Former Supreme Court Justice Switches to Video Games

TechDirt is reporting that former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has moved into the one industry that I don't think anyone might have expected, video games. Not only did she speak at a recent gaming conference, she is also working on creating a video game about the courts. "There have been many similar 'civic education' video games out there, like the UN video game to teach kids about world hunger and, my personal favorite, a video game to teach kids how to gerrymander voting districts to get political support. It's not clear how successful any of these sorts of games really are, but it's nice to see a former Supreme Court Justice taking an interest in these sorts of things. Though, some might point out that this could be seen as something of a gimmick, and students might just be better served by adding a decent civics curriculum back into school (it's apparently gone thanks to No Child Left Behind)."

Comments

No Child Left Behind

[geekoid]

Dear next president, please kill that program on your first day.

Thank you.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[moderatorrater]

It's really hard to actually kill something outright, usually you just starve it of funds until it dies anyway. Would that be acceptable?

Re:No Child Left Behind

[Jherek Carnelian]

Wasn't "no child left behind" largely an unfunded mandate to begin with? Forcing the states to re-allocate funding from other parts of the curriculum to support teaching to the test?

Re:No Child Left Behind

[Sciros]

I only know Obama's stance on NCLB (haven't looked into McCain's) -- he plans on "rescuing" it by cutting NASA's budget. So... if you want NCLB gone (and I certainly do), then Obama isn't your guy. McCain may not be, either, but so far I haven't heard anything about it from him and his plan certainly can't be *worse.* Still, it's far from the only issue out there.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[Layer 3 Ninja]

Not only does it force teachers to teach the test, with budget penalties etc etc, if a student fails his or her EoG test twice, they get promoted to the next grade anyway. No child is left behind, because they eventually get promoted whether they pass the tests or not. Its fucking brilliant.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[Enderandrew]

I'm not sure anyone understands the program, or the issues here. Enforcing common standards is a good thing, and yet it blamed universally when anything outside the standards isn't taught any more.

I think it is possible to teach crucial curriculum and still find time for other classes. The problem is that teachers have little to no control over children in an overly litigious society of hyper-sensitive parents.

And more often than not, you either have both parents working, or a single parent household, where the parent may not connect with their child enough. So when a teacher attempts to tell a parent of their child's failing, they don't want to believe it.

We have developed this society where teachers are terrified of instilling discipline (I'm not talking about hitting kids, but rather just instilling order) so that children don't feel the need to take education seriously.

Our countries in the world manage to pull off superior public education programs, not necessarily because of funding, but I believe because of cultural differences in which education is taken far more seriously.

Universally blaiming "No Child Left Behind" isn't actually addressing the issues of what's seriously wrong. Conversely, I think the the concept of NCLB is a very good one. We spend more money on education. We attempt to raise the bar of public education, and hold states accountable for poor results.

There is a great disparity between what a child in rural Alabama, a child inner-city New York, and another say here in Omaha (my town) receives in education. Individual states and school districts should have freedom and flexibility in determining their curriculum, but having a bare-minimum standard of education all American children should be given is a GOOD THING.

If you want to see what's really wrong with public education, don't blame a politician for spending more money on education. Read some Jonathon Kozol.

http://books.google.com/books?as_auth=Jonathan+Kozol&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=author-navigational&hl=en

Re:No Child Left Behind

[geekoid]

That won't work.
The current administration tends to demand things, but not provide funding. Then when it fails, they start talking about privatization.

Don't get me wrong, education for all children are critical to the health of the long term existence of any country.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[geekoid]

Clarification:
He is cutting the severely underfunded Man to mars mission, not the entire budget.

Well, by 'fix it' he is effectively getting rid of it.
To be frank, I was being a little flip. If they fix the problems with it, that would be good. It would also be the same in name only.

McCain's view is the same as Bush's. Vouchers, Privitazation, etc...

Re:No Child Left Behind

[R2.0]

Yeah, because there weren't any schools failing before that law passed, and states don't have a choice whether to participate.

Perhaps it doesn't work. Fine. What would you have the government do?

I'll start: abolish the Dept. of Education and get the Feds out of the schools. Period.

Don't like that? What's your idea? Don't have one? Then STFU.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[qbzzt]

It was only unfunded in comparative terms. The federal government is not allowed to mess with education. They get around this by paying school districts to do something.

Before NCLB the federal government has some requirements to give money. NCLB changed those requirements, without allocating more money. School districts are allowed to tell the DoE to take their money, take their standards, and stuff them both into the same shredder.

We, as voters for each school district, have decided not to do so. We want our federal education subsidies.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[R2.0]

You are aware that NCLB included the largest increase in federal funding for schools in history, right?

Re:No Child Left Behind

[Frinet]

"Again, I've seen many examples of -- well, Senator Kennedy and President Bush worked together on the No Child Left Behind Act. The No Child Left Behind Act may have some flaws associated with it, but I still view it as a major milestone in trying to improve education in this country." --McCain http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0511/03/lkl.01.html Nope, he's not your guy either.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[Dachannien]

Dear next president, please kill that program on your first day. It's pretty obvious that you never got to take that civics class mentioned in the OP, because otherwise you'd know that it's Congress's responsibility to change or repeal laws.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[lilomar]

So the only way to leave a child behind is to starve it first?

That's harsh man.

(kidding aside, the sooner NCLB dies the better)

Re:No Child Left Behind

[billcopc]

If you want to improve education in the USA, stop letting the dumbest folk breed like bunnies.

School is a social experience. If the classrooms are full of uncontrollable ritalin-shooting idiots, the smart kids don't have a chance in hell.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[serutan]

Yes, it was a drive to setup and adhere to standards, but not exactly unfunded. The people who created the standards and the slew of accompanying rules and training materials got paid plenty. The overall result was to turn the public education system into a test prep system. To be fair, it was an attempt to respond to a serious decline in basic readin' writin' and 'rithmetic skills, as measured by businesses having to train their employees to do things they should have learned in school. Employers don't need you to know how the government works.

No Child Left Behind was a far-right pendulum swing in the ongoing battle over whether the purpose of public education is to train people to function as workers or to lead better lives. In the past 4 or 5 decades public education had drifted quite far to the left. Rather than attempt to create a philosophical shift back toward basics, which requires people skills and time, No Child Left Behind simply imposed rules and financial consequences, which can take effect quickly.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[goofy183]

Wish my mod points hadn't just expired, you'd be getting one.

My wife works in special-ed which has an even higher tendency to be litigious than general-ed courses do.

It is amazing how many parents immediately place blame on teachers for their child not doing well in a class. In many cases it may well be a case of a student and teacher not connecting at some level but jumping directly into "it's the teachers fault" versus trying to find a solution doesn't help and just puts teachers and parents more at odds.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[Sciros]

Agh, lame. Well, I don't know how he plans on fixing it, either, but Obama's plan is ridiculous in my opinion because he's taking money away from something that would educate us on a global scale (space exploration) in order to ensure the lowest common denominator being catered to in schools.

Basically NCLB is a horrible idea that I despise and anyone supporting it is misguided in my view. Since both McCain and Obama like NCLB, it'll have to as usual be a comparison of two evils.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[bigkahunah]

As a recent high school graduate (2006) I was in high school during NCLB. I do not see the program as having destroyed any meaningful civic curriculum because there never really was one to begin with. Sure the government and history teachers present the material, but as Enderandrew mentioned the parents can't stand to see a child failing or even falling short of perfection. This leads to great pressure on the teachers from parents and the school to pass all the students and inflate grades. The only thing that NCLB had done to change this is to add another source of pressure on the teachers to inflate grades. I was speaking with one of the government teachers the year after I had graduated. During this conversation he described the government teachers meeting to decide the curve on the test that all the government kids have to take due to NCLB and the driving factor was not what is a true cutoff, but how low can they make the req's for an A in order to maximize the overall results. They aren't even attempting to kid themselves into thinking it's not blatant grade inflation. NCLB doesn't provide a basis level of education, it ties the hands of the teachers from actually being able to focus on learning. They only have time to focus on the test because so much rides upon these standardized tests. You can see similar effects in the AP program, however the kids on that track are usually motivated harder working students, and the 'test' that is taught in AP is much more encompassing. Putting so much focus on these tests just serves to lower the standard to the test rather than setting a basis to start from. The high school I attended was in an affluent suburb, and in one of the better districts in the state. If this is happening in the "good" school districts imagine what is happening in the "bad" ones.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[Sciros]

NCLB doesn't raise the bar of public education, it lowers it so that people who are otherwise too stupid to pass would now do so. That's how it's handled due to punitive measures the act imposes against schools that do not improve based on its standardized tests. The achievement gap is lowered, but not by briging the bottom higher; rather it brings the top lower. It doesn't force underachieving students to rise to the occasion.

