Slashdot Mirror
Feds Propose National Database of College Students
Dore writes "The Department of Education wants to collect personally identifiable information on all college students, including name, address, birth date, gender, race, and SSN. Privacy is assured. The No Child Left Behind Act, which holds primary and secondary schools accountable prompted this line of thinking. Now colleges should be held accountable. If you made it to college, you were not left behind, and further attempts at monitoring citizens should be."
Does America have any laws regarding compulsory education to a certain level?
If that exists and yet does not extend to college level, one has to wonder why this is being proposed.
Also I can't see any real benefits (eg. in terms of missing persons) of this scheme. Anybody would like to think up some?
Where does it end? I mean really.. Broadcast flags are one things, but keeping tabs on every person that enters college? That's insane..
Granted not a lot of people finish college, but a great deal start.. and the idea that the government feels the need to keep track of me in yet another way is outragious..
By the time we get to college, we're in charge of making sure we succeed, not the government
Looks like ole George Orwell was off by about 20 years.
No further legislation needed. (Also keep in mind we're talking about college students-- legal adults. Creating a No Child Left Behind-like database has more legal problems to consider.)
public school? i.e. community colleges- defensible.. private institutions? none of their damn business.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
If it's just to gather better statistics, wouldn't reporting data on just 5% of a college's students be enough? Of course, this would have to be the same 5% of students tracked through their whole academic careers, but that would be simple enough to do with a hash of SSN's.
If the government doesn't go for this proposal, I'd like to see a better reason for tracking students.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
they are preparing for the draft
Kind of makes you wish we were back in the Reagan era, when abolishing the Department of Education was in the Republican platform.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
This is not a part of the draft. They already have Selective Service registration. This is an attempt to keep an eye on foreign nationals in college with the added bump of keeping an eye on everyone in college. So will your school do it? Bet your ass compulsory membership is tied to getting fed money. Smile! Smile! Smile!
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
Having over 6 teachers in my immediate family and once concidering the profession. no child left behind is a useless inititive. Why have a program that looks great but puts requirements on schoool programs without giving them the funding to reach said goals. The problem has never been documenting who gets behind, but ensuring that the school budget gets funded and passed before you fund prisons and roads. getting back to the problem why doesn't the government solve the public school problem before they take on colleges.
From the article: "The idea, proposed by a research wing of the Department of Education, is designed to improve federal oversight of students' enrollment rates, graduation rates, and tuition. Currently, that information is provided only in summary form by universities, leaving gaps in national college statistics. When students transfer from one college to another, for example, they show up in the federal rolls as dropouts."
Apparently, metrics on student graduation rates are the lifeblood of our government. We can't tolerate even small inaccuracies.
(Of course, we can tolerate small inaccuracies in, say, our voting system. But that's just a different story.)
I can't imagine any legitimate purpose for this. Even if you argue that the government allocates public university funding based on education rates, the aggregate metrics generated by each institution should be more than sufficient. If a university isn't providing accurate data, then you need to force it to comply - not usurp its job with hideous spyware.
I imagine that the real purpose is to track foreign students at American universities. In fact, the government does have a legitimate purpose in monitoring, say, Iranian exchange students who are studying nuclear physics. But I can't imagine why they wouldn't bolt that duty to visa enforcement, rather than just brazenly spying on the population.
- David Stein
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
What happened to keeping track of politicians?
I seem to recall that it was that shady lot people used to be concerned with keeping tabs on.
Almost every university I know of sends a copy of your grade card to parents if they're paying for the schooling and request the updates.
Government does subsidize higher education, saving students billions every year.
These are our tax dollars that they're shipping off to universities and I think we (the tax payers) do have a right to know what's being done with it.
If a university has a 75% drop-out rate should they be funded the same as, less then or more then a university with a 5% drop-out rate? That's worthy of debate, something not possible without this data.
of spending tax dollars on something. You stick your mouth in the government trough, and the government sticks its microscope up your ass. And enough with the "private" colleges. They get much (and in a lot of cases, most) of their money from various government handouts, whether it's research funding, tax breaks on land and buildings, government-subsidized or -guaranteed student grants and loans, or a ton of other sources. You take the Man's money, the Man is gonna get his money's worth out of you.
