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Education

Maybe something provocative to stir up some lively debate in this one-horse ghost town.

It's not a subject or a position that will make a person popular, but I agree with Ron Paul here. Education is not a right. The government is constantly creeping further and further into managing our lives and taking away our individual freedoms based on an ever growing appetite for "free" shit (the free shit that someone ultimately has to pay for..shit that contributes to the bankrupting of our country).



Flame on.

And yes, I generally think Ron Paul is batshit crazy.

Re: Education

quote:

Originally posted by Shakka Maybe something provocative to stir up some lively debate in this one-horse ghost town. It's not a subject or a position that will make a person popular, but I agree with Ron Paul here. Education is not a right. The government is constantly creeping further and further into managing our lives and taking away our individual freedoms based on an ever growing appetite for "free" shit (the free shit that someone ultimately has to pay for..shit that contributes to the bankrupting of our country). Flame on. And yes, I generally think Ron Paul is batshit crazy.

But that's part of his charm. Full on nutter 80% of the time and 20% down to earth practicality and confronting issues others don't want to come near. My respect for him after he had the balls to say that 9/11 might be a consequence of US foreign policy in the 2008 GOP primaries will take a lot of crazy talk to eleminate.

Is he making another run at the GOP this time? It seems like contenders are really worried about stepping up. Something I find a bit odd.

Watching the clip now.

Interesting ideas as always.

The first important topic that RP brings up is that Medicare and Education are not Rights.

This is a bit muddled though because he doesn't mean all education, he means post secondary education.

The second thing that is important to note is that he doesn't want to bar those without means from going to post secondary but feels that bank loans will fill the gap if the government steps back.

I think he's got some good points here. Although he doesn't explicitly say it there is some minimum amount of education which should be 100% state financed, which I agree with. High school seems like a good watershed point here, as it has been for decades. A high school education provides the literacy and numaracy required for communicating with one another and standardization across states, or ideally countries, expands the number of people who can communicate with each other. Without some measure of consistency norms of communication will diverge faster than they are already and vocabularies will shift and change until new dielects / languages are formed.

Sure this might take generations or even centuries but there are significant social and economic benifits to maintaining some amount of linguistic consistency. The same is true with math. Science does quite well with the established conventions, part of the reason international scientific work exists. But without training "=" might not mean the same thing in all areas. (I actually read an article about this recently, mentioning how some groups view an "=" sign meaning something other than what it actually means)

I'm thinking that a significant amount of this discussion is spured by the high levels of loan deliquency that are begining to be problematic. It's probably not all that far fetched to say that government money should not be going to people who enrol in 'for profit' post secondary schools. These are the people who tend to have the highest deliquency rates. This is probably because they didn't do any cost benifit analysis of education. Although good post secondary education helps people earn more, poor education doesn't. Unfortunately the conventional wisdom that "education" is good is about the most that vast sections of society can really hold on to.

On a higher level his clip begins a debate that is going to have to be had accross the western world as budgets and debts are strained.

What are a persons rights?

In Canada we have a charter of rights and freedoms (which I'm not exactly well read about). What really needs to be understood is how many of these things are utopian and how many are actually things that we, as members of advanced nations, can really guarantee for our populations.

Clean water, shelter, waste disposal, access to electricity, and political stability are pretty standard. Post secondary education and state of the art medical care are quite different.

Could we really afford to guarentee all people the chance to live in a vegitative state indefinately if life prolonging technology got to that point? It seems reasonable that imunizations and emergency medical care can be provided though.

This is a pretty difficult moral debate, especially as the demographics of countries with the highest levels of life prolonging medical technology shift.


PS. RP - Saying "inflation didn't exist" when he was young is on the batshit crazy 80% side. He was born, and has lived through, some of the most significant instances of inflation recorded (see my other thread for this). The facts show that inflation really began around the 16th century. This was a big motivation for Adam Smith's writing as he spent a large portion of "The Wealth of Nations" exploring the possibility that an absolute store of value existed (he tried to say labour was the base, unchanging measure of value).

quote:

Originally posted by atbell I'm thinking that a significant amount of this discussion is spured by the high levels of loan deliquency that are begining to be problematic. It's probably not all that far fetched to say that government money should not be going to people who enrol in 'for profit' post secondary schools. These are the people who tend to have the highest deliquency rates. This is probably because they didn't do any cost benifit analysis of education. Although good post secondary education helps people earn more, poor education doesn't. Unfortunately the conventional wisdom that "education" is good is about the most that vast sections of society can really hold on to.

