On Dec 2, 8:50 pm, "Matt W. Barrow"
wrote:
"B A R R Y" wrote in messagenews:qdk6l35sjc8gpa98jtbh0t7u5v1puc7o4h@4ax .com...

On Sun, 2 Dec 2007 17:29:31 -0700, "Matt W. Barrow"
wrote:

Many times an "F" is deserved.

I totally agree.

As many times the teacher would have also
gotten an "F". When they gave math teachers the same math tests, the
average
grade was 60%, with 70% being a failing grade. It's nearly the rule,
rather
than the exception.

I'd like to read that. Where did you see it?

State of Arizona (run up to AMES tests) where my Bro-in-laws kids tests were
held off for four years until the teachers could pass them or re-write the
tests.

Remember, teaching
programs and educational requirements vary greatly from state to
state.

And just how much difference is there from the "best" states, to the worst?



Would it make schools less likely to
spread Global Warming bull****?

I'm with ya' there.

And that's just one example of many, such as "diversity", racism, sexism,
etc., not to mention revisionist history, modern math, "progressive"
politics as the only answer.

Ask your wife what she knows about Thomas Mann, the "father of American
public schools" and what he wanted to accomplish, or John Dewey.

It's been said that schools are not doing a bad job..they're doing exactly
what they were set up to do over 160 years ago and locked in during the
early 1900's. Unfortunately, teaching kids to reason, engage in critical
thinking, use inductive and deductive reasoning is NOT the agenda.

==
Sitting on my desk I found a cite concerning Horace Mann, the Common School,
and development from the Prussian school in an extensive chapter from a
textbook used in undergraduate education classes at my university. The title
of the text is "School & Society: Educational Practice as

Social Expression", (1993) McGraw-Hill, Publishers, ISBN: 0-07-557043-2

Selected quotes from pages 53-70"

p. 55: "Among the wide variety of educational topics addressed by Mann
during his tenure as Secretary [of the Massachusetts State Board], perhaps
the most significant were school buildings, moral values, the example of
Prussian education,discipline, teachers, and the economic value of
education"

p. 59 "He was first introduced to Prussian schools by [popular] reports of
their successes. The Prussian system had been organized in the 1820s along a
model recommended by Johann Frichte, the German philosopher, during the
Napoleonic occupation of Prussia. Fichte's proposals were designed to
develop Prussian nationalism and a nation strong enough to unite the German
states for world leadership. By the mid-1830s the Prussian experiment had
excited educators in western Europe and the United States.

p. 60 "The system was class-based and consisted of two separate tiers of
schooling. The tier for the aristocratic class. . .was academically
oriented.. . .The tier for the common people. . .was compulsory. Its goal
was to develop patriotic citizens. . .In addition to loyalty and obedience
to authority, it provided basic literacy and numeracy. Most of the graduates
went directly into the work force.

Loyalty and obedience, not initiative or critical thinking, were the goals
for training the common people. As Fichte had written on education, "If you
want to influence him at all, you must do more than merely talk to him. You
must fashion him, and fashion him in such a way that he cannot will
otherwise than you wish him to will".

...The Prussian *volkschule* (the common tier) evoked Mann's most
enthusiastic response. . .he was not completely oblivious to the dangers
inherent in using institutions designed for an authoritarian society as
models for a democracy, but he quickly dismissed these dangers as
inconsequential."

p. 65: "The Secretary's [Mann] arguments were persuasive because of the
different messages they carried to various segments of his constituency. To
the workingman, the message was: send your children to school so they may
become rich. Employers were advised that the common schools would provide
them with workers who were not only more productive, , but also docile,
easily managed, and unlikely to resort to strikes or violence."

p. 67..."While Mann was emphasizing the intellectual results of common
schooling, his industrial supporters were emphasizing the enculturation of a
value system amenable to industrialized factory life"

p. 70...Mann, however, unlike Jefferson, was not driven by fear of tyranny,
but by fear of social disorder and moral decay. . . .While Mann believed he
was advocating education for religious and republican virtue, some of his
contemporaries argued that he was instead instituting a system of social
control"

=====================

You may check this book out for yourself to guarantee that I have not
selectively quoted out of context.

This is just Thomas Mann. Here's Dewey:

"The mere absorbing of facts and truths is so exclusively individual an
affair that it tends very naturally to pass into selfishness. There is no
obvious social motive for the acquirement of mere learning, there is no
clear social gain in success thereat." --John Dewey

Read some educational history, it's just simply a well-known fact about the
origins of our present educational system and it's predominant principles!

MxMatt, I am facinated how you can deduece that the current state of
education in this country rests ENTIRELY on some guy who held office
167 years ago. And to think he predicted what to teach our kids about
global warming ! Priceless. This is right up there with your theory
that Hillary Clinton is gonna corner the market on Avgas and jack up
the price.