patrick.net

What? No comments yet? I was expecting this to be a controversial issue especially because it challenging the current philosophy of making education a local issue rather than a global one. I'm talking about taking power away from the municipalities and teacher's union and doing education at the national if not international level. Makes perfect sense to me, but I'm surprised no one is jumping up and down objecting to this.

Nope, this is not controversial at all.

In fact, I think it's such an open secret ... that I believe people are too afraid for their own jobs or property valuations, if they live in a big name school district town.

BTW, even as a kid, there were Pimsleur language tapes.

People who did the 90 lessons in conversational French had much higher speaking fluency than those in Junior year of French in high school, during oral exams.

The best linguistics student, from next to my hometown, using self-learning, did Pimsleur tapes; she dropped French in high school. She then took the language at Harvard (night extension school) and aced everything w/o much adieu. Those credits were then transferred to a four year college later.

We should instead go through a period of de-educations to match our overall de-leveraging. Only then when the slate has been wiped clean tabula rasa style, can we start considering alternate systems. Education itself when it is formalized has largely tended to operate as one of matrix like constraits to herd the citizens.

This article, like all mainstream media articles on education, ignores race in the United States. It is a fact that blacks and mestizo hispanics are less intelligent that white european americans due to genetics. It is a fact that east asians are more intelligent than whites due to genetics.

Not until public education caters to natural ability, not utopian liberal fantasies of 100% racial equality, will we start to have real progress towards a better society.

For instance, there is no point teaching advanced math to blacks. Very few of them will understand it and even fewer will have a chance to use it in the future. Giving all blacks the access to this education is very costly, given the small number of people who will actually use it. This money, time and effort would be better spent on those that have a larger percentage of the population who can use it, such as whites and east asians.

Since 1965 and the "civil rights movement", the black-white 'achievement gap' has not come any closer to being closed even after countless trillions spent on this hopeless endeavor.

A logical person would deem the liberal policies of racial equality and integration a failure. Liberals, however, cannot admit being wrong. It would be like presenting a Christian the scientific evidence that proves their faith and religion false but they would dismiss it all because it's not in the bible. The confrontation would only reinforce their false beliefs.

foxmannumber1 says

A logical person would deem the liberal policies of racial equality and integration a failure. Liberals, however, cannot admit being wrong. It would be like presenting a Christian the scientific evidence that proves their faith and religion false but they would dismiss it all because it's not in the bible. The confrontation would only reinforce their false beliefs.

Don't think this has much to do with genetics at all, more the effort spent studying and the value system. Basically, "east asians" will run circles on everyone else because of the work they put in. They are basically like new england patriots of the nfl with meticulous attention to detail and study 8-10 hours a day when they are under 15 years old so as not to "dishonor the family." Certain "europeans on the other hand are like the oakland raiders.

dublin hillz says

foxmannumber1 says

A logical person would deem the liberal policies of racial equality and integration a failure. Liberals, however, cannot admit being wrong. It would be like presenting a Christian the scientific evidence that proves their faith and religion false but they would dismiss it all because it's not in the bible. The confrontation would only reinforce their false beliefs.

Don't think this has much to do with genetics at all, more the effort spent studying and the value system. Basically, "east asians" will run circles on everyone else because of the work they put in. They are basically like new england patriots of the nfl with meticulous attention to detail and study 8-10 hours a day when they are under 15 years old so as not to "dishonor the family." Certain "europeans on the other hand are like the oakland raiders.

This is not true.

The root cause of all black problems is lack of intelligence, which is mostly genetic. They are poor because they lack intelligence. They commit more crime per capita because they lack intelligence. They are undesirable in white societies because they lack intelligence.

The average pure bred sub saharan african IQ is 65. The average black american IQ is 85. The average white american IQ is 100. The average east asian american IQ is 107. This is all genetic. No amount of social manipulation can change natural intelligence.

I have seen plenty of examples where via hard work in and out of the classroom, students have earned good grades. I have also seen countless evidence where the supposedly "smart" students skated through high school only to have their asses handed to them in college because they thought they could get away with the same shit there.

You're smart enough to know anecdotal evidence is worthless.

You're also ignoring the hundreds of blacks who are of low intelligence and achieve nothing for every hard working black you've met.

>Under the current system, the taxpayer is only paying if the student defaults which is nearly impossible as these loans are not wiped out even in bankruptcy.

Are they reduced to some degree in bankruptcy? Is death the only way out (short of repaying the loan)?

foxmannumber1 says

This article, like all mainstream media articles on education, ignores race in the United States. It is a fact that blacks and mestizo hispanics are less intelligent that white european americans due to genetics. It is a fact that east asians are more intelligent than whites due to genetics.

I would expect that the differences in academic performance are due to culture, not racial genetics as explained in this paper from the University of Wisconsin. Sure, genetics plays a huge role in intelligence. But I have yet to see any evidence that genes which control melanin levels in skin has any effects on the structure of the brain. Certainly that belief carries the burden of proof.

