auggiecc87 wrote:It is not the teachers in the US that drive up the cost it is the administration which is there to deal with all of the paperwork required by the numerous and repetitive testing of kids. Also, those poor administrators (and most teachers) have to deal with the parents who want to know why their child who is watching > 6 hours of tv / video games per day is not doing well in school. And don't want to change their home life to be more constructive to education.
Side note: There are also many children out there who do not do well even without those distractions but the administrators/teachers are so busy worrying about test scores and all the other paperwork to provide the adequate help to those children. So test / paperwork make it hard to do the actual job of educating.
I think you are correct, although I have to admit that my older son spent, and my younger children spend a decent amount of time watching the tube. The vast majority of the time I (in the case of my son) and my wife and I were sitting there interacting about the shows and such. You hit the nail on the head in terms of the value placed on education. I think that it is not that cut and dry as many people do find it important, but are working multiple jobs or the types of job that leave you dead tired and make it very difficult to spend that hour reading with and helping the kids with school work.
Testing is ridiculous and has never proven to be effective at measuring anything except how well they can perform on a test that day.
Anyone who uses the terms 'irregardless', 'all of the sudden', or 'a whole nother' shall be sentenced to a work camp - Stewie Griffith
The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label. - Upton Sinclair
