OT: Purdue/PSU, was [rescue] ss2 under load

[R. Lonstein]

On Fri, Feb 15, 2002 at 02:11:48PM -0500, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:
> An educated populace is a public good, no argument there.  Overpaid,
    [snip - overpaid, lazy, tenured educators]

What ever generalization you make, I can make a counter
generalization that is equally useless. It is certain that both good
and bad examples exist.

> Hint: before public education started in the US, literacy was about
> 99%.  It is not that high now.  

Incorrect. Literacy was not widespread in the United States until the
post-bellum efforts to provide public education with the exception of
the Colonial period in the New England colony where the emigrees were
for the most part schooled in England.

The first national U.S. census to account for literacy was 1850, prior
to that there is good evidence that illiteracy was common. From 1870
through 1979 illiteracy- defined as persons over 14 who were unable to
to read or write in any language- declined from an average of 20% to
0.6%. Meanwhile population grew from 38.5 million in 1870 to 203 million
in 1970 and to 226.5 million in 1980. Strong evidence that something
good was happening.

    [snip - Thomas Paine]
> Read up on the actual history of American education and you will find
> that it is based on the Prussian model - the same model that led
> Germany to the formation of the Third Reich.  Not good.

As a matter of fact, I have. Other than J.P. Gatto, Arianna Huffington
and the homeschooling movement, who read something ominous into it I
don't see anything frightening that U.S. "normal schools" were based
upon the grouping of children by age and having older students reteach
lessons to younger students. A visit to a public school would
demonstrate that it is no longer the case. I've also read a pretty good
amount on rhetoric and when making inductive leaps you need to avoid
false analogy. HTH.

    [snip - my own comments]
> Then why subsidize lackluster students?
    [snip]

You won't find an there argument from me.

- Ross