Education - The Big Patronage Program Fraudulently Piggybacking on A Good Idea

All great frauds need a semblance of truth. The best frauds create a myth so powerful people are compelled to agree with it and not even critically examine it.
Take education today. Who can argue that education isn't beneficial under the right circumstances? Take smart, dedicated students with a drive to learn something useful and improve their lives, and it looks like the only thing an enlightened society should do. Take hard working, talented teachers who lift those students to bigger and better things, and society benefits. A great principle or administrator is a treasure.
But let's examine the reality. In the Dallas Independent School District, for instance, entire "high schools" produce less than 2% college ready students, yet the community doesn't want a single person fired - they want more "resources" to "combat the underlying causes" which essentially means more patronage jobs. Because a college degree is considered the goal of every parent, every two bit wanna be college (such as Cougar High, aka The University of Houston) not only pops up to fill a non existent "need" but they pay people to study reasons why they need to grow and grow and grow, until you have tens of thousands of "scholars" going to essentially self sustaining palaces of PR and BS, and geared towards receiving as much assistance from the community and government as possible.
Some people need a specialized area of study and research. Medical Doctors come to mind, so do researchers into public health, economists, maybe even a few lawyers.
But do we really need every asshole in every stupid, boring, repetitive and barely meaningful job out there with a college degree? I mean, do you really need a college degree to be a half-assed salesman of cars or tractors? Does the manager of McD's need much beyond training at Hamburger University?
The college industry is mostly just another government employment project.
It seems like most of the tech innovators, like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, dropped out of college, anyway.

Education has gone down hill since the Deparment of Educations was established to prevent it.

Well put!

This is the new football stadium in Allen, Texas, a fast-growing suburb of Dallas with a population of about 85,000. (It’s just north of Plano.) Quite a sports palace for a high school, don’t you think? It cost about $60 million and seats about 18,000. Among other things, the facility has a huge, high-definition screen.

It was financed, along with a few other grandiose local projects, by a $119 million bond offering.

But is this really the way we should be spending money? It seems to me that there are far more pressing needs.

This is the new football stadium in Allen, Texas, a fast-growing suburb of Dallas with a population of about 85,000. (It’s just north of Plano.) Quite a sports palace for a high school, don’t you think? It cost about $60 million and seats about 18,000. Among other things, the facility has a huge, high-definition screen.

It was financed, along with a few other grandiose local projects, by a $119 million bond offering.

But is this really the way we should be spending money? It seems to me that there are far more pressing needs.

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

Incredibly large wastes of money like this encourage a bunch of fat slobs to drink beer and watch games on TV, rather than do something worthwhile - like exercise or read a book, or God forbid, earn a paycheck instead of mooching off of conservative taxpayers.

Education has gone down hill since the Deparment of Educations was established to prevent it. Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

If you are truly a teacher I would have to agree with you.

Incredibly large wastes of money like this encourage a bunch of fat slobs to drink beer and watch games on TV actually, it encourages a bunch of idiot parents to try to relive their own "almost, but not quite" lives (see Corneyhole) through their children and when the big time contracts don't materialize, then they retire to the boob-toob, rather than do something worthwhile - like exercise or read a book, or God forbid, earn a paycheck instead of mooching off of conservative taxpayers thanks, Jewrish Inbred, it's good to know that none of my tax dollars go to support such behavior. Originally Posted by Jewish Lawyer

Haven't you heard, "sports are a metaphor for life." All coaches preach the hell outta that one.

And here, all along, I thought you Jewrish types were supposed to be smart, sophisticated and all that. Maybe you just found a beanie without a propeller and converted.

Haven't you heard, "sports are a metaphor for life." All coaches preach the hell outta that one.

And here, all along, I thought you Jewrish types were supposed to be smart, sophisticated and all that. Maybe you just found a beanie without a propeller and converted. Originally Posted by Randy4Candy

Wow - did you know BIgFatLouie preaches that "hamburgers are a metaphor for life" and WTF preaches "stupidity is Randy4Dicks life?"

Needless to say, your last comment marks you as an anti-semite........

