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Stupid in America: John Stossel 20/20 special watch!

youtube.com — American Public Schools are a monopoly that is decimating our kids. The story started out when identical tests were given to high school students in New Jersey and in Belgium. The Belgian kids cleaned the American kids' clocks. The Belgian kids called the American students

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  • Torso, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4This is scary.
    • pseudojd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1makes me sad as an American. We used to be #1. Now we are just a stupid bully. We are going to free the ***** out of your country.
    • Wisgary, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That kid can dance!
    • emfb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I agree, this is scary.

      In the land where personal responsibility is dead, the issue has been cast on the system and teachers instead of the real issue -- some students. Not all students, just the ones with "crab bucket" mentalities. The root of the issue with these disruptive and disrespectful students can be traced directly back to the parents or rather the lack of parenting.

      Anyway, I noticed that in the AP class the "teacher of the year" was teaching you don't see students disrobing and standing on the tables. These kids clearly want to learn. Disruptive students have already been "filtered" out. This strategy needs to be adopted in all classrooms to provide the educational benefit of this type of system beyond just the top 10% of the class.

      In order for problem children to be properly educated, the basic manners their parents obviously failed to teach them must first be taught. All disruptive students should be dropped into social development programs and isolated from those who can and wish to learn. There needs to be an acknowledgment of these kids remedial social skills. Only after they have developed to a point where they can actually be educated should they be promoted up to an actual classroom or discharged from the school altogether. Our education system is not a day care program -- if persistent issues are not resolved by the student in these programs, then the only recourse is to suspend the student until they can complete an off site social rehabilitation program.

      To prevent all the bitching of the parents that is likely to ensue we need to install cameras in all classrooms. If the parent has an issue they can review the tapes with the principle. This would shut them right the hell up.
    • Wisgary, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Wow, this is the first video I've seen on youtube that's really really long and I've actually sat down and watched it. It was really really good. Monopolistic communist public schools suck ass.
    • cdahlkvist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@pseudojd

      While I agree that this is scary I would like to point out that the U.S. was NEVER #1 in education nor will it ever be.

      There is a perfectly legitimate reason for this.

      The U.S. is a much envied nation (regardless of what the liberals and foreigners will say - just look at the rate of immigration here if you think everyone hates the U.S.) that a large portion of people in other countries would like to live in.

      As the U.S. offers a better and better life for it's citizens other countries see that they must focus on bettering the lives of their citizens. The best way to do that? Education.

      So, in theory, the better the U.S. is the better education in other countries becomes.

      However, the U.S. is ranked 25th. This is unacceptable. It would be acceptable if it were in at least the top 10 if not the top 5. 25th is not acceptable.

      I am a foreign born and educated American. I was educated in Sweden and I know I am more intelligent than the average American (as I would suspect most people on Digg are (Am I being over-optimistic?)). Of course I always manage to find my equals and my superiors here also.

      My point about being foreign educated is that I have noticed that the education system here, especially public schools, keep asking for more money. It seems every public school feels they need all these "tools" to properly educate students yet when they are given the additional funding the test scores don't rise.

      My school in Sweden operated on a very tight budget. The focus was not on the latest teaching tools but rather on the quality of the teachers and the focus on the student. Specifically a great teacher (that was paid well enough to make them want to do a spectacular job) and smaller classroom size so more individual focus was possible.

      While we keep pouring money into our public school system in the U.S. we tend to apportion that money to the latest tools and the administration rather than into the cost of hiring and retaining a great teacher. This is the real problem with U.S. education.

      Another important note is that only the public schools are failing. The private schools are doing an excellent job in most cases. The private schools also operate on a fixed budget as opposed to the publicly funded schools. Why can't the public school system learn a lesson from the private sector education system?
  • nukem996, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I find it really ironic that America, the most capitalistic country in the world has a communistic education system. Countries that are usually bashed for being socialist recognize that a capitalistic system where parents and students choose where they go makes a better education system for everyone. America really needs to reform its education system or other things such as the economy and how much research we do are going to be drastically effected.
  • RedHeadedFreak, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Excellent show. I find it insane that the pro-choice liberal democrats who supposedly embrace personal freedoms are the same ones who are completely strangled and reliant upon the political funding and support of these gigantic teacher's unions. Everyone should be for the voucher programs, from underprivileged inner-city minorities, to the affluent middle to upper class--our future as a nation really depends on it.

    When I was in the 4th grade, I was in danger of being bused to a really bad inner city school where shootings and lock-downs were every day occurrences (in the name of "cultural diversity") but fortunately my mother was able to move and I was able to attend much better suburban schools. And even then, that school could have been better in many instances.
    • DyDx, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3The voucher program in its current form is an abomination. Giving students the choice to move to other schools when their school (private ones, even) fails some arbitrary exam requirements, at the expense of TAXPAYERS, is such a bad idea I don't know where to begin. The schools need to get better, yes, but just taking kids out isn't a solution. The dumber people are likely just to get concentrated in one place. It just does not make sense. Nor does it make ANY sense to take money AWAY from schools when they fail to meet entrance exam requirements.

