Devoss confirmed: what this really means

K: and missing just about every single point I made… make education a priority…
but education today is driven by dollars and cents… that is part of the failure…
education is more then just dollars and cents, a conservative will never believe that,
but it is…it is about a commitment to education that we don’t have in this country
it is about making education more then just a training facility for jobs… make it a
about education and not about a monetary payoff because education is not about
a monetary payoff which conservatives want, it is about something more which is to
create better human beings… those who are engage in the higher level of being human
and not the instinctual level or the emotional level like anger and hate…

we are educating to make better people, not to improve the GNP which is how
conservatives rate everything… quality over quantity which take time, money and effort,
none of which an conservative is willing to invest in America’s education…and
education is an investment… and part of that investment is in a national program
which helps the state and local districts and that national program is called
the department of education… maybe instead of worrying about how much
money everything cost, try to make things better REGARDLESS of how much it cost…

you know the cost of everything and the value of nothing…

learn to value instead of counting pennies…

Kropotkin

In Finland, local control still means people of similar background, income and philosophy making similar decisions, so they don’t need a lot of federal guidance. In Asia, the attitudes and expectations also tend to be quite uniform across whole nations. In Canada, the schools are provincial jurisdiction, but the attitudes and expectations were established across the whole country by British and French political leadership on an egalitarian basis; federal government helps finance the less prosperous regions.

Given the size, disparity and complexity of the US population; given the amount of leeway states have in how their schools are funded are administered; given the power of local - including very backward-thinking - school boards to select or ban courses and textbooks; given the influence of churches, segregation of communities and until recently, of all educational facilities; given the poor tax-base and lousy living/working conditions in the inner cities and the preference of wealthier parents for private schools; given the load of paperwork piled on teachers on top of their classroom and marking duties, 14th in the world isn’t bad.
Now, watch it slide to 20 by next year.

K: upon reflection, how would you define “crappy” and how would you decide that the DOE isn’t
effective? and how would you describe something that works? you have several problems with your
statement that I didn’t see the first time…
you have said multiple times you are not an American, so how would you compare
your system with ours? there are many questions within your questions/ statement…

Kropotkin

K: probably not until two years from now will it slide as this year is still Obama budget until
July 1st… so give it some time to tank along with the economy, so by 2018 we should be
in a world of hurt… after of course our war with Iran which will not end very well for anyone…
I say, 45 will be beating the drums of war within the month and by July, Iran will have the same
mythical WMD’S that Iraq had and we will push hard for war and… so give it to 2018 before
everything totally tanks…

Kropotkin

Sounds about right. Though it’s not simply a question of budgets that have already been mandated.
Individual districts, cities and states may screw around with the funds: misallocate, misappropriate, abscond…
Remember, some of those funds are going to charter schools, which receive no kind of scrutiny.
Plus, they can start firing politically undesirable teachers, principals and administrators right away,
and some will be leaving or escaping before that happens. Plus, the whole present situation: instability,
anxiety, uncertain and falling student attendance in areas with high immigrant ratios and its volatility
in cachement areas where two alienated or hostile working class populations overlap.
So I expect a slide to show as early as next year.

Still, it’s the least of our troubles.

Oh, I have to do that. :open_mouth:

You’re the one defending the DoE. You’re the one saying that it should not be scrapped. Therefore, you must have already made an evaluation of its effectiveness. You must have concluded that it’s doing a “good job”, otherwise your defense would make no sense.

K: I have made a burden of proof argument but you haven’t given an argument against
the DOE… so why should we eliminate the DOE? if it exist, then we must have
an argument that tells us WHY we should eliminate the DOE… there is no argument given
nor offered to tell us why we should eliminate the DOE…
and if the past is any indication, no argument will be given to eliminate the DOE…

Kropotkin

You haven’t made any argument. You said that by looking at other countries, you figured out that education controlled by a federal government is good.

