And if one ways to do that is with standardrized test it not the way. Now I know teachers who can control and class and not teach a thing - I had a few. But if a teacher get a bad lot of kids, is he/she to blame? I can speak for my self, when I was a middle school kid, all my teachers sounded like Charlie Brown's teachers BLAH BLAH BLAH.
But I can't speak for where your SO reach but my poker buddy is a teacher in Fairfax County schools in Virginia and its different than what you described. In his school, lesson plans are turned to the Department Chair or administrator weekly, grading factors are county wide with a electronic gradebook - so you can't fudge the percentages and change the weights. Grades are even posted online. In fact he a middle school social studies teacher and all teachers must pace the same. In other words, every teacher had to be on WWII around the same time, despite not having the same kids. Now I am not talking about problem students per se, but less motivated ones and if as you suggests start paying teacher based on scorse good or bad, you have less teachers than you have now. DC schools is trying to tie pay to students performance and teacher are leaving by the dozens, especially with those kids.
-- Modified on 7/11/2009 6:43:06 PM
...Wormer in Animal House was an asshole but he may have been prescient if you apply the quote to America as a whole.
Leaving drunk aside, we are getting fatter and stupider (sic?) as a country. What should we do about it?
Think of America as a boat with 300 million oarsmen all rowing to move the boat forward. Many are healthy so they can row strongly and they are educated so they know how to row.
Some are not healthy so they can't row and others are uneducated so they need to be taught to row to help move the boat forward.
Conservatives are reluctant to pay for health care and education. What would they do with the weaker rowers who are holding the S.S. America back -- throw them overboard like so much flotsam and jetsam? Or just complain that the sick and uneducated are slowing the boat down.
Wouldn't it help the ship go faster if everyone could contribute because they were healthy and well-educated?
-- Modified on 7/10/2009 4:05:04 PM
We've already got John Q Public telling AIG, GM and most banks how to run their business. We all know that most of the people bitching the loudest couldn't run a corner store, much less a multi-national corporation. Still, politicians pander to the idiots, because the volume of them makes them an important voting block.
Fast forward to government controlled health care. What do we do with the folks that don't meet our criteria for healthy? I see it as a witch hunt, yelling at people for smoking, drinking, overeating, and having multiple sex partners. Since I've only got 2 of those vices, and too little of either, I'm gonna bitch long and hard that you fat, smoky, drunken whores are running up my taxes. So I write to my congressman and bitch until he fears losing my vote. Then he pushes to ban cheeseburgers and beer.
That doesn't even begin to deal with the issue that the government is run by incompetents, for the incompetents.
Other than that, I'm all for it...
But when the Bush people gave AIG in particular the keys to the car without a curfew, they wrecked the car and now Uncle Sam is saying since you needed my money to fix your car, I am going to tell you when to drive it until you pay me back my money.
Now in a democracy you call them idiot, I call them voters and when you ignore the very people who put ypu in ofice then you should be voted out of office. As much disdain this board attacked Al Frankken, blame Norm Coleman for following Bush lock step and not listening to the "idiots" who voted isiots in
But your argument reflect the old 1992 healthcare debate but without going into details, YOU pay for that Fat slob who smoke two packs a day, when he walks into the ER and get a new lung or triple bypass and the cost in passed on to the paying customers. For me my healthcare premiums has exceeded the pitance 3% COLA raise that the government gives me every year. I am lucky because I've been on the government payroll since college but as a business owner, I could never give my two employees those benefits.
I'm no fan of the bailouts in the first place. However, if you bid a job badly (no strings money to AIG), you'd not get a change to change the deal later. AIG did a bad thing, and then trick-fucked the government out of money. Am I to say shame on AIG? Now, when they went back for more, that was the time for Uncle Tim to put some strings on it.
