President Obama Is Looking To Extend The School Year

49% Say U.S. Kids Need More Time in School

Sigh.

One interesting stat (and I don't know why I'm intrigued by this) in the article was:

Seventy-one percent (71%) of Americans rate book learning as more important than street smarts for success in life.

Jeff said:

RPM said:
I get so ticked off when I think about how my tax dollars are wasted on kids who have no interest in learning.

Isn't that pretty much most kids since the dawn of time?

I don't think so, but I could have phrased it better. I'm talking mostly about high school age students who have no desire to better themselves in any way. My opinion is very biased because I went to a private high school where the vast majority of the students planed on going to college and starting a career. Even though every subject did not interest me equally, I still studied because I had a bigger goal in mind. The same applied to most students. There was a small percentage of students who didn't care, but not enough to be disruptive for everyone else.

My wife is a teacher in a less then well-to-do public high school. The crap she has to put with from the students and administrators is incredible. Take all of those students who just don't care and tell them to get a job. Maybe a few years of flipping burgers or washing cars will convince them that a little education is a useful thing and then let them enroll.

I know, it would never work, but when I get enough money to start my own nation on some isolated south pacific island, watch out!

In some ways I agree. Specifically, the idea that every kid will advance through the material in the major subjects at the same rate seems absurd. Beyond the actual in classroom stuff, the way kids advance through the classrooms seems way too cookie cutter to be effective.

(Well, but then you have parents freaking out when you suggest that a kid should be held back or put on a different track, so I understand why you'd never do it...)

ApolloAndy said:
Specifically, the idea that every kid will advance through the material in the major subjects at the same rate seems absurd. Beyond the actual in classroom stuff, the way kids advance through the classrooms seems way too cookie cutter to be effective.

But dealing with each child individually like you seem to be suggesting would be dreadfully inefficient.

On one end, we'd all have personal teachers who were experts in whatever field we were learning that tailored our studies and advancement to our specific needs. But that's pretty inefficient.

On the other end, we'd have the modern day equivalent of the single-room school with one teacher teaching a variety of levels and subjects to students of all abilities. But that's pretty ineffective.

The whole key to things is to balance the effectiveness with the efficiency in a way that delivers the best overall results.

I would add "equality of opportunity" to your balance sheet (effectiveness, efficiency.

Well, the lower the student/teacher ratio, the easier it is to get to that point. I'm not suggest that each student have individual teachers for each subject. I'm just saying that regardless of behavioral issues, 30 kids in one classroom or even 20 is too much to effectively teach to all of their learning styles and speeds, regardless of how good the teacher is and how willing and ready to learn the kids are.

Agreed.

I was giving examples of the two extremes. Do-able reality lies somewhere between those two. It'd be nice to keep moving that slider down towards a lower teacher-to-student ratio, but one must consider the efficiency of doing so.

At some point the cost is going to be prohibitive and/or the benefits not enough to justify the change.

That's all I'm pointing out.

Coincidentally, Krugman has an Op-Ed piece in today's NYT on the subject of the US' standing in educational attainment, and where it's likely to go next:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/opinion/09krugman.html

Also coincidentally, Krugman got his Nobel (in Economics) before Obama. ;)

Interesting read, Brian.

Wow, everything in that piece seems obvious to me. I'm fairly annoyed with the government spending is all bad mood that people are in, too. I absolutely don't understand it. The government certainly gets a lot of things wrong, but it's one of those baby/bathwater things where people would rather lean toward the absolute.

Political discourse over the past decade, at least, has moved into such black/white absolutes and away from shades of grey. I think that's because it's easy to get black/white in a soundbite, but grey takes explanation.

I think hard work had a lot more to do with our economic success historically than did education. Two issues. In general, Americans are less willing to work hard than in the past (particularly when it comes to working hard today for something tomorrow and education is definitely an investment in hard work today with a payoff tomorrow). And education means more now than it did historically.

