I disagree. You should be able to vote on spending issues in your regular elections. But as to elections and administration of the school itself... that should be between the parents and the teachers.
As to your money, I do appreciate your rights here. I would point out however that if you do not provide for a basic education for new citizens you will be very quickly surrounded by ignorant barbarians. And everything you think that matters will be taken from you as the society devolves into a third world country.
You pay for education for the same reason you pay for a military. To keep what you have. The military fights enemies without... and the education system takes the new blood and indoctrinates it into the society. The parents are likewise responsible for a large portion of this indoctrination. But the schools serve an important role in this process. The schools teach the new ones to read, to write, to do math, grant a basic understanding of science, explain the political system, explain the economic system, give a background in our civilization's history, etc.
Deny children this and you'll be dealing with squabbling 40 year old children in no time that know nothing.
As it is... the education system is already buckling under the stresses. Don't kick its feet out from under it... we all burn if that happens.
1. Your test assumes that you're testing for everything that is important. It doubtless misses things or doesn't appreciate the value of some things. By syncing all schools to the same standard if you make a mistake then all schools will make the same mistake at the same time. With diversity all the schools make different mistakes but not all of them make the same mistakes. This generates a more diverse student body which is more adaptable given that some of them will be able to do different things at different levels of ability.
2. National standardized tests are only relevant for colleges or student transfers. They have no utility to the student's actual education or the school's administration of that education absent transfers. Emphasizing standardized tests encourages route learning of test questions, drilling for multiple choice tests, and other things which are only useful for the taking of similar tests. That has no utility to the child's education in any way besides making them better at taking more tests.
3. As to what constitutes passing, that is largely the result of lots of students failing and rather then fix the problem they just pass more students so their statistics look better. Your notion of standardizing what is passing or failing does not change this situation. All you'll do is embarrass failed institutions that are also corrupt enough to pass failed students rather then admit they failed to educate them. These same institutions will lobby to have the standards reduced or will ask for exemptions or something. They will not improve themselves because if they would they would have done so already. The problem is not a lack of data. The data only serves to embarrass or make obvious common knowledge.
4. As to common core being good for federal bureaucrats to calculate education statistics... I'm sure it is great at that. However, the point of an education system is not to make the jobs of superfluous government departments easier to administer.
Look, I do appreciate your problem and I think we should do things to make the system easier to understand if not manage. However, you must have some humility that neither you nor the people in Washington have a one size fits all solution to what is a very complex system. Every school is going to be different and is going to need to teach its students differently. Do you think the east side of Los Angeles is the same as North Dakota? Many of the kids in east LA don't even speak english. And then compare that to the Hawaiian kids. All these kids currently get different versions of US and world history because the US is a big place and their region of the country has its own history. How much Hawaiian history do kids in Maine get? The Hawaiian kids get a lot of it. They learn about the old Hawaiian kings in addition to US history. Is that in your common core test? I doubt it. But its important for those kids to know that for their part of the country. And there are versions of that everywhere.
Your system's only real virtue is that its easier to graph. But its arrogant, inflexible, simplistic, wastes too much time on machine graded tests, and assumes what is an extremely diverse education system can be centralized.
Here you say you do this for a living and I know nothing. I would say you probably know a lot and are very good at a job that is at best ancillary to the actual task of education.
Sure, if I'm against any tax, then I must be against all taxes.
I love this little fallacy. Anyone says its too much and fucktards like you show up to say that if we aren't okay with unlimited taxes we must be against all taxes.
And you'd probably say the same thing if I started saying the government has too much power or authority. You'd then say that if I am not okay with having every aspect of my life dominated then I must be an anarchist.
Seriously... this sort of thing works on the ignorant. But on anyone with any education in basic logic the whole premise is just laughable.
The states have always set the education standards. And this country used to have better education standards and statistics BEFORE the federal education programs.
ironic... you realize that useful idiots were the people that were supposedly duped by Stalin into believing in the Soviet model. These were often academics, artists, various famous people... invited to Russia, treated to a very warm and friendly stay... so they would use their influence back home to say how nice the Soviets are and how we should be more like them.
The line "useful idiot" is attributed to Stalin commenting about such people.
And here you are... saying that people that argue against the centralized federal government intruding into every aspect of our lives are useful idiots.
In truth, neither of us is a useful idiot. You've used the term incorrectly. Neither of us have been wined and dined by some political organization to support their cause... unless we want to talk about the entitlements and various other bribes given by politicians to make people vote for them. That might be a kind of useful idiot but really I think that just stretches the reference beyond all recognition. The situations are not really comparable.
I think the best way is to have the principle of given schools elected by parents. Consider that small towns elect their local police chiefs. In larger cities it is not uncommon to elect police commissioners. But lets focus on the schools. Schools tend to have somewhere between 500 and 5000 students. I think giving parents one vote PER student contributed to the school is reasonable. So if you have two kids in the school, you get two votes. That's 500 to 5000 votes cast at most. Obviously a lot of parents won't vote at all but those will be the ones too apathetic to care or too satisfied to bother suggesting something.
In addition you might want to make the system bicameral somehow as that seems to even out distortions in democratic processes. Possibly give the teachers each a vote so that school policy is decided through the consensus of teachers and parents with the principle being elected to some term. No fancy elections are required. In small towns they often don't make much of a production over their local elections. They put some ads in the paper that declare what they believe or will do... make some statements at some city meetings... and then people just vote whenever the election comes up.
Regardless, you could make that a component of parent teacher meetings. Turn them into city councils where parents can vote on stuff. Obviously big changes should require a super majority while smaller changes should be actionable on a plurality.
I think that would fix a lot of this as it would make school administrations much more responsive to the concerns of parents. if they understand that pissing the parents off means people lose their jobs then the schools should be more service oriented which should improve service.
