Would you be on the Jury?

[CrimsonNBlue]

Add to me being on board for free preschool and re-tooled public school:

Free lunch by default. A shame for any child here to be food insecure.

[ousdahl]

^^^

And man, when I got to junior high, we had more options for lunch.

I’d get chicken tenders and seasoned fries pretty much every day. They also had a la carte bowls of nacho cheese for like $.50, and I’d dip the tenders and fries and absolutely everything in it.

I was such a healthy 13 year old.

[Deleted User 863]

Free lunch by default. A shame for any child here to be food insecure.

Very good point with that.

With the shortened school schedule currently enacted in my kids district (shoter days and Wednesday is home school) they have food stations set up around the neighborhoods within the district where you can go get food for the kids for the week. It's basically like 5 breakfasts and 5 lunches (so cereal/pop tart/doughnut type stuff and then sandwiches/frozen pizza/lunchable type stuff). My kids love it. We ride bikes down and grab it every Wednesday.

[pdub]

Free public education is just free daycare for parents who can't afford to have kids.

Public schools can certainly be better than private schools.
Depends on the school.

[Cascadia]

I'm 100% with Cascadia on this. It needs to be school.

And, if it is school, that should only help HS students to not drop out.

You can re-tool how you set up HS. If you are not going to college, your curricula could be geared more toward trades, so you'd take more welding, shop, drafting, woodworking, home-ec type courses. If you're college bound you take AP courses and dual credit and prepare for college.

Exactly.

[pdub]

I'm 100% with Cascadia on this. It needs to be school.

And, if it is school, that should only help HS students to not drop out.

You can re-tool how you set up HS. If you are not going to college, your curricula could be geared more toward trades, so you'd take more welding, shop, drafting, woodworking, home-ec type courses. If you're college bound you take AP courses and dual credit and prepare for college.

Agree.
Many other nations implement this already.
Germany has an extreme form of this I don't think we need to go down ( where even earlier on it's determined what kind of route you are going to go ) - but I like giving students up til 9th or 10th grade to prove/figure it out for themselves.

[Deleted User 865]

Fuck it, raid the Boomer's coffers and redistribute that wealth. Population growth is slowing down so much that the only way to keep the economy moving forward is to bringing immigrants, or encourage young folks to have kids. People aren't having kids because they don't feel like they can afford them. Two people making Fed minimum wage at 40 hours a week is about $29,000, total, for both of them. This would at least be a start to have younger people more comfortable with humping without the goalie, because they know they will have more options to get into the work force sooner, and can get new minimum wage workers in 15 years.

[ousdahl]

Re: parents who can’t afford to have kids, does that at all segue from the quality sex ed some of us received in the how we learned it in school thread?

[CrimsonNBlue]

Re: parents who can’t afford to have kids, does that at all segue from the quality sex ed some of us received in the how we learned it in school thread?

One of my more conservative takes is how much I believe (lack of) family planning has had so much negative effect on societal issues.

Family Court is brutal and sad.

[PhDhawk]

I'm 100% with Cascadia on this. It needs to be school.

And, if it is school, that should only help HS students to not drop out.

You can re-tool how you set up HS. If you are not going to college, your curricula could be geared more toward trades, so you'd take more welding, shop, drafting, woodworking, home-ec type courses. If you're college bound you take AP courses and dual credit and prepare for college.

Agree.
Many other nations implement this already.
Germany has an extreme form of this I don't think we need to go down ( where even earlier on it's determined what kind of route you are going to go ) - but I like giving students up til 9th or 10th grade to prove/figure it out for themselves.

I will go ahead and be my own devil's advocate though and throw in the fact that very few people know what they want to do when they're 16 years old. And this does kinda lock you into a path at a pretty young age.

[pdub]

True.
But you can also likely ( not always ) tell ( not that it could drive a select few to a different path ) by that age if a student will be able to handle a path in college.

If that individual feels slighted and still wants to go to college, they'd have a 'mark' against them for finishing in the non-college path, but could still work specifically towards that goal and get in.

I'd imagine something like testing 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th graders - finding out strengths/weaknesses - and being honest with their scores to them and their parents/providers for those four years.

[TDub]

I'm 100% with Cascadia on this. It needs to be school.

And, if it is school, that should only help HS students to not drop out.

You can re-tool how you set up HS. If you are not going to college, your curricula could be geared more toward trades, so you'd take more welding, shop, drafting, woodworking, home-ec type courses. If you're college bound you take AP courses and dual credit and prepare for college.

Exactly.

On board with this,but we need to do a better job of presenting "non-college" employment paths as a legitimate path for some students. My school dumped the autobody class and shop whike i was there......so they wouldnt let kids learn skills but instead we were required to take a choir, art, or drama class?

There is money to be made in the trades and its a better path for some people. It took me years and lots of time in school, college, masters classes, and office work to realize i was happier and could make as good of money as a carpenter. We don't (at least when i was in school) present these paths are real options and do everything we can to steer people away from trades. There is a stigma with it that is unnecessary, in my opinion.



