Education in the USA

When Jimmy Carter federalized the department of education, you saw the final phase of the beginning of the end. Unions became political action committees for the left and the classroom became voter/social training grounds. Actual education became secondary, but your kids can have great self esteem as they experiment becoming one of the 157 different genders that are taught as reality. Teachers and the department of education are the largest threat to America.
 
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I graduated high school in 1981, in a small town in Minnesota. We had Metal Shop, Wood Shop, Auto Mech, and Carpentry. We built a house every year at school, and auctioned it off . Most, if not all off these classes are gone from most schools today. I wish more people would realize there's alot of money to be made in the trades. Every kid does not need to go to college. Most colleges are screwing over the kids today, and the parents blindly go along with it! The last thing we need is free college. If anything, do 2 years of free trade school. But then again, most kids today don't have the work ethic to make it in the trades anyway....oh crap don't get me started!
When I was in Grade 11 (1968/69) 3 classes of ST&T (Science, Technology & Trades) guys drew up plans for 20'x30' cabins in Drafting class in the first semester. In the second semester, in our Building Construction class, we milled wood from a demolished and donated barn just down the road from the school. We prefabbed 3 cabins based on our own plans. At the end of the semester the school had them trucked to a teen ranch about 30 miles away. Three classes of guys took a week off, stayed at the camp and assembled the cabins. What a blast! 50 or so guys working all day and yucking it up every night. Overall it was a great learning experience. I visited the teen ranch a few years ago specifically to see the cabins and they're still there!

Throughout this, we were also taking Auto, Electrical & Machine Shop classes. The Arts & Sciences kids were taking Music, Languages, Drama and some other things we weren't interested in. I've never regretted the path I took. I'm not so sure about the A&S guys. Back then the only thing they said in their defence was that the chicks were much better in their classes ... which was true. I doubt any of the above would happen today (except the part about the girls).
 
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Teachers absolutely deserve a hell a lot more pay for what they have to endure.

‘helluva lot more’? Is that double? Triple? Are you prepared to put your money where your mouth is and pay twice (maybe three times) as much in school taxes to ‘make that happen’? I was married to a teacher for 15 years, my girlfriend is a teacher, I know exactly the ungodly horseshit they have to deal with but guess what:

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When you factor in the perks they get that many in the private sector no longer get (great benefits for life, pensions, job security), they’re doing better than the average Joe.
 
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But as we all agree it’s a joke... nothing changes!!
 
When Jimmy Carter federalized the department of education, you saw the final phase of the beginning of the end. Unions became political action committees for the left and the classroom became voter/social training grounds. Actual education became secondary, but your kids can have great self esteem as they experiment becoming one of the 157 different genders that are taught as reality. Teachers and the department of education are the largest threat to America.
Next time I have a argument or statement to make.. I’m gunna have you say it for me..
 
We have a family "friend" that is a teacher. She lets us know on a regular basis how bad the kids are today.

What she doesn't know is that my wife is a supervisor in a call center and has run into at least a few of that teacher's former students. They have let us know how rare it was to see her set down her coffee and actually stand up and teach something but she is pretty good at passing out tests.

She also likes to explain to anyone how important it is to have a union. Once I said something about remembering when I was very young all those old teachers that were missing a finger, a thumb, or sometimes an eye from working so hard in the classroom, that didn't go over well.
 
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‘helluva lot more’? Is that double? Triple? Are you prepared to put your money where your mouth is and pay twice (maybe three times) as much in school taxes to ‘make that happen’? I was married to a teacher for 15 years, my girlfriend is a teacher, I know exactly the ungodly horseshit they have to deal with but guess what:

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When you factor in the perks they get that many in the private sector no longer get (great benefits for life, pensions, job security), they’re doing better than the average Joe.
No doubt they make a decent living and are paid well. The problem is the teacher (good or bad) is in fact in no position to educate your children.. their hands are tied from their supervisors and the kids don’t listen and the parents don’t side with teachers cause their kid is perfect.. I’m not defending teachers I’m trying to defend the children that will be taking care of us when we are old and looking for assistance and they can’t hold a job cause the liberal system taught them to not let the man keep you down!.. So they quit jobs often and don’t know how to get around without a phone.
 
