EPTPretty detailed FAQ on common core here.
US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1495
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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please. In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. | ||
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JonnyBNoHo
United States6277 Posts
Pretty detailed FAQ on common core here. | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
Supreme Court justice and pop culture icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg left the hospital yesterday after having a heart stent implanted and expects to be back at work Monday. Despite various health issues over the years, Ginsburg insists that she is still of sound body at age 81 (her mind isn’t in question) and has no plans to retire before the end of President Obama’s term to ensure a Democratic replacement. If she keeps to that pledge, and presuming there are no other retirements in the next two years, the makeup of the Supreme Court could be a bigger campaign issue in 2016 than ever before. It certainly ought to be. Ordinarily, the Supreme Court is brought up almost as an afterthought in presidential campaigns. The potential for a swing in the court is used to motivate activists to volunteer and work hard, and the candidates usually have to answer a debate question or two about it, which they do in utterly predictable ways (“I’m just going to look for the best person for the job”). We don’t usually spend a great deal of time talking about what a change in the court is likely to mean. But the next president is highly likely to have the chance to engineer a swing in the court. The consequences for Americans’ lives will probably be more consequential and far-reaching than any other issue the candidates will be arguing about. As much as we’ve debated Supreme Court cases in recent years, we haven’t given much attention to the idea of a shift in the court’s ideology because for so long the court has been essentially the same: divided 5-4, with conservatives having the advantage yet liberals winning the occasional significant victory when a swing justice moves to their side. And though a couple of recent confirmations have sparked controversy (Samuel Alito and Sonia Sotomayor were both the target of failed attempts to derail their nominations), all of the retirements in the last three presidencies were of justices from the same general ideology as the sitting president. The last time a new justice was radically different from the outgoing one was when Clarence Thomas replaced Thurgood Marshall — 23 years ago. Whether a Democrat or a Republican wins in 2016, he or she may well have the chance to shift the court’s ideological balance. Ginsburg is the oldest justice at 81; Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy are both 78, and Stephen Breyer is 76. If the right person is elected and the right justice retires, it could be an earthquake. Source | ||
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IgnE
United States7681 Posts
On November 30 2014 02:11 JonnyBNoHo wrote: Implementation seems to be the biggest issue with Common Core currently. Lots of teachers are unhappy with the transition (7 out of 10, according to NPR), and the need for new textbooks and materials has rushed the process and lead to lots and lots of derping. Visual math, or whatever it's called, isn't required by Common Core, but in the rush to meet standards a lot of schools adopted visual math because there were a lot of common-core aligned textbooks that used visual math. Pretty detailed FAQ on common core here. The thing I'm most outraged about from that link is that Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point is an exemplary text. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23259 Posts
On November 30 2014 02:11 JonnyBNoHo wrote: Implementation seems to be the biggest issue with Common Core currently. Lots of teachers are unhappy with the transition (7 out of 10, according to NPR), and the need for new textbooks and materials has rushed the process and lead to lots and lots of derping. Visual math, or whatever it's called, isn't required by Common Core, but in the rush to meet standards a lot of schools adopted visual math because there were a lot of common-core aligned textbooks that used visual math. Pretty detailed FAQ on common core here. Again having studied math using it, and learned about the pedagogy itself, it's not surprising at all that implementation would be the biggest hurdle. Like I said my own math professor hated it, until he didn't. It took most of the class up until the final weeks of the course before the vast majority of the class finally understood how and why the new pedagogy worked (pretty much everyone hated it to start with). What changed most peoples minds is when they actually watched it being taught (to kids who hdan't been conditioned with the ''old style') in a real life classroom over several weeks by an instructor who understood it. Until you've sat in on some classes where it's being used, by someone who knows how to use it, it's hard to have a clue what one is talking about. Did you wan't to take a stab at answering my previous questions to you? Or the question of what specific standards conservatives object to (since Intro made it clear that in his opinion Creationism isn't one, although he didn't say anything about abstinence only not being a major reason or what would be?)