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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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Find on the map and describe one of the two countries your government has spent a trillion dollars per year, over the last ten years, to make safe for democracy.
According to the rules of Newtonian physics, and ignoring wind resistance, which falls faster from to the top of a WTC skyscraper: A ping pong ball or an anvil?
Briefly explain why people should pay taxes.
Define a person.
+++That's funny..
1) List the civil liberties that have been systematically destroyed by the previous three (3) U.S. Presidents.
2) Explain why having less freedom/liberty is beneficial to you and the citizenry as a whole.
3) Define the acronym BTFD and how it applies to daily life.
1. Iraq and Afghanistan
2. The ping pong ball will bounce and the anvil could kill somebody.
3. Those of us who pay taxes do so because we can't find a way not to without getting found out and put in a cage.
4. A person is a clusterfuck of people groupthinking in a corporation.
I just pissed my pants. What am I to do?
Where the from the government and we're here to help you. Give us your rewards card number, a new set of pants on the way.
These jackasses are going to become a comedy skit.
Few people are legitimately stupid. Even few people with room temperature IQs are truly stupid.
We live in a dehumanizing maze where every incentive trends towards evil. We've been separated from ourselves; our land, our families, our clans, and anything else that might be able to help us to heal our private and personal shortcomings. We are a people cut off and wounded. We are a people who have been led to pursue fruitless gratifications instead of genuine self-esteem.
By design.
State sanctioned child abuse on a global scale. Fucking eh, Suteibu.
No society is perfect, but Americans sure have not come close to reaching their potential. The family is being destroyed and the culture is a mangled wreck of designed multiculturalism. The language is under assault.
I forget who said it - maybe the CEO of Home Depot - but, in reference to the debt, he said that the grandparents were eating their grandchildren's food. That's true of more than debt. There no longer seems to be any consideration for the future of the nation or its children in just about every aspect of life in America. Worse, it is the one thing that America does export and with greater efficiency.
For all of those who like to complain about China (and Japan if it could wrestle itself away from the US), it retains a strong cultural identity. That's why China will lead the 21st century.
So called 'intelligence' is obviously something of a flawed construct.
President 'obama' was hailed by the ministry of information as being "brilliant", "profoundly intelligent", "an extraordinary intellect"....
Sometimes "stupid"' is a great compliment.
That 8th grade test took some thought that's a fact .
Cross busing for racial integration ordered by the US government in the late 60s and enforced by the same guns the tax man uses accelerated this decline. Public schools are forced to make everyone slow down so no one feels stupid, therfore making everyone gran pendejos on an international scale. Look at the make up of countries on top before you call what I said racist.
That really was the test you had to pass in order to vote
Fuck yeah!
Something tells me there's a large group of Democrat voters bringing that average down. Take them out of the equation and we're probably closer to Norway.
I'm still trying to figure out what all the asterisks denote in the one "score".
I must be stooopid ;-)
Just to play devils advocate here people, but isn't the declining ratings of CNBC refute the hypothesis that we are getting dumber?
Now back to Facebook so I can share with everyone how the barista at Starbucks put skim instead of soy in my triple mocha latte frappucino.
Ah NOW it figures
How Obama, Bush etc became President! ( Not to mention the Congress & Senate too)
Presidents of the "Stoopids" .
For the Stoopids, By the Stoopids and Of the Stoopids.
1) If my EBT card came with $300 and I spent $264.53, how many Happy Meals can I now buy?
2) If I steal one purple Escalade and Guiddo repaints brigth yellow it for $285 and then sell it to Jamal for $3238, what is my profit?
Ten Years
I love the use of the name Jamal. My son came home from first grade with homework, including some word math problem sheets. Every single problem had a non-European, ethnic name. Jamal was there too. In this case, Jamal ended up getting all the money for the cupcakes that Michelle baked.
My brother served as a teacher for at-risk kids in an inner city for a year or two. He actually offered real world math problems-- such as how many eight balls in an O-Z-- to help the kiddies understand.
His favorite trick was to distribute three or four different versions of the same test to the kids and then laugh hysterically at the ones who simply asked their friends what the answer to question # 4 was.
I once had a classmate that was so proficient at copying off my paper that one time, he actually started to write my name on his paper.
Idiocracy...
I wonder how many of you realized that the word "endeavor" is mis-spelled on the spelling portion of that test paper? Also a question about the spelling of Sir Walter Rawleigh. Could be an old alternative but not the one I know -- Raleigh.
With all the boneheaded ranting around here about the evil bankers, nobody seems to understand that it is the evil educators who have truly ruined this country.
Bank loans are not "free and compulsory". Nobody forces you to go get one if you don't want to. Marxist brainwashing, on the other hand, is.
Several old spellings, such as "Servia" and "Roumania" as well.
Yeah, baby. "To hell with Servia." is a famous line from the pre-WWI era.
I saw the misspelling of endeavor too but I think that should be considered a typo knowing how hard it was to set type back then. I was in Williamsburg and after spending some time at the print shop, I left with a new respect. And I thought my old Selectric typewriter was a pain in the ass to correct mistakes.
