Mandatory education at 3 years age

[LogGrad98]

Fair enough. That list was supposed to be things that have changed the dynamic of the traditional family. They change it by the very nature of the viewpoints and experiences they bring. Viewpoints that were not as mixed previously.

Things I think bring it down are the increase of ingle parents, men (or women) abandoning their kids, the greater social acceptance of cheating, the rise in a loss of spirituality and substituting tech for parenting among other things.

Things that change the dynamic of traditional families in a good way are Inter race families, inter Faith families and same gender families among other things.


I'm sure that another dozen areas on each side can be used. As well as dozens of exceptions. Such as that awesome single mother.

Over all I see the role/importance of the family going down hill and that's bad for parenting.


That help?

It seems to me you can have all of those negatives in the context of the parenting groups listed as positives. Like you said, there are always exceptions, but in this particular topic they may be more prevalent than any "rules" we try to arbitrarily establish. Such as is there any way to prove that "traditional" families are automatically the best kind?

I don't think you can make blanket statements that certain mixes of parents are going to be better or worse than others. It always comes down to the individuals involved, not their racial, religious, or gender preference status.

 

[Stoked]

It seems to me you can have all of those negatives in the context of the parenting groups listed as positives. Like you said, there are always exceptions, but in this particular topic they may be more prevalent than any "rules" we try to arbitrarily establish. Such as is there any way to prove that "traditional" families are automatically the best kind?

I don't think you can make blanket statements that certain mixes of parents are going to be better or worse than others. It always comes down to the individuals involved, not their racial, religious, or gender preference status.

I can make such a statement as it is purely my opinion.

For example. It is my opinion that two parents are better than 1 when it comes to parenting. Again generally speaking.

Go ahead and throw out traditional and just go with family.

To me the ideal family structure is two involved parents with unique and differing viewpoints/experiences of some kind and their children.

 

[franklin]

I think people generally try to go to the best school they can get into, because it gives you a higher likelihood of better career prospects. Utah tuition is very low compared to most other states, and has good schools, so the issue is not as big of a deal as in other states. The amount of student loan debt has quadrupled over the past 10 years. Between 2005-2012 the number of borrowers increased by 66% and the average balance has increased by 49%. Student loan debt now exceeds credit card and auto loan debt.

According to the PEW research center, 58% of total student loan debt is owned by those with less than $8500 in net worth, which appears to be the opposite of your statements. And 75% is owned by those with 79k or less in net worth. For the average loan debt of $30,000, the student will repay over $33k with interest. When you take away the potential time value of money of investing that early on (many students can't afford to save much until their loans are paid off), it starts to hurt.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/06/student-loan-debt-charts

I'm not familiar with this website, but their source material seems fairly accurate. I would guess that many couples have double this debt. That is quite a bit to add to the rest of life's expenses.

Tuition has been increasing 500% higher than the CPI for years.
https://inflationdata.com/inflation/Inflation_Articles/Education_Inflation.asp

Regardless of the cause, if tuition continues to increase at these rates, student loan debt will be a very big issue for many of our kids.

You'd probably like Professor Perry's stuff on the inflated tuition costs. Seems up your alley. https://www.aei-ideas.org/channel/carpe-diem/

Of course, private universities are not a one size fits all. But franklin indicated they are only for rich people, which is entirely untrue.

And by the way, there are some great loan forgiveness programs for teachers (make payments for only 7-10 years and the rest is forgiven). With the way the repayments are based on 10% of income above the poverty level, a teacher could go to a top school and pay very little in student loans over the repayment period. Getting high quality teachers is a great reason for these programs.

Slightly off topic-my cousin is going to be a surgeon (and make roughly 500k), but with his residency and a few years in a nonprofit hospital, the lionshare of his loans are forgiven. The loan forgiveness programs make a lot of sense, but there should be tweaks.

After writing this, are you really surprised that student debt has skyrocketed? Put aside the fact that deeper capital markets and govt. guarantees have made rates cheaper and thus more alluring. Our current 10% of disposable income requirements combined with 20 year forgiveness encourage grad students to go into as much debt as they can get. I would. Wouldn't you?

 

[moevillini]

...It's harder to get parents to parent than it is to mandate schooling.

parents generally will parent, they just generally will set their own standards

and it's harder to mandate parenting standards than it is to mandate school standards

many studies show students do better if ability grouping is delayed until around 7th or 8th grade (or even older)

 

[babe]

Were you drunk, or just playing a caricature of yourself?

It's important to question any studies that are paid for by grants from the government, when the government has institutionalized research under it's own control, and laid out overall goals for the future of education and called it "progress".

and. . . . are you a paid internet player for the NEA and the FDA, or do you just believe everything government authorities tell you?

You'd do better for your brain if you went out on drinking binge.

 

[babe]

So... are you daft, or did you just have that quarterly need to argue with ElRoach0?

