Everyone would benefit because all those graduates with crushing debt would be able to do more in the economy which helps everyone including those who didn't go.

Right now the people who benefit are the super rich who own the student debt.

Trump first.
He has lived in New York longer than AOC has been alive. He has the resources to effect positive change there, but did nothing in the way of public service and instead cheated on his taxes and charities, running pyramid schemes, hiring and underpaying undocumented immigrants, repeatedly taking from those who could ill afford it to line his own pockets for decades. Trump had a significant hand in making New York the shit hole city it is today, and has done nothing whatsoever to fix it, he's worked to make things worse as president too, because New York didn't vote for him, just like his multiple (failed) attempts to hurt California and our economy out of spite.

AOC, after graduating Cum Laude (Trump has gone to great lengths to hide his embarrassing transcript), had the resources of a bartender trying to save her mother from foreclosure, yet she launched Brook Avenue Press, a publishing firm for books that portray the Bronx in a positive light, and worked as lead educational strategist at GAGEis, Inc. Ocasio-Cortez also worked for the nonprofit National Hispanic Institute, serving as the Educational Director of the 2017 Northeast Collegiate World Series, a five-day-long program targeted at college-bound high school students from across the United States and other countries, where she also participated in the panel on the future of Latino leadership.

In her few years as an adult with minimal resources, AOC has done infinitely more than Trump, with all his inherited advantages, to fix their city.

*facepalm

None of the random words I got were fit for publication. Apparently the Austrian village isn't the first association people make with that word.

p.s. Tried again, and got Random words: either, advertisement, decadence, graduated, comfortable

In some parts of Asia (in addition to graduation, as mentioned in the video), it's also a funeral song.

Well, do they "often" do better... meaning "whatever a surprising amount to Melinda Gates is" do better... or "often do better" meaning as a group they perform better and graduate more than un-aided white kids. Since we're talking stats, I'd sure like to clear up the ambiguous language!
90% seems great though.

But... He wasn't considered a great national figure. He was considered to be a "rich bc he fucked people over constantly" con man who seemed to have less money than he claimed to have.

Do you wish you had attended Trump University? If you said you "graduated" (in quotes because students were not graded" from Trump University, would people take you seriously if you put that on a resume? Would you let someone who graduated from Trump University handle your own finances, knowing they had an education from said school alone?

I don't think so. And that's the crux of all of this. That fake University is the model on which his entire business is built. Say you're giving them the best the biggest and give them something that looks flashy; you'll net a bunch of fools without any good sense of what they're getting into, but pull back the curtain and is the cheapest X Y Z they could sell you at that price.

Similarly, his politics are all one guffaw after another.

Nuclear disarmament from North Korea! Holly shit! Awesome! Ftw! Oh... Wait... You don't have a detailed agreement... What do you mean the word "Denuclearization" doesn't mean the same thing in Korean as in English? Oh, it means they will give up all their nukes because they won't need them anymore because we will get rid of all of ours as well? It's is a made up term from the 90's ??? https://www.npr.org/2018/04/22/604789492/how-does-kim-jong-un-define-denuclearization

Wait, they still have all their nukes and are continuing to produce more? But we had a coin made and everything! And we signed that thing! How could they still be making nukes? We signed a half assed contact! He agreed to my terms that he should agree to keep his nukes until he feels like getting rid of them!

It's just Trump University in nuclear disarmament form. It's a whole bunch of pomp and circumstance. Celebration for celebrations/political sake without any substance. That's why I'm not surprised that they are still producing nuclear weapons and the dumbasses who voted for this assclown are.

I agree with you in general, but there's no need to single out sifters for personal derision like that. Better to keep comments like that generalized.

I have family members who listen to his ilk who graduated college, read daily, and eat like kings from their gardens/farms, but for some reason switch off the critical thinking portions of their brains when a right wing mouthpiece starts flapping. It's inexplicable.

Yeah, gotta love the fish people....even better than his #1 hit, gay frogs.

The bit about Schumer's graduation speech is sort of a weird thing to poke fun at.

In my experience as a teacher, if I find a lesson plan that works well I'm going to repeat it near-verbatim to multiple different classes of students, and I'm going to do it every year/term until it stops working. Same thing often goes for comedians, stage actors, musicians, etc.

Is it funny when you clip those together and show a near-robotic adherence to cadence, tone, etc.? Yeah, kinda. But it doesn't really show anything that is a valid criticism, which is what John Oliver's show is usually all about. Like, for example, criticizing citing the bible as justification for ridiculously draconian separation of families during immigration arrests... (hence the upvote)

@Mordhaus I agree with you, and I didn't mean to say that was the ONLY pinpoint that was worth noting. But as someone who graduated in 2002, I've seen a steady gradation of change over the past 16 years that can in a large part be traced back to those policy changes.

I'm also not blaming the textbook companies for being for-profit companies. But, much like healthcare in this country, education is something people NEED. It's not a luxury, it's a necessity. I'm of the opinion that it should be treated like the social service that it is and the blame rests with lawmakers that force schools into patronage of testing producers with little or no oversight written into the law.

On your 1-5 list:

1) That can be a difficult subject, you're oftentimes doubling the cost of wardrobes for poor families, and it's the kid who can only afford 1 uniform that's full of tatters that gets bullied anyway.

2) I'm not anti-standards, but the way that those standards are assessed are not reflected in the tests the students take. Moreover, VERY FEW jobs (if any) require a person to answer A B C D over and over as a way to make a living. In other words, answering multiple choice questions is not a skill most people need.

