Have you spent any time at all actually talking to a doctor about this? Or have you written them off a "the enemy" who will do whatever it takes to infect your child?
Yes, allergic reactions occur. If your child had an allergic reaction to a shot, you should be doing your very best to try and figure out what actually caused it before they're exposed to it again. And then you should have presented that to a doctor so they could find one of the other ways of providing the vaccine without the agent that caused the allergic reaction.
Instead, you've just written off all vaccines and are on the border of advocating that others do it, too. You'll wait until your children are young enough to have immune systems strong enough to carry a dangerous virus and spread it to others with weak immune systems while your children survive. Thanks for that.
My nephew was diagnosed with Pertussis when he was about 18 months old. He lost weight and damaged his ears and hearing. The doctors said that it wouldn't be clear just how much damage was done until he got older. His mother had opted not to pay for the vaccine because she thought it was pointless ("I've never heard of anyone getting DTP before"). Unfortunately for my nephew, lots of people in her family felt the same way. When a few of them got sick, they didn't think much about it. They never even went to a doctor. However, my nephew's immune system wasn't as strong as theirs. For him, the illness posed a real danger and it took months for him to recover.
So, on behalf of my nephew, I'd like to say thanks for helping to increase the number of children who have to be subjected to painful and developmentally challenging diseases. It's nice to know that your unwillingness to be proactive will only hurt everyone else around you.
Full disclosure: In case you haven't guessed, I'm the parent of an autistic child and my wife and I have chosen *not* to vaccinate. It is an informed decision arrived at after much research and consideration.
The problem here is that a large part of the research families of autistic (and not autistic) children have been given was gathered around the work of Andrew Wakefield, who has recently been found to have outright fabricated his evidence linking the MMR vaccine to autism.
Why his story isn't being reported louder, I don't know, but this is the unethical and immoral tool who has convinced so many families to put the health of their children and of society's children as a whole, at risk.
You were lied to. It's not your fault, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't re-examine the situation.
That's one of the biggest purposes of our government. Apparently you went to a private school where you learned that only the rich and populous states matter. Unfortunately for you, our government was designed to try and protect the minority from being bullied and exploited by the large states.
In many situations, in order for minority to be totally overruled, the opposition must be more than just a simple majority. This keeps us from becoming the United States of Californa, New York, Texas and associated territories.
Ah, but electoral votes aren't based on the number of representatives. They're based on the number of representatives plus 2.
Its that extra two votes that gives Iowa power. Each voter in Iowa is weighted higher than each voter in California. Iowa has 3 million voters, California has 36 (more or less). That gives California 12 times the voting power in a straight election. However, in the electoral college, Iowa has 7 votes and California has 55. That means that California has less than 8 times the voting power. The electoral college weights small states higher, to ensure their concerns are never drown out by the larger states.
I understand people's desire to "have their vote count", but just understand what you're asking for: In a straight election, 95% of the time the result is going to be decided solely by 8 to 12 states. Anyone in any other state doesn't matter.
If a candidate presented a platform of "No income tax for CA, NY, TX, IL and FL! 80% income tax for the midwest and rockies!" they could easily win the election and there would be nothing the midwest, rockies, or even the south could do to stop it.
Why would a candidate waste a week traveling all over Iowa to convince people they were the next best thing, when all they need to do is spend a few days in Chicago and get the same benefit? They can spend a couple extra days in Cleveland and Minneapolis and lock up twice as many votes as the whole remaining midwest.
And if any large states ever agree to that, say California and New York, then Iowa's vote will stop counting. At just a measly 3 Million people, its vote would mean nothing against the will of a state like California at nearly 37 Million people.
If you're in California, this sounds perfectly fair. If you're not, then hopefully you've got the sense to see that local desires in California would have more than enough "power" to completely override any desires for the entire state of Iowa.
So, if Iowa wants $20 million for road repairs, the San Francisco metro area can simply say "Nope. We want more parks" and Iowa has to take it.
The electoral college was put in place so that there would be a check on the power of the uneducated masses...Originally the EC didn't have to vote with the state!
Nice tinfoil hat you've got there.
The electoral college was created to make national elections possible. The electors allowed for a simplified election process without the need for a national ballot counting system.
Even more importantly: The electorate system was designed to mimic the representation in Congress, which was designed in turn, to prevent a few large states from exerting constant control over the federal government.
Not that you should allow facts to get in the way of your paranoia, though...
Okay, I understand that only 2% of Slashdot readership has a clue why the electoral college even exists. And I realize that most people won't even rub two brain cells together before responding and saying that this is a great idea ("This is a great idea! Now there's a reason to vote!").
However, part of me honestly hoped that a state like Iowa, which is filled with people who are convinced they really are the most important people in the country, would be able to do the math to realize that following a straight popular vote gives Iowans less power and that if the country would depend solely on the popular vote, Iowa (and most other small midwest states) would be completely marginalized.
Well. At least that increases the chances of gay rights bills getting passed.
Replacing heating oil for heating in Northern states is going to be a huge infrastructure change, however. Even if you're OK with the inefficiency of electrical heating (and we could be OK with that, given the right source of power), you *must* have a reliable way to deliver that power. Too many places lose power in blizzards, when the lines come down. Burying all the power lines in a rural area is a gigantic proposition.
You do realize that most of the places regularly hit by blizzards and ice storm already have their power cables buried. Until I moved to the Mid-Atlantic, I honestly thought that all residential lines were buried. For me, when I heard of "power lines" I pictured high-tension lines strung between 60ft towers because those were the only visible power lines nearby.
So, be encouraged: The rural areas have already figured this out. Now you just have to convince the old parts of cities.
On the whole: No. However, it's not true that Senators > Governors, either.
