As teacher unions fight to keep schools closed, the true cost is being felt by students who are racking up failing grades, dropping out of virtual classes, increasing drug use, and, in rising numbers, committing suicide. In response, some union officials like the President of the Los Angeles Teacher’s Union has labelled calls to return to class examples of white privilege despite overwhelming science supporting resumption of classes. However, for minority students, this shutdown has taken a dire situation and turned into a free-fall disaster. The pandemic led to the closure of an already failing public school system, as evident in a shocking story out of Baltimore. As recently reported, a high school student almost graduated near the top half of his class after failing every class but three in four years. He has a 0.13 GPA. His mother finally went public in exasperation with the failures in the public schools.
Tiffany France is understandably upset. She is a mother of three who works three jobs to support her family. She was never told that her son failed 22 classes and was late or absent 272 days over his first three years of high school. She was called for only one teacher-student meeting and that meeting never occurred at Augusta Fells Savage Institute of Visual Arts.
France ultimately had to pull her son out of the school and enrolled him in an accelerated program to allow him to graduate in 2023.
For decades, we have spent huge amounts of money in school districts like Washington, D.C. and Baltimore as these cities and their leaders have failed to address these failures. We have had a lost generation of kids who have neither the education nor the trained skills to succeed in society. Yet, there is no accountability for the political and educational leaders in these cities.
In the meantime, school officials seem intent on driving top performing students from their systems in Boston, New York and other cities where advanced programs are being shutdown or suspended. Mayor Bill deBlasio proclaimed that public schools are a means to redistribute wealth as students continue to fail on every level in the system. Other education officials have denounced “meritocracy” as racist. These officials, including a recent congressman, attack standardized tests as racist rather than make real progress to improve performance on such tests for these children.
The top spending public school districts are also some of the worst performing school districts. New York topped the per capita spending at $24,040 per kid. Washington, D.C. is close at $22,759. Baltimore is often ranked in the top three per capita spending districts. The total budget for Baltimore public schools is $1.2 billion. That is for a city with a total population of roughly 600,000 (The greater Baltimore metropolitan area is 2.8 million). In 2015, the school population was 84,000 kids.
According to a 2019 study, over half of the New York City public schoolkids cannot handle basic math or English. On tests, Asian kids shows a 74.4 percent proficiency in math with a 66.6 proficiency for whites, a 33.2 percent proficiency for Hispanics, and a 28.2 percent proficiency for African Americans. Thus, more than two third of African American kids were not able to handle basic math in a school system with one of the highest per capita expenditures for students in country. Thus, public schools may be a vehicle for deBlasio to “redistribute wealth” but he is not distributing education or learning to those who need it the most.
In Washington, with the highest per capita spending on students, education officials “celebrated” a small improvement of scores in 2019. However, the scores would make most people cringe. Only 21.1 percent of black students were proficient in math (as opposed to 78.8 percent for white students).
In Wisconsin, the 2019 scores (for students in grades 3 to 8 and grade 11) showed only 39.3% of students tested proficient or better in English/language and only 40.1% demonstrated a proficient or better understanding of math. Both showed drops. However, the racial disparity was particularly shocking. Ironically, the gap slightly narrowed due to white students declining in scores. However, in the eighth grade, only 12.1 percent of black students were proficient or advanced in English. There was still as 30 point gap for black students.
In the meantime, the pandemic has led to delays, reductions, or outright cancellations of standardized testing in many districts. So now students will not be going full-time to school and also not be tested on their proficiency in subjects in some districts. It is as if they did not exist, which is precisely the problem. Politically, they do not seem to register in terms of importance or influence. They are useful objects for politicians who use them for campaigns for more money or power. Yet, they seem utterly detached from any actual benefits as these leaders allow public schools to continue on the same course of proven failure.
Watching this happen to the public schools has been particularly hard for many of us who are ardent supporters of public education. Growing up in Chicago during the massive flight of white families from the public school system, I remained in public schools for much of my early education. My parents organized a group to convince affluent families remain in the system. They feared that, once such families left, the public schools would not only lose diversity but political clout and support. They also wanted their kids to benefit from such diversity. My wife and I also believe in that cause and we have kept our four kids in public schools through to college. We believe public education plays a key role in our national identity and civics. They shape our next generation of citizens. My children have benefitted greatly from public schools and the many caring and gifted teachers who have taught them through the years.
Reading accounts like that of Tiffany France is a disgrace. She is working three jobs and counting on the school system to give her three children an education . . . and a chance. Yet, Baltimore and other cities have failed such children for decades. There is no accountability in the system. These leaders are failing whole generations and leaving them to an endless cycle of poverty and crime. Yet, they are reelected or reappointed every year. Educational leaders demand more money but show little progress or success. The money evaporates and nothing seems to change for Tiffany France or her children.
The problem is not standardized testing. It is the lack of education where a student with below a 1.0 GPA could qualify for cum laude recognition in Baltimore. Decades and billions of dollars have been exhausted without significant improvement. However, the real cost of our failure is born by these students who find little solace in knowing that their per capita expenditures continue to rise as their scores continue to fall. If we ran our highway system like this, we would have billion-dollar gravel roads for highways. In our education system, we are spending billions but kids like Tiffany’s son are going nowhere fast.
A version of this column ran on Fox.com.
Children of parents that take an active role in their child’s education do much better. Most parents are lousy at preparing their children for the future. The education system sucks because of the lack of participation of most parents. So the result is the bureaucracy is in charge of education. I’m not saying most parents don’t care about the future of their children, they just don’t have the understanding, education or skills to to be good parents. Many Asian parents, for example, are not educated or may not even speak English, but their culture emphasizes hard work is necessary for success. There are some negatives to this approach but one cannot deny that as a group of people they have been very successful in the US.
All education is local and must involve local parents and the wallets of local parents.
The federal department of education is unconstitutional and pointless except to impose communism and redistribute wealth.
American education will not stand up to any serious audit.
Your “Asian” parents work their children’s brains to death in private, extra-circular institutions or academies – good for them, kudos to them – that can’t and won’t happen with Africans and Mexicans.
Decertify and criminalize public school teachers/professors unions.
Teach the Three R’s through 12th grade and leave the well-rounded, immaterial, political and perverse to privately funded, university-level institutions.
The college graduation rate is only 33%.
Only 33% of Americans hold bachelor’s degrees.
Teachers/professors unions perpetrate and perpetuate the belief, the fraud, that all citizens must have college degrees and that it is even possible for all citizens to have meaningful degrees.
The value and worth of a college degree has been significantly diluted over the last century.
Grade inflation is a well-worn tool of teachers/professors unions.
Students, generally, forget 75% or what they learn in six days.
Most workers in all categories do not require a college degree.
Talented, gifted and dedicated students will always be accommodated.
Projected success would constitute a legitimate basis for education scholarships and loans.
Advanced degree “education” of other parents’ children is not the burden of the general taxpayer.
