Quote:Originally posted by A Black Falcon
In a way this could increase terrorism in more ways -- Al Quaida might well increase its focus on Iraq with Sadaam gone (since Sadaam and Osama don't exactly see eye to eye...)... and yes, lots of the terrorism is foreigners, which makes sense -- we've got 100,000 troops sitting there in the middle of the most anti-American place in the world... of course they're going to take it as open season...

Quote:Originally posted by Great Rumbler
You make it sound like it's a bad thing that they caught him...

Quote:Originally posted by A Black Falcon
Maybe Virginia doesn't have to worry about the huge amounts of pollution pumped into our atmosphere curtesy of the midwest coal-burning power plants that have contributed so much to our air quality problems, but the Northeast states do and have presented a pretty united front, from both parties, against the administration attempts to let those power plants pollute more.

And as for Vietnam, that war started during the Eisenhower administration and continued expanding through Kennedy and Johnson. Sure, it was a mistake, and their reasoning ("communism will spread") was flawed, but that's why Johnson didn't try for another term...

Quote:Point 1: You're right. Virginia has always been a relatively clean area. Thus, I have no use for environmental controls.

I do wish they'd commit to converting coal to nuclear power already though.

Quote:Point 2: Yes, the war started long before we got involved in it. But it was Johnson who got us in there en masse, no doubt about that. And, the planning and execution of that war was horrible. My dad reminds me that, when our fickle media reminds us that almost 200 casualties have occurred in Iraq in the last eight months, that 200 casualties were suffered in single DAYS in Nam. He tells me of how he and his friends feared Nam more than anything in the world, and that he's very thankful that he wasn't called over.

Johnson, by the way, didn't abstain from re-election out of regret for his decisions. He simply realized that he fucked things up so terribly that even trying would be a waste of time and money.

The funny thing is, preventing the spread of communism was a very noble goal, but in the end, we didn't need that war to do it. It's too bad we didn't know that communism would have collapsed under it's own weight a mere 25 years later.

Quote:the economy improved despite his awful tax cuts

Quote:Originally posted by A Black Falcon
The environment should be right near the top of the list of government programs... I mean, how could anything be more important than the air we breathe and the water we drink?

Quote:Originally posted by A Black Falcon
How are you so sure that it used to be so much better? I'm not... were public schools once far more effective and successful? I'm doubtful. Sure, some schools have problems, but most of that can be attributed to lack of funds, not lack of teaching... though yes, some schools are just bad even with more money and should be improved. But I wouldn't use the true problem schools as representative of the public school system. The biggest problem in public education is chronic and long-term underfunding, which has been going on for decades and continues to be a major issue. This, of course, is due to state and local underfunding as well as national, but national is a huge piece of the pie...

As for this "No Child Left Behind" thing to try to raise school standards, it is a bad law. It is biased strongly against rural areas and requires high levels of compliance among specific subgroups. Now in cities that's fine, but in the country like here those groups often have just a couple of people in them... if just a couple of people miss the test then the school could fail... it seems to me to be a thinly veiled attempt to get every single school in the country to fail and give as much money as possible to religious schools, because the standards as they are set are not even remotely realistic.

Oh, and as for discipline, if the price of not letting teachers hit their students is slightly less performance, then it's worth it since that kind of discipline should definitely not be allowed in schools.

Quote: Well the problem can't be underfunding, because the Christian schools I went to had far, far less money than the local public schools and the teachers were paid far, far less than public school teachers, but we got a better education. As an example, when we had new kids come to the school, they would be so lost for the first few months because they had to catch up to where we were at.

Another example: When I had to do drivers training, they only offered it at the public high school. The teachers were rude, angry, and made it very clear that they didn't care whether you learned anything or not. It really surpised me because I was used to teachers who actually did care, who would take the time to make sure you understood the concept, and who pushed you to learn more and try harder. Yes, I worked a lot harder than friends who went to public schools, but I learned a lot more than they did too. And isn't that the point of school? I thought it was.

And as for discipline- I never saw anyone at my school get hit or spanked or whatever else. That is not the kind of discipline needed at school. But the teachers also did not put up with lazyness or bad attitudes either.

And my point is not to say that all public school teachers are stupid and worhtless and don't care. But the system is screwed up, and the system needs to be changed. If you are so sure your way of doing school is better anyway, why are you so afraid of competition? That sounds like a big talking sports fan who is afraid of his team playing the defending champs because he knows that what he has been saying is nothing but blah blah blah and he doesn't want anyone else to know.

Quote:Clarify one thing for me. What part of SCHOOLS GET MORE FUNDING THAN EVER BEFORE YET STUDENT PERFORMANCE IS AT AN ALL-TIME LOW did you not understand?

Quote:And then you say that raising standards and expectations is bad. That it is wrong and discriminatory that we should expect our students not to be the worst in the whole freaking WORLD.

I'll give you points for honesty, but seriously, are you so terribly deluded that you believe any of this? Are you saying, with a straight face, that it is OKAY that our students achieve NOTHING in school? Can you really be essentially personifying the worst stereotypes of liberals, the idea that throwing more money at things will fix them, and actually BELIEVE it?

You come across as wanting government control over education, no matter how awful and wasteful it is, out of hatred for Christianity and some twisted, evil version of 'fairness' you possess. Everything you said above proves that.

