The world is laughing at US

Maybe I mentioned this before, I dunno, but I'll tell it again.

I have a niece, beautiful blonde who is starting her 3rd year of college without a clue as to what she wants to do. She came to the family asking for money so she can spend her first semester going to school in Italy. You know what my answer was.

Anyway, she decides to get a government loan to the tune of 9k so she can go. I kept telling her she'll have to pay it back sooner or later but I don't think she took my words seriously. What classes is she taking ? Wine and food pairing.....Italy is a good place for that. Too bad she has no desire to make that a career.

She's staying in Florence, of all places. Went to Germany for Oktoberfest, and is now going to Ireland. So basically, she borrowed 9k to go party in Europe for a semester. When all is said and done though, when school is over and she has a B.S. degree that will be useless and a mountain of debt to pay back, what do you think the narrative will be ?

Poor college student can't find a job that pays anything, wants all her college debt to be forgiven, and/or college should be free for everyone so they don't have this burden hanging over them as they go out into the world. Has to be someone elses fault because she supposedly did all the right things. Well....duh !

BlueFox wrote: »

cnh wrote: »

Perhaps some of you old timers remember "The Peter Principle"!

Rise to your level of incompetence. This is now prevalent in the Silicon Valley software industry. CEOs say we can get 3 programmers in India for the price of one local engineer. Of course, they get upset when you say we can 1000 CEOs for the price of one local CEO.

Steve Jobs, who some may consider over paid, albeit that he did change the world -- used to tell me -- one of those HR guys to be "offed" -- that you cannot replace one brilliant engineer with any number of mediocre engineers. The mediocre ones, even collectively, simply do not have the creativity that differentiates the brilliant one. He was absolutely correct.

I spent over 20 years getting a formal education, ending with a PhD from a major research university, and I spent 10 years at another major research university teaching and ending assistant dean of the faculty before I moved into business.

With that said, the three summers I spent in the limestone quarries and mills of southern Indiana, earning money to pay for my formal education, taught me more useful knowledge than all my years of formal education put together.

Human beings need to learn far more than they can be taught in schools; I don't care how good those schools are reputed to be.

One problem I found as a member of the faculty and administration of one of the leading universities in the world is that far too many academics have a paucity of real world knowledge, and they engender a contempt for that knowledge in their students.

There is nothing like swinging a 16-pounds sledge hammer for eight hours per day in a limestone quarry with a bunch of guys who have been doing that their entire lives to teach one what work and productivity are really like.

xcapri79 wrote: »

tonyb wrote: »

. . . .
CNH,
Good post also, but we old timers have a saying.....Too many Chiefs and not enough Indians. You can make that apply to many professions today.

Many come out of college wanting to be the Chief, without having to do the hard work associated with getting to that position. When they actually have to do the work, they get bewildered and don't understand that the real world doesn't work on fairness or social justices that they are taught in school. It's a hard adjustment for them.

Some adjust and do well going forward, some don't and live their years with a chip on their shoulders that society did them a grave injustice. Are we really preparing these kids for the real world workplace....OR are we more concerned with handing them ideology and kicking them out the door ?

Actually the people you mention often become managers. While they may be technically inept, they do become adept at maneuvering in the corporate "pc" world. To solve their technical problems, they hire contractors who employ foreign-born technical people on an H1B visa or directly use foreign-based technical staff in their home country. Our educational system creates the need to do this. . . . .

@xcapri79,

Your statement -- "Actually the people you mention often become managers. While they may be technically inept, they do become adept at maneuvering in the corporate "pc" world." -- is quite the indictment of a broad class of people without much in the way of explanation or justification.

What are the data and personal experiences on which you base your assertion?

It smacks of "sour grapes" to me.

PSOVLSK wrote: »

Moose68Bash wrote: »

What are the data and personal experiences on which you base your assertion?

I swear I've seen the same question asked of him in the popular cable threads. If form holds, don't hold your breath waiting for the requested data or personal experiences.

