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I do agree to one point, elementary education is lacking. Too many "frill" choices, not enough "3R" requirements. College entrance requirements use to be much more rigorous when elementary education was stringent. Now we see so many loopholes to allow even those students with 1.0 GPA to attend. If they didn't have the drive, fortitude and ambition to achieve more than a 1.0 GPA, what makes them think that will change with college courses? An education can be bought, whether the student ends up with what they or their parents paid for does not necessarily add into the equation (nor does it matter).
Also, a college education these days does not guarantee a better paying job either. This is witnessed by larger and larger numbers of college educated professionals working in positions, totally unrelated to their education efforts, nor earning the income those educations were touted to earn.

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We already have lots of 'educated' folks in caring and every profession that has high wages is often getting shipped overseas. A globally educated workforce means that there is the same glut of educated people as there has been of uneducated people. Combine this with the increases in productivity and Greenspan's speech is obviously just him being a shill for multinational conglomerates.
I agree that k-12 education needs a drastic overhaul but that it won't come through NCLB or any other mandate that doesn't change the relationship between adults and students to a more democratic one. Get rid of the creation of school districts by geography and shift to one of schools by interest, eliminate all the idiotic rules that hit kids that we wouldn't tolerate for a minute, get the departments of education (state and federal) out of the way, and allow schools to get rid of kids who don't want to participate in the school (and allow the kid to leave and take his/her FULL funding as well so it's an equal choice) and we could drastically improve education.

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How can a student in the public schools study the 3 r's when they have to spend so much time in politically correct, feel good, warm and fuzzy, can't we all get along type classes? Not to mention all the time we must take to show them how to place condoms on fruits and vegatables!
In many schools, history classes are not even required anymore and math classes have been cut back, as has reading and english.
I read a study not long ago, (can't remember who did it and cannot find it on a search,) that claimed our public school students are spending over 30% of their class time in social programs. So who has time for reading, writing and arithmatic? Not to mention science and history!

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what he said is if you don't have a sheepskin you don't deserve more than minimum wage and if you think you do,they will ship your job oversea's or import workers to do it.
Everyone can't work in the office,most workers will continue to work in retail,distribution and service jobs

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Recently I spoke with a VP of a large carrier and the point of discussion turned to high tech work.
A gentleman splits his year, winter six months in Argentena, summer six months selling his software and tweaking the software for customers. The gentleman pays the programmers from Argentena about $16,000 a year and the workers are happy with the salaries.
In another story a major fuel distributor is moving their satellite tracking and dispatchers to Asia. Seems that with satellite technology and computer mapping programs a local dispatcher is no longer required.
We've all heard the horror stories of tech support for many computer firms etc that have moved to India.
Remember folks, there are only three constants in life:
1. Death
2. Taxes
3. Change
Be safe.

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I generally avoid these kinds of semi-political topics (except in my signature), but I kinda got a kick out of this quote from Greenspan's speech:
'In his speech, Greenspan said the better approach to the increased trade competition was to step up efforts to upgrade the skills of the U.S. work force, especially those in low-income jobs most vulnerable to foreign competition.'
Maybe that explains some of the college-educated people I know whose computer programming (not exactly low income) jobs have been "outsourced" to other countries?
PP

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I will say I'm happy to be caring, compared to what I could be doing for a living otherwise...
The tangible goods, have to be cared somewhere. Can't get J grade lumber from BC mills to Greater Vancouver docks (for shipment to Japan or China) "conceptually"

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Ramman,
Schools require more specified credits in math and other areas than they did in the past. History is still a required course at high schools (but not at some colleges), and more science courses are required than were mandated in the past. Of course, making more people whose interests and abilities aren't in these areas take the courses means that the class will teach less to students.
My biggest pet peeve would be the use of calculators in elementary schools. People don't get how numbers compare to each other (or learn how to estimate) when all they do is punch in some numbers.
Besides, I'm sure that we all know enough idiots who are old to know that stupidity isn't a new creation. Even if older people sound like they know more history, we have to remember that they've lived longer AND that many people develop an interest in it AFTER their high school years.
'Kids these days' are like kids of all generations past: some are smart, some are dumb. Some have skills that are recognized in schools and others have skills that aren't.
Personally, I'd ditch history courses in junior high in favor of more 'applied' courses such as shop and home ec. Kids remember so little from history at that age that we repeat it all in senior high and knowing that they can actually do something tangible would probably do wonders to create a confidence in kids that is lost in an age where society doesn't encourage kids to do things.
Shop courses and computer programming and other courses that produce tangible results would remind kids that they aren't powerless and help cut down on some of the stupid stuff that happens because kids never learn how to maintain things unless their parents have the skills--a hit and miss concept at best.