3) Yes. My average classroom size is 28. 50 minutes with 28 kids in a room, you do the math on the individualized attention they get.

4) I've seen some counties near my locale that have instituted a no cell phone ordinance, banning them from the campus. It's possible, but one needs the support of the community.

5) Send your kid where you want, but I don't think my tax dollars should go to pay for Johnny to go to religious institutions. It feels, in that circumstance, that the government is endorsing a particular religious viewpoint to do so.

But can you blame 'all' of the problem on Bush/Obama?

I can recall many changes in the 80's from Reagan, huge cuts to school lunch programs, and many attempts to either reduce or totally eliminate the Department of Education.

In 89, Bush Sr. and the Governors of 'every' state held a summit, where they developed some of the first goals for future changes to education. These included some of the first recommended changes to standards-based education.

During both of Clinton's terms they steamed ahead at full speed on these goals, leading to massive changes forcing standards-based education. They implemented ESEA, which was succeeded by the two later programs you mentioned.

So we clearly can't pin it to just one group, as both led the charge at one point or another. This is what I meant by my statement. Neither Liberals nor Conservatives can point a finger and say, "Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?" They both grasped it and wielded it.

So, now as you mention, we have a climate which puts incredible importance on standardized testing. Because of this, and how the schools are funded, students are basically learning how to pass a test based on minimum standards as set by the government. Students aren't taught what they 'can' learn, but what the government thinks they 'should' learn.

I graduated in 1992, so I missed the true first wave of standardized tests. But if I had not been, I know I would have been *incredibly* frustrated at being forced to learn at a slower pace because all students needed to pass. I can almost guarantee I would have acted out, become more of a clown and troublemaker than I actually was in school, because I would have been bored to tears.

As you mention also, we have a highly media based group of children today. I agree cell phones should be not be allowed.

As far as the publishers, perhaps it is less than noble to prey upon the environment that we have currently. I can't blame them, however, because it would be akin to blaming cell phone makers for making products that children want for connectivity to social media. Like any company, they are in it for a profit. It just happens to be that currently the profit is more in tests than innovative learning tools/textbooks. They are simply doing what they have to do, like any corporation. I'm sure a lot of that includes lobbying to keep standards based education in place.

We can blame a lot of different groups, even parents. But that isn't solving the issue. I have my ideas of how to begin fixing it, which may differ from yours because I am not in the 'business' nor do I have children. I would say the following would be some baseline changes I would implement or suggest:

1. School Uniforms - It makes it harder to differentiate between children and helps against the forming of cliques.

2. A complete 180 from standards based education.

3. We have to invest more money into hiring more teachers. Smaller classes means less stress, more personal interaction, and more time for the teacher to be aware of 'problems' before they blow up.

4. Students should only be allowed to access devices owned by the school, ones that are for education and not instagram. What they have available before and after school is on their parents, but they shouldn't have it in class.

5. I will probably take some flack, but I do believe that vouchers should be allowed versus forced public school attendance. Forcing people who cannot afford private schooling to send their children to public education means you remove choice of the quality of learning. Once public schools start to even out in quality due to the aforementioned changes, then we can remove vouchers.

Excitement for my plans to make myself a 9 string bass with the highest string betting guitar, using one single curved back neck in the creation of a dual fretted/single 9 string/highest guitar string etc. Opposing faced, designed to accommodate the most coil pickups/hummbuckers I can fit/ make fit. Farraday caging the parts with inconel 600 non magnetic foil (aviation grade). Use non solder crimping connections, platinum cable/wire & connectors with graduating switches/transition low to highest setting etc. Built in anti surge devices, connection.

Interesting narrative - but maybe a bit too simplistic. "the boomers have all the assets" - really? is Bezos a boomer, how about Mark Z? There are some wealthy boomers, as there have always been wealthy individuals in the older generation - but lots of boomers are doing their best to survive on Social Security - maybe because they yielded to the siren song of consumerism. (a statement as simplistic as the claim that boomers have all the assets...). Technology has destroyed lots of middle class jobs - the working community displaced by technology is, as they always have, struggling to adapt. Some have adapted better than others. But the simplistic mantra of free college/university for all is a fraud when too many illiterates are being graduated from high school and too many parents are totally unconcerned that their children continue to advance in primary and secondary school with completely inadequate skills....
That's the thing with simple answers for the world's problems, they're usually wrong...

Probably has something to do with this statistic....

Democrats lead by 22 points (57%-35%) in leaned party identification among adults with post-graduate degrees.

Ignorant people can be convinced of any insanity....they bought the line that Trump's plans weren't designed specifically to benefit him, and you had to be a total brain dead moron with zero historical context to refer to in order to believe that.

I'm torn by videos like this.
On the one hand, they're gorgeous and expose many to the graduate of wild nature.
On the other hand, they totally ruin that experience for anyone who went through the expense and trouble to actually be in that natural wilderness.

Imagine you've spent thousands to travel to Iceland, and after days of travel you finally get to the pristine wild you were hoping to find....then HRRRRUUUMMMM....the next few hours are spent listening to the loud noise and scenery ruining of a large drone flitting about, almost following you through the wilderness, ruining the whole experience.

Exactly that happened to my wife and I in Iceland. The assholes went so far as to pass the "do not pass" signs and not only flew around, but set up and stood directly in front of the amazing waterfall we had hiked to see, for hours, even when asked to move.

I think there need to be severe restrictions on drone flying in natural parks and wilderness areas...like 4 days a year when it's allowed and no other times or something. Your beautiful video shouldn't trump the enjoyment of the others who took the trouble to get there, far from civilization.