What I Wanted to Say

[Eric]

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10608

This is exactly what I wanted to say earlier with the whole back-to-school debate, only a little more eloquently! There's even a college football reference!

[donovan]

There is a belief because you were elected to an office you are morally superior to those that elected you. Now that the President of the United States has told us what time our children should go to school and what time they should come home and how many days, weeks and months they should do this, do you think he could find time to let me know when I can get a haircut.?

[Spence]

There is a belief because you were elected to an office you are morally superior to those that elected you. Now that the President of the United States has told us what time our children should go to school and what time they should come home and how many days, weeks and months they should do this, do you think he could find time to let me know when I can get a haircut.?

I think people should identify the people who believe they are morally superior then those that elected them and throw them out on their collective butts.

[Dossenator]

I think people should identify the people who believe they are morally superior then those that elected them and throw them out on their collective butts.

I second that Spence. The Secretary of Education has convinced Obama that US kids do not go to school enough. Obama wants to lengthen the school day and the number of days kids go to school. I guess he needs that extra time to teach the kids the "Hail to Obama" song, and to teach them how to evenly distribute wealth. I am still shocked that Obama is our president. We desperately need another Reagan. You might not agree with everything he did....but he had integrity, a love for country, and dare I say....common sense. If Obama is elected to a 2nd term then this country is farther gone then I originally thought it to be.

[Spence]

I think people should identify the people who believe they are morally superior then those that elected them and throw them out on their collective butts.

I second that Spence. The Secretary of Education has convinced Obama that US kids do not go to school enough. Obama wants to lengthen the school day and the number of days kids go to school. I guess he needs that extra time to teach the kids the "Hail to Obama" song, and to teach them how to evenly distribute wealth. I am still shocked that Obama is our president. We desperately need another Reagan. You might not agree with everything he did....but he had integrity, a love for country, and dare I say....common sense. If Obama is elected to a 2nd term then this country is farther gone then I originally thought it to be.

He believes that we need to begin brain washing them early. I actually agree that kids need more school work. I don't know if I believe they need to spend more time at school to get it. My kids probably only spend one third of the school day learning. Some days less. I have tried for six years to work within our school system to get this changed and have been stonewalled at every turn. I am going to pull my kids out and send them to private school because of how screwed up this public system has become. I feel bad for the people who fought with me to change things, the ones who can't afford to move their children.

[Dossenator]

I think people should identify the people who believe they are morally superior then those that elected them and throw them out on their collective butts.

I second that Spence. The Secretary of Education has convinced Obama that US kids do not go to school enough. Obama wants to lengthen the school day and the number of days kids go to school. I guess he needs that extra time to teach the kids the "Hail to Obama" song, and to teach them how to evenly distribute wealth. I am still shocked that Obama is our president. We desperately need another Reagan. You might not agree with everything he did....but he had integrity, a love for country, and dare I say....common sense. If Obama is elected to a 2nd term then this country is farther gone then I originally thought it to be.

He believes that we need to begin brain washing them early. I actually agree that kids need more school work. I don't know if I believe they need to spend more time at school to get it. My kids probably only spend one third of the school day learning. Some days less. I have tried for six years to work within our school system to get this changed and have been stonewalled at every turn. I am going to pull my kids out and send them to private school because of how screwed up this public system has become. I feel bad for the people who fought with me to change things, the ones who can't afford to move their children.

I think it depends on the state and on a school by school basis. I think the schools I went to in Bentonville, Ark did an outstanding job. In jr high and high school, I needed no extra work. In fact, at times I felt like I had too much to do. My wife is an assistant principal at a school in CA...they do a great job. Both Bentonville and the school my wife is at now are schools ranked high nationally every year.

The whole notion behind this more school is that we are falling behind...especially Japan, China, etc. That is just false info being spewed by the media. They compare tests scores. First you have to realize that Japan and other countries only use the results of the tests given to the kids that they have hand picked to go to college....while the US tests and use the scores from every child. My wife and mother-in-law have won grants to study the educational systems in Japan and China. My wife spent a month in Japan. She was shocked at what she saw. She saw unorginized classrooms, kids talking and throwing paper balls during instruction, and a school system that competely ignores the girls. She attended many meetings where the Japanese were urging their government officials to adopt many of educational policies of the US. The truth is US kids are in school more hours of the year then that of Japanese kids and many other kids around the world. If a school is failing the kids then we have to hold them accountable. I do think the major problem over the past 20 years is too much emphasis being placed on standardized testing. Schools drill kids trying to prepare them for these tests....rather than teaching kids the skills they will need to be successful in the future. Many schools get funding based on how they do on these tests....that's why they spend so much time preparing for these tests.

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090927/ap_ ... ore_school)

From the article above:
Kids in the U.S. spend more hours in school (1,146 instructional hours per year) than do kids in the Asian countries that persistently outscore the U.S. on math and science tests — Singapore (903), Taiwan (1,050), Japan (1,005) and Hong Kong (1,013). That is despite the fact that Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong have longer school years (190 to 201 days) than does the U.S. (180 days).

[Eric]

Well, all of this stuff irritates me. If public schools had more competition, things would get in shape even if a large minority of parents were disenfranchised with their product. It's called the marketplace, and governments have a good way of destroying them. Learn it, live it, love it

It's just irritating. Why does the president of the United States need to make a pitch for the Olympics? Why does the president, of all the people on the planet, need to tell kids to stay in school? This further promotes the idea that, like the article mentioned, the president is no longer the executioner and enforcer of our laws, but is some kind of father-protector figure. We need kids to go to school? Tell the president about it. You want the Olympics? Let's get Obama to get them for us. People need to start thinking for themselves, but if anyone here has seen Network, welcome to the new fabulous world that mass media has created! The president will always be the most famous figure in America due to the television. I'm definitely not some anti-technology crank (a Gen Y'er so don't laugh ), but it all depends on how you apply it, of course.

And while we're on that topic (this is a stereotype, I know), the complainers which are mostly the CNN-crowd will say stuff like, "don't you wingnuts have anything else to complain about?" If Obama makes a pitch for the Olympics, it's not really a big deal. It's the fact that he feels the need to take on ridiculous obstacles that the president really has no business doing (curbing smoking, fixing college football, Olympics, etc.). These people bug me. They're the kind of "pragmatists" that who think if a government program "works" that it's good. Never mind the fact that the use of money obtained through coercion (also known as taxation) might be immoral to begin with. They've already made that step that says stealing people's money for the use of things other than protecting natural liberties is okay. I'm tired of anti-intellectual people dominating the scope of national discussion. Time to shake things up a bit!

/rant

[WoVeU]

Americans vs China and Japan...is hog wash to a large degree form what I saw at school. I never went to high school and didn't do ANYTHING in JH. In College at 28 compared to 20 yo Asians...I crushed them. And I have spent plenty of time fixing their design mistakes (their product, not mine) and they had a whole team who couldn't resolve the issue in weeks. It never took me more than a few hour once I cracked their mess open!


I don't like our long Summer breaks. Just too long...even the kids get tired of it or at least minimally enthused about being home another day. The long breaks are hard for retention on build upon skills. Higher math and parts of science get a good deal more difficult, proper grammar too. Anything you have to keep a working edge on and repeatedly builds on principles.

But schools would wast increased time, I figure. My kids have 2 sets of books (school and home) and I still find them doing Worksheets and projects. (Which do you think is easier to grade????) I know when I taught (I had no grader) the grading is the most time consuming and most work and least enjoyable. (Projects aren't boring and high level stuff that personally engages a student is very interesting.)

We just need to go to private schools!