? But as to the 'Federal' tip From your link: 5) What was the federal government's role in creating the Common Core? This is probably the biggest single source of controversy surrounding the Common Core. The truth is, the federal government played no role in creating the standards, nor did it require that states adopt them. But the U.S. Department of Education under President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan did incentivize adoption. I am starting to think much (not all) of the opposition on the right is based on ignorance of what CC is and what the associated pedagogies are intended to accomplish. I hear complaints constantly about 'the standards' but no one can articulate which standards have them so concerned (other than the ones I mentioned). Constant chatter about how the feds couldn't/shouldn't come up with the standards, even though they didn't, etc... | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
btw it is not true that spending is not the problem for education. with a severe distribution and efficiency problem the aggregate spending level is not informative. leaving aside the efficiency problem, it is undeniably true that poorer districts in terms of education funding, as well as less well funded state schools, are facing great challenges. this is a spending problem, but your aggregate numbers won't be able to identify it as such. | ||
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Impervious
Canada4200 Posts
Right now, there is a big divide in the USA, and to a lesser but still noticeable extent in Canada. Minorities are treated like shit relative to white people. Anyone who is poor or not white is at a severe disadvantage overall. I see it on a daily basis, and it's rather sickening. I try not to be racist or classist, because I believe everyone should be treated equally regardless of skin colour, gender, sexual orientation, or anything else, but I will admit that I'm not perfect. I honestly believe that the current state of affairs shows that capitalism is a failed experiment. I know that a common response to that line of thinking is that "you should get an education, or do something to better yourself". The simple truth is that, when you're struggling to pay rent and put food on the table, those opportunities to better yourself that other people take for granted are simply not available, nor practical for you. In my view, the ideal society would be somewhere between a meritocracy and a socialist society, where there are rewards for being really good at what you do and doing useful things for society as a whole, yet there is a common minimum standard that is available to everyone, no matter what, and that minimum is enough to enable to you to actually do what you want to do (within reason, of course). Take this joke, for instance: + Show Spoiler + A college physics professor was explaining a particularly complicated concept to his class when a pre-med student interrupted him. 'Why do we have to learn this stuff?' one young man blurted out. 'To save lives,' the professor responded before continuing the lecture. A few minutes later the student spoke up again. 'So how does physics save lives?' The professor stared at the student for a long time without saying a word. Finally the professor concluded, 'Physics saves lives,' he said, 'because it keeps the idiots out of medical school. When I first heard that a teenager in Ferguson was shot and killed while unarmed, I felt like the cop should be criminally convicted for that action. That kind of action by the police is completely unacceptable, regardless of the race of the cop or the victim. Then I heard that witnesses were claiming that Michael Brown was shot in the back, or with his hands up, or that he was shot several times, and it reaffirmed my belief. When I heard about the protests that were going to be held, I was hopeful that there could be a positive resolution from this. Then things got violent. I absolutely cannot condone looting and destruction of property as a result of what happened. Yes, it is tragic that a young man died, and yes I do realize that 95+% of people at the protests are there with peaceful intents, but destroying other people's property is unacceptable. The peaceful protestors, whether intentional or not, seem to get in the way of the police force and firefighters in their attempts to protect people's safety and property during these protests. That kind of action forced an escalation by the state, which has a duty to protect people and their property, and has led to bigger and more violent confrontations. The city looks more like a warzone now. It's disgusting. Then the grand jury decided not to indict the officer, and the details about how the prosecutor seemed to prosecute the victim in this case were made public and were on news stations virtually everywhere. It was fucking horrifying. I couldn't believe it. So I did some research. As much as I was horrified by the situation, I needed to find out how they justified their decision. I found the NYT article about what happened, and the release of all the documents from case. NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/08/13/us/ferguson-missouri-town-under-siege-after-police-shooting.html?_r=0 Documents: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/11/25/us/evidence-released-in-michael-brown-case.html?