So, it's a POS.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[Chris Burke]

McCain's view is the same as Bush's. Vouchers, Privitazation, etc...

Yeah, I always have to remember to pretend to be surprised when the Public School policies of someone whose explicit and stated stance is that they want public schools to go away ends up harming the public schools more than helping.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[chromatic]

... it's Congress's responsibility to change or repeal laws.

It's also not their responsibility to spend twelve to eighteen months running for president, but recent events indicate otherwise.

(Don't like the imperial presidency? Tell your congresscritter to start doing his or her job.)

Re:No Child Left Behind

[Thundermace]

I have to say I disagree with the stance you posted. I will agree that the society in general is overly litigious and that parents generally are not tuned into school / children maybe the way that they should be. I can even agree with your viewpoint on having minimum standards are a good thing.

However, throwing money at the education problem has done nothing to correct it despite the best efforts of NCLB. In fact, it could be argued that it a huge waste of tax payer money that could go to other efforts. Wouldn't it be more valuable to say use the money to build more schools and reduce class size, along with reduce the size of the administration, and introduce a voucher based system forcing schools to compete for their education dollars?

By allowing money to be thrown at the problem and holding schools to minimum standards instead of forcing competition between them we are lowering the expectation and not getting a great return on our investment (aka the childs education). Just my 2 cents.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[Arccot]

I'm not sure anyone understands the program, or the issues here. Enforcing common standards is a good thing, and yet it blamed universally when anything outside the standards isn't taught any more. Enforcing common standards isn't the problem; enforcing common standards while funding different school districts with wildly different amounts of money is. Fix the funding, and you fix the standards.

I think it is possible to teach crucial curriculum and still find time for other classes. The problem is, if you test four different subjects (not sure how many there actually are), and don't test the rest, it would be foolish to focus on the untested subjects before the students are 100% capable in the tested subjects. You are funded because of four subjects. Your school loses funding, and you possibly lose your job, if your students cannot perform on those four subjects.

By testing only some subjects, the government is saying the rest simply are not as important.

The problem is that teachers have little to no control over children in an overly litigious society of hyper-sensitive parents. It's more that the teachers only have their students for about 6 hours a day, 180 days a year or so.

Imagine if part of NCLB was a physical fitness test. The school only has control over one meal of the day for the kids, and only when school is in session. They can only offer about 45 minutes, at most, a day for physical activity if they're going to cover other subjects. How can you claim teachers are responsible for the physical fitness (or ability in any subject) based on so little influence?

Universally blaiming "No Child Left Behind" isn't actually addressing the issues of what's seriously wrong. Conversely, I think the the concept of NCLB is a very good one. We spend more money on education. We attempt to raise the bar of public education, and hold states accountable for poor results. The basic idea is a good one, but the implementation is horrendous. If a school fails to meet it's goals, it doesn't get more funding to help it improve. It gets funding taken away. That doesn't improve the school district, it makes a bad situation worse. How is a school district supposed to dig itself out of that hole?

There is a correlation between the amount of money a school district is able to spend on a child to the quality of his or her education. Giving a cash-poor school district more funding could help turn it around. Taking it away condemns it.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[0111 1110]

I have recently had the opportunity to get to know a child who is so dumb that I regard him as basically unteachable. I seriously don't see the point of trying to educate him to do anything more intellectual than janitorial work or "fries with that?" kind of work. I'm tired of all the blame being left at the feet of the poor teachers trying to educate these idiots who clearly hate studying and thinking. Let them just go out and play sports or play in traffic or whatever. They are only going to very negatively contribute to the gene pool. So, yes, "leaving them behind" is definitely what we should be doing. Otherwise the smart kids whose brains are actually able to accomplish something useful will be the ones "left behind".

Rather than focus on the dumb people (say because they represent the majority of voters), we should be mandating some basic IQ and/or knowledge testing before we even allow a child to progress to the next grade. And I'm not talking about weeding out only those who are both mentally retarded AND lazy. We should be weeding out something like the bottom 30% of the curve entirely from intellectual pursuits. What's the point? They will never be succesful at it anyway. If they suddenly "get smart" at some later point they can always test themselves back onto one of the intellectual tracks. We should make staying in school something that is challenging and requires lots of work for the average person. The square peg in round hole kiddies should be derailed onto less intellectually challenging pursuits like the building trades or sewing or cooking. We should be making an effort to train people at something they might actually be useful at rather than just assuming every kid is some kind of budding genius. What we are doing now is our own kind of square peg to round hole fitting. It's not going to work no matter how much we wish it would.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[rts008]

I'll give you the benefit of doubt on this one, but at the same time, look at how the money was spent by the school systems.

Here, we have a jr. high that has roof leaks because one wall of an entire wing was built over a sink-hole:
the foundation sinks>the wall tries to fall over to the outside (crack in attached wall goes from 1/2" at floor to 14-22" at roof/decking depending on time of year)>when it rains, water runs in a sheet down the wall>stresses roofing>multiple leaks form at every roof junction.
There are three trailers set up as classrooms due to lack of classroom space in the main building-two of them had to be set aside as storage due to severe mold and fungus in the trailers.
With the increased funding instead of dealing with those problems, they instead remodeled the gym, adding more bleachers/seating for the basketball games, built a new football stadium and increased seating, new track, remodeled the two year old baseball field, and hired two more coaches. A $200,00.00 USD bus to take the applicable sports team to away games. (no, it is not used for any other club or department-only sports teams) Oh, and all of the administration/staff got brand new computers. Not the teachers, computer labs, library, or students- just admin and admin staff.

This is not a cherry picked example, just the one I was intimately familiar with- I see the same happening all over the state. The sad fact that sports uses the biggest chunk of the education budget, not education or learning.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[Mozk]

Not that I support NCLB, but space exploration? Sending humans to Mars? Really, I think we should learn how to live on our own planet before colonizing another.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[frosty_tsm]

While I may not agree with your choice of words, you have a point about not holding back those of higher intelligence in the interest of keeping everything equal.

However, I do know that people with lower IQ/smarts can get better through hard work. There are many fields that require college education but don't require brilliance. There's no reason to stop people from pursuing such opportunities.

Also, I don't know if I want someone if incredibly low intelligence building my house...

Re:No Child Left Behind

[R2.0]

You won't get an argument from me - I'd prefer to see the Feds OUT of educational funding altogether.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[ChromeAeonium]

If you want to improve education in the USA, stop letting the dumbest folk breed like bunnies. Or you could just accept the fact that 'dumb' people don't have to be and ensure that a strong effort is made to educate their kids, hence eliminating 'dumb' people. But that solution just wouldn't satisfy pretentious elitists who have a pathological need to look down on others, would it?

Re:No Child Left Behind

[Machtyn]

No Child Left Behind was a far-right pendulum swing in the ongoing battle over whether the purpose of public education is to train people to function as workers or to lead better lives.

The far-right direction is what catches me off-guard about NCLB. The right-wing / conservative values are to keep the government out of personal lives - minimize government. The public education system, welfare, and this program are among many government programs that interfere with personal lives (good and bad).

IMO, this is just another example of the Republican becoming more Democrat and the Democrat becoming more Socialist.

Who am I to vote for? (and don't say Nader, hehe.)

Re:No Child Left Behind

[mdarksbane]

My father works in arts and music education, as one of those travelling school performers who occasionally shows up to do a show that teacher kids history using music and theatre.

He's going to have to find a new job this year due to NCLB.

Funding for anything that is not on the NCLB standardized tests has completely dried up. Schools *have* to do well on those standardized exams, and they don't have the funding to be able to handle the extra costs of keeping up with them *and* having any sort of art/theatre/music department.

If you force everyone to teach to a test, no one will fund learning anything that isn't on the test. And that's exactly what's happening.

