Where's Alaska?
 

Thats what our parts driver(20 yr old) asked me this morning after look'n at the newspaper weather map.
I kidd you not!!!
"Its way colder then California. And its right next to it.
Had to show him on a Road Altas to prove it was above Canada.

Shows you what kind of education the kids are getting for the trillions they are spending of OUR money.

ask him where Uganda is...or Romania.....and let me guess...he`s a voter?

We've raised a generation of idiots!

Where everybody gets a trophy just for showing up!

Haha wow. I may be 21 but common sense is a lost art in school. I'm on some other forums that usually have quite a bit of people around my age, and some of them spell words horribly. Some of them don't seem to know where the "," or "." keys are on a keyboard either.

Saw a report recently where the average 8th Grader can barely read at a 4th Grade level! It doesn't surprise me a bit that they do not know where Alaska is on a map.

If you cannot read well, it is much more difficult for you to write well in school.

THE REALLY SAD PART OF THE DEAL IS THAT THE "generation of idiots!"
YOU MENTIONED WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO SUCCEED AT ANYTHING
other than a basic MacDonalds/ Taco Bell type job.

Tom Vaught

You guys are going to condemn the entire educational system consisting of millions of kids over the shortcomings of ONE? Now tell me again, who has the learning problem?

There has to be some parental accountability; it's not just our public education system's responsibilty to educate our kids.

Shared Responsibility
 

Looks to me that the parent(s) if both happen to be around share in the dumbing down of America. Certainly not all the educator's fault. What's really scary is that they vote at 18!!!

My 7 year old homeschooler knows where Alaska is. Uganda and Romania too, LOL! Just like private companies who take government money are now beholden to the federal government, children in government run schools are subject to the whims of that government. The public school system is more about social engineering and less about education. IMHO, the responsibility of educating ones children lies with the parents not the state.

Grant, My Father-in-Law was an Administrator in a school system, (several principals worked for him). My Wife is a Teacher, my Brother-in-Law is a Teacher, My Son is a Teacher (Teaches Commercial Pilots), My Co-Worker's Wife is a Teacher, and I could provide several others. They all would disagree with you Grant.

Education starts at home. If the father/ mother is typically a poor reader or student, the kid has a very hard task overcoming that poor start. Most schools today are "Day Care Centers" for the parents vs places for the kids to learn. Hard to teach when you spend 45 minutes of every class telling the bad kids to sit down and shut up.

Tom Vaught

If that's the case then WHY do I have to pay the local school and the state and feds throwing my money into public schools and colleges when I DON'T HAVE KIDS IN SCHOOL?

Grant. What does a geography teacher get paid for? apparently NOT for teaching.

Good question. Wish I had a simple answer. I will not ever have any children in the public school system but I will still have to pay into the morally bankrupt system, regardless. A voucher system would be nice.

Answer to question 1: An educated electorate is the key to a democratic government. Our founding fathers thought so anyway.

Answer to question 2: It takes an open mind on the part of the student as well as a good teacher. I don't believe that an open mind is something you would understand very well, so I won't be offended by your comments.

You're absolutely correct in stating that an educated electorate is the key to a democratic government, or more accurately, a representative republic. The problem is that the public school system has demonstrably failed in that regard.

You've got to gif him credit for asking you though , that shows he's willing to learn.
And let's face it who gives a s##t where Alaska is :)

Sorry, don't agree with you on that one.

Grant. Are you or somebody you know a teacher in public school?

How can the answer to that be anything other than "yes"?

with the overwhelming amount of information available to these kids today, shouldn't they completing the same schooling that took us 12 (13 including k) years in 7 or 8 years? i see some really smart kids that are joining the air force now, but run into some really dumb ones out around town. seems the intelligence spread has widened, with good and bad results.

No truer words were spoken. So, what do we have now that we are country with a large percentage of UNeducated electorates?

I have a Certificate in Secondary Education. I got it while in College in case Med School, Vet School or working in the Industry did not work out for me. But my Senior year, when I had to do my Practicals (Student teaching) rounds ruined me. I went to college in an area with a high number of poor and failing public High Schools. Lower Price Hill, mainly, and I did a student teaching semester at William Howard Taft High School. 50 % drop out rate. Met a lot of the teachers who truly cared but with no budget, classrooms 50% fullof kids who didn't want to be there or had already spent time in some sort of juvenile detention setting, the teachers had largely given up.

Can you blame them?

I walked doen the halls and watched kids being assaulted, thrown against lockers, and curse words were the main part of teh conversations. Metal detectors and police officers at the school doors and two that patroled the hallway. I watched 8 kids in one month get arrested on school grounds. I wouldn't have been able to teach in that environment and it would take a very special person who could. MHO.

