First Amendment no big deal, high school students say

felson · #1 01-31-2005, 04:19 PM

" Yet, when told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes "too far" in the rights it guarantees. Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories...

"The results reflected indifference, with almost three in four students saying they took the First Amendment for granted or didn't know how they felt about it. It was also clear that many students do not understand what is protected by the bedrock of the Bill of Rights.

"Three in four students said flag burning is illegal. It's not. About half the students said the government can restrict any indecent material on the Internet. It can't. "

http://tinyurl.com/6jxtv

Maybe this is just another example of the ignorance of our nation's students, but I think it's sad when half of them do not object to government censorship of the press.

BCPVP · #2 01-31-2005, 04:39 PM

Says alot about our public education system doesn't it?
And we wonder why we're falling behind the rest of the world in other subjects?

andyfox · #3 01-31-2005, 05:37 PM

"Says alot about our public education system doesn't it?"

From the article:
"The survey, conducted by researchers at the University of Connecticut, is billed as the largest of its kind. More than 100,000 students, nearly 8,000 teachers and more than 500 administrators at 544 public and private high schools took part in early 2004." [Emphasis added]

Polls have always revealed lack of knowledge about, and disagreement with, our Bill or Rights being widespread among both students and the general population.

Felix_Nietsche · #4 01-31-2005, 05:59 PM

Yep....the key question is did the private school students score higher than the public school students... The post does not say.

BUT private school students do score higher on standardize tests than public school students. My guess is the private school student knew more about civics than their counterparts....

Felix_Nietsche · #5 01-31-2005, 05:20 PM

Teacher's unions have been screwing up public education for the last 40 years through the introduction of Politically Correct school books and GROSS mismanagement of money on TOP HEAVY administration......... The average 20 year old has no clue the subtle brainwashing introduced in the school curriculum...

Competition will cure the country's education woes.... And the public schools that provide a good education, will be flooded with students. Those schools who don't will close and private schools will flourish at their expense.

andyfox · #6 01-31-2005, 05:38 PM

The survey included private schools.

Felix_Nietsche · #7 01-31-2005, 06:03 PM

The post does not say who had a greater knowledge of civics. Since private school student out perform public school students, my guess is the private school students had better civic knowledge.....

andyfox · #8 01-31-2005, 06:12 PM

I think we both agree that it's likely. I suppose the question is should we therefore encourage private alternatives to public primary education or should we be striving to improve public education? And are the two goals mutually exclusive?

Felix_Nietsche · #9 01-31-2005, 06:38 PM

We should take the path of least resistence to improve education.
The greatest amount of resistence for education reform will come from the Teachers unions and school bureaucrats.

Teachers Unions and public school bureauracrats are too entrenched and too arrogant to expect them cooperate with the reform needed to correct public education. Their past behavior has demostrated they are more concerned with their own power than providing quality education. Despite having the power, they have failed to solve the problem for the last 20 years. They have fought all accountability measures for they fear it could result in job losses. They want jobs for life with out the responsibility of having to do their jobs well..

They are unworthy of second chances....

Vouchers allows the free market to close poor schools and reward good schools with more money....

lastchance · #10 01-31-2005, 06:27 PM

Kids who go into private schools will have parents that really care about their education. This is probably a big reason why they will do better on tests.

Also, Private Schools (since you have to pay for them), generally get more money to give kids better teachers and a better education overall.

I would say these are the primary reasons for the difference between the achievement of public schools and those of private schools, not that the government has somehow severely botched public schooling.