[speechlesstx]

Don't worry about the article it is satire.

I don't think so Tut, it's in the DOUBLEX section of Slate (of which she is the editor). She's serious.

[Tuttyd]

I don't think so Tut, it's in the DOUBLEX section of Slate (of which she is the editor). She's serious.

This is not a serious attempt at justifying the unjustifiable. It is an attempt to examine how the wealthy Libs who espouse public education would fair if all school were to become public.

It isn't a serious proposition.

[speechlesstx]

"What women really think about news, politics, and culture"

I'm telling you, it isn't satire. Though I don't take her seriously this is what she thinks.

[talaniman]

"What women really think about news, politics, and culture"

I'm telling you, it isn't satire. Though I don't take her seriously this is what she thinks.

She is one woman, with one opinion, and a flair for over simplifying. To assign her opinion to anyone other than herself is crazy.

From what you wrote your whole frame of reference is to destroy the education system for many and turn it into a revenue stream for some companies. You hate the government and I get that but messing things up for those that don't share your own hatred is narrow and biased.

That's why you cannot address the simple questions asked of you because you just cannot be honest and say you hate it and want to destroy it, and nothing and nobody else matters.

I can appreciate the passion, but disagree fully with your premise, direction, and implementation. No I don't expect you to be a fan, or agree with my position either.

In a nutshell, I think you are so wrong!

[speechlesstx]

She is one woman, with one opinion, and a flair for over simplifying. To assign her opinion to anyone other than herself is crazy.

I just said "this is what SHE thinks."

From what you wrote your whole frame of reference is to destroy the education system for many and turn it into a revenue stream for some companies. You hate the government and I get that but messing things up for those that don't share your own hatred is narrow and biased.

Tal my friend, that couldn't be further from the truth. You assign that whole evil corporations/profit motive/conservatives hate poor people BS to virtually every situation.

It isn't us playing games with the lives of our children. We aren't the ones using every means possible, including the courts, to force those who would otherwise be stuck in a failed school to stay in that school. It isn't us making it next to impossible to fire bad teachers.

That's why you cannot address the simple questions asked of you because you just cannot be honest and say you hate it and want to destroy it, and nothing and nobody else matters.

I did address your questions.

I can appreciate the passion, but disagree fully with your premise, direction, and implementation. No I don't expect you to be a fan, or agree with my position either.

In a nutshell, I think you are so wrong![

It's easy to find reason to disagree with someone when you're the one assigning their positions to them. And no, I don't expect you to see the irony in your post.

[Tuttyd]

"What women really think about news, politics, and culture"

I'm telling you, it isn't satire. Though I don't take her seriously this is what she thinks.

OK, I'll believe you.

[speechlesstx]

Schools in Illinois apparently don't have anything more pressing, like an actual education... It seems they want to be the parent, too.

‘What is Government?’ Elementary Students Taught It’s Your ‘Family’ | TheBlaze.com

Yeah, it's just like that. And, I knew this was coming...

CPS Mandates Sexual, Health Education For Kindergarten « CBS Chicago

Yeah, yeah, what's wrong with teaching 5-year-olds about inappropriate touching? Nothing, I'm OK with that, but they don't stop there...

“Whether that means there’s two moms at home, everyone’s home life is different, and we introduce the fact that we all have a diverse background, “ said Whyte

I already know your arguments here, too. Of course they could always teach them instead that it takes a mom and a dad to make a family...

[talaniman]

So if its two mom's or two dad's it's not a legitimate family? Is that what you teach at your house? That it's not legit to have a gay family?

Is a single mom, or dad a legitimate family? That's what it's about, people are legitimate despite the differences. I get what YOU believe, and that's cool for you. But reality is that it's not always that way in the lives of real people.

So are you saying that gays cannot make a family, divorced or single people cannot make a family?

[speechlesstx]

That was exactly as expected. You believe all that's legitimate, some don't. Why should those who don't have the public school undermine their values? I thought maybe you'd get that by my example, do you want them to teach that the only legitimate family is the traditional family, or should government funded public schools remain neutral and leave such subjects to the home?

[Wondergirl]

the only legitimate family is the traditional family,

We are long past Ozzie and Harriet or Father Knows Best in this country. Like Tal said, there is every kind of family grouping possible -- parents turn out to be the grandparents, a single mom or dad, a divorced mom or dad, a gay or lesbian couple or individual, an older sister, you name it -- and students might be living in houses, condos, apartment buildings, homeless shelters, cars, on the street. It would be an insult to teach that there is only one right way to be a family.

[speechlesstx]

So you don't believe parents have the right to their values without public school interference? That is the issue, not what is a family.

[Wondergirl]

So you don't believe parents have the right to their values without public school interference? That is the issue, not what is a family.

What are the parents' values? There is no one set of values. Jimmy parents' will have different values from Susie's parents and from Bobby's parents.

If the parents' values intefer with the child's education, then what?

[talaniman]

I can only hope you teach your kids not to look down on others because they are different. No matter what their home is like.

[speechlesstx]

What are the parents' values? There is no one set of values. Jimmy parents' will have different values from Susie's parents and from Bobby's parents.

