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CARPE DIEM
Professor Mark J. Perry's Blog for Economics and Finance
Saturday, May 10, 2008
About Me
- Name: Mark J. Perry
- Location: Washington, D.C., United States
Dr. Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan. Perry holds two graduate degrees in economics (M.A. and Ph.D.) from George Mason University near Washington, D.C. In addition, he holds an MBA degree in finance from the Curtis L. Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. In addition to a faculty appointment at the University of Michigan-Flint, Perry is also a visiting scholar at The American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
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5 Comments:
The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all, it is to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. - H.L. Mencken
The problem is it is nearly impossible to fire a public educator. Pay raises and promotion are extremely dependent upon time served, as opposed to ability. Market incentives are killed, and you can't be fired for being bad at what you do (or hardly doing it at all).
I had a physical science teacher demonstrate Newton's third law by asking us to answer a question by raising our hands, some raised their hands (the action) and some did not (opposite reaction). He was not making an analogy. He actually thought this demonstrated the third law. The fact that their were different numbers of raised hands to not was lost on him. What's worse is that it was also completely lost on him that these laws were only applicable in the physical world. He actually thought Newton's law applied in this scenario, which was evident by some of the other things he said in class. My clique made fun of him back then, but now, I wonder how many students bought it. This demonstration has stuck with me for years.
careful, prof perry. you're a public educator too :o]
i think our public education system gets unfairly maligned by people looking for someone/some thing to blame for the worlds problems.
i recently watched my kids trying to get into the University of California system. they were both A students, one was high school valedictorian. they both made it in, but i couldn't believe the competition they faced from enormous numbers of highly educated students.
being an A student isn't good enough anymore. you have to have honors classes and advanced placement classes, and be in student government. there may be bad students and schools out there, but, believe me, there are lots of good ones too.
my wife teaches second grade, and let me give you a little glimpse of public education from her point of view.
she spends many hours giving government mandated tests. NCLB and STAR testing are just two of the big time wasters in her school year.
just like you complain that you can't get rid of bad teacher, she complains that she can't get rid of bad students (and their bad parents!!!). every year, her good students have to suffer as she spends an inordinate amount of time dealing with one or two disruptive students and their disruptive parents.
and don't even get me started on how there is not enough money for public schools here in california because we have to educate half of mexico!
Public Education, at least on the K-12 level is a good example of the abject failure of socialism.
Well I don't think anyone should be suprised at the abysmal education many if not most of the government funded madrassas give their students, the excessive cost being borne by the taxpayers...
People have been pulling their kids out of the madrassas for years...
Black Homeschooling on the Rise
Home schooling on the rise
An A for Home Schooling
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