I find it ironic that some of the people railing against public education, who threatened to homeschool their kids and force schools to get rid of lousy teachers - were not capable of educating their kids when COVID gave them no other option. And no - they weren't busy working for a living - their jobs were shut down too.

Poppycock. You have no idea how many employees were required to work from home with school age children during and now after covid. Children have returned to school but parents working from home still work through scheduled no school days and provide for their children.

You’re advocating for parents to leave their children with “lousy teachers” rather than trying to educate them in a better manor. I’m surprised, I always had the impression you would advocate for kids, they deserve a sound education.

I know parents with incredibly complicated work, schedules and meetings who performed exceptionally under such difficult conditions. They have my complete admiration and kudos to this age group for their savvy.

Unions protect workers' rights will nonu large company have right that are
 

determined by their woke policies. As being a union and nonunion worker. I would prefer a union over a company like Lowes who is none union any day. These companies are only interest in their profits and not in their employees welfare and protesting their worker wright and paying them a none living

If it was not for good paying unions, we would be like the communist countries
 

[QUOTE=joelfmi;2163459]determined by their woke policies. As being a union and nonunion worker. I would prefer a union over a company like Lowes who is none union any day. These companies are only interest in their profits and not in their employees welfare and protesting their worker wright and paying them a none living[ wage

You're misreading. I don't think they are lousy teachers. I think they're lousy parents. I'm not the one complaining about lousy teachers and threatening to homeschool my kids. I believe in public education, paying teachers more, having department aides who assist those teachers. I come from one of the first "Open Classroom" public elementary schools in the country, and my mother was a teacher in the same school district for 30 years.

We have teachers in our immediate family, wonderful teachers, and they will tell you there are many teachers who shouldn’t be in the classroom and the are too many educational demands from the government as to what will be taught.

Parents aren’t crazy, much has gone amuck. You went to school a long, long time ago and your mother taught many years ago, things have definitely changed.

This isn’t to say there aren’t wacky parents out there too with children they’ve messed up. Our family members should become authors and write about the situations they’ve seen, it would be very interesting reading.

The bottom line here are the kids that lost ground during the pandemic either through the isolation, teachers who couldn’t teach online, students who couldn’t learn online, poor financial situations which affected nutrition and so forth.

They tried to block travel from China in the first month, fer chrissakes!

But some folks screamed "racism" and the plans were scrapped...

Where was the vaccine initially available? Oh, right, the US...

All the body bags (and ventilators) that were never used?

The Hospital ship that was rushed to NYC and never used? The huge field hospital that was never used?

How, pray tell, do you come up with your "estimate" of 200K deaths?

People not taking the vaccine was not a "delay" by those in the government.

Australia and New Zealand are ISLANDS, which could easily control who came in and out...

Your comparisons are invalid...

And we never will...

Big difference in planning to homeschool vs immediately HAVING to homeschool...

And no, not everyone had their "jobs shut down" and were able to homeschool...

There are plenty of lousy teaches, just as there are plenty of lousy parents.

Comparing teachers today to teachers from 50 years ago is a fool's errand...

My daughter is currently a teacher and she tells me horror stories... Stories of parents AND teachers...

You mention population keeps increasing. I hear on the news, that developed western countries are losing population. Is the population increase a third world issue?

Agreed. Our original thread asked the questions - Who really understands inflation? and How do interest rates control labor and material costs? The basic answer to these questions involves how competent is the US education system compared to other countries. All solution roads lead back to the US reading, math, and problem-solving capability. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.......
Millennials in the WORKFORCE for All industrial nations were tested for math and problem-solving. The US came in LAST. Based on achievement tests, the US primary and secondary systems began declining in 1980. US colleges and Universities are still usually rated # 1 in the world (if you can afford them). Denmark has a claim to have the best education system as they enjoy a 99% literacy rate and free education from primary through College. In Finland, a school teacher must have a Masters Degree and the competition for a position is so high that only 1 in 10 succeed (they MUST pay pretty well). By another rating organization, the US primary and secondary system ranks 30th in math worldwide.

The point being, to understand the current inflation and the effect of the FED, the US society at large needs to IMPROVE its math and problem-solving skills. Which means more money INVESTED in public education!!!!!!!! Please.

My estimate of 200k deaths (while probably low) comes from MY OPINION that at least 200K deaths were recorded BEFORE I saw much US determined action (before the vaccine) to shut down unnecessary indoor activities, which was the primary cause of increased Covid spread. I remember the images shown on TV about the great distance that human sneezing traveled. That was the warning before the vaccines were developed. The US did NOT have the experience and knowledge about Pandemics that countries like Japan and New Zealand developed the hard way. The only tool for prevention early on was to avoid large indoor groups - and the US was slow to accomplish that. That was about the time here in The Villages when many people were having meals delivered. But The Villages reacted quicker and better than the average community in the US.

I didn't mention anything about population. You referenced the wrong post.

This is a joke. You could throw billions at any profession out there, surgeons, dentists, carpenters, chefs and you would still have extremely qualified workers and the duds. It’s the same with education. We all remember the gifted teachers in our classrooms who imparted wisdom and those who showed up every day to grind out another uninspired teaching assignment.

