…Do our kids get Smarter?
By any objective measurement, be it Local, State, Federal or Global the more money taxpayers pour into education the further our children, as a group, fall behind. Simply put, the more we spend the dumber they get.
So the answer is yes… when teachers stop teaching our students stand to become smarter.
The statistics don’t lie.
Don’t give me “The Parents are to Blame…” propaganda. The parents have never historically cared any more or less than they do today… and the more the Public Schools positioned themselves as taxpayer-funded baby sitters rather than serious educators the more the public came to see them as such. The only people who should be upset are all of us who have paid for this debacle. We should all walk out into the middle of the street, shake hands, then begin kicking ourselves for allowing it to happen.
If you think I’m wrong, Prove it. Let’s cut all Federal Education Dollars while banning Public Service Unions and chart the Progress over a few years.
The only downside I see is that our children will be deprived of the steady diet of subtle socialist indoctrination.
It can’t get any Worse…
makeaneffort 
October 2nd, 2014 at 8:36 pm
Plainspoken and well said. On the nose again, Mike!
Best,
— x
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December 11th, 2012 at 4:11 pm
You’re making one of the most common logical fallacies, that of assuming that because one fact follows another, that proves a causal relationship. In Latin that’s “post hoc ergo propter hoc”.
What if the reason people are getting dumber is because the entire culture values critical thinking and pure research (education unrelated to qualifying for specific professions) less than it used to in decades past? If my hypothesis is correct, it won’t matter if you continue to spend more or less on education. Either way people will still get dumber, because they don’t care about being smarter as much as they value having more money, more power and increased status.
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December 11th, 2012 at 4:29 pm
I made no error. This post was written as I intended. I’m well versed in correlation vs. causation. I suspect most of my followers will recognize that I’m applying the same logic the Left uses to push for more funding and illustrating it’s absurdity.
In regard to people getting dumber, I would argue that if we leave them alone and stop force feeding them the useless, their desire for “money, power and status” would drive them to the educational resources best suited to assist them in attaining it.
Sir Issac Newton had a motto; Money, Learning, Pleasure… In that order. I will not argue with him in that regard. Trying to deny the Human Condition only lends assistance to those who wish to control you and denying reality has no place in a civilized society.
Finally I would offer that our society does not value critical thinking. Quite the contrary, they value “feeling” ones way through life which without fail leaves the rest of us in a position of having to expend our energy and capital dealing with them.
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