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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 3:01 pm 
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Hell, I'm still trying to figure out why handing out bachelor's degrees like Pop Tarts and Go-Gurt at an elementary school breakfast is a good idea. Fifteen years ago, a high school student could be the Assistant Manager at a McDonald's while keeping abreast of his studies. Today, he needs either 8 years of experience or a Bachelor's Degree to do the same god damned thing.

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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 3:02 pm 
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Corolinth wrote:
Interesting. In that case, it's really a scam, although it's the parents being scammed out of money. Allow me to present an alternate perspective that probably hasn't come up, yet.

Any student who purchases a letter grade improvement will have one of two things happen. The first is that it will be readily apparent, upon looking at his entrance exams (SAT or ACT), that the student is not actually an A student. The second is that the student practically aces said exams and was only a B student because it was never worth his time to do homework assignments.

High school grades are complete bullshit. Students are graded, not by how well they do, but by how hard they "try," or some other nonsense. I had a biology class my freshman year of high school where some essay on a black scientist was worth half of our grade. It was some stupid Black History Month assignment. High school classes do **** like that. In most high school courses, students are graded primarily (sometimes exclusively) on homework. Exams are given as a token gesture. They don't effect your grade any. This was something that perennially frosted me.

So is the school actually selling better grades, or are they just holding the kids hostage for the grades they might have actually earned? "We realize that your child is very bright, and is actually at the top of all of his classes. For $150, we'll let him have his A in trigonometry without making him write that report on breast cancer awareness." You might be wondering what breast cancer has to do with trigonometry that makes it worth a full letter grade.



The A student who earned it, and aced his standardized tests is cheated by this, and it is disingenuous to say that a student who has a middling performance on his SATs and has an A average has no clear advantage over another student with similar testing and a B average. It also helps foster the erroneous notion that a bachelors degree has any real merit, and disincentives hard work. Incidentally, this is one of the more affluent districts in the state.

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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 3:24 pm 
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I'm not suggesting that selling grade improvements is the right thing to do. I'm pointing out other reasons why it's wrong.

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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 3:26 pm 
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Corolinth wrote:
Any student who purchases a letter grade improvement will have one of two things happen. The first is that it will be readily apparent, upon looking at his entrance exams (SAT or ACT), that the student is not actually an A student.


SAT scores are not an indicator of grades.

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High school grades are complete bullshit. Students are graded, not by how well they do, but by how hard they "try," or some other nonsense.


Then why are you suggesting you can tell a student's grades based on his SAT scores?


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 3:35 pm 
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Arathain Kelvar wrote:
Corolinth wrote:
Any student who purchases a letter grade improvement will have one of two things happen. The first is that it will be readily apparent, upon looking at his entrance exams (SAT or ACT), that the student is not actually an A student.


SAT scores are not an indicator of grades.


They are a great indicator of grades. A student with a high GPA score has developed strong verbal and mathematical skills. These skills come from a mixture of intellect and practice... the practice being school work throughout the years. Usually the people with low SAT scores have habitually skirted this school work, and also have low grades.


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 3:39 pm 
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Corolinth wrote:
High school grades are complete bullshit. Students are graded, not by how well they do, but by how hard they "try," or some other nonsense. I had a biology class my freshman year of high school where some essay on a black scientist was worth half of our grade. It was some stupid Black History Month assignment. High school classes do **** like that. In most high school courses, students are graded primarily (sometimes exclusively) on homework. Exams are given as a token gesture. They don't effect your grade any. This was something that perennially frosted me.


I don't believe that all schools are like this. While I had a class or two that I would have considered soft on some areas, the majority actually cared about you learning the material and you needed to show that you understood it.


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 3:43 pm 
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Lex Luthor wrote:
Arathain Kelvar wrote:
Corolinth wrote:
Any student who purchases a letter grade improvement will have one of two things happen. The first is that it will be readily apparent, upon looking at his entrance exams (SAT or ACT), that the student is not actually an A student.


SAT scores are not an indicator of grades.


They are a great indicator of grades. A student with a high GPA score has developed strong verbal and mathematical skills. These skills come from a mixture of intellect and practice... the practice being school work throughout the years. Usually the people with low SAT scores have habitually skirted this school work, and also have low grades.


I have found this to be absolutely not the case. Good grades can be achieved through hard work, with minimal talent. Same grades can be achieved by less work with greater talent.

You can't "work hard" on the SAT. It's about measuring the talent.


