Bad public schools are most definitely not a myth. Most of the k-12 schools in georgia are literally falling apart. The teachers are highly incompetent...
That wouldn't be the case if the parents cared.
and the higher ups promote teaching creation in the schools.
And the private schools aren't teaching it already?
Try going into Chicago and checking out their public schools some random day. Oh, you won't be able to, because there are armed guards who won't let you in. That sounds like a reassuring place to learn.
Yes, and private schools would have the same problem if they had those students. That was my point.
The fact you admit to being from Peoria says something about your character.
What is wrong with admitting I am a Peorian?
I think you don't know much about Peoria, the south end is BAD. I knew someone who was killed in a gang initiation drive by, and he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, that doesn't count all the kids who joined gangs I knew who got killed.
Bad public schools are a myth. There are, of course, exceptions, but it is not the schools that are bad, but the parents.
Private schools appear to be better than public schools simply because the parents care enough to pay for what they percieve to be better than what they could get for free. These parents that care take part in their child's education to a much greater extent.
In my home town there were 4 large public high schools and 1 large private high school, all 5 about the same size (there were perhaps a half dozen small private high schools as well). The public high school in the nice part of town produced 12 national merit scholars the year I graduated, the private high school only produced 4, the other 3 public high schools combined to produce 6. The funding and administrators were the same for all 4 public schools. What could account for the difference in performance? I submit that it was the families. The well to do are more likely to be well educated, the well educated tend to care more about their kids education, those who care about education tend to have kids that do well in school, because they put an emphasis on it at home, they help their kids with their home work.
Do you honestly think privitization will solve anything?
Do you think kids who don't do their homework in public school will do it in private school?
Do you think parents who don't go to public school PTA meetings, will go to private school ones?
The only thing that will happen when we start sending kids who were failing in public school to private school in large numbers, is that the private schools will suck too.
-Tamman2000, proud product of Peoria public schools, district 150.
If you look at the school system ratings you will find that best schools tend to be in the more rural states. Here is the top ten by % of students that graduate. Only one state New Jersey could be called urban.
Graduating a higher percentage doesn't mean better schools. In fact, it could mean lower standards...
Unions are organisations representing their members. And the members can make their union how ever they want.
They don't have to be based on seniority The Union could (for instance) negotiate that a particular year the company may eliminate no more than n% of the workforce, or m% of the union salary pool. This particular arangement would limit both the elimination of huge numbers of employees, and the exclusive elimination of those with the best pay package.
Re:If you are so smart...
on
Cube Farm
·
· Score: 1
It was a $30k/year school with a terrific name and a free ride waiting for me. For this field, MIT would have been a better (the best?) choice.
I am having a little trouble parsing that...
Are you saying it is a good school, but it sucks for what you wanted to do? If that is the case you are a fool for going there.
Or are you saying it is a good school for what you wanted to do, but MIT is better? This statement and your descriptions of the faculty appear to be mutually exclusive.
Oh yeah, and how much your school costs doesn't mean squat. I went to a top 10 engineering school and payed 1/10th of the tuition you described (Ain't midwestern state schools great?).
If you are so smart...
on
Cube Farm
·
· Score: 2, Funny
The company I worked for gave 100 shares (~$8000) to anyone who completed a degree through the employee degree program. The offer was good for all full time employees (shop, clerical, engineering), for any acredited degree (some peeple when to the culinary institute 45 minutes away). That program was the best reqruiting tool they had, Everyone I knew who was under 30 and working there, signed on because of the employee scholar program. They have cut back some in the last two years, but the program is still pretty good
When there are more people than jobs, they don't have to pay you what you're worth, because there's someone out there, probably equally or more qualified, willing to work for a lot less.
On the contrary, they have to pay you exactly what you are worth, you are just worth a lot less than you think you are... Your worth (at least in $ terms) is defined by the market.
I can try... Although it will probably look a lot like what I have already said.
If the people at the top have a quality of life so high as to be uneffected by a change (in absolute terms) that would be percieved as enourmous if obtained by the rest of the populus, then the transfer of the amount of capital required to obtain that improvment to the working class, via forced higher payment ("sabotaging the economy"), would not effect those at the top, while it would have great benifit for those at the bottom, causing an overall increase in quality of life due to the "sabotage of the economy".
