Why We Need Democratic Socialism to Fix Our Educational System

a reply to: DisinfoCom

Yes, in Chicago, Detroit you need socialism but every other town and state it is working just fine...100% fine.

a reply to: Edumakated

Exactly, how does MORE government control expect to fix the problem of too much government control. Socialism is untenable, no matter how warm and fuzzy it makes one feel.

There are answers for the inner city kids, but crooked politics needs to be removed 1st.

originally posted by: DBCowboy
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.

Don't you know?! Because of capitalism, both parents are having to work which means no time for the children!

ETA: The above is sarcasm. I hope the two people who starred realize that.

Aren't public schools ALREADY socialist? They're run by government and attendance is mandatory. That's socialism in action.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

So you are saying the reason that nearly half the adults in Detroit and places like New York City is because their parents homeschooled or paid to put them in private religious schools?

Uh-huh, you do understand the rise of those institutions is a direct result of the decline in our public education? Not only that but it's not like the religious are the only parents these day who homeschool. Plenty of very smart liberal and minority parents do it too because they also recognize the slow motion trainwreck our schools have become.

originally posted by: Wardaddy454

originally posted by: DBCowboy
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.

Don't you know?! Because of capitalism, both parents are having to work which means no time for the children!

Parents need to get off their iPhones and turn off the tvs and sit with their children.

It's not the job or responsibility of the state to raise the children.

This is a really poorly put together thread.

A headline stating we need socialism to fix the education system and then just part of some anecdote about a school getting closed then a couple random statistics? How does it tie together?

Why should I have to visit your site to be able to figure out your point? Would it kill you to at least give us some semblance of thread structure?

You have your headline..ok I'm intrigued.

And that's it. Give us some supporting facts or statements then maybe just a hint of what led to the conclusion.

a reply to: DBCowboy

I was just reading about South Korea's school system. There's a certain point where things get taken to far...

They seem to have a really big problem with suicide among adolescents there due to the pressure and high standards. I mean listen to this:

It is a commonly known saying in Korea that 'If you sleep three hours a night, you may get into a top 'SKY university;' If you sleep four hours each night, you may get into another university; if you sleep five or more hours each night, especially in your last year of high school, forget about getting into any university.' Accordingly, many high school students in their final year do not have any free time for holidays, birthdays or vacations before the CATs (National College Scholastic Aptitude Test, Korean:수능), which are university entrance exams held by the Ministry of Education.

Wikipedia

This is what the USA is up against folks...This type of mentality. South Korea is behind Hong Kong too.

When I visited Boston two years ago and roamed around the MIT and Harvard campuses, I saw more Asian exchange/abroad students than American students. It was quite an eye opener.

America -- we really need to get our act together. Perhaps we don't need to be cranking out robotic children with no joy in their lives, but these low literacy rates and poor math/science skills are embarrassing.

I seriously doubt that parents who can't do quadratic formulas and synthetic division are going to be able to drill their children hard enough at home to compete with these state-run schools in Asia.

a reply to: hubrisinxs

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.

This is so true. My son tells me it's almost impossible to find employees who know their multiplication tables, and even simple addition and subtraction is difficult for many... and forget division! But I understand why.

My daughter was a year behind my son in school. Third grade curriculum for my son included having to memorize the multiplication tables; but not for my daughter the very next year. I knew that was stupid and I made her learn them anyway... oh how she hated me for that! (But she appreciates it now.) She actually knew most of them already due to hearing me help her brother the year before -- so it wasn't too hard on her.

a reply to: ketsuko

No, that is not what what I am say, but nice try to twist my words around.

What I am saying is that the rest of the world isn't learning about dinosaurs and cavemen hanging out, creationism, or being taught by parents who don't understand the material themselves.

I know, I know...you don't have to understand something to teach it to someone. I hear that a lot from home school advocates. Whatever.

If we look at countries with the highest test scores, we don't see home schooled children or religious private schools being the reason for the scores.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

And you think the government is going to do better?

Haven't they pretty much ruined public education as it is?

We need to get tougher, not softer.