My mother is a grade school teacher, and she says she has not met a single teacher who feels that NCLB has caused an improvement in the education they can give their students. Every attempt at standardized testing just means that they have to spend more time administering the tests instead of teaching, more time reviewing for the tests instead of teaching, more time teaching the students how to take the test than actually teaching them something useful. Not to mention the fact that if you work in a low-income school district with no family support for education, suddenly your job is in danger because the kids don't test as well as the upper class schools.

The whole system is broken from top to bottom. There's only so much that schools can do to help kids with a broken home life - but it starts with giving them interesting things to do outside of getting in trouble, small enough class sizes that teachers can do more than herd cats all day, and paying enough to attract intelligent, talented people to teaching instead of just those who love it enough to put up with it and those who thought it was an easy degree.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[cthulu_mt]

Getting new planets obviates our need to fix the old one.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[StopKoolaidPoliticsT]

No Child Left Behind was a far-right pendulum swingin the ongoing battle over whether the purpose of public education is to train people to function as workers or to lead better lives. As proven by the fact that the bill was largely written by that ultra right neo-con Ted Kennedy. To quote him, "The tragedy is that these long overdue reforms are finally in place, but the funds are not." In other words, he was happy with the policy but not the amount of funding.

Sure, it was part of GWB's 2000 election platform, but after taking office, he decided to extend an olive branch to the other party and let Kennedy focus on one of his pet issues in an attempt to ease the partisan fighting in DC. But we'll leave the Senior Senator from Massachussets out of it as we rewrite history to prove yet again that only Republicans are evil.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[Theoboley]

This will be released on the Wii. Your Wiimote will act as a gavel as you judge the defendant guilty.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[flappinbooger]

Perhaps we should devise some metrics to determine intelligence before a person is even born, and mandate that the fetus be aborted if they fall below a certain metric.

Or, how about intelligence tests for the parents, mandating that persons with a combined mental capacity below a certain threshold not be allowed to reproduce?

Or, how about persons who are alive now that fall below a certain mental ability be euthanized?

Am I being absurd? Were you? I am, but your comment, while having arguable merit in a purely practical sense, smells like a "slippery slope" kind of thing.

What if a kid has a health problem that is holding him/her back? What if they're dyslexic? What if they are "visual" learners stuck with teachers who don't grasp that concept and teach otherwise? What if they're abused?

The good teachers are those who don't give up.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[a1ok]

Every time someone presents a reasoned argument to change an existing status quo, why does someone have to trot out the 'slippery slope' argument? I'm not a U.S. citizen and don't really want to comment on it, but the No Child Left Behind act is incredibly harmful to any intelligent kids imho, based on what I've read about it (mind you, this is mostly /. comments).

The GP was suggesting that people with no/little aptitude for thinking aren't steered into professions that require a lot of it. I certainly think it's a good idea - the brighter students can learn at a faster pace (and be positively influenced by having other bright students around them); and when they graduate will hopefully not be as pathetic at work as the current workforce in most industries.

If a kid is dyslexic or a 'visual learner'; this does not imply anything about their intelligence - I'm sure there are plenty of dumb dyslexics in the world too. For those that aren't; surely the better teachers can guide them well without holding back the rest of the class. I completely fail to see why some kids having health or abuse problems justifies dragging back other kids who, presumably, didn't hurt or abuse them.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[Enderandrew]

If the school administration and teachers are stressed out, that is likely poor management/administration. Grade inflation and giving A's to idiots doesn't help on the metrics being used here, which are the standardized tests.

I understand that cramming for a test isn't as effective in long term education as practical knowledge, but if you know of a better way to establish a base line metric that isn't easily cheated or inflated, please let me know.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[Enderandrew]

I'm not sure what you mean.

What standards have been lowered? NCLB didn't tell schools to give higher grades to underachievers. NCLB punishes schools who aren't educating their kids. How does that lower the bar?

I'm not following your so-called logic.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[Jherek Carnelian]

In other words, he was happy with the policy but not the amount of funding. As the senior senator from Massachusetts I suspect he had a pretty good idea what might happen because of the lack of funding. One might even say his words were prophetic. Obviously he didn't push the bill in an unfunded state.

I'm all for bashing politicians, but it sure seems clear to me that he was not bemoaning lack of funding for lack of funding's sake. No politician would make such a blatant statement.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[lgw]

It's quite amuzing chatting with all the Indian H1-Bs that I works with: their uniform opinion is that they need to return to India before their kids reach school age, so that their kids can focus on education instead of sports in school. Yes, emerging economies mock our school system, and rightly so.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[mpeskett]

Most ideas sound terrible if you take them to the absolute extreme. Fortunately we don't have to do that every time we change something, we have this thing called subtlety you see...

Re:No Child Left Behind

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps we should devise some metrics to determine intelligence before a person is even born, and mandate that the fetus be aborted if they fall below a certain metric.

Great idea.

Or, how about intelligence tests for the parents, mandating that persons with a combined mental capacity below a certain threshold not be allowed to reproduce?

This has been too long coming.

Or, how about persons who are alive now that fall below a certain mental ability be euthanized?

Whoa!! Manditory sterilization would surely be enough...

The good teachers are those who don't give up.

Cry me a river. Perhaps good teachers are those who manage time
well, directing efforts where they have the most return.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, which leaves us with jurors that can't understand the cases they try and easily swayed votes that can be grabbed by any demagogue that comes along. Good plan

Re:No Child Left Behind

[American Scum]

If you don't want someone of incredibly low intelligence building your house, or attempting to fix your car, then do it yourself. There are quite a few fields that do hire people who would never pass a rigorous high-school's requirements.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[American Scum]

As a high-school teacher I just don't know where I stand on this issue. I have taught kids who do learn, and progress, in my class that really did have some sort of problem, and were quite behind the rest of the class. Nonetheless, with my help they refined, and improved upon, what they gave me - and all I know is that I don't have a crystal ball, so I really don't know where their progress will end.

On the other side of the spectrum are the ones born who really are borderline retarded (and I'm serious in using that term, even though it's not really correct). I feel bad for them, but at the risk of having some students in my classes learn absolutely nothing, I have to leave these 'included' students behind in daily conversation. I can do my best for them in other areas, but it just becomes an exercise in babysitting if the sole leader in the classroom (the teacher) spends too much time with them, or teaches at too low of a level.

Perhaps test, instead, solely for those who want to be there, and who know there is more to learn - even if, at the same time, some of them know they have a learning disability. There is a difference between using a disability as a crutch, and putting one's nose to the grindstone no matter what the factor.

There is the argument, too, that inclusion builds empathy for people who are 'different' than our smarter thinkers. To some degree I see the point, but I wish it did not mandate a 100% inclusion, all the time, because it can build frustration and ruin potentially talented students' attitudes and foci by being dumbed down all the time.

What concerns me is that a separation of the masses for any length of time may build a social structure equivalent to the Nazi regime - one where certain qualities will be considered desirable, and a future where a non-empathetic class of people take political control, develop policies, and somehow dictate breeding based on a very harsh, and stratified, upbringing.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[religious freak]

Your idea may seem logical on its surface, but will ultimately result in creating a permanent underclass and undercutting the principles of meritocracy in our society.

If someone is born without the help of a good parent/grandparent, they will start out below normal, but given an opportunity will have a shot at contributing significantly to society, if not by themselves directly, through their children who will be taught better.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[datan]

...I work with...

Re:No Child Left Behind

[lgw]

Don't blame me, I was left behind. :)

Re:No Child Left Behind

[MasaMuneCyrus]

No Child Left Behind is very harmful to intelligent kids. When I was in middle school, I learnt close to nothing and the only thing that was widely regarded was improvement, not achievement. At the end of the year, the school always handed out awards to exemplary students, and there were maybe 10 awards for various kinds of improvement, and then maybe one award for achievements or grades.

Having been home schooled until second grade, we finally decided to quit school and begin homeschooling again after 7th grade. This is when I was 12. At 13, we found that IUPUI (Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis) offered a program called SPAN, which basically allows you to take any college course for both college credit and equivalent high school credit. And since college work is much harder than high school work, they're sometimes worth more credits, too. In other words, I was able to completely replace all of my public middle school and high school, and all of my home schooling with full-time college. Doing so, I entered college at the age of 13.

IUPUI isn't the only college doing this, though. America has many of the best colleges and universities in the world, and its public school system is among the worst (down near the likes of Mexico last I saw a report on it, and that was years ago when schools were better). The universities here are increasingly growing weary of having to teach freshman what they used to learn in high school. Universities now love home schoolers because they have a much better education, and they are usually more disciplined and ready for college than their public school counter-parts.