A-fucking-men. I view for-profit education as one of the worst industries that manages to consume billions in taxpayer funds every year for loans sporting 30-50% default rates. Is it reasonable for an industry that often gets upwards of 90% of its revenues from the government to sport such high profit margins? It is the poster-child of derived demand (i.e. if it wasn't so heavily subsidized, the industry would not exist in any form like it currently does). Is it reasonable to ask taxpayers to throw their money after programs that sport such high default rates? What a waste of our money!

And the ironic part of all of this debate? It is now REPUBLICANS who have decided to come out and go on a crusade to defend this industry saying that it's an issue of free-choice (again, the industry would not exist without heavy subsidies, so who are Republicans kidding???) while there are respectable DEMOCRATS who are going after the industry for its waste and fraud.

In a normal world I would think Republicans would not be so blind and put on those fiscal conservative/deficit hawk hats and see the easy layup to save a few billion here while I'd expect democrats to come out and defend an industry that provides an "education" to poor and underprivileged consumers. It makes my head spin! I guess it must be that the for profit industry grew out of Arizona where John RetardMcain is hard up for contributions and has to defend his crappy state's big employers. Unreal.

Education isn't a right? Then what is it? A privilege according to who can pay for it? Did the private sector make our society basically 100% literate, or was it the government mandating primary schooling for everyone free of charge?

If education isn't a right, then how do you expect this country to remain competitive with the rest of the world? We've already fallen behind in both science and math, two essential subjects in this technologically driven economy. All the spending cuts we're making on higher education is going to cost us more in the long run. The baby boomer generation isn't going to be running things much longer, most of them are in retirement age already. So how exactly do you expect the future generations of America to run things when we're making it harder and harder on the youth to receive a premium education? And don't tell me the successors of the wealthy 1% is going to run the whole show. I suppose you can control the wealth, securities, derivatives, and get a bailout whenever you fuck up, but if you don't produce anything and yet continue to get rewarded for it, then I shudder to think where we're going to be headed in the next 10 years. The economy needs more homegrown products and investments in future technologies. But we're not going to get there on a shoddy educational system that favors the wealthy. Congressman Paul loses my respect in that statement. I guess he worships Aqua Budda as well.

i am always fascinated with the US' obsession with "rights" (never responsibilities).

even if education is not a right it just makes sense in practice to have a standardised norm for basic competency in things like reading and writing. even if its not unfair to prevent some people from accessing higher learning it makes sense to have that availability as wide as possible, as it maximises the chances for good little cogs to come out ready to be placed into the wheel. if you minimise that availability all that will happen is that somewhere down the line standards in commerce and industry would have to be lowered due to a shortage of qualified workers coming off the assembly line.

I'm sorry but I don't agree at all. I think that the citizens of each country should have free education readily available to them. They can choose if they want to educate themselves or not, but no one should be deprived of an education because it is a 'privilege' for those who can acquire it. I don't care about the money, what's more important is having a well educated society that can be progressive in all aspects of life that concerns us (science, politics, engineering, etc). There should be no monetary value on education. Education, just as knowledge, is power. We could make up all education expenses with advancements in every field, which would bring profit & make us innovators again. How can we compete with other nations & be prosperous when we have a nation of uneducated people?

quote:

Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN i am always fascinated with the US' obsession with "rights" (never responsibilities). even if education is not a right it just makes sense in practice to have a standardised norm for basic competency in things like reading and writing. even if its not unfair to prevent some people from accessing higher learning it makes sense to have that availability as wide as possible, as it maximises the chances for good little cogs to come out ready to be placed into the wheel. if you minimise that availability all that will happen is that somewhere down the line standards in commerce and industry would have to be lowered due to a shortage of qualified workers coming off the assembly line.

this.

I have mixed feeling about education, with there being two main problems with it:

1. Its too specialized, when times change, certain skills that were so rigorously trained become obsolete, hence the person needs to either go back to school again to learn something new, or end up in the gutter.

2. It behaves alot like a business, i have no problem in a school earning funds for keeping the school alive or erecting new structures or classes or equipment, but it certainly is a problem when education becomes a sort of commodity - a high demand for this and that in the future, and alot of the time the quality of it is cut to speed up the process for people to get jobs. In Canada it takes about 4 years to become a nurse (which is i suppose alot, but theres also shorter programs as well, that go to 1 year) - more or less the service provided becomes malnourished because they cant keep up with the demand.


so while it might lead to drastic consequences in government funding education down the road, i cant help but feel there is some responsibility to be held onto these establishments of education that the quality is slowly going down the drain. Opting for the more "earn your diploma in six months" kind of thing, and miss out on some major aspects of the subject.