"Wow. Now THAT'S a lot of angry Indians." - Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer
What a bunch of stupid responses here. "To improve accountability". "RTFA". Nonsense. RBTL (Read between the lines).
My bet is that the primary goal here is to track down draft-age men and women; specifically those who were smart enough not to enter into the draft database by voluntarily registering.
Another clear goal is to make it easier to keep tabs on dissendents. Colleges are usually the first place where protests happen; so it makes it a lot easier to identify and keep tabs on the troublemakers.
My, the government sure is going all out to gather and centralize all this data about the people it supposedly represents. I wonder what for?
As someone who fills out a FAFSA every year, and just applied for a Federal Loan not five minutes ago, I've already given the Department of Education all of that information twice in the last six months. While not everyone will do so, I'm sure most students will fill out a FAFSA, even if they don't get any subsidized aid.
Seems to me that the Federal Gov't already has all of this information and needn't waste any more taxpayer dollars trying to aquire it again.
Note that I'm not trying to justify their attempts at data-collection (far from it, actually), I'm just pointing out that they already have that information for most of us already.
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 -- Mathematics is the Language of Nature.
I think we should counter by demanding an openly accessible database of elected officials, government employees, and government contractors. Data should include salary, work history, who made campaign contributions to whom, and other data relevant to running the government.
Also, I'll happily contribute my own entry from my (brief) period as a government contractor.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
As a former public school teacher, I can tell you that by the time they're 16 they're plenty able to cause trouble. And if they want to drop out, it's very unlikely that forcing them to stay in will cause them to learn anything. The only reason to keep them in would be as a public-funded baby-sitting service, and I can think of better ways to spend our tax money. Sometimes I think that we should let them drop out in 9th grade (I taught 9th grade physical science - a general/remedial level science course - my last year as a teacher, and it was no coincidence that it was my last year. I have a tremendous amount of respect for teachers that keep at it year after year after year.). However, some of the kids in 9th grade, might actually straighten up. Those who are 16, however, are very unlikely to straighten up by 18. Once they've been out in the "real world", there is a slightly greater chance that they will see the errors of their ways, in which case they can go to night school and/or get their GED.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
"No child left behind", while good-intentioned, was a bad idea, and this would be an even worse idea. "No child left behind" is not improving education, if anything it's making it worse by trying to hold teachers accountable for whatever the students do. Presently anyone can get through high school because the school systems are making sure no one fails. Which translates to "you pass no matter what you do because we don't want to look bad."
If the concern is whether tax money is being well spent, then secondary school should not be mandatory. Stop wasting money on students that don't want to be there. That's where tax money is really wasted. Plus, students (and, depending on their age, the parents also) should not be told by the government how to run their lives. The students that have no interest in school can drop out and, if they choose, go back later, but it degrades the educational experience of willing students to keep them there.
I know high school teachers who fear for their jobs if they fail too many students, regardless of how deserving the student is of the F.
I fear the same thing for colleges, if they too are going to be made *accountable*. A college degree will be worth about as much as a high school degree. What would it be like to have colleges fearful of failing students? Professors should not fear their jobs for failing students who deserve to fail.
The more education you have, the more likely you are to actually think about what the federal government is doing. That makes you a problem by definition. Clearly, the government needs to keep track of people like that. They need a list of people to round up as soon as habeus corpus gets suspended during the next national security emergency.
I think I started out to be sarcastic with this. The more I look at it, the less sure of that I am.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
> I'd like to see a better reason for tracking students.
Educated people, on the average, are able to think critically.
Educated people, on the average, are less swayed by patriotic-sounding FUD.
Educated people, on the average, are harder to control.
Ergo, we should keep close tabs on people who wish to get an education.
If we know what they study, how successful they are and their personal and financial data, we could decide whether we prefer to use them for our purposes, ignore them or make them quiet. We would also know what leverage to apply.
There, you have your reason. Happy now?
