What a darned good question.

The answer is, of course, nothing.

A high school graduate is not really trained for anything. Not by their traditional education, anyway.

If they’re lucky enough to have a gift for computer programming or art, they can certainly adapt those skills into a business or career, but by and large, the education you receive at school doesn’t even get you so far as to be perfectly competent as a retail clerk. If it did, I wouldn’t have gotten the confused and panicked look I got today when I dug up 31 cents after a cashier had run in $20 payment for a $10.31 bill.

And so, it’s not surprising to see that, according to an associated press poll,  Americans think that schools are not properly preparing kids for life.

Half of Americans say U.S. schools are doing only a fair to poor job preparing kids for college and the work force. Even more feel that way about the skills kids need to survive as adults, an Associated Press poll released Friday finds.

Given that in the not so distant future, we’re going to need to expand the workforce to include those high school graduates in order to pay for the benefits promised to retiring boomers, perhaps this is something that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. Or, do we just need to accept that the new ‘high school diploma’ … the new benchmark for entry level jobs … is going to be a college/university degree?

And to those of you who are homeschooling, what do you want to say your children will be educated to do when they’re done high school?

When I was in school, I generally tended to fall in the upper end of the ‘Average Students’. As such, I never received much attention from teachers. I wasn’t a brilliant genius who could make a teacher or a school look good at an academic meet, and I didn’t need any remedial help with my schoolwork. I just showed up. And from my end, that’s about all I bothered to do too. I never had much enthusiasm for school, I skipped when I could, but I at least did the minimum amount of work required to hand in each assignment.

The only year that actually changed for me was in Grade 9. I didn’t get any academic attention that year, but I did find out my teacher enjoyed the same types of fiction as I did. For the entire year, we swapped books and suggested authors to each other. And that was all the attention I needed. Just that little bit of connection between me and one teacher, and my entire attitude toward school changed. I worked harder, cared more, and bumped myself to the top of the class.

The next year, that connection absent, I reverted to the old habits once again.

All this is prelude to my comments on a report released by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute called “High-Achieving Students in the Era of NCLB”

The report claims that:

Congress was quite clear about NCLB’s objectives. Right on its cover, it’s termed “An Act to close the achievement gap.” Congress followed through with accountability mechanisms that have one clear and explicit purpose: drive up the achievement of low-performing pupils. As for students on either end of the spectrum, indeed all youngsters who could already be termed proficient,  NCLB’s core provisions treat them with benign neglect. Let them fend for themselves. Let someone else worry about them. Let them eat - well, whatever is left over at the bakery when the bread runs out.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that one of the results of the NCLB is that gifted students are gaining little ground. That’s simply a necessary part of the design of the act. After all, the achievement gap can’t close if all groups improve their performace at an equal pace — that’s simply moving the gap up the scale a little, not reducing it.

And while I agree that it’s a travesty to ignore the gifts and talents of advanced students, the statistics seem to show that advanced students have college educated, strongly participatory parents who can lobby for them, or get them outside tutoring if they wish.

I wonder if the greater tragedy is that, now more than ever, those average students with the potential for greatness are being ignored. The average students, by far the largest portion of a class, are the least likely to get any one on one attention from a teacher. After all, they’re doing fine.

Likewise, of the home educators I know, quite a number are homeschooling kids who are either gifted or special needs.  Would those parents have considered homeschooling if their kids were in the ‘average’ range? Would they pull them out of government schools where  “they’re doing just fine?”

Is “just fine” as good as it gets for someone labelled Average?

Maybe they’re the most chronically ‘left behind’ group of all.

An interesting video clip from the Cato Institute. Neal McCluskey explains why the very institution that is supposed to unify causes so many arguments.

To illustrate, he quotes Lexington MA Superintendent of Schools Paul Ash as saying, “We couldn’t run a public school system if every parent who feels some topic is objectionable to them for moral or religious reasons decides their child should be removed.”

“In other words”, McCluskey says, “you can’t run a single system of education that upholds the rights and values of all those who pay for it.”

The video is about 12 minutes long, but a worthwhile listen:

Since my blogging has been slow lately, and I really have not much to blog about, I thought I’d offer some suggestions for toy purchases for the younger set seein’ as there’s only four weeks till Christmas…

So, here are the best and worst toys I’ve purchased this year, as well as a short list of toys I am considering and those I’ve scratched off my list entirely.