Miffed
Very valid point-- although it should have been manually corrected.
I do have to admit that there are some questions on that test that I would struggle with. Like the 3-3-3 interest calculation.
Some questions raise more questions though, like the 3-3-3 interest calculation you noted...
Is it compound or simple interest? Does the 3-3-3 timeframe include a leap-year?
That looks like it's off an old Gestetner machine, any typo's means retyping the entire stencil, probably not something the teacher was willing to do.
Anyone else remember their teacher cranking out your next math or english test off the Gestetner.
hey, that was below the belt.
I suppose you gonna try to tell us it's not all a zio conspiracy next?
In all fairness; television, fluoride and a high fructose diet will do that to a society.
In college I took a bowling class where I got to bowl, and a film class where I got to watch movies. Now THAT was exceptional!
I have some issues with the test.
Arithmetic, line 3, what is a dodr?
Grammar line 3, don't they mean define instead of decline?
Geo. line 2, what kind of zone? Time zone perhaps or climate zone
History, line 7, shouldn't they spell out the number two?
Anyway, I mostly agree with the the main point; but before you call someone else stupid, you should triple check your own work.
Geez Matt, if you didn't figure out "dodr" is a typo for "door" you failed the test.
50 years ago, America was at the forefront of innovation. Today, we use the wealth generated by our forefathers inventions to pay others to innovate for us. In just 50 years, we've gone from inventing things and building them here, through inventing things and paying others to build them for us, and now we just pay others to do the inventing and building.
Once we started outsoursing manufacturing, we quickly lost our manufacturing capacity. It would take two generations of re-training and re-tooling to build America's manufacturing capacity back to what it was in the 60s.
Now, the same is happening with innovation. A lot of what passes for American innovation is paid for by American businesses, but actually done offshore. As we pay others to innovate and invent for us, we are rapidly losing the capacity to do it ourselves.
The only 'innovation' in demand in the US economy at the moment is financial - finding 'innovative' ways to borrow more and more money against ever less valuable collateral.
What could possibly go wrong? I suspect in 50 years time, schools in other countries are going to be looking back on present-day America as a case study in finding the answer to that question.
Lately, I've been getting into restoring old chemistry sets as a hobby. One of the manufacturers used the phrase: "Porter Science prepares young America for world leadership" as its tag line.
Thank God we've been liberated from any urge to excel.
Teachers are to blame. The instructors who teach the kids are to blame. The unions which held into place mediocre or worse instructors for decades is to blame. The lower class, however, would not be oppressed with a sharp mind and ability to analyze the situation. Stupid is good when it comes to politicians.
Let's talk about politicians who make promises to NO NEW TAXES for 70 years in order to get the money from the big corporations and the golfing buddies while pulling out the credit card to charge up what it will cost to run a nation is worthy of discussion. Or the politicians who say one thing and do another. Stupid citizens are preferred. The less competition, the better when the business plan is "corner and monopolize."
"Teachers are to blame."
...this student sure thinks so too.
Considering the now unhidden agenda, it could very well be the unions took it upon themselves to restrict to particular material and to not deviate away from that I recall the principal coming in on random classes and observing classroom activity. This is why Pink Floyd wrote The Wall.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5ApYxkU-U
The Wall - Pink Floyd
Sigh..we are doomed without support from military and police. I hope they see what is happening down in South Africa (whitocide). This life sure is a piece of work.
ah, it is not the dna friend. it is not the fault of the
youth. if you would like to blame the children for your
slavish stupidity masquerading as financial guru consumed
by dissatisfaction go ahead and be that
moron projecting your own incompetence and mis-education.
.
the youth and the dna are off limits when it comes
to social criticism and responsibility for detrimental
outcomes born of central power as exercised by oligarchs.
grow up.
.
have they disenfranchised the many around the globe?
obviously, that is the entire point, one way o another,
by definition of structure, their function and terms.
Sorry, but standardized tests have been shown to measure one thing - the wealth of the people taking them. U.S. does so poorly because we have so many poor, ESL, income-inequality etc. If you normalize the test results for the wealth of the test takers, the U.S. does just as well as other countries with much less inequality, e.g. Japan, Finland etc
There may be some truth to that at the grade school level but then how does it explain why college-educated Americans (who likely are not poor, ESL, etc.) can only test as well as high school level students from Japan, Finland, etc?
Spastic index finger.
God, I didn't need a report to tell me this. I have to work with these morons on a daily basis.
The Japanese are sitting atop of the debt to GDP podium also.
and a top a fukushima blinding
brilliance,
one for the ages.
.
still, they make wonderful
automobiles affordable, but,
don't expect to find any affordable
replacement parts.
.
half genius? half suicidal.
entirely human.
Americans are not stupid, they are ignorant. It is our system of education, dominated by overly powerful teachers' unions, which is stupid.
Well said. It's not "the Americans". It's the system aiming to make ingorant people so that reality isn't understood. Ignorance=submission. Knowledge=freedom.