The wonderful thing about truth is that I don't need you to agree with me for it to still be true! You could tell me until you are blue in the face that the sky is red, but it doesn't make it so. If you're a teacher I mean no disrespect. It's not your fault. It's the fault of a morally bankrupt system whose end game is NOT education, it's indoctrination and political correctness.

Just trying to understand your defending a broken system.
Don't get me wrong. We should have public education. But the public system we have(and have had for the last 20-30 years) has changed from teaching to daycare.
They started with being FAIR to the underachievers and ended up bringing the achievers down to the underachievers level.
They suck down more and more money for lower and lower results.
Minneapolis public schools are the perfect example of this. They spend more per student than any other school district in the state and have the lowest test scores, highest drop out rate in the state.
Throwing money at the problem without fixing the underlying cause of the problem(parents and teachers that don't give a sh!t) is the wrong approach.
When the parents don't care why would the kids?
When the teacher tells his class: If you want to pass this class just show up every day. Why would the kid want to actually learn in that class?

I don't know what the story is with your schools but my 13 year old is in advanced algebra, advanced history and now taking computer graphics. She did a power point for a presentation for a work project of mine and she can name, locate and identify each of the 50 states. She can name some 30 countries and their types of government. All from the public school system.

IMHO, it starts at home. If you just are using school as daycare, then that is what you are going to get. I actually have to study to keep up my kid's homework so I halfway know what she is talking about. I check her grades and homework daily.

Its a pain to keep up but the way I figure it, it will be more of a pain dealing with her when she is 21 and thinking the parts driver moron is love of her life and someone she wants to marry and reproduce with.

There is a highschool in Chicago that has 800 girls in it. Of the 800, 115 are pregnant! Sounds like absentee parents and a system with absolutely NO moral authority to me!

You are certainly entitled to your opinion. But you are wrong. You have no valid support evidence.

I don't see lower and lower scores in the schools I'm familiar with. The scores are increasing every year.

Dont you think genetics plays a part? There are alot of smart kids out there that I have met and their parents are also smart. Then there are kids that aren't so smart and you meet the parents and............
This seems to be the way it works but theres always a rare case that the kids excell more so than their parents or the kid is just plain ignorant no matter how smart the parents are. These situations happen but are not typical as far as what I have observed.
Its part of being human, we need chiefs and we need indians.

Perhaps. IMO, its not schools place to teach girls to keep their legs together but who knows. If your comment was directed at me, I'm pretty far out from Chicago proper and prefer to keep it that way.

I live in a small town on the outskirts of the largest city in Michigan.

The town built a new middle school/ high school in the last 2 years. All the latest bells and whistles. My point is, it is the newest and nicest school in the area and that includes some other schools in a very affluent area.

1) You cannot blame the way the school looks or the tools available

2) All of the teachers have been teaching for many years.

3) If a kid hits another kid, a Police Officer puts them in hand cuffs and they go to the town jail. If a boy "feels up" a girl (which happens sometimes in middle school) the kid is suspended, the parents are notified, the police is notified, and it had better not happen again.

4) If a student hits a teacher, the student goes to jail. The student is not allowed in the school for the remainder of the school year. In some cases, the student will not be allowed back into the school ever again and the family must move to a different school district.

Nothing makes me happier than to see the "Bad Kid" get hauled off to jail in handcuffs in front of his buddies. The "Bad Kid" today could be male or female, 13 years old to 18 years old, but most issues occur in the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th grades. The Juniors and the Seniors have matured by then and are past the fighting and "feeling up" stage of raging harmones.

In a typical class of 100 kids, you will have 90 GOOD KIDS, (Black, White, Hispanic, Oriental, Middle-eastern, it doesn't matter).

You will also have 10 Major Trouble Makers (from the same group who cannot "shut up", want to fight, want to "feel the girls up", want to be the "Attention Getter" in the class, etc. We don't have too many "Criminals" as the word gets around pretty quickly and the school has excellent video cameras to watch that activity, plus again, you go to jail.

Out of the 90 good kids, you will always have the "smart kids" and the not as smart kids but at least they are trying. The issue in every class is the 10 Major Trouble Makers.

JMO

Tom Vaught

No, not directed at you at all. I just noticed that your location said Chicago. I had heard this story the other day and was blown away by the ratio of pregnant girls in that school. It's certainly the job of parents to make sure that their daughters have enough self respect to not let themselves be defiled by every Tom, Dick and Harry. These girls have obviously not been taught that.

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/stat...te15s_500.html

Play this with your kids. It's a blast!

That's pretty cool!

