Again, John Stossel with the self-descriptive titles.
Priceless.

In January 2006, Stossel presented a 20/20 special titled "Stupid in America: How We Cheat Our Kids," in which he argued that the public school system is ineffective in teaching students and that the U.S. should instead move to a voucher system. Stossel presented charter schools that were doing well and claimed that charter schools are generally better than public schools.

The progressive media watchdog group Media Matters contends that Stossel ignored research by the Department of Education which shows that public schools are actually outperforming charter schools on standardized tests and that Stossel interviewed eight advocates of school choice but only two opponents. In response, Stossel points out that students in America still lag behind those in less developed countries that spend less money on education, and that this gap widens by 12th grade. He further notes that the Department of Education study, which was adjusted for demographics, itself admits that "to ascertain the difference between the two types of schools, an experiment would be conducted in which students are assigned [randomly] to either public or private schools".

In order to continue to get government funding, public schools dumb down their tests so more students get higher grades. If vouchers were present, no difference would be seen. Instead, if parents would only pay the schools which achieved better results, then schooling in the US would improve and that includes the necessity of schools which aren't chosen by where the children live. Regional mandates barring students from schools which get better results is yet another reason the US must import technicians from other countries. Welcome to the 'Idiocracy'.

I cannot tell you how much I want to vomit every time I hear that markets are the solution to every problem under the sun. It's a myth created and perpetuated by the rich, and the brainless eat it up like the envious lemmings they are.

Fact is, friends, markets are the CAUSE of just as many problems or more of them. Lord knows it's hard enough to get by in this country, and the stinking rich want to privatize the education system, too?

I'm serious. You people make me sick.
Almost every American believes in the right to an education, to health care, to a decent wage for an honest day's work, retirement - and yet, this Ayn Rand capitalist wet dream crap still perpetuates.

I find myself waiting for the product pitch. "Call now, and you'll also get this great book about our fantastic diet".

If you get a chance, actually sit and talk for a few minutes with someone who's in high school these days about history or math or science or literature. It's just astounding the complete lack of knowledge of Anything that we accept as fundamental common knowledge. One guy I chatted with recently, seriously, made the comment "oh yeah, the Romans, that was like, in the 1800's right?"

Personally i think it's far, far too late to correct the US public schools. We're 3+ decades past any hope now. We're to the point of triage. Save the few you can, namely your OWN kids, who might have a chance at competeing on a global level, and the rest, i just don't know, there is no future for low grade morons.

the only thing I dislike more than that douche Stossel is plainly artificial crisismongering

Markets lead to selling people the cheapest, most low-grade swill at a "good" price. (MickeyD's anyone?)
They also lead to luxury items for the wealthy, and funneling disproportionate ammounts of money to a small number of people. Once you add in stock markets, performance becomes measured not on the quality of the product, but on the ability to make shareholders rich.


The No Child Behind initiative only offers punishment to bad schools, and no incentives. This encourages teaching to the test. Many of the people pushing for private school vouchers are involved in the private school industry and/or companies that come in and set up Charter schools.

I personally have experienced some really bad teachers. Also, teacher's pay is generally pertty uninspiring considering all the hurdles one must face to become a teacher. stat I found says 2003 it was $47,000. It does seem that there should be incentives and threats for teachers. Students face rewards and punishments for achievement in schools, but teachers rarely do.

Tax incentives are a terrible idea. More beaurocracy, and they benefit those who pay more taxes than those who pay less. a $5000 tax break does little for someone below the poverty line who only pays a few hundred in taxes.

Most voucher programs I've seen give the parent a few grand. This is useless to someone who can't afford to pay for the rest of the cost to go to private schools. What this does, is give those who can almost afford private schools that extra bump, and gives a bonus to the weathy who can easily afford private schools.

But it seems like a terrible idea to just ship kids off to annother school when their's underperforms and is shut down. an hour commute on a schoolbus seems like a GREAT idea.

Health care is annother disaster of market forces. The executives at many of the mega-sized heath care institutions in the US make up to 1000 times as much as a neurosurgeon.

I've never seen the army hold a bake sale.


kids are swarmed with vastly more stimulation today than a few decares ago. It's no wonder that a school system based on rural levels of stimulus is failing in this age of massively targeted advertizing campaigns. Consider the Olson twins who built a huge empire targeting and stimulating pre-teen girls.

Public schools generally encourage rote memorization, and learing through repitition. I went through school knowing more about the subjects than many of the teachers. I had parents who cared, and tought me many subjects before I even started school. I recall clearly being annoyed by molasses pace of kindergarten and 1st grade. I was doing 2 column math problems, while some of my fellow cretins classmates were reciting out loud "a straight line is fun, and now you've made a one" when they were struggling to learn to simply write numbers. By the time I hit middle school, the education system had taught me that mediocraty was an ideal to strive for. If I excelled, they didn't know what to do with me, and would give me more of the same pointless tedious repititious busywork. So I coasted through most classes, getting C grades in the dull ones, and A grades in the interesting ones. Mostly I would sketch in class, skip most homework, and ace the tests, which were easy. A quick skim of the reading assignment was really all that I needed.

Expired in Queue - 4 day limit.