102. chloel - Jan. 20, 1999 - 9:38 PM PT
Yes! My data-troll worked! Thanks, PE. I note,

"Thus, the disparity in economic rewards is increasing, while there has been no positive change in the openness or availability of those rewards to everyone in the population. "

which doesn't at all prove I'm right, but phrases my grouch much better.

103. Seguine - Jan. 20, 1999 - 9:39 PM PT
"Incidentally, I'm not the one arguing that we should use precious tax
dollars to rearrange school outcomes..."

I know, I was just performing my impression of Charles Murray addressing the question of what a good libertarian should advocate with regard to genetically handicapped Californian underachievers.

104. Msivorytower - Jan. 20, 1999 - 9:41 PM PT
Calgal

You have repeatedly discussed the failure of schools to meet your son's needs. In addition you have repeatedly made reference to this issue within the context of your role as parent.

If I've come to a mistaken conclusion about his involvement in gifted programs then I retract such comments.

You can certainly claim consistency with that internal checker of yours, however, there is nothing inconsistent in my perception of you being both a parent desirous of public schools to meet your childs particular needs and your desire to pursue such an agenda despite its low probability of ever serving that child.


Finally, I am opposed to diverting precious resources to develop gifted and talented programs when we are FINALLY beginning to see some payoff to the massive investment in educational quality for minorities and low income children. Does that mean I would discourage G/T development in students through normal classroom attention and individual assistance? No, it does not. Nor does it mean that I'm necessarily opposed to the notion of trying to serve these students needs. I just do NOT think that this is a "crisis" any more than it has been in the past (under different packaging).

105. chloel - Jan. 20, 1999 - 9:43 PM PT
Seguine

Sorry for the crosspost; my 98 was meant for your 88. About your 97, it would be pretty to think so; but do US citizens actually want higher educational standards, or just a safe place in the money lineup? Is anyone else thinking of those two things as different?

About the immigrants; I think my highschool's golden children were expecting to inherit the firm and hire the immigrants. Of course I'm bitter, they were arriviste louts and didn't know it.

106. CalGal - Jan. 20, 1999 - 9:51 PM PT
Ms,

You are full of shit.

I have *never* talked about schools and their inability to meet my son's needs with the expectation that they do anything about it. I am not even slightly concerned about my son and his education, nor does my position have anything to do with him. As I've said, it predates him by at least a decade.

There are certainly plenty of valid arguments against my position without bringing up my son. So keep him--and your laughably off-base attribution of motive for my opinions--out of it.

I understand your position as it is presented in the last paragraph of Message #104. Since I have never said there is a "crisis", I fail to see what your point is.

107. chloel - Jan. 20, 1999 - 9:54 PM PT
CalGal

Yes, I know the McGuffey (sp?) primers were hard; but the society they educated people for, with one educated owner to a hundred flunked-out-in-sixth-grade workers, is not something I want to go back to. We'd be a poorer society, not a richer one.

When you say "I've been consistent in preferring that brighter children be acknowledged and treated differently--while not disadvantaging anyone else. " it is totally unclear to me what you want actual schools to do - they have only so much money every year, so if they're going to have as much as separate books for the bright kids, they have to drop something for everyone else. Who do you vote gets dropped? (Competitive sports, *I* say - which won't pass the school boards for a while, nope.)

108. Seguine - Jan. 20, 1999 - 10:01 PM PT
"One possible explanation is that households have finally noticed the
increasing premia to education and are now responding to incentives."

The increasing premia didn't emerge out of the blue--I mean, there are reasons for them, too, aren't there?

One of the reasons, I've long suspected, that employers now require college degrees for work that used to be doable by HS grads is simply that college attendance confers on students entry into a social class that is prerequisite to entry into an economic class: people hire people like themselves. A college ed gives people something--even if it's something illusory--in common, where they might not otherwise have had much in common at all. For that purpose at least, just about any college degree is good enough for entry into many types of work; but anyone who wants one has to be able to get through four years' more schooling than he would have had to endure 50 years ago. And since 'everyone' now needs the post HS degree, high schools must prepare more kids to go to college.

Furthermore, once it becomes the norm to require a college degree for entry-level work, the workforce *is* better prepared--for something. The challenges for which we're prepared have a way of coming about.

That's a good thing for the US, in my view: if higher education standards aren't cost effective now (MsIT), they will turn out to have been an excellent investment later. I'm not sure it even matters that much what the educational emphasis happens to be.

109. pseudoerasmus - Jan. 20, 1999 - 10:05 PM PT
"The increasing premia didn't emerge out of the blue--I mean, there are reasons for them, too, aren't there?"

Technology.

110. CalGal - Jan. 20, 1999 - 10:09 PM PT
Chloel,Message #107

At this point, I'm still trying to determine if my gut feeling about what is wrong is actually borne out by facts.

As for the rest, I haven't made any suggestions because I don't, in fact, have any. I wasn't calling for action.

It seems to me the *first* thing to be determined (assuming that brighter kids are not performing to potential due to a dumbed down curriculum) is whether or not we want to do anything about it.

Look at the pros and cons. Look at what is involved. Get a better handle on what, if anything, is lost by not addressing their needs. Possibly accepting the fact that there is a downside to an egalitarian approach to education. One that outweighs the advantages? Of course not. And do we, as a society, want our public schools to support an intellectual "aristocracy"?

And none of these questions are appropriate for this thread, or what I want to go into.
You and the Ms both seem to assume that I was either bleating and wringing my hands for the poor mistreated bright kids or had an entire agenda for public schools mapped out. No. I was just answering your questions in response to my post and then the Ms got into the act. The reason I posted originally was because I wanted to know if the information in the book was accurate or not.

111. Seguine - Jan. 20, 1999 - 10:10 PM PT
"...but do US citizens actually want higher educational standards, or just a safe place in the money lineup?"

My impression is, for their children they want money, they want security, and they want resilience in case security fails them. They don't care about classic literature or the origins of the universe. They don't care about social dominance (much).

112. Seguine - Jan. 20, 1999 - 10:17 PM PT
PE, re Message #109, advancing tech doesn't explain the increase in demand for an undergrad credential.

113. pseudoerasmus - Jan. 20, 1999 - 10:25 PM PT
Message #112
The increase in demand for undergraduate degrees is IMO simply the result of an overall rise in the demand for skilled labour. And there is greater demand for skilled labour because technology has made work more suited to symbolic-logical tasks. An undergraduate degree on average merely sends to the employer a more reliable signal about the potential employee's skills and abilities than the absence of such credentials. I don't see this as contradicting your Message #108 at all.

114. CalGal - Jan. 20, 1999 - 10:30 PM PT
Well, thank goodness.

I thought you'd been sent to the penalty box for excess verbiage and charged $10/word until such time as you proved yourself capable of restraint.

And where is the fun in that?

115. DanDillon - Jan. 21, 1999 - 5:25 AM PT
A different kind of inequity.

116. DanDillon - Jan. 21, 1999 - 5:52 AM PT
A few remarks occasioned by the above link: Having passed through one of this country's recently-made-infamous teacher training programs, I can attest to the fact that many of us educators possess an extremely shallow knowledge of our "content area." We are asked to take many tests, write many tracts, and deliver many lessons; however, somehow we get by as history teachers who don't know a damn thing about the Sumerian civilization, or as science teachers who have no precise idea as to what capillaries do, or as English teachers who can't identify the main verb in a sentence. Alas, the teachers who are not well-versed in their fields are indeed doing a grave disservice to their students. When the hands go up in class, these are the teachers whose heart rates do the same. It's a relief to see that the system has considered discriminating against the ignorant rather than against those who simply don't know any better.

117. Msivorytower - Jan. 21, 1999 - 6:05 AM PT
calgal

"I have *never* talked about schools and their inability to meet my son's needs with the expectation that they do anything about it."

And I didn't say you did. My comment acknowledges your previously stated concerns wrt supplementing his education, wrt your perception that gifted programs aren't good in your state, wrt your efforts to find alternatives for him.

Try not reacting before thinking wrt my posts. I know you have a knee jerk response always in the wings when I say something to you, but in this case, you're way off.

Frankly, I said nothing for you to get in such a flurry, unless, of course, you don't want to acknowledge that your own attitudes and beliefs emerge from your own self interests.

118. Msivorytower - Jan. 21, 1999 - 6:09 AM PT
"I understand your position as it is presented in the last paragraph of Message #104. Since I have never said there is a "crisis", I fail to see what your point is."

No, you did not, but the quote you posted from The Bell Curve, and the later link to the article in the Atlantic Monthly both imply such. If you don't think there is a crisis, what was the purpose of linking two such decidedly biased position pieces?

I suspect you won't own up to motives on your part. This is SOP for you.

And my previous conclusions were not laughably off base, they simply aren't to your liking.

119. Msivorytower - Jan. 21, 1999 - 6:21 AM PT
DanDillon

Recruitment of well qualified teachers (meaning those who are among the best trained in their field) is very hard for many districts, particularly large, ethnically diverse urban districts and small, remote rural districts. Both suffer the same problems, they cannot offer large enough compensating wages to bring in enough teachers that are highly prepared in all the subjects required.

