—— ‘American schools go on utterly insane hiring spree since 1950. Kids shrug, continue to do poorly on tests’ (Kurzweil Accelerating Intelligence)
A new study from the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice finds that America’s public schools saw a 96 percent increase in students but increased administrators and other non-teaching staff a staggering 702 percent since 1950. Teaching staff, in comparison, increased 252 percent, Reason reports.
If non-teaching personnel had grown at the same rate as student population, American public schools would have an additional $24.3 billion annually. Scafidi’s report concluded that $24.3 billion is equivalent to an annual $7,500 raise per teacher nationwide or a $1,700 school voucher for each child in poverty.
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—— ‘Western women are obtaining more educational credentials, albeit increasingly at the cost of motherhood and healthy children.’ (Alpha Game)
… But experts warned last night that the growing trend for late motherhood could be putting the health of babies at risk. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said that women who waited longer to give birth needed to be informed of the potential problems, such as the risk of Down’s syndrome and complications during delivery….
What is the point of encouraging more women to obtain academic credentials if that means they are going to be producing a smaller number of unhealthier, less cognitively capable children in the next generation? Even if more female credentials were materially beneficial to society, (and Roissy’s post on the latest Baumeister paper casts a great deal of doubt upon that idea), the benefit would be short-term and last only a single generation. Are the much smaller number of women in the next generation, a statistically significant minority of whom are retarded, born out of wedlock, and otherwise handicapped, going to be able to maintain and continue the societal benefits established by their mothers?
That is highly improbable. Once more, we see that the structural inconsistences of a feminist society are even more powerful than those that caused the Communist societies to collapse.
With such dire predictions, is it better to keep women barefoot and pregnant?
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—— Record numbers of young Americans earn bachelors degrees (New York Times)
This year, for the first time, a third of the nation’s 25- to 29-year-olds have earned at least a bachelor’s degree. That share has been slowly edging up for decades, from fewer than one-fifth of young adults in the early 1970s to 33 percent this year.
The share of high school graduates in that age group, along with the share of those with some college, have also reached record levels. This year, 90 percent were high school graduates, up from 78 percent in 1971. And 63 percent have completed some college work, up from 34 percent in 1971.
The study attributed the increase both to the recession and a sluggish jobs recovery, which led many young people to see higher education as their best option, and to changed attitudes about the importance of a college education. In a 2010 Gallup survey, about three-quarters of Americans agreed that a college education is very important, up from only 36 percent in 1978.
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—— ‘Study: Teens With Lesbian Mothers Do Better In School, Happier In Life’ (CBS News)
Engaged parents are important.
A new study has found that 17-year-olds with lesbian mothers had high school GPAs ranging between A-minus to B-plus, while having strong family bonds with their mothers, whom the teens consider good role models. The Williams Institute at UCLA, which conducted “Adolescents with Lesbian Mothers Describe Their Own Lives,” tracked 78 adolescents over a 26-year period.
“These kids were planned and their lesbian mothers were very engaged in parenting,” said Nanette Gartrell, principal investigator of the study for the Williams Institute. “At the end of high school, the teens tell us that they have excellent grades, feel connected to their families and friends, and admire their parents.”
My quick check indicated that study participants may not have been randomly selected.
Cost of College 