NYT Editorial Board

zsomething wrote: Then they end up with useless idiots.

PkrBum wrote:

zsomething wrote: Then they end up with useless idiots.

You spelled ellipses wrong... that's kinda funny... lol.

PkrBum wrote:

zsomething wrote: Then they end up with useless idiots.

You spelled ellipses wrong... that's kinda funny... lol.

PkrBum wrote:And y'all had nothing to say when Obama met with him last year... let's keep that in mind too.

Joanimaroni wrote:

PkrBum wrote:

zsomething wrote: Then they end up with useless idiots.

You spelled ellipses wrong... that's kinda funny... lol.

Plenty of errors for a self-proclaimed  "gifted kid". Obviously, he out grew his giftedness.

Telstar wrote:Why shouldn't it be an "honor" for a maniac to meet with a fellow maniac?

zsomething wrote:

PkrBum wrote:

Lol... classic. We see constant reminders of our failing educational system... but the message is that it'd be worse if the federal govt didn't control it... lol. That's a learned position folks... it doesn't fly in the real world. Ever wonder why govt, religions, cults... all want to educate children? Maybe you should.

Yeah, yeah, "lol" whatever.  I guess we should beware of whatever system taught you grammar.   You gettin' paid by the elipsis?  Half your stuff looks like Morse code.

I'll tell you a true story, from the real world, if you want to hear it (spoiler alert: you don't, because - like most true stories - it doesn't fit your bullshit).

My high school was a private academy.  My parents thought about sending me to public school, but I was gifted as a kid and they figured maybe I'd be handled better at a smaller private school.

Good intentions, but, you know where those lead.

The place turned out to be frickin' ridiculous.  We learned next to nothing in most classes.  Science was a no-no because it went against Southern Baptist doctrine.  Same with history.  One year I had about eight different algebra teachers, because they kept quitting.   A couple were some classmate's mom who "knew some math."  One was a coach whose idea of algebra was to tell us, "Ya know that Z-28 Camaro?  Well, that Z-28 part, that's like algebra.  'Cuz it's got numbers and letters."   So does "I.Q. 32," but I didn't figure I should inform him of that.

 They shoved religion down our throats more than anything else.  That seemed to be the top priority of the place.  I've been a non-believer since birth, so I found that annoying, but, I played along.   That didn't really matter, though, because the mere fact that I didn't go to church got me in a lot of fights.  I got knives pulled on me twice behind some "yew better be in church this Sunday, devil-worshiper!" horseshit.  We most definitely had to pray in school (devotions were piped in on the PA system every morning) but my classmates were a bunch of mean-ass drunks, thieves, racists, fornicatin' and gambling and you name it.   Conservative religion, it turns out, doesn't work much better than conservative economics.   And I don't really care about the occasional sin, but if somebody's going to preach it, then they damnsure better practice if if they don't want to be hypocrites.  They were also pretty violent... until they found out you'd punch them in their fuckin' face instead of just wrestling around like they wanted to, and then they were cowards.  Then they'd come at you in a pack... until they found out you'd punch them, anyway, and then none of 'em wanted to take a chance on being the one that got hit.  Do that a few times and you get left alone.

The teachers weren't a whole lot better.  They'd bully kids, sometimes in pretty depraved ways.  One guy got off on paddling people, hard, just because it was their birthday.  He especially liked paddling girls.  When one girl told her dad (who was a preacher) about it, he spent a class humiliating her by taking her shoes away and beating erasers on 'em.  It was disturbing.  Some teachers used racial slurs and told racist jokes on a regular basis;  the school was all white, so they felt safe doing it.  Teachers would spread rumors about students, especially the ones from poorer families.  It was sick.

Anyway, when I graduated, I went to the local university, and quickly discovered how completely awful my private school education had been.  I was going to classes with people who'd gone to the local public school, and every one of them had gotten a FAR better education than I had.  Their math was top-notch, they actually had computer skills (back in the 80's), and a lot of the literature they'd already had in their English classes had never been touched in mine.  History and science in college was just a refresher course for them, because they'd already been well-prepared for it.  The public school kids knew their stuff.

Luckily I was a pretty smart kid and did a lot of reading on my own, so I managed to catch up pretty well, but my old classmates from the academy struggled, and a lot of them ended up dropping out of college when they saw how badly-prepared they'd been.  Most of 'em are working on dairy farms now.

So, just from what I've witnessed in my own experience, public schools give you a much  better education.  It's not even close.

Now, you mentioned something about cults?   That academy I went to was aggressive cult indoctrination.  We got it hammered into us all day.  It's even worse now -- that academy has two required religion classes for every student, every day, mandatory now.  It's basically the Southern Baptist version of a madrassa.

While we're telling each other what we should think about, did you ever think about why Trump is putting Betsy DeVos in charge of the educational system, when she's on record for wanting to get rid of public schools?   It's exactly because of cult indoctrination.   Public schools aren't allowed to cram religion (and politically-charged religion in particular) down a student's throat.  Private schools are... and that's what conservatives want. They want the kids.   That's what the private school thing is about.

If they can get you so unable to use logic that you'll believe some whackaloon horseshit about a 6000-year-old earth betrayed by a talking snake, then some other myth like trickle-down economics becomes an easy sell.  They want to take away kids' tools to reject their scams.  

Then they end up with useless idiots.   And sell a lot of stupid-looking hats.

othershoe1030 wrote:

Great story about private religious school. Education and the ability to think critically is key to democracy and civilization in general. Why do you think it was illegal to teach our slaves to read? The owners knew that educated people are harder to control. The same goes for the madrassas. Perhaps they are creating "useful idiots" in that they create no resistance to their BS?