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?
How do you grade performance? (Score:5, Interesting)
Tell me, how do you "grade" teachers? Why can't you simply go to your PTA meetings and your teacher in service meetings and be a responsible parent and know what your children are doing?
The reason i don't want teacher "appraisals" outside of what a school district does in and of itself is because some people would rate teachers poorly because they're not christian enough, not moral enough or not forcing "family values" enough or other non public educational focused education based issues.
Start by giving teachers livable wages, start by funding real programs that put books, science and math into students hands. Start challenging and teaching kids AT school. Get away from homework, let kids live a life after school and make school about learning.
BTW, if the middle class is doing better, so will the schools. Fix it from the bottom up, not top down.
Obama'08
Use home-schoolers' experience (Score:2, Interesting)
After years of unsatisfactory experiences in the government schools, we took our kids out to teach them ourselves. We learned there's a thriving and successful community of home-schoolers, who could teach the various school systems a thing or two about pedagogy.
When others her age were getting a (worthless) high-school diploma, our eldest daughter was getting her first associates degree. She earned her second the next year, and will have a bachelors at the age of 20 -- a half-decade or more ahead of her peers. And, while bright, she is not one of those prodigies one occasionally reads about: just a normal student with the advantage of a sensible education.
Of course, home-schoolers are hated by those who perpetuate the regime of government schooling, and, since Obama is firmly in the pocket of the most ardent defenders of the unearned privileges of those who profit from the status quo, we can expect to see home-schooling outlawed in the next few months. After all, children educated by their parents are less likely to be indoctrinated to be ardent followers of The One.
Re:Looking from afar... (Score:4, Interesting)
In the end, I couldn't care less about the creation myths others have, even our President. After 6 Republican Presidential terms, they still haven't managed to overturn Roe.v.Wade.
On the other hand, taxes are never found unconstitutional, and rarely reduced significantly. The only way to avoid them is to never increase them.
I vote my financial self interest, and regardless of what the Obama propaganda is it has nothing to do with $250k [foxnews.com]
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Re:I think that... (Score:3, Interesting)
And anything to throw out the "No Child Left Behind" system!
It creates a situation where special needs kids are being pushed out of the publish school systems because the act has no accommodation for them, and thus they drag down the scores for schools and schoolboards. So they don't loose their funding, schools only provide the minimal of what the law requires of them, and the kids suffer unless their parents can afford to put them into private schools. It's cruel!
ttyl
Farrell
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Re:It's easy, just think logically. (Score:2, Interesting)
Your "logical" argument assumes the same students attend each of these classes of schools. Without matching initial conditions, your analysis is fundamentally flawed.
There is a large population of unmotivated students, students that may feel like there is no hope for them in American society. A win by Obama may provide a modern hero for some of these same kids.
I dare to hope that the result of this election triggers a new surge in academic interest relating to public policy (loosely matching the surge in math and science interest from the space race).
Re:Vote (Score:3, Interesting)
So you need to take other steps, such as lobbying for a system you like, and make it clear that's why you refuse to vote. Do some action, whether it's writing the politicians you disagree with least, or passing out paper, getting signatures on petitions, or explaining to interested people how you would do away with the winner takes all systems, or whatever. Do it looking like a nut on a soapbox if you must, or find more professional looking ways, but do it.
I voted early this year, and there was a couple there who went in and voted as I was waiting, then took up positions beyond the 100 foot line and passed out fliers, while explaining they had voted in the local election, but had not voted for the presidential and vice presidential offices because they were opposed to the electoral college.
Do something, and your opinion will count again, you will be entitled to complain, and you'll still have several years to regret what happens, but at least you can feel you're less responsible than the lazy people who did nothing.
Re:Looking from afar... (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's start with these pages, shall we? (Score:3, Interesting)
Both Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama agree that education needs to be thoroughly reformed.
Who needs education aimed at making the students cram for tests only for the ego of the schools? What good is it if your child forgets everything after them? That doesn't help at all. This, to me, is the core of the issue. Rankings. As an aside, No Child Left Behind makes extensive use of those, to determine which schools should get additional funding.
What I'd like to see is a school system that doesn't focus so much on rankings, fudging scores to get a higher one, pressuring the underprivileged and underscoring to drop out in the process. Those people deserve undiscriminating education too, and equal access to education is something both candidates advocate.
The parents who got complacent will (hopefully) get going with this one, too! Choice quotes from each candidate:
McCain [johnmccain.com] Parental involvement is critical to the success of any pre-K program. Current federal programs will be focused on educating parents on the basics of preparing their children for a productive educational experience. These programs will place an emphasis on reading and numbers skills, as well as nutrition and general health. Reinforcing to parents the fundamental importance of reading to their children as a primary way of expanding their vocabulary and preparing their young minds to learn will be emphasized at every level.