I'm not saying that all the voters are idiots (although I probably did, and undoubtedly will again) but I do hold the opinion that the vast majority aren't savvy enough to understand the pros & cons about limiting executive compensation, or other debates that have been kicked around since the economy shit the bed. I feel much safer with those decisions being made by capable people, even if they tend to be self dealing. For example, GM is being run by a long time GM executive. That gives me more warm fuzzys than if Barney Frank was leading the troops, or if we put the bankruptcy to a public vote.
Our current insurance problems are pretty well documented. I agree that it needs to be fixed. I just don't believe that any change makes it better.
You ask, " Wouldn't it help the ship go faster if everyone could contribute because they were healthy and well-educated?"
I do contribute to the common good. I give 30+% of my income to the feds. I give about 7% (really not sure) to the state. I give another 3% to the county in property tax. I gave another X % to the city for a business tax. I geve another 10% off of everything I spend for sales tax. There are hidden taxes every where I look, like increased parking fees, increased taxes on phone, increase tax on garbage pick up, increased tax on electrical use.
I work from January 1st to at least May 30th for other people.
Don't tell me I don't contribute.
I also give another 2% to the charities that I like and that I want to support- mostly to art and groups that send care packages to soldiers, split evenly.
I don't feel guilty that I don't want to contribute more when many people are contributing far less.
Also, you present a false choice of Obama-care or throw people overboard.
Maybe, just maybe, some of us believe that medical coverage can be improved through other means.
Look at how cosmetic surgery goes down in cost as it gets better every year without insurance or government intervention. Maybe that is a model to follow.
Look at how the auto or home insurance works. You do not insure everything, only big expenses. No one insures new tires, batteries, windshield wipers, or oil changes. Minor matters that are not contingencies, i.e., things that everyone will need for sure, like immunizations, are handled more efficiently - cheaper and affordable for more people - when they are not insured. Drop much of the insurance and let the market place lower the price.
I heard Pelosi. She wants everyone to have accessible, quality, and inexpensive health care. Like, who doesn't. Government does such a good job with quality inexpensive health care. Look at Medicare. Look at Medical. Look at the mess they made in Boston. How many billions over budget so far?
Pelosi said we can't afford not to do health care. If we can't afford things, let's spend a trillion plus dollars on something else. (And when was the last time that the feds were accurate in projecting cost. they did a good job with Medicare which is 1,000 times over budget. Hey, they only estimate 1 trillion.
I got an idea. Let's hand over healthcare reform to the people who fucked up everything before.
Don't get me started on education. The decline in education in every city run by democrats in the last 50 years is......
The American people gave healthcare/marketplace 17 years to fix thenselves and the result a healthcare crisis. Most people cannot afford and most small business ownerlike myself cannot afford to properly cover employees as a result I really can't compete. Republicans say they are for small businesses but are they really?
As far as education is concerned, yes big cities school systems has failed but not because of the Dems...its because the cities are now a dumping ground for the poor and least educated. Take DC, with a 31% graduation rate, across the potomac in Alexandria City, only one school did not meet NCLB standards. The difference, parents who pioritize education send their kids to either private school, like the Obamas, Magnet schools or move out of DC to the DC surburban schools. In other words, the surrounding DC surburbs all ran by Dems works. In fact Montgomery County is ranked in the top in the Nation and these are government ran schools.
First, you never addressed my point that I contribute. What per cent of my life should I spend contributing to other people? I already give over 50%.
What do you think is "fair?"
Second, every survery has most people happy with their individual health care, even though they think that there is a crisis. In other words, people think everyone else is in trouble, even though they aren't.
This is like that f'in Edwards lying about 35 million go to bed hungry at night. No. the vast, vast, vast majority of poor in the U.S. do not go to be hungry. He lies and people get upset. Calumny against the U.S. from Petty Hair Boy.
Of course people think there is a crisis. People never read stories about the 260 million people covered, only the 40 that don't have insurance. They never read about my friends who had cancer and are overjoyed with their treatment from Kaiser of Blue Shield. They never read about the millions already covered by state health plans.
People don't read about my friend who chose to go without insurance, became the victim of a terrible arson, and got millions of medical care for free under the current system.