By definition, each state has two senators and one governor. A naive view would say that a governor has twice the power of a senator, however, the governor only has statewide power and senators have federal power, so their relative importance and prestige is based on the balance power held by the state locally vs. nationally.
In the powerful states (large population, mostly), the state itself wields some federal power and governorships are viewed as more prestigious than senate seats. For the most part, these are the states with governors you hear about (at least, you hear about them if you're in the US): California, Texas, New York, Illinois, Florida, etc.
In the "average" states like Virginia, Ohio, Arizona and Washington, governors and senators are basically peers who simply play in different arenas. Virginia is a little odd in this case as it limits governors to a single term and thus, the move from governor to senator is viewed as a step up if only because you can keep the same job for more than 4 years.
In the small states, however, things change dramatically. Growing up in the Great Plains, I have spent time in many of these states. These states are so politically weak on a national level that even members of the House of Representatives wield more political power than the governors.
In those states, which include Alaska, the senators hold the most powerful political office. The fact that their small state is given equal representation against California means that they become very influential. Amplifying this is the fact that small states usually re-elect their senators until they retire (often by natural causes). This means that most senators from small states have long careers in the senate and end up in powerful positions. Tom Daschle from South Dakota rose to be the Senate Majority leader. Byron Dorgan from North Dakota is one of the most powerful Democratic senators and chairs a number of energy subcommittees.
At the same time, small states like Alaska tend to re-elect their governor's as well, and they tend to have very high approval ratings and state budgets that are either balanced or running surpluses. On the surface, they seem to be doing an excellent job.
The truth of the matter is that these states have populations of just 600,000 people. This is a collection of people smaller than (and obviously not including) the 40 largest metropolitan areas in the country. The county I live in has 1 million people. To pretend that the governor of a state of 600,000 is just as capable as a governor of a state six times larger than that is simply laughable. Politically, these small-state governors are as powerful and influential as others governing similar populations, and often less so. To express a simple example: Sarah Palin is not even as politically powerful as the mayor of Washington, DC, a non-state of only 580,000.
In comparison, Ted Stevens has had a long career bringing in millions of dollars (some through corrupt/pork-barrel practices) to his state while influencing national policies. That's something no governor of Alaska can ever hope to do.
So far as I can tell, Gladiator was significantly more historically accurate than 300.
Sure, the characters in Gladiator didn't exist (as portrayed in the film), but at least the people and places they portrayed could be recognized as being remotely close to what would have really existed at the time.
Unlike 300.
The commentary of Gladiator even mentions that they had much more historically accurate art which was removed because audiences wouldn't accept it as being real (advertisements on the Colosseum, painted statues).
Now, I'm not trying to say that Gladiator is some shiny example of great historical moviemaking, just that if there is some perfect example, then 300 is even further away than Gladiator is.
I never said 300 was bad or that it was a crime against the graphic novel. On the contrary, I found it to be a very well-made film, and entertaining even to people who had never heard of Frank Miller.
I only said it wasn't historically accurate. Myself, I have no problem reconciling the two statements. However, there are quite a few people (far too many) who are under the impression that the movie was an accurate portrayal of Spartan life and the wars fought between the Greek city-states and persia.
In other news: FOX News is not exceptionally biased toward the politically conservative.
To be clear: I would say that 300 is about as historically accurate as FOX News is "Fair and Balanced". That is to say: It's true, on occasion, but it's far outweighed by all the times it's not.
The people who translated the bible were guided by God, so there could be no mistakes or errors in translation. If the bible says it was a day, then it was a day.
I've always loved this argument and the anti-logical morons who adhere to it: The Bible says X, and therefore X is true because everything in the Bible is correct because the Bible says everything in the Bible is true.
Translated:
Everything I say is true because I said it and everything I say is true because I said it and everything I say is true because...
Yes, I know far too much about exploitive superintendents and school board officials. North Dakota is filled with them, though they've also got a few gems. All global statements are false, of course.
As for "aristocracy", I fear that is something I deal with more than you do. I don't lump Catholic schools (or Protestant schools) in with the rest of the private schools. They are the Religious schools I was talking about. While I feel that there are quite a few bad things done by organized religions, I don't usually have much problem with church-based schools --Christian or otherwise (exception: the teaching of Creationism as science, which is thankfully becoming rare). As you said, they are rarely elitist and much more willing to provide scholarships (or even waiving tuition) to families who need them.
The private schools I'm talking about are the $10-12K a year ones that are popular here with senators, diplomats, and the highly egotistical. These are the ivy league prep schools you usually only hear rumors about. The truth of the matter is that while they have higher standardized test scores on average, the top 20% of the classes don't outperform the top 20% of the classes in public schools of similar demographics. In fact, the public schools do better. They just don't get preferential admittance into Harvard, Yale, or the Naval Academy. This is the aristocratic nature of private schools. You can, effectively, purchase your future simply by having rich parents. My scores weren't any lower than any of those schools' graduates, but they get scholarships to Harvard and I'm taking out government loans to pay off my tuition at a state university.
So yeah. Stratification is already happening, but I try my hardest to fight it every step of the way.
A lot of that fight is trying to convince people not to blame teachers when schools start being forced down into crappiness. Sure, that school might not have good teachers. They might even be bad. But its not teaching that made it that way. Almost invariably, it is the community that allowed it to happen or even helped it along.
If people are looking for the biggest cause and best solution to the "education problem" the best place to look is in a mirror. Humbling advice, really. What have either of us done to actually improve our communities? I wish I could say that I have done more, but at the moment, all I am is a guy on the internet fighting to improve perception and voting YES on all the tax increases to fund our schools.
You're seeing exactly what I'd expect. Public schools with lowering scores and private/parochial schools with stable, good performance. However, you've made one unsupported assumption: Are they really more successful?
