Education

PICTURE OF DECLINE

A population of illiterate, non-thinking morons can’t possibly obtain good paying jobs. This country spends $12,000 per public school student per year on education and this is the outcome? The factual data presented below paints a picture of an empire in rapid decline. We are too far gone. No amount of money or presidential election is going to change this course. We chose this path in the 1960s and now we will reap the consequences.

In a study of literacy among 20 ‘high income’ countries; US ranked 12^th

Illiteracy has become such a serious problem in our country that 44 million adults are now unable to read a simple story to their children.

50% of adults cannot read a book written at an eighth grade level

45 million are functionally illiterate and read below a 5th grade level

44% of the American adults do not read a book in a year

6 out of 10 households do not buy a single book in a year

Economy

According to the Pew Research Center, the median income of middle-class households declined by 4 percent from 2000 to 2014.

The Pew Research Center has also found that median wealth for middle-class households dropped by an astounding 28 percent between 2001 and 2013.

There are still 900,000 fewer middle-class jobs in America than there were when the last recession began, but the population has grown significantly larger since that time.

According to the Social Security Administration, 51 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.

An astounding 48.8 percent of all 25-year-old Americans still live at home with their parents.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 49 percent of all Americans now live in a home that receives money from the government each month, and nearly 47 million Americans are living in poverty right now.

In 2007, about one out of every eight children in America was on food stamps. Today, that number is one out of every five.

The median net worth of families in the United States was $137, 955 in 2007. Today, it is just $82,756.

ARE WE BORN WITH AN IQ?

We’ve had many a discussion about IQ on this blog. The chart below seems to provide an unequivocal conclusion. The law of large numbers always wins. The good old statistical conclusions from normal distribution graphs are pretty clear. On an individual basis, there will be really smart white and black people. There also will be really dumb white and black people. But, according to this chart, the overall distribution of IQs shows whites having an average of 100 and blacks having an average of about 83.

When I see results like this, I ask why.

An IQ test measures intelligence based upon a myriad of questions. The test was created by humans. How much of my IQ score is simply based upon my genes? Are we born with an IQ score already ingrained? Does the white race automatically have a 17 point advantage over the black race?

Or, is IQ a function of education, upbringing, environment, and individual motivation? Are overall white IQ scores higher because they are more likely to be raised in two parent households and have access to better educational opportunities? Are overall black IQ scores lower because the majority are raised in one parent households and have less educational opportunities?

The question seems to be nature versus nurture. What do you think?

Depressing Survey Results Show How Extremely Stupid America Has Become

Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Ten years ago, a major Hollywood film entitled “Idiocracy” was released, and it was an excellent metaphor for what would happen to America over the course of the next decade. In the movie, an “average American” wakes up 500 years in the future only to discover that he is the most intelligent person by far in the “dumbed down” society that he suddenly finds himself in.

Sadly, I truly believe that if people of average intellect from the 1950s and 1960s were transported to 2016, they would likely be considered mental giants compared to the rest of us. We have a country where criminals are being paid $1000 a month not to shoot people, and the highest paid public employee in more than half the states is a football coach. Hardly anyone takes time to read a book anymore, and yet the average American spends 302 minutes a day watching television. 75 percent of our young adults cannot find Israel on a map of the Middle East, but they sure know how to find smut on the Internet.

What in the world has happened to us? How is it possible that we have become so stupid? According to a brand new report that was recently released, almost 10 percent of our college graduates believe that Judge Judy is on the Supreme Court…

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WHY SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE COLLEGE GRADUATES ARE DUMBER THAN A SACK OF HAMMERS

If you ever needed more proof that a college education has become a virtual joke, check out the chart below. Higher Education should be renamed Lower Education, since the standards of excellence have been lowered so far, any moron can get a degree. With a large distribution of students, grades should resemble a bell curve. I learned that in my college Stat class. That would mean approximately 15% to 20% A’s.

