|
|
On September 29 2012 05:19 Doublemint wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 05:06 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 29 2012 05:01 Doublemint wrote:On September 29 2012 03:52 Biff The Understudy wrote:On September 29 2012 03:39 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 03:27 sam!zdat wrote:On September 29 2012 03:25 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 03:20 Biff The Understudy wrote:On September 29 2012 03:14 sam!zdat wrote:On September 29 2012 01:49 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
Is someone doing that specifically? All I've seen so far from Romney is him pointing out that if you cut defense spending some people will lose jobs over it. That's a different argument from military spending > private sector spending. But the argument romney is making is that military spending > all other government spending... (which is to say, for the right, only military spending has keynesian virtue, and all other government spending has keynesian vice) It's true though, America's big dick *oh sorry cough*, I mean, America's ability to destroy all the armies all the rest of the world put together (and also the fucking planet, just in case), is much more important than educating young people, make sure that the old lady of the house at the corner of the street that is dying from cancer can get to hospital or sponsoring science (after all these people are even saying that dinosaurs really existed while our 3000 years old book says the opposite. Shocking) This campaign is sickening. We spend a retarded amount of money on education already. Money's not the issue with regards to why our schools suck. What could be a more important thing to spend money on than education? I'll agree that our system is structured badly from the ground up. (edit: but one main problem is that being a teacher is an entirely unrewarding career and our society doesn't value it - in fact, we scorn teachers. Why would talented people want to become teachers? Only idiots like me who are basically sociopaths and don't care about what society thinks, that's who) (and we can derive a general principle from this, which is that if you want any organization to work well - business, government, education - you need to make it attractive for talented people. Currently, only business is this way - and people wonder why government and education are dysfunctional organizations. well fuck me I don't know why...) I don't mind spending a lot of money on education as long as it works. We spend more money per child for education than any other country in the world other than Switzerland, and we get shit results for it. Before we spend any additional funds on education, we need to figure out and fix what is wrong with the current system. You spend 5,7% of your GPD. Cuba is at 14% and countrie such as Norway are around 8. Where did you get that figure? He said per capita and is 100% correct. ---> http://mercatus.org/publication/k-12-spending-student-oecdAlso picking countries randomly does not make a lot of sense... I think a great compromise (in theory at least) would be to have like a "coalition of the willing" after the election, which consists of Reps and Dems alike, and they actually start doing PRODUCTIVE stuff for the American people. For example, and to stay on the topic of education, Dems give in and do their best to tame the teachers union to reform education, while Republicans go out of their way of "no new taxes - we just got a spending problem". Something along those lines, but in this hyper partisan environment... wishful thinking I am afraid. Having a concrete and rather achieveable goal and agenda for the next couple of years instead of "hope and change" "and restoring America's greatness" hogwash. That could resonate with the people and give some trust back to Congress, something this chamber is in dire need of having. Education spending is similar to healthcare spending. We put a lot of money in but don't get everything we should out of it. Indeed, and for a country generally in love with the idea of small(=smart?) government that should be high on the to-do list. As said before, if the results are good the high spending is at least meaningful. We got a pretty similar situation here in Austria, even though our system is arguably better there is still a lot of room for improvement. //edit: lol, or maybe not. http://www.oecd.org/pisa/46643496.pdf
That's the campaign Romney should be running on. That he will help government run better and more effectively and that spending cuts will come from there. He should then make the case that he can do just that based on his record at Bain, the Olympics and in Mass as Governor.
|
Every time we increase education spending the money goes to the administrators and unions, not the kids, that's the problem. Then they tell people they can't afford paper for the class or cancel sports or whatever to convince people they are so broke and don't get enough while they spend millions on political ads and lobbying. And people say the only solution to wasted money is to spend more money. The US is run by special interests.
|
On September 29 2012 03:52 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 03:39 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 03:27 sam!zdat wrote:On September 29 2012 03:25 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 03:20 Biff The Understudy wrote:On September 29 2012 03:14 sam!zdat wrote:On September 29 2012 01:49 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 29 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:On September 29 2012 00:35 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 00:00 Signet wrote:
[quote]
While that's true about Romney, it the conservative think tanks and Super PACs are also claiming that defense cuts will end up costing thousands of jobs.
