The high consequences — for everyone — of failing high school
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The proud, soon-to-be graduates of Atlanta’s Grady High School filed into commencement dressed in school colors —- the boys in red caps and gowns, the girls wearing white.
But as the students mounted the stage and turned beaming smiles toward the audience, something about the color scheme seemed out of balance. Then I realized —- those graduates dressed in white far outnumbered those wearing red.
Somewhere along the line between kindergarten and this moment, a lot of boys had disappeared from the graduating class. They were out there somewhere, on street corners, in dead-end jobs, a few maybe already in jail or prison. But they weren’t up on stage, accepting the diploma that would be their ticket to decent jobs or college.
The numbers back up that impression. According to a new report on urban school systems, the graduation rate in Atlanta public schools is only 44.4 percent.
Believe it or not, that’s the good news. Between 1995 and 2005, according to “Closing the Graduation Gap,” the graduation rate in Atlanta schools improved by 10.8 percentage points.
And given the demographics of Atlanta public schools, a disproportionate number of those who do not graduate are black males.
It is fashionable these days to trash public education, to claim that the system is far inferior to what it was in generations past. I don’t buy it. In many ways, the education offered to students today in public school is more ambitious and rigorous than that of a generation or two ago. The number of dropouts among persons aged 16-24 has dropped as well, falling by at least half among both black and white Americans between 1972 and 2006.
What changed over that time was not the quality of schools but the consequence of failure, both for individuals and for the nation as a whole. In today’s technology-driven economy, kids who drop out of school can no longer find work that will sustain them, and they certainly can’t find work that will allow them to raise a family.
And because human biology hasn’t changed and won’t change, they have children anyway, perpetuating what has become a stubborn cycle.
How do we break it? Well, we place a lot of non-education burdens on the classroom, but it remains the place where the greatest impact can be made. And the earlier the better.
For example, I suspect that if you walked into a second-grade classroom and asked the teacher to predict which of the students would graduate in another 10 years and which would fall by the wayside, he or she could do so with a dismaying degree of accuracy. By that point, the learning, attention and discipline problems that derail an education have become pretty apparent.
Hiring “graduation coaches” at the high school level, as Georgia does, can’t fix it. By then it’s too late. In fact, according to the urban school report (funded in part by the Gates Foundation), the largest number lost in the Atlanta system disappear in ninth grade.
Earlier identification of at-risk students, and earlier intervention, will pay dividends across the board.
It’s more difficult to address —- and frankly more difficult to discuss —- what you might call the cultural aspect of the problem. Media-imposed expectations of how kids ought to act, look and dress are a challenge for all parents, but by all accounts they’re particularly pervasive, and particularly dangerous, for black males.
Even middle-class, well-educated parents of black sons live in fear of losing their children to expectations of what it means to be a black male in today’s society. Educational attainment isn’t part of that expectation, and that can only be changed slowly.
Conceivably, the presence of a black man in the White House can be part of that change. And as an outsider, maybe I’ve got this wrong, but I see signs that black America is insisting on new expectations as well. The films of Tyler Perry, for example, offer black Americans an alternative narrative about themselves that is clearly appealing, given the box-office numbers.
Critics dismiss Perry’s family-oriented, church-centered films as simplistic, and at one level they’re right. But they are no more simplistic than Hollywood films and rap songs that glamorize the thug life. Adding sex and violence to a film does not make it more authentic; it merely makes it simplistic in another way.
Perry, by the way, was himself a high school dropout. But he went back and earned his GED, preferring to become a success, not merely a statistic.
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© 2009 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
188 comments Add your comment
I Report/ You Whine
April 23rd, 2009
6:46 am
Critics dismiss Perry’s family-oriented, church-centered films as simplistic, and at one level they’re right.
What sort of education do you need to receive welfare or an Obozo “tax cut?”
Why would you want to strive for a career in business when liberals have demonized business?
How many community organizer jobs are there?
When we get away from socialism, get back to an era of personal responsibility, maybe we can fix our education system. Until then, it’s nothing but a brainwashing camp.
DB, Gwinnettian
April 23rd, 2009
6:59 am
get back to an era of personal responsibility
You can’t “get back” to something that only existed in the diseased collective consciousness of America’s right wing.
I Report/ You Whine
April 23rd, 2009
7:13 am
You can’t “get back” to something that only existed in the diseased collective consciousness of America’s right wing.
Yeah, Benjamin Franklin was a ward of state.
John F Kennedy put it best, Don’t ask what you can do for your country, ask what your country can do for you, bwa.
Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t Teddy Roosevelt a welfare recipient?
You libs want this country to be a pathological basket case and you have the nerve to whine about it’s failures?
You dangled the carrot and the black male population took your bait.
You own it.
Mrs. Godzilla
April 23rd, 2009
7:28 am
My folks never owned a home, they spent every dime they had sending 7 kids to the best schools they could manage. The BVM’s and SoJ’s that taught us gave us so much more than the three R’s. They gave us a lifetime desire to learn.