George,
I agree in sentiment. Personally, I would add auto maintenance, biology, and chemistry to the three Rs. It seems that the Bachelor degrees are more prolific than ever, see link below. I wish I could wave a wand and make statistics, economics, and critical thinking courses mandatory before you could obtain that sheep skin. All humans are not designed to be happy and fulfilled with college degrees. Some of us, all sexes, like to work with our hands, to build things, or do a task and make someone’s life better. Unfortunately, ignorance, along with NAFTA and other trade agreements have seen an end to much of that here in the USA, leading to a serious drug and crime problem. “Idle hands do the Devil’s work” as some say.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States
Elected officials have ceded all power to the communist teachers unions and public workers unions, and must be impeached and prosecuted with extreme prejudice to the fullest extent of the law, including that of treason as they have engaged in “…adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort…;” the enemy being communist China. All public worker strikers must be fired and replaced immediately and permanently.
It’s long past time, folks.
Out of thousands of stories of public education Turley picks this one, just like his other talking points of free speech Turley will cherry-pick one story, of maybe one teacher, or some city council person that Turley will jump on with right-wing talking points. And say SEE..SEE… they want to destroy free speech. Now Turley want his Trump supporters to believe that public education doesn’t work. Keeping your Trump supporters willfully ignorant is not hard to do Turley, they prefer to be willfully ignorant.
Fish Wings, Nothing Turley wrote is false is it ?
Fishdks ; Out of thousands of stories of pooblik edjumakashun….can you find a positive example ?. With the intentional dumbing down and racial equity , tranny propaganda being indoctrinated into pooblik schooling …. a preferred ending rathan than teaching children even the basics let alone critical thinking.
So as much as you wan to pummel Mr Turley on this observation you are doing exactly what you accuse . Nice try bruh…but that dog don’t hunt !.
I’m only responsible for what I write, not what you can understand.
Fish Wings, you seem very upset that Jonathan Turley is shining the light on problems with the education of students in America. Would you rather that the public didn’t know? Keep the status quo? Many of us parents are deeply concerned about the poor quality of education. Covid has been a catastrophe dropped on an already tenuous situation. US kids were already far behind in reading and math. My husband thinks kids are going to be in summer school for years to make up for falling behind in Covid. I’ve been keeping up with my son’s education. We had to go full homeschool because we lacked the internet for distance learning Zoom classes. We’ve been doing science labs, writing essays, and so on. If he doesn’t understand a math problem we break out the white board and work at it until he does. But what about the kids out there with parents who can’t teach them? What if their parents work, and they’re just zoning out in front of a computer screen distance learning lesson? Most public schools were totally unprepared to basically homeschool. The kids are just staring at a computer screen for hours. It’s harder to focus on a video of your teacher than it is in person. I’ve heard of teens just leaving the room after roll call.
It’s Turley’s blog. He writes about what interests him, which often involves free speech and education. Why do you keep complaining about what interests someone else? What puzzles me is why you would keep reading a blog you complain about. Why not choose the myriad other blogs out there, or write your own?
Cherry pick any public school in the inner city and you end up with lemons.
Ignorance is not bliss.
Silly fishy… You seem to not want to admit “ignorance is bliss” is exactly what the demoratzis aspire to for their cannon fodder. Keep’em stupid and lead them around by the snouts. Good old fashioned despotism 101. And you my friend have bought into this equity of stupidity slight of hand.
The Constitution does not assign them the status of being the “White Man’s Burden” – please cite wherein you believe it does.
You’re free. You’re on your own.
Funny enough I first found this story browsing for the market reaction posts from the typically virulently racist but typically market obsessed altright forum goers at auto-admit (basically what stormfront and 4chan are for normal adults and children respectively, they are for lawyers). The fact that this is the news of the day already tells you which direction the site is moving. Not that it isn’t newsworthy but it’s not like we’re getting dozens of stories a day either.
“typically virulently racist”
Says the racist.
Does the Constitution preclude racism when it provides the freedoms of thought, speech, promulgation, press, belief, religion, segregation, assembly, and every conceivable natural and God-given freedom per the 9th Amendment?
Answer: No.
Americans are free to hold any opinion they choose on race.
_______________________________________________
You are imposing the principle of the Communist Manifesto: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” when the Constitution provides freedom with which individuals make their own success and suffer their own failure.
The Communist Manifesto is anathematic to the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, and communists are the direct and mortal enemies of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, America and Americans.
Treason is “…adhering to and giving aid and comfort to the enemy.”
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
People must adapt to the outcomes of freedom.
Freedom does not adapt to people, dictatorship does.
walworths, Just FYI this is just a sampling of the topic titles on the front page as we speak:
“ The last POTUS of the USA will be a gay black tranny with AIDS”
“ N****r.” (FYI I censored this)
and
“I like my girls from ten to sixteen”.
Sounds like a real far right paradise to me. Of course they make crypto and stock predictions and moves as well and weigh in on legit legal issues from time to time so it’s not devoid of thick skinned liberals such as myself.
Of course Leftists never mention race.
Find me a leftist forum where a topic title is literally the n word. There’s a difference between mentioning race and perpetuating theories of racial superiority, gay bashing, and whatever is going on there with the fetishizing of underage children seemingly being openly accepted. I didn’t have to look hard for it. All those topics were posted today and were among the most recent.
If you think their obsession with kids is a one off here’s some that popped up since:
“ Naked 15 year old on your bed with perky A’s and a full blonde bush”
“ MFCR 14 y/o cameltoe ITT”
and
“ Rate this teen.”
I don’t click on these sick sounding articles so I can’t tell you what’s going on within those 3. The last could be referring to someone at the age of consent for all I know but kind of hard to give the benefit of the doubt with the other 2. The conspiracy theorists at Qanon allege the left is full of pedophiles and child sex rings yet between the Foley’s of America, the Catholic Church sex ring (which I admit is a church that has members of all political affiliations but is commonly associated with the right when it comes to views on sex and marriage), and said board, the evidence would seem to be to the contrary.
Shouldn’t have said “Catholic Church sex ring” was typing too fast stream of conscious and no edit button. That should be “Catholic Church molestation scandals”.
Night folks.
Biden made a speech in front of the Senate using the n word 13 times. The man you voted for President was a racist and was involved in sexual abuse. His only redeeming quality is that his mental capacity is so low you can’t blame him for any of these things because he can’t remember them.
Are you talking about him quoting someone to point out the racist views of Reagan’s nominee for associate attorney general?
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-biden-ad-racist-idUSKCN24N30U
CK, I am talking about Biden using the word 13 times. How would the press have handled Trump doing the same no matter what the reason? The question would have arisen, was 13 times necessary? I don’t object based on content, but the left would saying it was excessive use and wasn’t necessary. I object based on hypocrisy. A couple of weeks ago Professor Turley did a story on a law professor who ran into considerable problems from the left for his hypothetical use of only the letter n… in an exam question which represented a real world problem. He was suspended.
