Biden free college a reality?

[dfrecore]

I know many, many people in the military or retired, or who left when their time was up (many dozens in my family and my husband's family were or are in the military, we are both from families in which this is an excellent way to get ahead in life). Some had better experiences than others. A few were bad. Most were very glad they had served, and encouraged others in the family to join. My son will either be going to the naval academy or enlisting next year, due to MANY people encouraging him to join. Every single person I know in the military that wanted to get their degree did, all paid by the military. Not a single person had any trouble getting those benefits. My dad gets VA benefits now, my in-laws have TriCare (military retirement), they're both happy with it.

All that to say that the military isn't for everyone (and you can certainly be too old to join), but for those who join, it can be a good or bad experience. There is no one thing that happens to everyone. If it was all bad, nobody would stay for 20+ years (my grandfather was 22 years, my FIL was 23 years and got his Bachelor's and Master's degrees while in).

[Seagull]

Hmm different people different experiences. Not sure the military does that unless they were in a warzone, still people are prone to something or not. I guess younger generation after WWII were not able to handle tough situations. I have seen different experiences of people who excelled after military life but I guess each person has a different disposition and handles things differently. They should do a survey to see religion, family life, attitudes and political leanings of those who handle things one way or another.

Wow that is condescending!

So it is picking sentences apart and highlighting them in bold. That was a generalization, referred to what we call in the US 'the great generation'.

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I know many, many people in the military or retired, or who left when their time was up (many dozens in my family and my husband's family were or are in the military, we are both from families in which this is an excellent way to get ahead in life).   Some had better experiences than others.  A few were bad.  Most were very glad they had served, and encouraged others in the family to join.  My son will either be going to the naval academy or enlisting next year, due to MANY people encouraging him to join.  Every single person I know in the military that wanted to get their degree did, all paid by the military.  Not a single person had any trouble getting those benefits.  My dad gets VA benefits now, my in-laws have TriCare (military retirement), they're both happy with it.

All that to say that the military isn't for everyone (and you can certainly be too old to join), but for those who join, it can be a good or bad experience.  There is no one thing that happens to everyone.  If it was all bad, nobody would stay for 20+ years (my grandfather was 22 years, my FIL was 23 years and got his Bachelor's and Master's degrees while in).

Exactly, I totally agree, have seen the same and also our family is a military family and maybe that is the difference. It is the type of mindset one goes in. I have witnessed more positives than negatives and joining the military is very encouraged in our family. It is not a light decision and one should go in prepared, and yes expecting freebies is not the right reason to join. One needs be a patriot in the heart.

[videogamesrock]

Thousands and thousands more would apply making it much more competitive. Not only in the admissions process but also in the market place. Diluting the value.

You can't "dilute" the value of a smarter populace.

Having idiot citizens is already the downfall of the USA.

Created by the government run school system.


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[davewill]

You can't "dilute" the value of a smarter populace.

Having idiot citizens is already the downfall of the USA.

Created by the government run school system.

That's a matter of opinion that I don't share. It is much more the fault of poverty. Suburban school districts that have strong community support, with students that have attentive parents do great. Schools in poor neighborhoods struggle mightily.

I truly believe the only solution at the K-12 level is true integration...yes, that means busing students both into and out of poorer areas. Don't bother to tell me that it won't be allowed to happen for a multitude of reasons. There was a very interesting This American Life that told the story of some students who, in the wake of school closings in Ferguson, MO, were able to take advantage of a loophole in state law that required ANY school in the area to take those students, district lines notwithstanding. The difference it made to the students who got into upscale schools was very dramatic. Needless to say the state quickly closed the loophole.

[dfrecore]

You can't "dilute" the value of a smarter populace.

Having idiot citizens is already the downfall of the USA.

Created by the government run school system.

That's a matter of opinion that I don't share. It is much more the fault of poverty. Suburban school districts that have strong community support, with students that have attentive parents do great. Schools in poor neighborhoods struggle mightily.

I truly believe the only solution at the K-12 level is true integration...yes, that means busing students both into and out of poorer areas. Don't bother to tell me that it won't be allowed to happen for a multitude of reasons. There was a very interesting This American Life that told the story of some students who, in the wake of school closings in Ferguson, MO, were able to take advantage of a loophole in state law that required ANY school in the area to take those students, district lines notwithstanding. The difference it made to the students who got into upscale schools was very dramatic. Needless to say the state quickly closed the loophole.

I'm in favor of school choice including vouchers.  Your zip code shouldn't determine your education.  If everyone got to go to the school that offered what they wanted, I think schools would end up specializing, and they'd all get better.

[videogamesrock]

You can't "dilute" the value of a smarter populace.

Having idiot citizens is already the downfall of the USA.

Created by the government run school system.

That's a matter of opinion that I don't share. It is much more the fault of poverty. Suburban school districts that have strong community support, with students that have attentive parents do great. Schools in poor neighborhoods struggle mightily.