There are several reasons why these districts are at a disadvantage but the most important are
1) limits on the salaries they can offer, either imposed by their school boards, the state or their own financial tax base;

2) the problems inherent in single salary schedules, such that trying to raise wages for teachers in areas of spot shortages requires raising all teachers wages. This, then, represents huge costs to the district;

3) prejudice against more qualified teachers in some communities, whose satisfaction with mediocre teacher labor is high;

4) lack of innovation, too much administrative control, and poor management by school leaders.

120. Seguine - Jan. 21, 1999 - 6:37 AM PT
Personally, my interests regarding education are quite heavily influenced by the requirements of my offspring.

My son, who is a month shy of 2 1/2, learned his alphabet at least ten months ago, knows the sounds of all the leters, can count to fourteen or so (occasionally to twenty), understands the 'meaning' of numbers--that they represent a quantity--up to 4, uses pronouns appropriately almost all of the time, in increasingly complex sentences, and so on. I don't consider any of this to be particularly advanced, and yet it probably is not exactly 'average'.

I can send my son to nursery school, where he will be "taught" the things he knows some more, and then to kindergarten, where he'll learn them again, and first grade, where they'll be gone over once more, hopefully with additional material at each step. But the fact is, he's probably going to have it too easy for too long. When he finally gets around to having to learn something he hasn't already picked up at home, or off of PBS, he's going to hit a wall. And I'm afraid he's going to hit that wall too late to make the development of good study skills a straightforward task. I suspect this sort of thing concerns lots of parents in higher income and education brackets.

Maybe it's perfectly logical to expect that as education levels in the general population rise, more children will be prepared for academic life earlier. And if that's happening, then I think CalGal is right: those children need to be challenged just as stringently as kids from less advantaged backgrounds are challenged, otherwise their 'natural' inclination to curiosity and learning will be shown by the world outside their homes to be somehow excessive, unnecessary.

Access to challenge, too, can be measured in terms of its equity.

121. Msivorytower - Jan. 21, 1999 - 6:47 AM PT
Seguine

I agree that bright children need to be challenged, and as Arky and PD have stated many times before, states have instituted g/t programs, advanced placement programs, and the like, to serve this population better. However, the brightest children were as unlikely to be singled out for special services by schools in any systematic way in previous decades then they have been in recent years. It is simply that MORE children now need attention in a normal classroom, and the brightest children are only one of a large group that needs teacher time.

My belief has always been that if we teach well, then we are not only providing a challenging and demanding curriculum, but also adjusting that curriculum to individual student needs. That's tough, and when teachers have large classrooms, without any aids to assist, the task becomes even tougher. Assuming, of course, that the teacher her/himself is competent to the task in the first place.

122. Msivorytower - Jan. 21, 1999 - 7:00 AM PT
Btw, I assume everyone acts from a point of self interest. It is part of my definition of rational behavior, and I intend nothing pejorative when I use such terms to describe what motivates individual behavior.

However, when everyone is acting in their own self interest, it means that schools (indeed any public institution) becomes a battleground with individuals lobbying for their own particular agenda. In many cases, these are in conflict with one another, and schools must navigate a path through that serves society's interests best, not just one constituency over another.

And before anyone makes the trite comment that all should be served, let me state that resources are not unlimited, and it is in the conflict of resource allocation that these disparate interests can cause the most problems.

123. tmachine - Jan. 21, 1999 - 7:00 AM PT
seguine: your son will do just fine if you, his mum, keep on giving him stuff to think about. I learned to read before I went to school, and what it did was enable me to (a) give myself tons of amusement with no help from others and (b) soak up loads of ideas and information and feeling for language with no effort whatever. As long as you can read, and can keep finding more and better books to read, and have someone intelligent to talk to about them when you need it, your mind will be nourished and the benefits will eventually accrue. Nursery school is useful for many reasons other than academic (in fact I don't think "academic" is the point). Lots of good, loud, energetic playing with peers, learning to get along with other kids, tons of messy painting so you don't have to clean it up at home--as far as I'm concerned that's what nursery school's for. If elementary school's too easy for him and you don't have anywhere better he can go, you, his mum, will have to figure out other ways of making learning interesting for him, even if it's doing it yourself. but I don't think you need to assume automatically that he'll be unchallenged and bored.

124. bubbaette - Jan. 21, 1999 - 7:08 AM PT
With respect to more and more jobs requiring a college degree or certification as an entry-level requirement, I suspect that some of that is due to the fact that possession of a high school diploma does not mean that its possessor has even basic skills.

Back in another life when I used to work in factories, I was always amazed at the number of people with high school diplomas who couldn't add or subtract fractions, read or understand a blueprint, or even read at a highschool level.

Back in 93 when I was working on my MPA, I did temp. work for Wynn's Precision that made auto parts like gaskets, grommets, bushings etc, that have a low tolerance for error. Though the company hired highschool graduates, they assumed that they were idiots right off the bat and had extensive employer-provided training at a local community college to teach some of those very basic skills.

125. Msivorytower - Jan. 21, 1999 - 7:11 AM PT
TM

You raise an important issue, IMO. I think it would be hard to make the case that schools were significantly BETTER in previous decades (particularly prior to the 1970's), but there were many more indirect support structures for the schooling that occurred in the past.

In particular, the role of parents (especially mothers) in assisting what learning occurred in schools was unambiguously higher than it is now. Women's indirect labor support of schools wasn't just in terms of volunteer time, but in daily contact and assistance with all phases of a child's progress. One cannot underestimate the impact this made on propping up school systems historically.

Many more parents now want the schools to be more responsible for directing their childs educational progress, in part, because of their higher committments to wage labor as a family unit. I have a suspicion that this is more important to the decline in the percentage of students scoring in the highest ranks than is commonly thought.

126. Msivorytower - Jan. 21, 1999 - 7:30 AM PT
Really PE's Message #113 is absolutely correct. The demand for more college educated labor is directly related to the demand for more highly skilled labor in the economy.

127. PsychProf - Jan. 21, 1999 - 7:39 AM PT
Interesting discussion on TAG programs and philosophy. Clearly some students thrive on extended stimulation, and the programs can have a beneficial effect in this regard. However, I have found these educational approaches to be heavily influenced by elitism and politics within elementary school districts. My own sons, now 19 and 24, were never "chosen" for such, and it was of no concern for me. One graduated from Harvard, the other is at Dartmouth, and I am glad that they were not enrolled in such.

128. CalGal - Jan. 21, 1999 - 8:11 AM PT
Ms,

Should I assume that *your* motives are driven by the intelligence of your daughter--if we operate from self-interest, surely your position means your daughter isn't all that bright? After all, you don't want too much funding spent on the bright kids.

As for nothing perjorative meant--"vested"? Please.

I did not bring up my son in this thread because I was dissatisfied with GATE. I brought up his GATE program because I was discussing the difference between bright children being *required* to perform to their level, rather than it being a nice-to-have addition.

"And my previous conclusions were not laughably off base, they simply aren't to your liking."

No. They were, and are, laughably off-base. So shut up about them. I'm really quite fed up with you deciding you know anything about me at all. Now, we can continue this with you saying, "Oh, *I* know better and CalGal is a liar".

Or you can just keep to the issues involved and stop discussing anything I have said *outside* this particular thread, since you didn't question me at the time and you have *no* idea how badly you misread or misunderstood whatever I said at the time.

Surely it can't be too difficult to do that. Read back in the thread and see if you made any *other* comments about posts based on what you think you know about the Fraygrant's personal situation.

129. PsychProf - Jan. 21, 1999 - 8:26 AM PT
Anyone for more TAG commentary?

130. Seguine - Jan. 21, 1999 - 8:29 AM PT
PE: "The increase in demand for undergraduate degrees is IMO simply the result of an overall rise in the demand for skilled labour. And there is greater demand for skilled labour because technology has made work more suited to symbolic-logical tasks. An undergraduate degree on average merely sends to the employer a more reliable signal about the potential employee's skills and abilities than the absence of such credentials."

From what I've read about employer requirements, technological advances in *entry level* work, which is what I'm talking about, have not been so substantial in the last 50 years that they've changed the demand for skilled/unskilled employees. However, one thing *has* certainly changed: it's no longer cost effective for employers to train HS grads, as was once more common. Moreover, a post-HS degree apparently confers on young people something employers refer to as "comportment skills"--the ability to express themselves clearly (enough) and interact with others civilly; and a work ethic. College grads come to work on time. Hell, they come to work. And they are two to four years older than HS grads. And they're numerous, relative to 50 years ago.

131. Seguine - Jan. 21, 1999 - 8:30 AM PT
Bub'tte: "With respect to more and more jobs requiring a college degree or certification as an entry-level requirement, I suspect that some of that is due to the fact that possession of a high school diploma does not mean that its possessor has even basic skills. ...I was always amazed at the number of people with high school diplomas who couldn't add or subtract fractions, read or understand a blueprint, or even read at a highschool level. ... Though the company hired highschool graduates, they assumed that they were idiots right off the bat and had extensive employer-provided training at a local community college to teach some of those very basic skills."

MsIT: "...the brightest children were as unlikely to be singled out for special services by schools in any systematic way in previous decades then they have been in recent years. It is simply that MORE children now need attention in a normal classroom, and the brightest children are only one of a large group that needs teacher time."