When Finland sets its standards so high for teachers that only 1 out of 10 qualify - that pretty much GUARANTEES that there will be zero "DUDS" teaching their kids. Admittedly, in the US when I went to school there were mostly average teachers in high school - an example was a head football coach teaching health. One good teacher was teaching Spanish and one "DUD" was teaching Spanish. The Chemistry teacher was good. The Physics and Higher Algebra teachers were both excellent.

From what my wife tells me, the recent public education quality is bad and getting worse in Florida and other states. The US PUBLIC school system is like the base of a pyramid that needs to be strong to support the tip, which could be thought of as advanced A.I. and robotics, which leads to greater US GNP and economic strength.

In order to understand and prevent recessions we need the best and brightest economic students to graduate into jobs like staff members for the FED. Today we have a Taiwanese factory that produces the world's highest-quality CHIPS being built in Phoenix. The factory has one major problem, getting enough US engineers and other workers that meet their high standards. If the US wants to RECESSION-PROOF its economy, it needs to start improving education. US workforce millennials are LAST in math and problem-solving among industrialized countries.

Thank you for agreeing with the educators assessment. I found high school, many, many years ago, to be an uninspiring educational experience.

The schools at that time were more focused on social activities and sports. What a disappointment with the exception of those few top notch teachers who enlightened and educated those of us who were interested. The pep rallies and “clubs” should have been an after school activity. How sports ever got tied into our educational system is beyond me. I can only imagine the distractions today.

Most of those “square pegs” in round hole students fared very well after high school in the trade occupations; plumbing, electricians, construction supervisors, carpenters and so forth. We need engineers, professionals and evaluation of directional education is necessary since trade occupations are also extremely important.

Our whole educational system needs revamping but I don’t ever see that happening now.

From the little that I know about it, the Europeans keep their secondary schools and maybe even college SEPERATE from their sports programs. Which take place in separate sports clubs. In the US there is a quasi combo of the Europe and US methods of dealing with sports. An example would be the Bollitari Tennis Academy (now involving other sports) where tennis was the MAIN emphasis of the Academy. Tennis was taught and practiced in the morning and in the afternoons the kids went to a nearby grade or high school. Their education was secondary to their Tennis skills progress.

In another post, I talked about how the US moved AWAY from Vocational education in high school toward all College Prep type schools. This began about 1980 when the "powers that be" decided that vocational education cost a lot of money and they would have to raise property or other taxes to pay for vocational. This may have NEVER been studied, BUT, I personally, feel that this was a big turning point from both an economic and a psychological point of view !!!!!

Economically, it saved tax money for the top and middle economic strata, while punishing the lower US economic strata. It and the increasing population made for large class sizes (like 30 kids) which made it increasingly hard for teachers to teach and hard for the marginally prepared lower-class students to learn. Boys being less mature than girls and having more difficulty being over-active were hurt most by the large class sizes. They also had more behavior problems and were disciplined more.
......to be continued

From a psychological point of view, the maturity of boys tends to be at all social strata about 2 years BEHIND girls for K through 12th grade. The girls are mature enough to not resist the desk CONFINEMENT for long periods. Boys get "antsy" and act out. For boys, lunch recess, gym, and after-school sports are their FAVORITE parts of the school day. Today a large % of boys not having sports as an outlet (a safety valve) will "act out" by joining GANGS. And ALL of these psychological forces on BOYS are exacerbated by LARGE CLASS SIZE. I would EVEN suggest that US schools are set up to DE-EMPHASIZE the male qualities while emphasizing female qualities.

So, I would conclude that by stopping Vocational Education that the US has caused unintended negative consequences and has been SHORT-SIGHTED (aka penny-wise and dollar foolish). And it ripples through society and the US economy. The US economy could be MADE more RECESSION-PROOF by better analysis and improvement of primary and secondary education. Why does Taiwan make the highest level of computer chips in the world? Why did the US RELINQUISH the top spot in science and technology? IMO it began in 1980 when US children were SHORTCHANGED IN SCHOOLS !

I agree with much of what you said with the exception of the loss of trade schools. College became the “in thing” and that’s where the money was focused. And now they’re just over bloated bastions of subpar education with eyes on the sports features. I recognize that isn’t every school but I am amazed at the capabilities of a Magna Cum Laude graduate who told me it wasn’t difficult to achieve.. just turn in the assignments and show up for class. I remember helping her with math and other basic life skills she was missing after her degree.

You do realize that those in the trades live a very good lifestyle and that is because they are handy and ambitious. They don’t have to run to and pay for a health club to stay in shape. They have life skills college grads are missing.

We need college and the trades and we need them well educated in their fields. Throwing money at the problem isn’t the answer, intelligent teachers will go along way fixing the problem, as you pointed out the case in Finland.

As a side note, if I heard one more person say shtraw, shtrange, shtride, shtump, etc. I’m going to have a fit. There is a whole list of words that are being mauled in the English language.

After my last tooth fell out, I shtarted to shpeak like that!