You're using the argument that school is child abuse because you don't agree with the curriculum(probably rightfully so). You're not even making an effort to think about what schooling could be, just that in it's current state(in your opinion) its horrible so lets tear that ******* to the ground.

Please think that through again, re-post, and we can do this again.

To be specific, I don't agree with a curriculum that develops people's conditioned responses to authority in a way that impairs or imposes a negative value on critical thinking. Common Core, to the extent I've seen it, is directed at achieving a transfer of specific "fact" without allowing reasoned questioning or even exposure to alternate views. If you can spit back what's hammered in, you a "good" student.

As an analogy, I consider the BIA under the Interior Dept "reservation" program for the American Natives to be institutionalized abuse of these citizens. While it may have been some small gesture to give them some land, why do we have to manage it? And why so little? And why not a better program from the gitgo for enrolling them as American citizens and helping them to establish themselves on the same economic level as other Americans.

What I seek is a world where government is not a "master" or a "landlord" or empowered to direct people's lives. To be going in that direction, education must not be directed at values imposed by government upon the people, but government must be accountable to and directed by the people.

Abraham Lincoln coined the best expression of this in his Gettysburg Address. It's called "government of the people, by the people, and for the people".

 

[franklin]

To be specific, I don't agree with a curriculum that develops people's conditioned responses to authority in a way that impairs or imposes a negative value on critical thinking. Common Core, to the extent I've seen it, is directed at achieving a transfer of specific "fact" without allowing reasoned questioning or even exposure to alternate views. If you can spit back what's hammered in, you a "good" student.

I have a pretty similar view, minus the authority loathing. From a personal p.o.v., I never had a problem getting good grades in school, but I never really learned anything either. I never tried until college, where I studied plenty but still never learned much. A few years out of college I finally figured out that it's okay to consider all sides to a topic. In fact, I appreciate and value input from all across the spectrum on just about every topic. That was an inflection point where I finally began to learn. The other key is having a genuine interest in a subject. You cannot learn if your only desire is to game the system into a passing grade. Learning takes more than that.

It's not that I don't mind requiring a well rounded curriculum, that's very important. It's the matter of fact, my way or the highway, this is right and everyone who tells you otherwise is wrong nature of the system that I don't care for. I think this shows through in how self-righteous, know-it-all and judgmental people have become. For example, my grandparents' generation never sat around gossiping about people, and if someone said something about their worst enemy they would simply reply "you don't know their situation". Today is the complete opposite and everyone wants to condemn everyone else for how they raise their children, how they spend their money, what they do in their spare time, what they eat, drink, keep as pets, etc. etc. I think that's at least in part a product of two generations of a system ingraining my way or the highway mentality into kids.

Then again, maybe I'm just being naive and cynical since "this is the way it's always been". That's a pretty good rule for human nature.

 

[One Brow]

It's important to question any studies that are paid for by grants from the government, when the government has institutionalized research under it's own control, and laid out overall goals for the future of education and called it "progress".

Grants from the government, unlike some grants from the private sector, don't come with expected results attached. The government does not directly hire the researchers. No individual study is authoritative, but the data is generally trustworthy.

 

[babe]

Grants from the government, unlike some grants from the private sector, don't come with expected results attached. The government does not directly hire the researchers. No individual study is authoritative, but the data is generally trustworthy.

I've seen a lot of otherwise competent researchers writing grant proposals, and subsequent research results, with a weather eye out for the granting institutions' wishes. You will never win this argument, OB, because you are dead wrong.

In an ideal universe you should be able to believe in things like this. In our real universe, it takes a lot of principled and determined people to keep "institutions" on the right track.

 

[One Brow]

I've seen a lot of otherwise competent researchers writing grant proposals, and subsequent research results, with a weather eye out for the granting institutions' wishes. You will never win this argument, OB, because you are dead wrong.

Then, why didn't you write something that disagreed with what I wrote? The "granting institution" is not the government. For example, NIH grants are approved by teams of scientists, based on what those scientists thing will be interesting or productive. When only 1/4 or grant proposals get approved, of course you write them with an eye to what would be interesting or productive to those scientists at that institution. That's a far cry from a drug company or tobacco company trying to generate research that supports a specific conclusion.

In an ideal universe you should be able to believe in things like this. In our real universe, it takes a lot of principled and determined people to keep "institutions" on the right track.

Generally, the first step is to remove the politicians from the decision-making.

 

[babe]

Then, why didn't you write something that disagreed with what I wrote? The "granting institution" is not the government. For example, NIH grants are approved by teams of scientists, based on what those scientists thing will be interesting or productive. When only 1/4 or grant proposals get approved, of course you write them with an eye to what would be interesting or productive to those scientists at that institution. That's a far cry from a drug company or tobacco company trying to generate research that supports a specific conclusion.



Generally, the first step is to remove the politicians from the decision-making.

both points are good enough to stand. My point might be directed more at "users" of institutions with special interests attached. . . . . .