Even then the 40 million is inflated. Millions of those are illegal aliens. Millions are in prison or have medicare, medicaid, Medical, or some similar coverage. Millions are young people in their 20s who don't think they need it.
The actual number of citizens who can't afford health care that they need and are not getting it from other sources is a fraction of the 40 million.
And for that per cent you want to restructure the entire system.
Yes, the last 17 years were wasted. But that doesn't mean that the suggestions should not be implemented now.
The last 17 years may have been wasted, but that doesn't mean the feds can fix the current problem.
I am just amazed that the feds are already talking about how to limit health care and "spend wisely," and everyone thinks they will get everything for free. Obama said we should rethink were we spend money. He added that 30% of health care is spent in the last year.
HEY. If that is where 30% is spent, and he wants to re-think where we spend it, what is he going to do for those people after he "rethinks" what their care will be? Ice floes?
Everybody wants 2009 quality healthcare at 1950 prices. When I was born, the sheets were one of the big expenses of the hospitals. Now there are MRIs, CAT Scans, Dog Scans, and a million other things that were science fiction back in the day. Let's just have that increase in quality with the same per cent of cost as 1950.
And my one last question: If the current estimated price is 1.5 trillion, how accurate do you think that estimate is, and what do you think the final cost will be?
300M boats each manned by its own oarsman. Reading BigPapasan's post was like hearing Hillary Clinton's "It Takes A Village" speech again.
I am not my brother's keeper. I'm not a collectivist, but an individualist. Just like dncphil, I pay a "boatload" in taxes. I don't like it, but I do it. Using this ridiculous boat metaphor, think of it as I am paying the marina (govt) where my boat is moored a shitload in money, taxes, whatever. This money is going to the millions of other oarsmen who are drunk, fat and stupid. If after giving this money over a period of time and the millions of other oarsmen are still drunk, fat and stupid, why look at me and ask to do more. Ain't going to happen.
Oh and little phil, you are right, the majority of voters are idiots. You live in Vegas. Do you hang out at some of the casinos? Look around, and what do you see....DRUNK, FAT and STUPID.
So BigPapasan....what is your recommendation? Be specific, preferably bullet points. Some of these posts are just too long-winded and without specific suggestions on how to fix a problem.
She's kinda stupid, but she's not fat. She brings drinks, but can't drink them while she's working. In fact, I'll say hello for you when I try to pull off the threesome with her & the dealer. So far, 2 of us are game, but the waitress is still holding out.
Fun story aside, yeah, the buffet lines remind me of the hogs going to become pork chops. It's not a pretty sight.
20% of Americans can't even find this country on a map. Way too many Americans -- whose vote gets to cancel mine out -- are, in fact, really stupid. Catering to the stupid is one of the reasons why this country is in such a mess.
I pay taxes out the wazoo. Income taxes, social security and medicare taxes, state taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, gas taxes, etc etc etc ad nauseam. The single biggest expense in my life is taxes! When you add them all together, I pay more in taxes than for everything else COMBINED.
In exchange, I get schools so crappy that I have to send my daughter to a private school. Check out the results of the last teacher exam in MA. Something like 30% of the COLLEGE GRADUATES couldn't pass a 10th grade reading test. And you want me to turn my kid over to those morons? I think not!
I get crime and vandalism galore. I get endless no-show jobs for the relatives of politicians, judges appointed at the state level because they contributed to a gubernatorial campaign (and who turn lose child molesters willy nilly), a government bureaucracy that is so inefficient it couldn't find it's ass with both hands and a flashlight and a government that wants to regulate everything from what chemicals I can use in a lab to how much water my toilet is allowed to use if I want to take a leisurely dump. Oh -- and I get a tax collection agency whose rules are so convoluted that 49 out of 50 CPAs in a money Magazine test couldn't properly figure out taxes for the standard family of 4.