I don't think that that many people in politics really believe in Austrian or even neoliberal economics. They're just helpful frameworks to use to argue against specific things that people don't like. But I rarely see politicians who look at things from these perspectives consistently. I don't think anyone would argue that taking money out of the defense industry will not reduce defense industry employment. The real issue is where should the money go instead to promote employment. Conservatives generally argue that tax money maximizes employment when it is left in the private sector (ie not taxed). Funding the defense industry is justified as the government fulfilling one of its core obligations to the nation and that having a strong national defense is central to American interests. Thus, the "hypocrisy" that liberals are bitching about here is grossly overstated. Uh, no, you didn't cover that hypocrisy at all. The "strong national defense" argument has nothing to do with it. What IS hypocritical is defending the idea that the private sector is necessarily better at creating jobs than the government (both directly and indirectly), that to create jobs money taken in and spent by the government therefore does a worse job than money staying in the private sector and therefore that the smaller the government is the better, while simultaneously claiming that reducing government size (for defense matters) is bad for the economy because it will result in job losses. Is someone doing that specifically? All I've seen so far from Romney is him pointing out that if you cut defense spending some people will lose jobs over it. That's a different argument from military spending > private sector spending. But the argument romney is making is that military spending > all other government spending... (which is to say, for the right, only military spending has keynesian virtue, and all other government spending has keynesian vice) It's true though, America's big dick *oh sorry cough*, I mean, America's ability to destroy all the armies all the rest of the world put together (and also the fucking planet, just in case), is much more important than educating young people, make sure that the old lady of the house at the corner of the street that is dying from cancer can get to hospital or sponsoring science (after all these people are even saying that dinosaurs really existed while our 3000 years old book says the opposite. Shocking) This campaign is sickening. We spend a retarded amount of money on education already. Money's not the issue with regards to why our schools suck. What could be a more important thing to spend money on than education? I'll agree that our system is structured badly from the ground up. (edit: but one main problem is that being a teacher is an entirely unrewarding career and our society doesn't value it - in fact, we scorn teachers. Why would talented people want to become teachers? Only idiots like me who are basically sociopaths and don't care about what society thinks, that's who) (and we can derive a general principle from this, which is that if you want any organization to work well - business, government, education - you need to make it attractive for talented people. Currently, only business is this way - and people wonder why government and education are dysfunctional organizations. well fuck me I don't know why...) I don't mind spending a lot of money on education as long as it works. We spend more money per child for education than any other country in the world other than Switzerland, and we get shit results for it. Before we spend any additional funds on education, we need to figure out and fix what is wrong with the current system. You spend 5,7% of your GPD. Cuba is at 14% and countrie such as Norway are around 8. Where did you get that figure?
I think they're talking about a sum amount, in which case yes, the US spends more than anyone else - 5.7% of the US GDP is far more than the entire GDP for many countries.
Personally NCLB seems like a large reason for poor performance - I've never seen such a well-meaning piece of legislation going so badly wrong. Add to this teachers having tenure (I'm struggling to see why this is ever a good thing, personally), terrible working conditions in schools, having no real power over the kids and having their authority undermined by parents and the administration, having to teach to the tests at the expense of teaching around the topics or allowing teachers to actually use their own input in making lessons... Yeah, there are a few issues the US needs to deal with.
Question - how much of the US GDP is spent on military?
|
2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
On September 29 2012 05:45 Sanctimonius wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 03:52 Biff The Understudy wrote:On September 29 2012 03:39 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 03:27 sam!zdat wrote:On September 29 2012 03:25 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 03:20 Biff The Understudy wrote:On September 29 2012 03:14 sam!zdat wrote:On September 29 2012 01:49 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 29 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:On September 29 2012 00:35 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
I don't think anyone would argue that taking money out of the defense industry will not reduce defense industry employment. The real issue is where should the money go instead to promote employment. Conservatives generally argue that tax money maximizes employment when it is left in the private sector (ie not taxed). Funding the defense industry is justified as the government fulfilling one of its core obligations to the nation and that having a strong national defense is central to American interests. Thus, the "hypocrisy" that liberals are bitching about here is grossly overstated. Uh, no, you didn't cover that hypocrisy at all. The "strong national defense" argument has nothing to do with it. What IS hypocritical is defending the idea that the private sector is necessarily better at creating jobs than the government (both directly and indirectly), that to create jobs money taken in and spent by the government therefore does a worse job than money staying in the private sector and therefore that the smaller the government is the better, while simultaneously claiming that reducing government size (for defense matters) is bad for the economy because it will result in job losses. Is someone doing that specifically? All I've seen so far from Romney is him pointing out that if you cut defense spending some people will lose jobs over it. That's a different argument from military spending > private sector spending. But the argument romney is making is that military spending > all other government spending... (which is to say, for the right, only military spending has keynesian virtue, and all other government spending has keynesian vice) It's true though, America's big dick *oh sorry cough*, I mean, America's ability to destroy all the armies all the rest of the world put together (and also the fucking planet, just in case), is much more important than educating young people, make sure that the old lady of the house at the corner of the street that is dying from cancer can get to hospital or sponsoring science (after all these people are even saying that dinosaurs really existed while our 3000 years old book says the opposite. Shocking) This campaign is sickening. We spend a retarded amount of money on education already. Money's not the issue with regards to why our schools suck. What could be a more important thing to spend money on than education? I'll agree that our system is structured badly from the ground up. (edit: but one main problem is that being a teacher is an entirely unrewarding career and our society doesn't value it - in fact, we scorn teachers. Why would talented people want to become teachers? Only idiots like me who are basically sociopaths and don't care about what society thinks, that's who) (and we can derive a general principle from this, which is that if you want any organization to work well - business, government, education - you need to make it attractive for talented people. Currently, only business is this way - and people wonder why government and education are dysfunctional organizations. well fuck me I don't know why...) I don't mind spending a lot of money on education as long as it works. We spend more money per child for education than any other country in the world other than Switzerland, and we get shit results for it. Before we spend any additional funds on education, we need to figure out and fix what is wrong with the current system. You spend 5,7% of your GPD. Cuba is at 14% and countrie such as Norway are around 8. Where did you get that figure? I think they're talking about a sum amount, in which case yes, the US spends more than anyone else - 5.7% of the US GDP is far more than the entire GDP for many countries. Personally NCLB seems like a large reason for poor performance - I've never seen such a well-meaning piece of legislation going so badly wrong. Add to this teachers having tenure (I'm struggling to see why this is ever a good thing, personally), terrible working conditions in schools, having no real power over the kids and having their authority undermined by parents and the administration, having to teach to the tests at the expense of teaching around the topics or allowing teachers to actually use their own input in making lessons... Yeah, there are a few issues the US needs to deal with. Question - how much of the US GDP is spent on military?
Depending on what you include it ranges from 4% - 5%
|
|
|
On September 29 2012 05:49 Souma wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 05:45 Sanctimonius wrote:On September 29 2012 03:52 Biff The Understudy wrote:On September 29 2012 03:39 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 03:27 sam!zdat wrote:On September 29 2012 03:25 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 03:20 Biff The Understudy wrote:On September 29 2012 03:14 sam!zdat wrote:On September 29 2012 01:49 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 29 2012 01:42 kwizach wrote:
[quote]
Uh, no, you didn't cover that hypocrisy at all. The "strong national defense" argument has nothing to do with it. What IS hypocritical is defending the idea that the private sector is necessarily better at creating jobs than the government (both directly and indirectly), that to create jobs money taken in and spent by the government therefore does a worse job than money staying in the private sector and therefore that the smaller the government is the better, while simultaneously claiming that reducing government size (for defense matters) is bad for the economy because it will result in job losses. Is someone doing that specifically? All I've seen so far from Romney is him pointing out that if you cut defense spending some people will lose jobs over it. That's a different argument from military spending > private sector spending. But the argument romney is making is that military spending > all other government spending... (which is to say, for the right, only military spending has keynesian virtue, and all other government spending has keynesian vice) It's true though, America's big dick *oh sorry cough*, I mean, America's ability to destroy all the armies all the rest of the world put together (and also the fucking planet, just in case), is much more important than educating young people, make sure that the old lady of the house at the corner of the street that is dying from cancer can get to hospital or sponsoring science (after all these people are even saying that dinosaurs really existed while our 3000 years old book says the opposite. Shocking) This campaign is sickening. We spend a retarded amount of money on education already. Money's not the issue with regards to why our schools suck. What could be a more important thing to spend money on than education? I'll agree that our system is structured badly from the ground up. (edit: but one main problem is that being a teacher is an entirely unrewarding career and our society doesn't value it - in fact, we scorn teachers. Why would talented people want to become teachers? Only idiots like me who are basically sociopaths and don't care about what society thinks, that's who) (and we can derive a general principle from this, which is that if you want any organization to work well - business, government, education - you need to make it attractive for talented people. Currently, only business is this way - and people wonder why government and education are dysfunctional organizations. well fuck me I don't know why...) I don't mind spending a lot of money on education as long as it works. We spend more money per child for education than any other country in the world other than Switzerland, and we get shit results for it. Before we spend any additional funds on education, we need to figure out and fix what is wrong with the current system. You spend 5,7% of your GPD. Cuba is at 14% and countrie such as Norway are around 8. Where did you get that figure? I think they're talking about a sum amount, in which case yes, the US spends more than anyone else - 5.7% of the US GDP is far more than the entire GDP for many countries. Personally NCLB seems like a large reason for poor performance - I've never seen such a well-meaning piece of legislation going so badly wrong. Add to this teachers having tenure (I'm struggling to see why this is ever a good thing, personally), terrible working conditions in schools, having no real power over the kids and having their authority undermined by parents and the administration, having to teach to the tests at the expense of teaching around the topics or allowing teachers to actually use their own input in making lessons... Yeah, there are a few issues the US needs to deal with. Question - how much of the US GDP is spent on military? Depending on what you include it ranges from 4% - 5%
Yup, here's a graph comparing the two - the graphs are stacked - education spending is stacked on top of military spending.