I sat around Thursday with my brother in law and we started discussing how middle and high school just doesn’t seem very helpful anymore.. when we were in school we had auto mechanics, welding, construction, home ec. Just to name a few and it seemed as the school system was trying to help kids be prepared for the future. Now all or most of the trade classes are replaced with videography and whatever which is fine but what happen to trying to being diverse and helping several children. They aren’t even learning cursive anymore, how are you suppose to sign a document. Shouldn’t they learn how to save money and learn how to use a credit card correctly?? I feel the system is all about forcing a curriculum down their throats and the teachers making sure the kids get a good grade so they can keep their jobs, idk.. I just feel something has gone wrong with the schools both at HS level as well as the college level. So I wondered if anyone else feels this way or you think it’s gotten better?

Well, part of that is just changing with the times. Learning how to code is a lot more relevant for many kids now than working on cars, which themselves are less and less mechanical machines than they are computers as the days go by.

But even then, I don't think this is necessarily a new situation. Some of this just depends on which high school you go to. I mean, my high school had one shop class and there was next to nothing for teaching any trades there.

Also, there's some major gaps that have been in public schools for a long time in terms of preparing kids to become adults. Basic finance management, such as understanding budgeting, understanding what it really means to accrue debt and such are major things that are often hardly touched on if at all in many schools.

A lot of this kind of stuff is ideally what parents will take care of, but there's a lot of kids with shit parents or parents that are in situations too terrible to be able to handle basic stuff. And if we ever want to give those kids a chance to be better off than their parents, schools will need to do a bit more
 
Teachers absolutely deserve a hell a lot more pay for what they have to endure. Not only from the school system but from the kids themselves.. Teachers aren’t able to do anything anymore and the kids know that, and the kids watch to much tv so they think”. If they teacher messes with me, I’ll sue”..

We have a family "friend" that is a teacher. She lets us know on a regular basis how bad the kids are today.

What she doesn't know is that my wife is a supervisor in a call center and has run into at least a few of that teacher's former students. They have let us know how rare it was to see her set down her coffee and actually stand up and teach something but she is pretty good at passing out tests.

She also likes to explain to anyone how important it is to have a union. Once I said something about remembering when I was very young all those old teachers that were missing a finger, a thumb, or sometimes an eye from working so hard in the classroom, that didn't go over well.

The situation with teachers is really broken. On one hand, they don't earn shit and they're often hamstrung in what and how they can teach because of bureaucracy and weight of standardized tests. On the other hand, a lot of existing teachers are incredibly jaded, but will never be replaced since their tenure gives them massive protection from being fired or even penalized for doing a bad job.

My aunt is one of those very jaded teachers. She taught her entire adult life and before she retired, all she would ever say about her job is how much she hated the kids and how terrible everything was. It's clear she should have moved on to something else a loooooong time ago, because regardless of how good/bad those kids were, she was doing them no favors by being there.

It's really no wonder that so many young, passionate people who have a love for teaching quickly change career paths once they see what being a teacher is really like these days.

If we want to see anything cleaned up, we need to have teacher pay increased substantially to bring in new talent while also taking away some of the protections that keep many bad teachers stuck in a job where they don't belong. And that will be tough because you have unions stuck in the middle of all of that, which is an entirely dicey subject, even by itself.
 
what did we do wrong?
Nothing. Standard nature versus nurture confusion. In most every family with multiple kids, there is one that excels and one that should live in the woodshed lest he bring any more disgrace to the family. Both were typically raised the same way with the same rules and attention by the same parents. Why didn't they both respond the same? They didn't because you don't have as much to do with how they turn out as you'd like to think. Or put another way, if you claim responsibility for how the good one turned out, you also have to claim responsibility for the bad one.

At the end of the day, they are going to be who they are with very little input from you. In my case, there were a few small bits that had the greatest impact on who I became and that didn't come from my parents. When I was starting in construction a single sentence from my uncle altered all that I do and would do for the rest of my life.

I was watching a framer sink 16p nails with one hit of his framing hammer and commented that I was impressed. My uncle said the guy was wasting his abilities since that was all he knew how to do. He went on to say that anyone can use their brain to learn how to do anything well and the only limit is your want to.

I applied that. Last week, we cut in some coil over hoops, plumbed in some landscape drain work, finished up some waterproof deck coating, finished building some hand rail on the deck, patched in a section on the flat roof since the roofer can't get here, hung some drywall, taped it off so it could be textured, finished the framing on the mud porch, set the windows, hung the siding, trimmed it out, shot some elevations so the floor leveler can figure a quantity of leveler, and started the painting. It is effortless for me to move back and forth between the things I need to get done because of that one little sentence.
 
