At least someone has come out and said it. The analogy is apt, if unpleasant.

- Peter.

Bad schools, bad students, bad administrators, bad unions, bad teachers, bad parents . . . as far as I can tell, this isn't a modern problem, it's been the history of education.

little to no consequence and Low expectations, you forgot. Therefore bad results. Pretty straightforward.

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Take a look at a 6th grade english text book from 1900.

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That would be an interesting comparrison.

- Peter.

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I've seen one - I'll see if I can find a link.

Look at the letters the soldiers from the civil war wrote home to their wife's as their comrades lay around them dead and dying. Think of Ken Burn's documentary on PBS. If I could've written that well I may not of become an engineer.

When I was in 5th/6th grade we diagrammed sentences. What % of HS graduates do you suppose could do that?

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& how to use the cane!!!

When a teacher comes to a country that doesnt allow corporal punishment & they have a back ground of using it, they are like a duck out of water.

Re-introducing ability streaming would improve things.

Society has introduced/forced behavioral streaming by taking the well behaved students out of public education & putting them in private schools. This keeps the more academic students away from the violent/future felons in the community. Its a win situation.
Students need to learn early that an education is a privilege, not a right & if they dont behave, they loose their right to an education.

Reducing the size of the bureaucracy running education depts is always a good way to make more resources available at the coal face. Private schools dont have these over heads.

"I may not have become an engineer"
Just saying...:D

I have lots of those old books here in the house. If it didn't cut into my boots on the porch rail/Guinness/Sunset/Listening to the animals contentedly munching their hay time I'd scan some for you. Bear in mind that in 1900 precious few individuals went beyond the 6th grade in school. My grandmother graduated from the 6th grade at the same school I administered and at the age of 16 became a first grade teacher. The old "look at what kids had to know in (insert year)" wears pretty thin after a while.

"nostalgia ain't what it used to be" :D

p.s. i think sjh likes those 1900 schoolbooks cuz they be talkin about jeebus.

the problem with schools in this country is unions

McGuffey's 6th Grade English
 

Found the 6th grade English text book, McGuffey's Reader.

http://www.stinkbusters.net/eng-02.gif

here'e a typical passage for reading -

http://www.stinkbusters.net/eng-01a.gif

Remember my initial opinion; the quality of education has diminished over the past 100 years.

more, next post.

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Supplemental reading for 6th grade & beyond
 

This is what an 11 or 12 year old was expected to be able to read and comprehend in 1900.

You'll note I'm sure 7 works of Shakespeare!

http://www.stinkbusters.net/eng-03a.gif

A link to the 6th grade primer your great-grandparents used.

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yes. and all these well-educated people of this country somehow managed to keep the klan chock full of members and carry out at least a hundred lynchings a year of blacks (and the occasional jew), believed that women were no better than chattel, changed the name of sauerkraut to "liberty cabbage" during world war I, believed native americans were "dumb injuns", any people of color or of recent arrival i.e. irish, blacks, latinos, chinese were second class citizens, to be scorned and exploited, and with the great wisdom and moral fiber inculcated in them in their education, kept bootleggers thriving during prohibition. also, syphills and gonorrhea were rampant.

any other revisionist history you want to peddle?

WTH is a 'Comus Lysidas':confused:

I think you are obsessed with attempting to insult sjh because in the past he has talked about being a christian.