Can someone explain to me how the article and the OP says that roundabouts didn't appear in the US until 1990, when I distinctly remember driving on the roundabout near Bear Mountain (in NY) before that as well as several smaller roundabouts in New Jersey? Is there some sort of difference between them?
Move out of the flood zones or buy flood insurance. Its no different than the people that blamed the Army Corps when New Orleans flooded. Wake up people, you're living below sea level (New Orleans) or living in the 100 year flood plain (Midwest). What did you really think was going to happen?
I live there, I have flood insurance. My insurance company wont cover a single cent because the flood is man made. Now what smart ass?
I moved to Western Nebraska several years ago.
Nearly everyone along the Platte River in town is a business. Those in houses are 4 blocks or more from the river. In order to buy a house near the Platte River, you were required to buy flood insurance. Some folks I know have been told by their insurance companies that if/when their houses flood it won't be covered because they knowingly moved onto a flood plain.
Also, keep in mind that the Platte River doesn't flood every year here. Sometimes, there is a little flooding, but it never even gets near the businesses along the river and rarely goes out far enough to be a concern to houses. We have had a Spring that was unusually rainy and we are just now getting the snow melt from the Rockies.
What you're saying is almost EVERY University outside of the United States is just a trade school.
You see, everywhere else in the world, university is the place you go to learn and specialize in your field. They don't baby you, they don't teach you to "write", "comprehend", and "reason", that's what your high schools, and lower educational facilities are for.
Why should a university be trying to teach you, what you should have already learnt? If you don't have these skills, then you're going to fail, or at the most pass very poorly.
The only students who need to learn how to write, are the international students, and they usually do courses beforehand.
As for reasoning and comprehending, well fuck me, if they need to teach you this sort of thing at that level (beyond that which is required for your specialization, eg, the ability to understand programs), then your universities must be remedial universities.
The reason they have to "baby" people in college is because high schools don't teach these skills anymore. You ask why a university should teach these skills to people, it's because the US system is not designed this way. Many are not taught these skills until they reach college. I see it every year in the district that I work in. Due to No Child Left Behind and other idiotic government programs for education, the system has been so dumbed down so that everyone can graduate high school that no one really learns the essential skills they need to be successful in college anymore.
I don't think the US will ever catch up. I have many Dutch friends and have seen, since the mid 1990s, at how much more secure their online banking is compared to here.
When I moved to another state five years ago, I looked into the online banking in my town. They were all the same. User name + password and you're in. The bank I chose does user name + password + identify a picture you submitted to a bank from a list of four photos. While this seems more secure, you can just keep guessing until you get the right picture.
I explained to the lady at the bank how other countries do banking and she marveled at how a little calculator could generate one time passwords. I told her to leave me off the mailing list that pushes for online banking. When US banks take it seriously, then I'll bank online. Until then, I will continue to use cash.
This sort of thing has been happening for decades. I've seen it happen in the 80s, 90s and 00s. I can't count the number of times I've been in the post office listening to someone tell the postal worker that a person does not live at their address.
I had instances in the 90s where I would write Holland on an envelope and they freak out, cross it out and write The Netherlands and then chastise me because I wrote the wrong country on it. I also had one particular branch around 1994 who tried to cross out Republic of Ireland on packages and write United Kingdom on it. This happened repeatedly. I quit going to that one branch and went two miles out of my way to mail stuff.
The incompetence goes back YEARS and I'm surprised they managed to stay around as long as they have.
Yes, grocery delivery has been around for a long time in the USA. The problem is that it's only in major cities. I have lived in 6 different cities in my lifetime and none of them currently have any grocery delivery service and never have. These cities range from 15,000 to 250,000 people. Peapod never delivered to any city that I lived in. I just did a search and Peapod still doesn't deliver in any of the cities I've lived in.
The reason this is a big deal is because there is a Wal-Mart in nearly every city in the USA, not just major or large cities. If Wal-Mart sees delivery as viable, then it will take off across the USA. Where I currently live, there are many elderly people who would probably love such a service. We have no public transportation, so they must either drive themselves or, if they can't drive, they have to rely on others to get them to the grocery store.
I think even Americans forget how large the United States is sometimes. Delivery services like Peapod do not have the resources to be everywhere. Wal-Mart does. That's why this is a big deal.
You want kids to learn mathematics, proper grammar, etc., then assign the homework. For those students who falter because of too busy / too uncaring parents, offer after school support with the money wasted on subsidizing Apple Inc.
At the junior high I work in, this still wouldn't work. The kids refuse to do their homework. The basic math classes use netbooks and use the I Can Learn series to do their math. They were so far behind and behind at different places, that it was impossible to teach them all at once. Their parents, for the most part, don't care and wouldn't make them do the work. The few kids who do care, will have finished the required assignments on the computer and will move on to pre-algebra next year. The vast majority just do enough to skate by so they can play sports or go home. Of the 47 kids on this program, there are 3 who will regularly stay after school to get help. The rest simply do not care.