Well, if we insist on a non-linear metric, then this:
If you sabotage the economy, the quality of life must eventually suffer.
Is most certainly false. Using a metric that has the properties of the one you describe, persents us with the case where all transfers of income from the top to the bottom increase the quality of life or leave it uneffected for all members of the economy.
IBC takes its data from major news networks, read their methodology page. The major new networks get their data from the military largely. The military is not obligated to report civilian death and under Colin Powel they have obscured the true count.
Colin Powell has a history of covering up civilian casualties...
scroll down to My Lai...
Powell's successful career within the military has not been entirely free of controversy, however. During the Vietnam War, Powell, as deputy assistant chief of staff at the Americal (the 23rd Infantry Division) with the rank of Major, was charged with investigating a detailed letter by Tom Glen (a soldier from the 11th Light Infantry Brigade), which backed up rumored allegations of the My Lai massacre. Powell's response was largely seen as a cover-up; he wrote: "In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent."
Another controversial part of his career is that Powell also had an operational role in the illegal Iran-Contra affair, acting as the initial coordinator for selling missiles to Iran in exchange for American hostages.
Listen up, you sanctimonious son of a bitch: The US troops aren't killing people. The remnants of Saddam's forces are. Just like they've done for the last two DECADES. Only now, assholes like you blame it on people like my brother who are PROTECTING people over there. He nearly lost his life protecting Iraqis on MANY occasions. And you know what? The IRAQIS are THANKFUL he's there. In fact, civilian support is one of the few things that keeps him alive.
I am curious about the civilian support. I have seen at least a half dozen blogs from Iraqi civilians, all of them have been very critical of the bush administration (one is even mentioned in another reply to your post). Bush has won, the plans aren't going to change becasue of what I think, or say at this point, but I would like to feel better about what is going on.
I know you Batman, we have had constructivly discussed desagreements on/. at least 3 times. I have come to trust you as someone who I don't always agree with, but is reasonable, and can explain his positions. I wouldn't ask most people this, but...
Are any Iraqis who support the US mission in Iraq blogging?
As it is right now, all evidence leaving the country of through channels other than the US military and western journalists seems to indicate that Iraqis are very critical of the occupation/liberation/whatever you want to call it.
I would like a different point of view, I want to read first hand opinions that support what you, and many other relatives of troops say.
I heard about a study a couple of years ago (kudos to the person who finds a link for it).
Basically they looked at the rate of growth of government under various party control combinations for the congress and presidency.
The fastest growth occured under Republican full control, the next fastest was Democrat full control, a distant 3rd was Republican president, Democratic congress, and the slowest rate of government growth was a Democratic president with a Republican congress. And the rankings were invarient under subtraction of defence related growth.
Niether party is for small government, gridlock is for small government. If you want small government, I suggest you vote democrat in '06.
I realize that you're being argumentative, but I'll play along.
I disagree:)
Let's say that the amount of improvement in the rich man's quality of life is measured by some metric to be X when he aquires his second jumbo jet.
Let us also say that the amount of improvement in a poorer man's life is Y when he begins to earn a stable paycheck.
Y must be significantly greater than X since the poor man went from having almost nothing to being able to provide some comfort/security for himself (a huge relative improvement) while the rich man when from having every advantage to having every advantage plus one more jumbo jet (a small improvement).
you are compairing
dx/x
to
dy/y
and saying the later is larger. This could be absolutly true and not dictate that
(y+dy)*99 < x+dx
. The later statment is all that is required for the average to increase (which is what I initially claimed).
Let me provide an example which conforms to your requirements.
a rich man's initial metric is 1000000. His metric improves by 1000, giving a new metric of 1001000 improvment =.1%
Now, 99 poor men have an initial metric of 1. each one gets a 100% improvment to get a metric of 2.
the rich improvment senario provides a
((1001000+99*1)/(1000000+99*1)-1)*100% =.0999%
increase in the average standard of living metric.
While the poor improvment senario provides
((1000000+99*2)/(1000000+99)-1)*100% =.009899%
increase in the average standard of living.
