Education in the U.S.

We here in the U.S. are taking a lot of hits for our educational system. We don't score well on a lot of international tests, we have a higher drop-out rate and, according to all of the conservatives, we have bad, bad unions. Forget about the fact that those bad, bad unions spend millions of dollars every year fighting for legislation that will make schools better.

One reason that our educational system is probably weaker than most other nations is the diversity of our citizenry. We take in, and have taken in since the inception of the nation, immigrants from all over the world - including nations that don't have much history of educating their youth, meaning folks without the culture (like Japan) that have an intense drive to pursue learning.

We also have weakness because of a fatal flaw in the reasoning of those guiding the schools - they are convinced that everyone can, and wants to, and should learn the same stuff. Here in New York, with few exceptions, all high school students are required to take "Regents" classes that focus on more advanced language skills, algebra and geometry, Biology and earth science, etc. There's little room for the children whose interest focuses on technology, welding, auto mechanics, or even digging holes in the ground. In some districts, music and art are also after-thoughts. In many other nations around the world, children are sorted out, at some point, to get an education in a field that they are suited for and have an interest in.

Another reason our schools are weak is the religious influence that wants to dull the intellectual pursuits of science and increase the pursuit of subjects best left to harlequins and preachers. If your going to focus on crap like creationism and astrology, your children are going to look pretty dumb on tests that ask how long ago dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Now we've got at least one Federal judge who's going to provide sanctuary for the nincompoops that don't want to learn what the better educational systems are offering. Most likely, religious nuts who want their children to believe that the only true text is a dusty old book written over two-thousand years ago by an imaginary God that nobody can see, hear or touch.

The following is from the J-Walk blog...

A US judge has granted ­political asylum to a German family who said they had fled the country to avoid persecution for home schooling their children.

In the first reported case of its kind, Tennessee immigration judge Lawrence Burman ruled that the family of seven have a legitimate fear of prosecution for their beliefs. Germany requires parents to enrol their children in school in most cases and has levied fines against those who ­educate their children at home.

Christians Uwe Romeike, a piano teacher, and his wife, Hannelore, moved to Morristown, Tennessee, in 2008 after ­German authorities fined them thousands of euros for keeping their children out of school and sent police to escort them to classes, Romeike said. They had been holding classes in their home.

Along with thousands of torture victims, political dissidents, members of religious minorities and other persecuted groups who win political asylum every year, the Romeike family will now be free to live and work in the US.

Oh goodie - some more anti-science nuts to throw into the mix.