We already offer school support and less than 3% of the entire school body ever comes to get help before or after school. Every teacher in every subject is at school a minimum of 30 minutes before school and an hour after school to help the students. On Tuesdays and Thursdays there is mandatory tutoring for any student who is failing one or more classes. The students would rather be elsewhere and no amount of cajoling, yelling, etc. will get them to come and get the help they need. They all say, "Well a D is passing so I don't need to stay." Most teachers now provide plenty of time in class to get at least half the homework finished. After class, most of the students will just then put it in their locker and are happy to get the rest wrong when it's graded the next day.
You can't force kids to do homework. When they don't care, no amount of technology is going to help them learn. They need to take the initiative themselves and ipads aren't going to be taken home any more than a textbook is now. It will be wasted money and the school will just move on in a couple of years to something else.
Very true. But it's still one of the reasons the public at large has resisted every attempt to convert. Imperial measurements are just more comfortable in everyday speech. This is just my personal theory of course, but I believe it holds water. Perhaps a gallon or so;)
I would add that people resist it because they were never taught it in school. I work in a public school. The kids are taught the metric system in 4th grade (around 9 years old). They do this for about 2 weeks. Then, it's never brought up again as a full lesson. I work with 7th and 8th graders (12-14 years old). They have what is called Math's Mates worksheets that are due each week. They are designed to help refresh the basics every week. There is always one metric question on the worksheet. Nearly every kid I know gets it wrong every week and they are okay with missing that one question because, "It's just the stupid metric system" that they'll never use.
Americans don't air their documentaries in Canada. Canada buys the rights to air the documentary. Any subtitling would come from some TV company within Canada. This is similar to France buying American shows and then dubbing or subbing them. The Americans aren't responsible for your subtitling.
In Nebraska there is no inspection on your car like there is in New York. I don't know about other states, but I'm sure not all of them have inspections. Nebraska also has a road tax (I think it's because there's no tolls in the state) and a wheel tax that you pay each year when you renew your registration. The wheel tax is used for maintaining the roads in the county where the car is registered. The road tax, wheel tax, and taxes on gas are supposed to go to maintaining roads and bridges, though I wonder just how much of that is really used for its purpose.
I used to be in law enforcement and as far back as 1992 your Driver's license was in a database and could be accessed in nearly every state. States had reciprocal policies with other states. While not all states did back in 1992, we had reciprocal policies with 32 states at the time. So, yes other states do, did, and will continue to have access to this.
At the moment you can drive anywhere you like without being hassled by the TSA. Rest assured that they will get to you sooner or later. The USA is about 1/4 way down a slippery slope and picking up speed.
Explain to me how I can drive to England then. I have to attend my brother-in-law's wedding in 2012. If you can get back to me before then, let me know because I don't see any bridges over the Bering Sea yet. Driving for two days just to get to a port to take a boat to England isn't practical either when I only have a few days for vacation.
Have you seen sixth graders lately? The ones in my district look like they're about 16-17 years old when they're only 12. I wouldn't mess with some of them.
It's still mostly magnetic strips in the USA. There are a few chip and pin uses and a few more RFID swipes, but magnetic strips still rule the land. When I visit Kmart or Sears, I use my magnetic strip and it asks for me to type in my zip code (post code) for verification. Staples (an office superstore) asks to see the card and they punch in the last 4 digits of the card for verification.
I don't see the magnetic strip changing any time soon. Most people I know don't even know what a secure chip is and probably wouldn't even understand why it's more secure even if I explained it to them.
This is good to know because the only card I have that has a chip on it is my American Express card, which can't be used in Europe. My MasterCard is supposed to be getting one when it expires in 2011, but, until then, I'm probably going to have to bring a lot of cash with me when I travel.
Why would I do that? Cash is quite liquid - other people can dispose of it easily, and there's nothing really to show that "this $20 is mine." In addition, the filth on most money is rather distasteful, from a purely hygienic standpoint. Instead of filling my pockets with other people's bacteria and other snot, why not just use my debit card or credit card (I pay off the balance in full every month)?
Cash also lends itself to being easily frittered away with a dollar or two here, a dollar or two there. Cards allow you to keep closer track of your transactions and balances.
As far as taking more or less time, by the time I haul out my wallet, count out bills & check to see if I have appropriate change, it's just as easy to have simply swiped a card and keyed in a pin. And if the store's machines are acting up, it's not uncommon for the cashier to be unable to (or very slow to) calculate what my change should be on a cash transaction, too.
If the store is concerned about price-per-transaction costs, that's their problem, not mine. Some stores impose minimum limits for use of cards, so if the owners are that concerned, they can impose the same limit. If they're not willing to, I guess they're not very concerned about the transaction fees.