Who in their right mind would want these maniacs running healthcare? It's just another way to take my hard-earned money and use it to do to healthcare what they have already done to education: turn it into a sick joke.
I forget when tax freedom day is in Massachusetts -- but I bet that I work nearly half of my life for government too.
I thought involuntary servitude was abolished in this country by the 13th Amendment. Maybe it was reinstituted by the 16th -- it sure seems like it.
Government has really only proven itself to be really effective at one thing: killing people in large numbers.
If I need an enemy killed who is attacking us, I'll call on the government. Other than that, they should leave me alone.
With the average teacher salary of 40,000, you will not attract the best and brightest, especially at a poor school district. So you are left with online college grads who many did not make it in regular college applying for these jobs. Now I live in an area where there are some of the best schools nationwide and they pay their teachers BETTER than some area. I would vouch for the schools but my ex wanted our kid get a "private school" education because she saw it as a status symbol more than an indictment of the school system. As my earlier post, private school parents have a vested financial interest in their kids doing well and do it with less kids and more resources
My SO is in education. And most of our friends are teachers or are in the school system, so I see what this really means.
The average teacher salary is not $40K. It starts at $35, if I recall, but it goes up very fast from there. That is L.A. where it is more expensive to live. IT is less is areas where cost of living is less, but it is proportional
Now, let's look at what this means: First, that is the salary for a part time job. You have three months of the year off. If you work summer school, you still have more time off than the average person, and your salary shoots up.
Second, it is hectic, but the level of job security is insane. You can't get fired unless you are convicted for abusing a child. They just had a big expose in the L.A. Times, and that is no exaggeration. Out of thousands and thousands of teachers, they can discipline one or two a year. That means that the bottom .0001% are in danger.
Every job has 15% deadwood. The bottom 15% of teachers stay in school. That means there are 10% of thousands of kids in LASUD with rotten teachers. The lack of control destroys all their lives. The waste of 10% is a big step to fill the deficit.
You can say anything and do anything in your classroom. At most, someone comes in once a year for an hour, and that is when you have to be good.
NOW DON'T SAY IT. I know there are self-motivated teachers who are good, but there is no outside pressure. My job is constanly evaluated, and there are reprecussions if I goof. Every paper I write is evaluated and affects my next job. That is pressure.
If a teacher screws up a lesson plan for the day, what happens?
Third, an ambitious teacher can bring in an extra $30K a year tutoring an hour a day after school or on the weekend.
Fourth, the salary goes up if you take a vacation to Europe and write a one-page essay about why you did something on vacation that improved your teaching skills.
Fifth, the "salary" does not include benefits like a fantastic health care program and great retirement.
A teacher can retire after 25 years. That means he is still getting paid for another 30 or 40 years. If the teacher had to save that himself, but was paid enough to do that, his "salary" calculation would be much higher. That is an economic benifit of teaching that has to be calculated.
Sixth, let's look at what teacher life-style is like. The vast majority of teachers I know have their own house or condo. They all have a decent car, TV, fancy phone, etc. Come late May, when they are counting down the days to summer, go to the lunch room and listen to vacation plans. Europe, S. America, etc. They all can afford to travel more than any other group I know.
And what do we get for it. My cousin lives in Brentwood, the most expensive part of L.A. They are uber-Obama supporters, old time liberals, so they aren't right-wing crazies afraid of ethnicity. They can't send their kids to public school. The condemnation of education is too long to go into, but I will say one more thing that is telling:
In discussing what teachers can afford and what the quality they give for that is, think of this - A disproportionately large number of teachers from public school send their kids to private school. They see what public school gives, and they can afford to get the hell out.
-- Modified on 7/11/2009 6:15:44 AM
I couldn't agree more with every word of what you say. Your example is from LA, but that scenario plays out in many other cities as well.
Recently saw that in NY city there are 700 tenured teachers being paid full salary for doing NOTHING, simply becaue they can't be fired but they do realize they shouldn't be in a classroom.