Definitely good advice! I'm breathing normally.

xcapri79 wrote: »

P.S. One day, I would like to get together with the Darqueknight and my associate who has a PhD in Communications to conduct some testing on various cables.

Of what relevance is this? Are we going to use cables to improve education in the U.S., perhaps? Or do cables need an H1B visa now?

Moose68Bash wrote: »

@xcapri,

If you want to compare our resumes to establish who is more highly qualified to speak to these subjects, I'll happily do so with you in the context of, for example, PMs between us. I prefer not to bore our fellow members of the Forum with such matters.


Please don't take this interesting banter amongst you guys to private messages, now let's see we left off where Moose schooled X and his 30 + years of putting his foot in his mouth please continue this might lead to another epic meltdown.

@BlueFox,

Well, things have undoubtedly changed since my days of fighting battles with the Feds to get university recruits into the country on H1B visas. This was before outsourcing was even a term in common parlance, let alone common practice.

I recall one instance in which a university engineering department was searching the world for an expert in "transonic flow coding." This may be a more common expertise these days -- some 40 years later -- but then there were only four or five people worldwide who could do this work that was required under a large research contract.

The principal investigator found one of these rarae aves in the UK. It took several weeks to demonstrate to the Feds that we had identified all qualified people, not only in the US, but worldwide and that this individual was the only one who was prepared to take the job.

And, I assure you, the salary offer was not lower than the university would have paid any other candidate.

These days, every immigration statute and regulation in force in the US is apparently being ignored, abused or both, it seems.

xcapri79 wrote: »

Keiko wrote: »

Regulations are being abused by a victim class minority and/or entitlement mentality individuals. I don't recall a time the nation has been more divided since the civil rights movement in the 60s. Even more so now; gender, class, sexual orientation. Today we have the 1%ers and the occupiers. Where did they come from? I never heard of these terms 10 years ago. Imagine where we will be in another 10 if we continue down this path of immorality.

The idea of class warfare has been well laid out since 1848 by Karl Marx in the "Communist Manifesto".
In chapter 1 he writes,

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes."

Today, we are seeing a reaffirmation of that ideology with more modern language and symbology, but it has been around for a while. We use Marxist language when we refer to the "middle class" when we really should be referring to "middle income" people.

In pre-capitalistic societies people were generally trapped within their class making the idea of class warfare or class struggle attractive to those who felt they were being taken advantage of.

In a free capitalistic society, this is not so. Through ones hard work, thrift, investment and entrepreneurial endeavors, one can improve their economic status. This is the basis of the "American Dream".

Perhaps, but seems a bit far fetched for me.

Maybe instead of going off the rails we can focus on things like this...

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2015/10/28/national-assessment-educational-progress-detroit-math-reading-results/74718372/

Chart shows reading and math proficiency for 4th and 8th graders from cities all over the country. Dismal at best, considering what we spend per student. Also considering the numbers haven't changed much in decades, does anyone really think improving the PS system deserves a "stay the course" mentality ?

No one is saying it's going to be easy, heaven knows nothing worth it ever is. All I'm saying is, shouldn't we at least try to make it better instead of throwing our hands up and accepting it because somehow along the way many were convinced they couldn't do anything ?

Why have we accepted the same results for so long, even after doubling the money spent ? Would you accept that in other aspects of your life ? Probably not, so why accept it when it comes to the most treasured things to us....our children ?

When you give people choice and promote competition, that's when results happen and costs come down. It's not a new concept, and one that has been proven time and time again, yet we ignore it when it comes to education. Which then tells me results are not the main priority but rather a kind of side effect some are wishing to happen.

