#31597: — 07/10  at  01:51 PM
The sign in the front door is pretty meaningless. Most schools considered among the world´s ten best live from their past accomplishments and/or from hiring superstars who contribute little to the school´s level.

#31603: — 07/10  at  01:59 PM
Since when did the cost of a school determine how much a child learned? Didn't all of you learn most of what you know outside of school? I know that the countless hours I spent at the library or outside looking at all the wonderous things around me has shaped me to a greater extent than anything I ever was taught in school.

Maybe it's because I went to a few public schools, or maybe it's because my mind explodes with joy at the thought of feeding my son's desire for knowledge. Maybe I'm weird that way...

I know that school attempts to impart a set of knowledge and simple skills onto the children who pass through their doors, but it's the child who either wants to learn or doesn't. If the child does want to learn, all they need is someone to help guide them. The rest is up to them.

-Tiskel

#31605: Alon Levy — 07/10  at  02:14 PM
Most schools considered among the world´s ten best live from their past accomplishments and/or from hiring superstars who contribute little to the school´s level.

It's not true. The US News and World Report rankings are based on criteria such as students' SAT scores, student-to-faculty ratios, and graduation rates; the various international rankings are based on the total number of publications or on aggregate citation indices. Furthermore, it's safe to say that all major research universities, of which there are about fifty in the United States and, I would guess, another fifty elsewhere, have superstars on their faculties. A single superstar doesn't change much for these institutions; what makes the difference between #10 and #30 is numerous distinguished researchers.

#31607: ekzept — 07/10  at  02:50 PM
there have been changes for the worse in upstate New York school systems, far from big cities.

parents seem to care less about what and how their kids do in schools. this might be a side effect of both parents working longer hours, to achieve that high economic productivity New York and the United States are so proud of touting, or it could be that they simply don't care.

some teachers are increasingly Regents-focussed. the Board of Regents made laughingstocks of themselves again this year by rescaling the results of the Math-B Regents exam so people passed at the 50 percentile.

kids are prohibited from libraries at certain times of day, so librarians don't need to contend with them. i thought the idea was to encourage kids to use libraries....

we still get an Aaron Pixton once in a while, but my son tells me that there was a high school student from Boston taking Math 25a-25b with him at Harvard.

yeah, under-paying teachers doesn't help.

as my other son reported in a paper he did for our high school, there's a systematic "parallel track" for athletes in high schools and even the best colleges which kids seem to think will be their salvation.

and, increasingly, cheating is seen as an acceptable way to get by. kids solicit folks to do their homework for pay on craigslist. i have even seen sites based outside the USA turning doing homework and take-home exams into a business. ("Hey, it's outsourcing.")

#31632: Abiola Lapite — 07/10  at  07:53 PM
Not to derail this conversation, or downplay the importance of education, but I think there's something crucial missing from the post which inspired all this discussion:

Gerry Fedchun, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, whose members will see increased business with the new plant.

Note that the association Mr. Fedchun heads just happens to be a consortium of Canadian firms which stand to do business with Toyota, and he is not in any way speaking as a representative of Toyota itself. It may well be that Canadian workers are better educated (though this may be mostly an artifact of Canada's points-based immigration system and distance from the Mexican border, to the extent that it's even true), but all we really have here is one guy badmouthing the competition as a bunch of barefoot illiterates; I'd take it with as much seriousness as a Briton blaming all of France's problems on the sub-par hygiene of that country's citizens ...

#31641: — 07/10  at  10:28 PM
Abiola, Still, it was education that forced Toyota's decision. Expensive but educated workers are preferrable to subsidies and cheap uneducated labor. That it was said by a gloating competitor does not make it less true. BTW, thanks to NAFTA, Toyota could have sited its plant in Mexico, with even cheaper workforce, but the idea didn't come up.

#31687: ken — 07/11  at  11:04 AM
I agree with PZ that educational issue raised is not strictly a "southern problem" but it only appears to be by the story. And it is that way because foreign manufacturers have, for years, chosen to build thier plants in southern states. I have always wondered why this is and thought that there might be motivation on the part of the Japanese to ingratiate themselves, and hence their product, with southerners. The southern states were a hotbed of anti-Japanese automobile sentiment and the Japanese saw the installation of plants and well-paying jobs as a way to not only improve their image in the US but to also improve market share. Southerns could hardly claim, as they had, that the cars were not made in America when the plant was just down the road.

#31774: SocraticGadfly — 07/12  at  01:18 AM
Uhh... Toyota denies education has anything to do with it. Please, let's not perpetuate stereotypes.

In addition, Honda voluntarily weighed in to support Toyota on denying educational problems at Southern plants.

Trackback: But What About the Taxes?? Tracked on: Powerliberal (72.9.234.70) at 2005 07 12 08:03:53
Reading this post at Pharyngula has just knocked all of the stuffing out of my poor little RIGHT WING INTELLECUTAL mind.