![[image loading]](http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/usgs_line.php?title=Various%20Items&units=p&size=m&year=1960_2012&sname=US&bar=0&stack=1&col=c&legend=Defense-total_Education-total&source=a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_i_a_i_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_g_g&spending0=10.12_10.46_10.86_10.40_9.85_8.57_8.84_10.06_10.36_9.62_9.12_8.24_7.65_6.72_6.56_6.73_6.27_5.99_5.71_5.61_6.02_6.19_6.81_6.98_6.84_7.00_7.04_6.76_6.47_6.26_5.90_5.35_5.50_5.16_4.75_4.40_4.04_3.90_3.68_3.56_3.61_3.56_3.97_4.34_4.59_4.76_4.65_4.66_5.08_5.70_5.84_5.83_5.79&spending1=3.69_3.89_3.89_3.98_4.10_4.15_4.51_4.97_4.95_5.18_5.44_5.63_5.76_5.49_5.43_5.85_5.88_5.65_5.54_5.41_5.45_5.26_5.16_5.01_4.82_4.90_5.04_5.06_5.03_5.14_5.26_5.49_5.48_5.52_5.27_5.46_5.37_5.31_5.39_5.39_5.45_5.65_5.87_5.94_5.83_5.78_5.90_5.74_5.97_6.21_6.18_5.80_6.03)
Military spending shrunk from 10% of GDP in 1960 to 5.7% today. Education spending has risen from 3.6% to 6% over the same time period.
|
On September 29 2012 05:19 Doublemint wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 05:06 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On September 29 2012 05:01 Doublemint wrote:On September 29 2012 03:52 Biff The Understudy wrote:On September 29 2012 03:39 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 03:27 sam!zdat wrote:On September 29 2012 03:25 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 03:20 Biff The Understudy wrote:On September 29 2012 03:14 sam!zdat wrote:On September 29 2012 01:49 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
Is someone doing that specifically? All I've seen so far from Romney is him pointing out that if you cut defense spending some people will lose jobs over it. That's a different argument from military spending > private sector spending. But the argument romney is making is that military spending > all other government spending... (which is to say, for the right, only military spending has keynesian virtue, and all other government spending has keynesian vice) It's true though, America's big dick *oh sorry cough*, I mean, America's ability to destroy all the armies all the rest of the world put together (and also the fucking planet, just in case), is much more important than educating young people, make sure that the old lady of the house at the corner of the street that is dying from cancer can get to hospital or sponsoring science (after all these people are even saying that dinosaurs really existed while our 3000 years old book says the opposite. Shocking) This campaign is sickening. We spend a retarded amount of money on education already. Money's not the issue with regards to why our schools suck. What could be a more important thing to spend money on than education? I'll agree that our system is structured badly from the ground up. (edit: but one main problem is that being a teacher is an entirely unrewarding career and our society doesn't value it - in fact, we scorn teachers. Why would talented people want to become teachers? Only idiots like me who are basically sociopaths and don't care about what society thinks, that's who) (and we can derive a general principle from this, which is that if you want any organization to work well - business, government, education - you need to make it attractive for talented people. Currently, only business is this way - and people wonder why government and education are dysfunctional organizations. well fuck me I don't know why...) I don't mind spending a lot of money on education as long as it works. We spend more money per child for education than any other country in the world other than Switzerland, and we get shit results for it. Before we spend any additional funds on education, we need to figure out and fix what is wrong with the current system. You spend 5,7% of your GPD. Cuba is at 14% and countrie such as Norway are around 8. Where did you get that figure? He said per capita and is 100% correct. ---> http://mercatus.org/publication/k-12-spending-student-oecdAlso picking countries randomly does not make a lot of sense... I think a great compromise (in theory at least) would be to have like a "coalition of the willing" after the election, which consists of Reps and Dems alike, and they actually start doing PRODUCTIVE stuff for the American people. For example, and to stay on the topic of education, Dems give in and do their best to tame the teachers union to reform education, while Republicans go out of their way of "no new taxes - we just got a spending problem". Something along those lines, but in this hyper partisan environment... wishful thinking I am afraid. Having a concrete and rather achieveable goal and agenda for the next couple of years instead of "hope and change" "and restoring America's greatness" hogwash. That could resonate with the people and give some trust back to Congress, something this chamber is in dire need of having. Education spending is similar to healthcare spending. We put a lot of money in but don't get everything we should out of it. Indeed, and for a country generally in love with the idea of small(=smart?) government that should be high on the to-do list. As said before, if the results are good the high spending is at least meaningful. We got a pretty similar situation here in Austria, even though our system is arguably better there is still a lot of room for improvement. //edit: lol, or maybe not. http://www.oecd.org/pisa/46643496.pdf
I have a hard time believing that any country spends more money to crap out illiterates from its public school system than we do.
