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As a recent former High School student, I concur. They spent so much time trying to prepare us to take a test, they didn't stop to think that maybe they should prepare us in general, and design a test that would -- test -- us. We seriously had a class everyday that was nothing but practice testing for the FCAT.

Teaching to educate the students became a lesser priority. Teaching what we needed to pass a test so the school could get a good grade, that is what happened -- and still occuring. Out of the day, at least two hours of it is being spent teaching students nothing but what is on a test. Every single day.

I feel like complaining to someone.

Seems to depend on what you're teaching, and where:

Shortage areas by skill and geography and year
NEA has a whole section on shortage
Article for administrators on the shortage and need to attract teachers
Same source, saying how some disagree in view of low pay, but some districts are increasing pay
State of FL forgiving student loans for 04-05 for education students
more on where and in what areas teachers are needed

That's just with a quick Google search, and the only reason I bothered is because I live in the DC area, where schools last year were increasing pay and offering signing bonuses in the VA suburbs of DC. DC itself has trouble holding on to teachers, but that's because it's a hellhole.

Say what you will about Florid, but that is exactly what we have. There is a program called "Florida Bright Future Scholarships" where a high school GPA of 3.5 or higher and a Florida high school diploma gets you 100% of a state school's tuition, and 3.0 gets you 75%. Florida state schools include the University of Florida, which is a very good school, and even if you only get the 75%, tuition is still quite reasonable in state. Look here and here for info.

And EVERYONE was disadvantaged when they came here. Georgia used to be an English penal (prison) colony, with WHITE prisoners, and, like Australia, turned out just fine.

Say what you will about Florid, but that is exactly what we have. There is a program called "Florida Bright Future Scholarships" where a high school GPA of 3.5 or higher and a Florida high school diploma gets you 100% of a state school's tuition, and 3.0 gets you 75%. Florida state schools include the University of Florida, which is a very good school, and even if you only get the 75%, tuition is still quite reasonable in state. Look here and here for info.

And EVERYONE was disadvantaged when they came here. Georgia used to be an English penal (prison) colony, with WHITE prisoners, and, like Australia, turned out just fine.

I'm not sure what percentage of credit card fraud happens this way, but "skimming" is fairly common. When a customer makes a valid purchase, a crooked clerk or waiter swipes the customer's credit card through a handheld device that just collects credit card numbers. The thief then either uses the numbers him/herself or sells them to others who can use them for a few purchases before the fraud is detected. Here's an example.

As I've said before, this is more akin to some "national" "yellow pages" directory sending you an advertisement that looks like an invoice for their not-widely distributed or non-existant directory, and trying to push it off as the real thing.

For example, a warning from the Florida Attorney General

You know what would cut digital copying down to an acceptable level, where it genuinely wouldn't cut into the studio's profits? If people got in trouble for it.

All the weeping and wailing the industry does about "millions of illegal copies" and "no way to prevent it" flies in the face of the basic fact that this stuff is de facto legal, since the copyright holders have shown no interest in bringing charges against any of those millions of people who are breaking the law on a daily basis. Nowhere else does the law work like this. "All across the country, people are driving too fast, because not a single person has ever gotten a ticket. Ever. We must need special devices in all the cars that prevent them from exceeding the speed limit." When you write your congressfolk, remember to point out that thus far, the industry has shown no interest in even trying to use the laws already on the books to protect their copyrighted materials, and that this is an attempt to push the cost of enforcement off onto another industry, where it will be more expensive, less effective, and more of a pain in the ass for those all-important "consumers." Other industries do this right -- the credit card companies already eat an estimated billion dollars a year in losses from fraud (in the US); they pursue the more flagrant cases, do what they can to make it difficult for fraud to occur, and do fairly well for themselves overall. What they don't do is go whining to congress about how possession of card readers should be made a felony.