In Illinois, after 31 years retiement pension = 72% of salary. 75 PERCENT of probably 60K to 80K. Chicsgo is even higher.
Private enterprise pensions mostly died 15 years ago. Before that they amounted to maybe 25%.
the top college graduates, hence the OP points that most teachers can't even pass the standardized Test still stands
You cannot compare your job to a teacher because you control your performance thus your results. Now I do not know if you have kids but when mine was in middle school she barely listend to us - so her teachers did not have a chance. Clean your room was an argument so imagine what study for a test responses get. So you are asking a teacher to be evaluted on what test score a 15 or 16 year old get? Now I admit that some teachers just wing it because thats in every job but one can teach a lesson and when many kids get home they cut on the idiot box and know one is at home saying "cut the TV off". I do not know about you but I had to study to get decent grades, if a teacher can make sure their kids can do that - then evaluate them accordingly
I am saying that they have no pressure because no matter how bad they are there will be no reprecussions.
Teachers control their performance. They decide if they will have lesson plans. They decide if they will update those plans or use the same one for ten years. They decide if they will pass a student who does not do his homework. They decide if they will enforce order in the class.
Hey. THERE ARE GOOD TEACHERS. THERE ARE GREAT TEACHERS.
Just as good teachers control their performance, so do rotten ones.
Yeah, some kids are hard to control. When your 15 year old didn't clean her room, what did you do? You are the parent.
When parents can't control kids, then it is harder - not impossible - for teachers to do so.
And if one ways to do that is with standardrized test it not the way. Now I know teachers who can control and class and not teach a thing - I had a few. But if a teacher get a bad lot of kids, is he/she to blame? I can speak for my self, when I was a middle school kid, all my teachers sounded like Charlie Brown's teachers BLAH BLAH BLAH.
But I can't speak for where your SO reach but my poker buddy is a teacher in Fairfax County schools in Virginia and its different than what you described. In his school, lesson plans are turned to the Department Chair or administrator weekly, grading factors are county wide with a electronic gradebook - so you can't fudge the percentages and change the weights. Grades are even posted online. In fact he a middle school social studies teacher and all teachers must pace the same. In other words, every teacher had to be on WWII around the same time, despite not having the same kids. Now I am not talking about problem students per se, but less motivated ones and if as you suggests start paying teacher based on scorse good or bad, you have less teachers than you have now. DC schools is trying to tie pay to students performance and teacher are leaving by the dozens, especially with those kids.
-- Modified on 7/11/2009 6:43:06 PM
There is an easy way to measure good schools and good teachers.
First, schools: When the same school goes from one of the worst in NYC, with the highest drop out rate, to one of the best, with one of the highest rate of college placements, and those grads do well in college, you know the school has done something right. The school is in the same area with the same students, same demographis. Just better results. As I said earlier, I read stories like this every few months.
That is the clearest. On a scale, when a school goes from 25% drop out to 15% drop out, it is doing better. The same when it goes from 10% college placement to 35%. It is easy to see when things are working and/or getting better or worse.
Second, teachers:
Teachers are like every other job in the world. If you have a law office with 100 attorneys, 95 of them can agree as to who the slackers are, who is below standard, who screws up a lot, who is absent more than others.
If you have a dental clinic with 60 dentists, oral surgeons, technicians, receptionists, and secrataries, everyone knows who the slackers are.
And in every school that my SO or any of her friends ever worked at, all the teachers know who is a joke, who is good, who is bad, who should be taken out and dunked in the swimming pool.
It is true that if you were to do a rating system, maybe 1 out of 100 disciplined teachers would be unfairly singled out. But you would weed out 99 bad ones. Life isn't perfect. If you want to avoid mistakes, don't make any judgments. Don't try people for murder or rape. Don't fire anyone. (Of course, that will have consequences also.)
The problem is that teachers unions have created a "circle the wagon" mentality, telling members if we make it easy to fire bad teachers you are all in danger. They don't realize that by protecting the bad teachers, they have lost the respect that society used to have for teachers.
