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Discuss the US Presidential Election & Education
In 24 hours, many of you will be able to vote. So as we come down to the wire, this is really our last chance to talk about the issues. We've already discussed Health Care, the War, and the Economy. Today I'm opening up the floor to discuss education. Perhaps no other issue will matter more in 50 years. Which candidate will make the next generation smarter?
Nuff said. (These issues are a stimulus to trigger a voting response, and have NOTHING to do with policies that will exist post-election.)
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
...from the other side of the pond, Obama is the right choice. Palin's stance on creationism alone should be enough to decide this particular issue.
Sean Ellis
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The federal government really isn't the appropriate place to deal with any kind of primary educational policy.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
MAYBE Obama will get rid of NCLB, but I don't see him getting away from the typical left position of supporting the teachers' unions goals and just throwing money at education without real standards. We spend more money - under left and right administrations - per student and don't see the results, which means the overall system is broken.
I don't see him actively supporting homeschooling as well, and we know he's going to be against vouchers.
The biggest problem, however, will NEVER be government involvement. I don't care who is in power, but the ONLY real influence on children's education is PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT. It doesn't matter what teachers, principals, politicians, and everyone else does if a parent doesn't care about how well their kid is doing in school - it's nearly too great a hurdle to overcome.
I think that the only thing that I have ever seen that may do something is a performance-based state-sponsored tuition program (like Louisiana TOPS or Georgia HOPE) which is directly tied to secondary school performance with college tuition on the line - there are a LOT of parents in those states that I know of who pushed their kids to get good grades simply because there was a near-free college tuition at stake (it's what paid for my own tuition at Louisiana Tech).
... belongs in the philosophy class, not science. Science is a set of facts seeking a conclusion to support them- Intelligent Design is a conclusion seeing a set of facts to support it.
In a philosophy or comparative religions class? Absolutely- go nuts! Be sure to include a whole bunch of other religious theory, including Hindu creation myths etc. Would be a fun class.
But as science? ... Do not want.
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
It's called investing in our workforce to remain competitive in a global economy. I realize long-term planning isn't the Republican's forte; sorry we see things differently.
How long before we can do the same with Democrats?
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
If you are concerned about the education in the United States, voice your concerns to your state and local government. The only thing the federal government has authority over concerning education is the ability to tax you and decide how it will spend that tax money. Looking to solve education issues at the federal level is a farce.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Can we vote for a do over all the choices suck?
Neither candidate will make the next generation smarter. Either one might put policies in place to help the next generation get education, but ultimately learning happens inside the heads of the students.
That said, Obama looks a lot more tuned-in when it comes to educational issues. His keynote address to the American Library Association's conference in Chicago (2005) pretty clearly demonstrates his commitment to education, particularly literacy programs and such.
Whereas McCain is, well, not. Remember that McCain proposed a governmental spending freeze as a remedy for the fiscal crisis? With a few exceptions, such as Defense. Well, education was not on the list of exceptions.
Why should the president, or the government, have a role in "making everyone smarter"? I also don't see how people can be "made smarter" when they are spoon-fed a pre-packaged education and are not driven to learn on their own - something they would be more motivated to do if we moved away from our current nanny-state that lets us get by without being informed about the choices we make.
Why can't McCain properly defend his education policy? It is the most important issue facing our nation, and it is where McCain is leaps and bounds ahead of Obama!
We have the best private education system in the world. We have the best college education system in the world, both public and private. We have one of the worst public school systems in the developed world. Why? What's the difference between our tremendously successful college system and private system, and our horrendous public school system? Guess what, it's NOT MONEY. Per-student spending in public schools is almost DOUBLE what it is in private schools! Surprised? You certainly didn't hear that in tonight's debate. Only the absolute top most elite private schools cost more per student than we spend on our public schools, and the difference is not much, just 10-20% more. And students at those elite schools get WAY more in return for that extra 10-20%. Oh, and public school teachers earn more than private school teachers, so that's not it either.
So what's the difference between how our public, government-run schools operate, and how our colleges and private schools operate? Here are the differences:
1. No teachers unions in private schools and colleges.
2. School choice: private schools and colleges must compete for your dollars. Public schools don't; the government decides which school you must attend, based on what neighborhood you live in.
Let's go into #1.