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 3:45 pm 
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Arathain Kelvar wrote:
Lex Luthor wrote:
Arathain Kelvar wrote:

SAT scores are not an indicator of grades.


They are a great indicator of grades. A student with a high GPA score has developed strong verbal and mathematical skills. These skills come from a mixture of intellect and practice... the practice being school work throughout the years. Usually the people with low SAT scores have habitually skirted this school work, and also have low grades.


I have found this to be absolutely not the case. Good grades can be achieved through hard work, with minimal talent. Same grades can be achieved by less work with greater talent.

You can't "work hard" on the SAT. It's about measuring the talent.


No, it's about measuring mathematical, verbal, and written skills. These can all be learned and mastered by anyone. This is similar to how anybody can be good at chess. Obviously, smarter people have an advantage, but this is like height in basketball. Anyone can get good at the SAT with a strong enough motivation.


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 3:47 pm 
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Khross wrote:
Hell, I'm still trying to figure out why handing out bachelor's degrees like Pop Tarts and Go-Gurt at an elementary school breakfast is a good idea.


No one in this thread has suggested doing anything even remotely like this.


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 3:48 pm 
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When I was in high school, my Chemistry/Physics teacher made us write lab summaries after each lab. He graded the lab based on the amount of paper taken up by the summary. Since I have tiny writing, I would usually fill about half a page and get a B. Other people would write with bigger handwriting and get an A for filling up the whole page. Once, a classmate decided to be an *** and inserted random sentences about Mickey Mouse and Disney World in the lab summary to see if the teacher actually read the summaries. He got an A. :x

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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 3:51 pm 
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Back to the chess example... in high school there was this guy who could beat me in chess. He was the high school quarterback and his academic rank was about 170/180 (mine was 15/180). So in study hall, we'd play chess and he'd win about two thirds of the games. And he'd laugh at me because everyone in school thought I was so smart. Then one day I noticed his yahoo account on the classroom's computer, and it said 1400 chess games played.


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 3:57 pm 
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Aizle wrote:
Khross wrote:
Hell, I'm still trying to figure out why handing out bachelor's degrees like Pop Tarts and Go-Gurt at an elementary school breakfast is a good idea.
No one in this thread has suggested doing anything even remotely like this.
Didn't really say anyone did either. It is, however, the actual policy direction our nation adopted with regard to post-secondary education.

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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 4:13 pm 
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Khross wrote:
Aizle wrote:
Khross wrote:
Hell, I'm still trying to figure out why handing out bachelor's degrees like Pop Tarts and Go-Gurt at an elementary school breakfast is a good idea.
No one in this thread has suggested doing anything even remotely like this.
Didn't really say anyone did either. It is, however, the actual policy direction our nation adopted with regard to post-secondary education.


I don't believe that is an accurate statement at all. At most there has been an increased emphasis on getting a post-secondary degree. Now capitalism being what it is, there most certainly are less credible schools out there trying to pass off shoddy education on the unsuspecting, but the vast majority of our post-secondary schools are producing a decent quality product and degrees/grades that are earned.


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 5:53 pm 
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Aizle wrote:
Khross wrote:
It is, however, the actual policy direction our nation adopted with regard to post-secondary education.
I don't believe that is an accurate statement at all. At most there has been an increased emphasis on getting a post-secondary degree. Now capitalism being what it is, there most certainly are less credible schools out there trying to pass off shoddy education on the unsuspecting, but the vast majority of our post-secondary schools are producing a decent quality product and degrees/grades that are earned.

I think you might be misinterpreting Khross' critique, Aizle. If I understand correctly, his point is that overall education policy in this country has been deliberately aimed at increasing the percentage of the population that attends college (e.g. college-prep curricula at the local level; funding of bachelor degree-granting schools rather than vocational schools at the state level; financial aid/loans at the federal level; etc.). He believes that's misguided because, among other things, it: (i) results in lower academic standards for attaining a college degree; (ii) encourages many people to go to college who would actually be better off doing something else; and (iii) thereby both raises the cost of getting a degree and devalues the employment advantages of having it for those who actually are suited to college.


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 5:57 pm 
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Also, it means we lose a large portion of skilled "blue collar" labor.

It's quite hard to find a competent machinist, welder, etc. these days, even though they make great money.

People are being pushed into college, and often end up in degrees that offer little to no actual skills/job opportunities.

