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It's Official: Americans R Stoopid
Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,
As Americans, we tend to be pretty full of ourselves, and this is especially true of our young people. But do we really have reason for such pride? According to a shocking new report from the Educational Testing Service, Americans between the ages of 20 and 34 are way behind young adults in other industrialized nations when it comes to literacy, mathematics and technological proficiency. Even though more Americans than ever are going to college, we continue to fall farther and farther behind intellectually. So what does this say about us? Sadly, the truth is that Americans are stupid. Our education system is an abysmal failure, and our young people spend most of their free time staring at the television, their computers or their mobile devices. And until we are honest with ourselves about this, our intellectual decline is going to get even worse.
According to this new report from the Educational Testing Service, at this point American Millennials that have a four year college degree are essentially on the same intellectual level as young adults in Japan, Finland and the Netherlands that only have a high school degree…
Americans born after 1980 are lagging their peers in countries ranging from Australia to Estonia, according to a new report from researchers at the Educational Testing Service (ETS). The study looked at scores for literacy and numeracy from a test called the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, which tested the abilities of people in 22 countries.
The results are sobering, with dire implications for America. It hints that students may be falling behind not only in their early educational years but at the college level. Even though more Americans between the ages of 20 to 34 are achieving higher levels of education, they’re still falling behind their cohorts in other countries.
In Japan, Finland and the Netherlands, young adults with only a high school degree scored on par with American Millennials holding four-year college degrees, the report said.
How in the world is that possible?
I can tell you how that is possible – our colleges are a joke. But more on that in a moment.
Out of 22 countries, the report from the Educational Testing Service found that Americans were dead last in tech proficiency. We were also dead last in numeracy and only two countries performed worse than us when it came to literacy proficiency…
Half of American Millennials score below the minimum standard of literacy proficiency. Only two countries scored worse by that measure: Italy (60 percent) and Spain (59 percent). The results were even worse for numeracy, with almost two-thirds of American Millennials failing to meet the minimum standard for understanding and working with numbers. That placed U.S. Millennials dead last for numeracy among the study’s 22 developed countries.
It is in this type of environment that Coca-Cola can be marketed to Americans as “a healthy snack“.
As I mentioned above, our system of education is one of the biggest culprits. From the first grade all the way through post-graduate education, the quality of education that our young people are receiving is absolutely pathetic. In a previous article, I highlighted some statistics from USA Today about the declining state of college education in America…
-“After two years in college, 45% of students showed no significant gains in learning; after four years, 36% showed little change.”
-“Students also spent 50% less time studying compared with students a few decades ago”
-“35% of students report spending five or fewer hours per week studying alone.”
-“50% said they never took a class in a typical semester where they wrote more than 20 pages”
-“32% never took a course in a typical semester where they read more than 40 pages per week.”
I have sat in many of these kinds of college courses. It doesn’t take much brain power to pass the multiple choice tests that most college professors give these days. The truth is that if you fail out of college you really, really have to try hard.
In another previous article I shared some examples of real courses that have been taught at U.S. universities in recent years…
-“What If Harry Potter Is Real?”
-“Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame”
This is a national crisis. Parents should be screaming bloody murder about the quality of the education that their children are receiving. But because very few of them actually know what is going on, they just continue to write out huge tuition checks all the time believing that their kids are being prepared for the real world.
To show how “dumbed down” we have become, I want to share with you a copy of an eighth grade exam from 1912 that was donated to the Bullitt County History Museum in Kentucky.
Would eighth grade students be able to pass such an exam today?
Would college students?
As you look over this exam from 1912, ask yourself how you would do on it…
In addition, I find it very interesting that the reading level of the State of the Union addresses delivered by our presidents has steadily declined since the inception of this nation.
And it should be no surprise that Barack Obama’s State of the Union addresses have been some of the dumbest of all.
But could it be possible that I am being too harsh?
After all, scientists are now discovering that our diminishing intellectual capabilities are actually the consequence of natural processes.
For example, a Stanford University biology professor named Gerald R. Crabtree has published two papers in which he detailed his conclusion that humans have been getting dumber for thousands of years…
Are humans becoming smarter or more stupid? Comparing our modern lives and technology with that of any preceding generation, one might think we are becoming increasingly smarter. But, in two papers published in Trends in Genetics, Gerald R. Crabtree of Stanford University claims that we are losing mental capacity and have been doing so for 2,000–6,000 years! The reason, Crabtree concludes, is due to genetic mutations—which are the backbone of neo-Darwinian evolution.
Why is this happening?
Professor Crabtree believes that this loss of intellectual capability is due to the accumulation of errors in our genes…
Based on data produced by the 1000 Genomes Project Consortium and two recent papers in Nature, Crabtree estimates in the first article that, in the past 3,000 years (approximately 120 generations), about 5,000 new mutations have occurred in the genes governing our intellectual ability. He claims most of these mutations will have no effect, while about 2–5 percent are deleterious and “a vanishingly small fraction will increase fitness.” Crabtree bases his conclusion that humankind is losing mental capacity on the ratio between the deleterious and the beneficial mutations.
Our DNA is mutating, and it has been for thousands of years. And no, those mutations are not helping us. Each one of us has tens of thousands of errors in our DNA that we have inherited, and we will add even more errors which we will pass on to future generations.
Given enough time, many scientists believe that humanity would eventually degenerate into a bunch of gibbering idiots incapable of rational thought.
Or could it be possible that a large segment of the population has already arrived at that state?
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Whatchyoutalkinabout Willis?
Credit distorts everything.....
It's official, water is wet...
Its a survival technique. Like our constant state of delusion. Cognizant existence is dangerous to our sanity.
I am not sure we are getting less intelligent as a species... we are getting lazier and the dumb ones have a much better chance of survival these days as compared to the past. Our education systems are on a distinct, and intentional decline (don't want the sheep to wise up too much).
But we have guns.... ya'll
stupiddd, just wait till pot is legal...?oh wait
I kant breed.....
You know it's bad when you're dumber than the Irish......
Fuck you, I'm Irish! But in heritage, US kid otherwise.
Me too and I'm celebrating my birthday as well. So I'll have another beer, kill a few more brain cells and try to remember when I was proud to be an American.
Miffed;-)
Pride goeth before the fall. How stupid must you be to buy into the superiority myth given to you by your masters? They are your superiors. You are their inferiors.
HAARP
Naure: Darwinian. Survival of the fittest.
Socialist Countries: Anti-Darwinian. Survival of the least fit.
H1B Visas anyone?
And people wonder why so many tech companies are importing talent.
The US political leadership is not renowned for leading from the front, especially in matters such as mass murder etc. It is refreshing to see that when it comes to ignorance they are the first over the top of the trenches, yes indeedy. http://www.activistpost.com/2015/03/us-senator-wants-to-stop-iran-from.html
And in other news senator McCain got lost in his attempt at the Paris-Dakar rally in spite of having SatNav. His handlers are now trying to arrange a flight back from the capital of Bangladesh.
