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Not to mention the reason behind a public education system in the first place. The basis for public education is that an educated population increases the value of the nation as a whole, it creates "better" citizens, and reduces crime.

I should mention I wholly agree with your comments regarding education being equal for all children regardless of their home life. Education used to be only for the wealthy or for religious purposes. Most (if not all) schools now offer basic and advanced classes to avoid at least quite a bit of the problems associated with apathetic students holding the class back. That, to me, is a much better solution than simply releasing the apathetic students from having to go to school.

Another comment earlier in this thread was related to the education systems in China, India, and Japan. While it's true that those programs have disastrous results for students who don't excel, they have another common thread: their education systems are based on memorizaion, while ours is based on problem solving. Our children might not be able to memorize all of our tax law or all of the syntax associated with a programming language, but typically they have the ability to figure it out.

History of public education in the US
The Merrow Report (PBS)
A Nation at Risk: Report of the National Commission on Excellence
The Pedigree of an Idea

The Dallas Independent School District, serving Dallas, Texas, has had a site licence for Star Office for more than a year now. [From 1999-2000 stats] there are more than 200 schools in the district servering more than 150,000 students (here and here)

They obtained the licence for the purpose of distributing it on the laptops they supplied their teachers (1,000+). I heard a figure on how much it cost, but it was not from an authoritive source. If the figure is true, then the savings over MS Office was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars (read: > $500,000.00+).

Star Office is a wise move for any public institution spending tax-payer monies.

The Dallas Independent School District, serving Dallas, Texas, has had a site licence for Star Office for more than a year now. [From 1999-2000 stats] there are more than 200 schools in the district servering more than 150,000 students (here and here)

They obtained the licence for the purpose of distributing it on the laptops they supplied their teachers (1,000+). I heard a figure on how much it cost, but it was not from an authoritive source. If the figure is true, then the savings over MS Office was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars (read: > $500,000.00+).

Star Office is a wise move for any public institution spending tax-payer monies.

I wish that this article was hysterical. It is dead on. There is no value to having the best standards based browser when the content you want or need requires IE. Let us not be so slashnocentric here.

Want to know what the biggest threat to Linux in the schools is? It is the administrators who purchase web-based software to address the NCLB mandate or other school tasks. With increasing frequency these applications require some hook that Windows provides. It is presumably innocent enough. The product meets the school's needs - The price is right. ~"Yes it does require IE, but we all use IE so no big deal." In Hawaii we witness this decision being made even while many schools still use Macs with an unsupported and underdeveloped version of IE.

We have put nearly 200 computers into schools and non-profits here. We are running into a lot of these applications in ourk12ltsp labs. A concerted effort has been made to let the vendors know that multi-platform support can result in more sales. We are letting the DOE administration know that standards compliance is of utmost importance to our schools. It is a difficult thing to communicate. The Americans with Disabilities Act may be our friend. It is in trenches like this that OSS will win or die in the marketplace.

It is not hysterical to be alarmed that the most attractive feature of any computer's OS (to the *average* user), it's browser/web access, stands to be limited by the content providers. We can rest assure that the future of China and other developing nations will not be based on using such "standards." This was most recently confirmed at the IIPI conference in Hawaii If you find a commerce site that is not W3C compliant, remind them of the potential market loss. The decision to develop these browser limiting applications are not always intentional.

Well, see, we have an often ignored Constitution that says that powers not explicitly granted to the federal goverment (Education isn't mentioned in the constitution) are given to the state.

Yes, that's correct.
Yet, the federal government has imposed a very large number of unfunded mandates(read: *the law of the land*) on the States through the No Child Left Behind Act (and other laws), leaving the States to pick up the slack.
In most States, the federal government picks up only a relatively small amount of funding.

Check out Wired New's coverage of diploma mills:
http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54596,00.h tml

They note that US colleges should be accredited by either the Department of Education or the Council on Higher Education Accreditation.

Take a look a this.

Note that Maine spent $8,232 dollars per student on education in 2001. You think that'd be enough money to get a decent education, huh? Could it perhaps be being absorbed by a monstrous and corrupt bureaucracy that has enshrined the ideas of seniority and stability over competency? And whether you send your kids there or not, they still get your money: BONUS!

EIGHT THOUSAND FREAKING DOLLARS. My college tuition only started to be more than that my last year or so, and it's not like middle school students have the same facilities needs as a major public university. Craziness.

Note also another gigantic number. The United States spent $400 BILLION dollars on education. If the current population of the United States is 293,163,628 (and it is/was), then that's $1364 a year for every man, woman, and child in the country. That *should* be enough, don't you think?

The University is ignoring FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act... Link It protects idle release of such information. In my position in a school district, they can ask all they want...but records of who was doing what on which computer are protected by that statute. I would be waiting for a court order, and not just a "give us the goods!" letter.

All you need to do is mention the word "FERPA" (if you live in USia) in cases like this to get administrators shitting themselves and working with you.

Can you provide sources for your school cost figures? And do those figures include the cost of all the admins that run the schools?

Qualifications and ability would be all over the map, like they are in every other field. The best are typically as good as the best anywhere else in the world.

How many people graduate from a (technical) university on an average? (As a fraction of all people born a certain year, for example.)