I suspect MsIT's observation explains Bubbaette's. If you figure that more children need attention nowadays, and the better-prepared kids are off at college, then those seeking work in industry will be the ones who needed more help, didn't get it in school, so couldn't go on to college. Perhaps the financial availability of college to more and more Americans means fewer kids who can by virtue of their talents/achievements go on to post-HS study remain available in the work force. So the pool of entry-level employees is less prepared because college opportunity has weeded them out, not because highschools overall are worse than they've been in the past.

That still says nothing about how well public HSs prepare kids for college. It may be they're simply insufficient in that regard.

Perhaps a tiered public school system would serve Americans better at this point.

132. msivorytower - Jan. 21, 1999 - 8:35 AM PT
Calgal

You should assume that my interest in education stems, in part, from my educational interests for my daughter.

"No. They were, and are, laughably off-base. So shut up about them. I'm really quite fed up with you deciding you know anything about me at all. Now, we can continue this with you saying, "Oh, *I* know better and CalGal is a liar"."

No, sorry I won't shut up to accomodate your needs. And I know precisely what you mean when you say you're fed up with me suggesting I know anything about you at all. I suspect many people here feel exactly the same way about you. I know I sympathize with those feelings. But as you've repeatedly said to others, "tough shit".

"Or you can just keep to the issues involved and stop discussing anything I have said *outside* this particular thread, since you didn't question me at the time and you have *no* idea how badly you misread or misunderstood whatever I said at the time."

New ground rules, eh? Since when has this been the practice anywhere here in the Fray. Posters build up a body of comments, that, over time, help others understand their positions on any one topic. Your standards are strangely unidimensional.

Now, go back to nipping at my heels in pathetic anger.

133. CalGal - Jan. 21, 1999 - 8:39 AM PT
Ah.

The Ms is going to continue knowing better.

134. elliot803 - Jan. 21, 1999 - 8:45 AM PT
CalGal:

Telling other Fraygrants to shut up, which you do all the time, is a violation of the rules. And given the sheer quantity of words that appear in the Fray with your name attached to them, if anyone needs to shut up, it's you.

135. CalGal - Jan. 21, 1999 - 8:50 AM PT
Seguine's Message #120 is written, I think, by a mother who realizes that her child needs more attention because he is probably bright.

TMachine says (and the Ms agrees) that parents can do what is needed to ensure that their children are challenged.

My response--and this response is consistent throughout all my opinions about education--is that education is funded by the state because (and I am assuming here) it is in the interest of the state that our children be well-educated.

So whenever a potential problem is raised to which a response is, "Well, that's the parent's responsibility", my immediate thought is--how does the state protect against a parent who doesn't fulfill this responsibility?

There are many parents who are unaware of their children's exceptional intelligence--or who are uncomfortable with treating them differently because of it. Or who assume that the schools are doing fine with their bright kid because hey, she's getting As.

But if it is in the state's interest to ensure that bright kids perform up to potential, then why are they relying on parents?

Is it best for the state to ensure a child is educated appropriately regardless of whether or not the parents do their part?

"And if that's happening, then I think CalGal is right: those children need to be challenged just as stringently as kids from less advantaged backgrounds are challenged, otherwise their 'natural' inclination to curiosity and learning will be shown by the world outside their homes to be somehow excessive, unnecessary."

Yes. This is what I was trying to say last night in response to Chloe's assertion that it is the student's responsibility. By the time these kids get to college, the damage has been done to many.

136. msivorytower - Jan. 21, 1999 - 8:54 AM PT
Seguine

"So the pool of entry-level employees is less prepared because college opportunity has weeded them out, not because highschools overall are worse than they've been in the past."

Yes, I think this is a fair assumption. Certainly it holds true when comparing the college population prior to 1950 to subsequent generations. (I mark 1950 as a critical line because of the impact of the GI Bill on college enrollments in the 1950's. However, outside of returning vets, the college bound population in the 50's were more similar to previous generations than succeeding ones.)

137. CalGal - Jan. 21, 1999 - 8:54 AM PT
"Telling other Fraygrants to shut up, which you do all the time, is a violation of the rules. "

Oh, please.

And because it is undoubtedly going to be lost in the shuffle, I did not tell the Ms to shut up. Just to shut up about her off-base opinions about my life. She is perfectly capable of debating on point without bringing what she assumes she knows about that Fraygrant into it.

And this is the last I'm going to respond on this issue.

138. msivorytower - Jan. 21, 1999 - 8:59 AM PT
"Just to shut up about her off-base opinions about my life"

Oh christ, you are delusional. My comments can in no way be seen as such. Get a grip on yourself already.

139. Seguine - Jan. 21, 1999 - 9:12 AM PT
TMac: "your son will do just fine if you, his mum, keep on giving him stuff to think about. ... Nursery school is useful for many reasons other than academic (in fact I don't think "academic" is the point)."

No, of course not! I didn't mean to suggest that it is, exactly. However, I have found that our options are already limited by rigid notions concerning the age at which children should be doing specific kinds of 'play'.

For instance, my son is currently enrolled in a program that has a 'class' for kids a little older than him which seems, in terms of the kinds of activities that are encouraged and guided there, more like the kind of play he does at home. But because of his age, he must be placed in a room where at least half the children are a year younger than he is. Guess which kids need--and get--more attention. Guess what level of complexity of organized activity is delivered. Mind you, he *enjoys* learning new things--just the sorts of things that are shown to children in the slightly older class. Things that are as much about play and socialization, but which also are about coordinating motor skills and developing mental ones. But he can't have access to that kind of playing.

"If elementary school's too easy for him and you don't have anywhere better he can go, you, his mum, will have to figure out other ways of making learning interesting for him, even if it's doing it yourself."

That goes without saying.

"but I don't think you need to assume automatically that he'll be unchallenged and bored."

He may not be bored. But if public school now is no better than public school was when I was a child, he will most assuredly be unchallenged. I want more for him than I had, which was supposed to be good and yet wasn't (usually) good enough. I also don't want him to have to suffer the peculiar anxiety that comes from being surrounded by kids whose parents do NOT value or encoura

140. Seguine - Jan. 21, 1999 - 9:15 AM PT
...do NOT value or encourage inquisitiveness, who do NOT expect their kids to want more than is being offered, and who, simply because they predominate in a school, establish not only the level to which instructors must, for the most part, teach, but the level of accomplishment they (and those who design curricula in general) expect from students.

I do believe in public education. It's just that I advocate elitism for everyone, and I think schools and teachers must lead in that respect because too many parents cannot.

141. bubbaette - Jan. 21, 1999 - 9:17 AM PT
On the one hand I think that a tiered system of education is beneficial to the brighter students because it allows them to proceed at a faster pace. On the other hand, I wonder if some of the other students are just not held accountable for their progress -- parents uninvolved, child maybe quiet in school -- and could acheive at a higher level if urged to do so. For example, DH's daughter was rather quiet and unassuming and probably would have been ignored in school had DH not been there to tell her that it is NOT acceptable for her to do poorly in math, and talk to the teacher about problem areas, and work with her on longer-term assignments.

Had there been tracking, she may have been assumed to be not-so-bright since neither of her parents had post-secondary education. Instead, she was accepted at the Governor's school for the gifted and is now doing well in college.

142. pseudoerasmus - Jan. 21, 1999 - 9:22 AM PT
Message #130
By far the most interesting comment in this post is the conjecture that employers desire undergraduate degrees in entry-level work because such credentials, in their perception, imply a greater maturity among young prospective employees than do lower-level credentials. This is of course consistent with the theory of credentials as a signalling device.

As for technological advances, most entry-level jobs (except for the rankly manual labour) have become more technically demanding than they used to be. Even an entry-level corporate sales position requires the minimal use of computers, whether in word processing or database manipulation.

143. Seguine - Jan. 21, 1999 - 9:30 AM PT
And before MsIT jumps in with a completely proper admonition about the cost of educational excellence, let me just reiterate what I said before: it's quite possible that that cost is simply an investment that will pay off handsomely, in terms of benefit to the Amercian economy, in thirty years. Getting people to consent to making that investment is a PR problem, as is explaining to the American public that it must require, pay for, and then submit docilely to the demands of the very best teaching available.

The last part is what I fear won't happen any time soon. Tmac brought up, and MsIT elaborated on, an excellent practical reason why not: mothers work now.

144. PsychProf - Jan. 21, 1999 - 9:31 AM PT
I despise the term "gifted"...as in "my child is gifted"...

145. msivorytower - Jan. 21, 1999 - 9:35 AM PT
PP

hear hear.

146. FreeToChoose - Jan. 21, 1999 - 9:44 AM PT
msivorytower

“My comments can in no way be seen as such.”

Of course they can.

This thread is one of the bright lights in the Fray, with very interesting discussions. Unfortunately, it is marred by Msit's insistence on imputing motives to CG's commentary. Which imputations would be mildly inappropriate if accurate, and are egregiously inappropriate when so off base.

Msit clearly has special knowledge of this subject, and I look forward to her input on it. It would be nice (but I am in no position to demand) if her finite resources were focused on comments on education instead of sniping at CG.

147. Seguine - Jan. 21, 1999 - 9:45 AM PT
"As for technological advances, most entry-level jobs (except for the
rankly manual labour) have become more technically demanding than they
used to be. Even an entry-level corporate sales position requires the
minimal use of computers, whether in word processing or database
manipulation."

