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Re: [Phys-l] How did Bill Gates get to decide what's good forour children?



The issue is not just a liberal/conservative one. It comes from a variety
of information and also from some deeply held paradigms. We do know that
salaries rise with education on the average, so this provides an incentive
for more education. With global competition the traditional blue collar
industries have not done so well, which has put great pressure on the
salaries of the non college educated. So the natural conclusion is that
college is a means to high earnings.

But in the past only some of those who had achieved higher thinking skills
went on to college. In reality the vast majority of Americans never
achieved higher thinking, and this is still true. If you look at education
in the 1950s you find that it was geared towards producing a uniform
citizenry, which actually has been a goal for a long time. This differed
from region to region with Jim Crow being blessed in the South, and good New
England virtues in the NE. Actually at one time NYC had mainly protestant
ministers in the schools and they taught the Protestant Christianity. When
the Catholics came into power the city council put a stop to this.

So I think that you will find both liberals and conservatives have bought
into the paradigm that all should go to college. And the other prevalent
paradigm is that by giving students harder courses you push them up. In
reality we are now facing the fact that either the courses are dumbed down,
or more students fail. The harder courses convince a number to drop out.
This is actually what traditionally happened in the 50s. Those who couldn't
hack the ed system dropped out at age 16 in the 8th grade so the HS had
mainly students who wanted to go on.

I contend that the ed system has not changed that much, but rather the
expectations of what we want students to do has changed in a very
unrealistic direction. It is only unrealistic because the traditional ed
system can not support this expectation. But if we were smarter about
education and treated it a bit more like medicine, we might be able to do
better. The first thing is to put into place early diagnostics to identify
students with difficulties such as bad vision, bad hearing, dyslexia...
Then many of these problems can be helped especially if you do things before
age 7 when the brain begins to harden by specializing. Dyslexia can be
partially cured by Orton-Gillingham techniques which actually activate a
dormant portion of the brain, but only before age 7 will it work well.

The second thing is to attack the problem of thinking skills and there are
techniques which can and have been used. Such things as Feuerstein IE,
Thinking Science, Thinking Maths, and a history program that I forget have
all been shown to help students think. These sorts of programs can be used
with adults so that elementary ed teachers can have improved thinking.
Arons mentions this experiment, and look at ADAPT. But the current
situation is driving away the more "intelligent" people. Read "Really
Raising Standards" by Shayer and Adey for good research on this. It is very
readable, and has very solid research behind it.

Third, we need to reinstate a "practical" track in the public school system.
I suppose this could even be done in for profit schools, but their track
record has so far been dismal. In Houston we have ITT Tech and their
courses are not recognized for standard college credit. Even the community
colleges in the Houston area do a better job and do not saddle the students
with crushing debt that they may never repay. Universities and TYC do have
such tracks. Lee College has courses aimed at training techs for the oil
patch. Cornell and UH have hotel schools that train students to manage all
aspects of hotels. But in HS things like auto mechanic courses are usually
relegated to the otherwise failing students. Do you want only the failing
goof-offs repairing your cars????

The Gates paradigm is quite prevalent, so most people think he is doing a
good job. And I think he is truly trying to make improvements. But like
Feinman, he has the wrong paradigm for what will improve education.
Remember Feinman admitted his lectures were failures. They were magnificent
failures, but like the pyramids they did not achieve their goals. Remember
the pyramids were designed to safeguard the possesssion of pharoes, and they
were all robbed.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


This is possibly an unwarranted assumption. I certainly
agree the US is broken**, but the ed. system? Perhaps not.

I think the problem is some liberals think everyone should go
to college, of course that will fail. Previously ed. was
streamed with the non-college bound receiving practical
training. Now those who should receive that education fail
and the others succeed and their number is likely no less
than in the past.


Should American educators not consider the results of their
education, hand in bosom, and ask why do others want to "fix"
it? Part of the problem is apathy not to be involved
creatively and with passion; part of the problem is sometimes
that you are so close that you cannot see the possible
solutions even if you tried.

No, I think the kleptocrats are succeeding in their wish to
make the US (and the world) more friendly to them. That
means changing the ed. system from critical thinking to one
that "... is a wise and liberal form of police by which
property and life and peace of society are secured." [D. webster]