Stupidity in America?

I hear a lot of people talking about problems with education in America, with Americans being misinformed or stupid, etc. I have also heard many ideas to try and solve this problem. Some people say there should be more American History classes in school, some people advocate Voucher programs, and still some say we should just increase funding. Others say things are fine as they are. What do you think? Here's a video that should bring about some interesting discussion that I found on youtube. I hope you all enjoy it, and I'd like to hear what your reaction(s) are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfRUMmTs0ZA&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eteamliquid%2Enet%2Fforum%2Fviewmessage%2Ephp%3Fcurrentpage%3D1%26topic%5Fid%3D58462

Please refrain from posting until you have at least seen the video.

Well i just got out of an american pubic school(in N.J.) so funding isnt as bad as other places..but still there can allways be more funding...but in general the kids just dont care to learn and thats the plain truth...the reason other countrys have better programs is thier students actually want to learn not "just get by".

People are always looking for other people to blame for their stupid kids.

Please refrain from posting until you have at least seen the video.
Okay, your lordship.

Americans are just naturally stupid.

I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don't have maps and I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and the Iraq everywhere like such as and I believe that they should our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. or should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future for.

I live in America.

Americans are ignorant.

American children are stupid.

American beauty queens are the epitome of retardation.

/end repentance 

She's just pretendikng to be stupid. Being a complete dumb shit is fashionable thanx 2 mtv.

True

It seems that schools remain stupid because the union wants to keep its power.

>>10
Yes, Americans are really starting to wake up to the fact that unionized power structures in the public schools across the nation are only interested in securing the maximum pay and benefits for the teachers and administrators, and education is a far distant 3rd or 4th priority.

>>11
Who cares about whether kids are getting a good education as long as teachers have good job security and a fat paycheck?

Teaching is unskilled labour.

At least by our standards.

>>11
What decade do you live in? Most unions work hand-in-hand with the goverment these days. Or is it you're too young to understand and have seen it firsthand yet? Careful, your age is showing, underage b&.

>>15
What you said has no relation with what I said.  The problem is that education is a distant priority in American public schools, and unionization is a primary cause.  Why does it matter if unions work hand-in-hand with government (which is doubtful anyway)?  They still are too self-interested over the goals of education, which was my point.

amerikkkans r stoopid

LOL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ospNRk2uM3U

>>12
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Fat paycheck?
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
If you think that teachers get paid huge amounts of money, I think you need to become an hero now, or at least get out of high school and find a job that pays more than the teacher you hate (Trust me, it's easy.)

>>16
Teachers are held to the most exacting standards in the nation, more so than soldiers, policemen, businessmen, doctors and politicians, and despite their constant criticism, we still have teachers that teach your irritating little brats for 6 hours a day, then go home and work on new lesson plans, grade the work of 300+ students, spend countless hours in meetings to satisfy the administration, and spend several nights a year listening to some parent tell them that their piece of shit son/daughter is gods motherfucking gift to the world.

As for "too self-interested over the goals of education", this sounds like another faggot who thinks the "those who can't, teach" slogan ever held true.  Since you're obviously the fucking paragon of success, with all the fucking answers to how "all those fucking teachers" should do their jobs, please, show us how it should be done.  Become a teacher for a middle school/Jr High, in a low income neighborhood, and prove to us how you can make a ton of fucking einsteins with your "real world success" experience.  And don't puss out of the fucking "easiest job in the world", much like the 60% of first year teachers do, to go pursue better paying jobs.

>>19
Nothing of what you said pertains to the fact that unionized teachers are far too interested in themselves over their jobs.  Unionized teachers (also under corrupt administrations) have produced the worst education systems in the USA.

Nobody is sanely saying teachers and administrators should produce Einsteins.  They also labor under the brood of lower classes that frankly don't care to learn since they want to be just like their nigger mommies (and in rarer cases, nigger daddies).  Still, students who emerge from the public school systems must still read, write and do mathematics.  That is the minimum expectation and the minimum result of any education system.  The teachers are duly charged with getting that done.  HOWEVER, the NCLB Act demonstrates quite starkly how these teachers and their corrupt administrations care not a whit for their duties.

This exercise of point is literally inarguable and the more you try to do so, the less credit your entire viewpoint obtains.

lol stupid americans

>>20 Great post RedCream.

>>20

You ever listen to Neal Boortz RedCream? He always gets angry at the Teacher's Union.

>>23
I'm not a talk radio kind of guy.  I've been exposed enough to the likes of Limbaugh and Beck to decline further opportunities of talk radio.

From the wiki, it appears that Boortz at least recognizes that there needs to be internal changes to the structure of the USA.  Unfortunately, only his external rightwingnuttery is likely to be implemented.  The borders will not be secured, and the unions will ride us all the way down.

In my state, Ohio, a Dem Governor (arguably a better choice than the literal demon (Blackwell) who was his opponent) is taking steps to stop the privatizing of educational opportunities in the state.  He's out to kill the voucher program, which will force people to remain in their suckassed public-school systems.  All that conservative talk radio hasn't done much good in Ohio ... since the state-level Republicans were too busy milking the state instead of promoting real fiscal conservatism as a governing philosophy.  Maybe Ohio's Republicans should remember this defeat (they were swept out of most state-level offices in 2006) and try to be real fiscal conservatives, next time!

America is one fucked up country. It is the worst country in the world.