Professor Crabtree is a moron.
There's no way to measure historical intelligence. It's given that ingenuity can be perceived as intelligence, but you can not assume accurately that it directly correlates to what we as humans today understand as intelligence.
This is another BS article that appears to be forcing the Hebrew myth of Man degenerating.
If anything there are fewer great men and men of intelligence on a percentage basis of population, but those intelligent ones will be even more intelligent than their forebears due to greater exposure to a variety of information and a greater standard of living.
I find it really hard to take any of these people seriously anymore. Even my Ph.D.'s above me are hard to trust or take seriously.
be told to be an idiot and refuse to admit it never fixed any problem, it only encloses you in your stupidity. accept it and try to learn, change behavior is a good starting point.
fist you have to put down that beer and get you ass up from the couch, turn of your fucking tv and take a pen and paper.
Why are you complaining, just look how many of you have degrees, that you are a dumb ass is beside the point, you have a degree... the world and McDonald's await
ZWO protocol #11:
Control the education system to spread deception and destroy intellect.
Common Core.
A gallop study - it appears to be conspicuously generous the US Educational System. Ask a 8th grader who the "coat hanger" was named after, Mr Coat, or Mister Hanger, and they'd be scrambling to the smoking area, err potty room, to query-tap their 4G iBling machines.
Holy Schamoses . . this test was one year before the the Genocide Exchangem the Federal Reserve, the IRS, Income Tax, Direct election of Senators and Wilson's reversal on a campaign promise not to get America involved in WWI (America was behind the German position in both WWI and WWII) cause a bunch of WZOG hillbillies honeypotted the big cheese, little peepee dude at the UK home office.
I do take issue with the aritmetic test cause question #8 is a formula based resolution (ya gotta calculate the Hypotenuse - geometry) rather than just a simple arithmetic challenge using the printed operators. If the question were to ask how tall the building was based on the number of degrees marked at 30 feet from the base of the building, it would require a trig or log table.
Today a math test asks how many numbers are there from one to ten. Or, what button do you press on an iPhone to call the operator. Or how many miles in one mile. Really hard shit.
Today, the correct answer to question 2 in the Civil Government section would be National Fasciologarchy, State Fascioligarchy, County Fascoligarhy and Local Fascioligarchy.
Today, the diagram for "The Lord Loveth a Generous Giver" would be a CSPAN Diebold Selected White Show wearing his shorts backwards for the Wall Street Russian Mafioso that comp his nooners with preschoolers bills in the K-Street Kiddie Brothels.
Japan scores best - so I was wondering how that translated to income, and it shows Luxembourg as the top earnings stat (is Luxembourg even a country - it's more like a modern version of a city state - like Israel). Well the US, in this generously garnished edit at Wiki says US middle class make bunches more than the Japanese = the skew is that US folk are paid in counterfeited sovereigns, the USD and Japanese are cradle to grave recipients of health care and other services that they employ their public servants to safe guard.
A modern version of that test would ask one question, "How many breastesses does Kim Kardashian have, one, two or three)?", Or, "Does Walmart sell video games (yes or no)?".
Don't think today's US college graduate could beat 50 percent on the 1912 test.
Lame stream is attempting a makeover - hafl stepped in this NYT kitty box liner titled "CIA Cash Ended Up in the Coffers of AL KADA" - the "journalist, a Mr. Rosenberg" made sure to do his best and re-pleated the article with adverbs like "inadvertent", and a shallow scope back to `o7. I still be wondering what happened to that lost container load of 11 Billion USDs when the Dubby signed off on the Iraqi Genocide.
I do take issue with the aritmetic test cause question #8 is a formula based resolution (ya gotta calculate the Hypotenuse - geometry) rather than just a simple arithmetic challenge using the printed operators. If the question were to ask how tall the building was based on the number of degrees marked at 30 feet from the base of the building, it would require a trig or log table.
Not really. You should remember that the sides ratios of 30,60,90 deg, and 45,45,90 deg triangles have a interesting yet very simple relationship. For your 30 deg. angle, the height will be distance to the base of the building / sq. root of three.
(A-level maths, as taught in the very early 1970's . . . . . . .)
For your 30 deg. angle, the height will be distance to the base of the building / sq. root of three.
Is that not a "formula"? Were the question to ask: What is the square root of (30 * 30) + (40 * 40), or, as in a fortran cloned modern programming language, SQRT(30^2 + 40^2), it would be an "arithmetic" question . The question, as stated, requires the person being tested knows the "identity" or "formula" to calc the hypotenuse? (shit - i think i forgot the formula for calc-ing the length of the hypotenuse).
At my elementary school we had to learn how to calculate a square root for big numbers - most tedious - most tedious indeed. More like trial and error than a computation.
.
You misspelled the name of a good Irish beer.
I don't understand what you are saying.
Do you mean to say that there actually IS a 'good' 'Irish beer'? Isn't this like combining the words 'military' and 'intelligence' in a single sentence?
Well, if you meant 'whiskey', lad, I could almost understand (but not quite).
The High Altitude Auroral Research Project (based in Gakona, Alaska) could use some fine Irish lasses with whiskey to 'boost the morale' of the nerdpacking dweebs stationed there. If they bring masking tape (to repair the broken spectacles of their CHO-SIN men), this is a bonus. NO REDHEADS, though.
Modern colleges/universities are a massive racket, for the most part, only being able to charge the tutition they do due to the federal & state college loan programs, which benefits professors, administrators, university regents & presidents (who now make many hundreds of thousands, and in some cases, millions of dollars per year, with free living accommodations, insurance, food & other essentials).
If the now 1 trillion USD plus student loan program went bye-bye, and it should, as it is nothing more than taxpayer insured pork, tuition rates would fall by 50% to 90% at most colleges/universities.
They've created another market that's massively distorted, indebting college students in a much more deep manner than if these programs didn't exist, creating a new, massive class of debt serfs for life.
Another taxpayer backed, debt serfdom program, where defaulted loans will be socialized, profits will be privatized and shared amongst cronies (mostly unionized ones), where the end product is a more expensive, lower quality product than it would otherwise be due to lack of the need for competitiveness & innovation, and students, their parents & taxpayers are grist for this mill.
Further, 1/3rd of all students entering college don't graduate within 6 years, 1/4th don't graduate at all (i.e. drop out), and 30% entering have to take remedial math and/or reading courses before taking college courses b/c they are not proficient at even a modest level in these basic subject areas despite graduating from high school (many with good grades, by the way).
I hope the coming online edu programs such as MIT's free courses - the same exact material studied & tested as on campus - open to all (where a 16 year old from Mongolia scored a perfect exam score in electrical engineering) disrupts the conventional university system completely.