For context, the perspectives I come from are Northern VA (one of the highest rated areas for public education), rural North Dakota (a legislated non-union state with the lowest salaries in the nation), and urban Minnesota (a median area, with moderately funded schools and higher-than-expected performance).
The first thing to note is that private schools have selection bias. This makes comparing performance between them and public schools nearly impossible. Parochial schools are better, but they still end up ditching (or not reporting) the lowest scoring students.
Let's take an example from someplace I'm familiar with. My current local schools (Northern "fake" VA) are known to be some of the very best in the country, but their test scores still don't match those from the local charter schools, private schools, and even the one religious school. Why is that?
A few simple questions point out the reasons: How many Learning Disabled or Emotionally Disabled students attend the local private schools? None. They're not admitted. Same with the charter school. The application requires the recommendation of 3 teachers and no outstanding educational problems. The local religious school takes them, but puts them through "alternate education" and doesn't report test scores from the program.
That's a start, but it gets worse. How many underprivileged students attend the private schools? With a tuition of $18,000 a year, none. Scholarships only help upper-middle class students. Charter schools allow them, but only if they have already been performing well in public school. Religious schools get this one right by teaching anyone who needs help. They pay for this with slightly lower scores than the charter schools.
How many ESL (HILT, here) students do the schools teach? Only a few are admitted into the local private schools. They're turned away from the charter school, because ESL students are required to attend schools with ESL programs until they "graduate" from the program.
Now, who do you suppose makes up the majority of the lower 50% of test scores at public schools? Learning Disabled, Emotionally Disabled, underprivileged, and ESL students.
Is it really surprising that the public schools, despite being judged by teachers and parents to be equal in quality to the private schools, still have lower test scores? Do you still think that it is the quality of the teachers which drives the scores down? Do you honestly believe that the only barrier between a Learning Disabled student and straight A's is a good teacher?
Even here, the private and charter schools drain a lot of high-performing students from the public schools. Simple statistics says that will lower the average scores. Religious schools drain off a lower percentage, since they take a wider cross-section, but they are still usually children of parents who take an active role in education, and so, on the whole, they would have raised the schools averages if they were left in. In effect, the private schools have become a low-grade gifted program and they are able to operate as one and see similar benefits from pulling in people with less teaching background and more focus on subject matter. Those things are possible once you toss out everyone with any problems that requires an actual teaching degree.
That is what happens here in one of the best educational districts in the nation, where over half the tax revenue is spent on schools. I have ever reason to believe it's happening in your area too.
Now, the most important thing to realize here is that, the ability of the teacher is not the most significant factor in how well a child does. Even the most amazing teacher cannot make a child with an IQ of 80 perform on the same level as a child with an IQ of 130. The
Oh, and this is worth responding to separately (and more civilly):
And normally, I would point out here that the college I work for has an enormous school of education, whose students I have quite a bit of contact with, and I'd happily argue with your assessment. But I don't see the point either.
That's because you're interacting with students of teaching and I'm talking about professional teachers. What's the difference? The people you're talking about aren't teachers yet.
Now, the one important thing that they share in common is that they're still educating themselves. There are a lot more teachers with masters degrees than you think and even those who don't are still taking college level classes. The local school districts here require teachers to take at least 9 credits of college coursework every three years. When I walk around the schools here, I feel inadequate because I've taken half the coursework the teachers have, but I get paid twice as much.
Most people just don't even know about that. They think that you get a teaching degree and you're done. And why not? I got a Computer Science degree and there's no requirement that I ever take any more college classes. Perhaps if they knew just how much time teachers spent trying to do their job well, they might stop treating them as if they were the intellectual scum of the Earth.
Because they throw out anyone who isn't doing well and refuse to admit anyone who won't do well or will require a real, trained teacher to excel.
I'm sorry if I sound bitter. All my life I've had to listen to people talk about teachers as if they are morons ("Why do teachers need degrees? Anyone can teach fractions."). And yet, none of them actually have any idea what teachers actually do. Have you deluded yourself into thinking that the hardest part of a teacher's job doing a series of one hour lectures every day? Could you be so blind as to think that there is no reason why Elementary Ed teachers require special degrees? Perhaps you're just so focused on yourself that you can't imagine anyone learning in any other way but the way you learn.
In most cases, I've found it's that last one. And that is exactly why you would be a bad teacher.
I would have hoped that you'd already know the answer to this.
Why are perfectly intelligent people so ignorant about teaching? I can't help but think that it's based on ignorance and egotism. You know, that idea that "I never needed help, so why should anyone else?" Are you under the impression that teaching middle school English only requires good knowledge of grammar? Is that all you think a secondary teacher does?
At primary and secondary school ages, children are still developing rapidly. If you are completely ignorant of these changes you're going to be a crap teacher and at those ages, your ineptitude is going to have a much greater potential for handicapping the children you would teach. This is what primary/secondary education degrees teach future teachers.
Child Psychology helps you understand the changes that occur in children's minds so that you can not only understand how to figure out how to teach them, but so you can understand when they are having problems. As a college professor, if you have a slow student, you can just shrug them off and tell them to work harder. As a primary/secondary teacher it is your job to identify developmental problems in students so they can be helped as soon as possible. Of course, that only matters if you actually want to be good at your job. If you want to suck, then feel free to ignore this. I mean, its only children's futures. As long as you're enjoying yourself, who cares?
And then, of course, there are numerous methods classes. If you think the old college standards of "stand in front and lecture", "three tests and a term paper" or even the "bi-weekly projects with discussion" is a suitable way of teaching anyone but final-year students, then you've got a lot of learning to do. Modern teachers employ a variety of methods to teach all types of children, no matter what learning style they have.
