Slashdot Mirror
SpaceNow, a New Space Education Initiative
Avacar writes "SpaceNow has officially launched their new website. It contains fairly detailed and technical explanations on how standard rocketry works, as well as orbital mechanics for interplanetary travel. They advocate putting fusion engines in space as a clean, cost-effective way to travel between planets. They also have a full curriculum for educating youth about space, and will soon be starting up weekly debates on touchy issues with space travel on their forums."
I'm going to guess that this will be a failure, just like all "for the public good" projects seem to be. By failure I mean: way more expensive/lower quality/slower than if created by open competition rather than public funding. I'm also guessing that this is not "for the public good" but for the good of some certain individuals. Let's read the article to find out.
Exploration and development of the Moon, both for science and for resources which may better our life on Earth;
Getting back to the Moon sounds great, but I'm not sure what we'll find there. I really feel like the bad guy in Contact when I say this, but there is no reason that science shouldn't find a way to pay for itself. Research and development is important, but all research and no development seems like a complete waste if there isn't an endgame. Sorry, but one country saying "I win! I win! nyah-nyah" isn't enough for me to vote to spend billions on.
The exploration and settlement of Mars, to establish humankind as a multi-planet, spacefaring race;
Settlement of Mars will not create a spacefaring race. Competition will bring those costs down once there is a REASON to settle Mars. I say unlock the regulations and allow multiple businesses to find a reason to get there. If it doesn't have a profit incentive for any reason, there is no reason to go there. When they day comes that a profit incentive is found, I bet we'll see many people trying.
The research and development of Nuclear Fusion, for spaceflight applications and clean alternative energy on Earth;
Why do we need space for this? Realistically, fusion is being sought after by many organizations. The dilemma is that radioactive materials are so closely regulated and guarded, there isn't a lot of room for private individuals and companies to see better solutions.
Promoting research and awareness of the threats posed by Earth-crossing asteroids, as well as their potential resources.
This is one place I can see Constitutional grounds for government to spend money. Defense. As for their resources, I don't see any way that public funds will be able to utilize these resources in the best way possible. Unless Haliburton (who Clinton also supported) can mine those asteroids, right?
If you are interested in ordering a hardcopy of our complete curriculum, or require custom materials developed for your classroom, send an e-mail to: sales@spacenow.ca
A-ha! There's the catch. Classroom textbooks. Profitable. Changed annually. Mandated by law. So this is about making humanity better, right?
I honestly HATE seeing more and more "for the public good" websites that go up, and then find out these organizations have something to sell to a government-funded monopoly. Unless they're offering these curricula for free?
Thank God it's clean. Last thing we need is Universal Warming. Imagine if the universes Vacuum Layer had a hole in it!
My ZooLoo
I was expecting a lot more from this website. It looks nice you first load it up, but the information content is quite sparce. Not even pretty pictures or informative diagrams to explain concepts. Section 6.2 on aging stars as an example is dismal.
The CASCA Education website is much, much better:
http://www.cascaeducation.ca/files/index.html
Check it out.
This is a pretty bad redesign. Take a look, for example, at this typical page; the text is an IMAGE, probably because they haven't heard of unicode or the subscript HTML tag. Awful, just awful.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
Then we stopped.
Some may say that it was a waste of time and money, but a great deal of practical good was done by the space program. Many space-age foods, polymers and foams were created and found to do as much for our planet as they did for those who orbited it. Besides the ocean, it is the last frontier available to us, and unarguably the one whose exploration will do the most for us.
I applaud the concept of bringing these ideas to a new generation who will, hopefully, not forsake them as ours has. I was just thinking about this today during my ruminescing about the crazy and sometimes haphazard ways in which the scientific process is refined -- in it's own way, the question about continuing space exploration is tied in inexorable fashion to the battle against entrenched interests that new theories must undergo before they become the accepted norm.
Take, for example, the struggle of Galileo against the church to permit society to recognize the fact that the world is round. Or perhaps the modern day battleground of evolution against the challenging new scientific theory of intelligent design, which suggests that certain biological features such as the flagellum are irreducibly complex and therefore could not possibly have been developed by increments as evolutionists would have it -- answers and proof to the contrary must be found out there, because like the proverbial blind men describing the elephant we find ourselves struggling with only our piece of the jigsaw puzzle to determine the complete picture.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
From the main page: SpaceNow's ultimate goal is to elevate the levels of public knowledge and debate regarding space exploration and its potential benefits for humankind. In the final analysis, we either become spacefaring or extinct - and today, we stand at a crossroads where both possibilities can be seen on the horizon. Really? Supporting evidence? As usual for these sorts of advocacy groups, what they're after is, "we have a fantasy and you need to pay for it."
