>
>
> Just a little note about public education, about 4 months ago, a
> study was done on world education. In the study, the U.S. High
> schools were ranked in the lower middle of the group of
> industrialized nations. At the elementry level, our education was
> considered the best in the world. Somewhere after elementry school,
> our children started falling behind. The study suggested, but could
> not confirm, that this was due to social pressures such as clothing,
> cars, drinking etc... Just a note
>
> Sodom
> Bill Roh
> I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT, BUT HIT THE ROCKS ANYWAYS
>
Could "falling behind" mean that they have other things in mind? In
other words, most kids are not stupid. They know that there are a
ton of engineers, Ph.D.s in sundry fields, all competing for jobs in
the market place. One Ph.D. in engineering posted a note on the
internet not so long ago that he applied for a job at a small college
in Georgia and discovered that several hundred other engineers had
applied for the same non-tenure track position. They gave the job
to a foreign -educated person --I think he was Chinese or
Indian. It is a known fact that these people are so glad to have a
job here they make meeker employees and will work for less.
We keep feeding these kids propaganda about how if the populace were only better
educated they could get higher paying jobs. In fact, industry has
downsized all sorts of people--most of them very well educated.
It used to be the case that a secretary needed to be able to type,
take shorthand and have a command of the English language. All of
this for $6/ hour. Now many businesses want him/her to be able to
type, operate different systems on the computer (be an expert at
Excel, Word, Word Perfect, etc. etc.) and be bilingual-- guess what, the salary is
still $6 --adjusted for inflation. Kids aen't stupid. They see
that skills don't always have to be academic in nature. They see
that calculus may not help them when they train to be an electrician
or a plumber.
Most of us do not buy the fact that if we are better educated it will
automatically translate into big bucks. Several papers have been
written recently debunking the propaganda that Americans lack skills
and, therefore, their wages have remained stagnant. Kids don't
always buy what government and statistics preach to them--they wisely
go on and live their lives.