_r=0 Some of the details are really shocking. I had no idea that not only did Michael Brown steal and physically assault the owner of that convenience store at first, nor did he assault the police officer, but also all those witnesses who claimed Michael Brown had his hands up when he was shot, or was shot in the back while running away basically confessed to perjury after confronted with the physical evidence. Looking at the evidence (I spent several hours over the course of a couple of days looking at this), I started to realize that the officer was not nearly as reckless as I initially thought. A lot of people are up in arms about how he shot an unarmed person. "Unarmed" doesn't equal "not dangerous" though, and the law recognizes this fact. I spent several years studying a stream of Akido specializing on sparring, and I've taken many classes on both weapons training, and defending against weapons. Having a baton against an unarmed person does not guarantee victory, no matter how well you are trained..... You can be a danger even while unarmed. Hell, virtually every month you hear of a story where someone is killed as the result of a single punch..... I don't like getting in fights, because you don't know what's going to happen, and a street fight is nowhere near as safe as a sparring match or organized fight where there are rules. I've had people try putting fingers in my eyes in fights, and I have had a knife pulled on me on two occasions, even though I'd never do the same to them (and I've been lucky and never had any serious injuries from fights I've been in)..... In this situation, the officer has a gun, and should he get into physical combat with someone and lose, and not have backup nearby, suddenly the other person has potential to control the gun, and that's a very, very bad situation to be in. And, honestly, there was no way for the officer to tell if Michael Brown actually had something like a small knife until it would have been too late. I'll link a youtube video that explains quite well how a gun only really works if you have range, and can be a liability otherwise: This shooting in Ferguson was far from an ideal outcome of the situation. A young man lost his life, and shouldn't have. But given the situation of already being assaulted by the victim, and non-lethal options being not the most reliable, and him charging at the officer, coupled with a very short time to make a decision on what to do, I can understand why the officer pulled the trigger. It's a terrible situation, but I can understand it. I really, really hope this results in better non-lethal options, and more importantly, I really hope this brings attention to the fact that the officer was alone. I honestly believe the best way to prevent this from ever occurring again is to have cops travel in pairs. It's one thing to try to assault a single officer, it's a completely different story to assault 2 at once. And if the officer knows he has backup already there to assist him, he can take more risks with non-lethal options should there be any confrontation. But looking at how police forces are currently setup, I don't see that possible. The last several years has shown a shift in culture from traveling in pairs to traveling solo, because it's much more efficient for the force to be able to obtain very fast reaction times if they are more spread out. According to the NYT article, Ferguson has 53 officers. Of those, I'm sure that half of them at any given time are going to be tied up with training or paperwork and administration duties. I know police officers in Canada who have told me that it's rather ridiculous how much stuff goes on that people don't see. Of those that are not tied up, only approximately 1/4 will actually be capable of being on patrol at any given moment. There's 168 hours in a week, and divided by a 40 hour workweek, that's 4 shifts, roughly. That means, out of the 53 officers in the force, only 6-7 are going to be on patrol at any given moment, and expected to patrol an area that encompasses 20 000+ people. That is a ridiculous expectation, and when being expected to have very short reaction times to calls, I can completely understand why they feel the need to ride solo in order to respond to calls in short periods of time and be able to cover as much distance as possible. Unfortunately, riding solo also raises risks for officers and I'm sure also contributes to many of these unfortunate deaths that have been occurring. There are massive flaws with the system, and these need to be addressed. In my view, police budgets should be significantly expanded to give them the manpower necessary to do the job that's expected of them, because it would be in the best interest of the officers themselves, as well as the public as a whole. While it is tragic that a young man lost his life because of this, and I do not believe that the officer should be convicted of a criminal offense when systemic issues had such a large effect on the outcome and when you consider the actions of the victim in this situation (civil is a different story, and is well warranted in my opinion). However, it is not my decision to make, that decision is for a jury of his peers to make. And it is the job of the DA to convene with the grand jury to decide on what charge to lay, it is not the DA's decision to display the victim as the criminal. There should have been an indictment in this situation. But there wasn't. And, in all honestly, this might be the best situation for the movement at the moment, for a few reasons. First is that this was really, really transparent relative to any other case. This case shows flaws in how the system is used relative to how it is supposed to be used. I really, really hope there is an appeal, and that it is successful, and I also hope that charges are filed against the