How to put America on the Right track. It Will take 20 years.

originally posted by: intrepid

It's not addictive. It's as social as booze and ciggys though. Thus the tax. Not essential.

I don't know why people still believe this. It's pretty obvious that as the THC content increased, so did dependency issues.

It's real, and affects a significant percentage of people who partake in the substance.

Marijuana Dependency

originally posted by: buckwhizzle
We need to teach our kids Computer Sciences- Hardware and Software.Plus,term limits for Congress,end the Fed and leave the ME just for kicks

Do we? I like the field and I'm in it, but that doesn't mean it's something everyone should do anymore than we should adopt a bandwagon that we need to give kids an indepth education on medicine so they can all be doctors.

It's much more useful in daily life to know how to use word processing, spreadsheets, and database forms than it is to know how to handle C++ pointers, write a for loop, or build a logic gate. Everyone needs to know how to use the internet to search information, but very few actually need to know how to build a network and index information.

And, even if we adopted teaching all kids computer science, what do you do with the 99% of kids who ultimately go into other fields? What do you do with the x% of kids who simply don't get it?

There is a handful of people here at ATS that can remember the post WWII era in U.S.
That was real America. All of that started falling apart in the late 60s.

America will never get back on the " Right Track " .
And, anyone who believes it , is either very naive or just plain foolish.

There was once a entity that could have gotten the job done, but everybody forgot about him.
So he just left town.

Don Mclean does a pretty fair job of telling the story.

www.youtube.com...

a reply to: ketsuko

You're missing the big amount of revenue generated from legalizing drugs. It means money isn't going to the legal and correctional systems to put these people on trial and to care for them in jail. That gets people on the streets working or attending school and it shrinks prison budgets to the tune of ~$27,000 per year per person. That is worth some major savings that can then be redirected into education.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: Aazadan

Somehow, the US landed people on the moon before we ever worried about stuff like this.

We landed people on the moon because of Operation Paperclip. It was largely the result of the German education system that got us there.

Despite the population today being more intelligent as a whole we no longer have the capability of getting to the moon, even if we needed to.

Somehow, the US doesn't even have the ability to send people into space anymore.

originally posted by: Aazadan
a reply to: ketsuko

You're missing the big amount of revenue generated from legalizing drugs. It means money isn't going to the legal and correctional systems to put these people on trial and to care for them in jail. That gets people on the streets working or attending school and it shrinks prison budgets to the tune of ~$27,000 per year per person. That is worth some major savings that can then be redirected into education.

However, you missed some of the other parts of the thread: Money is not the issue. Without addressing some of the other huge problems, pouring money into the current system is nothing more than a waste. We have systemic and cultural issues that are also in the way.

We already spend more on education per student than any other developed country and have less to show for it.

So please explain to me again why this revenue is such a major issue. Money is NOT a solution. It does not buy answers out of thin air.

There is no point in educating the youth if we undercut their future with illegals for low skill jobs and H1B's for higher skill jobs.
On the job training/apprenticeships etc is what is supposed to happen for a lot of jobs. Instead due to true unemployment numbers being very high for citizens, employers can choose to only hire experienced workers or undercut with immigrants who are more skilled as well. This creates a youth that no one wants to train at wages that keep them in poverty even if they work.

Half the population has an IQ under 100, the fact is a lot of them have no business being in college.

College funding needs to be cut back a lot so standards can be raised back to what they once were, Have funding be based on the majors of the students, Cut out wasteful degrees via an incentive system. Eliminate the 10K off the cost of uni by eliminating mandatory diversity classes and other garbage like that.

Primary education has purposely been destroyed to prevent critical thinking. Schools skip over the teachings of the greek philosophers and all the great philosophers of the enlightenment to prevent critical thinking.

skip if you hate facts: Minority(excluding asian) schools will have to find a way to teach students differently. White student PISA test scores match up with their european counterparts, on par with germany and belgium. Test scores nationwide have fallen behind as the percentage of white students has fallen.

I stopped reading around the part where you used legalized weed nationwide as a revenue source.

It's simple economics, weed is a weed that grows everywhere. If it were legalized everywhere, the value would be virtually 0, it only has value due to its' illicit nature.

You are advocating for a non-solution.

originally posted by: Aazadan

Somehow, the US doesn't even have the ability to send people into space anymore.

That's nonsense. The only thing lacking is funding and imagination. Both have picked up in recent years.

The projects that are already being looked at go way beyond the moon. We will be mining asteroids before 2030, and have people on Mars by 2040.

originally posted by: CriticalStinker

originally posted by: Blueracer
No thanks. You can't throw money at a problem (education) and expect it to get better. Also, ALL drugs should be legalized.

It's an American falacie to think you have to throw money at something to fix it.

The thread maker is from Canada.

If we stopped saving the lives of hopeless idiots and criminals that decide to put themselves in harm's way, our genetics would strengthen over time due to better selective breeding habits. Nature has a way of fixing itself, we just have to let the cancer die when it's willing to go quietly.

