Thread: Bin Laden Dead
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Re: Bin Laden Dead
Old 05-05-2011, 05:07 AM   #63
KillerGremlin
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Default Re: Bin Laden Dead

Quote:
Originally Posted by Professor S View Post
You hit the nail on the head. Thomas Sowell actually does a great job of explaining how events unfold to create subsidies for lowered expectations and performance (fast forward to 2:30, but the whole dialogue is good):



During the Great Depression families were paid more assistance if they did not have a male head of household. Also, the NRA sent workers to jobs far away from their families. Add to the this the endemic racism prevalent in the government at the time and you have your modern ghettos where black workers were housed in the worst areas and segregated. Meanwhile, at home, an entire generation of African American children were growing up without a father figure.

Ever wonder why white poverty is concentrated in the mid-west and black poverty is concentrated in urban areas? ITS NOT A MISTAKE. It's what happens when your government stops serving you and starts controlling you.
Wow....that is profound, and tragic.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Professor S View Post
No child left behind changed it a bit, but yes, its generally how it works. I know if Philadelphia the highest dollar amount per child is spent in the worst districts.
This is how it is in Chicago.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Teuthida View Post
Except there is a choice. At least there is here in NYC. I would hope it's the case in other urban areas as well. Though I can't see it working elsewhere where things are more spread out.

Basically you have your zoned high school, with access to pretty much every other public school in NYC depending on your grades and/or a specialty test. So if you're poor and live in a lousy neighborhood you can still go to your school of choice or at least one a bit better than what you might be stuck with. A lot of normal zoned schools offer advanced programs too so that if you're a good student you can get a better education than the average curriculum of that school. You can also easily transfer to another as I did if you aren't satisfied where you first end up. Believe Earl did as well. So there are actually a ton of opportunities to move around. No one is stuck unless they're apathetic.
This is hugely victim-blaming. But blaming the victim aside, if it was that easy then everyone would be getting straight As and getting out of their bad high school. There are family issues, lack of resources within the school district, and lack of speciality programs. The big issue these days is cutting extra-curriculars, like music or after-school programs. These have been shown to provide structure and support for youth, but in a fleeting economy these have been the first things to go. After-school programs aside, you still have the urban environment, the drugs, the lack of parental figures, the poverty, and a bunch of other issues that feed into the school environment. I believe in the "if you work hard good things will come for you" mentality, but the number of hurdles are astronomical and should be considered.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vampyr View Post
...and go after parents who aren't sending their kids to school. Requiring kids to go to the district that they live in means every kid is guaranteed to have transportation.
Sadly, neither of these things are true. Believe you me. The CPS doesn't give a shit if you attend school or not, and they sure aren't going after the parents if they don't take their kids to school. This applies to rural ghettos as well (I know via my internship) and I assume it applies to urban settings outside of Chicago. Furthermore, transportation is never a guarantee. I know kids in the CPS that have a 2-hour commute both ways across numerous bus and train transfers.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vampyr View Post
If you let parents and kids choose which school to go to, the good schools would be crowded and children with parents who didn't care or don't have the means to send them to the better school would be unfairly left out.
This already happens...and is a sad reality.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vampyr View Post
As for vocational schools, yeah. College isn't for everyone. Personally I think college is scam that we all pay too much money for. Most degrees aren't worth anything. Teens are indoctrinated into the mindset that they should major in something they "love" with no regard for their future.

You're paying a crap ton of money to a University so that you can ultimately get a degree that is supposed to help you get a decent job. Instead people pay Universities a crap ton of money to get a degree that won't help them with much of anything, and once they graduate they don't really know what to do with themselves because the only thing they've done their whole lives is go back to school. So what do they do? "Eh, I guess I'll just go for my Masters." This decision is made with seemingly no forethought put into what good that masters degree will actually do them in the long run. Instead they sink further and further into debt because of how easy it is to get loans to pay for something so expensive you'll be working for decades to pay it off.

College has me pretty jaded. I feel extremely fortunate that I got a scholarship and majored in something that allowed me to get a good job. I have a friend who was majoring in the same thing I was, dropped out after 2 years in, and is now making as much money as I do doing the same job I do. If I had actually payed for my college I'd be even more annoyed than I am at the idea I potentially wasted 4 years doing homework.

I think we should tell teens and future college students to major in something they -like-, not necessarily love, that has real world applications.

If you absolutely adore philosophy and can't imagine a life where you don't "do" philosophy, that's fine. Go to the library and check out books on philosophy. Read and study philosophy to your hearts desire. You don't need to pay a University an insane amount of money so that you can be bored in a classroom while a professor who doesn't really care about teaching drones on word-for-word on the same things you could have just read yourself.
I will go on my college rant in my next post...
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