Lack of funding towards education

[adompeace]

I know this is old but this issue was really bothering me lately and I need to get it off my chest

There are a lot of reasons to impeach Bush: the war in Iraq, the poor response to Hurricane Katrina, failure to support the rights of the disabled, and tax-cuts for the richest in the country, but the biggest reason for me is the lack of funding to education. It's all about the war in Iraq nowadays, which I have yet to see a practical reason for starting. Now I go to school in New York City so the lack of funding is more apparent than anywhere else in the nation. I go to one of the most prestigious schools in the city (LAB School in case you're wondering) and we have great teachers but even we have computers that are really slow and outdated, class sizes that are way past the legal limit (my science class at one point was 47 students), constant switching of homerooms, poor and cheap planning of school events, and mediocre security among other things. It's like the government is saying, "Fuck you" to us.

I noticed that the most affected party is minorities, particularly in Harlem (where I live), which shows that society is now more racist than ever. I know one kid (I won't give names) who literally got grades in the 10s and got held back twice, and wants to be a rapper, but his lyrics are terrible (one time, he compared a girl's butt to a "jellyfish man." Laughable, isn't it?). It's not entirely his fault. It's the nation's fault for not giving him a decent enough education. If they focused more on education and stopped being unreasonably racist, he will most likely stop rhyming like P. Diddy and start rhyming like KRS-One, and his grades will at least be more acceptable.

I wasn't going to be so fired up about this issue but I found out what they are spending more money on besides the war: Detention halls. Just to lock up minorities for years for even the slightest offense, like stealing a slice of pizza or a 2-pack of batteries, while letting white drug dealers off the hook. Fucked up, eh? The government COULD use the money to keep them off the streets and give them a future, but no. They have to make MORE jails, which only makes the problem worse.

The government either has no common sense whatsoever or has no faith in us whatsoever. They're throwing us away, like a used candy bar wrapper. I know a lot of people in my generation that have great potential for promising futures and the government is preventing those futures from happening. In 30-60 years, someone from our generation will run the country and without proper education, who knows what will happen to the nation? We're doing terribly enough as it is. And we're under the control of someone who went to Yale, which is an Ivy League college; only the smartest have the potential of getting in. If that's a Yale alumnus running the country, are becoming less intelligent? Do we not want to be intelligent? Do we not want to be a respected and dignified nation? The pursuit of knowledge at this point should be more important than money, especially if there's a good chance that there's no future for my generation. Our arts will represent the 2010s and the 2020s (the 2000s arts are awful enough as they are), and our politics will influence the 2030s to the 2050s. Then we will screw up another generation, then they will screw up the next, and so on and so forth. So it's not just us the government is throwing away. They are throwing away ALL the generations that follow us. Humanity will be doomed if we don't change our attitude towards education.

Now to end on the lighter side: (switches smiley to excited face!)

I have a date this Friday!!! Real cute looking girl! She plays the drums! I'm gettin' real antsy about Friday!

[Demosthenez]

You do realize your state and local governments have more affect on your schools than the national government, dont you?

At 11/20/07 04:27 PM, adompeace wrote: Now I go to school in New York City so the lack of funding is more apparent than anywhere else in the nation.

The inability to fire the bad and reward the good is the biggest reason schools fail the kids. Lack of money is often cited the reason schools fail, but America doubled per pupil spending, adjusting for inflation, over the last 30 years. Test scores and graduation rates stayed flat. New York City now spends an extraordinary $11,000 per student. That's $220,000 for a classroom of twenty kids. Couldn't you hire two or three excellent teachers and do a better job with $220,000?
I want you to read this entire thing.

It's not entirely his fault. It's the nation's fault for not giving him a decent enough education.

Thats BS. If I fail a class, its my fault. Not my parents or my family or my city or my school or my nation, my fault. As long as we are on faults of the nation, I think an even larger one is peoples inability to take responsibility for their actions. Like this, its the kids fault. He may have it harder than other but that can only excuse you so far. If he fails, he fails. Nothing else to be said.

Just some more good info.

If people got to choose their kids' school, education options would be endless. There could soon be technology schools, cheap Wal-Mart-like schools, virtual schools where you learn at home on your computer, sports schools, music schools, schools that go all year, schools with uniforms, schools that open early and keep kids later, and, who knows? If there were competition, all kinds of new ideas would bloom.