I don’t know how to fix the current problems with our education system, but we will never catch up with the rest of the industrialized nations
until we do.
DB, Gwinnettian
April 23rd, 2009
7:30 am
Andy’s notion of “personal responsibility” = pass the buck.
In the dead thread:
An attack that was planned when Klintoon was president and our intelligence agencies were hamstrung by the “wall” in between the FBI and CIA put up by his attorney general’s office.
Tell me more about your era of personal responsibility, you whining little hypocrite. When’s that going to happen again?
RW-(the original)
April 23rd, 2009
7:31 am
Does the fact that the Grady High School graduation ceremonies don’t take place until May 27th have anything to do with this story on April 23rd?
Mushrooms Jay B?
Now interestingly you say that an early identification program will help out, but you also say every run of the mill second grade teacher can already do that identification so I’m not quite sure what you’re proposing here unless you’re asking the teachers to do their job and speak up.
Frankly I don’t think the Obama message is going to be too helpful. If you recall his message it’s that he did a bunch of drugs in high school and didn’t pay much attention. Why do I not think most kids can follow that model and end up as President?
In any case, it’s another early day in the forest. Obama’s new “stimulus” plan has some very strange programs, but I may as well profit from them since he’s going to spend our money senselessly no matter what.
DB, Gwinnettian
April 23rd, 2009
7:33 am
Oh yeah. Speaking of faux “Personal responsibility” — some months back, while at the county’s Justice Center, I had a bit of time to kill during a break from jury duty.
I ambled over to a tasteful memorial to soldiers, county residents, who’d given their lives in various conflicts during America’s history. Working my way back, I got to the list from the Civil War. Only it wasn’t called the “Civil War” — it was referred to as “The War Between the States.”
huh? I checked to see when this monument went up. The ’50s, I thought maybe? ’60s?
Nope.
2003.
Likely as not the people who signed off on this bit of revisionist history are still feeding at the public trough today.
Which is to say, we have elected officials who still can’t cope with the burden of responsibility to call it like it is, or it was. We still have elected officials who think it was “The War Between the States”, and not what every responsible historian, and our own nation, calls it—the American Civil War.
Tell me again about your side’s notion of “Personal Responsibility,” Andy.
DB, Gwinnettian
April 23rd, 2009
7:37 am
RW, yeah, I’m a little confused about the timing too–but Jay does write “soon-to-be graduates”. Not sure what this “commencement” is commencing.
Still, I think postulating that the cognitive dissonance we’re experience is the result of doing ’shrooms might be a tad harsh.
George American
April 23rd, 2009
7:38 am
I Report/ You Whine is right.
The problem is welfare, the liberals and the government handouts to a bunch of lazy government moochers. And our African-American president will make this worst through socialism and communism.
DB, Gwinnettian
April 23rd, 2009
7:39 am
we’re experiencing
(I was an at-risk second grader, what can I say…)
Mrs. Godzilla
April 23rd, 2009
7:44 am
RW
How disingenuous this statement is: “If you recall his message it’s that he did a bunch of drugs in high school and didn’t pay much attention.”
That’s a huge steaming pile of nonsense. Your personal feelings about our President are clouding your judgement.
I know you are smart enough to know that admitting bad behavior in school is not suggesting that others do likewise. I also know that you
are partisan enough spin it like a top.
jt
April 23rd, 2009
7:45 am
I was always taught it was the War of Northern Agression. Of course I never went to a public school.
HaHa
April 23rd, 2009
7:46 am
I’m amazed, no one has yet proposed spending more money for the ATL public school. They currently spend $12,473 per student in the city. What happened to throwing more money at the problem mantra of the libs. Let’s call a spade a spade, unless you libs want to forcibly remove the black males from their current “homes” and adopt them as foster children and raise them yourselves into nice little liberals, the cycle of the welfare state for the black male will continue.
Bud Wiser
April 23rd, 2009
7:47 am
“Earlier identification of at-risk students, and earlier intervention, will pay dividends across the board… – gosh, now how in the world are the teachers, or the GED-ambitious mothers (dad is missing, of course) going to do that? Do you suppose the baggy pants down to the knees, sideways or backwards ball caps, or gang member tattoos could help in this ‘identification’?
Oh no, can’t do that. Your precious ACLU would be there faster than white on rice with lawyers aplenty to defend the poor, disadvantaged, stereotyped students, who have been illegally ‘profiled.’
What now, then? Uniform codes and dress codes for public schools?
Darn, here comes the ACLU again.
Search lockers, metal detectors, and drug sniffing dogs at schools? Isn’t that done already? Crimeny, can’t the ACLU go to Texas and find some Mexicans to play with?
Oh, when the house dog starts biting the master, it’s “Atlanta(sic), we have a problem.”
md
April 23rd, 2009
7:47 am
“Spread the wealth”
A reward for choosing to not finish school.
Please explain to me why a person that Chooses (everything we do is a choice) to go to school for 20+ years and incur all the associated debt (that never gets shared) has to share what he/she has earned with a person that Chooses to drop out of a “free” education system.
