Unfortunately, intelligence and thus educational achievement is tightly linked to genes. IQ is at least 50% heritable folks! No amount of social engineering will ever eliminate the wide disparities between certain groups in terms of their educational achievement, unless that engineering includes weeding out the dim and mentally unfit via eugenics, which I strongly oppose. Eugenics was, however, an important part of the Progressive agenda during the early 20th century.

We have a similar problem in the UK, whereby young people leaving college are now saddled with large debts for their tuition fees and find the cheapest property costs several times their salary, so that a mortgage (even before the credit crunch) is out of the question.

The main problem here is that the Government (partly at the behest of the EU, but mostly on their own initiative) has thrown open the doors to literally millions of immigrants over the last ten years, for so-called cheap labour and to bolster property prices and give property owners a specious “feel good” feeling.

Also, when offspring of the indigenous populace (and of earlier immigrants, who also of course suffer the same effects) can’t afford properties to raise families of their own, the age profile will be further skewed, leading to more calls from the baboons in charge to admit yet more immigrants to maintain the working/retired ratio.

Ray said:

I suspect the real problem is that learning is no longer rewarded – the ignorant can prosper as well as the educated, so why bother.

He is correct. We must ask ourselves why this is so. I read an article about two weeks ago that discussed how, given the recent financial debacle in the United States, that more and more thirty, forty, and fifty year olds are moving back in with their parents.

Let me say that again. More and more thirty, forty, and fifty year olds are moving back in with their parents.

They can no longer afford car payments, credit card payments (for all the fancy toys they couldn’t afford), rent, and living expenses because they have recently been laid off and cannot find work to compensate their lifestyles. Or, they are too lazy to find work at all and only feel obligated to when their parents’ finances begin to suffer from their presence. For all those who were legitimately ravaged by the financial situation and honestly had no other way to survive, this is not meant for you, and you are the minority.

Warning: Abandon all hope ye who read what’s here.

Parallel this with the vast majority of college students moving back in with their parents immediately following college (after taking six years to finish their degree). Immediately. They can’t find a job, or again, are too lazy to find one, or further still, are not equipped with life skills to do so and cannot support themselves. Parents feel “guilty” if they do not shelter their children once again, and are now opening their doors to “help out” their kids who apparently were “shafted” in the whole growing up/education/life-lesson experiences.

This is absurd. When my Dad was a kid, it was normal to be kicked out at 18 (or earlier) with a wad of cash (or not) in their hand and respectfully told “Good luck.” Those kids joined the military or got married. More fortunate ones went to college on their parents’ ticket. Those kids are my generation’s parents. Those kids made a living, got jobs, prospered, and finally had children that they devoted their time and energy towards ensuring they had a better future. Some thought kicking out kids at 18 was harsh. In all the pampering, in all the ways they thought they were giving a little extra help, their children never learned how to get along on their own, and we end up with thirty, forty, and fifty year old babies.

Chicks in the nest are slowly nudged out by the mother when they are properly grown. Each little chick plummets to the earth to a seemingly gruesome fate when instinct kicks in and their wings start flapping. How is a chick that can’t fly possibly going to live past day one? How is a chick going to learn how to fly without getting pushed the hell out by the parents? Parents assume their 18 years olds will be taught how to fly in college, when really, all they are being taught is how to hang up their wings and get fat in the nest.

What kind of society is developing here? What can we expect when fifty year old babies are casting conservative votes, or collecting unemployment, or for god’s sake driving when they can’t even afford their own car payments? I am extra extra careful on the road these days, I may look over and see a toddler in the driver’s seat of an SUV with a cell phone in their ear. A fifty year old toddler.

Give me a break. I understand that it took a generation or so for this crap to sink in to the American public but still no one has the faintest notion of doing anything about it. Everyone is so glossy-eyed by the glorious telescreen and fancy electronics and MySpace that while the real world crumbles around them, their misreality stays intact. Why? So that the ones in power now have to barely lift a finger or two to mastermind something like a North American Union. Google it.

