In 1906 The Education Board put out a statement that read in part, “We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is simple...We will organize children...and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way.”

Very good answer. All are true. I came to US when I was pregnant wiht my son and did not know English. I followed the pedetrician advise like the Bible. I gave my son since he was 1 month flouride drops and when I chnaged him, the new one strted all the immunizations from the beginging because they overlloked the chart. My son had health problems for 10 years. He recovered most of them by trying alternatives and eating organic (some come back when he eats products containing corn syroup, artificial sweeteners and colors). However, I do not agree wiht the article because I am impressed how many briliant children I see in his school. I do not think that the Eupropeans are more educated. They know more by the virtue of their reach inheritance. They leave on that inheritance, they are proud but they do not do much to diserve it. Here, there are problems because a free society imposes high demands because the competition. On top of what you have mentioned, I would add the lack of time for social support. Yes, there are all kind of social gatherings but they are meaningless and the children know it. Best wishes. A.

As an instructor at a community college, I can tell you that it spills over in spades. Students that cant read, write or comprehend. Most get 'the grant', sign up, show up a couple times and disappear for most of the courses. Then they are given a pass grade.  Its all part of the great social experiment to make everyone equally stupid instead of equally smart. The school gets its money, the civil rights people get to brag, the ACLU gets to trash the nation. The socialists and liberals get to go to heaven for their good works and giant corporations and companies get to suck all the money out of the dumb sheeple. Arent we proud of ourselves. AmeriKa will soon be another third world sewer.

New to Natural, if you are a teacher you should know - 'i' before 'e' except after 'c' - receive.

Standards are lower indeed.....check your spelling of "recieve." That's not a typo, but "voilence" is, I hope.

I'm sorry from pointing this out. I don't mean to split hairs but you listed several reasons why your students are "stupid". Many of your reasons are valid but I do have to point out that you mentioned that you are an instructor yet your response was full of misspellings and poor grammar.

"i" before "e" except after "c"

Interesting that a teacher would spell "receive" and "violence" wrong!

But I do agree with your points!

Don't worry about your mispelling, New to Natural.  Many famous high IQ'ers couldn't spell.  The rule "i before e except after c does not apply to many many words. RimrockAnnie  

My father, who is a teacher once recounted to me a story of overhearing a couple of high school kids talking in the hall. One was saying that he was having a difficult time getting his hair clean at his house, because they had "hard water". The other kid remarked " your an idiot, there's no such thing as "hard water"!

Personally, I always thought that kid had to really work at being that stupid; but, now I'm not so sure!

Here are my observations. (Please read the complete commentary)

1. Stop laying blame on external influences. They were always there even in the 18th century.

2. Work load is a personal or family issue. If the students don't get enough work. Parents should increase this load at home.

3. More funding does not create higher education.

4. I agree with the breakdown of the family unit; however discipline taught early will endure many tribulations.

5. My wife and myself have both worked our whole lives, both my parents worked their whole lives and both my grandparents worked their whole lives. Both my children know the meaning of discipline and are happy about the situation.

6. Lawsuits, parents, you only have yourselves to blame, you allowed this to happen.

7. Exposure to violence. Switch off the TV; don't buy the games, simple. Divorce, work it out or don't get married in the first place. (Remember - for better or worse, richer or poorer, sickness and in health)

8. My kids grew up on sugar, I grew up on sugar, my parents grew up on sugar and as far as I know so did the rest of the family tree. Regulate the candy and soda.

9. Kick them out of the house, switch off the TV and the take away the games, soon they will go out and discover the laws again.

10. Work teaches responsibility, we all did some sort of extra work for money, once again everything in moderation.

The first day both of my children started university, we were told that because they are now adults, you as a parent have no say or authority in the system. Nonsense, I will stay involved in my family’s life and give them advice until I am on the cold slab, that is my duty. They do not always want to hear it, I don't care.

I knew I had done a good job as a parent, when, at my daughters graduation I asked her about her thoughts that day and she answered.

"Dad, the only regret I have, is that I have no regrets".

Parents, you have to take responsibility, you brought them into this world.

