Discuss the US Presidential Election & Education 1515
In 24 hours, many of you will be able to vote. So as we come down to the wire, this is really our last chance to talk about the issues. We've already discussed Health Care, the War, and the Economy. Today I'm opening up the floor to discuss education. Perhaps no other issue will matter more in 50 years. Which candidate will make the next generation smarter?
More Important Than "The War" in 50 Years? (Score:2, Informative)
We've already discussed Health Care, The War, and the Economy. Today I'm opening up the floor to discuss education. Perhaps no other issue will matter more in 50 years.
I would contend that if "The War" is still going on in 50 years (and I mean the Iraq war, not the "War on Terror" or "War on Drugs") it may well be more important than education right now. I'd like to think that it's not even possible but look at our involvement in the Korean War (or "Conflict"). While we're not losing troops like we used to be (did you know over 36,000 Americans have died supporting South Korea?) it's still going on.
Before anyone interjects with McCain's statements of 100 years in Iraq, get the facts (last section) [factcheck.org].
Also a quick reminder that people everywhere seem to just tuck away & forget: We're still at war. Americans are still dying on foreign soil. And the most surefire way to stop that is to remove them from that soil.
Intelligent Design (Score:5, Informative)
... belongs in the philosophy class, not science. Science is a set of facts seeking a conclusion to support them- Intelligent Design is a conclusion seeing a set of facts to support it.
In a philosophy or comparative religions class? Absolutely- go nuts! Be sure to include a whole bunch of other religious theory, including Hindu creation myths etc. Would be a fun class.
But as science? ... Do not want.
Re:Make them Pay (Score:1, Informative)
You sound like a very thoughtful, emotionally-stable person. Just the kind of person who should be choosing the next leader of the free world. When you said "fraud," were you talking about Democrats destroying the economy and pandering for votes by forcing banks to make loans to unqualified borrowers for homes they couldn't afford, and then resisting all attempts by Republicans to INCREASE regulation of Fannie Mae? Just wondering...
Re:McCain... (Score:5, Informative)
MAYBE Obama will get rid of NCLB, but I don't see him getting away from the typical left position of supporting the teachers' unions goals and just throwing money at education without real standards.
He plans on reforming it, not eliminating it. From his site [barackobama.com]:
Reform No Child Left Behind: Obama and Biden will reform NCLB, which starts by funding the law. Obama and Biden believe teachers should not be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests. He will improve the assessments used to track student progress to measure readiness for college and the workplace and improve student learning in a timely, individualized manner. Obama and Biden will also improve NCLB's accountability system so that we are supporting schools that need improvement, rather than punishing them.
What I emphasized does seem to align with your assessment of throwing money at the problem. Those are the best details I can come up with so don't ask me how he plans to improve accountability ... I wish he had thrown out some metrics or requirements that he was aiming for. But if he did that, we might be able to hold him to it!
Re:Make them Pay (Score:1, Informative)
4 years and a day.
Re:Make them Pay (Score:2, Informative)
Let us ignore that most (three out of four) of the faulty loans originated with private investment banks, and not with Fannie Mae or Freddy Mac -- that makes for a much more compelling straw man.
Re:Looking from afar... (Score:1, Informative)
"Intelligent" == at least one standard deviation above the median intelligence.
That's ~25% or less of the population, not enough to make the elections "never too close to call."
Federal government has little to do with education (Score:4, Informative)
Promises about improvement in education by federal politicians are pure pandering.
See this chart [ed.gov].
See how small a percent of education is actually funded by the federal government. It should be obvious that even significant changes to federal spending will have an insignificant effect. They spend in a whole year what they spend in Iraq in less than 3 months.
Re:Looking from afar... (Score:3, Informative)
The teaching of creationism is the least of America's education issues. We have a significant portion of high school graduates who are well behind their foreign counterparts in literacy and mathematics. The problem is so widespread that many universities have remedial courses to prep students for basic foundation classes in English and algebra.
Unfortunately, in many districts the parents are more interested in spending funding on new athletic facilities then on education.