also, i think a school on mental health and civilized discussion is necessary. I cant tell you how many times ive read through physics and science forums only to find people calling names and acting like little children when someone presents or challenges an idea. Then as a final resort wave their phd's around claiming they are an authoritative figure on the subject and know whats right and wrong (without having to test the idea first). Kind of funny to read, but also kind of sad knowing that these supposed great minds are leading us into the future - and they cant properly discuss ideas with each other (let alone actually test them and scrutinize them)

quote:

Originally posted by yukii I'm sorry but I don't agree at all. I think that the citizens of each country should have free education readily available to them. They can choose if they want to educate themselves or not, but no one should be deprived of an education because it is a 'privilege' for those who can acquire it. I don't care about the money, what's more important is having a well educated society that can be progressive in all aspects of life that concerns us (science, politics, engineering, etc). There should be no monetary value on education. Education, just as knowledge, is power. We could make up all education expenses with advancements in every field, which would bring profit & make us innovators again. How can we compete with other nations & be prosperous when we have a nation of uneducated people?

At a time when there is a general consensus among experts and leading CEO's that America's economy is in part suffering because of a lack of investment in skills and education, I am flabbergasted with the attacks on teachers. Surely, if you are looking to increase the quality of teachers, the best graduates need to be lured by at least semi-attactive salaries. Also, the McKinsey report shows that in the best-performing countries, teaching is a highly respected and valued profession, which attracts a certain calibre of graduates. At the moment, in certain quarters of the US, teachers are being denigrated as overpaid, lazy and benefit-hungry leeches. I know budgets have to be balanced, but you don't do it by first targeting one of the key drivers of a successful economy. Surely, the return on investment is greater for every dollar spent on creating a more educated and flexible workforce, compared with a dollar spent on reducing the taxes for the wealthiest 2%. Also, what's with denying collective bargaining rights? Is the ability to freely associate not a fundamental right? If corporations can collectively lobby governments, then why can't teachers?

http://www.suite101.com/content/how...systems-a309913

http://www.bukisa.com/articles/4134...e-world-top-ten

http://www.mckinsey.com/App_Media/R...stems_Final.pdf

Yeah, only in America, would teachers be considered a drain of society.

Education should be a right just as much as owning a fucking firearm is.

quote:

Originally posted by ziptnf Education should be a right just as much as owning a fucking firearm is.

You still have to pay for that firearm and ammunition with real money, right? You can't just walk into a gun store and demand a rifle and free ammo just because you have a constitutional right to own a gun. You are not exempt from paying for it.

I think Atbell properly noted that the original threat starter video is specifically referring to post-secondary eduction (college and beyond). I ran with the video and specifically railed on the for-profit education industry which has been demonstrated to 1) cost at least as much as highly regarded universities and private colleges while 2) providing significantly inferior outcomes, 3) with significantly higher default rates that, 4) taxpayers are largely on the hook for.

Talk about an easy budget cut item that is not producing the results and costing the government (i.e. taxpayers) billions every year. Oddly, it is poorly-informed Republicans that are largely standing up for this disgraceful industry while it is Democrats (led by the likes of Tom Harkin, Al Frankin and others) that are correctly going after the corruption and fraud that is rife in the industry.

As an aside, I stringently adhere to the belief that if something is going to be a right, it can't come at the cost of someone else's liberty. i.e. you can't just "give away" education--someone has to pay for it. Just because it was "free" to you, doesn't mean it wasn't funded by someone else. In my world the person who is doing the funding should have a much greater say than the person who is receiving all of the benefit. I don't believe that "free" healthcare is a "right" as it can't be achieved without a doctor providing a service. If the doctor is deprived of proper compensation for his services then someone is receiving a "right" while another person is being similarly deprived of one (the contractual business right to receive compensation for services rendered).

Our government cannot continue to "give" stuff away (which really adds up to vote buying and politicking). And the more stuff that is given away, the bigger our deficits become and the harder it is to reverse ill-thought policies. Suddenly people can't do without their new entitlements and the assumption is just that the entitlements are rights and if they cannot be funded, well then the rich must simply not be paying their fair share and must be penalized even more for the sake of the have-nots.

quote:

