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I have to vote by mail and my state (Ohio) is pushing voting by mail. Must be easier to throw an election by destroying paper than diddling with a computer. Also exit polls are irrelevent this way.
Has now Mayor Rahm Emanuel ever helped improve a deep division in the social fabric of a community, a community with a dire need to improving the education of the young boys and girls who live in Chicago? Perhaps walking around naked as he has in the past is an inadequate tool to solving a problem many of us face in our communities. Thom may be able to inform us how privatizing public schools will help Mayor Emanuel achieve his political objectives.
What's wrong with private schools? They are created to make money for their owners or managers, and they don't give diddly squat about the kids' education. They are making big bucks, subsidized by government, and not living up to their promises.
If your kids go to a private school sponsored and supported in part by Bill Gates or some large corporation, what do you think your kids will learn? Probably not much critical thinking and analysis (in Texas it's against the law anyway) but it probably wouldn't get a chance in a private school funded by big business and whose aim is to prepare kids for A JOB. Skip learning about being good citizens and having a full life full of intellectual exploration and learning.
Do the American People want Mitt & Ann Romney also Paul Ryan who do_not tell the American People the Truth now, What will it be like if Mitt Romny & Paul Ryan get into Office ?
Do you thinks that Mitt Romney & Paul Ryan will LIES to you agin ? Yes or NO
if the people will read or see the NEWs
Why ?
President Obama came out with the " Amican job Avt Bill " over a years, and the Republican & Paul Ryan, VOTE the American jobs Act down, but President Obama would have a lot of Womens & Mens back to work, if the Republicans VOTE yes on the Ameican jobs Act. So DO_NOT for get November 2,2010 ? When the Republicans told the American People "there wikk be jobs"So Paul Ryan where are the jobs you told the American People ?
Did Paul Ryan LIES to the American People ? or What ?
Ignorance and illness are both real threats to our wellbeing. Teachers' income could match surgeons if they adopted the same financial model as medicine. They should sell ignorance insurance. They could use their assessment technologies in private clinics and make referrals to wherever they have staffing privileges (schools, not hospitals). They could then divide their day into 5-minute interventions, filing claims for each student in the classroom. Soon their income would match surgeons, and no one would have to pass a budget. All they would have to do is buy ignorance insurance. It would be negatively oriented rather than goal or learning oriented, but then medicine gets by focused on illness rather than health. It would relieve all the fuss about outcomes, since insuance is based on claims, not results. It would make teachers more professional, since a professional is someone who gets paid regardless of outcomes.
In both education and medicine, it is all about the financial paradigm.
I went to 12 years of Catholic school and my education was stellar. Grades 1-8 was mixed, but grades 9-12 was girls only. I went to Kent State University, am no longer a practicing Catholic, but I can say I received an unbelievable education. I don't know about charter vs regular public, but I'm sure it depends on the state. I lived in New Orleans for seven years and the Catholic schools are at least two years behind the Catholic schools up north. I find that parents who demand higher standards, will get them.
Wendy, What points did you disagree with? If there are only left-leaning guests, then this will only be an echo chamber. I think it prompts discussions (even if there are fundamental differences of opinions). More talk/ less demagoguery.
I'm really torn about this situation. I'm a former teacher who got fed up with the bureaucracy. I don't believe in teacher tenure: first in, first out sucks. Anyway, we have a FAILING nationwide school system. In other countries, teachers come from the cream of the crop - same test scores as doctors and are revered more. In the U.S., teachers are now coming from the bottom of the barrel.
In this economic crisis we don't have zillions to spend on all schools, let alone the failing schools. Schools should be longer and lengthened. Children have been failed by their parents, teachers, administrators, community and government.
What is so wrong with the private sector stepping in? Look what Microsoft has done for his schools. The kids are active and thriving. If the private sector and the teachers could come to a common goal of maintaining accountability and working towards creating a well-rounded, highly educated child - not seen since the 60's, it might work. I'd love to see the bickering stop and the children put first for a change. Everyone's fighting over everything BUT the kids.
We don't have time to sit around a bicker. We have lost a generation of children who have been dumbed-down all at the expense of adults who know best.
The longer we fight, the more kids lose and the dumber this nation gets.