Re:Looking from afar... (Score:5, Informative)
Palin's stance on creationism? You mean that evolution should be taught exclusively in science class, as it is in Alaska? And that there's nothing wrong with discussing alternative views, in an appropriate context, without putting them in the curriculum? What's wrong with that?
I'm a scientist. I think that intelligent design and creationism are hogwash. But because of America's foundation in religion, they are concepts that anyone will come across outside of school. I think they should be discussed, at the teacher's discretion, especially if a student brings up the question, but should not be mandated in the curriculum.
Palin said in one interview "teach both... don't be afraid of information". The next day she went on to clarify her position by saying that they shouldn't be part of the curriculum, but it's ok to discuss them if a student brings it up. Actually here's the exact quote: "I don't think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn't have to be part of the curriculum."
Re:Great plan you have for being competitive w/ Ch (Score:3, Informative)
You really think the federal government should be involved in the education of our children? There are over 13,000 school districts in the United States, each and every one of them with their own distinct needs and situations. What possible help could the federal government provide for them? The local government knows what is best for its students and should be the sole decision maker for them too. Interference from the federal (and even state) will just gets in the way because they're making decisions for millions of kids instead of just hundreds.
Re:Intelligent Design (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Make them Pay (Score:5, Informative)
They may have originated with those banks, but because Fannie and Freddie were buying up those mortgages and they had an implicit government guarantee. If Fannie and Freddie didn't exist, those private investment banks would not have had an irresponsible gov't entity to sell their questionable loans to, so they would have had to scrutinize their borrowers more.
Re:What is there to Debate? (Score:3, Informative)
In every political commercial that I've seen so far, both McCain AND Obama were throwing poo at each other.
All that post sounds like is propaganda, not any "informative" input.
Re:So is McCain (Score:3, Informative)
The actual number [pollingreport.com] is usually over 50%, depending on how the question is asked. In particular, over half of Americans support teaching Creationism alongside evolution in public schools.
Re:Mod parent down (Score:3, Informative)
Obama is slinging the mud faster than McCain, except Obama isn't doing the slinging? And yet Obama is slinging more mud? That's a bit of a contradiction there.
McCain is clearly slinging much more mud than Obama. Just lately you have the "Obama paling around with terrorist" speech, and the "if you don't vote McCain/Palin, you are not a real American" nonsense. This is in addition to nonsense like "Obama wants to teach children about sex" and similar lies. Sites like FactCheck.org all confirm that McCain has been far worse than Obama.
Is that so? Interesting. When did he apologize for Palin's terrorist remarks? When did he apologize for claiming that Obama wants to teach children about sex?
Re:What was Obama's GPA at Columbia? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Intelligent Design (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What was Obama's GPA at Columbia? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Make them Pay (Score:2, Informative)
Except that the collapse of the financial industry was exactly because they weren't selling to the Freddie and Fannie, who, if you remember, were actually explicitly guaranteed by the government months ago in what was then called a 'big government bailout', although obviously we had to rescale the word since this latest thing came along.
I'd like to understand the mental gymnastics that are required to blame this continuing mess on entities that, at this point, are full of government-backed demonstratively-good paper. We already fixed any possible GSE problems when they got pulled (back) into the government. Everyone who purchased their securities is fine, by law. How exactly are the GSEs causing problems...telepathy?
What actually caused the problem is that banks were taking loans that Freddie and Fannie wouldn't buy, assigning imaginary value to them and getting them magically rated as AAA and then trading them amongst themselves, a market that the Republicans (and Greenspan) insisted was an amazing example of unfettered-by-government free enterprise. The market went south, and they ended up losing more than just the 'bad mortgages'...because they were complete morons who had stopped rating anything and mixed it all together (easier to sell that way), none of them had any idea of what assets they had at all.
Re:Vote (Score:3, Informative)
Re:More Important Than "The War" in 50 Years? (Score:3, Informative)
Troops in Iraq: 152,850
Population of Chicago: 2,842,518
Casualties per thousand (Iraq) 1.8
Murders per thousand (Chicago) 0.14
Just thought I'd put that in perspective for you...
