@Matt Thank you for your great input --- I totally agree with you that we need to do more with creativity and athletics --- phy ed at SHS from what I have witnessed is a joke --- they don't even need a shower afterwards as they do not work up a sweat!! I would also add languages -- wouldn't it be great starting in first grade if there was one day a week in which they totally immersed in the chosen language?

Arnie,

You're personalizing this on a teacher to student one on one basis. What I'm suggesting is that if the organization as a whole is producing less than acceptable results, then the organization as a whole needs to look at what it's doing as a whole, compared to the desired goal and make changes accordingly. Using the Real Estate example, if a company consistently finds its underperforming at a particular rate across its entire sales staff, then it needs to look at what it does as an organization that causes that to happen. I'm making an assumption that good agents would stick with an organization like that for the sake of argument. Any house can sell if it's priced right. However, if a company has a policy of always acquiescing to the homeowner's desire to price out of the market, for instance, it's most likely going to have more unsuccessful listings.

Similarly, if a university, for instance, is consistently experiencing a situation where, despite having invested a lot of their own money and time, students are not obtaining degrees at an acceptable rate, it needs to investigate why that is and what it needs to do about that. I guess I have to ask you at this point if, in fact those figures are correct as stated by the chancellor, do you yourself find that acceptable?

Sarah, I think what David's suggesting (obviously he can speak for himself) and know what I'm suggesting is that it's not so much the staff as it is the focus and the degree to which its seen as an imperative. The job market has changed drastically in this country in a very short period of time. It's not going back to what it was. I think most people recognize that.

I think that the urgency with which these problems be addressed, due to the nature of funding for education, is not what it should be. I'm not a fan of the whole "Occupy" movement, but I can't help but note the degree to which debt amongst those who invested in a college education that ultimately did not result in employment became one of the major issues. I honestly think that, so far, the education field has dodged a bullet in that regard as, for whatever reason, those who find themselves in that situation seem to be more angry with the folks that provided them the funding to get an education that ultimately did not serve them well in the marketplace, than with those who actually sold it to them.

I think higher education had better find a way to more accurately analyze the job market and be able to make changes to their curriculum accordingly in a timely fashion, or they're ultimately going to find much of the system supplanted with a self-driven, online form of education that provides many students what they need to obtain a job.

Heather: Agreed. I would push it even further down the chain and state that at the end of grade school there should be a trade vs college prep track. On the trade track give them basic money handling and business skills as well as the proper trade(plumbing, electrical, etc) and get them out of the system in 2 or so years. Give them a voucher for trade school and move them on their way. The truth is the vast majority of students in the US are not college material. And we make it worse by spending billions on these junk for profit "universities" that are so common in strip malls and so on.

I'm not sure that all the 'for profit' strip mall 'universities' are all that bad though. Many do provide a similar level of education as other tech schools and can help students find their way to a good job.

I do agree that not all people should be going to a 4 year college program after HS. I would like to see an option in high school to do a trade school track. Let the students go to a tech school instead of attending all the traditional high school classes. They did it at the high school I attended with great success. The students still graduated along with the rest of us and earned both a HS diploma and an Associates Degree in their trade.

@Heather

I agree that in our society Nobody wants to be told what their kid should do or is suited for ...... BUT I think that we can create the opportunity for the Kids Themselves to choose a career path that suits them!

Why not have shop for Everyone? I know MD's who like to work on cars --- it would be helpful to all, whether they pursue that or not.

And who is to say that a career started will end the same way? Ron Paul was an MD, not he is a politician -- and who knows, if he lives another 20 years, he may pursue something totally different!

It is not that we give our kids a college prep education --- it is that we ONLY give them that education, and therefore limit not only their options for the future -- but much worse, we don't even let them know what those options are!

And I agree with Matt that we need to put more Creative aspects into education, and cover more of the WHOLE CHILD --- mental, physical, artistic, linguistic.........................