The failure of the U.S. system of education is being caused by the commodification and democratization of education, i.e., the idea that everyone should go to college, as well as the notion that it is really just job training. If only smart people went to college, obviously the performance of the system would increase, but the profitability of so-called not-for-profit universities would dramatically decline. In other words, the future is being sacrificed for the sake of current income. And parents could not care any less, because to most of them, what they are paying for is branding. Schools have become brands. The right brands lead to the right jobs. This is the real intellectual failure of the U.S. system. The reality is that in a proper university, the students bring as much to the institution as they receive, if not more.
"The university is well-structured, well-tooled, to turn out people with all the sharp edges worn off, the well-rounded person. The university is well-equipped to produce that sort of person, and this means that the best among the people who enter must for four years wander aimlessly much of the time questioning why they are on campus at all, doubting whether there is any point in what they are doing, and looking toward a very bleak existence afterward in a game in which all of the rules have been made up, which one cannot really amend."
—Mario Savio
If the now 1 trillion USD plus student loan program went bye-bye, and it should, as it is nothing more than taxpayer insured pork, tuition rates would fall by 50% to 90% at most colleges/universities.
Now to the funding flip-side. Assume in the future, the dollar is no longer accepted as a form of credit, and you need gold to purchase a college education. Assuming no deflation, you'd either need to come up with 33 oz of AU over four years that your parents saved for you; or you'd need to borrow from a private party (bank, loan shark, college-itself, scholarship entity) the same amount. If there was real money involved, the admissions would be different; only the rich and extremely intelligent would get in. There inevitably would be a huge deflation in admittance. So I conclude by a contra-positive, your same findings inevitable, that there would an in-kind decrease in tution commesurate with the decrease in admittance (not enough gold exists).
Based on my understanding of history and linear regression, I believe the aforementioned scenario is the long-term norm. It will be interesting to observe the transition.
Mentioned previously, Happy Birthday.
I struggle to remember what it was like when Proud to Be American really meant something.
(Probably why I tell stories of younger days.)
You know, I have to admit that was sarc. That is something to really be sad about.
I have questioned all my heros since my childhood. Abraham Lincoln was the last one to go when I finally peeled away the covers. That was the hardest.
I still have a deep admiration of Audie Murphy of whom I was thinking about today. Maybe someone here can destroy him for me.
Miffed
Let's not fool ourselves into thinking that the U.S. is or has ever been an even fairly democratic nation in law, economic justice or societal justice.
It may have been more or less so by purely relative standards of any given period, but the bankers have always called the shots from a very compelling degree to a nearly ludicrous degree (and the ludicrous degree era really did begin in 1910 on a small island off the Georgia coast).
Even your fallen idol, Lincoln, purportedly tried to wage war against the bankers when they insisted on loan shark, usurious interest rates to fund weapons purchases for the Union Army, and was ultimately powerless to stop them.
It really goes back to Waterloo & good old Rothschild. That was when the current model of formerly sovereign nations (and their legislative, regulatory,
judicial & military institutions) being captured by private banking/financial entities was born, and it's the model that we're stuck with today, with a heavy dose of petrocurrency thrown in for good measure (which the banksters also so happen to control - look at the fall of non-fractional reserve central bankless petro states of late).
Happy Birthday, Miffed ;-)
Destroy Everything You Touch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTTwlAT_AwU
got nuthin against Audie Murphy, links please. hehe
Happy Birthday Miffed!! Hope you had a wonderful and blessed day!!
On the American front....I am still proud to call myself American. I associate this 'word' with folks like you ZHers here along with other like minded free willed people. I do like its association with the criminal and corrupted UNITED STATES OF AMERICA corporation and its agents.
But we're smarter than the Polish.
What consolation!
Isn't that equivalent to a trophy for participation?
Of course, Russia wasn't included because they didn't want the smart kid to blow the grading curve. ;-)
America's decline is easily explained. It is a divided country. There is the "old" America of the 50s. Then there is the "new" America, mostly composed of mexicans and africans. So naturally scholastic performance is trending toward the banana republic and the congo.
I'm starting to believe the dumbed down schools make sense. How do you get a room full of baby gorillas to stop swinging from the light fixtures and pay attention? Mostly you don't. But it has to be severely dumbed down or they have no chance to keep up.
Kirk you ignoarant slut, look at it again, we are behind the Polish, 285 to 284.
In all fairness SilSav I believe Kirk meant polish as in amurikans are smarter than boot polish, although I'm inclined to agree with you, most of them are not as smart as inanimate objects and dirt would give them a good run for their money in an IQ competition.
May your wife always know where you are
That's plain mean.
Unfortunately, the farther down the scale people are, the harder it is for them to understand that they SHOULDN'T breed. The baser instincts are strong, in these ones.
Fucking, McDonald's Chicken McNuggets and Fries, fucking, watching television, welfare, fucking, diet McDonald's soda with aspartame for the weight gains, fucking, downloading porn using iPhones, fucking, getting laid, fucking, masturbating, popping zits, fucking, sleeping in, making trips to Walmart and paying with EBT, VOTING, fucking (anything that moves), ...
I went to a junior high school where some kid had carved an epiteth in a wooden beam supporting the building. It was spelled, 'FUK YOU'. They can DO it (but they can't spell it).
Don't forget that the government encourages this crap by paying these people to breed.
Idiocracy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy
Just waiting for the day that Gatorade is a-sprayin merrily on the white house lawn...
Life procreates. But nature, red in tooth and claw, used to help promote intelligence and skill. Now, everyone lives and most procreate.
I believe it is also that people are growing up so reliant on machines to do what used to require careful thought and calculation, that their brains are not developing the way they once were before all of the modern technological conveniences. It often makes me wonder if all of this technology were to one day die, perhaps due to natural or man-made phenomena, would we even have enough smart engineers to figure out how to reconstruct society?
College students take ADHD drugs for better grades
http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/01/health/drugs-adderall-concentration/index....
Nice. They're dum as shit even with performance enhancing drugs.
We should be ashamed as adults that we allowed this to happen.
But we have no shame and Johnny might feel bad. This is all a consequence of our liberal nanny state culture. enjoy it, now you own it.
4 things the Top 10 have in common:
1. They all have only a Public school system. No 2 tier system that allows the elite to escape and trash the other (public) system.
2. No significant spending on the MIC. Money goes to education, not WMDs.
3. No home schooling, unless it's extra tutoring
4. No uncontrolled immigration (to create 'churn')
None of this is permanent. I've seen a small core of smart kids in schools even today. When there is a population correction (looks like it's starting now, and going to accelerate), assuming our species survives, a more long-term average intelligence will re-establish (higher than current). There hasn't been an environmental "weed-out" in a long long time now.