Maybe I missed the significance of what you were saying earlier. Which is that there are now relatively more entry-level jobs that require technological proficiency than there once were; not that technology has changed the nature of the kinds of jobs that were once available to HS grads and still are available, but now only to those with at least a couple of years of college.

My point is that college is required for work that, in fact, requires no more 'collegiate' proficiency than it ever did: manufacturing jobs, certain kinds of secretarial work, even service-industry work that requires no particular skills but does require workers to behave as though they are at ease with educated people. Particularly in places where the majority of *customers* are college educated, I bet you see more stringent requirements or expectations that employees will be, as well.

148. CalGal - Jan. 21, 1999 - 9:47 AM PT
"It's just that I advocate elitism for everyone, and I think schools and teachers must lead in that respect because too many parents cannot."

Hear, hear.

149. msivorytower - Jan. 21, 1999 - 9:48 AM PT
Thank you FTC for your standard "objective" take on this situation. Your comments are, as always, predictable and unwarranted.

150. pseudoerasmus - Jan. 21, 1999 - 9:52 AM PT
"My point is that college is required for work that, in fact, requires no more 'collegiate' proficiency than it ever did..."

I completely agree. As I said, the reason employers invariably require a college degree for jobs which probably don't require 4 years of undergraduate education is that the credential is a way for candidates to signal to employers the degree of employability. And employers value such signals because they reduce uncertainty and thus costs of acquiring information abou the candidates' skills. I believe that this is consistent with Bubbaette's Message #124.

151. Seguine - Jan. 21, 1999 - 9:54 AM PT
FTC and CalGal,

I got not the slightest impression that MsIT had launched an attack, merely that she had observed a commonplace applicable to all of us. Her response to CG's offended remarks was not a matter of "sniping", but of clarifying what was obvious to folks less primed to take offense.

152. pseudoerasmus - Jan. 21, 1999 - 9:55 AM PT
"Particularly in places where the majority of *customers* are college educated, I bet you see more stringent requirements or expectations that employees will be, as well."

Interesting prediction. Makes your theory more serious.

153. msivorytower - Jan. 21, 1999 - 9:56 AM PT
"My point is that college is required for work that, in fact, requires no more 'collegiate' proficiency than it ever did: manufacturing jobs, certain kinds of secretarial work, even service-industry work that requires no particular skills but does require workers to behave as though they are at ease with educated people"

Seguine, I think this is wrong. I am aware of few traditional manufacturing jobs that require a college degree (unless it's a technical degree from a community college, in which case, the skills required are NOT analogous to prior jobs in that industry). And the skills for secretarial work have consistently changed over the last few decades, more knowledge regarding computers, heavier direct responsibilities wrt client interaction, more independent work required. Finally, the same can be said of those service industry jobs now requiring college degrees, the skills demanded have increased.

As PE stated before, signalling theories are not inconsistent with the rising demand for college educated labor. In part, signalling theories suggest employers "hedge their bets" by seeking out that labor with a proven track record (college completion) as both indicative of good work skills and lower costs for any additional training required.

154. pseudoerasmus - Jan. 21, 1999 - 10:00 AM PT
Message #153: I think Seguine's raw observation is correct. Even in those jobs where actual skill requirements have increased, undergraduate degrees are still not strictly required to perform those jobs. The "skill surplus" results from the hedging mechanism you speak of.

155. DanDillon - Jan. 21, 1999 - 10:02 AM PT
Msit Message #119,
That's all very nice what you have to say about "large, ethnically diverse urban districts and small, remote rural districts," but I was implicating the universities and other institutions that train the teachers, not commenting on various districts' inability to attract those who are most qualified. Now that I think about it, though, perhaps the blame lies with the teachers-in-training. Maybe they're a bunch of saps to begin with. In any case, one of the benefits of being a teacher is the flexibility: there are schools everywhere, and, unless you simply cannot leave wherever you live, teachers can be employed in damn near every town in the country.

156. msivorytower - Jan. 21, 1999 - 10:04 AM PT
PE, Seguine

What exactly are these "manufacturing, service, secretarial" jobs are that require a four year undergraduate degree and yet expect the same level and degree of work that was demanded from earlier generations of workers with only a HS degree?

157. msivorytower - Jan. 21, 1999 - 10:05 AM PT
that expect....

not and

158. Seguine - Jan. 21, 1999 - 10:05 AM PT
"... the reason employers invariably require a college degree for jobs which probably don't require 4 years of undergraduate education is that the credential is a way for candidates to signal to employers the degree of employability. And employers value such signals because they reduce uncertainty and thus costs of acquiring information abou the candidates' skills."

Absolutely. But the other thing is, more of the workforce is college educated than it was 50 yrs ago, and perhaps non-entry-level work availability hasn't caught up yet with the supply of skilled workers, so employers CAN require (as opposed to merely desiring) the credential for beginning positions. (This may be especially true in certain cities or parts of the country, less so in others.) IOW, if more mature, better trained workers are available, why settle for less?

It'll be interesting if, in time, things change, and employers no longer have the luxury of requiring a college degree... but I bet that either won't happen, or won't be permanent if it does.

159. FreeToChoose - Jan. 21, 1999 - 10:07 AM PT
Seguine

I certainly want to focus on the interesting issue of education, rather than the tedious issue of who is picking on whom, but I hope you recognize that your failure to discern an attack in no way means that it didn't occur. In an attempt to be positive, it may well mean that you are attuned to substance, rather than pettiness. (No response requested, or desired; there is obviously an irony if one dwells too long on the desirability of returning to the thread subject, while failing to do so oneself. I'll try not to opine further off-topic)

160. bubbaette - Jan. 21, 1999 - 10:09 AM PT
MsIT

If you check out the "help-wanted" section of the newspaper, you'll find that there are precious few secretaries any more. Instead there are "Administrative Assistants" and Clerical Workers. Administrative Assistants used to be secretaries. Now, along with the inflated job titles, the job itself is starting to require a bachelor's degree. There are still such things as "legal secretaries", but are more commonly referred to as "paralegals", which require at least a two-year degree or certificate.

161. phillipdavid - Jan. 21, 1999 - 10:14 AM PT
chloel,
107


" they have only so much money every year, so if they're going to have as much as separate books for the bright kids, they have to drop something for everyone else."

Not so. Federal money is available to help serve the needs of talented and gifted students. Districts usually use some of that money to hire a teacher, and then there is some money left over to purchase materials.

Seguine,
(120)

If your school district accepts the federal tag money, then it is bound to document what steps are being taken to teach your son at his "level" and at his "rate." Each of your son's teachers is required to document what kind of activities they make available for your son. The feds require this documentation to keep sending the district money.

Knowledge of this is a lever parents can use when meeting with teachers and/or administrators to move them to provide the types of services their kids need.

162. msivorytower - Jan. 21, 1999 - 10:14 AM PT
DanDillon

Training programs are a function of what is demanded in the field (or more appropriately, what districts will pay for particular skills). The students who enter training programs will invest in them only to the point where there is some payoff to them. The most qualified students do not flock to teacher training programs because the PAY for teachers is lower, given their superior skills, than what they can earn elsewhere in the economy.

In addition, controlling the supply of poorly trained teachers is impossible (I don't know why people think any labor supply can be controlled with the exception of the medical profession). Impossible because there are WAY too many institutions granting teaching degrees in this country, in fact, in Texas, school districts can grant a certification to teach (as long as that person remains in that district).

States have repeatedly sought to loosen the supply conditions in teaching precisely because of persistent shortages in many fields and in many districts. Standards are frequently lowered when the demand for specific types of teachers vastly outstrips the supply. In these circumstances, wealthy, suburban districts have the best opportunities to attract the best of the teacher labor force not only because they can pay more (the pay differences are really nominal), but because the student population and working conditions are more desirable for these teachers.

163. msivorytower - Jan. 21, 1999 - 10:17 AM PT
FTC

You join the ranks of the Calgal delusional club. No "attack" was intended, no attack was presented. The woman went off on her spin. Read the damn posts, and I dare you to say an ATTACK was launched at her.

Rather, I made an off hand remark that generated venom as a response.

Now, fuck off.

164. pseudoerasmus - Jan. 21, 1999 - 10:17 AM PT
"I was implicating the universities and other institutions that train the teachers, not commenting on various districts' inability to attract those who are most qualified."

As though the districts' inabilities and demand conditions have nothing to do with how the universities train teachers!

165. msivorytower - Jan. 21, 1999 - 10:23 AM PT
Bubbaette

You make my point. There are few secretarial positions anymore because traditional secretarial skills are no longer adequate to do the jobs required.

166. msivorytower - Jan. 21, 1999 - 10:25 AM PT
Well, no doubt my "fuck off" was extreme, and I'm sorry to have stated it now. I should have simply said

Stuff it.

167. Seguine - Jan. 21, 1999 - 10:34 AM PT
"What exactly are these "manufacturing, service, secretarial" jobs are
that require a four year undergraduate degree and yet expect the same
level and degree of work that was demanded from earlier generations of
workers with only a HS degree?"

Actually, I was referring to 2-yr as well as 4-yr degrees; I don't know how things break out between the two credentials, except that kids with 4-yr degrees are more employable in general, just as kids with 2-yr degrees are more employable than HS grads.