I was very amazed when I've learned most people didn't know WHAT was the FED and to whom it belongs. That's a crucial knowledge to undestand America's Policy, Economics, Finances.
It should be taught from Highschool, the FED's History. American REAL History and so on.
After being ignorant long enough, terminal stupid is hard set surety
some just take longer than others...
hs dropout some of earliest stupids
most college is ready for stupid job, debt, spouse, life
some take advanced degree but can achieve peak of cum laude stupid
still can't reason whole logic, but expert to tell others what think
That exam is obviously not from a public school.
modern day version:
splain why naming a country montenegro is racist:
Is a person born in Kenya eligible to be president?
name the damn fools who made the topless Hawaiian babes wear bras:
re: name the damn fools who made the topless Hawaiian babes wear bras:
missionaries
George Carlin explains why education sucks in AmeriKa and will never get fixed:
https://youtu.be/4jQT7_rVxAE
One of the better ideas I have heard in a while was resolving any sporting event that ends in a tie with a spelling bee. Or better yet... "Congratulations, you just scored a touchdown! You now have 15 seconds to answer this math question or you forfeit the touchdown."
It's all in how you phrase the question:
A Big Mac combo meal goes on sale for $2.34, which is %23 off regular price. If the medium Coke (snack) portion costs the manufacturer 0.12 cents, and they make 0.93 cents profit on each meal sold - then how fat is the chick that bought 4 combos (to the nearest kg)?
In my experience, ordering a "Double burger combo with no mayo." is talking too fast. I usually have to repeat that the "no mayo" is for the burger and "Yes, I do want fries with that --- that is why I said combo."
What's the incentive for going to school? In the old days they pumped everyone full of the propaganda that you had to have a degree to get a good job. Well, there aren't any jobs.
Like most things related to economics, this isn't about moral failings as so many jerking knees would have us believe. There is a complete lack of incentive for playing by the old rules. And people excluded by the failing system of the US (in excess of 100 million now) have the animal instincts to understand this, even if the moralizing system dwellers do not.
It is the illegal aliens bringing us down. These stats track the rise of latin immigration into the US. We are winning the race to the bottom!
Irony alert:
Even though more Americans than ever are going to college, we continue to fall farther and farther behind intellectually.
It seems likely that because more unqualified Americans are going to college -- courtesy of easy financing as a matter of government policy and affirmative action programs -- that our average intellectual rankings are declining. Granted there are other factors (such as the plethora of victimology degree programs), but this observation seems backwards to me.
This razcest! Where are all the black countries in the top 20?
Why educate when you can indoctrinate instead?
Lets get that exam up to date:
1. What is the definition of "is"?
2. If a drone can take out 1/2sq. mile of people, how many American farmers would die in a false flag terrorist incident? How many Chinese? Explain the difference in your analysis.
3. Explain how a false flag is true, but never false.
4. Why is one of the most powerful nations on the planet terrified of a nerd in glasses named Edward?
5. Explain how two massive 110 story metal infrastructures can melt, dissolve and collapse in a fire set 2/3 high? (Expanding upon your answer to Question 3 is allowed).
6. If you have $800 in your pocket, are driving a Honda Accord worth $25000, and live in a home worth $673,000 with 0.3% down - how much will you lose if pulled over by the police in Texas?
7. Where, exactly, is Brian Williams today?
8. Why the fuck are you sitting here answering these questions? Honey Boo-Boo is on!
Who the fuck can downvote this? Hilarious bro.
To let this Country attempt unending wars of choice based on lies for 70 years and the debt that keeps paying for them along with the relentless carnage?
Zerohedge really needs to keep this at the top left or right hand of it's site indefinitely with "red letters" to embarrass us for being the most deranged colossal fuck up(s) in the history of "modern civilization"!
Im a millenial and can attest to the education system being piss poor.
I've even met Ivy league grads who were pretty fucking stupid.
I dropped out of a 2nd tier state school. Don't regret it one bit...
College is a waste of time unless your dads in corp america.
if you're working class or poor..you aren't getting that good corporate job
Sorry!
Well first paragraph defined the uselessness of the article. It is not a phone computer or whatever. It is this culture and the amount of idle time kids have. They don't have much to do other than hang out because the parent or parents are working and too occupied with other things.
the biggest problem with usa education is there is no culture of learning in the usa. nerds are beat up for being smart. peer pressure has evolved to celebrate the stupidest. shrub used his 8 years in office to vilify deep thought with an ignorance is strength message the country bought twice. the usa is stuck on stupid.
useless teachers don't help. even good teachers have to set standards so low to accommadate the absence of basic knowledge. teaching is the only profession that argues they are not responsible for the outcome of their efforts. i can't wait for surgeons to make the same claim or a drill sargeant.
+1000000
Until you change our culture, or lack thereof, education will not improve one bit.
