2012 US Presidential Election

[Burkingam]

I find it especially confusing coming from a person who is among other things, a philosopher. Apparently intellectual means socialist?

Like an "independent" who votes straight-ticket Republican, people like Sowell want the benefit of appearing smart while somehow not carrying the moniker associated with their actions. The man deals entirely in ideas, how could that not be intellectualism?

That said, I still think Santorum easily trumps anyone else in the movement. It takes some massive cognitive dissonance for a guy with a BA, Masters, and a Doctorate to deride Obama as a snob for calling on Americans to seek out a least a year of higher education.

You referring to this thing?

Yeah lefties who want to promote better access to higher education to everyone are often called "elitists" by the right. I don't think they know what this word means. Elitism is the view that a select group should have more rights or more influence or generally be treated better than everyone else. This goes very precisely in the opposite direction as saying we should encourage higher education and make it available for everyone.

[jaybug]

So instead of making US high schools better than suck ass, you want to jam kids into college? Why? So you can have them in debt up to their eyeballs and still offer fries with that?

[zherok]

Obama called for any form of higher education, mentioning trade schools and junior colleges specifically. I can say from personal experience I don't have any debt up to my eyeballs from my junior college experience. I'm saving that for university.

But sure, let's focus on reforming the public education system at the lower levels, including high school. I don't think anything Obama said precluded that.

Pretty sure your party is more interested in privatization than reform though. It sounds like it's doing wonders for Louisiana.

[Burkingam]

Did anybody else other that jaybug take from anything I said anything that jaybug said I was saying? Because I'm can't find any similarity whatsoever.

You know jaybug, when skillful sophists build a strawman, they usually try to make what the strawman is saying at least somewhat similar to what their opponent is saying. That's where you failed. From promoting higher education and making in available for everyone to making sure that high schools sucks and that everyone is in dept selling fries in a fastfood, the gap is almost as big as Santorum's accusation of elitism.

Stop telling what other people think. You really suck at it.

[Ixarku]

So instead of making US high schools better than suck ass, you want to jam kids into college? Why? So you can have them in debt up to their eyeballs and still offer fries with that?

Hey, if we keep all of the kids out of college, we won't have anyone complaining about their jobs being shipped off to India or China.  Sounds like a win / win.  We're always going to need service industry workers, but high tech jobs can rather easily be shipped offshore.  So you certainly can have fries with that.

[jaybug]

Leave that to professionals like yourself and zherok?

I didn't say you said anything. Not other than the usual wild ravings that is. Just kidding.

No. The problem I see is that sure you can make higher education more accessible, but for what purpose? Just to keep up with degree inflation? To have more even more MSWs than we can afford or use? Yeah, we need more psych majors like we need more holes in our heads.

But what good is college when it is only replacing high school, at the person's personal expense? Isn't that what you guys are bitching about the conservatives doing to public schools? Shoving the costs of education onto the individual as opposed to the community? There isn't enough money for that. And what in great googly moogly gives you the idea that China would want to finance its competition? Just because the US does, does not mean that our lenders are so stupid.

Yeah, Mexicans are going to be making our houses, and paving our roads, so no need for US to bother with that either.

[zherok]

It was a call to higher education, not a call for lowering admission standards.

But your solution to raising standards by keeping people from going is great. Just as awesome as encouraging failing high schoolers to drop out in order to raise average testing scores.

[jaybug]

It was a call to higher education, not a call for lowering admission standards.

But your solution to raising standards by keeping people from going is great. Just as awesome as encouraging failing high schoolers to drop out in order to raise average testing scores.

Yeah right. Just like they did back in the 60s. It was called "mainstreaming" back then. And it's a large reason why American schools suck ass today, when comparing them to foreign schools. Sure, they got more kids in school, but at the price of boring the hell out of kids who while smart enough, did not have enough money to further their education.

Back in my father's day in college, they called it bonehead math. Now it it's a class that everyone takes. Why? Because their high schools either cannot or will not teach it. They are just passing along the problem. Just like they passed kids into the next grade in my day.

Haven't you watch "Waiting for Superman"?