So... tell us again why cash is so much better? As far as I can see, the only argument *for* using cash is that you feel it takes longer to use a card, and in my experience, the difference in time is so small as to be nonexistent.
I have yet to be robbed of my cash in the last 40 years. I have had 4 different credit cards from 4 different companies have their databases broken in to and my accounts were affected.
If you use cash, once it's gone, there is no more money. I have 3 credit cards and a debit card. My debit card is rarely used as it does not offer the protections of a credit card and I cannot afford the 3-6 month waiting time to get my money back if anything is stolen from my account. My 3 credit cards have a total of $27,000 I could spend on it. Your credit card is actually easier than cash to fritter away. You think to yourself, "It's only a $3 latte," and, by the end of the month, you've put $200 worth of shit on your card. If you had the cash in your pocket and that was all the cash you had for the month, you'd think twice before spending it.
It doesn't take me more time to haul out my wallet as I know relatively close to what I've spent and have my money ready when I get to the cashier.
I work in the public schools and there is always a need for cash. You need it to pay to get into athletic games, the concessions, donations, fundraisers, etc. Right now, we are collecting money for a young man who is 13 and his mother died on Tuesday. He has no other family. It's cash or check only.
On the occasion that I eat out, I use cash as often as I can. I don't like the fact that your waitress is your cashier. They bring you the bill, you give them your credit card, and they disappear with it for a while. Then, you write in the tip and leave. They still have access to your credit card after you've left because they need to run it again to put the tip on.
Your post implies that you can become a citizen after 3 years if you're married to a citizen. In reality, you are eligible to apply for citizenship after 3 years. Best case scenario is you actually become a citizen in 6-7 years, often taking longer. Yes, it's still the quickest way, but you won't be a citizen after three years.
You're forgetting the fact that most special needs kids are mainstreamed. They won't be in the AP classes, but they're put in with the regular ed kids because we don't want them to not feel like they are a special snowflake. I sit with these special needs kids every day and, trust me, the regular ed kids hate them because they make the classes too easy and they get extra time for homework and tests. they skew the scores for whatever class they're in.
Say, in 9th grade an Science class has 3 special needs kids in it. When they go to 10th grade, those 3 kids may or may not end up in Science together again. They'll probably be in three different classes. It depends on scheduling. It's difficult to track year-to-year improvement when the kids move around so much.
Then there are teachers like my sister who pulls in close to $70K per year, gets a $3,000 raise when she completes teacher training programs in the Summer, and has this incredible pension with TIAA CREF paid for by the school system that guarantees that she'll retire as a millionaire.
My mother was a book-keeper for a school district and as a result was able to get the same benefits as the teachers. She has absolutely no problems with money in her retirement, now and she isn't exactly a frugal person to put it lightly.
In my financial planning class, we were shown stats that showed that teachers are the tops when it comes to people who retire as millionaires.
If you start teaching at the age of 22 right out of college and stick with it for 30 years (retire at 52), you'll be set for life - nice comfortable life. The first couple of years suck in terms of apy, though. But after you get over that hump, you're making a nice living. Looking back now, I kind of wish I did that.
Either your mother is in a very shitty school district, or you're not telling us the whole story.
I would like to know what district this is in because it isn't like this everywhere. In our district, the state requires you put 3.4% of your pay with them for retirement. There is no matching, but you can do up to 6% of your pay. Classified staff are required to do this as well. The only people in the district that make close to $70k are those nearing retirement. They needed 30+ years of teaching to get that high of pay. There are about a dozen teachers in our district who have retired, but are subbing because they need the money. They are nowhere near millionaires. It seems like your sister is in a good district, but don't believe everyone is like that. Many do not have it that well.
Actually, in many states you do need an advanced degree. Some states require a Master's degree in order to teach. I think that, in the past, this might have been true when universities had less required class to round out your education. Today, a history major only needs a handful of classes to graduate with a history degree. This usually accounts for about 1/4 of their classes. This is the minimum. Are they really qualified to teach that? This is why so many places require the advanced degree. Fix the colleges and their shitty, "You must take a physics and biology class to graduate" bullshit and you'll get an English major that can teach English when they graduate.
In most places the whole educational establishment is there for the comfort and convenience of the teachers. Any learning that takes place is purely a side-effect of employing teachers, but it's certainly not the reason why they are employed. (Which is why teachers are so vehemently opposed to testing children and assessing how much they know - since this reflects directly on them, not the kids).
It would be nice to hope that this was the first step in recognising that (indirectly) real people pay for and therefore employ teachers. These real people would like to think the primary role of teachers is to impart knowledge, skills and abilities to the children in their charge. If this article leads parents to question schools about why they are employing sub-standard teachers, then it can only be a good thing, that should be extended everywhere.
