The education gap in America is getting huge!

The change may be born out of crisis as most big changes are. Jayman, can you tell me the last time the US ran a trade surplus?

 

sadly, i have seen the patterns of quality in education follow very closely the financial status of the parents of the schoolkids.

i grew up in the craptastic center of my craptastic city, yes literally on the other side of the railroad tracks from those new and exciting 3 story houses with their 4 car garages and separate yacht storage buildings. by some quirk of fortune i ended up going to school with the kids that lived in those houses. quite the transition from my gang-infested ghetto middle school where they didn't even allow backpacks for fear someone was carrying something large and dangerous or highly illegal (which in many cases was true) and where there was no funding for anything.

wow, and what a high school that was. i took every advanced class i could, with the exception of physics because i hated physics from day one. i dated someone who went to the school i WOULD have gone to. to hear him tell me all the things that were so different there just shocked me. i couldn't believe it.

and my high school hda a very good reputation, which got me on the fast track to college- got some preadmission letters before even applying to colleges- and i think a better leg-up on where i was going.

now i'm probably not the average kid who just went to school to get through it, i had something to prove since i can remember and probably would have pushed through in the school i would have gone to. but it sure was a lot easier after going to the kids-of-doctors-and-lawyers school.

my fellow graduates and I are at MIT, Stanford, Georgetown, Duke, Northwestern, and a number of small highly-exclusive provate colleges, many with a full ride. the kids at the other schools struggled to get into state schools. and on a personal note, i have nothing against state schools, i was a state schooler myself in undergrad. but there is a visible difference there.

spread the wealth around, i say. don't prioritize because some families don't have the political and financial leverage that others do. it's ridiculous how unfair that system was.

 

No and who gives a s***?

 

And that's why in my book, you are one *heck* of a gal.

 

So no correlation between balance of trade and the degree of 'free trade' over time?

 

You have lived what is not even possible in many places in the world. You are a shining example to all of us.

 

That's not very nice, considering Malorn was making a very good point with regards to one of your previous replies on this thread... The fact that people are drowning in credit debt is in related, in a rather direct way, to the fact that we don't run a trade surplus.

 

He's just angry the liberal gov. in Canada lost... :lol:

 

Wasn't it one of W's cousins that won in Canada?

 

Look, It's getting a bit long in tooth that every "bad" thing that happens in North America is somehow Toyota's fault, at least in Malorn's perspective.

As far as credit debt, nobody points a gun to your head and *forces* you to assume credit to the point of being upside down on everything. That has more to do with crafty marketing by slick folks who have a vested interest in legally making 18% or more off you.

PBS ran some very good shows on credit. Bottom line, the economy is a fantasy based on instant credit. Eventually somebody, somewhere, has to "back" that credit.

Right now, that happens to be China and India, traditionally it was Japan.

And in case you think I'm taking a s*** on the United States, how about Canada? The recently defeated Prime Minister Paul Martin made up the numbers for years with his magic Federal Budget Surplus.

Most of that "surplus" was tricky accounting - remember Enron? The rest was overpayments to Employment Insurance, to the tune of +$55 billion. A lot of that was reallocated to various Crown Corporations not subject to auditing or oversight.

It doesn't matter what country you live in. When it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Taxpayers are the Great Sheeple who willingly go Baaaaa for the government. Anybody who believes anything the Gov or a large corporation - including Toyota - tells them is a fool.

Rant Mode Off.

 

Another "expert"

Just so you know, I voted Progressive Conservative.

 

It didn't used to be that way. Other countries, Japan included, used to come to the U.S. to study our school system to find out how we turned out our inventors, our creative problem solvers, our "thinking outside the box" people. They wanted to know what the school system was doing because America was inventing and holding copyrights and patents on a lot of technology.

What happened?

Well, in this country we became obsessed with the test scores of other countries. No amount of apples and oranges explanation would do. So we started to teach to the test rather than to develop those free thinkers.

California used to have one of the highest rated public school systems. Now we're about 47.

Do a search on GNP spent on education. The U.S. ranks way behind other countries.

Search within the U.S. for amount spent per capita on each student. Then adjust it for local cost of living. Because California is a lot more expensive then some other states.

(Schools pay taxes on everything purchased. Schools pay for water, sewer, electricity and gas.)

Schools have to pay extra for goods when the cost of living increases their price.

When education has to use either the same amount of money or less to educate a larger number of students while paying for higher prices in goods because of COLA.

It's been a slow decline for a few decades.

And as long as we obsess about test scores it will continue.

While you're at it, do a comparison search on the U.S. and Japan's suicide rates among teenagers.

Oh....and we don't track. We test everyone, not just the cream of the crop.

If we're not producing the innovators we used to...we have only ourselves to blame.

 

Who claimed expert?

I know the libs still control enough of a gov. such that there probably won't be any sweeping changes to the right...

 

well thanks guys

but the good fortune i had and the compliments you so nicely give me don't change my point: the fact that kids living 6 blocks in the wrong direction automatically have a rockier road ahead of them because of the school they go to, is absolutely horrible. and to go one step farther on this, it should be deemed un American to so selfishly hoard the opportunity and funding for the rich kids. America is supposed to be about equality for all. all men are created equal, right? so why are we taking from some the ability to pursue happiness, education, a job that will support a family, unobstructed.

it's like taking a pair of seeds, throwing one on a rock and the other in fertilizer. what do you think is going to happen? this is the American school system. and it needs some serious reform. i'm no education expert, but i know things are seriously wrong here.

 

And another ignorant "expert."

Just so you will have this for future reference:

The House of Parliment in Canada is made up of 308 seats. To have a Majority government - to do with almost as one wishes - requires 155 seats. Anything less is a "Minority" government and subject to a Non Confidence Vote by the other parties, if they happen to get together on it. This is how the Paul Martin government met its end.

As of last count - and this may change as quite a few Electoral Districts are recounting - here is the vote breakdown, for the 308 seats in Parliment:

124 Progressive Conservative
102 Liberal
51 Bloc Quebecois
29 NDP
1 Independent

So don't get your hopes up about Canada ditching the Kyoto Accord, or signing on to Missile Defense, or making the Tar Sands in Alberta up for grabs. The PC's are actually in a Lame Duck position, and at any moment can face a Non Confidence vote.

 

We produce more. We have more vision and creativity on Rhode Island than a lot of other countries.

When did Japan last produce a Google? A Dell? A Microsoft? A RedHat? Apple has pretty much driven Sony out of the portable audio business. Microsoft is (sadly) taking over console gaming.

And it's not just the U.S. Nokia. ARM. And so on...

Honestly, other than outsourcing and the refinement of old ideas, I don't see much that I would consider creative coming out of a lot of the world.

We're innovating out the wazoo.

 

People such as yourself really need to step in front of 30 students and try teaching.

Do you think teachers are really there to 'play' with the students? Do you think the teachers like the pace?

Reality check for ya, they aren't and they don't. But they have a lot of students and they have to move at a pace that they're all comfortable with. I blame the Republican government and it's "No Child Left Behind" program for slowing teachers down.