I guess my point is that he has options for vertical movement within the military should he decide to pursue them.
Blackwood apparently talked about his future plans with the reporters:
Itâs a simple goal and eminently attainable. A desire for a secure pension is one of the primary drivers of career choice for many from poor or working class backgrounds, in my experience. I agree with many of the posters on here who have pointed out that Blackwood is not in any way a failure. He seems a good man who is doing right by his family.
I had a friend that got her teaching certificate within the last 4 years for Elementary education. She had a career in HR and stopped working to stay home with her kids. Then came back into the workforce as a teacher.
She told me about a concept that was interesting. She said almost all kids are in the same spot in kindergarten in terms of education level. Then some kids fall behind eventually. She said there is now a focus in 1st grade to make sure anyone falling catches up. It is easier to catch up a 1st grader than a 4th or 5th grader. By then they are too far behind. So focus needs to happen early. Most parents on CC do this themselves, but many other parents donât make sure their child is not failing behind.
GPO- there is a lot of research that suggests your friend is wrong. There is a HUGE disparity among kindergarten kids- vocabulary, one-on-one contact with adults/caregivers, hours of TV watched in the past year, attention span, nutrition, oral hygiene, social/emotional development. Most of the focus now on universal pre-K comes out of the findings that Kindergarten is too late-- cognitive differences are apparent by age 3.
@compmom re your comment
as I quoted from the article in post #10 on page 1: "No valedictorian embodies this story of rattled confidence and resilience more than Michael Blackwood, " That is why I think the article was applauding him, not putting him down in any way.
@gpo613 a gentle and quick mention that NYC public schools are some of the best in the country. No joke. Sadly not all of them are, and maybe your brother didnât have a choice when he attended in NYC years ago (or was it elsewhere?) but thereâs been school choice since like the 1970s in NYC and with about 600 high schools to choose from, and public transportation provided, your neighborhood is not your destiny. Even schools that arenât screened or you donât test into are excellent, many of them. (I know because have both had kids attend unscreened schools and was on school leadership team.)
@yucca10 and @kiddie â while the SHSAT schools are important, itâs important also to remember that there are excellent high schools in all categories â from the non-screened pure lottery schools, the audition schools, and the various other types of entry in between. All types of application/ entry have some excellent choices for students. The problem is that not ALL of the schools are excellent and not all of the students are well prepared to do good work in high school, as youâve pointed out already.
Well, of course. In that kinder class are kids with an IQ of120, 130 and more. Over the next couple of years, those kids will be able to charge ahead, leaving the âaverageâ kids âbehind eventually.â
I disagree with this as well. Many strong kids come in having already learned to read and can do arithmetic. And no itâs not just tiger parenting, but rather the abilities of the kids.
@Rivet2000 - I asked my DH who was in the army, and he said if this young man is a sgt. heâd be taking a step back to go to OCS and then essentially restart as a 2nd lieutenant.
Sadly, kids are not the same in K. Nor were they even the same in Pre-k. Some kids were already able to sit still, follow directions, be interested in learning ( the kind taught by a teacher kind), some were interested in reading and spoke well others did not. Much of this was due to both parental interaction ( of lack of) and the kid themselves.
@jym626 The point is that he has options. He would need to compare upward mobility potential a well as the possibility to enter new career fields if he wanted.
I too have always heard that many of the differences in kindergarten (some can read, some canât, etc.) smooth out by 3rd grade (where all can read, etc.) Some is due to the variety of maturity levels in kids 5-7 years old. Some tout that pre-k helps level the field (thus the push for free public pre-k). Not sure that is true. Almost all of my daughterâs kindergarten classmates had gone to some kind of pre-k (which their parents paid for), but some could read and some couldnât (they all could read by grade 2-3.) We are not helping the situation when we keep pushing down the curriculum to lower grades (a pattern we keep up through HS where some kids take 2-3 years of college math).
@rivet2000- the point is it really is not a very practical option. DH said he would probably set back his career somewhat to go from an E4 or E 5 to a 1st lieutenant, and they would not train him in the medical field. However, if he continues to be promoted, ultimately salary should hopefully increase as a commissioned officer vs a NCO. A friendâs son has been in the Army as a CO for I believe over 10 years, did get an advanced degree (in his field) and just got word that he will be promoted from a captain to a major later this year. So yes, he has gotten 3 promotions in 10-11 years, but that is no guarantee.
