Why We Need Democratic Socialism to Fix Our Educational System

Latoya and Jalesa, both 26, grew up on the west side of Chicago, attending Calhoun Public School during the day and stepping across the street to Marillac Social Center for after-school programs. They lived in a tough neighborhood. Latoya said the summer gunshots came as often as the sound of ice-cream truck bells in the suburbs. But everyone knew each other on those two blocks; kids walked together, to and from school and in the evenings. Parents—most of whom had gone to Calhoun—also knew each other, often through volunteer work at the social center.

In 2013 Calhoun was one of 50 schools closed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel. It was shut down despite a committee recommendation that it remain open. Jalesa and Latoya, who still work at the center as they pursue other career interests, said the children are scattered now. Most of them take buses to a variety of public and charter schools outside the once-intimate neighborhood. Some have to walk a few blocks, some have to cross busy streets. None of them gather together before and after school, as they used to do on the grounds of Calhoun.

K-12 Education is Getting Worse

A shocking new OECD report says that among developed countries the U.S. has the highest percentage of youths ages 16-19 with low numeric skills, and the 3rd-highest percentage with low literacy skills.

SAT scores in 2015 were the lowest since the test was revised in 2005. Math scores for fourth-graders and eighth-graders dropped for the first time since the tests were first administered in 1990.

Read more at Disinfo.com

Disinfo.com is AboveTopSecret.com's "sister" site dealing with a broad range of issues related to disinformation, misinformation, and missing information in the media; as well as many of the "alternative topics" discussed on ATS. We provide this Disinfo.com article as-is because we believe it will spark additional interesting and valuable discussion here on ATS.

a reply to: DisinfoCom

We don't need socialism...we need honest people in positions of authority that will address issues openly versus dealing with issues with kid gloves...we need parents to take responsiblity for their children for poor behavior that is disruptive to classroom environments...

Children need discipline and that is one area we fall short on...nobody knows how to deal with the youth of today and we have empowered them to act as they like...just click on youtube to see some youth attacking teachers and each other..socialism will not fix the education...police will not fix the education system but parenting can make all the difference in the world and a lot of kids lack that basic need..

I dint knew Asian countries where socialist

Asia tops biggest global school rankings

#10 best education on that list is canada, who knew they are socialist

"If you go to an Asian classroom you'll find teachers who expect every student to succeed. There's a lot of rigour, a lot of focus and coherence,"

Maybe it got to do with this and not with the political system, perhaps not all is related to politics, perhaps in an electoral period the clickbait of putting socialism in everything is too strong but not all has to do with that and maybe just maybe a crappy education is independent of the country system and more to do with the everyone gets a participation trophy vs merit and hard work mentality meh i did click your add filled webpage and i agree with the only comment in that atrocity:

ugh

We need a change in culture, and by extension values.

Right now we're not in control of the cultural values that are being handed down to us by the government and media. The average person doesn't have any say in them.

We're told, "Buy more, consume more, ignore this, focus on that, hate these people...." And with today's technology, we are able to custom-tailor our media experiences to suit our own biases. We can literally create a bubble of self-affirming entertainment, news, and like-minded individuals.

We cut ourselves off from one another and stew in isolated bubbles of confirmation bias. This keeps us from working together, it keeps us divided, it keeps us pacified and easy to manipulate.

a reply to: DisinfoCom

A shocking new OECD report says that among developed countries the U.S. has the highest percentage of youths ages 16-19 with low numeric skills, and the 3rd-highest percentage with low literacy skills.

As a Community College teacher who deals with a lot of high school seniors and recent high school graduates, I can attest to the fact that our numerical skills are in a sharp decline. Arithmetic is gone thanks to the abusive use of calculators. Math reasoning skills are replaced by multiple guess test because it seems cruel to force students to show work when the calculator does so much. With this logic, colleges should teach advance TI-89 and Maple classes and not differential equations and linear algebra.

Anyway, my real question is what are the Democratic-Socialists going to do to fix the system? Your post seems to imply that they will provide schools with more funding so education will be cheaper... that's great, but what about the way in which we educate? Does Berny have plans for that? If he does, I would love to hear it otherwise, he can promise cheap schools all day, and I won't care because a bad school that is well funded is still a bad school.

So, the disinfo guy says to fix education in this country we need to throw more money at it. I'm glad that's finally all cleared up.

originally posted by: DisinfoCom

Latoya and Jalesa, both 26, grew up on the west side of Chicago, attending Calhoun Public School during the day and stepping across the street to Marillac Social Center for after-school programs. They lived in a tough neighborhood. Latoya said the summer gunshots came as often as the sound of ice-cream truck bells in the suburbs. But everyone knew each other on those two blocks; kids walked together, to and from school and in the evenings. Parents—most of whom had gone to Calhoun—also knew each other, often through volunteer work at the social center.

In 2013 Calhoun was one of 50 schools closed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel. It was shut down despite a committee recommendation that it remain open. Jalesa and Latoya, who still work at the center as they pursue other career interests, said the children are scattered now. Most of them take buses to a variety of public and charter schools outside the once-intimate neighborhood. Some have to walk a few blocks, some have to cross busy streets. None of them gather together before and after school, as they used to do on the grounds of Calhoun.