This already happens overseas. In Belgium, for example, the government funds education-at any school-but if the school can't attract students, it goes out of business. Belgian school principal Kaat Vandensavel told us she works hard to impress parents. "If we don't offer them what they want for their child, they won't come to our school." She constantly improves the teaching, "You can't afford ten teachers out of 160 that don't do their work, because the clients will know, and won't come to you again."

"That's normal in Western Europe," Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby told me. "If schools don't perform well, a parent would never be trapped in that school in the same way you could be trapped in the U.S."

[TehChahlesh]

The first post pretty much ended the thread, but I'd just like to add that none of the reasons you gave is a valid reason for impeachment. You can't impeach a president based purely on that fact that you think he doesn't make the best decisions.

[SEXY-FETUS]

Blame the teachers unions not the president. About a quarter of the money that goes into education will make it through to the district itself, and then from there maybe half of that will make it to the schools. So much is bled before the classroom that we can't make an impression. People vote for education funding for the most part, and they aren't going to be voting in favour unless they start seeing improvement in the overall outcome, and that's pretty much impossible with the amount the unions and districts bleed out of the classrooms.

[pyrofreeze200]

My solution would be to make school optional. Sure we'd have a lot of dropouts but the dumbasses would drop out of high school anyway. When i was in school i was tired of the people that didn't want to be there and held everyone back. Maybe make education mandutory to the 4th or 5th grade that way the dropouts can have at least the minimal training needed to work at McDonalds. Then the kids that are left in school want to be there and the creative flow of ideas would be endless. Then again parents would probably force most kids to go to school anyway but at least a few wouldn't and thats a little something. Maybe one day the stupid won't always outnumber the smarts.

[SEXY-FETUS]

How about we get rid of all the shitty teachers? Now there's an idea, get rid of them so more kids can actually get into to school. I aplaud their efforts to do something so selfless, but if you suck at it it's too important to let you continue.

[natetheorc]

so are you saying you want a domocrate prezident?

[reviewer-general]

At 11/20/07 09:37 PM, natetheorc wrote: so are you saying you want a domocrate prezident?

Get the fuck out of here.

NOW.

;

[therealsylvos]

At 11/20/07 08:37 PM, SEXY-FETUS wrote: How about we get rid of all the shitty teachers? Now there's an idea, get rid of them so more kids can actually get into to school. I aplaud their efforts to do something so selfless, but if you suck at it it's too important to let you continue.

Ah school is that place we're everything is backwards, the employee marks the employer, but if the the employee doesn't do his job, there is no recourse the employer can take for wasted wages. The only solution is to privatize it and allow maximum competition, thus insuring the best possible enviroment for the consumer

[SEXY-FETUS]

The employer is the people paying taxes for schools.
The employee is the teacher.
The product is the student.
If the cow gets into bad grazing areas the meat won't be as good, it's not the ranchers job to send him on his way. He needs to figure out how to get him from grazing off the bad plants. If every kid thirsted for knowledge we'd just hand them a bunch of books and say have at it. Teachers not only need to teach, but also find a way to get students to want to learn. OH NOS A HARD JOBZOR!!!!

[therealsylvos]

At 11/20/07 10:46 PM, SEXY-FETUS wrote: The employer is the people paying taxes for schools.
The employee is the teacher.
The product is the student.

No the product is the education. what it boils down to is that, through several middlemen, the teacher works for the student, to provide a valuble service.

If the cow gets into bad grazing areas the meat won't be as good, it's not the ranchers job to send him on his way. He needs to figure out how to get him from grazing off the bad plants. If every kid thirsted for knowledge we'd just hand them a bunch of books and say have at it. Teachers not only need to teach, but also find a way to get students to want to learn. OH NOS A HARD JOBZOR!!!!

Thats all well an good however the rancher must also make sure that there are good plants available, not just lots of really expensive bad ones.

[fahrenheit]

At 11/20/07 10:46 PM, SEXY-FETUS wrote: Teachers not only need to teach, but also find a way to get students to want to learn. OH NOS A HARD JOBZOR!!!!

That would be completely true if students were secluded the same way cows are. But they arent, and the teacher doesnt have total influence over them, the parent does.