The American school system is steadily moving towards a point where if you want your child to attend college, you can't enroll them in a public school.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[Anonymous Coward]

To avoid the punishment, they lowered the standards. Then everybody passes, feels good about themselves, and nobody is punished.

I hope you were being sarcastic, because the logic is absolutely obvious.

Re:No Child Left Behind

[Anonymous Coward]

Enforcing common standards is a good thing Are you sure that this is a given? Wouldn't successfully enforcing common standards mean those would have to be the lowest common standards?

A better education system would be one that can handle the diverse interests and learning styles of people. In the current system there's only one type of student that thrives; those good at taking tests. The rest are either bored, made to feel stupid, or stop caring. But barring mental handicap I have never met a person that couldn't benefit from academic education, if they were just taught in a way that made sense to them.

In the end people either figure out how to learn on their own or remain ignorant for the rest of their lives. That's what needs to be changed, and it can't be done with standardized testing.

yayy

[Anonymous Coward]

fp!

I thought I'd never see the day

[TubeSteak]

This game will teach generations of children how to get away with murder!
Jack Thompson, save us from this calamity!

Re:I thought I'd never see the day

[Kumba]

OBJECTION!

Re:I thought I'd never see the day

[compro01]

On what grounds?

Re:I thought I'd never see the day

[The Moof]

Oooo.. Sorry, you barely missed him. He just walked out.

Re:I thought I'd never see the day

[lilomar]

I wish to stab him.

Re:I thought I'd never see the day

[sm62704]

If a videogame about the courts takes hold, I'm writing one about paint peeling, steel rusting, and grass growing.

Re:I thought I'd never see the day

[Anonymous Coward]

Call it "Grand Jury Auto" !!!

Re:I thought I'd never see the day

[neuromancer23]

OVERRULED.

Re:I thought I'd never see the day

[rts008]

You might want to throw 'watching concrete harden' in the mix for the impatient/short attention span 'twitch' gamers.

Re:I thought I'd never see the day

[journeymanmetal]

Not a fan of the Phoenix Wright games then?

Re:I thought I'd never see the day

[Kagenin]

I don't think he's played Harvest Moon either.

Re:I thought I'd never see the day

[thealsir]

Or how about "How many witnesses can you sink to the bottom of swimming pools after filling concrete around their feet?"

The Havok physics engine

[xPsi]

should be well suited for this genre for all the obvious reasons (not to mention crucial ragdoll effects for the Marionette Hordes and Lobbyists, Zero-Point Energy Field Manipulator for realistic simulation of the dissenting opinion, etc.)

Phoenix Wright: Ace Former Supreme Court Judge

[DeanCubed]

Coming soon to your DS - a brand new game from Capcom. Now you too can experience what it's like to hear appeal after appeal on Bush administration pet projects. Over 700 hours of game time with our new RealPaperwork Engine! Unlockable characters like Sandra Day O'Connor and Stephen Colbert! No objections to that!

Final Boss Ideas

[exley]

Jack Thompson (maybe more of a mini-boss... like it'd be that hard to beat this guy)

Jack McCoy (now we're talking)

Re:Final Boss Ideas

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

Jack Thompson (maybe more of a mini-boss... like it'd be that hard to beat this guy)

I dub thee ... Mid-Boss.

I just ask the Mod community

[antifoidulus]

Please, Please, PLEASE do not come out with a "Sandra Day O'Conner" nude hack!

Re:I just ask the Mod community

[sm62704]

It could be worse

Re:I just ask the Mod community

[Anonymous Coward]

What're you, nuts? SDO'C is a total GILF.

Re:I just ask the Mod community

[Ukab the Great]

More likely it would be "Hot Coffee With Clarence Thomas".

Re:I just ask the Mod community

[R2.0]

Janet Reno

[shudder]

Just think...

[xpuppykickerx]

How awesome would a Judge Judy video game be? You can take all the criminals from other videos and put them in her court!!!

Re:Just think...

[VeNoM0619]

Not sure how Judge Judy is viewed by most others here, but Judge Judy just seems vicious. I've watched maybe 10-20 shows and every time she seems to be more slanted in favor of women, and loves to lecture people. I have yet to see a smile on her face either. I still don't understand what has made her popular... someone care to enlighten me?

Re:Just think...

[JargonScott]

Some stupid people like to watch mean people yell at other stupid people.

Re:Just think...

[xpuppykickerx]

I've watched the show maybe once, but the name is fairly popular and would probably sell the best.

Re:Just think...

[CogDissident]

It is very popular with women BECAUSE of her feminist slant. Whenever it is a man versus a woman on her show, the woman is usually the kind of person that the audience can relate to, and she always wins.

Re:Just think...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to disagree with you there. I've heard that argument before, but after becoming amused with watching Judge Judy almost on a daily basis, I can tell you that I've seen her dish it out to women just as much as men. Sometimes she goofs up and rushes the case due to time constraints, but 90% of the time she's right on the money.

Re:Just think...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea! Men are scumbags! Girl power!

A game that teaches about courts

[Lucas123]

I can see it now. Milton Bradley will name it, "He Who Has The Most Money Wins"

Gerrymandering

[D Ninja]

...and, my personal favorite, a video game to teach kids how to gerrymander voting districts to get political support. OMG! That game is so freaken awesome! I love redistricting constituency boundaries in order to get an electoral advantage!!!

Re:Gerrymandering

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the ReDistricting Game is really fun, and is partially about teaching about redistricting reforms.

(There are several different levels, and only one lets you gerrymander all you want - in the others, you have to follow increasingly strict laws, but still do the best you can with the guidelines you were given.)

O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[Doc Ruby]

When O'Connor voted to tell Florida in 2000 it couldn't count all its ballots and thereby decide how to assign its Electoral College votes, she voted to install Bush as president, along with all his baggage. That included "No Child Left Behind". And it included a seemingly endless list of Bush abuses of justice and the law.

Then O'Connor quit her "lifetime" appointment, so Bush could install a rightwing Supreme Court justice young enough to stick on the Court for another 30-40 years, while Bush still had a Republican Senate to confirm them. O'Connor said she had to take care of her sick husband, but instead she spent her time helping whitewash Bush's Iraq escalation. Now she's going to spend it playing videogames.

I hope kids learn as little as possible from O'Connor's ideas about how justice should work in this country.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[morgan_greywolf]

Wow. SDO was on the ISG?

The way you paint that makes me want to put a tinfoil hat on -- NOW.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[jdgeorge]

Such a post containing a petulant, childish, and largely inaccurate personal attack on Justice O'Connor is completely inappropriate for a....

Oh, nevermind... Slashdot... got it.

Jolly good show, carry on.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[Dachannien]

When O'Connor voted to tell Florida in 2000 it couldn't recount only some of its ballots Fixed.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[Doc Ruby]

I just posted cited facts in a restrained tone.

You just posted exactly the kind of bullshit that you projected on me with your post, like a loyal Republican. You people never quit, do you? Unless it's quitting a lifetime obligation to rake in some private sector money, with your sick spouse as your excuse.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[Doc Ruby]

Yeah, "fixed" as in "rigged", the way you Republicans love it.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[Doc Ruby]

Moderation 0
    50% Flamebait
    50% Informative

TrollMods want more whitewash, and less facts about O'Connor's career.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[R2.0]

"Yeah, "fixed" as in "rigged", the way you Republicans love it."

Really? Ask historians about the 1960 Presidential elections in Illinois.

If Republicans are rigging the vote, they learned at the feet of the masters.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[Dachannien]

Actually, I'm a somewhat conservative independent. But thanks for prejudging me all the same - it lets me know that you really care.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[R2.0]

Wow - did she turn you down for a date or something?

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[Doc Ruby]

I wonder how many stories of Republican political crimes I could drag up, if I were to reach back a half century, before practically everyone on Slashdot, or their parents even, were even born.

Hey, Lincoln was a Republican, and he was honest. I guess if that's all you've got, that's all you can run on.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[Doc Ruby]

No, she screwed my country, as I detailed. But I guess you can't tell the difference, even when it's spelled out for you.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[Chris Burke]

When O'Connor voted to tell Florida in 2000 it couldn't recount only some of its ballots Fixed. So did she (and the Court) order them to count all the ballots? Or did she order them to stop counting, making the stated difference irrelevant?

