Loki, Broken Arrow (10/18/2009 4:35:06 AM)

So, socialist government schools (upon which this country flourished for longer than anybody here has been alive)appear to be working?

Does that mean we won't have to replace them with religious schools?

Four Sixteen Rigby, Tulsa (10/18/2009 5:39:32 AM)

How hard is to remember that there are 9 Supreme Court Justices? How hard is it to remember that there are 100 Senators? How hard is it to remember that there are 435 Members of the House of Representatives?

Easier than remembering a lot of the useless sports trivia that Americans seem to revel in remembering.

Hobbs, Loveland, Co (10/18/2009 8:55:55 AM)

The important point to remember is that the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs is a radical right wing organization dedicated to destroying public education. Their primary spokesman Brandon Dutcher(who was home schooled)has lied so often you can't rely on anything he or th OCPA publishes.

The above is a prime example of he kind of work they do.

my view, Sand Springs (10/18/2009 8:59:13 AM)

Wayne,

I gave the test to my oldest grandchild and came away with the same conclusion that you did. Our kids are learning about their country in our schools and will make good citizens, I have no reservation about it.

Loki,

Some, for whatever reason prefer to educate their children in private or religious schools and that's their right. Your or my tax dollars are not supporting those education centers.

I feel that my children and now their children are getting a fine education in the public schools.

But the column did allow you to take a dig at the religious schools because you disagree with them.

Willard_Roker, (10/18/2009 9:23:34 AM)

"Some, for whatever reason prefer to educate their children in private or religious schools and that's their right. Your or my tax dollars are not supporting those education centers."

And we must remain vigilant against vouchers so that our tax dollars don't ever support private or religious schools.

insider9909, Cushing (10/18/2009 10:17:30 AM)

Hobbs is exactly correct about Brandan Dutcher and the OCPA. They are a right wing organization dedicated to destroying the American form of government and replacing it with a form of corporate/religious theocracy.

Proud Muslim, Tulsa: Coolest place in the world (almost) (10/18/2009 10:47:33 AM)

Thanks for the editorial, Mr. Greene.

fredsdad, Tulsa, OK (10/18/2009 11:01:38 AM)

I have not looked in depth at the OCPA polling data and can't comment on the methods used and thus the results obtained.

I do know that in polling "... Alan Drover's first-hour AP government class at Edison High School...", the results are meaningless when trying to apply them to OK students in general.

AP stands for Advanced Placement, which is to say a class containing those students who have shown either superior intellect or superior study effort or both, as opposed to the average high school student. If you gave the same test to the standard required civics class at East Central or Webster high schools, I suspect the results would be different.

My anecdotal evidence is different from those who sent letters to you concerning their grandkids. Most kids have no idea how our government works, don't understand the concept of separation of powers or states' rights, don't know who is on a $10 bill or why, and can't differentiate between municipal, county, state, and federal governments or their functions. They don't know how those governments are funded.

They also have zero understanding of macro-economics, zero understanding of interest, and no idea of the difference between profit and profit margin.

Only when the populace is that ignorant can you get away with the trampling of states' rights, the scams of Social Security and Medicare, the demonization of capitalism and the free market, and buying the taxpayer's vote with his own money that he ignorantly let you borrow on his behalf that he is not smart enough to understand he will have to repay.

Socialism does not absolutely require an ignorant populace. But it helps.

Popeye, T-Town (10/18/2009 11:08:52 AM)

Hidden agendas seem to be the first thing so many people look for; and, possibly, rightly so.

One has to look no further than our Democrat controlled Congress, and our President -- via his hawking of the "Stimulus" sham, his obvious tilt toward the entitled, and his inability to recognize the end result of us selling our souls to the highest foreign bidders to pay for his programs -- to see hidden agendas in high definition.

Proud Muslim, Tulsa: Coolest place in the world (almost) (10/18/2009 11:44:12 AM)

fredsdad, I agree that an AP Government class is not the best representation of the population of Oklahoma's public high school students.

However, OCPA's findings are fishy at best.

I'm guessing that the passing rate wasn't 100%, and it wasn't 2.8%.

It was probably somewhere in the middle.

born okay the 1st time, tulsa (10/18/2009 12:05:32 PM)

My child goes to Edison & I can guarantee if it were not for our supplementing what she learns, shed know very little of those questions.
We recently went to a 'back to school night' at Edison for my 8th grade daughter. She attends a pre algebra class. The teacher(also a football coach) made a comment that students can get 100% wrong on their homework & still get a 100% as long as they tried. WHAT????
Then he says tat if they got them all wrong, he encourages them to ask for extra help. Ummm, why would they?
Why?
This was indicative of the entire event. It seemed that all her classes were dumbed down, things I learned in 5th grade. It is what gave me the push to start working at home again so I can return to homeschooling.