The teachers union is the most dangerous organization on the planet. They are more of a threat to our nation than Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea combined. They are ruining the education of our children and destroying our only hope of maintaining our prosperity and peace.
The teachers union has made it impossible to fire teachers for poor performance. To be fired, a teacher basically has to break the law or molest a student. They can't be fired for simply being a terrible teacher. It's gotten so bad that at public schools across the country, bad teachers are paid full-time salaries to simply sit in the teachers' lounge all day and not teach! Schools are forced to do this because they don't want these bad teachers anywhere near their students, but they haven't done anything that the union says they can be fired for.
In private schools and colleges, teacher pay is based on performance. In public schools, because of teachers union demands, pay is based on seniority (i.e. how long they've been working there). You can't pay good teachers more and bad teachers less, and therefore you can't attract and reward the best teaching talent. Public teachers as a whole lose the motivation that drives the private sector to work harder and better: more money.
Finally, the teachers union is 100% opposed to school choice. Why? Because it would force all public teachers to work harder and compete for their job, just like everyone does in every job in the private sector.
And this leads directly into Point #2.
It is school choice, in the form of vouchers, that will save our public education system. The way our system works now, schools tell the government how many students they have each year, and the government funds them with X amount of dollars per student. The way school choice will work is this: instead of the government giving those dollars to the school, that money will be given directly to the parents in the form of a voucher. The parents can then take that voucher and use it to send their kids to any school they want, public or private.
What affect will this have? Competition. The same thing that makes our private schools and colleges perform so well. They'll have to wise up, stop wasting money, become more efficient, and start teaching better, or else they'll start losing students. Parents will choose to send their kids to better-performing schools.
Cue the teachers union yelling "But you'll be taking money away from already struggling schools!". Of course, that's the point, and that's a good thing - because the struggling schoo
and replace it with the Democrat party which will bring more failure, dishonorable behavior, and fraud.
Obama may be a breath of fresh air, but as long as the same career politicians keep getting elected to congress, they will keep acting on their own benefit and not the people.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
Let us ignore that most (three out of four) of the faulty loans originated with private investment banks, and not with Fannie Mae or Freddy Mac -- that makes for a much more compelling straw man.
Tell me, how do you "grade" teachers? Why can't you simply go to your PTA meetings and your teacher in service meetings and be a responsible parent and know what your children are doing?
The reason i don't want teacher "appraisals" outside of what a school district does in and of itself is because some people would rate teachers poorly because they're not christian enough, not moral enough or not forcing "family values" enough or other non public educational focused education based issues.
Start by giving teachers livable wages, start by funding real programs that put books, science and math into students hands. Start challenging and teaching kids AT school. Get away from homework, let kids live a life after school and make school about learning.
BTW, if the middle class is doing better, so will the schools. Fix it from the bottom up, not top down.
Obama'08
In terms of education here we have
1) Obama - raised by a single mother to a kenyan father who buggered off, progressed through school and demonstrating ability and prowess at all stages before coming top in Harvard Law.
2) McCain - Rich family with a history in the services, graduated near the bottom of his class, married a richer woman on the second try. Paired up with Palin who things that education is elitist.
Seriously when it comes to education shouldn't we be teaching kids than anyone can become the leader of the country if they work hard and are smart enough not just that you have the right set of bigotry and name-calling to get yourself elected?
Given that in the US education is a State (or lower) level then this isn't a big area for impact at the Federal level, but the best thing the US President could do for the children of the country is demonstrate the value of a good education.
Only Obama does that.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
If I learned anything in high school, it's that in this country "education" no longer means the process of learning. Instead, school has become a daycare for parents to send their kids to until their old enough to move out. I may not be in the majority but I learned very little from actual classes and tests. I received my own computer at the age of 15 and taught myself about hardware and how to program, neither of which my school offered any classes about beyond keyboarding. Now I'm 24 and a senior systems administrator for a large dedicated server management company... thanks to our country's educational system? I think not.
Parents aren't going to give up their free daycare so if I support any educational plan, it's going to be one that involves getting kids who want to learn out of the classroom and into environments where they can use their time more productively.
Does this rag smell like chloroform to you?
