The CampFire

[Conservative]

Education does not have to cost very much at all. Today with ebook readers at under $200 text books don't have to cost much. One $189 Kindle can be all the text books a kid needs until he wears the thing out. I have spent next to nothing on the education of my kids and my 8 and 9 year old read better than many adults, are fluent in two languages and can use very complex words and concepts accurately. Today I had a very interesting conversation with my 8yr old daughter about parasites and their hosts. She was reading over my shoulder while I was studying Raoul Robinson's text "Return to Resistance" which is a fascinating book on breeding disease resistant plants. Up till now I think I have spent under $500 total on my kid's education and most of the materials will not have to be repurchased to educate the younger two. So closing public schools would not mean that the poor wouldn't have the opportunity to learn. If you value knowledge it is available at almost no cost.

As far as public money for education goes... I wouldn't accept that any more than I would accept food stamps. My parents were desperately poor, and NEVER accepted government assistance. We were so poor we got excited about road kill deer, saved our shoes for school and trips to town, grew a large portion of our own food, wore our clothes until they couldn't be patched any more etc... I will not stain my honor by accepting what was stolen from my neighbors at the point of the government gun.
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Politics: poly=many & tics blood sucking insects.

There are two kinds of games. Chess and everything else.

[irv]

Text books must be the all-time biggest money-making scam.

Chipster will probably tell you that some of his college texts costs hundreds of bucks a copy.

Yesterday, I just got a huge, hardbound, full-color copy of Cabelas' catalog in the mail, free of charge.

Consider that Cabelas had to pay photographers big money for each and every picture in that catalog, plus the typesetting, etc., and then tell me it costs more to produce a simple black & white text of the same size. I won't believe you.

Whatever they cost, Cabelas thinks it can afford to send them out to people like me who have only bought a couple hundred bucks worth from them in the last couple years. So it cannot cost all that much, they aren't stupid or broke, last time I checked.

[Mahachippy]

Yup, Irv is right!

My tuition for this fall - three graduate level classes is roughly $2050.00. My books will cost about $500 for those three classes but that's only because I'll get them through Amazon. I was a sucker for years and bought my books at the campus bookstore where it was not uncommon to pay from $600 to $900 depending upon how many classes I was taking just for books alone.

One semester I had four classes and the only available books for three of them, from the campus bookstore, were used copies...I still paid over $700 for books that semester.

In my 5.5 years of college I estimate that I've paid the equivalent of half of my tuition in books alone. Now, I am at a smaller state school so my tuition rates aren't through the roof yet (by the time I have my MBA next spring I will have spent probably right at $20K on tuition to earn both my Associates in Science, my BBA and my MBA - note that this also include 1.5 years of work at Paris Junior College where I went to get the basics out of the way and earn my Associate's of Science and then transferred here to finish up my last two undergrad years - but I've probably spent close to if not more than $10k on books alone). So while my entire education to get my Associate's, Bachelor's, and Master's degrees has been probably equivalent to getting just one Bachelor's or Master's degree at a larger state university or a private university, books have made up a large portion of that.

And please note that I completely agree with Irv that textbooks are a scam like no other. I realize that those who write them deserve their fair share of profits and that publishers have to make money but simple economics and economies of scale would suggest that at some point the costs would even out and be reduced. Yet that never...and I mean never happens with textbooks...even with old editions when new editions come out.


Now there are alternatives to college and college textbooks and I'm not saying that you can't get a good education from reading books from the library or via an eReader or whatever. All I'm saying is that if you want to go the college route, it's expensive no matter how you look at it and college textbooks are a major contributor to that expense.


I will say this with regard to teaching responsibility, critical thinking, and so on...it's amazing how many people make it to college without one iota of those things in their heads. I've talked to many professors here at my school and they are frustrated as all get out that they are essentially having to teach kids what should have been taught to them in K-12. However, the professors are stuck because we are a small school and every FTE (full time enrollment) adds a little more to the push for us to move forward with our new campus and ultimately our move to becoming a larger stand alone institution.

My parents were never slave drivers or anything but I was taught a work ethic, personal responsibility, and respect for others (especially my elders) from a very early age and so it, at times, simply boggles my mind that others don't have that same mentality. But couple that with the PC-mania that runs rampant in our society today and you have an educational system that is more concerned with telling parents and kids how to live rather than giving them the skills to actually live. I'm sure we all could list a million different skills that everybody should have but I fear we are in the minority these days as there really seems to be this disconnect between things that are really important and the tons of utterly useless crap that fills folk's minds these days. For instance, I know folks that know everything that's going on in Hollywood because they read every gossip magazine there is but they couldn't comprehend a simple recipe to save their lives.

I honestly just don't get it...I can understand folks not being taught stuff but at some point I would have to think that the curiosity or at least the self-preservation instinct would kick in for most folks and they would actually learn some life skills. But I guess it must be one of those "if you've never experienced it then you don't know what you're missing kind of things..."
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"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." Psalms 46:10

Defend the weak, protect both young and old, never desert your friends. Give justice to all, be fearless in battle and always ready to defend the right. Show welcome and good cheer to all of true heart.