Nevertheless, regardless of what causes some students to be more intelligent than others, the virtual school system I described allows the better performing students to not be held back by the worse performing ones. It also allows the worst performers to still progress through academic levels rather than simply falling through the cracks like they do under the current system. So both sets of students are better off.

American in Japan says

Are they reduced to some degree in bankruptcy? Is death the only way out (short of repaying the loan)?

I have not heard of this happening.

Dan8267 says

What? No comments yet?

No one has finished reading the post yet. :)

Seriously, it's a lot to digest.

Dan8267

>"the virtual school system I described allows the better performing students to not be held back by the worse performing ones. It also allows the worst performers to still progress through academic levels rather than simply falling through the cracks like they do under the current system. So both sets of students are better off."

Agreed

@dublin hillz

>"Education itself when it is formalized has largely tended to operate as one of matrix like constraints to herd the citizens."

The same effect happens when people watch only Fox News...

humanity says

So you are cool with the education of past generations being totally gone and replaced only with online vocational ed ?

That depends on what you mean. I'm ok with replacing brick 'n' mortar schools with virtualized learning. I'm also ok with replacing local control of the educational system with a nationalize system. Americans have to compete on a global level. Why should the educational system be local? Is calculus different in Alabama than in Massachusetts or China or Germany?

humanity says

For any degree, take the five leading companies in that field and compose a standard, national curriculum that reflects the real-world needs of the industry.

You are either an evil right wing operative, or a complete imbecile.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/wgpytjlW5wU

Just because you lack the intelligence to see a third possibility, does not mean one does not exist.

If you have a legitimate argument against my proposal, then make it. Making a personal attack against your opponent, especially an unsupported assertion, does nothing to make your position look stronger. In fact, such assertions without evidence makes it look like you have no real counter-argument.

humanity says

I believe that you have been pretty much self educated as you say, and of course think everyone should be like you, or aspire to.

A virtualized school system is no more self-education than the traditional school system is.

humanity says

Perhaps you still resent those brilliant HS classmates who earned scholarships to great colleges and universities, competing with and socializing with like minded souls, building lifelong friendships and studying at least for part of their academic careers, subjects that had nothing to do with vocational ed.

Actually I was one of those brilliant HS classmates, but that's irrelevant. You are attempting to attack my proposal by discussing me. This is the weakest attack you could possible make, and is a logical fallacy called Posioning the Well.

The fact is that it does not matter one damn bit who I am, what my history is, or what's going on in my mind. You should be able to criticize my proposal without even thinking about or mentioning me. The messenger is irrelevant.

In all of history, I have yet to see one example of a person poisoning the well who had a legitimate counter-argument. Those who wish others to reject a plan and have convincing reasons for doing so do not feel the need to poison the well.

humanity says

I've read enough of your half baked ideas and rants to know that you will not be able to seriously consider how off base you are.

You are more than welcome to simply not read my posts or ignore me. As you have added nothing to this conversation, you will not be missed.

I do find it suspicious that you claim to have put up with reading so many of my posts, yet your account was registered yesterday. Or should I say, this account. Patrick really needs to get around to making that user alias page. You know the one that points out multiple accounts that are probably opened by the same person.

humanity says

You will have an equally partially thought out response to me before you can begin, if ever, to consider the linked piece below.

Your words speak for themselves independent of whatever article you post. But I'll indulge reading the article and responding to it. It can't be worse than your post.

humanity says

Ironically your poorly reasoned suggested fixes to education show the opposite of what you would like to show

If my reasoning is poor or flawed, then it should be trivially easy for you to point out the logical fallacies I've allegedly made, just as I easily pointed out how you poisoned the well. Merely stating that someone is wrong and giving no reason why is no counter-argument at all. There is no reason for anyone to take serious an assertion with no evidence to back it up.

humanity says

You prove that self education is not enough.

Ah, another unwitty insult. Marcus, is that you?

Seriously, why do all the well poisoners lack even the most rudimentary sense of humor? My conjecture is that a good sense of humor requires a certain level of intelligence.

Regarding the article at http://junctrebellion.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/how-the-american-university-was-killed-in-five-easy-steps/

VSS - Virtualized School System. The system I proposed.

I will quote the important points of the article and discuss how VSS solves the problems enumerated by the article or why VSS is better than the article's proposals.

There is talk about the poor educational outcomes apparent in our graduates, the out-of-control tuitions and crippling student loan debt. Attention is finally being paid to the enormous salaries for presidents and sports coaches, and the migrant worker status of the low-wage majority faculty.

Problem: Poor educational outcomes
Solution: VSS ensures that high performance students reach their full potential. Yet VSS also ensures that low performance students don't get moved along the system without actually learning. All students can move at their own pace, and can even move at different paces in different subjects like math, history, and art.

Problem: Out-of-control tuitions
Solution: VSS is cheaper than brick 'n' mortar schools by orders of magnitudes. An efficient, nationwide VSS essentially makes the total cost of educating all citizens of all ages nothing more than a rounding error in the budget as shown in the thread's initial post. In fact, VSS is the only way to permanently and dramatically reduce tuitions.

