We all prefer people who 'look like us' or look like the people we're used to.
Not true. It's more we prefer people who ACT like us. If you dress well and are educated, you prefer the company of other well dressed and educated people. If you dress like a douche and dropped out of high school, that's going to be the crowd you hang around with.
Except, just like this case, there's not one goddamn bit of evidence that a crime was committed. Using deadly force when your life is in danger is legal in every state - and yes, having a teen pin you to the ground and bash your head into the pavement qualifies as your life being in danger.
Exactly. I love how it's considered OK for a black parent to teach their kids that white people are bad and not to trust them, but if a white parent teaches their kid the same thing about blacks, it's "racist" and they should lose your job.
For what it's worth, I do support privacy. Yet I believe that the rule of law and democracy are far more important.
You do not have the right to vote away someone else's rights. It doesn't matter if 99.9999999% of people support it, they do not have the right to strip another person of their rights. Then again, I suppose this IS the UK we're talking about where people don't have rights because they're subjects, not citizens.
Oh, I'm very much aware it's the bastards at Activision forcing this - just like the forced the registration with Starcraft 2 (which I didn't buy, but was waiting for the price to drop - now I just won't buy it).
Completely irrelevant. I only played Diablo II online - I also chose to register my copy with them so I can access the downloadable version and not have to use cd's. The issue here is that if you buy this game, they FORCE you to register it with your email so that you can never resell the game (violating the doctrine of first sale) and they FORCE you to play online all of the time. It doesn't matter if I would have voluntarily chosen to do it - it's the fact that they take away my choice that pisses me off.
It's kind of like how your girlfriend would choose to have sex with you, but she gets pissed if you rape her and take away her ability to choose.
The real state of Diablo III is that is has DRM forcing you to be online even to play single player. As a result, my almost two decade long love affair with Blizzard games has come to an end.
And it could all be ended in just a few weeks if the masses simply refused to fly. The airlines have been constantly on the verge of bankruptcy for decades and have been bailed out multiple times. If all non-business related air travel stopped suddenly, they'd bleed money so fast that they'd be screaming at the government to get rid of the TSA in no time or else they'd cease to exist. After the outrage over the bank bailouts and bailing out the failed auto industry, only a truly idiotic politician who didn't want to get re-elected would vote to bail out the airlines.
According to "The Teaching Penalty", teachers earn on average about 12% less than their counterparts with the same education
Except you're forgetting that teachers work 7 hour days (including lunch) and only work 9 months out of the year (including about 4 weeks off for various holidays and winter / spring break). That's like complaining that a part time employee doesn't earn as much per year as a full time employee. If we had year round school in the US, teachers would be paid more and would at least match the pay of those who work a full year.
If Americans want the best and brightest teaching in their schools the least they'll need to do is increase the average wage for new teachers to the average that similarly educated professional are paid. That's about a $6,000 wage increase just to meet the average. To actually get the best and the brightest, schools would likely have to pay substantially more than that minimum amount.
Well we already covered how they are paid as much as their non-teaching counterparts (due to the extra 3 months - really 4 - of vacation time). Yes, paying more would inspire better people to be teachers - and private schools are more than able to do that (and many do). However, public schools would be just happy with having average people being teachers instead of having most teachers be those who just scraped by in an incredibly easy degree. I have many friends who are teachers and they routinely talk about what a joke their classes were in their education majors. A quick fix would simply to require all schools to change their curriculum so that those who want to be teachers would have to truly know the subject that they're teaching - math teachers must have a degree that's primarily focused in math with the rest of classes being focused on how to teach, science teachers having most of their undergrad courses be in various fields of science, etc. Would it instantly change things? No, it would take many years for the new teachers to filter in and replace the older teachers, but it's a good place to start. Another good place to start is for schools to have standards regarding GPA when hiring recent graduates. Most reputable companies won't hire someone with a GPA under 3.0, so schools shouldn't either unless there were exceptional circumstances (such as a medical condition) that caused the lower GPA.
That's ignoring the social stigma that is probably telling many people who might consider teaching that they shouldn't do so. The old saying "those who can, do, and those who can't, teach" is just one manifestation of the bias against education and educators.
That stigma exists because it's often true. Far too many teachers in public schools in the US don't know the material and simply lecture straight from a textbook and use homework / test problems given in the textbook. They don't have a clue what they're saying, they're merely reading off a script to the students.