I don't know about you, but I submit that most people would prefer the second senario, and that society is better off for it...
My point was that a large improvment in the average standard of living is not always preferable to an increase in standard of living across the board (which is what minimum wage provides for).
If the rich get richer, their quality of life does not improve since they're already at the top of the curve (no qualitative room for improvement).
Nope. The rest of what you said would be true, if that statement was true, but it is false.
Consider, hypothetically, the richest man in the world now can afford a private 747 with luxury fittings and a full time crew (think air force 1). If he had twice as much money, he could get another 747 to shuttle his friends from half way around the world to the same vacation destination he is headed too.
Of course it is silly to do that, but the point is you can ALWAYS spend more money to marginally improve your quality of life.
Where did you get the idea that there is no room for improvement in quality of life at the top?
If you sabotage the economy, the quality of life must eventually suffer.
That depends on who's quality of life we are talking about...
If you are talking about the average standard of living, yes... But if you are talking about the standard of living of the average person, no...
If you remove all of the unions, and minimum wages and other protections of workers, the standard of living for those at the top will rise sufficiently as to more than account for the drop in standard of living of the workers, when looking at averages, but... The standard of living of the workers will go down. And since most of society is not the top 1%, it is in societies best interest to have minimum wages...
I think, Exersize more. Feel better. is a much better solution.
I find that when I am working out regularlly I tend to crave healthier foods, and I can still eat 5000 Calories a day and loose wieght (slowly, ~5 lbs/year).
We spent a whole week studying the effects of the minimum wage in my collge econ class and I remember being amused that a minimum wage being bad is one of the few things (non-partisan) economists agree on.
I think your instructor was biased.
There are good economic reasons for a minimum wage. Especially when you consider that the cost of supporting every person (whether they are working or not) will come out of the economy (given that the electorate doesn't like to let people starve).
The more educated you are, the more likely you are to be a republican, unless you have a graduate degree, then you are overwhelmingly likely to be a democrat I can't find a link right now, but I have seen this with percentages several times...
"my lifestyle" I assume you are referring to homosexuality, and I have to disagree with the Gay Marriage amendment, if two consenting adults want to live together, that is their business and the government has no business telling them what they can and cannot do, if they find a church to marry them, great.
One issue with this is taxes. Marriage bonusus for married couples could be nil and void with a simple tax system. The only time homosexulity becomes an issue to me is when it is thrown in my family's face, either through public display in a parade or (mostly) by the media. (simply put, I would like grandchildren). I just don't think the constant emphasis on animalistic sex cravings in any way, is productive to society. It is quite uneducated behavior, and shows a lack of self-control.
The problem here is not only of the financial privaledges of marriage, it is primarily of the legal ones. A gay person doesn't have the same legal rights of hospital visitation for their partner that a strait person has. A gay couple has a harder time getting their life insurance to benefit their partner. And, thanks to a rider on the Ohio same sex marriage ban ballot initiative, it is now illegal to sign power of attorney over to anyone who is not a relative, by blood or marriage in that state. So not only can you not marry, but you can not give your partner the legal authority to make decisions for you if you are unable to do so yourself.
I would prefer that gay people be allowed to marry (actually, I would prefer that the government have no part in marriage, and all legal benifits of marriage come from a civil union), but to deny people the legal rights their strait counterparts have is just wrong.
They obeyed Carter's directive under the threat of force.
Carter told them that if they killed any hostages, it was on, no holds barred... They all came home alive, the Iranians even let one who was having medical problems go, they were scared of what Carter would do if one of the hostages died.
There is also considerable evidence that the hostages were going to be released sooner, but some of the future Reagan people caught wind of this, and somehow convinsed the Iranians to hold them till Reagan was in office.
I live in New York (Not the city, but in a college town populated mostly by kids from the city), Bush scares the shit out of us, because we are pretty damn sure that the war in Iraq is making us less safe.
One of the things that we notice, that we don't think the other side notices, is that there are not a finite number of terrorists that we need to kill. Our Iraq policy is making new terrorists every day. Kerry got shit for saying it, but we do need a more sensative war on terror. If we bomb the shit out of everywehere we think there might be a terrorist, we are almost gauranteeing a net increase in both number and motivation of terrorists.
