Thomas Frank: What's the Matter with Liberals?

[WMS]

One thing I have noticed is that other minorities - most notably Asians and Puerto Ricans - are increasingly openly hostile to blacks, in the same way working class whites have been accused of.

Hispanics do the same thing here. I've heard the n-word far more from Hispanics than from whites in NM...

[WMS]

Neither downplayed nor ignored.  Just misunderstood.  I blame the schools.  And they're largely run by "liberals" so yes, I guess I blame the "liberals"

You feed the schoolkids a diet of processed fatty foods and constant political correctness, and you end up with a generation of hapless overweight geeks who decide they want to become "feminists"  That's just reality, man.  And bitching about it won't solve the problem. 

I also think there's some duplicity.  Flyers makes a good point.  But keep in mind that both sides are guilty of this sort of aggrandizing.  But as I pointed out in the Krugman thread, and Dazzleman points out here, this is typical of "liberal logic", or to use Frank's own words, they simply "misunderstand" the problem.  And it's going to get worse before it gets better.  That's one view I have acquired from posting here and reading posts.  The posters are mostly from the under-30 crowd, so it's a nice window on the failings of the American educational systems.

Re: the failings of American educational systems:

In my school, it was possible to get a good education...if you took the 'honors' or 'enriched' level classes, that is. (If you took the 'regular' level classes...eh.)

Know what the local liberals are doing here? They're eliminating all of the honors and enriched classes and forcing everyone into regular classes. They claim it's so that the rest of the students can benefit from the same level of education, or that all students will have the same level of education, or some dippy left-wing theory of the local lefty College of Education. What they will actually do, of course, is drag down everyone's level of education and make it so everyone is mediocre together.

You think it's bad now...

[WMS]

Re: the failings of American educational systems:

In my school, it was possible to get a good education...if you took the 'honors' or 'enriched' level classes, that is. (If you took the 'regular' level classes...eh.)

Know what the local liberals are doing here? They're eliminating all of the honors and enriched classes and forcing everyone into regular classes. They claim it's so that the rest of the students can benefit from the same level of education, or that all students will have the same level of education, or some dippy left-wing theory of the local lefty College of Education. What they will actually do, of course, is drag down everyone's level of education and make it so everyone is mediocre together.

You think it's bad now...

Those aren't liberals. You can stop your liberal bashing now.

Then who are they? It is the left-leaning members of the local school board who support this, and the local school unions who back this and the local College of Education are both very left-wing.

In your defense, the only member who comes out and says that this is idiotic is a moderate Democrat...

[WMS]

Re: the failings of American educational systems:

In my school, it was possible to get a good education...if you took the 'honors' or 'enriched' level classes, that is. (If you took the 'regular' level classes...eh.)

Know what the local liberals are doing here? They're eliminating all of the honors and enriched classes and forcing everyone into regular classes. They claim it's so that the rest of the students can benefit from the same level of education, or that all students will have the same level of education, or some dippy left-wing theory of the local lefty College of Education. What they will actually do, of course, is drag down everyone's level of education and make it so everyone is mediocre together.

You think it's bad now...

Those aren't liberals. You can stop your liberal bashing now.

Then who are they? It is the left-leaning members of the local school board who support this, and the local school unions who back this and the local College of Education are both very left-wing.

In your defense, the only member who comes out and says that this is idiotic is a moderate Democrat...

Well, I strongly support tracking, because I'm a meritocracy liberal.

Ah, got it. Well, not your type of liberal is being referred to then...

[WMS]

Re: the failings of American educational systems:

In my school, it was possible to get a good education...if you took the 'honors' or 'enriched' level classes, that is. (If you took the 'regular' level classes...eh.)

Know what the local liberals are doing here? They're eliminating all of the honors and enriched classes and forcing everyone into regular classes. They claim it's so that the rest of the students can benefit from the same level of education, or that all students will have the same level of education, or some dippy left-wing theory of the local lefty College of Education. What they will actually do, of course, is drag down everyone's level of education and make it so everyone is mediocre together.

You think it's bad now...

Those aren't liberals. You can stop your liberal bashing now.

Then who are they? It is the left-leaning members of the local school board who support this, and the local school unions who back this and the local College of Education are both very left-wing.

In your defense, the only member who comes out and says that this is idiotic is a moderate Democrat...

Well, I strongly support tracking, because I'm a meritocracy liberal.

Ah, got it. Well, not your type of liberal is being referred to then...