Colleges are dens of unpatriotic and subversive activity, and there is no doubt that the government needs to take a more active role in stamping out possible terrorist sympathizers operating in the liberal sanctuaries of our major universities. This database will definitely help law enforcement and homeland security officials to quickly and efficiently crack down on suspected terrorist sympathizers in the universities, and help to protect all regular Americans from terrorism. After September 11, we know what happens when we let our guard down against terrorists, and we know that we have a responsibility to give law enforcement officials the tools they need to fight terrorism wherever it lurks.
I have to say, as a foreigner (not a citizen of a nuclear power), I don't understand this. It's not like the information is impossible for them to find elsewhere - they can hire some Russian scientists, go to India or Pakistan; get in close with China. They could find the information from old texts, get new theory from physics journals...
What, really, is the point in stopping them or tracking them at American Universities? The information is out there regardless. I know, I know...let's not make it easy for them; but I dare say that they can get Undergraduate-style info from anywhere in the world. Postgrad work can be filled in from international science journals; it just doesn't seem like tracking them is going to achieve anything. The real reasons they cannot go nuclear if they wished is from lack of funds and materials - and this won't change with a change in their education on nuclear physics, will it?
Here in Finland and other countries in northern Europe we have a long tradition in collecting everything in databases. University students get into several databases which include personal information like name, age, parents, social status, cell phone number. Actually everything but hair color.
I just can't see any problem. There is no privacy to lose any more. Why should I care about federal registers while credit card companies know everything I buy, my ISP knows where I spend my time and those smart fellows who keep closest APT repository online know my favorite editor. Probably I couldn't even do moon shine without getting into dozen registers.
We are filed way beyond anything my glorious filehappy homeland can imagine.
Isn't it nice?
"For example, over a third of students transfer colleges at least once, and 20 percent transfer twice or more, according to the American Council on Education. Yet under the current data collection system, these students are marked as dropouts and never counted as a graduate of any school." I wonder how they got these statistics.
Of course, the problem there is that opting out of the federal money doesn't decrease the federal taxation level. A state opting out of those funds would have to raise its own taxes to provide the equivalent service. The net effect is an increase in taxes on the population of the state which is hard to sell under the the banner of decreased federal oversight.
OMG your so right .
.
.
.
, .
.
.
.
He thinks its bad in college, wait til he gets out in the real
world and "they" realize he is a work horse, and that is how they
will treat him
The ol' Sled Dog routine as I call it
Anyone that thinks they can off load some job on him will try
it direct and if that does not work they go suck up to your
boss and get him to pan it off on you
I used to have the work hard ethic while in corporate america
but put it on hold eventually in companies where this
pass the buck routine was rampant
Now that I own my own business, I can work hard, and only I am
gonna dump work on myself, and at least I get credit for it
Good Luck to all college students about to enter the work force
Consulting or Incorporation is the way to go , get your
tax deductions up front, and shelter your income
Peace !
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Or make that "Privacy is assured" until we feel like leaking the details of your kid as a political weapon. But of course nobody in power would do a dirty thing like that...
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
More sound and fury. As long as coeds are willing to sell their dignity on the latest GGW Spring Break for a T-Shirt, then I don't think there will be much to worry about. Don't all colleges already have your information? Some even have smart card ID's.
I wonder who needs to be aware of the fact the kid graduated college to begin with. When that graduate out of this mythical 20% goes to apply for a job (or Grad. school), they're going to know where they graduated from, and be able to supply the interviewer with transcripts, certifications and degrees. This system is completely unnecessary, since grads already supply this information to the relevant people. Absolutely no need to get some huge database involved.
Privacy is going the way of the buffalo. Whatever college you are attending already has all that info, as well as any scholarships you applied for. The Feds also have the info if you used to FAFSA to apply for financial aid. All that info is also on your taxes, social security, credit info, loans, (for us guys) Selective Service cards, voter registration, driver's license, passports, visas, etc etc. I don't see one more database as a big deal. You're already being tracked. Time to get tin foil pajamas.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
Cough, draft, cough....
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
I just thought it was interesting that the article cites these statistics about college students, then the very next sentence states that these very statistics cannot be captured without a tracking database.