How rvrichardson does not have 100 points for his reply tells everyone alot about all of you who post on this site.

Take some responsibility people.  How many of you looked at your kids' homework every night to make sure they were understanding and getting it done?

Flouride, my kids still brush with it.  The oldest was 4.6 GPA in high school and straight A's so far in college while majoring in Biology.  The youngest has been straight A's through private grade school (to make sure she got pushed harder than the public school) and about to finish 8th grade.  My wife and I both work 60+ hours a week.

Yes, there are problems with the world around us.  More, in my opinion, with the liberal views and practices than with conservative.  Why, for example, would any kid recieve a passing grade that they did not deserve?  'New to Natural' talks of Rockerfeller, yet why do the majority of teachers in the teachers union vote for the liberal democrats?  Answer:MONEY IN THEIR POCKETS. Why are they against merit pay, like every other job in the country?  Not fair?  True, not fair TO THE KIDS!

Take a breath, and start with your own house.  Then look at the two political parties and ask yourself which has done LESS damage to our country, and vote accordingly, all the way down to your city electives.  And all of you Ron Paul 'whatevers',  grow up, and look at least at what party he is with.  It's at least going in a better direction than the other party.  So, you and the country are still going to be better off voting Republican than sitting at home.

  I am a high school teacher in a public school and I generally agree with what you say about teaching, diet influence, media influence, learning, etc., etc.

  There are a couple things about the earth revolving about the sun I, however, would like to point out.  To clear up somantics for the purposes of this comment,I am going to define "revolving" as "orbiting" although there are slight differences in the definition of each.

  True, we can loosely say that the earth revolves about the sun.  However, the earth does not orbit the sun and the sun does not orbit the earth.  (I suggest searching "math logic" on the internet too.)  What the earth does orbit and likewise the sun is the center of gravity.  The center of gravity of the solar system is influenced collectively by all the mass in the solar system and where this mass is located and going. Besides the sun, Jupiter influences the center of gravity second most, then on down the line for all the other bodies.

  Also true is that this center of gravity lies beneath the surface of the sun, but never at the exact center.  The sun orbits this center of gravity exactly like everything else in the solar system.  Since the sun is the largest body, and closest to the center of gravity and since its individual mass involves the center of gravity, the sun orbits slowly depending on where the rest of the mass is located.  Incidentally, This is how most planets have been discovered in nearby solar systems(last I read 273 planets.)

  Unfortunately most textbooks I have seen do not have this right either.

I don't really like to do this but did you mean fluoride, receive and violence.

Beside the spelling, I totally support what you are saying...

Cheers

I have to say (particularly after reading New to Natural), that the problem I see in public schools are more concerned with a lack of student accountability.  My daughter student taught (math) in on of the area's "good" schools (translated: lots of moneyed folks & their kids).  She overheard one student ask if they'd studied for the upcoming exam that day--"No," the student with a laugh & a shrug, "if I flunk the teacher just has to work with me until I do."  No wonder that I (a teacher on the community college level) get students who 1) can't read college level textbooks, 2) won't read anything, 3) can't comprehend what they do read, 4) think their opinions are equal to a masters' level/PhD level 10+years experience professors'.  Unless and until these kids are held accountable for their own work, getting it done on time, actually turning it in, studying for exams, making an effort to learn, there's little I can do.  I absolutely second the 10 points you made above.  Unfortunately I see little coming down the pike to improve things.  

Public schools have been in dire straights since Kennedy.  THe "No Child Left Behind" is just a new name for "Goals 2000", "Outcome Based Education", etc...  THe philosphy is the same, only the name changes.  According to the 10th Ammendment to the Constitution, the federal government should not be involved in education.  Think the NEA cares about that?  Any time government gets involved in anything, you can watch it deteriorate.

One thing, if you are talking about Bush being undereducated, better check your facts.  The media wants us to believe he is stupid, but he's actually quite intelligent and very well educated -- just not all that good with vocabulary.