Here's a list of entry-level jobs I can think of where a college-educated employee will be chosen over his/her HS graduate counterpart in spite of the fact that the work itself is made no more difficult to learn by virtue of technology, and in spite of the fact that the specific technical skills required, if any, are not necessarily taught in college anyway:

€ Printing press operator assistant
€ Line cook
€ Telephone or lobby receptionist (CPA firm, architecture firm, small business...)
€ Telephone sales/surveys
€ Retail sales (women's clothing, jewelry, kitchen supplies, electronics...)

There probably are lots more I'm not aware of.

(I do know people who were complaining a few years ago that one could not get work as a *waiter*, in some places, without a college degree. I'm sure some of that had to do with a tight job market, but the point is that college is preferred even when it isn't really needed.)

168. msivorytower - Jan. 21, 1999 - 10:47 AM PT
"But the other thing is, more of the workforce is college educated than it was 50 yrs ago, and perhaps non-entry-level work availability hasn't caught up yet with the supply of skilled workers, so employers CAN require (as opposed to merely desiring) the credential for beginning positions."

Actually, this explains the rising demand for college educated labor in the 70's moreso than in the 80's and 90's. Katz and Murphy effectively analyzed the supply of and demand for college educated labor through the 80's (in an attempt to analyze why rates of return, after falling in the 70's began steadily rising in the 80's). They argue that the scenario you posit (oversupply of college educated labor relative to the jobs requiring such skills) led to employers being able to begin demanding college degrees without either raising wages or necessarily changing their skill requirements. However, once employers began doing so, they actually began to find ways to utilize college educated workers skills better, and then the skill requirements for jobs began to rapidly increase.

That is, once employers realized these workers could deal with more sophisticated capital (technology), they began incorporating those skill requirements into their job demands.

Katz, L. and K. Murphy (1992). Changes in Relative Wages 1963-1990: Supply and Demand Factors. QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, 107(2):35-78.

See also

Groger, J and E. Eide (1995). Changes in College Skills and the Rise in the College Wage Premium. JOURNAL OF HUMAN RESOURCES, Vol. 30, No. 2:280-310.

169. Seguine - Jan. 21, 1999 - 10:58 AM PT
PD: "If your school district accepts the federal tag money, then it is bound to document what steps are being taken to teach your son at his "level" and at his "rate." Each of your son's teachers is required to document what kind of activities they make available for your son. The feds require this documentation to keep sending the district money."

I would love you to watch a meeting of the school board in my small NJ village. Phenomenal stupidity dressed up in TQM drag, seemingly absurd and eager concessions to racial politics, etc. The Board has now drafted a meaningless document which purports to "document" and "measure" and "report" things it refuses to define. The superintendant has acknowleged under pressure that he is considering busing grade school children around town. No mention of whether the objectives of this have been analyzed in any way at all--are they educational or purely social? Is it a matter of making sure everyone gets a good education, or making sure that test scores average out from school to school? And so on.

Property taxes here average $6K/annum. "Whole language" early grade instruction, I've recently learned, is the standard here--not phonics. I see no indication that the *quality concious* community can control the Board's assent to the *social power concious* community here. I don't know why--it's going to take years to figure out.

To put it bluntly, federally required documentation is worth shit unless there's some sort of objective standard to apply it to. Nuit the standards all seem local nowadays, and that's supposed to be GOOD. I'm not sure it is. Not at ALL sure.

Incidentally, both my parents are (were) teachers.

170. FreeToChoose - Jan. 21, 1999 - 11:05 AM PT
pseudoerasmus

“As for technological advances, most entry-level jobs (except for the rankly manual labour) have become more technically demanding than they used to be. Even an entry-level corporate sales position requires the minimal use of computers, whether in word processing or database manipulation.”


I wonder if this is true. Is the use of a computer more technically demanding than operating a screw machine? An average 10 year-old can use a computer. If someone protests that the average 10 year-old isn't capable of database work, then consider a 15 year-old.
I understand that the fact that 15 year-olds don't run screw machines doesn't prove they can't. But my sense is that it is technologically more complex than a computer. I may be wrong.

171. Seguine - Jan. 21, 1999 - 11:09 AM PT
[I have no idea how the word "nuit" got into may last post. Disregard please.]

"That is, once employers realized these workers could deal with more
sophisticated capital (technology), they began incorporating those skill requirements into their job demands."

Well, that's part of what I meant when I said that rising expectations of schools should lead to economic advances later. If you train more kids to be able to go on to college now, there will be more college students later, or at least better educated HS grads than there ever have been before. Then another glut of overeducated workers, the better (but not best) educated of which will be hired first. And then it will be discovered that one can do even more with 'smarter' employees, and business will prosper.

Or maybe there's a limit on this kind of cycle and it's right over our eyebrows at this very minute. But I bet we have a ways to go.

172. bubbaette - Jan. 21, 1999 - 11:14 AM PT
Seguine

I've also often wondered what's so all fire great about having local control of the schools and educational standards. With the mobility of the workforce, students will not be competing just against others from their school districts for jobs or college admission, but with students from throughout the state and nation. It also seems foolish to say that it's wise or even advisable for the diplomas issued by one school system to be worth so much more or less than those issued by other school systems.

Yet in my town, editorials frequently weight in on the side of local standards and local control. Why?

173. FreeToChoose - Jan. 21, 1999 - 11:17 AM PT
I've often assumed that a job requirement for a college degree is not an indication that a college degree is truly required, but more a statement that a high school degree can no longer be presumed to imply anything close to a 12th grade proficiency. Is this off-base?
To put it slightly differently, if employers believed that a high school diploma was highly correlated with the attainment of skills at, or close to the 12th grade levels, they might be willing to require high school diplomas.

174. PsychProf - Jan. 21, 1999 - 11:20 AM PT
"Fuck Off" prompted me to post this oldie:
Greetings How the fuck are you?
Fraud I got fucked by the car dealer.
Dismay Oh, fuck it!
Trouble Well, I guess I'm fucked now.
Aggression Fuck you.
Disgust Fuck me.
Confusion What the fuck...?
Difficulty I don't understand this fucking business.
Despair Fucked again.
Incompetence He fucks up everything.
Displeasure What the fuck is going on here?
Lost Where the fuck are we?
Disbelief Unfuckingbelieveable.
Retaliation Up your fucking ass.
Telling time I have to work till 5 o-fucking-clock.
It can be used in an anatomical description -- "He's a fucking asshole."
It can be used to tell time -- "It's five fucking thirty."
It can be used in business -- "How did I wind up with this fucking job?"
It can be maternal -- as in "Motherfucker".
It can be political -- "Fuck George Bush."
And, never forget General Custer's last words: "Where did all the fucking
people come from?"

Or the Mayor of Hiroshima: "What the fuck was that?"

175. pseudoerasmus - Jan. 21, 1999 - 12:51 PM PT
Message #173: I don't think your view in this post is inconsistent with the signalling approach to the demand for credentialled labour that I have been talking about.

Message #170: I really don't know. Never having been in a machine shop, I couldn't tell you whether a screw machine requires any cogitation or symbolic-logical manipulation.

It's possible that the demand for college-educated labour (in part) amounts to a demand for employees who were well educated in their pre-college days. That is, a college diploma may be important not for the actual education that it implies, but for its function in selecting the best high school graduates from the total pool. What has this got to do with your remarks? Well, I wager that those who are college-bound are far more likely to have learnt, say, computer skills than those who are not college-bound.

176. chloel - Jan. 21, 1999 - 1:57 PM PT
Message #170 I've never worked with a screw machine, but I've played with an aerospace drill press - and some smaller industrial machinery - and while I wouldn't say that the machines required less cogitation or analysis than the average GUI, I would certainly say they required less analysis of the kinds usually taught in school.

That particular drill press is a lovely 3D puzzle of cams and interlocks and parts I can't name ("who learned to distinguish, late in school/The belt feed lever from the belt holding pawl"). Learning it through an instruction manual would be a headache. Being able to look at it, and the job, and see how to arrange all the physical parts so that the whole is accurate, safe & repeatable, is an analytical skill but not a book-learning one.

On the third hand, that press had been retired, probably in favor of a computer-driven one best learned through its manual.

177. Vepxistqaosani - Jan. 21, 1999 - 8:40 PM PT
Msivorytower, bubbaette, ChristinO, harper, CalGal, Sequine, chloel: Sorry to come in late, but I just noticed the thread and I have a lot to unload.

Full disclosure: we have two daughters, no sons; they're in grades 1 and 4. The eldest has been diagnosed with ADD, of which more anon. I have done everything in my power to treat them like boys. This is done not out of any feminist ideals, but out of patriarchal concern: I figure that boys are less likely to date confident, intelligent girls. I haven't explained this to them yet.

This will go on for a while (I've just downloaded the entire thread), so I'll divide up my post roughly by addressee.

It's a good thing I'm male, and therefore used to monopolizing conversations, or I'd feel embarrassed at taking up so much bandwidth.

178. Vepxistqaosani - Jan. 21, 1999 - 8:40 PM PT
Msivorytower, how can you write (Message 79): "Whether it matters to society (or benefits society in any measurable way) if the top 10% have verbal skills comparable to 40 years ago is highly questionable"? Who do you think employs the remaining 90% and discovers new things for them to do? And wouldn't you like to hear a politician deliver a speech worth listening to?