Obama [barackobama.com] (PDF warning) Investing in early childhood education during the infant and toddler years is particularly critical. Though parents remain the first teachers for our children, an increasing number of infants and toddlers spend significant parts of their day with caretakers other than their parents. In addition to ensuring that child care is accessible and affordable, we must do more to ensure that it is high quality and provides the early education experiences our children need.
Both agree that a child's education starts with the parents' involvement in it. It's common sense to some, I'll admit, but:
Obama Research shows that early experiences shape whether a child's brain develops strong skills for future learning, behavior and success. Without a strong base on which to build, children, particularly disadvantaged children, will be behind long before they reach kindergarten. Investing in early learning also makes economic sense. For every one dollar invested in high quality, comprehensive programs supporting children and families from birth, there is a $7-$10 return to society in decreased need for special education services, higher graduation and employment rates, less crime, less use of the public welfare system, and better health.
The schools have a responsibility in children's education, but then so do the parents! And not just for education, either. Providing healthy food to one's child(ren) is essential to their proper development. Care and affection given to one's child(ren) cannot be replaced by anyone else, and is also essential.
The Govt has a role, but it's not the silver bullet.
(Disclaimer: I'm Canadian, but I'm quite interested in this election.)
Re:Looking from afar... (Score:5, Interesting)
That is, frankly, because your libertarian views are stupid.
No, seriously. "Libertarianism' is a scam invented by the rich, who want the government to only do things that benefit them and no one else. (Like run a police force and court system, to keep people from stealing their shit or living on their land for free.)
They hide this by making claims about the 'original' purpose of government, which is, in fact, exactly that, to protect the rich, although they won't come out and say that.
More to the point, they then make the rather absurd claim that they should get this while paying as little taxes as possible.
While a large percentage of Americans haven't figured out the premise of the party and have a sort of grudging respect for it as the underdog, under no circumstances do they actually want to implement those policies.
Thus libertarians who actually show up and debate on their views for the general election get smashed, and that normally applies to the primaries too, although we saw a fun exception with Ron Paul doing pretty good with some viewers because the GOP has gone so spectacularly off the rails in a different way.
But if Ron Paul had show up against Obama, he would have been crushed. Probably more than McCain, even with the advantage of being able to actually present himself as separate from the Republican Party and without making such a dumb VP choice.
Re:Smarter... collectively (Score:3, Interesting)
Take for instance the no-bid contracts for haliburton in Iraq... [globalpolicy.org]
Why Obama is WRONG for America (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Vote (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmm... As someone who's served the country to ensure you have a right to vote I have to agree. You have a right to vote, even an arguably moral reason to vote, but the electoral system is so fraught with insanity that your vote truly means little.
This does not, in my mind, absolve one of their duty to vote. I consider it my duty to vote (and at least bitch enough in the many emails that I send to my congress critters) and hope that the remainder of the citizens feel the same way. It's a false hope, let's not go there. Allow me some shards of hope.
I do discount the opinion of those who don't vote. I don't go so far as to say that they're not entitled to an opinion. I just say that I'm entitled to not listen to their opinion or to not give their opinion as much weight as I would if they'd shown themselves to be an active participant in this so-called democracy.
Voting doesn't do shit in the larger scale other than give us the illusion of having accomplished the task of making our opinion known. This is, to me, true and yet I still vote. I'm all for changing the system but until it is changed I will cast my vote.
On the idea of accomplishing something...
Voting and protesting...
Letters and marches...
Emails and lobbying...
Those haven't done much in the past few years.
A million man march wouldn't even phase Washington D.C. these days. So... I've been thinking, a dangerous act, and I have a solution but we might get arrested.
Get a million people WITH cars together. During rush hour, downtown, when they're breaking for a holiday, drive into the city from the direction you came from and drive as far as you can into it until the gridlock stops you. Get out of our vehicles and stand there or simply sit in your vehicle and hold your horn button down. Do so until we have press coverage.
Re:How do you grade performance? (Score:1, Interesting)
You're completely right.
I'm at math professor at a university and I believe the problem with science and math at the public school level is that good scientists have to be willing to sacrifice A LOT to teach. Take, for instance, Texas (where I got my Ph.D.). A public school teacher is likely making $30-40K (if they're lucky), while if I'm a talented mathematician, I can go work for Exxon Mobil or Chevron making $70-80K to start.
