"Government is dumbing down schools" says former Director of Education

Discussion in 'Education' started by Squall, Jun 26, 2011.

  1. Squall

    Squall New Member

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    According to a woman who used to work for the United States government, the government officials who operate the United States education system, as well as other education systems, are deliberately dumbing down today's youth. I know that they do this to a certain extent in order to create docile workers, which is what school is basically for, creating a work force. However, I'm not sure it's to the extent that the woman is talking about. What do you guys think?

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDyDtYy2I0M"]YouTube - ‪Charlotte Iserbyt - Deliberate Dumbing Down of the World‬‏[/ame]
     
  2. Clint Torres

    Clint Torres New Member

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    The best Americans are the ones easy to manipulate. Corporate funding does a lot to enginer people and the society so they buy more stuff they don't need. Also, thinkers are too smart to be duped into stuff the Corporate Broadcast Media bombards them with.

    Smart people (a lot of them) are always a threat to the mainpulation of Corporate enterprises.
     
  3. Clint Torres

    Clint Torres New Member

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    In retrospect. The States governments and their DOE administrators have been doing this for the las generation. Now we are seeing the result of a society of dumb and fat happy Americans. Who live beyond thier means and spend way too much money on stuff they don't need. Not to mention a bunch of spoiled privilaged entitle-thinkers who live off their parents to pay for college.

    What ever happened to days where most kids finished highschool and worked or joined the service to earn their own college money. And learned independance and accountability.
     
  4. Clint Torres

    Clint Torres New Member

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    This woman is from the Regan era of education who apparently was voted out of the board of education for her desire to make schools christian based. And appointed in the US Government by the Regan clan as part of his brown nose to the religious right. Her main objective in government was to abide by corporation advisors and turn kids into obedient slaves to consumersim. She is apparently is a disgruntled school worker with a religious agenda and promoting her book to the simple minded religious worshipers of the USA. And she is disgruntled with the US government for not allowing her to apply religion in schools, but to obey the corporations who realy control the buisness end of the Federal government. But she is right about one thing, the schools do manipulate kids to dumb them up for consumers for the corporations that realy run the country.

    Similar as targeting youth for ciggarette campaines.
     
  5. perdidochas

    perdidochas Well-Known Member

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    It's not deliberate. To say it's deliberate overestimates the people involved. The dumbing down (by my observation and in my opinion) is the result of lawsuits, misplaced accountability concerns, lazy teachers and pitbull/helicopter parents.

    When I was in high school (1980s), I can recall waiting in a principal's office to get permission to do something special (dual enroll in the local university), and in the process I heard the principal recommend (to at least two boys in half hour I was there) troublemaking students to just drop out, as all they were doing was wasting everybody's time. Nowadays, they can't do that, as schools get punished for low dropout rates.
     
  6. perdidochas

    perdidochas Well-Known Member

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    There have never been such days.

    It used to be dropout rates were higher than today. In the 1970s, it was close to 15%. Now it's lower.

    http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/sites/default/files/01_Dropout_Rates.pdf


    At one time college was pretty much reserved to the people who's parents could pay for it. Now, it's those who can get a loan.
     
  7. Clint Torres

    Clint Torres New Member

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    Ha, more teacher union backed propaganda for the simple minded to feed on. If every school has 15% they would be doing better than Cuba and Korea. Which in the USA the real drop out rate is x3 more than what the union funded sutdies show. No matter how they try to spin it, the USA is failing and those kinds of false reports only make the public more stupid.

    I guess illeteracy rates in the USA are at an all time low of 3% right?

    Your country is very good with only a 15% dropout rate. In the USA it is about 38%+ depending on the State. Nevada has a Dropout factory producing 43% dropout each year. Was never like that back in the old days of education. Back then they had classes of over 35+ students and teachers taught 3-4 classes per day. Illiteracy rates are over #25%, so the USA must be graduating non reading people.
     
  8. perdidochas

    perdidochas Well-Known Member

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    My country is the U.S.

    While there are isolated cases of 30-40% dropout rates, it's not universal.

    It depends on how illiteracy is defined. There are several definitions of it. Basic level illiteracy is almost nonexistent (3% or so). Functional illiteracy may be 25%.