FuglyDude, (10/18/2009 12:06:15 PM)

uh gee, do you think any of this has anything to do with the fact that those taking the immigration test are studying specifically for the test and have a study guide with all the questions and answers? i bet if you gave that study guide to the students, let them study it for a week, and then tested them, they would get 100%!

FuglyDude, (10/18/2009 12:09:04 PM)

i do have something to say about teachers in general and how is that some of them have teaching jobs?

how about firing teachers who don't know how to teach? believe it or not, there are many out there. my daughter and many in her math class, went from making A's in math, to consistently getting a C and struggling to understand the next year. after several of us met with the teacher, we realized the teacher was more interested in flashing her belly button ring, her wrinkled freckled cleavage, and riding her harley. in 7th grade, some of the kids end up with a GREAT teacher who also provided afterschool tutoring, and ever since then, consistently getting A's. is the harley hoe still there? yup.

my son had a teacher who was stupid. just plain stupid, disorganized, and unprofessional. she couldn't keep her grade book straight. she also allowed students to input grades into her computer because she was a fat aortic lazy beeotch. she had graded him with several bad grades. luckily he was able to prove (because he keeps his work on file) that he made A's on those tests. there was one grade he couldn't find. that dropped his final grade.

did she ever suffer any consequences? no. she is still stupid, still making mistakes,and still teaching? yes.

after our conference with the equally incompetent principal, we realized, it doesn't matter what a teacher does, the admin will always take the teacher's side no matter what. it was disgusting the way this principal behaved.

NOTHING PRINCIPLED ABOUT THAT PRINCIPAL!

confederateU, (10/18/2009 12:13:10 PM)

Perhaps ALL classes ought to be taught as if they were AP classes and give every student an equal opportunity to learn as much as the next.

As for the principal above - coming soon to a school library near you:

"The Unprincipled Principal!!"

Steelman, End of the Trail (10/18/2009 2:12:29 PM)

If the only things students know about George Washington are that he is on the $1 bill and that he was the first president, this shouldn't be used as proof that public education is a success. Unless, of course, you equate education with trivia.

My supposition is that public school students know these things about George Washington, and that's about it. If my supposition is true, then public education is pretty much failing.

rockfan, broken arrow (10/18/2009 2:19:10 PM)

I took a test on the history channels web site with questions from the citizenship test,i scored 93% and did'nt think they were especially difficult.
I'm not bragging,i just think there's no reason why anyone would'nt be able to pass the test unless they are just willfully ignorant.

highschooljim2, (10/18/2009 3:52:04 PM)

This was a good column by Mr. Greene, the OCPA is anti-public education and will stop at nothing to push their agenda of homeschool, charter schools and vouchers. I do agree that maybe a regular Government class at one of the more disadvantaged schools would have been a better test of the survey than an AP class at Edison. I would like to think though no matter what school you would go to that all the kids would at least know that George Washington was the first President.

cosmo7, (10/18/2009 6:30:12 PM)

When I see an editorial writer proclaim "there is no reason for anyone to know how many justices sit on the supreme court" it just astounds me. It is no wonder that we have education problems when people who are supposed to be astute observers of the body politic, who get paid to write opinion, embrace that kind of benighted view. If you don't know how many justices are on the Supreme Court it gives you no context for the importance of any particular judges confirmation hearings. One judges opinion is very important if there are only 3. One judges opinion is negligible when there are 33. If you don't know how many judges sit on the supreme court you cannot possibly put into context how many judges may or may not embrace a particular judicial philosophy. If you hear there are 4 remaining members of the liberal wing of the court it means absolutely nothing without a broder context of how many judges there are. How can a person read about the efforts of FDR to pack the court with any sense of understanding at all if they do not know there are 9 justices? How could they possibly evaluate for themselves whether there was such an attempt at all? It is impossible without knowing how many justices there are and how many were proposed. That a person paid to write an editorial could so blithely embrace ignorance on the part of students is pretty amazing. That an educated, professional, featured writer was unable to come up with a relevant reason to know such a fundamental fact ought to be embarrasing to a publication that actually paid him to think and write.

Mich098, Tulsa (10/18/2009 10:43:10 PM)

I have a really difficult question: "How many effective Senators and Representatives does the State of Oklahoma really have?"

Oldfatdude, Shàngdu (10/19/2009 12:04:35 PM)

Mich098, Tulsa (10/18/2009 10:43:10 PM)
I have a really difficult question: "How many effective Senators and Representatives does the State of Oklahoma really have?"

None that I can tell (obviously the answer you are fishing for).

Oldfatdude, Shàngdu (10/19/2009 12:09:52 PM)

Education should teach thinking skills and not memorization. Facts can be looked up (and apparently ignored by a lot of people).

Obviously, the facts should be presented but there should be a thought process taught to go along with the facts. The important stuff will be remembered (then forgotten when you get to my age).