Dog is my co-pilot.
Hey, is that a Virgo rising or are you just happy to see me?
Dog is my co-pilot.
Could this mean /.ers will actually know what they are talking about in science?
Nah... (bye bye Karma)
1: Light fuse.
2: Stand back.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I do not wish to offend, but was this comment posted by a human or a new version of Racter?
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
make up your own punchlines!
Some may say that it was a waste of time and money, but a great deal of practical good was done by the space program.
At what cost? Did the extra cost create better value for the speed of delivery of these new products?
Transistor radios and tiny televisions predated NASA's "inventions" by a decade.
The world's first telecommunications satellite (Telstar) was launched in 1962 by a private company, not our government.
Motorola's radio technology was a key factor behind the cellular phone, not anything NASA had produced.
I'm not sure I back the theory that NASA was responsible for some of mankind's greatest products. In fact, I just watched them spend $1.5 billion dollars of tax payer money NOT fixing a problem they promised to fix that killed half a dozen people. $1.5 billion per taxpayer is only about $20 per household, so I'm sure no one cares. $1.5 billion dollars spent by private citizens in private businesses would likely have given more inventors reason to invent items that people need and want.
When I was growing up, astrology was becoming a keen area of study
Uhhh what? I find it difficult to listen to people who don't know the difference between Astrology and Astronomy.
As for the site, what exactly constitutes a "clean" interplanetary propulsion system??!?!?!? It's SPACE. I'll give you a million dollars if you can tell me how exactly a propulsion system is going to "pollute" interplanetary space and how that'll differ from the fictional fusion engines.
Uh, space is full of nasty stuff like non-breathable atmospheres (vacuum), long-lasting large fusion explosions (stars), etc that'll kill you pretty quickly compared to most any polution we produce. Why the concern about cleanliness.
(I know environmentalists'll mod me down, so posting AC)
I took a look at the "About Us" section of the SpaceNow website. The people who put together the site don't really seem to have a large team behind them. Judging by their photos, they are also pretty young - maybe just out of college or maybe recent Master's graduates.
My own experience has shown it is incredibly difficult for someone in their 20s and 30s to really make a difference in government policies on space exploration. Society now has about 50 years of experience in space exploration, so there are already many groups lobbying in favor of space exploration out there. Most of these groups are lead by established scientists and engineers who have developed relationships with government leaders over many years. Most of these groups would not give younger people a whole lot of power in terms of directing programs for communicating with the public. I don't necessarily think this is a good thing, but unfortunately, it's just the way things are. With all of these other groups out there, I think the people behind SpaceNow are going to have a hard time getting noticed by the powers that be.
One group that has done a lot to support both manned and unmanned space exploration is The Planetary Society. The Planetary Society has been around for quite a few years and has many famous and wealthy people supporting its objectives. They also provide educational information similar to what the young men behind SpaceNow are going to provide. There are also tons of other web sites out there where people can learn about the fundamentals of rocketry - such as the Planetary Society again, as well as the Basics of Space Flight web site from JPL. The Challenger Center also is an important space science education group, at least in the United States.
One thing that the SpaceNow people are trying to do that's a bit different is provide a public forum for discussion. However, there are already forums out there. Even though Slashdot isn't devoted exclusively to space exploration, there are quite a few lively discussions about this topic on Slashdot.
I really do wish the creators of SpaceNow the best of luck. But I think they are going to have a difficult time getting noticed with all of the similar groups out there. The groups and web sites that I have mentioned are based in the U.S., so I don't know how many similar groups are in Canada (I assume the .ca domain means they are Canadian). The creators seemed to all be associated with the same university, so if any of them are reading this, I suggest that they concentrate on getting their message out to their local community first. Some ways to do this are through local museums and planetariums, astronomy clubs, and Cafe Scientifique meetings in their area.
So what's the point of the site? It seems useful as a study guide for an intro astrodynamics or celestial mechanics course, but it explains no better than any textbook I've seen ("Fundamentals of Astrodynamics" is my preference, it's only $10 too). In fact, by avoiding derivations it skips the physical ties that impart a real understanding of the subject. It could be used as a quick equations review, but certainly not for teaching.