It is you or those you look at favorably that have the objection. If the hypocrisy of the left didn’t exist I wouldn’t comment on Biden’s use of the n word 13 times. However, you and the left are hypocritical most of the time so it is fair play until you give up on the hypocrisy. Personally I wouldn’t think too deeply about such language. I am more interested in how people govern and their capabilities. In Biden’s case those are near the bottom and have been so virtually his entire career though now as President his mental capabilities are severely in question I think by both parties.
A hypothetical use saying it verbatim has no place in congress. You can allude to something without stating it explicitly and it will have the same impact such instances.
In contrast, if a party wants to nominate baby Hitler, reading his quotes into the record so everyone viscerally knows who they’re voting on on the other hand is warranted.
These incidents are easily distinguishable for that reason. If the Dems nominated Robert Byrd for a high position for instance and GOP members read his earlier racist quotes into the record verbatim I don’t think anyone on the left would try to quote their use decades later as an example of the racism of the right (mainly because it makes the left look worse) but the fact that the right has done it here and typically our of context reeks of desperation and an attempt to muddy the waters rather than claim any moral high ground.
“I don’t think anyone on the left would try to quote their use decades later “
Ck, I know you just woke up after being asleep for too many years. What do you think cancel culture has been doing?
“ What do you think cancel culture has been doing?”
Not falling into traps of using someone’s words out of context when the details point the finger right back at them.
It would be like the right saying a leftist candidate is a homophobe for using gay slurs on the house floor when he was quoting a far right politician to prevent him from being given free reign over decisions involving gays in the military. I mean if there are quotes to claim Biden is a racist I wouldn’t want to use the one that shows how explicitly racist the republicans were in turn if I were you.
>>”“ What do you think cancel culture has been doing?”
>Not falling into traps”
Then you are wasting your time thinking and reading about current events. I used the left’s modus operandi.
S.Meyer quoting me: ““ >Not falling into traps”
Then you are wasting your time thinking and reading about current events. I used the left’s modus operandi.”
My original quote “ Not falling into traps of using someone’s words OUT OF CONTEXT when the details point the finger right back at them.”
You seem to be an expert in the new right’s modus operandi.
“You seem to be an expert in the new right’s modus operandi.”
You seem to be lost where politics is concerned. Look at how Cuomo was applauded and even won an Emmy. The darling of the left, while all sorts of accusations were made against Rick deSantis and Florida’s management of Covid. Cuomo turns out to have been a killer and his state a disaster. Florida turns out to be a success story with schools and businesses open based on de Santis leadership. That is how your side distorts almost everything and then quickly forgets repeating the same stupidity over and over again.
It’s OK CK07, you can believe what you wish but those beliefs are upended all the time.
Just to reiterate, so you can understand the issue. This is the equivalent of the right pointing the finger at someone on the left for saying “grab them buy the p*ssy” on the house floor 17 times, leaving out that he was quoting Trump each time in order to criticize him.
I’m distinguishing that from the typical hypocrisy of those on the right who would say Cuomo needs to be fired for reportedly touching a woman’s lower back and kissing her hand in a greeting, in spite of having no qualms supporting a leader who said and did grab them by the p*ssy, talked of “blood coming from her…wherever” and once claimed of Carly Fiorina “ . “Look at that face. Would anybody vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president? I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not supposed to say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?”
The first type of hypocrisy is almost insultingly stupid, the second is the norm I’ve come to expect from the right.
“I’m distinguishing that from the typical hypocrisy of those on the right who would say Cuomo needs to be fired for reportedly touching a woman’s lower back and kissing her hand in a greeting”
Actually that is the left and the news media that is pushing the sex angle. They don’t want to admit that their former love was a killer of seniors so the left and MSM have deflected the discussion to one of sexual advances. Cuomo is a hypocrite as we saw during the Kavanaugh hearings but that is not the right’s gripe or mine. Ours is the fact of how poorly he handled the Covid crisis killing thousands of seniors in the process along with his ineptness and constant complaining.
I am surprised that you swallowed the sex story that was created to get people like you to think about the non-important sex story so that the mindless forget about the murders. …I really shouldn’t be surprised because you seem to miss the gist of most of the important things that have happened.
The cuomo example as with the congressman being called out by the right for saying p*ssy 17 times on the house floor in quoting Trump were hypotheticals with a hint of truth to them presented for illustrative purposes and simplified for the benefit of your understanding. They weren’t intended to run the gamut of criticism Cuomo has faced from the left or the right or suggest that someone has been canceled by the right for statements taken out of context where they quoted Trump verbatim to criticize him.
I’m not going to go off on a tangent getting into the weeds of a Florida vs New York battle with you (really don’t have the time), but suffice to say anyone interested in hearing a more complete picture of the truth than the typical truncated out of context one S. would present as fact, a nice summary is presented here: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/feb/26/instagram-posts/chart-comparing-new-york-and-florida-covid-19-flaw/
CK07, there is no need to develop a new tangent. We already know you screwed up in not recognizing that Cuomo is being blamed for killing thousands of seniors, not the sex scandal. The sex scandal is the Democrat attempt to take the focus off the deaths and get rid of Cuomo at the same time. There is good reason to do so now. Those in power recognize Cuomo as a threat to their future prospects and they also recognize the threat to multiple Democratic governors that did similar things to what was done by Cuomo That includes killing seniors needlessly. The Democrat’s attempt to hide all these horrible things under the rug is requiring a very big rug.
I personally assess what a person has done and what he can do based on past experience so I discount all these sex scandals and the like even though I disapprove. I am more interested in the security of this nation and its people along with the leadership skills of those in charge. Killing seniors is not what I call effective leadership. Destroying economies is not effective leadership either.
Cuomo was not unique in his failures. Your problem is a lack of awareness of what is happening right before your eyes and your reliance on silly fact check articles written by those with limited knowledge and an agenda to protect the Democrat Party at all costs. The big question is how Florida, which was one of the most at risk states, avoided so many of the deaths along with avoiding a broken economy. That is something that doesn’t interest you because it doesn’t feed your bias. You would rather remain in the realm of those where ignorance and a closed mind is the rule.
Suffice to say you’re reading too much into it. I’m well aware of the earlier criticism of Cuomo for trying hide the numbers who tied in nursing homes by having reported as hospital deaths. I’m not on my computer and don’t really have the time for your pettiness but my post using him as an example was being written before you’d posted about the nursing home issue, it wasn’t a response to it. If you’ll look up the time for them both im sure they’re close enough you’ll realize it wasn’t a response to your post that went out first but a reiteration of my earlier post with hypos. Or are you suggesting there really was a member of the left the right criticized for repeating trumps words verbatim? The examples were in the same vein but if that’s what you choose to obsess over, take it.
CK, I’m not reading too much into it. In fact I am just about giving you a free pass for your lack of inquisitiveness that leads you to comment as you do.