Nothing. Standard nature versus nurture confusion. In most every family with multiple kids, there is one that excels and one that should live in the woodshed lest he bring any more disgrace to the family. Both were typically raised the same way with the same rules and attention by the same parents. Why didn't they both respond the same? They didn't because you don't have as much to do with how they turn out as you'd like to think. Or put another way, if you claim responsibility for how the good one turned out, you also have to claim responsibility for the bad one.

At the end of the day, they are going to be who they are with very little input from you. In my case, there were a few small bits that had the greatest impact on who I became and that didn't come from my parents. When I was starting in construction a single sentence from my uncle altered all that I do and would do for the rest of my life.

I was watching a framer sink 16p nails with one hit of his framing hammer and commented that I was impressed. My uncle said the guy was wasting his abilities since that was all he knew how to do. He went on to say that anyone can use their brain to learn how to do anything well and the only limit is your want to.

I applied that. Last week, we cut in some coil over hoops, plumbed in some landscape drain work, finished up some waterproof deck coating, finished building some hand rail on the deck, patched in a section on the flat roof since the roofer can't get here, hung some drywall, taped it off so it could be textured, finished the framing on the mud porch, set the windows, hung the siding, trimmed it out, shot some elevations so the floor leveler can figure a quantity of leveler, and started the painting. It is effortless for me to move back and forth between the things I need to get done because of that one little sentence.
Nicely stated.. I differ in parents not being able to have influence, I think they are so wore out raising first kid they may have gotten lackadaisical with the 2nd child..I fall into that situation.. my 2nd boy has a lot more freedom and a lot less disapline from my wife and I. but the best point is having a GOOD role model..not Luke on YouTube!!
 
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Didn’t read the whole thread, but my opinion has always been there needs to be more routes for high school kids than just normal high school -> college curriculum.

I study math in college, so the advanced math and physics courses in high school were useful to me. But the guy sitting next to me in physics who wanted to be a diesel mechanic had no use being there. Unfortunately it is very expensive to allow different paths since you need at least double the classrooms and teachers if you really want to specialize. They just huck everyone into the same classes because of that.

It is also important to remember that most high school kids just don’t give a damn. I’m only a few years out of high school, so I remember how little most people cared. If I was a professional in education, I would find it very hard to stay motivated since most high school students simply don’t care no matter how much effort you put in. Parents need to place more value on education before anything changes. I find it hard to blame the education system when so many kids place 0 value on school. You can’t help that very much.
 
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Nicely stated.. I differ in parents not being able to have influence, I think they are so wore out raising first kid they may have gotten lackadaisical with the 2nd child..I fall into that situation.. my 2nd boy has a lot more freedom and a lot less disapline from my wife and I. but the best point is having a GOOD role model..not Luke on YouTube!!
My points were general. Every single thing I stated can be refuted by some specific example, but in general, they hold more true than not. I had no role models. My parents were alcoholics, I babysat my 4 siblings from the time I was in 5th grade until I left when they got divorced. Babysat was loosely defined as caring for them from the time we got home from school until my parents got home from the bars. My stepdad was a shithead, my mom couldn't have cared less, I refused to live with my dad so I got shipped off to CA. I was essentially rudderless until I started working for my uncle after driving out to CA. I was one of those, "when you turn 18, you're outta here" kids. Nothing was done to prepare me for that eventuality that both parents did. I was living with mom and stepdad, turned 18 and my shit was on the front lawn. Gathered it up, went and lived with dad, a few weeks later, my shit was on the front lawn again.
 
My points were general. Every single thing I stated can be refuted by some specific example, but in general, they hold more true than not. I had no role models. My parents were alcoholics, I babysat my 4 siblings from the time I was in 5th grade until I left when they got divorced. Babysat was loosely defined as caring for them from the time we got home from school until my parents got home from the bars. My stepdad was a shithead, my mom couldn't have cared less, I refused to live with my dad so I got shipped off to CA. I was essentially rudderless until I started working for my uncle after driving out to CA. I was one of those, "when you turn 18, you're outta here" kids. Nothing was done to prepare me for that eventuality that both parents did. I was living with mom and stepdad, turned 18 and my shit was on the front lawn. Gathered it up, went and lived with dad, a few weeks later, my shit was on the front lawn again.
Sorry for your misfortunes.. I may have misread but I thought u said your uncle said something that stuck with you.. (i don’t have my readers with me)I felt as that may have been a role model experience.. you are correct most of what u said can be disputed but most of what u said is exactly right!
 