If the United Kingdom were a US state, it would be poorer then EVERY state in the US except for Mississippi. Consider what the UK can afford and you can understand that every US state is perfectly capable of providing for the education of its people without federal support. If the above statistic is valid... and I think it is correct 'enough' to carry the point... then we shouldn't have a problem providing everyone with the education they need on a state level.
No state needs the federal money.
Might some state taxes have to go up as a result of not getting the federal money? Perhaps. But then by the same token, the federal taxes could be reduced. Is there a reason this money needs to flow through Washington?
Would that lack of redistribution of wealth between the states cause problems? I don't see how it could. Areas that are considered wealthier are often not. They typically just have a higher population density. And even if you say their average income might be higher, that ignores that their costs of living tend to be higher as well. The end result tends to be that the objective standard of living is pretty comparable in most respects.
Part of how that statistics about the UK was created is that it took cost of living into consideration. You can say a dollar is worth a dollar but what does a dollar buy you? And in some places money goes farther. Which means that money is worth more in those places which means that to account for wealth in various areas you have to adjust their money for what their money buys.
Really, a lot of this is about understanding statistics. You have to be careful with them.
The problem with paying teachers better is that many teachers do not teach. They're administrators... but they're in the teacher's union and draw larger salaries then the teachers. Often they are promoted out of teaching to administer. Which is fine... only in many cases the systems become so top heavy that there are two or even three administrators for every teacher. Which is in part why the education system is always broke. You give them more money and they just hire more administrators.
I'd be more comfortable with paying teachers better IF the budgets were compartmentalized to separate the costs of teachers from the cost of buildings, administrators, janitors, etc. The raw cost of the actual teachers that teach should be a separate component of the budget.
I fear that if we just give the government in general more money for education they might not only spend the money on something that isn't teachers but might not even spend it on education at all.
In California, it is very common for the government to raise a tax for education, get it passed, and then deduct from the education budget whatever that tax generates. Such that the money from the tax goes to education but the actual budget of education remains unchanged... the difference going into the general fund which can be spent on anything at all.
As to your private belief, school vouchers wouldn't stop money from flowing into poorer schools or change the over all economic dynamics.
After all, the vouchers are provided through tax dollars. If I give an equal voucher to everyone then I've redistributed wealth.
As to wealthier school districts losing money to poorer ones, I don't see what that has to do with common core.
The big danger here really is that common core is so incompetent that it renders high functioning schools incompetent.
From a statistical stand point some might like this because it might level the playing field... rendering all high schools equally incompetent. However, equality by hobbling outstanding exceptions is not in the public interest.
Rather, you should encourage high functioning institutions to share their practices with other schools.
In many cases this will be impractical only because the students in one school are not equatable to students at another. However, that needs to be addressed separately. Once you can consistently produce the same quality education at any school given equal initial students you can then address the distinctions that make it hard for those with special needs to adapt.
There is no reason for a federal program especially when the federal government as you've just pointed out is bad at setting up and managing these programs.
It makes no more sense then attempting to regulate college education in the same manner. Obviously the individual universities, academic departments, and professors are better at establishing what are and are not reasonable standards then is the federal government.
The US federal government does not attempt to micromanage how Harvard or Stanford or any other university teaches its courses.
Why is that? And why do you think it is reasonable for the US federal government to micromanage grade school teachers but not professors? Is the idea that those teachers are incompetent? If so, that would argue that we should increase the academic requirements to teach in the first place rather then attempt to regulate how students are themselves taught.
Generally, I am very dubious of big government programs designed to regulate very complicated things over long periods of time. I say this because government is inherently a centralization of power. And as a centralization it means that there are fewer people in charge then in a decentralized system. That means that how ever smart those people might be they have more work to do per person if they're doing their job then if you have a decentralized system. This leads to conflicting projects and distractions which allows for things to fall apart when people aren't paying attention. What is more, it is an inherently political process which means the most important thing at any given point will be how all of it makes the politicians LOOK in the eyes of the voters. Projects that run over long periods of time rarely harm politicians even if very badly run. They're not held accountable for them. Bad schools don't lose politicians elections. And as such they're never going to care about them.
A more reasonable system would be to have principles of schools elected by the parents of students. In that way, the principle is responsible to the voters that actually will be aware of and care about the school.
That is just a one off idea of something that might improve the situation. But really, I just find these sorts of programs to be a waste of collective money and time. And that is at best... at worst they can tie the hands of good teachers and force them to do things in inefficient or even counter productive fashions that retard learning or even undermine the entire academic institution.
If you would like a counter example where the government learned this lesson, you can look to Vietnam. In that war, there was an attempt to use modern communication to run the war from the Pentagon instead of from the battlefield. The modern military textbooks today go into some detail talking about how that was a mistake and lead to serious errors in the prosecution of that war. Current doctrine discourages remote generals from micromanaging their commanders in the field. Rather, encouraging such people to craft grand strategy, manage logistics, and act as interlocutors for subordinates.
The point I am making is that over centralization of authority leads to serious problems on many levels. Decentralization might be chaotic but it is also typically more efficient, adaptive, and reliable. I would say we probably have too much centralization simply in the school districts themselves with too much authority being granted to school administrators that do not even go to work in complexes where students are taught. I would be much happier with individual schools being allowed to set their own standards and have those judged by their own community directly without external interference.
I think his "common core" plan has largely backfired because it was rolled out on a federal level and states were pretty much strong armed into it.
I'd be more comfortable with these changes if they were OFFERED and not at gun point.
Our education system could be improved in a lot of ways. But those improvements should be optional to the education systems and not compelled.
Here some people will say "well we didn't force them to do the other thing." but that's often not true because they're often offered a lot of money to adopt new programs. the money they're offered comes from federal coffers. The money in federal coffers comes from everyone. So basically you lose money if you don't sign onto the program because the government will then take money from you and give it to someone else. The only way to get your money back is to adopt the program.