>>24
I agree with most of this pretty strongly.  I would like to see a resurgence of fiscal conservatism in America, and we need republicans to get back to their principles and quit with this big-government bs.  School Choice would be a fantastic first start, and fortunately a lot of republicans seem favorable to the idea.

what if you can't afford to live where the good school is genius?  Fuck you if you make little sonofslob take a six hour bus ride

>>27
Yes, that is a real stickler of a problem.  Omelet, eggs, etc.  But we've clumped a lot of children into public school systems today where they don't get even adequate educations.  Are you going to do something about that, or are you just going to whine when some Libertarian-leaning folk proposing to expand educational choice?

My thesis is that the public schools are so bad (corrupt, entitled, wasteful, etc.) that the only thing which can fix them is to threaten them with competition.  Naturally, they bad-mouth this kind of thing and only demonstrate they want to keep the same awful system working in the same way it has.  We don't call public schools "pre-prisons" for nothing, you know!

It would also help a lot if states like Ohio stop being fucktards about education spending and go per-capita.  The constitution of the State of Ohio specifies that education is the mandate of the government.  (I don't like that, but it's right there in the constitution, so there's nothing I can do about it.)  Ohio should take all local taxes allocated now for schools, centralized them, and then redistribute them purely on a per-student basis.  That means that the poor schools would get exactly as much as the good schools, doesn't it?

Of course, the wealthy areas would try to vote down future levies since "our money is just goin' to the niggers".  So, a change to per-capita isn't enough.  The state should go further and invoke a state-wide property tax which replaces all existing education-earmarked property taxes.  So, it won't matter that Mr and Mrs Whitebread III in Heavenly Hills don't want their tax money going to educate niggers in the inner city.  Since they don't have any choice about school funding in the first place per the Ohio constitution, why not go all the way and overcome the stupid fucking argument of "my area is poor and that makes my school underfunded"?

>>27
That's why they invented boarding schools.

Rudy Giuliani almost got school choice in some area of New York I hear.  Are there any republicans who are against school choice? I don't think so... I liked what Giuliani had to say about it. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgxiJHm43zI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giJqI_zn9uU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AAYeQk8fio

American education needs more philosophy, more physical education (not pointless gym classes), second languages introduced in elementary school, and more mathematics.  not more history.

There's no mystery about why certain schools fail. Look at all all the "bad" schools featured in the show and see how they are all filled with black and other low IQ minority kids. There's only so far "good teaching" will go when your dealing with stupid kids who don't want to learn. That's the difference between European schools--with 95% White kids--and the US.

>>31
What benefits will this have?

Philosophy teaches people nothing, other than that there are tons of problems that no one knows the answer to (I've studied philosophy).

Physical education will not help a person's career (unless they want to play sports professionally), nor will it help combat obesity due to the huge number of calories in junk food.

Does America do enough business with any foreign country to make a second language useful?

As long as a person can do basic mathmatics they're learned enough. Most people don't need to know how to calculate the angles of a shape or understand matrixes.

Do American high schools devote too much time to teaching history?

School choice = $100 coupons on schools that are still too expensive for anyone other than the rich to attend.

>>33
So, the only purpose of school is to prepare students to become economically active? Should it be?

>>34
Are you one of these faggots who thinks we should pay liberal arts students to smear faeces on their university's walls in order to "express themselves"?

>>34
Retard.  We currently spend THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of dollars PER STUDENT.  So it would be a coupon for something more in line with THAT amount, not "$100 coupons."

>>31
Yeah, lets not spend as much time educating kids on things like the Constitution/Bill of Rights... I mean, it isn't knowledge that we'd want every child to have before he votes, right?

History classes are important for obvious reasons.  Why the fuck is learning spanish more important than learning American fucking history? We need to teach kids American history so they learn about our culture/heritage and won't make similar mistakes as others made in the past due to ignorance of history.  History should, if anything, be a priority.  You should have to demonstrate adequate knowledge of American history before you are allowed to vote.  After you have a law like that in place, go ahead and cut history classes, but until then we need them - bad.

>>36
And if you had any understanding of economics, you would understand why it doesn't make a difference. Let's say we close down public schools, spread out the money among the students (which I'm sure you'd object to anyways...), and intend for them to all go to good private schools. Guess what happens? MARKET FORCES! Good private schools raise their rates accordingly, because they can't handle the additional students. Mediocre private schools, even worse than the public schools, spring up eager to take those several thousands of dollars.

Short version: vouchers help no-one who can't already afford private school.


>>37
Protip: GW Bush majored in History.

>>38
Nobody is talking about closing down all public schools.  If the student decides to go to a public school, he can just as he would otherwise.  If the student decides he'd rather go to a private school, he can choose that option as well.  Also, even if prices DID rise, the nature of market forces and capitalism would lead schools - private schools to expand their operations and educational resources, and the prices would then subsequently fall.  The price wouldn't just stay high, and the competition that would follow would force schools to compete, cut costs, and increase quality, just like other businesses in capitalism do. 

>>39

Actually I'm talking about closing down all schools or at least not forcing children to attend. Fuck compulsory "education".

>>39
>>40
I disagree on the grounds that you're a fourteen year old posting on the text-only part of an anonymous image board.

Not forcing children to attend?

Man, there are enough beggars on the street already. In case you hadn't noticed, there are increasingly few jobs that don't require some form of education.

It's nice to know some people are working to bring serfdom back. Just a guess: you're one of the special people, amirite?

one word FAIL

America is, always has been, and always will be retarded get used to it