What you call pettiness is the deaths of thousands of seniors at the hands of an uncaring Democrat leader, Cuomo. I don’t care that much about words. I care about deeds and the Democrats have proven themselves to be uncaring fascists that stifle freedom of speech whenever they can. You gobble their words up and permit the most heinous crimes to exist.
“Turley will cherry-pick one story, of maybe one teacher,”
If you wish I will provide documentation of tens of thousands of students and hundreds of NAMED schools that you can look at to see that you are wrong. All you have to do is ask. The problem is endemic. I will also demonstrate a solution that has turned students around in hundreds of schools documented by the state.
The only reason not to ask is that you don’t want to know the answer and prefer to repeat things that satisfy your ego rather than your brain.
Geez Fishwit, Mr Turley is using an example. If you don’t think that big city public schools are failing their urban , underserved, students you have been living under a rock. I still remember watching a mother in tears when the Obama admin announced that the school voucher program in DC would be discontinued.
The K-12 Public School teacher unions are the root cause of rising educational costs and the unconscionable decline of educational outcomes.
The teacher unions are a political party first and educators second. The teacher unions extort their school districts into higher all in compensations, and yet there are clearly values that money cannot buy. Taxpayers should not be forced to throw their hard earned incomes into the losing public school sink holes. Tiffany France worked 3 jobs , how well spent were her school taxes ? Allowing tax dollars to follow the student is a good start.
Kavanaugh, say his name Karen. I would bet there are less than 1% of early education teachers that are white, heterosexual, males. The Karens are in control of the unions, and the numbers point to their prejudice and discrimination to normal males.
“The Karens are in control of the unions, and the numbers point to their prejudice and discrimination to normal males”
****
There is something to that. Boys are poorly served by teachers who don’t understand boyish behavior. The solution they favor is to medicate them until they are manageable. Just say no.
Synopsis of public schools. Attend sporadically and graduate with a social promotion where grading systems are not allowed. Points awarded if good in sports or attending sports.
That qualifies them for student loan program which includes if the application is written by someone else vacations to Europe disguised as further education
Has the entire student loan debt cancelled automatically if female or automatically if not female.
Now the big moment arrives. Jobs
Used to be Employers could disregard such useless information as high school diplomas.Under Biden Employers will be required to hire non qualified former students and pay them equal rates if they show up or not. with benefits, retirement and medical care
Used to be that would not be required of the US Military but now one can fit in those earlier categories and go as high as four star general. How? No Civics training is a requirement. But then it’s not taught.
Michael, if a person has an IQ under 85 their is no job in the military for which they are qualified. Even in combat you would be a danger to your fellow soldiers. If you can’t even serve in the military during a time of war what good will you ever be for your society or yourself. The left will never admit the fault of their policies in perpetuating this tragedy. They keep saying give us one more roll of the dice for the children. If you keep condemning people to a life of poverty and or prison please stop doing it. You’ve had 50 years.
If you can’t even serve in the military during a time of war what good will you ever be for your society or yourself.
I would refer you to Edward Banfield’s remarks on this subject in The Unheavenly City Revisited. There are about 40 million working aged persons with and IQ below 85. Strange as it may seem to you. About 3 million qualify for disability benefits. The rest are working or have family members working on their behalf.
While were at it, the statutory limit on military recruitment is an IQ of 80. The military in recent decades has made a practice of excluding people with an IQ below 84.
Dear Nancy, please don’t tell me that it’s all about the children.
Prairie Rose asked below” “That’s pretty bad. However, a distant family member (who is Caucasian) graduated from a district that had students with a C average or better graduating with Honors. Only a handful of kids stood up. Low expectations in a community with lots of low income families. A Hispanic friend of mine calls it ‘soft racism of low expectations.’ What do you call it, though, when it isn’t race-based but income-based?” https://jonathanturley.org/2021/03/05/baltimore-student-who-failed-all-but-three-classes-in-four-years-was-ranked-in-top-half-of-his-class/comment-page-1/#comment-2068269
People keep looking for excuses in nutrition and income and they may play a part, but there are other factors.
More than a decade ago the Chicago Tribune had an article about racial disparities in public schools and they were shocked to discover that white children from low income families were doing better than black children from upper middle class families. “Something is wrong,” they said.
Now imagine a large class consisting entirely of white students with the usual distribution of IQ. How well do you think the students with IQ of 85 and lower would do when compared with the rest of the class? On average, probably not very well at all. But, IQ of 85 and lower is half the black population. Why do we assume that poor academic performance on their part is due to racism when if they were entirely white we would not expect any more from those of 85 and lower?
The hidden tragedy here is that, as ‘The Bell Curve’ said, it ‘is’ a bell curve and that means that there are a lot of black people who are smarter than most white people.
What happens to those smart black children in a school system that is chaotic and dangerous and that expects practically nothing in learning from their students? A track system could pull those smart black children aside and put them with others in a calm, safe classroom where excellence is expected and often achieved. Instead, they are left to rot in a dumpster of a school. That actually is a type of cruel racism.
Young,
“People keep looking for excuses in nutrition and income and they may play a part, but there are other factors.”
Those are not excuses, and, yes, there are other factors. Nutrition affects attention, executive function, memory, cognition, and aggression. But, even if struggling kids got excellent nutrition and supplements to address deficiencies, that would only be part of the solution. Oftentimes, these kids are in lousy home environments, so they are subject to constant high cortisol levels, which also affects micronutrient use and absorption. Family life is often chaotic and does little to nothing to teach kids about much of anything. The family and community culture doesn’t help matters. The schools, though, too, could be doing a better job of expecting and reinforcing self-discipline, as well as implementing a solid, knowledge-based curriculum. That said, there has to be desire on the part of administration, teachers, and families to make changes (as well as a desire on the part of the community).
Then there is the big, ugly issue of responsibility, or lack thereof, sitting in the room. Ben Carson’s mom took responsibility for her boys, told them the TV was broken, sent them to the library, and expected them to write her book reports about what they read. She made sure they gained knowledge.
I have said in the past that if a system is sufficiently broken and there seems to be little desire to make massive changes to improve the situation, then responsible parents should head to charter schools or private schools. Tracking happens to students rather than students and families making the choice to head into higher level classes. Teachers and administrators could recommend students for more challenging coursework. However, particularly at the lower grades, I think ability grouping and higher expectations in general, as well as more effective scaffolding and reinforcement would go a long way.
This lady’s kid has an honesty problem, too. He wasn’t honest with his mom about his pitiful lack of achievement. The lady has a lot on her shoulders, but she should have also been paying attention more. Some of that failure is on the school, but parents need to be on top of their kids’ schoolwork, too. The district, too, isn’t being honest with itself, the parents, or the taxpayers.
I am having trouble believing that anyone can eat his way to a higher IQ.
Word Press hates me today. I have tried to reply to both you and S. Meyer and WordPress has gobbled up my posts. Ugh.
If that is happening so frequently perhaps it would be better to compose your posts elsewhere and carry them to the reply box.