The elementary physics of the site (newton, momentum etc.) isn't specific to astronautics. It can be found better explained elsewhere on and offline. So I see there's no real use for that, and it's certainly not a new attempt at "space education" (what ever the heck that is).
The nuclear propulsion section is kind of cool but falls into science fanboy/activ-ism. So is this a site for teaching about space or pushing science fads?
Throwing out equations won't attract anyone to aerospace engineering, astronomy, cosmology or related fields. These pages seem convenient for exam reviews but nothing more. They're passing off a lame study guide as a revolution in astrodynamics teaching, but they avoid any real teaching. Exercises? Team projects? MATLAB coding assignments? There are none, and students learn nothing without practice.
This site will not attract new aerospace engineering majors and addresses absolutely no problems in current teaching methods. They throw out a lot of good information, but it's presented in either standard or inferior ways.
The only people I see benefitting from this site are current or former aero majors who have lost their textbooks and don't know how to use google.
P.S. The site's design is a nasa.gov knock-off, which just bugs me as a web designer.
...I for one welcome our new fusion-powered rocket overlords.
11. Thou shall obey Da mighty Swing
Yeah, yeah, fusion drives will open up the solar system and mining asteroids will all make us rich.
I've heard it all before, twenty five years ago when SF fans waddled around conventions wearing "L-5 in '95!" and "Lunar Mine in '89!" shirts and buttons reading "The meek will inherit the Earth, I'm going to live in space!"
Actually getting into space turned out to be harder than making better concept drawings of space colonies and coming up with triumphalist slogans for buttons.
You want our civilization to go to the stars? Raise your kids to be engineers! Let them read SF for inspiration, but not so much that they think that ranting about the Statists and Flatlanders and the Moon Treaty will do the trick. Make sure they learn calc and get good study skills and how to work with real-world materials and how to walk on dirt.
Here's a cool place to start:
http://rocketcontest.com/
A contest that requires real-life rocket science! They have a different goal each year. E.g., this year they had to build a rocket that would safely launch and recover a fresh egg in a flight that lasted as close to sixty seconds as possible.
Teams of high school kids from all over the country participate. The best go to a national meet to compete with each other.
Stefan
I suppose "clean" could refer to a few things. When something launches through our atmosphere, naturally the environmental impact must be considered. In deep space, radioactive material would not be considered a pollutant, but might prevent the crew quarters to be located remotely near the engine. Even on dead planets, having radioactive dust lying around could be a negative thing, as it could get tracked in, and might interfere with some instruments.
Orbitally speaking, "clean" refers to orbital hazards. Considering the speeds involved, even a paint fleck can kill an astronaut. Clean orbital spacecraft will become more and more important as the traffic increases.
You just need to open the tap to get deuterium. It is distributed at very low cost to almost every household in North America and Europe...
Oh well, what the hell...
...that this is just a bunch of (Canadian?) kids (well, at least as much kids as I am) who like space and have an idea for a cool website, and they thought they'd see if the slashdot editors would help them promote it (which they did). If they're sharp and play their cards right, they might end up with the equivalent popularity of Slashdot or CNet among spacenuts. If not, well, a lot of us out here in Slashdot land have personal websites that never really go anywhere, so there's nothing to be ashamed of.
To their credit, the server hasn't been launched in orbit, spewing flames and smoke yet.
Shuttle is a stupid and poorly designed program, and it should have been scrapped 10 years ago. Same for ISS. They're a waste of time and money.
However, space exploration is, literally, the cheapest insurance we can buy. Yes, the Space Race was a PR campaign to Beat Those Russkies, but the collateral advances in sciences and technology are unparalleled.
There is one option for guaranteeing the long-term survival of the human race: Get off this rock. If that's not an evolutionary imperative, I don't know what is.
Even with the gross idiocy of the current NASA administration, their budget is peanuts relative to the vast sums wasted on your behalf. There are plenty of places that tax money could be better spent, but NASA is small potatoes. I think Congress should give them their budget, leave the pork alone, and let NASA get back into the R&D business (rather than the space truck operations business).
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I was laughing today about some news article that says our country's initiative to ask for donations to fund the War on Iraq only netted $600 total. I'm not sure how true this is, but it was funny.
