http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodes_Scholarship These bastards really want to put a lid on the rise of the uppity educated proles. Clearly it is easier to rule a dumb populace.
Are we mistakenly swapping equal education with equal opportunity education? Kozol fought the inequities of an educational system that lacked necessary transparency and inadequately adjusted to the needs/wants of students stuck in a particular track. Tracking seems to make sense if a school adjusts the courses that are made available to students based on their current performance in that particular subject, provided that each student is then allowed to switch tracks as they provide evidence of mastery of material in their current track. Every school must make an equal and excellent educational opportunity to all students. Education begins in the home. How each student comes to school and takes advantage of the opportunities that come his/her way will, and should be different. That's truly differentiated education. Aren't these wonderful opportunities that have made the United States such a desireable place to be?
> Are we mistakenly swapping equal education with equal opportunity education? Minimally, that seems to be the case. I too share the view that family has a responsibility, but the authority of parents is eroding due to cultural output of the corporate media. Johnny won't listen to Ma and Pa and will answer back.
Hopefully for all of our sakes, more of us will appreciate the changing times in which you describe. It's now more important than ever that Ma and Pa make very deliberate choices in teaching Johnny the wisdom to know what is in his best interest in short and long term situations. As an educator, I've seen that the students that come to me with this wisdom will learn the expected skills, and beyond, pretty much regardless of what I might do in the classroom. As a middle school teacher my job, for well-prepared students, is to facilitate their growth and learning to the fullest extent possible. This is much preferred, for all of society, to the student, one of thirty such students in my class, that is not convinced that education is worth his/her time and is fully convinced he/she will be better off as soon as dropping out becomes a legal possibility.
It didn't sound that sinister to me. I'd be all for it if it made secondary school less mindnumbingly tedious than it was when I was there. It seems unlikely that it would, since teachers are constrained by standardized tests, but not either loosing slow students or giving quick students nothing better to do but sleep is a fine goal.
"Proles" often go to Exeter as well as Andover. Yes, it's a WASPy school, but its existence is hardly proof of a conspiracy. I should also add, that a lot of people I've met that went to these schools end up just as dopey and lost as the rest of us that went to public school.
The point is /not/ that PA is evidence of conspiracy. But PA and its cultural milieu is barely, if at all, reflected in the non-elite (youth) culture and norms. Recall the time when Latin was the preserve of the clerics. Not all the monks were noble born, but all were integrated into the exclusive system. (That's because the social context has been degraded.)
I think your point, such as it is, is spread rather thinly over a few short sentences peppering the responses. Why not just say what you mean more explicitly in a longer post so we can all read it and respond? Then instead of including a handful of cynical quips you can actually participate in a dialogue. Of course, if you're more interested in looking intelligent than intelligent dialogue, keep doing what you're doing and dropping breadcrumbs instead of sharing knowledge.