Darwin award
Finally, THE WINNER!!!: [ Arkansas Democrat Gazette]:
Two local men were injured when their pickup truck left the road and struck a tree near Cotton Patch on State Highway 38 early Monday. Woodruff County deputy Dovey Snyder reported the accident shortly after midnight Monday. Thurston Poole, 33, of Des Arc, and Billy Ray Wallis, 38, of Little Rock, were returning to Des Arc after a frog-catching trip. On an overcastSunday night, Poole's pickup truck headlights malfunctioned.
The two men concluded that the headlight fuse on the older-model truck had burned out. As a replacement fuse was not available, Wallis noticed that the ..22 caliber bullets from his pistol fit perfectly into the fuse box next to the steering-wheel column. Upon inserting the bullet the headlights again began to operate properly, and the two men proceeded on eastbound toward the White River Bridge.
After traveling approximately 20 miles, and just before crossing the river, the bullet apparently overheated, discharged and struck Poole in the testicles. The vehicle swerved sharply right, exited the pavement, and struck a tree. Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from the accident but will require extensive surgery to repair the damage to his testicles, which will never operate as intended.
Wallis sustained a broken clavicle and was treated and released. "Thank God we weren't on that bridge when Thurston shot his balls off, or we might be dead," stated Wallis
"I've been a trooper for 10 years in this part of the world, but this is a first for me. I can't believe that those two would admit how this accident happened," said Snyder.
Upon being notified of the wreck, Lavinia Poole (Poole's wife) asked how many frogs the boys had caught and did anyone get them from the truck?
Though Poole and Wallis did not die as a result of their misadventure as normally required by Darwin Award Official Rules, it can be argued that Poole did in fact effectively remove himself from the gene pool.
God Bless America
Hey - now we know how JFK was working his headlights on the Linc.
I find that anyone who does not enjoy reading tends to be an idiot.
People that have no curiosity are either chronically depressed or stupid.
Education prior to university is about learning "how to learn". If one never really knows how to learn, everything else that follows is just wasted time.
Education is something no one can take from you.
Since I graduated from unversity, I've never stopped my pursuit to learn new things, because I have a lot of interests,
SH
Have to agree - also, the only thing I really got from my university degree (Bachelor Engineering), was how to solve problems and manage time. And that's not meant as a negative at all. Worth every penny. Nowadays, it looks like they just throw you a lifeline when either of those two start getting away from you.
So I'm not surprised - you won't learn a damn thing that way.
Funny, China is not even mentioned. There are 23 nations, not 22 nations that are eligible to compete in science and education. The top nation in all categories is China, not Japan.
The USA was the top nation is science and education when I attended school and it took a lot of hard work and discipline to be number one, as China knows. Today, there is no discipline in American public schools.
The only things that Americans are number one in are blind exceptionalism and hubris. Propaganda and brainwashing has taken the place of education because the traitors do not want people that can think on their own.
If you think Americans are not brainwashed stupid, ask any one of them if a three bladed propeller driven wind mill is a propeller dynamic or is it a turbine dynamic. Ha. Ha. Ha.
Neither China nor Russia are members of the OECD which this ranking comprises. There are only 34 member countries.
In reply to victor 666 with the bag over your head. This phony regurgitated article put out by another propagandist was a test to see how stupid the responders are. Your kind will never understand how propaganda works. You are brainwashed stupid to try to whitewash the propaganda report. How do you account for Communist China being the number one in the world in science and education? Why not show the exit exam for Grade School in 1957 when the USA was number one in science and education, not 1907?
I am 67 years old with a memory almost as old as that.
I got my first calculator when I was 28 years old, along with my first tape recorder. Up until then, I had developed a prodigious memory and could easily compute and retain numbers and details in my mind. But immediately upon using the calculator, I realized that I would begin to lose my computational skills. And that has been proven to me over time.
If you can use a calculator, you don't learn to compute.
If you can "Google" everything to find out whatever, you don't have to remember anything.
So our minds are free to think and to imagine.
But we are going to school "to get a job" or "to postpone having to get a job".
In school, we are being trained to take a test rather than to learn. What we are being taught is a hodge-podge of social compliance, political correctness, moral relevancy, acceptance of deviency and depravity, and how and where to get help for whatever bothers us.
There are exceptions of course. There always will be. But in a society where there is too little for too many of us to do, it is better to train the most of us just to hold hands, be nice to each other, and to co-operate with whomever is in charge.
So, it is not our genetics that are not declining. But the range of the demands being placed upon us, along with the opportunities afforded to us, are.
In ten years when the first crop of core math students hits the workforce,..older kids that know how to work a calculator will seem like Albert Einstein.
The dumbing-down of America is the result of desegregation of the schools, "affirmative action," and "political correctness."
By allowing blacks, women, and other minorities access to a superior education network without preparing them for the challenge, the education system was forced to dunb-down the entire system in the name of equality.
America is paying for this now with a generation of Obama kids.
"without preparing them for the challenge "
that means included these people into society, at the infant level. never happened in the ussa.
too late.
sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
I do not understand why you received those "down" votes. Members of my family "teach" or attempt to "teach" in the public school system. They would thoroughly agree with you, as I do.
" the quality of education that our young people are receiving is absolutely pathetic. "
My public school education was like life in a soviet gulag. Obey commands and listen to propaganda dressed up as education.
