I can't let people think that you and I completely agree on something; so, I'll add to this by suggesting we bring back the apprenticeships.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

By eliminating a guaranteed public education and restricting education to only those who can afford private school you are eliminating some of the best and brightest in this country from achieving their true potential and reatarding this country's future.

I agree with both comments. However i would add one thing, that it is in the benefit of some companies to not enhance educational opportunities, those who depend on unskilled labor for instance. They depend on many children having a sub standard education so they can have their next generation of employees.

I will actually add one more thing that it is not necessarily a good thing for industries if children are taught how to think, they prefer them to be taught skills that they depend on them having. They don't want children to be philosophical, to question society and morallity and how are states are governed as that may prove to be a direct challenge to their(the companies) position in the hierarchy. I personally woud like to see much more of schooling dedicated to philosophy, history and political theory. I see education (certainly in Britain) of serving the purpose of being socialised into the subordinate worker role and learning skills to be exploited, rather than an education of the mind. I believe there has to be more of a balance.

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Viva Fidel

If there ever was in the history of humanity an enemy who was truly universal, an enemy whose acts and moves trouble the entire world, threaten the entire world, attack the entire world in any way or another, that real and really universal enemy is precisely Yankee imperialism

They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?

Public education is a nessesity. Education is a positive for all of society. The more knowledgably society is, the better off it is. It can't know too much. As far as "indoctorination" goes, it is the uneducated that are easily manipulated and decieved.

"No child left behind" has turned into "No child gets ahead," the current program needs to be scraped and redone. The fundemental concept is good, but the devil in the details has made it crap. It needs to be independent of standard education. If someone falls behind, instead of slowing down everyone else, the slower student should go into and alternative education style to help him/her catch up to the others (without them having to wait for that individual).

Teachers should never ever be judged on GPA or test scores or anything that they have control over. Other wise teachers will become softer and pass kids that should fail just so they can look better. Teachers need to be graded on what their students actually know. Meaning tests not administered or graded by the teachers, and thoughs tests should be basic essay questions and critical thinking questions (or in math, multi-step show your work questions).

Maybe something like "explain the conditions that led up to the revolutionary war with England" and grade not based on how close it matches with a pre-writen answer, but how well they use evidence to support their thoughts.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

The best and brightest are only harmed by public education in the United States.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Hell no. It should not be mandatory and state run.
It should not be mandatory at all. If they take up working on cars and do not want to get an education, this happened with a kid I once knew and he was successful with it, then good for them. If they fail and have to work at burger king the rest of their lives I am fine with that also. I am fine with state run, but we should switch to a voucher system and make public schools compete.

Tristan: were you not taking the piss? I assumed you were but it seems people have taken you seriously.

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Trust me, I'm a socialist!

There's power in a factory,power in the land, power in the hand of the worker. But it all amounts to nothing if together we don't stand, there is power in a union.
The union forever defending our rights, down with the blackleg, workers unite. To our brothers and our sisters in many far off lands, there is power in a union.
Money speaks for money, the devil for his own. - Billy Bragg

Most companies have to train you first anyway. Education rarely accually prepares you for a specific job. I have a two year degree in Accounting and work as an accountant, but I still had to get 2 weeks of training on the job, to learn the company's specific system in place and their programs.

What are some of the companies and industries that want no or little education?

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

There is no such thing as "unskilled workers" in the business, industrial or technology sectors. All jobs require a specific skill level. Unskilled labor occupies a fairly modest segemnt of the service occupations.

I have never seen or heard of any such attitude by any employer.

I advocate just the opposite. Increase sciences, languages, life skills and communications classes.

I know

my sarcasm must be too well concealed today

I'll have to up the ante next time

LOL

thanks for picking up on it

I found my comment to be so outrageously over-the-top offensive that nobody could take it seriously - it turns out, LOL, some agreed with it! LOL

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"No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities."

...Christian Nestell Bovee