A recent Forbes article ranks the speed of 4G networks in 29 countries that have widespread implementation of this service. Somewhat surprisingly, the USA is ranked third slowest, ahead of only Mexico and Saudi Arabia. Maybe that's why our students did so poorly, because their mobile data was so slow.
^^^THIS X1000
When I say to my kids' teachers that I don't allow them to have personal devices (iphone, ipod, laptop, or TVs in their own rooms -- we have 1 TV no antenna or pay service) they look at me like I'm from another planet. This goes for other parents as well, who provide their 9 year olds with fully featured and data planned iphones with unlimited 'screen time'.
My feeling is that previous generations, who lacked the 'benefit' of endlessly accessible glowing screens with instant gratification built right in, actually had to do stuff to entertain themselves.
I don't know what you all did, but I liked to go in the woods, shoot BB guns (then .22 later), build stuff, keep my bicycle working, learn how to fix a junked mini bike so I could ride it, then started helping my dad restore cars. This all by 12 years old. I also played basketball and spent many an hour shooting in the driveway. You may argue that since I wasn't blessed with NBA talent, that it was a waste of time, but I think that it teaches a kid that excellence takes a lot of work. And of course when you're outside exercising, that's infinitely better for your brain that staring at a goddamn glowing screen.
In fact, my childhood diversions eventually led me to major in engineering in college, to restore muscle cars on my own, and gave me the confidence to attempt daunting projects on my own.
Self-esteem comes from accomplishment (whatever that might be), not empty words, or everyone gets a trophy win or lose.
These kids today only know how to swipe their screens, and repeat what they're told at school -- such dandies as "Dad, black people built this country while all the whites sat on their butts and whipped the black slaves" -- yeah, I quickly corrected that -- but that's what you get when teachers are created by education programs at liberal universities.
My 11 y/o saying that to me made me wonder just how much other bullshit she'd learned. We talk a lot about world affairs, geopolitics, the money systemm and how to spot propaganda.
TLDR: get them off the goddamn screens and their creativity will blossom, just like ours did as kids. Otherwise, a screen trained 18 year old is about as useful as tits on a boar hog in the real world. Women with 0 domestic sklls, men who can't fix or build anything etc.
That is the future being brought to us by .gov, Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Verizon, ATT, Dish Network, DIrecTV, and edu INC, et al.
I reject it.
I think I had a similar childhood in many ways, but I also was blessed with an IBM-compatible computer back in the 80s. Perhaps there was as difference there, though. Now days the computer interfaces are pretty mindless, whereas back in the day, you had to learn and figure out a lot in order to do anything. My dad swears that computer was the single best investment he ever made, as it did put me way ahead of others technical knowledge. Really helped me as an adult, when most people still didn't have a computer, much less know how they really operate.
Point being, if you ARE going to let your kids have computer time, make sure they are using it for school or to actually learn how technology actually works,not just what you do with your finger to open angry birds.
As a college professor in the South, let me say that college education is indeed pathetic. Many of my students are incapable of calculating the percentage they managed to get correct on a test if the points don't sum to one hundred. Teaching evolution in the South is a continuing adventure, although over the last decade it is getting better.
On the other hand, if I have trouble navigating my cell phone, virtually any of my students can help me out. So it is not exactly true that students are helpless. They just have different priorities.
I will also say in my student's defense, that almost all of them work, many of them take a full college schedule with a 40 hour work-week at minimum wage and even so, sink deeper in debt.
I didn't have to do that, even though my parents contributed nothing (I had some scholarship money). I worked occasionally, and full-time during the summer, but most of the people of my generation (baby-boomer) skated through school without having to work much at all.
I
Any of your students can help you out with your phone. And that does indeed show different priorities. Unfortunately, those "skills" are a complete and total waste.
Education in the US is dismal at best. Doing university in the US system is basically a scam at this point, anyone with any brains about them does it overseas. Undergrad in the US is worthless. Masters is rapidly becoming worthless... PHD is still good to do in the US, but in 10 years time....who knows.
Spot on.
I was on the faculty at two U.S. universities. Each and every student of merit in the computer sciences and engineering came from abroad.
90% of the graduate students were of Chinese and Indian heritage and were exceptional.
I see this phenomenon as a byproduct of decades of liberalism. Liberal parents spawning little liberals who grow up to be worthless at
problem solving and creative thinking.
Ahhhh.... The Rise and Fall of Empires.
Usually the foreign students that come here are the exceptional ones.
>>>Spot on.
I was on the faculty at two U.S. universities.
Double spot-on. I've had a couple of university postions (non-tenured, "adjunct") in the US and abroad. Per my most recent experience in the States, graduate and professional schools in the US were still world-class. But anyone who shells out big bucks for an Amurican bachelor's degree is being suckered. You can get a better education, for less money, in many foreign countries, including some english-speaking ones with Nobel prize winners on their staff.
The only major exception to the rule is that if you or your kid can get into one of the roughly twenty top (and I do mean top) US undergraduate schools, it may be worth the cost, if only for networking reasons.
I've gone to a few high school and college graduations and have been quite amazed at how dumb the graduates are. Few of them can write a coherent paragraph. They have no critical thinking skills and know very little about the larger world off campus. - - This is bad enough. What's worse is that they have absolutely no curiosity or creativity. They did the minimum just to get by.
Their boomer parents are even dumber and more superficial than the kids.
To all you American 'educators' - - screw you for taking the lazy, cushy, secure job and taking part in helping to the destroy the country. You and parents too busy chasing materialism b.s., have sold out the next generation. Of course, you're too stupid to understand that and too cowardly to face the truth. When you saw the actual outcomes being produced - incompetent students - you just went along to get along. Mustn't mess up your pension. And the parents mustn't actually get involved in their kids education. (After all, Johnny and Mary are 'getting good grades'. What a joke.)
I recall being in an upper division environmental policy class at a University of California campus almost 30 years ago - end of quarter I went to pick up my last paper from an envelope on the wall outside the prof's office. I always got an A- because my papers were turned in a day late due to brain surges and difficulty keeping it to 5 or 10 pages. There were a bunch of my peer's papers in there as well, so I took a look at them. I was aghast. These were people who could make decent responses in class, but their papers ranged from 6th to 8th grade writing. Aghast and appalled (that means greatly dismayed or horrified).
All I could think was how depressing it must be to be the teacher of the course.
It's not the professor's fault, though. They're punished for failing students, cracking down on cheating, etc. Got to keep that student loan money coming in so administrators can make 6 figures and pump the stats for the school. See Dr. Doom's insider revelations for more over at rense.com, here's his latest: http://www.rense.com/general96/highcstfree.html or at http://www.professorconfess.blogspot.com/
Now K-12 educators, well...
@HoboSapien - thanks for the links. I'll check them out.
