Affirmative Action Doesn't Work, It Never Did...

Seems to me we already pay more per student then a lot of other countries that are getting better results. I don't think throwing more money at programs that have already failed will solve anything.

Aren't we always told that the US isn't like other countries? I know I've heard that when it comes to gun control and health care.

Garamet: "All children should be turned over to the state to be raised."

I love how things are so binary in Garamet and Ancalagon's world.

We either "save" the children or it's a $40K per year jail cell for the little rogue.....

Nope.

Nope.

Here I found this out there you can use it.......



But I'm still right.

Yeah, you're pretty far right, all right. Whether or not you're correct, however, is a different matter...

Since you're involved in this discussion, can we assume at some point that you'll condescend to actually express -- and then defend -- a point of view?

You should have used the gif......

Quite the opposite. Things like good nutrition, early childhood education and after school activities have been proven to work.

I agree we need reform. And that money isn't the answer, but money is part of the answer.

The floor is open for suggestions.

1. End the drug war.

2. Push, promote, incentivise apprenticeships, job training, in short, work. It's hard to convince young kids in certain demographics to do what it takes when they haven't grown up witnessing a work ethic. Teach them how to work, how to interact, etc. I'm hesitant to say we need the old CCC camps, but there's something to be said for that full reset it and the war did. It doesn't need to be government either, if large companies expanded their entry level jobs into a sort of summer camp, it could do same thing. There is a whole industry dedicated to finding young athletes, why not roofers, bricklayers, accountants, etc.?

The short answer on roofers is that it's less expensive to import them than it is to run a Summer camp. Would you favor tax credits or some other government incentive for these camps? I'm pretty sure you agree with me on free movement of labor, so we aren't going to make Mexican roofers more expensive.

The root of all problems with U.S. education is the breakdown of the basic family unit.

The root of the breakdown of the family is the mainstream acceptance of premarital sex.

Horseshit.

The root of the breakdown of the family in America can be traced to the early 20th Century when the mainline denominations stopped teaching about the depravity of man. The methodists, for example, literally removed a section from their hymnal titled, "The Depravity of Man." My great uncle documents that in this book: http://www.amazon.com/Evangelical-Methodist-Riley-B-Case/dp/0687044448

It's a factor no doubt.

But premarital sex is a staggeringly huge factor even if you completely ignore the moral and religious arguments.

How so? If it weren't for the moral and religious arguments, there would be no standard by which to deem premarital sex wrong!

I agree completely with that comment.

But you guys are both wrong, the decline of family derives mostly (i.e. more than 50%) from combo of working mothers and our poorly incentivized welfare system.

And Paul, what makes your uncle so great?

1) It often serves to keep couples together who otherwise would not remain together (and should not for various reasons. I've seen this countless times over the years.

There is a saying

"Breaking up with someone you have never had sex with is like switching from Coke to Diet Coke for a couple of months.

"Breaking up with someone you've been having sex with is like being on a hunger strike"

See the difference?

2) It promotes the idea of instant gratification.

3) It promotes grossly unrealistic expectations for people regarding intimacy in the future.

4) It can (and does) lead to unwanted pregnancy and spread of disease.

5) It is an unproductive distraction for young people from more vital things they should be focused on (education for example).

Those are all excellent points.

So while the rest of the Righties are playing "It's the schools' fault/It's the parents' fault/whatever it is, we're too busy pointing fingers to even come up with a decent suggestion and we wonder why our side continues its downspiral," there's this:

Shut the fuck up, Dayton.

Thanks. Though I'll freely admit that getting people to agree that premarital sex is a bad thing is a virtually impossible task.

But, if the popular media held to that belief and produced materials in television, movies and music that promoted avoidance of premarital sex then you would make some inroads over time.

As far as the cultures and the number of individuals being covered by a government run health care system, yes, they are different. That doesn't mean we can't look at other education systems to see what might work, which also doesn't automatically mean we have to copy anyone wholesale.

You don't see the irony in your position of no we shouldn't/yes we should?

Agreed. But we might at least look at the systems in those countries that have been successful:

Best Education In The World: Finland, South Korea Top Country Rankings, U.S. Rated Average

Some of the conclusions from the study:

And to preempt oldfella's thinly-veiled "B-b-b-but Those People don't care about their kids and their kids don't care about school," not all of those countries ahead of the U.S. are homogenous.

So it comes down to a question of "What can we do that won't send Lanzman and evenflow to the poorhouse?"

Actually it would be more like "what can we not spend money on so that we can point more resources in this direction?"

Okay. What do you have in mind?

We don't need to travel as far as Finland or South Korea. Some US states achieve similarly strong results. Massachusetts might differ from Mississippi, but it's more similar than Finland. What might poor performing states learn from top performers?