DA for misuse of the criminal justice system. It's also a great source of information and proof for the FBI investigation that is going on and is looking into systemic racism. Another perk is that many of the witnesses that admitted to perjury were not charged for it. Had the DA done his job properly and this went to trial, those witnesses would have went to a criminal trial and committed perjury, and I doubt any judge would let them get away with that..... That could have seriously discredited the movement and would have really, really hurt their chances at a fair trial. Hell, had the DA done his job properly and the grand jury came out with the decision to not indict Wilson and cited those legal precedents as the reasons for it, I'm sure things would have worked out better than they currently are going. The justice system is not perfect and never will be. For some people, cutting off a thief's hands is a punishment that they see fitting the crime, while on the opposite side of the spectrum, jail time for possession of marijuana seems ludicrous. Ultimately, it has to treat people equally, and currently it is not. Incarceration rates, homicide rates, even comparing jail time and fines for equivalent crimes depending on the race and socio-economic factors shows that some groups are far worse off than others. Social mobility is falling. Society has some big issues that need fixing. Protesting that fact is something that is completely necessary. The problem is that this movement has turned this case into an all-or-nothing situation. Either this man is guilty in their eyes, or the criminal justice system is a farce. The criminal justice system must not be allowed to be affected by the views of an angry mob, though, it must take an unemotional and logical analysis of the information and make an appropriate decision. While the current system is not fair, history has proven that doing anything else is much, much worse. While the system could use changes to hold police more accountable for their actions, changing the laws and convicting a man of a crime when his actions happened at a time before those laws were changed is not the way to do it. Making an example out of him in this way is not the proper way to do it. Even if that was an appropriate action, out of the many times a black man is killed by police every year, this particular case is not a good choice when you look at the evidence of what happened. Maybe the actions of the officer sound reckless, and maybe he is a racist asshole, but his actions at that specific moment are what needs to be put on trial, and those actions may well have been reasonable in that specific scenario. This situation is deepening the divide in the country, and is making things spiral out of control. The violence in Ferguson has gotten much worse, and even though it is a minority of the protesters responsible for it, in my opinion these actions are still completely unacceptable. "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind". This situation is like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object, and I don't see a way where there will be an agreeable resolution.  | ||
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Jaaaaasper
United States10225 Posts
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Stratos_speAr
United States6959 Posts
The problem is much more complex. Police departments waste quite a bit of the money they get, the culture in police forces is really F'd up, the type of people they hire is very questionable, etc. There are a number of things that need to be addressed before we just throw more money at the problem. | ||
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NovaTheFeared
United States7224 Posts
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zlefin
United States7689 Posts
Some places probably don't have enough administrative assistants though, to cover paperwork that doesn't need to be done by someone trained enough to be a field officer. I wonder how hard it is to observe stuff like that. I may try emailing local police to ask about how that works for them. I wonder if some sort of spear would be helpful; I'd guess not, but it would allow one to make it hard for a criminal to get close. I wonder how well it would dissuade an attacker if they had something like that pointing at them. I mean, with a gun, they might just charge because no matter where they are, a gun is pointing at them; but with a spear, it makes running a more viable option. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23259 Posts
On November 30 2014 13:06 zlefin wrote: I wonder what all the paperwork entails; while some paperwork can seem very boring, and some is sure to be bureaucratic nonsense; a lot of it exists for important reasons, and for long term management of the system. Some places probably don't have enough administrative assistants though, to cover paperwork that doesn't need to be done by someone trained enough to be a field officer. I wonder how hard it is to observe stuff like that. I may try emailing local police to ask about how that works for them. I wonder if some sort of spear would be helpful; I'd guess not, but it would allow one to make it hard for a criminal to get close. I wonder how well it would dissuade an attacker if they had something like that pointing at them. I mean, with a gun, they might just charge because no matter where they are, a gun is pointing at them; but with a spear, it makes running a more viable option. Well now I wan't something like that... I got an image of a telescoping pole that went from baton size to spear size with a retractable spike at the tip. I imagine it would lock in place with some sort of electronic/magnetic trigger ... Something like this but going from the fully extended baton length to a short-medium spear size. Personally I would also want the pneumatic retractable spike at the tip. Not sure how effective it would be for police work but now I want one. + Show Spoiler + | ||