A few years ago I recall reading the final senior paper of a student from one of the UofC campuses. There were so many grammar and spelling errors, that it was unreadable. Yet, that student passed the class and was awarded a degree. The worst part of it was the fact that he was actually proud of that paper. The poor fool didn't know enough to recognize how horrible it was.
IMO you give bad professors too much leniency. They are committing fraud and abuse of the intellectual infants that they were charged to teach. If the institution is too corrupt to allow them to fulfill that responsibility, they should be raising a ruckus or quit for more honest work.
Yeah check those links, please - I was there, I was Doonesbury's Zonker, living through the exponential rise of college fees with the concurrent amazing dumbing down of educational content. The free money debacle affected colleges too-- float bonds for a new gym, sports stadium, liberal studies wing, whatever,... it was all paid for by govt backed student loans - "Any Schmoe Can Go To College!"... and be in debt forever. DrDoom's articles might show you that it's not as simple as you think or might wish it to be. I remember in the late 80's someone telling me that it was a golden time to get a PHD - the old guard of professors were at retirement age, the growth of the University system would need their replacement at about a 2:1 ratio. LOL. Instead they made instructors part-time, at-will, contract employees with no benefits, no job security, and subject to termination unless everyone passed so that student loan money kept rolling in. So I guess I respectfully disagree. I was there.
@HoboSapien - it's often true that the right thing to do isn't the easy thing to do.
When the current 'soft tyranny' turns into a violent hard tyranny, the order following trigger pullers will also have choices to make. Unfortunately, most of them went to US schools and colleges. Any moral or Constitutional arguments are likely to be met with a blank look of incomprehension. Thank you teachers & lazy parents. Karma is a bitch.
Decline due to genetic factors ?
Complete eugenics b.s.
The schools were targeted more than a century ago in the US.
Certain control freaks didn't want the potential competition, but did
want compliant, dumbed down workers.
Read 'The Underground History of American Education' - by John Taylor Gatto
People don't necessarily choose to be idiots. It's "recommended" to them as the best option and they have little choice.
I remember a time when we put a man on the moon and no one ever heard of an H1 visa. Now we are told our high tech sector would collapse without well-educated foreigners to save us. If you have a child in the schools as I do, you would tend to believe it. Tracking (a term most millenials could not even define, but which was common sense when I went to school) is now politically incorrect and against the law. No child is left behind, meaning everyone is stuck in the mud. The smarter cohorts of children are indoctrinated into low standards and not educated to their potential as a matter of policy. Surprise surprise they end up self-absorbed and dumb.
I got to spend an hour at the DMV yesterday. I was reading some Douglas Adams, but still got some good people-watching in. It correlated with my Walmart sightings and other encounters. The majority of people I saw were overweight, if not obese, with expressions of intense self-absorption and mental lethargy. It's really strange how things have changed. Seeing other people who are physically fit and mentally alert has become a special occasion - we recognize each other with a small smile and a nod. Say what you want about the 70's, I don't remember so many fat vacant souls stumbling around.
Does this mean Gruber was right? ;-)
Skillets n' ahced tea.
That would be a resounding yes.
"Give me the seven hundred million dollars on the count of three.
One
Two
Three...
Blablablablablabla
Bang!"
Hans Gruber.
Good bad guy.
I don't know, but I hope that physics professor Michio Kaku (often seen on TV science channels) isn't right:
"Dr. Michio Kaku America Has A Secret Weapon" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK0Y9j_CGgM
Dr. Michio Kaku speaks about how America's poor educational system has created a shortage of Americans who can perform high skilled technology jobs. As a result, America's H-1B Genius visa is used to attract immigrants who are skilled enough to perform these jobs.
H-1Bs were pretty much a scam to hire low wage college grads - many from mediocre schools - take on jobs at below US Market Wages.
The Brain Drain to the USA will eventually reverse - when there's nothing to outsource or H-1B. E.g., a good number of R&D Gigs for Intel, (now defunct) SUN, ORACLE, IBM etc., were being offered abroad for the past 15years or so.
I wonder if DEU, RUS, SWE, or CHE have Genius Visas...
What is official is that if there is another day rising there is america /american bashing. We are dumb, lazy, mean, warmongering jingoists.-all thanks to our ever apologetic "leader" and media.
I am not buying what they are trying to sell.
If we have any deterioration at all, it is due to the 3rd world mass immigration that is being fostered by this administration and cronies.
Take out blacks and hispanics and the numbers rise. Get rid of the public schools and the numbers will rise even more. The problem is the demographic make up of the population. Blacks have an average IQ of 85. Hispanics around 89. Whites have been discouraged from breeding by encouraging bright white women to work instead of marry. Whites have also been encouraged to marry blacks, thus producing children whose IQ is higher than a black-black marriage but lower than a white-white marriage.
Race matters no matter how many times the media lies about it.
Bingo. In the old days Shitavious wouldnt even enroll in skool. Now he gets free brekfiss and lunch so he shows up and tests in the bottom percentile
Race matters, but not in the way that you think.
Race is not a biological concept; it comes out of anthropology and sociology. The greatest amount of genetic diversity occurs in the continent of Africa, because Homo sapiens was born there, about 200,000 years ago, a wisp of time in the context of the antiquity of life, which goes back 3.5 billion years ago.
The genetic diversity of the human race is very small relative to other species (think of domestic dogs, almost all of which are descended from and can still interbreed with wolves). All of the people in the world are probably descended from a few (maybe as few as two) women in Africa, not so many generations ago.
Many of the blacks of Africa are closer genetically to Western Europeans than they are to other black Africans.
The perception of race is based largely on skin color. There are many "blacks" from the Indian subcontinent that are very much darker than most of the African-Americans in the U.S. Traditionally, these people were also discriminated against, making up the "untouchable" caste. Nevertheless, they are considered to be Caucasians, even by the anthropologists.
To imagine that race correlates with intelligence or fitness in the context of a free-enterprise society is just an admission of prejudice or ignorance.
I'd suggest you read some books on the subject since it's obvious you know nothing about it. Race is not a social construct any more than the different breeds of dogs are social constructs. Blacks are at the bottom of the totem pole in every country they live. Africa is a fourth world area. A few blacks, very few, have what we'd consider an average or above average IQ. But the majority are dumb and violent. Either read something or STFU.
There are substantial discrepancies between phenotypic and genotypic IQs.
Genetics, IQ, and Convergence
http://www.unz.com/akarlin/genetics-iq-and-convergence/
As for the African slaves brought to the US, they weren't necessarily representative of the general population there - they were not selected for intelligence, but mainly for physical abilities.
It would be tantamount to claiming that people selected from athletes and burger-flippers were representative of America's population.
No need to be so harsh. If he's really a college prof, writing anything other than "To imagine that race correlates with intelligence or fitness in the context of a free-enterprise society is just an admission of prejudice or ignorance" would be a sure way to get his tenure revoked.