Re:Vote (Score:5, Informative)
Bob Barr / Wayne Root: Libertarian Party
Charles Baldwin / Darrell Castle: / Alaskan Independance Party, Reform Party
Cynthia McKinney / Rosa Clemente: Independent, Green Party
Ralph Nader / Matt Gonzalez: No Party Affiliation
You can check the facts yourself at VoteSmart.org [votesmart.org]
Re:You don't know what you're talking about (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Looking from afar... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not the Federal Government's Job (Score:3, Informative)
that cash makes a very big stick with which to put everybody in the line you want.
I spoke with some high school teachers here in Illinois. There is a fundamental flaw [chicagotribune.com] in the education funding system here. Schools are funded by local property taxes, so areas that have low home values have poor schools. All of the areas with high property values have rejected federal funding under NCLB. Schools in poor districts have accepted federal funding.
Which high school teachers complain? They all do. They always do. The high school teachers in the poor districts are complaining more than the ones in the rich districts, but that has always been the case. The federal government isn't going to fix it, only the state can.
The teachers I know say, the biggest improvement the poor schools can make is a complete repeal of the residency requirement [cps-humanresources.org] in the city of Chicago. You can't throw federal money at that problem. Only the local government can solve it.
Re:What was Obama's GPA at Columbia? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Looking from afar... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:So is McCain (Score:3, Informative)
Did evolutionary theory teach you to misrepresent others' positions? Or are you just naturally dishonest?
Re:Vote (Score:4, Informative)
You're a... wrong person (Score:5, Informative)
(Note my restraint)
In most districts, schools have a mandatory 165-180 day school year. With holidays and spring break, this makes for a school year of at least 9 months and often closer to 10. I know of no teacher that gets 4 months off for summer vacation. I have to believe you're just totally lying. Add to this, the fact that most teachers require a couple weeks to prepare for the start of the school year.
However, that doesn't really count here, since in most cases they're not paid for it.
I also knew a teacher who taught three classes and a study hall. He was getting paid $18K a year. Most teachers have a mandatory 7 hour work day with a 30 minute lunch. However, its common for teachers to spend 2-4 hours of time after the end of the school day preparing for the next.
I know a few teachers who'd love to show you where to put your head for implying that they were too lazy to try and get a second job to fill out those last four hours of spare time they have a day.
I suspect the real problem here is that you simply don't have a clue what you're talking about. You cherry picked an example which made you bitter and never used another neuron to think about it.
Re:Vote (Score:4, Informative)
No, you have it backwards. And reveal the downside of popular democracy. If everyone votes for their bests interests, not for the common good (however you choose to define it) then yeah, the morjority wants will be voted in everytime.
That's why the US is democratic republic. The people don't vote on every issue. The people vote for other people to represent their desires on various issues.
If you don't bother to vote for a representative, then what gives you the moral right to complain about the choices any of those representatives make?
Re:Intelligent Design (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Looking from afar... (Score:1, Informative)
I know this is a joke, but Republicans really are sending out leaflets that say this (obviously with "Democrats vote on the 5th"). Pretty messed up.
Re:What was Obama's GPA at Columbia? (Score:5, Informative)
I don't he's hiding anything, it took me 2 seconds to find it with google:
3.8 GPA ---Columbia Poly Sci major with a specialty in international relations.
4.0 GPA with high honors. ---Harvard Law
Re:What is there to Debate? (Score:2, Informative)
Q. Won't my employer drop coverage?
A. No. Employers who do not offer meaningful coverage to their employees will have to contribute a percentage of their payroll to help offset the cost of providing coverage to all Americans. In most cases, this will eliminate an employer's incentive to drop coverage. Some small employers will be exempt from this requirement.
Re:What was Obama's GPA at Columbia? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Vote (Score:5, Informative)
Yeaaaah... That's not how it works, remotely. Welfare doesn't pay out equal to a living wage, and doesn't remotely cover the expense of maintaining a child.
