Posts tagged education
Power Structures of the World Don't Play Nice
Half-assed priorities of the federal government. Meanwhile the country’s infrastructure has gone to the dogs. The irony of it all is that we are no more secure as a result of all this military spending. Basically what it has accomplished is to have earned us the enmity of most of the world while dumbing down and impoverishing the populace at home. We have the Ministry of Peace and the Ministry of Plenty to thank for this. To be sure we’re not quite at the “WAR IS PEACE” stage yet, only the “PREEMPTIVE WAR IS PEACE” stage. Call me paranoid but one can’t help but wonder if the government actually wants the unemployment rate to remain high so more struggling young jobless citizens will join the armed forces. A government doesn’t need to use a military draft if it can inveigle voluntary enlistment through careful control and steadfast manipulation of poverty.
“When the rich wage war it’s the poor who die.” ~Jean-Paul Sartre
(Source: tumblrtribune)
EDUCATE: OCCUPYTHEMIND
(Source: wanttosharetheguilt)
Homeschoolers today cite many different reasons for their home education choice. Note that the most cited reason by far is that a better education is available at home.
![According to national statistics, home schooling is a fast-growing trend in American education. Although cold hard facts show that it works, government more often than not makes it difficult for parents to put into effect. Legacy systems always resist change for obvious reasons. The infographic above shows home schooling regulations of the 50 states as of 2008.
In Praise of Homeschools
Mises Daily: Monday, January 16, 2012 by Aaron Smith
The most admirable group of entrepreneurs is perhaps the least appreciated. Homeschool parents, or parentrepreneurs, are not waiting for politicians and technocrats to fix broken systems of education. Rather, they are eschewing the status quo and finding innovative ways to advance the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual growth of their children. Unlike their counterparts in the public sector, parentrepreneurs have achieved astounding results with humble budgets.
Curiously, parentrepreneurs are seldom the object of praise. They are instead showered with ridicule and demands for intrusive regulations that erode their effectiveness as educators. Self-interested unionists are often at the forefront of this mudslinging. A National Education Association resolution is exemplary of such demagoguery:
The National Education Association believes that home schooling programs based on parental choice cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience. When home schooling occurs, students enrolled must meet all state curricular requirements, including the taking and passing of assessments to ensure adequate academic progress.
Clearly, the NEA perpetuates the myth that parents are too ignorant to be educators. Even worse, they obnoxiously imply that government schools, in fact, provide a comprehensive education experience for all students. Of course, the NEA is hardly a beacon of objectivity. Between 1999 and 2007, the number of homeschooled students increased almost twofold, from 850,000 to 1,500,000 — a trend that threatens its wealth and political clout.
Unfortunately, the homeschool-opponents movement is ubiquitous and is backed by more than just power-hungry unionists. Left-liberal elites, statists, and antireligion bigots are also motivated to infringe on the liberties of parents. However, an objective look at four key performance indicators illuminates the truth and leads to an obvious conclusion: homeschooling parents should be praised for their noble work.
[…]
Homeschools are an inspiring example of how entrepreneurism can overcome government incompetence. Homeschool opponents are threatened by the success of parentrepreneurs and try to use regulations and fear mongering to maintain their virtual monopoly over the minds and pocketbooks of Americans — these efforts are unjustified and deplorable. Homeschooling parents are tremendously courageous and should be commended for being exceptional parents.
Read more »](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/01/12/us/12bodies_lg.gif)
According to national statistics, home schooling is a fast-growing trend in American education. Although cold hard facts show that it works, government more often than not makes it difficult for parents to put into effect. Legacy systems always resist change for obvious reasons. The infographic above shows home schooling regulations of the 50 states as of 2008.
In Praise of Homeschools
Mises Daily: Monday, January 16, 2012 by Aaron Smith
The most admirable group of entrepreneurs is perhaps the least appreciated. Homeschool parents, or parentrepreneurs, are not waiting for politicians and technocrats to fix broken systems of education. Rather, they are eschewing the status quo and finding innovative ways to advance the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual growth of their children. Unlike their counterparts in the public sector, parentrepreneurs have achieved astounding results with humble budgets.
Curiously, parentrepreneurs are seldom the object of praise. They are instead showered with ridicule and demands for intrusive regulations that erode their effectiveness as educators. Self-interested unionists are often at the forefront of this mudslinging. A National Education Association resolution is exemplary of such demagoguery:
The National Education Association believes that home schooling programs based on parental choice cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience. When home schooling occurs, students enrolled must meet all state curricular requirements, including the taking and passing of assessments to ensure adequate academic progress.
Clearly, the NEA perpetuates the myth that parents are too ignorant to be educators. Even worse, they obnoxiously imply that government schools, in fact, provide a comprehensive education experience for all students. Of course, the NEA is hardly a beacon of objectivity. Between 1999 and 2007, the number of homeschooled students increased almost twofold, from 850,000 to 1,500,000 — a trend that threatens its wealth and political clout.
Unfortunately, the homeschool-opponents movement is ubiquitous and is backed by more than just power-hungry unionists. Left-liberal elites, statists, and antireligion bigots are also motivated to infringe on the liberties of parents. However, an objective look at four key performance indicators illuminates the truth and leads to an obvious conclusion: homeschooling parents should be praised for their noble work.
[…]
Homeschools are an inspiring example of how entrepreneurism can overcome government incompetence. Homeschool opponents are threatened by the success of parentrepreneurs and try to use regulations and fear mongering to maintain their virtual monopoly over the minds and pocketbooks of Americans — these efforts are unjustified and deplorable. Homeschooling parents are tremendously courageous and should be commended for being exceptional parents.
Read more »
Is big government beginning to prepare the citizenry for the Obama Youth Core? (Or substitute one of these for ‘Obama’: Romney; Santorum; Gingrich; Perry)
St.Louis Schools to Monitor Students at Home, NSA/Google Partnership & More: Paul Watson Reports (by TheAlexJonesChannel)
“You see I think there are two ways in which people are controlled: First of all frighten people, and secondly demoralize them. An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern.”
- Tony Benn
(via revolutionism)
Occupy the Classroom - NYTimes.com
Occupy Wall Street is shining a useful spotlight on one of America’s central challenges, the inequality that leaves the richest 1 percent of Americans with a greater net worth than the entire bottom 90 percent.
Most of the proposed remedies involve changes in taxes and regulations, and they would help. But the single step that would do the most to reduce inequality has nothing to do with finance at all. It’s an expansion of early childhood education.
Huh? That will seem naïve and bizarre to many who chafe at inequities and who think the first step is to throw a few bankers into prison. But although part of the problem is billionaires being taxed at lower rates than those with more modest incomes, a bigger source of structural inequity is that many young people never get the skills to compete. They’re just left behind.
…
Maybe it seems absurd to propose expansion of early childhood education at a time when budgets are being slashed. Yet James Heckman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist at the University of Chicago, has shown that investments in early childhood education pay for themselves. Indeed, he argues that they pay a return of 7 percent or more — better than many investments on Wall Street.
We also need to improve the way in which we teach our children and approach education.
Video: RSA Animate: Changing Education Paradigms
Articles:
Education and the Technology Age
(Source: bethpratt, via enlighteningnews)
Authoritarianism in the schools