What it comes down to is these teachers demands could all be satisfied by ordering one less military aircraft or one less helicopter.
What do the people want? Good education for thier children or another F-22?
What do the people want? Support for a displaced worker or health care for someone that cannot afford it or a tax deduction for a dancing horse that gets a $77,000 per year tax deduction?
By the way, the tax deduction for the horse means two teachers cannot be paid.
hey thom, why don't you or someone in the news pull together the stats on private educa verses public. i'd be curious to see how the top 100 private schools compare in testing to the top public. what do you think? not that my kid gloats but i will! she went to public magnet for 7 years, top 10 in her class, national honors society and top 10% in the nation for AP scoring! the funny thing? i paid for privat educa for her and her bro for the first 6 years and started to worry when i found out that the matriculating ninth graders were way behind in math and english!! yikes. and it might just go to show as my son was in 7th grade when i pulled him from private and wound up having a bit of a struggle catching up with even some of the regular kids at the public school which by the way may not be the greatest but had some of the best faculty i have ever met in respects to what they offer the kids, some 3700! over what i found the private teachers offering in a scool that had all od maybe 600-700 students?!!! interesting to say the least.
Isn't it clear we've just totally lost it? Our guides have led us astray-
Exactly Well said And imagine what might have been if Gore had been Pres NOT GW Bush .!!
POOP on those who spread misinformation, 1/2 truths and smears Obama tried to get along with GOP but they kicked him in the teeth many times and vowed to crush him Thats what they did last 4 yrs. Economy / Jobs do not count ..as long as Obama loses. Thats what 2010 election gave us .. a T Bagger run GOP. congress. In spite of them Obama got bin laden- top al qauda, Bush just gave up. Obama passed first health reform bill ever- Obama saved US auto jobs/ industry .Mitt said 'let them DIE' Obama gave us middle class tax cuts in his stimulous. pkg. 4 milllion new jobs since 2009 . MITT Ryan will repeal all that and then some just so corps get even more tax cuts and CO's are NOT regulated. Thats what led to us worst crash since 1929 .Obama has and will strenthen education. Mitt - Ryan will gut education, SS and Medicare Millions like me paid double SS taxes . We can save money by omitting SS tax cap now .. @ 107 K Cut way down on waste and fraud .Fine employers who hire illegals . Leave the SS trust fund alone for future generations. It has saved millions of seniors from hunger and homelessness. .
Tell Obama to put on his sneakers and go to Chicago--something he didn't do in Wisconsin.
They may win this time, but their days are numbered. Someone is going to pull a "REGAN" on them. Probably next June. Tea party will come up with something nasty. And the rest of the country will follow.
The Education system is broken. The problem isn't the teachers they are mostly hard working dedicated people. The problem is the ratio of school board employies to teachers in the classroom. Some how the ratio in most school boards has ballooned close to 50%. In my school district there is one school board employee for every 15 students but we have an average of 27 students per class room. What do the non classroom people do? With these rediculous ratios the public school boards are opening the door for private schools where most of the resources are in the class rooms.
I might add I think it is dispicable that the city and the union had the whole summer to work this out and they couldn't. They all should be fired. It is obvoius to me that no one really cares about the students. Just think if you live in Chicago you are putting your childrens future in the hands of these imcompetent idiots. Mortgage the house and send your children to private school.
On free stuff; the libertarian caller alleged that Barney Frank said there is a right to home ownership, and he also mentioned Fannie/Freddie. Besides mischaracterizing what Barney Frank said, and pointing the finger at Dems; the caller did not mention that Bush in a speech said something similar.
But the topic was freedom; and Thom brought up Maslowe. The lesson that tends to be lost is that if the bottom of Maslowe's hierarchy ---basic needs--- are not satisfied; people will be less interested in the things at the top of the hierarchy --- which includes things like freedom and democracy. We have seen this play out repeatedly in our foreign policy because we don't remember the lesson of Maslowe (in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and throughout the 3rd World.) When people have inadequate food, shelter, clothing, safety, security, etc.; they are not going to be interested in freedom. And it's the same in America; if people's basic needs are not met, they will be less interested in democracy.
Honestly Thom - I don't understand why you continue to give Carrie Lukas airtime and attention. I'm almost to the point of muting your show until she's done. Surely there are other politically minded women to whom you could lend a voice.