Agreed, so why should the schools be involved in teaching their values?

If the parents' values intefer with the child's education, then what?

.

What is it to you if I teach my kids my values? I don't interfere in your home, why would you interfere in mine?

[speechlesstx]

I can only hope you teach your kids not to look down on others because they are different. No matter what their home is like.

I can only hope you'd let me raise my children my way as I would do for you.

[tomder55]

Thousands of American higher-education administrators will spend part of Labor Day weekend trying to plumb the meaning of the ideas President Obama dropped on them last week to "reform" the American college and university system. Given the political genome of college administrators nowadays, they'll try to make the Obama plan work. But for the handful who want to preserve and protect their hallowed institutions, here's a recommendation: Drop by the nearest medical school for a chat with the doctors about how it's going with the Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare.

Insofar as all these higher-ed reforms will be tied to federal rules for getting the money, it is beyond dispute that this will be ObamaCare for education, just as Dodd-Frank was ObamaCare for banking and finance.

A clue to where this is headed may be seen by clicking on the White House backgrounder's link to the "Financial Aid Shopping Sheet" jointly developed by the U.S. Department of Education and Dodd-Frank's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The sheet has a striking name atop it: "University of the United States (UUS)"—with a logo, no less.
http://collegecost.ed.gov/shopping_sheet.pdf

The education proposal reflects the Obama modus operandi. First, identify an American industry that long ago made a Faustian bargain for federal support, such as hospitals and housing. Then describe the subsidy-dependent industry's inevitable bloat and inefficiency in images so stark no reasonable person could disagree. "Burdened with tens of thousands of dollars" in student debt, Mr. Obama said at Binghamton University in New York, "they have to put off buying a home, or starting a business, or starting a family." [Footnote: That was federal student debt.] Then after getting buy-in from the mortified industry, he imposes the solution—on his terms.

Those terms, as described by the White House, are that future financial aid will be tied to "college performance," based on a federal rating system of all colleges designed by the Department of Education with metrics defining affordability (average tuition, scholarships, loan debt), admission rates for disadvantaged students, remedial support for disadvantaged students, student outcomes (graduation and transfer rates, postgraduate earnings), and bonuses based on the number of Pell students graduated. And a lot more. The White House calls this a "datapalooza."

Terry Hartle of the American Council on Education commented on the proposals in the Chronicle of Higher Education, "If you want to condition the receipt of student aid on this information, you have an obligation to have perfect data." Wrong. Like ObamaCare, you'll make this work with far-from-perfect data.

One attribute that sets the U.S. higher education system apart from any in the world is the diversity of its 4,495 degree-granting institutions—big, small, private, public, religious. Under this plan, that historic diversity would melt beneath conformance. The Obama plan says it will increase the number of college graduates and contain tuition costs by "rewarding states that are willing to systematically change their higher education policies and practices."

Random thought: Will professors at participating ObamaEd universities become subject in time to the same cost-containment rules that, say, Medicare imposes on doctors? Think it can't happen? Better read the president's speeches last week.

To better comprehend the origins of all this, one need only visit the White House website and read the proposal's first sentence. Actually it's the first half of the first sentence, which makes it clear that something other than student debt loads and repayment schedules is in play here: "Earning a postsecondary degree or credential is no longer just a pathway to opportunity for a talented few." A talented few?

When, since the end of World War II, has U.S. higher education been for the "talented few"? Like everything else the past four years, the economics of higher education is about to be refracted through the same lens of social antagonism Mr. Obama uses to think about pretty much everything.

Here are two higher-ed reforms that weren't in the president's speeches last week, and likely never will be.

The first is reform of the U.S.'s No. 1 national disgrace: the failed inner-city public-school system. Their doors opened again this week, and in nine months they will sweep tens of thousands of uneducated "graduating" seniors out the doors, with no chance of qualifying for any college.

The Obama administration's contribution to the new school year? A lawsuit just filed by Eric Holder's Justice Department against Louisiana's school-voucher program, whose black participation rate is 90%. Why isn't Education Secretary Arne Duncan finally resigning in protest?

The second reform would be returning the U.S. to its historic 3.3% economic growth rate, rather than the below 2% rate of nearly the entire Obama presidency. In his speeches Mr. Obama said a college education ensures higher lifetime earnings. But not if you've graduated into four years of unemployment or underemployment.

Imposing ObamaCare on health, education, finance, energy and anything else in reach is the reason why 2% growth and 7.5% unemployment looks chronic. We may have the best higher-education system in the world, but we're underachieving. So is the president.
Daniel Henninger: ObamaCare for Everything - WSJ.com

[cdad]

What are the parents' values? There is no one set of values. Jimmy parents' will have different values from Susie's parents and from Bobby's parents.

If the parents' values intefer with the child's education, then what?

Then that is why home schooling is an option.

[Tuttyd]

Thousands of American higher-education administrators will spend part of Labor Day weekend trying to plumb the meaning of the ideas President Obama dropped on them last week to "reform" the American college and university system. Given the political genome of college administrators nowadays, they'll try to make the Obama plan work. But for the handful who want to preserve and protect their hallowed institutions, here's a recommendation: Drop by the nearest medical school for a chat with the doctors about how it's going with the Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare.

