I was talking to a friend about the new immigration law in Arizona and asked " Is it really that bad?"
The state is at the forefront of the illegal immigration crisis. If someone is illegal is catching them bad?
But as I stated this and said all it meant was that if police had reason to suspect a person was here illegally they were obligated to inquire deeper and investigate. Then it hit me, what would make a person seem like they might be here illegally. Might it be looking hispanic, or having the name Gonzales. It clearly is a license for a Latino version of Driving while Black.
Immigration has been handled on a federal level, this would now give local police the responsibility for this issue. It is a recipe for disaster.
I do not think that the law is anything more than a manifestation of the frustration of state over a problem the Federal government seems incapable of leading on. It could not come at a worse time for John Mccain as he wages a primary battle in Arizona where his fairly liberal ideas on immigration reform do not need to be a headline if he wants to win.
Last night Laura Ingraham on the Bill O Reilly show stated that Obama was moving immigration to the forefront to capitalize on the heat of the issue. Lindsay Graham the accused conservative homosexual ( unconfirmed and unimportant) now says he will not play ball on climate change legislation if immigration is not pushed back until the issue calms down. But yet Obama is playing politics with a heated issue while Sarah Palin urges gun activists to be motivated to vote with crosshairs on the democratic congressional districts.
Who is responsible. I am not sure. It seems to me that the Arizona issue is a perfect time to talk about the issue. It may be too late to have it be an unemotional debate. Let's hope no one ends up with a target on their back.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Sarah Palin puts Dems in the crosshairs
Sarah Palin, though I hate to give her any credit, may be the most polarizing figure in America. She is an unintelligent, hand reading, hate generating imbecile from the outback of Alaska.
She also put on her website recently congressional democratic districts that were targets of Republican efforts this fall. She used crosshairs to demonstrate these targets.
This as militia violence and movements increase by the day in the United States.
A list of the statements made by Sarah Palin would take all day and make us all dumber. A candidate who shuns the elite and in fact speaks to the masses is dangerous. For all the Hitler references and I do not by any stretch think Sarah Palin is Hitler like Hitler attacked the elites as well. Sarah Palin is a caricature of herself and will fade away. However what comes after her could be even more dangerous.
She also put on her website recently congressional democratic districts that were targets of Republican efforts this fall. She used crosshairs to demonstrate these targets.
This as militia violence and movements increase by the day in the United States.
A list of the statements made by Sarah Palin would take all day and make us all dumber. A candidate who shuns the elite and in fact speaks to the masses is dangerous. For all the Hitler references and I do not by any stretch think Sarah Palin is Hitler like Hitler attacked the elites as well. Sarah Palin is a caricature of herself and will fade away. However what comes after her could be even more dangerous.
Lindsay Graham
Lindsay Graham the Republican Senator whose conservative credentials include leading the Impeachment against Bill Clinton when a member of the house was deemed to be not conservative enough this last week by his Republican friends.
At a conservative conference a speaker urged Graham to come out of the closet as a homosexual so that they could be sure he was not being coerced to make the stands he has been. Graham no friend of Obama policy wise has made the mistake of being civil and at least offering a pretense of being willing to work with the Democrats to try to gain some Republican ideas into legislation
I do not know if he is gay or not. It seems a harsh way to treat a man who has been nothing but an honorable Senator.
At a conservative conference a speaker urged Graham to come out of the closet as a homosexual so that they could be sure he was not being coerced to make the stands he has been. Graham no friend of Obama policy wise has made the mistake of being civil and at least offering a pretense of being willing to work with the Democrats to try to gain some Republican ideas into legislation
I do not know if he is gay or not. It seems a harsh way to treat a man who has been nothing but an honorable Senator.
Responsible Republicans
Anyone? I have strong Republican friends who have great common sense who I would trust to run the government. For the most part anyway. I know it is a product of the extremist rule on both sides but it still amazes me that Republican leadership can be so craven as to align themselves with Wall Street in the battle over financial reform. Of course many of these same leaders who decried Obama's stimulus money and then appear at local events with the large checks being presented for project's paid for by Obama's stimulus. Something is wrong in Washington. On both sides of the aisle mind you but the right is so over the top right now it is hard to fathom.