I know it's not just about money, but at least increasing teaching salaries to a reasonable amount will make the choice between teaching and industry a lot more difficult for many scientists. Higher salary means more teachers, which means schools can have a choice of who to hire (or fire!), which leads to better teachers.
Re:American School, Student Speaking (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Vote (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is that since the elections are always very close by those standards (even this one), most states would split their vote X vs X+1 every single election, which makes your state nearly meaningless. Unless your state had a huge number of electoral votes, like CA, where you might get X vs X+2 or +3. Still, nearly meaningless.
A better system is all or nothing electoral votes, BUT they are selected in each state by instant run-off. This would require no change to the U.S. constitution to implement.
Re:Vote (Score:3, Interesting)
Close. It's not the system itself that sucks, its the public that sucks. George Carlin [youtube.com] explains it pretty well.
Re:Vote (Score:2, Interesting)
"If you decline to vote, then you really have no recourse to complain about the results of that process, do you?"
I have no right to complain that I'm being pushed around by a system I declined to participate in? I think I have every right to complain about that. Why do people keep telling me this?
Is this kind of like telling a woman she has no right to complain about her black eye after you've raped her because she had her chance to go along with it? That doesn't make and sense to me.
Re:Vote (Score:5, Interesting)
And yet, when two countries are on the brink of war, we use diplomacy to come to a mutually agreed outcome, not voting. Huh. It would be absurd to vote - what if the population of one country was twice that of the other? How come in that situation it is instantly obvious that "winner takes all" voting is unfair, while within a country it's seen as fair?
My preference is not for laws to govern millions of people, anyway. It is for localised governance at a scale that people can join in and actually have a say that makes a difference to their own community. As a country expands and a population increases, the size of each council should stay the same, but there should be more of them. So you don't have one law for the entire country - so what? Many of the problems in society are due to the fact that there is nowhere else to go - everywhere is the same. I'd like to live somewhere with sane drug and privacy laws, and I don't want to have to leave my country to do that. We need to wake people up to the fact that laws are made up, and we can change them if we want to.
Re:Looking from afar... (Score:3, Interesting)
As an American, my observation is that too many Americans are simpletons that need black/white answers to questions. What's the cause of our terrible record in education? It couldn't be a number of factors, the finger of blame must point at one specific thing, otherwise it's just too confusing to the American public, who is more concerned with who won American Idol anyway.
Parents point at teachers, teachers point at parents....
My view:
1. There is already enough money going to education, but it's being spent wrong.
2. Parents are to blame, in part. There's nothing you can do about this (*).
3. Teachers are to blame, in part. There IS something you can do about this.
4. Culture is to blame. There's nothing you can do about this.
(*) My children, who already excel in school, continuously get homework sent home that tries to get the parent involved. I already check their homework... but how is a family where both parents work all day supposed to participate in doing homework? Sorry... I had my 20 years (including grad school). I don't do homework anymore. My parent's participation ended at making sure I did it and creating an environment that stressed the importance of education, not one that forced it on us.
I will say this... it used to be that a single parent worked. Over taxation caused many families to require two incomes to maintain standard of living. So noodle this: tax people more to spend on education, but that requires a second income and therefore less time a parent can spend helping children with schoolwork. Law of unintended consequences?
I'm sick of people using the "law" of unintended consequences as an excuse... it may have been unintended, but it wasn't unknown. Anyone with an IQ above plant life could have noodled it out long before it became a problem.
Look at all the other unintended consequences of high taxation... undisciplined kids, resulting in higher crime rates and drug use; the collapse of the nuclear family, higher incidences of obesity as parents resort to fast or prepared food instead of taking the time to make healthy meals...
Unintended, but not unknown.
Re:If I don't vote I can't complain? (Score:3, Interesting)
I thought the First Amendment allowed me to bitch until my heart is content.
By choosing not to vote I *am* making my statement: I don't like the candidates or the system.
If you think the First Amendment gives you the right to bitch, but you don't like the system that gives you that right?
I will assume you mean the dual-party system that is in place?
Personally, I like Washington's quote about parties in his farewell address
GEORGE WASHINGTON, Farewell Address, Sep. 17, 1796
However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
Re:Education is just one important factor. (Score:3, Interesting)
"Obama did say that I agree with is that there's 'no government program that can replace an involved parent.'"
Unless they are homeschooling, or want to use their portion of tax dollars to send their kids to a different school. That's *too* involved. Unless they don't feel it appropriate for their kids to attend Pre-K. They shouldn't be too comfortable raising their own kids when Big Brother can do it in a much more socially responsible manner.
"you have to stop encouraging the creationists and other similar anti-science people"
People can practice their religion, but only if it doesn't conflict with my beliefs. When they send their kids to school, we should tell them that their God is false and that he did not create the world, and that their Holy Book was a fabrication by very dead conspirators. In the name of furthering Science, of course.
