"Let a black man become president and it's time for the "revolution" buy guns, lots of ammo and learn to shoot straight 'cause these rednecks mean to kill people who ain't like them... they are out there preachin' violence, people feek empowered to think that violence is perfectly okay.

If the rednecks want out that bad then don't let the door hit ya'll on the way out... Ya'll allready have the highest divorce rates, the highest obesity rates, the highest health care costs, the dumbest people, the most per cpaital federal tax dollars returend to ya'll so ya'll becoming a drain on the rest of the country.... Yeah, if ya'll want out then fine with me... I rather live in an ara where people ain't brought up thinking that the government owed them everything while criticizing the hand that feeds 'um... I mean, these people couldn't survive 30 days without the northweat and west coast paying in the bigass $$$s that in turn got dooled out to them... Bunch of ungratefull crybabies as far as I can see...

BTW, the US now is 18th in high school graduation rates in the top 24 industrialized countries... Come to where I live an' you'll understand in about 10 minutes... I mean, I never thought I'd see our country so dumbed down... I mean, eat up with stupidity and ignorance and the worst part about it is that the Repubs have lived at the "Elitist (eductaed) plate" for so long that there are entire regions that think that education is stupid????

Gee what a refreshing new humanitarian slant on "reality"

First of all Bobert, you do know how education works in other countries don't you? Being so learned you must know that if a student does not pan out academically they are shunted off to Vocational school can never graduate from high school and are not included in those stats of yours. Sometimes they are split 3 ways, high school, general education and vocational.

Now suppose you, having learned all about bogus statistcs in a **college course**, add them to the number of people that did not graduate from high school in those other industrialized countries.

The US is the only country that tries to force every student through high school and many of them drop out.

But I am not going to arrogantly assign you homework and demand that you have to prove I am right. I am actually going to reject blowhardism and back up my facts.

The majority of Europeans spend at least nine or ten years at school. It is where they gain the basic knowledge, skills and competences that they need throughout their lives, and the place where fundamental attitudes and values develop. Schools should set their pupils on the path to a lifetime of learning, if they are to prepare them for the modern world. A sound school education system also helps ensure open and democratic societies by training people in citizenship, solidarity and participative democracy.

Dang, you know right there off the top, it sounds like over half of Europeans never get past 10th grade. Even less if they count Kindergarten.

The United States public school system is so different from public school systems in other nations that comparisons of student achievement almost certainly lack any validity.
For one thing, enrollment rates differ sharply. Elementary school education is compulsory throughout the world and enrollment rates approach 100% as they do in the United States. Enrollment rates at the middle and high school levels, however, average a mere 58% in the rest of the world, compared to a rate of more than 96% in the United States, where academic secondary school education is compulsory and universal. Thus, most secondary school systems in other countries are self-selective, automatically weeding out low achievers when they reach the age of 12 or 14 and either sending them off to labor, as they do in thirdworld countries, or to apprenticeships or vocational schools, as they do in the more advanced, industrialized nations such as France, Germany and Japan, among others. The process allows only the academically gifted to remain in academic high schools to compete in international testing with a far more average cross-section of American high school students. The American public school system is unique in that it is the only system in the world attempting to provide universal, academically oriented education to a massively heterogeneous student population of rich, poor, English- speaking, non English-speaking, white, minority, handicapped, learning disabled, hearing or visually impaired, emotionally disturbed and mentally retarded sometimes all in one building or classroom. Average achievement levels rise in schools with relatively advantaged, homogeneous student populations. It is not difficult to understand that the achievement level will be higher in classrooms with students who speak the same language, are equally healthy and wealthy, and from whom all disruptive children have been culled. The chances are nil of achieving the same academic results in a student population without similar advantages. If such comparisons have little statistical validity, they do, however, bring to the fore the question of whether the American public school education system should be doing what it is trying to do or whether it should convert its system to one more akin to those of Europe or Japan.

So now perfesser Bobert, you can take the podium and support your "facts"