Letters to the Editor
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On our way to being a 3rd world nation
Our public education system is a joke. For manifold reasons- underqualified administrators for one, but mainly because our government and society places so little value on public education.
Why is it that the military always gets the money it wants to blow up something up, while schools literally fall apart and teachers are forced to use shoddy, outdated textbooks?
Money is also a key component. Not only (obviously) in the haves/have-nots aspect of education in America, but the goals we as a society are "expected" to have. No one gives a damn about whether you are intelligent or educated, your intrinsic value is based on your net worth. Need proof? Watch "Cribs" on MTV. I've never seen so many idiots with such high incomes in my life.
Contrast our current educational situation with those in Europe and Asia. India, China and Western Europe are pulling far ahead of us. If we don't change our national prorities quickly, we'll lose what little ground we have.
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Our Problem is not that we are Getting Stupider...
...It is that we are Staying Stupid. The USA always has had this hostility to smart people, and to being smart and/or well-educated. It is part of our basic myth about rising from the gutters by our own boot-straps and so on, but we thought that part of the myth would disappear.
We used to believe in progress. Every American now fifty years old or older used to believe literally that we all would have flying cars by now. And we used to believe that education and American ingenuity would have brought us out of ignorance by now.
When we lament American Stupidity in 2008, we are not saying that "Kids Today" are stupider than Americans used to be. We are dismayed by the lack of progress. We are disappointed bitterly to see the same old same old dark, brutal stupidity.
Is it just human nature? Are Americans incapable of progress? The ideals we grew up with seem shattered.
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mdaf28...
You deserve a star for your response to this excerpt from the article:
"What places Summers' speculative statements within the realm of junk thought," she writes, "is not the idea that there might be some differences in aptitude between men and women but his unsupported conclusion that such disparities if they exist, are more important than the very different cultural messages girls and boys receive about whether they can expect to succeed in science."
Right...
mdfa28:
"I'll have to think a bit about the thesis of the article, but I can say there is at least one delicious irony in it.
The author of the article and, apparently, the author of the book, both completely misinterpret and thoughtlessly represent the point Larry Summers was trying to make. Summers gave three possibilities for the lack of women at the higher levels of science: cultural influence, choices issues (women choose not to do the academic grind and men do), and innate differences. He did not say that innate issues were definitively the answer, only a real possibility. And furthermore, the author could easily site some evidence to support Summers point--don't reasoning intellectuals do this. Although this doesn't discount the cultural argument totally, men do tend to show up more frequently on the high end of IQ distribution and also tend to have better visual-spatial skills (valuable in many arenas of science).
So here is an article supporting a thesis about the sloppy thinking of youth that shows quite a bit of sloppy and unstudied argumentation. I mean, how hard would it have been to look up what Summers actually said?"
Wow. Well put...
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Ohio Is A Good Example
I, too, mourn the notion that our country is just rushing into ignorance at an alarming rate. What do you expect when Republican-controlled state legislatures around the country have declared war on public education for the last 20 years?
In Ohio alone, the GOP-controlled state, incuding when now U.S. Senator George Voinovich was Governor for two terms, thumbed their noses at the Ohio Supreme Court's ruling (twice!) that the state's Constitution required the state legislature to fund and provide a fair and equitable education for all of Ohio's children - not just those in economically advantaged, property tax wealthy districts - and to get the funding off the backs of the local property taxes. The state had to be sued by Ohio's school districts to get those rulings. Instead of complying, the GOP-controlled state appealed and dragged it's feet for as long as it took to graduate an entire class of kids from kindergarten through 12th grade! Ohio is but one example around the state.
Our leaders send very strong signals that education is not important, opting instead to make it a roulette wheel; i.e., where your parents end up living determines your ability to get a good education.
Another GOP disaster, charter schools and vouchers and choice, is one of the cruelist jokes of the last 20 years. Designed to keep poor minority kids in the urban areas, and stop flight to the burbs, charter schools are performing badly and the promised pay-offs are non-existent. Vouchers in Ohio's experimental program under Voinovich spent millions on taxi rides for Cleveland school kids. Choice is a straw dog argument. Everyone cannot go to the school they want to go too. Lotteries to give away vouchers is hardly a choice and hardly a "fair and equitable education" solution.
In Ohio, parents and others bitch (rightly so) about having to keep passing property tax levies to keep their schools afloat, and all the while they keep voting for the same GOP jerks that have been on a mission to destroy their kids' educational opportunities. Isn't this the definition of insanity? Yet, every major election cycle for the last 20 years, these voters will tell you that education was their number one priority issue! Oh yeah, we could see that.
Schools in Ohio were deplorable. We've all heard or read about the schools in the Applachian part of the state where books touted "...some day we hope to put a man on the moon." And children had to walk downtown to a restaurant each day, rain, snow, sleet, or shine, to eat lunch. And kids that sat in classrooms with coats on and umbrellas up. And during all this, the GOP-controlled state found $11 million to give as a grant to the Jacobs family (under Voinovich again) so they could satisfy the cost overruns on their new baseball field in Cleveland, along with other millions in interest-free loans. Jacobs doesn't own the Indians anymore, having sold out, made his money, and moved on. Too bad our kids haven't moved as far along as he probably has!
For the record, Ohio made a major change in it's statewide offices in 2006 (Governor, Treasurer, Attorney General, and Secretary of State, and U.S. Senator), and some Ohio House seats. But it will be difficult to undo decades of damage, neglect, and genuine procrastination of providing for the schools. Yes, some school districts are building new schools now. But little remains changed with respect to funding the schools so they can provide state-of-the-art educations.
We are a dumber state now, and a dumber country. Those who want more and expect more are a minority. And at the heart of Ohio's problems have been the right-wing ideologues with their Christian chatter and holier-than-thou gun rights laws and defense of marriage acts. God, guns, and gays - that just about sums up the big problems for the last 20 years in Ohio, folks.
I think the ship can be righted, but at what cost? And is the motivation there from the American people to demand a better culture, and thereby a better country? I detest the crass, commercial, corporate greed culture that is America today. Gone is the pride in actually making anything. Gone is the pride in building a middle class that gives the next generation something to look forward to or beyond. Gone is the real value of education for it's own sake.
We shall not be destroyed from without by any terrorist group with hate-filled hearts. We shall be destroyed by our own hands - empty hands and empty heads.