There is no logical explaination, yet I wait with baited breath for many here to find the excuses that allows them to justify it.
Results, not excuses.
Mrs. Godzilla
April 23rd, 2009
7:51 am
Socialism and Communism…..puhlease find a new horse to beat.
Those words only scare the already timid and frightened.
BDAtlanta
April 23rd, 2009
7:53 am
get back to an era of personal responsibility
Back to a time when the “C” and “D” students ran the show and the show was us and the show was run into the rocks on the shoreline in broad daylight? Americans woke up and figured out we need some intelligent people leading the country.
Obviously one party is flailing and lost without a single clue. You need to learn some survival skills. The right people are leading this country in the proper direction now and you can lend a hand or step aside, your choice.
DB, Gwinnettian
April 23rd, 2009
7:55 am
I wait with baited breath
Baiting is what you do here, true. But the word you wanted was “bated.”
jt
April 23rd, 2009
7:56 am
I believe that a high school drop out is denied a driver’s liscense until age 18. That sure helps a drop-out get a job. Formal education is not everyone’s cup of tea. Especially what passes for “education” now. If a school is dangerous, I would recommend any student to quit immediantly, get your GED, and then enroll in a two year college.
jt
April 23rd, 2009
7:58 am
or trade school.
BDAtlanta
April 23rd, 2009
7:59 am
Ever notice Boortz is always going on about how bad public schools are? If someone does something really stupid, his reply is always “There’s a public schools graduate for ya.”
But if you consider what types of schools many of those running the banks and other major institutions went to I bet you will find a majority went to private schools. Same with our congressional members.
Now we’re in a huge economic mess. Hmmm, public schools are bad? Maybe it’s more about the person coming out of a school and not so much about where there person went.
TUESDAY VANDY GIRL
April 23rd, 2009
7:59 am
The urban liefstyle is indeed inferior, as pointed out by the graduation rate and crime and prison statistics, but thats all due to evil white people keeping the black man down, I think…right Jay?
Tuesday “whitey” D.
DB, Gwinnettian
April 23rd, 2009
8:01 am
I was always taught it was the War of Northern Agression.
And in his memoirs, Gen. Grant simply referred to it as “The Rebellian,” which IMHO would be the most accurate label for the conflict our nation experienced between 1861-1865.
However, we’ve settled on “The American Civil War” for generations now, and it speaks volumes about those Southern dead-enders who can’t bring themselves to meet the North halfway on this.
jt
April 23rd, 2009
8:02 am
Also kids are easily influenced. It doesn’t help matters to constantly beret kids about dropping-out. Sure, encourage them to stay in but now some kids are impregnated with the thought of failure for dropping out.
This just isn’t always the case.
TUESDAY VANDY GIRL
April 23rd, 2009
8:02 am
Also I think Mrs. Godzilla is not scared by words like socialism and communism because she believes in them, and in the wrong headed notion that simply for existing, she is special, and it is everyones duty to make sure she gets her basic needs taken care of regardless of her ability to produce them herself or not.
George American
April 23rd, 2009
8:04 am
…call a spade a spade: Socialism and Communism (a.k.a. welfare and government schools).
DB, Gwinnettian
April 23rd, 2009
8:04 am
Ever notice Boortz is always going on about how bad public schools are?
It makes his listeners feel smugly superior. Not necessarily about thier own backgrounds–given that 90% of students at any given time are actually attending public, rather than private school, statistics would indicate that most of his listeners did attend public schools.
But they feel good about taking pot shots at teachers, students, and public funding of same. Gotta tear someone down, right? Might as well be an easy target like public schools.
And what about them UNIONAHHHZED TEECHURS, huh?
md
April 23rd, 2009
8:04 am
So your argument is my grammar is incorrect?
What about the question?
Why is the Democratic party an enabler?
Do you believe in providing alchohol to alchoholics? Drugs to druggies?
Why money to the lazy?
Why would anyone NOT want to be lazy if they are to be rewarded for it?
jt
April 23rd, 2009
8:04 am
BD-”Ever notice Boortz is always going on about how bad public schools are? If someone does something really stupid, his reply is always “There’s a public schools graduate for ya”
No, he calls them “goverment schools”
He is also a hypocrit, because his kid went to public school.
DB, Gwinnettian
April 23rd, 2009
8:05 am
It doesn’t help matters to constantly beret kids about dropping-out.
Because that’s, like, so French.
(sorry.)
jt
April 23rd, 2009
8:05 am
DB- “dead-enders”
that hurt.
Taxpayer
April 23rd, 2009
8:06 am
Impregnation is another reason why some of the female school population drop out.
TUESDAY VANDY GIRL
April 23rd, 2009
8:07 am
DB, UNIONAHHHZED TEECHURS is probably the way half the members of the NEA and AFT would actually spell it..thanks for pointing that out:)
BDAtlanta
April 23rd, 2009
8:08 am
dad is missing, of course
Bud, that is so 80’s of you to think. Out of curiosity, did you know that before the Clinton-era welfare reforms were enacted, a single mother’s ability to get welfare money was in part based on the absence of a father in the household?