But what am I saying? You're a college professor. Of course you design lessons for multiple learning styles. You're probably an expert at making your lessons accessible to children with difficulties paying attention or problems learning verbally.
Right? You do that all the time, do you?
I mean, after all, that's what they teach you in Elementary Glitter Application.
[Here is where I would normally insult you for insulting the intelligence of other people who are on average, more qualified and more highly educated than you, but I just don't see the point]
I guess we'll just have to disagree, then. It's obvious that you're coming at this from only one viewpoint and that's a horrible way to come to a decision in situations as complex as this.
This comes back to a fallacy that you yourself mentioned. The idea that "consumers" or "clients" are the best judge of a professional's skill is rooted firmly in ignorance and a self-centered view of the world.
Who is the better chef? Emeril Lagasse or Jose Andreas? Far more people would pick Emeril despite the fact that he doesn't know crap about half the stuff he does on his show. Chefs recognize Andreas as a standout talent. Do the people really have the more accurate assessment?
For a better example, lets look at movie directors, who, arguably, have a job with similar complexity to teachers. Are you seriously suggesting that we judge a director's skill by the number of people who like their movies? Should we believe that the people, who say that Michael Bay's skill equals Steven Spielberg's and Robert Rodriguez (directory of Spy Kids) is just as talented as Francis Ford Coppola?
Now, anyone can pick out Uwe Boll as a hack, and its usually just as easy to pick out horrible teachers. The problems come when picking the good ones out of the ones that just try to make students happy and separating the bad ones from the ones that students just didn't like ("I'm getting an A and they didn't treat me special!", "They held me back because of dumb people!" "They made me do too much homework!") That is where students usually fail quite often. Here's a bit of statistical fun: Check student's assessment of teacher quality against the attractiveness of the teacher. No really. Give it a try. Then come back here and tell me that students are an acceptable measure of teacher quality. Bonus points if you can do it with a straight face.
See, the problem is that so many people don't want to think of anyone but themselves. They think that a good teacher is someone who most people like. The reality is that most people barely need a teacher at all. I could walk into most classrooms and be a "decent" teacher, but I'd utterly fail at helping that small portion of the class that really needs help. Helping those kids, the ones with learning problems or bad home situations, that is what makes a good teacher, that is what really makes a difference in society.
Making school fun and enjoyable is a good thing, but that says nothing about the actual quality of the education or the teacher. Do they expose the students to new ideas? Do they make students think for themselves? Do they give them the tools they need to be better people?
I'm sorry, but no, when students rate teachers, they rarely think of any of those things. They think only of whether the teacher made them feel good. And they rarely grow out of that selfish mindset. They grow up into adults who think that their biased, incomplete view of teachers as a naive teenager is completely accurate.
As for whether I am or have ever been a teacher: No. The difference here is that I've actually spent time around teachers of all different disciplines. The fact that you think the only interaction teachers have is in the "break room" just illustrates how little you really know about how teachers actually work. I would encourage you to find out. You seem like an intelligent person, but like so many other people, you seem to want to get your revenge on every teacher for the actions of a tiny minority which the other teachers hate even more than you do.
I recommend that you actually spend some time talking to a number of teachers about their job. Tell them that they don't need the unions to protect them. Tell them that they should let students decide who is the most talented. If you're not brave enough to do that, then simply find one teacher who you actually respect and just talk to them. See if you can convince them that your ideas will make them still want to be a teacher and when you do that, look into their eyes and ask yourself whether they really believe it, or if they just care so much about what they do that they're willing to put up with even more abuse from narrow minded people who can't get past their adolescence.
Supply and demand, indeed. Why do you think crappy teachers can still get jobs after they get fired from one district? Because so many good teachers leave after a few years of being abused and payed a low salary for it. Do you think that allowing teachers to be fired for trivial offenses will make more people want to be teachers? Are you under some sort of delusion that we've got an abundance of teachers right now? Open your eyes: The number of teachers are dropping and they are retiring faster than they're graduating. How about those salaries then? Are they increasing to meet the demand? Maybe there is something else keeping them away? Maybe its people like you who want to remove the only group of people who actually try to give teachers the same rights that I've got by just having a normal job.
And you're kidding yourself if you think students can identify good teacher better than other teachers.
It's this sort of idiocy that convinces people that politicians or standardized tests can accurately gauge the quality of a teacher.
It's also apparent that you're not from the US. Things are different here. There is no national union. Many states outlaw teaching unions. In most states, teachers cannot strike. There are "teachers associations" which provide for small benefits like informal collective bargaining and retirement, but the primary reason they exist is to provide legal representation in the unavoidable eventuality of a lawsuit.
You really seem to think that teaching is this cushy job where you get to do whatever you want. That's just not the case and its obvious you have no real experience in this area. I can't really think of any career which requires more of a bachelor's degree which gets abused, disrespected and insulted ("If you can't do, teach!") more than teachers. In most cases, the only way teachers in the US can show any sort of displeasure with the way they're being treated is to band together and follow what their contract says.... to the letter. That means they start work when the contract says and end work when the contract says.
This almost invariably ends with a lot of very upset parents when they find out just how much crap teachers put up with to help children learn.
But unless that happens, parents seem to convince themselves that teachers are just like you're portraying them: a weak lot of underachievers who protect the section of them who spend their time drinking and molesting children.
I suppose it's easy to think that when your only experience dealing with teachers was as a student. However, it makes your viewpoint almost completely worthless.
Slashdot Mirror
Have you spent any time at all actually talking to a doctor about this? Or have you written them off a "the enemy" who will do whatever it takes to infect your child?
