Shuttle where are we going ?

(Mark) writes:

h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message . ..
Yes, I've heard all that sociobabble before. Most homeschoolers have
a great deal of interaction with other children, in sports teams and
other activities. There are also private schools.

Not to mention that kids who spend most of their time with adults grow
up to be adults... kids who spend most of their time with kids grow up
to be... kids.

Hmmm... yeah, sure. Am I supposed to take your word for it, or can you
provide some evidence for this claim?

The tax-funded school system is a hugely expensive
program which serves little purpose other than to deliberately extend
childhood well beyond the point where it's useful for most people.

I can only presume that people who think that kids need to spend a lot
of time with kids were either really lucky or don't remember how mean,
stupid and vindictive so many other kids were when they were young.

Sure I remember it. I survived it. Big deal. Taught me how to handle
school bullies. I doubt hiding at home would have given me a better
start into life.

Believe it or not, I remember all those nice moments with cute girls
in my class much better than I remember the few mean and stupid bullies.

Could be that it's the difference between US schools and schools where
I was brought up. Maybe you have more bullies in your classes.

Why anyone would want their kids forced to spend several hours a day
with people like that is beyond me.

The great majority of my class mates were nice and friendly. Sorry to
hear your experience is a different one.


Cheers, alex.

P.S.: oh, btw: I spent approximately equal amounts of time with kids
and grown-ups. It does never have to be either black or white.

h (Rand Simberg) writes:

On 6 Jul 2004 06:25:53 -0700, in a place far, far away,
(Mark) made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:

(Rand Simberg) wrote in message . ..
Yes, I've heard all that sociobabble before. Most homeschoolers have
a great deal of interaction with other children, in sports teams and
other activities. There are also private schools.

Not to mention that kids who spend most of their time with adults grow
up to be adults... kids who spend most of their time with kids grow up
to be... kids. The tax-funded school system is a hugely expensive
program which serves little purpose other than to deliberately extend
childhood well beyond the point where it's useful for most people.

That's an excellent point. Children tend to be raised more by their
peers than by their parents,

It depends on the relationship between the child and the parents.

and herding them together for most of the day just makes things worse.

If the relationship is a good one, it doesn't (i.e. the parents will
be able to straighten eventual problems with little or no effort). If
it is a bad one, you don't have a chance of raising your child in
accordance to your wishes anyway.

I can only presume that people who think that kids need to spend a lot
of time with kids were either really lucky or don't remember how mean,
stupid and vindictive so many other kids were when they were young.
Why anyone would want their kids forced to spend several hours a day
with people like that is beyond me.

Yup.

Nope. See my reply to Mark.


Cheers, alex.

On Tue, 06 Jul 2004 19:09:05 GMT, in a place far, far away, Alex
Pozgaj made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

That's an excellent point. Children tend to be raised more by their
peers than by their parents,

It depends on the relationship between the child and the parents.

Not as much as one would like. Go read "The Blank Slate"

http://www.mit.edu/~pinker/slate.html

h (Rand Simberg) writes:

On Tue, 06 Jul 2004 19:09:05 GMT, in a place far, far away, Alex
Pozgaj made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

That's an excellent point. Children tend to be raised more by their
peers than by their parents,

It depends on the relationship between the child and the parents.

Not as much as one would like.

Most probably, yes. However, isolation is most certainly *not* the
solution.

Go read "The Blank Slate"

http://www.mit.edu/~pinker/slate.html

It seems you like the imperative form pretty much.


Cheers, alex.

In article ,
Alex Pozgaj writes:

Thank you for the details, I didn't realize how bad the situation is.

The link contained some scary stuff!

It's not all scary. A lot depends on the level of involvement by hte
parents in their local School System, and their aggregate level of
involvement in the local political structure that supports the schools
and to which the School Administration answers. That's been found to
make much more of a difference in the quality and relevance of
education, rather than, say, simply pouring in money.
(In fact, there's a distinct negative correlation between the amount
spent per student and the quality of education - by and large, the
most expensive School Systems do not educate better than the more
frugal ones.