So that's an issue. These cash payouts to states and cities for adopting federal programs needs to stop unless states and cities that do not adopt programs get a relative tax decrease. Such that if a given state didn't sign onto these things they didn't pay for them.
Absent that they're being compelled and I do have a problem with that.
15A was advertised as the "Educated our children, save fluffy white bunnies, and have nice parks" bill.
So people like educating children, saving fluffy white bunnies, and having nice parks. So they vote yes.
Never mind that they just authorized a tax increase.
Never that there was plenty of money to educate children, save whatever, and have nice parks in the budget already.
Never mind that what they almost always do is take that extra money and spend it on something completely different.
Never mind that often the taxes focus on segment of the population avoiding the others so that they can get a majority to vote on what a minority will be taxed.
Never mind that often the "rewards" for voting yes tend to offer subsidies, entitlements, or other assorted bribes to a majority to bribe them into saying yes.
Going on and on.
So here is the answer. Again. Raise the taxes too high and I won't pay them. I also won't break the law.
Consider again old Warren Buffet. The man is a multi billionaire but his tax returns look like what a millionaire would pay.
How does he do that?
1. He buys stocks and companies to own. If he doesn't sell his stocks and assets he incurs no Capital Gains Tax.
2. He uses these assets to backstop low interest loans. The loans cost less to maintain then would the taxes if he bought and sold those stocks. So its cheaper for him to borrow against the value of his assets then it is for him to buy and sell them thus incurring capital gains taxes.
3. He owns an insurance company and does a lot of trading within the insurance company. Insurance companies pay no capital gains taxes for their own trading. Getting the money into and out of the insurance company to exploit this zone of no capital gains taxes is complicated but not hard.
4. He owns several charities which he can use to declare a lot of things he does such as fancy parties, social functions, etc as charitable expenses which makes many things he does Tax Deductible.
etc.
it goes on and on and on... with the result that he pays a very low tax rate. I am no where near as successful at this as he is... but if you annoy me with a high tax, then I'm going to find a way not to pay it.
End of story. The government has neither the ability nor the inclination to come after me or the millions of people like me. So the taxes then become stupidity taxes... taxes paid for being stupid.
As to being honest, you're using the power of the state to compel me to give up my money. I see no obligation to be honest with you under those circumstances.
Why do I have to be honest with someone that is coercing me to give up my money?
Now you can say that there have to be taxes and they have to be coercive. Fine. But don't exploit that situation.
As to democracy and republics and votes... I didn't get a vote on any of this and you know damn well that if a tax increase were just on the ballot it typically wouldn't pass. This is especially true if EVERYONE is paying the tax.
People complain about this all the time... that if taxes are put on ballots that they're generally voted down. If most of the standing taxes were put up to a vote and it was understood that all taxes would apply to all voters then very few of the taxes would pass vote.
They only pass vote because our representatives enact the taxes without giving us any say in the matter. Sure, we can decide which people to represent us but you know how screwed up our political system is... its all red team versus blue team. And both of them are very tax happy because more taxes let them do more stuff.
but the more taxes they charge the less stuff WE can do ourselves. US tax revenue is at record levels despite the US economy doing very poorly. That should tell you all you need to know. A poor US economy should result in poor US tax revenues. But they don't because they just raise taxes.
And that's fine... raise them too much and people stop paying them. You think I'm the worst? Hardly. Warren Buffet is probably the biggest genius at not paying taxes. I could go into his methods if you like. But he basically pays about 5 percent taxes and breaks no laws. Its complete genius.
And you see the same thing in europe... Very few people actually pay those taxes. First the big taxes really only apply to the rich and the rich have ways to not paying them. So its all a big game and the only losers are the people that make enough money to pay the taxes but aren't clever enough to avoid them.
its not enforceable. A lot of these little ticky tacky taxes are very easy to bypass and it is effectively impossible to impose them if people are being sneaky about it.
For example, you create a paypal account or something, transfer some money into it, and you can probably convince netflix you're not from some region where they have to charge you that tax. The taxes are always collected by the retailer. So if you confuse them into thinking you're from somewhere else they'll not charge the tax.
I use methods like this to not pay California's state sales tax which is 10 percent.
On all large purchases, I buy from out of state and try to bounce the purchase through two retailers if the first one is going to charge me the state sales tax. I buy stuff this way all the time and almost never pay the state sales tax.
here someone is going to call me a bad person... whatever. Lower the tax and I won't be motivated to play these games.
This is what happens when you raise taxes too high. And you find this sort of behavior in all places where the tax is raised too high. Look at New York... they now have a black market for cigarettes because they raised the taxes so high for them that people can make money driving to New Hampshire, buying a load of cigarettes, and then selling them in New York at a fraction of the local price AND make a profit.
Those of you that love high taxes should really learn from this... if you raise them too high then smart people won't pay the taxes. Then you'll just be taxing idiots.
Keep the taxes reasonable and people will pay them. Be an asshole about it and get nothing.
Typically the phone is in a warehouse within 50 miles of your location.
While I oppose forcing companies to offer onsite replacements. I would say that there might be some point to encouraging companies to offer that as a feature. Now, that will likely only be viable on popular models. Then probably only in given areas. After all, a remote store in the middle of nowhere isn't going to be economical if it has to keep every replacement. However, in major cities there shouldn't be a problem and again... it would be voluntary.
Call it something besides insurance and give it a precise legal term. Something that can only mean that. So if a company advertises something with that term, they are obligated to offer the meaning of that term indifferent to the fine print.
Again... voluntary. No need to put a gun against people's heads over every little thing.
They're looking for crazies that go on shooting sprees. What they should be doing is checking EVERYONE... not just people that publish books about school shootings while working at schools.