The situation with teachers is really broken. On one hand, they don't earn shit

I always hear that but honestly it’s not what I see on the street level. Teachers in these parts start in the 50s & go up & over 100 depending on their level of education & time in with the district. Plus, free or nearly free healthcare both during their working years and after retirement, pensions the district contributes to, tenure which makes their job more secure than any job I’ve ever had/will ever have, and 12 weeks vacation which I’ll only get when I retire or croak, whichever comes first.

I think there was a time (before the Unions put a stranglehold on every municipality in the nation) AND the private economy offered much higher average wages than it does now along with pensions and job security that one could credibly make the argument that teachers (& other public servants) got the short end of the stick. But that was then, this is now & the pendulum has swung hard in the other direction to the point where government jobs are at least as (if not more) attractive than many of those in the private sector. We seem to keep making dated arguments about how awful teachers get paid and I just don’t see it as true anymore, at least relative to the rest of us.

Grab any group of 100 people & I bet 99 of them would say they’re underpaid and underappreciated for the amount of work they do & horseshit they deal with, teachers by no means have a monopoly on that gripe.

Keep in mind this is just my observation in this region, I'd imagine it's better or worse for some teachers elsewhere. By the way, I completely agree with the balance of your statement.
 
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Sorry for your misfortunes.. I may have misread but I thought u said your uncle said something that stuck with you.. (i don’t have my readers with me)I felt as that may have been a role model experience.. you are correct most of what u said can be disputed but most of what u said is exactly right!
My uncle said one thing that stuck with me. A role model however, he was not. No need to be sorry for my upbringing, I survived it and was the better for it. My siblings on the other hand, did not.
 
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We had welding and wood shop in middle school and high school. I really enjoyed them, I do remember at the time though the classes were relatively small. So I can only imagine the desire was starting to wane then from then on. I remember in elementary school we had "micro society". Everyone had a role (bankers, mayor, clerks, etc...). We had fake money and checkbooks. The goal was to learn how to utilize them and make a living. Looking back that was a great teaching moment.
 
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We had welding and wood shop in middle school and high school. I really enjoyed them, I do remember at the time though the classes were relatively small. So I can only imagine the desire was starting to wane then from then on. I remember in elementary school we had "micro society". Everyone had a role (bankers, mayor, clerks, etc...). We had fake money and checkbooks. The goal was to learn how to utilize them and make a living. Looking back that was a great teaching moment.
We had an algebra teacher who divided the class up into 5 countries. The goal was to teach how to negotiate and make treaties, exchange monies at different rates, resolve conflict, move goods over borders, etc. About 30 minutes in on the first day, we figured it all out, agreed to five blanket treaties that essentially got rid of the borders, stabilized the currencies, and set up a zero conflict zone for everything. He tried not to show his disgust over our lack of aggression. The other classes doing the same thing were in all out wars. I don't know if we were smart or just lazy.
 
We had welding and wood shop in middle school and high school. I really enjoyed them, I do remember at the time though the classes were relatively small. So I can only imagine the desire was starting to wane then from then on. I remember in elementary school we had "micro society". Everyone had a role (bankers, mayor, clerks, etc...). We had fake money and checkbooks. The goal was to learn how to utilize them and make a living. Looking back that was a great teaching moment.
I do agree maybe shop and welding aren’t the best examples of trades they should have kept in the schools but teaching them to be video designers so they can be a YouTube star isn’t the answer either😂
 
When I graduated high school in 2013 my school only had Wood shop and I was great at it. They had a auto shop way before I was there. It was a book store for the 4 years I went. I really wish they did have an auto trade. At least kids can know how to check oil, tire pressure etc.Maybe I would have went to college sooner if they did. I had no idea what I wanted to be all I knew was school work. My college now brings middle school students onto campus and they learn all the different trades and degrees. The Auto tech facility teaches the students how to remove a tire, check pressure and oil. I think it’s good for kids to start learning something early by the time there 18 they know what path to follow.