Quote:
Originally Posted by Ducimus
Carlin makes a great point.
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I disagree with that pretty much entirely (his point about education).
Education fails in the US pretty much entirely due to parents. Involved parents raise more educated kids. Period. Private schools do better not because they are better, not because the kids are smarter, but because the schools select for involved parents (via expensive tuition). That's why "charter" or other public school "choice" facilities have better outcomes. They select for parents that give a crap enough to jump through the hoops to get their kids in the "better" school. The school in question is only "better" because it is filled with kids who have parents that want their kids to learn.
The "bad" schools often have far more dollars spent per student, too. The trouble is the kids are from criminal or single parent homes (likely not divorced, but a "never married mom" who might have kids in the hosue with more than one bio-dad). THAT is the education problem in the US.
This entirely explains the success of middle class school systems (like suburban CT where I went to school). The schools are not better because the towns are "rich" (they ARE rich), they are better because the kind of people that become rich overwhelmingly value education, and the bulk of the kids at school have absorbed this mindset growing up without even realizing it. They don't need private schools, etc, because the "culture" of academic success is already there.
Carlin's diatribe on education is entirely misplaced, IMHO.