New Nationwide Study Confirms Homeschool Academic Achievement (courses, student, best)
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What fringe groups are you referring to? Homeschoolers? Religious groups? And what do you mean by "loyalty?" Having the same opinion as the majority of society?
So, basically, is your motto, "conform or get out?"
Fringe groups who don't want their children taught in ways that are good for society. Ones who want their children taught that they, their family or their group comes first above society. Like it or not, for those of us in society, what's good for society, is, ultimately, good for us.
We don't like paying taxes but we like roads to drive on and that prisoners are locked up. We don't like paying into the welfare system because of abuse but it's either that or higher crime rates (and besides, it's just the nice thing to do to take care of those who are down on their luck) and we've decided, collectively, as a society, we'd rather have welfare than higher crime.
Some of education is group think. Why wouldn't it be? We're trying to form a cohesive group. In our school kids have to do community service time to graduate. Employers prefer employees who were in groups in high school because they work well with others. A lot of what we do is geared towards society running better. There are fringe groups that really don't care about society. They care about themselves, their family, their group and their agenda.
Your choices really are to buy into a society or to live outside of one. I don't like everything about this society but I buy into it. I prefer to not live outside of it. So I tolerate it's efforts to indoctrinate. It's kind of necessary to form a cohesive group.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 08-25-2009 at 06:49 AM..
Reason: spelling
So, the article says that Ed Week is wrong but doesn't give correct statistics. So what are the right numbers then? They can't just say they are wrong and give nothing to back it up.
Huh?
"flawed use of data produces findings that understate the true U.S. high school graduation rate by nine percentage points overall and by 14 percentage points for minorities."
And they note why they can't give a quick flat number in their explanation, observing that differences are sharp between states in retention policies and rates in 9th grade, which is what causes the figures to be wrong.
The brief squib of an article then goes on to provide 3 links to other articles on the topic that the authors have written previously.
How can you say they gave "nothing to back it up?"
Quote:
Originally Posted by golfgal
For your next post, how about sourcing some of your information??
For somebody providing no sources, but telling me I can look stuff up, it seems a pretty wry request.
And Heaven forfend that you should grant that your own prior (unsourced) assertion about graduation rates was in error.
Yes. Unsourced.
You provided a link to a Wrightslaw PDF, and said "There are all kinds of links at the bottom of this article if you care to read them all." You followed that with your specious claim that most states had drop out rates over 50%.
So... I went to the Wrightslaw PDF. It's a collection of dead links which ultimately lead to irrelevant documents, with the noteworthy exception of the still-not-pertinent, but worthwhile psych paper on achievement and school retention.
Contrast these links with the three at the bottom of the article you are complaining about: The American High School Graduation Rate: Trends and Levels
This link provides an abstract to a paper by two of the authors, along with a link to a free download of it.
Rethinking high school graduation rates and trends
This link permits you to download the entire book by these authors, at no cost but time and bandwidth, and it includes an overview of their findings.
Roy (http://www.epaa.info/ojs/index.php/epaa/article/view/EPAA_v16n11/13 - broken link)
"Using Administrative Data to Estimate Graduation Rates: Challenges, Proposed Solutions and their Pitfalls"
This is to a journal article explaining the pitfalls of the Ed Department statistics.
So, what exactly are you claiming they did not back up, and what are you claiming I have not "sourced?"
Ok, lets just look at this for a second...lets just say for a second that 50% of kids drop out of school is correct. Now you've eliminated your bad half of students and are stuck with the half that want to learn. Out of those that take this test, 40% scored proficent, which means if those losers who bring down your test scores still attended school, then that would bring that down by half, 20%, which leave 80% of the students well below what they should have been able to learn.
Well, no.
Many of the kids who drop out want to learn.
But that's about enough time spent on her made up number.
And, honestly, "able to learn" and "willing to learn" are separate issues. I'd think that was self-evident.
Fringe groups who don't want their children taught in ways that are good for society. Ones who want their children taught that they, their family or their group comes first above society. Like it or not, for those of us in society, what's good for society, is, ultimately, good for us.
We don't like paying taxes but we like roads to drive on and that prisoners are locked up. We don't like paying into the welfare system because of abuse but it's either that or higher crime rates (and besides, it's just the nice thing to do to take care of those who are down on their luck) and we've decided, collectively, as a society, we'd rather have welfare than higher crime.
Some of education is group think. Why wouldn't it be? We're trying to form a cohesive group. In our school kids have to do community service time to graduate. Employers prefer employees who were in groups in high school because they work well with others. A lot of what we do is geared towards society running better. There are fringe groups that really don't care about society. They care about themselves, their family, their group and their agenda.
You choices really are to buy into a society or to live outside of one. I don't like everything about this society but I buy into it. I prefer to not live outside of it. So I tolerate it's efforts to indoctrinate. It's kind of necessary to form a cohesive group.
And if "society" is leading us down a dead end, at least we will go there, together!
Just because one is on the fringe does not mean that the ways in which one wants one's children taught are other than good for society.
Society does not benefit from rubber stamp citizenry.
And the notion that what is good for society is good for the individuals in that society, ultimately or otherwise, is true at best in the aggregate and not on a case by case basis.
"Good for society" is a rationale for explaining why all manner of improper things are either done or covered up, especially by schools and governments.
Feh.
Last edited by jps-teacher; 08-25-2009 at 06:39 AM..
Reason: spelling
The data that I have already shared some place showed that there the average drop out percent is 23.7% combining all demographics of the country. Some demographics have a lower rate while others have higher such as African American boys who had a near 50% drop out rate.
That stat is challenged by the authors I cited/linked.
Again, who is to say they are right. They did not give the "real" stats in that article. What is right if this is not??
Read the longer articles or don't.
