The major question that the US needs to answer is do we a) prioritize the high end of the bell curve to push the really smart kids or b) prioritize the low end of the bell curve to at least establish a minimum education standard. Why not do both? I know it would be unpopular with the softies and they'd cry racism, but European schools have tiered schools, with different paths for college-bound students, vocational-bound students, and just flat out factory-bound students.
Not true at all. High grades tell you nothing unless they are completely standardized, which is impossible to do. The best high grades can do is infer that there is a worst/poor/bad/average/good/better/best relationship between students in a given instructional setting. If US schools would ever go to a "standards" based education, where the only mark a student gets is a PASS for meeting a standard, this merit-based me-versus-you system which tells us nothing meaningful will thankfully go away. Think about it, we want to educate our kids to be able to be able to do something demonstrable, don't we? Or are there still snobs left who want to pit their child's accolades against another child?
Most people don't realize it but gifted ed is part of the special ed program. Talented and gifted children DO have IEPs (or are supposed to at least). Unfortunately, in America, their is a stigma attached to Special Education and the smart kids (especially the smart COOL kids) don't want to be associated with that stigma.
A child prone to be enrolled in an alternative school (be it Montessori or any other) is going to be an exceptional case to begin with and thus skew any statistical evaluations of performance. Put a normal kid in a Montessori school and see how he/she does compared to have been in a regular school for a more accurate indicator.
I've lived and taught in Europe (Germany and England) and those school systems are much better than the US. What you described as being a problem in Europe, the fear of a class-based school system, is not a problem at all when compared to the US system. In the US, we are too afraid to say, "your child is done with school at age 16, because he/she needs to be a blue collar worker the rest of his/her life". They have no qualms doing that in Germany, and in England you have to pass the exams to continue past 16. No such thing here in touchy-feely US schools. EVERYONE should go to college, even if they don't have even 1% of the ability to do so.
It's also about hiring GOOD teachers, not just sorority girls with no job skills and who claim to be "good with kids" and have "10 years of babysitting experience". Yeah, I'm a disgruntled parent with children in US elementary schools...could you tell?
Is it really secret that if you dumb down the curriculum so that the lowest achievers can pass (i.e. lower-the-bar-via-no-child-left-behind) the highest achievers will stop achieving because they are no longer challenged?
If anything, this is a calling for bigger Special Education departments. Remember, talented and gifted students are part of the Special Education program as well. They need...they DESERVE a special curriculum to suit their needs just as much as those low achievers.
Better yet, let's get over our petty insecurities about equality and go to a tiered education system like they have in Germany--separate the academically gifted from the destined-for-factory-work kids in the adolescent years.
(disclaimer: M.A. Education...slashdot needs more threads on education, especially my area--computer education).
Not really. Most governments in the world are loosely bound gangs of thugs and/or relatives with all the power. To have SpecOps it is inferred that you have regular military forces as well. When your regular military forces are your 47 cousins with AK-47s all Idi-Amin-Style, then that hardly counts as a military.
If you are gonna say the guy is "so wrong it's not even funny" you should probably counter the points he made. Just because you have an extreme view on life doesn't mean we accept it at face value. How about you, I don't know, try and persuade us as to WHY we are living under the brutal fist of a fascist government again?
Do you mean democracy over Islam or Islam over democracy? No I meant Muslims zealots think the western way is an abomination and we should all die for it and I meant that uptight Christian zealots in America are engaging in racist, inciting dialogue about the war in Iraq. Both sides are completely out of order.
I agree with your "Blame America First" comments. I can't stand those in support of the war who pull that card at the first hint of dissent. Still, supporting the actions of OBL, killing innocents while unprovoked is worthy of that label.
I disagree with your stance on justifying terrorism in war time. See, that's what separates civilized societies from barbarians. It really is a war for progression in the world.
You, like millions of others, have been duped about Iraq's stability, unless of course you consider a tyrant running the country into the ground to serve his own family and needs for nearly 30 years stable. I've been involved in Iraq policy since 1993 and I can tell you it has all been a facade to appease western leaders and Arab leaders at the same time. Gone unchecked, Iraq was planning on the next land grab--Saudi Arabia. Other Arab countries have been running progressive circles around Iraq, with half the population and a tenth of the oil revenue. Saddam single handedly drove out any scientist worth a damned (most live in exile). Sure, stability is a relative term, and I suppose when compared to the poorest Arab and surrounding countries, it would appear that Iraq was stable leading up to the war, but that simply isn't true. Constant war during the 80s, a war in the early 90s, followed up by 10 years of near-war (complete with a war time deployment for me in the late 90s that never materialized), then again war in the 2000s. Those are NOT the earmarks of a stable country.