Problem: Crippling student loan debt
Solution: VSS, being so incredibly inexpensive to society, allows for easy socialization of the costs. As a result, schooling becomes free as in beer and student loans would not even exist.

Problem: Enormous salaries for presidents and sports coaches
Solution: Under VSS there are no presidents or sports coaches. The position of president does not even exist as the whole system is automated. Sporting events are outside of the VSS and should be implemented as separate legal and corporate entities. Athletics and academics should not be married. And since VSS is free, athletic scholarships are not necessary, so young athletes can demand a salary instead of being screwed over by their college.

Problem: Migrant worker status of low-wage majority faculty.
Solution: There are no faculty in VSS as discussed in the thread's initial post.

There are now movements to control tuition, to forgive student debt, to create more powerful “assessment” tools, to offer “free” university materials online, to combat adjunct faculty exploitation.

Problem: control tuition
Solution: Since VSS is a national non-profit system with low ongoing costs due to economies of scale and automation, tuition is extremely low and paid for by society rather than the individual student.

Problem: Need to forgive student debt.

Solution:
Forgiving student debt means stealing money from whomever loaned that money. Sure you could say screw the banks, they deserve it. But when the banks caused the Second Great Depression by issuing fraudulent loans for overpriced property, the government didn't screw the banks but rather used your money to bail them out. Why would these too-big-too-fail banks get their comeuppance now?

The real solution is to avoid student debt in the first place. VSS does this by making the education process nearly cost free.

Problem: The need to offer free educational materials online

Solution:
VSS does just that. However, unlike the current system, VSS offers all educational material in an academic path online for free. Furthermore, VSS uses only the best educational material rather than 20 different crappy texts written by professors trying to make a profit.

The status quo will never offer all necessary textbooks online for free. In fact, the status quo deliberately makes textbooks obsolete every year by reprinting a new version with insignificant changes so as to force the student to buy new books rather than used ones from other students who just finished a course. This is a scam and it is standard operating practice in colleges all over the country. The current system is design to make college as expensive as possible.

Problem: The need to combat adjunct faculty exploitation
Solution: No faculty, no exploitation.

This surge continued through the ’60s, when universities were the very heart of intense public discourse, passionate learning, and vocal citizen involvement in the issues of the times.

Problem: Colleges need to encourage public discourse, passionate learning, and citizen involvement in issues of the times.
Solution: All three things can be accomplished through social networking. Furthermore, VSS eliminates unnecessary grunt work allowing students to concentrate on what excites them.

It was during this time, too, when colleges had a thriving professoriate, and when students were given access to a variety of subject areas, and the possibility of broad learning.

Problem: Students need to be able to learn the greatest variety of subject areas.
Solution: This is exactly why brick 'n' mortar schools must be closed. VSS offers every possible academic path to every possible student. A brick 'n' mortar school simply cannot offer as much academic diversity and subject breadth as a virtual university because brick 'n' mortar schools do not scale like virtual schools do. It is only through VSS that all subjects can be available to all students. In the status quo students must choose their college based on what they want to study. This is ridiculous. Opportunity should not be married to geography.

The corporations, the war-mongers, those in our society who would keep us divided based on our race, our gender, our sexual orientation.

Problem: Bigotry
Solution: VSS is the only solution to guaranteeing that all people have equal access to educational opportunities. It's not just the best solution. It is the only solution.

I suspect that, given the opportunity, those groups would have liked nothing more than to shut down the universities

Here the article goes off on a tangent talking about ending education and replacing it with mind control camps. This has nothing to do with VSS or other forms of educational reform. VSS does not prevent people from studying but rather enables all people to study anything. So VSS is pretty much the exact opposite of the Orwellian nightmare the article describes.

First, you defund public higher education.

VSS does not defund public higher education. It makes pubic education from grade 1 to graduate school so affordable that the federal government can easily fully fund the entire educational needs of the country. VSS increases the availability of lower and higher education. And VSS is public.

Replacing obsolete brick 'n' mortar colleges with an exponentially more efficient system advances the cause of public education. It's like replacing abacuses with supercomputers.

Under the guise of many “conflicts”, such as budget struggles, or quotas, de-funding was consistently the result.

Yet another reason to support VSS. Since VSS is so cheap compared to the status quo, it is not vulnerable to the budget struggles, quotas, and defunding the article describes. VSS is a far more robust educational system.

Second, you deprofessionalize and impoverish the professors

VSS does not impoverish professors as they don't exist in VSS. Consider farming.

From http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2011/07/creative-destruction-of-jobs-makes-us.html

"In 1790, farmers were 90 percent, out of a population of nearly 3 million, of the U.S. labor force. By 1900, only about 41 percent of our labor force was employed in agriculture. By 2008, fewer than 3 percent of Americans were employed in agriculture (MP: see chart above, farm jobs as a share of the labor force is now below 2%). Through labor-saving technological advances and machinery, our farmers are the world's most productive. As a result, Americans are better off.