Academics are famously tolerant of almost anything--except positions that differ from their PC orthodoxy. Those who espouse such positions are sentenced to academic death, or at the very least they're blackballed. And I'd wager that R.H isn't interested in going down that path.
Even IF the averages are lower for blacks and Hispanics, there are many millions of dumb, useless whites. The problem with education is we try to get every person through college now, and it is impossible to impart much in the way of advanced skills or knowledge to the general population of any race. Further, a system which gives opportunity only to those who are above average would be very much better than what we have. But such a better system would have to provide opportunity to those who are above average in such a way that it was legitimately and effectively blind to race and ethnicity. Otherwise, it would be, effectively, just another apartheid based on skin color, under which many thousands of white morons would again get high-paying jobs at which they cannot perform decently without further corruption.
And that would mean an affirmative action based on family income, not race. This is the rub, about which no one dare speak. The university system could not afford to equilibrate for income, so it chose race, and perpetuated the very atrocity of which it complained.
I agree. My thought is that the downvoters have never lived around blacks much, or are social justice warriors.
SJWs: FUCK OFF AN DIE>
Facts aren't racist. They just exist. Can any of you 10 SJWs disprove what he wrote? Have you ever worked in a public school or lived in a majority black city? If not then you have no fucking idea what you're talking about, basing your downvotes on Hollywood and MSM bullshit.
Here's some other areas where blacks are 'exemplary':
STD rate
Abortion rate
illegitimacy rate
HS dropout rate
Crime rate per capita
Poverty rate
Incarceration rate
Would being number one in any of these categories indicate that as a group, blacks are as intelligent as other groups? No.
But becuase of policital correctness and SJWs, even pointing out the truth about Shaniqua and Tyrone is considered racist.
Fuck that shit. I live in the real world and have for my whole life.
Redneck Hippy ,
Race is relevant.... and the closer you are to pure African the stupider you are in general... do yourself a favor and google "IQ by race" ,, hundreds of studies around the world produce VERY similar results... black Africans are always at the bottom of the IQ pile... I'll give you my theory , it's based on my own observations and extrapolations... The PC police have made speaking the truth dangerous... maybe you haven't thought this through.
African blacks developed traits to survive the conditions they lived in for millenia ,, namely black skin to protect them from the suns rays and "afro" hair to protect their skulls from sun and to act as a "heat sink" to keep their brains below "broil" temp. As we all know all computers are limited in speed by the heat produced... as a coping mechanism Africans brains run at a reduced speed... This is how homo sapiens adapt. Just like Peruvians have enormous lungs compared to people that live at sea level or how Scandinavians have blond hair that lays flat to keep heat in (acting as an insulator and colored so as not to radiate away body heat) and how Scotts have pasty white or transparent skin to allow for maximum light penetration (and vitamin D creation).
You see that your statement that considering race is an "admission of prejudice or ignorance" is just plain wrong. It matters, it doesn't mean that there aren't brilliant black people or stupid white people but taken as a whole there is about a 15 to 20 point IQ spread in favor of White people , and Asians are usually a few points above whites... Hispanics score between blacks and whites. That is why the Democrat party wants them so badly ,, they already own the easily controlled black populace ,, the Mexicans are the next easiest to pull into the "GIBSMEDAT" "IWANTITFREE" groupthink socialist mindset... They don't even know how they're being suckered in.
Redneck Hippy and I must have taken similar sociology course(s). Only difference is I didn't believe it then, and after further study and experience, I especially don't believe it now. The difference in IQ by race is probably 90% of the reason why the libtards invented "racism."
Jews invented "racism" because they think of themselves as the foremost race and everyone else as cattle. Blacks and other have also used it as front for shaking down whitey.
Jews are smarter than whites.
I used to live in Malaysia, I notice that of the three major races out there, Malays, Indians and Chinese, that the Chinese were much more intelligent, the Chinese were so intelligent that the government of Malaysia which is majority Malay had very strict quotas to restrict the entry of Chinese students to universities!
By that token, they should have only tested the Asians that attend private schools and don't intermarry.
I'm a Black-Asian bi-racial/ethnic(operative word is ethnic) with a higher IQ than most people - Period - to the extent that I've been stalked by Xian Science, Scientology, (Sun Yun) Mooney, Mormon, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Jesuits, Freemasons, and Negro Stalker Parasites scamming off of my Works.
The Negro Stalkers were a bit bizzare; but then we're talking about Maxine Waters' District here. From what I've observed, most are with the aforementioned cults - some, through Job Networking Groups, were even trying to get me to eventually talk the "Ghetto/Jive" talk and get "Black-a-fied". My Late Father grew up on a Carolina Farm that sold some Timber, IIRC - before he joined the Navy; and NEVER spoke of word of Jive. Guess Ebonics and Chitlins every Sunday after Church Services that call for donations to some Idiot "needing" a Private Jet were on the agenda as well. They resorted to calling me an "Oreo" - again - erroneous and indicative of their ignorance.
They've worked with Department of Labor / Job Networking Groups to try to prevent people from leaving the Sinkhole of a State.
To a point, I concur with the Poster. USA Blacks and Hispanics tend to have (alarmingly) lower average IQs than USA "Whites"; but I've seen more than my share of Idiot Caucasians as well. There are even limitations on People with Masters' and PhDs as well - the worst being "Professional Students" with no Practical/Productive Output to Society.
IMHO, it's a bit of a "Nature and Nurture" Issue - with the "Nuture" differentials beginning nowadays with Primary/Secondary Education Pipelines. Of course, keeping the Slave Populations uneducated (sound familiar?), and allegedly killing off literate Slaves did its share as well.
We have a "Marching Morons" Level 'PopProb' in the works.
Yes and because of this stupidity 3 European Powers Say They Will Join China-Led Bank http://nyti.ms/1BQ7SIf
Well if anyone knows stupid it's Michael Snyder.
This is the inevitable result of allowing the federal government to have any part whatsoever in the educational system. Spending has gone up year after year, yet our society keeps getting even moar 'stupid-er'. Why is that? Allowing the govt to get its tentacles into the schools.
Turning the populace into robotic workers for the robber barons of the early industrial ages was the express purpose of creating centrally controlled government run schools... this isn't a problem as far as the government is concerned, it is the desired result.
'Everything government touches turns to crap."
- Ringo Starr
No wonder the USA government can tell obvious lies today and the Americans will readily believe them. "Weapons of Mass Distraction" indeed.
I can attest to this. I haven't met an engineering graduate in 20 years that I knew what I learned in HS phsyics, chemistry, or math. Of course, I'm useless at Facebook and Twitter.