"sending only the smart kids to college and giving the non-smart ones jobs appropriate to their abilities"
So now *we* send kids to college? Funny, I thought that it was there decision whether to take out loans and go to school. Reminds me of another system that used to tell people what their careers would be.
"most of that money just sits in the bank/market for decades"
You realize that money doesn't "sit" anywhere unless it is in your mattress? It gets loaned out, invested, and used. You hope to get more back than you had when you started. Even a basic savings account provides others with the ability to take out mortgages and such, open businesses, etc. But those are bad things. After all, we can just have the government employ everyone to get the things that need to be done, done. To each, according to his need. Right?
"We need someone who can recognize that we might be #2, #5 or #9 in 20 years' time and learn to live alongside everyone else."
We are not nearly as good as we think we are. It's someone else's turn to run the world. Someone with a better track record, like India or China.
"Until costs really get bad"
Yeah. They will get better when everyone is a guaranteed payer of a large medical bill every year (enforced medicare, whose costs are already crushing budgets in our communities, despite being so "efficient")
It seems to me you might be interested in switching parties. Take a look at CP USA - seems they share your platform:
http://www.cpusa.org/article/static/511/#question29 [cpusa.org]
Before you go off on the fact that I am calling you a communist, please realize that you are slapping the label on yourself. In fact, I will go so far as to say that you know your own proclivities, and are just not labelling them to submarine those "Capitalist overlords".
Re:It's easy, just think logically. (Score:2, Interesting)
Read "parents who care about education" as "Children who want to learn" and you've got it right.
As an adult who went to private school all my life with the exception of a state university, I can honestly say that is not the case. I knew PLENTY of kids who didn't give two shits about their education while in private school. The reason they stayed in? Money. Their parents threw money at the school, and the student stayed in. No matter where you go, there will always be motivated students willing to learn, and unmotivated students, who don't care. Private or public.
Re:It's easy, just think logically. (Score:4, Interesting)
3. Private schools get to choose who they admit and keep, which allows them to only teach smart, well-behaved, native English speakers with parents who care about education.
I presume you have extensive experience with private schools on which to base this analysis? Or are you just spouting something you heard elsewhere, and thought sounded good? I thought so.
The reality is that some private schools do that, but not all and not, IMO, the best ones.
The best school any of my kids went to was a private school that *specialized* in problem cases and was founded by parents who started by homeschooling their severely disabled (but brilliant) son because the public schools failed him. Unable to give him the time he needed and still hold down jobs, they decided to take in other students and start a school, using their large home plus some "portables" in the back yard.
When it became clear the public schools were failing my son, we found a way to come up with the tuition for the private school and were surprised to find that it required far less of our attention to his education than the public school had. In fact, his private school teachers tried not to assign homework, and the principal provided reports on behavior issues, but handled them herself. The school also had a large number of native Spanish-speaking children, and used this fact to help all of the English-speaking children learn Spanish (Spanish was part of their curriculum in every year, K-6).
The school's students consistently averaged in the 80th percentile on standardized tests, in spite of an overabundance of kids with major learning disabilities, so academic quality was excellent. The kids were happy -- my son LOVED that school. The key to their success was hiring excellent teachers, keeping class sizes very small (NO class larger than 10 students, and most smaller) and ignoring all of the administrative overhead found in public schools. All of the teachers took a pay cut when they left the public school system, but they were okay with that because it was a much more rewarding environment to teach in.
Oh, and the final nail in the coffin for public schools, as far as I'm concerned: The tuition for this fantastic school is 20% LESS than what the state spends every year. And tuition includes all books, paper, school supplies, TWO hot meals per day (breakfast and lunch), field trips, etc. We never paid a penny more than the $3500 tuition. The only thing the school didn't provide was bus service, but the school had extended "latch key" hours before and after class so that working parents could drop their kids off on the way to work and pick them up on the way home.
The state spends $5000 per year per student for the public schools, and that doesn't include the $500+ per year that parents are expected to come up with for meals, book fees, school supplies, field trip fees, extra-curricular activities, etc. It does include bus service, though.
If we want to improve education in this country, we need to break the monopoly held by the inefficient, bureaucratic and ineffective public schools. We need vouchers, to introduce some competition.
BTW, the school I'm talking about is only K-6, so my son moved into the public Junior High for 7th grade. We tried it for two years, but realized that the public schools were continuing to fail him, that the only education he was getting was what we (my wife, really) taught him in the evenings at home, so this year we've switched to homeschool, and he's once again getting an education.