I must also differ with your assessment of American math skills. I work for one of the world's leading publishers of mathematics (for the cognoscenti, I will mention the color yellow); I therefore get to correspond occasionally with some of the world's brightest mathematicians. Do you have any idea how many of them are American born and bred? Go to your nearest institution of higher learning and count up the grad students in the math department. You might not find any.

Now, Americans cannot possibly be deficient in a math gene that Hungarian, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and French folk have -- the explanation must be social or institutional. Mathematicians (that is, _real_ mathematicians -- not folks with degrees in something called "mathematics education") have little but contempt for mathematics education in this country below the post-doc level. That is because we don't teach mathematics; we teach computation and heuristics. Valuable skills, to be sure, but not mathematics -- which is why our twelfth-graders get wiped out in international competitions with students who have been studying math for six years or more.

(Message 104) [this is my favorite way to tweak educationists and get them to call me really, really nasty names -- usually "elitist", the awfullest term in the educationist lexicon]: What's the use of teaching everyone to read if all most of them are ever going to read are TV Guide and Danielle Steel?

(Message 119): You leave out the most glaringly obvious reasons; viz., that there are not enough _qualified_ teachers to stock more

179. Vepxistqaosani - Jan. 21, 1999 - 8:41 PM PT
bubbaette (Message 9): I have never been moved in the slightest by the argument that sports analogies discriminate against girls. With a little thought (but that's always the problem, isn't it?), anyone can get any well-constructed metaphor. Americans use a cricket metaphor all the time without any trouble, though few indeed understand the game at all (I certainly don't) -- and even men have been known to use cooking and sewing in speech: a watched pot never boils, the warp and woof of society, etc.

180. Vepxistqaosani - Jan. 21, 1999 - 8:41 PM PT
ChristinO (Message 14) and harper (Message 12): the more I observe my daughter and the experiments with medication we have been going through for the past year -- and the more I contemplate my own diagnosis of ADD and the results of the drug therapy I tried (solely to gain some idea of what we were about to but our daughter through; I felt no need of the drugs [my wife claims to disagree]) -- the less convinced I become of the validity of the diagnosis. Yes, there are differences in behavior, and, yes, the medication does cause changes in that behavior. But these are _differences_, not pathologies. Moreover, there are strengths associated with ADD that we delete from our society at our peril.

I am very much against the pathologization of human difference.

181. Vepxistqaosani - Jan. 21, 1999 - 8:41 PM PT
CalGal (Message 54, among others): My grandfather claimed that education in this country started going downhill when they stopped requiring Greek in high school.

Is Greek offered in any high school in the country, public or private? Perhaps if kids were told that they'd then be able to read the dirty bits in Gibbon ...

Sequine (Message 97): As that story shows -- and much other evidence besides -- while standards for the entire population may have risen, standards for the "brightest and best", "upper class", or whatever-you-call-'em have fallen through the floor.

182. Vepxistqaosani - Jan. 21, 1999 - 8:42 PM PT
chloel (Message 55, etc.): My library has become quite chaotic, so I can't give you a reference, but here is part of a Saturday-Review essay by John Ciardi from the late 50s or early 60s. I am paraphrasing:

"When I take my traveling poet show to elementary schools and read my poetry to first graders, every face is riveted to mine, and every ear drinks in my words. When I go to high schools and address twelfth graders, no one meets my eyes and my words return to me void.

"The schools get children full of curiosity and excitement about the world; the schools only have 12 years to extinguish that fire. They do an excellent job."

If anything, it's gotten worse since Ciardi's day, what with all the endless blather about sex education, diversity, tolerance, peace making, and practically anything and everything else any educrat can think of -- except education.

Oh -- and re Message 176, I can't resist more pedantry: ... who late in school / Distinguished the belt feed lever from the belt holding pawl."

183. Vepxistqaosani - Jan. 21, 1999 - 8:42 PM PT
And this is my last post for today. Thank you for your patience.

The quesiton IrvingSnodgrass asked was "Is education in the USA unfair to boys or girls?" Seems to me the answer's "yes." The schools are unfair to everyone, for they promise something they cannot deliver (perfect excellence and perfect egalitarianism); they are especially unfair to those who actually want to learn, for they have encouraged the growth of a culture -- especially in the inner cities -- where learning is despised and disparaged. They betray the average and below-average by not teaching them what little they could learn; they betray the above-average by not teaching them all they could learn.

Nor will any of this change until, as John Silber once suggested, all the colleges of education in the country are razed.

184. Vepxistqaosani - Jan. 21, 1999 - 8:46 PM PT
Oh, dear. Missed something.

Msivorytower (con't from Message 178):

(Message 119): You leave out the most glaringly obvious reasons; viz., that there are not enough _qualified_ teachers to stock more than a small fraction of the positions. By "qualified," I mean, of course, actually knowing something about the subject you're about to teach.

I should say that this isn't new. During my own schooldays, whenever I was confronted by especially flagrant ignorance from a teacher, my mother would regale me with stories of the nonsense she put up with to get her Mus.Ed. degree in the early 50s. Of course, that was back when one had to be able to read music in order to get a job teaching music. This is no longer the case -- at least, not in New York City.

(Message 121): You don't mention that the reason "the brightest children were as unlikely to be singled out for special services by schools in any systematic way in previous decades" was the pernicious use of antidiscrimination laws. When I was in junior high in the early 70s, all of my state's G&T programs were declared unconstitutional; my education suffered immeasurably as a result.

185. CalGal - Jan. 21, 1999 - 8:57 PM PT
Vep,

We don't demand enough of our gifted students because it makes many people uncomfortable to say, "Yes. This group over here is significantly smarter than that group over there. Our expectations and treatment of this group should consequently be different."

The split in this thread is not about whether or not there is a degradation in their performance, from all I can see. The split is whether or not this is a worthwhile distinction to make.

186. Msivorytower - Jan. 21, 1999 - 9:05 PM PT
Vep....reMessage #178

"Who do you think employs the remaining 90% and discovers new things for them to do? And wouldn't you like to hear a politician deliver a speech worth listening to?"

I have no idea what you're talking about here, or how it relates to the point I was making in my Message #79. Your comment, however, suggests either you didn't read the discussion surrounding it (and that post) or you lack some comprehension of the point of the discussion.


"I must also differ with your assessment of American math skills."

You can differ with anything you want, but again, the discussion was about the supposed decline (or improvement) in student performance on the math part of the SAT's. At no point did the discussion veer to an international comparison, or in whether the standards for math achievement are even high enough today.

Perhaps you can explain how you get from my posts to your discussion on the worlds most highly trained mathematicians?

Btw, one reason we don't have many Americans training for advanced mathematics (graduate programs in math leading to the PhD) is because the demand for applied math skills is very high in the US. Most of the students capable of going on to advanced mathematics are seduced into other fields that lead to more lucrative employment at completion of the bachelors level. So, to answer your trite question, no, Americans are not deficient in the math gene, they are just more easily seduced by the lure of money and power outside of academia.

187. phillipdavid - Jan. 21, 1999 - 9:06 PM PT
Vepxistqaosani,

"What's the use of teaching everyone to read if all most of them are ever going to read are TV Guide and Danielle Steel?"

Teaching a child to read is like taking that child up to a window and showing him all the possibilities. It gives the child a tool to use to enrich their life, if and when they choose to do so.

"The schools are unfair to everyone, for they promise something they cannot deliver (perfect excellence and perfect egalitarianism)"

Two foolish promises. I never thought those are what school promises, and I don't know anybody else who thinks that either. What public schools promise, imo, is the opportuntiy to acquire certain core knowledge and certain skills that will allow children to persue whatever they want to persue in life.

"for they have encouraged the growth of a culture -- especially in the inner cities -- where learning is despised and disparaged."

I do know about that culture, but how have schools encouraged it?

188. Msivorytower - Jan. 21, 1999 - 9:17 PM PT
"Message 119): You leave out the most glaringly obvious reasons; viz., that there are not enough _qualified_ teachers to stock more than a small fraction of the positions."

No, I didn't. In fact, the point of Message #119 as well as Message #162 was precisely that supply conditions were tight in these markets. Again, I wonder what you were reading when you scanned the posts in question, since your comment seems totally lacking in comprehension of their intent.


"You don't mention that the reason "the brightest children were as unlikely to be singled out for special services by schools in any systematic way in previous decades""

That's because my lens was longer than the one you bring forth. I was comparing the apparent lack of well formulated programs for gifted/talented children over SEVERAL decades. The period you mention was only a brief time when schools had formal gifted programs in place. Again, our lack of attention to this population is long standing, and any decline in student achievement that is compared to the pre-70's period cannot rely on how well schools served the best and brightest to account for any differences noted.


Really, one has to wonder what PE was thinking when he stated you were his "favorite new poster".

189. pseudoerasmus - Jan. 21, 1999 - 11:45 PM PT
Vepxistqaosani (Message #178)

Springer-Verlag?

"Mathematicians...have little but contempt for mathematics education in this country below the post-doc level. That is because we don't teach mathematics; we teach computation and heuristics."