Colleges are a business, a rather LARGE business, and just as the diamond industry has told us we need to spend 2 months salary on an engagement ring, the higher education industry has marketed themselves as the savior to all mankind. We are told from very young that we are NOTHING without a college degree. What a load of crap!
I was just in a conversation with several kids who were halfway through college, and NEITHER could even give basic concepts regarding World War II. One of them actually thought that Vietnam was involved with Japan, and we dropped one of the bombs on Vietnam!! But they sure know how to play some killer games on their new I-Phone!

The difference between Germany and the US is employers are no longer, for the most part, willing to train new employees. They want new employees to be fully trained and experienced. Thing is because of the high unemployment, these companies can pick and chose because the pool is so big.

I agree a big problem is parents, and the schools are afraid of a mad ranting parent. But it becomes a vicious circle, the teachers then say, 'why do I even try?'
The code of conduct is not enforced, which makes all rules more like guidelines. This is in stark contrast to the world of employment.
In my school district they also have a financial literacy class. The semester's biggest lesson is picking hot stocks. Investing $100,000 of monopoly money to see who does the best job. That is great, but who has a hundred grand laying around? Teach budgeting, saving sytematicaly, and credit issues. Teach them to pay cash and not borrow. The class did not even cover how to balance a checkbook!
I understand that we want classes to be fun, but when it has no application to the real world- it is a waste of time and money.
Before any reform can take place, we have to start with rules. They must be enforced, and administrators need to grow a pair.

I think dress code rules do need to be enforced every time; haven't we learned something from the broken window theory? That said, the boys are dropping their drawers as soon as they leave a classroom and pulling them up before they enter the next classroom--and the girls take off the loose outer top to reveal the tight one showing cleavage once they get to school. Heavens, the Catholic girls in the 60s used to roll up their skirts once they got to school and before the nuns made them kneel to prove their hemlines touched the ground in that positino. You can't patrol what happens when you turn your back but yes, once you spot the girl with the Kiss Me thong sticking out of her jeans, she should go directly to the office without passing go. It does happen when they catch them from what I can tell but really, we ask so much of teachers. Couldn't parents forego buying the Kiss Me thong in the first place, and teach their kids that if you don't like the rules you should lobby to change them instead of sneaking about?

ALL teachers should be leading by example in their personal behavior, lifestyle, dress, appearance, language, etc. Teachers are there to teach and lead, not be the students best bud.

My public schooling at least taught me to spell 'government'.

I was being facetious, did the gubmint school learn you that word?

@Alfred -- Yes, the public schools taught me that word. I forget exactly where, in the course of my education, I learned that deliberately using ignorant terminology to denigrate something merely makes a person look juvenile, but I took it to heart.

As for public schools being 'expensive', you don't seem to realize that public schools are laboring under a greater burden than private institutions that can cherry-pick their students. Public schools must offer an education to every child, including some with profound disabilities whose yearly costs may exceed tens of thousands of dollars.

Randy, we are over paying public school teachers, the data is on line. Working a 9 month job for an average of $70k salary, plus another $30k in benefits? Really? For this horrible work product? For $100k you could hire two new college graduates who have not been burned out and do a better job. Walker is right to go after these damn unions, God bless him.

@Alfred -- You've obviously forgotten the discussion several decades ago when we decided we had to lure intelligent people into teaching when they could make so much more getting MBAs. As for the poor work product, my son became very literate attending nothing but public school (with a little help from home by providing an intellectually stimulating environment). A student gets out of school what he or she puts into it.

Statistics show that the children best prepared for kindergarten have had on average, 1,000 hours of reading time with parents (bedtime stories, etc.). They learn phonemic awareness and pre-reading skills. The least prepared children have 25 hours, on average. Consider being the kindergarten teacher with representatives of both of these groups. The achievement gap begins the moment children walk through the doors of the kindergarten classroom.

As a young child I was fortunate to have reading time. Both parents enjoyed biographies (my favorite, too!) and read a lot. By the time I started school at 4 1/2 I could read simple books, although I aspired higher. (My poor parents! I remember trying to read them the newspaper and Plato's Republic, it was slow going.)