If DC ties pay to performance and dozen of teachers leave, that is good. Do you think the good teachers who are getting a raise are leaving? Or is it more likely the bad ones who are getting a cut that are leaving?
For example, if I'm responsible for turning in a sales forecast at work, but the salesman tells me that he doesn't know what people will buy, my forecast is likely to be crap. Is there a workaround? Sure, but a teacher has influence too. I watched a 3rd grade teacher mesmerize a class with his ability to tell stories. Little did they realize that they were actually learning. I knew some of those kids in 2nd grade, and 4th. They behaved differently. Were they different, or was the classroom experience different?
You can make excuses, or you can hold people accountable. As long as people are willing to blame someone else, the problem will continue. Just as a boss can see that the bad sales forecast is out of my control, and help me deal with the outside forces to get it right, a school district can differentiate between bad students and bad results. Or, they can hang their heads and complain how tough it is to succeed.
Your sales forecast may be off at times because of bad information. However, everyone - even your boss - knows that no one is perfect and people often get bad information. They will understand that sometimes you will be off and that is to be expected.
You will also learn which of your people are more reliable, what margin of error there usually is, etc.
No manager wants to lose someone who is right or performing well most of the time.
Everyone has a bad day at work. Everyone gets hard jobs that may be impossible.
But, as I have said, everyone knows who is good 85% of the time and who is bad 85% of the time.
The LA Times article on teachers was amazing. It is not an exaggeration to say that short of molesting a child, a teacher can't be fired. And even then, if he has the sense to molest the kid when no one is looking, he might - just might - get transfered. (Maybe the Church was not so unusual in its indefensible failure to fire priests. Schools do the same thing, and they are guardians of our kids, also.)
Example aside, the problem isn't whether an employee is good or bad, or that it's possible to distinguish between the two. The problem is that identifying a substandard teacher does little or nothing to improve or remove them.
You say, "The problem is that identifying a substandard teacher does little or nothing to improve or remove them."
The next step is easy. Fire his or her sorry ass.
If the damn system defends them, change the system. If the unions object, tell nurses and truck drivers and camera men and court clerks and electricians and all the others that it is their
children that are getting cheated.
It is the children of nurses who have bad teachers. It is the children of truck drivers who have bad teachers.
IT IS EVEN THE CHILDREN OF TEACHERS THAT HAVE BAD TEACHERS.
The legislators accept campaign money to keep bad teachers. Their kids get bad teachers.
California is crippled by unions. The protection of bad teachers is but one example.
-- Modified on 7/12/2009 12:35:00 PM
Don't you think school systems tried all the things you said. I'll admit the unions are a major road block but going back to my OP, quality people are not knocking down the doors to teach, especially in troubled schools. Take your Freat 3rd grade teacher example - my daughter had an amazing teacher like that in the 4th. Someone who had great intrapersinal skill and the ability to multitask and manage people. The Headmaster told me that she a sales VP for a major corporation. She traded those "special skills" for real money and more indiviual accountabilty. Many are leaving yearly. Maryland has the 9th best salaries in the country but only train 2,000 teacher for 6,000 openings Why, because people are jsut not going to teach with the cost of college, it not advantageous. All the nice benefit you listed over dollars sound good but I am sure with the exception of summers off, Bus drivers get the same fringe benefit package. Who would drive a bus? Its been documented in the Washpost that many of the teacher leaving are quality teachers and DC tried, the let fire all the bad teacher two years ago...result of 339 fired, 200 rehired because they failed their recruitment goals and after legal challenges in abritation, many of the firings were not justifed. I am not debating you guys over the problems of schools, all I am saying that it a bit more complex than a saleseman for a fortune 500 company.
Certainly, it's not a one-step plan, but if teachers knew that they'd be held accountable, many would do a better job. That's just human nature. Others would fall out.