|
It really surprises me how little people understand NCLB and the problems associated with it. Overall, it's actually not bad legislation. The problems with "teaching to the test" are a sad consequence to holding the educational institutions accountable for the education they provide. I'll detail it more later.
|
2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
I don't understand how our government can be so inefficient in just about everything. I am all for bigger government but it seems like we just throw money around where it's not needed and where it's needed, there's no money (for example the MMS). Special interests really make just about everything worse.
|
On September 29 2012 06:05 aksfjh wrote:
It really surprises me how little people understand NCLB and the problems associated with it. Overall, it's actually not bad legislation. The problems with "teaching to the test" are a sad consequence to holding the educational institutions accountable for the education they provide. I'll detail it more later.
It's a sad consequence of holding the institutions accountable in a certain way. If you reduce all learning and teaching to quantifiable data then yes, you're going to have people teaching to the test. When you specifically say that the only thing that matters in education is the results from tests and the number of children that pass those tests, when you say that funding can and will be pulled if you don't meet your quota, regardless of individual class' abilities or aptitudes, when you say your job aptitude will be judged solely based on the number of your kids satisfying these test scores, then of course there is no incentive whatsoever for teachers to make education interesting, fun, involving or original - anything that doesn't help with getting a few more points on those tests is detracting from your future review scores as a teacher.
Course these tests do absolutely nothing to help promote a love of learning or prepare kids for the working world, but as long as those test scores are raised, that's all that matters 
|
On September 29 2012 06:07 Souma wrote:
I don't understand how our government can be so inefficient in just about everything. I am all for bigger government but it seems like we just throw money around where it's not needed and where it's needed, there's no money (for example the MMS). Special interests really make just about everything worse.
You are starting to sound like a conservative! Come, join the dark side 
|
On September 29 2012 06:01 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 05:49 Souma wrote:On September 29 2012 05:45 Sanctimonius wrote:On September 29 2012 03:52 Biff The Understudy wrote:On September 29 2012 03:39 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 03:27 sam!zdat wrote:On September 29 2012 03:25 xDaunt wrote:On September 29 2012 03:20 Biff The Understudy wrote:On September 29 2012 03:14 sam!zdat wrote:On September 29 2012 01:49 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
[quote]
Is someone doing that specifically? All I've seen so far from Romney is him pointing out that if you cut defense spending some people will lose jobs over it. That's a different argument from military spending > private sector spending. But the argument romney is making is that military spending > all other government spending... (which is to say, for the right, only military spending has keynesian virtue, and all other government spending has keynesian vice) It's true though, America's big dick *oh sorry cough*, I mean, America's ability to destroy all the armies all the rest of the world put together (and also the fucking planet, just in case), is much more important than educating young people, make sure that the old lady of the house at the corner of the street that is dying from cancer can get to hospital or sponsoring science (after all these people are even saying that dinosaurs really existed while our 3000 years old book says the opposite. Shocking) This campaign is sickening. We spend a retarded amount of money on education already. Money's not the issue with regards to why our schools suck. What could be a more important thing to spend money on than education? I'll agree that our system is structured badly from the ground up. (edit: but one main problem is that being a teacher is an entirely unrewarding career and our society doesn't value it - in fact, we scorn teachers. Why would talented people want to become teachers? Only idiots like me who are basically sociopaths and don't care about what society thinks, that's who) (and we can derive a general principle from this, which is that if you want any organization to work well - business, government, education - you need to make it attractive for talented people. Currently, only business is this way - and people wonder why government and education are dysfunctional organizations. well fuck me I don't know why...) I don't mind spending a lot of money on education as long as it works. We spend more money per child for education than any other country in the world other than Switzerland, and we get shit results for it. Before we spend any additional funds on education, we need to figure out and fix what is wrong with the current system. You spend 5,7% of your GPD. Cuba is at 14% and countrie