Or we'll raise a generation of waitstaff and barristas serving those Asian engineers.

originally posted by: DBCowboy

originally posted by: Wardaddy454

originally posted by: DBCowboy
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.

Don't you know?! Because of capitalism, both parents are having to work which means no time for the children!

Parents need to get off their iPhones and turn off the tvs and sit with their children.

It's not the job or responsibility of the state to raise the children.

I agree 100%

a reply to: DBCowboy

That's kind of hard when their personal iPhones have been co-opted with work email.

I know that I have to actually turn OFF my work email when I go on vacation, otherweise I'd never get a moment of peace.

That is the price we are paying now in today's capitalist society. We are on call 24/7. If we aren't willing to be, they'll find someone else who is. We are replaceable parts, expected to sell our souls and free time to the titans of industry captaining the our ship.

a reply to: Deny Arrogance

Look at the 1940s and 1950s. The most anti-socialist generations and the best educated.

And the government was paying for practically everything simply because with Americans being taxed way more than they are now they had the money to pay for everything.

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

This is because the GOP doubled the size of the dept of education and then cut it's funding.

a reply to: Staroth

The Gov needs to stay out of our business. ie: education and health care!

Yes because everyone can afford private schools and no one was going bankrupt trying to pay medical bills.

a reply to: DisinfoCom

'Education system' not 'educational system.'

All I know about the US school system is what I learn around here and from the links posted by members. One or two are teachers themselves and I listen closely to what they say.

It looks like the same in the US as it is in the UK. Teachers get blamed for kids with poor educations. The governments point at low standards in schools, bad or absent parents/carers blame the teachers and the media blames the teachers too. The average person blames the curriculum and stamps their feet at how 'standards are sliding.' Back in their day, teachers taught and schools were proper schools. Amen!!

What it looks like to me is that the areas with the worst levels of numeracy and literacy are poor areas. Places with few jobs, broken families and high crime...lots of welfare.

Let's be fair, right? Low literacy isn't a feature of wealthy neighbourhood schools. The drop-out rate is higher where unemployment is high too.

Don't get me wrong here, teaching needs to be good and teachers need to give a crap too. The point I'm circling is that someone in a classroom will not take the place of parents, family or a community in the time it takes to teach a lesson. Kids are in school for 6-7 hours and at home, in their neighbourhoods, for 16-18 hours.

Schools are expected to instil the values that don't exist in some communities. It takes a village to raise a child, yeah? The villages are breaking down and the families aren't role-models. Even communities is a BS term, I just couldn't think of a different word...

What we need is not more socialism, what we need are responsible parents who will invest time and love to their kids. We need a change in culture where education is valued above the pop culture and materialism the media throws at us. Most kids today are raised by game console, iphones and ipads.

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: MystikMushroom

And you think the government is going to do better?

Haven't they pretty much ruined public education as it is?

We need to get tougher, not softer.

Or we'll raise a generation of waitstaff and barristas serving those Asian engineers.

He's not wrong people. We spend a lot on education, only to end up 34th(I think?).

Clearly money is not our issue if only Switzerland is spending more per FTE student by GDP per capita.

a reply to: Boadicea

It is parents like you who help make the kids who are going to graduate college! Thank you so much!

I find most people struggle with fractions and decimals, converting units, graphing a function and magnitude of number(that is the difference between a million(10^6) and a trillion(10^12). These are things all High School graduates should know to some level.

to you and your intelligent children!

a reply to: DBCowboy

Yeah, I'm one of those parents with my kid in one of those horrible religious private schools.

He already has some basic homework in the form of book report pictures once a week and scavenger hunts for things that start with the weekly phoneme. We're also supposed to read to him every day for at least 10 minutes a day, but we were already doing that, so it's no big deal.

Education takes place as much in the home as it does in the school on a lot of levels, and too often you have kids who don't even know the basics in either academic concepts or behavioral ones that pull the rest of class down.

I hate to say it, but that's something you pay to not have to deal with in a private school, not so much because a private school won't deal with those issues but because parents who are that bad as parents aren't going to care enough to pay to put their children in a private school and go through the entire application/interview/tuition process when public school is so much easier and cheaper.