I’m in no way an expert in this topic so anyone that knows more about the history and the reforms please tell me if I’m wrong. But, as I understand it, the system rewarded the poor MORE if the father was absent which led alot of fathers to stay away from the house lest someone see him hanging around which would lower the amount of the checks coming in to the mother.
That’s kind of screwy isn’t it?
Bud Wiser
April 23rd, 2009
8:08 am
You know BD, I rarely agree with you, but I must say that your 7:59 is pretty much zoned-in accurate.
But please, please don’t say now something like “we really need to put so much more money into our inner cities to uplift these people from their poverty, for they are not responsible for their conditions being as they are, they are not responsible for a 70%+ out-of-wedlock multiple birth rate, they are not responsible for the rampant drug use in their neighborhoods, the gang violence, the non-cooperation with police on anything, their own failures in everything straight across the board, please don’t say that money would instantly solve all their problems.
Democrats tossing money into the ghettos is their own salve to soothe what they do not want to cure.
Mrs. Godzilla
April 23rd, 2009
8:09 am
Tuesday Vandy Girl,
You may think what you like. Me too. I think you represent the dregs of humanity. And are doing a damn fine job of it too!
jt
April 23rd, 2009
8:12 am
berate! okay, sheeesh
Taxpayer
April 23rd, 2009
8:15 am
Mrs. G,
Tuesday is doing a fine job of presenting who she is.
DB, Gwinnettian
April 23rd, 2009
8:18 am
that hurt.
Wasn’t intended to be hurled at you jt, but, whatever.
Thing is, what we call stuff, matters. When I decide I’ll rile up the half-dozen or so regulars of a conservative bent by saying “you wingnuts”, I’m making a specific choice to be inflammatory. Ditto for another guy saying “you libs.” Ditto for refusing to accept common nomenclature for a horrific conflict.
By inscribing “War Between the States” in granite, those (yes) dead-enders are saying “Fergit, hell!”
And with that, I must bid adoooooo.
jt
April 23rd, 2009
8:19 am
“Bud, that is so 80’s of you to think. Out of curiosity, did you know that before the Clinton-era welfare reforms were enacted, a single mother’s ability to get welfare money was in part based on the absence of a father in the household?”
Nothing has changed, except after the “reform” it cost us all much more money. Typical.
jt
April 23rd, 2009
8:20 am
Especially after the Federal Goverment got involved in the “child support” business. Started under a republican.
Mrs. Godzilla
April 23rd, 2009
8:22 am
Taxpayer
Thanks…I know.
BDAtlanta
April 23rd, 2009
8:22 am
Oh, a Frenchman is saying we shouldn’t follow the torture memos down the rabbit hole to indictments.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/opinion/23iht-edcohen.html?_r=1
Conservative heads explode everywhere.
Oh, but he does add a bit about the recent changes in our leadership:
It was one of those moments when you realize just how scary Obama must be to America’s jihadist enemies. Knowing Islam across the dinner table, he has no fear of it. His predecessor, in Facebook terms, went on a spree of de-friending that made terrorist recruitment easier. Now the tables have been turned.
The U.S. has emerged from eight years of dyslexia.
Cherokee
April 23rd, 2009
8:26 am
Seems like just a few days ago Jay had a post about the wingnuts’ misuse of “communist” and “socialist” – resulting in the words having no meaning. Now I’ve started to see them call Obama a socialist and a fascist in the same sentence. Huh????
silly wingnuts…
TnGelding
April 23rd, 2009
8:32 am
I Report/ You Whine
April 23rd, 2009
6:46 am
You’re really a great patriot! If you don’t have anything good to say, then keep quiet!
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-07-14-obama-naacp_N.htm
RB from Gwinnett
April 23rd, 2009
8:36 am
As I’ve said on here before, it’s a shame the black community hasn’t had a leader moving them in a positive direction since MLK died. They’ve hung on to the militant side of MLK’s message and ignored the work required to achieve the goal they wanted. They now have the right to do anything their white counterparts can do, but they don’t have the education, or in many cases the work ethic, but still somehow expect the outcome to be the same.
They’ve rejected EVERY black man who has tried to lead them to prosperity. Bill Cosby is the best example. Until that changes, the result won’t change. And in the world of you PC liberals, you can’t even call this what it is. All the hand wringing about teachers and curriculums is as much a waste of time as the $5,000 more per student being wasted in the name of political correctness.
Maybe Jay would be willing to be the voice for the black community? Maybe take a leadership role and make a difference?
TnGelding
April 23rd, 2009
8:36 am
The 9th grade? Isn’t that about when puberty kicks in? That’s a new stat for me, but very revealing.
One thing that would improve the graduation rate is to offer classes starting in the afternoon or early evening. It’s legendary how hard it is to get teenagers up in the morning and off to school.
