education

San Francisco just enacted a minor property tax increase to give every citizen of the city access to free college education.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-a...s-deal-tuition-free-community-college-n718341

inb4 SOCIALISM JUST WAIT TILL THE RICH LEAVE AND YOU ARE LEFT WITH NOTHING U DUMB LIBERALS HURR FUCK COMMIEFORNIA DON MESS WITH TEXARS

Uh...the tax only applies to properties worth more than $5-million or more and the tax was increased by only a quarter of a percent. 0.25%
If you're rich and you are bitching about that miniscule increase, that really says a lot about your character....and none of it good.

gimmepie said:

I think the problem is the system more than individual people with agendas. It's hard to keep bias out of things but the average teacher probably isn't going to hammer a specific view into their students. The problem is that bias is impossible to completely move and nobody is giving kids the skills to work around it because we don't teach critical thinking.

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In the US, we had an institution called redlining, which to simplify it, it put minorities in higher poverty communities, effectively segregating them without the term segregation. As a result, unless public schools bus in people, schools are largely homogenous with little diversity. Diversity tends to breed critical thinking because alternative views are brought in. US schools do not have such diversity.

BadSheep said:

In the US, we had an institution called redlining, which to simplify it, it put minorities in higher poverty communities, effectively segregating them without the term segregation. As a result, unless public schools bus in people, schools are largely homogenous with little diversity. Diversity tends to breed critical thinking because alternative views are brought in. US schools do not have such diversity.

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I mean, there's more to it than cultural diversity by far but it'd definitely help to do something about that if possible anyway. So no arguments from me there.

gimmepie said:

I mean, there's more to it than cultural diversity by far but it'd definitely help to do something about that if possible anyway. So no arguments from me there.

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I never said that was the sole reason, but it was a reason that hadn't been mentioned before and I thought just repeating what others said was kinda redundant. And I think what I mentioned is often overlooked.

BadSheep said:

I never said that was the sole reason, but it was a reason that hadn't been mentioned before and I thought just repeating what others said was kinda redundant. And I think what I mentioned is often overlooked.

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Personally, I think that people credit a diverse cultural environment a little too much at times when it comes to things like this. It definitely helps but it don't think it helps nearly as much as an education system designed to promote problem solving and critical thinking.

gimmepie said:

Personally, I think that people credit a diverse cultural environment a little too much at times when it comes to things like this. It definitely helps but it don't think it helps nearly as much as an education system designed to promote problem solving and critical thinking.

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I agree. Its good, but its not central. How do you think an education system can promote critical thinking?

BadSheep said:

I agree. Its good, but its not central. How do you think an education system can promote critical thinking?

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A lot of that comes down to curriculum design/content, professional development for teachers and prioritisation. For example, even today there's a strong focus on test/exam based education that really only requires you to remember the correct answers, not that you can understand them or think for yourself. We need to make a switch to other forms of testing and teaching.

gimmepie said:

A lot of that comes down to curriculum design/content, professional development for teachers and prioritisation. For example, even today there's a strong focus on test/exam based education that really only requires you to remember the correct answers, not that you can understand them or think for yourself. We need to make a switch to other forms of testing and teaching.

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Standardized testing is - as you said - just memorizing answers and rewarding those that spend more time memorizing and less time critically thinking.

Personally, I would prefer a voucher program, but I think both the private and public sector run into the same issue with innovating education. Parents had standardized testing and their parents too. To them, it works. Why change? What if it hurts my child's education? I think parents would be a huge barrier, and one I do not know how to overcome other than time. Eventually they will change, but a rapid one will be impossible.

TN Coden said:

San Francisco just enacted a minor property tax increase to give every citizen of the city access to free college education.