I wonder if we cut Federal and State taxes to bare minimums and asked for private donations to support many of these "needed programs" how much people would donate. Not much, likely. Which means the programs aren't deemed necessary.
The question is, is space exploration a good national investment? I happen to think "yes", you think "no".
I'm serious: We're talking about survival of the species here. One big rock, and we're all boned. We need to get off this rock, and we need to not be jacking around. The costs are trivial (relative to, say, farm subsidies, or the defense budget) and the payoffs are, like, uh, big.
Humans are at their best under adverse conditions. Does it make sense to get technological advancement from fighting each other, or fighting the elements on a hostile planet? I vote for #2. Too bad there's nobody I can vote for who agrees with me.
In principle, I agree with you: Private enterprise is the best mechanism to develop and exploit space. However, NASA can and should be developing the raw technologies to enable that to happen.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Telstar was privately owned, but NASA contributed to its development *and* launched it. I can design a satellite too, but how do I get it to orbit?
The space race did advance many things in science, lately NASA has been mostly a joke, though, but that doesn't mean it should be cancelled, it should be modified to do its job, that's all.
intelligent design
Oh gawd. Big mistake. Someone's going to spot that eventually, and what will ensue can only be called, in the words of Linus Torvalds, a wankfest.
n/t
For christ's sake, this post is a bag on crap posted by a moron. +5 Insightful? Jesus.
By failure I mean: way more expensive/lower quality/slower than if created by open competition rather than public funding.
The troublle with that pro-market statement is that the market only does something if it is profitable. Unless you arbitrarily limit activities in the public good to only activities that are profitable, a moment's reflection will identify any number of unprofitable activities that the market won't touch but are essential, not just contributory, to the public good.
On the flip side, many profitable activities do not benefit the public.
It is of no consequece if certain activities supporting the public good are expensive, of lower quality, or delivered more slowly than the market might, because the market will not deliver them at all.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
T minus 3.. 2... 1.... Liftoff! Ladies and gentlemen, SpaceNow.com has just officially.. OH MY GOD! Oh God, this is terrible.. Folks, it looks like SpaceNow.com has just come crashing back down mere seconds after its launch.*
/. crowd.
*Actually, it's doing just fine. Apparently space websites are not a popular destination for today's
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Many space-age foods, polymers and foams...
You are aware that the term "space age" is just an advertising gimmick right? If not, I've got a space age car I'll give you a deal on. It's got some space age ventilation holes in the floorboards, and the motor is definately space age. $40k obo. I'll even throw in a free Russian Space Writing Impliment*.
*Pencil
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Since when was "intelligent design" a scientific theory?? Don't they know that "god" is just an excuse for the yet unexplained?? Take for instance comets. I'll bet you dollars to donughts that the explaination for comets back in the day ,back when we were even dumber than we are today, was that comets were angels riding chariots in the heavens. Same thing here. Only now the ones with the superstitions have lawyers.
Since when was "intelligent design" a scientific theory?? Don't they know that "god" is just an excuse for the yet unexplained?? Take for instance comets. I'll bet you dollars to donughts that the explaination for comets back in the day ,back when we were even dumber than we are today, was that comets were angels riding chariots in the heavens. Same thing here. Only now the ones with the superstitions have lawyers.
Large urban areas are anachronisms. They are huge energy sinks and social entropy sinks because it's all piped in expensive reality. They used to be important because of trade and communications, people physically had to get in physical proximity to each other in order to do business. We have the communications part down now so that more and more people don't have to travel for business/work purposes, and they can still be involved with high tech economy. It will actually be cheaper to spread out more in the future, we've hit the limit on city size as a practical matter. And as to sprawl, and driving, we are seeing the rebirth of the high mileage per gallon vehicle in the US. The transition is happening now, hybrids and compact turbo diesels are the fastest growing market segments,(still small but fastest growing) and with fuel going to be cracking 4-5$ a gallon soon (most likely) in the US, you'll see more sentiment for them-even hybrid SUVs and pickups, some of which are available now. The solar PV guys can't even keep up with the demand. the wind genny guys are cracking the cost of electricity from coal. this requires being outside the cities. more and more successful farmers are downsizing and getting into the niche markets, and staying close to their customer base, you can see it in the grocery stores on the produce shelves, people are demanding the alternative specialty and organic food products that the smaller guys are putting out. And on and on, lots of examples how our economy is morphing to adapt to higher energy costs.
