[Peace-discuss] Cogent commenter on NYT article

Tue Oct 8 21:57:13 UTC 2013

There is no question that the US education system is not good,
and is getting worse.  I believe that education is the
responsibility of the individual and the responsibility óf
the individual family.  The society should provide the
opportunity for education.  We sent our children to
King School in Urbana.  We love King school and are
very grateful for what the teachers there did for our
children.  But the children get a far better math background
in Beijing than what they would get in Urbana.  It's a
difference of goals.

Education isnt everything.

Pigs are smarter than dogs, and can be taught to
run video games to get food.  Dogs don't have the
ROM chips to comprehend what is going on at all.
That difference is genetic.  And one should not
try to teach a pig to sing -- it wastes your time
and annoys the pig.

People differ in their abilities.  Sometimes real
ability comes from what is missing not necessarily
from what is there.  As Lao said.

Margin of error or not, these OECD ratings measure
something.  One could say that the study is poorly
designed or slanted in some way.  Lots of studies are
done by drawing the graph at the desk and then going out
in search of the data to be plotted.  It's a plot to
find data.

The problem with the haemorrhaging of jobs from the USA
is that it is a loss of skills as well.  Knowing how
to do something in a manufacturing facility or in carpentry,
or many other lines of work is not something learned in school
but it something learned on the job.  When workers
retire and are replaced by outsourcing, the work experience
component is lost from the country, and that is a serious
loss not easily recovered.

Preparation is one good thing but what use is it if there
are not to be any jobs?

On 10/08/13 23:43, Carl G. Estabrook wrote:
> We'll see that this is discussed today on AWARE ON THE AIR (cable- and 
> web-cast at 10pm this evening at <urbanapublictelevision.org 
> <http://urbanapublictelevision.org>>).
>
>
> On Oct 8, 2013, at 10:35 AM, David Green <davegreen84 at yahoo.com 
> <mailto:davegreen84 at yahoo.com>> wrote:
>
>> If you actually click on the study and look at the final results 
>> tabulation, you'll see very little real difference between any two 
>> countries. Other than Japan and Finland at the top and the couple at 
>> the bottom, there is this vast middle of nearly identical results.
>>
>> This is like claiming that because the U.S. achieved a 7.4 on a 10 
>> point scale while some other countries achieved a 7.6 (and the rest 
>> 7.3's and 7.2's) we're somehow deficient. Roll the die again with 
>> another set of tested adults and watch the U.S. get a 7.7 and those 
>> 7.6's drop to 7.5's.
>>
>> *This is propaganda pure and simple. As for actual, scientific 
>> results it does nothing but repeat what we've known for 30 years 
>> going - very homogenous societies (Japan and Finland) do a better job 
>> of educating their citizens. The rest of the diversified world does 
>> an identical, mostly adequate job.
>>
>> The problem isn't a skills gap, it's a jobs gap - there are no jobs.*
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/08/us/us-adults-fare-poorly-in-a-study-of-skills.html
>> _______________________________________________
>
>
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