I think your jab at McCain is unfortunate, given the two incidents you mention (the Shah and the Taliban) were both brain children of Carter's foreign policy. If anything, all you Bush haters should at least give Jimmy Carter the credit for setting this mess up 30 years ago.
Well I'd suggest maybe you should actually contribute something to this thread before popping off with such a stupid, irrelevant comment.
One acceptable answer, from many, would be something along the line of they were all conducted in countries that weren't being provoked by evil US foreign policy in any way, shape or form. I offered them as evidence to the contrary that we deserve terrorist attacks because of our supposed meddling in far-off lands.
Take a fucking look sometime at the Marshall Plan. We did a good thing and dealt fairly with Germany and Japan. We didn't destabilize them after a war. That's because Germany and Japan were already industrialized countries, unlike what we are in now. Blaming the US for destabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan would require Iraq and Afghanistan to have been stable in the first place.
How can advocating the acts of OBL be seen by anybody as anything BUT blaming America first? Regardless of how dastardly one may think a government is, no terrorist has any right to kill 3,000 civilians, FOR ANY REASON--especially when the only reason is because one back-assward thinking theology thinks it is better than another back-assward thinking theology.
And here I thought my efforts of programming every note of Axel F (thanks to the band director who loaned me the score) into my Commodore 64 was the first computer music!
I love how the crazies think anything about the government that is "leaked" to the public was somehow ever classified in the first place. This document was classified alright...as UNCLASSIFIED. Quick lesson for you all...there are only four classification levels (in the US) and they are Unclassified, Confidential, Secret and Top Secret. That's it. This one is Unclassified, meaning that release of its contents cause NO risk to national security.
This is just like any other Army document and somebody slapped FOUO (for official use only) on it for CYA (cover your ass) purposes. This has been readily available to anyone with a shred of research skills since 1994.
Status of Forces doesn't apply, considering everyone refers to it as the Iraq occupation. SOFA is an agreement between a host country, not an occupied one. If the left would ever stop calling it an occupation, then I'd agree, SOFA needs to be in place.
Doing something also won't prevent it, Oh really then? Care to explain the last seven years?
so I would prefer if my own government would stop trying to terrorize me as a response. I couldn't agree more.
So you are conveniently insisting that I am denying any of your examples ever happened? When did I say/infer that? I can confirm every thing you mention, even with your biased, editorial comments added. US involvement in the Middle East has been at an all-time low during the past decade-and-a-half of terrorist activities directed against US interests. You cannot claim that standard diplomacy is legitimate inflammatory action on part of the US to justify any terrorist even of the past 18 years. Would you care to justify the string of terrorist incidents in the early 2000s in Bali, Indonesia, for example? What US action provoked THAT? How about 9/11 (regardless if it has nothing to do with Iraq, which is also my claim, so quit trying to pin that fallacy on me). The USS Cole? US Embassies? Air Force barracks? What do they all have in common? Oh yeah, they hate the western way of life and will do anything, at anytime to kill us, REGARDLESS if we are in Iraq or not.
It is impossible to incite those who are already incited by their own irrational hatred. They will remain incited whether or not we pull every last westerner out of the Middle East thanks to the campaign of disinformation that is prevalent throughout the Mid East.
Since I speak Arabic and have been involved in Special Operations for the past 15 years, I'd say I am more of an expert than 1000 slashdot-biased users combined. Just because you have an opinion about something that you know nothing about doesn't mean reading some biased article on wikileaks makes you an instant expert. It only supports a bias you already had.
Tanks and mechanized infantry don't work in mountains. Moving 10 heavy and mechanized infantry brigades to Afghanistan would be a wasted effort (as they learned the first time they tried it), yet some politicians still think throwing a bunch of numbers at the problem will make it go away.
We are not undermanned in either arena, we are simply applying the wrong manning.
I'm not going to comment on Vietnam era politics as I'm not an expert in that arena, nor do I pretend to be.
Well, if you'd like to spin the word "genocide" to fit your slanted world-view, then fine. If you'd like to actually compare the US treatment of Native Americans with actual instances of genocide, as evident in world history, I think you'll find you come up plenty short.
Did I say it did? Thanks for the tired tactic of putting words in my mouth. That might work with ignorant Bush supporters, but it is completely out of line with what I am saying. I am an expert in Middle East affairs, and to even INFER that I was indicting Iraqi with 9/11 is offensive to anyone with half a brain.