Note: When increasing those wages it would also be a good idea to make sure that in concession for increased wages, that the teachers give up some of the red tape that protects teachers from dismissal. Thus, two birds could be killed with one stone.
There was no accusation. She admitted herself exactly what happened. Like I said, she got off on a technicality and the fact that the county prosecutor didn't want to "traumatize a woman who lost her child" by sending her to jail and eventually dropped the charges - the fact that the woman murdered the child meant nothing to the prosecutor.
Really? You're going to cite the Department of Education regarding the success of the Department of Education? Try using an unbiased source and I'll take your citation seriously. You're also really going to claim that there's no such thing as a bad public school - really? If you want to claim that all schools are equal then you're an idiot. There are good and bad schools and vouchers would allow kids in bad schools the option of moving to a better school.
I'm not saying they can't work. I'm saying that I've never seen anyone supporting vouchers give any plausible reason why public schools would improve.
I can't speak for everyone, but I don't necessarily give a fuck if public schools do better as long as a higher percentage of kids are getting a better education. That's supposed to be the issue here - improving children's education. You seem more focused on making the failing public schools and their requisite unions happy and don't care about the quality of the education.
While I don't disagree that your plan would have results, it would also dramatically increase cheating. If you watch interviews in the news, there's already rampant cheating among the top students because they want the scholarships / spots in a program / job opening - this would simply increase that mentality unless something was done to almost guarantee that there was no way to cheat.
You don't think $80,000 (a fairly common salary for teachers after 10 - 15 years) for 9 months of work (plus Christmas and Spring breaks and other holidays) isn't good? That comes out to around $106,500 if they worked a full 12 months. That definitely puts them at a comparable pay for having a masters degree and considering that most teachers graduated near the bottom of their class (stats for the US are that 50% graduated in the bottom third of their class) and most of their masters degrees are a joke obtained from online only degree mills with special programs just for teachers who are required to get a masters, and they're actually earning much more for their actual ability than most people.
Where's the after school coach for math? If you have a tutor it is usually to bring you up to the level of the other students. Not to help you become better than the math students in other schools.
Then join an academic math team that competes against math teams from other schools - then your coach will be working to make you better in different types of math than students at other schools.
It's the ridiculous things that they get forced into contracts through their "bargaining" that are evil. Unions / collective bargaining aren't inherently evil, they just breed corruption because of the increased power that they give. Unions end up getting things such as bad employees cannot be fired, employees who are no longer needed (due to reduced production) cannot be laid off, wages significantly higher than typical for the industry / the amount of benefit the work provides to the company, mandatory raises even if the company is losing money, etc.
If a private company decides to let itself become unionized and pay these penalties, that's their choice. However, when it comes to taxpayers money, they shouldn't be forced to deal with the failures of modern unions.
No, the problem is that unions got the list of "bad" things to only include serious crimes - being lazy / incompetent isn't considered "bad". It's utterly absurd that unions (and apparently you) think that being incompetent at a job isn't grounds for being fired.
You'll find that teachers (the ones who are actually teaching) hate the teachers in those rubber rooms just as much as you do. Yet, you're quick to paint them all as scheming and lazy.
Because they defend them against criticism, despite knowing that the person has no right having that job. It's the same situation with the police (at least in the US), where even otherwise good cops will defend a crooked cop just because "cops have to stick together".
Part of their success is that they have qualified teachers in the first place. It's been shown that 50% of teachers in the US graduate in the bottom 1/3 of their class - clearly these are NOT the best and the brightest.
No, the problem is that the teachers unions have made it so that a teacher must commit a serious crime (drug trafficking, rape, sex with a student, murder, etc) in order to be fired - being a lousy teacher is considered a "bad reason" to fire a teacher, which is utterly ridiculous. If they can't do the damn job, then they shouldn't have the job.
Hell, we had a teacher at my former high school murder her kid and managed to get off on a technicality so she didn't go to jail and they STILL didn't fire her.
Teachers unions hate vouchers because vouchers will harm most children.
Bull. Vouchers would allow kids who want to learn but are stuck in a shitty school to move to another school without having to pay all of the extra money for a private school. The teachers unions hate vouchers because it would shift most students into private schools which are non-union and would destroy the union's power.
Nope, I've been bright enough not to knock up a girl and wreck my life. One of these days in the near future I'm going to go to the vet and get snipped and make sure that disaster never happens.
Slashdot Mirror
We all prefer people who 'look like us' or look like the people we're used to.