John McCain has been a Maverick and proud of it as recently as the last election. He is not anymore, denying the term as he runs for reelection in Arizona.
The system is broken. Republicans who reach across the aisle are targeted in primaries. Ask Charlie Crist what happens to those that do not follow the conservative line that Obama cannot be worked with.
If moderates cannot win only radicals on the right and left will win. They will win by disguising themselves in the election but once they win they will move toward whatever they were hiding. This is not the way for us to govern
John McCain has been a Maverick and proud of it as recently as the last election. He is not anymore, denying the term as he runs for reelection in Arizona.
The system is broken. Republicans who reach across the aisle are targeted in primaries. Ask Charlie Crist what happens to those that do not follow the conservative line that Obama cannot be worked with.
If moderates cannot win only radicals on the right and left will win. They will win by disguising themselves in the election but once they win they will move toward whatever they were hiding. This is not the way for us to govern
Monday, April 12, 2010
How to Fix Education
We visited with some family this weekend joining them Saturday night for an evening of relaxing, watching the Sox and then a Sunday filled with great food and an energetic WII contest. It was for all a very good time. Over dinner as we are often wont to do we discussed many subjects including the crisis in education and how to fix it. My wife, being a teacher and a great one at that, has fairly strong opinions on this subject.
The problem with the subject is there are no easy answers but there are lots of simplistic assumptions. And as I tell my children those who look for simple answers had better look for simple problems. On the surface holding teachers" accountable" for their students performance sounds like a logical idea. We all know there are bad teachers out there and yet the tenure systems props them up. There is no doubt this is true. However when we say accountable we must decide what we are measuring and how. In my wife's school it is without doubt that that students needing the most help go to the teachers who are the best at what they do. The teachers who perform poorly or at least not as well get the students that need the least help. Is this correct? I am not sure but what I do know is that if you make teachers accountable only to test scores why would a teacher want to help a troubled student.
I do not have the answers. I am not sure there are answers to solve America's issue in education. The answers in some cases may not be politically correct.
My observations might be wrong but here they are
If measuring teachers you cannot measure test scores but in some cases you could measure improvement. Kids are not in a vacuum before they come to a teacher and certainly not when they go home at night. Any system that will punish teachers for taking on higher risk students so as to keep a stronger test score is a system that will not work.
If our concern is that tenure protects bad teachers we are to some extent correct. However if we remove tenure we must realize that as education is an easy target in budget trouble times now so too will be the experienced teachers who make a higher salary in troubled times. In short would you like to work 15 years and then be let go so that two lesser teachers who make much less than you can be hired. Now we know this is what happens in the real world outside of education but we do not see this as a good thing. What this is a result of is that unions have lost much of their power to protect, let us not begrudge this group who has been smart enough to hold their union together. We all should have done so.
Testing is great but my children spend at least 6 to 8 weeks a year on testing. This seems excessive. And again if we tell teachers they will be judged on tests only they will teach only to the test. Do you know how much history is on that test? Not much. Yet the same people screaming on Fox News that children do not know their countries history or what the state capital of Michigan is ( this is a big deal to me) are the people screaming that teachers have to be held accountable. The two paths do not meet. If you over emphasize testing you will not have children learning as wide a range of information. Incidentally we as parents are guilty of this too. When we see our children only searching for the answers to a question in a book they were to to read rather than reading the whole book we are endorsing No Child Left Behind. In short only the test mattes not what you really absorbed.
Of the students that go to college for education now 80 percent of those students are in the bottom 20 percent of students who go to college in test scores. We are not attracting the best people to teach our students. What this means is that you have some wonderful teachers and thank God for them and then you have alot of placeholders. There are not a lot of ok teachers. You are great because you have a passion that means more than the money you could make elsewhere or you are there because the pay is solid and you get summers off. We need to encourage our best and brightest and that means money.
We all can remember teachers who made a positive or negative influence on me. These people are some of the most important people in our children's lives. We would do well to do all we can to support them,
The problem with the subject is there are no easy answers but there are lots of simplistic assumptions. And as I tell my children those who look for simple answers had better look for simple problems. On the surface holding teachers" accountable" for their students performance sounds like a logical idea. We all know there are bad teachers out there and yet the tenure systems props them up. There is no doubt this is true. However when we say accountable we must decide what we are measuring and how. In my wife's school it is without doubt that that students needing the most help go to the teachers who are the best at what they do. The teachers who perform poorly or at least not as well get the students that need the least help. Is this correct? I am not sure but what I do know is that if you make teachers accountable only to test scores why would a teacher want to help a troubled student.