What I said was that "minding one's own business" does nothing to prevent people who already hate the United States from continuing to hate the United States, regardless if we are involved militarily elsewhere in the world. Doing NOTHING won't stop the next catastrophic event, and NOTHING is what the post is advocating.
The US has a history of genocide??? Can you please name one instance? I mean, I suck at history, but I think, given that I've lived in the US for 35 of my 38 years, I would have heard about US-led genocide.
If you'd all stop and take a breath from your incredulous findings for a moment. Counter-insurgency is what is needed in Iraq AND Afghanistan. The reason we haven't wrapped up both of those regions yet is because of the politicians insisting we approach these conflicts with traditional warfare pieces and making us play by the rule while the enemy has no rules.
Let's pull out 100,000 regular troops in Iraq now and replace them with every last special ops and civil affairs troop we have, and we'll have success within months. But no, the politicians insist we play by antiquated rules because we are a "civil" society. Every time a politician says to pull troops out of Iraq and put them in Afghanistan, they instantly lose credibility with anyone who knows anything about how regular troops deploy, and how they are ineffective in the Afghan theater. Keep that in mind this election season. As much as I detest the saying, sometimes the ends really do justify the means. 10 years, trillions of dollars, a few thousand US lives, a few hundred thousand Iraqi lives and years of political instability, or a few months of counter-insurgency operations and a somewhat stable (relative term) governance in place...you decide.
Yes, and in minding my own damned business, couple thousand of us were killed in 2001 while we were busy "minding (our) own goddamn business". Wake up dude. They want to kill us regardless of what business we are conducting. And by us, I mean Americans, Canadians, French, Germans, Brits, Australians and every other non-muslim citizen in the world.
Slashdot Mirror
Not true at all. High grades tell you nothing unless they are completely standardized, which is impossible to do. The best high grades can do is infer that there is a worst/poor/bad/average/good/better/best relationship between students in a given instructional setting. If US schools would ever go to a "standards" based education, where the only mark a student gets is a PASS for meeting a standard, this merit-based me-versus-you system which tells us nothing meaningful will thankfully go away. Think about it, we want to educate our kids to be able to be able to do something demonstrable, don't we? Or are there still snobs left who want to pit their child's accolades against another child?
Most people don't realize it but gifted ed is part of the special ed program. Talented and gifted children DO have IEPs (or are supposed to at least). Unfortunately, in America, their is a stigma attached to Special Education and the smart kids (especially the smart COOL kids) don't want to be associated with that stigma.
A child prone to be enrolled in an alternative school (be it Montessori or any other) is going to be an exceptional case to begin with and thus skew any statistical evaluations of performance. Put a normal kid in a Montessori school and see how he/she does compared to have been in a regular school for a more accurate indicator.
I've lived and taught in Europe (Germany and England) and those school systems are much better than the US. What you described as being a problem in Europe, the fear of a class-based school system, is not a problem at all when compared to the US system. In the US, we are too afraid to say, "your child is done with school at age 16, because he/she needs to be a blue collar worker the rest of his/her life". They have no qualms doing that in Germany, and in England you have to pass the exams to continue past 16. No such thing here in touchy-feely US schools. EVERYONE should go to college, even if they don't have even 1% of the ability to do so.
It's also about hiring GOOD teachers, not just sorority girls with no job skills and who claim to be "good with kids" and have "10 years of babysitting experience". Yeah, I'm a disgruntled parent with children in US elementary schools...could you tell?
If anything, this is a calling for bigger Special Education departments. Remember, talented and gifted students are part of the Special Education program as well. They need...they DESERVE a special curriculum to suit their needs just as much as those low achievers.
Better yet, let's get over our petty insecurities about equality and go to a tiered education system like they have in Germany--separate the academically gifted from the destined-for-factory-work kids in the adolescent years.
(disclaimer: M.A. Education...slashdot needs more threads on education, especially my area--computer education).
Not really. Most governments in the world are loosely bound gangs of thugs and/or relatives with all the power. To have SpecOps it is inferred that you have regular military forces as well. When your regular military forces are your 47 cousins with AK-47s all Idi-Amin-Style, then that hardly counts as a military.
If you are gonna say the guy is "so wrong it's not even funny" you should probably counter the points he made. Just because you have an extreme view on life doesn't mean we accept it at face value. How about you, I don't know, try and persuade us as to WHY we are living under the brutal fist of a fascist government again?
I agree with your "Blame America First" comments. I can't stand those in support of the war who pull that card at the first hint of dissent. Still, supporting the actions of OBL, killing innocents while unprovoked is worthy of that label.
I disagree with your stance on justifying terrorism in war time. See, that's what separates civilized societies from barbarians. It really is a war for progression in the world.
