Education - 2 years free junior college

Valentine show:  Heard discussion yesterday that 2 years free college would destroy the established colleges, as everyone would go to the first 2 years for free and there would be no freshmen or sophomores.  Also that these people would not be prepared and many would fail and it would be a waste of money.

Interview included a public school administrator suggesting that the problem is K-12 and not P-14.  (He said that Obama's proposals for pre-K and 2 years free junior college were P-14).  He thinks that we should go back to tracking people (where in the 60s it was outlawed, sort of as an extension of Brown v. Board IMO, as it assessed kids, young, and determined that they would not succeed so pigeon-holed them, frequently the lower end were poor and/or "colored,"  yep, that was colored then) . Anyway, his idea is that they should be tracked, college isn't for everyone, and the K-12 program should quit preparing everyone to be college-bound.  (Reminds me of the model (either Japanese or European, can't remember, where they take a major test at about 7-8th grade and that determines your fate--you can go to University if you pass and  you go vocational if you don't.)

Valentine went on to criticize the Univ. of Tenn, where his children are in attendance, that every course relates back to global warming and indoctrination, and that they aren't being taught anything "useful" in these colleges anyway.  (I am almost assured that this is a great exaggeration for the ratings game.)  My question at that point is, if you want a vocational education, why not attend a vocational program.  Don't expect the universities to give up general education.  (The global warming issue is a tangential issue of criticism of liberalism, to which I respond, if you want a Christian fundamentalist school that doesn't believe in science, go to one of those). 

Interesting, I thought, because my kids just entered public school, from a private school (MT just doesn't pay enough anymore) and I have noticed the subtle tracking taking place.  The kids take more advanced courses and leave the other kids behind.  They can take Honors courses, which is directed by the parents' and student's choices and choosing to "track" their chidlren.  I have consciously registered my child in courses that I know will have more motivated and less problem students, allowing for more education and less babysitting, thereby tracking him.  But, we don't call it tracking anymore, cause that is not PC....oh, and it is isn't right either. 

But, I do stand conflicted between what I want for my children and what I want for society.  What I really want is an ideal that is hard to achieve:  A good, fair, equal education for everyone with high expectations and success and accomplishment in learning all of the basics so these kids can then make a decision as to which path to choose, instead of just "choosing" the only path left.   Enter Pre-K being a good idea. 

My kids teachers tell me that they don't assign much homework as there are so many kids that don't have the proper home environment to be successful at accomplishing homework, so none of them have homework.   This is socioeconomic.  Parents are spending so much of their time working and scrambling to make the systems work that they don't have time to be at home at 5:00 to conduct family ilife.  Oh sure, there are some that never would, but we are cutting SNAP benefits, so they will be scrambling even more.    Sure, there are some that are just "bad" parents.  There are some with little to no experience with education that honestly think the kids are going to be able to accomplish K-12 just through attendance. 

This is just a few starter ideas, not complete by any means, but Valentine just set me off and made me think about the 4 year state colleges actually being hurt by free 2 year junior college.  Seems it might expand the junior and senior classes in college because there were so many more coming in with the first 2 years, but, of course, that wasn't discussed.  He was just promoting the negative, because it is Obama, after all. 

Side note, also struck me as a sick, destructive concept that he announced with glee that he just had posted to their site the Countdown clock until this guy is gone.    The game was rigged from the beginning.  I don't know if it was race or if it was just pure affront to the conservative wealth group, but it is sick, and the sooner people who aren't in the "club" realize it (which is the majority, by far, of Americans) the better off we will all be.  Unfortunately, there is still a large group of wannabes that think that if they believe it will happen for them too and just don't care about the people it will never happen for because the game was rigged to begin with.