Talkin' bout stupid kids.... my helper thought that a pickle was a vegetable, he never knew that cucumbers were pickles.

my kids certainly know also...but I`ve spent almost $500,000 for private pre-k thru HS graduataion , plus private colleges for that....
I hope it has paid off....so far it seems to have..

when I grew up, back "home" in Sweden ,there was not much difference between private schools or state....I went to private (elem.) state (middle), private (HS) and state(college)...the biggestvdifference between Sweden and the US was (maybe still is?) that if you went to private, the state would kick in the same amount towards that school as it cost to go to state school, and all you would pay was the difference! Imo a great system.....but nowadays it at least "seems" that kids graduating there are not as educated as we were in them olden days....one reason is " less pressure" for tests etc....we actually "graduated" going thru rigorous finals tests , written the last couple of weeks and 3 days of verbal to graduate from HS and college....thats now eliminated, to not pressure the poor kids.:usa2:

I sent my daughter to private School up until 7 or 8th grade and upon being transferred to public School she came home and said that the stuff they were teaching was what she had three years prior. She graduated with honors. If you can afford to send your young children to private schools it's worth every penny.

Didnt expect this to get ugly. Just amazed that an American student didnt know.
His school was 1 town over from ours.
My kids learned(as well as us old kids ;)) when they where in grade school.
Also the other territory acquisitions.
And all the explorers names and thier land-n-sea routes.

That "State game" is cool.
Got a 92 do to placing a couple States not being in exact placement(like Navada).
Only took a few minutes.
I'll have him play sometime when its slow :)

Hippies were never meant to raise kids...

What about Okra, Herring, and Pigs Feet ? :oogle:

My 12 1/2 year old grand daughter beats the crap out of me in geography quizes. She reads at a 12th grade level. She actually reads 6 books at the same time and says she can keep the story plots straight. We can't lump a few idiots together and use them as an example of all young people. There are still bright kids out there.:usa2::usa2:

Exactly. U.S. school kids do totally amazing things every single day.

I live in a small town of about 12,000 where all the kids go to public high school. There are some church-run elementary schools, but only one high school.

The test results have always been very high until a few years ago when I noticed more low, low scores. The chairman of the school board is a friend so I asked him why this change occurred. he said that there has been a significant increase in "minority" children moving into the area and that of the kids with the 50 lowest scores, 40 of them were either Mexican (10) and black (30). The Mexicans had a continuing incerase in scores as their language skills improve, but to black kids continue to have low skills and get lower as they get older.

These are not middle or upper class blacks, but are in the lowest economic class in town. He said they just don't give a shlt and neither do their mothers (no dads present here). They live as they please and see no need for education. I don't see this attitude changing given the present administration.

Very sad.:usa2:

That Place The State game is cool.....I live in another hemishphere and I still got 80% on my first try and only had an average error of 36 miles.
Hey, I also speak english...do I qualify for Citizenship?

Wow, what some of these kids lean in school these days. Were screwed.

Unfortunatly you would probably stand less chance than your average beaner unless your wife pops a kid on American soil.

If it were up to me I would always give preference to someone who allready speaks English. You would have to lose the Ausi accent, though. Sorry.;)

[QUOTE=Tom Vaught;THE REALLY SAD PART OF THE DEAL IS THAT THE "generation of idiots!"
YOU MENTIONED WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO SUCCEED AT ANYTHING
other than a basic MacDonalds/ Taco Bell type job.

Tom Vaught[/QUOTE]

Then they'll be forced to be a liberal.

No-YOU are wrong and you are BIASED.

We have two friends that teach in different middle schools in relatively good areas - not slums. Both teachers say that any black kid in their classes who has tried to be a good student was/is ridiculed by the rest of the blacks (even his friends) for "actin white" THAT IS A DIRECT QUOTE from the black kids - as related by the teachers. That student soon gives up because it is just too hard to 'shovel against the tide'.


We also have a couple black familys as good friends. One of our black friends has a son who ridicules his father (IN MY PRESENCE) for "actin white" for paying his bills and being a responsible citizen! That too is a DIRECT QUOTE out of the kids mouth and hes in his mid 20's. Not from an ecnomically stressed family. They live in a good neighborhood, maintain their property, salary probably in the mid to upper 80's combined now that the kids are old enuf for mom to work too.

As long as that is the attitude, there is no help the system can give them.
'Jus ax em dey'll tel yas hows its ar falt'.


BTW those who 'will never be anything but McD burger flippers' Dont be surprised if one day they turn out to be the airline pilot that flys you around* or the surgeon who does your appendectomy.
* maybe even overfly -your- airport by couple of hours.:D

Prove I'm wrong. Let's see some evidence. I can see where you would think that I'm biased, but you can go to the Kansas Department of Education website and see where I'm right. I've got actual proof, what do you have?

Look at the last 30 years of the NBA, NFL draft picks (ALL college grads) and then tell us how the public schools are doing such a good job.
And (as you put it) look at the job they did with me.