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Originally Posted by jseal
wyndhy,
It does not need to do so.
As crime rates are dropping, per the statistics referenced in the linked article, your conjecture, “there will be less money for after school programs. less productive stuff to do equals more crime,” which asserts that less money spent on after school programs results in more crime, is without substantiation.
As you made the claim, it is incumbent upon you to warrant the claim with supporting data. I did not say you were wrong, I said that the data does not support your conjecture. The notion may be appealing, it may be persuasive, but many appealing, persuasive ideas are ultimately shown to be unsubstantiated. Unless there is reason to believe that spending that money for that purpose is justified, it must struggle along with all the other “good ideas” for the very limited dollars available.
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you sound huffy. not sure why. i never said you had to agree with me or that you said i was wrong or any of that. once again, i am taking the things i have learned, coupling them with my own temperament and ideals and making a prediction about the future. more education has been shown to reduce everything from unwanted pregnancies to drug use to violent crime. i thought that was a pretty obvious connection. i don't even need a study or data to prove it to me. it's a no brainer, as far as im concerned
but, the children are the future and all that cliche, so if we need to prioritize where the money goes, i vote for primary and secondary education to be among the top five. top three even. our educational system is not great, it needs a major overhaul, but we shouldn't be cutting the budgets, we should be looking for ways to do a better job.
the us dept of justice did a study back in '01 (i believe) that showed about 35%of gen pop inmates and 50 percent of death row inmates lack a high school diploma or GED. in the general public only about 15 percent don't have a diploma or GED. i see a big difference. when we cut school budgets so drastically, the districts must compensate for the loss by laying off teachers and aides, cutting full day kindergarten and after school programs and using higher teacher to student ratios (which impacts the individual education of every child). it is inevitable (once again, to me) that there will be a negative impact on the education of the coming generations.
you guys talk about how great it was back then.....what was your class size? did you learn algebra in kindergarten? did you know what the word hyberbole meant by first grade and could you use it to great effect in your creative writing? did you have creative writing in first grade? could you name and locate over a dozen other countires on a world map when you were 5? were you taught to think critically in math before the age of 7? were you able to stay after school and join science explorers or reading olympics? did they have a violin teacher? i didn't get any of those things. we learned by rote and spent much of our time listening to teachers talk at us directly from a book. because of the budget cuts here we may lose all that and more. we are talking about 4 day school weeks and no kindergarten, no after school programs and no primary summer school. like i said, our system needs alot of work, but we've also come a long way. these budget cuts are a major step backward. in my not so humble opinion, an education is the key that can unlock any door. yes, you must be willing to work for "it" but if this continues, it won't matter how hard you work, there will be no "it" to get. a good education will be for the elite alone.
found an article
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap...6458363dcc37eaf