The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

[Kepler]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

OK I gotcha.
In my defense, my wife is 100% Finnish. Like Lucas Davenport's, but hotter.

Go with God, young man.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

IMO the reliance evaluating home schooling vs. public schooling based strictly on SAT scores is flawed.

Even in a strictly business context...learning social skills/activities and complex multiperson experiences is necessary for participating in a business environment (and frankly even getting that first job). This says nothing about other aspects of one's life.

How can home schooling compare on keeping its students well rounded?

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

IMO the reliance evaluating home schooling vs. public schooling based strictly on SAT scores is flawed.

Even in a strictly business context...learning social skills/activities and complex multiperson experiences is necessary for participating in a business environment (and frankly even getting that first job). This says nothing about other aspects of one's life.

How can home schooling compare on keeping its students well rounded?

Of course test scores aren't the end all be all. No one said they were, but they are one metric to measure student achievement. Home schoolers can have plenty of experiences and interactions to be well-rounded. Loads of kids come out of the meat grinder of public schools far less than well rounded. To me that argument is just blowing smoke.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

Of course test scores aren't the end all be all. No one said they were, but they are one metric to measure student achievement. Home schoolers can have plenty of experiences and interactions to be well-rounded. Loads of kids come out of the meat grinder of public schools far less than well rounded. To me that argument is just blowing smoke.

People I know who have home-schooled their children K-8 have tended to send them to public (or private) high school.

Several reasons:
> more specialized expertise
> lab facilities for chemistry, physics, biology
> foreign language
> athletic facilities*
> opportunities for theater, band, after-school clubs

It's not always "either / or."




* not sure if high schools still do this, but back in the previous millenium, we actually had true physical "education": a three-week rotation among all the different sports, during which we received actual instruction on wrestling moves, using the gymnastics apparatus, various track and field events, tennis, etc.




Depending upon where people live, home schooling may make better sense financially: compare the spouse's after-tax income with the cost of a private school in those parts of the country in which public schools are not physically safe; in some cases it is a better "deal."

Notice that many of the people who preach the value of public education and "protect" teachers' unions from evaluations and merit pay also send their own children to private schools? (Yes, Washington DC, we are looking at you!)

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

Of course test scores aren't the end all be all. No one said they were, but they are one metric to measure student achievement. Home schoolers can have plenty of experiences and interactions to be well-rounded. Loads of kids come out of the meat grinder of public schools far less than well rounded. To me that argument is just blowing smoke.

Life is not easy. School trials are not life or death, so its better to get prepared in a meat grinder than with a cushy pillow.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

Life is not easy. School trials are not life or death, so its better to get prepared in a meat grinder than with a cushy pillow.

Not sure why home schooling is a cushy pillow. From what I've seen, home schooling is more demanding as you can't hide from the teacher like in a class of 30, plus the curriculum can be ramped up if the student is excelling unlike public schools where excelling students aren't generally challenged. School years are formative years and I prefer having a bit more involvement/control, rather than turning much of it over to peers and teachers of varying quality and agendas. But, I know concepts like parental involvement aren't in vogue with many folks now.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

People I know who have home-schooled their children K-8 have tended to send them to public (or private) high school.

Several reasons:
> more specialized expertise
> lab facilities for chemistry, physics, biology
> foreign language
> athletic facilities*
> opportunities for theater, band, after-school clubs

It's not always "either / or."

* not sure if high schools still do this, but back in the previous millenium, we actually had true physical "education": a three-week rotation among all the different sports, during which we received actual instruction on wrestling moves, using the gymnastics apparatus, various track and field events, tennis, etc.

Depending upon where people live, home schooling may make better sense financially: compare the spouse's after-tax income with the cost of a private school in those parts of the country in which public schools are not physically safe; in some cases it is a better "deal."

Notice that many of the people who preach the value of public education and "protect" teachers' unions from evaluations and merit pay also send their own children to private schools? (Yes, Washington DC, we are looking at you!)

Certainly it's not necessarily either or. My sister home schooled (after some crazy experiences in early grades in the California school system where she'd hide under the desk while kids ran across the tops of desks in out of control class rooms) and in high school she went to the local school for a few classes that were hard to do at home. Different circumstances require different answers.

 

[Slap Shot]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

You're confusing two different statements. The fact that it's a topic of discussion within certain circles I'm in that tend toward home schooling does not preclude that I also talk to other people in other settings that don't like home schooling. I think it's healthy to circulate in a variety of different circles, which vary in their outlooks on various things. Thus, I can talk to both relatives who like home schooling and non-relatives who don't like home schooling.

Then you should have given a relative answer to what I was saying rather than deviate. No big deal either way I hold no ill will and respect your conviction.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

Then you should have given a relative answer to what I was saying rather than deviate. No big deal either way I hold no ill will and respect your conviction.

Communication via message board is always ripe for misunderstanding one another. Let's hope that all the kids in this nation get the best education possible.

 

[bigblue_dl]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

In Finland these girls are a 4.

Case closed.

