UPDATED: Briefly Noted: Schools, Scams, Jobs
Three good reads that tell us a lot about America.
First,
If we took the future of the nation seriously, we would end public schools tomorrow .
This article is built around an anecdote. The author recounts a friend's experience. The friend teaches Sunday school to 4th graders from Harlem, in NYC. The friend came across two "students" who were unable to read. They had been passed through the first four grades but simply had never learned to read even simple English.
He goes on to point out:
The New York City public school system spends $28,800 per student per year —more than anywhere else in the world. A brand-new public school teacher with a master’s degree and zero prior experience starts at $65,000 a year, plus benefits.
We know that this really does happen in America, and we know that these kids usually come from minority and low income communities--those who need a good early foundational education if they're ever going to become productive, reasonably satisfied citizens. These, according to several mainstream studies by outfits like the WaPo are the kids who have been hurt the most by the government teacher unions that have kept schools closed.
And of course the situation is even worse than what we're usually told. Those tests that showed these kids being left behind were only administered to the kids who actually took the tests. We're learning--surprise!--that nationwide there are many millions of kids who have stopped participating or "attending" their schools.
Developmental psychologists will tell you that the longer kids go without educational stimulus on a regular, organized basis, the less likely it becomes that they will ever catch up. Yet this is what has been inflicted on these communities. What do you imagine the effect will be on those communities?
To rub it in, Thomas Lifson in
Lockdowns as class warfare of the rich and the professional class against the working class
reminds us:
Unionized teachers in public schools, members of the lower income tier of educated professionals, still have not gone to work in schools in many places, as their unions scheme to use taxpayer relief dollars to pay them bonuses for trips to Hawaii and other goodies, ...
Government teachers get their salaries and scheme to scam us for bonuses, while the most at risk kids go down the tubes.
Logically, one might ask: Who will man the jobs of the future in our tech sector? As it happens, Bloomberg did a study that provides the answer, via Zerohedge:
Up To Two-Thirds Of Entry-Level Tech Jobs Go To Foreign Guest-Workers From Unranked Colleges
Of course the tech companies will tell you that they can't find qualified Americans, but the reality is different:
A new report from Bloomberg reveals that up to two-thirds of entry-level tech jobs go to foreign guest workers from low-ranked colleges who don't dare complain about long work long hours and low wages lest they destroy their chances of a green card - as opposed to hiring debt-laden American graduates willing to grind just as hard, yet have no such immigration leverage to exploit.
...
When it comes to education, few OPT workers [i.e., foreign workers] attended ranked colleges . "More than 70% of nonresident computer science master’s degrees awarded in 2018 came from unranked programs, or those ranked 50 and lower by U.S. News and World Report. Just 17% came from schools ranked in the top 25.
So the system works. We ultimately get what we vote for, and what we apparently vote for is to make the rich richer and to beggar our children.
UPDATE: File this under the Inmates at least helping to run the asylum: Lawsuit: Maryland County Is Letting Sixth Graders Vote For School Board . An interesting feature of this program is that only government school students get to vote for a student rep on the school board. In other words, all those people whose taxes go to the government schools but whose children don't attend those government schools don't get a voice or vote . Shouldn't they be getting a refund on their taxes? I'm having trouble coming to grips with the Lib mentality.