Incredibly large wastes of money like this encourage a bunch of fat slobs to drink beer and watch games on TV actually, it encourages a bunch of idiot parents to try to relive their own "almost, but not quite" lives (see Corneyhole) through their children and when the big time contracts don't materialize, then they retire to the boob-toob, rather than do something worthwhile - like exercise or read a book, or God forbid, earn a paycheck instead of mooching off of conservative taxpayers thanks, Jewrish Inbred, it's good to know that none of my tax dollars go to support such behavior.. Originally Posted by Randy4Candy

If only those paying income tax could vote, the Democrats would lose every election.

Kill the government!

OK, so now that there's a political forum, are you going to stay out of it, too? Or are you going to be an asshole and find a way to sleaze out of your promise?

Adios MOFO!

Kill the government!

OK, so now that there's a political forum, are you going to stay out of it, too? Or are you going to be an asshole and find a way to sleaze out of your promise?

Adios MOFO! Originally Posted by Yssup Rider

You might read the fine print, asshole. I said the National Sandbox, only. I never promised to stay out of a forum that didn't even exist at the time of my agreement with someone else!

Plus, I get one pro-Israeli/Jewish post per month in the National Sandbox.

Here's one in support of JL:
Years ago when I was living in the Chicago area, a few politicians had the audacity to float the idea that the Archdiocese of Chicago should take over management of the Chicago Public Schools. They agreed that no religious or religion-oriented courses would be taught in the public schools, and that the instructors would all wear civilian clothes and be addressed as Mr., Mrs., or Miss, so the students wouldn't necessarily know whether they were lay teachers or priests/nuns.
The reasons for this were mainly twofold: first, there was and still is a staggering difference in the quality of the education received in the Chicago Catholic school system and the Chicago Public Schools. Second, while the Catholic system has about half the number of students as CPS, they operated at the time on about one tenth of the budget. That would have been a savings for Chicago and Illinois taxpayers of millions of dollars a year.
So naturally the Chicago Teachers Union fights the proposal, because they have useless, non-performing teachers' jobs to save, and the proposal never even gets introduced into the City Council. Too bad, and another example of government jobs protected at the expense of the very people they're supposed to be serving.

Here's one in support of JL:
Years ago when I was living in the Chicago area, a few politicians had the audacity to float the idea that the Archdiocese of Chicago should take over management of the Chicago Public Schools. They agreed that no religious or religion-oriented courses would be taught in the public schools, and that the instructors would all wear civilian clothes and be addressed as Mr., Mrs., or Miss, so the students wouldn't necessarily know whether they were lay teachers or priests/nuns.
The reasons for this were mainly twofold: first, there was and still is a staggering difference in the quality of the education received in the Chicago Catholic school system and the Chicago Public Schools. Second, while the Catholic system has about half the number of students as CPS, they operated at the time on about one tenth of the budget. That would have been a savings for Chicago and Illinois taxpayers of millions of dollars a year.
So naturally the Chicago Teachers Union fights the proposal, because they have useless, non-performing teachers' jobs to save, and the proposal never even gets introduced into the City Council. Too bad, and another example of government jobs protected at the expense of the very people they're supposed to be serving. Originally Posted by Poet Laureate

Bravo, PL, and thanks for the support.

You might read the fine print, asshole. I said the National Sandbox, only. I never promised to stay out of a forum that didn't even exist at the time of my agreement with someone else!

Plus, I get one pro-Israeli/Jewish post per month in the National Sandbox. Originally Posted by Jewish Lawyer

I feel sorry for the poor schmuck who shelled out good bucks to shut you up. You should at least double his donation and give him his money back.

Lets not forget fiscal and political mismanagement. When I was in New Orleans they passed a bond to raise over $278 million to build more schools in the state. They gave the numbers of schools that needed to be built and how many more needed air conditioning. What was missing was money for maintenance. So a couple of years after they got their bond they had to go back to the public and ask for more money which got defeated. So here it is years later and they have the same schools falling apart again.

Further back my own high school "had" to pay for a tennis team, a golf team, and a swimming team. Seems that a local rich man left money and land for a community center next to the high school if the school had complete access. So a school with a student population of 700 fielded a football, basketball, wrestling, tennis, swimming, and a golf team but won't pay for decent teachers. They like to find teachers who could teach algebra and tennis, chemistry and football, health and wrestling (those represent actual teachers). Only the algebra teacher was actually a math major, the rest were phys ed majors.