such as Norway are around 8. Where did you get that figure? I think they're talking about a sum amount, in which case yes, the US spends more than anyone else - 5.7% of the US GDP is far more than the entire GDP for many countries. Personally NCLB seems like a large reason for poor performance - I've never seen such a well-meaning piece of legislation going so badly wrong. Add to this teachers having tenure (I'm struggling to see why this is ever a good thing, personally), terrible working conditions in schools, having no real power over the kids and having their authority undermined by parents and the administration, having to teach to the tests at the expense of teaching around the topics or allowing teachers to actually use their own input in making lessons... Yeah, there are a few issues the US needs to deal with. Question - how much of the US GDP is spent on military? Depending on what you include it ranges from 4% - 5% Yup, here's a graph comparing the two - the graphs are stacked - education spending is stacked on top of military spending. Military spending shrunk from 10% of GDP in 1960 to 5.7% today. Education spending has risen from 3.6% to 6% over the same time period.
The fact that the USA are not anymore in a big cock contest against the USSR, trying to prove the world they can blow up the whole planet quicker and more efficiently than the ennemy might be a reason.
Of course, it makes no sense at all whatsoever to compare this kind of figure on a 50 years period, since the world has massively changed. Look at the basic education that your average red neck would get in 1960 and the qualifications that are necessary to have today to even work as a secretary.
|
On September 29 2012 06:14 Sanctimonius wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 06:05 aksfjh wrote:
It really surprises me how little people understand NCLB and the problems associated with it. Overall, it's actually not bad legislation. The problems with "teaching to the test" are a sad consequence to holding the educational institutions accountable for the education they provide. I'll detail it more later. It's a sad consequence of holding the institutions accountable in a certain way. If you reduce all learning and teaching to quantifiable data then yes, you're going to have people teaching to the test. When you specifically say that the only thing that matters in education is the results from tests and the number of children that pass those tests, when you say that funding can and will be pulled if you don't meet your quota, regardless of individual class' abilities or aptitudes, when you say your job aptitude will be judged solely based on the number of your kids satisfying these test scores, then of course there is no incentive whatsoever for teachers to make education interesting, fun, involving or original - anything that doesn't help with getting a few more points on those tests is detracting from your future review scores as a teacher. Course these tests do absolutely nothing to help promote a love of learning or prepare kids for the working world, but as long as those test scores are raised, that's all that matters
You could certainly argue that the tests could be better. But they do require the kids to be able to read, write, and do math. Sadly many kids graduate high school unable to do these things. Having standardized tests is a way to tackle this horrible situation.
|
On September 29 2012 04:48 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 04:22 Defacer wrote:Politico has a fascinating article, where a Romney official finally admits that Romney is simply a bad politician. The same official goes on to explain that many of his people believe he'd be an excellent executive and president -- but when it comes to 'auditioning' for the job, he absolutely stinks.
Slowly and reluctantly, Republicans who love and work for Romney are concluding that for all his gifts as a leader, businessman and role model, he’s just not a good political candidate in this era.
(PHOTOS: Mitt Romney through the years)
It kills his admirers to say it because they know him to be a far more generous and approachable man than people realize — far from the caricature of him being awkward or distant — and they feel certain he would be a very good president.
“Lousy candidate; highly qualified to be president,” said a top Romney official. “The candidate suit fits him unnaturally. He is naturally an executive.”
Romney himself has been a tough self-critic, telling “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley he has only himself to blame for missteps such as the secret video of him writing off 47 percent of Americans as ungovernable and out of reach to him politically. “[T]hat’s not the campaign. That was me, right?” He made a similar remark when questions were raised about his campaign during the primaries, telling reporters: “The candidate sometimes makes some mistakes, and so I’m trying to do better and work harder.”
That comment captures precisely why his closest confidants think he is a much better, bigger and more qualified man than often comes through on the trail. He treats his staff with respect, works hard on his weaknesses and does all of it because he possesses supreme confidence in his capacity to lead effectively.