Start there, choice and competition. It's a good place to start as any. Obviously there is more to it than just those 2 things but it's impossible to tackle the whole ball of wax in one swoop.

xcapri79 wrote: »

Sorry to go off topic, but @PSOVLSK brought up cables and so I added the short comment as a postscript. The subsequent posts to mine amply illustrated and affirmed my point, so I need not respond. Thank you @Moose68Bash and thank you @Bluefox.
Happy Halloween to all!

@xcapri79,

You are most kindly welcome - albeit that I am utterly confused about your "point" that you say I "amply illustrated and affirmed." If you care to elaborate to what you are alluding, I'm eager to read your comments.

Above all, however, I still have not read your answer to my simple, direct question:

"So, let me get back to my question about how you support your assertion: 'Actually the people you mention often become managers. While they may be technically inept, they do become adept at maneuvering in the corporate 'pc' world.'"

Any data, facts or real experiences that you can cite to support this very broad assertion?

Moose,

I'm not even going to attempt to answer for X, he can do that himself. What I can say though is in my 40+ years bouncing around the corporate and privately held companies, and my wife's 30+ years dealing with Fortune 500 and Fortune 50 companies, X has a point....be it broad brushed or not. Lots more of those types than we care to admit, but that should not take away from the good folks out there either who do their jobs in a professional and moral standard.

Tony,
Charters also use many other instructional items and curriculum from the district, it's far more than buying power. Special services for kids in need, but who desire the charter experience is a big budget item. On top of the normal education cost inflation,
districts deal with additional insurance costs, state and federal mandates for special needs students, and since the Great Recession extra payouts to retirement funds in order to fix the budget hole.

You correctly mention stagnant scores. One thing we forget is that our immigrant population from countries that didn't have a strong educational system has gone way, way up. For example, post WWII thru the 1960's much of our immigration came from Europe, a continent that valued and provided a very strong education. Since the 1980's its Central America. Without that tradition of the necessity of strong schools and schooling (prizing education) it is harder to raise scores. In my parochial school we are seeing it first hand.

Second, among my fellow staffers and other teachers in private and public we are seeing more and more students in general coming into kindergarten not ready to learn. Our speculation for the reason is that due to childcare costs getting them into kindergarten releases some or all of the financial burden. The downside is that the kids struggle instead quickly grasping. This constant state of catchup places the student on a slower/lower learning trajectory.

Solutions:
First, all kindergartners take a learning readiness test (some schools/districts do this already). But make it required that if the child isn't ready they can't go into kindergarten that year.

Two, parental connection to the school is critical. All parents must provide some sort of volunteer time for their child's school. Now that doesn't mean it has to be during the school day. My school has committees and work crews that do things in the evening or weekends a few hours at a time. Parents who are involved have children who demonstrate greater success, and not just academically.

Three, class sizes under 30. Too many of our MS and HS have classes in excess of 40 kids. In numbers that large teachers stand zero chance of meeting the needs of all kids and their different learning styles. Take for example an English writing teacher in a nearby high school: She has 5 classes a day, average size 37 students, thats 185 students. She is required to have the students turn in an essay a week. Each paper takes on average 10 minutes to grade completely. That equals out 6 hours, 10 minutes each day in grading. And one wonders why the average teacher quits after 5 years?!

Fourth, the federal Dept. of Education should only have some 55 employees. It's only job would be to distribute out funds to each state in block grants and review reports on such spending. In my 21 years, the rules and regs that schools must follow have more than doubled, and much of it comes from overlapping and opposing requirements from well-meaning, but contradictory laws. Add in other agencies that muck up the works and the result is chaos.

Five, disband the middle school concept. Make schools k-8, 9-12. In parochial schools we've had great success in this model for many decades. Why? Because, instead of letting the 6-8 go hormonally looney we put them in positions of responsibility with little kids with buddy programs. The level of clueless behavior is way less.

Finally, create more magnet-style high schools that focus on certain areas of academia/career. STEM schools for the math/science students, performing art schools, humanities-schools, and vocation-based. In this way we are prepping kids and having them take ownership of their learning because it is something they are interested in.