The fact is that removing obsolete and inefficient jobs and redistributing human capital to more productive uses is good for society. Can you image how much life in America would suck balls if 90% of us had to be farmers again? Say goodbye to everything you like in life.

Furthermore, as I originally stated, the purpose of the school system is to benefit the student not the teacher. And you cannot server two masters. Trying to make the school system serve the needs of teachers prevents it from serving the needs of students. VSS serves only the students.

Step #3: You move in a managerial/administrative class who take over governance of the university.

This may describe the status quo as that is what the article is actually discussing. But it certainly does not describe VSS as VSS bases its curriculum on international standards, the scientific community, and the leading companies (i.e., the ones hiring) in each industry. In other words, VSS's curriculums are designed to be the best possible curriculums for conveying knowledge and preparing the student for the real world.

Step Four: You move in corporate culture and corporate money

Again, this is pretty much the polar opposite of what VSS is. VSS is fully publicly funded.

At this point, one might question what was going through humanity's mind when he posted an article that attacks the current school system and tried to present it as an attack on the ideas behind VSS. This article has done nothing but affirm the ideas behind VSS.

Step Five – Destroy the Students

While claiming to offer them hope of a better life, our corporatized universities are ruining the lives of our students. This is accomplished through a two-prong tactic: you dumb down and destroy the quality of the education so that no one on campus is really learning to think, to question, to reason. Instead, they are learning to obey, to withstand “tests” and “exams”, to follow rules, to endure absurdity and abuse.

By using a national instead of local curriculum, VSS guarantees the best educational materials and the highest level of quality. The curriculum and material selection process would choose exactly which items among the competing selection are the best. The selection process would be a peer review process like the review of scientific papers.

Now, last I checked, every student wanted to get a job after getting the degree. The best way to accomplish this is to ensure that the degree prepares the student for his profession. In the status quo, college degrees and programs rarely prepare you for the real world. This is because they don't take into account what professionals actually do. VSS does look at what each profession actually does in the present. VSS asks what skills are needed to fulfill the jobs and advance in your career.

The status quo ignores this question and thus teaches C.S. students Fortran and C rather than data modeling, managed platforms, multithreading and synchronization, etc. Academia in the status quote become out-of-touch with the real world. This is why feedback from industry is important. Teaching 21st century programmers 1970s skills doesn't make sense. Industries change. Required skill sets change. Curriculums must change to deal with this reality.

Receiving input from industry on what skills they want future employees to have is not the same thing as turning over the school system to corporations to make mindless drones. To suggest this is nothing more than presenting a false dichotomy that either academics must ignore industry or be controlled by industry.

The Second Prong: You make college so insanely unaffordable that only the wealthiest students from the wealthiest of families can afford to go to the school debt free.

Once again, VSS does exactly the opposite. VSS makes education so cost effective, it is essentially free to society and is completely free to the student.

Another dangerous aspect of what is happening can be found in the shady partnership that has formed between the lending institutions and the Financial Aid Departments of universities. This is an unholy alliance.

And that unholy alliance would not exist under VSS because financial aid departments would not exist. Financial aid is unnecessary when the service is completely free.

Within one generation, in five easy steps, not only have the scholars and intellectuals of the country been silenced and nearly wiped out, but the entire institution has been hijacked, and recreated as a machine through which future generations will ALL be impoverished, indebted and silenced.

Here the article is talking about the status quo. As such, it makes perfect sense to conclude that VSS is the solution to all of these problems which are already happening.

Dan8267 says

But I have yet to see any evidence that genes which control melanin levels in skin has any effects on the structure of the brain.

Race is more than different melanin levels. Liberals typically believe in the theory of evolution. Human evolution did not stop at the neck.

http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Students-Not-Schools/dp/141281345X

This book explains things well.

humanity says

foxmannumber1's hateful and ignorant thoughts, are worthy of the idiotic ideas put forth in this thread.

I do not hate anyone for their race if that's what you're implying. However, I do hate certain people for their violent actions.

I do not hate the black who is a career welfare recepient. White people are to blame for giving them an easy way to live in society without the black earning it.

I do not hate the black drug dealer who murders his rivials. They are providing a product to a willing consumer. People who choose this illegal lifestyle can do what they please to each other.

I hate the black drug dealer who kills an innocent bystander.
I hate the black who commits a home invasion/rape/murder. The black individual showed no sign of humanity in doing this.

Regarding your "ignorant" comment, I said nothing that wasn't backed up by fact. It is a fact that blacks have a lower IQ than any other major race on the planet.

The cost of K-12 is just fine. Not only do they get taught, they get out of your house for 8 hours and are socializing with other kids, something they wouldn't do if they had to be home sitting in front of a computer all day.

College is the problem, but that starts with the government. Stop giving out scholarships to anyone and everyone. Stop letting the banks let people take out huge loans. Hardly anyone can afford college in its current state, so let's make it so hardly anyone can go. When enrollment numbers plummet, colleges will lower tuition.

