lol! to the first part

as to the second part.. it is land of the privileged , however why does it seem protrayed to other countries that all here are privileged?..and sure we must have the best colleges overall in america.. why do u suppose that we ship in people from the other countries to provide them with education? to pay the high costs of the education is why..in return we ship out our business to pay thier countries low wages.. hummm

one need not be chained and beaten to be enslaved, yes one does have a choice, but in the end most are enslaved without even knowing it.....serfs up.....

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i DON'T BELIEVE YOU CAN EVER GET PEOPLE TO STOP CHEATING EACH OTHER BUT IF WE HAD A REAL EQUALTY WHERE NO ONE HAS A RIGHT BETTER THAN ANY ONE ELSE . WE WOULDN'T HAVE ALL THIS HATE TOWARD EACH OTHER . OF COURSE THE PRISONS WELL BE REALLY FULL FOR A WHILE TILL PEOPLE UNDER STAND WE ARE ALL EQUAIL UNDER THE LAW .

From CBS news

The United States is losing ground in education, as peers across the globe zoom by with bigger gains in student achievement and school graduations, a study shows.

Among adults age 25 to 34, the U.S. is ninth among industrialized nations in the share of its population that has at least a high school degree. In the same age group, the United States ranks seventh, with Belgium, in the share of people who hold a college degree.

...we were number one just twenty years ago,,what happened?

It's called the "Department of Education".

drugs sex and rocknroll

Department of Education was invented in 1977 under the Carter presidency.

Seems to me, like we were number one until 1980 or so, and then we slipped to place number 12 or 13. Either way... We have to ask how much the Department of Education actually helped us.

Well, the article says twenty years ago which would place us at number on in 1990, 13 years after Carter. So what was the difference between the first dozen years and the last twenty?

We didn't go from first to 12th overnight.

According to my sociology textbook we started slipping in the late late 70's early 80's.

It's been pretty steady since.

In psychology we studied how government regulations required schools to continually "dumb down" their textbooks/instruction because people were "having trouble keeping up". Supposedly we have gone through several of these "dumbing down" processes.

This is all before i ever found out when the DOE was invented.

Either way, since 1990, i think you will find less concentration on core components of Reading, writing, and arithmetic, and more components on things like computer/typing proficiencies, and cultural awareness.

I also think you will find parents less able (AND less willing) to teach their kids pretty much anything, as now it's nearly impossible to have only one working parent. This has little to do with the DOE, and more to do with economics, and some feminists that became a bit too extreme.

This all kinda plays into what we have been talking about in the original post.

Parents have less time with their kids, and less discipline makes that time more about plopping their kid in fron of a television set, or video game console to keep them entertained. Kids start to struggle in school because their brains aren't being worked as they are supposed to. Video games can and do lead to forms of ADD after all... Since they are struggling, the DOE threatens to cut funding to schools if they don't purchase simpler textbooks and direct more attention to the kids that are struggling, which in turn directs attention away from those really smart kids that are now getting awfully bored. (The easier curriculum is so the U.S. students look better, which hurts us in the long run.) So, once again, we sacrifice the future for the sake of the present. Now it's catching up to us.

The same thing happened to us economically.

Also, because parents aren't around as much, the kids are being raised more by state-approved organizations that don't like being sued. Now kids are kept from falling down and getting hurt. You never grow up if you don't have a few scrapped knees.

yeah and Russia won the olympics every year because they started them young and paid for their training almost as soon as they could walk....Other countries have their students in the classroom far more than we do, they study diligently, it's actually their job and are expected (demanded) to grind their noses in the books. American kids have too many distractions, to many buttons to push making it easier not to retain as much, then there is the many single parent homes, the improper nutrition, the improper parenting, and the beat goes on.......education and children have taken a back seat in our society, so what did you think would happen......College has become a party away from home, and yet you will seldom if ever see a foreign student at any of trhem parties, they are studying......Interesting comments, eye opening, thanks for sharing the info

Excellent points.

