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Until cumulsory attendance laws were passed, many children did not go to school. Or they went for 2-3 years, left to work the farm for a while, etc. So literacy rates were lower. One measure of a developed society is its literacy rate. Perhaps education was more difficult then, I really don't know. Certainly in the areas of science and technology, much is known today that was not known even 50 years ago when I was a young elementary student. Things have even changed a lot since my oldest, now 23, started school. At that time, it was a revolutionary concept that there should be a computer in every classroom. So I think a comparison with someone's grandfather's education is apples to oranges, to say the least.
Re: vocational education: We just returned from the Denver Home and Garden Show. There were several demonstration gardens from high school students in FFA programs and Warrent Tech, the Vo-Tech school in Jefferson County, the largest school district in Colorado. It was impressive. There was also a demo garden from the landscaping program at Front Range Community College, also very nice. My point is vocational education does not necessarily end at high school. Many kids who go to vo-tech schools, or take vo-tech in regular high schools then go on to college. My brother-in-law, now 62, did such a thing. He went to vo-tech in electronics, liked it enough to go on to 2 yr college, did well enough there to get a BSEE.
Yes, things are different I agree. My point was the "content" of the time. While students have "more" topics these days such as computers, science, etc... The basics are suffering. History, Reading, Writing, Spelling, Basic Mathematics, etc... were taught at a higher level back then. That is, they expected more of the students. While the concepts were "basic", they had to learn them as if they were second nature and the level they had to learn was above what some intro English/Basic Math courses have in some colleges.
My point about the "literacy" rate is that is devious statistics to try and evaluate the "society" as a whole including all those who didn't go to school to establish a literacy rate. As you said, times were different and back then going to "school" was not a necessity for many people back then due to the work and lives they lived. So taking a statistical survey as Fish suggested is pointless.
A more appropriate analysis would be to measure the education level of those who did attend the schools back then to those who do attend schools today. Take for instance an eighth grader back then and compare them to an eighth grader today. Compare only within the context of the level of the topics they study that are comparable (ie reading, writing, grammar, spelling, basic math, etc...). Then you see that the eighth grader back then was doing content far above that of an eighth grade today. That way you get a fair comparison "Apples to Apples" as it concerns the level of content they studied.
edit:
An important point you find when you do this is that those who did graduate back then regardless of the level they graduated, you could be sure they knew what it is they studied. How many kids today have high school diplomas and yet can barely read the diploma itself? See the problem?
Much as I don't want to get off-topic again, those are the elite, PhD granting instutions, according to one source. There are many other colleges/universities as well that are highly regarded. There are lots of lists in that book. If you think St. Olaf is for slackers, you are wrong, not just wrong, but damn wrong. I just received something from them that showed the average SATs for the freshman class, and it was more like 1200+, not 900. You would be lucky to get in there with an SAT of 1000. Ditto CU and Valpo. I have a copy of the USNews guide right in front of me as I type. I don't need a little tutorial in this stuff; I've sent two kids to college and gone through all this stuff many times.
As to InformedConsent's statisitcs, I think the IIE used the NCES statistic for foreign students (since they are the same number!) and decided they were all at "elite" colleges, by whatever definition was used.
The point of all this is, to get back on topic, the colleges are not 20-25% foreign students because our students are so poorly educated they don't meet the requirements. Maybe in some graduate departments (which would eliminate St. Olaf from consideration entirely). If you'll note, the NCES says 58% of these students are from Asia. Maybe we should adopt China's or India's system!
Look you seriously have an issue with schools. I do not care where you, your brother, or kids attended school. It is not germane to the argument. Yes, you have a point there are tons of very great schools in the US College System. Yes, you named a few regional ones that are outstanding schools. However, Informed is speaking of the most elite schools in our country and the on's you named do not fall into that boat. Accept it!
When people talk about Elite they do not mean Valpo, Penn-State, St. Olaf's, and etc. Now, that's not saying these schools are 3rd world crap holes, because some may be great schools, but they are not ELITE! They may be very selective, but they are not MOST SELECTIVE when choosing students.
