TS Grachus,

Again, you post after only absorbing a portion of the information.

I asked a simple question about the goals of OBE and you say I am grilling you?

Why did you immediately attack the information in the video, without even watching the entire piece?

Did you already make up your mind to attack the information before you even started watching it?

Every THINKING PERSON in the world knows that phonics works for reading, yet our schools have abandoned phonics.

WHY?

Let's take a look at how US schools measure up around the world.........

[i]The scores from the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment showed that U.S. 15-year-olds trailed their peers from many industrialized countries. The average science score of U.S. students lagged behind those in 16 of 30 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based group that represents the world's richest countries. The U.S. students were further behind in math, trailing counterparts in 23 countries.

The PISA test, given every three years, measures the ability of 15-year-olds to apply math and science knowledge in real-life contexts. About 400,000 students, including 5,600 in the United States, took the 2006 exam. There is also a reading portion, but results for U.S. students were thrown out because the tests were printed incorrectly.



Oh, how convenient, the reading portions were thrown out, now we will have to wait another year to learn just how dismal our reading scores are.

It continues.........

n math, only four countries had average scores lower than the United States. Students in 23 countries had a higher average score, and those in two countries did about the same as the Americans.

The ranking of U.S. students in math and science is about the same as it was in 2003.

U.S. Teens Trail Peers Around World on Math-Science Test - washingtonpost.com

A REALLY GOOD SHORT PIECE FROM 2005.......

A fair comparison: U.S. students lag in math and science [Education Report]

One more piece comparing US scores to earlier scores in the US............

The transcript study showed that, compared with students in similar studies going back to 1990, the 2005 graduates had racked up more high school credits, had taken more college preparatory classes, and had strikingly higher grade point averages. The average GPA rose from 2.68 in 1990 to 2.98 -- close to a solid B -- in 2005.

That was the good news -- or so it seemed. But the standardized test results showed that 12th-grade reading scores have generally been dropping since 1992, casting doubt on what students are learning in those college prep classes.

Seniors lag on national tests - The Boston Globe

Sure looks like OBE is working wonders.

Kids' lack of reading ability is more likely related to a lack of reading (and books) at home than not using "phonics" as a teaching method.

__________________
When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

You might be right, but..........

.....why not bring back the proven method of phonics as a teaching method and see what happens?

You were not asking a question about the goals of OBE, which you believe you already know. You were trying to put me on the defensive and suggest that I don't know what I'm talking about. I won't play.

No. I watched it with a critical eye, to see what they were saying. I saw a lot of information presented which was interesting, and which was meant to imply something that I know to be false. The information was still interesting, but as I know the intended conclusion is false, I am less concerned about it than the video intended me to be.

Actually --

I learned to read using phonics (at home, when I was 4). My mother learned to read using sight-recognition, in school. She reads every bit as well as I do, and vice-versa. The only thing I use phonics for nowadays is to sound out how to say words I don't know on sight, and that is very rare indeed.

So -- as to why a different method is used, I would say it's because that different method works. Although so does phonics.

I already know about that, and it's dismal, so there's no need. You do seem to spend a lot of bandwidth presenting evidence for propositions we don't disagree about, and which don't in any way, shape or form prove the conclusions you want to draw.

I'm not sure you can attribute this result to OBE. However, I'm not going to sit here and defend OBE either; it seems to me like one of those things that looks good on paper but doesn't work out as intended in practice. Its influence on the schools is also exaggerated in the video you linked; no public school that I'm aware of (certainly not the ones my daughters attended) gives everyone an A in every subject and takes as much time as needed to get each student to that step. This would actually be a good idea if we had the time and resources to do it, i.e. if everyone was tutored. We don't, though, and so have to turn to other methods, and as far as I can see we do.

Also, the implication in the video that academic subjects are neglected entirely in favor of behavior shaping is untrue, as I said. They are not neglected. I think the video used one piece of information, that one standardized test administered at various grades, and reasoned from that to its conclusions as if there were no other conflicting data. But there are.