Live with no excuses. Love with no regrets.

Buy when you're scared to death, sell when you're happy as hell!

[Orion]

Zero tolerance requires 0 discretion, 0 common sense, 0 debate, 0 decision making skills, 0 independent thought and 0 responsibility on the part of the bureaucracy that adopts the policy.

Pretty easy to see why it's so popular among school boards.

FWIW I cannot remember not carrying a pocket knife to school. It was expected that every boy and most of the girls had one.

When I was in the eighth grade (1974) I took my hunter training course in school. It was offered as an option.
The day we were to go to the gun range we were given the option of bringing our own rifle if we had one.
I walked the 10 blocks to school carrying my single shot Cooey .22 over my shoulder with 4 boxes of .22LR in my pockets. I carried the gun into school and stashed it in my locker until it was time for the bus to take us to the range.
Several of my friends also brought theirs.
After school I again walked the same 10 blocks home carrying the rifle. No swat teams were called, no baby kittens were killed, nobody who saw me ran screaming for their houses and the only things that were shot were some paper targets.
This was in a city of roughly 60,000, BTW.

Times sure have changed. I even read somewhere of some Boy Scouts who aren't allowed to bring knives to their meetings.
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Orion

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DCMG #13

"I'm just preparing my impromptu remarks."

- Winston Churchill

I will appeal, not to the freedom of speech or religion, but to the sacred and inalienable right to be left the hell alone.


- Andrew Coyne

[Old Judge Creek]

[Conservative]

Yes at this time college diplomas are still quite expensive. However with the strength of the home school movement and the widely recognized fact that many college diplomas aren't worth the paper they were printed on I think that something is going to change. The current situation is ridiculous.

I think that we will continue to see more online universities that are real schools without a campus or schools with a campus but the majority of their students are not on campus. University of South Africa is a good example. Low tuition and quality education. MIT went as far as making all their courses available online for FREE. http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm You can't get a diploma that way but you can get an education.

I think that there is going to be some kind of respectable alternative to the current system of higher education in the next 10 years.
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Politics: poly=many & tics blood sucking insects.

There are two kinds of games. Chess and everything else.

[Quill]

It also allows 0 from parents and the community.

[riverdog]

[irv]

[riverdog]

[kwbeagle]

Dusty, I had to enlist the aid of a friend to dig up this old email. Its right on target and funny too:

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1957 vs. 2010
Scenario 1:
Jack goes quail hunting before school and then pulls into the school parking lot with his shotgun in his truck's gun rack.
1957 - Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack's shotgun, goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack.
2010 - School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.

Scenario 2:
Johnny and Mark get into a fist fight after school.
1957 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up buddies.
2010 - Police called and SWAT team arrives -- they arrest both Johnny and Mark. They are both charged with assault and both expelled even though Johnny started it.

Scenario 3:
Jeffrey will not be still in class, he disrupts other students.
1957 - Jeffrey sent to the Principal's office and given a good paddling by the Principal. He then returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.
2010 - Jeffrey is given huge doses of Ritalin. He becomes a zombie. He is then tested for ADD. The family gets extra money (SSI) from the government because Jeffrey has a disability.

Scenario 4:
Billy breaks a window in his neighbor's car and his Dad gives him a whipping with his belt.
1957 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college and becomes a successful businessman.
2010 - Billy's dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy is removed to foster care and joins a gang. The state psychologist is told by Billy's sister that she remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison. Billy's mom has an affair with the psychologist.

Scenario 5:
Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school..
1957 - Mark shares his aspirin with the Principal out on the smoking dock
2010 - The police are called and Mark is expelled from school for drug violations. His car is then searched for drugs and weapons.

Scenario 6:
Pedro fails high school English.
1957 - Pedro goes to summer school, passes English and goes to college.
2010 - Pedro's cause is taken up by state. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist. ACLU files class action lawsuit against the state school system and Pedro's English teacher. English is then banned from core curriculum. Pedro is given his diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.


Scenario 7:
Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from the Fourth of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle and blows up a red ant bed.
1957 - Ants die.
2010 - ATF, Homeland Security and the FBI are all called. Johnny is charged with domestic terrorism. The FBI investigates his parents -- and all siblings are removed from their home and all computers are confiscated. Johnny's dad is placed on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.

Scenario 8:
Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him.
1957 - In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.
2010 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in State Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.


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Chief KW Beagle - Global Warming is a HOAX

If dogs don't go to Heaven, then I want to go where they go. - Will Rogers

****Pardon me while I adjust my teleprompter.****

Roll Tide!!!!Roll!!! 13 National Championships

[riverdog]

KW, that has made its rounds. My wife got it (or one very similar) on her school computer 2 years ago. It was being circulated around the school system to all the teachers. When it hit the admin computers at the central office they ordered it removed from the system. Shit sometimes has to flow uphill before it gets edited
and flows back downhill as a cleverly disguised denial.
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"The shallow-minded modern who has lost his rootage in the land assumes that he has already discovered what is important." Aldo Leopold