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Originally Posted by jimjamuser
Last paragraph...."the zero to 5 age window".........well there has been SOME addressing of that problem. The lunch or breakfast idea - so that they don't have their brains stunted due to malnutrition. And school attendance is getting earlier and earlier - they are called preschool programs. PBS also has childhood and preschool educational and MOTIVATING.
......The 1st paragraph....."take ANY state you choose".......Well, I chose to NOT pick a state because I wanted to compare all US states to Finland , Estonia, France, Sweden, and etc. That is the comparison to make and I believe that the European countries VALUE their teachers MORE than we do.( and pay them more and REQUIRE MORE qualifications than we do)
.........Now, the middle paragraph.......I was in agreement with MOST of it. It lost me with the "Whitey" reference because that is a little....you know------------. Also, there are single WHITE mothers or fathers that are financially and attitude-wise INCAPABLE of providing a SAFE and loving home - and yes DRUGS can play a big role.
........Overall, these problems of preschool kids WOULD OFTEN lead to lives of crime and incarceration. I would like to see a cost-benefit analysis that might PROVE that it is cheaper to raise some taxes and get GOOD teachers and preschool activities and nutrition versus the COST of PRISON incarceration. Plus add in the cost to society of crime and murders. Difficult to put a dollar amount on a human life. There was that volleyball college lady from Tn. that lost BOTH legs AFTER some violent criminal attack. She HAD a lot of future potential and now has a great setback.
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It would be far better to do a comparative study of the children entering the public school systems for the first time in the inner cities of Finland, Estonia, Sweden, etc., as compared to a similar group of inner-city children in American public schools. Compare things like how many of each group come from two-parent households, homes where the parents support the family rather than depending on the dole, criminal activity family-to-family, Academic records of older siblings, etc. How do you think the derived statistics relating to the American kids would compare to those of their Nordic counterparts?
It has nothing to do with intelligence. Kids at birth are blank slates and there have been no independently verifiable statistics that show that children of any one ethnicity are brighter or less intelligent than any other. It has everything to do with motivation. And kids from homes that stress positive values and value achievement within the system are going to be far more motivated.
You can’t teach a kid that has decided he or she doesn’t want to be taught.