Here's teh difference an ELITE SCHOOL CARRIES WEIGHT NO MATTER Where you are in the world. Great schools in a regional area carrier weight within that region and do not extend much further. The only reason i know about Valpo is the NCAA tournment, but other than that not living in the state of Indiana it does not get much respect out of it. Does not mean it is not a great school, but you get my point.
Duke, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, NYU, UVA, U of M, Cal Tech, MIT, and Standford are elite schools and you can go any where in the world and present your degree and people know exactly the quality and merit of the school, because they are considerd top 1% of Elite colleges. Yes, at these elite college foreigners make up a disproportionate portion of the students. MIT is chalk full of Koreans etc, so are many of Californas top notch elite schools. Well, because of the American education systems failure to educate enough of our population properly we are losing vast amounts of seats to these individuals, because they are better qualified on paper than most average american students. Not stray to far off topic but Elite Campuses are filled with the following characteristics;
25-35% of the school is affluent upper middle to rich
25-30% of the school is foreign
45-30% of the school is middle class
5% of the school is poor
... i've posted the best exmaple we have in America you ..... The American College Education SYSTEM!!!
And what happens when the primary education system becomes corrupted or mis-managed the way other private sectors have (energy, mortgage, real estate, automotive)?
Industry after industry, institution after institution, it's clear that where profit is the bottom line motivation ... greed, graft, corruption, mismanagement and crisis are what typically follow.
I don't want our children to be the victims of that.
And what happens when the primary education system becomes corrupted or mis-managed the way other private sectors have (energy, mortgage, real estate, automotive)?
Industry after industry, institution after institution, it's clear that where profit is the bottom line motivation ... greed, graft, corruption, mismanagement and crisis are what typically follow.
I don't want our children to be the victims of that.
Besides, truthhurts (ironic moniker ) is trying to equate the colleges to the public schools, and that's simply a totally invalid comparison.
For a guy who tosses out insults willy-nilly, you sure have a thin skin!
Of course I can.
Are you in need of an explanation?
The college system here in the US is out of control. Costs have skyrocketed over the past two decades all out of proportion to inflation. It has nothing to do with "competition." It's mostly due to state legislators increasing tuition and fees at colleges in order to balance state budgets.
Before you go making strong statements, it would be to your advantage to learn a little something about the subject you're attempting to address.
But then, it's so much easier to just run your mouth and hope that no one will call your bluff.
Okay, this was pretty funny, but thank you for posting an article, thats main point describes how government intervention has helped increase college tuition cost for consumers. Wow, another well informed poster thinks they're some how "showing me who is boss" by posting an article, that directly goes along with my position, which is anti-big government (eg government has no business intervening in certain aspects of peoples life.)
Old Gringo, great post and very funny. Anyway, do understand the point of the article? Okay, if you do, you must have realized my position on government interferring in the private market? Yes or No? If you understood those two things why would you post this article, than attempt to attack me when the article supports my position? Seriously, this might have taken the cake on how upstagging someone can quickly back fire and make you look extremely silly.
Yes, you called my bluff big time dude haha. You sure showed me who was boss by posting an article, that described how government intervention in the free-market via grants has added static to the information of price, which has given Universities the incentive to rapidly raise tuition prices haha. Okay, i needed that one thanks for the laugh.
Here's how it works OG
1. Colleges can rise price on students (because big government is subsidizing student to a greater extent then it should. All on the backs of tax payers)
2. College students reciving aid or grants from the Federal Government or State have no clue how much prices are rising, because they are not paying the cost directly, so they have no incentive to demand lower prices.
3. Colleges being smart business people realize they can take advantage of the free money (subsidies) given to their students by the government, so they continually increase price way beyond inflation. They are recieving an over supply of money for the gran programs, so why not raise the price of tution if our students are going to be subsidized at someone elses expense? No incentive for them to lower cost.