We do need to kill those who are already in Al Queada, but we need to do so without recruiting for them at the same time.
Another thing we noticed is the Duelfer report. Iraq had no connection to those who seek to harm us (notice I did not say terrorists, I know about the palistinians).
We would have voted against Bush for his social policy, but his foriegn policy really hurt him too.
Slashdot Mirror
Bad public schools are most definitely not a myth. Most of the k-12 schools in georgia are literally falling apart. The teachers are highly incompetent...
That wouldn't be the case if the parents cared.
and the higher ups promote teaching creation in the schools.
And the private schools aren't teaching it already?
Try going into Chicago and checking out their public schools some random day. Oh, you won't be able to, because there are armed guards who won't let you in. That sounds like a reassuring place to learn.
Yes, and private schools would have the same problem if they had those students. That was my point.
The fact you admit to being from Peoria says something about your character.
What is wrong with admitting I am a Peorian?
I think you don't know much about Peoria, the south end is BAD. I knew someone who was killed in a gang initiation drive by, and he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, that doesn't count all the kids who joined gangs I knew who got killed.
Bad public schools are a myth. There are, of course, exceptions, but it is not the schools that are bad, but the parents.
Private schools appear to be better than public schools simply because the parents care enough to pay for what they percieve to be better than what they could get for free. These parents that care take part in their child's education to a much greater extent.
In my home town there were 4 large public high schools and 1 large private high school, all 5 about the same size (there were perhaps a half dozen small private high schools as well). The public high school in the nice part of town produced 12 national merit scholars the year I graduated, the private high school only produced 4, the other 3 public high schools combined to produce 6. The funding and administrators were the same for all 4 public schools. What could account for the difference in performance? I submit that it was the families. The well to do are more likely to be well educated, the well educated tend to care more about their kids education, those who care about education tend to have kids that do well in school, because they put an emphasis on it at home, they help their kids with their home work.
Do you honestly think privitization will solve anything?
Do you think kids who don't do their homework in public school will do it in private school?
Do you think parents who don't go to public school PTA meetings, will go to private school ones?
The only thing that will happen when we start sending kids who were failing in public school to private school in large numbers, is that the private schools will suck too.
-Tamman2000, proud product of Peoria public schools, district 150.
If you look at the school system ratings you will find that best schools tend to be in the more rural states. Here is the top ten by % of students that graduate. Only one state New Jersey could be called urban.
Graduating a higher percentage doesn't mean better schools. In fact, it could mean lower standards...
Unions are organisations representing their members. And the members can make their union how ever they want.
They don't have to be based on seniority The Union could (for instance) negotiate that a particular year the company may eliminate no more than n% of the workforce, or m% of the union salary pool. This particular arangement would limit both the elimination of huge numbers of employees, and the exclusive elimination of those with the best pay package.
It was a $30k/year school with a terrific name and a free ride waiting for me. For this field, MIT would have been a better (the best?) choice.
I am having a little trouble parsing that...
Are you saying it is a good school, but it sucks for what you wanted to do? If that is the case you are a fool for going there.
Or are you saying it is a good school for what you wanted to do, but MIT is better? This statement and your descriptions of the faculty appear to be mutually exclusive.
Oh yeah, and how much your school costs doesn't mean squat. I went to a top 10 engineering school and payed 1/10th of the tuition you described (Ain't midwestern state schools great?).
... Why did you go to such a shitty school?
I got a 404...
The company I worked for gave 100 shares (~$8000) to anyone who completed a degree through the employee degree program. The offer was good for all full time employees (shop, clerical, engineering), for any acredited degree (some peeple when to the culinary institute 45 minutes away). That program was the best reqruiting tool they had, Everyone I knew who was under 30 and working there, signed on because of the employee scholar program. They have cut back some in the last two years, but the program is still pretty good
The company was a Dow componant tech company.
When there are more people than jobs, they don't have to pay you what you're worth, because there's someone out there, probably equally or more qualified, willing to work for a lot less.
On the contrary, they have to pay you exactly what you are worth, you are just worth a lot less than you think you are... Your worth (at least in $ terms) is defined by the market.