Not true. It's more we prefer people who ACT like us. If you dress well and are educated, you prefer the company of other well dressed and educated people. If you dress like a douche and dropped out of high school, that's going to be the crowd you hang around with.
Except, just like this case, there's not one goddamn bit of evidence that a crime was committed. Using deadly force when your life is in danger is legal in every state - and yes, having a teen pin you to the ground and bash your head into the pavement qualifies as your life being in danger.
Exactly. I love how it's considered OK for a black parent to teach their kids that white people are bad and not to trust them, but if a white parent teaches their kid the same thing about blacks, it's "racist" and they should lose your job.
You do not have the right to vote away someone else's rights. It doesn't matter if 99.9999999% of people support it, they do not have the right to strip another person of their rights. Then again, I suppose this IS the UK we're talking about where people don't have rights because they're subjects, not citizens.
Oh, I'm very much aware it's the bastards at Activision forcing this - just like the forced the registration with Starcraft 2 (which I didn't buy, but was waiting for the price to drop - now I just won't buy it).
Completely irrelevant. I only played Diablo II online - I also chose to register my copy with them so I can access the downloadable version and not have to use cd's. The issue here is that if you buy this game, they FORCE you to register it with your email so that you can never resell the game (violating the doctrine of first sale) and they FORCE you to play online all of the time. It doesn't matter if I would have voluntarily chosen to do it - it's the fact that they take away my choice that pisses me off.
It's kind of like how your girlfriend would choose to have sex with you, but she gets pissed if you rape her and take away her ability to choose.
The real state of Diablo III is that is has DRM forcing you to be online even to play single player. As a result, my almost two decade long love affair with Blizzard games has come to an end.
Or a real right to bear arms.
And it could all be ended in just a few weeks if the masses simply refused to fly. The airlines have been constantly on the verge of bankruptcy for decades and have been bailed out multiple times. If all non-business related air travel stopped suddenly, they'd bleed money so fast that they'd be screaming at the government to get rid of the TSA in no time or else they'd cease to exist. After the outrage over the bank bailouts and bailing out the failed auto industry, only a truly idiotic politician who didn't want to get re-elected would vote to bail out the airlines.
According to "The Teaching Penalty", teachers earn on average about 12% less than their counterparts with the same education
Except you're forgetting that teachers work 7 hour days (including lunch) and only work 9 months out of the year (including about 4 weeks off for various holidays and winter / spring break). That's like complaining that a part time employee doesn't earn as much per year as a full time employee. If we had year round school in the US, teachers would be paid more and would at least match the pay of those who work a full year.
If Americans want the best and brightest teaching in their schools the least they'll need to do is increase the average wage for new teachers to the average that similarly educated professional are paid. That's about a $6,000 wage increase just to meet the average. To actually get the best and the brightest, schools would likely have to pay substantially more than that minimum amount.
Well we already covered how they are paid as much as their non-teaching counterparts (due to the extra 3 months - really 4 - of vacation time). Yes, paying more would inspire better people to be teachers - and private schools are more than able to do that (and many do). However, public schools would be just happy with having average people being teachers instead of having most teachers be those who just scraped by in an incredibly easy degree. I have many friends who are teachers and they routinely talk about what a joke their classes were in their education majors. A quick fix would simply to require all schools to change their curriculum so that those who want to be teachers would have to truly know the subject that they're teaching - math teachers must have a degree that's primarily focused in math with the rest of classes being focused on how to teach, science teachers having most of their undergrad courses be in various fields of science, etc. Would it instantly change things? No, it would take many years for the new teachers to filter in and replace the older teachers, but it's a good place to start. Another good place to start is for schools to have standards regarding GPA when hiring recent graduates. Most reputable companies won't hire someone with a GPA under 3.0, so schools shouldn't either unless there were exceptional circumstances (such as a medical condition) that caused the lower GPA.
That's ignoring the social stigma that is probably telling many people who might consider teaching that they shouldn't do so. The old saying "those who can, do, and those who can't, teach" is just one manifestation of the bias against education and educators.
That stigma exists because it's often true. Far too many teachers in public schools in the US don't know the material and simply lecture straight from a textbook and use homework / test problems given in the textbook. They don't have a clue what they're saying, they're merely reading off a script to the students.
Note: When increasing those wages it would also be a good idea to make sure that in concession for increased wages, that the teachers give up some of the red tape that protects teachers from dismissal. Thus, two birds could be killed with one stone.
Finally, something we can agree on!