Now the problem is that while they are admitting students to really great schools, with all kinds of nifty financial aid packages, they are finding that a large proportion of these kids are not capable of the work then expected of them, and so they either fail, drop out, or other things that do not include the obtaining of a degree. Recent article in the LA Times.

But now they owe money they cannot afford to repay. They don't have the skills to get a good enough job, nor do they qualify for any further financial aid.

I'm not sure what you are actually speaking about, it seems to shift to the left, and then nose-dives down. But what passes for a two-year college education used to be what you got out of high school. Did you know that they used to teach calculus to 12 year olds? Now it's a second year college level course.

So instead of a kid getting a good education, now she has to bulk up on loans to get what should have already been taught. How is this doing anyone any good?

But then I am almost perpetually amazed at how little college graduates know about almost anything. Except for their specialty. And how does this make for a good democracy?

[zherok]

I seem to remember you bemoaning missing out on some critical period of the GI Bill and not getting the same ability to go to college as your predecessors had the opportunity to do. You didn't seem eager to shit on THAT particular drive to encourage more college education.

And you keep conflating encouraging higher education with increased accessibility. Obama didn't even single out college, he specifically mentioned alternatives like trade schools. No one called for everyone to get a four year degree.

Options like those schools and community colleges are far more economically viable, and help encourage a better educated society at a point where it's unlikely we'll recover the low-skill labor jobs we had in the past.

And it's not like you've even offered an alternative here. All I see so far, "nah, don't go, so the average will look better."

[Burkingam]

Jaybug, yeah perhaps the reason why college graduation correlate so highly with social class in the USA has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that your universities are the most expensive in the world and I'm sure it's all because poor children are all born mentally retarded. I'm sure even if you made high education more available to them but lowering it's cost it would do absolutely nothing to improve your incredibly low inter-generational economic mobility. /sarcasm

[Nikkoru]

Jaybug doesn't care about black people.

[zherok]

Tangentially related to the "Waiting for Superman" comment, I thought of this video spoofing the Apprentice (the pilot portion in particular.)

The idea that any high skill occupation is best served through arbitrary and regular purging of the bottom 10th of it's work place seems rather untenable.

Furthermore, prioritizing test scores puts undue emphasis on the already successful, and punishes teaching at schools that need the help the most. Which is just another part of the problem of pretending that teachers and their unions are wholly to blame for student performance issues. As if socio-economic or family conditions were tangential at best.

So while cherry picking among the most successful charter schools and glossing over family conditions or the enormous per-student costs it takes to get those higher numbers looks nice in a movie, it hardly validates the model for the entire country.

Education reform is going to take more than just throwing money at for profit enterprises and hoping their profit motive doesn't get in the way of providing an actual education.

[Ixarku]

Education reform is going to take more than just throwing money at for profit enterprises and hoping their profit motive doesn't get in the way of providing an actual education.

I think if we just executed every high school student who fails to get a high enough score on a particular standardized test before graduation, that would solve the problem nicely.  Set the bar high enough, and we could have a pretty significant population growth reduction.  If you get caught cheating on the test, we execute your entire family.  That'll learn those students to take their education seriously.  And if they're too poor or too dumb to catch up to the educational standard, well, too bad -- we need to reduce our population of poor and/or dumb people anyway.  As an added bonus, we could take the bodies of the executed and turn them into nutritious pet food, fertilizer, low cost home insulation, or simply grind them up into sausage and feed them to the homeless.  Another problem solved!
 
 
TBH, I'm not really sure what Jaybug advocates as far as education goes.  I don't recall ever seeing him plainly state what his vision is for the future on this topic.

[jaybug]

Where do you come up with these weird ass ideas? Does Japan even pay for High School? NO. What does France do? Splits them off at age 16 when they take their Baccelaureate (sic?) So now, not only do we have to have a high school diploma that will mean absolutely nothing if your plan comes to fruition, we have to give people 2-4 years at least more education.

Oh, but we will have that money from gutting the DoD budget. Good idea, that last place that Americans have in manufacturing, you just killed. So now where are all those people who just got your technical training going to go to work? Solyndra?

Oh wait, Obama's most recent jobs training shinola only trained those who already had a job! And only 16% of the trainees kept the new job after 6 months. What a success story!