In my recent years I have taken up work as a teacher of foreign language to adults. All my students have college degrees. Some have had college language training in the language I teach. My experience is that these students are sadly incompetent. Most are incapable of doing the work needed to learn, and most can't concentrate in class. They always ask for short cuts, and can't I just teach them words because grammar confuses them. Let me just say, hardly any adult student I have had were up to a European level of language studies.
I marvel at how university graduates can have little knowledge of English grammar. So little that a foreign grammar simply blows their minds.
My public school life sucked. When I joined the military I qualified for the Navy's most advanced electronics program. This was two years of school, 12 months a year for 2 years. 8 hours a day in class, no vacations. So the total hours in class was far more than any college student would spend in 4 years. The military teachers were excellent, motivated and skilled. Probably ten times better than a public school teacher or university teacher. How come the military can teach, and public schools are so fucked up? Also, I studied a foreign language in a Navy school. Again the teachers we fantastic, the method was successful and easy to follow, it just required hard work. The teacher always could correct any problem you had. Just the opposite of what I found in a university foreign language class. They have terrible teachers, lazy and useless, most have no idea HOW to teach, though they may know the subject material.
It is FAR WORSE, than merely "stoopid" as a cultural phenomenon (although that is bad enough.) THERE IS ORGANIC BRAIN DAMAGE!
America is the home base of government of the money, for the money, by the money, which has run amok throughout every area, which crucially included the legislation and regulations regarding agriculture, environmental pollution, food and drugs, as well as medicine, ALL of which became runaway manifestations of the basic political problems recently outlined in an article about The Best "Democracy" Money Can Buy: For Every Dollar Spent Influencing US Politics, Corporations Get $760 Back.
For instance, consider merely ONE of the MANY similar examples:
http://journal-neo.org/2015/01/26/mit-states-that-half-of-all-children-m...
MIT States That Half of All Children May be Autistic by 2025 due to MonsantoMonsanto is possibly the most evil corporation on the planet, while it therefore has an extremely privileged inside track to influence the government of the USA, so that there is very unlikely to ever be any adequately sane legislation regarding genetically modified organisms, nor the rest of the range of ways that short-term shareholder profits utterly overwhelms every other consideration regarding risk factors. Junk science RULES North American food, drug and medical domains!
The article above points out that:
"The rate of autism has skyrocketed from roughly one in every two thousand in the 1970’s to the current rate of one in every sixty eight. Alzheimer’s has become almost universal in the elderly."
There are NO good grounds to doubt that NOTHING will be done to prevent current trends continuing, because of the ways that the funding of the political processes has already made society become terminally sick and insane, so that it is IMPOSSIBLE for the established systems to do anything remotely close to being adequate to respond to the trends towards "Half of All Children May be Autistic by 2025."
Arguments based upon gradual genetic deterioration have some secondary merit. However, the more important factors are all of those synergistic effects causing organic brain damage ... In general, it is typical for the content on Zero Hedge to focus on the apparently irreconcilable social polarization effects of the established systems, while the actually much more important irreparable destruction of the natural environment is not focused upon in proportion to its importance, because those effects tend to be slightly longer term, than the more immediate shorter-term economic polarizations. However, the environmental effects are going to trump the social effects!
The basic social pyramid systems are based on being able to back up lies with violence. Those systems have developed vicious feedback loops between the funding of the political processes, and the triumphs of society being controlled by frauds perpetrated by corporations (which are "legal fictions" in themselves) that are enforced by governments. Every aspect of the legislation and regulations that govern agriculture, environmental pollution, food and drugs, as well as medicine, have become runaway criminal insanities, due to the development of government of the money, for the money, by the money.
The established systems are combined money/murder systems which are based on the maximum possible frauds and deceits. The profit from previous frauds continues to be reinvested in more frauds. There are illusions of "rationality" promoted by the best paid professional liars and immaculate hypocrites throughout every aspect of the laws which are supposed to protect public health.
The more that one learns about the funding of the political processes, the clearer it becomes that society has become terminally sick and insane. Furthermore, that is automatically getting worse faster! The established systems depend upon the vast majority of people believing in absurdly blatant violations of the basic laws of nature. However, not only are there those sociopolitical reasons "why education sucks" (as George Carlin has said), there are actually much more important biological factors at play, which trace back to the same basic crazy corruption found throughout every aspect of the political processes, whereby government of the money, by the money, for the money, is almost totally based upon legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, being able and willing to deliberately ignore and deny the nature of those lies.
The established systems primarily work on developing better lies, rather than work on discovering and demonstrating more truth. There is more development of the ability to bullshit better, than to cut through the bullshit. Furthermore, the biggest priority for the established systems is to continue to develop their ability to be able to back up their lies with violence. Of course, being able to back up lies with violence never makes those lies become true. But nevertheless, in each short-term increment, legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, continue to be socially successful and triumphant.