Of course, this isn't the humanitarian thing to do, so the cancer grows until the host (families, neighborhoods, communities), can no longer support the extra burden. Add all the other soft-kills and you have a suppressed society, perpetually consuming it's own tail.

An accredited Obamacare death panel should offer those willing, seven days in paradise while a nurse preps their psychedelic journey into the afterlife. Better yet, huge VR storage facilities. Instead of conventional prison you are discarded in the virtual world, fed intravenously and filed away until your last breath.

My morbid thoughts are shadowing my good intentions, lol.

Education could be such a simple fix.

1. Remove laws that prohibit a parent from physically disciplining their children.
2. A kid gets set back once, and only once. After that ... it's off to work.
3. Parents with failing kids get zero government support.

Tell me that wouldn't work.

a reply to: intrepid

One of the blokes at the local college returned a few weeks ago from a meeting at the Dept of Ed with some upper level officials

who

admitted very brazenly that TPTB were DELIBERATELY DUMBING DOWN STUDENTS at every level.

What do you speculate their goal is in doing that.

Many have known it from the evidence for years. But this is the first solid confirmation I know of from upper levels.

a reply to: Blueracer

Duly noted, that being said it doesn't change the issue of America being 27th in education when we actually spend more than countries ranked higher than us.

originally posted by: ketsuko
We already spend more on education per student than any other developed country and have less to show for it.

Do we? We have a very effective blend of quality of life combined with results. Almost all of this such as our ranking is based on the 2012 (I think) PISA tests which are somewhat out of date at this point. The good news is, the results of the 2015 tests which will be the most recent data gets published in December of this year, so that will give a more accurate picture of things. Most notably, every state in the US asked to be ranked, not just in the national average but as if it were it's own country. In the previous tests only 3 states did so. It will provide a lot of data as to what is and isn't working, but from what limited information we do have Florida scored rather poor and neglects education. Connecticut and Massachusetts which were the other two that submitted to individual testing ranked among the top 10 in the world if they were their own countries. They also drop a lot of cash on education.

Part of the problem in the US is that we're comparing averages. Average national ranking, average student spending, and so on when the average isn't very indicative because it looks like some states are utter failures while others are runaway successes. Perhaps there's a middle ground in there too or perhaps not. We'll know in a little over 3 months.

originally posted by: jellyrev
Half the population has an IQ under 100, the fact is a lot of them have no business being in college.

So half the population shouldn't be educated? It seems to me like that creates a self fulfilling prophecy. Why shouldn't people who learn slower (which is all IQ measures) not have the ability to get an education and a good job?

College funding needs to be cut back a lot so standards can be raised back to what they once were

Standards have been going up, that's why we have a constantly expanding university system. It's getting harder and harder to get into good schools. Smaller schools have been opening up to fill the gap.

Eliminate the 10K off the cost of uni by eliminating mandatory diversity classes and other garbage like that.

I literally have no idea what this is. I see it said all the time, but I have 4 degrees. I'm working on my 5th and hopefully final one. I have never taken a diversity class or ever known someone who has had to take one as a part of their major.

Primary education has purposely been destroyed to prevent critical thinking. Schools skip over the teachings of the greek philosophers and all the great philosophers of the enlightenment to prevent critical thinking.

It's been moved to college because primary education doesn't have the time to teach it. We could eliminate college if we added another 3 years or so to high school, but no one wants to go up to grade 15. 100 years ago there were 8 grades for most people, now there's 12 and effectively 16 because you need college. If you want to make college optional again (Masters programs are basically the same as college was 50 years ago now) you need to add more compulsory education.

originally posted by: pl3bscheese
That's nonsense. The only thing lacking is funding and imagination. Both have picked up in recent years.

The projects that are already being looked at go way beyond the moon. We will be mining asteroids before 2030, and have people on Mars by 2040.

And aside from a shuttle for emergency use, we have no current manned vehicle to get to space. We have some in development but that is all.

a reply to: Aazadan

So to clarify, you're speaking of vehicles that could be launched tomorrow being the real problem, not a lack of education, technological or intellectual capacity... nothing that couldn't be solved... it's... exactly as I said, a lack of imagination and funding.

You wrote that post to make a case for some sort of regression, or decline, that clearly hasn't happened. We most certainly have the capability to get into space, or go to and beyond the moon, we just can't do it within the next 24hrs.

a reply to: Aazadan

I see your points sorta.
But the world is already laughing at the failing US education system.

You already have school districts and states in trouble education-wise.
Maybe taking that control from them has made them lazy.
Maybe making THEM responsible would right some of the wrongs.

Make the federal government ONLY be in charge of standards....it sure as heck does not need to be a Department level function. Take that money wasted and apportion it to the states.

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

Education is currently state level. There are some very loose minimum guidelines the Department of Education imposes in exchange for funds but the states have the majority of the control. That said, I'm very much against the Department of Education, I think it's a good example of senseless government bloat. 60 years ago the Department was 1 person, now it's thousands.

However, education is a good example of why you just can't trust the states. They have more power over your city than the feds do and they're subject to far less scrutiny.