Very, very few. 35% of the population is illiterate (as per the 2001 census). India's Ministry of Education has some stats on primary/secondary education and on higher education (in Indian terminology a graduate degree is a Bachelors and a post-graduate degree is a Masters/Phd)

What you're looking for is the percentage of children graduating from high-school who enroll at a college. Using the census numbers, there were 157 million children under 6 years of age. That's 25 million approximately in any given year. Assuming they all survive to turn 18, you're looking at 75 million children between 18-21. There were 5.13 million people pursuing a Bachelors degree in 1998. The population between 18 and 21 is likely around 60 million because India's population has been growing. That would suggest 10% of college-age kids end up pursing a Bachelors degree, 25% of whom are studying the Sciences. I think the US figure for college enrollment out of high-school is 40%, American Universities graduate 1.2 million students every year, US population is 30% of India's.

Does the government subsidize university-level education in any way, or is a degree only possible to attain only if you are rich enough?

It's subsidized. That said, the public primary/secondary education system in India is a mess. You've typically got to be middle-class before you will even get to school. Most of the rural poor don't have access to an education in English (which is essential at the best colleges). You'll find that most of the people who end up at engineering schools are from the middle-class (about 30% of the population, still a healthy 300 million).

What does a M.Sc. or B.Sc. degree cost you?

Depends on where you go and what sort of scholarship you can get. The most prestigious Universities are the most liberal with their aid. Costs are a fraction of what they would be in the US. You can expect to pay anywhere from USD 100 to USD 1500 a year depending on the location of the college.

What are the most prominent higher-level education universities in the technology sector? Homepage URLs?

The seven IIT campuses are generally considered to be a cut above the rest. The entrance exam to IIT is offered country-wide and people often spend a substantial part of their final high-school year cramming for it. You can start at the Madras campus or Delhi or Bombay . The IIT is run by the Indian government. The entire program would cost $1500 plus room/board. IIT is a general sciences college, not all students study CS.

A comprehensive list of Universities is maintained by the Ministry of Education.

Looking through the web-pages, I see that Indian colleges aren't doing a particularly good job marketing themselves. Do they specialize in any particular fields of technology? What's the teaching like, compared to curriculums in Europe or the US? Are certain subjects and fields emphasized more or less? Are there any major differences in teaching methods? (lectures, homework, group projects, tuition by teaching assistants, etc.)

There is a lot of focus on examinations and remembering/reproducing conce

Absolutly, but I have some hope. First is that there aren't that many people who can do engineering. Coming from the US DoE college studies, no more than 7% of college grads have the brains to do engineering (that was the percent of undergrads who declared engineering/phy sci majors in 1999/2000 probably about the peak) from the US DoE undergrad study it's a pdf sorry. I think CS has dropped significantly since then. And my own experience shows that a fair number of undergrads don't finish the program. Let's say 5% of graduates make it to graduation in a hard science program (no MIS majors or social sciences). From another study on the site it looked like the national HS graduation rate is about about 4 mil/yr with about 2 million of those entering college each year (45%-50%) which means that about 2% of a population can do engineering. Assuming that within our lifetimes everyone (at least those smart enough to do hard sciences) in India and China gets the opportunity to attend college and they have a similar birth rate. We should have about 3 million (100k annual gradsX30yr career) practicing hard science types in the country (probably about the same in western Europe), China and India each add about 10 million. Yeah that's a lot but most of theirs will be moving towards projects that are required for internal use.
Also, I would think that good engineers would have some benefits from a bigger population of practicing engineers Unlike other types of jobs (manufacturing really doesn't benefit from this)(more competition but also more opportunites to improve on the ideas generated elsewhere them). Oh and engineers aren't quite that cheap, they go for more like 10k-20k, still low but rising quickly. A ton of lower skill (phone support type stuff) throws off the averages. IBM lost some internal docs relating to the exact costs of skilled workers and managment types (it was about 1/4 of IBM's US salary for the same position).

Here's a nice reference: National Center for Education Statistics

I'll even point you to Page 39 of the report: Outcomes of Learning: Results From the 2000 Program for International Student Assessment of 15-Year-Olds in Reading, Mathematics, and Science Literacy. You'll find that Korea has the smallest difference in reading literacy but in every single country including Korea girls did better than boys. Next I point you to the mathematics literacy scores where in Korea the difference between boys and girls is the second largest (OECD) with boys of course scoring better than girls. Finally we come to Science literacy where Korea had the largest difference (OECD) between boys and girls again with boys scoring better than girls.

Let me not forget to mention the wealth of experiments in recent years exploring the differences in brain functioning with and without estrogen (or in high v.s. low levels during the woman's hormone cycle).

Care for some citations or can you do the research yourself? Aw hell, for being such a good sport and reading all the way to here, I'll give you a link to a Stanford survey and project called Bridging the Gender Gap

Men and women are very different biologically. Why is it so hard to accept that they are different mentally?

Here's a nice reference: National Center for Education Statistics

I'll even point you to Page 39 of the report: Outcomes of Learning: Results From the 2000 Program for International Student Assessment of 15-Year-Olds in Reading, Mathematics, and Science Literacy. You'll find that Korea has the smallest difference in reading literacy but in every single country including Korea girls did better than boys. Next I point you to the mathematics literacy scores where in Korea the difference between boys and girls is the second largest (OECD) with boys of course scoring better than girls. Finally we come to Science literacy where Korea had the largest difference (OECD) between boys and girls again with boys scoring better than girls.

Let me not forget to mention the wealth of experiments in recent years exploring the differences in brain functioning with and without estrogen (or in high v.s. low levels during the woman's hormone cycle).

Care for some citations or can you do the research yourself? Aw hell, for being such a good sport and reading all the way to here, I'll give you a link to a Stanford survey and project called Bridging the Gender Gap

Men and women are very different biologically. Why is it so hard to accept that they are different mentally?

yeah, cause an extra billion will make a difference when the $750B we currently spend doesn't seem to be working so good: 2002 expenditures

bush spends money like a liberal (education is more than 65% up under him, the only things down is transportation.

