riverripper wrote:
We have terrible healthcare for everyone but the well to do, education system is bordering on pathetic, heck our entire country is decaying...everything from roads to bridge to waste water treatment and power supplies.
If we ever want to fix these we are going to have to tax people...republicans wont want to do that so these things will keep getting cut so we can build more tanks to send to Iraq to be blown up. We complain about how bad our taxes are but they are far less than they once were...instead of wasting billions on bullets we could be spending billions researching fuel efficient stuff to make us energy independent. Spend our money on things that bring a return...like the space race which trickled down tons of scientific improvements into everyday living.
Oh River, now you've gone and touched on my favorite subject. But first let me say that I respect and really like that most Dems want to help people. If that were the only issue I'd be a democrat too. But let's look at the reality of many of these liberal policies.
Democrats wanted to provide housing to the poor. Result: The projects... now serving as black market pharmacies.
Democrats wanted to give financial benefits to the poor. Result: The Pre and Post Clinton welfare system which effectively took black men(fathers) out of the equation. So today the out of wedlock birth rate in the black comm. is anywhere from 70 to 90% in some inner cities.
Democrats wanted to punish crack possession more heavily because the truth is that it IS more destructive than cocaine. Result: Hundreds of thousands of black and latino men jailed for years with little chance at reforming their lives.
(I focus on the stats for the black and latino communities because that's what I'm most familiar with)
There is also the issue of the dependency that occurs with many of our poverty outreach programs. Take the bi-partisan screw up that was Katrina, and you see how bad things can get when an entire population is completely dependent on government to meet its most important needs. So no, I'm not ready to throw more tax money at the government so it can run some more misguided poverty experiments on poor people. I am shocked that so many people want to continue throwing more responsibilities at our notoriously inept government in the form of health care. No matter what side you are on, you can't elect the right people all the time.
I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. Insert appropriate cliche: The road to hell was paved with good intentions. You can't just say you want to do good while not actually doing good. I think there should be some help for the very poorest among us, but there should be many hoops to get it and it should be focused primarily on getting people back on their feet. Not taking over their responsibilites from cradle to grave.
But onto education... the issue here is NOT money. Why so many people think throwing money at this issue will make it better is beyond me. There are 3 issues that need tending to in order to make the schools better.
1. Culture 2. Curriculum 3. Constructivism and they need to be fixed in that order.
1. If you have kids that want to learn, you can teach them in a hut in Bangladesh or a dilapidated building in the South Bronx. If the kids want to learn, teachers will want to teach them. So much of the discussion about teacher's pay would be muted here... mainly because the teachers who teach in these areas are more concerned about helping students than getting six plus figures.
2. If the kids are all learning different things and the work isn't cumulative, rigorous, and relevant to the skills people will need in the real world, then it's going to be hard to get results. For those familiar with KIPP schools, this is one of their main problems with reading scores.
3. How do the teachers teach? Are the kids being taught to memorize their 1-12 times tables (few kids these days do) or are they given calculators by 4th grade? Do the teachers draw false dichotomies like "the kids need to learn to think instead of focusing so much on getting the right answer?" Do the kids spend more time doing projects and portfolios instead of mastering material? The phonics vs. whole word reading debate is largely over, but the fact that it took so long to resolve (and the fact that some people still insist that whole word is equally effective) is a testament to the bureaucratic nonsense that takes place in our public schools system.
Almost any problem in our schools has to do with people failing to address at least one of these points, or by trying to do them out of order. So then what will make kids want to learn? Well, I'm keeping that part a secret for now
close
05 Feb 2008, 20:48