The gentleman in this story is currently stationed in Okinawa. I believe heâd have to request at the end of his tour to be returned stateside to complete OCS. No guarantee if he asked heâll get what he requests. DH used to joke years ago (before the Desert Storm wars) that when people put down where they would like to be stationed (I am guessing he means officers, not enlisted, it not sure), the joke was âOh you wrote Hawaii? You must have misspelled Germanyâ.
** autocorrect/typo should say - *but not sure, not *it not sure. And yes, ultimately COâs earn more than NCOs , especially if they stay in for a long time.
My point was not that kids should be doing calculus in the third grade. But there are huge chunks of the population where the kids are irretrievably behind by K. Not because they canât read- but because they havenât been read to, donât have the kind of vocabulary that the kids YOU know have. And ask a reading specialist if âall can readâ by 3rd grade. There have been studies on prisoners- a high percentage of those adults are NOT reading at even a 5th grade level. Functionally illiterate by adulthood.
Kiddie- itâs great if your Dâs K was comprised of kids growing up with parents who can afford a good pre-K program. But that is not the national norm, and pushing the curriculum downwards is most definitely an affluent problem. What a bubble we all live in if we think thatâs the national crisis in education!
âWhat if this turns out to be statistically true? What if the numbers say that 70% of the variation in outcomes is attributable to accidents of birth and 30% is working hard/talent/etc.?â
If this is true, we as a society need to examine how our current ideas of social spending and support fit that paradigm. It could be that we need to spend a lot more money and establish certain programs while discontinuing spending on others.
But given the current climate of academia and media, it is highly unlikely that this discussion will be had or any studies on these issues ever funded.
That doesnât surprise me, and it might be about all that can be expected. The hard truth is that probably 15ish% of the population in the United States simply does not have the cognitive capacity to read. Sure, we can mechanically teach anyone to âsayâ the words from a piece of paper or screen, but to actually put them together and comprehend them at any substantive level (say, at the level of inference that most kids can get by around 5th or 6th grade) is simply asking too much from some non-negligible portion of the population - itâs just not possible. Given the correlation between intelligence and criminality, 50% in prison functionally illiterate might be around right.
Charles Murray and Linda Gottfredson have looked into these and similar questions, but the thought leaders in our society absolutely refuse to consider the implications or even allow the conversation. I guess it is just so difficult to accept that we have no idea how to âfixâ this (if indeed it really needs to be fixed), that we prefer to imagine that some super solution is just around the corner (âread to kids,â âuniversal preschool!â and âmore funding!â). I imagine that it must have been just as hard for some people in the past to accept that slaughtering a sheep or throwing a virgin into a volcano could not fix their societyâs ills.
Just chime in to share a success story â someone actually became a doctor, not just a doctor, AN ORTHOPEDIC SURGEON ⊠but this is definitely an exception.
https://students-residents.aamc.org/choosing-medical-career/article/antonio-j-webb-md/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ7ivvcBCns
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfiLiIEJZ6Y
I was reminded of this study by the Brookings Institute that measured intergenerational social mobility for low SES/first generation students.
Most of the top 10 âladderâ schools (high research output coupled with strong intergenerational socioeconomic mobility) are publics like FIU, SUNY-Stonybrook, UC Riverside, U of Louisiana Lafayette, UTEP, NM State, etc.
The authors reference another study of intergenerational social mobility, commenting as follows:
âSome schoolsâthe California State system and the City University of New York, for exampleâare successful at attracting low-income students, and pushing them up the income ladder after they graduate. But many universities are dominated by relatively affluent students and do little to boost mobility for the few disadvantaged students they do enroll.â
This held true for Blackwood. This story suggests that he lacked the social capital to know how to ask for help, or even that he could. One wonders how a college advisor sensitive to the challenges faced by less advantaged students might have steered him towards a more balanced course load, advised against football, or informed him of the consequences of dropping below full time status. With all of that said, Blackwood had the determination and strength of character to reassess and turn his life around. He took responsibility for his actions and has built a secure life for himself and his family.
On what basis are you saying that 15% of the US population does not have the ability to read? According to the Disabilities Statistics Report of 2016, between 4% and 5% of those that are not elderly have a cognitive disability. Does your 15% include those with LDs (dyslexia for example) that could learn to read with proper education.