I frankly don't have a problem with them investigating the guy so long as they do it respectfully. That said, everyone should be checked out. These mass shootings are just crazy people acting out. Nothing more.
As to humans as a machine, I'm trying to separate what is healthy from what is psychologically going on in people's heads. They're different arguments that I'm not going to let you lump together.
You say that you can't sustain certain diets because psychologically you are compelled to break the diets when on them. Fine... that is a different argument then whether either diet is healthy.
I personally am able to eat carbs all the time and not over eat. This is largely because I have a different threshold for hunger. I eat when I get actually hungry.
If I eat a really big meal, then I might not even eat the next day at all. Why? Not hungry. This notion that humans have to eat 3 meals a day of certain ratios of food is absurd. Humans in nature didn't get that sort of meal. We are opportunists. We eat what we can get. And for the hunter gatherer that changes radically from one day to the next. You might get lots of tasty grubs one day and the next you might get mushrooms and the day after that you find a wounded animal and kill it... and the day after that nothing.
I eat a lot of odd stuff, on no particular schedule, in varying quantities, and I feel fine.
The main reason we do the 3 meal thing is because it structures our meals and syncs our social activities. If we lived together all the time and gathered food all the time then every minute we are awake would be a meal time. And at that point, it was. Over time we developed social patterns that have us eat in organized social meals. But our bodies don't need that. They just need a certain amount of calories per day. Perhaps that is even an exaggeration... maybe they only need so many per week really. That's how I personally function. I might eat more on day and less the next... or eat a lot one day and nothing the day after... I might have a big breakfast one day and then not eat breakfast for three months.
The body doesn't really care so long as it has the calories it needs.
What evidence are you throwing out that suddenly requires me to be an accredited nutritional anthropologist? And what is more, what if I were? Would you suddenly bow down and admit I was right or would you then expect me to cite all sorts of research?
And assuming you would expect me to do that, then why would I need to be a nutritional anthropologist to do that?
And lets say I did provide all that information, would you then accept I was right? Probably not. You'd probably start linking me to crap you read on CNN or some FAQ from the latest hipster diet.
Never mind that you don't need to be a nutritional anthropologist or cite research to know what people ate 50 years or 100 years ago. Its common fucking knowledge. Assuming you're both young, and not terribly observant... which is the only way you wouldn't already know the answers to these questions... you could just ask someone over the age of 60 or 70. Ask them what they ate as children and what adults ate at that time. Ask about portions and meal composition. Is it anecdotal? Everything is in detail. Ask a few of them if you want to have a larger sample set. There are lots of oldsters around and they'd probably be happy to answer your questions.
the problem with eating less is that the body is very pessemistic and always assumes you're about to starve.
This is in part why people get fat. The body notes that you're not using the muscle and so shuts it down... and notices you're eating a lot so it stores the fat.
A fat man can live on his fat reserves for months. And our ancestors before refrigeration did that sometimes. You'll see this in populations that had seasonal food issues. They'd get a season of plenty followed by a season of privation. And they'd deal with it by stuffing themselves during the time of plenty, everyone getting a bit fat... and then starving for months after that.
In the context of modern diets, what do you think the body does when you cut food? It slows your metabolism down even further. The body is worried at a genetic level that you're going to die of starvation. That the reason you're not eating is because there is no food. And so it starts going into emergency mode.
Which is why despite your best attempts to control what you eat, you'll often relapse because the body is sending instinctual messages to your brain to get food because its worried.
Now obviously modern exercise ideas tend to be boring, stressful, and did I say boring? They are... but consider that that isn't a problem we've spent any time trying to solve either.
Rather then coming up with a thousand and one hipster diets and randomly outlawing foods people eat just to make the process of feeding yourself complicated... why not try to find more ways for people to enjoy exercising? Games, social activities, etc. Anything.
Wrong, it isn't just the exercise. Its the muscle mass.
It isn't enough just to walk a little. you need to build some muscle so your baseline metabolism goes up. That muscle needs to be sustained with a constant extra supply of energy. If you stay in bed all day you will still burn some calories. If your body is very fit then your baseline metabolism will probably be a great deal higher.
This "feeling more full" idea is only relevant if people eat more calories if they don't feel full. If you eat a pre packaged processed meal and regardless of feeling full or not just stop there... then that aspect doesn't matter.
If we talk about calories in... the feeling full aspect only matters if you increase the calories in.
As to a calorie not just being a calorie... if you were interested in surviving... as in not starving to death... a calorie would actually be a calorie.
Do different calories get processed differently? Yes. High density food... food that has a lot of energy in it per unit volume tends to not be processed well by the body if you're sedentary. If however you are active, then you can eat high density food and not feel like a slug afterwards.
Try it. Spend a day being active all day... swimming or something. And then go home for a big meal. Then try again about a week later spending the entire time being very inactive... only this time do not be active on that day and eat the same meal. You will not feel as good about it. The food will sit in your stomach.
If people were more active they could eat pretty much what they want within reason.
You can't do that though and remain healthy. The body assumes a baseline of exercise. It needs the exercise to remain healthy indifferent to caloric intake.
So once you're exercising enough to remain healthy INDIFFERENT to caloric intake... you now need more calories to support the exercise.
At which point you're eating what people ate about 50 years ago and not any fatter.
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Actually most federal agencies have armed tactical units these days.
http://usgovinfo.about.com/b/2...
here is the epa doing the same thing:
http://www.naturalnews.com/042...
They all have armed divisions and if you ignore them they will send men with guns to sort you out.
This answers your question. They do have weapons.
Next question?
I disagree. You should be able to vote on spending issues in your regular elections. But as to elections and administration of the school itself... that should be between the parents and the teachers.
