The younger generation is not the same as it's always been. We're graduating dumber and dumber high school students, and the test scores in math and science prove what I'm saying. Our public school system is a joke, our political system is a bigger joke. We're NOT headed in the right direction. I'm not saying we can't turn it around, but we are headed in the wrong direction. When I was in grad school 10 years ago, I was the only white person in the class, the rest of the class was all East Indian and Asian.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way...school-students-slide-in-math-reading-science
American 15-year-olds continue to turn in flat results in a test that measures students' proficiency in reading, math and science worldwide, failing to crack the global top 20.
The Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, collects test results from 65 countries for its rankings, which come out every three years. The latest results, from 2012, show that U.S. students ranked below average in math among the world's most-developed countries. They were close to average in science and reading.
"In mathematics, 29 nations and other jurisdictions outperformed the United States by a statistically significant margin, up from 23 three years ago," reports Education Week. "In science, 22 education systems scored above the U.S. average, up from 18 in 2009."
In reading, 19 other locales scored higher than U.S. students — a jump from nine in 2009, when the last assessment was performed.
The top overall scores came from Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Macao and Japan, followed by Lichtenstein, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Estonia.
The math scores of students in Shanghai showed that they are "the equivalent of over two years of formal schooling ahead of those observed in Massachusetts, itself a strong-performing U.S. state," according to the study.
what did you do with your ghost?
doing great, hope everything worked out for you to your satisfaction
I flew into NY on 9/10, right over the twin towers, as that flight always had. I had a client in NJ and I had arranged for one of their IT members to attend a training course for this software package I was deploying at the site. The class started on 9/11, the training location...right across the street from the WTC. When I was driving down to the site, I saw the 2nd plane flying low down the Hudson, it hit the 2nd tower while I was on the George Washington Bridge. When I made it to the site, I was freaking out waiting for someone at the company to get in contact with him, he finally got through and was OK. He was also an auxiliary cop, he saw it all, jumpers, bodies, body parts, plane parts. At the site I was at, the employees had gathered on the roof of one of their buildings with a clear shot of NYC, we watched the towers burn. When tower 1 fell, a contractor standing next to me says, "my dad works in that building". After the 2nd one fell, everyone went home. I couldn't get back over to NY until after midnight by taking a bridge about 30 miles north of where I was. Every 9/11 I call the guy I sent down there to catch up with him.
hundreds of thousands of similar stories
my brother-in-law left liquor sales to take on job with stamps.com. On Tuesday, 9/11/2001, he had a sales appointment in the WTC. On Monday, 9/10/2001 he was laid off. He's back to selling wine.
Everyone in the tri-state area is not more than two or three times removed from an untimely death on that day
it is gut wrenching
I was in the outer banks..watch both towers collapse and the second plane on live tv. I'm a news junkie and got the news alert on the radio after the first plane. Flipped on the tube and history unfolds..remember fighter jets cruising up and down the coast, strangers coming to us for updates while missing with a radio and all the flags on the overpasses heading back to pittsburgh
I was in my office oblivious to what was happening until my 10:00 appointment cancelled, said he's going to church because a plane just flew into the WTC. Tried to get on line, every site was overloaded. Walked a block to my favorite breakfast place (commercial condos have since replaced it) and watched the 2nd plane hit. Went home, called the high school where my wife worked and both kids attended and told my wife I'm coming to pick the kids up. She said they've already had a staff meeting and decided to keep the kids in school. I'm argued we may be at war, and public places are targets, but respected her wishes. Had to spend the next 3 days watching TV around the clock, hoping for some good news that never really came. I ran a fall baseball league at the time, and we decided to play the games that weekend just to let everyone escape from the tragedy for a few hours, including myself.