K-12 Education is Getting Worse

A shocking new OECD report says that among developed countries the U.S. has the highest percentage of youths ages 16-19 with low numeric skills, and the 3rd-highest percentage with low literacy skills.

SAT scores in 2015 were the lowest since the test was revised in 2005. Math scores for fourth-graders and eighth-graders dropped for the first time since the tests were first administered in 1990.

Read more at Disinfo.com

Disinfo.com is AboveTopSecret.com's "sister" site dealing with a broad range of issues related to disinformation, misinformation, and missing information in the media; as well as many of the "alternative topics" discussed on ATS. We provide this Disinfo.com article as-is because we believe it will spark additional interesting and valuable discussion here on ATS.

The biggest problem with public schools is that they are government run. How is socialism going to fix a problem that it largely created?

With that said, the biggest problem is not really the schools themselves, but cultural dysfunction of the parents. The dirty secret is that public schools reflect the communities they serve. If the school serves a largely ghetto population, in general, the students at that school will not perform well. The main reason is that the parents tend to have lower expectations and more often than not, the kids are being raised in single parent homes. The schools are dealing with a variety of cultural and social dysfunctions on top of trying to teach.

This problem can only be fixed by fixing the parents.

originally posted by: chrismarco
a reply to: DisinfoCom

Children need discipline and that is one area we fall short on...nobody knows how to deal with the youth of today and we have empowered them to act as they like...just click on youtube to see some youth attacking teachers and each other..socialism will not fix the education...police will not fix the education system but parenting can make all the difference in the world and a lot of kids lack that basic need..

That was very well said, and I most agree!!! if I could give you 5million stars I would

Anyway, I think you hit a key issue on the head. This goes beyond money or keeping schools open. The problems in the education system are about how children are being brought up to hate school and see it as pointless because of their race, ethnicity or economic class.

It is sad to say, but a lot of the lower spectrum of the economic class have been trained by the media not to teach their kids they can be anything, but instead to accept being poor and dumb cause "the man" has set you up to fail just like I did...

originally posted by: caterpillage
So, the disinfo guy says to fix education in this country we need to throw more money at it. I'm glad that's finally all cleared up.

Actually, if you would be paying attention, it's Paul Buchheit who wrote and published this piece on Disinfo.com.



What was that we were saying about education?

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord

Actually, if you would be paying attention, it's Paul Buchheit who wrote and published this piece on Disinfo.com.

What was that we were saying about education?

That you can grab any random "college teacher" to say any bullcrap but it will be smelly all the same in the end

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

Didn't click the link, just went with what was posted.

Look at the 1940s and 1950s.

The most anti-socialist generations and the best educated.

Meanwhile, in the past decade common core socialsists turned out the worst educated children.

Why We Need Democratic Socialism to Fix Our Educational System

They want it on a federal level, it's the Republican's who want on a state level as it was before. Common Core should have never been! The Gov needs to stay out of our business. ie: education and health care!

Ever read really old books ?

What a difference.

Our primary education system IS democratic socialism, so youre saying we need more of it to fix itself?

Sounds like a socialist argument. What democratic socialism doesnt teach in schools: how to be self reliant, real life skills, organizing and running small business, real finance and economics, real history, the constittion as a social contract... I can go on.

Democratic socialism teaches students to obey the state, and that being equally poor is better than having economic mobility for those that work hard.

originally posted by: Deny Arrogance
Look at the 1940s and 1950s.

The most anti-socialist generations and the best educated.

Meanwhile, in the past decade common core socialsists turned out the worst educated children.

true that,

a reply to: DisinfoCom

Ummm, you do understand that the current system is nearly 100% socialized as it is?

No matter what, you pay into the public school system. Your public school is assigned to you based solely on your school district and it is a criminal offense to defraud that system by claiming an address you do not have to try to get your child into a slightly better school in a neighboring district. Oh, and all the buildings and other means of production (educating kids in this case) are completely state owned and the employees are state employees who are mostly completely unionized into one of just about two national state workers unions.

So I'm not how you can look at a system that is already socialist to its core and claim it needs to be socialized because it's failing.

If it's failing (and it is), maybe you ought to take a deep breath and admit that it needs a different solution than socialism. After all, you can't make it more socialist than it is.

Why don't we look at the countries that have the highest test scores, and see what they're doing?

I seriously doubt that the countries with the best educated students are being home schooled or being taught in private religious schools.

And yes, I understand "best educated" is a subjective term -- but we as a country are having to compete globally. Like it or not, we have to be teaching our kids the same skills and material the rest of the world is teaching.

Ah another agenda apparatus making its way into ATS.

Maybe if the US wasn't "moving the goalposts" as it were with regard to grading, we wouldn't be ranked so low?

a reply to: DisinfoCom

We need higher standards, a commitment from the parents to actually get involved in their childrens education, and an understanding that not every child is smart, not every child deserves a trophy, and not every child will pass.