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In Milton Freeman's Economics , wages plus jobs plus manufactured goods equal upswing in our economy, but what Mr. Greenspan fails to realize here is that America is going through a re-disturbution of wealth , from the United States to the global economy.
Education is imperative to a social society, in respect to a strong economic growth of society, but as previously reconized here in the post, education will not prevent the mass exodius of corporation's to third worlds in search of cheep labor.
In business theory, a product is made with respect to cost, and the cheeper the labor market, the higher the profit margin. It makes no difference to corporate culture, that communities are devistated by a corporate mentality, of enconomic devestation of communites for profit.
The first phase of this was in the 70s in the bluecollar workforce, now it has transended into the whitecoller workforce. There are many Americans with BAs, MBAs, PHDs, with no opportunites for employment, in their fields due to this mentality.
As this continues, and it will, the American workforce shall continue to slide backwards economicly, till the workforce has taken all it can. We are not there yet. Does anyone recall the NIMBY effect, as long as it does not effect me then why should I care. Once we have reached the bell curve of the NIMBY a social awareness shall overtake our society and then, and only then will it swing back to the correction that must take place.
We as American citizens must take responability for our country, and stop the Republicrats from the complete sellout of your way of life! The polictical structure in Washington no longer represents the American People, but the Special Interst of Big Business. As American's the awaking shall take place in the polls, by having people in our own communites and neighborhoods running for those very jobs in our nations capitol , that our congressman and senators are so willing to (edited) use out for.
Then and only then will Mr. Greenspan's reference to economic theroy have a chance for opportunity , in this country again.

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Greenspan is full of crap.
Underemployment in this country is widespread, running at around 17% and rising. The cost of education is skyrocketing. Even the local Jr. College is charging around $100 per credit hour now around here, and nobody is going to pay 10's of thousands of dollars for 4 years and up degrees for jobs paying 20-30k a year, unless the government foots the bill, and besides, corporations can import all those degreed positions or export them at their convenience, and have been for years.
If you are going to make money in the future, you will be working for 'defense' contractors, those that still have onshore operations, Congress passed a law in 2002 that eliminates that restriction from new contracts, or you will be a casual laborer for one of their subcontractors, or you won't be employed at anything paying a living wage at all.
Better get a job like JQ. has. There is no 'America' any more You are just another banana republic that hasn't been completely milked dry yet.. From now on, you get to finance and provide fodder for corporate political and economic gain, and when you are bled dry they will move on and leave the remains to rot.
The only 'competition' going on here is people like yourselves competing for who can work for the lowest amount of return, and so far you are losing to places like India, where the per capita income is around $800 a year. LOL

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""We as American citizens must take responability for our country, and stop the Republicrats from the complete sellout of your way of life!""
=========
1995 was the first time in 40 years congess was controlled by the GOP,the sellout started long before that.
Clintoon was President for 8 years,I didn't hear of any lay off's down at the nation ports.Just the opposite,business continued to grow at the ports and it sure wasn't on the export side.
What one man said about clinton creating millions of jobs
"yeh I have 3 of them"
Tax freedom day under the clintoon watch went from april 19 to april 30th or in other words the government took 2 more paychecks away from the people.
neither party is willing to take on real reform,somebody is going to have to tell the baby boomers to suck wind,we can't afford to give the wealthy ones full benifits under the social security program,it's going to have to be rolled back to where it is just for the needy or more and more of the legal economy will go underground to avoid the excessive taxes that will have to be imposed to pay for social security and that will create a snowball effect as more pople hid their income from the government,the government will raise taxes more and even more will find away around them.
The Pakistanies and Indians already see that to survive in their new country they need to be in a cash based business,so they can hid profits from the government.Thats why they buy all those little stores,motels ect.
They know they can buy a pound of hamburger and make a profit selling hamburgers and than turn around and tell the government they suffered a loose,nobody bought a hambuger and the meat went bad,business write off.
They hid the profit and use the fake loss to off set other profits.They set up business in bad neighborhoods and claim that lots of inventory was stolen by shop lifters,so they write it off,but really sold it at a profit.
One of them is part owner of the place I work and his assistent that does the books just seems to thrilled whenever I come back with cash from a COD delivery.

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We should just gas people and turn them into fertilizer and lampshades if they can't feed themselves on $800 a year.
Only 7 or so people in Mexico paid income taxes, so why live in Connecticut when you can live in a no tax country with plenty of car driving jobs?

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The point a writer was making with 'Republicrats' is that both of those parties sleep with different members of the same band. It's like the Archie comic strip where Veronica and Betty look almost exactly alike except for the hair color.
Zigzag: Look at the Green or Libertarian parties if you want someone that isn't part of the same game.