And you’re the reason our kids are ugly, darlin’
–Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty
Except in cases of civil rights, I’m generally opposed to federal intervention in education. I’m also highly suspect of test scores as a valid measure of learning, but I have to say this map, which equates American states with their international education equivalents, well, it is startling. If you pair it with a recent poll of prospective voters in the South Carolina Republican primary, it’s a little frightening.
We are number one–ranking right up there with Scandinavia, but when you look at the South, the equivalents are literally Third World. Georgia is Libya. Alabama is Guatemala. Mississippi is Swaziland. (I’m not sure if Turkey is an international equivalent, or a cartographical op-ed).
Public Policy Polling recently polled South Carolina, and almost needless to say, the results are shocking, if not completely surprising:
The poll, which involved 897 likely Republican primary voters who were contacted Sunday and Monday, revealed significant support for banning homosexuals from the country (20 percent in favor), shutting down U.S. mosques (29 percent), creating a national database of Muslims (47 percent), banning Islam (25 percent), and allowing South Carolina to hang the Confederate flag on the state capitol grounds in Columbia (54 percent).
With the exception of the Confederate flag, none of these things is close to being Constitutional or in line with the rest of the fully-developed world. When it comes to Trump, the numbers are even worse:
-70% think the Confederate flag should still be flying over the State Capital [sic], to only 20% who agree with it being taken down. In fact 38% of Trump voters say they wish the South had won the Civil War to only 24% glad the North won and 38% who aren’t sure. Overall just 36% of Republican primary voters in the state are glad the North emerged victorious to 30% for the South, but Trump’s the only one whose supporters actually wish the South had won.
-By an 80/9 spread, Trump voters support his proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States. In fact 31% would support a ban on homosexuals entering the United States as well, something no more than 17% of anyone else’s voters think is a good idea. There’s also 62/23 support among Trump voters for creating a national database of Muslims and 40/36 support for shutting down all the mosques in the United States, something no one else’s voters back. Only 44% of Trump voters think the practice of Islam should even be legal at all in the United States, to 33% who think it should be illegal. To put all the views toward Muslims in context though, 32% of Trump voters continue to believe the policy of Japanese internment during World War II was a good one, compared to only 33% who oppose it and 35% who have no opinion one way or another.
There are many things wrong with our country, but there are some things that are deeply wrong. If we need a reminder of why this presidential election is important, why the Supreme Court is important, we need only look South.
MASSACHUSETTS
NEW HAMPSHIRE
MAINE
Notice all three states begin with the premise that general diffusion of knowledge is essential for maintaining a free and self-governing society.
but, then again, that doesn’t really say anything about the region given that all fifty states have education clauses in their state constitutions.
In a nerd streak I did read all the state constitutions at one point in college. I’ve long known ours did; that NH copied a lot from us; and assume ME did given they were once part of us.
..do you think the percentages would be different, setting aside the Confederate flag?
It is fun to demonize a geographic region as ‘the other’ in order to assuage ourselves that it is only those over THERE that feel that way. You are clueless if you think people in Southie, Everett, and Revere don’t hold the same opinions, likely in the same percentages.
And since MA and ME were one state, it is no surprise their Constitutions have the same priorities.
In my day job I had an illuminating conversation with a Revere contact, they said “most of the Democrats around here like Trump better than anyone else”. So it doesn’t surprise me that these divisions could probably be mapped out across our state and while the average may still be ‘Norway’ many Russia’s and Azerbajins would prop up too.
I’m sure that Massachusetts Trump supporters would tend to be just as idiotic. The only Trump supporter I know (I’m sure there are others who support him that I don’t know about) is a flat out racist.
The difference between us and South Carolina is that we don’t aspire to ignorance and stupidity. Those people you’re talking about in Southie, Everett, and Revere–but they aren’t the average voter in the state. Do you really think Charlie Baker could get elected in the Deep South? I haven’t looked at the Mass GOP platform, but I suspect it’s different from the one in South Carolina. Maybe you have your climate deniers and creationists, but do they decide policy in your party? In this state?