I met someone recently that finished college with around 300k in debt and a degree in social work. He will never be able to recover from this.

I also have a friend with close to 150-200k in debt and a degree in English. Even though it's a good program, her job options now aren't that great, and it will be a long time before she pays off her debt.

Even if you except debt from the equation, many of the most common degrees (ie, have the most people graduate) have the least job options- you see far more English majors than engineers.

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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 7:36 pm 
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Considering how shit-ily funded public schools are, this does not surprise me in the least.

But yes, extremely shady. Congrats on graduating the next generation of dullards.


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 7:45 pm 
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whoever came up with the idea needs to be beaten with a rotten trout that has been allowed to sit in the Vegas summertime sun for a day.

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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 8:39 pm 
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Anyone else think that the bottom line here is the bottom line; that really this is just a way to generate more money for the school district and actually has nothing to do with what are ostensibly its goals?

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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 8:43 pm 
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Rodahn wrote:
Considering how ****-ily funded public schools are, this does not surprise me in the least.


Spending being around $10,000 per student, I find this comment to be rather funny. We spend more and get less. At this rate, perhaps we should spend $20,000 and pass all students with "F" or above.


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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 9:08 pm 
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Arathain Kelvar wrote:
You can't "work hard" on the SAT. It's about measuring the talent.


Sure you can.

This is why and how study guides exist for both it and the ACT, and why modern versions of neither test are qualifiers for MENSA. Conversely, there is no "IQ Test Study Guide," because IQ tests examine "talent."

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PostPosted: Thu Aug 26, 2010 11:15 pm 
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DFK! wrote:
Sure you can.

This is why and how study guides exist for both it and the ACT, and why modern versions of neither test are qualifiers for MENSA. Conversely, there is no "IQ Test Study Guide," because IQ tests examine "talent."

This. You can absolutely study/practice your way into higher SAT scores. The first time I took the SAT was a cold run; no studying. I continued studying in various ways -- mostly a few used SAT study guides and the free week-long prep class offered by school district during the summer. Along the way, I took the official SAT I believe 4 times. Might have been 5. Each time, my score increased. From my first testing to the last, my score went up by nearly 200 points.

Granted, this was in 1997. By reputation, the older pre-1980 SAT was harder to "game". Pre-1980 scores tend to correlate well to IQ and not much else.

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PostPosted: Fri Aug 27, 2010 12:20 am 
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I'm honestly wondering what the product that colleges are selling these days is. Remember, instead of going to college, you could go to employers in your chosen field and offer to work for them for free for four years. So college has to provide something that's better than those four years of experience.

Right now higher education seems like one of those nasty self-fulfilling prophecies. You only need it because everyone has the perception that you do. It's like the American Dream of the last two decades, if you wanted to be somebody, you "needed" to own a home for reasons that were never quite clear.

Also, English degrees are the most common? Really? The two 3000-level English classes I had to take in college were the hardest classes I took. None of my science courses ever required me to produce a document in a week's time where fifty citations was the minimum to not fail.


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PostPosted: Fri Aug 27, 2010 7:08 am 
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Xequecal wrote:
Also, English degrees are the most common? Really? The two 3000-level English classes I had to take in college were the hardest classes I took. None of my science courses ever required me to produce a document in a week's time where fifty citations was the minimum to not fail.
Your English classes did not have such a requirement either. Fifty citations is between 4 and 5 times the average required for a peer reviewed article published in the PMLA. So, unless you were simply writing literature reviews, I'm going to suggest this comment is a bit exaggerated.

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PostPosted: Fri Aug 27, 2010 7:15 am 
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Xequecal wrote:
I'm honestly wondering what the product that colleges are selling these days is. Remember, instead of going to college, you could go to employers in your chosen field and offer to work for them for free for four years. So college has to provide something that's better than those four years of experience.


No one would take you up on that deal because of the possibility of it being perceived as slavery or indentured servitude. If this were realistic, people would actually do it.

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PostPosted: Fri Aug 27, 2010 7:35 am 
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Diamondeye wrote:
Xequecal wrote:
I'm honestly wondering what the product that colleges are selling these days is. Remember, instead of going to college, you could go to employers in your chosen field and offer to work for them for free for four years. So college has to provide something that's better than those four years of experience.


No one would take you up on that deal because of the possibility of it being perceived as slavery or indentured servitude. If this were realistic, people would actually do it.

They do, not for four years, but it is an unpaid internship.

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