Really? Would you like to be the teacher of the student who just circles answers randomly because he can't be bothered to take the test? Would you like your job to rely on that kid? How many school districts have you been in? I invite you to come and see my school district. I can name two teachers who are incompetent and should be fired. In my years with the district, I've seen many dedicated teachers. Most of them are at school 3-4 hours later than is required each day. I see them go to work on Sundays to prepare and grade papers.
Learning is not a side-effect of employing teachers. I see learning take place every day. If the kid is more interested in not being at school, they aren't going to learn, but, by and large, the teachers I work with are there for the kids. Again, please come to my school district and spend a month here. I guarantee you'll change your mind about teachers being lazy and just there for a paycheck.
What a kid knows is a direct reflection on the kid as well as the teacher. If you assess a teacher this way, you are doing a disservice to the teacher and the student. First, the teacher can only do so much. At some point, the student must take responsibility for their learning. Is the teacher supposed to walk to the students' homes and make sure they do their homework and bring it back? Is the teacher supposed to shadow the student 24/7 to make sure they study for the upcoming test? The student also needs to be responsible for their grades. If they fail to do homework or study for a test, whose fault is it when the student fails? What about kids that hate a particular teacher? It would be real easy for them to get a teacher fired by purposely fucking up and making the teacher look bad. In my school district, junior high kids only need to pass 2 of 4 core subjects. If they hate one teacher and know their F would get the teacher fired, they are vindictive enough to do just that. This is why teachers oppose merit-based teaching.
I don't think merit based pay should be the only factor in determining whether a teacher gets paid more or gets to keep his/her job. I work as a para in my school district and sometimes a teacher gets dealt a shit class or a few shit students. These are the students who come in to class unprepared, sleep, don't pay attention, refuse to do any work, constantly disrupt class, etc. Many of these kids are often heard talking about how they are going to quit when they are 16. You might not want to believe it, but there are kids that just don't want to learn and could give a fuck less about what goes on in school. There are also a few students who, if they knew a teacher was keeping their job solely on how a kid performed, would fuck up more just to get that teacher fired.
There are also teachers who might look bad, but might not be. A teacher in our district was put on an action plan last year. An action plan basically means you've been in the district a number of years, but you're fucking up and, if you don't sort your shit out, you're fired. Well, this teacher was put on an action plan because her principal tried to violate state laws and the teacher's contract so, as the building representative, she reported it to the union for a clarification. BAM! The principal got pissed at her (and this woman holds grudges for years) and put her on an action plan last year. If her review was made public or she was in a merit-based system, she'd probably have lost her job. Every teacher in the district knew what the principal had done, but when you have a shit union who won't defend you at a meeting with the superintendent, there isn't much you can do.
Another teacher had a class that had relatively high achievers in it. Then, they put two lower kids and two special education kids in that class. She then had to lower the expectations and dumb down some of the materials for the class so everyone could pass the class. This wasn't fair to anyone in the class, but it's what happens every day. The really smart kids in class thought the class was too easy and sucked and the special education kids liked that they could understand what was going on. Again, merit-based pay would say that this teacher kind of sucked, when she was put in a shitty situation by administrators.
If you think education sucks now, wait until merit-based pay is the only solution. Then, every kid will pass, standards will be lowered more than they are now. People want to keep their jobs. Teachers are no different. If you throw in a factor that you get paid more if your kids pass, then your kids are going to pass your class. There will be even more teaching only to the test and little learning.
While I agree something needs to be done about shitty teachers, I don't think just merit-pay will fix the problem. I personally know of two shit teachers in this district, who should be fired, but I don't know if they will be after this year. They are both in their 3rd year (tenure year) so everyone is hoping now is the time to do it. It's just a matter of what laws are in place as to whether they can get rid of them. Remember, not all states have teacher's unions and not all states have strong unions. It varies greatly and you also have to be mindful of state and federal laws.
To confuse the fuck out of children, this is what they do in the elementary schools where I work.
First, you learn the variable with a box.
Once you are used to the box, they replace the box with parenthesis.
After you're used to the parenthesis, they throw the box back in from time to time.
When you get to junior high, they throw in the actual letter variable, be it x, y, z, or whatever letter you want.
When I worked at the elementary level, no explanation was ever given to the equal sign or the divisor sign. Now that I work in the junior high, I see kids coming up that don't know what the signs mean or what they're supposed to do with them. The kids were equally confused when they had to stop using x as the multiplication symbol and had to use the dot instead. This is mostly because the dot is introduced up to a year before the kids start using x instead of the parenthesis or box.
They are also allowed to use terms like times, plus, and minus at the elementary level and then freak out when they hit junior high and they are expected to use the proper terms of multiply, add, and subtract. They don't ever seem to be able to figure out divisor, dividend, and quotient either. you also can't say two point seven anymore. You must say two and seven tenths. I've never understood why, if the junior and senior high makes you use the proper terms why the elementary doesn't do that as well, but I just work there.