Randy's right, the MPS school is the neighborhood educational facility. Annual budgets are based on enrollment, but the MPS district overall has a 15% special needs student population. In addition, the school is responsible for providing services to special needs students in the neighborhood who may not be attending the school (home interventions, etc.). They receive no additional funding for this.

I agree with you that there is a degree of expectation on the part of certain industries that schools provide workers with ready-made specific skills that's unreasonable. There was a forum awhile back where a number of employers were complaining about a lack of a particular set of skills, yet I didn't hear any of them mention offering internships to students or being willing to invest on their own to help develop those skills. It does have to be a two way street. Right now, employers seem to have gotten used to it being a "buyer's market" for a period of time and have come to expect that the market place should provide them with people that fit into the slot they need filled, ready to start producing as if they've done the job for years, on day one.

Then again, right now we're seeing resistance to a suggestion that the MATC board contain more people with a local business background than there is currently, because there's concern that doing so might take away some of the control currently held by union representatives on that same board.

Both sides have to give if it's going to work. While I'm sure there are examples that counter these two, the effort to work together and to focus as much as possible on an education that suits current and future employment needs, needs to be strengthened significantly.

@Michael Schister -- Good point. In the first few paragraphs, David mentioned an employer needing skilled machine operators who can use CNC. I felt like asking why those employers can't provide that kind of training themselves to high school graduates. Must an individual train for this career after high school only to risk finding no openings available?

Other than for the obvious advance professional and technical degrees, I question the need for four years of college to qualify for some positions. A bachelors degree in liberal arts or European history is an admirable thing, but how does it make you more capable of, say, supervising office workers?

The answer to that would be that college is supposed to be an education -- the teaching of critical thinking and analysis -- rather than training in four more years of grammar and mathematics. But many of our noted leaders have lacked a college degree -- Abraham Lincoln among them.

CNC skills have been mentioned. In a previous life I did this type of work. Let me start by saying it is a skill that can be taught, no higher education is needed. BUT- decent math skills (basic trig) and critical thinking skills are needed. At one time this was a high paying position, today much of that work is sent to China. With a few hundred grand invested in the machine, cheap labor pays for that machine much faster. Ten years ago I saw the writing on the wall; programmers developing ways to eliminate the need for higher skills to operate the machines.
Even with the advent of higher quality programs and fixturing, it still requires a skilled operator. Unfortunately many of the companies do not pay a living wage for this anymore, which in turn limits the skills of the people they attract.

@Craig -- My grandfather never went past the eighth grad. At the age of fifteen he was a lathe operator, but he wanted something better. He paid a private tutor for math lessons and then apprenticed himself to an architect. He went on to be successful and none of his buildings ever fell down, unlike those of his younger college-trained colleagues. In fact, he and my father were the fellows who got called out to a job to analyze why a building had collapsed.

My grandfather was 'grandfathered' when education and licensing became a mandate. He'd never have been given the chance today. Would he have had a much richer intellectual life had he gone to college? Probably. But it wouldn't have made him better at what he did. We might want to re-think the whole reasoning behind college -- at least as a means of economic advancement.

Edit -- eighth _grade_. I honestly can spell.

Randy you make a good point for why parents force the issue of college on thier kids. Today your Grandfather would not get the chance.
Many parents see the punching of a timeclock as a demoralizing life, so they have made it their mission to keep their kids from making the same "mistakes".
I am probably guilty of that myself. While we may be pushing higher education, many forgot to teach the value of hard work. Many kids come out of college with expectations that are not attainable. How many friends do you have who can change the oil in their car, or do simple home repairs? Either you have the skill, or you don't- or so it seems.
I think our schools fail to teach the biggest lesson: All work has value.

@Craig -- How is punching a clock any more demoralizing than working extra hours as a cubicle-rat for the same salary? I've done both. If I had it to do over again, I'd hold my nose and get an MBA just to be employable, rather than pursuing my actual interest.

I think one of the problems we're going to continue to run into is that folks think it's fine if someone else's kid gets tracked into a trades/blue collar career path, but when it comes to their own kid, they don't want that limitation placed on them.

