U.S. household debt tops $14 TRILLION and reaches new record

You literally said "remove parents from the equation". That's some serious authoritarian stuff - and authoritarianism is NOT democracy.

I DO accept the current public education system. It's excellent, and needs no fixing other than the complete removal of all ideological and political indoctrination. The great thing about our public education is that any parent - from any demographic - can choose to use it to propel their child upwards and permanently away from poverty. And we can choose that because we live in democracies.

 

You need to read about the definition of 'authoritarianism'. it has nothing to do with my comment about 'removing parents from the education EQUATION'!! An education EQUATION is the policy created by government. The US education system must be designed without requiring parental involvement!!

 

Household debt service costs as a percentage of disposable income has never been better:

 

Yes, Zorro, "Debt service payments...." The household debt increases to record-high levels, and people just go on racking up even MORE debt instead of paying it off! Why? Because increases in their pay are relatively small, but the price of everything they buy has increased a lot since "the Great Recession" (even though the Federal Reserve chooses not to count those things, for some reason).

Result? Americans no longer pay off a car loan in 36 months like they used to... instead, they take out loans that stretch out five, six, or even more years! By stretching the debt out longer and longer, the "payments" are lower, and thus take up less disposable income -- but the combined indebtedness piles up to the sky and a person ends up never getting out of debt.

Then, when something really bad happens to that person (like losing your job during a planetary pandemic virus event), that person goes belly-up and becomes impoverished and probably homeless....

Conclusion: debt is slavery! Nothing good comes out of situations where one is endlessly in debt, and the vulnerabilities are many.

 

It's probably too complicated for your simple mind.

 

It CANNOT. There is no education system which doesn't depend upon home-based support. That's like saying you can learn piano without practicing.

Any system somehow segregated from external character and work ethic influences on the child (an obvious impossibility, but we'll play along) would be dramatically lower in standard than the current model. Why on earth would you inflict that on all kids, compulsorily? You would remove all opportunity for those who want to, to excel.

The very best model is the one which adapts to whatever the child and family wants from it. It's the ultimate equality, and the ultimate respect for children.

 

You just don't get it? Perhaps 50% or more of school kids DO NOT have parents that can appreciably help/mentor their kids. Therefore, it would be stupid to design an education system that requires anything from parents!

 

Yes, I totally get it. As in ANY institution or society predicated on freedom of choice (you know, like a democracy) .. 50% will always do what we wouldn't do. That's how it works .. obviously.

You are literally suggesting that that freedom ought to be removed. That parents and children should no longer have any say in how they want education to play out for them personally.

 

My final comment to you on this is I hope you are not mentoring anyone...

 

Ask any specialist educator of academically advanced students what the common denominator is (hint, it's parents who take education seriously - it's not money, not race, not status, not profession, not even the parents own education levels).

You are literally saying that all of those parents who sacrifice years of their lives to support their child to academic success, should be penalised - along with their children - because other parents can't be arsed. I find that cruel, horrifying, and unbelievably unfair.

 

You exhibit an inability to read and understand my comments?? You make erroneous assumptions for your talking points.

You seem incapable of understanding that when in fact perhaps 50% of all school kids DO NOT have mentoring parents that it would be stupid to design an education system that requires parental involvement! Parental involvement is great if it happens to exist. However, for the umpteenth time kids not lucky to have mentoring parents are REQUIRED to obtain all of their education from the school system! When we KNOW this, the education system must be designed to succeed without the necessity of parents...

 

They do have a say - they can vote - they can write to congress - they can form a group of some kind.

What we don't have - is a room full of parents all shouting ideas - when education policy is made - such that these voices have choice.

You have set up some false choice that doesn't exist - and good thing too.

To make something like what you are suggesting work - you would have to bring education/curriculum decisions down to the local level.
What would then result in one kid from one town being educated differently from the fellow in the next town.

At the end of the day our education system produces a wide range of stupidity so - what harm could be done - acckk .. even then I can't argue my way into supporting such a thing.

 

For the umpteenth time, if you design a system predicated on the FAILED parents, ALL children are compromised. Why on earth would you do that? Why would you lower the standard to accommodate the lazy, penalising the motivated? And worse, make it universal. How are the motivated parents (and their children) supposed to get ahead? You will have removed that option from them. It's outrageous.

The only entirely fair and respectful model is the one we have. Where everyone gets to choose their own progress. Succeed or fail, no will stop you from achieving whatever it is you want, and you will be supported by teachers in getting there.

 

We already have that, where I live. Nationalised public education, standardised as much as practicable from state to state.