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It's not quite as good as that. It's only for community college, specifically only for City College of San Francisco, one of several community colleges in the area, and only for the residents of San Francisco. So SF residents going to another school won't get any financial help. But still, a good start.

gimmepie said:

Personally, I think that people credit a diverse cultural environment a little too much at times when it comes to things like this. It definitely helps but it don't think it helps nearly as much as an education system designed to promote problem solving and critical thinking.

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My take on this is that people are only pushing for diversity as much as they are because there are so many places lacking even the most basic elements of diversity. Like, rock bottom, so the only way to go is up. I think it's just been latched onto as this weird idea by too many people who are ignoring the underlying problem, that is, what BadSheep said about redlining and schools being too homogeneous.

Like, you can have all the logic and critical thinking you can stomach, but it can still leave you in a bubble and pretty badly prepared to deal with people who are different from you, whether that's in a racial, economic, or other sense if you aren't exposed to different people from different ways of life.

BadSheep said:

Personally, I would prefer a voucher program, but I think both the private and public sector run into the same issue with innovating education. Parents had standardized testing and their parents too. To them, it works. Why change? What if it hurts my child's education? I think parents would be a huge barrier, and one I do not know how to overcome other than time. Eventually they will change, but a rapid one will be impossible.

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My own view is that parents won't change and you'll just have to wait until the next generation grows up and becomes the new parents.

Esper said:

It's not quite as good as that. It's only for community college, specifically only for City College of San Francisco, one of several community colleges in the area, and only for the residents of San Francisco. So SF residents going to another school won't get any financial help. But still, a good start.

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Even a bit of community college can go a long way for some people. Plus, until university tuition costs go down, I think it's best for San Francisco to settle at that for the time being. Giving free university tuition takes a lot of money and if the property and income tax on the upper class is too high, they might be tempted to take their businesses elsewhere.

0.25% increase is reasonable, but despite California's economy being the strongest in the union, I would consider even a 5% increase in property tax and income to be pushing our luck a little. We have the economy to be a social democracy, but it's best to be smart about it.

to Frozocrone:
You wrote exactly my thoughts about it! I also think that everyone should have the right to an education because we have a free choice in life that was given by God.
And I support the point that in the US, the education system does not do its job. Nah said that education should be about learning/gaining skills and knowledge useful for life after K-12 and learning to think critically. And that is right! I am good at math, drawing, creative, but I'm awful in writing. So I don't any possibilities to avoid this. Almost every week I have to write 1 essay for history, theory or other subjects. And even when I have A for math and computer science and usually get C or C- for writing. That's killing me and my inspiration. To somehow cope with all homework, last week I got mad and use this example of essay as my essay. No, I don't copy and paste everything, I added some facts from the another magazine, but the fact is that I don't want to do it. I know that having a college or higher education can also equip a person with better life skills and improves an individual's quality of life. But... It should another kind of education.

Here's my issue with America's education system: it lacks developmentally appropriate practices.

For those who do not know what that means, it means the children in our school systems are not engaging in activities suitable for their developmental needs. Our children are skipping steps in learning just to meet standards from people who do not have training or experience working with children.

For example, one of the most important aspects in a child's development is reading. It's not as simple as it seems. In Indiana, children are expected to start reading in kindergarten. That there is not developmentally appropriate. Reading is a skill that children begin to comprehend in second or third grade. Kindergarteners need to learn letter sounds first and sight words (short words like stop, go, exit, anything less than four letters).

This demand in children needing to take tests and sitting all day is not healthy for their development. Education researches have proven time and time again that sitting all day does not help children developmentally. Standardized testing causes too much stress and feelings of failure because they're not doing things that are appropriate for their age. It makes me so angry that we have government officials who do not have any experience in education making decisions on how we should teach our children. We have to go against everything we trained for because test scores fund our schools. It's stupid and inhuman for students and teachers alike.

I am a very furious preschool teacher, and trying to prepare these children for kindergarten has become a nightmare because of the standards our state has on them. Out of my eight students going to kindergarten this year, only one can be considered kindergarten ready. It's so ridiculous.