@Randy: I think I may not have made it clear enough. I do not see a problem with punching a clock, Lord knows I did it more years than I did not. Many upper middle class people seem to have an issue with working in a manufacturing environment, and there is a stigma attached to that type of work. I think this is why many parents 'aim' their kids toward college. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I know some skilled trades make some pretty good coin too.

You make a very good point here, Jim.
We have no idea what type of work will be available in 4 years, things are changing so fast that new technology today is old hat next year.
This is precisely why we need to teach the basics -and teach them well. If manufacturing ever returns to the US, we will need young people who are teachable. By that I mean they already have all the basics like trig. and decent reading skills. Math skills may be the most important skill as they apply to everything: machining, programming, etc.
Instead of pointing a kid toward a certain carreer- give them options. This can be done with a solid education and mastering the basics.
It is easy to teach application of what one already knows, but it is hard to teach a dummy to apply what he never learned.

What we do know about the jobs of the future is that they will require critical thinking skills, the ability to think creatively on your feet and adjust to rapidly changing conditions, and emotional intelligence and collaboration skills. I think you'd have a hard time finding an employer or business consultant who would disagree with any of that.
That said, how do you teach these skills? And what if parents don't reinforce them or worse, don't value them? Can parents be engaged to learn along with their kids and to access outside resources that can help their children? Maybe what we need more of is schools directing parents to resources that enhance learning. That said, there are probably plenty of parents who never check Power School, read the weekly missives, or bother to check the teachers' websites. Everyone has to do his part to help these kids develop crucial skills.

@Gearhead I completely understand why some parents are opting out of the school system and turning to virtual schools (another form of home schooling) -- but I think that is perhaps even a greater dis-service to their kids --- they lack exposure to peers to both develop social skills and to discover the options in life, which they can discover from interaction with a diverse student population, that they would not be exposed to in a homogenous home school environment.

Correlative relationships are not cause-and-effect relationships.

I wish virtual schools had been available when my son was in school. I spent many hours a night helping with home work and teaching my son what should have been taught in school. It used to grate on me when I asked what he had done in school instead of his work and he would say "watch a Disney movie" or "have a party" or "celebrate this or that". I think the only thing that has stuck with him is when they took a nut and grew a little tree in elementary school. That tree is still in our back yard and is probably 30 feet tall. Plus we have to walnut trees that are about 15 feet tall. He had gotten some acorns from my parents farm and started the trees. But that still isn't an acceptable class project in place of reading or math.

Don't you think primary and secondary education should aim for an individual who is as versatile as possible? Able to learn and adapt to whatever job he or she may be called to fill? Even a Liberal Arts Bachelor's degree is supposed to do that. Too much specialization too early will leave you unemployable of that job disappears.

Schools used to offer shop and "home economics" classes, but I believe these are pretty much gone, thanks to school budget cuts over time. I agree with Dave Koven that education exposes a child to many disciplines, but not necessarily those "they may never use in the name of producing a well rounded individual." The educational experience is also an opportunity to introduce occupational "clusters," which demonstrates the varied career fields. Phy Ed might not be a core academic discipline, but it helps build understanding of what is needed for good health, and introduces the concept of a potential career in sports, physical therapy, etc. In addition, the opportunity to experience a sport first-hand often contributes to a lifetime of enjoyment, which in turn contributes to the local economy through direct and indirect sports-related purchasing.

Education and its relation to life and society is to me a bit like the game Jenga. Which elements may be excised without threatening the entire structure?

Bren: Home Ec. and shop are still available in my district. Phy Ed is a waste of money and time- look at the fat kids in school. Our litigious society makes it nearly impossible to get chubby to do anything in Phy Ed. If the kid doesn't want to run, they are asked to walk while the rest of the class participates in sports. I have never heard of anyone becoming an athlete professionally due to phy ed.
Regarding shop classes: they have the same curriculum as 25 years ago. Much has changed since then. Schools used to teach kids to read and write, seems the more money we throw at them the less they do.