Tuition is only as high as they are because of supply and demand. It's common sense that if you have something that always sells out, you're going to keep raising the price until it doesn't. Let's prevent it from selling out.

http://junctrebellion.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/how-the-american-university-was-killed-in-five-easy-steps/

The Liberal Arts stood at the center of a college education, and students were exposed to philosophy, anthropology, literature, history, sociology, world religions, foreign languages and cultures. Of course, something else happened, beginning in the late fifties into the sixties — the uprisings and growing numbers of citizens taking part in popular dissent — against the Vietnam War, against racism, against destruction of the environment in a growing corporatized culture, against misogyny, against homophobia. Where did much of that revolt incubate? Where did large numbers of well-educated, intellectual, and vocal people congregate? On college campuses. Who didn’t like the outcome of the 60s? The corporations, the war-mongers, those in our society who would keep us divided based on our race, our gender, our sexual orientation.

I suspect that, given the opportunity, those groups would have liked nothing more than to shut down the universities. Destroy them outright. But a country claiming to have democratic values can’t just shut down its universities. That would reveal something about that country which would not support the image they are determined to portray – that of a country of freedom, justice, opportunity for all. So, how do you kill the universities of the country without showing your hand? As a child growing up during the Cold War, I was taught that the communist countries in the first half of the 20th Century put their scholars, intellectuals and artists into prison camps, called “re-education camps”. What I’ve come to realize as an adult is that American corporatism despises those same individuals as much as we were told communism did. But instead of doing anything so obvious as throwing them into prison, here those same people are thrown into dire poverty. The outcome is the same. Desperate poverty controls and ultimately breaks people as effectively as prison…..and some research says that it works even MORE powerfully.

So: here is the recipe for killing universities, and you tell ME if what I’m describing isn’t exactly what is at the root of all the problems of our country’s system of higher education. (Because what I’m saying has more recently been applied to K-12 public education as well.)

High pay to professors is not the reason college is so expensive.

V.P. Joe Biden, a few months back, said that the reason tuitions are out of control is because of the high price of college faculty. He has NO IDEA what he is talking about. At latest count, we have 1.5 million university professors in this country, 1 million of whom are adjuncts. One million professors in America are hired on short-term contracts, most often for one semester at a time, with no job security whatsoever – which means that they have no idea how much work they will have in any given semester, and that they are often completely unemployed over summer months when work is nearly impossible to find (and many of the unemployed adjuncts do not qualify for unemployment payments). So, one million American university professors are earning, on average, $20K a year gross, with no benefits or healthcare, no unemployment insurance when they are out of work. Keep in mind, too, that many of the more recent Ph.Ds have entered this field often with the burden of six figure student loan debt on their backs.

OF course virtual education will happen, and it's great, for what it is, especially for some vocational ed. But this is no replacement for the college experience. College should be cheaper and it should be a higher priority. If right wing politicians are so afraid of "liberal" ideas growing at universities, they should try to defend and support ideas and policies that can withstand analysis.

If there aren't enough intellectuals supporting your plans, get rid of the intellectuals ? That sound familiar doesn't it.

Great. Just what we need: an infinite supply of cheap (educated) labor. Now *everyone* can work at Bangladesh wages, not just high-school dropouts.

Expensive college degrees are the last "economic moat" the middle class has against globalization. Making college "free" or "almost free" will make things worse. Much worse.

freak80 says

Expensive college degrees are the last "economic moat" the middle class has against globalization.

Since most employers want experience ... I don't see the causality. It's more that in the past, from 1960 to 2010, those with college degrees have accumulated the most relevant white collar work experience to keep the middle class afloat.

Now, no one cares about what you've learned in college, as it's become more and more apparent that the purpose of the degree is to satisfy HR barriers of entry.

freak80 says

Making college "free" or "almost free" will make things worse. Much worse.

Really ?

Even if Harvard were free (actually it is for many of its students) it doesn't mean that everyone gets to go. You have to have the aptitude and work ethic to get in.

Free college might serve as an incentive to work hard in k-12, but obviously it can't be free for everyone. There aren't enough college and universities for that.

Or maybe it could be. Give online vocational ed to those who can't get in to a good college or university.

humanity says

You have to have the aptitude and work ethic to get in.

This is not entirely true. Offical Affirmative Action policies take race into account during admissions. It is putting a student's race before the content of their character. MLK is rolling in his grave.

Unoffical liberal school policies make "diversity" the number 1 goal of many schools. If a school has anything resembling a "diversity" department, it is a racist institution where smarter whites are replaced by less intelligent non-whites, usually by self hating white liberals.

freak80 says

Great. Just what we need: an infinite supply of cheap (educated) labor.

Your solution I presume: Keep enough Americans without skills so that those with skills can be paid more. I guess that's one response to globalization.

humanity says

Dan I do feel bad for you. Not only becasause you did not get to have the experience of going away to school for 4 years, living with other like minded students and so on.