      WTF was Bush smoking when he came up with the No Child Left Behind Act?
  • KlayBorg, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4The "voucher" system has worked brilliantly everywhere else, why not use it? This is one major problem facing America at the moment. Too many things are tied up in tradition, so any changes made are seen as "evil" and counter productive, regardless of the success of these traditions. I am looking at you imperial system.
    • D3koy, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1Yes, education is currently the biggest problem facing America right now.....

      Yes, I know it needs to be reformed, but right now we have have bigger things to worry about (Like leaving Iraq)
    • mrman5917, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2D3coy,

      By that logic there are always things that are a "bigger" issue. Oh we can't work on education, we have to worry about this. Oh, now with that done, we have this to worry about.

      Steve Jobs stands up and says that Teacher Unions are ruining schools and gets pounced on. All he did was point out that our schools are failing our kids. The administrators only care about their careers, the teachers only care about being paid, and the unions just want it all to stay the same. Meanwhile our kids are being given third-rate education and passed from grade to grade.
    • illegalcortex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@klayborg

      To say the voucher system has worked "brilliantly everywhere else" is quite a stretch. The jury is very much still out. The biggest problem with the tests of a voucher system have been that they're not really testing what they need to test.

      Instead, they have taken a subset of children that fit the following criteria:
      - Students with parents are motivated and involved enough to take part in voucher program
      - Students who have no learning disabilities
      - Students who are not physically disabled

      This is not a representation that will tell you anything about how a full voucher system would work. More studies need to be done when all of these factors are equalized. Recently, a large study even showed that when you adjust for "race, socioeconomics and other factors" on "test scores in reading and mathematics among fourth and eighth graders", there is no significant difference (link to Wall Street Journal summary at http://tinyurl.com/yp9h4x ). Ok, so you can claim that because it's a federal study it's hogwash (implying they biased it or just cocked it up). But the same could be said for any study done buy a group already in favor of private schools. There's an interesting report at http://www.connectforkids.org/node/3953 that takes a pretty balanced look at D.C.'s voucher tests.

      Unfortunately, though, there is no real, fair way to test vouchers. Even if you gave vouchers to every student in a state, required private schools to take any student, and ran the program for 12 years, the easy criticism would be that you can't just create a private school system to serve every student overnight and given a few decades, you'd then see the "true" success (or failure). The biggest problem is that guinea pigs would be the students. The real question during such a test would be if they were screwed over by the test more than going to public school. It's easy to answer that question based on your pre-conceived bias, but hard to do it objectively.

      The last factor is that private schools would be required to teach things they don't like to teach. Right now, a very high percentage of private schools are faith based (by that I mean the groups who run them, not necessarily that they intentionally indoctrinate students). This means they would be required to teach things like evolution. Less controversial but just as divisive would be that they need to teach physics/astronomy in terms of the universe being billions of years old, etc. They would need to teach earth sciences describing the earth as billions of years old. They would teach about dinosaurs being millions of years old, etc. They would need to teach all of these things in a sincere manner, and not in the "well, some SCIENTISTS claim that _______, but that's JUST a theory and another theory is that God _______". Eventually, it's possible that after the faith-based schools eventually rejected the vouchers and the strings attached, the secular private school business would boom. But again, we are in the realm of possibility, not the realm of proven fact.

      Let me just state that although I am skeptical about vouchers, I do not stereotype all voucher supports as rich fat-cats (or crumb-bums) that want to leave the poor behind and not have to take taxes. I know plenty of them are honestly looking for ways to make our school system better for everyone. In my personal opinion, our real way forward is to drastically rethink our education system. This means pretty shocking (to most parents) changes like getting rid of grouping children by age, re-instated education in art and music, shrinking of time spent in class on a yearly basis, reduction of class size and of overall school size, later start times for teenagers, and LESS focus on standardized testing. I think to be effective, changes will also have to ripple up to public universities to prevent them from requiring that incoming students must have had every subject under the sun to even get in the school.
    • stimcaps, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@illegalcortex

      Just wanted to commend you on a great, thoughtful post that elevates the discussion. It's rare to see anyone expend this much effort on a Digg comment. I wish more people would.
    • illegalcortex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@stimcaps

      Thank you. My posts are probably way too long on most articles. But I figured on this one it was ok, considering that the topic was education. Of course, that just makes me wish I had spent more time proofreading...
  • mntalkase, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I wish I could digg this more than once.
  • jcaino, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1nukem996 - you make an excellent point

    i always remember growing up teachers saying 'the classroom is not a democracy'

    how true that is - our education system keeps pounding the same mindless drivel into students' heads, with a lot of the educational process focused on the regurgitation of information. by taking that line, it's no wonder that the united states has seriously fallen behind when compared to other nations, especially in today's world where people need analytical skills to break down and solve problems.

    education in america is just one of the many slippery slopes we're on in this country.

    our founding fathers have got to be spinning in their graves.
  • mikesty, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4My favorite part was when Stossel asked the American kids in NJ how they did on the test. One girl responds:

    "I think I did good."

