[ExI] common core educations standards, was: RE: far future

[Kelly Anderson]

On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 4:46 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Jan 20, 2014 2:50 PM, "Kelly Anderson" <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 10:41 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> >> I hope Common Core is a step in the right direction.
> >
> > I rather doubt it will be. First, It means there will be ONE way to
> educate children instead of 50. That means whatever we get wrong will be
> wrong for EVERYONE.
>
> There is that danger, but famously, quite a few of those 50 - primarily
> those around north Texas - have been getting it very wrong.
>
By who's standards? Someone has to grow up and work at the Creationist
Museum.

> > Since Bill Gates' foundation is behind Common Core, we can assume
> everyone going through it will likely be good at using computers. Who will
> fix cars or weld pipes or become doctors or do other REAL things if
> everyone is good at computers?
>
> Computers can help with all of those.  It's become like reading and
> writing: useful for practically all fields.
>
I can't fully disagree with this, but there are some people out there who
are much better at doing things with their body than with their mind, and
this dismisses their value to society. Perhaps when we have robots doing
all the manual labor these people can be turned into Soylent Green, but
we're not there yet.

> > Second, the federal government rarely gets anything right, so why should
> we expect it of them this time?
>
> True, but not an argument that CC is in fact another failure.  The feds
> sometimes get it right, or at least righter than the states.
>
They won't get it righter than ALL the states. And that is the point. I'd
rather have 4% do BETTER than common core than have everyone boiled down to
utter mediocrity. A really good top 1% can accomplish a LOT. Focusing on
the 99% is politically correct, but name ANYONE who has done ANYTHING
really important and they are almost by definition not part of the 99%.

I see the 99%'s job (and I'm part of that 99%) as supporting the 1% in
accomplishing goals that better all mankind.

> > It may be a minor point, but it's not constitutional.
>
> Actually it is constitutional...insofar as any power the US Constitution
> regulates is involved.  Common educational standards enable interstate
> commerce: if the blokes in the next state over can't understand your basic
> technology, they'll not buy it, nor will you likely hire them to use it.
>
That's a stretch. One I'm not buying. Education happens completely within a
state. For 200 years it was understood that education was a state's right,
not a federal right. While I'll never be on the Supreme Court, and that's
probably a good thing, I can read the constitution, and I do.

> But is Congress passing a law here?  No.  Is it illegal to teach non-CC?
> No.  You might not get funding from the feds if you do not, but nothing in
> the US Constitution requires the feds to fund any particular educational
> model; it just says they may promote this sort of thing (so long as, for
> example, they maintain separation of church and state - and no, not just
> any worldview can be called "church" in that sense).
>
But congress has passed laws that make it virtually impossible for states
like Utah with so much public land to fund education without federal
dollars.

> > I think EVERY school should teach things their own way and compete in an
> open marketplace for students.
>
> What then happens to the poorly served students, at the worst schools, who
> grow up dumb?  They become a burden the rest of us must support for the
> rest of their lives.  If you try to externalize and thus ignore this cost,
> your analysis fails for incompleteness.
>
They are a burden anyway. Always have been. Always will be. You can't make
super smart people out of people that aren't super smart. At least not
without putting additional stuff in their heads. Education would be far
superior in terms of technological progress if we focused more on the top
10% or 5% or 1% and stopped this silly idea of no child's behind left
alone. It's not realistic.

Now, if your goal is really to create a successful propaganda campaign that
keeps tomorrows voters sheep, then today's education system is indeed
pretty good. Common Core makes it even better at making sheep out of
students. But sheep eventually do get led to the slaughter.

-Kelly
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