Fortunately, it looks like Science and Logic are about to take the stage again. Sadly, here in America, we have upwards of around 20% that believes in creationism of some form. So far, nearly all that I have meet that believe in it, are real whack jobs. When I asked one of my past students about it, he said that James Dobson showed conclusively that Carbon dating does not work. Dobson tested a metal knife blade. When I pointed out that it only works on items that were living before, he said that dobson said otherwise. Sad, sad, sad.
Thank God we are heading back into cooler and logical minds.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
After years of unsatisfactory experiences in the government schools, we took our kids out to teach them ourselves. We learned there's a thriving and successful community of home-schoolers, who could teach the various school systems a thing or two about pedagogy.
When others her age were getting a (worthless) high-school diploma, our eldest daughter was getting her first associates degree. She earned her second the next year, and will have a bachelors at the age of 20 -- a half-decade or more ahead of her peers. And, while bright, she is not one of those prodigies one occasionally reads about: just a normal student with the advantage of a sensible education.
Of course, home-schoolers are hated by those who perpetuate the regime of government schooling, and, since Obama is firmly in the pocket of the most ardent defenders of the unearned privileges of those who profit from the status quo, we can expect to see home-schooling outlawed in the next few months. After all, children educated by their parents are less likely to be indoctrinated to be ardent followers of The One.
Tomorrow we go to the polls to elect the next failed administration, and the next failed Congress.
Regardless of who is elected, I feel that both candidates have the wrong attitude towards government. I feel that the role of government is simply to protect our lives and our property from one another. Both candidates espouse statist ideals that want to take away from our self governance or continue policies that take away our power.
Both throw out petty scraps of meat to the people to get them to vote for their demise. This year, they throw the meager pickings of tax cuts. Perhaps four years from now it will be the threat of terrorists again, or perhaps health care.
Both voted for a plan to give hundreds of billions of dollars to failed banks that gave loans to people who deserved none. Let them fail. The consequences of propping up zombie banks are greater than of letting them fail and having the market adjust.
Tomorrow I go to the polls to vote Libertarian, to fight the establishment.
SSC
Promises about improvement in education by federal politicians are pure pandering.
See this chart.
See how small a percent of education is actually funded by the federal government. It should be obvious that even significant changes to federal spending will have an insignificant effect. They spend in a whole year what they spend in Iraq in less than 3 months.
The last time I saw her state her stance, it was this: "teach both in class and let the students critically analyze both." I saw her give an interview where that came up and that's exactly what she said, if not quite worded the same.
Sounds even better to me because it sounds like she's in favor of teaching critical thinking, which is far more important to scientific research and society in general than just learning whatever the establishment says is the best explanation for the origins of life.
If you think science education means always accepting whatever the scientific establishment accepts, then you belong in a priesthood, not science. It's good for young minds to try to tackle such topics.
It is not the government's job to plan things for us. It is hilariously bad at it, anyway. It is the government's job to protect our liberties so we can do things ourselves.
We are perfectly capable of organizing our own local educational systems. Some of them won't be as good as others, but they can learn from the ones that are successful.
Having the government plan it, and run it, will just guarantee that the quality continues to degrade universally.
I joined the military to pay my way through college. My family always stressed the importance of education. After spending all that time getting a bachelor's in IT, I'm worse off than my uneducated parents. I frequently think I would have been much better off being a plumber or an electrician. At least those jobs require a license, some skill and can't be sent overseas. (i.e. manufacturing and IT) What good is an education if no one will pay you to use it?
If you feel that scientific research funding is important to education (or anything at all, for that matter), then you should be concerned about the Science Budget Freezes Proposed by John Sidney McCain III.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Silly me. I thought the First Amendment allowed me to bitch until my heart is content.
I'm tired of hearing that I can't complain if I don't vote. Who made up this mantra? The people who want you to vote for them.
And the masses have bought it. They think they really have a say in what happens in government. Ha!
By choosing not to vote I *am* making my statement: I don't like the candidates or the system.
Enough with Groupthink.
And anything to throw out the "No Child Left Behind" system!
It creates a situation where special needs kids are being pushed out of the publish school systems because the act has no accommodation for them, and thus they drag down the scores for schools and schoolboards. So they don't loose their funding, schools only provide the minimal of what the law requires of them, and the kids suffer unless their parents can afford to put them into private schools. It's cruel!