I would argue that after several generations of grade inflation, self-esteem inflation and lowered academic expectations, we have the populace the GOVERNMENT has planned on getting ( too stupid and too apathetic to care about anything except their own comfort and convenience), and soon ( save an act of God) we will have a president (in the person of Barack Obama)that will bring the USA closer to becoming the USSA.

www.uhuh.com/.../10planks.htm

It was Teddy Kennedy who massaged the education system and gave us "no child left behind."  Bush wanted to be "nice" and Teddy insisted upon being given control of education. BTW Since when does having an ivy league MBA make you undereducated? You are woefully ignorant on this topic.

Having an ivy league MBA does not make you smart. Do you realize that you can get a degree and have a C or D average?

I don't know that I think the kids are stupid. I think there is a lot of competition instead of just letting them be kids. As someone else stated, when we were younger, we were outside playing from the time we got home until the time it got dark. Kids now are over-scheduled and forced to start everything when they are babies to compete with everyone else. But then we promote that they all get trophies and we don't keep score and we don't have winners and losers because that might break their self-confidence. It also gives them and incentive to not try as hard.

Uh, Japan used to be an economic powerhouse.  It might become one again, but these days it's looking shaky.  I love Japan for its respect for science and education, and yet I must note they learned a long time ago how to miseducate the citizens so they would be useful drones.  For example, the kids study English for at least six years in school (7th-12th grade) but very few can speak it or use it in any other meaningful way.  I got a 70% on one of their tests, not because I don't know grammar, but because they are teaching the kids nonsensical rules.  The kids learn to work hard, never ask questions and forget everything they studied.  What that says is there are at least two ways to "skin a cat" if you want an obedient workforce.  The intelligent Japanese you see in America are the ones that got away.

devdy...a C grade or lower is failing for an MBA program, so you don't get your degree.  Harvard MBA program is tough.  

By the way, Einstien was a genius, but he wasn't a great communicator.  He died wishing he knew how to communicate other ideas.  His teachers were so frustrated with him that they deemed him "uneducatable" so his mother....home schooled him!

re: sun revolves around whatever...does anyone really think 1 in 5 Americans are that familiar with Einstein's Theory?

Just as un-encumbered competition fixes the marketplace, so does school choice fix the schools.  The marketplace is coming up with wonderful options, but we risk losing the right to choose the best education for our children.  Ohio's Gov. Strickland has a stated agenda of restricting or eliminating school choice/vouchers.  There are currently 18,000 Ohio students in e-schools alone! (We are in our 5th year of OHVA).  As an e-school parent, I am "smarter than a 5th grader", can answer most of the questions on Jeopardy, and my kids can, too.

(e-school, such as Ohio Virtual Academy or ohva.org, is a computer-based school.  Along with a certified, experienced classroom teacher, I teach my children the lessons, and the school provides books, workbooks, art supplies, manipulatives for math, microscope for my 7th grader, computer, printer, and web classrooms if needed.  It's a public school, paid for out of our tax dollars, and we are subject to all the same standardized testing as our district school counterparts.)

As in everything else, we must stop trusting experts to think for us.  

Thanks Adventure Mom - I know that it may be failing for an MBA, but it is not for an undergrad. But my point was that you can have all of the pieces of paper in the world and that doesn't mean that you are smart and it doesn't mean that you will do well in the workforce. And there can be a difference between being book smart and smart in general. It also doesn't mean that you are qualified or fit to lead or manage people. Although, I know people who aren't cut out to lead and manage people are put in those positions all the time. You can even have a person who is really good at what they do, but they aren't cut out to be managers.

The world has become too much about blaming everyone else and doing whatever it takes to get to the top regardless of who you step on on the way up. And no one wants to take accountability for their own actions. We expect someone else to take care of and mold our kids, we expect someone else to pay our bills, etc. That's what are kids are seeing and learning. Why should they apply themselves when they can take the easy way out and make everything someone else's problem?

Try this.

Google -> Miss teen USA, South Carolina.

Feel sorry for our children, this is their future. Unless we change it. This is supposed to be a democratic country, you can make a difference.

My public university, the University of Minnesota, has produced two Nobel laureates in economics in the past two years.

On a lighter note, our municpally owned cross country ski trails are some of the best in the country, including both public and private areas.