Regardless of political leanings, education seems to be one thing it's in everyone's interest to spend money on: these are the people who will be supporting us when we're old and decrepid. Even if you realise that you can't depend on the system and need to deal with your own retirement fund, you know that someone will have to support those that didn't think ahead. If the next generation is too uneducated to compete in the global economy, then that someone will be you and your carefully managed retirement fund.

Besides, what is the education budget versus that of defense? I was curious. 5 seconds of googling gets me $315 Billion for defense in 2003. Hrm. A lot lower than I expected. In contrast, education got $64 Billion 2003, $38 Billion 1999. Which seems about right (given that the US has underperformed wrt other countries on managing to produce educated students, historically), and in line with your 64%.

I'm really suprised by the military budget. I thought it was in the low TeraUSD. Anyone have other sources to confirm/correct?

If you live in the United States visit http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ The Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Everything you need to know on how to get cash from the Federal Government is there.

Well according to the NCES, the US spends $745 billion on education. That is federal and state level expeditures, so I was wrong that it was just federal level expenditures in my estimate. The military budget for 2003 was 310 billion.

Facts, please? Now, just think. The state education budget is $5 billion in Oregon. In an ideal world, we could take all of that money and give it to teachers. However, in the real world, there is overhead. So, let's assume that 50% of the money goes to administrative overhead. That leaves $2.5 billion for teachers. Assuming I haven't added a zero and an average salary of $60000 (which is high) that would pay for 41,666 teachers. Again, assuming a classroom size of 20 (which in CA is the law for 3rd grade and under if you want certain state funds) that would educate 833,320 children. I don't know ratio school-aged children are in the population, but let's assume 30%. That means we can support a population of 2,499,960 citizens (Oregon has a population of around 3.5 million. That's just with the state money funding education which is FAR less than the county money funding education via property taxes. You say "There isn't enough money in education". I say, "Bullshit!"; In California the average cost per student is around $7000 per year. You mean to tell me that it can't be done for less providing a damn good education? Please...; Just read this if you really want to get pissed off.

The deficit is over $500 Billion AND CLIMBING.

No, the defecit is almost $7 trillion. The budget defecit for 2003 is around $500 billion. I don't disagree that it's way too high. Where do you propose making cuts? I'll start with the federal Department of Education. States can fund their own education (and they do -- the federal money is a drop in the bucket (a little over $50 billion spread across 50 states.)) That saves $53 billion right there. The rest can easily be found in cuts in social programs which is 59% of all federal expenditure (granted Social Security is a huge part of that.) But why is the federal government doing welfare (personal and corporate)? Do you think it can be at all efficient at it. It should be a state/county issue so that monies could be spent more effectively. And those welfare programs should have a sunset date. BTW, the "War on Poverty" that was launched by LBJ, when is that war going to end? There was a 10% poverty rate in the US at that time and guess what, it's about 10% now. So can we declare that war as over and benefit from the "peace dividend" by giving back the monies that would have been spent on that "war" as more tax cuts? Or, hell, pay down the debt with it. I'd prefer the former, but would support that latter. I'd also like a constitutional balanced budget amendment but I don't think it will ever happen...

There is a difference between losing money in the stock market and having those funds looted.

Absolutely. I think all of the bastards that purposely over-valued their companies and hosed investors should live a life with just two pennies to rub together while being Bubba's prison bitch.

C'mon, be honest, you like Bush because you don't understand basic economics.

I don't particularly care for Bush. He's spending way too much money and growing the federal government at way too high a rate for my tastes. But there isn't a viable alternative out there that is going to do better and can win. BTW, I do understand basic economics. I also understand "government economics" where a 3% cut is only 7% growth vs. the 10% growth that was baselined in. I also know what I would do if I were king for a day (as I'm sure you do too.) But the reality of the situation is that congress sees no need to not spend money like it's going out of style (regardless of the party in control, but I do suspect that the current Republican spending binge is in large part to take away all of the Democrat issues -- education, healthcare, etc.)

BTW, you migh

In all seriousness, the university may only have the right to grant access to your records to a very limited number of people without your consent, not including your parents. The Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is the law that governs educational records. From what I understand, the student and his/her parents share information controlling rights until the student turns 18. After that time, all rights are transferred to the student.

I don't see how you can make the argument that "NAFTA has been bad for... all three countries.... US unemployment hit historic lows throughout most of the 90's

Well, my main point was about Local, State and National sovereignty, that Corporations should not be above the law. What I was basing the "bad for... all three countries" was that supposedly median income went down, and overtime and people working more than one job went up after NAFTA.

So I did some searching on the web trying to find some hard data. This site had some interesting statistics on median income. Adjusted for inflation the income for Men in general: 1994:36,215 1995:36,387 1996:36,439 1997:36,678 and for Women in general: 1994:26,424 1995:26,197 1996:26,400 1997:26,974

So according to that website income did actually increase slightly in the 3 years after NAFTA was implemented.

This site only has data up to 1994 for not very useful in terms of data when discussing NAFTA. However, it does seem to have good explainations of the many issues involved when these issues.

I can't seem to find any sites that document hours of overtime, or people working multiple jobs. (When doing searches all it would come up with was statistics on overtime pay and not hours worked.)

I did come across this interesting site at AARP. It says that between 1989 and 1997 the poverty rate for the general population went up by 0.2% Ah Hah! um... no wait, it isn't statistically significant.