Then, compensation needs to be modified to be more in line with the task. Scaling back the benefits to something reasonably in line with the private sector can convert a higher percentage of the total compensation to cash up front. Most of society has to plan for retirement, and yet those teaching us how, don't have to do it for themselves. Finally, once educators do a better job preparing children for the world, most taxpayers would have an easier time justifying kicking in more money.
Additionally, the hiring process needs to make more sense. I know of a California teacher that took advantage of all sorts of loopholes that got her paid more. She moved to a different district that couldn't afford to pay her. She told them that she wanted to teach, and would take a lower salary. They aren't ALLOWED to pay her less, even with her consent. So, a good teacher sits idle, while they can't fill a position. Another California teacher was given a teacher of the year award, and was told by Nevada that she wasn't qualified to teach. Meanwhile, they were offering all sorts of incentives to recruit teachers. Neither of these cases were about failing because the pay was too low. It's about a set of rules being set up to guarantee failure.
In any business or organization, if you get rid of the bad people things get better. That is the most common sense thing in the world.
For some reason you think that getting rid of bad teachers won't make education better. I can't even understand that. Sorry.
Get rid of teachers who are absent, who don't prepare, who every knows are shit, and things get better.
NO. THEY HAVE NOT TRIED THE THINGS I HAVE SUGGESTED. That is why you have stories every three months of the unusual schools that are trying them and break out in front of the rest that do not.
Yes, some teachers will leave. the drop out rate in law is terrible. But if they don't like it, don't worry about it. Make it possible to fire the bad and things have to get better.
Countries, societies and communities are designed to for the good of many people whether, you like it or not. Like wise many of the infrastructure services are designed for the use of the many.
The only way to really get out of it is to become a hermit and vanish or disappear from the society to become selfish individualist. You can yell and scream till you loose your voice or die or both, you will pay taxes as long as you live in the society.
You are given the freedom to bitch all you want by the society, you may call it the constitution. Here is the catch, the constitution is also for the good of the many. Living with ideas of 1776; 233 years later is kind of tough. Somehow, the society changed and asked for a lot more services and damn, now they want Health Care too now. There is over 70% support for Health Care Reform so individuals are going to loose. By the way, it allowed by the constitution.
minded individuals and start yet another dreary capitalist political organization.
You know I always get a kick out of if everyone was healthy and well educated.
REALLY not wanting to come across as mean but another thig I do not get: going to these underdeveloped country and teaching them to read.
I mean SERIOUSLY, what is Oprah doing.
Before anyone strings me up THINK about what I am saying.
If everyone there can go back into their huts and read what does it really do for them?
It is like having an impotence convention at the Playboy mansion. Damn I am really funny sometimes!
I mean if we teach them to read they still live in a fucking HUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So what do we do, give them a passport and bring them over here and give them healthcare????
Ok back to the healthy and educated.
Ok I have a college degree, even went to grad school for a year and a half. Ok did not finish got a job offer while still in school and took it and did not finish Masters. Ok everyone has heard a story like that no biggie.
But THINK before you type!
What IF EVERYONE was good looking.... Opps I meant what if everyone had a degree and was in tip top shape?
Who the hell would work at McDonalds?????????????
Hello, depending on how well one understands it we live in what I will call a capitalistic system.
I AM NOT AN ECONOMIST or a Politician, ok. So just let capitalistic system slide even though some dork who knows this stuff better than me has a more precise name for it.
Ok in a society where you can be a geek like Bill Gates and make riches literally beyond belief you GOT people that are not going to have shit.
So the reason Education POTENTIALLY has value is cause not everybody has it. That is the ONLY reson economically, potentially it has any worth. HELLO!
The bottom line this great country has ISSUES! We are still the best car in the train.
But we cannot be everything to everyone. You cannot live in a economically competitive society and have everyone have the same advantages they have to work to get and not have the ones who work not get the goodies.
I am not all that smart a guy. Ok stating the obvious. So what!!!! Maybe that is an advantage cause I am not thinking myself silly with ideas and possibilities and solutions that are not gonna work.