Some people just have a knee-jerk conservative reaction against anything run by the public sector. In reality, some public institutions are run well, some are not.

I see this at the university I work where the school has "insourced" most of their food service jobs that were formerly held by normal people making decent wages with a generous state benefit plan to the students, who of course make a couple dollars over minimum wage with no benefits.  Large companies love young workers who are willing to give it their all for $8/hour.  Many of the students work 3 hour shifts where they don't even get a break.  Exploit exploit exploit!

Charisse,

You do make a point but the question should be,"Why do they have to work?"

John Adams stated, "I study politics and war so that my children can study mathematics and science so that their children may study music and fine arts."

He never envisioned a scenario beyond that where we would turn into such a decadent society where only a handful of intellectual elites  would engineer it into a new form of slavery and eugenics  - hence our endless welfare/warfare state leading us back to serfdom.

His children, sandman - not yours. The founders were neither saints, nor philosopher-kings; they merely staged a coup & took the place of the one they deposed.

Charisse, I'll see your rant and raise you... This is worrying, for what happens in America generally comes over to the UK in time. As yet, we don't have too many kids working after school jobs here but we DO have the set-up for it, and they all assume they deserve the latest phones, eyeshadows and gamestations.  One trend you mention has been woefully apparent here for quite a while now: the dumbing down of first-line jobs. I was assisted by a helpful and capable young man (not kid) in a sports shoes shop and said I would look for him again to ensure he got the commission, he told me the sad facts: No commission, minimum legal wages, no chance for advancement.

The bank manager used to be an important person but now..? When I needed to borrow around 200 for a few weeks I was told nobody in the building, including the manager, was authorised to approve loans!

My daughter wanted a teen magazine; the last one in the shop was damaged and missing its free guide to lipgloss (or whatever), that we didn't want so great, we get it at half price? No. "We can't sell damaged goods, we have to return it, and we don't give discounts: it's policy."

I want this in black, will you order it in for me? "No; I'm the manager but Head Office makes all the buying decisions: it's policy." Sales personnel are trained only to hold the barcode so the computer can read it. No one's allowed to make decisions anymore and no one takes responsibility.

A friend doing an MBA explained the perfect business model: a mature market, head office staffed only by bookkeepers, financial controllers and a few acquisition analysts, customer services outsourced to a call centre in a third-world country and front line consisting of soul-destroyed drones with no authority.

Just shut up and take the fries out when the beeper sounds.

Very excellent, Cherisse, I hear you loud and clear. Everyone is so duped by the "gotta have - gotta spend to be happy" B.S. that corporations just love! Kids nowadays...thanks to overwhelming corporate propaganda...figure they've got to have everthing and hve it NOW! So they get these prt/tm no benefit jobs, and yes, displace family folk who need 4 jobs anyway to support a very small family! Well,everybody better start to learn how to grow their own food (and enjoy it!)because in the not too far distant future we definitely won't be able to trust the "powers-that-be" when it comes to what we put in our bodies., Hell can't trust them now!!

[/q]I learn something new every day on V V.  Today I learned that the sun does not go around the earth--pretty cool...I always knew it must go around the moon...LOL[\q]

OK, jokes aside, I fail to see what's so stupid in this belief: it all depends on what you take as your *reference*. As a matter of fact if your reference is Orion, or Pegasus, or the Centre of our Galaxy neither of the two assertions is true.

Apparently yet another of those "universal truths" that might have made sense for Copernic or even Newton but senseless in the age of Einstein...

What's funny is everyone here is so against the medical establishment because they do not have the public's interest in mind. For some reason, people think other areas of science are filled with completely flawless scientists entirely devoted to the public good. Wrong.

In fact, in a completely relative system under Einstein's view, it is impossible to determine whether the sun goes around the earth, or the earth goes around the sun. Because under his system "everything is relative", both are moving and so the system can be set up to show either way, exactly as Tyco Brahe did in Galileo's time.

However, Einstein's "untouchable" theory will also fall. And in fact top scientists already know this.

For anyone who is interested in the science:

http://www.GalileoWasWrong.com

(and yes, to those commenting below, your proof for Scripture's statements on a fixed earth are at the link above)