I personally, would've still gone to college...there are benefits to college that aren't directly tied to your career....but if the options are being a burger flipper or a welder.....well then, we should be encouraging people to learn skills. Particularly if school isnt their strong suit.

[pdub]

Absolutely.
I think giving students access to these courses the last 2 years of their free public education would bring more value to that career route -- and the teachers would be guided to emphasize that.

But on top of that, I'm individually pissed that shop was eliminated as a mandatory from public education where and when I was growing up. I wish I had gotten at least 2 semesters ( 1 year ) of shop class.

[Cascadia]

I'm 100% with Cascadia on this. It needs to be school.

And, if it is school, that should only help HS students to not drop out.

You can re-tool how you set up HS. If you are not going to college, your curricula could be geared more toward trades, so you'd take more welding, shop, drafting, woodworking, home-ec type courses. If you're college bound you take AP courses and dual credit and prepare for college.

Exactly.

On board with this,but we need to do a better job of presenting "non-college" employment paths as a legitimate path for some students. My school dumped the autobody class and shop whike i was there......so they wouldnt let kids learn skills but instead we were required to take a choir, art, or drama class?

There is money to be made in the trades and its a better path for some people. It took me years and lots of time in school, college, masters classes, and office work to realize i was happier and could make as good of money as a carpenter. We don't (at least when i was in school) present these paths are real options and do everything we can to steer people away from trades. There is a stigma with it that is unnecessary, in my opinion.



I personally, would've still gone to college...there are benefits to college that aren't directly tied to your career....but if the options are being a burger flipper or a welder.....well then, we should be encouraging people to learn skills. Particularly if school isnt their strong suit.

We’re on the same page here. They negative stigma associated with skills/trades needs to go. You can make a lot of money being an electrician, Plummer, welder, carpenter, millwright, etc

[CrimsonNBlue]

Things have likely changed quite a bit, but when I was a senior in HS, the Kansas curriculum was so bare bones that I was taking college courses and shooting hoops for at least 2-3 hours a day.

Cutting trade programs (and the arts) just seems like cheapness and/or improper/unconstitutional funding.

[PhDhawk]

I'm 100% with Cascadia on this. It needs to be school.

And, if it is school, that should only help HS students to not drop out.

You can re-tool how you set up HS. If you are not going to college, your curricula could be geared more toward trades, so you'd take more welding, shop, drafting, woodworking, home-ec type courses. If you're college bound you take AP courses and dual credit and prepare for college.

Exactly.

On board with this,but we need to do a better job of presenting "non-college" employment paths as a legitimate path for some students. My school dumped the autobody class and shop whike i was there......so they wouldnt let kids learn skills but instead we were required to take a choir, art, or drama class?

There is money to be made in the trades and its a better path for some people. It took me years and lots of time in school, college, masters classes, and office work to realize i was happier and could make as good of money as a carpenter. We don't (at least when i was in school) present these paths are real options and do everything we can to steer people away from trades. There is a stigma with it that is unnecessary, in my opinion.



I personally, would've still gone to college...there are benefits to college that aren't directly tied to your career....but if the options are being a burger flipper or a welder.....well then, we should be encouraging people to learn skills. Particularly if school isnt their strong suit.

Right, I get so pissed when I hear someone say, you wanna flip burgers or mow lawns for the rest of your life?

Fuck you, it's better than working 60 hours a week in some shitty office job.

And yeah, I'd love to own a food truck, or have a little burger joint in some cool location. That'd be tits.

I'd have been happy if I owned and worked for my own landscaping company, or had a job on the field crew for a major league ball park.

My entire youth I was told "you gotta go to college to get a good job" and it worked out for me, but not for many, and they left a shit load out, about debt, loans, jobs that are saturated, the fact that getting a degree isn't nearly enough for almost any "good job" etc.

[PhDhawk]

And, those art and music classes are great for those students too. We should also shut the fuck up about starving artists, or you gotta get a job.

You can make money in the arts, if that's what your passion is and what you're talented at you should do that.

[TDub]

Im not hating on the art classes....just think its silly that one is forced and the other isnt even available. In a terrible singer and a terrible artist. I was required to take those classes but learning trade skills wasnt even available as an option (well they cut the programs my junior year). Luckily for me

A. I was good at school
B. I had a dad and a grandad that were very handy and qe were always working on the house/the car whatever...and another grandad that was a machinist so I was able to learn and be exposed to other things outside of the education system. Lots of kids aren't that fortunate

[pdub]

Yup.
Both should be at the least, be available.
I'd argue a little of both should be mandatory.

[twocoach]

I'm 100% with Cascadia on this. It needs to be school.

And, if it is school, that should only help HS students to not drop out.

You can re-tool how you set up HS. If you are not going to college, your curricula could be geared more toward trades, so you'd take more welding, shop, drafting, woodworking, home-ec type courses. If you're college bound you take AP courses and dual credit and prepare for college.

Hasn't high school curricula been set up that way for decades? I had options to take more trade-centric classes or more college-centric classes back in the late 80s when I went to school and now so do my kids.