SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Political polarization among Americans has grown rapidly in the last 40 years—more than in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia or Germany—a phenomenon possibly due to increased racial division, the rise of partisan cable news and changes in the composition of the Democratic and Republican parties.
That's according to new research co-authored by Jesse Shapiro, a professor of political economy at Brown University. The study, conducted alongside Stanford University economists Levi Boxell and Matthew Gentzkow, was released on Monday, Jan. 20, as a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper.
In the study, Shapiro and colleagues present the first ever multi-nation evidence on long-term trends in "affective polarization"—a phenomenon in which citizens feel more negatively toward other political parties than toward their own. They found that in the U.S., affective polarization has increased more dramatically since the late 1970s than in the eight other countries they examined—the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Switzerland, Norway and Sweden.
"A lot of analysis on polarization is focused on the U.S., so we thought it could be interesting to put the U.S. in context and see whether it is part of a global trend or whether it looks more exceptional," Shapiro said. "We found that the trend in the U.S. is indeed exceptional."
Using data from four decades of public opinion surveys conducted in the nine countries, the researchers used a so-called "feeling thermometer" to rate attitudes on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 reflected no negative feelings toward other parties. They found that in 1978, the average American rated the members of their own political party 27 points higher than members of the other major party. By 2016, Americans were rating their own party 45.9 points higher than the other party, on average. In other words, negative feelings toward members of the other party compared to one's own party increased by an average of 4.8 points per decade.
The researchers found that polarization had also risen in Canada, New Zealand and Switzerland in the last 40 years, but to a lesser extent. In the U.K., Australia, Germany, Norway and Sweden, polarization decreased.
More information: Levi Boxell et al, Cross-Country Trends in Affective Polarization, (2020). DOI: 10.3386/w26669
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @06:55PM (12 children)
Public school is a sick joke. Try not to be so sad about your precious "education taxes".
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Monday January 27 2020, @07:18PM (3 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday January 27 2020, @08:42PM (2 children)
Yup: you have to be VERY active in your kids education: fortunately, my wife is an EA in the system, with an educational background in Behavioural Science. She knows how to get the worst kids in the system to get the work done (kids who in other Schools were TRASHING the classes and hitting kids and teachers). Unfortunately, she often has 9 of the worst kids that the teachers making $100,000 don't know how to deal with.
She SHOULD be earning a teacher's salary, but....
Our daughter was dyslexic and hated reading: we bought her the Betty and Veronica books...LOTS of them and she learned to love reading.
But she's made the biggest difference with our son: because she knows how the system works from the inside, she knew when to push for what he needed (moderately to severly autistic) and when things were the best we could expect and she taught the rest at home.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 27 2020, @11:47PM (1 child)
One of my firends is a literacy consultant for a regional education unit and repeatedly has the same conversation. "These kids can't/hate to read. Fix them." "Have you tried giving them books about topics they are interested in." "That would be a waste of time because they wouldn't read them." "Try that while I get the RTI paperwork drawn up, then we can see if they need an 504 or IEP."
It is almost magical how often she gets the email saying the problem is no longer a problem. Or that the students they claimed needed a level 3 LRE modification in an IEP can get away with a 504 due to their improvement.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Tuesday January 28 2020, @03:02AM
Everyone, no matter their age, read the Archie digests.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Gaaark on Monday January 27 2020, @08:05PM (7 children)
If the public system was as funded as the private system, it COULD be better: instead, it is a unionized and an underfunded joke.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 27 2020, @08:51PM (6 children)
The public system could be (made) better in many different ways**. Why the fuck do you feel the compulsion to push a dichotomy here?
** Use your fav search engine and search 'Finland education successful'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday January 27 2020, @09:16PM (5 children)
I hate that 'unionized' teachers, basically, cannot be fired: there are a LOT of teachers that should be fired. I had some in high school. I had a teacher that spent the entire class helping the girls with boobs. Eventually he was sent off to another schooled instead of being fired.
My wifes' school has a janitor who does nothing all day, but because he is unionized, he is allowed to do nothing.
BUT: there are a lot of teachers who are doing a good job: to me, unions SHOULD support people doing their jobs: if they aren't, they should be fired, someone is promoted into their position and someone else is hired to replace the missing person. You wind up with a union that is efficient and productive, and yet supports people who need union support instead of people who aren't doing the job.
My wife goes out of her way to support the kids: she is one of the reasons that the education system is as successful as it is (one of her kids just looked her up so he could thank her for the help she gave him: he has his own business and rebuilds classic cars as he gets the money.
All because she gave a damn.
It looks like she'd do well in something like the Finland system.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 27 2020, @10:00PM (4 children)
Ok, I understand how you acquired the compulsion, you didn't have large enough boobs at the time. (large grin)
Like how unions are an effective negotiation partner [thehill.com] in Germany [hbr.org]?
Or the way the Japan trade unions are more fiscally responsible than a conservative prime-minister [ft.com]?
(my point: it's not the trade unions as such that is detrimental, it's how certain trade unions choose to behave. Instead of nailing down "trade unions are bad" in one's mind, one would better look why the trade unions in US choose to behave destructively during negotiation; as a hypothesis, perhaps the "everything is competition; if one doesn't win then it's a loser" ethos has something to do with it? That may explain the extreme political polarization in US too)
Please do send my respects to her, I understand what it takes and I do have all the admiration for people who can do it, especially in education
(I do give a damn about education and this is the very reasons I don't teach. Took me 2 terms working as a substitute teacher during my Uni time and I decided that I'm a sub-mediocre it. I didn't and don't want to ruin the potential of the kids for a subject because I don't have the vocation for teaching)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday January 27 2020, @11:08PM (3 children)
"Instead of nailing down "trade unions are bad"
NO! It seems that unions are just as important now as ever (maybe). It just seems that SOME unions protect the wrong people..
I knew a guy in BEAUTIFUL DOWNTOWN KESWICK who was a delivery guy (Mowat delivery: i think it got bought out by someone else...probably to get rid of the union): he would stop halfway through his day to do a little schtupping with his girlfriend on company time, then finish his deliveries late so he could get overtime. The company had him followed and fired him, but he cried discrimination (he was Jamaican) and the union supported him.
I'm sorry, but his ass should have been let go:BUT, promote someone into his position and hire to fill the gap. THAT'S productive.
You're right: unions CAN be good...but they can also be bad.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 27 2020, @11:49PM
Any tool that is effective can be used for good and bad. Sometimes you don't even need to intend a bad end when using an effective tool, yet bad things may happen (accidents).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @10:52AM (1 child)
How about people that hate unions, first try try to get rid of the police union and leave the trade unions be. Let's see how that will work out for you, mkay?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 28 2020, @12:07PM
What about them?
The continuation doesn't even follow.