So I guess the gist of it is that I can't really say that NAFTA affected jobs, income and overtimepay. And even if I had found statistics to support my statement, it is not like the economy occures in a bubble where NAFTA is the only change. The dotcom era certainly affected the economy for instance, and that is something that was quite unique. I suppose if I we were able to find statistics that concentraited on jobs affected by trade that would be more telling. (Times like these I wish I had the time to read the WSJ.)

Anyone out there know how to lookup statistics like these?

There is a list of accreditors recognized by the U.S. Department of Education--make sure your school's accreditor is on it, and verify with that accreditor that the it accredits the school--before you spend your first dime.

Also, even though the Distance Education and Training Council (through which AACIS now has accredidation) is a recognized accreditor, a degree earned from an insitution accredided by it will not be as well regarded as one from a school with regional accredidation.

Fuck the homeless, and the poor! We've spent trillions since the great society started in the 1960s, and what do we have to show for it. More useless fucking poor people breeding more useless, stupid children. Let's just sterilize all of the poor people, then the problem of the poor will be solved in a generation as they die out, then we can lower taxes and have a bitchen space program.
Oh, and if you think that spending more money on education is going to improve it then I invite you to look at the following website. Scroll down the page until you find the graph under the heading "WHY NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND IS IMPORTANT TO AMERICA". If you look at the graph, assuming that you know how to read one, you will notice that the reading scores for nine year olds have remained constant, despite massive increases in appropriations. Indeed if you read further you will see that the Department of Education claims to have spent 242 billion since 1965, yet reading scores have remained constant since 1975. Hardly a ringing endorsement of success.

How about https on tcp/443? I doubt they'd block this as many things these days require it (FAFSA comes to mind).

If they don't block it (try a few random banks' homebanking sign-on page to see if you can connect), then use proxytunnel to pass ssh via tcp/443 and you can then portforward to a home proxy server.

Best of all, it's all encrypted and they can see none of it other than the ssh connection to your home server which is encrypted (as would be any https tcp/443 traffic).

Ok steps to getting out of your parents house

1. Tell them that you want to move out, ask for no money at this time.
2. Fill out your FAFSA, and apply for a college in your area.
3. Go to said college once excepted, tell them you are interested in Federal Work Study and anything else they have. If you work for most colleges, tuition and sometimes limited housing for TA's is free. (BTW, I am a TA telling you this.)
4. You do not need a car!!! A car will bankrupt you as a first time independent student if you are just starting out. So learn to use the Bus, subway, and cute girls for rides. You would be surprised at how easy it is to ask for a ride from a girl compared to a date, and with colleges being designated promiscous zones how often you will end up at least being allowed to make a pass at one of them. You will still be expected to initiate verbiage just read the subtle clues like pulling up of shirt to show belly, mindlessly touching her hips, etc.
5. Once you get your financial aid pay for 3-4 months of rent!! Do not fuck up man, your parents are not piggy banks.

6. Get a real job like taco bell if you have to. Pride = Broke ass motherfucker | Humility = Above poverty-line minimium wage warrior

Verizon did want to hand over names and IPs, and I can assure you they have much more legal firepower than a college...

The Department of Education Website has a nice primer on the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 U.S.C. 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99), a Federal law that protects the privacy of student education records.

I should note there are exceptions listed:

* School officials with legitimate educational interest;
* Other schools to which a student is transferring;
* Specified officials for audit or evaluation purposes;
* Appropriate parties in connection with financial aid to a student;
* Organizations conducting certain studies for or on behalf of the school;
* Accrediting organizations;
* To comply with a judicial order or lawfully issued subpoena;
* Appropriate officials in cases of health and safety emergencies; and
* State and local authorities, within a juvenile justice system, pursuant to specific State law.

Interesting they allow "judicial order or lawfully issue subpoena"

Here's a quick search for stats to refute your claim - National Assessment of Adult Literacy

Care to back up your claim with a reference?

we could EASILY afford to reconfigure the shuttles, design and build new ones, and solve most of our domestic (US) problems (education, etc) if we'd Stop giving so damn much money away in foreign aid!!!

U.S. Spending on Foreign Operations 2002: $17.9 Billion
Requested spending in 2003: $16.4 Billion
Requested spending in 2004: $18.8 Billion

Just so you know - those aid figures include a little over $4 billion a year in foreign military financing and a couple hundred million each for anti-drug efforts and peacekeeping efforts. But, to give you the benefit of the doubt, we'll lump it all in as "foreign aid."

In FY 2004, NASA's proposed budget is $15.4 Billion ( link).
Cost of the ISS (estimated, from Young Report): ~$30 billion (link)

Estimated costs of "other" domestic problems:
Medicare prescription drug benefit for elderly: $11-15 Billion (link).
Domestic port security needs: $2 billion (link).
Upgrade school technology: $100 billion (link).

I could go on, but I don't see much point in doing so. Foreign aid is a teeny tiny part of the federal budget, and cutting it won't do much of anything. A vast proportion of federal discretionary spending comes from Defense - if you want to cut, that's where you've got to cut.

We got similar results every time there was a school shooting, but Columbine was the big one.

Many factors help to explain why so many adults demonstrated English literacy skills in the lowest proficiency level defined (Level 1). Twenty-five percent of the respondents who performed in this level were immigrants who may have been just learning to speak English. Nearly two-thirds of those in Level 1 (62 percent) had terminated their education before completing high school. A third were age 65 or older, and 26 percent had physical, mental, or health conditions that kept them from participating fully in work, school, housework, or other activities. Nineteen percent of the respondents in Level 1 reported having visual difficulties that affect their ability to read print.

