondary teacher for 30 years. We have some wonderful young people who strive to do their best and have set high achievement goals. When our students' performance is compared to other countries, Iget get upset because the playing field is not level. 1) They do not try to educate every child. Our public schools beat the bushes trying enforce attendance laws to meet mandates to get federal and state monies tied to attendance. 2)We have a generation of students who bored with school because they been raised with idea that they are to be entertained. We havethe idea to make all students successful for their self esteem, when failure is the best teacher in some cases. 3)Our public schools spend millions to provide for students who are severely mentally and physically disabled to learn what life skills are possible, when in the past, it was the family that did that. 4) As a mathematics teacher, I have seen the skills decline. With the advent of the calculators(which lobbyists for those companies pushed into being a requirement of course curriculums through our legislature), the push has been away the drills on skills to seeing appplications of concepts which the average student is not always prepared to understand without the skills. They do not have an investment in needing to know so many times they don't care to know. We did just fine going to college with the skills and learning the applications for personal fields of interest and study there.