Right.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[Doc Ruby]

Oh, right, a "libertarian" or something that can't admit its a "Republican", because that scam is dead now.

You voted for Bush. You're a Republican. Who cares.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[jdgeorge]

I just posted cited facts in a restrained tone.

You just posted exactly the kind of bullshit that you projected on me with your post, like a loyal Republican. You people never quit, do you? Unless it's quitting a lifetime obligation to rake in some private sector money, with your sick spouse as your excuse. Okay, I'll explain why I disagree with you posted, starting with this post:

You have no idea what my politics are, yet you say I am a Republican. You have no reason to believe I am or am not a Republican, though I infer that you are not, and therefore you conclude that I am what you are not, because I wrote a post critical of what you wrote.

Both in this post and your previous post in this thread, you refer to (implicitly in the previous post) a lifetime obligation for the Supreme Court Justices. There is no such obligation. The appointment to the Court is generally for as long as the appointee chooses. Most justices retire before they die. I recommend that you read the Tenure section of the Wikipedia article about the Supreme Court; it provides a decent summary and references.

In the previous post, you imply that the Supreme Court was responsible for the passage of legislation in Congress. This is meaningless; regardless of how ill-advised President Bush's No Child Left Behind policy is, it became law because people in Congress introduced, voted for, and ultimately passed the "No Child Left Behind Act". The suggestion Justice O'Connor's vote assuring George Bush's presidential campaign victory somehow was responsible for the Congress passing bad legislation is possibly understandable, but misguided and both practically and technically incorrect.

The implication that Justice O'Connor did not provide care to her ailing husband, or that this was not the reason she chose to retire, is unkind and, as far as I can tell, completely unfounded.

The trivialization of O'Connor's involvement in a game aimed at providing a view of how the courts work is ungenerous and almost certainly inaccurate. However, even if she spent the rest of her life playing video games, why would anyone complain? She provided a long life of service as a judge, and is generally perceived to have been an exemplary judge. I would not begrudge her the right to spend her remaining years doing whatever she finds satisfying.

There are people who have occupied (or do occupy) seats on the Supreme Court who have been incompetent, borderline sociopathic, or politically questionable. I don't believe Sandra Day O'Connor was one of those, and I find it sad to see her described in the way you did.

Finally, you used the word restrained to describe your tone. However, your tone was, in my estimation, unrestrained, emotional, and inflamatory... your second post more so than the first.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[Mr. Underbridge]

I wonder how many stories of Republican political crimes I could drag up, if I were to reach back a half century, before practically everyone on Slashdot, or their parents even, were even born.

Um, Clinton? There you go. You don't have to go back a half century. Hell, I thought it was vogue to dig up the Clintons' dirty laundry now that it supports the golden boy, even though it's the same damned laundry the Dems spent 10 years discounting when they were in office.

Hey, Lincoln was a Republican, and he was honest. I guess if that's all you've got, that's all you can run on.

Just like you guys have Kennedy, and he was honest. OK, well actually he wasn't.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[R2.0]

Oh, I understood you just fine, like I understand what my 8 year old is saying when he has a tantrum about his sister.

But he's still having a tantrum. So are you.

Maybe everyone would take you more seriously if you didn't sound like you were in grade school. In case you hadn't noticed, almost all the respondents to your posts think you are an ass. Food for thought.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[R2.0]

"Um, Clinton? There you go. You don't have to go back a half century. Hell, I thought it was vogue to dig up the Clintons' dirty laundry now that it supports the golden boy, even though it's the same damned laundry the Dems spent 10 years discounting when they were in office."

The role of Republicans aside, just because the Democrats spent 10 years going "lalalala" with their fingers in their ears and simply denying things doesn't mean the Clintons have been cleared. They just became irrelevant since they were no longer in power. But now that she came back onto the political stage in a big way, the old files get opened again. Chinese political money, anyone? It's not like the Republicans set that up - they aren't that skilled.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[j_snare]

I just wanted to chip in and mention that I appreciated your post. Regardless of the content, if more people posted in such a well-reasoned and thoughtful tone, I'd enjoy much more of the more politically slanted slashdot comments. As it is currently, people (holding opinions matching both major parties) tend to get abrasive and irrational.

I like a good debate, but you don't normally see one here.

If I had mod points, you'd have one (or really two, I would have marked your earlier post as "Funny" as it made me smile).

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[jdgeorge]

I just wanted to chip in and mention that I appreciated your post. Thank you; that may be the nicest thing I've read on Slashdot.

There's always room for a civil discussion, but there is rarely time. It's easier and faster to provide a harsh, emotional, or witty response than a well reasoned one. This leads to the quality of debate we tend to see both within and outside of the Internet.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[Scudsucker]

Um, Clinton? There you go.

Exactly. In this country, we investigate crimes, not people - unless your name is William Jefferson Clinton. The Republicans spent tens of millions of dollars investigating and re-investigating every inch of his life, looking for something they could prosecute. The best thing they could come up with was trying to manufacture a perjury case against him, because you can't even prove that he lied about "sexual relations".

If a former judge had unlimited resources to go over your life with a microscope, no probable cause or due process required, how good would you look?

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[Scudsucker]

Really? Ask historians about the 1960 Presidential elections in Illinois.

What about Nixon's alleged cheating would you be referring to? Wingnuts like to blather about suppositions of election fraud for JFK, without bothering to mention there were equal alleged shenanigans for Nixon.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[Scudsucker]

If you look at what's happened to our country over the last 8 years and aren't furious, you're either living in a hole or are a mindless zombie. Which are you?

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[Scudsucker]

When O'Connor voted to tell Florida in 2000 it couldn't recount only some of its ballots

Florida law doesn't provide for statewide recounts, only county by county. So it would make sense if you would recount the much maligned punchcard ballots and skip the highly accurate op-scans. But SCOTUS wasn't going to let Gore win under any scenario, even though presidential elections are supposed to be strictly a state matter.

Oh, and if the Supreme Court hadn't stepped in and stopped the recount, Gore would be the lame duck right now. A statewide press recount proved that Gore got more votes Bush, but the biased conservative media merely reported that if the recount followed Gore's initial request he still would have lost, not that Gore got more votes in the state than Bush.

Put that together with Katherine Harris's conflicts of interests and bogus felon lists, and the 2000 election was flat out stolen, much to the detriment of our treasury, tens of thousands of Americans who have either died in Iraq or committed suicide after coming home, and million of Iraqis.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[Scudsucker]

I'll see your allegations of Chinese influence and raise you facts about Republicans who whore themselves out to special interests. McCain didn't go clean after Keating Five, he just made sure to keep it within the letter if not the spirit of the law.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[lgw]

If you think the president has mcuh power over what happens in the country, you might learn more about civics from a video game soon to be released by SDOC!

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[lgw]

I've found that simply ignoring DocRuby about doubles the signal-to-noise ratio here.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[Doc Ruby]

Thanks for volunteering to stay home in November. That copout is the Republican last resort. If you don't think that blowing over a $TRILLION in Iraq, the 4100+ Americans killed, the dozens of thousands maimed for life, the million or more Mideasterners killed and maimed, the $130 barrels of oil, the $1.50 Euros, the rise of Iran and China, the $10 TRILLION in Federal debt, plus the $20 TRILLION city/state/local debt, the $10 TRILLION mortgage debt, all that extra CO2 pumped into the air, the tortured prisoners that the world holds against us, the litany of crimes that could take all day just to list is all the fault of Bush and his Republicans...

then you should have voted for Gore, just for laughs.

But of course you didn't. You voted for Bush. And now you've got the insanity to pretend that you don't have blood on your hands.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[Doc Ruby]

Please continue. Your ceasing to post bullshit at me would therefore reduce it towards 0%.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[lgw]

Bush is my hero. I'm voting for him again as a write-in candidate! He's made the world a safer place, and kept my taxes low. If you don't like $130/bbl oil, it's not *my* fault you didn't by stock in oil companies when he was elected. The tortured prisoners had it coming, and all that extra CO2 is holding off the next ice age.

Of course, you did have 1 valid point: Bush did force millions of Americans to take out mortages he couldn't afford. Why, my fried was just about to say "no thanks" to his adjustable-rate mortage when he saw what he'd be paying in three years, when Bush walked in and held a gun to his head until he signed. Still, the good outweighs the bad.

