Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

The Permanent Recession

This article raises an interesting point: America doesn't educate all its people effectively. This creates a permanent drag on their earning capacity, which lowers the amount the country makes too.

Report Says Education Gaps Create "Permanent Recession"
Stacy Teicher Khadaroo, The Christian Science Monitor: "Educational achievement gaps are typically measured in terms of test scores - across lines of race and income, or even across state and national borders. But what if they were measured in dollars?"


One way to improve matters would be to narrow or close the gaps in education. Another would be to put some serious effort into matching people's interests and abilities to suitable careers. Right now, we are wasting a tremendous amount of human potential; we should not be doing that.
Tags: community, economics, education, networking, news
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  • 14 comments
mtrose2

Either very lucky or very clueless....

mtrose2

April 25 2009, 19:39:41 UTC 12 years ago

Whenever I hear people complain about the public education system, I have to wonder whether I was very, very lucky, or just very, very clueless. While I can certainly recall boring classes and dull teachers (something that is both inevitable and doesn't stop at high school; college has its share too), for the most part I feel that those who have set out to educate me have done well by me. From elementary school on, I was usually participating in some sort of gifted program, and even during those occasions when such options weren't formally available to me (I moved a lot when I was younger), I usually had at least one or two teachers who were trying to do SOMETHING. Though it probably helped that the worst "trouble" I ever caused was hiding a book under my desk during a class activity or reading ahead in a book when the class was taking turns reading aloud.
ysabetwordsmith

Re: Either very lucky or very clueless....

ysabetwordsmith

April 26 2009, 02:42:52 UTC 12 years ago

It sounds like you were lucky; for instance, being in schools that had gifted programs, because many don't.

Reading non-class books in class was one of the leading things that got me into trouble with teachers. I only had one who gave up after challenging me on that. She allowed as to how, if I was reading The Two Towers, I didn't need third-grade reading class. Of course, she started by not believing I was really reading it, but after I scared the class with an enthusiastic recounting of "The Departure of Boromir," that was sufficient proof of comprehension.