And our policial scene has been "dominated" by the view that "any and all" government spending is a waste of taxpayer dollars? On which planet has this guy lived for the past 30 years? I have never heard anyone say that "any and all" government spending is a waste of money. And if there are any such folks out there, they certainly have not been "dominating" the political arena over that time period. Our two parties are "spend a lot" and "spend more." How can you look at government expenditures, government deficits and government debt over the past 30 years and say that the political scene has been dominated by people who view any and all government spending is a waste of taxpayer dollars?

There are some people who say that as a country with $12 trillion of debt (and significantly higher unfunded future obligations) and $1 trillion deficits, we cannot spend money on anything and everything. Thus, we need to make choices. Objecting to any given spending doesn't mean you oppose all government spending. And there are often times very good reasons not to spend government money. There are some things that government is better suited to doing than others. The notion that we can keep spending and spending more and more with no regard to debt levels/deficits is suicidal.

The federal govts only job is to deal with international afairs and make sure one state don't screw other states (General Welfare Clause)

The states created the Fed, Not the other way around.

Chuck, who talks with members of the opposite party, You'd be surprised how close THE PEOPLE REALLY ARE but not the way to go about it.

OhioStater said:

Did you forget that the invasion of Iraq was based on corporate interests?

I know that's it's off topic, so I wont dwell. I just wanted to let you know that I, and i suspect others on this message board understand exactly what you are talking about, as it was very obvious to me, as it was happening, what was really going on. The day Bush and Cheney (who is the son of Satan, according to one of my favorite metal bands lol) left office was one of the greatest days in the history of the United States.

Lord Gonchar said:
49% Say U.S. Kids Need More Time in School

Sigh.

One interesting stat (and I don't know why I'm intrigued by this) in the article was:

Seventy-one percent (71%) of Americans rate book learning as more important than street smarts for success in life.

Maybe if it had been worded "hands-on experience" or some other way, instead of saying "street smarts," the answer would have been different. I think for a lot of people, street smarts implies dealing with unsavory characters.

Now, coming from the last state in the Union to pass a budget, I think the issues we've seen here sum up the paradox of government spending. People don't want to see a tax increase, yet they don't want to see spending reduced in any program that means something to them. With everyone having a pet program, it becomes almost impossible to reduce funding in any department without causing an uproar. Of course, most departments play the game where, if they ask for a 15% increase, and only get a 5% increase in budget, that somehow becomes a 10% funding cut.

RatherGoodBear said:

Now, coming from the last state in the Union to pass a budget...

Oy vey. It's been ridiculous, no? And yet, I've seen no one on the steps of the Capitol Building expressing their frustration or discontent.

Depends on what you mean by passing a budget. We in the great lakes state have a legislature so disfunctional they passed budget bills last week, only to refuse to send them to the governor. So we are still on a 30 day continuing resolution for a state budget.

Going back to ApolloAndy's comment, it sounds like you're almost advocating the kind of school I attended for grades 1-5. The building was constructed just in time for my 1st Grade class in hopes that it would be attractive to enough kids like me for the Federal district court to forestall a desegregation order. Anyway, it was experimental at the time. The building had four big classrooms, each with four teachers and about 80 students. So instead of a 20:1 ratio, we were 80:4. There was specialization among the teachers and a heck of a lot of individualized instruction and learning, forced because the grade levels were blended (1-3, 2-4, 3-5, 4-5). I guess such open classroom schools were common in the mid '70s but in most the teachers just carved the big rooms into smaller spaces. I don't know what they are doing now, but at my school they did cut the rooms from 80 students to 60 (and teachers from 4 to 3) but not only did they not carve the spaces up, the teachers actually decided to 'virtually' combine the spaces so they actually ended up with two rooms, 120:6 student ratio by the time I hit grade 10 (my brother, 4 years younger than me, attended the same school).

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

No wonder you turned out the way you did. :)

Actually that sounds like an interesting idea. Some high schools are moving back into something similar. The core arts (history, social sciences and literature) are combined with lessons that correspond with each other. It works well as the students learn the history and politics of what happened in WWII while reading Anne Frank and things make more sense.

GoBucks89 said:
I have never heard anyone say that "any and all" government spending is a waste of money.

Watch Fox News. They get those freaks all of the time. There's a wacko contingency amongst the libertarians who are like that too, which frankly discredit the entire faction.