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Wolfstan
Canada605 Posts
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Impervious
Canada4200 Posts
On November 30 2014 11:25 Stratos_speAr wrote: Just dumping more money into police forces is a really bad idea. They have a ton of military-grade supplies that they buy (with money gotten through extremely disturbing means) that they don't need and they waste money in a lot of places unnecessarily. The problem is much more complex. Police departments waste quite a bit of the money they get, the culture in police forces is really F'd up, the type of people they hire is very questionable, etc. There are a number of things that need to be addressed before we just throw more money at the problem. I could have taken each of the paragraphs in my post and expanded them into 10 000 word essays or so, but I did not feel like writing an entire novel on this subject..... You're absolutely correct that just throwing money at the police forces is not the smartest move. But they do need more stable, larger budgets to prevent them from relying on and exploiting that money they acquire through those "disturbing means". I'm quite sure that part of the issue is at the state level when determining and enforcing budgets. When your budget has to set aside certain amounts of money for specific things that may or may not be needed that year, and you end up not using that money, suddenly at the end of the year you have a surplus kicking around that you either spend on something frivolous, or the state takes it away from you and gives you a pat on the back for running a surplus. If your budget for a year only has enough money in it to justify having x many officers, you can't suddenly hire a couple more in that year because the next year you don't have a budget for x+y officers, you still have only the budget for x officers. That fact, coupled with the ability to acquire military grade hardware for cheap (much of which actually free from the military, because of how the federal government legislates it - their view is that it's better off being used than taking up warehouse space or being destroyed), it's actually understandable. It's absolutely stupid and mindboggling as a Canadian that this kind of legislature was pushed through to allow it be used for things like tanks and assault rifles, but seeing as it has been allowed, it actually makes sense that they're doing it..... One of the things not mentioned is that most of the military hardware that that police departments receive is actually not guns and vehicles, but more normal types of equipment, like computers and cameras, first aid kits and fire extinguishers, tools, clothing for extreme weather, and a huge variety of other things that the military simply has hoarded up in warehouses across the country. A lot of the stuff they get is actually put to good use. But the same legislature that makes this possible opens up ways to abuse the system and have police forces equipped with tanks and assault weapons that are completely unnecessary to a police force imo..... This is actually one of the things that is important to talk about when talking about the protests that are going on right now. I can understand the need for SWAT having access to better weapons, because those teams do put themselves in more dangerous situations, but at the same time you hear on a regular basis how they are being used in raids where there seems to be no possible way to justify their use in, and their use should be curtailed. And I can also understand having those types of weapons locked up in the station and brought out in situations where they are necessary (hopefully never, but it is better to be prepared), but this is not one of those situations. Their use during these protests is unnecessary in my view..... | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway28675 Posts
On November 29 2014 10:02 Danglars wrote: You missed neutering union failing teacher immunities. There's nothing better than having no way to remove teachers that can't or won't teach. It kind of goes hand in hand with administrative decentralization--making teachers more responsible to localities that know if their kids are getting taught. I can't think of good efforts to improve shitty home life regarding education, then back to shitty school life regarding educators. As a past and future teacher, there is _no way_ you can accurately judge my performance. I mean, you can, if your sole criteria for my teacher role is how well my students perform at standardized tests/graduation numbers. But school is supposed to teach everything, not just answers that can be plotted into a multiple choice sheet evaluated by a computer, and graduation numbers is related to so much outside a teacher's scope of influence. Essentially, if you want to reduce the teacher role to one that can be quickly assessed into failure and success, you've already damaged your educational system more than having a teacher staff where 10-20% are unfit for their jobs will do. To be fair, I'm not saying it should be impossible to fire teachers, and I