I truly believe the only solution at the K-12 level is true integration...yes, that means busing students both into and out of poorer areas. Don't bother to tell me that it won't be allowed to happen for a multitude of reasons. There was a very interesting This American Life that told the story of some students who, in the wake of school closings in Ferguson, MO, were able to take advantage of a loophole in state law that required ANY school in the area to take those students, district lines notwithstanding. The difference it made to the students who got into upscale schools was very dramatic. Needless to say the state quickly closed the loophole.

Schools have no incentives to provide quality results when they hold a zip
Code monopoly.

Bad schools should be allowed to fail through competition. If the school is bad people simple won’t send their kids there.

Lastly, government gives schools more money if their students are doing poorly, then takes it away as soon as things improve—thus having no incentive to teach.




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[davewill]

Schools have no incentives to provide quality results when they hold a zip
Code monopoly.

Bad schools should be allowed to fail through competition. If the school is bad people simple won’t send their kids there.

Lastly, government gives schools more money if their students are doing poorly, then takes it away as soon as things improve—thus having no incentive to teach.




Sent from my typewriter.

As any teacher could tell you, it's not really a money issue. It's a community issue. In an upscale school, the parents are mostly college grads, and impart expectations on their kids to do the same. They check on their kids homework, tutor them, and provide other enrichment. At school, the other students take school seriously, so they do as well.

At a school in a poor community, the parents are both working, and likely don't have college or maybe not even a high school education. They don't check on their kid's homework, and generally can't tutor them if they need help. When the kids get to school, the other kids don't take school seriously, so they mostly don't either. The expectations simply aren't there, so the kids get lost.

Throwing money at the problem doesn't address any of the real issues. If it did, we would have solved the problem ten times over.

I hate to hear people bag on teachers. Teachers are almost always in the job because they care about kids and education. They teach regardless of externals...why else do so many of them spend their own money on their classrooms? All the things we hate, they hate even more.

My daughter is doing her first full year as a high school teacher. I knew all this stuff before, but her experience is really driving it home. She has to watch as some kids refuse to do the reading and turn in nothing. No amount of handholding or encouragement works. Emails and notes home produce no response. She's eager to help and will go to almost any length to teach these kids, but when both the kids and their parents won't engage, she's stuck.

[LevelUP]

My daughter is doing her first full year as a high school teacher. I knew all this stuff before, but her experience is really driving it home. She has to watch as some kids refuse to do the reading and turn in nothing. No amount of handholding or encouragement works. Emails and notes home produce no response. She's eager to help and will go to almost any length to teach these kids, but when both the kids and their parents won't engage, she's stuck.

Agree parents have to take responsibility for their kid's education.

Not having a proper education will lead to people being of a lower social class as we still today live in a class system.
Americans have the luxury of knowing that even with subpar education, they can "get by" in life.  Foreigners don't have that luxury, often they may not be able to eat anything but rice without an education.  Learning a foreign language such as English isn't an option for them.

Kids might have more motivation in high school if we switched to a defacto 3yr college system instead of 4 years.  No reason why at least 1/2 of kids can't earn at least 30 credits worth of AP courses in high school.  High school should be treated as a prep school for college.

[videogamesrock]

Or we could just privatize the entire system. Where those who want to run a small school out of their home have more control. If you have a kid who is disruptive—then little Johnny doesn’t come back. Those who learn will learn, those who don’t won’t ruin it for the rest of the class.

A fully privatized system will always be more efficient and cheaper. The government run system has been a horrendous experiment.


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[freeloader]

Or we could just privatize the entire system. Where those who want to run a small school out of their home have more control. If you have a kid who is disruptive—then little Johnny doesn’t come back.  Those who learn will learn, those who don’t won’t ruin it for the rest of the class.

A fully privatized system will always be more efficient and cheaper. The government run system has been a horrendous experiment.  


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I like this idea, a lot, actually!  We let anybody who wants to run a school run a school. Otherwise would be socialism, right?  I am going to start a school and allow kids to watch soft-core porn all day. All I need are a few rooms, some DVD players, and a bunch of boxes of tissues. I will be raking in the dough. 

I am concerned about the students who are too disruptive and get turned away from all the schools. I suppose they will have to roam the streets all day. We could, I suppose, set up special jails for them. They would primarily be non-violent, so we wouldn’t need lots of security. Of course, they could go home at night, so they would really only need to be open during the day. And, we would only need a few of these jails in the city, so we probably would have to set up a bus system to bring the kids to jail. We don’t want the kids to bother people on the city buses, so we should have separate buses for the kids. The buses should probably be brightly colored to easily advise passers by that they are carrying children/inmates. And, we can’t just let them watch soft-core porn all day (that’s what my school is for, after all). We should probably hire guards who have a background in child psychology and related subject matter, to allow them to better control the children/inmates.  I suppose we could also let kids who don’t want to spend all day rubbing them out come to this specialized jail. Trouble is, we really will have to do something with the kids. Child labor laws make putting them to work virtually impossible. We could try to teach them skills, but videogamesrock, font of all knowledge and wisdom, says that doesn’t work!  He speaks loudly with definite statements and zero supporting evidence, so, he must be right!