As to your money, I do appreciate your rights here. I would point out however that if you do not provide for a basic education for new citizens you will be very quickly surrounded by ignorant barbarians. And everything you think that matters will be taken from you as the society devolves into a third world country.
You pay for education for the same reason you pay for a military. To keep what you have. The military fights enemies without... and the education system takes the new blood and indoctrinates it into the society. The parents are likewise responsible for a large portion of this indoctrination. But the schools serve an important role in this process. The schools teach the new ones to read, to write, to do math, grant a basic understanding of science, explain the political system, explain the economic system, give a background in our civilization's history, etc.
Deny children this and you'll be dealing with squabbling 40 year old children in no time that know nothing.
As it is... the education system is already buckling under the stresses. Don't kick its feet out from under it... we all burn if that happens.
Several problems.
1. Your test assumes that you're testing for everything that is important. It doubtless misses things or doesn't appreciate the value of some things. By syncing all schools to the same standard if you make a mistake then all schools will make the same mistake at the same time. With diversity all the schools make different mistakes but not all of them make the same mistakes. This generates a more diverse student body which is more adaptable given that some of them will be able to do different things at different levels of ability.
2. National standardized tests are only relevant for colleges or student transfers. They have no utility to the student's actual education or the school's administration of that education absent transfers. Emphasizing standardized tests encourages route learning of test questions, drilling for multiple choice tests, and other things which are only useful for the taking of similar tests. That has no utility to the child's education in any way besides making them better at taking more tests.
3. As to what constitutes passing, that is largely the result of lots of students failing and rather then fix the problem they just pass more students so their statistics look better. Your notion of standardizing what is passing or failing does not change this situation. All you'll do is embarrass failed institutions that are also corrupt enough to pass failed students rather then admit they failed to educate them. These same institutions will lobby to have the standards reduced or will ask for exemptions or something. They will not improve themselves because if they would they would have done so already. The problem is not a lack of data. The data only serves to embarrass or make obvious common knowledge.
4. As to common core being good for federal bureaucrats to calculate education statistics... I'm sure it is great at that. However, the point of an education system is not to make the jobs of superfluous government departments easier to administer.
Look, I do appreciate your problem and I think we should do things to make the system easier to understand if not manage. However, you must have some humility that neither you nor the people in Washington have a one size fits all solution to what is a very complex system. Every school is going to be different and is going to need to teach its students differently. Do you think the east side of Los Angeles is the same as North Dakota? Many of the kids in east LA don't even speak english. And then compare that to the Hawaiian kids. All these kids currently get different versions of US and world history because the US is a big place and their region of the country has its own history. How much Hawaiian history do kids in Maine get? The Hawaiian kids get a lot of it. They learn about the old Hawaiian kings in addition to US history. Is that in your common core test? I doubt it. But its important for those kids to know that for their part of the country. And there are versions of that everywhere.
Your system's only real virtue is that its easier to graph. But its arrogant, inflexible, simplistic, wastes too much time on machine graded tests, and assumes what is an extremely diverse education system can be centralized.
Here you say you do this for a living and I know nothing. I would say you probably know a lot and are very good at a job that is at best ancillary to the actual task of education.
Sure, if I'm against any tax, then I must be against all taxes.
I love this little fallacy. Anyone says its too much and fucktards like you show up to say that if we aren't okay with unlimited taxes we must be against all taxes.
And you'd probably say the same thing if I started saying the government has too much power or authority. You'd then say that if I am not okay with having every aspect of my life dominated then I must be an anarchist.
Seriously... this sort of thing works on the ignorant. But on anyone with any education in basic logic the whole premise is just laughable.
Try again.
The states have always set the education standards. And this country used to have better education standards and statistics BEFORE the federal education programs.
So... put that in your pipe and smoke it.
ironic... you realize that useful idiots were the people that were supposedly duped by Stalin into believing in the Soviet model. These were often academics, artists, various famous people... invited to Russia, treated to a very warm and friendly stay... so they would use their influence back home to say how nice the Soviets are and how we should be more like them.
The line "useful idiot" is attributed to Stalin commenting about such people.
And here you are... saying that people that argue against the centralized federal government intruding into every aspect of our lives are useful idiots.
In truth, neither of us is a useful idiot. You've used the term incorrectly. Neither of us have been wined and dined by some political organization to support their cause... unless we want to talk about the entitlements and various other bribes given by politicians to make people vote for them. That might be a kind of useful idiot but really I think that just stretches the reference beyond all recognition. The situations are not really comparable.
I think the best way is to have the principle of given schools elected by parents. Consider that small towns elect their local police chiefs. In larger cities it is not uncommon to elect police commissioners. But lets focus on the schools. Schools tend to have somewhere between 500 and 5000 students. I think giving parents one vote PER student contributed to the school is reasonable. So if you have two kids in the school, you get two votes. That's 500 to 5000 votes cast at most. Obviously a lot of parents won't vote at all but those will be the ones too apathetic to care or too satisfied to bother suggesting something.
In addition you might want to make the system bicameral somehow as that seems to even out distortions in democratic processes. Possibly give the teachers each a vote so that school policy is decided through the consensus of teachers and parents with the principle being elected to some term. No fancy elections are required. In small towns they often don't make much of a production over their local elections. They put some ads in the paper that declare what they believe or will do... make some statements at some city meetings... and then people just vote whenever the election comes up.
Regardless, you could make that a component of parent teacher meetings. Turn them into city councils where parents can vote on stuff. Obviously big changes should require a super majority while smaller changes should be actionable on a plurality.
I think that would fix a lot of this as it would make school administrations much more responsive to the concerns of parents. if they understand that pissing the parents off means people lose their jobs then the schools should be more service oriented which should improve service.
Why do you assume the poorer states even need that money?
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/c...
