""But...but it's just too hard!" (whine)" Topic

If you can't meet the standard or even come close to the foreign students, the solution is to lower your standards.

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Yeah, this should help us in international competition for jobs and the ability to provide highly skilled and knowledgeable job applicants.

Uhhh, you want fries with that?

Same thing in the salaries market – if someone in China will work for less, companies relocate to China. I's never a case of Western salaries too high, always foreign companies too low. Someone, somewhere, is missing the idea of 'competition'.

In the UK, complaints about Eastern Europeans taking jobs – which Brits don't want anyway because the pay is too low. Well, if the pay was any higher, guess what – the farmers, etc, would go out of business because the shops/supermarkets would simply buy in from abroad…

The West generally has a few problems with the global economy.

The fallacy to comparing a lot of US testing to other nations is that we tend to test all students with the same tests in high school. The continental system will be to have less academic students in vocational programs. The Korean Schools and culture focus on tests and studying.

The fallacy to comparing a lot of US testing to other nations

Hear, hear. I'm glad that dealing with normalizing these rating is no longer a part of my job.

Instead of learning how to solve rudimentary equations, Hacker argues, American high schoolers should be presented with a math curriculum concentrating on statistics and number sense. (Number sense is an en-vogue academic buzzword for the ability to estimate and compare numbers.)

I completely agree. When can we get the people who calibrate Hacker's brakes, fix his plumbing, wire his house, calculate his medical copayments, and manage his financial reimbursement claims from the university on this program?

I have actually had this discussion with an RN who said teaching algebra was useless. Then I asked her how to regulate medication dosages by weight. She wrote down the two ratios (but used a question mark instead of a 'x'), solved it for the new weight, and said there. Then she proceeded to explain to me that it wasn't algebra, it was ratios and proportions.

Well first off the author of the blog starts off with a rather broad and hyperbolic statement about the politial left's control of education when in truth things are far more complicated than that. The author has a pretty obvious agenda. Might I suggest a better balanced bit of commentary on American Education via a transplanted Brit Sir Ken Robinson. I've provided links for two of his TED Talks presentations on education. Sir Ken is far more knowledgeable on the topic than the blogger and provides profound food for thought.

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Well first off the author of the blog starts off with a rather broad and hyperbolic statement about the political left's control of education….

I totally agree. The line,

"The American left, and the educational establishment it controls, has always wanted a readily controllable population produced by schools……"

made me lose interest in anything else the writer had to say.

"The American left, and the educational establishment it controls, has always wanted a readily controllable population produced by schools……"

OK, fine. It is a hyperbolic and overstated position. Ignore it. Just address the main point that the way to better succeed in education is to continually lower the standards so that you can say "we passed!"

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The NEA and the left are hand in glove. Union dues help fund politicians. Any guess on how many conservative get funding? School choice advocates?

There was a successful pilot program for a limited number of minority families stuck in the neighborhoods in DC with the worst schools to use vouchers to get their kids somewhere they would have a better chance. NEA didn't like the loss of control. Despite the heavy lobbying from the affected families and their supporters, the program was killed.

If you disagree with the premise that the system is designed to keep people down, then how do you explain graduates from HS who can't read?m Colleges that need to hold remedial courses for applicants they accept because they are unable to even begin college level work? The push for underprepared kids, mostly but not exclusively minorities where affirmative action has pushed these students into the highest level universities where they cannot compete on their own and many drop out. That statistic isn't tracked. Minority admissions are. These kids might do well at a lower level college where their abysmal HS teaching would not be such a detriment to their hopes.

Might as well take algebra out. Reading seems to no longer be a requirement. Heck, it's not like you need to be able to read to be functional in jobs that folks from overseas want to take.

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Dr Sowell has been an outspoken advocate for the education of minorities and the role that has to play in helping them to succeed and help fix some of the nation's problems at the same time. Agree with him or not, he has points that are worth examining and considering rather than just riding the "NEA says it is good so it must be" bus.

My wife has been teaching at the local community college for years and had a huge struggle over her requirement for the students to write a paper. The new chairperson felt it was too hard on the students and the other faculty didn't want the extra work; so much easier to do multiple choice with test banks from the book publisher. At least the new college President wants a writing requirement in all courses.