We have problems in this country, and the South and the GOP that is more concerned about catering to them than dealing with reality is largely responsible for problems not being addressed and solved.
… that the only difference between communism and democracy is that in a democracy everyone starts out equal and in communism everyone is kept equal.
In many ways I pity the under-educated in the south much less than I do the under-educated in Massachusetts. The under-educated in the south have an excuse: somebody denied it to them. The under-educated in Massachusetts don’t have that out: they choose to be as stupid as they are. Being starved by others is a wholly different beast from anorexia…
Assuaging oneself seems to a sin particular to you. The point of the diary being the importance and necessity of education not how we feel about those who’ve been excluded, either deliberately or by choice, from it.
The fifth graders in Holyoke didn’t choose their parents, their school, or their town’s politics. They certainly didn’t choose Prop 2.5, levels of state aid, or other factors. When 17 year olds finish their tenure in the Holyoke schools, they’re likely under-educated given Holyoke’s poor rankings state-wide.
You’re telling me that those kids chose that?
It seems to me that petr, stomv, and other adults in Massachusetts did more to choose the under-education of graduates in Holyoke than did the kids themselves.
P.S. Substitute any under-performing district for Holyoke.
Which is true… but, also, not what I said.
Holyoke’s ranking statewide might be poor, but that’s in comparison to, as already stipulated, an actual standard. Take Holyoke fifth graders and magically whisk them away to Texas and will they still rank as poorly? Hell, not having to deal with creationism gives them a leg up.
Here, though, is what you did write:
I’m not sure how else to parse this sentence. The target of “they” in the second clause is surely “The under-educated in Massachusetts”. I don’t think you’re being misquoted by paraphrasing your sentence as:
“The under-educated choose to be as stupid as they are”.
It seems to me that this sentence contains at least the following characterizations:
– Under-educated are stupid
– Under-educated choose their fate
I hear stomv reminding us that neither is true. To the extent that choice is involved, it is we grownups making that choice (granted that some portion of us are likely to “under educated”, given how long these standards have been in place).
While I agree with your comments about Texas, I don’t see the relevance.
Ok, ok, so I do see the relevance, since we’re talking about the abysmal state of education in the deep south.
Still, it seems to me that our under-educated children have no more choice than those of the deep south.
My view is that ALL such children deserve our sympathy.
…rising standards, the cohort that is *willfully* under-educated grows: that is, people who are presented with a quality education but who do not take advantage of it. This may be put upon uninterested parents or upon the student who willfully sleepwalks through class but it is not the fault of even lesser ranked schools (whose ranking exists in the context of overall quality and standards)
In the deep south there is precious little education to spurn… but the very presence of ‘stupid people’ amid the very fact of ‘high standards’ means that some goodly portion of those who are stupid made the choice to be so.
Nor do I think that the serious streak of consistent anti-intellectualism, even in the CommonWealth, we’ve all seen and bemoaned is at all possible without this dynamic.
I’m fighting a cold today, and so my brain is working on about one of eight cylinders, so please forgive me if I’m being incredibly dense. I just don’t understand your last comment.
My first issue is with your conflation of under-educated and stupid. I think those are different, whatever the standards are.
I grant you that a student who sleepwalks through class has chosen to be undereducated. I don’t agree that that student is “stupid”. There are a great many reasons why children choose to do that. In fact, I’m under the impression that one of the hallmarks of GIFTED children (who are certainly not stupid) is that they do very poorly (they sleepwalk through class) in classes that do not challenge them.
A student who is reading, writing, and problem-solving at a 12th grade level is VERY likely to sleepwalk through a 7th grade class, even in a “good” school system.
I think your attempt to conflate “under-educated” and “stupid” just doesn’t withstand scrutiny.