Susan Myers
April 23rd, 2009
8:37 am
Dropping out of a one-size-fits-all system is rational for the students that it doesn’t fit, and appropriate from society’s perspective until we change our school system to one that offers a menu of alternatives as diverse as our children and educators. Such a system of schools will contain an engaging schooling option that will work for almost everyone.
It benefits no one for a student to remain in an unengaging forum. It would be better to keep them in a school system with an alternative that works for them, but until we foster the development of such a school system, we’d better train drop-outs for the best work options available to them.
ByteMe
April 23rd, 2009
8:39 am
Cherokee, I’m waiting for them to finally fess up and say “Well, you know, he’s black” instead of wasting time on “socialist” and “fascist” and “marxist” (as though any of them had actually read and understood any Marx other than Groucho).
BDAtlanta
April 23rd, 2009
8:39 am
Bud, I haven’t a clue as to how to solve any inner city problems. I believe it’s a different beast that really can’t be solved.
Anyone recall the psychology/sociology experiment run back in the 60’s where the experimenters took normal-acting mice and moved them into a cage which they meaningfully over-crowded? After a number of days the whole social fabric fell apart as teh mice started acting abnormally.
Oh heck, here is the wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Calhoun
around 1963-1983
Anyway, crowded environments aren’t good for anyone. Much less frustrated, out of work, poor people.
TnGelding
April 23rd, 2009
8:41 am
I Report/ You Whine
April 23rd, 2009
7:13 am
We own it, and we’re going to take responsibility for it.
Join us as we finally cross that bridge to the 21st century or be left on the roadside.
Reality
April 23rd, 2009
8:45 am
Md, not having the ability to nuance is also lazy, or is it retarded?
ByteMe
April 23rd, 2009
8:46 am
RB: You’re onto something positive, but your terminology is lacking.
Think about it more this way: what shining examples can you think of for young Black minds to emulate when they look at themselves in the mirror? Cosby did a good job in the ’80’s putting the Black middle class experience on TV. What’s out there today for a 13-year-old Black male or female child as an example to follow? Can’t be Mom and Dad, since the numbers don’t bear out that Mom and Dad are even married or occupying the same home.
The problem is a cycle, it starts in the home, but the cycle negatively affects all of us in the long run (to Jay’s point), so what’s the right answer for the community as a whole (not just the Black community)? The right answer, by the way, also comes with lower taxes long term as we reduce the prison population and lower the unemployment and welfare costs.
TnGelding
April 23rd, 2009
8:48 am
The ultimate solution to our public education problem is to offer instruction over the Internet, which is already being done. It needs to be expanded, and rapidly.
We’re wasting too much money on infrastructure and transportation. Why spend $50 million for a building that will only be used 25% of the time and will cost millions more to operate and maintain? We’re spending $5 million to transport the students to school in this “poor” county.
Susan Myers
April 23rd, 2009
8:49 am
Bush/Cheney and Co. – The gift that keeps on giving.
U.S. Jobless Claims Jump More Than Expected
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30364714/
Corey
April 23rd, 2009
8:49 am
Here is something the mainstream media will not tell you. The Commander of the ship that rescued the captain from the pirates was a black female, rear admiral. But the media will flood your living room with images of blacks behaving badly until the cows come home.
ty webb
April 23rd, 2009
8:56 am
So when Bush was a called a nazi and a fascist by the left it was because he was. When Obama is called a socialist and a fascist(I don’t agree with the fascist label) it’s because the right is racist?
BDAtlanta
April 23rd, 2009
8:58 am
Ahh Spring!
I work in an office building with one wall that’s a window facing our 5th floor balcony. A female (I guess) Canadian goose and her four hatchlings (goslings?) have been walking back and forth, up and down the balcony all week. Another one spends most of the day with them too (I am assuming the father?)
I think they will be quite ok without human intervention but the dumbazz neighbors are putting water out and maybe feeding them.
Anyway, won’t be long till the farmers markets open!
Hmmm, think we’ll have goose for dinner tonight.
I Report/ You Whine
April 23rd, 2009
9:00 am
Join us as we finally cross that bridge to the 21st century or be left on the roadside.
TN- I’d like to get involved but I have found that hopeandchange.duh seems to be lacking any substance.
As usual, you libs know how to whine and our excellent at the personal destruction of your political opponents, but coming up with ideas of how to correct the problems this country faces, uh, not so much.
As evidence, I present you with 50 or so comments^^ totally lacking any useful content.
ty webb
April 23rd, 2009
9:01 am
Sorry Susan, if 9/11 happened under Bush’s watch, then any rise in unemployment since 1/20/09 happened under Obama’s. Or would that not be fair?
ByteMe
April 23rd, 2009
9:02 am
ty: so when Bush chose to ignore the laws Congress passed, treaties prior Presidents signed and Congress ratified, then he should be called… what? Mein Leader?
I don’t think “the right” is racist, but there are quite a few mental midgets professing “conservatism” who traffic in racism and “otherness” (about Muslims, about immigrants). Heck, read the blog comments here and over at Wooten and think about why Tucker’s attempts at blogging have all been met with racist rhetoric in the comment section.