My wife works as a receptionist for a pet grooming outfit. Been there for thirty some years as a groomer. They hired a recent high school graduate to assist as a receptionist. The girl can't read, write, let alone file fucking appointment cards. Currently going through thousands of cards with wife to unfuck them. (And this is after my day job which pretty much leaves my eyes faded.) Finally told her to call the owner and have HER help unfuck these cards. That's why I'm on Zero Hedge.
That said, we went to wallmart with her new fancy phone to print out grandkid pictures. Had some machine with cords to go into the phone and things on the screen. We were stumped...we needed a five year old to help us but there weren't any around.
B.S. - I doubt that you learned more in h.s. than a college engineering grad. Math, science, and analysis & design courses build upon a foundation of the basics. Some students are exposed to those basics in h.s., but not the more technical material covered in upper division undergrad engineering courses. There's simply not enough time, no matter how bright a h.s. student is.
Engineering is one of the few academic areas where students may actually learn something useful in American undergrad programs today.
I don't know, my friends kids 14 and 12, seem like brains to me. Then maybe i'm stupid. LOL.
can they answer the test above? I could when I was 13 and starting to get bored in school. Having a phone handy with Wiki is no substitute for knowledge.
can they answer the test above? I could when I was 13 and starting to get bored in school. Having a phone handy with Wiki is no substitute for knowledge.
It's cool to be dumb in the US these days, and everybody speaks Ebonics.
Iss Ebonics spaken in all 57 states ?
I'd answer your question, but I don't know how to spell 'fifty-seven'.
OH, WAIT!
HEINZ 57! That's STAKE SAWSE! Some Whitey muthufuckuh makes us eat it! Honkey gettin' RICH off us folk!
The shortest word: 'muthufuckuh'.
The LONGEST word; 'SHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!'
The usage: 'SHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET, muthufuckuh,...'
EBONICS IS SPOWKUN (and shit).
Next language up to bat: 'SPANGLISH'!
Jigs are losing 'market share', you know.
esept fur Idaho, hear we speek Teapartish.
That must be why so many mistake loose for lose.
Certain demographics do tend to pull the average down - a problem not much relevant to Japan and Finland...
And as a reward for their stupidity they get "free"* Obamaphones, "free"* health care, "free"*housing, "free"* food, "free"*...
OK, maybe they aren't so stupid.
* - "free" being free to them but outrageously expensive to tax payers and future generations of tax payers.
Honesty and holding to principles is typically more costly in the short run than going along with the corruption and delusion.
Its all in the Book. No man could have written that.
The whole thing is just a set up to see just how much people will believe in the word when they do the exact opposite of what it teaches "in the name of God" of course.
All those folks bailed on W for a reason. They truly believed in the Word...but when they discovered the entire Enterprise was a fraud they abandoned ship.
And look at how many still demand that we aid and abet these crimes. "All still in the name of God" of course.
"Sorry Detroit but in the name of God you had to die. Next please!"
Won't stop until long after everything has been looted either. "They call it math" but I call it numbers.
We did have a debate once about whether this was all worth dying for of course. After Pearl Harbor we said yes...and by the grace of God that worked.
"But all Glory is fleeting.". Look at what we have become and what is said about it...besides " go forth and die."
Who would ever believe in a religion like that?
Not that anyone is preaching this Word anymore. Who dare speak against the corruption, violence and outright theft?
This is why we have Jesus. "The end will begin with me.". And he was crucified for that...but the prophecy came true!
The folks in charge want you to think that this was all Jesus' idea...but Americans while dumb...are not that dumb. That's why we don't vote anymore...in the name of His word we crucify the Nation.
There has been resistance to this Fall.
Too bad Putin and all the other sinners are dumber actually.
South Korea looks good...
There is a difference between stupidity and education. Maybe I can be Pollyanna and hope our youths are just resisting modern day indoctrinization that passes as an education? Ok, probably not. Remembering the sixty page paper I had to write for my International Relations class on the conflict between Ireland and England took a damn amount of work. Weeks just to compile the books I needed from the library and hours to form a cogent argument. Then I was lambasted by the professor on my weak points.
I guess you are hard pressed to take initiative to excel when everyone gets a trophy for showing up.
Miffed
You likely benefited more from the journey than the destination in this case. The way education should work.
"We dangle over the flames of Hell a spider held but by a single strand."
Best written word in the History of the English language. Almost 400 years ago that was written...and upon which all great American writing is based. Everything written well in the USA is nothing more than a rewriting of that sermon.
Everything.
All science, math, philosophy, english...in the end we are ALL just "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."
Without a reason to rise above the mediocrity (given the indoctrination phases of the current generations that there is NO MORAL COMPASS, and therefore NO MORALITY; because there IS NO GOD), the youth of this current generation's seed see NO REASON to rise to a level that challanges the 'status quo'. It is DRILLED IN TO THEM that any independent thought is a FLAW in their character (which could be 'detrimental' to the percieved goals that they are given of 'monetary wealth').
They 'go along to get along', and are FORCE-FED the scripts of incorrect, flawed, and erroneous thinking; until they either react violently against it, or are subsumed in to the maw of 'societal normalcy'. Never mind the GMO and flouride poisoning, or the genetic flaws that have been inherited by the parents who used these (and other) drugs. Never mind the continuous spraying of toxins above their heads that they are left with no choice but to inhale. Never mind the lack of vitamins in their diets, and the continuous bombardment of EM frequencies...
It's NOW a 'BRAVE NEW WORLD', Pollyanna.
Dear God,
My grandfather was one of the original Right Wing Conspiracy Theorists. He subscribed to the Plain Truth and thought that Eisenhower was a communist.
He told me straight out that I should be lined up against a wall and shot because I thought that the War on Vietnam was a really stupid idea.
I thought people like him died out a couple of generation ago. Apparently I was wrong.
lol
My grandfather thought FDR was a communist, that he didn't die because they never opened the casket to show the corpse. He was sure FDR, Hitler and Stalin had escaped to Argentina where they lived in luxury. Eisenhower was the best we could find but he was no paragon. He played golf too much "staring down the green fairways of indifference".
Does someone need a glass of instant smile? ;-)
I think your nihilistic view may be misplaced. Though some may succumb to indoctrination, you discount the inherent drive of the human spirit for freedom. I honestly believe this cannot be fully squelched, though it may remain dormant for awhile. Things are simply not bad enough yet. Be patient. Talking to some indoctinated youth has given me hope. It starts off in rote response but after some queries and provocative points, I've seen some light in dull eyes appear.
I was raised to be something I could never be. Even beaten unconscious and psychologically mauled to force this upon me. I resisted and came out myself on the other side. And this was anything but normal and no way can I be unique.
Miffed
Polar bears dragging down the math average in Finland...
I know a German foreign exchange high school student who is more informed than most 40 year olds......
They elected a marxist twice.
And there ya go.
White millenials leaned red in 2012. You gotta be more specific than just age if you want to be accurate.