S. Meyer,
I did, thankfully. They are sitting quietly in a word document. I have tried several time to resubmit but they just vanish. No cusswords. No excessive links. It didn’t even say anything about ‘whoops, looks like this is a duplicate post’. I will try again in a little bit–give it some time to digest the others, I guess. Sigh.
Sure Prairie! We all know your foul mouth and always hide the kids!
You are back. Say All Lives Matter or explain why they don’t.
You first. Say why Black Lives Matter or explain why they don’t.
He never suggested they didn’t. Black is a subset of All.
Art– Yes, I told him that but he isn’t very bright. Probably a low-wage troll.
I didn’t think so Young. Saying Black Lives Matter doesn’t imply others don’t..
We’re all white guys here right now. You going to tell me that when reading the news about somebody being killed in town, you don’t check what part of town before reading further? Of course we do. Are you going to tell me that you don’t know that convicted murderers of white people receive much harsher sentencing than for murders of blacks? Maybe you don;t know that, but of course it’s true.
Anonjf- if you believed black lives matter enough for you to shout it out you would note that 54% of the murders in this country are committed by blacks mostly killing other blacks.
You would rail against the daily slaughter of blacks by blacks in Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia and other Democrat cities
But you and your ilk remain strangely quiet about that holocaust. You don’t care about black lives, not really. You simply want to stir up trouble and racial hatred.
Young,
“I am having trouble believing that anyone can eat his way to a higher IQ.”
I understand that. There is a lot to unpack, and, I don’t think it is as easy as just getting rid of junk food for kids (though that would go a long way). An expectant mother’s nutrition can affect the developing baby’s cognition. Early childhood nutrition can further affect a child’s cognition, as can high levels of stress. Also, if the neurons do not have what they need to function optimally due to insufficient micronutrients or fatty acids for a good cascade or there is gut dysbiosis which can affect neurotransmitters, then memory is going to be affected, recall will be affected, processing will be affected. Poor nutrition can certainly hamper a person’s ability to intellectually perform, which would be apparent in a school setting. Processed foods definitely negatively affect the gut microbiome, and, they do not have optimal levels of micronutrients as compared to real food. The gut microbiota produce a very large percentage of neurotransmitters; if that isn’t going well, then a person may have trouble thinking clearly, or suffer from depression.
I still have questions about this myself–does good nutrition just help someone express innate intelligence more effectively or does it actually increase IQ?
Diet can take a long time to change adverse results – if ever – and IQ is similarly not quickly changed. IQ is more directly impacted by culture than diet. I’d like to see Young take an IQ test written by Ice T in Ebonics.
I’d like to see Young take an IQ test written by Ice T in Ebonics
***
I would probably do okay. Reading your posts has gotten me used to unraveling gibberish.
But why bother? Because so many great works of literature and science have originally been written in Ebonics?
Dr. Terry Wahls’ experience with changing her diet:
https://youtu.be/KLjgBLwH3Wc
Malnutrition may damage your neuropsychological development. Problem for Prairie Rose thesis: blacks are not malnourished.
Art,
Not in the classical sense when a person gets scurvy, rickets or Kwashiorkor’s disease. Micronutrient inefficiencies drive a great deal of chronic disease today. You can be getting plenty of carbohydrates, for instance, but if those are low in micronutrients, then the body will be starving for those.
Stuckler D, McKee M, Ebrahim S, Basu S (June 2012) Manufacturing Epidemics: The Role of Global Producers in Increased Consumption of Unhealthy Commodities Including Processed Foods, Alcohol, and Tobacco. PLoS Med 9(6)
ATP is not biologically active without magnesium. The body cannot properly build glutathione without selenium. The endoplasmic reticulum won’t work right without zinc.
The Standard American diet of pizzas, burgers, chips, and other processed foods is not replete in micronutrients.
Blacks, in general, are eating a diet rather high in processed foods. However, a lousy diet is pretty endemic in our culture.
J Natl Med Assoc. 2010 October. “The effect of race and predictors of socioeconomic status on diet quality in the Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span (HANDLS) study sample.” Raffensperger, S, Kuczmarski, M., et al.
“The Standard American diet of pizzas, burgers, chips, and other processed foods is not replete in micronutrients.”
***
A hamburger is pretty darn good food, protein, fat, carbohydrates, lettuce, tomato, onion, maybe more. Add bacon. I could do very well eating only hamburgers. The key part of “micronutrients” is “micro”. You don’t need to make a feast of them. A little goes a long way.
Most people in history have been lucky to get food on a regular basis, never mind micronutrients.
“The key part of “micronutrients” is “micro”. ”
Wouldn’t it be great, given they are micro and all, if these could be condensed and sold.
Oh, wait……….
Young,
Burgers are pretty tasty, but I think you’re over-simplifying things. I suppose it depends on whether the burger is homemade or from a fast-food restaurant, as well as what you pick to put on it. Iceberg lettuce has some nutrients, but not as much as spinach or kale. The tomatoes on fast-food burgers appear to be wet, red cardboard that have been, as Garrison Keillor would say, strip-mined out of Texas. The buns also seem to be rather highly-processed and the whole thing seems impervious to decay. A chiropractor friend of mine bought a McDonald’s Happy Meal, took out the cheeseburger and put it in a box that sat on her counter as a display. The darn thing did not rot, did not grow mold, and didn’t smell–molds and bacteria didn’t even want to eat it!
Regarding micronutrients and ‘a little goes a long way’–you still need to ingest and absorb enough to keep your cells running optimally. Of course you can get too much, but right now it seems people are getting too little of some key micronutrients, such as magnesium.
Historically, while most people were lucky to get food on a regular basis, the food food they would have eaten wouldn’t have been highly processed, so it was likely fairly high in micronutrients. If they were able to kill and eat an animal, they’d have eaten nose to tail–including liver, sweetbreads, and the heart. Historically, people were outside far more and physically moved around far more, too.
J Natl Med Assoc. 2010 October.
***
Probably Journal of the American Medical Association [JAMA].
I am not criticizing. You likely are quoting or pasting from another source. Happens to me too. But you probably want to use the citation again so I thought you would want the small correction. I would. Regards.
I will double check to make sure I didn’t accidentally grab the wrong citation. I have a lot of papers and citations and I may have grabbed the wrong source to bolster my point. Thank you for the heads up.
Prairie Prose– I was mistaken, not you. I had never heard of the National Medical Association or its journal. Apparently it specializes in black medical issues and probably isn’t well known. I don’t know its reputation but I am wary of race-focused journals because they tend to be like university studies publications. But maybe not in this case. Even JAMA is sometimes tainted by politics and the AMA has been losing members over the last few years. Usually the technical articles in JAMA are very good.
Young,
It happens. There are a *ton* of journals out there, too many to really keep track of very well. Thank you for the clarity on its apparent specialty. I knew it was not necessarily one of the well-known journals, but the information seemed fairly sound. I try to be careful about how I consider information as I weigh an article’s merits. A journal could be race-focused but also ruthlessly accurate. The article seemed to reflect that. And, yes, JAMA is getting tainted by politics, unfortunately.