Re:O'Connor Voted for "No Child Left Behind"

[Anonymous Coward]

Newsflash: The world is not divided into Republicans and people who agree with you. False dichotomies are lies.

Nice Idea...

[Thelasko]

too bad the folks at Capcom already beat them to it.

Good news everyone!

[GroeFaZ]

You don't have to RTFA, because TFS is virtually identical to TFA.

Civics was gone long before no child left behind

[Anonymous Coward]

It was replaced by social(ist) studies.

I can see it now

[Anonymous Coward]

The object of the game will be to collect lawyers, and as you get more lawyers, you win more lawsuits and fewer people sue you.

Oh, and watch out for that ZOMBIE!!!

Funny...

[SatanicPuppy]

I was thinking, "Lamest game EVER", and then I thought a bit more about how it could be, and maybe framed it in terms of an RPG where you start off with a character who is a new lawyer, and you get to choose career paths, and how the courtroom scenes could be a kind of mini-game where your arguments convince the jury.

You could have stats like "knowledge" which would allow you to more accurately cite precedent to derail your opponent, and "oratory" to baffle with BS...

As you continue through your career you'd have options like moving into the DA's office, or being a defense lawyer...You could offer a "judge" option, though that would involve a whole new game mechanic...

By the time I got done thinking about it, I had the whole thing mapped out in my head. Funny how just about anything can be made into a decent video game...

Re:Funny...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hospice care.

Re:Funny...

[argent]

Funny how just about anything can be made into a decent video game...

http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp05282008.shtml

Re:Funny...

[R2.0]

And...

http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp12172007.shtml

Re:Funny...

[SatanicPuppy]

Too easy.

Re:Funny...

[cthulu_mt]

I lose points whenever I smother the elderly patients.

USC's Redistricting Game was actually fun...

[Trojan35]

http://www.redistrictinggame.com/

Try it out.

Re:USC's Redistricting Game was actually fun...

[jonaskoelker]

For those of you who haven't played the game, here's a brief description:

You are given a map (n by m grid). Each square has a number of democratic, republican and udecided voters. The total number of voters and their distribution across parties varies from square to square. The map is divided into four connected regions.

Mission 1: change the division such that each region contains between 640K and 650K voters. Fairly easy.

Mission 2: change the division, such that the above constraint is satisfied, and such that your party has at least 50% of the votes in three of the four regions. Takes a little while.

Mission 3: change the division maintaining roughly equal voter count, and such that each party wins two regions, with at least 55% of the votes for their guy. Didn't play.

(there are two more missions).

When presented with mission 2, I was a little... "This is fishy". When I completed it, I was a lot "OMFG... this is fucked". When presented with mission 3, I just couldn't believe what I read.

This is insane. I really ought to run off and check how voting districts are decided in my country, but I'm a little preoccupied preparing for exams... (yeah, that's an excuse; it's a valid one, but it's still an excuse).

state of the union resembles sci-fi cartoon

[Anonymous Coward]

poorly written & acted out for sure. the lights are coming up all over now. conspiracy theorists are being vindicated. some might choose a tin umbrella to go with their hats. the fairytail is winding down now. let your conscience be yOUR guide. you can be more helpful than you might have imagined. there are still some choices. if they do not suit you, consider the likely results of continuing to follow the corepirate nazi hypenosys story LIEn, whereas anything of relevance is replaced almost instantly with pr ?firm? scriptdead mindphuking propaganda or 'celebrity' trivia 'foam'. meanwhile; don't forget to get a little more oxygen on yOUR brain, & look up in the sky from time to time, starting early in the day. there's lots going on up there.

http://news.google.com/?ncl=1216734813&hl=en&topic=n
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/opinion/31mon1.html?em&ex=1199336400&en=c4b5414371631707&ei=5087%0A
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/world/29amnesty.html?hp
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/02/nasa.global.warming.ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/02/honore.preparedness/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/opinion/01dowd.html?em&ex=1212638400&en=744b7cebc86723e5&ei=5087%0A

is it time to get real yet? A LOT of energy is being squandered in attempts to keep US in the dark. in the end (give or take a few 1000 years), the creators will prevail (world without end, etc...), as it has always been. the process of gaining yOUR release from the current hostage situation may not be what you might think it is. butt of course, most of US don't know, or care what a precarious/fatal situation we're in. for example; the insidious attempts by the felonious corepirate nazi execrable to block the suns' light, interfering with a requirement (sunlight) for us to stay healthy/alive. it's likely not good for yOUR health/memories 'else they'd be bragging about it? we're intending for the whoreabully deceptive (they'll do ANYTHING for a bit more monIE/power) felons to give up/fail even further, in attempting to control the 'weather', as well as a # of other things/events.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=weather+manipulation&btnG=Search
http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=video+cloud+spraying

dictator style micro management has never worked (for very long). it's an illness. tie that with life0cidal aggression & softwar gangster style bullying, & what do we have? a greed/fear/ego based recipe for disaster. meanwhile, you can help to stop the bleeding (loss of life & limb);

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/28/vermont.banning.bush.ap/index.html

the bleeding must be stopped before any healing can begin. jailing a couple of corepirate nazi hired goons would send a clear message to the rest of the world from US. any truthful look at the 'scorecard' would reveal that we are a society in decline/deep doo-doo, despite all of the scriptdead pr ?firm? generated drum beating & flag waving propaganda that we are constantly bombarded with. is it time to get real yet? please consider carefully ALL of yOUR other 'options'. the creators will prevail. as it has always been.

corepirate nazi execrable costs outweigh benefits
(Score:-)mynuts won, the king is a fink)
by ourselves on everyday 24/7

as there are no benefits, just more&more death/debt & disruption. fortunately there's an 'army' of light bringers, coming yOUR way. the little ones/innocents must/will be protected. after the big flash, ALL of yOUR imaginary 'borders' may blur a bit? for each of the creators' innocents harmed in any way, there is a debt that must/will be repaid by you/us, as the perpetrators/minions of unprecedented evile, will not be available. 'vote' with (what's left in) yOUR wallet, & by your behaviors. help bring an end to unprecedented evile's manifestation through yOUR owned felonious corepirate nazi glowbull warmongering execrable. some of US should consider ourselves somewhat fortunate to be among

There's room in the Geek Pantheon

[hey!]

After all, the initials SDO aren't taken yet.

Re:There's room in the Geek Pantheon

[lilomar]

I like SDO'C. Apostrophes are awesome.

The mod would have to be called....

[DigitalReverend]

Quid Pro Whoa!

Yes, it's necessary

[ShawnCplus]

Objection!

And in related news...

[Rival]

And in related news, Will Wright is nominated for the U.S. Supreme Court.

OBJECTION!

[Anonymous Coward]

Phoenix Wright is by far more entertaining than a real supreme court justice.

Re:OBJECTION!

[Scoth]

I'm playing through these now, on the second case of the third game. I showed a couple bits to a lawyer friend of mine who got a kick out of how ridiculous the courtroom process is. I'm still finding them entertaining, though.

Unlockable bloodless coup content?

[kherr]

Considering Sandra Day O'Connor's direct hand in subverting democracy, will there there be a bonus level for executing a bloodless coup by judicial fiat?

Re:Unlockable bloodless coup content?

[Anonymous Coward]

.... wow.

And if you choose the conservative career...

[bobdotorg]

... The final level is completed by fixing a presidential election, and then trekking through the Forest of Intelligent design to kill the Roe v. Wade Boss.

Already done

[Anonymous Coward]

There is already a video game about the courts:

OBJECTION! :)

Ace Attorney for the DS

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a series of games for the DS which feature courtroom cases called "Ace Attorney", with excellent ratings on Amazon.com at least:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=ace+attorney&x=0&y=0

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Former Supreme Court Justice Switches to Video Games
After finding crack too expensive...

OBJECTION!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Phoenix will sue you!!

Interesting idea

[Weaselmancer]

If you want to improve education in the USA, stop letting the dumbest folk breed like bunnies.

Describe in a thousand words or less how you accomplish that without facism.

Re:Interesting idea

[KutuluWare]

Legalize highly explosive fireworks and wait a month?

Re:Interesting idea

[drsmithy]

Describe in a thousand words or less how you accomplish that without facism. [wikipedia.org]

1. Remove all government fiscal incentives (direct and indirect) for having children.
2. Thorough and compulsory sex education.
3. Free contraceptives.