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
In most districts they don't even have to work a full day, and they get about 3-4 months off. I knew a math teacher in high school who taught 3 classes and 1 study hall. What she did was she graded all of her work during down time in class and study hall, and worked a second job when she felt like it. She was single and had plenty of time to use a second job to flesh out her work schedule for the entire year, and consequently, she made a pretty penny. Most of her peers were simply too lazy to follow her example.
You really think the federal government should be involved in the education of our children? There are over 13,000 school districts in the United States, each and every one of them with their own distinct needs and situations. What possible help could the federal government provide for them? The local government knows what is best for its students and should be the sole decision maker for them too. Interference from the federal (and even state) will just gets in the way because they're making decisions for millions of kids instead of just hundreds.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
They may have originated with those banks, but because Fannie and Freddie were buying up those mortgages and they had an implicit government guarantee. If Fannie and Freddie didn't exist, those private investment banks would not have had an irresponsible gov't entity to sell their questionable loans to, so they would have had to scrutinize their borrowers more.
Oh really?
In every political commercial that I've seen so far, both McCain AND Obama were throwing poo at each other.
All that post sounds like is propaganda, not any "informative" input.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
While that is true in a pragmatic sense, a president is still a great leader and certain symbolic actions can have a great effect on Americans.
It is also proven that a President can at least steer education down a bad path, such as No Child Left Behind.
-The world would be a better place if everyone had a hoverboard
Over the last 30 years I've watched well-funded lobby groups essentially take over the entire political process. Since these groups are generally better funded when connected to commercial interests, the political process has once again become beholden to big industrial concerns (it was even more so 100 years ago). It's not that lobby groups are bad, pre se, its that they are, by definition, lopsided; they present a single view of the world that may or may no be countered by the "other side" of the issue. As elections become more and more expensive, this process has accelerated to its own quasi-democratic existence.
Obama managed to use Dean's model to rally the individual for his funding. He's still beholden to large groups, but so much less so than any presidential candidate over the last decade or so. This is a wonderful opportunity to mute down the influence of lobby groups, because he won't be committing political suicide by doing so.
And no-one's talking about it. It's completely off the radar.
Maury
How long before we can do the same with Democrats?
This country would be a much better place if both branches of the corporate party would just go away.
Ideally I'd like to see an end to parties in general. George Washington says it best:
"However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion." --George Washington, Farewell Address, Sep. 17, 1796
At the very least if we had parties that put liberty and independence first we'd be better off.
--
"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power" --Benito Mussolini
"The Federal Reserve is a fraudulent system."--Lew Rockwell
End The FED. -
The Constitution has been trodden upon these last 8 years (and more). Here is just one citation, for those who need one. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/13/1830202
Has ANY of the candidates described the steps they would take to roll us back from the Constitutional abyss?
The inference has been that the current administration has been abusing its power in this area. It strikes me as "illogical" that they would take such steps toward setting up a surveillance society, only to hand the keys to the Bastille to "another" administration.
Help me understand.
Problem:
You seem to think that all private is good. That just means that kids in the rich areas get fantastic schools with the best teachers, kids in the poor areas get a trained monkey and a bucket(with a hole in it).
In the interest of trying to give people some sembelance of an equal playing field it can be a good idea to average things out a little in education.
A government protecting your liberties so we can do things yourself is worth nothing, zero, nada, ziltch if you are born into a family with no money which can afford no eduction or healthcare.
Unless of course you consider the freedom to die before your 12th birthday to be a liberty that should be protected.
Obama is slinging the mud faster than McCain, except Obama isn't doing the slinging? And yet Obama is slinging more mud? That's a bit of a contradiction there.
McCain is clearly slinging much more mud than Obama. Just lately you have the "Obama paling around with terrorist" speech, and the "if you don't vote McCain/Palin, you are not a real American" nonsense. This is in addition to nonsense like "Obama wants to teach children about sex" and similar lies. Sites like FactCheck.org all confirm that McCain has been far worse than Obama.
Is that so? Interesting. When did he apologize for Palin's terrorist remarks? When did he apologize for claiming that Obama wants to teach children about sex?
Both Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama agree that education needs to be thoroughly reformed.
