On May 19 2008 22:40 Hawk wrote: Meh, education is one of the things that I hate when any presidential candidate talks about. Basically, it's add more requirements/mandates, but not federally fund any municipalities. NCLB was a great idea on paper, but when the feds arent giving any money to cities, it means dick.
My city has failed more than 2/3 of their last 10 or 15 budgets, and hasnt gotten shit in funding from the state until this year. A fuck ton of our schools have failed those nclb tests, digging us into even further of a hole. Teachers teach to pass the fucking test, not to actually teach kids shit.
Not to mention tenure is the biggest crock of shit ever... anything short of punching the kid upside the head, and you really can't lose your job. In what other field does that bs happen? Theres so many fucking retards/assholes who have a job because of that bullshit.
No Child Left Behind was never a good idea. The states are meant to be the ultimate authority on education, not the federal government.
Well Im kind of on the fence about this. How are you supposed to compare an A student from Jersey with an A student from Cali if one state doesnt require 3 years of language, or four years of science (things I believe my state is doing next year?) for colleges?
On May 19 2008 22:40 Hawk wrote: Meh, education is one of the things that I hate when any presidential candidate talks about. Basically, it's add more requirements/mandates, but not federally fund any municipalities. NCLB was a great idea on paper, but when the feds arent giving any money to cities, it means dick.
My city has failed more than 2/3 of their last 10 or 15 budgets, and hasnt gotten shit in funding from the state until this year. A fuck ton of our schools have failed those nclb tests, digging us into even further of a hole. Teachers teach to pass the fucking test, not to actually teach kids shit.
Not to mention tenure is the biggest crock of shit ever... anything short of punching the kid upside the head, and you really can't lose your job. In what other field does that bs happen? Theres so many fucking retards/assholes who have a job because of that bullshit.
No Child Left Behind was never a good idea. The states are meant to be the ultimate authority on education, not the federal government.
Well Im kind of on the fence about this. How are you supposed to compare an A student from Jersey with an A student from Cali if one state doesnt require 3 years of language, or four years of science (things I believe my state is doing next year?) for colleges?
Look at the classes they took and hold an interview. Curriculum should be custom tailored on a somewhat local level, and really can't be unified with a country as large as the United States. Do you think a kid growing up in CA should have the exact same education as a kid growing up in NJ? They're totally different environments.
My sister is a math teacher at some inner-city San Diego school (blacks and mexicans only, pretty much) and she often goes off on this "no child left behind" business. Not sure myself. I will bug her about it.
On May 20 2008 10:46 HeadBangaa wrote: My sister is a math teacher at some inner-city San Diego school (blacks and mexicans only, pretty much) and she often goes off on this "no child left behind" business. Not sure myself. I will bug her about it.
Imagine if your school's federal funding was based off of its average SAT score. Teachers would then start teaching to pass the SATs, not actually teaching to teach.
That's actually a horrible example, because the federal government provides little funding for education to states. Again, education has always been in the states' realm of power and they're the ones who do most of the funding for it, not Washington. Here's some quotes from the Department of Education's webpage:
10 Facts About K-12 Education Funding 1. The U.S. Constitution leaves the responsibility for public K-12 education with the states. 3. States and localities are the primary sources of K-12 education funding and always have been. 9. There are no unfunded federal education "mandates." Every federal education law is conditioned on a state or other grantee's decision to accept federal program funds.
What #9 means is that the federal government threatens to withhold funds if the states don't accept, thus the states have "agreed" to the program. A similar situation is in place with the legal drinking age. The states actually get to decide what the age limit is but if they don't comply with the government's standard, a large portion of their road maintenance funding is withheld.
I'm not trying to derail the thread any further, but it's an enormous issue and it boggles the mind that the executive chief of the country's 48th (something around there) worst education system was allowed to restructure the national education system.
Here's an interesting point of view I'm toying with: News outlets make a big deal about John McCain not getting 100% of the vote in Republican primaries, despite the fact that nobody else is running. I think John McCain being the confirmed nominee decreases the number of votes he gets. Since he's confirmed, people can vote for his dog if they like to make a statement, knowing full well that there will be no consequences.
Something similar happened in Singapore years ago, when the opposition contested fewer than half the seats for parliament and won more of them than they ever have since (they won 4 out of 80+, which is a landslide victory in Singapore politics). The idea was that voters could happily vote for the opposition without worrying about "accidentally" voting in a new government, which nobody wanted to do.
So I'm guessing that Clinton will actually get more votes now because lots of people who are a little doubtful about Obama will think they can vote for her to make a statement without worrying about her actually being the nominee.