I do not have the answers. I am not sure there are answers to solve America's issue in education. The answers in some cases may not be politically correct.
My observations might be wrong but here they are
If measuring teachers you cannot measure test scores but in some cases you could measure improvement. Kids are not in a vacuum before they come to a teacher and certainly not when they go home at night. Any system that will punish teachers for taking on higher risk students so as to keep a stronger test score is a system that will not work.
If our concern is that tenure protects bad teachers we are to some extent correct. However if we remove tenure we must realize that as education is an easy target in budget trouble times now so too will be the experienced teachers who make a higher salary in troubled times. In short would you like to work 15 years and then be let go so that two lesser teachers who make much less than you can be hired. Now we know this is what happens in the real world outside of education but we do not see this as a good thing. What this is a result of is that unions have lost much of their power to protect, let us not begrudge this group who has been smart enough to hold their union together. We all should have done so.
Testing is great but my children spend at least 6 to 8 weeks a year on testing. This seems excessive. And again if we tell teachers they will be judged on tests only they will teach only to the test. Do you know how much history is on that test? Not much. Yet the same people screaming on Fox News that children do not know their countries history or what the state capital of Michigan is ( this is a big deal to me) are the people screaming that teachers have to be held accountable. The two paths do not meet. If you over emphasize testing you will not have children learning as wide a range of information. Incidentally we as parents are guilty of this too. When we see our children only searching for the answers to a question in a book they were to to read rather than reading the whole book we are endorsing No Child Left Behind. In short only the test mattes not what you really absorbed.
Of the students that go to college for education now 80 percent of those students are in the bottom 20 percent of students who go to college in test scores. We are not attracting the best people to teach our students. What this means is that you have some wonderful teachers and thank God for them and then you have alot of placeholders. There are not a lot of ok teachers. You are great because you have a passion that means more than the money you could make elsewhere or you are there because the pay is solid and you get summers off. We need to encourage our best and brightest and that means money.
We all can remember teachers who made a positive or negative influence on me. These people are some of the most important people in our children's lives. We would do well to do all we can to support them,
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Student Loan Changes
Recently the President signed a reform and restructure of the Student Loan program. To me this was a no brainer but again our Republican friends found cause to disagree. I simply do not understand. Under the former plan the government paid banks to administer the student loan program and then also provided protection to the banks should the students default on those loans. In short the banks would make a profit no matter what, and if things went poorly the government was left holding the bag. What's more being that banks are for profit the driver was profit not getting kids in college.
Under the new plan the government has taken out the banks as a middleman. Loans for students will now come directly from the government and as the government is surely non profit the extra money not spend on overhead will be plowed back into the student loan program.
If the loans go south the government is no more and no less on the hook than they were with the banks, and in this way the government can affect loan balances when the the borrowers do things such as teach in poor schools, provide rural medicine and other things deemed of value to society as a whole.
For those who are against social engineering this might not ring well but the real worry here for Republicans is that that last thing they need is a bunch of young people exposed to a government program that takes out the profit making middleman and allows the government by running a program to eliminate the corporate interests and reduce the administrative overhead by a ten fold percentage. If people saw this happening it might make them think twice about ...well you get the picture.
Under the new plan the government has taken out the banks as a middleman. Loans for students will now come directly from the government and as the government is surely non profit the extra money not spend on overhead will be plowed back into the student loan program.
If the loans go south the government is no more and no less on the hook than they were with the banks, and in this way the government can affect loan balances when the the borrowers do things such as teach in poor schools, provide rural medicine and other things deemed of value to society as a whole.
For those who are against social engineering this might not ring well but the real worry here for Republicans is that that last thing they need is a bunch of young people exposed to a government program that takes out the profit making middleman and allows the government by running a program to eliminate the corporate interests and reduce the administrative overhead by a ten fold percentage. If people saw this happening it might make them think twice about ...well you get the picture.
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