If the United Kingdom were a US state, it would be poorer then EVERY state in the US except for Mississippi. Consider what the UK can afford and you can understand that every US state is perfectly capable of providing for the education of its people without federal support. If the above statistic is valid... and I think it is correct 'enough' to carry the point... then we shouldn't have a problem providing everyone with the education they need on a state level.
No state needs the federal money.
Might some state taxes have to go up as a result of not getting the federal money? Perhaps. But then by the same token, the federal taxes could be reduced. Is there a reason this money needs to flow through Washington?
Would that lack of redistribution of wealth between the states cause problems? I don't see how it could. Areas that are considered wealthier are often not. They typically just have a higher population density. And even if you say their average income might be higher, that ignores that their costs of living tend to be higher as well. The end result tends to be that the objective standard of living is pretty comparable in most respects.
Part of how that statistics about the UK was created is that it took cost of living into consideration. You can say a dollar is worth a dollar but what does a dollar buy you? And in some places money goes farther. Which means that money is worth more in those places which means that to account for wealth in various areas you have to adjust their money for what their money buys.
Really, a lot of this is about understanding statistics. You have to be careful with them.
The problem with paying teachers better is that many teachers do not teach. They're administrators... but they're in the teacher's union and draw larger salaries then the teachers. Often they are promoted out of teaching to administer. Which is fine... only in many cases the systems become so top heavy that there are two or even three administrators for every teacher. Which is in part why the education system is always broke. You give them more money and they just hire more administrators.
I'd be more comfortable with paying teachers better IF the budgets were compartmentalized to separate the costs of teachers from the cost of buildings, administrators, janitors, etc. The raw cost of the actual teachers that teach should be a separate component of the budget.
I fear that if we just give the government in general more money for education they might not only spend the money on something that isn't teachers but might not even spend it on education at all.
In California, it is very common for the government to raise a tax for education, get it passed, and then deduct from the education budget whatever that tax generates. Such that the money from the tax goes to education but the actual budget of education remains unchanged... the difference going into the general fund which can be spent on anything at all.
As to your private belief, school vouchers wouldn't stop money from flowing into poorer schools or change the over all economic dynamics.
After all, the vouchers are provided through tax dollars. If I give an equal voucher to everyone then I've redistributed wealth.
As to wealthier school districts losing money to poorer ones, I don't see what that has to do with common core.
The big danger here really is that common core is so incompetent that it renders high functioning schools incompetent.
From a statistical stand point some might like this because it might level the playing field... rendering all high schools equally incompetent. However, equality by hobbling outstanding exceptions is not in the public interest.
Rather, you should encourage high functioning institutions to share their practices with other schools.
In many cases this will be impractical only because the students in one school are not equatable to students at another. However, that needs to be addressed separately. Once you can consistently produce the same quality education at any school given equal initial students you can then address the distinctions that make it hard for those with special needs to adapt.
There is no reason for a federal program especially when the federal government as you've just pointed out is bad at setting up and managing these programs.
It makes no more sense then attempting to regulate college education in the same manner. Obviously the individual universities, academic departments, and professors are better at establishing what are and are not reasonable standards then is the federal government.
The US federal government does not attempt to micromanage how Harvard or Stanford or any other university teaches its courses.
Why is that? And why do you think it is reasonable for the US federal government to micromanage grade school teachers but not professors? Is the idea that those teachers are incompetent? If so, that would argue that we should increase the academic requirements to teach in the first place rather then attempt to regulate how students are themselves taught.
Generally, I am very dubious of big government programs designed to regulate very complicated things over long periods of time. I say this because government is inherently a centralization of power. And as a centralization it means that there are fewer people in charge then in a decentralized system. That means that how ever smart those people might be they have more work to do per person if they're doing their job then if you have a decentralized system. This leads to conflicting projects and distractions which allows for things to fall apart when people aren't paying attention. What is more, it is an inherently political process which means the most important thing at any given point will be how all of it makes the politicians LOOK in the eyes of the voters. Projects that run over long periods of time rarely harm politicians even if very badly run. They're not held accountable for them. Bad schools don't lose politicians elections. And as such they're never going to care about them.
A more reasonable system would be to have principles of schools elected by the parents of students. In that way, the principle is responsible to the voters that actually will be aware of and care about the school.
That is just a one off idea of something that might improve the situation. But really, I just find these sorts of programs to be a waste of collective money and time. And that is at best... at worst they can tie the hands of good teachers and force them to do things in inefficient or even counter productive fashions that retard learning or even undermine the entire academic institution.
If you would like a counter example where the government learned this lesson, you can look to Vietnam. In that war, there was an attempt to use modern communication to run the war from the Pentagon instead of from the battlefield. The modern military textbooks today go into some detail talking about how that was a mistake and lead to serious errors in the prosecution of that war. Current doctrine discourages remote generals from micromanaging their commanders in the field. Rather, encouraging such people to craft grand strategy, manage logistics, and act as interlocutors for subordinates.
The point I am making is that over centralization of authority leads to serious problems on many levels. Decentralization might be chaotic but it is also typically more efficient, adaptive, and reliable. I would say we probably have too much centralization simply in the school districts themselves with too much authority being granted to school administrators that do not even go to work in complexes where students are taught. I would be much happier with individual schools being allowed to set their own standards and have those judged by their own community directly without external interference.
I think his "common core" plan has largely backfired because it was rolled out on a federal level and states were pretty much strong armed into it.
I'd be more comfortable with these changes if they were OFFERED and not at gun point.
Our education system could be improved in a lot of ways. But those improvements should be optional to the education systems and not compelled.
Here some people will say "well we didn't force them to do the other thing." but that's often not true because they're often offered a lot of money to adopt new programs. the money they're offered comes from federal coffers. The money in federal coffers comes from everyone. So basically you lose money if you don't sign onto the program because the government will then take money from you and give it to someone else. The only way to get your money back is to adopt the program.
