On Monday, September 4, 2017 at 6:07:19 AM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 9/3/2017 10:06 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Sun, 03 Sep 2017 13:32:48 -0500, AMuzi wrote:
Without an educated populace the gatekeepers are powerless and wishing
for an educated population is a fool's dream. And here we are.

Yep. And unfortunately there is a large percentage of the American
population who have opted to be stupid and proud of it.

I have said this before and will say it again. I have for decades
thought that a class in logic ought to be required in every high school.
In a participatory form of government- like, you know, democracy, a
basic level of non-idiocy is required for success.

Unfortunately someone decided that "education creates liberals," and
thus far too many politicians have decided to oppose competent public
education (at least here, don't know about other parts of the country).
Here I'll sound like a conservative: schools need to have standards and
accountability for behavior and educational performance, parents (or
someone in the home) need to be actively involved in their children's
scholastic life. And we need to recognize that not everyone wants to or
is able to attend college successfully, which seems to be the current
goal of Americam education policy; there should be multiple educational
tracks available to help students acquire the skills they need to be
successful.

One thing I heard from Trump a while back was having some sort of system
for apprenticeships, which Germany- probably among others- has done with
success for decades; haven't heard a peep about it since, so maybe it
fell off the radar. I think that would be a good idea. In my state we
seem intent on dismantling the trade schools because of the emphasis on
college as the be-all and end-all of education.


I see the problems much as you do but out in the real world,
"everyone ought to..." scares the crap out of me.

My youngest brother was a football player at a major
university, functionally illiterate yet with a 4-year degree
and fantastic GPA. After a few lost years he finally cleaned
himself up, completed an MBA and turned out OK while many of
his cohort never survived the post football years of alcohol
drugs and general dissolution. You make a rule and half the
staff will go around it either through indolence or avarice.

All of what you say is true from my viewpoint. But I believe that the leftists are purposely maintaining ignorance or worse in the population so that they might more easily control them.