Can you please explain how this is so?
I can try... Although it will probably look a lot like what I have already said.
If the people at the top have a quality of life so high as to be uneffected by a change (in absolute terms) that would be percieved as enourmous if obtained by the rest of the populus, then the transfer of the amount of capital required to obtain that improvment to the working class, via forced higher payment ("sabotaging the economy"), would not effect those at the top, while it would have great benifit for those at the bottom, causing an overall increase in quality of life due to the "sabotage of the economy".
Well, if we insist on a non-linear metric, then this:
If you sabotage the economy, the quality of
life must eventually suffer.
Is most certainly false. Using a metric that has the properties of the one you describe, persents us with the case where all transfers of income from the top to the bottom increase the quality of life or leave it uneffected for all members of the economy.
Colin Powell has a history of covering up civilian casualties...
scroll down to My Lai...
Listen up, you sanctimonious son of a bitch: The US troops aren't killing people. The remnants of Saddam's forces are. Just like they've done for the last two DECADES. Only now, assholes like you blame it on people like my brother who are PROTECTING people over there. He nearly lost his life protecting Iraqis on MANY occasions. And you know what? The IRAQIS are THANKFUL he's there. In fact, civilian support is one of the few things that keeps him alive.
/. at least 3 times. I have come to trust you as someone who I don't always agree with, but is reasonable, and can explain his positions. I wouldn't ask most people this, but...
I am curious about the civilian support. I have seen at least a half dozen blogs from Iraqi civilians, all of them have been very critical of the bush administration (one is even mentioned in another reply to your post). Bush has won, the plans aren't going to change becasue of what I think, or say at this point, but I would like to feel better about what is going on.
I know you Batman, we have had constructivly discussed desagreements on
Are any Iraqis who support the US mission in Iraq blogging?
As it is right now, all evidence leaving the country of through channels other than the US military and western journalists seems to indicate that Iraqis are very critical of the occupation/liberation/whatever you want to call it.
I would like a different point of view, I want to read first hand opinions that support what you, and many other relatives of troops say.
Thanks,
TamMan2000
I heard about a study a couple of years ago (kudos to the person who finds a link for it).
Basically they looked at the rate of growth of government under various party control combinations for the congress and presidency.
The fastest growth occured under Republican full control, the next fastest was Democrat full control, a distant 3rd was Republican president, Democratic congress, and the slowest rate of government growth was a Democratic president with a Republican congress. And the rankings were invarient under subtraction of defence related growth.
Niether party is for small government, gridlock is for small government. If you want small government, I suggest you vote democrat in '06.
I disagree
Let's say that the amount of improvement in the rich man's quality of life
is measured by some metric to be X when he aquires his second jumbo jet.
Let us also say that the amount of improvement in a poorer man's life is
Y when he begins to earn a stable paycheck.
Y must be significantly greater than X since the poor man went from having
almost nothing to being able to provide some comfort/security for himself
(a huge relative improvement) while the rich man when from having every
advantage to having every advantage plus one more jumbo jet (a small
improvement).
you are compairing to and saying the later is larger. This could be absolutly true and not dictate that . The later statment is all that is required for the average to increase (which is what I initially claimed).
Let me provide an example which conforms to your requirements.
a rich man's initial metric is 1000000. His metric improves by 1000, giving a new metric of 1001000 improvment =
Now, 99 poor men have an initial metric of 1. each one gets a 100% improvment to get a metric of 2.
the rich improvment senario provides a increase in the average standard of living metric.
While the poor improvment senario provides increase in the average standard of living.
I don't know about you, but I submit that most people would prefer the second senario, and that society is better off for it...
My point was that a large improvment in the average standard of living is not always preferable to an increase in standard of living across the board (which is what minimum wage provides for).
LOL
That was the funniest thing I have seen since last night's daily show...
thanks
If the rich get richer, their quality of life does not improve since they're
already at the top of the curve (no qualitative room for improvement).
Nope. The rest of what you said would be true, if that statement was true, but it is false.
Consider, hypothetically, the richest man in the world now can afford a private 747 with luxury fittings and a full time crew (think air force 1). If he had twice as much money, he could get another 747 to shuttle his friends from half way around the world to the same vacation destination he is headed too.