You, like millions of others, have been duped about Iraq's stability, unless of course you consider a tyrant running the country into the ground to serve his own family and needs for nearly 30 years stable. I've been involved in Iraq policy since 1993 and I can tell you it has all been a facade to appease western leaders and Arab leaders at the same time. Gone unchecked, Iraq was planning on the next land grab--Saudi Arabia. Other Arab countries have been running progressive circles around Iraq, with half the population and a tenth of the oil revenue. Saddam single handedly drove out any scientist worth a damned (most live in exile). Sure, stability is a relative term, and I suppose when compared to the poorest Arab and surrounding countries, it would appear that Iraq was stable leading up to the war, but that simply isn't true. Constant war during the 80s, a war in the early 90s, followed up by 10 years of near-war (complete with a war time deployment for me in the late 90s that never materialized), then again war in the 2000s. Those are NOT the earmarks of a stable country.
I think your jab at McCain is unfortunate, given the two incidents you mention (the Shah and the Taliban) were both brain children of Carter's foreign policy. If anything, all you Bush haters should at least give Jimmy Carter the credit for setting this mess up 30 years ago.
One acceptable answer, from many, would be something along the line of they were all conducted in countries that weren't being provoked by evil US foreign policy in any way, shape or form. I offered them as evidence to the contrary that we deserve terrorist attacks because of our supposed meddling in far-off lands.
How can advocating the acts of OBL be seen by anybody as anything BUT blaming America first? Regardless of how dastardly one may think a government is, no terrorist has any right to kill 3,000 civilians, FOR ANY REASON--especially when the only reason is because one back-assward thinking theology thinks it is better than another back-assward thinking theology.
And here I thought my efforts of programming every note of Axel F (thanks to the band director who loaned me the score) into my Commodore 64 was the first computer music!
This is just like any other Army document and somebody slapped FOUO (for official use only) on it for CYA (cover your ass) purposes. This has been readily available to anyone with a shred of research skills since 1994.
Status of Forces doesn't apply, considering everyone refers to it as the Iraq occupation. SOFA is an agreement between a host country, not an occupied one. If the left would ever stop calling it an occupation, then I'd agree, SOFA needs to be in place.
References? How about On War and the Art of War. Like I said, it's not like the US invented this stuff from scratch.
It is impossible to incite those who are already incited by their own irrational hatred. They will remain incited whether or not we pull every last westerner out of the Middle East thanks to the campaign of disinformation that is prevalent throughout the Mid East.
Since I speak Arabic and have been involved in Special Operations for the past 15 years, I'd say I am more of an expert than 1000 slashdot-biased users combined. Just because you have an opinion about something that you know nothing about doesn't mean reading some biased article on wikileaks makes you an instant expert. It only supports a bias you already had.
We are not undermanned in either arena, we are simply applying the wrong manning.
I'm not going to comment on Vietnam era politics as I'm not an expert in that arena, nor do I pretend to be.
Well, if you'd like to spin the word "genocide" to fit your slanted world-view, then fine. If you'd like to actually compare the US treatment of Native Americans with actual instances of genocide, as evident in world history, I think you'll find you come up plenty short.
What I said was that "minding one's own business" does nothing to prevent people who already hate the United States from continuing to hate the United States, regardless if we are involved militarily elsewhere in the world. Doing NOTHING won't stop the next catastrophic event, and NOTHING is what the post is advocating.
The US has a history of genocide??? Can you please name one instance? I mean, I suck at history, but I think, given that I've lived in the US for 35 of my 38 years, I would have heard about US-led genocide.
Let's pull out 100,000 regular troops in Iraq now and replace them with every last special ops and civil affairs troop we have, and we'll have success within months. But no, the politicians insist we play by antiquated rules because we are a "civil" society. Every time a politician says to pull troops out of Iraq and put them in Afghanistan, they instantly lose credibility with anyone who knows anything about how regular troops deploy, and how they are ineffective in the Afghan theater. Keep that in mind this election season. As much as I detest the saying, sometimes the ends really do justify the means. 10 years, trillions of dollars, a few thousand US lives, a few hundred thousand Iraqi lives and years of political instability, or a few months of counter-insurgency operations and a somewhat stable (relative term) governance in place...you decide.
Yes, and in minding my own damned business, couple thousand of us were killed in 2001 while we were busy "minding (our) own goddamn business". Wake up dude. They want to kill us regardless of what business we are conducting. And by us, I mean Americans, Canadians, French, Germans, Brits, Australians and every other non-muslim citizen in the world.