Dave I found your example of engineering graduates taking unrelated courses because "they had nothing to talk about except engineering" interesting. I believe it speaks again to the issue of basic training at home. Part of our basic training at "home" included music and art lessons, attendance at art openings/exhibits, concerts, recitals, volunteerism, and dining at good restaurants, etc. (As it happens, the only cocktails I still know how to make I learned to mix when I was a kid-from a bartender at a 5 star restaurant. I make a killer Bloody Mary). It was felt that a child/young person should be able to "hold the fort" socially. Finding a common subject for discussion that provides opportunities for everyone at the table to shine is a good life skill, whether at a party, presentation, or job interview. Everyone learns something new and useful.

And it is true as others have said, skill building is a lifelong pursuit and adventure. The world is changing quickly and becoming more diverse. I have come to rely on the social skills I learned as a child more than I ever thought I would. And many of the methodologies used successfully in my field until the recession need re-imagining. This is no time for a nap!

My mother taught me to balance a check book when I was 18. This was before the day of calculators, so I did it out longhand on paper. That is why I appreciate MS Money.

I started working in my parents store when I was still in elementary school. So my parents made sure I knew how to do the math and deal with money. My son got a checkbook in middle school and we made sure he knew how to balance it. I still do some balancing without a calculator just to keep the old brain active. I don't have to do it on a separate paper. My dad with his 8th grade education taught me some tricks to do much of the math in my head.

Randy: Things have changed in the home over the years too. Mom (or Dad) barely has time to balance her own checkbook because she is busy working, carting the kids to sporting events, and taking care of the home.
I am not a proponent of 'it takes a village', but I know parents find it hard to read with their kids these days. One bright spot with this economy is many families now include Grandma and Grandpa. They have the time and patience to sit with a kid and read with them. Maybe mom or dad are on reduced hours and can do that too.
If a student is taking a financial class, they should be taught how to balance a checkbook. Teaching then how to trade stocks is like teaching them to run before they can crawl.

@Craig -- I used to read with my son until he got old enough to read for himself. At first, I thought I had failed in my job of teaching him to read for pleasure and self-improvement, but in his twenties, once the pressures of school were over, he began to do it. Now we are able to discuss books together.

I'm trying to do the same with my grandson, who is 19 months old. He doesn't seem to have the patience yet, but he already knows how to work his mother's iPad and go to PBS Kids for his favorite educational videos.

Teaching kids to trade stocks is not the smartest thing, unless you teach them why stocks fluctuate and how to deal with it.

My parents never read to me. My older sister may have but I don't remember. I hated reading until I picked up my first crime magazine in high school. I read that and novels for years and really built up my reading, spelling and writing skills. I always read to my son. When I quit he didn't pick up. When he was on his own, studying for his apprenticeship, that all changed.

@Born Free --- You are right that I have no statistical data regarding home school vs public education. These blog is about my anecdotal observations and personal experience.

It would be interesting to see what data there is --- if there is any.

From my personal experience, most homeschoolers that I know of are extremely paranoid and self delusional as to their abilities to educate their children.

And the products of homeschooling that I have met in later life, seemed to have a problem in interaction with others, and actually very susceptible to ideologues, as their homeschooling did not allow them to experience real life with the good and the bad and how to know when they are being manipulated. Again --- Just My Observations and Opinions.

I would make a parallel with religion. I was raised Catholic, but do not subscribe to any particular religion now, as I am reluctant to put a name on God or to assume to speak for God.

However, I was very insistent that my children receive religious education ---and they not only went through the Catholic system (public schools but Catholic religion classes) --- I also encouraged them to explore other religions and they even attended what I would call a "bible thumper" summer camp, in which they learned a lot about the bible (not as much emphasis on that in Catholic system)

This education helped them in later life to avoid exploitation from charlatans and to know not to drink the kool aide.

@David -- Yes and no. As someone who had my character built by interaction with peers in high school, I would say that it is sometimes a highly overrated experience. However, i agree that some products of home-schooling don't seem to be able to 'take the heat' in an intellectually strenuous discussion.