It would take quite a lot for people in the US to just give up personal transportation, and quite a large percentage of the population just do not want to live in a heavy urbanized zone. Reluctantly go there and work for a shift, then split back home is more like it. If they did really like living like that, suburbs wouldn't have been invented and sold in the first place, we would have built many more and larger skyscraper apartment blocks. Some people like that sort of living,millions to be fair, but millions more do not,and that is just the way it is. People want to at least go home to a bit of green and a where it's a little quieter. It's the choices we collectively have made, it wasn't forced, it was what people wanted and what the economy evolved to. And with the extremely expensive urbanized coastal areas now under the scrutiny of mortgage sticker-shock experiencing home owners and extremely nervous insurance agents, I am expecting a gradual switch back to the heartland areas from the coasts, where prices are cheaper for housing, and where the work can be exported easier now than even just a short decade ago. And it's a numbers game, we just have more people now, they have to go someplace, and OUT is pretty easy and cheaper compared to UP.
There are other factors involved, for instance, the upcoming baby boomers starting to retire. I *doubt* this will result in millions more downtown apartments being built to accomodate them. They may downsize the home they have after their kids move out, but it will probably mean just a smaller house even further out and an RV, albeit the next generation hybrid RV, heh.
So I click on the link... Registered and watched...the forums. Guess what...StarTrek... Wonderless Geeks...expecting Capt. Kirk to post. Another version of Deep, deep Space Nine.
The pursuit of technology has been and always will be miltary advantage. Why did we go into space? Because the Russians felt that was the best way to spy on hte Americans. Vice versa for the American space program. It's complete garbage all these claims that space travel was developed because of patroitic feelings. The whole Apollo program (except for Voyager) was probably the most scientific thing that has ever come out of NASA and yet, less than 10 pounds of research materiel was collected.
Science today isn't driven by the same curiosity that it used to be, there are exceptions of course but only to a degree. Do you really think that ever physicist out there would go and do his job for free? For the love of doing it? Thats the way they used to do it my freinds. Not any more.
One can't help but wonder whether the hilarious irony of someone who doesn't seem to know the difference between the real science of astronomy and the pseudoscience of astrology and who at the same time whines about the 'better' science of days past, has been lost on all the moderators today. The fact that this person seems to also not be able to distinguish between the real science of biological evolution and its phony superstitious doppelganger "ID" is also quite telling. Hint: If scientific inquiry as a whole has actually declined in tthe last generation (I'm unconvinced) it is mainly due to the intellectual laziness and ineptitude of the sort prominently on display in the parent post.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
I grew up in the glory days of Apollo and I'm usually about as pro space exploration as they come, though I'm more pro Transformational and Rutan than NASA. But lately I really have switched to the camp that there are a lot better things to be doing with the money now.
In the 60's the U.S. was on top of the world economically and it could afford Apollo, though Apollo + Vietnam did severely tax the nation. Today the U.S. is about to top $8 trillion in debt and its current account deficit, which is all the money the U.S. borrows for both trade and budget deficits, is going out of sight under George W. Its around 6% of GDP which is far to high to be healthy.
Today the U.S. has managed to transfer much of its affluence to China so it follows China will be the one with the money to go to the moon in a decade or two.
Now given the choice between going to the Moon for $100 billion or squandering $500 billion in Iraq I'd take the Moon, or better yet a permanent colony on Mars for $500 billion. Unfortunately the morons in the White House have already squandered half of that money in Iraq and at present have no good way forward and no good way out.
I am nearly certain that if the U.S. does go back to the moon it will realize again when it gets there that there isn't really anything worthwhile to do there. A permanent Mars colony might have more point but the costs will be prohibitive in the current regime.
I'd come down firmly on the side of focusing all the attention and money in 3 other areas:
- Energy independence, especially from fossil fuels. It would make the world a lot better place period, whether global warming is real or not. It would sure help the U.S. economy especially when oil gets really tight. Unfortunately the auto, oil and coal companies have vast power in the U.S. and will frustrate any change that would deprive them of the status quo, just like they always have. There is also a problem of picking the right path to take.