The awesome part about all this is it hits me, and my friends, and our futures. It hits my generation that has to clean up all this garbage, while baby-boomers (no pun intended) are shriveling away, golfing and drinking beer on an even sicklier social security fund that only siphons the life force away from our generation’s counterattack to this mess. I’m not complaining, because I already know we (those less ignorant in this generation) are capable of the challenge. I’m trying to make obvious the truth. The fact is, I witness a majority of students at universities across the country that don’t give a rat’s ass more than the next fraternity boy. The next hundred years will be entirely held on the shoulders of the students today that want our children to have a better future. So it’s our obligation to fix this desecration.

I’ll get off the soap box, I apologize for the rant, but this is significant right here. It all started with a lack of effort from the parents of the recent generations that are still willing to remove the responsibilities of life from their children and take on “parenthood” all over again. It’s not even parenthood anymore, for parenthood is preparing one’s children for life. It’s more of a sponsorship for ignorance.

Those babies are never going to grow up, and those babies are still going to be voting for conservatives that will do nothing to change this shite state of affairs, sucking money from the system, and for god’s sake driving SUVs, shooting up petroleum, all while talking on cell phones as the only ones capable of changing this country for the better are undermined for their youth. God bless the Holy American Empire. I mean the USA.

Wayne

The foundation of local and public education in the US is the Northwest Ordnance of 1787.

Is there a nation where a lack of a national curriculum has nonetheless resulted in success? Yes- the US.

Parents help their children if they read or pay higher levies in richer districts. It is not necessary for them to read what their children read to see an improvement in outcomes. In fact, it seems likely that much of the “boost” from growing up in an affluent family results from other experiences than education in a school.

Do local schoolboards set curriculum? I find that to be just about as likely as that the schoolboards would be building their own buses. Textbooks are acknowledged to set the pace, and I imagine that somewhere there are “curriculum committees”. Cannot say I have researched this, but the idea of schoolboards making up curriculum just seems unlikely.

And just as a personal opinion, I haven’t been that impressed with what the federal government has done in my lifetime. My enthusiasm for taking the power out of my neighbor’s hands and giving it to the federal government is about zero.

1. How many graduates of Andover or Exeter have won Nobel prizes in Physics (or in any other field, i.e. medicine, chemistry, etc.)? SAT scores are not measures of accomplishment, merely indications of persons who can do well on tests. SAT scores don’t measure creativity which is the basis of scientific accomplishment. I rather suspect that the greatest scientist of the 20th century, Albert Einstein, would not have done well on SAT tests (he was a mediocre student in Germany and Switzerland, mostly because he was mildly dyslexic).

2. Mr. Haelfix seems to be infatuated with Ivy League schools. Actually, for a student interested in engineering, the Ivy League schools would be a poor choice (except perhaps Cornell). Such a student would be much better served at state universities or schools like MIT or Cal Tech.

If you really investigate where children are and are not being educated, you will find it less a matter of money or politics and more an question of culture. I grew up in the rural Western Colorado in a culture that valued education. It still has a pretty good school system, locally administered, locally financed, and locally supported by the parents and community. I now live a couple of hours North of NYC. The local school system is decidedly mediocre – locally misadministered, locally misfianaced – because it is not really supported by the community. Politics only take over a school system when the parents abdicate their responsibility and fail to support good school teachers and administrators. Then time-servers carve out their careers and real teaching goes down the tubes. We are now at least one generation into ignorance and I can’t tell you how many times I have seen teachers who are incompetent, uncultured and ignorant. Of course, I see writers and commentators whose livelihood is the use of language – and they are unable to write or speak properly. Politicians, particularly at the state level, are usually as ignorant as they are venal.

I suspect the real problem is that learning is no longer rewarded – the ignorant can prosper as well as the educated, so why bother. I could dig into the debasement of criteria in the name of equality, but that would take a book.