Comments on: U.S. Students Lose Ground On Reading Tests

American Fourth Graders Score The Same As 2001, Outperformed By 10 Other Nations

[sgtrds]

Three things a civilized nation should have:

Free education
Free health care
Free child care

Everything else can be privatized.

Posted by incog-nito at 11:20 PM : Nov 28, 2007

I agree but would add free security to that list (i.e. military, police, fire, etc.). Funny how free security is "socialized", but no one really complains about it.

[prinzowhales]

If you go to infowars.com and listen to the rebroadcast of today''s show, you''ll hear former New York Teacher of the Year, John Taylor Gatto tell you exactly why American children are failing to live up to expectations. He is the author of, if memory serves, AN UNDERGROUND HISTORY OF AMERICAN EDUCATION.

The education system has been sabotaged from above to help, with other factors, create a dumbed down citizenry who would be more tractable to the rule of the Oligarchy. You can read the entire book now at Mr. Gatto''s website, I understand.

If you read this book and think about all of the implications, you''ll want to really do some harm to Mr. Rockefellar and his New World Order associates... decorate the Rockefellar Center tree with some Rockefellar bankers...really get ''Gothic'' with these M-Fs when you realize that there is a purposeful effort to keep American children dumb as dirt--and its costing you more in property taxes than almost any country in the world.

[incog-nito]

Three things a civilized nation should have:

Free education
Free health care
Free child care

Everything else can be privatized.

[sgtrds]

Now you would think education would be priority one. Here is why it is not, an educated populace could compete with already established money. Established money is what is dictating our policies, not the mob. The mob is more useful, uneducated, scared and down on their luck. An ignorant mob has no leverage against employers and no hope of advancement.

Don''''t count on a War on Illiteracy any time soon.

Posted by curse914 at 10:16 PM : Nov 28, 2007

Absolutely. You''ve stated the neoconservative education policy in a nutshell. Education for only the rich elite, which is what No Child Left Behind will do if allowed to reach it''s inevitable conclusion. It is not a pro-education policy. It''s a public school destruction bill.

[keithle1]

USA! USA! USA! It''s coz of all dem immigrants we gots to teach.

I''m proud to say that our President Bush reads at a fourth-grade level.

[sgtrds]

DUH! 120 MILLION ILLEGAL ALIENS!!

DOUBLE DUH DUMB AZZES!!!

Posted by billysmith6 at 09:52 PM : Nov 28, 2007

there are, maybe, 12 million illegal aliens in the US. Not 120 million. besides immigrant children nearly always do great in school as they come here with parents who are determined that their children succeed in this country and put the extra eefort into thier education.

[rudy654-2009]

Posted by SgtRDS at 08:13 PM

I agree about college being available to all who want to. Can it hurt to have a highly educated population? Actually, there is a lot I like about American schools. I just think that it is sad that they are always attacked for purely political purposes. If one or two teachers do something odd, hate radio begins its ranting against the liberal schools and such. Political games like No Child Left Behind (some teachers call it No Teacher Left Standing), really make it hard for students who are bombarded with all this unnecessary testing.

[sgtrds]

Posted by rudy654 at 08:03 PM : Nov 28, 2007

Personally I believe an education through the 12th grade should be required (though I myself dropped out after 10th grade to enter the Air Force) I would love the see graduating High School seniors be given a government paid for option to attend a vocational type school as opposed to a college and have no problem with High Schools allowing students to gear their course load toward that goal. I also think that a free basic college education should be provided to all students who want one.

[rudy654-2009]

Posted by SgtRDS at 05:22 PM

Something else that is not addressed is that in the United States all kids are required to attend from kinder to 12th grade - no exceptions. In other countries, many kids have to pay for their education after just the basic primary school. These comparative results in schools around the world often don''t reveal the entire situation. For example, in Mexico only a minority of students continue on after 6th grade. In Germany, school is mandatory from 6 to 14, but at age ten they have to go to one of four types of schools. Two of the schools they enter train them for vocational jobs in the future, while the other two direct students towards university. Here in the U.S. students are forced to study things that often don''t interest them in hopes that all will go to college, while ignoring those who really only have vocational interests for the future.

[rudy654-2009]

The schools are too busy teaching tolerance and diversity. And as for no child left behind failing, their is plenty of blame to go around. How about the schools lowering standards and passing kids so "they can pass"? There is more and more money being poured into education and it is only getting worse.
Teachers work very hard with students, many staying well past their schedule to help students in after school programs and the like. In fact, if there is any blame to go around, it is the fact that often enough when teachers try to talk to parents about their kids doing homework, many parents become extremely defensive and insulting. But no matter what the teachers do, they get called all the dirty names, told they are liberals (even though a great many aren''t), and that they get paid too much money. The fact is, a college graduate can earn far more money by going into anything, BUT teaching. What eats up the money covered by taxes, is heavy administrative fees that never seem to trickle down to teachers'' salaries.