4. Government finally realizes, because they intervened to to such a great degree, they have helped escalate the cost of college tution. Remind you of the oil spike in the 1970's? If government would have allowed the free-market to function on its own with no susidies colleges in an effort to maintain students would have lowered prices to compete with other schools. Oh wait, as usual government now realizes the folly of their ways, so they blame colleges for taking advantage of their stupidity. Basically government flooded the education system with too much grant money, so it gave univeristies the incentive to raise prices and take advantage of the additional free money floating around. Blame government not Universities. I could not have found a better example of how government intervention in the free-market to a greater degree than needed has hurt consumers. Thanks Gringo for obviously unknowingly helping my position. I'll give you a rep point maybe hahaha, after i stop laughing. Thanks for calling me out bro!!
Yes Old Gringo you sure showed me!
Why don't you continue to show me please more articles, they just help support my position. I'd invite everyone to read OG's article. It is very similiar to Soko's article in which, complete blame is on the shoulders of big government, yet they blame the smart business people for taking advantage of inept government policies, management, and interference in the free-markets. Kudos!!!
Last edited by truthhurts; 02-18-2008 at 09:03 AM..
Besides, truthhurts (ironic moniker ) is trying to equate the colleges to the public schools, and that's simply a totally invalid comparison.
Public Education is already corrupt on so many levels. And our children are not the victim of that already? Name a government run organization that is not equally as corrupt as a private sector industry?
Sorry post is for Backfist....
Although Gringo if you would like to post more articles please do!!! haha
The school breakfast and lunch programs are dept. of agriculture money. Re: school nurses-in our district health services are a very small part of the budget. And the school nurses are there to take care of needs that arise while the kids are in school; they have nothing to do with the lack of universal health care. In fact, as tax supported employees, they are a part of government spending on health care.
Are you trying to conclude that educational monies to run these programs are wholly funded from other budgets? Staffing? Materials? Administration?
And you are wrong about health care. I personally remember having one or two immunizations rendered right at school. Why? Because there was concern that many kids did not have access to doctors to get those required shots. In my case it was because my mother was unable to take time off of work, but that point is not withstanding.
Do you have data that backs this up nationwide and if so can you please present it to the rest of the posters? What may be regionally specific to your area is not neccesarily indicitive of a nationwide trend.
Population shifts to suburbs and rural areas in other major metropolitan areas have contributed to a decrease in Catholic school enrollment in dioceses such as Cleveland (2.9 percent decline), Detroit (8 percent decline), Newark (5 percent decline) New York (4.5 percent decline) and St. Louis (4 percent decline).
In addition, school closures and consolidations have become increasingly common among many of the Big 12 dioceses, which include Brooklyn, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Dorchester (Mass), Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, Newark, Philadelphia and St. Louis.
And what happens when the primary education system becomes corrupted or mis-managed the way other private sectors have (energy, mortgage, real estate, automotive)?
Industry after industry, institution after institution, it's clear that where profit is the bottom line motivation ... greed, graft, corruption, mismanagement and crisis are what typically follow.
I don't want our children to be the victims of that.
What makes you think that our current system isn't mismanaged? Profit has nothing to do with it, a subsidized monopoly has everything to do with it. Theyr'e holding your money hostage with little recourse.
What happens when you send your kid to XYZ Academy and you feel that their education is suffering because profit is a motivating factor beyond the education of your child? YOU MOVE THEM TO A DIFFERENT SCHOOL, one that better aligns with what you are looking to achieve.
Why is there this huge misconception that the private sector is completely mismanaged?
America's Best Colleges 2008: Undergraduate Ranking Criteria and Weights -- U.S.News & World Report (http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/about/weight_brief.php - broken link)
Hopefully this helps
Not to refute or support any claim in this post, but what is good for an "undergraduate" degree, is not good for a SPECIFIC degree. None of the top 10 of this list were top contenders for my major in college.
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) is trying to equate the colleges to the public schools, and that's simply a totally invalid comparison.