Mrs. Godzilla
April 23rd, 2009
9:03 am
Corey….
Rear Admiral Michelle Howard
She’s the task force commander……very cool
read it here:
http://thenewagenda.net/?PHPSESSID=4646c5ec12aa03cec68690b01ac410a8&s=Michelle+Howard
Taxpayer
April 23rd, 2009
9:07 am
As evidence, I present you with 50 or so comments^^ totally lacking any useful content.
You have not posted THAT many times today, Andy. HAHAHAHA
AmVet
April 23rd, 2009
9:12 am
Just look at the level of writing here. Take a gander at the appalling lack of critical thinking skills. (Not be confused with being critical, me little drougies.) Notice how many people cannot neither formulate cogent ideas backed up with pertinent facts, data and evidence, nor express them without butchering their native tongue.
Sunspots, cow farts, xenophobia, paranoia.
Taking extremely complicated and complex concepts and parsing them down to tripe and pablum suitable for talk radio. Intentionally ignorant and willfully obstinate. These are the hallmarks of a certain under-educated segment of our society.
Misplaced values. Obsession with tard TV and vapid movies. Sound bites.
This IS modern day America.
AmVet
April 23rd, 2009
9:13 am
cannot neither…
Niice…
Corey
April 23rd, 2009
9:13 am
Thanks Mrs. Godzilla, but you do get the point that I was trying to make?
ty webb
April 23rd, 2009
9:13 am
Byte me,
My point is that neither side has a monopoly on idiocy. There are people on both sides that resort to petty name calling when they can’t debate the issues. I could point to just as many loonies on left wing blogs as you could on the right.
Bosch
April 23rd, 2009
9:15 am
While public or private schools have their pros and cons, I think one solution is to offer more “trade” opportunities in school and earlier than high school.
For one thing – kids in public school are tested to death.
DB wrote it earlier, but I too was an at risk 2nd grader – hell, I was an at risk high schooler. I hated standardized tests, and did very bad on them.
Some kids just do not learn the traditional ways or sitting in a desk and listening to a teacher and then asked to fill in a bunch of bubbles on a scan tron sheet.
It just sets them up to fail at an early age and they get discouraged and the system backs up their feelings of failure with a tangible measure.
Taxpayer
April 23rd, 2009
9:24 am
Bosch,
Some people seem to have become fixated on “proving” that schools are producing “results” through test scores rather than focusing on such things as methods that keep students interested in learning and on providing the best core curriculum, etc. The good test results should be a natural outcome from a good system — not a forced response.
Bosch
April 23rd, 2009
9:26 am
AmVet,
I think my post at 9:15 falls into your “some posters have trouble” as described @ 9:12.
I need more coffee.
Mrs. Godzilla
April 23rd, 2009
9:28 am
Corey…yes I do….and a great point it was to!
Kamchak
April 23rd, 2009
9:28 am
One of the first things that needs to be changed is the agrarian based schedule. Too much time is wasted at the beginning of each year reviewing old material. Parents, teachers, and students will probably go ballistic, but this needs to change.
BDAtlanta
April 23rd, 2009
9:29 am
The attitudes here toward working class, the poor and, by default, the wealthy is interesting. A society has to have its lawyers and doctors and business men, true enough. But it also has to have its street sweepers, its janitors, its short-order cooks, its toll-booth workers, its migrant workers, etc.
Why do we think the doctor and the lawyer work harder than these folks working these other jobs? Some of those folks work 2-3 jobs at a time. I’m not above this way of thinking myself, I would think more highly of the doctor or lawyer. But these people are a necessary part of the social fabric that allows us to go about our daily lives without constant traffic jams, backed up sewage systems, clean water to drink, and on and on.
I think this is where some European countries are much further ahead of us, they understand that not everyone can be a surgeon or even just go to college.
If a person is putting in a 20+ hour week, they are participating in our society. They are playing their role. Why shouldn’t they get health care and maybe some benefits like those who went to college? Isn’t the higher pay enough of a differentiator for the wealthy to keep their self-esteem sustained? For example, maybe at ease with everyone paying a little more in taxes so we can provide preventive health care to all of us?
BDAtlanta
April 23rd, 2009
9:30 am
Bosch:
Some here would say you’re an at-risk adult as well.
hehehe
Wyld Byll Hyltnyr
April 23rd, 2009
9:31 am
My family has a long and close association with several black Americans families running back all the way to before the War of Northern Aggression.
As I have recounted before in this blog, when I was a boy I had a black nanny (her name was “Annie Pearl” and I called her “Antie Pearlie”) and her children (Angelo and Truck) were my primary playmates. All my children had black nannies, too and they, also, were treated as family members. Why, we were so close, we often let our black families take home most of the leftovers after they were done serving Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter dinner. We would loan them money when they needed it and, all in all, we basically made sure these families were ok. Not only that, we would support their church by buying chicken dinners several time a year, and, when events demanded, we would give generously to the little church so that it could be painted, get a new roof, buy the pastor a used Cadillac, or it just needed money because they didn’t understand how to handle money.