Re:Interesting idea

[drsmithy]

3. Free contraceptives.

I should probably explicitly state that this includes abortion.

Re:Interesting idea

[LandDolphin]

Change government fiscal incentives (direct and indirect) for having children to government fiscal incentives (direct and indirect) for NOT having children.

Re:Interesting idea

[Captain Splendid]

Fuck, you've got my vote. Sign up already!

Re:Interesting idea

[drsmithy]

Change government fiscal incentives (direct and indirect) for having children to government fiscal incentives (direct and indirect) for NOT having children.

That would be counterproductive.

DoE = Dept of Energy

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to take away from your comment overall, but I noticed a pet peeve that usually appears during such discussion.

Before NCLB the federal government has some requirements to give money. NCLB changed those requirements, without allocating more money. School districts are allowed to tell the DoE to take their money, take their standards, and stuff them both into the same shredder.

DoE = Department of Energy.
ED = Department of Education (Education Department).

GTA4 Engine = Success

[CambodiaSam]

If they use the GTA4 Engine, I personally gaurantee success. Of course, kids will be rather shocked to see that in reality criminals aren't released from jail 4 hours later with nothing but their weapons and $1000 taken away.

Re:No student allowed to thrive

[colinnwn]

There is a problem in that the Federal government has no mandate to enforce common standards in education. But lets say the states allowed the Federal government that power, and I agree this might be a good thing to do for some under performing schools. I also agree blaming NCLB isn't addressing some of the serious problems. But by the same token, NCLB itself doesn't address the serious problems, and in its implementation is a hindrance to effective education.

I don't see the evidence that the litigious nature of schools and hyper-sensitive parents have a significant detrimental effect on education. Short of hitting kids, what methods of classroom discipline are teachers scared of using and getting sued for? More to the point, it is the parents that flat don't care to foster a learning environment for their children that create the most problems in schools, and long term in our society.

There is also a great disparity in funding between schools in rural Alabama vs. inner-city New York, etc. If the Federal government is going to place standards on education, I think school funding should be federalized and equalized based on local expenses and needs for meeting the standards.

Conversely teachers and administrations are under threat of losing funding and their jobs if children don't pass the NCLB tests. There are 2 problems here, standardized tests don't teach children anything in and of themselves, not all children are good at taking this one kind of pseudo-objectified test, and of course this incentivizes teachers and administrators to teach to the test up to excluding other valuable education to become a well rounded person.

NCLB must be scratched. If we chose to reenact national standards, we first need to look at the outcome we want, think about how to incentivize that outcome, and then craft subtle regulations and funding mechanisms to create that reality, along with looking at the larger social picture. The bellicose political proclamations that became the NCLB are not an appropriate method to resolve the large and important problems here.

Original story that they seem to be quoting

[BigVig209]

An Unlikely Champion -- a former Supreme Court Justice -- Promotes Computer Games as a Way to Change Society

Cite?

[spun]

Got any sources on that? Preferably showing how much money congress actually budgeted, not just how much the program costs.

Re:Cite?

[R2.0]

Per Wikipedia:

"In 2007, President Bush implemented a drastic budget change to devote 29% more of government funding towards education (from 42.2 billion in 2001 to $54.4 billion in 2007). No Child Left Behind received a 40.4% increase from $17.4 billion in 2001 to $24.4 billion. The funding for reading quadrupled from $286 million in 2001 to $1.2 billion. [5]

Under criticisms:
"Several years of weak tax revenues, particularly in sales tax and capital gains taxes, have forced most states to make deep cutbacks in many areas, including education.[citation needed] The extra funds provided to a school under NCLB's provisions may be more than offset by budget cuts at the state level, leaving them with both lower revenues and higher expenses." (I find this lame - the schools can't fund themselves, so they dip into teh Federal money for operating expenses, then claim that they didn't get enough federal funds?)

Also:
"Several provisions of NCLB, such as a push for quality teachers and more professional development, place additional demands on local districts and state education agencies. Some of these extra expenses are not fully reimbursed by NCLB monies.

Various early supporters of NCLB criticize its implementation, claiming it is not adequately funded by either the federal government or the states. Ted Kennedy, the legislation's initial sponsor, has stated: "The tragedy is that these long overdue reforms are finally in place, but the funds are not."[46] Susan B. Neuman, U.S. Department of Education's former assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education, commented about her worries of NCLB in a meeting of the International Reading Association.[47]

        " In [the most disadvantaged schools] in America, even the most earnest teacher has often given up because they lack every available resource that could possibly make a difference. . . . When we say all children can achieve and then not give them the additional resources ... we are creating a fantasy."

Organizations have particularly criticized the unwillingness of the federal government to fully fund the act. Noting that appropriations bills always originate in the House of Representatives, it is true that neither the Senate nor the White House has even requested federal funding up to the authorized levels for several of the act's main provisions. For example, President Bush requested only $13.3 of a possible $22.75 billion in 2006.[48] President Bush's 2008 budget allots $61 billion for the Education Department, cutting funding by $1.3 billion from last year. 44 out of 50 states would receive reductions in federal funding if the budget passes as is.[49]

Republicans in Congress have viewed these authorized levels as spending caps, not spending promises, and have responded to criticisms by claiming that President Bill Clinton never requested the full amount of funding authorized under the previous ESEA law.[50] Some opponents argue that these funding shortfalls mean that schools faced with the system of escalating penalties for failing to meet testing targets are denied the resources necessary to remedy problems detected by testing.

Federal funding is claimed to be particularly important because declining tax revenues at the state level have sometimes led governors and legislatures to make deep cuts in state education budgets." (again, note the last statement regarding falling tax revenues).

NCLB may not be fully funded, but it is by no means UNfunded. The real acid test is: how many states have refused the money? I think the answer is "Zero". They want the money - they just don't want the conditions that come with it.

Civics curriculum + NCLB

[JDAustin]

Blaming NCLB for the lack of civics in the class room is just a cheap shot at Bush et al. when you forget that ole Teddy Kennnedy was one of that bills initial sponsors.

But Civics was gone for the class before Bush even took office in favor of various multi-cultural teachings.

Seriously, why do kids know more about Cinco de Mayo then they do about their own countries court system.

Wow, does it teach corruption?

[BrookHarty]

While I'd like to think the legal system is responsible, if you have paid any attention to history and news lets review some of the things courts have done, its amazing people still trust the courts.

1. Pushed political agendas
2. Made careers for DA's prosecuting innocent people.
3. Court rulings overturned multiple times all the way to the supreme court. (No consensus about what is the law)
4. Family courts stripping away fathers rights or rights of parents.
5. Supreme court deciding to rule on law or precedent, screwing over citizens.
6. Plea deals used to convict innocent people.
7. Juries, 1 in 6 vote incorrectly.
8. Increase in divorce cases going to civil court.
9. Denial of appeals to prisoners, or reduced/barred appeals
10. Fast track to execution (aka the Timothy McVay speedy death penalty)
11. Ignoring new evidence if already convicted
12. Filing deadlines for court papers used as a method to ignore cases
13. Court rules ignored by some judges, yet still legal.
14. Double jeopardy bypassed by having using different courts (Criminal vs Civil)
15. Federal court trials without notification and/or participation (not even counting war-crimes)
16. Ethnicity or Gender as a factor in sentencing. (Aka, the female rapist getting probation issue, etc)
17. Incorrect Science used by courts as fact.
18. Constitutional rights being decided at the state level (Gay Rights, Fathers Rights, etc)
19. Ban of jury trials for teens.
20. Reducing 12 man juries to 6, and the allowance of majority vote from juries (aka, 4 out of 6 jury members majority rule)

I don't think I scratched the surface of the major issues. I'm sure the video game wont take "Law" into the game. Its already a game, doesn't matter whos right, matters who's lawyer is a better salesman.

Hope you get your day in court!

Re:Wow, does it teach corruption?

[mr_matticus]

Wow. I just couldn't pass this up.

1. Are you human? Yes? You're pushing a political agenda. Anyone asking for apolitical performance is just asking to be lied to.
2. Adversarial system. Jury of peers. Courts don't make careers for attorneys who convict innocent people, and your premise is invalid and unsupported. If you're suggesting that some other metric for DAs other than number of convictions should be used, name it. False positives will happen, but must be balanced against evidentiary failures. Are you now going to turn around and bitch about guilty parties getting off the hook? The simple reality is that there is no fine-tuned granular control that handles both. You just try it sometime, using objective elements and without inferences or generalizations. Half the population is upset about guilty people walking because the evidence isn't there to convict them; the other half is upset because innocent people are implicated by evidence and can't prove their way out of it. There's no win-win.