Shockingly, back in the 1960s & 1970s about 15% to 20% of students got As. Did college students suddenly get super smart over the last 15 years? Based on the chart, we’ve got some real Einsteins out there. The number of A grades has skyrocketed from 30% to 45% in the last fifteen years.

This is a fucking joke. This is the same time period in which every moron who can spell CAT has been able to matriculate into college with the trillions in student loan debt being peddled by Obama and his minions. We know for a fact, based on SAT scores, that at least 50% of kids in college aren’t intellectually capable of succeeding.

So the solution is to dumb down the curriculum and inflate grades because it is only about the money. Kids who flunk out don’t pay tuition. Our entire educational edifice of idiocy is a disaster. Kids graduating with 3.5 GPAs today aren’t half as smart as the kids graduating with 3.5 GPAs in 1980. The lack of intelligence and common sense is evident everywhere you look. The special snowflakes can be coddled and given A’s for doing C work, but that doesn’t make them prepared for the real world.

This country is so screwed and there is no way to unscrew it.

It’s never been easier to get an A in a college class (or more expensive)

By Jillian Berman via Marketwatch

College students are more likely to get an A than in the past.

Add this to the list of consequences of rising college tuition: Students getting better grades than they deserve.

A’s were the most common grade on college campuses in 2013, accounting for 45% of grades awarded to students, according to an analysis of grade data at more than 80 schools by Stuart Rojstaczer, an independent researcher, and Chris Healy, a computer science professor at Furman University. By contrast, college students were most likely to get C’s leading up to the Vietnam War, accounting for about 35% of grades awarded. The two researchers have been collecting and reporting on grade data for years. Monday’s release marks the latest version of their analysis.

The researchers’ data shows how A’s have become the most common grade awarded at colleges.

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What Genius Thinks of Education

FREEMANSPERSPECTIVE

education

As I compiled the thoughts from geniuses last week, one group of thoughts that I left out – simply because there were so many of them – were the thoughts of geniuses on the subject of regimented education. Thus, today’s list.

Again in this area, the brightest men and women reach a surprisingly consistent set of conclusions. And again, we’ll begin with Einstein:

Albert Einstein

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

School failed me, and I failed the school. It bored me. The teachers behaved like sergeants. I wanted to learn what I wanted to know, but they wanted me to learn for the exam… I felt that my thirst for knowledge was being strangled by my teachers; grades were their only measurement.
I learned mostly at home, first from my uncle and then from a student who came to eat with us once a week. He would give me books on physics and astronomy.

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.

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Doug Casey on Education

(Interviewed by Louis James, Editor, International Speculator)

This interview was first published on October 21, 2009

Editor’s Note: The typical American thinks going to school is the best way to achieve success. As President Obama said in a 2012 presidential address, “If we want America to lead in the 21^st century, nothing is more important than giving everyone the best education possible – from the day they start preschool to the day they start their career.”

Casey Research founder Doug Casey has a very different take…

Louis James: Doug, in our recent conversation on global warming, you made some critical remarks about modern education. I know that wasn’t mere drive-by disparagement…can you tell us why you’re so hard on teachers today?

Doug: Sure. Since the school season started recently, it’s probably a good time to talk about schools and education.

L: School season? Is there a bag limit on how many schools you can take down?

Doug: Well, I think that most of the money that’s spent on so-called education is, if not wasted, definitely misallocated.

There was a book written a few years ago called something like All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. I have to admit I never read the book, but the title resonated with me. I think there’s a lot of truth behind the notion. To me, it implies that a person should have absorbed basic ethical values and an understanding how to relate to other people, animals, and objects by the time he’s six years old. Those are the most important things anyone can learn and should be the first things one learns. But it doesn’t seem any institution, and fairly few parents, think to teach them.

But the first thing to do is to ask: What is education?

L: Okay, I’ll bite. What is it?

Doug: Education is the process of learning how to perceive and analyze reality correctly. That would include subjects like ethics, science, history, and important literature.

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