I remember being very surprised when a counselor suggested we might want to consider home schooling for my five year old son. At the time I thought home schooling was for those types who wanted to shield their kids from evolution and other 'dangerous' ideas. Twenty-five years later, I would entertain it for my grandson, if only to allow him to learn at a more rapid pace then I and my son were allowed to do.

You get out of public education what you put into it.

Just a note on homeschooling--some people do it because it's easier to homeschool than to fit their square peg of a child with learning disabilities into the round hole of public school. This is especially true when a child is 2E (twice exceptional): Gifted and learning disabled.

I have a friends who's 2 sons were home schooled, graduated from college, joined the military and are both married. You don't need schools to socialize. In fact in many cases it can be detrimental.

@ Victor --- I actually do encourage education for education sake --- see Matt's observations at beginning of this blog --- and multi discipline curriculum. But that should be a complement to vocational training -- not a substitute, and definitely not an exclusion of one for the other.

One of the most intelligent people I ever knew was an uncle of mine who was an operating engineer in Chicago. He could operate Any piece of heavy equipment, put I beams down to sub basement five, or up to the 10 th story in building skyscrapers in the Loop.

Needed mechanical, electrical, or plumbing work --- he was the guy.

But ALSO -- discuss politics, history, the classics, philosophy (you get the idea) he was also the guy! (He was also muti lingual)

One does not need to exclude the other --- and shouldn't !!

@Victor -- Really? In the course of my working life I found myself cut off from some jobs I could have done perfectly well, simply because my college fell short of the four year bachelor's degree. As arbitrary as it is, I regret having failed to go through the motions.

@David: I also encourage education for its own ends, but only if it makes financial sense. I was in school until Grade 24! But that's not for everyone.

@Randy: I have no doubt what you say is true. But college is not required for many jobs. Employers should adjust their requirements to help reduce pressure to go to college (unless they are subsidizing the costs).

As far as I'm concerned, we pay the schools to teach our children reading, writing, math and basic science and history. All else is up to the parents. In other words, the school teaches my child how a projectile is expelled from a gun at high speed and why. I'm the one who should teach the morality of shooting a gun at someone (or not). It teaches the facts about the Civil War, the Crusades, WWII, and I provide the philosophical commentary. The school teaches human biology, and I teach sexual morality.

I think we've tried to make the schools be responsible for too much, and they ended up failing to teach the basics adequately.

Amen Randy, teach the basics and make them ready to learn skills in the workforce and or college. If you have all the basics, then it is easy to learn things like CNC machining, etc.
Before we revamp education to have all the technical areas included in curriculum, we should first cover the most important part.

I think that speaks more about the state of our society than anything else. Parents are relying too much on the 'village' and not enough on themselves in the raising of their children.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Takes_a_Village

"What I didn't learn was how to balance a checkbook. When I returned to this city, the HR person scheduled appointments for me with a bank officer and manager of a good department store for banking/credit instruction. "

Typical liberal, no idea how to balance the books. If that statement doesn't sum you up Bren.

Alfred, I wonder if it "sums me up." At that time in my life I was a budding libertarian in full support of a return to the Articles of Confederation! ; )

Ah, the benefits of life experience...

And concerning the checkbook issue, I made withdrawals from my savings account and paid cash for bills, etc. That was how I was taught, which I suppose was a good compromise. My father is financially careful and my mother was a "jellyfish" who didn't look at price tags.

@Bren -- Cash tends to slip away. Take my advice and pay by check or a credit card that offers cash back, and track it with a personal accounting program like Quicken. Then you can generate reports about where your money goes and how to spot potential trouble areas. You can compare income versus expenses and make wise decisions.

See, Alfred? We're not all feckless idiots waiting for the next 'gubmint' check to arrive. In my case, I have to plan ahead for when the next property tax installment is due. And I will confess to some frustration when I see how poorly the schools are teaching my randchildren.