Yes, allergic reactions occur. If your child had an allergic reaction to a shot, you should be doing your very best to try and figure out what actually caused it before they're exposed to it again. And then you should have presented that to a doctor so they could find one of the other ways of providing the vaccine without the agent that caused the allergic reaction.
Instead, you've just written off all vaccines and are on the border of advocating that others do it, too. You'll wait until your children are young enough to have immune systems strong enough to carry a dangerous virus and spread it to others with weak immune systems while your children survive. Thanks for that.
My nephew was diagnosed with Pertussis when he was about 18 months old. He lost weight and damaged his ears and hearing. The doctors said that it wouldn't be clear just how much damage was done until he got older. His mother had opted not to pay for the vaccine because she thought it was pointless ("I've never heard of anyone getting DTP before"). Unfortunately for my nephew, lots of people in her family felt the same way. When a few of them got sick, they didn't think much about it. They never even went to a doctor. However, my nephew's immune system wasn't as strong as theirs. For him, the illness posed a real danger and it took months for him to recover.
So, on behalf of my nephew, I'd like to say thanks for helping to increase the number of children who have to be subjected to painful and developmentally challenging diseases. It's nice to know that your unwillingness to be proactive will only hurt everyone else around you.
Full disclosure: In case you haven't guessed, I'm the parent of an autistic child and my wife and I have chosen *not* to vaccinate. It is an informed decision arrived at after much research and consideration.
The problem here is that a large part of the research families of autistic (and not autistic) children have been given was gathered around the work of Andrew Wakefield, who has recently been found to have outright fabricated his evidence linking the MMR vaccine to autism.
Why his story isn't being reported louder, I don't know, but this is the unethical and immoral tool who has convinced so many families to put the health of their children and of society's children as a whole, at risk.
You were lied to. It's not your fault, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't re-examine the situation.
Let me guess, you live in one of those big cities.
Two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner, indeed.
No.
It protects the minority.
That's one of the biggest purposes of our government. Apparently you went to a private school where you learned that only the rich and populous states matter. Unfortunately for you, our government was designed to try and protect the minority from being bullied and exploited by the large states.
In many situations, in order for minority to be totally overruled, the opposition must be more than just a simple majority. This keeps us from becoming the United States of Californa, New York, Texas and associated territories.
Ah, but electoral votes aren't based on the number of representatives. They're based on the number of representatives plus 2.
Its that extra two votes that gives Iowa power. Each voter in Iowa is weighted higher than each voter in California. Iowa has 3 million voters, California has 36 (more or less). That gives California 12 times the voting power in a straight election. However, in the electoral college, Iowa has 7 votes and California has 55. That means that California has less than 8 times the voting power. The electoral college weights small states higher, to ensure their concerns are never drown out by the larger states.
I understand people's desire to "have their vote count", but just understand what you're asking for: In a straight election, 95% of the time the result is going to be decided solely by 8 to 12 states. Anyone in any other state doesn't matter.
If a candidate presented a platform of "No income tax for CA, NY, TX, IL and FL! 80% income tax for the midwest and rockies!" they could easily win the election and there would be nothing the midwest, rockies, or even the south could do to stop it.
That's laughably wrong.
Why would a candidate waste a week traveling all over Iowa to convince people they were the next best thing, when all they need to do is spend a few days in Chicago and get the same benefit? They can spend a couple extra days in Cleveland and Minneapolis and lock up twice as many votes as the whole remaining midwest.
And if any large states ever agree to that, say California and New York, then Iowa's vote will stop counting. At just a measly 3 Million people, its vote would mean nothing against the will of a state like California at nearly 37 Million people.
If you're in California, this sounds perfectly fair. If you're not, then hopefully you've got the sense to see that local desires in California would have more than enough "power" to completely override any desires for the entire state of Iowa.
So, if Iowa wants $20 million for road repairs, the San Francisco metro area can simply say "Nope. We want more parks" and Iowa has to take it.
Yeah.
That sounds like a great system.
The electoral college was put in place so that there would be a check on the power of the uneducated masses...Originally the EC didn't have to vote with the state!
Nice tinfoil hat you've got there.
The electoral college was created to make national elections possible. The electors allowed for a simplified election process without the need for a national ballot counting system.
Even more importantly: The electorate system was designed to mimic the representation in Congress, which was designed in turn, to prevent a few large states from exerting constant control over the federal government.
Not that you should allow facts to get in the way of your paranoia, though...
Okay, I understand that only 2% of Slashdot readership has a clue why the electoral college even exists. And I realize that most people won't even rub two brain cells together before responding and saying that this is a great idea ("This is a great idea! Now there's a reason to vote!").
However, part of me honestly hoped that a state like Iowa, which is filled with people who are convinced they really are the most important people in the country, would be able to do the math to realize that following a straight popular vote gives Iowans less power and that if the country would depend solely on the popular vote, Iowa (and most other small midwest states) would be completely marginalized.
Well. At least that increases the chances of gay rights bills getting passed.
Ah.
Crisis averted, then.
Replacing heating oil for heating in Northern states is going to be a huge infrastructure change, however. Even if you're OK with the inefficiency of electrical heating (and we could be OK with that, given the right source of power), you *must* have a reliable way to deliver that power. Too many places lose power in blizzards, when the lines come down. Burying all the power lines in a rural area is a gigantic proposition.
You do realize that most of the places regularly hit by blizzards and ice storm already have their power cables buried. Until I moved to the Mid-Atlantic, I honestly thought that all residential lines were buried. For me, when I heard of "power lines" I pictured high-tension lines strung between 60ft towers because those were the only visible power lines nearby.
So, be encouraged: The rural areas have already figured this out. Now you just have to convince the old parts of cities.
Well, it would fit through the pipes better.
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Aren't Governers > Senators?
