
In Utah, a plan to cut 12th grade -- altogether - robg
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-utah-school15-2010feb15,0,906102.story
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dsplittgerber
Instead of cutting public employees numbers, their salaries or pension plans,
they're focusing on cutting the actual benefits the state provides for its
people. Say hello to the inherent incentive structure of government.

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hga
Maybe ... in this case the current proposal on the table is to make it
optional. For a significant subset of students, the ones who the school system
is essentially warehousing, that strikes me as OK. After all, a high school
degree nowadays is essentially worthless, a basic college degree has replaced
it.

There's the danger of the slippery slope, of course.

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dsplittgerber
The danger of arguing about these proposals - they may very well be worthy of
separate appraisal - is that one accepts the basic principle that in times of
receding tax revenues it's ok to cut benefits for the taxpayers but not to
downsize the actual legislature or governing body with its employees as well.
It's a perfect smoke screen on the part of the legislature.

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euroclydon
I was doing some work for the Office of the Speaker of the House in
California, which is huge and employees hundreds of people. They are paid by
the state. A guy there told me that when the is a gov. shutdown, they get IOUs
for months. Plus they do get laid off also.

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dsplittgerber
"According to a 2007 analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
by the Asbury Park Press, “the average federal worker made $59,864 in 2005,
compared with the average salary of $40,505 in the private sector.” Across
comparable jobs, the federal government paid higher salaries than the private
sector three times out of four, the paper found." There is an eye-opening
story in Reason magazine on how public servants have it much better than
private sector workers: <http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/12/class-war>

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georgecmu
I went to high school in the States and a decision to graduate a year early
was one of the best ones I've made. There's no reason not to teach half of the
stuff that's covered in high school to middle schoolers. It was rather
ridiculous to see 9th-10th graders open algebra and geometry textbooks for the
first time.

Incidentally, there's no 12th grade in Russia and in most of the former Soviet
Union countries. There were only 10 grades until 1987-88 or so.

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illumin8
Agreed, I did concurrent enrollment and by the age of 16 was taking half a day
of University courses and half a day of secondary courses.

However, this is quite a bit different. Will any out of state University
seriously consider a college application without 12 grades of experience?

This is tremendously short-sighted. There are some rabid conservative
Republicans that believe all public education should be removed and replaced
with private education. This is just taking advantage of a budget shortfall to
accelerate that process.

Would you trust private corporations to school your children? I'm sure nothing
could possibly go wrong...

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dagw
Certainly here in Sweden there are several high school run by private for
profit companies. On the whole they seem to be doing OK, some are top of the
league, some are so bad the government has to threaten to close them down, but
most are perfectly average. Pretty much just like the state run schools. At
the end of the day choice is good. If a high school student has 8 different
schools he can go to then those school will work hard to up their game and try
to attract that student (since students=money)

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enjo
It's the same thing here. We have a large number of private schools. Some are
based in religion, others are quite secular. These secular private schools
tend to offer a more rigorous education (although that does not seem to
necessarily reflect actual achievement).

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RiderOfGiraffes
Define "here".

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patrickgzill
I recall a millionaire couple (older folks, maybe 55-60) I knew when I was a
kid - they built and operated nursing homes; I recall very clearly them with
an architect's ruler going over the blueprints for a new building.

They worked on a farm, and were themselves the son and daughter of farmers
going back many generations.

Education level? 8th grade education.

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jbellis
In the Philippines, completing high school means you've done a total of 10
years. I don't know of a good way to compare high school outcomes per se, but
RP college grads who go on US grad schools certainly seem to do okay.

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jff
As long as BYU is on board, Utah can probably just go ahead and pass the bill.