Who needs education aimed at making the students cram for tests only for the ego of the schools? What good is it if your child forgets everything after them? That doesn't help at all. This, to me, is the core of the issue. Rankings. As an aside, No Child Left Behind makes extensive use of those, to determine which schools should get additional funding.
What I'd like to see is a school system that doesn't focus so much on rankings, fudging scores to get a higher one, pressuring the underprivileged and underscoring to drop out in the process. Those people deserve undiscriminating education too, and equal access to education is something both candidates advocate.
The parents who got complacent will (hopefully) get going with this one, too! Choice quotes from each candidate:
McCain Parental involvement is critical to the success of any pre-K program. Current federal programs will be focused on educating parents on the basics of preparing their children for a productive educational experience. These programs will place an emphasis on reading and numbers skills, as well as nutrition and general health. Reinforcing to parents the fundamental importance of reading to their children as a primary way of expanding their vocabulary and preparing their young minds to learn will be emphasized at every level.
Obama (PDF warning) Investing in early childhood education during the infant and toddler years is particularly critical. Though parents remain the first teachers for our children, an increasing number of infants and toddlers spend significant parts of their day with caretakers other than their parents. In addition to ensuring that child care is accessible and affordable, we must do more to ensure that it is high quality and provides the early education experiences our children need.
Both agree that a child's education starts with the parents' involvement in it. It's common sense to some, I'll admit, but:
Obama Research shows that early experiences shape whether a child's brain develops strong skills for future learning, behavior and success. Without a strong base on which to build, children, particularly disadvantaged children, will be behind long before they reach kindergarten. Investing in early learning also makes economic sense. For every one dollar invested in high quality, comprehensive programs supporting children and families from birth, there is a $7-$10 return to society in decreased need for special education services, higher graduation and employment rates, less crime, less use of the public welfare system, and better health.
The schools have a responsibility in children's education, but then so do the parents! And not just for education, either. Providing healthy food to one's child(ren) is essential to their proper development. Care and affection given to one's child(ren) cannot be replaced by anyone else, and is also essential.
The Govt has a role, but it's not the silver bullet.
(Disclaimer: I'm Canadian, but I'm quite interested in this election.)
We know that Obama went to Harvard, and became editor of the Harvard Law Review. Yeah, he's really hiding this stuff so well... :)
As Much as Creationism seems to strike a chord with some people, I've never actually understood why.
I've always looked at creationism historically, as in a "This is what a guy 2-3 thousand years ago though how the universe was made when science rarely existed and wasn't as important as religion" kind of way. That being said, it's not too far off from creationism considering the religious source and the age of the text other than the 7 days thing, but realistically what's 7 days to God? a billion years? 10 minutes? who knows.
Based on that, I believe that it should be taught in schools, but only as an historical reference to how we led to the current evolution theory. Similar to how Spontaneous generation is taught in schools as a previously accepted theory until a new theory proved it was incorrect.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
You do know (or would know if you had any ability to use a keyboard beyond typing idle speculation) that Obama graduated Magna cum Laude from Harvard Law so he was in the top 10% of his class. That is enough for me to go on. Does it matter what his Columbia grades were?
Except that the collapse of the financial industry was exactly because they weren't selling to the Freddie and Fannie, who, if you remember, were actually explicitly guaranteed by the government months ago in what was then called a 'big government bailout', although obviously we had to rescale the word since this latest thing came along.
I'd like to understand the mental gymnastics that are required to blame this continuing mess on entities that, at this point, are full of government-backed demonstratively-good paper. We already fixed any possible GSE problems when they got pulled (back) into the government. Everyone who purchased their securities is fine, by law. How exactly are the GSEs causing problems...telepathy?
What actually caused the problem is that banks were taking loans that Freddie and Fannie wouldn't buy, assigning imaginary value to them and getting them magically rated as AAA and then trading them amongst themselves, a market that the Republicans (and Greenspan) insisted was an amazing example of unfettered-by-government free enterprise. The market went south, and they ended up losing more than just the 'bad mortgages'...because they were complete morons who had stopped rating anything and mixed it all together (easier to sell that way), none of them had any idea of what assets they had at all.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Okay, so let me see if I understand you...
My parents immigrated to this country when I was 2. My dad had only a high school education, and my mom a middle school education. My brother and I are the first generation of our family to totally grow up in the US and get college educations.