It's interesting to note that these people were literate, but classified in the lowest ranking on the scale.

Get the facts:

Illiteracy rates. By 1979, it was down to .6%

US 4th Graders outscore most other countries.

Executive summary of the 1995 National Adult Literacy Survey (the most recent one; also linked to above).
Does this mean there's no room for improvement? Of course not. But does it mean we should publish false statistics, proclaim ourselves as failures, and give a poor impression of ourselves to the rest of the world? The US is not in as bad a shape as so many seem to believe, and things are improving, not worsening (see the illiteracy trends page above).

Many factors help to explain why so many adults demonstrated English literacy skills in the lowest proficiency level defined (Level 1). Twenty-five percent of the respondents who performed in this level were immigrants who may have been just learning to speak English. Nearly two-thirds of those in Level 1 (62 percent) had terminated their education before completing high school. A third were age 65 or older, and 26 percent had physical, mental, or health conditions that kept them from participating fully in work, school, housework, or other activities. Nineteen percent of the respondents in Level 1 reported having visual difficulties that affect their ability to read print.

It's interesting to note that these people were literate, but classified in the lowest ranking on the scale.

Get the facts:

Illiteracy rates. By 1979, it was down to .6%

US 4th Graders outscore most other countries.

Executive summary of the 1995 National Adult Literacy Survey (the most recent one; also linked to above).
Does this mean there's no room for improvement? Of course not. But does it mean we should publish false statistics, proclaim ourselves as failures, and give a poor impression of ourselves to the rest of the world? The US is not in as bad a shape as so many seem to believe, and things are improving, not worsening (see the illiteracy trends page above).

Many factors help to explain why so many adults demonstrated English literacy skills in the lowest proficiency level defined (Level 1). Twenty-five percent of the respondents who performed in this level were immigrants who may have been just learning to speak English. Nearly two-thirds of those in Level 1 (62 percent) had terminated their education before completing high school. A third were age 65 or older, and 26 percent had physical, mental, or health conditions that kept them from participating fully in work, school, housework, or other activities. Nineteen percent of the respondents in Level 1 reported having visual difficulties that affect their ability to read print.

It's interesting to note that these people were literate, but classified in the lowest ranking on the scale.

Get the facts:

Illiteracy rates. By 1979, it was down to .6%

US 4th Graders outscore most other countries.

Executive summary of the 1995 National Adult Literacy Survey (the most recent one; also linked to above).
Does this mean there's no room for improvement? Of course not. But does it mean we should publish false statistics, proclaim ourselves as failures, and give a poor impression of ourselves to the rest of the world? The US is not in as bad a shape as so many seem to believe, and things are improving, not worsening (see the illiteracy trends page above).

Many factors help to explain why so many adults demonstrated English literacy skills in the lowest proficiency level defined (Level 1). Twenty-five percent of the respondents who performed in this level were immigrants who may have been just learning to speak English. Nearly two-thirds of those in Level 1 (62 percent) had terminated their education before completing high school. A third were age 65 or older, and 26 percent had physical, mental, or health conditions that kept them from participating fully in work, school, housework, or other activities. Nineteen percent of the respondents in Level 1 reported having visual difficulties that affect their ability to read print.

It's interesting to note that these people were literate, but classified in the lowest ranking on the scale.

Get the facts:

Illiteracy rates. By 1979, it was down to .6%

US 4th Graders outscore most other countries.

Executive summary of the 1995 National Adult Literacy Survey (the most recent one; also linked to above).
Does this mean there's no room for improvement? Of course not. But does it mean we should publish false statistics, proclaim ourselves as failures, and give a poor impression of ourselves to the rest of the world? The US is not in as bad a shape as so many seem to believe, and things are improving, not worsening (see the illiteracy trends page above).

Islam promotes Polygyny, You yourself said Africans were promiscuous so I told you the cause assuming you were right

No, in fact you didn't.

I dont think its being promiscuous behavior which spreads HIV

No, of course not. Sexually transmitted disease spreads by flying monkey.

In Africa they dont believe in using condoms, they have religious and cultural reasons to support this

They have nothing to "support" this position. They can believe whatever they want, but I won't pretend to know the average African's opinion of condoms.

At one point in the USA homosexuality was not acceptable

This is irrelevant, twit. Stop with your tangential nonsense.

Here is proof American children are slow in math and science.
Most Americans don't understand science, we aren't educated to it either, the Japanese and Chinese now more science than we do.

Real are I told you to look.

"In science, no difference was detected between the average performance of U.S. fourth-grade students (565) and the average performance of students in Japan (574), but the average performance of U.S. students was higher than the performance of students in England (551), Canada (549), Scotland (536)"

"U.S. eighth-grade students had a lower mean score in science than their counterparts in Japan (550), Canada (533), and England (538). Eighth-grade students in the United States had higher average scores than their counterparts in Italy (493). No difference was detected between the mean scores of U.S. and Russian eighth-graders in science"

"In 1999, the United States had a full-time and part-time enrollment rate of 20 percent in higher education for adults ages 18 to 29. The enrollment rate for this age group was higher in the United States than in the other six countries presented"

"Eleven percent of first university degrees were awarded in science in the United States in 1999--placing the United States fifth among the countries presented. The percentage of first university degrees awarded in science in the United States was lower than the percentages in the United Kingdom (16 percent), France (15 percent), Germany (12 percent), and Canada (12 percent), but higher than the percentages in Japan (4 percent) and Italy (9 percent)"

So, where is China in general? I see Hong Kong, but where's the random sampling of the billion people of China? Of course, it's not there. I can't imagine why.