Why are our schools underperforming? Not all of them are. If you look at public schools in wealthy areas of the country, you will find them to significantly outperform the schools in poor areas. I believe this is so for two related reasons: 1) They receive better funding; and 2) parents who live in upscale areas are more likely to be involved in their childrens' schooling both at home and in communication with the school itself. One reason why foreign countries might outperform us in primary and secondary education on the average is because they take education more seriously, fund all their schools equally, and make certain that the children of poor people have a chance to become as well-educated as the children of the wealthy and the middle class. We tend to regard any suggestion along those lines with suspicion in this country, though, just as we do the idea of socialized medicine.

"Proven" by whose standards?

__________________
When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

I've listened to politicians promise for 30 years to make public education a priority.

Since that time public education has gotten worse, not better.

While we spend 50 billion a year on the war on drugs, at least 2 trillion in Iraq, waste hundreds of billions through government pork, mismanagement and fraud, our inner city schools are crumbling.

We have an entire generation that has been forsaken. Well, almost an etnire generation. The rich white kids will do o.k.

In the year 2000, Cleveland had a 25% graduation rate.

High school seniors don't know who the US allies were during WWII.

EDUCATION IS A PATHETIC JOKE.

We are the LAUGHING STOCK of the developed world.

Yet some people believe this all by "accident."

Of course these same people refuse to do simple research, since this might break them out of their denial.

Norrin, I'm going to tell you something about the general concept of logical fallacies by introducing one. If this is something you already know, please excuse me; it seems you could use a refresher if you do.

False dilemma - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What you are presenting here, or implying, is a "false dilemma." You are suggesting a premise that either our educational failing is "all by accident," or it's by deliberate design. Since the idea of it being an "accident" is absurd, you conclude that it's by design. There are, however, other possibilities, one of which I believe to be the truth: that education is not effective in this country because it is given low priority, and it is given low priority because spending a lot of money educating the children of poor people amounts to a transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor, and also threatens the success of the children of the rich by presenting them with a wider pool of effective competition.

There is no central planning group that decides this. It is not even openly acknowledged by those who are making it happen -- not even to themselves. It is simply that people vote against measures that would equalize public education on a statewide, let alone nationwide, basis and fund it properly. People living in upscale communities don't want their taxes going to educate other people's kids. And so we fund education on a local basis, and poor areas of the country fund poor-quality education because that's all they can afford. We do not need to imagine a conspiracy, because normal human motivation and American culture are sufficient to explain the outcome. That, not "accident," is the alternative to your conspiracy theory.

The solution is obvious, and has already been done in other countries, as it also has been done with health care. But Americans as a culture have a problem with this sort of thing. When we overcome that cultural problem, the educational problem will be solved.

Also, you add nothing to the discussion by calling people names. What this suggests is that you are unable to defend your ideas properly, which quite frankly is not surprising, given the nature of those ideas.

Yet you refuse to look at all the foundation supported organizations that influence education.

Why?

Are you afraid of the truth?

What truth?

The argument you've presented (correct me if I misunderstood) is that our educational system has been shaped so as to produce compliant, obedient slaves to the collective. But it is an observable fact that young people today are NOT compliant, obedient slaves to the collective; in fact, they are the most politically conscious, and effectively rebellious, generation of young people this country has seen since the 1930s. (I guess you could say the Baby Boomers were equally politically conscious, but we weren't very effective when young in terms of politics. Culturally, yes.)

So whatever influence these foundations have had on education, it isn't doing what you say it's supposed to do. Nor are many of the specific claims you and/or the people you've cited have made concerning OBE etc. true -- schools don't give all kids the same grade and take all the time needed to get there, they don't neglect academic study in favor of socialization. If we can see just by looking at things that the claimed final outcome is false, why spend any time looking at the supporting data? Data in support of an observably false conclusion. That being the case, why bother?

Look, it has been a good discussion, but you seem to think that if the goals of these elites are not being met, then that means they have failed. What you seem to not understand is that these people are patient. They will continue to adapt their policies until the desired effect is achieved. If it takes 10 years, or 50, it doesn't matter, they will wait.