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Can someone explain to me how the article and the OP says that roundabouts didn't appear in the US until 1990, when I distinctly remember driving on the roundabout near Bear Mountain (in NY) before that as well as several smaller roundabouts in New Jersey? Is there some sort of difference between them?
Move out of the flood zones or buy flood insurance. Its no different than the people that blamed the Army Corps when New Orleans flooded. Wake up people, you're living below sea level (New Orleans) or living in the 100 year flood plain (Midwest). What did you really think was going to happen?
I live there, I have flood insurance. My insurance company wont cover a single cent because the flood is man made. Now what smart ass?
I moved to Western Nebraska several years ago. Nearly everyone along the Platte River in town is a business. Those in houses are 4 blocks or more from the river. In order to buy a house near the Platte River, you were required to buy flood insurance. Some folks I know have been told by their insurance companies that if/when their houses flood it won't be covered because they knowingly moved onto a flood plain.
Also, keep in mind that the Platte River doesn't flood every year here. Sometimes, there is a little flooding, but it never even gets near the businesses along the river and rarely goes out far enough to be a concern to houses. We have had a Spring that was unusually rainy and we are just now getting the snow melt from the Rockies.
Holy shit!
What you're saying is almost EVERY University outside of the United States is just a trade school.
You see, everywhere else in the world, university is the place you go to learn and specialize in your field. They don't baby you, they don't teach you to "write", "comprehend", and "reason", that's what your high schools, and lower educational facilities are for.
Why should a university be trying to teach you, what you should have already learnt? If you don't have these skills, then you're going to fail, or at the most pass very poorly.
The only students who need to learn how to write, are the international students, and they usually do courses beforehand.
As for reasoning and comprehending, well fuck me, if they need to teach you this sort of thing at that level (beyond that which is required for your specialization, eg, the ability to understand programs), then your universities must be remedial universities.
The reason they have to "baby" people in college is because high schools don't teach these skills anymore. You ask why a university should teach these skills to people, it's because the US system is not designed this way. Many are not taught these skills until they reach college. I see it every year in the district that I work in. Due to No Child Left Behind and other idiotic government programs for education, the system has been so dumbed down so that everyone can graduate high school that no one really learns the essential skills they need to be successful in college anymore.
I don't think the US will ever catch up. I have many Dutch friends and have seen, since the mid 1990s, at how much more secure their online banking is compared to here.
When I moved to another state five years ago, I looked into the online banking in my town. They were all the same. User name + password and you're in. The bank I chose does user name + password + identify a picture you submitted to a bank from a list of four photos. While this seems more secure, you can just keep guessing until you get the right picture.
I explained to the lady at the bank how other countries do banking and she marveled at how a little calculator could generate one time passwords. I told her to leave me off the mailing list that pushes for online banking. When US banks take it seriously, then I'll bank online. Until then, I will continue to use cash.
This sort of thing has been happening for decades. I've seen it happen in the 80s, 90s and 00s. I can't count the number of times I've been in the post office listening to someone tell the postal worker that a person does not live at their address.
I had instances in the 90s where I would write Holland on an envelope and they freak out, cross it out and write The Netherlands and then chastise me because I wrote the wrong country on it. I also had one particular branch around 1994 who tried to cross out Republic of Ireland on packages and write United Kingdom on it. This happened repeatedly. I quit going to that one branch and went two miles out of my way to mail stuff.
The incompetence goes back YEARS and I'm surprised they managed to stay around as long as they have.
Amazon Fresh only delivers in a limited area in Seattle. That is only a tiny part of America. It is useless to anyone who lives outside of Seattle.
Yes, grocery delivery has been around for a long time in the USA. The problem is that it's only in major cities. I have lived in 6 different cities in my lifetime and none of them currently have any grocery delivery service and never have. These cities range from 15,000 to 250,000 people. Peapod never delivered to any city that I lived in. I just did a search and Peapod still doesn't deliver in any of the cities I've lived in.
The reason this is a big deal is because there is a Wal-Mart in nearly every city in the USA, not just major or large cities. If Wal-Mart sees delivery as viable, then it will take off across the USA. Where I currently live, there are many elderly people who would probably love such a service. We have no public transportation, so they must either drive themselves or, if they can't drive, they have to rely on others to get them to the grocery store.
I think even Americans forget how large the United States is sometimes. Delivery services like Peapod do not have the resources to be everywhere. Wal-Mart does. That's why this is a big deal.
yet another distraction.
You want kids to learn mathematics, proper grammar, etc., then assign the homework. For those students who falter because of too busy / too uncaring parents, offer after school support with the money wasted on subsidizing Apple Inc.
At the junior high I work in, this still wouldn't work. The kids refuse to do their homework. The basic math classes use netbooks and use the I Can Learn series to do their math. They were so far behind and behind at different places, that it was impossible to teach them all at once. Their parents, for the most part, don't care and wouldn't make them do the work. The few kids who do care, will have finished the required assignments on the computer and will move on to pre-algebra next year. The vast majority just do enough to skate by so they can play sports or go home. Of the 47 kids on this program, there are 3 who will regularly stay after school to get help. The rest simply do not care.