Frankly, because of these same very close relationships we have had a front row seat from which to witness the degeneration of black America. First, the blacks are no longer church people the way they used to be. One of my favorite childhood memories is the way they used come to our country retreat and carol at Christmas time; nowhere is the decline of black culture more evident than in the move from gospel to rap music – that, in and of itself, about says it all. None of my grand children has had a black nanny because the black grandchildren don’t want to do that sort of work. Moreover, they don’t want to do any sort of work, they just ride around listening to that rap music with two or three little succkers under their arms. The boys are worse and their brand of degenerate living has even affected the older men. In recent years, because of the alcohol/drug problems along with a poor record of showing up to work, we have moved all of the hands at the farm to the Salvadorans because those people work a great deal harder and more productively than blacks. We have had to bring in teenage girls from Europe to be the nannies to our grandchildren – which was all bad if you know where Ol’ Wyld Byll is headed.
When you look at black culture and see the problems they have with school, alcohol/drug abuse, prison, unemployment, speaking the Queen’s English, and most of all about nine out of ten of their little succkers are born illegitimate it is a tremendous problem that has created a violent and degenerate permanent underclass for this country. Our family acted benevolently and tried to help black families for years, and just last week I loaned ol’ Walter (Antie Pearlie’s nephew) some money and gave him an old lawnmower and a coke, but the young ones just don’t want to work anymore.
I think that Cassius Clay was the start of the problem and the only solution is to get them back in church.
Bosch
April 23rd, 2009
9:32 am
Taxpayer,
The other Bosch just finished a week and a half of the CRCT – all the kids had trouble with that test – just staying focused on filling in the bubbles. Kids don’t learn that way anymore – I never did.
My only saving grace was my college advisor who showed me another way to learn and took me under his wing.
And you are EXACTLY right – because of NCLB schools are FORCED to succeed, no matter what. The problem is when schools who were already “successes” have no where to go up – and they have to “improve” in order for them to be considered a “success” and if that doesn’t happen, then they automatically go down and the principal and teachers get blamed – it’s absurd. And heaven forbid if the demographics of the school system changes, you have more language problems, and quite frankly that’s not the teacher’s fault.
Bosch
April 23rd, 2009
9:33 am
BDAtlanta,
That’s true – I think that myself alot of times
md
April 23rd, 2009
9:33 am
Corey,
“Here is something the mainstream media will not tell you. The Commander of the ship that rescued the captain from the pirates was a black female, rear admiral. But the media will flood your living room with images of blacks behaving badly until the cows come home.”
Thats a very good question considering the mainstream media is 90% tilted to the left. Care to venture as to why they would do that? Agenda, agenda, agenda.
The 2 parties look after themselves folks. They use all members. If the party actually wanted these people to succeed, how many of them would no longer vote for the Party? Its a vicious cycle.
ByteMe
April 23rd, 2009
9:34 am
ty: go Google “False Equivalence” and read a few of the entries to understand my thoughts on your point.
Hillbilly Deluxe
April 23rd, 2009
9:36 am
I’m the son of someone who never finished high school. His strictest rule is that we would all finish school. No if’s, ands, or buts about it. It wasn’t open to discussion. He left for work before we got up and often got home after we went to bed but if he was home his first question was always, “have you done your lessons for today?”.
It’s mind-boggling to me that the graduation rate isn’t at least 90%. It’s something I just can’t understand.
Several on here have mentioned that it’s a cycle. I don’t really know how you break it but we need to keep trying.
Bosch
April 23rd, 2009
9:36 am
BDAtlanta @ 9:29 –
I wished I’d written that. That’s so true – I wrote the other day – that in a capitalistic society, there will always be poor people. The “poor” are the lowest wage earners. And unfortunately, the lowest wage earners in our society can not afford to live on that alot of the times.
md
April 23rd, 2009
9:39 am
HD,
“Several on here have mentioned that it’s a cycle. I don’t really know how you break it but we need to keep trying.”
Might try by not rewarding the behavior.
Anyone here care to vounteer the difference between “can’t help themselves and “won’t” help themselves???
ByteMe
April 23rd, 2009
9:40 am
Corey: the commander of the USS Bainbridge, the destroyer commander who gave the order to the snipers to kill the pirates and who is in charge of the vessel, is a white guy.
Scooter
April 23rd, 2009
9:41 am
ByteMe,
Tuckers attempts at blogging are met with racist rhetoric because most of her blogs are racist rhetoric.
Hillbilly Deluxe
April 23rd, 2009
9:41 am
To BD @ 9:29
Good point. If every child in the country had a doctorate degree we’d still need blue collar workers. I was always raised to judge a man (or woman) by his actions and not his occupation. Of course there have been very few white collar people in my lineage.
I am opposed to year round schools. Kids still need time to be kids.
Mrs. Godzilla
April 23rd, 2009
9:43 am
media tilted 90% left……that old chestnut is toooooo funny.
however I must admit that from the far reaches of the radical right everything llooks left leaning.