- Fix the broken American education system. One thing that is needed is to identify all the best and brightest who have the skills this country needs and get them out of the medicore public schools and in to places where they can be nurtured in to top flight engineers and scientists. Teachers are underpaid and we cant give them all raises. We do need to hook all the best and brightest students up with all the best teachers, either in boarding schools or virtually, and pay THOSE teachers really well. Mediocre underpaid teachers are fine for mediocre, under motivated students. Its elitist but its a fact we can't focus all out attention on "No child left behind" and bringing up the worst students to barely tolerable when we should be focusing on getting all the best students to excel. Unfortunately there are a myriad of camps in the education system which will also frustrate fixing it.
- Improve economic competitiveness. First off completely eliminate all the pork barrel spending in the Federal government, and unfortunately that includes NASA's manned space program, and a lot of DOD spending, and just money being squandered everywhere. Of course when that is done there will be a severe recession because then we will realize how completely dependent our economy is on the government spending borrowed money. It would be great to get both taxes and deficits down so this country isn't at the mercy of Japan and China to keep it afloat. Unfortunately beyond that its a near impossibility to salvage the U.S. economy in a globalized world. American workers are expensive, poorly educated and poorly motivated and that is a bad combination in a globalized world.
Rebuilding the gulf coast isn't on the list. Why because that is certain to turn in to massive corruption, cronyism and greed. Its also a case of rebuilding a coastal region that will just get wiped again every few year by new hurricanes. In the era before air conditioning no one lived on the gulf. We forgot it wasn't just because it was hot and humid, it was also becaus
@de_machina
Evolution isn't exactly a good scientific theory itself or if you think otherwise please explain how you intend to perform double-blind experiments on macroevolution.
Otherwise shut up, you're just as superstitious as anybody else and you sully real science.
The above is what the Flying Spaghetti Monsterism crowd obviously misses out on: as far as real science goes macroevolution is in fact no better or more scientific than either intelligent design or his noodly appendage.
Fix the broken American education system... Unfortunately there are a myriad of camps in the education system which will also frustrate fixing it.
That's an understatement.
However, I think that you see two different goals as contradictory when they are not. We can both improve the abilities of the best and brightest, while also bringing up the ability of the 'normals' (for lack of a better word).
In other words, if we tell the special interest groups and the "self-esteem is the most important part of school" camps to sit down and shut up while we fix the mess they made, then we can both leave "no child left behind" while also "holding no child back."
(note: at a certain point, it becomes not leaving a child behind but letting them walk away if they choose. In order to prevent that, we need to change the culture(s) in America to see education as something to strive for.)
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys" P. J. O'Rourke
The problem has been that either the energy released is too much at once (H-Bombs), or has required more energy to initiate/sustain than is recoverable in a useful form (LASER facilities and cold fusion).
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
" while also bringing up the ability of the 'normals' (for lack of a better word)."
I think the key problem here is you can't make people learn or want to learn. Fact is some kids are gonna drop out, they are going to be stuck on welfare or minimum wage jobs. "No child left behind" was designed by the Bush administration to make public schools fail by making them teach kids who don't want to learn, and when the can't, they defund the public schools, and give kids vouchers for private schools. most of the private schools will be religious schools and they get what they want, bible lessons and prayer in schools funded by Federal dollars. All the kids private schools wont take still get left behind.
The only way Houston succeeded, which was the "model" for no child left behind, was they encouraged all the underachievers to drop out and forged all the records to make them look like transfers. Lo and behold Houston was a miracle success, when in fact it was a fraud leaving kids behind all over the place. Now this broken system has been inflicted on the entire nation. I predict the only schools that succeed are the ones that do what Houston did and force out all the kids who can't pass the test and forge their records. This is a lesson in why Federal government involvement in things like education is bad, because if they screw up they screw up EVERYTHING.
Public schools would be better off offering underachievers vocational tracks if they want them, which is what many countries do. Fact is a significant percentage of kids see no value in English, math, science or history, and never will. If they don't want to learn and don't want job skills then they need to be introduced early on to poverty without a net. Welfare is good for people who have disabilities, it is insane to give it to able bodied people, because you eliminate any incentive for them to get an education or job skills.
@de_machina
Vocational schooling in many other countries still includes more 'hard academics' then many high school programs in the US.
And I agree that 'no child left behind' as a Federal program is STUPID because education should be a LOCAL issue. If we allowed school districts to do what the local community wants, and then different communities can look to 'models' that are actually DOING something RIGHT, well then we'll finally have a good system.
The first thing to do, as we both agree, is to get all the 'experts' to shut up and stop trying to impose stupid top-down touchy-feely crap on America's schools. Now.
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys" P. J. O'Rourke