The fact remains, welfare isn't actually a significant drain on the average taxpayer. Social security, maybe, but social security benefits are specifically not based on poverty, and you stand to benefit from them as much as anyone else.
Reagan actually made up the example he used when he coined the term, and the fact is, while welfare fraud does exist, it's never been the TERRIFYING HORROR DISEASE that alarmist rhetoric has made it out to be.
Also, through both community work and less fortunate family members, I can tell you for certain that that is not how HUD housing works. The income does scale, but even with extremely low income (my mother has no steady work, my brother unemployed), they pay $750 in rent per month. Add to that that, if they find work that brings them up to the poverty line (collectively, not singly), they have to move out.
I very much hate to say this, but you are uninformed. Do actual research. If you're interested, I can find the names of good books on the subject for you; I don't have them off the top of my head.
Re:Vote (Score:5, Informative)
To my knowledge this claim has been debunked [mediamatters.org], and the Obama campaign still firmly stands behind the original $250,000 cutoff.
If you don't want to believe them, that's fine, and another issue altogether; but this crap about "surrogates" is ridiculous. The Obama campaign has been clear and stable on their plans from the time they laid them out until now, all that's changing is how other people are talking about them or interpreting them (in particular, the press to some extent misinterpreted the original plan and presented it as a lot more win-win than it was). Regardless, Gov. Richardson has no authority to set Obama's policy, so I don't know why anyone considers that statement in any way indicative of Obama's stance.
Frankly I don't care about whether anyone got a tax cut under Clinton - whatever he did, his tenure in office resulted in one of the most steady periods of economic growth that this country has ever seen, so his policies were clearly within the bounds of what we require to thrive (not to attribute the success of his economy to his policies or the failure of ours today to Bush's, though - I don't think presidential policy ultimately has a very large effect on the economy, at least in any predictable way, to be perfectly honest - if there was such an effect, we could calculate the "right" answer to these political questions, but every calculation I've seen comes up with a different result, so there's just way too much interpretation involved to be sure that there's any causative effect at all). I think that's the most we can hope for.
I'm not sure if Obama will cross that line or not; I suppose you probably think he will, and I sympathize a bit with that fear. It's not so much that I think his stated policies are over the line (we've had other periods with parameters at those levels and we came through them just fine), but that I worry that a full Democrat Congress will push things even further, to a ridiculous point. I half expect that things may get so nutso that we'll swing the other direction four years from now and play political ping-pong for the rest of my life, each party screwing the country further into the ground with each tap of the paddle.
Where's the freaking reasonable middle when you need it? Sheesh!
Re:Vote (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Vote (Score:3, Informative)
Nope, you misheard, or are deliberately spreading lies. Obama said, he will not raise taxes on people making less than $250,000 per year. That has never changed. He also said there would be a tax break for people making under $200,000 a year. That hasn't changed either. Other Democrats have said various things about who is in the middle class, but a.) Obama never pegged his tax plans to some arbitrary and undefined 'class,' but to specific income levels and b.) who gives a hoot what other Democrats claim, they aren't going to be president, Obama is.
In the end, you win. You got your propaganda out and modded +5, despite having no evidence. The people who countered your absurd claims have not been modded up, so people will see your lies more easily than the many refutations of those lies. Congratulations. Too bad for you, it isn't going to do squat to get grampa elected.
Re:Looking from afar... (Score:2, Informative)
Taking things people say out of context is fun and all but isn't really honest. Obama was speaking about having a larger Peace Corps and helping veterans find employment in organizations like the Peace Corps. Of course all of the far right pundits jump on this and completely misrepresent Obama's words. How about you listen to the actual speech instead of latching on to lies and spreading FUD.
Here is the excerpt in context for anyone who actually wants the truth instead of this bullshit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9Q5dZClz8g [youtube.com]
Re:Vote (Score:2, Informative)
I started this thread. I live in such a state and I feel your pain.
You go vote because
Whatever works for you. Just go vote, ok?