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The Atlantic: "Can the Middle Class Be Saved?"

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Dick Whitman, Aug 22, 2011.

  1. poindexter

    poindexter Well-Known Member

    After having gone through a local parcel tax election a few months ago here in California I can tell you that the state and local spending for each child in California has gone down nearly 20% in just the past 3 years. That's actual dollars, not inflation adjusted. Those are very real costs that directly affect the level of education. This year, we narrowly avoided losing 2 weeks of instructional days. There is no way to sustain education while losing education days.

    Yet immediately after STAR testing ended, elementary and middle schools in my area of California went into video/movie mode, with some parties and study-free days mixed in. And teachers got in the last of their absence days in.

    Long Beach Unified cut three or four days out of the school year for budget cuts, then wasted the last week of school.
     
  2. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    All I'm saying is that even the children of bad parents aren't completely hopeless, necessarily.

    Eventually, you'd hope that the quote "lower" classes will begin to realize that those old unskilled jobs are gone and they aren't coming back, and the market will adjust accordingly. You'd hope.
     
  3. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    Honestly, how far can we really go in math and science as long as one half of the country's politicians won't cop to the existence of fucking evolution? I mean, think about that shit for a second. You think that's the case in Korea? Think it's the case in France? Think it's the case in India? Seems like a bit of a drag on our math and science aspirations, as a nation, no?
     
  4. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    PRINCETON, NJ -- Four in 10 Americans, slightly fewer today than in years past, believe God created humans in their present form about 10,000 years ago. Thirty-eight percent believe God guided a process by which humans developed over millions of years from less advanced life forms, while 16%, up slightly from years past, believe humans developed over millions of years, without God's involvement.

    http://www.gallup.com/poll/145286/Four-Americans-Believe-Strict-Creationism.aspx
     
  5. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    In the article, I found the gulf between births out of wedlock for college-educated and non-college-educated women to be astounding. From "Murphy Brown" onward, the career woman with a turkey baster has been a symbol of conservative scorn toward Hollywood liberals who are perverting our morals. Yet college-educated women only have 6 percent of their babies out of wedlock, compared to 44 to 54 percent of real 'Merican women. You know who have "traditional" American families? Liberals. (And educated conservatives.)
     
  6. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    My hope is that they will stop procreating at such an incredible pace.
     
  7. Greenhorn

    Greenhorn Active Member

    STEM fields (science, tech, engineering and mathematics) are important, always have been. But they are not fields that just anyone can take up, they require real aptitude. I wish I was good at those fields instead of the fields I enjoyed (journalism/history) that have brought poverty and unemployment.
     
  8. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    That's bullshit.

    The reason less African-American kids, or girls, don't excel at math and science isn't because of aptitude.

    Not everyone has what it takes to be a rocket scientist, but not every job requires that level of knowledge either.

    Math and science can be learned by. They can be taught.
     
  9. Greenhorn

    Greenhorn Active Member

    Language, YF, language.

    I'm not even talking about student demographics.

    Every field requires an aptitude. There is a reason so many more college students get degrees in law, business and education courses instead of STEM majors even though STEM field pay great and there are always openings. The reason is STEM fields are easily the hardest part of a college curricula, and not only that, they require a significant amount of schooling as well.
     
  10. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    Right. But, when we're talking about poor, under performing schools, we're often talking about schools with large minority -- African-American, Hispanic -- populations.

    These groups are vastly under represented in math and science professions.

    It's not because of aptitude.

    For individual students, maybe. Not for whole subsets of people.
     
  11. Greenhorn

    Greenhorn Active Member

    I was thinking more along the college lines. Like, hey we could solve unemployment if just more kids would major in STEM fields. I'm just arguing those fields are never that popular.
     
  12. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    They're popular in other countries, though.

    So it's cultural here.

    I'm a pretty confident guy, and I believe that I could have been just about anything I wanted to, within reason. Doctor. Surgeon even. Engineer. And I believe that's the case with the vast majority of people here. The vast majority of people you went to high school with even.

    But, in my case, my parents early on sent subtle signs that they didn't like math and science. Well, particularly my mother, who was most influential in my education. I think my dad tried to stress math and science, but my mom would do things like make faces or tell me, "I didn't like math and science, either!"

    I would do anything to be able to go back and get a hard science degree.
     
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