“He’s a great leader, but he’s not a great politician,” said a top member of Romney’s organization. “As much as we complain about politicians, we like a good politician. He doesn’t have the hand-on-the-shoulder thing. He’s not quick-witted. He’s an analytical, data-driven businessperson.”
And that’s the problem: His résumé and his personal style seem ill-suited for the moment. He’s a son of privilege who made hundreds of millions in private equity who is running in the first election since the 2008 economic meltdown — a meltdown many blame on rich, Wall Street tycoons. And he’s a socially stiff relic of a pre-ironic America, who struggles with improvisation and personal connections when the constant lens of the Web demands both.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81772.html#ixzz27nFLc62zTo be honest though, in this day and age, I don't think it's possible to be an effective leader on the national and world stage without having political chops. Running a government is not like running a private equity business ... where you can succeed in spite of -- and often because of -- your ability to downsize people, ignore other people's agenda's and political motivations, and continuously alienate people. That's where a lot of people disagree. People see the ability to manage a large business as a similar endeavor - businesses have internal factions, external parties with conflicting incentives and they all need to come together to make everything work.
I'm at work, so I can't afford to get into a discussion about whether or not government can or should be run like a business, or if the experience of running a successful one is a suitable qualification for president.
I certainly agree there are skills and abilities that you gain only as a successful CEO. It's not an easy job, no matter how much the average working stiff would like to pretend otherwise.
However, what I think may disqualify Romney, or anyone with the balls to run for presidency in such a divisive, partisan, 24-hour media climate -- where even your choice of words 14 years ago can be used against you ('redistribution') -- is being bad at politicking. You have to know how to reframe the news, build consensus, and mobilize and empower the grassroots effectively just to make it out alive.
What CEO's have that president's don't is a higher degree of autonomy, and the people a CEO has to manage have less stakeholders -- if anything, the CEO is the master stakeholder. He can ultimately just fire or get rid of anyone that is truly difficult.
Presidents don't have to luxury of firing people that are obstructions to a solution, and they can't afford not to worry about the stakeholders that other politicians rely on.
For example, Romney is polling behind in critical swing states like Ohio and Florida. And it would be really helpful if their respective Republican governors support Romney's narrative that Obama's has lead the economy in shambles.
Unfortunately, the economies in Ohio and Florida are improving, and not as bad as other states. And both Republican governors have their own jobs they have to protect, when their elections come up in 2014. They need to be able to sell themselves and their economic policies, and aren't going to throw themselves under the bus for Romney's sake.
If Romney were a better politician, or if the GOP were less schizophrenic, he would be able to navigate these issues better without looking like the stereotypical, career consultant that will do or say anything to get a gig.
|
Iranian news agency duped by Onion story on Obama poll that stated that most rural white Americans favored Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over Barack Obama.
Iran's leading news agency published a mock poll that claimed rural whites in the U.S. favored Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over president Barack Obama.
The mock poll was originally published on a popular U.S. media site, The Onion.
The FARS news agency—which touts itself as Iran's leading independent news agency while others note its ties to government—published much of the made-up poll that first appeared in the U.S. parody website.
The Onion site quoted a fictitious Gallup Poll that noted "77 percent of rural Caucasian voters...would much rather go to a baseball game or have a beer with Ahmadinejad...than spend time with Obama."
FARS led its story with that statement and even quoted someone from the Onion piece, West Virginia resident Swiderski, saying of Ahmadinejad, "I like him better."
Oops.
Word of duping the Iranian agencies made its way through media sites and was also picked up by media blogger Jim Romenesko.
The Onion had a little fun with it, too, it seems, adding to the end of the article, "For more on this story: Please visit our Iranian subsidiary organization, Fars."
The story was live on the FARS website early on Friday afternoon but was no longer available by 1:30 p.m. ET. The link to FARS goes to an earlier screen grab of the story that had been on the FARS website.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/iranian-news-agency-duped-onion-story-obama-poll-180154413.html
Lol.
|
2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
On September 29 2012 06:27 ziggurat wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 06:07 Souma wrote:
I don't understand how our government can be so inefficient in just about everything. I am all for bigger government but it seems like we just throw money around where it's not needed and where it's needed, there's no money (for example the MMS). Special interests really make just about everything worse. You are starting to sound like a conservative! Come, join the dark side
Lol nah. I think everyone, even liberals if they're not incredibly blind, realize that the government has too much waste, our bureaucracy is needlessly huge, and overall we're just inefficient as heck. The only thing is I can't pinpoint specifically what's wrong. I just know (or believe) that there's a lot of crap that goes around in the background that pretty much ends up screwing us all.