That is so cute RANDy--you have RAND-children...
;-)

Okay -- that's embarrassing. LOL

Seriously, they are step-grandchildren except for one. Several years ago, one of my first official things as a new 'grandparent' was to attend the MPS Music Concert at year's end. I liked the drum line, and the orchestra was okay, and there was the choir of middle-schoolers tweeting about the joys of diversity, but I had to ask myself, "Why can't my nine-year old step-granddaughter understand the concept of subtraction yet?" Are we focusing on the right things?

Randy, I have learned! : ) And you are right about money slipping away. It's also important to keep an eye on those credit card bills for add-on charges. A relative recently discovered a new monthly $10 add-on charge on the AMEX card and called about it. The service rep immediately said they would remove the charges.
My relative was shocked and called me about it-"how many other people are they charging this fee, and how many will pay it because they don't check their bills?" Indeed.

Craig, I absolutely agree with you. Without the basics of knowledge, anything taught later has little value without context. Another challenge in this area is the high number of students entering school who are English as a Second Language, with parents who have little or no English. It's not the children's fault, but it is an additional barrier to academic achievement. It also provides an additional challenge for schools. A former colleague with a Latino relative who lives up north, was contacted by their town's school district for help because of a large influx of ESL students. Without this relative, who agreed to come in part-time, that district would have had a very rough time in the short-term processing and acclimating these students and families.

How did the schools deal with it back in the olden days when we had waves of European immigrants coming in to the country? My grandparents told me about how they learned english at school, and then taught it to their parents when they got home. Certainly there were no ESL classes back in those days, yet these non-English speaking children seemed to somehow make it through school, and be productive members of society.

You are talking about a liberal, they have no concept how money is earned...all they know is the gubmint has it all.

Alfred, would you just put a sock in it? I've earned money all my life, I've kept track of it, and I've invested it. I've kept financial records for other people.

And, CowDung, you'd be surprised how many people can't quite grasp the idea that the balance their bank currently says they have might not be the amount against which you can write a check. Reconciling your monthly statement with your checkbook register is tedious, but necessary.

Parents really ought to teach their kids about the utter stupidity of payday loans, 'immediate' tax refund outfits, and rent to own, but many don't.

Cow, it's really no different at all as I learned, just more convenient. But as I indicated above, I believe there was a reason why dad held onto the checkbook. ; )

Randy1949, you are absolutely right about payday loans, etc. I'm afraid a lot of people get trapped into those because of medical bills, too. A former colleague had an early job working collections for a rent-to-own outfit--he said that most of the people he worked with had no idea that the payments were meant to be weekly, not per month. I'm not sure where the breakdown occurred, but he said it was the primary issue.

Cow, Rand is also right about checkbook balancing. Some people really can't grasp the concept of positive and negative numbers. i.e., that two negative numbers equal a larger negative number, etc. And that a positive number (deposit) has be deducted from a negative (overdraft) balance, so the amount that's put in may not be what you have to spend.

It's like the old joke, "What do you mean I'm overdrawn? I still have checks!")

@Bren -- Reconciling the checkbook register against the bank statement was a real pain in the wazoo back in the days before pocket calculators. I used to spend hours tracking down an error that amounted to cents.

As for payday loans, some people live that close to the financial edge that they have to pay the rent one week before the paycheck is due, even if they pay horrendous interest to do it. I notice the TV ads never mention that, though.

Should the schools teach this if the parents don't?

Randy, I know the principal of a local high-poverty MPS school started a series of parent education seminars one evening per month. The topics included banking 101, first-time home-buying, not getting cheated buying a used car, filling out job and school applications, etc. It made a huge difference to the families because most of the parents had no previous experience in these matters, and they had no one to ask/trust for information.

In my own case, I'm confident I would have eventually figured out that socking all of my money into a savings account and going to the bank once/week wasn't the best way, but it was helpful to have professional advice.

Concerning credit issues taught in the schools, I believe teaching children to calculate monthly and annual interest as part of math instruction would be very helpful. But I honestly believe that people don't intend to overspend, but it happens. Throw medical bills into the mix and it's a disaster. I know quite a few people who received deep (double percentage-point) pay cuts during the recession and it has caused serious new financial problems, including incurring new debts. It's the issue of reduced income over an extended period of time, in a business climate that requires more work hours, less time for a second job, and few or no part-time job prospects. This recession will have a long afterlife.