On the whole: No. However, it's not true that Senators > Governors, either.
By definition, each state has two senators and one governor. A naive view would say that a governor has twice the power of a senator, however, the governor only has statewide power and senators have federal power, so their relative importance and prestige is based on the balance power held by the state locally vs. nationally.
In the powerful states (large population, mostly), the state itself wields some federal power and governorships are viewed as more prestigious than senate seats. For the most part, these are the states with governors you hear about (at least, you hear about them if you're in the US): California, Texas, New York, Illinois, Florida, etc.
In the "average" states like Virginia, Ohio, Arizona and Washington, governors and senators are basically peers who simply play in different arenas. Virginia is a little odd in this case as it limits governors to a single term and thus, the move from governor to senator is viewed as a step up if only because you can keep the same job for more than 4 years.
In the small states, however, things change dramatically. Growing up in the Great Plains, I have spent time in many of these states. These states are so politically weak on a national level that even members of the House of Representatives wield more political power than the governors.
In those states, which include Alaska, the senators hold the most powerful political office. The fact that their small state is given equal representation against California means that they become very influential. Amplifying this is the fact that small states usually re-elect their senators until they retire (often by natural causes). This means that most senators from small states have long careers in the senate and end up in powerful positions. Tom Daschle from South Dakota rose to be the Senate Majority leader. Byron Dorgan from North Dakota is one of the most powerful Democratic senators and chairs a number of energy subcommittees.
At the same time, small states like Alaska tend to re-elect their governor's as well, and they tend to have very high approval ratings and state budgets that are either balanced or running surpluses. On the surface, they seem to be doing an excellent job.
The truth of the matter is that these states have populations of just 600,000 people. This is a collection of people smaller than (and obviously not including) the 40 largest metropolitan areas in the country. The county I live in has 1 million people. To pretend that the governor of a state of 600,000 is just as capable as a governor of a state six times larger than that is simply laughable. Politically, these small-state governors are as powerful and influential as others governing similar populations, and often less so. To express a simple example: Sarah Palin is not even as politically powerful as the mayor of Washington, DC, a non-state of only 580,000.
In comparison, Ted Stevens has had a long career bringing in millions of dollars (some through corrupt/pork-barrel practices) to his state while influencing national policies. That's something no governor of Alaska can ever hope to do.
So far as I can tell, Gladiator was significantly more historically accurate than 300.
Sure, the characters in Gladiator didn't exist (as portrayed in the film), but at least the people and places they portrayed could be recognized as being remotely close to what would have really existed at the time.
Unlike 300.
The commentary of Gladiator even mentions that they had much more historically accurate art which was removed because audiences wouldn't accept it as being real (advertisements on the Colosseum, painted statues).
Now, I'm not trying to say that Gladiator is some shiny example of great historical moviemaking, just that if there is some perfect example, then 300 is even further away than Gladiator is.
I never said 300 was bad or that it was a crime against the graphic novel. On the contrary, I found it to be a very well-made film, and entertaining even to people who had never heard of Frank Miller.
I only said it wasn't historically accurate. Myself, I have no problem reconciling the two statements. However, there are quite a few people (far too many) who are under the impression that the movie was an accurate portrayal of Spartan life and the wars fought between the Greek city-states and persia.
It's not exceptionally historically accurate...
In other news: FOX News is not exceptionally biased toward the politically conservative.
To be clear: I would say that 300 is about as historically accurate as FOX News is "Fair and Balanced". That is to say: It's true, on occasion, but it's far outweighed by all the times it's not.
The people who translated the bible were guided by God, so there could be no mistakes or errors in translation. If the bible says it was a day, then it was a day.
I've always loved this argument and the anti-logical morons who adhere to it: The Bible says X, and therefore X is true because everything in the Bible is correct because the Bible says everything in the Bible is true.
Translated:
Everything I say is true because I said it and everything I say is true because I said it and everything I say is true because...
Yes, I know far too much about exploitive superintendents and school board officials. North Dakota is filled with them, though they've also got a few gems. All global statements are false, of course.
As for "aristocracy", I fear that is something I deal with more than you do. I don't lump Catholic schools (or Protestant schools) in with the rest of the private schools. They are the Religious schools I was talking about. While I feel that there are quite a few bad things done by organized religions, I don't usually have much problem with church-based schools --Christian or otherwise (exception: the teaching of Creationism as science, which is thankfully becoming rare). As you said, they are rarely elitist and much more willing to provide scholarships (or even waiving tuition) to families who need them.
The private schools I'm talking about are the $10-12K a year ones that are popular here with senators, diplomats, and the highly egotistical. These are the ivy league prep schools you usually only hear rumors about. The truth of the matter is that while they have higher standardized test scores on average, the top 20% of the classes don't outperform the top 20% of the classes in public schools of similar demographics. In fact, the public schools do better. They just don't get preferential admittance into Harvard, Yale, or the Naval Academy. This is the aristocratic nature of private schools. You can, effectively, purchase your future simply by having rich parents. My scores weren't any lower than any of those schools' graduates, but they get scholarships to Harvard and I'm taking out government loans to pay off my tuition at a state university.
So yeah. Stratification is already happening, but I try my hardest to fight it every step of the way.
A lot of that fight is trying to convince people not to blame teachers when schools start being forced down into crappiness. Sure, that school might not have good teachers. They might even be bad. But its not teaching that made it that way. Almost invariably, it is the community that allowed it to happen or even helped it along.
If people are looking for the biggest cause and best solution to the "education problem" the best place to look is in a mirror. Humbling advice, really. What have either of us done to actually improve our communities? I wish I could say that I have done more, but at the moment, all I am is a guy on the internet fighting to improve perception and voting YES on all the tax increases to fund our schools.
