[disappointment2]

Yeah, I have repeatedly read that what is correlated best with performance in school, and often in life, is the home environment a person grows up in.

JM

[AntonioXYZ]

Who didn't know this? Right wing educational policies are specifically designed to prevent "undesirables" from educational attainment. There are two reasons for this: one is that stated in this article (that it increases inequality, which right wingers love) and the other is that education (especially tertiary education in the humanities and social sciences) tends to wake people up to the right wing BS that is going on.

[Peptobismol]

The relatively few skilled workers command higher prices, while the many unskilled ones have little bargaining power. If only businesses were spending money like this were the case. But no, they need a big government handout from the government.

[autoloanexpert]

Tinfoil material is stuff that is crazy.

[casinobonuswer]

Originally posted by Victor Galis
Well, the other tin-foil hat worthy conspiracy theory is that Republicans don't want more skilled professionals, they tend to give lots of money to the democrats and vote democratic. Where's the conspiracy? I would have thought it was plainly evident. You show me an attempt to make education more egalitarian, and I'll show you right wing people who oppose it. Similarly, you show me attempts to make access to education more unequal, and I'll show you right wing people who support it.

"School choice" tends to mean a way for people to keep their kids away from blacks and poor people and concentrate resources on a few schools at the expense of the others (I know this, because I lived through my government's version of it).

And we ought to mention the constant pressure to reform educational assessments in order that parents can basically buy their children better results.

Student loans are a disincentive for poor or financially insecure people to attend university.

Affirmative action, which attempts to correct for the ridiculously low number of black people who attend college, is a favourite target of right wingers (some of whom have no problem with policies that would attempt to restrict the numbers of foreign [read: Asian] students in courses like engineering or medicine).

Differential fee structures are a way of reserving places in professions with high salaries for the sons and daughters of the already wealthy.

Law societies, medical societies and other professional organizations (which the press would never dare call "unions") exist to create artificial scarcity. Apparently, these exist to promote "standards" while unions exist to promote "indolence".

The essence of conservatism is basically inequality.

[MYMcvBgl]

Sometimes I think like a Republican:

What do you think would be the effect of the US if the IRS Code was amended so that, say beginning in 2010, no taxpayer without a high school diploma, GED, or equivalent degree from a different country could take the individual deduction on their federal income tax?

I think (a) the dropout rate would plummet, and (b) we'd suddenly get a lot better educated citizens.