Is it bullying to point out that 'liberals' work and pay taxes too? You act as if we don't. The government takes my money just as it does yours.

Alfred, the government certainly takes my money, too. I started my first paying job at the age of 14 and did volunteer service before that. When I lived overseas I had a job there too. And I continue to work. And pay taxes. Federal taxes. State taxes.

Or cigarettes, in which I play it dangerous and always get unfiltered. Now that's something kids need to learn to stay away from.

I do. That $3 we pay for a bottle of Boone's Farm is a financial hardship.

Greensheet:

What gives you the idea that nobody ever complains about the price of alcohol?

I neither smoke nor drink in bars.

Greensheet: Anyone who uses alcohol and smokes complains plenty. Sin tax is the worst tax there is- it hurts the lower incomes most. I cringe every 3 days when I go buy a new carton of smokes, and every week when I replace the quarter bbl in my tapper.
If there was no sin tax I could smoke and drink 40% more.
By the way...California is looking into a new sin tax on foods with sugar of any kind, and you can bet there will be a fat tax on fast food in the not-so-distant future.
Pretty soon everything that goes into your body will be taxed. Then what?
You guessed it- toiletpaper tax!
They are going to get you coming and going....ask your pharmacist ;)

GreenShite: Do you put a lot of effort into sounding like an idiot, or does it come naturally to you?
Please provide where you pulled that $10 / bottle number from, I am guessing you are overdue to see the gastroenterologist.
You detesting that sin taxes hurt the poor the most is indicative of someone in denial.
Even though you are off topic I feel compelled to point out your stupidity. Have that Dr. remove your head while he is up there.

Maybe I was a little hard on you. Education is a bipartisan issue. When I evaluate the thoughts and comments from those I know to be left or right leaning- I find we agree on much more than we disagree (with this topic).
There is no reason to interject politics in this thread.
Getting back on point...
4 year old kindergarten...waste of money, or educationally necessary??

@Nancy I was talking to an SHS Alumni, now in his late 40's or 50's -- he stills lives in Shorewood, and he told me that at SHS he now only had shop classes, but also learned to sew and cook --- and other basics, such as budgeting and the proverbial check book balancing. How did we lose those basic learning opportunities for our kids --- too many school administrators with Master Degrees and not enough common sense ???????

Sewing dropped out due to cheap clothing from China and other countries--it wasn't cost effective for a middle class person to sew from a Butterick pattern. But with an obesity epidemic, you have to wonder--should we at least have nutrition classes if not cooking classes?
From what I gather, there are some classes on basic financial skills over at SHS--no? I could be wrong.

With the high percentage of involved parents that we tend to have in Shorewood, I would think that we can leave the cooking instruction up to the parents and use the money for courses that are not already being taught at home...

I don't know why you couldn't work at least a rudimentary nutrition program into physical eduction (assuming they don't now). It would seem kind of a natural extension of an emphasis on fitness.

@Bob, there is rudimentary nutrition information presented as part of science in 7th grade.
@CowDung, there are a lot of middle class people who don't know how to cook, or who do, but don't know how to cook healthfully. I remember cooking as part of K-8 education, jr. high, and as an elective in high school in the era when middle class families often had a stay-at-home mom.

Personally, I'd rather see more involvement in trying to get their kid to graduate college as a competent engineer. We have too many lawyers in the US already...

I made it a priority as a parent to make sure that my kids (gradeschoolers) can at least cook, sew, and do laundry. I would hope that other parents would be doing the same...

It costs $10 to replace a zipper at the tailor's--cheap to fix a hem or a lining, or sew on a button, too. I understand why many kids don't know how to do even these basic things. I'll bet many also don't know how to fix an electrical cord that's fraying, fix a running toilet, or use a power screwdriver, either.

@Nancy Peske -- Zippers are complicated. It probably makes more sense to pay the tailor than to waste twice as much of your time on it and end up with an amateurish job. Buttons and hems aren't exactly brain surgery.