You're seeing exactly what I'd expect. Public schools with lowering scores and private/parochial schools with stable, good performance. However, you've made one unsupported assumption: Are they really more successful?
For context, the perspectives I come from are Northern VA (one of the highest rated areas for public education), rural North Dakota (a legislated non-union state with the lowest salaries in the nation), and urban Minnesota (a median area, with moderately funded schools and higher-than-expected performance).
The first thing to note is that private schools have selection bias. This makes comparing performance between them and public schools nearly impossible. Parochial schools are better, but they still end up ditching (or not reporting) the lowest scoring students.
Let's take an example from someplace I'm familiar with. My current local schools (Northern "fake" VA) are known to be some of the very best in the country, but their test scores still don't match those from the local charter schools, private schools, and even the one religious school. Why is that?
A few simple questions point out the reasons: How many Learning Disabled or Emotionally Disabled students attend the local private schools? None. They're not admitted. Same with the charter school. The application requires the recommendation of 3 teachers and no outstanding educational problems. The local religious school takes them, but puts them through "alternate education" and doesn't report test scores from the program.
That's a start, but it gets worse. How many underprivileged students attend the private schools? With a tuition of $18,000 a year, none. Scholarships only help upper-middle class students. Charter schools allow them, but only if they have already been performing well in public school. Religious schools get this one right by teaching anyone who needs help. They pay for this with slightly lower scores than the charter schools.
How many ESL (HILT, here) students do the schools teach? Only a few are admitted into the local private schools. They're turned away from the charter school, because ESL students are required to attend schools with ESL programs until they "graduate" from the program.
Now, who do you suppose makes up the majority of the lower 50% of test scores at public schools? Learning Disabled, Emotionally Disabled, underprivileged, and ESL students.
Is it really surprising that the public schools, despite being judged by teachers and parents to be equal in quality to the private schools, still have lower test scores? Do you still think that it is the quality of the teachers which drives the scores down? Do you honestly believe that the only barrier between a Learning Disabled student and straight A's is a good teacher?
Even here, the private and charter schools drain a lot of high-performing students from the public schools. Simple statistics says that will lower the average scores. Religious schools drain off a lower percentage, since they take a wider cross-section, but they are still usually children of parents who take an active role in education, and so, on the whole, they would have raised the schools averages if they were left in. In effect, the private schools have become a low-grade gifted program and they are able to operate as one and see similar benefits from pulling in people with less teaching background and more focus on subject matter. Those things are possible once you toss out everyone with any problems that requires an actual teaching degree.
That is what happens here in one of the best educational districts in the nation, where over half the tax revenue is spent on schools. I have ever reason to believe it's happening in your area too.
Now, the most important thing to realize here is that, the ability of the teacher is not the most significant factor in how well a child does. Even the most amazing teacher cannot make a child with an IQ of 80 perform on the same level as a child with an IQ of 130. The
Oh, and this is worth responding to separately (and more civilly):
And normally, I would point out here that the college I work for has an enormous school of education, whose students I have quite a bit of contact with, and I'd happily argue with your assessment. But I don't see the point either.
That's because you're interacting with students of teaching and I'm talking about professional teachers. What's the difference? The people you're talking about aren't teachers yet.
Now, the one important thing that they share in common is that they're still educating themselves. There are a lot more teachers with masters degrees than you think and even those who don't are still taking college level classes. The local school districts here require teachers to take at least 9 credits of college coursework every three years. When I walk around the schools here, I feel inadequate because I've taken half the coursework the teachers have, but I get paid twice as much.
Most people just don't even know about that. They think that you get a teaching degree and you're done. And why not? I got a Computer Science degree and there's no requirement that I ever take any more college classes. Perhaps if they knew just how much time teachers spent trying to do their job well, they might stop treating them as if they were the intellectual scum of the Earth.
Again, use some common sense:
Why do private schools have smarter students?
Because they throw out anyone who isn't doing well and refuse to admit anyone who won't do well or will require a real, trained teacher to excel.
I'm sorry if I sound bitter. All my life I've had to listen to people talk about teachers as if they are morons ("Why do teachers need degrees? Anyone can teach fractions."). And yet, none of them actually have any idea what teachers actually do. Have you deluded yourself into thinking that the hardest part of a teacher's job doing a series of one hour lectures every day? Could you be so blind as to think that there is no reason why Elementary Ed teachers require special degrees? Perhaps you're just so focused on yourself that you can't imagine anyone learning in any other way but the way you learn.
In most cases, I've found it's that last one. And that is exactly why you would be a bad teacher.
I would have hoped that you'd already know the answer to this.
Why are perfectly intelligent people so ignorant about teaching? I can't help but think that it's based on ignorance and egotism. You know, that idea that "I never needed help, so why should anyone else?" Are you under the impression that teaching middle school English only requires good knowledge of grammar? Is that all you think a secondary teacher does?
At primary and secondary school ages, children are still developing rapidly. If you are completely ignorant of these changes you're going to be a crap teacher and at those ages, your ineptitude is going to have a much greater potential for handicapping the children you would teach. This is what primary/secondary education degrees teach future teachers.
Child Psychology helps you understand the changes that occur in children's minds so that you can not only understand how to figure out how to teach them, but so you can understand when they are having problems. As a college professor, if you have a slow student, you can just shrug them off and tell them to work harder. As a primary/secondary teacher it is your job to identify developmental problems in students so they can be helped as soon as possible. Of course, that only matters if you actually want to be good at your job. If you want to suck, then feel free to ignore this. I mean, its only children's futures. As long as you're enjoying yourself, who cares?