Insofar as all these higher-ed reforms will be tied to federal rules for getting the money, it is beyond dispute that this will be ObamaCare for education, just as Dodd-Frank was ObamaCare for banking and finance.

A clue to where this is headed may be seen by clicking on the White House backgrounder's link to the "Financial Aid Shopping Sheet" jointly developed by the U.S. Department of Education and Dodd-Frank's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The sheet has a striking name atop it: "University of the United States (UUS)"—with a logo, no less.
http://collegecost.ed.gov/shopping_sheet.pdf

The education proposal reflects the Obama modus operandi. First, identify an American industry that long ago made a Faustian bargain for federal support, such as hospitals and housing. Then describe the subsidy-dependent industry's inevitable bloat and inefficiency in images so stark no reasonable person could disagree. "Burdened with tens of thousands of dollars" in student debt, Mr. Obama said at Binghamton University in New York, "they have to put off buying a home, or starting a business, or starting a family." [Footnote: That was federal student debt.] Then after getting buy-in from the mortified industry, he imposes the solution—on his terms.

Those terms, as described by the White House, are that future financial aid will be tied to "college performance," based on a federal rating system of all colleges designed by the Department of Education with metrics defining affordability (average tuition, scholarships, loan debt), admission rates for disadvantaged students, remedial support for disadvantaged students, student outcomes (graduation and transfer rates, postgraduate earnings), and bonuses based on the number of Pell students graduated. And a lot more. The White House calls this a "datapalooza."

Terry Hartle of the American Council on Education commented on the proposals in the Chronicle of Higher Education, "If you want to condition the receipt of student aid on this information, you have an obligation to have perfect data." Wrong. Like ObamaCare, you'll make this work with far-from-perfect data.

One attribute that sets the U.S. higher education system apart from any in the world is the diversity of its 4,495 degree-granting institutions—big, small, private, public, religious. Under this plan, that historic diversity would melt beneath conformance. The Obama plan says it will increase the number of college graduates and contain tuition costs by "rewarding states that are willing to systematically change their higher education policies and practices."

Random thought: Will professors at participating ObamaEd universities become subject in time to the same cost-containment rules that, say, Medicare imposes on doctors? Think it can't happen? Better read the president's speeches last week.

To better comprehend the origins of all this, one need only visit the White House website and read the proposal's first sentence. Actually it's the first half of the first sentence, which makes it clear that something other than student debt loads and repayment schedules is in play here: "Earning a postsecondary degree or credential is no longer just a pathway to opportunity for a talented few." A talented few?

When, since the end of World War II, has U.S. higher education been for the "talented few"? Like everything else the past four years, the economics of higher education is about to be refracted through the same lens of social antagonism Mr. Obama uses to think about pretty much everything.

Here are two higher-ed reforms that weren't in the president's speeches last week, and likely never will be.

The first is reform of the U.S.'s No. 1 national disgrace: the failed inner-city public-school system. Their doors opened again this week, and in nine months they will sweep tens of thousands of uneducated "graduating" seniors out the doors, with no chance of qualifying for any college.

The Obama administration's contribution to the new school year? A lawsuit just filed by Eric Holder's Justice Department against Louisiana's school-voucher program, whose black participation rate is 90%. Why isn't Education Secretary Arne Duncan finally resigning in protest?

The second reform would be returning the U.S. to its historic 3.3% economic growth rate, rather than the below 2% rate of nearly the entire Obama presidency. In his speeches Mr. Obama said a college education ensures higher lifetime earnings. But not if you've graduated into four years of unemployment or underemployment.

Imposing ObamaCare on health, education, finance, energy and anything else in reach is the reason why 2% growth and 7.5% unemployment looks chronic. We may have the best higher-education system in the world, but we're underachieving. So is the president.
Daniel Henninger: ObamaCare for Everything - WSJ.com

Interesting article.

There will be problems when funding is tied to university performance in the way outlined in the article. Universities will obviously try and make themselves more attractive and the most successful. One could see a situation arising where by some degrees will be incorrectly shorted. For example, a three year degree could become a two year degree.

What the author thinks is a reasonable definition is what I call a conjunction error

" Then describe the subsidy-dependent industries' inevitable bloat and inefficiency in images in images so stark that no reasonable person could disagree"

I don't believe that bloating and inefficiency necessarily go together. It is possible to have a bloated budget, but still be efficient.

Note. Incorrect placement of the apostrophe in the original article has been corrected in my citing.

Your higher education system does produce some of the best universities in the world while at the same time producing some that are not up to international standards..

[tomder55]

Like I care about international standards.. the real question is ,do international universities measure up to our standards ? It is not the government's business to grade universities. But Henniger does make a valid point. These universities accept government handouts and then are surprised when there are strings attached. But a private university can rightly tell his to shove his rating where the sun don't shine.

[talaniman]

I doubt if they will though, they like money and that why they do what they do.