At the fourth grade level there's no significant difference between Japanese and U.S. scores, while at the eighth-grade level there is. At the post-secondary level, though, there's a significantly higher percentage of degrees awarded in the United States than in Japan for the science.

I'm of course trying to fight going off on a tangent with you, because it's realy a waste of my energy, but I'm going to be a tad less conservative with the content of this response for the sake of sanity. I don't believe the educational results of the U.S. match what they should be, but by no stretch of the imagination have you demonstrated either that "American children are slow in math and science," nor even that Japanese and Chinese people on average know more about science. That article is not "proof," even of what it claims to represent, so don't call it proof of anything. It's an opionated interpretation without any data or methodology.


Of course I know the difference between knowledge and intelligence.

I'm definitely not ignorant, my high IQ backed up by the fact that I'm in college should prove that

Its not s matter of intellectual capacity

Durrr.... No, no you don't. Citing IQ as an indicator that you are not ignorant of a subject, simpl

Islam promotes Polygyny, You yourself said Africans were promiscuous so I told you the cause assuming you were right

No, in fact you didn't.

I dont think its being promiscuous behavior which spreads HIV

No, of course not. Sexually transmitted disease spreads by flying monkey.

In Africa they dont believe in using condoms, they have religious and cultural reasons to support this

They have nothing to "support" this position. They can believe whatever they want, but I won't pretend to know the average African's opinion of condoms.

At one point in the USA homosexuality was not acceptable

This is irrelevant, twit. Stop with your tangential nonsense.

Here is proof American children are slow in math and science.
Most Americans don't understand science, we aren't educated to it either, the Japanese and Chinese now more science than we do.

Real are I told you to look.

"In science, no difference was detected between the average performance of U.S. fourth-grade students (565) and the average performance of students in Japan (574), but the average performance of U.S. students was higher than the performance of students in England (551), Canada (549), Scotland (536)"

"U.S. eighth-grade students had a lower mean score in science than their counterparts in Japan (550), Canada (533), and England (538). Eighth-grade students in the United States had higher average scores than their counterparts in Italy (493). No difference was detected between the mean scores of U.S. and Russian eighth-graders in science"

"In 1999, the United States had a full-time and part-time enrollment rate of 20 percent in higher education for adults ages 18 to 29. The enrollment rate for this age group was higher in the United States than in the other six countries presented"

"Eleven percent of first university degrees were awarded in science in the United States in 1999--placing the United States fifth among the countries presented. The percentage of first university degrees awarded in science in the United States was lower than the percentages in the United Kingdom (16 percent), France (15 percent), Germany (12 percent), and Canada (12 percent), but higher than the percentages in Japan (4 percent) and Italy (9 percent)"

So, where is China in general? I see Hong Kong, but where's the random sampling of the billion people of China? Of course, it's not there. I can't imagine why.

At the fourth grade level there's no significant difference between Japanese and U.S. scores, while at the eighth-grade level there is. At the post-secondary level, though, there's a significantly higher percentage of degrees awarded in the United States than in Japan for the science.

I'm of course trying to fight going off on a tangent with you, because it's realy a waste of my energy, but I'm going to be a tad less conservative with the content of this response for the sake of sanity. I don't believe the educational results of the U.S. match what they should be, but by no stretch of the imagination have you demonstrated either that "American children are slow in math and science," nor even that Japanese and Chinese people on average know more about science. That article is not "proof," even of what it claims to represent, so don't call it proof of anything. It's an opionated interpretation without any data or methodology.


Of course I know the difference between knowledge and intelligence.

I'm definitely not ignorant, my high IQ backed up by the fact that I'm in college should prove that

Its not s matter of intellectual capacity

Durrr.... No, no you don't. Citing IQ as an indicator that you are not ignorant of a subject, simpl

Islam promotes Polygyny, You yourself said Africans were promiscuous so I told you the cause assuming you were right

No, in fact you didn't.

I dont think its being promiscuous behavior which spreads HIV

No, of course not. Sexually transmitted disease spreads by flying monkey.

In Africa they dont believe in using condoms, they have religious and cultural reasons to support this

They have nothing to "support" this position. They can believe whatever they want, but I won't pretend to know the average African's opinion of condoms.

At one point in the USA homosexuality was not acceptable

This is irrelevant, twit. Stop with your tangential nonsense.

Here is proof American children are slow in math and science.
Most Americans don't understand science, we aren't educated to it either, the Japanese and Chinese now more science than we do.

Real are I told you to look.

"In science, no difference was detected between the average performance of U.S. fourth-grade students (565) and the average performance of students in Japan (574), but the average performance of U.S. students was higher than the performance of students in England (551), Canada (549), Scotland (536)"

"U.S. eighth-grade students had a lower mean score in science than their counterparts in Japan (550), Canada (533), and England (538). Eighth-grade students in the United States had higher average scores than their counterparts in Italy (493). No difference was detected between the mean scores of U.S. and Russian eighth-graders in science"

"In 1999, the United States had a full-time and part-time enrollment rate of 20 percent in higher education for adults ages 18 to 29. The enrollment rate for this age group was higher in the United States than in the other six countries presented"

"Eleven percent of first university degrees were awarded in science in the United States in 1999--placing the United States fifth among the countries presented. The percentage of first university degrees awarded in science in the United States was lower than the percentages in the United Kingdom (16 percent), France (15 percent), Germany (12 percent), and Canada (12 percent), but higher than the percentages in Japan (4 percent) and Italy (9 percent)"

So, where is China in general? I see Hong Kong, but where's the random sampling of the billion people of China? Of course, it's not there. I can't imagine why.