But I also feel bad for you that you therefore have these theories of higher ed reform based based exclusively on, "hey if learning from a computer is good enough for me, it's good enough for everyone."

A nice ad hominem "pity thy enemy" maneuver. BTW humanity, I also went to college, on-campus, and graduated magna cum laude. And no, I don't pity anyone.

And yes, while I did enjoy the experience, I'm also aware of the fact that today's tuition has clearly separated from the entry level to medium wages of white collar workers. Thus, what's worked a dozen years ago for me, may not be applicable anymore. What Dan is proposing, is an alternative to the stranglehold of ever increasing tuition, against the true wages of the middle class.

You made quite a post here and since I don't have speakers at this pc let me kinda say a few things.

"1. Subsidies without price controls always benefits the sellers, not the buyers."
Without a doubt. Trying to disprove this claim would be like trying to disprove gravity at this point

"3. Throwing money at colleges and schooling is not an investment in education. Education and schooling are not synonymous. Nor are education and degrees."

I would also say this is true on lower levels as well. When schools fail usually the state bails it out and increases tons of funding which frankly doesn't exactly improve the school. It will attract teachers no doubt but that doesn't change the home life of students or any issues in the community.

"6. Education doesn't guarantee growth. There are already many highly educated unemployed people. You need to fix the economy so that there is a demand for educated employees. Merely increasing the supply does not create jobs. It only lowers pay."

True although there can be a backlash with that with this odd logical paradox that reminds me of Pawn stars
Either something is so common that the value is nil
or
Something is so specific that it has few opportunities

"7. Under the current system, the taxpayer is only paying if the student defaults which is nearly impossible as these loans are not wiped out even in bankruptcy. The student is still paying under the current system. The student isn't getting a free college degree."

Although that is very true that's not always the way how things are sold to people. Furthermore even if bankruptcy was allowed with this post 2005 reform you have to plead in front of a judge. Bankruptcy was quite easy and simple to do before 2005..now not so much.

"Does Diana Carew remind anyone else of the bimbo in the opening scene of Newsroom (2012)? I so wanted to hear Peter Schiff say "I don't know what the fuck you're talking about!" to her.
By the way, I'm really liking Newsroom. I saw the first eight episodes and totally identify with Will. But I digress..."

Personally I think Newsroom is horrible. Cut the show time in half and get rid of anyone under the age of 30 and it would be a good show. I hate the drama queen jr high crap they have. And why is it that everyone "knows a guy" with every episode? It's like he mixed Sports Night with West Wing. The other actors/actress are great but there's really no nudity, violence and no need for swears. It could be put on Lifetime or daytime soap for that matter.

" Why does it matter where you learn it, or for that matter in what year? There is no purpose in recreating the same lectures every year when they can be created once and viewed an infinite number of times."

That certainly can be true and I understand what you are getting at but consider a few things.
1) If you touch college sports beware the wrath of the NCAA and how much that brings into local areas. If you don't have professional sports near you then it is mostly college sports and media coverage has boomed in the past five or so years. Without college sports professional leagues are going to be hard pressed to go overseas for talent

2) The cost of knowledge should be zero and there are debates in academic journals as to how much access should really cost.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/09/scientists-boycott-academic-journals-to-protest-the-high-cost-of-paywalls/

3) It is going to be hard to get text drm free given everything. In a sense it reminds me a tad of file sharing going back a decade. If we establish that ALL non physical mediums are free the it is earth shattering. Music, movies, books, games, applications etc.

4) "It is not the responsibility of the educational system to provide teaching jobs."
I understand what you are saying but if you tried saying that to a teachers union it could get ugly. I live in Mass and although it is illegal for teachers to go on strike I was told a graphic account about in '94 about a strike. It took 10 days for the court to establish that teachers were on strike that's how Kafkaesque it is. I do understand what you mean. I can understand tenure on the higher ed level but not on lower. I met a kindergarden teacher with tenure...what research is really done on that level?

The only issues I would see with this would be the acceptance of the employer. If employers don't ask for something then people won't take it. Long ago employers taught employees. They had to because technology provided little other choice. Public school systems were modeled after factories. The ringing of a bell was for changing shifts or changing classes, the teacher was always older than the student to imply that age and authority is to be obeyed etc. Much of this was stated by John Taylor Gatto 20 years ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto

So employers switched to asking for education (high school mostly) because it freed them up from having to pay as much for training. Then we realized that not all schools were equal and thus higher ed was needed but now people have debt.

I don't think we'll have a national system because we are a federation. But I could see a number of major companies/employers collaborating on some system of classes/certifications.

I'd argue again the paradox of requirements of employers shows that western ones frankly don't know what to do.

So they don't accept another businesses experience because no one trains someone in a skill that has a value somewhere else

So they don't take a degree because they think it doesn't fit

So they don't promote from within because it might create a conflict of interest in someone being the boss of former coworkers (I've actually heard this!)

On a side note some might argue that they go to school for networking and that's fine and all but post facebook and linked in what exactly is the point?