Quote:Oh, and as for discipline, if the price of not letting teachers hit their students is slightly less performance, then it's worth it since that kind of discipline should definitely not be allowed in schools.

Quote:And as for discipline- I never saw anyone at my school get hit or spanked or whatever else. That is not the kind of discipline needed at school. But the teachers also did not put up with lazyness or bad attitudes either.

Quote:Right, because hitting kids is the only kind of discipline there is. I feel sorry for you if that's the only kind of discipline you know of.

Quote:That's what I'm talking about, not hitting or spanking. Teachers are too afraid to discipline their students (discipline as in detention, extra homework, etc.) because they are afraid of their students and their parents. Most of the kids I've seen in school should be sent to military school. It's totally out of hand right now.

Quote:Originally posted by A Black Falcon
I liked my (public) schools... sure, in some places, mainly urban areas, public schools are bad, but that is hardly true about the whole system. First, in many parts of the country there are major teacher shortages because school teachers get paid so badly very few people want to be teachers. The result is schools have to keep teachers that aren't as good because there is a shortage anyway... and we can't afford to pay teachers better because school funding is, as always, very low and one of the first things to get cut in a shortage.

Oh, and as for quality of public schools...

http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2003/12/16/high_school_seniors_think_they_are_getting_good_education/

How about this study? 88% of New Hampshire students questioned thought they were getting a good education, and 77% said they were going to go to college... and 73% said their teachers challenged them. I'd say that that goes against what you think it s true in public schools.

Oh Weltall, that brings up an important point. More people these days are going to college than ever before. And it isn't even close. That says something about our education system, and it sure isn't bad!

Quote:Look, I think that yes, there are a lot of bad teachers out there and that urban schools in many cases are indeed quite bad. But there are a lot of public schools that are not, such as the ones I went to...

Oh yeah, and by far the best way to improve the quality of a school is to improve the quality of the teachers. And to do that you need to pay them well... then you will actually get applicants and will be able to afford to do something about the not so good teachers you can't when you don't have any money.

Quote:Sure, in other countries there is better preformance in schools. But you know what? Most of those are public schools, not private ones, in the areas that are better that us...

Quote:Yes, increasing standards in tests is in theory a good way to force schools to improve. However, this law does not do it in a good way. As I said, it forces you to have equal performance in subgroups that you have in the general student population -- a major problem in states like this where those groups sometimes have just a few people! And when you need 100% of students to take a test to not be called a "failing" school, it's absurdly easy to "fail". Look, 100% isn't reasonable. You need to set goals that can be met... as it is they are trying to get every school to fail.

For instance, this year I think 130 schools in Maine "failed" the rules. I somehow doubt that even a fraction of that number of schools in Maine are actually bad schools. It just proves how this law is mostly here to kill the public school system so that Bush can justify giving more money to religious schools.

Quote:What does that say? It says that college admission is more accessable, due to student loans and dramatically lowered standards of admission. The same goes for student approval. Sure, the kids love it. The fact remains, against other nations, our schoolchildren suck, by and large, because our education system is in shambles.

Quote:If by subgroups you mean different races, I think you're essentially saying that certain people are less-intelligent than others. My expectations are the same from everyone. All students should be able to read at their grade level. Why is that such an outlandish expectation? Some high-school grads can't read at all!

Quote:And they do it without sinking huge amounts of money into it. Egad!

Quote:There is a test in Florida that all students must take in order to graduate. The minimum score required to pass is 40%. You are given FIVE opportunities per year to pass. Yet, many students can't even manage that.

Quote:Can the crap. Again, we spend more money than ever on public school funding. That teachers are paid so little is all the evidence necessary to see just why throwing more money at the problem doesn't help. Where is all this money going?

It's not just poor teachers. Curriculums are terrible. History is being re-taught for purposes of 'diversity and fairness', the two most terrible misnomers of a liberal's vocabulary. And worse, we're told that it is bad for a child's self-esteem to fail. So, the solution apparently is not to fail anyone, regardless of how much they deserve it. Thus, you have children progressing through school, essentially pushed through the grades until you have a high-school graduate who can barely read on a sixth-grade level. This high-school graduate has great self-esteem that will be mercilessly shattered once they realize that the real world will not allow... hell, provide for failure the way our public school system does.

Quote:Originally posted by A Black Falcon
Then why is this an issue? I mean, teachers do what they can, with sending them to the office and stuff...I wouldn't say that there is a big discipline problem. Well sure there are problem kids, but they try to keep them seperate (in special ed, etc). Sure, some teachers can't keep control over their classrooms, but they are a small minority.



Teachers give detention...

Quote:You obviously haven't been to or read anything about public schools today for you to make such an ignorant comment like that. Most teachers have no control over their kids anymore, and I'm not just talking about poor areas. If a kid thinks that he's being treated unfairly by a teacher (and really, what kid doesn't think that?) then that kid will go cry to his or her parents and that parent will complain to the principal, etc. Parents no longer believe that teachers know what they're doing, they don't let them do their jobs anymore. You wouldn't believe how many teachers I've seen quite or lose their jobs because of problems like this.

The best teachers I ever had were the ones that were strict with their students and weren't afraid of making them upset. They did their job well and because of that they made better students.