At the fourth grade level there's no significant difference between Japanese and U.S. scores, while at the eighth-grade level there is. At the post-secondary level, though, there's a significantly higher percentage of degrees awarded in the United States than in Japan for the science.

I'm of course trying to fight going off on a tangent with you, because it's realy a waste of my energy, but I'm going to be a tad less conservative with the content of this response for the sake of sanity. I don't believe the educational results of the U.S. match what they should be, but by no stretch of the imagination have you demonstrated either that "American children are slow in math and science," nor even that Japanese and Chinese people on average know more about science. That article is not "proof," even of what it claims to represent, so don't call it proof of anything. It's an opionated interpretation without any data or methodology.


Of course I know the difference between knowledge and intelligence.

I'm definitely not ignorant, my high IQ backed up by the fact that I'm in college should prove that

Its not s matter of intellectual capacity

Durrr.... No, no you don't. Citing IQ as an indicator that you are not ignorant of a subject, simpl

I regularly review these complaints at a University and note that the only information the complainers give is the time/date, filename, [KaZaA, usually] username, and IP address. Since most IP addresses are provided via DHCP, I think you would be hard pressed to prove that FERPA protects student IP addresses since they are not owned by the student and are certainly not unique to them. I don't think the complaints actually violate FERPA in any fashion, and place the onus on the University officials to do their dirty work.

A link to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy.
States that 21-23% scored level 1.
Results are from 1992, 2002 survey is still being collated.
Does give definitions of various levels, as well as the limitations of the test.
Also gives possible reasons why scores were so low.
http://nces.ed.gov/naal/resources/execsumm.asp

Use your head. You know that the costs of education have been rising. You know that the burden of paying for college has largely shifted from grants to loans. (Well, maybe you weren't aware of that fact. Here's a link to some testimony given about five years ago from the President of the College Board.) So xers who went to college paid more for it than boomers. Pell Grants have not been meeting the needs of poor students. No doubt. Now put two and two together. The National Center for Education Statistics estimates that in academic year 1995-96 the average unmet need for a college student was more than $5000.

Okay, so here comes Daddy MBNA, knowing that Campus Katie is desperate and betting that if she gets in trouble her parents will bail her out. Well, Katie needs to be wise, but there's no reason to attribute blame to her. Because in all likelihood Katie is thinking about her future and doing what makes sense. And if she uses her credit to blow off a little steam, that's not the main thing responsible for her indebtedness.

Of course, in America, no one pays a tax to use the roads, nope, there are no Highway Taxes or Tollbooths in America. Americans don't pay Cigarette and Cigarette Use Tax, Dry-cleaning solvent taxes and license fees, Electricity Distribution Tax and Invested Capital Taxes, Electricity Invested Capital Tax, Gas Revenue Invested Capital Tax, Water Company Invested Capital Tax, Electricity Excise Tax, Energy Assistance Charges (electricity and natural gas distributors), Gas Revenue Tax, Liquor Taxes, Oil and Gas Production Assessment, Telecommunications Excise Tax, Telecommunications Infrastructure Maintenance Fees, Tobacco Product Tax, Gaming taxes, Bingo Tax and License Fees, Charitable Games Tax and License Fees, Coin-Operated Amusement Device and Redemption Machine Tax, Pull Tabs and Jar Games Tax and License Fees, Racing Privilege Tax, Riverboat Gambling Tax, Hotel Operators' Occupation Tax, Hotel Operators' Occupation Tax, Sports Facilities Authority Hotel Operators' Occupation Tax, Motor Fuel Taxes, Environmental Impact Fee and Underground Storage Taxes, Motor Fuel Use Tax, Income Tax -- Individuals, Personal Property Replacement Tax, Income Tax --Business (including corporations, estates, trusts, exempt organizations, partnerships and S corporations), Employers Withholding Income Tax, Personal Property Replacement Tax, Sales Tax, Automobile Renting Occupation and Use Taxes, Local Automobile Renting Occupation and Use Taxes, Manufacturer's Purchase Credit, Replacement Vehicle Taxes, County Replacement Vehicle Tax, Municipal Replacement Vehicle Tax, Retailers' Occupation Tax, Service Occupation Tax, Service Use Tax, Use Tax, Home Rule County Taxes, Home Rule Municipal Taxes, Mass Transit District Taxes, Special County Retailers' Occupation Tax for Public Safety, Tire User Fee, Vehicle Use Tax, Coin-Operated Amusement Device and Redemption Machine Tax, Property Tax, Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), Assessor Training Stipends, Assessor Performance Stipends, Chief County Assessment Officer Salary Reimbursements, County Treasurer Stipends, Real Estate Transfer Tax, Hotel taxes, etc...

To Americans, people from other countries whining about how easy Americans have it and how we should shut up is just thinly veiled jealousy.

It is supposed to be at half-mast today. Press release from Education Dept

In many countries, algebra is taught in the fifth or sixth grade. Examine the TIMSS studies and decide for yourself on the state of math/science education in the US. TIMSS and TIMSS-R. As a eighth grade student, my daughter earned a composite score of 27 on the May(?), 2002 ACT exam; not a terrible score for a student in this grade. She has taken courses through trigonometry at the state university here. Other students here have earned higher ACT scores and followed a similar schedule (i.e. Algebra 1 in sixth or seventh grade, Geometry and Algebra 2 at a local high school, trig. at a state university). Students in the US can do well in math if they are given an opportunity and encouragement.