But the DoE could just be a bunch of paper pushers who do nothing useful or who actually make education worse than it could be. You don’t know and apparently you don’t care. You just think that government departments are good. #-o

K: I made far more of an argument for the keeping of the DOE then you did against the DOE.

but let us be clear about what you and conservatives want… you want to eliminate a
government agency because it may or may not be failing but you have no evidence either way,
and you want to eliminate this agency because it may or may not be wasting money but
you have no evidence either way… and you want to eliminate this agency because
students aren’t learning because of this agency but you have no evidence either way
so basically you have no evidence either way but let us eliminate this agency anyway
just because you like to destroy our system of government…

ummmmm, whereas I have done the research which you are more then
able to do yourself that of the 5 best educational systems in the world today,
4 are run by the ministry of education on a federal level…
it seems to me, to take evidence of what is successful around the world
in education and try it here…oh, that’s right, it goes against
your ideology… ideology before what works, right?
to make a determination as to what is the correct path
to take in education, we must first determine if there is a problem?
second, what is the problem? then what are possible solutions to that
problem/problems? we haven’t even done the first which is determined
is there a problem? then we must work through the method… before
we take any actions… as far as the system working, remember,
during the Obama years the educational system has improved going from
17 to 14, so something is working right… so what is working?
I suspect it starting working better because we emphasis it…
we made education a priority and that as shown by my research
into other educational systems has worked… make education a priority
and actually spend time, money and effort making it better and it will improve

eliminating government agencies just because it fits your ideology
doesn’t seem to make much sense unless you can directly, directly
show us how this government agency single handily make education worse…
then and only then does it make sense to talk about eliminating this government
agency…so can you show us how this government agency made education worse?

Kropotkin

You’re the one who wants to keep it. I’'m merely asking you why. A question which you have not answered.

I don’t want anything besides an argument for keeping the DoE. I’'m not even a conservative by any measure. That’s your imagination.

You want to keep it but you can provide no evidence for why it should be kept. You want to place the burden of evidence on me so that you don’t have to work to produce a convincing argument. But I don’t care because I don’t live in your country. If the DoE produces morons, then it’s just a opportunity to take advantage of idiots in the global economy.

I don’t have an ideology here. You have not posted a single statement which shows the Doe’s achievements.

The DoE was formed in 1980 to solve some problems. Did it solve those problems? Did it improve the educational system?

Reagan wanted to trash it in 1981. What he right or wrong?

People keep saying “Students aren’t learning.” without any support for that claim.
The fact is: Most students are learning just fine -
but some parents are upset about what their children are being taught (e.g. science; reproduction; history)
and some districts have poor test results, for a variety of systemic reasons they would prefer not to investigate or acknowledge,
and some parents are dissatisfied with the employability of the end product (with no regard to economic factors beyond the reach of education),
and some people have inaccurate memories of how much/ what values people used to learn in school,
and some think competing successfully - ie. winning a contest that doesn’t exist - in the elementary classroom
would translate to successful industrial competition on the global scale - which it doesn’t,
so they just cover that whole gamut of complaints with “Students aren’t learning, because of [insert bogus villain]”

There is a second, much bigger, self-deception at work:
They think that destroying government, or at least those of its agencies they don’t understand or value, will inevitably result in
replacing those functions with something more effective, cheaper and better. They cling to the baseless fantasy that their
leaders have “ideas”.

Here is what DoE does: https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/focus/what_pg3.html#howdoes
By what method/agency could any of these services be provided more efficiently?
Who should be responsible?

Baseless fantasies seem to be the problem on both sides of the debate.

What’s the other side?
Where has “the other side” claimed to have an idea and then failed to present it?
(cos, there’s a whole slew of examples on record where a conservative has done exactly that)

On one side big government, on the other side small government. Neither side bothers to justify its position with evidence.

This thread demonstrates it .

Who represents these “sides”? What is it the spokesmen are expected to “justify”?
What are the examples of big and small government that you want to compare?
On what basis, standard, scale or grading system do you want to compare them?
Do the examples of big and small government have to be chosen from similar forms of political structure, or all kinds; from the same historical era, or any period?

This thread demonstrates that you make vague general statements without backing them up.

The bill to eliminate the DoE is one line long.
PK represents the “other” side - no argument from him.

If you say so, then it must be true.

I’m just going to sit back and learn how it’s done properly from you and PK. :smiley:

So - you got nothing? OK

I told you … I’m learning from you … teach me.

Sorry - too late.

Shit. I wanted to learn too.