Wow, I thought my posts were long!

I can tell you that online classrooms may be fine for some material but they will NEVER replace real world hand on laboratory work. Sure you can run computer simulations but they are just that - models. In a real hands-on lab subtle mistakes are made that lead to weirdness down the line. This is part of the learning experience. The occasional explosion and subsequent injuries also help re-enforce safety training.

Seriously this is analogous to saying Call of Duty or Medal of Honor are adequate training for combat soldiers. I suppose it is but only if you want cannon fodder.

Dan, while I like the idea of education becoming a lot cheaper, I really do have to take issue with the idea of it being standardized across the entire nation.

I live in a country (Japan) with a national Ministry of Education which dictates to schools just about everything down to which textbooks are used at which times. It isn't exaggerating to say that a third-grader down in Okinawa and a third-grader up north in Akita are reading the exact same passage of the exact same book on the exact same day.

Bureaucrats love it, but it creates an over-homogenized populace. They come out assuming that if something was learned in their sixth-grade history class, then everyone they're likely to meet in daily life also learned that fact at that time. If everyone learned about Bastille Day back in fourth grade and you didn't, they (unconsciously, I admit) think you're stupid and undereducated. And if you learned about the Boston Tea Party years ago and they've never heard of it, they'll think you've got a useless piece of knowledge in your head, because if it were important, their national curriculum would have addressed it.

Contrast this with a system where textbooks and curricula are chosen at the municipal level. You'll get to high school and find that while everybody got the core basics, you learned some stuff that the people who went to Springfield Junior High didn't get, and they picked up stuff that your books didn't address. See how this creates a population with a healthy variety of experiences, in contrast to one where everyone learned the same things at the same time -- and missed out on the same things?

Regional differences also get tossed aside. Imagine if some people in Washington, D.C. forced all schoolchildren to speak with a Maryland accent! It gets worse -- in Japan everyone must learn English, and the national-level English textbooks assume that the kids using them speak only Standard Japanese, so sounds that Standard Japanese doesn't contain are pushed to later lessons under the assumption that they're "difficult". Kids growing up speaking dialects that have these sounds could master English pronunciation in an instant, but they've got to slog through a system that demands that they start out not being able to make them. Imagine if you lived in a town with lots of Italians, but in freshman Italian class, with a government-produced book that presupposes that even the teacher can't speak it well, the kids are force-fed over-Anglicized rubbish Italian rather than using the surrounding community to make big leaps.

It is bad enough that corporations, television, national media, and big-box stores have done so much to homogenize American life. The last thing we need is for education to go that route.

Michinaga says

And if you learned about the Boston Tea Party years ago and they've never heard of it, they'll think you've got a useless piece of knowledge in your head

Well yeah, because if you break it down, "Boston" = Important US eastern city, home of Harvard/MIT and "Tea Party" = an English socializing tradition, thus, the avg *homogenized* Asian would associated that with Yankee nationalism involving some social event in Boston but with Earl Grey as oppose to Green Tea.

Imagine if some people in Washington, D.C. forced all schoolchildren to speak with a Maryland accent!

Their crab cakes certainly beat the ones up in New England. And despite being a Massachusetts native, the Boston accent is really coarse and rough.

It is bad enough that corporations, television, national media, and big-box stores have done so much to homogenize American life. The last thing we need is for education to go that route.

It already has. What you're talking about was that campus life from the 60s till the early 90s. Afterwards, colleges started catering to corporate interest. Even Columbia Univ (where the Beatniks started in the 50s), started to offer classes via direct bi-directional video feedback to AT&T and IBM, back in the late 80s, before broadband and media-on-demand was out.

foxmannumber1 says

Race is more than different melanin levels. Liberals typically believe in the theory of evolution. Human evolution did not stop at the neck.

There is no biological definition of race. Race is nothing more than a largely arbitrary set of physical characteristics that are grouped by historic and cultural boundaries. In reality there is and has never been a line that separates one race from another. Instead, there is a continuum of skin tones and other physical variations that gradually blend from one group to another.

Sure there are genes that promote and prohibit strength, immunity to various diseases, intelligence, paranoia, and even how religious people are. However, such genes seem to readily cross arbitrary race and ethnicity boundaries. For example, the genetic tendency to be very religious occurs in both European and African lineages, as does the genetic tendency towards rational skepticism.

The fact is that human populations were never isolated enough to break off into subspecies or separate species. Traits and genes can flow between populations A and B even if there is no interbreeding between populations A and B. Don’t believe me? Consider this. Some of population A mates with adjacent population C. Genes from A propagate through population C even among people who never mated with anyone from A, but have an ancestor from A. Then part of population C mates with members of population B. The genes in C originally from A now flow into B. The reverse also allows genes to flow from B to A.

Given how much mating goes on in our species, you probably have genes from people of races you don’t consider your ancestors.

StoutFiles says

The cost of K-12 is just fine.