People told me this about Sweden before I went over there. They were dead wrong.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

People told me this about Sweden before I went over there. They were dead wrong.

You should have spent more time near Stockholm. One of my college buddies was from there, and he'd come back from summer break with pictures of being out clubbing. There was some top notch talent in those photos, and he *claimed* that they were only a little above average.

 

[bigblue_dl]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

I probably shouldn't comment on education, since I'm far from an expert on it, though I did use the current system of public schools and it worked out well for me. But oh well, here it goes.

Here are my suggestions/plan:

1. Eliminate grade levels. Using grade levels limits students in 2 different ways, high achieving students are stuck in the grade where they belong, with curriculum in, say, english tied to the math curriculum that is expected at that same grade level. At the same time, poor performing students can have the grade level held against them. In a situation where a student needs to have more instruction in a subject, they should be "held back" but aren't because there is a stigma associated with being behind a grade level.
2. To replace grade levels, institute a credit based system, similar to what Univesities use. This would include milestones that a student would have to reach in order to "graduate" to their next level, similar to going from elementary school to junior high after the 5th grade currently. There would be credit requirements for various subjects, but only a minimum, so we can hopefully produce well-rounded students, but allows students to specialize in what actually interests them. Also, I would like to see, just like colleges do, the ability to earn credits online, or from a different institution, so credits would have to be transferable.
3. Multiple paths to graduation. Not every student is cut out for the academic path, yet, we seem to insist that is the only option (in my case, the academic option was definitely the way to go). When students get to the high school age, the requirements should be set up so that we're funneling students to the areas where they have the best chance at being successful. This means, not forcing a student who is terrible at English and math, but loves working with his/her hands, and building furniture out of wood, to take 4 years of english and 4 years of math. A basic understanding of those subjects in required to function in society, so there would have to be classes that would cover it, but not like it is now. That student should be focusing on getting better at what he/she is good at, and in the 3rd/4th years of high school, maybe they are able to take some classes at a technical college, that would double count as high school credits and towards a certificate or associates degree in the trade they're interested in.
4. Focus on STEM. For students that are mathematically inclined or interested in the sciences, there needs to be much, much more focus on the STEM classes. This needs to get started at a much earlier age, so that science and math are normal for the students.
5. Incentives for students. Students need to have incentives for doing what they're doing, and I'm not talking money, directly, at least. College scholarships should be more performance based and college screenings should be tighter. Give high school students a reason to perform well, and instill the culture, at a young age, that high performance* will be rewarded handsomely. *High performance needs to be relative to the student's abilities. Lay out class plans before the start of the semester/quarter/year, so that if a high performing student wants to move faster, he/she is able, and as a reward, he/she is able to complete that class a few weeks early, or a few days early, and then is not required to be in class anymore.
6. Teacher pools, rotating teachers. At the elementary school age, expose students to a variety of teachers. Say, you have 3 teachers (ideally a diverse group of 3), responsible for 3x the normal classroom size. So you still have the same amount of teachers/student, and students are still split into the same sized of groups, but you expose students to different teaching styles, and different groups of peers. This would also help weed out poor teachers, and encourage high performance from teachers as there are 3 teachers working together as a team.

 

[bigblue_dl]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

I see that everyone is still shocked silent that I posted something of substance.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

Thought-provoking article from computer science professor at Yale on a way to harness modern technology and parental involvement to upgrade US primary school education in an effective and affordable manner:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...746476494.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

One thing I had planned to note earlier was inconsistent, if not outright contradictory, government regulations, from multiple regulatory bodies that don't pay any attention to what each other is already doing. in our break room, we have two laminated posters, each 2' x 3', carrying mandatory notices. The one from the Federal government has 7 different required notices from 6 different regulators, the one from the State has 4 different required notices from 4 different regulators. and that's just in employee relations; there are plenty of others as well. I don't handle those areas myself but offhand I can think of five or six more regulators we have to deal with all the time, and that's from our rented space here. At a previous job we owned our own building which opened us up to about 8 or 9 more regulators. I think I mentioned before how a community organization on whose Board of Directors I serve wanted to expand our parking lot and we had to file 37 different forms with 16 different regulators. In many cases we have to provide the same information to multiple regulators except on a different form each time. it is nuts!

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

Our energy "policy" or more accurately, our lack thereof. Again, it's like they are so myopic they cannot even figure out what they are looking at!

I suggest we might want to start with the "big picture" and try to develop something sensible and consistent.

> sources of energy
> uses of energy
> transmission of energy
> "side effects" (e.g., waste products)
> how to integrate the parts

Rover and Lynah Fan had two great posts about the first two.

I think energy independence should be the #1 issue for the next Presidential term. However, nuclear isn't the answer as the backbone of the power supply. Natural gas is. If I can remember correctly, the current breakdown of power generation sources in the country is roughly: 35% gas, 30% coal, 20% nuclear, 15% renewables.

Coal needs to go way down because its a major pollutant. However, it always needs to be part of the equation because you need a cheap backup source of power. Bring coal down to 10-15%, idle the plants or run that at lower capacity but make sure they can be brought up to speed if needed.