So that's an issue. These cash payouts to states and cities for adopting federal programs needs to stop unless states and cities that do not adopt programs get a relative tax decrease. Such that if a given state didn't sign onto these things they didn't pay for them.
Absent that they're being compelled and I do have a problem with that.
That isn't how the political system works.
This is the option you get:
Vote for measure 15A
Yes
No
15A was advertised as the "Educated our children, save fluffy white bunnies, and have nice parks" bill.
So people like educating children, saving fluffy white bunnies, and having nice parks. So they vote yes.
Never mind that they just authorized a tax increase.
Never that there was plenty of money to educate children, save whatever, and have nice parks in the budget already.
Never mind that what they almost always do is take that extra money and spend it on something completely different.
Never mind that often the taxes focus on segment of the population avoiding the others so that they can get a majority to vote on what a minority will be taxed.
Never mind that often the "rewards" for voting yes tend to offer subsidies, entitlements, or other assorted bribes to a majority to bribe them into saying yes.
Going on and on.
So here is the answer. Again. Raise the taxes too high and I won't pay them. I also won't break the law.
Consider again old Warren Buffet. The man is a multi billionaire but his tax returns look like what a millionaire would pay.
How does he do that?
1. He buys stocks and companies to own. If he doesn't sell his stocks and assets he incurs no Capital Gains Tax.
2. He uses these assets to backstop low interest loans. The loans cost less to maintain then would the taxes if he bought and sold those stocks. So its cheaper for him to borrow against the value of his assets then it is for him to buy and sell them thus incurring capital gains taxes.
3. He owns an insurance company and does a lot of trading within the insurance company. Insurance companies pay no capital gains taxes for their own trading. Getting the money into and out of the insurance company to exploit this zone of no capital gains taxes is complicated but not hard.
4. He owns several charities which he can use to declare a lot of things he does such as fancy parties, social functions, etc as charitable expenses which makes many things he does Tax Deductible.
etc.
it goes on and on and on... with the result that he pays a very low tax rate. I am no where near as successful at this as he is... but if you annoy me with a high tax, then I'm going to find a way not to pay it.
End of story. The government has neither the ability nor the inclination to come after me or the millions of people like me. So the taxes then become stupidity taxes... taxes paid for being stupid.
I just said I'd pay it if it were reasonable.
As to being honest, you're using the power of the state to compel me to give up my money. I see no obligation to be honest with you under those circumstances.
Why do I have to be honest with someone that is coercing me to give up my money?
Now you can say that there have to be taxes and they have to be coercive. Fine. But don't exploit that situation.
As to democracy and republics and votes... I didn't get a vote on any of this and you know damn well that if a tax increase were just on the ballot it typically wouldn't pass. This is especially true if EVERYONE is paying the tax.
People complain about this all the time... that if taxes are put on ballots that they're generally voted down. If most of the standing taxes were put up to a vote and it was understood that all taxes would apply to all voters then very few of the taxes would pass vote.
They only pass vote because our representatives enact the taxes without giving us any say in the matter. Sure, we can decide which people to represent us but you know how screwed up our political system is... its all red team versus blue team. And both of them are very tax happy because more taxes let them do more stuff.
but the more taxes they charge the less stuff WE can do ourselves. US tax revenue is at record levels despite the US economy doing very poorly. That should tell you all you need to know. A poor US economy should result in poor US tax revenues. But they don't because they just raise taxes.
And that's fine... raise them too much and people stop paying them. You think I'm the worst? Hardly. Warren Buffet is probably the biggest genius at not paying taxes. I could go into his methods if you like. But he basically pays about 5 percent taxes and breaks no laws. Its complete genius.
And you see the same thing in europe... Very few people actually pay those taxes. First the big taxes really only apply to the rich and the rich have ways to not paying them. So its all a big game and the only losers are the people that make enough money to pay the taxes but aren't clever enough to avoid them.
That's all this is and all it will ever be.
its not enforceable. A lot of these little ticky tacky taxes are very easy to bypass and it is effectively impossible to impose them if people are being sneaky about it.
For example, you create a paypal account or something, transfer some money into it, and you can probably convince netflix you're not from some region where they have to charge you that tax. The taxes are always collected by the retailer. So if you confuse them into thinking you're from somewhere else they'll not charge the tax.
I use methods like this to not pay California's state sales tax which is 10 percent.
On all large purchases, I buy from out of state and try to bounce the purchase through two retailers if the first one is going to charge me the state sales tax. I buy stuff this way all the time and almost never pay the state sales tax.
here someone is going to call me a bad person... whatever. Lower the tax and I won't be motivated to play these games.
This is what happens when you raise taxes too high. And you find this sort of behavior in all places where the tax is raised too high. Look at New York... they now have a black market for cigarettes because they raised the taxes so high for them that people can make money driving to New Hampshire, buying a load of cigarettes, and then selling them in New York at a fraction of the local price AND make a profit.
Those of you that love high taxes should really learn from this... if you raise them too high then smart people won't pay the taxes. Then you'll just be taxing idiots.
Keep the taxes reasonable and people will pay them. Be an asshole about it and get nothing.
Everyone follows a program like little computers making it impossible for people to make leaps of intuition and follow them to their conclusion.
Typically the phone is in a warehouse within 50 miles of your location.
While I oppose forcing companies to offer onsite replacements. I would say that there might be some point to encouraging companies to offer that as a feature. Now, that will likely only be viable on popular models. Then probably only in given areas. After all, a remote store in the middle of nowhere isn't going to be economical if it has to keep every replacement. However, in major cities there shouldn't be a problem and again... it would be voluntary.
Call it something besides insurance and give it a precise legal term. Something that can only mean that. So if a company advertises something with that term, they are obligated to offer the meaning of that term indifferent to the fine print.