The next expected doublings over decades, or so, of a wide variety of medical problems, are headed towards becoming OVERWHELMING! While there are some slight genetic components, however, the synergistic effects of all the other factors are way more significant!
What those share in common is the same basic mechanisms, that social pyramid systems are based on being able to back up lies with violence. The history of Neolithic Civilizations has been the development of cultural systems of artificial selection based on the maximum possible deceits and frauds. The history of the War Kings morphed into the Fraud Kings.
North Americans, and most of the rest of the world to various slightly lesser degrees, are living in a society where FRAUD IS KING, and therefore, frauds control everything: Junk science RULES North American food, drug and medical domains! The same ways that it is practically impossible to fix the problems caused by private banks controlling the public "money" supply repeat over and over again, in cascading fractal patterns throughout every other layer of civilization, to add up to a civilization that is psychotically committing collective suicide.
Too bad, so sad, but for the same reasons why it is practically impossible to stop the biggest banks from getting bigger, and becoming even more too big to fail and too big to jail, those political reasons now also apply to various corporations like Monsanto, whose triumphant evils not only already go off the scale of what can be fully imagined, but moreover, but also are certainly getting worse, faster ...
Civilization has become almost nothing but systems of organized crime, surrounded by controlled opposition, in which context the government is the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals. Their collective behaviors are psychotic criminal insanities, which are headed towards committing suicide at an exponentially accelerating rate ... Meanwhile, the more that one understands how the established systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence work, the worse it gets, because not only have the majority of people been culturally reduced to becoming incompetent political idiots, but they also are suffering from worse and worse organic brain damage, which is even more impossible to remedy.
To adequately remedy these problems would require that human systems of artificial selection worked better with natural selection. However, the history of warfare and economics has selected for social pyramid systems to operate most successfully through the maximum possible deceits and frauds. Inside of those established systems, there are NO solutions, because without real, radical revolutions, there could only continue to be things getting worse, faster, at an exponentially accelerating rate ...
There are an abundance of good reasons to expect that the majority of people will become even sicker, and stupider, and more insane, at an exponentially accelerating rate in the foreseeable future. Paradoxically, the more that happens, the more practically impossible it becomes to prevent that, nor adequate prepare for how bad that is going to probably get. Operating runaway systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, automatically generates worse contradictions between lies versus facts, while those lies continue to still be socially successful because they can still be backed up with violence, despite that the magnitude of the psychotic disconnections between the relatively objective facts, versus the social lies, always gets bigger and BIGGER!
Not only "It's Official: Americans R Stoopid!" They are also psychotic, because of the degree to which the two main state religions, the monetary system and national security, are almost totally based on ENORMOUS FRAUDS AND DECEITS, while that pattern repeats itself throughout every aspect of the agricultural and medical systems, too! North America represents the greatest yet flourishing of the social pyramid systems of Neolithic styles of civilization, based on being able to back up lies with violence, being pumped up and UP with progress in science and technology, getting primarily applied to promote BIGGER LIES & MORE VIOLENCE, all of which is therefore suffering worse and WORSE from the ways that being able to back up lies with violence still NEVER makes those lies become true, but rather, overall drives society to become more psychotically insane.
The psychotic insanity of the artificial selections systems which have been developed in North America are way worse than merely causing cultural stupidity, or a slow drift towards genetic deterioration. That psychotic insanity has developed a deeper and more important mainline of ORGANIC BRAIN DAMAGE!
it's been going on for decades.
fast food
polluted milk
pesticides.
poisoned water
flouride, chlorine.
aluminum
the list is endless
tic toc
You are right, basho!
You two get it... the rest are pretty much clueless.
These are probably the same scientists who can predict the weather 50 years from now, haha.
"Stoopidity" can be fixed by the 3 Rs, and a lot of each.
Not Gender Studies or Pashtun Basket Weaving PhDs.
obviously, you have never been a teacher of anything to anyone.
in particular to some of the exceptional ami teens in city and suburb.
another expert idiot.
Most American kids aren't stupid. They know full well that their nation is decaying, already rotten at the core, and fast heading for the great garbage disposal of history. So why should they bother studying?
This.
I'm a millenial with a good corporate job.
I'm here because I just want to expereience a middle class America before the system unravels.
My "full time job" is only temporary because everthing is going to shit.
"So why should they bother studying? "
stupid question
good example of a stoooopid .....
Duuuuh, gee Tennessee, what we gonna do now? Duuuh, Stanley Livingston will put us back in our cages soon.
Well, Chumley, it's time to see the Professor with his 3-D BB!!!
https://youtu.be/HiPYvA2uyJg
Sugar. Dinosaurs had big bodies and small brains, exactly what sugar is doing to Americans who are becoming big, fat, slow-witted and loud. Societal collapse means these people will be mastodons hunted for food, if not for humans then for swine
The government probably includes community colleges in their statistics. Colleges on the coasts and in the east are not so hindered. Most of the students at UCLA are asian and most of those are not US born.