The minority vote was so strongly against the white guy with a resume that they managed to upset the majority-race vote in that age demographic.
Theres a lot of hot air on this site about abstaining from feeding the broken system but when it comes down the the numbers, the 18-34 demographic was the only one that backed those words up with participation down an incredible 7.3% for the 18-24 y/o portion.
Of the 18-29's who voted, 5% went independent (only 2% of all voters were independent). Thats a significant skew for a group that represented 11% of votes.
Everyone else ran their mouth then showed up and 98% voted for team red or team blue anyway.
http://elections.nbcnews.com/ns/politics/2012/all/president/
groucho, harpo or chico?
True dat.
It's the idiocracy. Welcome to it and have fun. There is no way things are going to magically improve (as stated it's going to gets worse each generation from the passed on genes along with the general apathy society has) so the future is going to be quite amusing...and pathetic.
I feel sympathy for the future intelligent people who are going to have to deal with all that idiocy given how hard it is to deal with today's idiocy.
If it is truly 'idiocracy' then hopefully they will make a real show called 'ow, my balls ' like in the movie. I'm looking forward to watching it....
It's the idiocracy. Welcome to it and have fun. There is no way things are going to magically improve (as stated it's going to gets worse each generation from the passed on genes along with the general apathy society has) so the future is going to be quite amusing...and pathetic.
I feel sympathy for the future intelligent people who are going to have to deal with all that idiocy given how hard it is to deal with today's idiocy.
the empiricism is useful but not necessary. most boomers/gen x ers know it in their bones; their progeny now layin' the groundwork for national multi-furcation if "the flash" doesn't get 'em first.
Whats the point of that test? That math is done comfortably before 8th grade now (at least in my experience: 2008 high school grad in a bottom 5 state for education) outside of that interest rate problem. We were doing algebra and trig in eigth grade (public).
Sure, that rote stuff may not be covered but thats a structural difference - memorizing useless trivia was more important before the internet. There is absolutely no reason for an American eigth grader to need to know where Montenegro is. We criticize schools for being too focused on memorization vs logic now, but this test makes it look more skewed 100 years ago.
Edit: on second thought, I suppose we offer the opportunity to learn but not the obligation. I imagine its easier to graduate without understanding now than it was in the past.
I think some memorization is good just to learn basic terminology and structure of a field. My early science classes where often quite boring because of this but once the basics are mastered and you can apply this knowledge in a practical way, it becomes more interesting. Children are naturally very inquisitive and love to learn. Modern public education does more to squelch rather than enhance this for obvious reasons.
Miffed
In junior high I kept getting distracted by massive boners caused by sitting close to all those young women spraying their pheremones all over the place. Thats why I'm dumb
I remember you! You were my lab partner that kept screwing up our frog dissection. I knew I shouldn't have worn those tight low cut V T-shirts with a horny guy wielding a scalpel. My eyes are up here bub.
Miffed;-)
There are TWO remedial courses for college algebra at the junior college where an acquaintance works.
"Beavis & Butthead" isn't a comedy, it's a documentary.
I didn't see anything in this article that talked about the students not even caring if they learn. It is not just the school system, but the attempts to create a curriculum that motivates students to learn have been getting simpler and simpler (for the masses). There are still kids out there that are motivated, and they are not just asians.
I don't believe it's the education system. You can take a recent transplant from china, even a poorer one, throw them in a crappy school in the US and they'll do well. It's cultural. America does not value or reward intelligence. It values money and looks and fame and this is where that gets you. Sure, the education system isn't great, but it's not the main issue.
Stupid parents have stupid children, and unfortunately, it seems like The Dumb in America procreate at higher rates.
I don't believe it's the education system.
K-12 plus a couple years of college adds up to spending 15 or so years in an institution by the time one turns 25. Pretty sure the educationn system is a factor.
A person can have a high level of intelligence and yet be poorly educated. The fact that someone is poorly educated is not necessarily a reflection of their basic level of intelligence.
http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393317552
The ability to learn and reason is not predicated upon an education. Education is but a tool, which if left unused is pointless waste of time.
I've never let my school interfere with my education.
Mark Twain
Sending kids to school does not equate to sending them to be educated. Never has. Never will.
Oldwood, I was agreeing with you. This topic is like a bee in my bonnet after applying honey to my balding cranium.
Common apple Core will do that to a country
American exceptionalism.
So, here's the solution using America's example with its own educational system; we bring the rest of the world down to our level.
It's only "fair."
Obviously we need to bomb more schools globally...
OK, who knows a good italispanishpolock joke?
Italian, Pole, and Japanese land on a small deserted island. The island doesn't offer much at all in the way of food or resources, so they know they are in dire straits, and they need a solution, fast. As the Japanese was walking on the beach, he noticed a lamp half buried in the sand, and called his friends over. As he handled the lamp, a flash of smoke and a genie appeared (of course). "Wow", they said, when the genie explained his powers. Now they had a solution to leave the island. The Japanese went first with the promise from the genie that each of them would be granted one wish. He asked to be back home, in his small fishing boat, in calm waters, with a large catch of fish. Poof! And he was there. Next, the Italian asked to be back on his farm, riding his horse, with the wind in his face, and the sun at his back. Poof! Request granted. Now it was the Pole's turn. He thought and thought. He started, stammered and halted. "You know", he said to the genie, "making up my mind without some help to decide is tougher than I thought. I sure wish my friends were here".
OK
then what happened?
"Describe the manner in which the president and vice-president of the United States are elected."
Answer: The worlds elite get together to decide who will be allowed to win, based on the candidates willingness to deliver political favors, deceive the public with a smile, engage in war, and be a general nuisance to liberty.
You guys spelled our wrong in the headline
Well at least they spelt stoopid right...
noo thay dint
thtooopit, thhhhhtooopit
Look at how smart the Japanese are
Not sure how smart the Japanese are. After all, they're all standing around with their dicks in their hands while the entire country is saturated in radiation from Fukushima.
How smart can you be if you're already dead??????
LOL.....Except that we're on the same path, Just arguably a bit behind.
Moving FORWARD at a pretty astonishing clip though. The Japs are dying by government. Government is by far the single most prolific mass murderer in know recorded human history.
I guess all that 'education' is kinda like our stock market? The global bond hyper-bubble?
Intelligence is USUALLY a mis-employed tool.
That or maybe mankind really will eventually learn? Who knows. Humanity really does seem to have hit a very ugly place though. The sheer volume of tragically laughable, absurd propaganda being spewed forth by this whitehouse, this F'ing regime getting it's rocks off destroying a nation? Maybe it's not "unprecedented" but the combination of my greater awareness and the openly criminal treason of this cabal presently 'running' the country is ABSOLUTELY beyond the pale and demanding for resistance.
And mostly chirp..chirp.