We already offer school support and less than 3% of the entire school body ever comes to get help before or after school. Every teacher in every subject is at school a minimum of 30 minutes before school and an hour after school to help the students. On Tuesdays and Thursdays there is mandatory tutoring for any student who is failing one or more classes. The students would rather be elsewhere and no amount of cajoling, yelling, etc. will get them to come and get the help they need. They all say, "Well a D is passing so I don't need to stay." Most teachers now provide plenty of time in class to get at least half the homework finished. After class, most of the students will just then put it in their locker and are happy to get the rest wrong when it's graded the next day.
You can't force kids to do homework. When they don't care, no amount of technology is going to help them learn. They need to take the initiative themselves and ipads aren't going to be taken home any more than a textbook is now. It will be wasted money and the school will just move on in a couple of years to something else.
Very true. But it's still one of the reasons the public at large has resisted every attempt to convert. Imperial measurements are just more comfortable in everyday speech. This is just my personal theory of course, but I believe it holds water. Perhaps a gallon or so ;)
I would add that people resist it because they were never taught it in school. I work in a public school. The kids are taught the metric system in 4th grade (around 9 years old). They do this for about 2 weeks. Then, it's never brought up again as a full lesson. I work with 7th and 8th graders (12-14 years old). They have what is called Math's Mates worksheets that are due each week. They are designed to help refresh the basics every week. There is always one metric question on the worksheet. Nearly every kid I know gets it wrong every week and they are okay with missing that one question because, "It's just the stupid metric system" that they'll never use.
Americans don't air their documentaries in Canada. Canada buys the rights to air the documentary. Any subtitling would come from some TV company within Canada. This is similar to France buying American shows and then dubbing or subbing them. The Americans aren't responsible for your subtitling.
In Nebraska there is no inspection on your car like there is in New York. I don't know about other states, but I'm sure not all of them have inspections. Nebraska also has a road tax (I think it's because there's no tolls in the state) and a wheel tax that you pay each year when you renew your registration. The wheel tax is used for maintaining the roads in the county where the car is registered. The road tax, wheel tax, and taxes on gas are supposed to go to maintaining roads and bridges, though I wonder just how much of that is really used for its purpose.
I used to be in law enforcement and as far back as 1992 your Driver's license was in a database and could be accessed in nearly every state. States had reciprocal policies with other states. While not all states did back in 1992, we had reciprocal policies with 32 states at the time. So, yes other states do, did, and will continue to have access to this.
At the moment you can drive anywhere you like without being hassled by the TSA. Rest assured that they will get to you sooner or later. The USA is about 1/4 way down a slippery slope and picking up speed.
Explain to me how I can drive to England then. I have to attend my brother-in-law's wedding in 2012. If you can get back to me before then, let me know because I don't see any bridges over the Bering Sea yet. Driving for two days just to get to a port to take a boat to England isn't practical either when I only have a few days for vacation.
Have you seen sixth graders lately? The ones in my district look like they're about 16-17 years old when they're only 12. I wouldn't mess with some of them.
It's still mostly magnetic strips in the USA. There are a few chip and pin uses and a few more RFID swipes, but magnetic strips still rule the land. When I visit Kmart or Sears, I use my magnetic strip and it asks for me to type in my zip code (post code) for verification. Staples (an office superstore) asks to see the card and they punch in the last 4 digits of the card for verification.
I don't see the magnetic strip changing any time soon. Most people I know don't even know what a secure chip is and probably wouldn't even understand why it's more secure even if I explained it to them.
This is good to know because the only card I have that has a chip on it is my American Express card, which can't be used in Europe. My MasterCard is supposed to be getting one when it expires in 2011, but, until then, I'm probably going to have to bring a lot of cash with me when I travel.
Why would I do that? Cash is quite liquid - other people can dispose of it easily, and there's nothing really to show that "this $20 is mine." In addition, the filth on most money is rather distasteful, from a purely hygienic standpoint. Instead of filling my pockets with other people's bacteria and other snot, why not just use my debit card or credit card (I pay off the balance in full every month)?
Cash also lends itself to being easily frittered away with a dollar or two here, a dollar or two there. Cards allow you to keep closer track of your transactions and balances.
As far as taking more or less time, by the time I haul out my wallet, count out bills & check to see if I have appropriate change, it's just as easy to have simply swiped a card and keyed in a pin. And if the store's machines are acting up, it's not uncommon for the cashier to be unable to (or very slow to) calculate what my change should be on a cash transaction, too.
If the store is concerned about price-per-transaction costs, that's their problem, not mine. Some stores impose minimum limits for use of cards, so if the owners are that concerned, they can impose the same limit. If they're not willing to, I guess they're not very concerned about the transaction fees.