I believe you to be a good person, most people who favor one world government are good people, but they fail to see the evil that is likely to occur under one world government rule, in large part because they have not researched the evil that has already been done by the elites who would be in control of a one world government.

If you were only going to research a single topic, for you I would recommend the US corporations and how they traded with NAZI Germany before and during WWII.

I believe that if you truly researched this one topic, for weeks, not hours, then you would start to see what I am talking about and how everything is connected.

One can interpret the above in at least three different ways.

1) The groups you are talking about haven't managed to implement the changes they want to our education system yet, and are still trying.

2) The groups you are talking about have only partially achieved their goals, hence the failure of the outcomes, and are still working at it.

3) The groups you are talking about tried one thing with respect to education, it didn't work, and now they'll go back to the drawing board and try something else.

#1 means that they don't have the kind of influence over the educational system that you were suggesting.

#2 is evidently incorrect, since what you say is the desired outcome isn't even partially met; as I said, today's young people are the exact opposite of what you say was intended.

#3 would indicate that they have complete control over the educational system but are incompetent when it comes to figuring out what policies will produce what results.

Before I go on, which of these do you mean?

First of all I disagree that the results of education has had the "opposite" effect.

Most teens I have talked to, there are quite a few, accept the "establishment" views on almost every topic.

They would most likely be even more conformist, if it were not for the internet and films like ZEITGEIST, which has been watched by many teens I have talked to.

Sure, kids get tatoos and piercings, but when it comes to what they think, the majority accepts global warming, accepts gun control, accepts gay marriage, but are against the war on Iraq.

You continue to wish to discuss this topic, without bothering to do your own research.

Why?

In the amount of time you have spent discussing this with me, you could have already had a good start researching just how much influence the foundations have on education.

I AM TIRED OF GOING AROUND IN CIRCLES.

I ask you to do your own research and you refuse.

We are going nowhere fast.

You do not want me to post the evidence, it makes my posts too long, or whatever, so what is left to me? Arguing with you about information that you know NOTHING ABOUT?

NO THANKS.

Believe whatever you want. You are obviously not going to let the facts get in the way of what you believe, so further debate is pointless.

What are the establishment views that they accept?

Ah, you say, don't you:

Why do you say these are "establishment" views? Isn't President Bush an establishment kind of guy? (He runs the government, you know.) He rejects global warming, doesn't like gun control, rejects gay marriage, and started the war on Iraq. So the fact that kids these days generally take intelligent positions on these issues means they are being anti-establishment, not pro-establishment.

Also, just as a side note, if you are concerned about the defense of liberty, why do you oppose gay marriage? That is not a pro-liberty position but the reverse.

What I'm beginning to suspect here is that your suspicion of the "new world order" is disguising a laundry list of rejections of all liberalism, and you are looking for an explanation of why the world has moved to the left. Instead of accepting the fact that cultural change is normal, and that in fact -- to be specific -- there are excellent scientific reasons to believe in global warming, some reasonable degree of gun control is just common sense (as everyone outside America and many within it agree), gay marriage is a proper human right, and the war in Iraq was and remains madness -- or at least agreement with these positions is not proof of brainwashing -- you instead look for a conspiracy.

Your case was already pretty weak, but you torpedoed it altogether with that statement, and I think I am inclined to agree that this conversation would serve no further purpose.

2) seems about right, assuming the desired outcome is subservience to authority. Again, I'm not seeing any mass protests in defense of democracy. For the most part, the masses behave as mindless consumers, with just about no concern at all for philosophical considerations, or am I missing something?

__________________
Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush?

--Hunter S. Thompson

No, you are not missing anything. You are actually one of he most open minded people here, on most issues.

The problem is, that most Americans, have been conditioned to believe that all conspiracies are false.

Even if you do not believe in this particular conspiracy, you are able to see the conformity of our youth, when it comes to dominant issues.

Tattoos used to be an act of rebellion, now they are the "norm".

Some people just don't "get it."