Young, JAMA and even the NEJM along with the Lancet have become very political. If I correctly recall most physicians were scr-wed over by the AMA in the 80’s when the AMA made an illegal deal with the federal government to have exclusive monetary rights over publishing of codes etc. (federal codes of that nature are supposed to be free to all and then any publisher had the right to publish and charge.) That is where much of their funding comes from. Their membership was pitifully low then. I don’t know if they are losing more members now, but they don’t have that many to lose. Medical students and those in training I think belong to the organization at a very low price if any, but many do not continue after full dues become operational. I wonder how many are members who pay out of pocket for the organization the full rate and do not have political aspirations in the AMA or elsewhere?
The AMA has not supported its members and though perceived strong in the years past I don’t think it ever was as strong as the perception. I think their strength appeared because of common interests with other groups with power plus the nature believe it supports itself to the detriment of the medical community and their patients. I think their individual physician ‘authority’ has a lot to do with it.
Young,
“J Natl Med Assoc. 2010 October.
***
Probably Journal of the American Medical Association [JAMA].”
I double-checked my citation. While I probably could have used a stronger source to bolster my assertion, that’s what PubMed lists as the source for the article I chose: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2987681/
I did not make a mistake as far as I can tell (unless there is a name change that occurred in the intervening 10-odd years). Am I missing something? Even if an organizational or journal name-change did occur, I would think I should nonetheless continue to use the original source (that’s what PubMed listed). I did seek out additional JAMA articles to better bolster my points about dietary quality of low-income blacks, as well as for the US in general. (see below)
Regarding poor diet quality of low-income blacks:
“SNAP may not be meeting its potential for improving dietary quality. The only statistically significant association we observed in fixed effects analysis was that, among Black households, SNAP participation was associated with an increase in total calories purchased of nearly 70 calories per household member per day. This result is potentially concerning given the direct relationship between caloric intake and obesity(37). … SNAP participation is not associated with improvements in dietary quality or weight status among black adults regardless of their food security status(40).” “research shows that black individuals are less likely to cook their meals at home compared to their white and Hispanic counterparts(42), yet cooking from scratch is often the only way for SNAP households to achieve Thrifty Food Plan nutrition targets while remaining within their SNAP benefits allotment(43,44). SNAP-Ed nutrition programs might address these disparities by focusing on enhancing cooking skills, particularly among black SNAP participants.”
Public Health Nutr. 2018 Dec; 21(18): 3377–3385. “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program participation and racial/ethnic disparities in food and beverage purchases:SNAP and Racial/Ethnic Disparities” Anna H. Grummon and and Lindsey S. Taillie
Shawn Stevenson also has something to say about nutrition in ‘the hood’ (fried baloney or hotdog sandwiches):
https://themodelhealthshow.com/america-covid-19/
Regarding the endemic nature of poor nutrition in the US:
“overall diet quality remained low, with more than half of US youth still having a poor diet.” “Similar to the present findings for youth, overall diet quality among US adults slowly improved, mainly because of increased whole grains and decreased sugar-sweetened beverages and added sugar; yet large proportions continued to have poor diet quality, with persistent or increasing differences among key sociodemographic subgroups.”
JAMA. 2020 Mar 24; 323(12): 1161–1174. “Trends in Diet Quality Among Youth in the United States, 1999-2016” Junxiu Liu, et al.
“First, US adults still consumed a disproportionally high energy intake from low-quality carbohydrates.” “Fourth, US adults with low income and educational attainment experienced a smaller improvement in macronutrient composition and did not improve the overall diet quality in the past 18 years.”
JAMA. 2019 Sep 24; 322(12): 1178–1187. “Trends in Dietary Carbohydrate, Protein, and Fat Intake and Diet Quality Among US Adults, 1999-2016” Zhilei Shan, et al.
Young,
I will try again in the morning, but WordPress is still eating my replies. This is absurd, is it?
A measly two-sentence response will go through, but not anything more thoughtful or substantial?!
https://youtu.be/dTRKCXC0JFg
Prairie Rose,
I restored one of your comments at 12:42 EDT
Thank you so much, Darren! Not sure why WordPress is being so squirrelly. Glad you are there to free comments from its clutches. 🙂
The Standard American diet of pizzas, burgers, chips, and other processed foods is not replete in micronutrients.
That’s not the ‘standard American diet’ except in your addled head. And if you bothered to assess the shelf space devoted to pizza, ground beef, and snack foods as against every other foodstuff, you’d know that. Oh, but you said ‘processed food’, which could cover anything from fruit juice to granola to Indian simmer sauce.
Micronutrient inefficiencies drive a great deal of chronic disease today.
In the mind of amateur dietitians and nutritionists who do a 180 about once in a generation.
Now courtesy the USDA, we have this table “Annual, per capita loss-adjusted food-at-home availability: race and ethnicity”. USDA is slow about getting the data out. The latest survey comparing coarse racial categories is from 2007-08. # per person per year.
Fruit: 96.56 (white), 112.15 (black)
Vegetables: 111.55 (white), 88.15 (black)
Dairy: 184.68 (white); 106.16 (black)
Meat, Poultry, Fish: 88.42 (white); 91.89 (black)
Grains: 92.83 (white); 81.71 (black)
Fat and oil: 40.69 (white); 38.84 (black)
Nuts: 9.25 (white); 4.80 (black)
So, it’s your contention that black kids are failing because they don’t drink enough milk. Do I have that right?
Art,
“So, it’s your contention that black kids are failing because they don’t drink enough milk. Do I have that right?”
No, you don’t. Not even close. And my head is not addled.
“And if you bothered to assess the shelf space”
Whole aisles devoted to chips and candy. Whole aisles devoted to crackers and cookies. Whole aisles devoted to pop and juice (which gets processed just like alcohol in your liver)–NAFLD is becoming quite the problem. Whole aisles devoted to dry cereal. Real food gets a little space at the front of the grocery store and along the edges. Most grocery carts aren’t filled with fresh or frozen veggies, meat, eggs, milk, cheese, or beans. Go to a Walmart sometime and watch people’s carts.
Whole aisles devoted to chips and candy.
One side of an aisle where I live. And the stuff is space intensive and lasts. The candy’s on a little rack at the check-out, as it is in any other supermarket in America.
Whole aisles devoted to crackers and cookies.
About 2/3 of one side of an aisle where I live.
Whole aisles devoted to pop and juice (which gets processed just like alcohol in your liver)–
About one side of an aisle where I live.
Whole aisles devoted to dry cereal.
Ditto.
Real food gets a little space at the front of the grocery store and along the edges.
Dairy, eggs, meats, poultry, fish, fruits, and vegetables occupy the entire back wall and the entire side walls on each side. As you’re facing away from the check out, the artisanal stuff is on the left wall, the vegetables are on the right. About 1/4 of the floor space is occupied by the fruit and vegetable spaces, with displays along the walls, in refrigerated cases, and on stands in the middle of the floor. This does not include canned fruits and vegetables, who have space in the aisles.