There was no accusation. She admitted herself exactly what happened. Like I said, she got off on a technicality and the fact that the county prosecutor didn't want to "traumatize a woman who lost her child" by sending her to jail and eventually dropped the charges - the fact that the woman murdered the child meant nothing to the prosecutor.
Really? You're going to cite the Department of Education regarding the success of the Department of Education? Try using an unbiased source and I'll take your citation seriously. You're also really going to claim that there's no such thing as a bad public school - really? If you want to claim that all schools are equal then you're an idiot. There are good and bad schools and vouchers would allow kids in bad schools the option of moving to a better school.
I'm not saying they can't work. I'm saying that I've never seen anyone supporting vouchers give any plausible reason why public schools would improve.
I can't speak for everyone, but I don't necessarily give a fuck if public schools do better as long as a higher percentage of kids are getting a better education. That's supposed to be the issue here - improving children's education. You seem more focused on making the failing public schools and their requisite unions happy and don't care about the quality of the education.
but NCLB was designed by morons.
Truer words were never spoken about Ted Kennedy and George W. Bush.
While I don't disagree that your plan would have results, it would also dramatically increase cheating. If you watch interviews in the news, there's already rampant cheating among the top students because they want the scholarships / spots in a program / job opening - this would simply increase that mentality unless something was done to almost guarantee that there was no way to cheat.
You don't think $80,000 (a fairly common salary for teachers after 10 - 15 years) for 9 months of work (plus Christmas and Spring breaks and other holidays) isn't good? That comes out to around $106,500 if they worked a full 12 months. That definitely puts them at a comparable pay for having a masters degree and considering that most teachers graduated near the bottom of their class (stats for the US are that 50% graduated in the bottom third of their class) and most of their masters degrees are a joke obtained from online only degree mills with special programs just for teachers who are required to get a masters, and they're actually earning much more for their actual ability than most people.
Where's the after school coach for math? If you have a tutor it is usually to bring you up to the level of the other students. Not to help you become better than the math students in other schools.
Then join an academic math team that competes against math teams from other schools - then your coach will be working to make you better in different types of math than students at other schools.
It's the ridiculous things that they get forced into contracts through their "bargaining" that are evil. Unions / collective bargaining aren't inherently evil, they just breed corruption because of the increased power that they give. Unions end up getting things such as bad employees cannot be fired, employees who are no longer needed (due to reduced production) cannot be laid off, wages significantly higher than typical for the industry / the amount of benefit the work provides to the company, mandatory raises even if the company is losing money, etc.
If a private company decides to let itself become unionized and pay these penalties, that's their choice. However, when it comes to taxpayers money, they shouldn't be forced to deal with the failures of modern unions.
No, the problem is that unions got the list of "bad" things to only include serious crimes - being lazy / incompetent isn't considered "bad". It's utterly absurd that unions (and apparently you) think that being incompetent at a job isn't grounds for being fired.
You'll find that teachers (the ones who are actually teaching) hate the teachers in those rubber rooms just as much as you do. Yet, you're quick to paint them all as scheming and lazy.
Because they defend them against criticism, despite knowing that the person has no right having that job. It's the same situation with the police (at least in the US), where even otherwise good cops will defend a crooked cop just because "cops have to stick together".
Part of their success is that they have qualified teachers in the first place. It's been shown that 50% of teachers in the US graduate in the bottom 1/3 of their class - clearly these are NOT the best and the brightest.
No, the problem is that the teachers unions have made it so that a teacher must commit a serious crime (drug trafficking, rape, sex with a student, murder, etc) in order to be fired - being a lousy teacher is considered a "bad reason" to fire a teacher, which is utterly ridiculous. If they can't do the damn job, then they shouldn't have the job.
Hell, we had a teacher at my former high school murder her kid and managed to get off on a technicality so she didn't go to jail and they STILL didn't fire her.
Teachers unions hate vouchers because vouchers will harm most children.
Bull. Vouchers would allow kids who want to learn but are stuck in a shitty school to move to another school without having to pay all of the extra money for a private school. The teachers unions hate vouchers because it would shift most students into private schools which are non-union and would destroy the union's power.
Nope, I've been bright enough not to knock up a girl and wreck my life. One of these days in the near future I'm going to go to the vet and get snipped and make sure that disaster never happens.
Ah, foolish old documents mean nothing! Everyone now is a criminal and is guilty until they can pay a large enough bribe to be declared innocent.