Look, We already pay for primary education. I wish getting a diploma was at least as good at providing the skills and knowledge for life as it once was. And I don't see how you are going to pay for another pipe dream. You already bankrupted the country with health care that does nothing to rein in costs. Why should I believe that you will somehow rein in college costs?

Thanks for the levity Nikk. And by the by, I am of the Booker T. Washington school of thought about Black people, and education. I think it would be good for people of all skin colors, and for aiding in immigration reform efforts.

[Burkingam]

To answer your question jaybug, college doesn't cost money, it generates tax. College graduate make a lot more money and pay far far more taxes than drop-outs. I'm sure it's a notion you will never admit because it would violate your political allegiances, but there is such a thing as places where the government can invest with would be both socially and economically beneficial.

And btw the "making bomb creates jobs" rhetoric is laughable. What don't you realize that schools hire people too and these jobs are a lot cheaper that people manufacturing shits designed to kill whoever the right wants to see dead?

[zherok]

Defense jobs as some sort of moral high ground seems a pretty shitty version of Keynesian economics. I think we'd be better off with the proverbial digging holes and filling them back in. Or more practically, focusing on infrastructure rebuilding. Building widgets that kill people just to keep someone employed is aiming rather low.

[jaybug]

To answer your question jaybug, college doesn't cost money, it generates tax. College graduate make a lot more money and pay far far more taxes than drop-outs. I'm sure it's a notion you will never admit because it would violate your political allegiances, but there is such a thing as places where the government can invest with would be both socially and economically beneficial.

And btw the "making bomb creates jobs" rhetoric is laughable. What don't you realize that schools hire people too and these jobs are a lot cheaper that people manufacturing shits designed to kill whoever the right wants to see dead?

So we will need pHDs to fix our cars? Sounds like a bargain, not.

Good thing I wasn't using "making bombs creates jobs." Making bombs, making bullets, making MREs, making the uniforms, hats, gloves etc etc etc make paychecks. So cut military spending all you want, go ahead. Put millions of people out of work, aside from the veterans. Call it a stimulus plan while you are at it. Tell the Big Lie.

Aw, what the hell, there's always Soylent Green.

Well, I don't know about your universities, but the one I work/attend has garnered some good sized DoD contracts. It's call neuroscience. Better cut those out of the DoD's budget too! We can always raise tuition, right?

I am not telling you my hopes, but what is happening right now! I would prefer fixing up the roads, but we all know that we won't fix the roads when we can build sexy light rail to nowhere instead! They're doing it in California with Uncle Obama's money right now. Or, instead of freeway improvements, the money will go for bike lanes.

Why is it so impossible to have bicyclists pay for some of the shit they want?

Actually I would be happy if we could get government to stop deferring maintenance. It costs so much more when it fails catastrophically later.

But we need to fix our tax code, our retirement, and stuff, otherwise all we will be accomplishing is polishing turds.

[zherok]

You know they teach auto-mechanics at college, right? My father was one. Hell, he worked AT the local community college.

No one even called for PHDs. Obama suggested at least a year of higher education, which is a bit short of earning your PHD last I checked.

And what is with your "if you don't agree with me, you obviously mean this long list of extremes that no one even brought up" angle? Who called for cutting the military budget entirely? How does not opting for another carrier equal cutting funding for neuroscience?

[jaybug]

You know they teach auto-mechanics at college, right? My father was one. Hell, he worked AT the local community college.

No one even called for PHDs. Obama suggested at least a year of higher education, which is a bit short of earning your PHD last I checked.

And what is with your "if you don't agree with me, you obviously mean this long list of extremes that no one even brought up" angle? Who called for cutting the military budget entirely? How does not opting for another carrier equal cutting funding for neuroscience?

They used to teach auto mechanics in high school. Some of  America's finest hot rods came from high school auto shops.

It takes a phD to turn a wrench in space.

As to your last paragraph, I'll tell you later. gotta go NOW>

[Burkingam]

Oh god! jaybug are you actually gonna argue that graduating from college doesn't generally improve people's chances to find a good job? Now please, please continue. I don't expect you to change your mind but I will gladly see you make a fool of yourself by defending the undefendable.