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Lack of opportunity plays right back into lack of good education. Your family made up for it at home. Most do not. Go to the south and you see this in action e

Lack of opportunity plays right back into lack of good education. Your family made up for it at home. Most do not. Go to the south and you see this in action every second of every day. The south hates education, hates social services, hates them thar books that don't have Jesus in them. And, lo and behold, Alabama is like 49th in education, but it's also super high in people who are on permanent disability and Oxy. Why? Because the politicians in Alabama get elected for saying "Jesus," and the first thing they do when elected is gut education and social services, making the problem worse, breeding more deeply ignorant people, who then vote for yet another Jesus hugger who cuts their social services even further. There's a reason these states are fucked. It's their own faults. City folk have tried to help for centuries. Country folk generally don't want that city folk help, especially because it ain't coming with Jesus attached.

jboggan 10y ago
Speaking as a native Georgian who got an excellent public school education, undergraduate and post-graduate education at Georgia universities, you really have no idea what you are talking about. I am not a Christian although I would say 90% of my neighbors were and you are completely missing the mark in analyzing any of the problems the country or the South has. Your attitude is exactly what the parent comment is talking about. I was in a small pilot program of 6 middle school students who were bussed to the high school to take advanced math. 3 of us ended up regularly using heroin before graduation. I have a lot of good explanations for this having watched them descend and none of them line up with reduced education, social services, or ignorant Bible-thumpers. Short answer: end the phenomena of latchkey kids. The main difference in the kids who flourished and moved up in their lives and those who floundered was the presence of a stay-at-home parent in addition to one with a steady income that supported the family. The main difference in the good and bad school districts in my area were the number of full time parents that were available to participate in the school, extra-curricular activities, and parent-teacher organizations. Failing that (because the two income family is seemingly required in many areas), line up the public school schedule with the parents' work and commute schedules. For some context, here's an award winning documentary about a high school in an adjacent county having a massive syphilis outbreak while I was in school: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yux7hVgDPa8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yux7hVgDPa8
- VonGuard 10y ago
  OK I will grant you Georgia and Virginia. Even Maryland. I would dearly love to see someone defend anything about Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina even Missouri. A few states in the south that get it right don't make up for the fact that the US education systems in these states are in the bottom 10. California is down there too, so bad education is not exclusive to the south. It's just endemic. I spent a lot of time in Alabama. There is nothing to defend there. They spend their money on 100,000 person Football stadiums. There are 3 in Alabama. 2 inside towns of 20,000 people or less. Their economic improvement plan is to spend more money on football, and keep printing people's pictures in the paper when they are arrested.
mehaveaccount 10y ago
Is it possible for city folk to propose solutions that respect rural folks obviously deep desire for 'Jesus'? The only thing city folk have accomplished in giving rural folk is gay marriage and illegal immigrants, neither of which they wanted or needed.
kyrre 10y ago
this comment perfectly captures the leftists view of southern people. ignorance and hate
John23832 10y ago
I'm from Virginia, where we have high ranking public schools (both K12 and university). We also rank high eduction per capita. You show a fundamental misunderstanding of modern, non-stereotypical, southern life.
jordanb 10y ago
The only opportunity for people must not be to move to some overpriced city and leave their community to rot. Our economy is becoming increasingly centralized and increasingly winner-take-all. There are ever fewer highly overheated markets and enormous areas where opportunities are static or declining. What's more, I'm still not convinced that we need 150 million software developers in this country, or even doctors, or certainly not lawyers. More education and embracing the "knowledge economy" may only work for some of us, for now, because the vast majority haven't piled in yet. Also that contempt that the OP talked about? Your comment is absolutely drenched in it.

jboggan 10y ago

Speaking as a native Georgian who got an excellent public school education, undergraduate and post-graduate education at Georgia universities, you really have no idea what you are talking about. I am not a Christian although I would say 90% of my neighbors were and you are completely missing the mark in analyzing any of the problems the country or the South has. Your attitude is exactly what the parent comment is talking about. I was in a small pilot program of 6 middle school students who were bussed to the high school to take advanced math. 3 of us ended up regularly using heroin before graduation. I have a lot of good explanations for this having watched them descend and none of them line up with reduced education, social services, or ignorant Bible-thumpers. Short answer: end the phenomena of latchkey kids. The main difference in the kids who flourished and moved up in their lives and those who floundered was the presence of a stay-at-home parent in addition to one with a steady income that supported the family. The main difference in the good and bad school districts in my area were the number of full time parents that were available to participate in the school, extra-curricular activities, and parent-teacher organizations. Failing that (because the two income family is seemingly required in many areas), line up the public school schedule with the parents' work and commute schedules. For some context, here's an award winning documentary about a high school in an adjacent county having a massive syphilis outbreak while I was in school: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yux7hVgDPa8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yux7hVgDPa8

VonGuard 10y ago
OK I will grant you Georgia and Virginia. Even Maryland. I would dearly love to see someone defend anything about Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina even Missouri. A few states in the south that get it right don't make up for the fact that the US education systems in these states are in the bottom 10. California is down there too, so bad education is not exclusive to the south. It's just endemic. I spent a lot of time in Alabama. There is nothing to defend there. They spend their money on 100,000 person Football stadiums. There are 3 in Alabama. 2 inside towns of 20,000 people or less. Their economic improvement plan is to spend more money on football, and keep printing people's pictures in the paper when they are arrested.

mehaveaccount 10y ago

Is it possible for city folk to propose solutions that respect rural folks obviously deep desire for 'Jesus'? The only thing city folk have accomplished in giving rural folk is gay marriage and illegal immigrants, neither of which they wanted or needed.

kyrre 10y ago

this comment perfectly captures the leftists view of southern people. ignorance and hate

John23832 10y ago

I'm from Virginia, where we have high ranking public schools (both K12 and university). We also rank high eduction per capita. You show a fundamental misunderstanding of modern, non-stereotypical, southern life.

jordanb 10y ago

The only opportunity for people must not be to move to some overpriced city and leave their community to rot. Our economy is becoming increasingly centralized and increasingly winner-take-all. There are ever fewer highly overheated markets and enormous areas where opportunities are static or declining. What's more, I'm still not convinced that we need 150 million software developers in this country, or even doctors, or certainly not lawyers. More education and embracing the "knowledge economy" may only work for some of us, for now, because the vast majority haven't piled in yet. Also that contempt that the OP talked about? Your comment is absolutely drenched in it.