So... tell us again why cash is so much better? As far as I can see, the only argument *for* using cash is that you feel it takes longer to use a card, and in my experience, the difference in time is so small as to be nonexistent.
I have yet to be robbed of my cash in the last 40 years. I have had 4 different credit cards from 4 different companies have their databases broken in to and my accounts were affected.
If you use cash, once it's gone, there is no more money. I have 3 credit cards and a debit card. My debit card is rarely used as it does not offer the protections of a credit card and I cannot afford the 3-6 month waiting time to get my money back if anything is stolen from my account. My 3 credit cards have a total of $27,000 I could spend on it. Your credit card is actually easier than cash to fritter away. You think to yourself, "It's only a $3 latte," and, by the end of the month, you've put $200 worth of shit on your card. If you had the cash in your pocket and that was all the cash you had for the month, you'd think twice before spending it.
It doesn't take me more time to haul out my wallet as I know relatively close to what I've spent and have my money ready when I get to the cashier.
I work in the public schools and there is always a need for cash. You need it to pay to get into athletic games, the concessions, donations, fundraisers, etc. Right now, we are collecting money for a young man who is 13 and his mother died on Tuesday. He has no other family. It's cash or check only.
On the occasion that I eat out, I use cash as often as I can. I don't like the fact that your waitress is your cashier. They bring you the bill, you give them your credit card, and they disappear with it for a while. Then, you write in the tip and leave. They still have access to your credit card after you've left because they need to run it again to put the tip on.
Your post implies that you can become a citizen after 3 years if you're married to a citizen. In reality, you are eligible to apply for citizenship after 3 years. Best case scenario is you actually become a citizen in 6-7 years, often taking longer. Yes, it's still the quickest way, but you won't be a citizen after three years.
You're forgetting the fact that most special needs kids are mainstreamed. They won't be in the AP classes, but they're put in with the regular ed kids because we don't want them to not feel like they are a special snowflake. I sit with these special needs kids every day and, trust me, the regular ed kids hate them because they make the classes too easy and they get extra time for homework and tests. they skew the scores for whatever class they're in.
Say, in 9th grade an Science class has 3 special needs kids in it. When they go to 10th grade, those 3 kids may or may not end up in Science together again. They'll probably be in three different classes. It depends on scheduling. It's difficult to track year-to-year improvement when the kids move around so much.
Then there are teachers like my sister who pulls in close to $70K per year, gets a $3,000 raise when she completes teacher training programs in the Summer, and has this incredible pension with TIAA CREF paid for by the school system that guarantees that she'll retire as a millionaire.
My mother was a book-keeper for a school district and as a result was able to get the same benefits as the teachers. She has absolutely no problems with money in her retirement, now and she isn't exactly a frugal person to put it lightly.
In my financial planning class, we were shown stats that showed that teachers are the tops when it comes to people who retire as millionaires.
If you start teaching at the age of 22 right out of college and stick with it for 30 years (retire at 52), you'll be set for life - nice comfortable life. The first couple of years suck in terms of apy, though. But after you get over that hump, you're making a nice living. Looking back now, I kind of wish I did that.
Either your mother is in a very shitty school district, or you're not telling us the whole story.
I would like to know what district this is in because it isn't like this everywhere. In our district, the state requires you put 3.4% of your pay with them for retirement. There is no matching, but you can do up to 6% of your pay. Classified staff are required to do this as well. The only people in the district that make close to $70k are those nearing retirement. They needed 30+ years of teaching to get that high of pay. There are about a dozen teachers in our district who have retired, but are subbing because they need the money. They are nowhere near millionaires. It seems like your sister is in a good district, but don't believe everyone is like that. Many do not have it that well.
Actually, in many states you do need an advanced degree. Some states require a Master's degree in order to teach. I think that, in the past, this might have been true when universities had less required class to round out your education. Today, a history major only needs a handful of classes to graduate with a history degree. This usually accounts for about 1/4 of their classes. This is the minimum. Are they really qualified to teach that? This is why so many places require the advanced degree. Fix the colleges and their shitty, "You must take a physics and biology class to graduate" bullshit and you'll get an English major that can teach English when they graduate.
In most places the whole educational establishment is there for the comfort and convenience of the teachers. Any learning that takes place is purely a side-effect of employing teachers, but it's certainly not the reason why they are employed. (Which is why teachers are so vehemently opposed to testing children and assessing how much they know - since this reflects directly on them, not the kids).
It would be nice to hope that this was the first step in recognising that (indirectly) real people pay for and therefore employ teachers. These real people would like to think the primary role of teachers is to impart knowledge, skills and abilities to the children in their charge. If this article leads parents to question schools about why they are employing sub-standard teachers, then it can only be a good thing, that should be extended everywhere.