understand that teacher jobs in the US might just be too damn secure. But I can't think of a single job where it is actually harder to accurately judge performance, because so many aspects of the job are not measured - and cannot accurately be measured. My main issue with being a teacher now is actually related to this - that attempts at measuring student progress are hindering student progress, because the whole evaluation and cataloging process takes up so much of the time that should be used on education and teacher-student interaction. But sometimes, and this is not necessarily targeted at you, but just as much as a response to an ongoing debate in Norway (and which I feel is an international debate), I get the impression that teachers should have bonuses or penalties depending on student performance in standardized tests. To me, that's quite literally the dumbest idea proposed regarding education for the past 30 years. | ||
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Yurie
11864 Posts
On December 01 2014 01:43 Liquid`Drone wrote: But sometimes, and this is not necessarily targeted at you, but just as much as a response to an ongoing debate in Norway (and which I feel is an international debate), I get the impression that teachers should have bonuses or penalties depending on student performance in standardized tests. To me, that's quite literally the dumbest idea proposed regarding education for the past 30 years. How is that stupid? You have their grades the year before. If the student improved compared to that you did a good job. If they got worse you did a bad job. The problem is how to measure it the first year when you have no base on that person. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
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Yurie
11864 Posts
On December 01 2014 02:32 Nyxisto wrote: Teachers are supposed to be more than just robots that increase their students grades. Especially in the US the system seems over-economized already. No they aren't. If the system they are grading in doesn't take into account all factors of successful teaching then the grade system is wrong, not the description. Take a class where there isn't any calm and quiet in the class room or some people are getting bullied. Those will have lower grades. Solving the things outside the subject will result in higher grades. | ||
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farvacola
United States18830 Posts
On December 01 2014 02:58 Yurie wrote: No they aren't. If the system they are grading in doesn't take into account all factors of successful teaching then the grade system is wrong, not the description. Take a class where there isn't any calm and quiet in the class room or some people are getting bullied. Those will have lower grades. Solving the things outside the subject will result in higher grades. You do realize that non-tenured teachers usually have no choice in which classes they are assigned to teach, leading to the common dynamic through which entry-level teachers get saddled with the lowest performing classes and the highest risk of pay decrease or firing. Furthermore, setting up appropriate grading systems is far harder than you make it sound. Unfortunately, since most people go through a school system, everyone thinks they are an expert and can point at things, say obvious truistic bullshit, and then pretend that they've suddenly demystified the problem of assessment. Haha, as if. | ||
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JonnyBNoHo
United States6277 Posts
On December 01 2014 03:05 farvacola wrote: You do realize that non-tenured teachers usually have no choice in which classes they are assigned to teach, leading to the common dynamic through which entry-level teachers get saddled with the lowest performing classes and the highest risk of pay decrease or firing. Furthermore, setting up appropriate grading systems is far harder than you make it sound. Unfortunately, since most people go through a school system, everyone thinks they are an expert and can point at things, say obvious truistic bullshit, and then pretend that they've suddenly demystified the problem of assessment. Haha, as if. If the evaluation system is half way decent, that shouldn't be an issue. From a basic standpoint, you're looking to evaluate the teacher's impact on student test scores, not the raw test scores themselves. Yes, that doesn't tell you the whole story of teacher performance, but I don't think anyone is making that out to be the case either. Generally you evaluate performance using multiple criteria, and I would assume that teacher evaluation would work similarly. | ||
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Yurie
11864 Posts
On December 01 2014 04:00 JonnyBNoHo wrote: If the evaluation system is half way decent, that shouldn't be an issue. From a basic standpoint, you're looking to evaluate the teacher's impact on student test scores, not the raw test scores themselves. Yes, that doesn't tell you the whole story of teacher performance, but I don't think anyone is making that out to be the case either. Generally you evaluate performance using multiple criteria, and I would assume that teacher evaluation would work similarly. Exactly, a teacher teaching a class that scores on average 50% might have made a bigger positive impact than another one teaching one with an average of 75%. The 75% teacher might even have impacted the class negatively compared to how they did the year before. | ||
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