From Yankee Institute

The average Connecticut high school graduate cost taxpayers about $133,000 from kindergarten through senior year, according to new research by the Yankee Institute. For high school graduates in the city of Hartford, which has the state’s most expensive graduates, that figure climbed to just under $200,000 per graduate, the data shows.

That sounds just as expensive as college. Of course, if you aren't paying the bill directly as oppose to through taxes, you might not notice how expensive it is. But have you ever wondered where all your money is going?

StoutFiles says

Tuition is only as high as they are because of supply and demand. It's common sense that if you have something that always sells out, you're going to keep raising the price until it doesn't. Let's prevent it from selling out.

VSS is the only solution to the problem of supply outstripping demand. VSS raise the supply to infinity making the cost for any finite demand effectively zero.

humanity says

But this is no replacement for the college experience.

Young people can still have drunken orgies without it costing the taxpayers a dime or forcing the students into debt. The "college experience" you speak of is not the responsibility of an educational system. Socializing and partying should be done on the student's down time and is not a function of a school system.

Trust me, young people will have on problems getting laid without brick 'n' mortar colleges.

freak80 says

Great. Just what we need: an infinite supply of cheap (educated) labor. Now *everyone* can work at Bangladesh wages, not just high-school dropouts.

Expensive college degrees are the last "economic moat" the middle class has against globalization. Making college "free" or "almost free" will make things worse. Much worse.

Your implied proposal is to keep the wages up high for a select few by keeping the vast majority in poverty. This is neither socially just nor wise.

An economy built on barriers to entry is as doomed as a city built on levies keeping out the ocean.

In any case, VSS increases the supply of education to infinity. The supply of educated workers is still limited to 100% of the population, and likely will be far less than that.

humanity says

Even if Harvard were free (actually it is for many of its students) it doesn't mean that everyone gets to go. You have to have the aptitude and work ethic to get in.

George Bush disproves that theory.

Dan8267 says

That sounds just as expensive as college. Of course, if you aren't paying the bill directly as oppose to through taxes, you might not notice how expensive it is. But have you ever wondered where all your money is going?

Over a THIRTEEN YEAR span. What thirteen year college did you go to?

It comes out to about 10k a year, which is perfectly acceptable considering they pick up your kid for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, and return it. Hiring a nanny for the same days would cost more than this, and the nanny wouldn't be teaching them nor giving them valuable social experience.

Unless one parent doesn't work or you've got grandparents in the area, keeping a child at home means someone has to come watch it for a price(more money than school per year), or it means you have to quit your day job to supervise it (a lot more money than school per year).

Dan8267 says

VSS is the only solution to the problem of supply outstripping demand. VSS raise the supply to infinity making the cost for any finite demand effectively zero.

When you put it that way, it's even worse than the current system. If everyone can do a job, how much do you think you'll be paid for it? There's a reason that dishwashing and fruit picking aren't high paying jobs. I want to make college more affordable, but not tear down the boundary between the poor and middle class.

humanity says

Dan I do feel bad for you.

No you don’t. You’re making a passive aggressive personal attack because you’re afraid my idea will catch on, but you have no convincing reason why it shouldn’t. You are hoping that your transparently disingenuous response will convince enough stupid people that only a loser would side with this idea.

Now perhaps there are enough stupid people to fall for your trick. But I’m counting on there being enough intelligent people to realize how awesome VSS would be and how it would solve many problems including the student debt crisis, the poor educational standards in our country, and racial and income inequality in education. It is a shame that you would allow all these problems to continue to cause real harm to people, but don’t have the balls to honestly state why you are against VSS.

humanity says

People are not all just like Dan.

Yes, some prefer to poison the well with transparently deceptive attack ads rather than address the issues. The negative campaign ad has certainly influenced our culture.

Don’t vote for Dan’s platform because Dan likes to drown puppies in the river according to our anonymous source.

Your posting could be used in an episode of The Newsroom (2012) about what the media should not do.

humanity says

freak80 says

Great. Just what we need: an infinite supply of cheap (educated) labor.

Your solution I presume: Keep enough Americans without skills so that those with skills can be paid more. I guess that's one response to globalization.

See, now that’s an actual counter-argument against freak80’s proposal. Notice how more effective it is than accusing freak80 of being a sheep fucker?

Rin says

humanity says

Dan I do feel bad for you. Not only becasause you did not get to have the experience of going away to school for 4 years, living with other like minded students and so on.

But I also feel bad for you that you therefore have these theories of higher ed reform based based exclusively on, "hey if learning from a computer is good enough for me, it's good enough for everyone."

A nice ad hominem "pity thy enemy" maneuver. BTW humanity, I also went to college, on-campus, and graduated magna cum laude. And no, I don't pity anyone.

Exactly. No one with half a brain is fooled by humanity’s poisoning of the well.

foxmannumber1 says

Offical Affirmative Action policies take race into account during admissions. It is putting a student's race before the content of their character. MLK is rolling in his grave.

VSS eliminates the need and existence of Affirmative Action in education. It also eliminates the need and existence of sports and other scholarships, grants, and loans.