This is paranoia. They can't tell who made it to college and who didn't if they don't know one or the other. It'll be hard to collect the identities of kids that didn't go to college, wouldn't it? So they have to get the names of those who did.
As for a draft and all that other stuff...they already know when you turn 18 because they know your b-day when you get your SSN. If they wanted to auto-register you for the selective service, they already know everything they need to know to do that.
We can't say the politicians should do something about our poor education, but then flout every attempt they make with these paranoid attacks.
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
Just incase no one else has mentioned this American patriot's opinion.
4 .htm/
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
http://www.ushistory.org/franklin/quotable/quote0
Yes, but there may be more to this than you think.
... they basically stole it, and not just from the U.S. But, it's a hell of lot easier to come here and ferry knowhow home that it would be from a lot of other places: we're pretty much a goldfish bowl in that respect. I'm not demeaning the engineering prowess of China's technologists, per se, but let's face it: they came a very long way in a very short time and didn't do it all by themselves. They bootstrapped themselves from our hard-earned investments and are now using it against us in what amounts to economic warfare. Not the actions of a friendly trading partner, or even a good neighbor, internationally speaking. A lot of Slashdotters hold America accountable for its brand of economic imperialism, but China is proving to be even more formidable in that regard. Once America has been brought to its knees ... the rest of you better watch out. Economic imperialism may be the least of your worries.
Terrorist threats aside, there is a lot of stuff being blatantly ripped off by Chinese students and professional technical people. China is "economically ascendent" (i.e. "becoming a high-tech society") but they sure as hell didn't do it all by themselves: neither did Japan for that matter. We gave Japan their head start after the Second World War but we made no such gift to China
I know a company where a Chinese engineer was hired during development of a significant piece of technology. He worked there until the project was completed, then stole the prototype and flew home to China the same night and gave it to a manufacturer on the Chinese mainland (where it turned out he was still employed.) Frankly, that should have been an international incident, but I assume the management of that company didn't want the embarrassment. I know several other similar cases (I was in and out of a lot of places as a consultant for many years.) Obviously Chinese immigrants to the U.S. aren't much of a terrorism threat (the Chinese engineers I know are generally damn good, but are hardly terrorists), but I certainly do see some of them as being very capable (and culpable) with regard to industrial espionage.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
This is a really great extension to the program to insure top flight undergraduate and graduate students from around the world stop coming to the U.S. Last I heard they are already opting for places like Toronto and Oxford since its already really hard to get a visa to the U.S. and once you get here you risk being arrested and held indefinitely, without due process. Having no assurance of due process part used to be something you could only say about dictatorships, who would have though we would be saying it about the U.S.
Here is a two step program to crater your economy:
- Let your primary and secondary education system crater(bad underpaid teachers, promoting everyone, huge dropout rate, prioritize athletics and athletes over academics).
-Drive away all the top flight well educated foreign students and professors America has become so dependent on especially in science and tech.
Al Qaida's plan to destroy America seems to be working pretty well, launch one spectacular attack and let brain dead politicians and law enforcement officers do the rest of the damage as they seek to make everyone "safe".
@de_machina
Why do they need to know who did and didn't go to college? If there's any question about a particular individual of interest, it's easy to research that person's background anyway.
Are you aware that college studies can provide exemption from drafts? This system would allow the government to target people who are likely to obtain exemption in the near future, and target people taking leaves of abscence from college. The article talks about people who leave and reenroll a year later. The draft boards might want to identify and target these people, drafting them ahead of true non-students.
When people complain about our poor education, they're not talking about college. The US university system is arguably the best in the world, it's our primary and secondary education systems that are an embarrassment.
This is paranoia. They can't tell who made it to college and who didn't if they don't know one or the other. It'll be hard to collect the identities of kids that didn't go to college, wouldn't it? So they have to get the names of those who did.
The question isn't one of logistics as you seem to indicate, it's one of privacy. For example, it would be hard to collect the names of people who didn't go to a gay pride parade, so therefore they *have to* collect the names (and SSN, and birthday, and...) of those who did.