If it were a simple answer, I assure you, I'd have copied and pasted it for your convenience. I didn't say they were right - merely that the stat of 50% of black boys don't graduate is challenged.
But, since you have ZERO data supporting your contention that "most states" have a lower than 50% graduation rate, I suppose it is easier to poke at mine.
Fringe groups who don't want their children taught in ways that are good for society. Ones who want their children taught that they, their family or their group comes first above society. Like it or not, for those of us in society, what's good for society, is, ultimately, good for us.
We don't like paying taxes but we like roads to drive on and that prisoners are locked up. We don't like paying into the welfare system because of abuse but it's either that or higher crime rates (and besides, it's just the nice thing to do to take care of those who are down on their luck) and we've decided, collectively, as a society, we'd rather have welfare than higher crime.
Some of education is group think. Why wouldn't it be? We're trying to form a cohesive group. In our school kids have to do community service time to graduate. Employers prefer employees who were in groups in high school because they work well with others. A lot of what we do is geared towards society running better. There are fringe groups that really don't care about society. They care about themselves, their family, their group and their agenda.
Your choices really are to buy into a society or to live outside of one. I don't like everything about this society but I buy into it. I prefer to not live outside of it. So I tolerate it's efforts to indoctrinate. It's kind of necessary to form a cohesive group.
I guess we will just have to agree to disagree, then. This society was not built on group think and indoctrination. The free-thinkers have been the ones to better society, in many cases. People do not need to accept the status quo. Where would we be if the "fringe groups" did not exist to lobby for women's rights to vote and not be beaten by their husbands, for desegregation, for standards placed on the food industry, for safer vaccines, etc, etc, etc? Much of the time, "agendas" seem scary to people, until they become more common, then they are integrated into the "group think."
I'm still not sure which fringe groups you are thinking of, of course. It would be laughable to think that homeschoolers constitute some sort of sinister fringe group, simply because they don't buy into the "public education required for all" mentality. Many homeschoolers are out there lobbying for laws to be passed, participating in community service and church service groups, etc.
Maybe you're thinking of religious groups such as the Amish? They have effectively, in many cases, removed themselves from society. I don't see that they're doing anything wrong, though. And besides, in their own society, they all fit in with each other.
Why is anyone surprised to find that the purpose of "public" education is to serve the "public". Being prepared to be a productive member of society is good for society. That's why we expend the energy we do to educate our kids. The problem is between lack of funding and mismanagement of funding, we're not getting our money's worth.
I am fully aware that one purpose of education is to prepare my children to be valuable to society. Why would we want to prepare them to not be valuable to society? The only way you'd want that is if you don't want to live within society. I can see fringe groups desiring that their children be educated to be loyal to their particular group first but they'd do us all a favor if they'd just leave society all together. When you start teaching kids that they, their family and their group are the most important ones out there, you are running contrary to what is good for society. Every man for himself just doesn't make for a good society to live in. Others count too. In fact, they count as much as I do.
It isn't about society. Its about those businesses making money and having employees who do not know anything so they do not ask too many questions, ect and are willing to give up their rights for companies.
Ok, here is an example. In my senior year, there was talk about what all the big jobs were going to be in five years. The number one job would be teaching. We were all required to take a job analysis quiz before being allowed to graudate. We were told the fuzzy happy words that "This questionaire will help show you your abilities and strengths." BS, it was about getting all the kids to believe that they had the abilities to only go into certain career paths, which if we deviated we would be destined to fail. Teaching was my number one, as I predicted....I just spend 4 years being told how I'd make a great teacher, along whith 24 other students in a class of 30. 25 out of 30 students make great teachers? Since when?
The next step, using this sheet, we were to put together a portfolio starting with speaking with 3 people from profession number 1, and one each from 2 and 3. Of course, those first three people for 25 of the students were....teachers, and they went on to tell all of us that we'd be starting off with $40,000 a year (pure BS in our area at least) and all the other great reasons why we all should be teachers.
Euntrepenuer, in which I had already taken an independent test and found out was one of my real top three, was presented at the bottom with the least likely to succeed percent. Guess what...We have our own business, though I do teach.
When students stated what they wanted to be vs what this test said, we were told over and over..."There just won't be jobs for that available when you get out of college." Lies. There are available, they are just more competitive and often more challenging, but if someone wants to do that, why discourage them?
What about those other 5 kids? Well there are job below teaching...farmers and other jobs of that like.
Talk about dissappointing those kids.
So I take that you are ok with students being dumbed down in school, that is why you are ok with children being forced into boredom everyday.
There a lot of exceptional children out there that will be forced away from their chances to doing something that has never been done before, the number of inventors in the US has gone done among other areas.
I do not teach my kids that they are the most important ones out there. Contrary to public education however, I do teach my kids how to stand on their own feet, challenge those ideas that are wrong, follow their dreams instead of going into teaching because society needs you. My daughter as of rightr now wants to be a vet. (Her aspirations are hirer than mine were at that age...I wanted to be a postal worker.)
I also teach my children EVERYONE works together in society, even though the govenment, and the schools, would like to downplay the value of small business and skills that can not be taught in college.
If it were a simple answer, I assure you, I'd have copied and pasted it for your convenience. I didn't say they were right - merely that the stat of 50% of black boys don't graduate is challenged.
But, since you have ZERO data supporting your contention that "most states" have a lower than 50% graduation rate, I suppose it is easier to poke at mine.
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Being prepared to be a productive member of society is good for society. That's why we expend the energy we do to educate our kids. The problem is between lack of funding and mismanagement of funding, we're not getting our money's worth.
When you start teaching kids that they, their family and their group are the most important ones out there, you are running contrary to what is good for society. Every man for himself just doesn't make for a good society to live in. Others count too. In fact, they count as much as I do.
