Comments on: Four More Reasons Why Your Kids Might Be Stupid

By: Kavan Wolfe

Kavan Wolfe — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:28:54 +0000

I don’t think we can assume that parents will teach their kids anything – this would impede social mobility, since the children of idiot parents would always lack this teaching.

@J, so, do you have any?

@Rick, you’re dead on – making education a business is exacerbating the problem

@wrongheaded, I think the justification is that they don’t want to stigmatize a student for failing a grade. But what exactly is wrong with stigmatizing laziness and stupidity?

By: wrongheaded

wrongheaded — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:27:20 +0000

From what I hear from teachers I know, children are being passed even though they shouldn’t be. I know one English teacher who has seniors at a 5th-grade reading level. I have a relative working in a community college learning center who has had to repeatedly explain to students that writing the way they speak is not appropriate, particularly when their papers are peppered with expletives. Yet parents throw a fit whenever the school tries to hold a student back, so administrators cave. Until there are hard and fast rules – and until they are enforced – children will continue to feel entitled to move on to the next grade regardless or competency.

By: Rick

Rick — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 19:28:03 +0000

With the possible exception being the numerical order, I couldn’t agree more.

“4. Not everyone is entitled to a college degree.”
I wish there was some sure fire way of determining “who is” and “who isn’t” entitled.

I would also add that higher education (college) has become big business. Some of these schools (DeVry) are actually publicly traded companies. Of course like any other money making enterprise you have a largely successful marketing campaign. If you listen to all the PR, there’s no sense getting out of bed in the morning unless you have a degree. I don’t want to down play the importance of higher education, I’m just saying, there’s a lot of people with 30K plus in student loans working for minimum wage (or a lot less then they expected).

My first job after graduation (electronics engineering) was working for Electronic Data Systems. I was 2nd level help desk support for the second largest mainframe network in the world (IBM is 1st). I can tell you honestly, that college taught me very few of the technical skills needed for the job. Luckily for me, I had a knack for it. The thing is, I would never had gotten the interview if I hadn’t had that degree. I can’t help but wondering if I wouldn’t have been just as successful without spending all that money.

By: j

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 15:49:45 +0000

Problems are easy to find. Solutions are the tricky ones..

By: SFC Rath

SFC Rath — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 00:47:51 +0000

Without some critical thinking about the topic, I can say only “Amen!”