The real issue isn't "What's the best way to collect it?", the issue is "Why the hell is the government collecting this information?" Universities and colleges already know who their students are, given that students have to enroll. But why should the government start collecting lists? Churches and synagogues know who their members are too, but the government doesn't so let's start listing out all synagogue members. No Jew left behind either!
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
At my nerdy school, I think over 75% of the students in the ECE and CS departments were international. The remaining 25% dressed in black and smelled funny.
The current administration is not Republican--well, it is in name only, I suppose. Another word tossed around a lot is neo-conservative, which is probably more accurate. It's also possible that our government is nothing more than a cyborg Karl Rove plugged into the Matrix creating the whole illusion we see before us. Yes, I believe that is the most likely explanation, even if it turns out that Michael Moore is Neo.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
I think there are few more steps involved, but this is a good start when coupled with research restrictions (e.g., stem cells). Making sure all the cool future tech (bio, mechanical, or otherwise) is imported into the US will do wonders for destroying the economy. And since the poor are much more attracted to religions, it's a solid win for those working toward our (USA) budding theocracy.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
And how do you think the US amounted to anything? Yup, by flounting international copywright and patent law. In the early days, the US ripped technical feats off, and sold un-royaltied literature at cheap, cheap (warez-ed) prices. That is how countries get started.
So get off your high horse, because that is how all industrial nations (except britain, who had the first mover disadvantage...go read your economics books) started.
As to the rest of your xenophobic post...wow, you really don't get how the world works. Or has worked for the past couple of centuries.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
If you have filled out a FAFSA or applied for a loan the Department of Education already has all the information. Part of my job is making sure the mandatory reporting gets sent to DOE. That is on top of other federal reporting, IPEDS, FISAP, etc. Granted most of the reports are general statistics, as the article mentioned, however there is a more information that is required to be reported than most people realize.
What does personal student information have to do with measured results and performance? University performance statistics are already readily available.
What?
"Last I heard".... Yeah, right....complete FUD on most of this, and what your citing is completely wrong. Every time someone compares the US to a dictatorship I just want to laugh, because they have no freaking idea what a real dictatorship is. If this WERE a dictatorship, you'd already be in jail, or more likely DEAD.
The primary and secondary education is already cratered, and has been for years. Despite that, the current educators resist ANY change at all, because it would actually make them accountable for performing.
Which leads to the professor problem... You can NOT get rid of a tenured professor under just about any circumstances. Again, once they're in, they're not held accountable.
You obviously don't work in an academic setting, because people are STILL breaking down all the doors to get here, and do everything they can to stay.
What we need is some accountability in the education system, not less.
Because they turn in to PhD's and top flight scientists, technologists and thinkers and its desirable to get them to stay in your country, especially when your education system is cratering and you don't have enough natives to fill these roles.
.... heh ... what a country.
I can kind of see your point though. America is fast moving beyond the point it needs or wants people who think, reference a recent Tuesday in November.
Its a really big thing lately in the media to cover the religious right as they use their new political clout to try to undo the theory of evolution, geology and science. They forced the people who run the Grand Canyon book store to include a book that claims the Grand Canyon is a few thousand years old and was created by the great flood
America is in for a world of hurt as it continues to rush to abandon science in favor of religious zealotry.
@de_machina
Which is exactly why most "conservatives" should vote Libertarian! http://www.lp.org/issues/
Libertas in infinitum
Well, USA is fighting a "terroisom war" and Iraq is quite a mess, with a possible invasion of other "rogue countries" like North Korea.... so the college student database is a great aid to draft people into the army.
Well, unlike Nam's time, people who is smart enough getting into college will also be drafted to the military. Military needs a lot of electrical engineers and programmers too.
(2) It feeds our skilled workforce. Many people who are educated here elect to stay. If you agree that top-flight people are worth having around, than this is good.
(3) It facillitates idea exchange. Folks at school learn from each other, sometimes more than fromtheir professors. I can't think of a downside here.
(4) It builds international connections. People who went to school together tend to stay in contact. They make business deals, diplomatic relations, and generally help countries understand each other.
If that really isn't enough for you, look to history for what happens to nations that become myopic. Don't think it won't happen here, unless you're prepared to explain how the U.S. is different from every other empire in history.