The Best Toy Purchases I’ve Made This Year

A dollar store super-size Snakes & Ladders game. For a buck, this plastic sheet of a game board and super sized pieces has gotten TONS of use.

David’s Puppet theater (plus an assortment of puppets) has been used constantly since we got it. My only regret is that we didn’t buy one with a larger stage like this.

LEGO Mosaics — These are great fun. The patterns that come with the sets are neat, and you can get more online from the Lego site.

AquaPlay - We got a set before summer, and it was a constant outdoor amusement. Water, boats, waves, pumps… what’s not to love? It would be an even better buy if it weren’t too cold to play with water outside for six months of the year.

LeapFrog Leapster — While this isn’t a constant plaything, it always comes along for long car, train and plane rides, and always passes the time quickly. Well worth the investment.

Rush Hour — While the box said it was for ages 8 and up, David first played this at his uncle’s house, and was hooked on it instantly. He bought it with his own money a few days later, and hasn’t lost interest in it after several months.

ScienceWiz Balance Scale - This $10 item was an impulse purchase that’s had more use than I ever imagined. It’s been fun seeing David weigh various things, as well as figure out how to balance the weights themselves. It’s tiny, and not very robust, but we’ve been careful with it and it has weathered frequent use quite well.

The Worst Toy Purchases I’ve Made This Year

Mega Blocks Spiderman 3 building set — not only was this Spider-Man vehicle set too hard for David to figure out how to build on his own, it was too hard for me to help him with, and nearly stumped his dad. The Mega Blocks blocks don’t hold together nearly as well as Lego, and the thing fell apart soon after it was assembled, whereupon it got put in a box and hasn’t been looked at since.

Marble Run — This one amazes me. I thought this would be a hit, but it’s been out of the box maybe twice in half a year.

Toys I Might Buy

Crazy Forts Construction Set
If I can find this in stock somewhere before Christmas, I’m pretty sure it’ll find its way under the tree. “Simply connect the balls and sticks and cover the structure with bedsheets to create places where imaginations flourish. Durable, portable and best of all, there’s no batteries required! You can build your own creation, a playhouse for parties, tunnels or connect with friends for spectacular structures.”

Sno-Paint
There’s no shortage of snow this year (or any year) around here, so this might be a fun addition to fort and snowman building. It’s not expensive, and I’m absolutely certain David would have fun with it so long as the painting process isn’t too difficult to do with mittens on.

Eskimold
It seems expensive for what amounts to a plastic block with a little shovel, but if it truly does make it easy to build an igloo, it might be worth looking into. And as I mentioned, there’s no shortage of snow expected any time soon.

Toys I’ve Ruled Out

Eye Clops Bionic Eye
I admit I love the concept, but since it’s tied to a TV, its utterly useless for us. Maybe EyeClops version 2 will have a built in LCD and a card slot for storage, or a USB connection at the very least and we’ll invest. But what good is a bionic eye if you can’t take it on a hike, or save the images you see, or compare two things side by side?

Fisher Price Smart Cycle
David’s begging for this, but it’s just so wrong in so many ways. I simply told him that he’s got video games and he’s got a bike. There’s no need to mix the two.

The New York Times had an interesting article this weekend about the problems associated with governments using lotteries to fund public schools.

Now, on the one hand, I’m all for using lottery cash for public schools because that’s one form of taxation I don’t have to be subject to. Yay!

But having the government encouraging people to gamble for any reason is a little weird. And what happens when the state isn’t raking in enough lotto money to pursue whatever they want to do? Well, if not enough people are buying tickets, pull in more customers by increasing payouts.

But that cuts into revenues too.

What you REALLY need to do is increase your “core” lotto buyer base. You know the folks. They’re the ones that blow hundreds or thousands of dollars a week on the lotto. And how do you get more people crazy enough to do that? Make the games more addictive, of course. Games with instant winnings, video lottery terminals, and keno all encourage marginal gamblers to stretch their boundaries, thereby bringing in more cash for education.

And since few public schools teach their pupils about sound fiscal management, or even informal logic, future citizens will be more than willing to throw their paychecks away for the hope of unearned riches and, of course, public education.

What a utopian dream. We can have the perfect public education system if only we can create more gambling addicts.

I’m surprised that David hasn’t gotten sick of me buying toys that remind me of my childhood, but so far he’s remained very interested in what I was like as a child, and what I liked to do.