The Dept of Ed Organization Act is what was signed into law in 1979.

All it did was seperate Department of Health, Education, and Welfare into the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was first proposed by President Harding in 1923. It was signed into law and officially created by Dwight D. Eisenhower on March 12, 1953.

You've been listening to Ron Paul again haven't you?
LOL

heres one for you.... america land of the free.. where 3 yr olds are not scolded or their feet not held and are allowed to be free yea its 2009 in america!!! kick your daddy in the nards over and over from the grocery cart slap and punch him continually scream scream u want chocolate and u want it now! then kick in nards a few more times and more hitting then want a toy to boot!! oh yes america is land of the free! its ok to kick daddy so why should i not be able to beat up others because its allowed? oh and i have to teach lil sis in the carseat on the bottom all this is ok to do as well.. what happened to people? what happened to telling your child that behavior is not acceptable and putting your hands on thier feet so they cant kick? what happened to tellig your child that of course not you arent getting anything when u act that way.. what happened to not giving your 2 yr old chocolate?

It's just an illusion that America has slipped. Kinda like the illusion that Toyota builds a better car than Chevy.

The tests are standardized or graded by one agency.
It would take me awhile to explain, but here is a short version.

European countries are the size of one US State. If you want a fair comparison take only one US State and compare that to a European Country.
Or, Avg every European country into one lump grade and compare that to the US.
Before you do all this however, add in an equally diverse population to Europe.
Something like the 70% of illegal immigrant children who drop out of HS every year.
It's an illusion people.

Quick fact,

It is farther from NY to Calif than from London to Baghdad.

Avg in the grades from every country in between and then compare the Avg to that of the United States of America!

what happened to telling your child that behavior is not acceptable

^lol did you know in some inner city highschools they grade for behavior, that is too funny, isn't that grade supposed to end in Kindergarten?....again, the courts and the federal government have intervened so much in the household and in the school systems it has gotten to the point where children can not be raised properly or educated properly....On all levels....sad thing is it's only going to get worse with all this political correctness.....Teachers deserve the Noble Peace prize just for having the courage to walk in a classroom these days.

grading for behavior doesnt end at high school, try going to a job with a bad attitude and see how quickly you will be dismissed from that job,,,appropriate behavior is a life long required skill that should be applied everywhere, home, school, and work.

I think Drivin got it on the head, parents are befriending more than parenting, kids are being raised more by media than family and community, technology is replacing the need to think for one self,and in general, communities of adults are feeling less 'responsible' for anyone but themself.

if a child doesn't know how to behave properly by the time he/she is in the twelth grade, then somebody didn't do their job correctly, teachers have enough to worry about, I love the no-tolerance policies adopted by some schools, if you come to disrupt send their as.s.es to reform school, no if ands or butts, why should the other students be made to suffer because someone didn't get the clue that school was for education and not a jesters gradification.

No sir, been doing my own research. Perhaps i could be wrong, but carter was at least wanting to take credit for signing it into affect in 1977. When they separated the departments, did the department of education have more power than before? Or perhaps more funding? Things to take into consideration...

But what you say may make sense. After all, how long has the school system taught students that America is a democracy? (This still ticks me off.)

One thing, that i have found to be true, you may disagree, but in the military small units are much more affective. When the units become bigger, the power gets more centralized. Following this is mismanagement, and inefficiency. Do you have any idea how easy it is for a team of 4, combined with a mortar team, to take on hundreds of U.S. troops and come out unharmed? Chaos is easy to create when power is centralized and units are too big.

Wonder if that comes into effect for the rest of the government too...

Either way, i don't know of any teacher that approves of the majority of our educational system. My mother was a teacher, my sister tests children for learning disabilities, my cousin/neighbor is also in childhood development, studying to become a teacher.

I wonder how we can reteach the population a little personal responsibility?