It is simple. If you have a burning desire, a dream, and I guess a great deal of luck or whatever you want to call it you can thrive here in America.
If that is so then you also have the possibility that you could end up fat, living in West Virginia banging your sister/wife.
So whoever thinks everyone being healthy and educamacated is a good idea, it is not. A sweet warm and fuzzy got a raging hard on nice idea. Yeah maybe, but some things sound great in theory and in practice are just a dog that ain't gonna hunt.
Shifterp OUT!
-- Modified on 7/10/2009 6:05:58 PM
I know you probably want more money, but try to leave that as a last option.
Just a side note though. Although it's laudable to get more kids into college, please understand that our institutions are running close to 100%. I wouldn't be surprised if our public universities are running @ 110%. And to add addtional pain, some public universities are reducing enrollment due to budget cuts. So even it we magically retooled and transformed our primary and secondary school system, where are we going to put them at that the next level.
Actually, I would have taken a portion of the stimulus money and allocated to the building a new public universities. I didn't see that in the stimulus.
Read the book "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell. There is a chapter about the KIPP Academy in NYC. An inner city school that works. It has nothing to do with more money, laptops, smaller size classes, but it does have to do with what happens over the summer. The lack of the right activities in the summer is the root cause of why kids in the inner city tend to fall behind its suburban peers.
Every few months I read a newspaper article or see something on television about a school that is doing really well. It is always a public school in a low income area where a huge number of kids are going to college for the first time in their family history.
None of these school have ever gotten huge influxes of money. Every one is a variation on the theme of school dress codes or uniforms, enforced manners, teachers who won't let kids get by with poor performances, increased discipline, return to basics of the three Rs, making sure the kids to homework, not excusing a lot of absences.
They run the story, and the rest of the schools do the same old, same old. Three months later - another story. The rest of the schools keep on keeping on.
On the other hand, Washington DC spends more on education than any other city in the nation. Obama sure don't want his kid going there. Complete failure.
Some city in Ohio (forget which) won a huge lawsuit for the schools and got a huge influx of tens of millions of dollars. Didn't improve performance any serious amount.
A billion dollars with no change in the way the school is run won't do anything. A change in they way it is run with no more money solves all the problems, again and again and again.
Depending on which sate. The biggest problem State Universities have is that, they spend a lot money on remedial classes.
Without good K-12, Universities can's help much.
Are those free summer activities ? Who pays for those summer activities?
read Chapter 8 on why Asians perform better in math, and for young children it has to do with the simplicity and regularity of their language when it comes to numbers.
Nationalism leads to all kinds of unsavory political attitudes. The notion that everyone pulls together to make the US great is bullshit.
First people need to define what a great civilization consists of. If that can be done , and its almost impossible to do, then a common goal can be defined. What will that be? We spread democracy throughout the world? More bullshit is what that is. If what the US attempts to spread is democracy and democracy is such a good thing why do we have to kill people to get them to accept it? What we attempt to spread is US capitalism and to most people it's poison.
I have no clue if you're fat, but reading your post, you gotta be drunk. One out of three is not bad.
Nope not fat or drunk. Sick of reading posts putting forth capitalism as nationalism though.
What we attempt to spread is economic domination so we can consume more of the resources than any other nation in the world.
Don't expect many to get the idea. Don't believe many has read about civilizations and history as much as you seem to have.
I think they know what i know but they endorse capitalist imperialism and are proud that it is the goal of US capitalists. They don't believe in any form of human equality or not any that will effect their perceived "way of life". They are guided by greed and a self righteous form of toxic nationalism.
is form of slavery to material things and designer goodies for which they work very very hard and don't have time to enjoy.
Selfishness coupled with material slavery leads to enormous personal debt and leads to psychotic drugs for which slaves are willing to pay dearly.
Material slavery leads low self esteem defined by designer clothes, shoes and fake jewelry and what not!
The capitalist's wealth is measured by how much labor it has available to exploit at any given time.
of cutlass swinging liberals huh?