We have friends who immigrated from Asia and have sadly noted over the years that their work/study ethic does seem to fade with each passing generation, even though their children and now grandchildren are attending quality schools. Teachers can only do so much in the six (five?) hours of weekday instruction. It's up to the parents to encourage their children to learn rather than to veg out and unlearn because their brains are full. Enough blame to go around everywhere.
Outside my own very large family, including aunts, uncles, cousins, I can find NO ONE with whom I can discuss literature, art, film, current events, religion or politics. NO ONE. Even my own children, despite my attempts to teach them, are atrocious spellers and grammarians. It's just sad. But, they do know mathematics quite well and all are extremely knowledgeable with technologies, science and computer code writing. So I got that goin' for me.
So they are basically Idiots Savants, is that what you're trying to say?
Nobody handwrites anymore so spellchecker causes that.
lol
now it's official
now even the amis will know
but, of course, they must be able to read and understand some basic math.
naw, never happen.
i would like to see a breakdown of american stupidity by state and other demographics.
The movie 'Idiocracy' was actually a docudrama.
When I first seen that show I thought it was hilarious. Now it's not real funny anymore, but more like a glimpse into the near future. Education isn't the only problem, younger ones now simply can't do anything in the work environment without a clear set of rules or regulations. They simply can't think.
This is the result of doing away with Natural Selection and the handholding Nanny-State taking all the risks away from peoples lives, don't worry it's gonna get much much worse before it gets' any better and I am being positive here.
Michelle Obama is a perfect example of a Harvard and Princeton University education.
Wow the scores for France are staggering.
My family immigrated from the Netherlands in 1951. My older brother immediately was skipped 3 grades forward because the subject matter he had in the Netherlands.
Its amazing to see college grads using LOOSE for the opposite of win .
When I was in college, LOOSE was a WIN...!!
This is what the state wants and unionized schools provide. This process began decades ago. I recall my mother getting upset because the school wanted to get rid of honors classes because the idiots in the Ivy League Univs who dictate to the school system on all matters - especially issues of Marxist PC dicta - felt the honor class system was unfair... and besides mommies whined about their little darling not being in honors.
I went to Brooklyn Tech the year they opened the doors to da hood. What a fucking fiasco. We had illiterates mixed in with some of NYC's best and brightest. Classes turned into comedy hour with da brothers from da hood providing stand-up...literally. I remember LMAO many times in math class. The teacher struggled to maintain order - everyday.
Removing the sodium fluoride from our drinking water would be a good start. Our teachers are drinking this sh!t too.
http://www.naturalnews.com/032129_fluoridation_intelligence.html
1) This has been a long time coming. (Common Core is the pinnacle)
2) Kids these days are being taught WHAT to think not HOW to think.
Americans are not Stupid, Americans are totally indoctrinated as soon as they enter the education system. I live in the three college town and have taught at the college level for three years. My neice is the Director for college admissions at one of these colleges. Eighty percent of the people applying need to take remedial classes before they can actually be admitted to college level classes. Eighty percent is a sad statistic. College is not for every body contrary to popular belief. The system is now set up to make you a debt slave. We must have growth after all.
The real problem is the politization of our education. My sister teaches in California and they have eliminated hard science from their system so they can teach English as a second language. Physical Education is almost non existent and we wonder why our children are fat and now have adult diseases. Using gadgets to solve a problem does not help the student in understanding the problem and how to solve it.
We instituted a PE program in the system and I was absolutely shocked at how many parents did not want thier fat ass children to participate in the program.
I have met many brilliant students. Their parents were key in their development of rational thinking. They were rare people.
Good God, you taught at the college level? You "live in the three college town"? No! You live in"a" three college town". Also, "College is not for every body". No it not for "everybody". Next, "parents did not want thier fat ass children. No! it should be "parents did not want their fat ass children.
I am not an English teacher, don't play one on TV, but was raised by one. Can't you proof read your stuff?
I am sorry cherokee I will proof it next time. I do not post much because of arthritis in my dam hands. At 65 reading these darn screens is tough when you wear coke bottles for glasses.. Thanks for pointing it out to me and again I am sorry.
Yes, propaganda and brainwashing prevail in the USSA. Why is it that Tyler Durden and crew did not proof read this propaganda regurgitated by Michael Snyder?
Fact: Communist China is number one in the world in science and education, not Japan.
Fact: The USA was number one in science and education in 1957. Why not compare the exit exam for grade school in 1957 instead of 1907?
The USA was taken down from a creditor nation to a debtor nation within the last fifteen years by the banksters and fascist in government, not over 100 years ago.
Question, what do you think the USSA has planned for all you dumb fucks? What use to them are you? The bankster and fascist hate social services including education and have genocide planned for you but will blame the genocide on someone else and the brainwashed will believe them to the end. USA! USA!
Its not possible that America could fail, Gods Will after all.
If you remove the inner city students from the test pool, then our ranking significantly increases.
This country really is bassackwards. We reward stoopid people who breed and don't work, and we punish those who are smart, and only breed at a manageable rate. It's incredible. The stupid people are out-birthing the smart people. AND, we're importing many many many illiterate, illegal low lifes. Of course our ranking is plummeting.