Renewables (and this includes hydro as well as the usual wind and solar) should be brought up to 20% which given current trends should end up happening anyway.

Nuclear can be brought up higher but there is no way we're going to find 100 places to build that many new nuclear power plants in this country which old geezer McCain was advocating. Might as well say your plan is to harness energy on the moon. Furthermore no bank or insurance company is going to put up the money to build all these things and I'd rather not have the feds building all of them.

Rather the existing plants, which are already connected to the grid, situated with a security perimiter, and who's abutters presumably have made peace with their placement in their neighborhood, are the place to start. Upgrade or expand existing facilities since most of them are 40 years old and perhaps we can squeeze an extra 5-10% of total supply out of them.

So, if coal is 10%, nukes say 25%, renewables 20%, that leaves natural gas as the remaining 45% of the pie. This all massively reduces carbon emissions, creates jobs (gas powered plant switch over, drilling for the stuff, upgrading nuke plants, etc), and gives us a competitive advantage in energy over the Chinas and Europes of the world (natural gas isn't easily transportable so there is little global market unlike oil. Also the US is the world leader in # of nuclear power plants). This still leaves capacity to make natural gas the fuel for long haul trucking and busses which should get us off foreign oil once and for all.

I think you're on the right track here in lots of ways, just a few quibbles:

--- You're mixing apples and oranges in that your percentage breakdown (35/30/20/15) applies only to electricity production, but then you later talk about getting off of foreign oil. Even if you convert 100% of electricity production to gas, the oil-soaked elephant in the room is transportation.

--- When it comes to oil, looking at the US Energy Information Administration data, the four big users of petroleum in the US are Gasoline (48%), Fuel Oil (aka Diesel, 20%), Liquefied Petroleum Gas (12%) and jet fuel (8%), which account for 88% of total usage. We currently import 45% of the oil we use (also from EIA), so even if you solved 100% of the long haul trucking and bus problem, we still wouldn't be off of foreign oil - you'd also have to convert roughly half of the users of gasoline to gas.

--- Bizarrely enough, this is one area where I'm a big government guy. I would be perfectly fine with electrical power generation being one of those "things we choose to do together." The federal government has a pretty darn good track record at specifying, procuring, and operating nuclear reactors in a very safe manner. How about a compromise? We'll downsize the military and re-hire those guys in DOE to build new nuke plants. I agree that it would be difficult to find 100 new sites, so why not just double/triple the size of each existing site? How much more could property values around those sites fall? However, we have to keep in mind all the while that this effort would have NOTHING to do with energy independence, since we already have more coal that we could possibly burn. The only reason to do this huge switchover to Federal Nuclear Power would be to reduce greenhouse emissions, period.

I wanted to get them copied here while they were still fresh. (no pun intended, nothing fishy about it!)

Regarding the transmission problem, if anyone is familiar with fluid flow dynamics, my concern is that the electric grid is too big and too integrated (see the famous collapse of the Tacoma Narrows bridge, the video is awesome if you ever get a chance to see it. Electricity can surge in similar manner. The "great blackout" in the northeast in 2003 was a great example of this analogy: a relatively minor initial problem created a feedback loop that took out a huge portion of the system.

The report states that a generating plant in Eastlake, Ohio (a suburb of Cleveland) went offline amid high electrical demand, putting a strain on high-voltage power lines (located in a distant rural setting) which later went out of service when they came in contact with "overgrown trees". The cascading effect that resulted ultimately forced the shutdown of more than 100 power plants.

Weird locution, eh? how do power lines "come in contact" with "overgrown trees?" The report I read was that tree branches fell on the wires!


This post is getting so long, I will take a break and address the "side effects" like air pollution, radioactive waste, ecological devastation (covering the desert with solar panels??? where are the environmentalists? that proposal is folly, it seems to me....) later; with also a little more to say on transmission issues.

 

[joecct]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

For years retirees depended on income from savings and Social Security to get by. Now with savings rates at essentially 0%, the retirees are dipping into capital to make ends meet. How about getting interest rates back to around 4% and what would it take to get them there?

 

[Patman]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

For years retirees depended on income from savings and Social Security to get by. Now with savings rates at essentially 0%, the retirees are dipping into capital to make ends meet. How about getting interest rates back to around 4% and what would it take to get them there?

catch-22 there is if you do that their houses will be worth much less when they sell.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

For years retirees depended on income from savings and Social Security to get by. Now with savings rates at essentially 0%, the retirees are dipping into capital to make ends meet. How about getting interest rates back to around 4% and what would it take to get them there?

We need economic growth .... or runaway inflation

 

[St. Clown]

Re: The Most Serious [x] Problem We Face Today

We need economic growth .... or runaway inflation

Inflation's more likely at this point with how much extra cash is out there floating around due to QE1 and QE2. Banks are withholding lendable funds because they're exposed to much interest rate risk - if they lend it now, things start choogling along and interest rates go up, they're then borrowing at rates greater than they're receiving.