    People forget that at one time most really poor people (read minorities) barely went to school at all, much less learned to read. There were no "good old days" where everybody could read and was well educated.
     
  9. Clint Torres

    Clint Torres New Member

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    I still don't buy into the propaganda Unionized data that comercials uese. It can fool some people but it does not fool me.
     
  10. perdidochas

    perdidochas Well-Known Member

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    Then you haven't met many old black people in the South. I can remember being a young man (i.e. 30 yrs ago) and talking to a lot of old southern black men that couldn't read a bit (not just reading at the 4th grade level, but not at all) It was much more common than you seem to assume.

    Now, I agree that a high school education of 2011 (or even 1983) is not equivalent to a high school education of the 1920s. My late grandfather only had a high school education, but he had the literacy of most college graduates.

    My hypothesis is that the minimum amount of education/knowledge in this country has increased. The amount of education/knowledge that a high school graduate has, has decreased. So I agree the schools are dumbing down, I just don't agree that basic illiteracy has increased.
     
  11. Clint Torres

    Clint Torres New Member

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    I don't make generalizations based on case studies or other non valid information. I look at the big picture, the Macro condition of educations cost and effect on the uSA society over a recent period of time, as well as the progress of other countries in that same period.
     
  12. perdidochas

    perdidochas Well-Known Member

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    From reading your posts over the past few months, I've come to the conclusion that non-valid information merely means information that doesn't fit your opinion.

    In terms of your big picture, you are not taking into account the history of this country. Not being able to read, while uncommon in the middle class, wasn't uncommon at all in the lower class, especially before desegregation. The statistics (which I know you don't believe, because they tell a different story than you wish to tell) bear out my views.
     
  13. Clint Torres

    Clint Torres New Member

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    True I don't conform to any propaganda sales. But I do take it for what it's worth. The information I use is what I evaluate from all aspects and sources. The information is out there, you just need to open your eyes an absorb it and make an analysis. I evaluate information and I do not regurgetate someone elses hearsay. I'm not easy to manipulate.
     
  14. SiliconMagician

    SiliconMagician Banned

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    pff...

    Only the most arrogant of the retarded would look at what are obviously unintended consequences of bad policy and turn it into a tacit conspiracy theory to destroy all of society.
     
  15. Clint Torres

    Clint Torres New Member

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    Correct I agree totaly: that is why union funded or church funded broadcasts gets paid to create an illusion. If I believed every religious agenda I too would be sceptical of reality. What does not fit religious peoples scheme, is often thrown aside as conspiricy. Often because they lack the cognitive capacity to understand what is reality and myth, and buys into propaganda so easy.
     
  16. PatrickT

    PatrickT Well-Known Member

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    Your modesty is misplaced but incredible.

    The response when teachers failed to pass proficiency examinations was to reduce the passing scores to the point that everyone passed.

    The liberal strategy to insure that no one fails is clear. Reduce standards to the point that the class hamster passes. The bright kids and sit and suffer.

    The government doesn't want the kids to be uneducated but they also don't care. They care about the teachers and the millions of dollars they receive from the unions. Unfortunately, students don't have a union and if a student assaulted a teacher during a strike the student would surely be punished. Union members aren't punished.
     
  17. BleedingHeadKen

    BleedingHeadKen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Which times were those and what were the literacy rates?
     
  18. Clint Torres

    Clint Torres New Member

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    This is true: Not wnting to accept the fact that public schools dumb down students to be good obedient consumers because they too are victims of the dumb down process. Fact is, other countries don't fear teaching kids to be leaders and team players. They use the excuse of independance, as aresult, students are lone players in a world of competition and consumer mass marketing. Without young leaders and team players, corporations need not worry about people boycotting their products, or others getting togeather as groups to oppose legeslation or action of destructive corporate monopolies.

    Other countries teach leadership and collective values of teamwork. These are things governments fear. Because some governments know it works positively, but it can only work if the government actually runs the government. Governments fear young students with leadership skills rising up to take over the government, and fear groups of people will point out their flaws. That is why the USA does not instill the values of leadershp and teamwork with youth. Because these skill will undermine the basis of capitalism and how governments operate.

