John Stossel promises to have much good information and wisdom about schooling in this hour-long special that will be telecast tomorrow night. I’ll not miss it.
Stossel truly is the finest broadcast journalist of our age, specializing (as he does) in making that which typically is unseen seen.
I’m also eager, by the way, to read his forthcoming book.
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Speaking of TV broadcasts, I noted that you can buy the video for the Milton Friedman interview by Charlie Rose for $0.99.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2963837673813979186&q=friedman%20in_label%3Atvshow%3DCharlie_Rose&time=45000
I love google.
I like your sarcasm. Calling this shill for big business a journalist is like calling Kevin Trudue a medical expert.
Right, 'cos to be a journalist, it's very important to agree with standard center-left conventional wisdom about everything. Says so in the manual.
Not a schill for any particular "bgi business", but one for "big business" in general? Is that what you're alledging? And "big business" is bad? What's good then?
When will the get the next positive post about Koch industies?
Stossel is indeed one of the very few major media journalists to demonstrate any concern for truth above leftist ideology. The special should be great, it is one of the most important topics of our age.
Many in the media today not only fail to make the unseen seen but seem to strive to keep the unseen hidden. In many cases these medial elites have a vested ideological interest in hiding the real consequences of policy. Hopefully more in the MSM will take Stossel's lead in bringing attention to our failing public education monopoly.
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com
Gatto's book The Underground History of American Education is an excellent commentary on the origins and development of government education. I recommend it to anybody that cares about their children and their future.
Thanks for the heads up about this program. I look forward to watching it. Mostly out of curiosity. We commited to home education many years ago.
In Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat, the President of CalTech said that the best college students are the ones coming from public high shools. Why? Because students from private schools (and home education programs) have a tendency to rely on teachers and parents, whereas public schools students tend to learn on their own. This makes them more likely suceed in college.
That may be true, but Caltech also selects for all the things that public schools hate. It is the most meritocratic of the top schools. It practices almost no affirmative action. It is uninterested in balance. Non-science extra-curriculars are mostly ignored. It has the only core curriculum of the top universities that is uniform and brutally hard, that mixes math and polisci majors together, and does not have an easy out like Physics for Poets. And it is obsessed with things like grades, test scores, and performance in objectively verifiable activities like the Math Olympiads. They also give no credit for APs and treat a 4 on the AP Math as a near failing grade.
Gee, these all sound like your average public school! Right??
Our kids follow a self-education curriculum and recieve 0 assistance with their work.
http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com
The curriculum was designed by a Caltech allum, Arthur Robinson.
I love how an ad hominem attack is conclusive for some. Consider me swayed by the power of the argument. Not.
Actually education is an area that has a fairly government-free view available. In virtually every town in the US private education and the opportunity for home schooling is available. Post high school education choices abound in this country and abroad, even right now. Of course you have much more choice when you have more money. Trust fund babies are getting wonderful educational credentials. It's only the lower end wealth stratus of kids, who generally don't have much potential anyway, who are stuck with the poor public education that local governments offer.
It is almost as if Dick failed to absorb a single thing Tysty said. Tysty said the president of Calteck though that public school graduates were their best students. Dick then cites the things Caltech does and ask does this sound like your average public school.
Apparently the president of Calteck does, and answers Dicks question to the afirmative.
I wonder which one actually has the best knowledge of what public school graduates actually knows– Dick or the President of Caltech?
Regardless of how many top students are produced by the public school system it still remains a fact that the system is broken. No one bothered to ask where the least prepared students came from. My guess (as one who spent nearly two decades in public funded schools) is that they come from public schools.
So the real problem with the American Education system is the private schools? RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT. I wont argue against the fact that the public school system, in some instances, does produce some extremely high caliber students. I.B programs produce some of the countries best minds. However, this does not mean that the system is not CRIMINAL. There are schools in this country that should no longer be open and it is politicaly impossible to improve the current situation. Vouchers are the only solution. Unfortunately there is a religous sect in this country, and I call them religious because they take their views on faith alone, that will not provide any empirical data what soever to disprove the functionality of a voucher program. The best argument that they can give is some banal excuse that vouchers will end up being some form of religous indoctrination. The truely sad part about this whole problem is that the same people who are against vouchers are also the same people who bitch about poverty, walmart, and are supposedly advocates for social justice(whatever that god awful term means).
The president of CalTech says that public school grads make the best college students. But apparently he's only talking about the very rare public school grad who has managed to amass amazing academic credentials. Perhaps a public school grad with 98% SAT scores is a better CalTech student than one with the same credentials from a private school.
But he does not say if such a student (public school student with topnotch SAT scores, etc.) represents 1% of CalTech students, 10%, 30%, etc. The record is clear: public schools fail to produce many students who can qualify for CalTech.
His comments do not neccessarily lead to a conclusion that public schools in general are collosal failures that would resoundingly improve with a universal voucher system.