Good points...
But, just as importantly, our education system itself (namely, teaching) is not a meritocracy. It's a unionized, government appendage. Those NEVER produce the best results.
Read 'The Marching Morons' by C.M.Kornbluth
The demographics in the US are changing.
Black and brown people generally are dumb.
Not all, but most.
I don't see any African or S. American countries on the list.
That last bit there about our genes "deleteriously" mutating is absolute crap. Mutations are always randomly occurring and becoming selected on and fixed in populations - why would our optimal learning capacity have been 3000 years ago? How could he even know that? Crap.
The populations with the highest RH negatives are smarter.
RH stands for MONKEY.
From grammar school through university it is the same system, teach to the test. Comprehension is a temporary necessity. With a decent IQ level, school is only occasionally challenging in that format. Working in the corporate world I see how it is designed to produce the simple cog cognition. People at PC's producing in simple tasks with no need for critical thinking. This mentality transfers into the perfect citizen, someone who cannot think (in the true sense of the word).
Also, interesting to note that there have been several studies showing a negative correlation between religiosity and educational achievement.
Nearly all of the top countries listed in article are known to have some of the lowest levels of religiosity (Japan, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands). Not surprisingly, religiosity has also been shown to have a positive correlation to poverty also.
http://redcresearch.ie/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/RED-C-press-release-Religion-and-Atheism-25-7-12.pdf
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/09/religion-quashes-innovation-patents
http://www.gallup.com/poll/142727/religiosity-highest-world-poorest-nations.aspx
I'm not necessarily saying it is a causal relationship, but I may be implying so....
Somehow it must be the Boomers' fault like everything else. Or so sayeth the young dipshits who need constant explosions and flashing lights to keep their brainwaves from flatlining.
This is very superficial analysis in regard of comparing u.s with other countries. The most important players are left out,players which directly compete with u.s Russia and China have by far the best educacional systems in the world. I went to Russian school from 5th to 8th grade and had to switch to german school. They put me first to 10th and after few weeks in 11th grade, and I felt like Einstein among 11 graders.
There are two seperate factors at work here.
The first is a relatively fast process. In the last 100 years, America decided to educate all of her citizens the same way. In order to be "fair" this education is now dumbed down so even the dimmest of bulbs can "succeed." This is to the great detriment of the brightest students and directly accounts for our new "ranking" in the global hierarchy.
The second is a process so slow as to be invisible. We have, for better or worse, temporarily bypassed the mechanism of natural selection. This will inevitably lead to a wide variation among the members of our species. When natural selection wields its axe many of those variations will be winnowed (within a handfull of generations) down to the traits most suited to survive in that environment.
No racist connotations are implied by any of this. Skin or eye color are not likely to be major selective features. Constitution and resistance to disease and parasites are far more likely to be selective.
So lets look the other way while we import 30 million illiterate in their own langauge mexicans who will breed 3 to 6 kids who will all drop out of school....yeah, this will end well...
The USA CiC has no college/passport
Speeking of IQ
Anybody noticed that on the scores scale the variation from standard is +/-10 of 295 points?
So dont be too harsh on yourselfs, we ol stoopid:-)
Make love not war
Well when you have to go to school to learn common core garbage, or take a college course entitled "Pocket Lint 160" to get your degree, only to come home and watch the Kartrashians and Real House-whores of (insert city) thats what happens to a country.
I've seen that 8th grade test before. The implications speak for themselves. BTW, 'endeavor' is incorrect.
http://www.mercurynews.com/education/ci_27694083/state-board-education-s...
But its Politically Correct...
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199705293362203
Bishop et al., N Engl J Med 1997; 336:1557-1562 "Aluminum Neurotoxicity in Preterm Infants Receiving Intravenous-Feeding Solutions".
reported that every 40mcg of intravenous aluminum per kg injected into preterm infants was associated with an average drop of 1 point on the mental development test at 18 months, (and also a loss of bone density at 15 years of age http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19858156).
The Hep B vaccine given at birth, 1 month, and 6 months contains 250 mcg and the Vax series 4000 mcg over the first six months. If we assume 2 micrograms of aluminum does the same damage injected in a 4 kg neonate as 1 mcg in a 2kg one, and model 1 development point as 1 IQ point, vaccine aluminum is projected to cause a loss of 15 IQ points.
If you look at the FDA webpage entitled Study Reports Aluminum in Vaccines Poses Extremely Low Risk to Infants http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/ScienceResearch/ucm284520.htm the study they are referring to is Mitkus et al.
Mitkus et al is a mathematical model, they made NO observations or measurements at all. And the model is based on experiments feeding aluminum to weaned animals. It is not informed about the toxicity of injected aluminum in neo-nates in any way. Why would they prefer that to the direct measurement of the toxicity found in Bishop et al?
Other nations also doing poorly on the international test: France, Italy, Spain.
Guess what, none of the nations doing well on this test were giving Hep B to neonates when these millenials were neonates, but the US was, and the only nations in Europe that were were France, Italy, and parts of Spain. http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=201