Originally posted by Shakka You still have to pay for that firearm and ammunition with real money, right? You can't just walk into a gun store and demand a rifle and free ammo just because you have a constitutional right to own a gun. You are not exempt from paying for it. I think Atbell properly noted that the original threat starter video is specifically referring to post-secondary eduction (college and beyond). I ran with the video and specifically railed on the for-profit education industry which has been demonstrated to 1) cost at least as much as highly regarded universities and private colleges while 2) providing significantly inferior outcomes, 3) with significantly higher default rates that, 4) taxpayers are largely on the hook for. Talk about an easy budget cut item that is not producing the results and costing the government (i.e. taxpayers) billions every year. Oddly, it is poorly-informed Republicans that are largely standing up for this disgraceful industry while it is Democrats (led by the likes of Tom Harkin, Al Frankin and others) that are correctly going after the corruption and fraud that is rife in the industry. As an aside, I stringently adhere to the belief that if something is going to be a right, it can't come at the cost of someone else's liberty. i.e. you can't just "give away" education--someone has to pay for it. Just because it was "free" to you, doesn't mean it wasn't funded by someone else. In my world the person who is doing the funding should have a much greater say than the person who is receiving all of the benefit. I don't believe that "free" healthcare is a "right" as it can't be achieved without a doctor providing a service. If the doctor is deprived of proper compensation for his services then someone is receiving a "right" while another person is being similarly deprived of one (the contractual business right to receive compensation for services rendered). Our government cannot continue to "give" stuff away (which really adds up to vote buying and politicking). And the more stuff that is given away, the bigger our deficits become and the harder it is to reverse ill-thought policies. Suddenly people can't do without their new entitlements and the assumption is just that the entitlements are rights and if they cannot be funded, well then the rich must simply not be paying their fair share and must be penalized even more for the sake of the have-nots.

The taxpayers rightfully pay for it. That is not to say we don't need substantial educational, fiscal, and governmental reform. Education is certainly far more valuable than million dollar, one-time-use, cruise missiles.

quote:

Originally posted by Comrade Stalin Some of the taxpayers pay for it. That is not to say we don't need substantial educational, fiscal, and governmental reform. Education is certainly far more valuable than million dollar, one-time-use, cruise missiles.

quote:

Originally posted by Shakka Talk about an easy budget cut item that is not producing the results and costing the government (i.e. taxpayers) billions every year. Oddly, it is poorly-informed Republicans that are largely standing up for this disgraceful industry while it is Democrats (led by the likes of Tom Harkin, Al Frankin and others) that are correctly going after the corruption and fraud that is rife in the industry.

Are you blaming the Republicans and siding with the Dems on this issue? Wow, the world has changed.

quote:

Originally posted by Zharen Are you blaming the Republicans and siding with the Dems on this issue? Wow, the world has changed.

On this issue, largely yes, because the Republicans clearly can't see the real picture here. They are being opposition purely for the sake of being opposition. If you've watched any of the hearings on this issue, Republicans like John McCain have shown up to lob a few complaints and misplaced accusations at the behest of Lanny Davis and promptly left the room. It's pure politics and it's deplorable.

quote:

Originally posted by Igneous01 this. I have mixed feeling about education, with there being two main problems with it: 1. Its too specialized, when times change, certain skills that were so rigorously trained become obsolete, hence the person needs to either go back to school again to learn something new, or end up in the gutter.

I've noticed this trend in some of the academics I've worked with / had contact with. The worst thing to deal with are the egos. One Ph.D. I was talking with tried to dismis me because I hadn't read some book in her feild. I almost pointed out that it was because I was busy learning how to make computers but decided that it would probably be lost on her.

I think that part of the obsession with specialists comes from the rabid adoption of capitalisim based loosely on Smith's (passing) comments on how specialization improved production. The fact is that a number of specialists I know are only specialists because they can't do anything else, not because they are good at what they do.

Specialization, particularily in academics, also makes the specialists more ardent when defending thier bred winning brains. It's odd to think that if a student in an undergraduate course proves a prof. to be wrong the rest of the class can justifiably begin asking why it is the prof. and not the student standing behind the podium.

quote:

so while it might lead to drastic consequences in government funding education down the road, i cant help but feel there is some responsibility to be held onto these establishments of education that the quality is slowly going down the drain. Opting for the more "earn your diploma in six months" kind of thing, and miss out on some major aspects of the subject.

Another difficulty I have with graduate level experiences that I've had is that being responsible and studying things that might be useful is basically dismised as pandering (or something like that). This isn't a topic I've run in to as much but it's almost as if 'research for research's sake' has been adopted to imply that all research in publicly funded universities MUST be disconected with the general society. ... it could also be a problem that I've run into more people in the humanities graduate society than those in science who have tangible "look what I did" moments of finding new materials, chemicals, etc.

quote:

also, i think a school on mental health and civilized discussion is necessary. I cant tell you how many times ive read through physics and science forums only to find people calling names and acting like little children when someone presents or challenges an idea. Then as a final resort wave their phd's around claiming they are an authoritative figure on the subject and know whats right and wrong (without having to test the idea first). Kind of funny to read, but also kind of sad knowing that these supposed great minds are leading us into the future - and they cant properly discuss ideas with each other (let alone actually test them and scrutinize them)

Here here.