Excellent point from the caller: It's not free stuff, it's the commons.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/02/22/83337/disabled-abortion/?mobile=nc
On Thursday, Virginia State Delegate Bob Marshall (R) spoke at a press conference against state funding for Planned Parenthood. He blasted the organization for supporting a women’s right to choose, saying that God punishes women who have had abortions by giving them disabled children:
Medicare Branding is an issue. In Texas at least, Medicare and Medicaid billing is handled by contracts. This means that instead of getting monthly statements from Medicare or Medicaid you get statements from XYZ corp. This confuses people and reinforces the idea that privatization is a good thing. The contracts should require that there be no mention of the contract company, only the name of the government program.
A GOP COUP D'ETAT?: Of course CEO's of publicly-traded company's HQ'd in the US have off-shored manufacturing and/or service sector jobs and/or apparently have something like 'veto power' over what rules & regulations they must abide by, and in turn make tens, hundreds, in some instances billions (in large part) through the adroit shuffling of various instruments of corporate finance (stocks, bonds & options) thus in effect looting their company's, starving the Treasury of revenues, and/or despoiling the environment; All done it seems, really in a panic(!) before some other (LBO raider, socialist, workers union,, radical, non-white, woman, gay, gen-x'er, etc.) in effect pushes them aside to do this [looting] themselves. So from the perspective of a CEO can taxes on income, capital gains and/or corporate profits ever be too low, or taken further; if you don't own real property and/or are a non-white/racial minority and/or woman, should they even be allowed to vote? The larger point being that Congressional Republican leaders in Washington can't and/or won't (in effect) turn on their corporate paymasters to instead rally around their candidate for president [Romney/Portman] by all together pledging to voters, in a unified forum (at their convention for example, or deploying Rove's ginormous campaign war chest to buy long-running ads) explaining and/or pledging how, if elected they'll {gulp} for the good of the country {gasp} attempt to rethink, reform and/or compromise on all the seemingly obvious (even to this simple-minded idiot) issues, resulting in re-engineering, rebuilding and/or restoring a stronger (AAA rated) America. Again, if the Republican's in effect revolt, there seems to be a window-of-opportuniity for them to take back the White House while being seen as saving the nation from (what sober-minded Sen. Coburn and/or wizened advisor like David Walker described as) inevitably problematic federal budget imbalances. Regarding the likelihood of a major overhaul lead by the current administration - this being their 'last election'; Sideways drift looks more likely as inevitably the focus and/or their priorities shift from responding to various constituencies to instead shaping exit strategies (i.e., legacy's, libraries, advisory boards, book deals, speaking engagements, consulting fee's, charities, children, grandchildren, retirement estates, presidential pardons, etc.) Of course 'a GOP coup d' etat?' is a clown question. My guess is that just as the stock market value of Apple now exceeds Exxon so too will the power of a more frictionless 'digital democracy' eventually displace less efficient (more resource intensive) 'analog' politics; allowing lawmakers to work from their home districts, and concievably resulting (by like 2112 and/or beyond) in the tranformation of much of official Washington D.C. into (in effect) a cermonial backdrop and/or Smithsonian Museum.
Setting up a firm in HK can ultimately be seen as a profitable long-term authorization for any firm given the noted tax benefits instinct of incorporation and HK's standpoint as a reputable secure and effective jurisdiction Rec to rec companies Hong Kong
The Republicans will not change their spots and pass the jobs bill, but the economy is strong enough to resist a crash.
In response to the previous writers, can any “thinking” person imagine what condition the country would be had Mitt Romney been president the last four years? Here are some possibilities: The big part of the automobile industry might likely be out-sourced. Tens of thousands of teachers, policemen and firefighters would be off the job if Mitt really believed Obama’s stimulus plan was the “mother of all earmarks”, and would not pass it. There would continue to be tens of millions of people with no healthcare with costs increasing more than they are at present. With Mitt’s plan to further cut taxes on the wealthy and who knows what wars we might be in, imagine the increased size of the deficit. Consider women’s rights. Consider the affects of a smaller federal government and imagine these folks on unemployment, not paying taxes and competing with the auto workers, and others, for available jobs. And on and on… George W. Bush got another four more years…think about THAT!