In many countries, algebra is taught in the fifth or sixth grade. Examine the TIMSS studies and decide for yourself on the state of math/science education in the US. TIMSS and TIMSS-R. As a eighth grade student, my daughter earned a composite score of 27 on the May(?), 2002 ACT exam; not a terrible score for a student in this grade. She has taken courses through trigonometry at the state university here. Other students here have earned higher ACT scores and followed a similar schedule (i.e. Algebra 1 in sixth or seventh grade, Geometry and Algebra 2 at a local high school, trig. at a state university). Students in the US can do well in math if they are given an opportunity and encouragement.

those other studies which said that gaming increases coordination, reduces stress [over long-term, not while playing], and didnt slashdot post about a study saying that while there was a correlation between video games and violence, there was no evidence that the two were related? Damn, slashdot's search page sucks in all respects..
Anyway, those links were hastily pulled up, I'm sure if you bothered to spend more than the three minutes I spent looking for them, you'd find more.

I can't speak to the particular people you spoke with at your particular institution, but I can tell that the Federal need analysis formula:

o in no way takes into account whether you are going full or part-time to school (though you must be at least half-time to receive federal aid)

o uses age to determine whether parents should contribute to the cost of education for unmarried, non-veteran, non-orphan/ward of the court students--this actually benefits older students, as no parent contribution decreases the amount a student is expected to provide on his own

o uses age to determine an "asset protection allowance"--meaning that the older you are, the more money the government says you, the student, can hang on to without being expected to contribute a percentage of it to your education, again, benefiting the student, whom the governemt assumes is saving for retirement as he ages

o does not take into account whether you attend a two-year, four-year, technical, trade, proprietary, or hairstyling school.

Here's federal financial aid in a nutshell. Your school determines your cost of attendance (COA) which includes tuition, fees, books, and living expenses (at your school's discrection). Your FAFSA determines how much you and/or your parents are expected to contribute out of pocket before federal loans and grants (unfortunately, the bulk of federal aid is in the form of loans--fortunately, those are at around 4% at the moment). That number is called your estimated family contribution. The difference between that cost of attendance and your contribution is referred to as "need." So need = COA - EFC. A school's financial aid office may meet that need with federal loans or grants, (and/or with its own money in the form of tuition waivers or scholarships; or loans from banks that aren't part of the federal programs, but those aren't federal).

The EFC formula's not top secret, you can look at it in detail here. You also have access to every piece of information the federal government publishes for aid officers, as a citizen. There's detail, but none of this should be beyond the reasoning of someone reading/posting to Slashdot.

Being somewhat familiar with it, I fail to see how you can say the federal financial aid system favors the traditional student. If the financial aid office where you start out seems to not care about you, perhaps you should find a school that suits your academic needs and has one that does.

One other good sources of information about financial and and scholarships are finaid.org. And whatever you do DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PAY ANYONE A FEE TO FILL OUT A FAFSA. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PAY TO BE ELIGIBLE FOR A SCHOLARSHIP. I cannot emphasize that enough.

I think someone needs to spend a little more time outside of Georgia... FYI: I've been to Georgia, I've lived in Europe and I know the quality-of-life differences between them. If you are talking education, K-12 is at least twice as good (if you can measure it that way) in Europe. Have you seen any recent math test scores of Belium/Flemish or Canadians or the Dutch vs. the US? If you haven't, why don't you check it out HERE. I'm sure you realize these countries are all very 'socialist'. If you don't like that study, take a look at a different one HERE. It demonstrates that, while our amount spent (GDP terms) is higher than that found in several other countries (Germany), we do much worse than those 'socialist' countries. Now, if I remember correctly, Georgia doesn't rank much above the middle in US comparisons. Oh, yea, most of these countries have universal health coverage...

I think someone needs to spend a little more time outside of Georgia... FYI: I've been to Georgia, I've lived in Europe and I know the quality-of-life differences between them. If you are talking education, K-12 is at least twice as good (if you can measure it that way) in Europe. Have you seen any recent math test scores of Belium/Flemish or Canadians or the Dutch vs. the US? If you haven't, why don't you check it out HERE. I'm sure you realize these countries are all very 'socialist'. If you don't like that study, take a look at a different one HERE. It demonstrates that, while our amount spent (GDP terms) is higher than that found in several other countries (Germany), we do much worse than those 'socialist' countries. Now, if I remember correctly, Georgia doesn't rank much above the middle in US comparisons. Oh, yea, most of these countries have universal health coverage...

If that directory entry contains even one piece of personally identifiable information about you (e.g. your name; some hard-asses on the subject even say the email address itself constitutes personally identifiable information), it is subject to FERPA. This means that once you notify your school in writing that you no longer wish your directory information released, they must cease doing so.

And even the Ivy League takes federal money in the form of financial aid. Assuming there's an appropriate firewall between academics and the administration (so you don't find yourself suddenly not doing so well in school), you may wish to bring this to the administration's attention. Start with those maintaining the directory and the registrar. Work your way up through legal and the trustees.

Would the BSA looking at the files on every computer on a University campus be a violation of FERPA? Many University sysadmins feel that FERPA covers providing access to student's files/programs/emails as well as grade reports and other personal information since they can be held to be a form of student record; the FERPA act is deliberately vague on this. Some security experts even advise not providing copies of files to police without a warrant or subpoena. So the BSA prowling around on student-accessed computers would violate the privacy of every student on campus, no? Or are they 'acting in the interests of the University'?