    Turns out she didn't do so WELL after all :)
  • freetyme, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2diz iz stoopidz! Belgum SUX0RS!!! USA pwns gay n00bs , dey no smart az my l337 test tacking skillz!

    MOM, wherz my chokolot milk!

    /please digg down if you do not have a sense of humor
    please digg up if, this interesting 20/20 that came out a while back, unfortunately, isn't a surprise to you.
    • D3koy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Why do you (and many others like you) do this whole digg me down/digg me up deal....It's really dumb...
  • shortyzgotpop, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5The test was super easy? Then why did they only get 76% correct? 76% vs 47%, both those scores aren't great. The whole special came across quite slanted. The classroom with the kids playing monopoly was after final exams, which the reporter said quietly at the end of that bit. I agree America's schools definitely need improvement, but this news report seemed to just be looking to make an entertaining story.
    • illegalcortex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@shortyzgotpop

      I definitely agree with you on that. Unfortunately, Stossel has become the libertarian Michael Moore. Okay, not QUITE as bad as that, but he does use some of the same spin tactics to always make his side look right and everyone else look like incompetent boobs.
  • Robyr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3As some one from South Carolina, when he interviewed Inez Tannenbaum I agreed with his points. Our school system is horrid. Someone really needs to hold that lady accountable (And all of Greenville County school administrators while I'm at it.)
  • Karmakin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Nothing will change until the culture of anti-intellctualism dies a horrible ugly death. When you teach our youth that the purpose of an education is to make the big bucks, instead of teaching them that the purpose of education is education itself, this is the expected result.


  • eliasg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2In FL, the public school system has become a POS with everything being a focus on "FCATs" ...

    Kids that get good grades and don't pass the FCATs get held-back... teachers aren't teaching the regular stuff anymore, they're just teaching the tests so that the kids can pass.

    I've always wished we could have an education system like the one in Europe. Here everything is too babyish at time. I wish they would just let everyone choose where their kid goes to school, and if it's a private school you're responsible for paying the difference between the school's cost and what the government pays.
  • DrMickhead, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I'd like to be able to watch the whole thing, but upon looking at the first few minutes of the show, what the hell do you think you're going to find if you give a bunch of kids camcorders AFTER finals?! Nobody's going to be taking school seriously. Also, not knowing 'international' questions does not make someone stupid--American education is notoriously ethnocentric. This isn't to say that the system doesn't need to be fixed, just that this documentary seems incredibly biased and Stossel is forcing an issue that isn't necessarily as severe as he says it is.
  • truspark, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Teachers can only do so much. Parents are responsible for teaching their children an appreciation for learning. Without that, the best teacher is not going to help.
  • kd1s, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2By and large, public schools are a joke. But as a taxpayer with no kids, I have no right to complain. Yet I'm tired of seeing schools suck up 90% of the budgets of most cities and towns. Where the hell is the money going when we're cranking out dolts at an alarming rate.

    I see the difference all the time with my SO. For elementary and high school he was in public schools while I was in private schools. The gaps between the two were astounding. Luckily we both attended private colleges and he was able to excel.

    • illegalcortex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@kd1s
      "But as a taxpayer with no kids, I have no right to complain."

      I hope by this you mean people don't give your complaints as much credence because you don't have a child in the system. Because you most certainly DO have a right to complain. You live in a community. The quality of the education a school system provides has an incredibly large impact on that community. So you just keep criticizing.
  • epicstruggle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Did this video get buried?
    • Tweidle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Looks like the evil union got to it.

      But seriously I think it did get buried.
  • cairo140, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I would not be surprised if this video gets buried.
  • cairo140, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1"Competition is not for children; it's not for human beings." -Teacher (38:55)

    This is just jaw-dropping. The founding principles of the United States including individual excellence and industrious effort are just dropped within the school system under the guise of a "more equal environment for the children."

    Indeed, teachers unions and teachers advocating for a communal system are fighting for their jobs; however their communal ideologies directly contravene the needs of the students.

    The systemic problem must be rectified, if not through the establishment of a drastically more competitive system, through a gradual migration towards an educational philosophy that puts the children's financial and personal future ahead of administrative fiat.
  • Deathtaxesnoles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0How did this video get buried?
    • dreicher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I don't think the question is how did this get buried...it didn't take Kreskin to figure out this was going down the minute it hit the front page. The question you need to be asking is "What does the fact that this got buried say about what level of honest debate is possible in this area of our democracy?"
  • nonchallant0819, on 03/31/2008, -0/+0This is a great story... found this one through http://www.google.com




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