MadMadWorld
April 23rd, 2009
9:49 am
Ever notice Boortz is always going on about how bad public schools are? -bdatlanta
It makes his listeners feel smugly superior. -DB
No, he calls them “goverment schools” -jt
Heh, it seems like you folks are his “listeners”. I’m sure that he appreciates your outrage and the fact that you outraged people pump up his show numbers.
Taxpayer
April 23rd, 2009
9:51 am
I hear you, Bosch.
BDAtlanta
April 23rd, 2009
9:52 am
anyone interested in seeing a superb exploration of the No Child Left Behind fiasco should rent season 4 of “The Wire”.
wow!
One of the best tv shows i’ve ever seen and I’ve been watching since the mid 70’s.
RB from Gwinnett
April 23rd, 2009
9:52 am
Byte, The Cosby show did do a good job of demonstrating what the middle class black family could look like, but when Cosby the person spoke to the black community about pulling their pants up, putting their hat on straight, and staying in school, the community at large shouted him down and accused him of wanting them to act white. I don’t think we’ve heard much from him since. The problem remains, they want the middle class life the Cosby show represented, but they aren’t doing the things needed to achieve it. It will take real leadership from within the black community to change that and NOBODY has filled that void in 30 years.
BTW, the prison population won’t decrease until criminals stop committing crimes. I don’t see that changing because the country is losing it’s moral foundation. Being poor doesn’t make you a criminal.
sd
April 23rd, 2009
9:52 am
My post was censored I suppose.
Here is what needs to be done. Every responsible man out there needs to find a fatherless boy and take him under his wing. There are plenty to choose from. You need to teach the child to stick around and take care of his responsibilities. And you need to teach him to forgive his own father.
If every single one of us will do this, we can break this cycle in one generation. I am trying, I need your help.
md
April 23rd, 2009
9:55 am
Denial ain’t a river, Mrs G.
Why is it that none of you care to repond to any of my very basic questions?
I’m guessing because you can’t. There is no rational argument for condoning poor choices, is there?
Susan Myers
April 23rd, 2009
9:57 am
ty webb @ 9:01,
The 8 years under the Bush dynasty led to our economic woes of the present time.
And by the way, Bush had been warned prior to 911.
Taxpayer
April 23rd, 2009
9:59 am
If everyone had doctorate degrees, how socialist would that be. Anyway, we would have either highly educated janitors or no janitors because everyone would consider themselves to be above that level or technology to eliminate that level or something else. I prefer robots but only if they are produced to the Asimov standard.
Kamchak
April 23rd, 2009
10:01 am
Hillbilly Deluxe
Ga. law requires 180 days of classroom for students. All I’m saying is break this up into four equal parts with a 2-3 week vacation between quarters. Japan requires their students to attend 212-220 days and they don’t have an outdated system that allows time for tending and harvesting crops. Yes kids have precious few years before being thrust into a working world, but what we are doing isn’t working. This is not just a racial issue.
BDAtlanta
April 23rd, 2009
10:01 am
Also, note that in some instances it’s not worth questioning why the graduation rate in the inner cities is so low when you are looking at the problem from outside of that world, from the suburbs, the middle class, or what-not.
Different things happen in life. If a kid’s mom or dad becomes disabled, they may have to go to work to put food on the table so their parents and siblings don’t starve, and pay rent and the heating bill. When you are poor your choices are fewer and your priorities become crystal clear.
Like I tell my 10-year old son, marry a rich woman, don’t concern yourself with looks. If you’re eating boiled shoe leather, you won’t be thinking “But hey my wife is smokin’!”
Bosch
April 23rd, 2009
10:03 am
md,
Or maybe it’s impossible to answer rhetorical hyperbole.
md
April 23rd, 2009
10:05 am
Susan,
You are only fooling yourself if you believe all our troubles began the day Bush was sworn in. You are doing yourself a disservice.
It would be wise for you to understand that many, many people from BOTH parties brought us to this point in time. I could spend hours cutting and pasting but since you have access to a computer, try expanding your horizons.
A little advice for you and the rest on here especially when it comes to our joke of a political system.
Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see. Open your mind and do your own research. You will be better for it. I’m guessing I’m quite a bit older than many on these boards, but there is not a day that goes by that I do not learn something I did not know. The day you quit learning is the day they put you in the ground (or there about).
RealityKing
April 23rd, 2009
10:06 am
Public schools should be shut down. For everyones benefit.., give us back our taxes, how could we possibly do worse than the government has done..
sd
April 23rd, 2009
10:08 am
“Anyone here care to vounteer the difference between “can’t help themselves and “won’t” help themselves???”
When a tree is young and it begins to bend, you can put a stake in the ground and tie the tree to it. The tree will grow straight and tall. If you wait too long and the tree becomes rigid and thick, and you try to straighten it, it will break.
The difference between can’t and won’t is in that. YOU have to help these kids when they are young. All I am asking is to take ONE kid. Just one. Teach him to be responsible.