If you don't think lawyers are driven crazy by both, you don't understand anything at all, let alone the profession. You do the best you can. That's all anyone can ask for.
3. That's why we have a tiered court system. What would be the point of appellate courts if there was never anything to appeal? Your take, unsurprisingly, goes much too far. Chances of success on appeal are slim to none for just about any given case.
4. Seems like an awfully specific beef. Don't like the policy, the law, or the burdens at trial? Challenge them. It's how it works. Is there a natural presumption that the mother is the better parent, all things being equal? Maybe, but it's not created by the courts or any element of the legal system. It's endemic to society.

If you want to say that courts should recognize that instinctive presumption and ignore it, that's one thing, but it comes right back when there's a decision to be made: if the evidence is in equipoise, someone has to make a judgment call. Instinct is going to influence that as much as anything else, and short of a coin flip, there's a reason we put these people on the bench.

Attorneys hate bad judges much more passionately than any random lay person. That's the simple truth. But people only have themselves to blame for it, either for electing them, or for electing people who have no sense when it comes to appointing judges. That's one downside in democratic republics. It's not the fault of the legal system.
5. That's their job. Somebody invariably gets screwed over when there are two sides to an issue. Everyone can't be happy, and generally, the unhappy party will be a citizen. To say it's slanted consistently against one group is foolish at best.
6. Plea bargains don't convict anyone. If you're innocent and you take one, it's your choice, based on the weighing of your own circumstances and must be consistent with your personal convictions. I personally don't see why an innocent person would ever take such a bargain, and have never heard of it happening outside of TV. If you had no information to provide or nothing of value to offer in exchange, why would you even be offered a plea? Life is not much like "Law and Order". Plea bargains aren't usually offered on a whim or as a fishing expedition.
7. Blame your fellow citizens for that invented statistic.
8. How is that the court's fault? People handle divorces however they choose to do so.
9. Such as?
10. You've got to be completely off your rocker if you think that capital cases are anything remotely close to "fast" anything. If you've got no defense to raise and overwhelming evidence against you, yes, the process goes more quickly. It's called efficiency.
11. Such as?
12. Welcome to the real world. Deadlines matter. Controversies must end, and the schedule can't be dragged on forever. With cases taking 2-3 years on a regular basis, without deadlines, there'd never be a decision. Finality is an important element of ju

No child left behind: the game

[WheresMyDingo]

would just be another battlefield 1942 clone.

but how about "NCLB: Crazy Mall Shopper" where you have to keep up with Mom in a sea of clothes racks? That'll learn ya!

she was schooled in SIlicon Valley!

[peter303]

Stanford 1952. That was when Silicon Valley was mostly orange groves.

The game will be horrific

[MSTCrow5429]

Last thing we need is a game created by a jurist with absolutely zero discernible legal philosophy to teach "law."

Oh, that's dumb.

[tjstork]

I should probably explicitly state that this includes abortion.

That won't happen in a million years. Americans are split evenly on abortion, but, nearly unanimously would prefer that the morons that get themselves pregnant take care of their own problems.

Besides, why do you want the country to have less kids? I would think that, we should have even MORE native children, so that we can have a huge army and take over the world. In any case, the vast majority of the welfare state that the USA has become is basically a tax on young people to take care of the old. Just look at how the US budget is stacked for old people - social security, medicare, and more. You need to have more young people paying taxes, or grandma has to live in a refrigerator box.

Re:Oh, that's dumb.

[drsmithy]

That won't happen in a million years. Americans are split evenly on abortion, but, nearly unanimously would prefer that the morons that get themselves pregnant take care of their own problems.

I fail to see how "taking care of their own problems" excludes abortion.

Regardless, the GP didn't ask for a solution that would be politically acceptable in the United States of Jesusland, he asked for a way to do it without resorting to fascism (which I assumed was being used in the colloquial "oppressive government" sense). I gave him one - remove external incentives for having children and make it trivial to avoid having children.

Parents aren't having enough kids.

[tjstork]

The problem is, ultimately, that parents are not having enough kids. So, whereas before, you might have one smart kid and a couple of ok ones destined for the factory, now, just that one kid you have HAS to go to college, and frankly, they may not be up to it. Instead of parents beating their children and their teachers up because Johnny isn't into books, maybe these parents should have had more kids, so that they could get one that's really and truly cut out for higher education, rather than being shoehorned into it.

Re:Parents aren't having enough kids.

[lgw]

Have you seen how much a plumber can make? A welder doesn't excatly pinch pennies either. This idea that a college educaiton is the only way to get a technical job that pays well also has to go. Not all technical jobs are *abstract* - some are hands on, appeal to a different set of people, and can't be outsourced.

We wanted to do Obama a favor.

[tjstork]

The Republicans spent tens of millions of dollars investigating

We Republicans were just doing our part to help the first black american get nominated to a political party. You see, back then, Dick Cheney's spies had already pegged Obama as an up and comer and Hillary as a future rival, so, we had to do our part to help the guy out.

It is amazing, though that, Obama's people went and brought up EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN CHARGE as if it were fact. We heard it all from the Obama camp, as if it were gospel. I had to wonder, where were all these Democrats before? But there you saw it, liberal writers chalking up Clinton's shady whitewater dealings, the coverups of the abuses of women, the murder of Vincent Foster and Ron Brown. It was like, every thing Ken Starr ever even dreamed of came out magnified and in technicolor by the Obama machine and in states where values mattered to people.

Re:No student allowed to thrive

[Enderandrew]

You bring up a very good point that I was thinking about earlier. The federal government has no real authority to do I'd say 75% of the things it does given a strict interpretation of the Constitution, yet citizens expect and demand a good deal of services from the Federal Government.

I could suggest that democracy in action has yielded a good deal amount of power, even if it wasn't implicitly stated, so that the federal government do more.

Does the government have the right? Arguably no. Should they however attempt to provide services that the people want? That's a good question.

think about how to incentivize that outcome

That is a matter of semantics. We increased spending on education across the board, but we're penalizing those who perform poorly. You could look at it as those who perform well are getting more money under the new system.

"schools get more money"?!

[Anonymous Coward]

"schools get more money"?! No they don't. The federal government has decided to enforce very strict standards at the local level without giving the states any money to implement changes. That is the subject of a lawsuit by California against the federal government.

Hey Sandra, up yours

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey Sandra, in your "game", are you going to show us how to have the Supreme Court appoint the president?

Thanks a lot for that. Now, why don't you just dry up and blow away, you disgraced treasonous conservitard hag.

Hmm next GTA?

[someone1234]

The next GTA will have authentic court scenes?

Re:No student allowed to thrive

[rohan972]

Does the government have the right? Arguably no. Should they however attempt to provide services that the people want? That's a good question.

The rule of law should be the guide. No constitutional authority, no government program. If we want the program badly enough, amend the constitution. It has been done before, there is no excuse for illegal government programs.

Phoenix Wright and Animal Crossing, only for DS

[tepples]

If a videogame about the courts takes hold Is Hooked on Phoenix Wright for you? It's Wright for journeymanmetal.

I'm writing one about paint peeling, steel rusting, and grass growing What about animal crossing?

Harvest Moon is on a speed-up

[tepples]

I don't think he's played Harvest Moon either. Harvest Moon is not as slow as "paint peeling, steel rusting, and grass growing". Specifically, HM: Magical Melody is on what appears to be a fixed 120:1 speed-up, unlike the Animal Crossing series that runs at 1:1 and then catches up all time since last save when you resume the game.

Re: Semantics, funding increases?

[colinnwn]

It has been a while since I read the NCLB code, but as I recall NCLB was an unfunded federal mandate. Some states may have increased spending to meet these new requirements, but I don't think the Feds did, and I am sure not all states could afford to.

When I spoke about incentivizing the outcome, I meant how to incentivize the education of a well rounded future citizen. I did not mean how to incentivize schools to pump out robots with rote schooling in 2 subjects such as NCLB encourages. If this is really what the majority of US citizens want, I need to get the hell out of here.