So, if we become financially successful, and can afford to give our children a better education, you want to deny us that "In the interest of trying to give people some sembelance of an equal playing field?"
That is just immoral.
We went to crappy city schools, and still learned well, because our parents instilled in us a sense of how important our education is. There is nothing the government can do to take the place of that.
Education will never be equal for everyone, and that is the major problem with the ideologues that wish it to be so. It is futile and can only degrade our education system on the whole, not "average things out."
The battle is between special interests at the cost of society VS society (including special interests that don't harm society).
Take for instance the no-bid contracts for haliburton in Iraq...
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
Troops in Iraq: 152,850
Population of Chicago: 2,842,518
Casualties per thousand (Iraq) 1.8
Murders per thousand (Chicago) 0.14
Just thought I'd put that in perspective for you...
I'm with you, AC. I would challenge MikeRT to teach in a rural school system like both of my parents did and see how well he likes the "pretty penny." This "most districts" stuff is completely unsupported by statistics. How about some hard numbers: http://www.aft.org/salary/2005/download/AFT2005SalarySurvey.pdf Read the forward.
Correction: President of the Harvard Law Review. Not "just" an editor, in other words.
Here's the keys: 1. Graduate high school. 2. Don't get pregnant/get a girl pregnant before marriage. 3. Get a job for 2+ years (work hard, be on time, be neat) 4. Try and go to college. Follow that and you won't be poor, and the stats pretty much bear that out. Look into it.
I've never been a big-time political activist, and I'd say I have a healthy skepticism of _anything_ having to do with politicians. However, I really do think we'll be better off with Obama in the long run. Here's why:
I'm actually hoping for a bigger social change than any one person can do, but we'll see how well that goes. My hope is that credit will continue to be difficult to get, forcing people to cut back on consumption. Once that happens, people won't be scrambling for that next promotion at work because they need more money to feed the debt monster. People will then spend less time at work, and maybe pay attention to their kids again. Education may improve as a result, or it may not. Long-run, if wages go lower and people spend less, maybe we can actually compete with the foriegn labor markets (at least after you consider things like the time it takes to clean up a project after it's been delivered by an outsourcer.) This would be an extremely harsh transition -- we've been used to having access to anything we want for so long. However, the rest of the world lives this way, so we should be able to adapt.
Anyone who says that the President can't really do anything on his own is correct. But, I think voting in McCain is just inviting more conflict with the rest of the world.
(Note my restraint)
In most districts, schools have a mandatory 165-180 day school year. With holidays and spring break, this makes for a school year of at least 9 months and often closer to 10. I know of no teacher that gets 4 months off for summer vacation. I have to believe you're just totally lying. Add to this, the fact that most teachers require a couple weeks to prepare for the start of the school year.
However, that doesn't really count here, since in most cases they're not paid for it.
I also knew a teacher who taught three classes and a study hall. He was getting paid $18K a year. Most teachers have a mandatory 7 hour work day with a 30 minute lunch. However, its common for teachers to spend 2-4 hours of time after the end of the school day preparing for the next.
I know a few teachers who'd love to show you where to put your head for implying that they were too lazy to try and get a second job to fill out those last four hours of spare time they have a day.
I suspect the real problem here is that you simply don't have a clue what you're talking about. You cherry picked an example which made you bitter and never used another neuron to think about it.
Obama is the greatest fraud the country will ever see run for president.
We don't have his school record, birth certificate, health records, legal clients, or anything about him. He's probably very deep in with Ayers, Khalidi, and Wright still. All anti-semite friends, yet jews are foolishly voting for him. Because we don't know the truth. We are just sheeple who the media is lying to.
And he takes foreign donations on his website, and will use acorn in the general as he did against hillary - to cheat.
Obama is the greatest fraud the country will ever see run for president.
We don't have his school record, birth certificate, health records, legal clients, or anything about him. He's probably very deep in with Ayers, Khalidi, and Wright still. All anti-semite friends, yet jews are foolishly voting for him. Because we don't know the truth. We are just sheeple who the media is lying to.
And he takes foreign donations on his website, and will use acorn in the general as he did against hillary - to cheat.
You were on youtube shouting 'TERRORIST N*****' at last week's Palin rally weren't you?
