36 minutes ago, Khan said:

Over the years, I have grown to despise those who are critical of our country's public school systems.  Especially those who, in almost all cases, possess options that others simply do not.

 

Instead of finding more ways (such as vouchers) to opt OUT of a public school education for your kids, I ask, why not do your part (and make your elected officials do theirs) in helping to improve the quality of education that already exists?

 

I tell you, it's just like what I said upthread in regards to reforming the health care industry (over fixing monthly insurance premiums).  This country keeps looking for the quick fix or the easy out instead of dealing with the issue head-on.

That sounds good, but changing the public school system enough to equal a good private education doesn't seem very realistic to me. In some places it's all teachers can do to maintain order in the classroom, never mind teach to high standards.  I don't in any way agree with vouchers or any public money going to private education, but I don't think there is a lot parents can do take make bad school systems good (better, maybe in some cases). I'm not saying all public schools are bad either, it very much depends on where you live. Either way change takes a lot of time, effort and money and you can't force elected officials to prioritize something they don't.

Low performing schools are in low income areas, which is why so many parents choose to send their kids to higher performing schools outside of their own neighborhoods. A lot of the schools in wealthier areas perform so well because of good PTA organizations that can raise enormous amounts of money for programs, so interestingly enough, good performance can't always be credited to the school district.

 

Something else that seems to slowly gaining support among teachers is eliminating homework and focusing more on classroom learning.

I'm a career changer and started teaching about 8 years ago. Taught in Chicago Public Schools for my first 7 years. Vouchers are no answer IMO. There are a lot of challenges, many being how understaffed and funded and overpopulated schools in urban areas are and how under funded schools in rural areas are. I have a couple of friends who are both Lutheran school teachers in rural areas and honestly they aren't that much better off in terms of funding. And many primary and secondary parochial schools across the country have closed also.

 

I agree about the quick fix. You can ask 10 education professionals and you'd likely get 10 different answers on where the problems lie and how to fix them. No Child Left Behind has been a failure, Core Curriculum, while a nice idea, does not have widespread support and has challenges also. But if we had people leading us who truly believed public education was important and were more concerned with that versus trying to privatize public schools through the failing for profit Charter model, we might actually make progress. European schools are facing many of the same problems we are barring Finland. The Asian students are beating us out but their culture is also a lot different. Our own diversity while a plus, does present unique challenges that many other countries don't necessarily have to face.

 

My own opinion, is looking at our college educational system, we are starting to see a lot of similar problems surface. 25 years ago Harvard University was graduating about 2% of it's students with straight A averages. Now it's 15%. Not one person can convince me our students are that much smarter, particularly when you look at how well public schools have not performed. Some of that is likely students attending our universities from countries outside of the US but that's not all of it. Part of the problem IMO is too much catering to students and parents who believe their kids are smarter or perform better than they actually do. I never really experienced it in the urban school environment, but in suburban schools parents basically dictate to the teachers how to teach and put pressure on school administrations to over reward their children. School boards are filled with inexperienced people who think they know more than education professionals and tend to cowtow to this pressure. It's not the entire problem, but it accounts for more than people realize.

Edited January 18, 20178 yr by JaneAusten

^ I hear you on the leadership front. So many of our politicians want kids in Christian schools being taught a specific dogma, which makes me sick. I think people have the right to send their kids to those schools if they want to, but it's not the job of the public to fund it.

 

Also, to change some of the problems in the public school system you have to tackle the problems some of these kids have at home.  If they don't have a stable home life,enough food to eat, healthcare and parental support, how can you expect good performance? The government could do a lot more to help at risk kids, but the Republicans will be blocking that for the foreseeable future.

9 hours ago, Nothin'ButAttitude said:

 

All of them are f-cking horrible. Honestly, I think Trump picked all these idiots, so he won't take the brunt of the blame when sh-t goes awry. This was a tactic to surround himself with idiocy, so the limelight can be dispersed evenly amongst his Cabinet. 

 

I don't believe Trump picked them at all. This reeks of Steve Bannon. He calls himself a Leninist and is committed to destroying the government. Each of these picks is designed to destroy the departments they've been given.

I think there a lot of people -- too many people, in fact -- who want to destroy the government.  But, I would ask these people, what do you intend to do once you have, indeed, torn down everything?  Because, these people who you are supposed to represent will still need to be governed.

According to CNN, Trump's labor pick is having second thoughts. I'm not getting my hopes up but it would be a nice victory if at least one of these lunatics said "Screw this" and walked away.

 

ETA: I forgot about Monica Crowley being taken down by plagiarism charges. That was nice to see. She, like Kellyanne, has been a pox on the soul of America for years.

Edited January 18, 20178 yr by marceline

 

Here was Kimberlin Brown speech at Republican convention. She is a hardcore Trump fan and republican.

You know I get a very STRONG feeling they're going to rebrand the ACA as something new and take credit for it. Just something that got me thinking.

 

 

1 hour ago, dragonflies said:

You know I get a very STRONG feeling they're going to rebrand the ACA as something new and take credit for it. Just something that got me thinking.

 

 

They want to ignore the reports that have been coming out, the pleas from the HC industry, the fact that repealing this will likely cost over 2 million jobs, and they will be the ones responsible. I tend to concur it's not going away. They have no better plan. Maybe they can get those premiums back to being affordable if they start paying the insurance companies what they actually owe them versus undermining the law.

 

OT:

I'm watching President Obama's last press conference in tears. He's such a classy, distinguished, articulate, and yes elegant man. We have been lucky, regardless of some of his failures, to have this man lead us.  People don't realize how much he's going to be missed. And this is the last normal press conference we will see for years if not ever. And with someone who may be guarded with them but certainly not combative.

Edited January 18, 20178 yr by JaneAusten

Obama is my 2nd favorite President. Secondly on to Abraham Lincoln

Trump and Republicans....insults to the walking dead. and they are going to call it something else and take credit for it...that's all republicans do. and the stupid folks who vote for them act like they can't realize that...because "HE'LL BUILD A WALL TO KEEP THE ILLEGALS OUT!!" stupid asses....

You can't fix stupid....

 

Here's another Tumblr keeping track of Trumpers with buyer's remorse.

 

http://www.areyousorryyet.com/

http://www.khou.com/news/local/former-president-george-hw-bush-hospitalized-in-houston/386968629

Praying for the Bush family. 

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/01/more-than-1600-factory-workers-are-being-fired-after-trump-said-hed-save-their-jobs-heres-what-they-have-to-say/