One of the things that the internet is really doing is bringing traditional academic structures to question. When confronted with direct opposition quality academics should be able to state thier point in a robust manner and bow out if it isn't thier specialty.

I was talking about economics with one of my friends a while back and he pointed out that many at his place of work were Ph.D's in things financial. But, as mentioned earlier, specialization doesn't mean good in the whole subject. Ph.D's can be earned by scrutinizing a single data set. It might be long and there may be all kinds of elements to it but the fact is that if it is a data set about colour preferences in the revenue generation model of the fashion industry that doesn't grant huge insight into the bond markets.

quote:

Originally posted by The Potter At a time when there is a general consensus among experts and leading CEO's that America's economy is in part suffering because of a lack of investment in skills and education, I am flabbergasted with the attacks on teachers. Surely, if you are looking to increase the quality of teachers, the best graduates need to be lured by at least semi-attactive salaries. Also, the McKinsey report shows that in the best-performing countries, teaching is a highly respected and valued profession, which attracts a certain calibre of graduates. At the moment, in certain quarters of the US, teachers are being denigrated as overpaid, lazy and benefit-hungry leeches. I know budgets have to be balanced, but you don't do it by first targeting one of the key drivers of a successful economy. Surely, the return on investment is greater for every dollar spent on creating a more educated and flexible workforce, compared with a dollar spent on reducing the taxes for the wealthiest 2%. Also, what's with denying collective bargaining rights? Is the ability to freely associate not a fundamental right? If corporations can collectively lobby governments, then why can't teachers? http://www.suite101.com/content/how...systems-a309913 http://www.bukisa.com/articles/4134...e-world-top-ten http://www.mckinsey.com/App_Media/R...stems_Final.pdf

Teachers no, academics ... well some of them.

This discussion is suffering from being about two things: High school education and post-secondary.

High school, and the teachers who are there, have vastly different problems which are associated more with difficulties in actually teaching.

Post-secondary troubles are more closely related to credentials and even validity (in the case of more questionable for profit groups).

quote:

Originally posted by The Potter Also, what's with denying collective bargaining rights? Is the ability to freely associate not a fundamental right? If corporations can collectively lobby governments, then why can't teachers?

I think this needs to be pulled out on it's own.

I see collective bargaining rights as being one of the most important developments to come from the industrialization of the West. The right needs to be protected and I tend to side most with the firemen of Wisconsin who voiced support for teachers not because they had any direct losses but because they understood that the right to organized labour is an essencial balance in the economy.

Much like this discussion split between high school teachers and post-secondary issues, the discussions highlighted by the dispute in Wisconsin were fractured between tangible budget issues and valid "union busting" concerns about the errosion of labour rights.

From what I've seen the debate in Wisconsin has evloved to accept this, a positive sign for that state.

I can't help but wonder if the gov. was just going over the top as a tactic though. A little budgetary shock and awe.

quote:

Originally posted by Comrade Stalin Education is certainly far more valuable than million dollar, one-time-use, cruise missiles.

That can't be said enough.

Here: Watch the shitheads live in action. Enzi once again pulling his self-righteous, Lanny-Davis fed opposition to this process.

http://help.senate.gov/hearings/hea...7a-54d0c8286a98

quote:

Originally posted by Shakka You still have to pay for that firearm and ammunition with real money, right? You can't just walk into a gun store and demand a rifle and free ammo just because you have a constitutional right to own a gun. You are not exempt from paying for it.

I'm all in favor of gun rights, but you can't go buy an education with the credit limit given to most college students. You can buy a gun and bullets with the credit limits that even the least-worthy credit card recipient can obtain.

Re: Education

quote:

Originally posted by Shakka Education is not a right.

Whether you think it's a right or not is probably irrelevant when asking whether or not the government should pay for peoples' education. What you should be asking is whether the potential benefits of government-funded education outweight the benefits of no education for those that cannot afford it (because that is the alternative). Many of the problems in society simply cannot be fixed because the people causing those problems have no education (think crime etc). If you take away what education these people have access to then you will make existing problems worse and in the long term that will cost the government (ie you!) more money for police etc etc.

Then there's the issue of whether it is a "right". Well, why should those with rich parents have an advantage over those who don't have rich parents? It's not the child's fault how successful their parents were - why shouldn't they get the chance to make a success of their lives? We should create a level playing field as far as education goes where those with the intelligence/apptitude can succeed.

Anyway, how is everyone?!

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