I forget what 8 was for.
Now with all due respect to our treasured trading parters in that country, it's common knowledge that both China and the US are armed to the teeth with nuclear missiles pointing at eachother. What the FU&% are we doing training their people in nuclear science that will help them make better weapons to point at us?
I think he just forgot that xenophobia is only OK when it's against the United States.
you're missing the point...brain scans have proven that a human being under 21 does not process information the same way as an adult...in every sense of the phrase, they are mentally handicapped when compared to an adult...a primary example is the stimulation of visual creativity when asked questions that would normally spur memory retrieval...especially when those questions relate to topics of cause and effect. So while you, as an adult, are aware of cause and effect from memories you hold, and underdeveloped brain doesn't access memory, but instead tries to visually imagine the impact of the cause and effect with no reference material to base assumptions on. What I find amazing is that someone who would normally think it inconvievable to make a handicapped person responsible for their actions would quite happily make a teenager responsible, where they suffer from similar disorders just at varying degrees.
Science has proven that teenages brains DO NOT FUNCTION PROPERLY...how can you impose the very adult concept of reciprocality on a brain that can't comprehend it. That would be like me (an australian) berating a frenchman for not knowing who RM Williams is.
its Big Brother. At the vary least such a registry would enhance the reach of the draft when the Bush league resurrect it.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
You are correct in this matter -- but the problem is that we'll never know who in the future will have that data. Yes, we're a Republic, but we still stand the chance of electing officals that are absolutely horrible to the populace. Hitler was elected by the populace! That crap can and has happened. The less information the Federal government has the better.
They absolutely must prove that under no circumstances can they do their jobs without said data for me to reliquish it.
Nowhere in the Constitution is education mentioned. They have NO business in it and they have NO reason to collect data on the matter. I don't want the feds knowing what college classes I took, what guns I may own, what my sexual preference is, or how much money I made. It's none of their damned business frankly.
I think this sentiment is a big reason why most of the US population, ufortunately, and the world at large, fails to understand WHY privacy/liberty advocates rally against the above bullcrap.
Simply put Federal government is a problem by it's very nature. If you disagree I would urge you to read the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist papers penned by the Founders of the US. The Anti-Federalists simply stated, through a series of papers, that the Federal government would grow out of control and gather more powers than delegated. The Federalists figured a strict Constitution would hold it in check. Well, the Anti-Federalists were right. An issue such as this wouldn't have even surfaces if they weren't.
We're not certain that such a violation would happen -- but it is a possibility. Are you certain that I would misuse your personal information? Well -- how about you fax over your bank records and receipts for everything you purchased in the past few months. I'll maybe help you sort out your budget. You're not certain I'll misuse the information after all. How about your diet and excersise schedules? Send 'em on over -- I'll aggregate the data to make a perfet diet/excercise routine for the populace after a while. It's for the common good, you know.
people will get used to it (for example: radar detectors cops use to catch speeders, phone wire taps the FBI has the power to setup), and not all at once... it'll just be the norm, even convenient at each little interval. But, take a snapshot of today, and compare it to 30 years from now, and you'll probably feel like you've stepped into a utopia novel without ever realizing that you were doing it.
Speak for yourself.
Look, there are some genuine irrationalities in the way that Federal support for higher education works right now, and some of what's described sounds like a genuine effort to address that. This was covered in detail in the Chronicle of Higher Ed last Spring, I think. So let's not break out the tinfoil hats too quickly.
On the other hand there is something insidious about assessing an institution's success by its ability to process students and pass out degrees. Sometimes college students really should leave for a couple of years and get a job before finishing, or transfer, and some students are going to fail. I teach in a state university and there's constant pressure from the legislature to admit more students -- politicians understand that getting degrees is popular. So you move toward essentially open admissions. Some of those students have poor skills -- not necessarily their fault, but for some reason public education has not served them well. So either you lower standards, or you flunk more of them out. I deal with students in tears, students spending money and time to get degrees for which they lack requisite basic skills. So just as current Federal policy is producing kids who are good at taking standardized tests but little else, the pressure now reaches higher ed to churn out grads who may not have learned a whole lot.