Most grocery carts aren’t filled with fresh or frozen veggies, meat, eggs, milk, cheese, or beans. Go to a Walmart sometime and watch people’s carts.
No, why would they be? The stuff spoils and you buy only a few meals worth at a time. I shop at a suburban Safeway within walking distance of my home.
You haven’t figured out you’re a recognizable type, either.
“The stuff spoils and you buy only a few meals worth at a time.”
Why do they spoil? That is an important point.
Most groceries have an entire aisle – or greater part of one – devoted to candy. The ones at the register are for impulse buying and are not the family packs back in the store. Could quibble on size of other displays and so Art does, and being oblivious to the fact that he’s a “recognizable type”, hurls the gratuitous personal insult to end..
No, you don’t. Not even close. And my head is not addled.
You completely ignored the consumption data compiled by USDA and then misrepresented the layout of a standard issue grocery store. This exchange has stopped having much to do with school performance and a great deal to do with Prairie Rose’s socially-sanctioned aggression.
Completely disagree with your characterization. This conversation has gotten off-target like many conversations are wont to do, though the issue of nutrition being one piece of a larger extremely complicated issue is relevant. I am allowed to disagree with your perspectives if I think they are not on target, as you are allowed to do so with me, and I have done so without being snide or insulting.
Poor school performance has many factors, nutrion of the students being one part: structure, curriculum, organization, expectations, discipline, culture of the school and the community, parental involvement, abuse, family stability, chemical exposure, nutrition, mindset, teacher quality, communication, etc. We actually agree on quite a few of these metrics.
I don’t think IQ is baked in nearly to the degree some people think, and, I think nutrition can detrimentally affect kids’ ability to think, process, and remember. Addressing this element should be part of the conversation–not just for Black kids, but any kid having trouble in school.
Poor nutrion can detrimentally affect…
In the NYC study of charter schools, the charter school students did tremendously better than their siblings or equivalent groups that weren’t in the charter schools. There was no change in diet, vitamins, parents or any of the things you mention. These massive improvements came from the use of charter schools. This doesn’t mean that nutrition isn’t important, it is. It means nutrition isn’t as noticeable a problem as you might think and that charter schools are much more important if we are considering the child’s proficiency in math and English.
S. Meyer
That’s what I think too. Public schools fail because they are failures. There has been a push to get essentially unqualified black teachers into the classroom because of the need for ‘role models’. But if the teacher can’t speak proper English and knows basically nothing about fundamental subjects, how useful is that role model? In Detroit the superintendent of the school system was actually illiterate. Maybe still is. But he is black and that is more important in a school superintendent than being able to read.
I wonder how many micro-nutrients and essential oils Lincoln and Washington had as young men? They were pretty smart despite the lack.
“That’s what I think too. Public schools fail because they are failures. “
We see tremendous results in real kids in the ghetto. Why not go for the thing caused real results rather than the thing that might have a positive effect that might not be noticed?
Why some are so dead set against something that in NYC succeeded beyond belief. Not only that but the cost per student leaves money in the public school system.
There has been a push to get essentially unqualified black teachers into the classroom because of the need for ‘role models’
Teacher training is problematic generally. I think most states have screening examinations which limit the damage that the diversicrats can do to the applicant pool. School teachers themselves are not disproportionately black. In re pre-school and kindergarten teachers, it’s 12%; elementary teachers, 10.5%; secondary teachers, 7.7%; special ed teachers, 7.2%; remedial tutors, 12.4%. School and childcare administrators are about 14.3% black; blacks have certain advantages in such positions, inasmuch as status considerations don’t enter into the exchanges between the administrator and the parent and the administrator and the student.
I’m going to wager that disciplinary problems and stupidity in the design or curriculum are more consequential than teacher intelligence in influencing student. The sine qua non of a satisfactory teacher is the ability to explain things to people who aren’t yet versed in them. There are other elements – the capacity to keep order in class, the ability to design performance measures, and the willingness to insist on performance are consequential.
You need to sequester the trouble makers and stand up to their parents, you need to have fixed performance standards (see Jerry Jesness account of his early years in the teaching profession), you need a serious curriculum not shot through with non-academic mush; and you need proven teaching methods that work to impart knowledge, not fads implemented to amuse teachers or administrators. You need elementary teachers who’ve had practical training about how to reach the young (and have a secure base of foundational knowledge) and you need secondary teachers who know their subjects. You haven’t got a load of any of these things.
S. Meyer,
I tried again. Young’s went through, but my reply for you got eaten again. It’s very hard to be patient with technology sometimes…
Must be the fact that I went over 3 lines. Too many words! Be gone! Oi.
Unionized Government Employees are an anathema. They cause weakened standards within whatever bureaucracy they represent. The bureaucracy self promotes its own during negotiations, one union asking another union for preferred rights. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s position on unionized employees within the Federal Government was foretelling “…all government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into public service.”, and further stated “…meticulous attention should be paid to the special relationships and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government”. FDR’s position of yesteryear is relevant today, his position of strikes was echoed years later during President Reagan’s term and the Air Traffic Controllers Strike, FDR “…a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied, Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable…”. Speaking specifically the NEA and AFT collectively have caused more harm to the United States educational system than any elected reprehensive of the people. Cause and effect of their control over boards of Education have shifted criteria away from critical studies, and have mandated that poor performing educators retain employment. How we dispense with this albatross other than through elections I have no idea.
The first workforce of every nation is its military.
The military could and would never be unionized.
Public workers are egregiously and corruptly over compensated.
Elected officials should doing their job of exercising their power to manage, hire, fire, direct and pay.
Public workers should be far fewer, as most governmental functions are unconstitutional and cannot be taxed for (Article 1, Section 8).
Most governmental functions should be privatized and executed by related industries in the private sector.
Government should be substantially smaller and elected officials should have much less to do (Article 1, Section 8).
People should create personal wealth in the private sector not in elected office or public work.
Had enough yet?
Decertify all teachers unions.
Neutralize all communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs).
Criminalize all principles of the Communist Manifesto.
Re-implement the “manifest tenor” of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
________________________________________________________
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and
to provide new Guards for their future security.”
– Declaration of Independence, 1776
_____________________________
“[We gave you] a republic, if you can keep it.”
– Ben Franklin, 1787
________________
“[We gave you] a republic, if you can [take it back].”
– Ben Franklin, [2021]
Ben Franklin’s was a severely restricted-vote republic, not a one man, one vote democrazy. Turnout in the 1788 presidential election of George Washington was 11.6% by design. Voters must have been male, European and age 21 with assets of 50 lbs. Sterling/50 acres. Citizens must have been “…free white person(s)…,” per four iterations of the Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1798 and 1802. Never were the “poor” intended to vote. One man, one vote democrazy always devolves into dictatorship, where America is now – a one-party communist state under dictatorship. The Founders provided states the freedom and latitude to set vote criteria. The communists removed all vote criteria in order to destroy America and American freedom and to impose the “dictatorship of the proletariat.”