This is bunk, or at least hyperbole of such scale as to verge on bunk. I have both an undergraduate degree in mathematics from an American university and a pre-university education in mathematics from outside America. I don't think the pre-university maths curriculum in the national systems I'm familiar with are any less orientated toward computation and heuristics than in the American system. (About the only difference is that most university-bound students in advanced industrial countries other than America will have had a first course in calculus in secondary school.)

At American universities, the first course in calculus is basically nothing but computation, because it is tailored as much toward engineers and natural science majors as toward mathematics. However, with few exceptions like linear algebra and differential equations (again usually with non-math students in mind), the rest of the maths curriculum is primarily theoretical and devoid of computation -- it's all proofs.

The idea that mathematicians have contempt for all maths education before the post-doc level is preposterous.

190. patsyrolph - Jan. 22, 1999 - 12:12 AM PT
Msit and anyone who cares; If pure math grads are in great demand it must be a recent phenomenom. My son-in-law took his batchelor's at MIT in pure math. He claims that immediately afterwards he realized he had become unemployable-- so he took a master's in computer science.

191. pseudoerasmus - Jan. 22, 1999 - 12:41 AM PT
Oh, most math departments warn their majors to take plenty of computer science, computational methods and other applied maths courses if they are interested in becoming readily employable.

192. Msivorytower - Jan. 22, 1999 - 6:01 AM PT
Patsy

Precisely my point. Most students highly proficient in math are diverted away from studying "pure" math, even at the undergrad level. For those who do pursue the math major, they have plenty of other fields to then choose from to do advanced studies. Computer science, engineering, business, economics, etc., all recruit math majors, and all these fields are significantly more lucrative than becoming a mathematician at the graduate level.

193. PsychProf - Jan. 22, 1999 - 7:06 AM PT
V.Insani..."What's the use of teaching everyone to read if all most of them are ever going to read are TV
Guide and Danielle Steel?"...keep em barfoot and pregnant, and keep em tired on the ole plantation.

194. FreeToChoose - Jan. 22, 1999 - 8:37 AM PT
chloel

I agree that a drill press requires less skills than a computer. A molissa would be a better example than a screw machine, but I daresay useless, as I'll bet not a single Fraygrant knows what one is. I picked a screw machine as an example of a machine that requires only a high school education, but does require a bit of thinking. I was never allowed to run one.

PE

I'm in full agreement with your remarks in Message #175

195. Seguine - Jan. 22, 1999 - 8:56 AM PT
"I am very much against the pathologization of human difference."

So am I.

"The schools are unfair to everyone, for they promise something they cannot deliver (perfect excellence and perfect egalitarianism)"

No, they no longer promise excellence. They merely allude to it disingenuously in the quest for egalitarian outcomes--except in those cases where egalitarian goals have been dispensed with altogether.

I do hope your remarks weren't meant to conflate American higher education with primary and secondary ed. (The former draws foreign students, especially grad students, precisely because it's good.)

BTW, what's it like, speeding on Ritalin?

196. chloel - Jan. 22, 1999 - 1:44 PM PT
FTC

I didn't say the drill press requires less skill than a computer. I don't even think it requires less analytical skill than using a computer. I did say it uses a different kind, and that the presses currently in use probably have moved analysis into their software, away from the operator.

Hasn't Bubbaette worked in a machine shop?

197. bubbaette - Jan. 22, 1999 - 3:11 PM PT
Yep

My last full time job was quite high tech, by late 70's standards, and involved operating a "panel saw" -- a computer driven servo-mechanical complex of saws to saw 9'x5' or 4'x 11' chipboard into different sizes. The guy who trained me was quite impressed that the computer had the same power as the computers that had launched one of the Apollo's and took up a space a little larger than a fridge. The instructions were fed into the computer by a paper-punch tape.

The saw was set up on an X Y coordinate system. The large rip saw was the Y coordinate and ran through the wood like this

---------------------------------------------------------------->


the long strips of wood then fed into a series of cross-cut saws
set up on the X coordinate that cut the strips into smaller pieces. The saws moved on turn-screws pushed by oil so that they could change places between one strip and the next, varying the size of the pieces

the Cross cut saws were set up like this, for example

111l
111l
111l

So far, we've got computer skills to operate the computer and to be able to load the data in manually if need be,and mechanical skills to change saw blades and adjust machinery, oil servos, and keep the off-fall conveyers running to carry waste to the furnace.

To load the machinery involved a series of belts and blocks to stack the sheets while they were picked up by a vacume and slid into place. That involved adjusting the vacume for the size and thickness of the materials.

You also had to be able to look at a blueprint and measure to be sure that the pieces comning out where the right size, not chipped due to dull blades, true, and square. Occassionally you had to reset the X axis to zero because the sawing would move the first saw slightly

198. bubbaette - Jan. 22, 1999 - 3:16 PM PT
and all the other cross cut saws were measured from the first saw.

So a little knowledge of pneumatics to operate the lifts and vacume and the principles of an x-y coordinate system.

I also had to be able to do any of the other jobs on the line out of general pinciple -- a woodlot forklift to load stacks of wood into the feeder and smaller fork lift to carry stacks of parts on pallets to the warehouse, and the ability to off load the sawed pieces on the pallets.

At the time, back in the 77 and 78, I made about $10 thousand a year.

199. bubbaette - Jan. 22, 1999 - 3:23 PM PT
When I got the job, one of the other women who was working there fussed at me for taking one of the better paying jobs when one of the men folk who had a family to support could have used it.

I pointed out to her that she was raising her children by herself and as long as she invested the same amount of her time and could do a better job than most anyone there, she should get the top dollar she could too.

200. bubbaette - Jan. 22, 1999 - 3:31 PM PT
So anyhow, to make a long and wandering answer even longer, Chloel and FTC, in a really competitive manufacturer, it's not really a choice between a computer or a drill press, it's a computer driven drill press that may also involve robotics. It also involves the ability to test for small tolerances and the flexibility to be able to retrain frequently to new technology.

But part of manufacturing is brainless -- stacking things, dumping things, driving a forklift, warehouse work -- that most anyone can do. People who can't read are becoming virtually unemployable however, where before they could be used for bull work.

201. FreeToChoose - Jan. 22, 1999 - 3:44 PM PT
bubbaette


Thanks for the long and interesting commentary.

However, I'm puzzled at your statement that it isn't a choice between a computer or a drill press. It is possible that I have lost the drift of the conversation, what with wading through the peanut butter Fray today, but I was questioning the notion that skills to operate a computer are presumptively at a higher level than the skills to operate certain machinery.

I do very much agree that people without skills are in great danger, as the price for brute force is dropping.

202. bubbaette - Jan. 23, 1999 - 6:12 AM PT
FTC

That depends, in part, on what you are considering as computer skills. If you're talking about working on a manufacturing line v. data entry or word processing, I've found that I can make more money working the manufacturing line and I don't have to maintain an "office" wardrobe. If you're talking about configuring, troubleshooting, building and repairing computers, the salary is going to be higher than either manufacturing or operating. Programming, network administration, systems analysis pay even better. As to which is more difficult, the only measure I have is how the positions are paid, and that may not be a matter of difficulty, but of credentials.

For example, my sweetpea is a mechanic. He has a high school diploma, two years military service, and about 23 years experience in paid positions and an additional 10 years experience building and fixing motors and vehicles for fun (if you can imagine that!)

I work in government in a policy-analyst-type position. My knowlege and abilities are on an entirely different scale. I work with words instead of tangible things, have a 6 years post-secondary education, 14 years in my line of work after college, and an additional 8 years doing most any type of work available.

When DH is done at the end of the day, you can bet whatever he's worked on is going to operate correctly and the value of his work is measured out in workorders and the comparable cost of such repairs in the private sector. When I'm done at the end of the day, my product is considerably more "iffy". I will have spent my day talking on the telephone, researching in the library and on law databases, sitting in meetings, drafting letters, reports, etc., conducting and analyzing surveys and databases. At the end of considerable time -- a few months, a few years -- my product is a manual, a series of seminars, perhaps avoiding bad legislation and regulation and promoting sensible alternatives, none

203. bubbaette - Jan. 23, 1999 - 6:25 AM PT
none of which is very measurable in terms of it's value to society and some of which carries unforseen consequences.

Who's contributions and skills are more valuable? If you look at the respect the two positions are accorded, mine are. If you look at a more reliable indicator, money, his are. It's not that one of us is smarter or more capable than the other, it's that our skills are in different things, and I expect his skills really are worth more and his job more difficult, in terms of physical demands, math, physics and memory.

204. FreeToChoose - Jan. 23, 1999 - 7:26 AM PT
bubbaette


Very interesting, but the question is not whose skills are more valuable.

The subject arose because someone made the assertion that the need to use computers in entry level jobs constitutes an upgrading of skills requirements (my words). To put it differently, one hypothesis for upgrading the education requirements from high school to college for many entry level jobs is that these jobs require computers, and everyone knows it takes skill to use a computer.

I am questioning whether the skills necessary to use a computer at a basic level (all that is required in may jobs) are truly more advanced than, say, the skills necessary to run many types of machines common in the workplace.

I wasn't commenting on the relative value of the jobs, or the pay. I merely doubt that the increased educational requirements can be traced to the integration of computers into these jobs.