If India eats our lunch it's our own damn fault.
... for those who abuse this database.
Tag lost or not installed.
You are totally cracked here... We did *not* fund Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan ever, at any time.
There were funds that went from the CIA to the ISI, of which *nobody* has claimed any portion of went into Osama's pocket.
The situation with the Soviets, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the US was *much* more complex than your statement misleads people into thinking.
I recommend you start focussing on fixing the broken things in the world, rather than pulling recriminations on half-baked conspiracy theories.
The idea that *anybody* in america actually benefitted from 9/11 is a complete farce. We were all hurt by this, emotionally and economically. Any increase in spending on this or that pales in comparison to the amount of money everybody lost in the WTC collapse and it's far reaching economic effects.
Greenspan obviously realizes this...
I'm a non-American who's currently weighing options for grad studies. My personal assessment is that, while the US is still fantastic for grad studies mostly for the faculty that is still there. This, of course, is a critical factor, but probably not for long, unless something drastic happens. In terms of infrastructure, funding and sheer access to educational resources, other countries have already caught up.
More than mere navel gazing.
We can't say the politicians should do something about our poor education, but then flout every attempt they make with these paranoid attacks.
Our K-12 education is broken. Our university systems work very well. We have the best universities in the world. Look at the list of top 50 universities. Look at the number of international students who study at universities in the US.
While K-12 education in the US is very poor, university education is very good. Why? The political process has (mostly) left universities alone while they (local school boards, state boards of education, federal agencies, etc.) have been making public education a political football. If you want to ruin undergraduate and graduate education and academic research in the US, simply let the government become more involved in the university education system.
Demonstrate that we ever had any privacy. The days before massive databases were also the days before credit cards and faceless megacorps that could care less who you are as long as you pay on time. If you weren't a hermit or a pioneer, your doctor/banker/grocer/etc. all knew you personally. People who *didn't* know you personally wouldn't take significant risks with you until they did, or until they'd checked you out with "respected members of the community". The whole town knew who you were, and if they didn't like who you were, it was time to find a new town.
We probably have more real privacy today than ever before. Some people seem to want total anonymity, and that's never existed.
They're not interested in individuals. The govt's interested in assessing which school districts and sending kids on to college. That's it. That's what this whole thing is about.
If they're allowed to trace the path of kids through the school system, then they'll have good data on how the public education system is doing in terms of percentage of kids that graduate and go on to institutions of higher learning. Without that data, they have no way of knowing if they're making any progress as they implement changes. Or worse, what if the changes they implement actually cause more students to quit after high school? Wouldn't this be valuable information to have?
As a scientifically minded person, I'm always amazed when people ask that things be made better or different in a certain way, and then flout all attempts to put any kind of measure on that thing.
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
If China pegs over to the Euro the the USA will be history.
No. China's pegging the Renmibi to the US Dollar drags down the Renmibi, enabling the flux of cheap made-in-China goods to the United States. However, a poor US dollar is good for American manufacturers because that in turn makes it a whole lot easier for American exports. But it's definitely in favor of China. If the Renmibi were floated, the price of Chinese-made goods would skyrocket (China right now is like America in the Roaring 20's), and they'd lose a big part of their competitive edge.
More worrying for me is that if OPEC starts pricing in Euros instead of US dollars. Strengths in the Euro, a currency that is proving itself mightily fiscally sound, would be felt at home, hard--we are the energy economy. As I understand it, OPEC sells more oil products to Europe, and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is proposing such a transition. When the price of oil skyrocketed, Europeans barely felt the difference because of the weak US dollar.
The debt issue is a big one, as you rightfully pointed out. We back this up with the hegemony of the US dollar held in foreign reserves, but, if this hegemony is dilluted by the Euro or whatever currency, there goes most of the dollar value--which, guess what, is already being dragged down by the deficit itself. It's a vicious circle.
The two solutions to this are getting America off the oil economy, before it's too late, and reigning in government spending--neither of which this administration really cares about. That's what's most frightening.
"[T]he single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom." -- Barry Goldwater