Comment by rayiner
> We recognise the ridiculousness of people owing $90,000 for a truck when they live in a dilapidated trailer on a rented lot. We understand that a man who lives hand to mouth but wears a half of kilogram of gold around his neck is probably not making the best life decisions. We ridicule the faux-intellectual with their ridiculously stilted props. But somehow, we are convinced to dress up our children like heirs to the crown and send them to finishing school for their jobs in retail. It’s a profound mis-investment. It’s also worth noting that it is way more expensive to provide an education to the intellectual proles than it is to educate brilliant and hungry minds. We are shovelling money (distilled human effort) into a furnace of misery in the service of vanity.
This is a fantastic analysis.
All of that said, if we don’t provide a solid foundational high school education that covers basic science, math through fundamental calculus, a decent overview of world history, literature, art and culture, then we are not only wasting the precious time of our children, we are also doomed to be an ignorant and brutish people.
As it is, high school education in the USA today only assures what used to be the 8th grade level when I was in school.
It’s ridiculous that we have bacslid to the point where we waste 4 years catering to the lowest common denominator.
Solid vocational education should be offered as an alternative to high school from grade 9 forward. We need to understand that for every professor there’s someone that will never be able to manage anything beyond rudimentary tasks. For every banker there will be someone who drives a broom.
We do those that are less gifted a disservice by failing to give them useful tools for their future too.