To put it simply, it don't take much brains to use a computer, despite common folklore. (For proof, check out the GOP thread.)

205. bubbaette - Jan. 23, 1999 - 1:32 PM PT
FTC

After going round the bush, I agree. The only particular skill one needs to use a computer is how to type. You can get by without, but it's more difficult.

206. FreeToChoose - Jan. 24, 1999 - 4:36 PM PT
     With a nod to the title of this thread, I note a controversy being discussed both nationally and locally. Few schools have enough girls interested in wrestling to form a wrestling team, so those girls that wish to wrestle do so on the boys team. (Except SD). The potential issues are obvious. Does anyone have an opinion?

207. Greystoke - Jan. 24, 1999 - 7:25 PM PT
FreeToChoose

"To put it simply, it don't take much brains to use a computer, despite common folklore. (For proof, check out the GOP thread.)"

Hey! I represent that comment.




PS I was under the impression that you think it is wrong to criticize people when they aren't present to defend themselves. But, perhaps I am guilty of not paying attention again.

208. phillipdavid - Jan. 24, 1999 - 9:03 PM PT
FTC,

Considering most teeange boys will sprout a hardon at the drop of a hat, I imagine it would be quite difficult for some boys to actually wrestle a girl without getting excited.

Teenage boys are also very prone to test the limits, test authority, and to do extreme or outrageous things to impress their friends.

And considering the wrestlers are usually the most macho guys in school, I would consider coed wrestling trouble waiting to happen.

209. lazygeorge - Jan. 25, 1999 - 7:08 AM PT
I read the Wall Street Journal article on co-ed wrestling. It seemed the problem is not the wrestlers, but the coaches and officials afraid of being charged with harassment.

210. DocBrown - Jan. 28, 1999 - 7:25 AM PT
This is a great thread, containing good comments and useful statistics, so I would hate to see it die before I contribute to it.

The discussion of incresased demand for technologically savvy workers should mention one more thing: the need to increase productivity. The economy of the world urgently needs productivity to rise across the board if we are to imporove the standard of living while population rises. The economy of the US needs a tremendous increase in productivity if we are going to support our social programs while the population of retired and infirm citizens rises. You can literally look in any direction and see a need for productivity to increase.

The only way we can accomplish this is through technology. Technology allows us to produce, market, and distribute everything more efficiently. It allows us to create new, better products faster. It allows us to test those products more quickly and reliably. The economic force is powerful; there is no turning back from technology.

As a general consequence, we must reduce the number of low-tech jobs and increase the number of high-tech jobs. It's practically our duty.

211. lazygeorge - Jan. 28, 1999 - 8:02 AM PT
I hoped this thread would give examples of how our "free public education" is unfair to boys or girls or both.

212. DocBrown - Jan. 28, 1999 - 10:35 AM PT
Well, lazygeorge, I believe that it has given a few, especially in the domain of atheletic programs.

It is not so easy to measure what is "fair" in a system when you have not defined the output of that system. Do our public school exist to churn out a work force? That has been a great assumption in this thread so far. In that case technological education has to be highly prized, and we can measure fairness mostly by looking at how the system imparts tech prowess to its students.

But we expect our public education system to do more than that. It teaches behavior, too. If someone produced a statistic that there are more men in prisons than women (probably an easy fact to find) we might take that as proof that schools are serving girls better than boys.

We also expect our schools to produce responsible citizens on higher levels. If a greater fraction of the male population votes than of the female population, this might be an indicator that the system is failing for girls.

I am not asking anyone to crank up their search engines and produce this data. My question is this: how should do we measure success in our schools?

Until someone defines the benefit of the system, we cannot discuss the "fairness" to which this benefit is allocated.

213. lazygeorge - Jan. 28, 1999 - 1:29 PM PT
DocBrown,

I agree there have been posts on the issue. The criteria I would use to determine failure would be much more difficult to measure. What percentage of the eager 5 and 6 year olds entering school for the first time eventually turn into angry, sullen adolescents who hate school? Girls who fit this category use to be less common than boys, but some of my friends who are teachers tell me the number of girls who fit this description are rapidly increasing.

214. lazygeorge - Jan. 28, 1999 - 1:40 PM PT
I agree that using only one or two statistics can skew reality. In my opinion most of education is not a zero sum game. The kids who really want an education will manage. Its the ones who lack motivation that we are hurting the most. I attended one of the "worst" high schools in my state. It was not a significant set back to my college experience or my latter life. A lot of my most painful experiences in that high school were good preparation for reality. But no, I would not want to put my children through the experience I had.

215. DanDillon - Jan. 29, 1999 - 6:08 AM PT
This article relates (if not concretizes) a point I made earlier on. I mentioned that the teacher training programs across the U.S. do not equip thier teachers adequately. As a result, this lack of preparedness reverberates throughout school systems everywhere. And certainly the added fact that teachers are *admitting* to being unqualified demonstrates just how grave the situation is.

216. DocBrown - Jan. 29, 1999 - 11:32 AM PT
Thanks for the interesting link, DanD.

Interesting that teachers are complaining that they are not qualified to teach. Obviously society does have people with the technical and social skills that teachers lack, but these individuals are not attracted to the pay and working conditions of today's teachers.

217. ChristinO - Jan. 29, 1999 - 12:24 PM PT
Doc, I imagine that this is not the thread for this conversation, but what leads you to believe that lack of productivity or a dearth of manufactured goods is the cause of want in this country? It isn't an acutal lack of food or materials that causes people to go without. Making more when so much goes unused is not the answer. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by productivity.

BTW, it's good to see you again!

218. DocBrown - Feb. 1, 1999 - 7:19 AM PT
It is good to see you again too, ChristinO.

By productivity I did not mean anything unusual; I am using a fairly standard definition of the word.

When I said "The economy of the world urgently needs productivity to rise across the board if we are to imporove the standard of living while population rises . . ." I meant that each worker's income / standard of living is constrained by their productivity.

When I said "The economy of the US needs a tremendous increase in productivity if we are going to support our social programs while the population of retired and infirm citizens rises . . ." I meant that the ability of working people to support the needs of non-working people is again constrained by productivity. In another generation we will have a smaller number of workers supporting a greater number of retirees. This is completely practical, provided tomorrow's workers are a whole lot more productive than today's.

If we want to increase the standard of living *and* support an increasing number of non-workers at the same time then we need to increase productivity even more. The only way I know how to do this is through technology, and the road to a technologically competent workforce runs through education.

219. DocBrown - Feb. 1, 1999 - 7:30 AM PT
Too bad this thread is RIPed. I tried to post to it several times last Friday, but that was when The Fray was experiencing difficulties.

After my above post on the criticality of technical education in success, I question whether boys and girls get the same opportunities to learn computers. PCs were virtually unheard of when I was in elementary school. By the time I reached high school you could spend a lot of money for a Radio Shack, Commodore, Atari, or Apple machine with 8-16K of memory. Even then few schools taught computer classes, but some of us acquired our own computers and began to teach ourselves. All of the self taught computer gurus that I knew were boys.

Things have changed since then. Today most schools do have a few computers available, and "technical classes" do not involve soldering irons, power drills, and other things that used to attract boys and frighten girls. I wonder if the wind has shifted. Do girls get as much technical education as boys do now?

220. ChristiPeters - Feb. 1, 1999 - 1:21 PM PT
Is education in the USA unfair to boys or girls?

yes




next question?

221. ChristinO - Feb. 1, 1999 - 5:03 PM PT
Doc,

I still don't see that productivity is the bottom line. Logically it should be. If you have X number of goods it provides for Y number of people. That isn't the case, however. I think particularly of famine relief efforts that fail because the the food never gets to the hungry. It's not that there isn't enough food it's that it isn't in the right place.

Same thing here in the states. There is more than enough food and money and goods for everyone it's just that not everyone has access to those things. Many of them are unable to access these things because they don't hold the "right" jobs or come from the "right" ethnic background.

The problem is quite complicated though. People want to know why a neurosurgeon should give up any part of his hard earned cash to feed and shelter a fry cook at McDonalds. Part of the American dream is that one CAN pull one's self up by the bootstraps. The flip side of that is that there is a lot of resentment toward those who have been unable to do so.

222. ChristinO - Feb. 1, 1999 - 5:14 PM PT
To try and bring this back on topic somewhat:

Women have traditionally been trained for support and service positions. They are the secretaries and file clearks and administrative assistants. These positions are more likely to be on an hourly wage. If you get the work done in half the time you don't get paid for the other 4 hours you might have been working.

Men have traditionally held managerial positions. These are primarly paid on a salary or "deliverables" basis. No matter how many or how few hours it took to get the job done, the pay is the same.

I worked for about a year as the admin asst to the CEO of a credit union. I wrote a weekly a monthly and a quarterly newsletter, handled advertising, correspondance, phones and promotional events. I ordered office supplies, kept track of all the literature we handed out and made daily trips to the post office and to the "Plant".

My boss presided over monthly board meetings and decided what our interest rates would be from quarter to quarter----based solely on the advide of our CFO. For the remainder of the time he sat in his office and read the Wall Street Journal or took two hour liquid lunches.

My salary was less than a third of his. Productivity obviously was not at all indicative of which one of us could afford to buy a home.

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