If you're against meritocracy, you're not a liberal. If you're for a meritocracy you'd better be

1. For affordable education high quality education for students who are doing well, this includes college
2. For a large estate tax
3. Against inside connections/deals/trading/no-bid contracts

Perhaps my local Democrats are defective...
As for your points:
1. Pretty much agree - access to education (but no affirmitive action based on race/gender/etc. please; although some by economic need is OK) is one of my more 'liberal' points, since keeping people uneducated doesn't do anyone any good.
2. Partial agreement - while I don't support getting rid of it altogether, I would significantly raise the floor under which you don't get taxed so the genuine 'family businesses' don't have to be sold off instead of inherited.
3. Pretty much agree with these.

Wow, we've become an angus case study.

[WMS]

Re: the failings of American educational systems:

In my school, it was possible to get a good education...if you took the 'honors' or 'enriched' level classes, that is. (If you took the 'regular' level classes...eh.)

Know what the local liberals are doing here? They're eliminating all of the honors and enriched classes and forcing everyone into regular classes. They claim it's so that the rest of the students can benefit from the same level of education, or that all students will have the same level of education, or some dippy left-wing theory of the local lefty College of Education. What they will actually do, of course, is drag down everyone's level of education and make it so everyone is mediocre together.

You think it's bad now...

Those aren't liberals. You can stop your liberal bashing now.

Then who are they? It is the left-leaning members of the local school board who support this, and the local school unions who back this and the local College of Education are both very left-wing.

In your defense, the only member who comes out and says that this is idiotic is a moderate Democrat...

Well, I strongly support tracking, because I'm a meritocracy liberal.

Ah, got it. Well, not your type of liberal is being referred to then...

My school was very liberal from an extremel liberal area and it was highly divided between honors/advanced versus regular classes. The main complaint was not so much that there was a differentiation there, but that the differentiation was not nearly what it could have been. For example, the main difference in quality of the courses was not their content, but the character of one's peers. This also suggests that the proposals of who you call the liberals at your school would be intrinsically impossible, and that the problem comes at a more basic level.

I'll take 'Basic Idiocy' for $100.

Interesting. When I was in high school, there definitely was a difference in the content of the courses - I learned a good deal about how to write by taking the Honors English classes...and to blow my own horn, it got me a 5 on the English Advanced Placement Test. The 5's I got on the American History and European History AP Tests were helped somewhat but not as much by my classes. Ah, I enjoyed getting 6 free classes' worth of college credit out of that. Anyway, the quality of the classes was different, and it mattered.

[WMS]

My school was very liberal from an extremel liberal area and it was highly divided between honors/advanced versus regular classes. The main complaint was not so much that there was a differentiation there, but that the differentiation was not nearly what it could have been. For example, the main difference in quality of the courses was not their content, but the character of one's peers. This also suggests that the proposals of who you call the liberals at your school would be intrinsically impossible, and that the problem comes at a more basic level.

I'll take 'Basic Idiocy' for $100.

Interesting. When I was in high school, there definitely was a difference in the content of the courses - I learned a good deal about how to write by taking the Honors English classes...and to blow my own horn, it got me a 5 on the English Advanced Placement Test. The 5's I got on the American History and European History AP Tests were helped somewhat but not as much by my classes. Ah, I enjoyed getting 6 free classes' worth of college credit out of that. Anyway, the quality of the classes was different, and it mattered.

That is interesting, I got a 5 on the AP Euro test from taking the class, but decided during registration to take the AP American history test and got a 5 on that as well. The AP classes are a little different because the teachers usually will try to tailor the course specifically around the test. But it's not necessary to take the course to take the test.

Basically, even with AP, I think the standards at public education are waaay too low. Yes there are people who behave like basic idiots but I believe most of that *is* due to the system they've been through, as well as general social expectations and mores. The question is, are people happier with low standards? Would raising standards "deprive" students of their childhood? No. J.S. Mill is an example of a deprived childhood. He was doing dissertation-level work by age 13. What I'm proposing is to cut out some of the fat at the K-9 level. In the long run most students would be grateful because we're not wasting such a huge part of their lives. Its better that they learn more when they are young and still have options than to figure things out later.

Agreed on the AP stuff. The classes I took certainly helped with the test, but weren't tailored around it. And congratulations, late.

I completely agree with you on raising school standards. The problem is caused by the 'self-esteem' and 'politically correct' loons who consider higher educational standards either cruel or bigoted. And then there's the Falwell nuts on top of them, and so on. And all the parents who don't consider education important. You get the picture.

[WMS]

The quality of public school education in New Mexico hasn’t improved much since this thread.

The instance (yes, in the same meeting!) where one of my local school board members (my old high school principal!) said “only God can judge us” and another one of them (now a County Commissioner!) threatened to meet a critic in a dark alley, now that happened in the 2010s.

Albuquerque Public Schools is just an edifice to incompetence and arrogance