|
On September 29 2012 06:31 ziggurat wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 06:14 Sanctimonius wrote:On September 29 2012 06:05 aksfjh wrote:
It really surprises me how little people understand NCLB and the problems associated with it. Overall, it's actually not bad legislation. The problems with "teaching to the test" are a sad consequence to holding the educational institutions accountable for the education they provide. I'll detail it more later. It's a sad consequence of holding the institutions accountable in a certain way. If you reduce all learning and teaching to quantifiable data then yes, you're going to have people teaching to the test. When you specifically say that the only thing that matters in education is the results from tests and the number of children that pass those tests, when you say that funding can and will be pulled if you don't meet your quota, regardless of individual class' abilities or aptitudes, when you say your job aptitude will be judged solely based on the number of your kids satisfying these test scores, then of course there is no incentive whatsoever for teachers to make education interesting, fun, involving or original - anything that doesn't help with getting a few more points on those tests is detracting from your future review scores as a teacher. Course these tests do absolutely nothing to help promote a love of learning or prepare kids for the working world, but as long as those test scores are raised, that's all that matters You could certainly argue that the tests could be better. But they do require the kids to be able to read, write, and do math. Sadly many kids graduate high school unable to do these things. Having standardized tests is a way to tackle this horrible situation.
True enough, and addressing these problems was a primary motivator behind NCLB. Having looked into the legislation I was surprised at just how little accountability there seemed to be in the US education system, and how so many kids seemed to be slipping through the cracks - you can arguably say that any problems in NCLB is from better accounting of those kids that previously went unnoticed, those that were simply hidden behind the statistics to try and make schools look better. Problem is now the test is all there is, and teachers find themselves forced to sacrifice spontaneity, originality, their own input in education, and instead have to teach a pre-planned curriculum tailored to making as many kids as possible fill out the correct boxes on a sheet of paper. This doesn't help the teachers (who gets into teaching to make kids run through the factory line of standardised tests?), it doesn't help the kids, and it doesn't help the country to have a bunch of kids who can read and write but have no interpersonal skills, or ability to interpret what they know, or to adapt to changing situations.
Standardised tests have their place, but basing a whole education system on them is hurting America. Life isn't a standardised test, and neither is the workplace.
|
On September 29 2012 06:41 Souma wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2012 06:27 ziggurat wrote:On September 29 2012 06:07 Souma wrote:
I don't understand how our government can be so inefficient in just about everything. I am all for bigger government but it seems like we just throw money around where it's not needed and where it's needed, there's no money (for example the MMS). Special interests really make just about everything worse. You are starting to sound like a conservative! Come, join the dark side Lol nah. I think everyone, even liberals if they're not incredibly blind, realize that the government has too much waste, our bureaucracy is needlessly huge, and overall we're just inefficient as heck. The only thing is I can't pinpoint specifically what's wrong. I just know (or believe) that there's a lot of crap that goes around in the background that pretty much ends up screwing us all.
our farce of a rubberstamp democracy is what's wrong
(re schools, the tests are ludicrously easy and should be able to be passed by anyone. The problem is that if you teach to the test, kids think education is bullshit - because kids are not idiots and the test is in fact bullshit. If you actually educate them, success on the test follows in a totally trivial a fortiori fashion.
Schools should be held responsible to local government - NOT centralized federal standards - and in a qualitative way. The idea that a lot of the problems involved in schools is cultural is precisely right, but what is wrong is the idea that schools cannot, if run correctly, exert positive influence on these cultures in their turn)
|
Eh, for schools I think a major problem is our culture that absolutely disrespects teachers all the time. That stupid crap about "if you can't do, teach" and such is just idiotic and shameful. Teachers work damn hard and good teachers work really damn hard. And for some reason America has an incredibly dismissive attitude toward teachers. Of course we're going to have a terrible education system. IMO this is the biggest problem, and it's one of the reasons why I really get pissed at Chris Christie.
Religion is another problem. We have a huge anti-intellectual branch in the US, and that doesn't help our education. Especially as kids are now completely confused about evolution.
Another issue is that there is a ton of money flowing into private schools. It just makes a lot of wealthier communities not care about public education (and it's heavily tied to Religion in schools). Personally, I think it we should try banning private schools. That may raise some eyebrows, but it definitely worked for Norway. Think about it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