Because I think uniformity is bad in education and it's really not even possible in a country like the United States. It's already difficult to find teachers and NCLB puts further limits on them. Why not require every single state university to do the same thing? Education inflation has caused a BA to be the new highschool diploma, so if primary education standardization is good, why not secondary education as well?
Furthermore, the federal government has very little direct incentive or feedback (ie. money) from the program, so it's less likely to fix things than the state governments that have a lot at stake. It's very communist in that way. You can say the government's incentive for wanting an educated populace is adequate, but in reality it's not. Their money isn't at stake, so they're less accountable.
Hell, all I needed to say is that it's unconstitutional. Even if it were a perfect plan, they can't simply pass a law to get it done. If it got taken to court, they'd find that the money is significant enough that it isn't optional so the states are being coerced into accepting the program and not really agreeing to it.
So I don't get it, how does NCLB get a pass on being constitutional?
Because it would need to be challenged by the defendant (a state.) There's a few similar things that are unconstitutional, but have yet to be challenged. The Defense of Marriage Act signed in by President Clinton is another one of those.
Point 1: No state (or other political subdivision within the United States) need treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state.
That's illegal. Every state must recognize the laws that another state has passed, so every single state needs to recognize the legitimacy of a gay marriage from MA. The reason it hasn't gone to court is because gay couples are not the defendants, as they aren't being infringed upon. For the case to go to trial, a state like MA, whose constitutional authority is being ignored, would need to file suit. Of course an amendment would make this all moot, but not simply a law.
Complaining is one thing, but it's a pretty long and arduous process to raise the issue at the state level and then to the Supreme Court, and quite possibly they just don't want to rock the boat.
I'm a poli sci student but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
McCain, Hilary and Obama are all CFR members. the race is already over. CFR won the moment Ron Paul, Kucinich, and Gavel were out of the race. But technically Ron Paul is still in the race, so i'm voting for him.
On May 21 2008 11:06 gwho wrote: McCain, Hilary and Obama are all CFR members. the race is already over. CFR won the moment Ron Paul, Kucinich, and Gavel were out of the race. But technically Ron Paul is still in the race, so i'm voting for him.
i think a lot of hillary supporters hate obama. there's a deeply divided party! In Kentucky, "just half of the Democratic voters said in exit polls that they would back him in the general election this fall."
On May 21 2008 11:06 gwho wrote: McCain, Hilary and Obama are all CFR members. the race is already over. CFR won the moment Ron Paul, Kucinich, and Gavel were out of the race. But technically Ron Paul is still in the race, so i'm voting for him.
got a source for obama being a CFR member?
I can't find a credible source that lists any of them as being CFR members. A certain spouse of one of the candidates; yes. The candidates themselves... not so much.
OK i just spent like an hour youtubing up stuff on obama CFR connections.
found this little gem:
i'm willing to accept that for now. you had me scared for a second there gwho, i don't trust obama unconditionally but i'd been hoping he was clean, so it would be disappointing if we were to find some dirt on him
On May 21 2008 14:36 geometryb wrote: democrats are so fucked
i think a lot of hillary supporters hate obama. there's a deeply divided party! In Kentucky, "just half of the Democratic voters said in exit polls that they would back him in the general election this fall."
Kentucky is not a battle ground state.
gwho, you really are a crazy ass Ron Paul supporter. I'm glad you know how to read conspiracy blogs by 30 year old basement dwellers, but come on. They've all got some connection to just about every think tank. Next you can bring up Obama and socialism, uncovered by 60 year old McCarthy-ites who don't know what the fuck socialism is. I'd be much more worried about McCain's connection with Heritage than his connection with CFR.
And sorry, but globalization is very real and there's not much you can do it stop it. There needs to be some type of regulatory commission to stop Bayer from shipping AIDS to 10 million people in Africa. The United States is not a pristine little island anymore. It hasn't been for 70 years.
I really liked Obama's comments towards McCain on foreign policy last night. McCain keeps being touted as a foreign relations expert, but his attitude thus far has been purely for vote getting. He is too intelligent to actually believe in the good vs. evil, war on terror propaganda we've been fed for 7 years. If he just took a more Hagel-like approach (YES, A CFR MEMBER OH GOD), I wouldn't be completely opposed to him.
I just want to further add that it's ridiculous that Ron Paul supporters jump on CFR because of the imaginary "one government" crap. It's so predictable. "BUT LOOK, DICK CHENEY WAS IN IT!!!!!!!" Yeah, so was Madeleine Albright, Tom Brokaw, Fareed Zakaria, etc. It's not a secret underground association, it's a think tank with a lot of different opinions and for anyone unfamiliar with it, my guess is that most of the posters here agree with its views. It's moderate-liberal, along with the Brookings Institute.