Really? Would you like to be the teacher of the student who just circles answers randomly because he can't be bothered to take the test? Would you like your job to rely on that kid? How many school districts have you been in? I invite you to come and see my school district. I can name two teachers who are incompetent and should be fired. In my years with the district, I've seen many dedicated teachers. Most of them are at school 3-4 hours later than is required each day. I see them go to work on Sundays to prepare and grade papers.
Learning is not a side-effect of employing teachers. I see learning take place every day. If the kid is more interested in not being at school, they aren't going to learn, but, by and large, the teachers I work with are there for the kids. Again, please come to my school district and spend a month here. I guarantee you'll change your mind about teachers being lazy and just there for a paycheck.
What a kid knows is a direct reflection on the kid as well as the teacher. If you assess a teacher this way, you are doing a disservice to the teacher and the student. First, the teacher can only do so much. At some point, the student must take responsibility for their learning. Is the teacher supposed to walk to the students' homes and make sure they do their homework and bring it back? Is the teacher supposed to shadow the student 24/7 to make sure they study for the upcoming test? The student also needs to be responsible for their grades. If they fail to do homework or study for a test, whose fault is it when the student fails? What about kids that hate a particular teacher? It would be real easy for them to get a teacher fired by purposely fucking up and making the teacher look bad. In my school district, junior high kids only need to pass 2 of 4 core subjects. If they hate one teacher and know their F would get the teacher fired, they are vindictive enough to do just that. This is why teachers oppose merit-based teaching.
I don't think merit based pay should be the only factor in determining whether a teacher gets paid more or gets to keep his/her job. I work as a para in my school district and sometimes a teacher gets dealt a shit class or a few shit students. These are the students who come in to class unprepared, sleep, don't pay attention, refuse to do any work, constantly disrupt class, etc. Many of these kids are often heard talking about how they are going to quit when they are 16. You might not want to believe it, but there are kids that just don't want to learn and could give a fuck less about what goes on in school. There are also a few students who, if they knew a teacher was keeping their job solely on how a kid performed, would fuck up more just to get that teacher fired.
There are also teachers who might look bad, but might not be. A teacher in our district was put on an action plan last year. An action plan basically means you've been in the district a number of years, but you're fucking up and, if you don't sort your shit out, you're fired. Well, this teacher was put on an action plan because her principal tried to violate state laws and the teacher's contract so, as the building representative, she reported it to the union for a clarification. BAM! The principal got pissed at her (and this woman holds grudges for years) and put her on an action plan last year. If her review was made public or she was in a merit-based system, she'd probably have lost her job. Every teacher in the district knew what the principal had done, but when you have a shit union who won't defend you at a meeting with the superintendent, there isn't much you can do.
Another teacher had a class that had relatively high achievers in it. Then, they put two lower kids and two special education kids in that class. She then had to lower the expectations and dumb down some of the materials for the class so everyone could pass the class. This wasn't fair to anyone in the class, but it's what happens every day. The really smart kids in class thought the class was too easy and sucked and the special education kids liked that they could understand what was going on. Again, merit-based pay would say that this teacher kind of sucked, when she was put in a shitty situation by administrators.
If you think education sucks now, wait until merit-based pay is the only solution. Then, every kid will pass, standards will be lowered more than they are now. People want to keep their jobs. Teachers are no different. If you throw in a factor that you get paid more if your kids pass, then your kids are going to pass your class. There will be even more teaching only to the test and little learning.
While I agree something needs to be done about shitty teachers, I don't think just merit-pay will fix the problem. I personally know of two shit teachers in this district, who should be fired, but I don't know if they will be after this year. They are both in their 3rd year (tenure year) so everyone is hoping now is the time to do it. It's just a matter of what laws are in place as to whether they can get rid of them. Remember, not all states have teacher's unions and not all states have strong unions. It varies greatly and you also have to be mindful of state and federal laws.
To confuse the fuck out of children, this is what they do in the elementary schools where I work.
First, you learn the variable with a box.
Once you are used to the box, they replace the box with parenthesis.
After you're used to the parenthesis, they throw the box back in from time to time.
When you get to junior high, they throw in the actual letter variable, be it x, y, z, or whatever letter you want.
When I worked at the elementary level, no explanation was ever given to the equal sign or the divisor sign. Now that I work in the junior high, I see kids coming up that don't know what the signs mean or what they're supposed to do with them. The kids were equally confused when they had to stop using x as the multiplication symbol and had to use the dot instead. This is mostly because the dot is introduced up to a year before the kids start using x instead of the parenthesis or box.
They are also allowed to use terms like times, plus, and minus at the elementary level and then freak out when they hit junior high and they are expected to use the proper terms of multiply, add, and subtract. They don't ever seem to be able to figure out divisor, dividend, and quotient either. you also can't say two point seven anymore. You must say two and seven tenths. I've never understood why, if the junior and senior high makes you use the proper terms why the elementary doesn't do that as well, but I just work there.
I can't take any poll serious that has University of Phoenix listed at #63.