Of course it is silly to do that, but the point is you can ALWAYS spend more money to marginally improve your quality of life.
Where did you get the idea that there is no room for improvement in quality of life at the top?
If you sabotage the economy, the quality of
life must eventually suffer.
That depends on who's quality of life we are talking about...
If you are talking about the average standard of living, yes... But if you are talking about the standard of living of the average person, no...
If you remove all of the unions, and minimum wages and other protections of workers, the standard of living for those at the top will rise sufficiently as to more than account for the drop in standard of living of the workers, when looking at averages, but... The standard of living of the workers will go down. And since most of society is not the top 1%, it is in societies best interest to have minimum wages...
Eat less. Feel better.
I think, Exersize more. Feel better. is a much better solution.
I find that when I am working out regularlly I tend to crave healthier foods, and I can still eat 5000 Calories a day and loose wieght (slowly, ~5 lbs/year).
We spent a whole week studying the effects of the minimum wage in my collge
econ class and I remember being amused that a minimum wage being bad is one of the
few things (non-partisan) economists agree on.
I think your instructor was biased.
There are good economic reasons for a minimum wage. Especially when you consider that the cost of supporting every person (whether they are working or not) will come out of the economy (given that the electorate doesn't like to let people starve).
The more educated you are, the more likely you are to be a republican, unless you have a graduate degree, then you are overwhelmingly likely to be a democrat
I can't find a link right now, but I have seen this with percentages several times...
"my lifestyle"
I assume you are referring to homosexuality, and I have to disagree with the Gay Marriage amendment, if two consenting adults want to live together, that is their business and the government has no business telling them what they can and cannot do, if they find a church to marry them, great.
One issue with this is taxes. Marriage bonusus for married couples could be nil and void with a simple tax system. The only time homosexulity becomes an issue to me is when it is thrown in my family's face, either through public display in a parade or (mostly) by the media. (simply put, I would like grandchildren). I just don't think the constant emphasis on animalistic sex cravings in any way, is productive to society. It is quite uneducated behavior, and shows a lack of self-control.
The problem here is not only of the financial privaledges of marriage, it is primarily of the legal ones. A gay person doesn't have the same legal rights of hospital visitation for their partner that a strait person has. A gay couple has a harder time getting their life insurance to benefit their partner. And, thanks to a rider on the Ohio same sex marriage ban ballot initiative, it is now illegal to sign power of attorney over to anyone who is not a relative, by blood or marriage in that state. So not only can you not marry, but you can not give your partner the legal authority to make decisions for you if you are unable to do so yourself.
I would prefer that gay people be allowed to marry (actually, I would prefer that the government have no part in marriage, and all legal benifits of marriage come from a civil union), but to deny people the legal rights their strait counterparts have is just wrong.
I guess you aren't aware of the history there.
very aware.
They obeyed Carter's directive under the threat of force.
Carter told them that if they killed any hostages, it was on, no holds barred... They all came home alive, the Iranians even let one who was having medical problems go, they were scared of what Carter would do if one of the hostages died.
There is also considerable evidence that the hostages were going to be released sooner, but some of the future Reagan people caught wind of this, and somehow convinsed the Iranians to hold them till Reagan was in office.
Also consider that Iran would like a weak Iraq...
I live in New York (Not the city, but in a college town populated mostly by kids from the city), Bush scares the shit out of us, because we are pretty damn sure that the war in Iraq is making us less safe.
One of the things that we notice, that we don't think the other side notices, is that there are not a finite number of terrorists that we need to kill. Our Iraq policy is making new terrorists every day. Kerry got shit for saying it, but we do need a more sensative war on terror. If we bomb the shit out of everywehere we think there might be a terrorist, we are almost gauranteeing a net increase in both number and motivation of terrorists.
We do need to kill those who are already in Al Queada, but we need to do so without recruiting for them at the same time.
Another thing we noticed is the Duelfer report. Iraq had no connection to those who seek to harm us (notice I did not say terrorists, I know about the palistinians).
We would have voted against Bush for his social policy, but his foriegn policy really hurt him too.