That is what they did. That is where America is now; under the dictatorship of the communist teachers unions and the communist proletariat with the full protection of the communist Supreme Court which should have immediately struck down all the unconstitutional communist wars, executive orders, proclamations, programs and legislation from the “Reign of Terror” of “Crazy Abe” Lincoln through the Progressives Fed and IRS, the Social Security and Medicare of FDR and the “Great Society” and War on Poverty of the assassin Lyndon Baines Johnson, and concluding in Comrade Soetoro’s manifestly unconstitutional “Obamacare.”
The American Founders gave Americans the one and only thing they could: Freedom.
The communists replaced it with enslavement through lies, fraud and pie in the sky.
_________________________________________________________________
“the people are nothing but a great beast…
I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value.”
– Alexander Hamilton
_________________
“The true reason (says Blackstone) of requiring any qualification, with regard to property in voters, is to exclude such persons, as are in so mean a situation, that they are esteemed to have no will of their own.”
“If it were probable that every man would give his vote freely, and without influence of any kind, then, upon the true theory and genuine principles of liberty, every member of the community, however poor, should have a vote… But since that can hardly be expected, in persons of indigent fortunes, or such as are under the immediate dominion of others, all popular states have been obliged to establish certain qualifications, whereby, some who are suspected to have no will of their own, are excluded from voting; in order to set other individuals, whose wills may be supposed independent, more thoroughly upon a level with each other.”
– Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted, 1775
Hmmm, this may explain the emoji packed dissertations with no punctuation, 40% of the words misspelled and every fourth word either s h * t or f * * k, also misspelled.
The system has failed, in part because too much was asked of it, in part because rather than promote the best teachers to be the heads of schools and universities, we chose to leave the task to bureaucrats, and we forced all students on to a single track, a foolish choice because not all students should go to university. It is not a single school or district or region. It is the entire system.
We need both vocational and ‘higher’ education, and apprenticeships for trades as well as scholarships for college.
One size simply does not fit all, unless you believe the bell curve is a fictional construct and that everybody has an IQ above 120 and a burning desire to read Elizabethan literature, solve quadratic equations, and probe the mysteries of dark matter.
I have seen both a white valedictorian and a black defensive back on a football scholarship struggle to construct a sentence, and I have heard students of all races argue that they should be graded on how hard they work, not how well they perform. By giving into them, we have created a system that awards participation degrees — a feel-good system which cheats students and misleads their parents. The system fails most obviously in the ghetto, but it is an equal-opportunity failure, which, I suspect is why the sons and daughters of most politicians of both parties attend private schools.
My heart goes out to Tiffany Francis and her son. His situation is tragic, but hardly unique. I have met him many times over the years.
News flash! The purpose of the Baltimore City schools is to provide wages and salaries to people hired by the Baltimore City schools. If they accomplish something in the public interest when they’re clocked-in, that’s gravy.
Also to provide medical insurance to those so hired and to provide pensions and Medigap insurance for those who put in enough time in the latrine. Mustn’t forget the PENSIONS.
Teachers’ Unions make it impossible to fire ineffective teachers.
Unions are appropriate only when anyone at all could be trained to do the job. Putting 6 bolts on wheels on the assembly line for 8 hours. My experience may be atypical, however, I had both good and bad teachers. Some so bad they could have been replaced by the janitor and improve the situation.
Elementary school teachers and highschool teachers should not get “tenure.” State standardized tests can reveal ineffective teachers. That’s a big “so what” since it only leads to “training” for those teachers to “teach to the test;” never to firing.
No, unions are inappropriate in a skill-based profession. Pro golfers do not need a union. Professional physicists do not need a union. Doctors don’t need a union (although the AMA functions a one for them). Lawyers don’t need a union. CEOs don’t need a union. Master debaters don’t need a union. Entertainers (including professional sports) don’t need a union (although stage hands and other support areas might.)
Only when anyone at all could do the job well is a union appropriate.
Although it is hard to make the case in this example, it is not always the teacher’s fault. Where was the father of the child? I mean, if the mother had to work three jobs to help her family then they either have a very expensive lifestyle or there is no dad around. It’s hard to check homework when you’re at work.
“Although it is hard to make the case in this example, it is not always the teacher’s fault.”
It is the system’s fault. The system promoted by the unions. There are good teachers. There are bad ones who cannot be fired, too.
As a college professor (Comp Sci) I learned that many incoming freshmen did not know algebra even though they had it on their high school transcript. Many office hours were spent getting some up to speed.
Today children are subject to “social advancement.” It made no sense, you see, to have a 15-yr-old 8th-grader. Socially. As for education? Learning builds on a foundation. It makes no sense to have social concerns override education. To advance a child to algebra who hasn’t mastered arithmetic is a guaranteed failure.
Today, as Carlin predicted, all it takes to get into college is a pencil.
Nuts belong on bolts, sidewalks are made of concrete not cement, and unions promote mediocrity.
“The Reason Education Sucks”
Must have been the right race.
There is no earthly reason for teacher’s unions other than their love of criminal thugery.
CANCEL ALL TEACHER’S UNIONS NOW!!
Is any of this a surprise? The left has been hijacking education for years, turning it into a literal madhouse.
Now the border is going insane again. Scum-filthy, lying, degenerate scum–are using thousands of children as battering rams to get into the country, and Joe don’t care. The borders are surging, again. I kept my silence about grifter Joe, the potato head, hoping he would be centered enough to tolerate, but he’s just a jackass and liar like Cuomo, CNN, and Jack Dorsey. He’s handing the whole country to insane radicals.
The media and Democrats covered up Cuomo’s multiple felonies until after they got rid of Trump. THEY KNEW!! YEAH, BUDDY, THEY KNEW. Now they expect us to believe they aren’t lying about the election??
THIS WILL END BADLY AND SOON.
Please delete this comment
Mr. Turley, I, like others, think that the Democrat led cities have been very corrupt and did not care for the largely minority kids in the systems. But I would like to see actual education occur in these schools. We know that families that provide structure are increasingly absent in these particular environments. It is incredible that the left in form of BLM states it is against the nuclear family. In addition, the Democrat side and the RINO side of politics think of the schools as being the place for radical change of society. This means that indoctrination classes takes the place of basic skills such as language and the sciences (STEM). There is a real prejudice against all sorts of Asians who have dominated areas of our upper level education system because their families have a laser-like concentration on the REAL education of their offspring. I guess we will continue to allow the combination of these circumstances to mean the unions see that the members get their money and the leaders get lots of money and, other than trash classes, nothing will happen in these schools we have assigned to failure in perpetuity. Sad.
“I believe public education plays a key role in our national identity and civics”
If only they taught Civics in school these days. The local SD did not- what my kids got they got from me