So he was game when we unwrapped this morning’s delivery of mosiac peg boards and colored pegs. I found them at The Oriental Trading Company for a great price. The standard set (which includes six boards and 2000 pegs) is $19.95, but if you get the “Inspirational” set, which includes Christian themed patterns on cardstock instead of generic, you can get the same boards and pegs for less than $10.

I’d recommend the cheaper version, since most of the fun of playing with these pegs and boards is making your own designs. If you want more pattern ideas, coloring books for very young kids often have great simple pictures of objects and animals that are easily adapted. You can either ‘wing it’ or color the picture, then put it under the peg board as a guide.

Since the boards are 8.5X11″, a standard coloring book page will fit right underneath it.

If you decide to make the same purchase and find some other neat stuff at The Oriental Trading Co, you can get free shipping on orders over $60 by using coupon code RLS100 at the checkout.

I’ve just recently discovered this television series, and I’ve been watching old episodes on the Mystery Network when I remember to turn on the TV.

I can’t say I was ever much good at math, but I always enjoyed the mystery of it.

So, when I found not only the show, but this blog where a professor from Northeastern University’s Math department posts mathematical comments on each episode, I was hooked.

Knowing my abysmal ability to remember to schedule any TV time, I suppose I’ll have to  buy the first few seasons to get any consistent viewing at all, but I thought I’d share the math blog for other fans.

I just found a great site called Wowio that offers free ebooks supported by advertising. Not just a bunch of public domain rehashes, there are some AMAZING books there for homeschoolers — a good number from Nomad Press, my favorite history activity book publishers.

You can download five books per day, as long as you’re coming from a US based IP address. They’re hoping to expand the service to include a world wide audience as much as possible, but it’s limited to US users at this point.

THOUSANDS of Japanese have been swindled in a scam in which they were sold Australian and British sheep and told they were poodles.

Australia’s Herald Sun reports that a company called Poodles as Pets sold sheep as poodles, charging $1600 each… half the price of a real poodle in Japan.

The scam was uncovered when Japanese film star Maiko Kawamaki went on a talk-show and wondered why her new pet would not bark or eat dog food. She was crestfallen when told it was a sheep…..One couple said they became suspicious when they took their “dog” to have its claws trimmed and were told it had hooves.

Just to check his response, I showed my 4 year old a few pictures of lambs and sheep and a few of poodles. He was able to identify all of them correctly — even the tricky ones…. “I see hooves, mommy”

He might have an advantage over your average japanese person as he’s seen plenty of dogs and sheep in his short life. But still. Wouldn’t you look at your dog’s claws before bringing it to the groomer for a clip?

I’ve been taking advantage Education Week’s ‘Open House’ period where all their articles are available without subscription. While most of the articles just have me shaking my head at the futility of seeking the magic silver bullet that will teach all children all things at all times equally, there are a few gems on the site.

One article I read this morning struck me as particularly interesting. Robert Epstein, former Editor in Chief of Psychology Today, proposes abolishing High School.

He says, while our society sees adolescents as angst-ridden, unreliable and irresponsible, the exact opposite is true. In fact, there is next to nothing that adolescents cannot do that their adult counterparts are capable of.

The problem with adolescents is that we’ve created them at all. We’ve put so many restrictions on young people that they can’t live up to their potential. In fact, they can’t do anything except be the kids they’ve already grown out of being. Epstein writes:

Surveys I’ve conducted suggest that teenagers today are subject to 10 times as many restrictions as are mainstream adults, to twice as many restrictions as are active-duty U.S. Marines, and even to twice as many restrictions as are incarcerated felons.

One thing I’ve noticed about the homeschooled teens I’ve encountered, is that they blend into the adult world seamlessly. They have no problems conversing with adults in a mature manner, and no problem dealing with ‘adult’ problems and issues on their own.

These kids, compared to the local public and Catholic school students I’ve interviewed for summer job positions, are radically different. And I mean radically.

I’m sure there are exceptions in both groups, but my limited experience leads me to agree with Epstein that, instead of forced attendance until a certain age, a competency-based limit would be far more effective.

Lets let intelligent, motivated teens move on with their lives. Let them do more than hang around the skate park trying to injure themselves. Let them pursue jobs that involve more than asking, “Do you want fries with that?”

The social-emotional turmoil experienced by many young people in the United States is entirely a creation of modern culture. We produce such turmoil by infantilizing our young and isolating them from adults. Modern schooling and restrictions on youth labor are remnants of the Industrial Revolution that are no longer appropriate for today’s world; the exploitative factories are long gone, and we have the ability now to provide mass education on an individual basis.