No, he's saying it's not an education or school problem. It's a parents and social issue. Education is not valued in lower incomes. For whatever reason it's not the 'cool' thing to do. When a higher income family sends their kids to private school they are not only spending their money to do that, but showing that they value an education. I was poor growing up and went to some pretty poor public schools, but my parents pushed education from day 1 as a way to better myself. When I talk to my teacher friends today they can't even get a parent to call them back to discuss their child. More money is not going to solve this issue, and neither is sending these kids to 'better' schools. A does of harsh reality is the only way to fix it at this point. It's time to stop blaming their current situation on everyone else and do something about it.
I don't he's hiding anything, it took me 2 seconds to find it with google:
3.8 GPA ---Columbia Poly Sci major with a specialty in international relations.
4.0 GPA with high honors. ---Harvard Law
Fanatically anti-fanatical
A federal government with limited powers, multiple state governments, county governments (3,000+ as of now), and city governments. Our current problem is that the governments at the top want to dictate what the governments below do. The system wasn't designed for that, but that's how it is now, with the resulting problems.
A clear example is the drug laws. The federal government tries to override the choice of states to legalize certain drugs. That wasn't a stated power of the fed, so the fed has no business dictating to the states.
You guys over in the EU, watch out. Our country was once a collection of sovereign states.
Q. Won't my employer drop coverage?
A. No. Employers who do not offer meaningful coverage to their employees will have to contribute a percentage of their payroll to help offset the cost of providing coverage to all Americans. In most cases, this will eliminate an employer's incentive to drop coverage. Some small employers will be exempt from this requirement.
Sorry but this is just getting totally silly - there's no way that a sheep can drive a car.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
I'm personally a libertarian, but one of the few things I think the government should be spending money on is education and scientific research. Education is an investment in the future. If we raise the level of education in this country, encourage students to like learning, and really progress we will remain a superpower, if only because we will dominate technology and science in the world.
We need to pay teachers a competitive wage to get the really bright people interested in being teachers. And we need to give them the resources to really inspire the next generation. A good teacher can make the difference in someone's life. We also need to fund programs to give smarter children access to the resources they need to jump to the next level, not just keep them with the average person. And we need to stop pandering to the lowest common denominator - the slowest person in a class should not be dragging everyone else down.
For college, we should be paying students who do well and who aren't going into high paying careers like Wall Street or lawyers. If you offer someone the ability to go to the top private schools for free if they later become a teacher or scientist a lot more people will do that. Higher up, we should be paying more money to graduate students, postdocs, and scientists. Only the most dedicated stay in the field when you get paid so little (disclaimer: I am a graduate student in astrophysics right now, and I've seen plenty of people leave for higher paying jobs in other fields after finishing).
And instead of welfare, we should be getting people educated so that they can work in a more demanding job. I would much rather pay $50,000 for someone to get a college degree and then start working at a good wage then pay someone $20,000 as welfare.
How can I justify this based on my libertarian leanings? Because it's an investment. If the government funds someone's education and it costs $100,000, but then that person is able to make $150k/year instead of $50k, the government will get it's money back in a matter of years. Hopefully there will be fewer criminals because more people will be interested in working instead of doing nothing. Obviously money won't solve everything, but it will be a good start and personally I would much rather see the money currently being spent on social programs invested in the future, not in the present.
The USA's bullying foreign policy has resulted in huge deficits from Offense Spending. I don't want my kids to have to deal with MY problem.
Unlike the whiners and non-competatives, I WANT to pay more. I WANT to pay down the debt. It's the responsible, non-selfish, thing to do.
Blar.
A huge number of Nobel laureates have come out with a letter that endorses Obama. Nature, one of the top science magazines, endorsed Obama (even though it never had before). You have a guy who is the top of his class vs. someone who was the bottom of his class. You have someone who thinks and another that just acts. If you are going to choose between the two major parties on education, the choice is so easy it is silly. The only people who can't see this are people who watch Fox News and listen to Limbaugh and think they are hearing facts.
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Obama has several kinds of experience with the education system going for him, since he's been through it a lot more recently than McCain, he worked at a university, and he's got daughters going to school right now. McCain is so old that I can't help but feel he's out of touch with how education works in America now.
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