    I also, agree, that Union influence is most powerfull, and if you look at the largest unions of each State in the USA, it is the Public Employees Unions AKA goverment employee unions. They also contract and have sub organizations like assoicaions, and"groups" that undermind the government and taxpayer only to increase their membership via hiring more staff, and they control policy and will oppose any policy to cut their funding. When you think of all the billions spent on education each year, think of how much money goes to the overhead involving these entities and others, and the TV comercials, and lobbiest, and researchers, and other frivilous items the taxpayer pays for. When you look at the ballance of what the adults get and what the student gets, it's easy to see why the Shools are a fail, and why throwing more money at it will only make it fail more.

    Will there ever be an end to the bottomless pit of public education costs? How much more money can they extort out of us?
     
  19. Clint Torres

    Clint Torres New Member

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    This reminds me of the sports for youth where they give every kid a trophy and allow every kid to start a game, no matter the skill or ability of the kid and there is no score kept. At the end of the season, they all have a big party and a good time, and everyones a happy winner. But the reality is the same, and deep down each kid who participates knows where he or she stacks up against others in that sport, but most will never talk about it. This kind of conditioning may have more negative consequences later in life, but as a kid, it's all good, and the adults are happy too.

    Is this the kind of education we want for our kids? for the future of the USA. Perhaps if you invest and make a lot of money off dumb down consumers, it is a brilliant thing. After all who says the blind can't lead the blind. ADA?
     
  20. perdidochas

    perdidochas Well-Known Member

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    Pre-integration of schools.
     
  21. CanadianEye

    CanadianEye Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Good for her, that she saved the programming material of these initiatives. I have little doubt to what she is stating in the video. It is always the youth that is targetted, and it is not longer the campus levels of the 60's, it is the first day of school and onwards.

    The are a number of organizations that are looking to take back the schools from these societally destructive initiatives, and while it is going to take some time, it is the root solution.

    I don't know, honestly, how anyone could be surprised that there has been co-ordinated initiatives to break down morals via the education system. Do people not see what western society has become?
     
  22. BleedingHeadKen

    BleedingHeadKen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Government schools or all schools? Compulsory government education was not implemented until 1852 and wasn't universal until the early 20th century. In the first state where compulsory government education was implemented, Massachusetts, literacy was already at 98%. How could that be if government wasn't providing education?


    Also, can you show evidence that government education was advocated for due to a lack of academic knowledge among the poor? One also has to wonder why, if the poor were in need of educational resources, the entire middle class is also saddled with government education.
     
  23. perdidochas

    perdidochas Well-Known Member

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    Massachussetts required the providing of public schools by towns as early as the 1600s. (Students weren't mandated, but schools were required to be provided for them. It was voluntary on the part of the students).


    The middle class doesn't have to use government education. They can choose private schools, or home schooling.

    I'm not going to argue in favor of compulsory education. I will argue in favor of provided education.

    Also, do you have stats about the literacy of the people in the South in 1852? I can guarantee that it was nowhere close to 98%, even among the whites.
     
  24. BleedingHeadKen

    BleedingHeadKen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Yes, they did, but those laws did not last, nor were they popular as they were intended to force extreme religious views on the populace.

    Government crowds out private enterprise in education by providing "free" schooling. Not only that, but parents who wish to use private schools must first pay their "share" of public schools. Those who wish to homeschool must forgo the income they can obtain and they must still support public schools with their taxes.

    Looks to be about 80% in some parts of the south in 1850. http://www.newrivernotes.com/nrv/lit1850.htm

    It's not as high as 98%, but it was rising, and it's difficult to conclude that government provided education was necessary for improvement. In fact, Hardly anyone, if anyone at all, at the time was asserting that government provided education would improve literacy rates, except among very troubled children who were already institutionalized.

    I don't think you can find any evidence that the primary, or even secondary, or probably even tertiary purpose of government provided education was to improve academics except in extreme rural areas (which was more of a perceived problem in the UK than the US.)
     
  25. perdidochas

    perdidochas Well-Known Member

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    Evidence for the above. I'm talking about the Old deluder Satan law. Please show me proof of the unpopularity of the law. IIRC, Ben Franklin and Samuel Adams were products of Massachussetts public schools.


    The amount I pay towards school taxes aren't nearly enough to put even one of my two kids into private school. I don't buy that argument.


    You highlighted an area that had a very low black population. Not typical for the south.

    It was to provide kids with basic literacy. It worked.
     

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