And then, of course, there are numerous methods classes. If you think the old college standards of "stand in front and lecture", "three tests and a term paper" or even the "bi-weekly projects with discussion" is a suitable way of teaching anyone but final-year students, then you've got a lot of learning to do. Modern teachers employ a variety of methods to teach all types of children, no matter what learning style they have.
But what am I saying? You're a college professor. Of course you design lessons for multiple learning styles. You're probably an expert at making your lessons accessible to children with difficulties paying attention or problems learning verbally.
Right? You do that all the time, do you?
I mean, after all, that's what they teach you in Elementary Glitter Application.
[Here is where I would normally insult you for insulting the intelligence of other people who are on average, more qualified and more highly educated than you, but I just don't see the point]
I guess we'll just have to disagree, then. It's obvious that you're coming at this from only one viewpoint and that's a horrible way to come to a decision in situations as complex as this.
This comes back to a fallacy that you yourself mentioned. The idea that "consumers" or "clients" are the best judge of a professional's skill is rooted firmly in ignorance and a self-centered view of the world.
Who is the better chef? Emeril Lagasse or Jose Andreas? Far more people would pick Emeril despite the fact that he doesn't know crap about half the stuff he does on his show. Chefs recognize Andreas as a standout talent. Do the people really have the more accurate assessment?
For a better example, lets look at movie directors, who, arguably, have a job with similar complexity to teachers. Are you seriously suggesting that we judge a director's skill by the number of people who like their movies? Should we believe that the people, who say that Michael Bay's skill equals Steven Spielberg's and Robert Rodriguez (directory of Spy Kids) is just as talented as Francis Ford Coppola?
Now, anyone can pick out Uwe Boll as a hack, and its usually just as easy to pick out horrible teachers. The problems come when picking the good ones out of the ones that just try to make students happy and separating the bad ones from the ones that students just didn't like ("I'm getting an A and they didn't treat me special!", "They held me back because of dumb people!" "They made me do too much homework!") That is where students usually fail quite often. Here's a bit of statistical fun: Check student's assessment of teacher quality against the attractiveness of the teacher. No really. Give it a try. Then come back here and tell me that students are an acceptable measure of teacher quality. Bonus points if you can do it with a straight face.
See, the problem is that so many people don't want to think of anyone but themselves. They think that a good teacher is someone who most people like. The reality is that most people barely need a teacher at all. I could walk into most classrooms and be a "decent" teacher, but I'd utterly fail at helping that small portion of the class that really needs help. Helping those kids, the ones with learning problems or bad home situations, that is what makes a good teacher, that is what really makes a difference in society.
Making school fun and enjoyable is a good thing, but that says nothing about the actual quality of the education or the teacher. Do they expose the students to new ideas? Do they make students think for themselves? Do they give them the tools they need to be better people?
I'm sorry, but no, when students rate teachers, they rarely think of any of those things. They think only of whether the teacher made them feel good. And they rarely grow out of that selfish mindset. They grow up into adults who think that their biased, incomplete view of teachers as a naive teenager is completely accurate.
As for whether I am or have ever been a teacher: No. The difference here is that I've actually spent time around teachers of all different disciplines. The fact that you think the only interaction teachers have is in the "break room" just illustrates how little you really know about how teachers actually work. I would encourage you to find out. You seem like an intelligent person, but like so many other people, you seem to want to get your revenge on every teacher for the actions of a tiny minority which the other teachers hate even more than you do.
I recommend that you actually spend some time talking to a number of teachers about their job. Tell them that they don't need the unions to protect them. Tell them that they should let students decide who is the most talented. If you're not brave enough to do that, then simply find one teacher who you actually respect and just talk to them. See if you can convince them that your ideas will make them still want to be a teacher and when you do that, look into their eyes and ask yourself whether they really believe it, or if they just care so much about what they do that they're willing to put up with even more abuse from narrow minded people who can't get past their adolescence.
Supply and demand, indeed. Why do you think crappy teachers can still get jobs after they get fired from one district? Because so many good teachers leave after a few years of being abused and payed a low salary for it. Do you think that allowing teachers to be fired for trivial offenses will make more people want to be teachers? Are you under some sort of delusion that we've got an abundance of teachers right now? Open your eyes: The number of teachers are dropping and they are retiring faster than they're graduating. How about those salaries then? Are they increasing to meet the demand? Maybe there is something else keeping them away? Maybe its people like you who want to remove the only group of people who actually try to give teachers the same rights that I've got by just having a normal job.
And you're kidding yourself if you think students can identify good teacher better than other teachers.
It's this sort of idiocy that convinces people that politicians or standardized tests can accurately gauge the quality of a teacher.
It's also apparent that you're not from the US. Things are different here. There is no national union. Many states outlaw teaching unions. In most states, teachers cannot strike. There are "teachers associations" which provide for small benefits like informal collective bargaining and retirement, but the primary reason they exist is to provide legal representation in the unavoidable eventuality of a lawsuit.
You really seem to think that teaching is this cushy job where you get to do whatever you want. That's just not the case and its obvious you have no real experience in this area. I can't really think of any career which requires more of a bachelor's degree which gets abused, disrespected and insulted ("If you can't do, teach!") more than teachers. In most cases, the only way teachers in the US can show any sort of displeasure with the way they're being treated is to band together and follow what their contract says.... to the letter. That means they start work when the contract says and end work when the contract says.
This almost invariably ends with a lot of very upset parents when they find out just how much crap teachers put up with to help children learn.
But unless that happens, parents seem to convince themselves that teachers are just like you're portraying them: a weak lot of underachievers who protect the section of them who spend their time drinking and molesting children.
I suppose it's easy to think that when your only experience dealing with teachers was as a student. However, it makes your viewpoint almost completely worthless.
...oh, and your mom.
(Sorry, had to)