Again... voluntary. No need to put a gun against people's heads over every little thing.
They're looking for crazies that go on shooting sprees. What they should be doing is checking EVERYONE... not just people that publish books about school shootings while working at schools.
I frankly don't have a problem with them investigating the guy so long as they do it respectfully. That said, everyone should be checked out. These mass shootings are just crazy people acting out. Nothing more.
As to humans as a machine, I'm trying to separate what is healthy from what is psychologically going on in people's heads. They're different arguments that I'm not going to let you lump together.
You say that you can't sustain certain diets because psychologically you are compelled to break the diets when on them. Fine... that is a different argument then whether either diet is healthy.
I personally am able to eat carbs all the time and not over eat. This is largely because I have a different threshold for hunger. I eat when I get actually hungry.
If I eat a really big meal, then I might not even eat the next day at all. Why? Not hungry. This notion that humans have to eat 3 meals a day of certain ratios of food is absurd. Humans in nature didn't get that sort of meal. We are opportunists. We eat what we can get. And for the hunter gatherer that changes radically from one day to the next. You might get lots of tasty grubs one day and the next you might get mushrooms and the day after that you find a wounded animal and kill it... and the day after that nothing.
I eat a lot of odd stuff, on no particular schedule, in varying quantities, and I feel fine.
The main reason we do the 3 meal thing is because it structures our meals and syncs our social activities. If we lived together all the time and gathered food all the time then every minute we are awake would be a meal time. And at that point, it was. Over time we developed social patterns that have us eat in organized social meals. But our bodies don't need that. They just need a certain amount of calories per day. Perhaps that is even an exaggeration... maybe they only need so many per week really. That's how I personally function. I might eat more on day and less the next... or eat a lot one day and nothing the day after... I might have a big breakfast one day and then not eat breakfast for three months.
The body doesn't really care so long as it has the calories it needs.
are we equating carbs with sugars?... Because they're not identical. And regardless, you're arguing against thousands of years of human diet.
Wheat, Rice, Potatoes, Maize... that is what human civilization has eaten for thousands of years as its PRIMARY source of calories.
What do you have to say about that?
What evidence are you throwing out that suddenly requires me to be an accredited nutritional anthropologist? And what is more, what if I were? Would you suddenly bow down and admit I was right or would you then expect me to cite all sorts of research?
And assuming you would expect me to do that, then why would I need to be a nutritional anthropologist to do that?
And lets say I did provide all that information, would you then accept I was right? Probably not. You'd probably start linking me to crap you read on CNN or some FAQ from the latest hipster diet.
Never mind that you don't need to be a nutritional anthropologist or cite research to know what people ate 50 years or 100 years ago. Its common fucking knowledge. Assuming you're both young, and not terribly observant... which is the only way you wouldn't already know the answers to these questions... you could just ask someone over the age of 60 or 70. Ask them what they ate as children and what adults ate at that time. Ask about portions and meal composition. Is it anecdotal? Everything is in detail. Ask a few of them if you want to have a larger sample set. There are lots of oldsters around and they'd probably be happy to answer your questions.
Now kindly, get the fuck off my lawn.
the problem with eating less is that the body is very pessemistic and always assumes you're about to starve.
This is in part why people get fat. The body notes that you're not using the muscle and so shuts it down... and notices you're eating a lot so it stores the fat.
A fat man can live on his fat reserves for months. And our ancestors before refrigeration did that sometimes. You'll see this in populations that had seasonal food issues. They'd get a season of plenty followed by a season of privation. And they'd deal with it by stuffing themselves during the time of plenty, everyone getting a bit fat... and then starving for months after that.
In the context of modern diets, what do you think the body does when you cut food? It slows your metabolism down even further. The body is worried at a genetic level that you're going to die of starvation. That the reason you're not eating is because there is no food. And so it starts going into emergency mode.
Which is why despite your best attempts to control what you eat, you'll often relapse because the body is sending instinctual messages to your brain to get food because its worried.
Now obviously modern exercise ideas tend to be boring, stressful, and did I say boring? They are... but consider that that isn't a problem we've spent any time trying to solve either.
Rather then coming up with a thousand and one hipster diets and randomly outlawing foods people eat just to make the process of feeding yourself complicated... why not try to find more ways for people to enjoy exercising? Games, social activities, etc. Anything.
Wrong, it isn't just the exercise. Its the muscle mass.
It isn't enough just to walk a little. you need to build some muscle so your baseline metabolism goes up. That muscle needs to be sustained with a constant extra supply of energy. If you stay in bed all day you will still burn some calories. If your body is very fit then your baseline metabolism will probably be a great deal higher.
This "feeling more full" idea is only relevant if people eat more calories if they don't feel full. If you eat a pre packaged processed meal and regardless of feeling full or not just stop there... then that aspect doesn't matter.
If we talk about calories in... the feeling full aspect only matters if you increase the calories in.
As to a calorie not just being a calorie... if you were interested in surviving... as in not starving to death... a calorie would actually be a calorie.
Do different calories get processed differently? Yes. High density food... food that has a lot of energy in it per unit volume tends to not be processed well by the body if you're sedentary. If however you are active, then you can eat high density food and not feel like a slug afterwards.
Try it. Spend a day being active all day... swimming or something. And then go home for a big meal. Then try again about a week later spending the entire time being very inactive... only this time do not be active on that day and eat the same meal. You will not feel as good about it. The food will sit in your stomach.
If people were more active they could eat pretty much what they want within reason.
You can't do that though and remain healthy. The body assumes a baseline of exercise. It needs the exercise to remain healthy indifferent to caloric intake.
So once you're exercising enough to remain healthy INDIFFERENT to caloric intake... you now need more calories to support the exercise.
At which point you're eating what people ate about 50 years ago and not any fatter.
End of discussion.