One thing to remember is that in the United States, we don't have
a single education system for the entire country. We're too large,
both geographically and in terms of population, and too diverse across
the country for that to work. (We've also got a number of rather
unproductive high-density population sinks that would suck up
everybody else's resources for little or no return) Each State has its
own requirements and standards, and funds the education system in its
own manner. (Students do get measured by Nationwide Standardized
Testing as part of the College/University Admissions Process, so we're
not without a basis for comparison.)

For example, in my situation, I'm in a medium-sized town in Central
New England (Approx 20-25,000 population). Our Political Structure
has a professional Town Manager as single executive, backed up by an
elected Board of Selectmen. The Annual Budget, including the School
Budget, is voted upon each year by the general population of the town
at the annual Town Meeting, after open debate. This, among other
things, sets the rates for the Property Tax used to generate most
revenues. The School District, which in this case, corresponds to the
Town (Less populated and less affluent areas have Regional School
Districts that encompass several town) has a professional
Superintendent as Executive Administrator, who answers to an elected
School Board for matters of policy. We happen to have some of the
best Public Schools (In the U.S. sense, which is municipally provided
no-fee (other than taxes) education, as opposed to the British sense,
where a Public School is actually an exclusive Private School) in the
country. A big reason for that is the involvement of the parents in
the School System. In this town, education is an important priority.
Parents are very involved in the quality and type of education that
their children are receiving. A large proportion of them provide
volunteer services both during the School Day and at extra-curricular
functions. They are very involved in the political process, and as
they are interested, and have control of the budget, they exercize a
great deal of influence. (It does of course, take time and effort.
Most of us think its worth that.) At one point, it appeared that our
town was over-indulging its school system, and we had an apparently
high tax rate. Now, all the surrounding towns are trying to catch up,
and our rate of increase of taxes has been minimal in comparison.

This system of course, works well for a municipality of this size.
It's not practical in a large City. (City is a particular form of
Givernment here - basically, a Town is a Democracy, with the voters
directly debating and enacting laws and budgets. Cities are
Republics, with elected representatives enacting laws and
budgets. (Some Cities, like Chicago, are Banana Republics, but we
won't get into that). In those cases, the elected representatives are
resonsible for policy and budget.

Anyway, to sum up - It's really hard to generalize about American
Schools. Live everything else, we're more diverse than most Europeans
have visualized. In many respects, we're one large country with 50
smaller countries contained within. We have some excellent Scools
Systems, ones, and some poor ones. There are indeed some real horror
stories out there. The level of quality however, isn't directly
dependant on budget, (Although you do have to pay for it), but does
depend directly on the involvement of the parents of the
schoolchildren, and of the community at large.


--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

On Tue, 06 Jul 2004 20:12:29 GMT, in a place far, far away, Alex
Pozgaj made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

That's an excellent point. Children tend to be raised more by their
peers than by their parents,

It depends on the relationship between the child and the parents.

Not as much as one would like.

Most probably, yes. However, isolation is most certainly *not* the
solution.

No one has proposed isolation.

Go read "The Blank Slate"

http://www.mit.edu/~pinker/slate.html

It seems you like the imperative form pretty much.

It was a suggestion. I obviously have no power to force you to do it.

"Alex Pozgaj" wrote in message
...
So, by voting against education measures, you are actually trying
to cut down on bureaucrats and help children get a decent education?

Not quite. I nearly always vote against bond issues. Bonds almost always
have a tax associated with them. It's not the tax I have a problem with.
It's just that I can't figure out the value the taxpayers receive from the
interest paid on the bonds. X money is raised by the bonds, and X-(small
commission and overhead) actually goes to the purpose for which the bonds
were sold. However, the taxpayers get to pay back X+I, where I = interest on
the bonds. What does the taxpayer get for I?

Now, if the tax alone were offered, I would have voted for nearly all of
them. If a library is needed, for example, *plan for it* so that the money
is available when the library is needed. That way, the taxpayers get value.
Raise a tax *first*, and when you have enough money, spend it. I have a
problem with the borrow and spend first plan. It *can* be done, it just
isn't.