Quote:
Originally Posted by xenigo
If you look at economic inequality, at it's core, has everything to do with our education system. And beyond that, it's parents that can't and won't put a support system in place that fosters free thinking, innovation, and success. They were brought up to think they can't succeed, etc. and that parenting philosophy is propagated perpetually. Generation after generation of idiots, pessimists, assholes, and "I can't, and you can't either".
Parenting is at the core of economic inequality. Perhaps corporate cronyism and bailouts represent a minuscule subset of economic inequality, but by no means are those issues affecting the country like parents who shouldn't be parents and our education system.
If these OWS protesters want to do something real productive, why don't they lobby to have the teacher's unions eliminated? Right now teachers put kids through the system like DMV workers processing car registrations. No accountability, and little motivation to really make an impact and go above and beyond because they're protected by the union.
I really think OWS is barking up the wrong tree with their inequality agenda. Doesn't seem like they've given it enough thought, because even if you eliminate government handouts... it still doesn't put everyone on an even keel of economic opportunity. As long as you have a small minority of parents that support their children's success... and the majority of parents continue not to... you'll always have a system that is fundamentally economically unequal.
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To simply hand the educational problems of this country off onto the teacher's union is a very short sighted take on what is wrong. Sure, there are bad teachers who are protected by the unions, but most of them are simply doing what they are told to do. Most schools now get paid based on test scores and how many kids they graduate. This means most teachers are now just trying to teach the kids how to score well on the test and herd them through like cattle. Nobody is held back or fails. When my nephew was in 8th grade he had a total of 6 classes per semester for a total of 18 classes his 8th grade year. He fail 15 of them. He only passed PE. They still sent him on to high school. My brother was told by the school that they will not hold anyone back without express directions from the parents. In high school he failed almost all of his classes his freshman year, about half his classes his sophomore, half his classes his junior year and then was finally expelled about three months into his senior year. Still, he was given 6 different "packets" that he could do for different classes and if he did the work in them and turned them in on time he could still graduate. So basically his mom and girlfriend did most of the work for him, he turned them in and graduated. It is sad because he is basically illiterate and yet has a high school diploma. In his case the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of his mom and grandma who never disciplined him and always just did his homework for him and he is going to have a hell of a difficult time succeeding in life now.
When it comes down to his case it a shortcoming in parenting, not union teachers that were the problem. Also, the system in general is now built in such a way that those kids who don't work hard or have a decent parental system behind them do have trouble succeeding. Add in the extreme costs increases of the educational system and now we have an entire generation that will see its college graduates leave school with a degree to enter the job market that are $50-$100K in debt so the deck is already stacked against them.
There are many other issues as well, but I think if we are going to maintain a strong middle class in this country we need to see a restructuring of the educational system and we needed to greatly lower the cost of getting a college a degree. If costs continue to rise we will see fewer and fewer people go that route at a time when we need more and more people heading into fields that need degrees.