[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
I guess we’re just going to be talking about different things then, as GPAs are essentially incomparable among differing schools with differing standards and different curricula. [/quote]
But that was my whole point! That the standards are different: lower in TX than in CA!
It’s amazing that we’re arguing about something we actually agree on!
[quote]hspder wrote:
Fortunately for whom? For abusing, controlling parents? Yes. For the kids? No.
[/quote]
Come on, hspder. Again, you thinking by exception instead of rule. Are some parents abusing and controlling? Yes. Are most? No. If that was true, we as a society would be entering a world of chaos any moment.
A lot of parents? Again, exceptions to the rule. Most parents are well adjusted people. Ye of little faith in adults.
Wow, talk about a huge generalization. Do you have studies, facts, numbers to back up this broad, sweeping generalization? I’ll be waiting on those. Your comments are showing your true colors on this thread.
You seem to have very low opinion on parents as a whole. Just because an underage girl has sex and gets pregnant is not a direct correlation to the quality of their parents. Give me a break.
Do you even understand how a typical parent’s mind works? Apparently not.
Broad generalizations again. Some cases, yes. Most cases, no. Exceptions to the rule. Exceptions don’t make the rule hspder. You seem to keep overlooking this fact.
In some cases, I’m sure parents would pressure them to have one. In most cases, they will not. So I can basically deduce from your arguments that you appear to believe that underage teenage girls are, in fact, more capable of making life and death decisions than their parents? Does that about sum up your ridiculous opinion?
This is the biggest piece of crap stench you’ve released on this thread. Judgement, control and ego??? That’s why parents want to be notified if their teenage girl is going to have an abortion? Are you for real? I don’t even know how to address these skewed beliefs of yours.
This proposition is exactly about the welfare of children and their unborn children. I let you in on a little secret…come closer…parents, as a whole, don’t represent the devil hspder. Shhh, don’t tell anyone. The majority of people out there with kids really are good people with good intentions. Piece of advice, turn off the evening news. It’s giving you a morbidly negative outlook on humanity.
[quote]randman wrote:
You seem to have very low opinion on parents as a whole. Just because an underage girl has sex and gets pregnant is not a direct correlation to the quality of their parents.[/quote]
Of course it is, especially if the girl doesn’t want to tell her parents.
I ask: how can you expect rights without responsibility?
Past performance is the best predictor of future behavior. If the parents were unable to teach their kids how to prevent this situation, how can you think they’ll be competent at fixing it?
I’m not saying that all the parents of underage girls that get pregnant and want to abort are EViL. I’m saying that the parents of those girls are clearly LESS qualified to talk to them THAN trained professionals, and might even screw up the work of the aforementioned professionals through interference.
[quote]randman wrote:
Piece of advice, turn off the evening news. It’s giving you a morbidly negative outlook on humanity.[/quote]
Quite the contrary. Evening news don’t tell even 10% of the bad stuff going on around us. Trust me, people would stop seeing the news if they did. It’s the real world I see, in my volunteer work, and in my travels, that is giving me a pretty grim outlook on humanity.
Don’t take my word for it. Ask a doctor that deals with these situations. Rather than creating your opinions off the small sample of the world you know, ask somebody else who’s been there and saw how the reality of this matter looks like. Don’t read it off some newspaper or some partisan interview. Go into a hospital or clinic, become a volunteer, and ask them – directly, in person, off the record. And ask the girls themselves too. And then stick around to see what happens every day.
Most people in this world, possibly even more so in the US, live in a world of fantasy. That’s a good thing, most of the time: it allows them to keep their mental sanity, to continue functioning as human beings, and to do their daily jobs. But when time comes for people living in that fantasy world to make decisions that affect people who live in a world much less perfect, much darker than they can possibly imagine, they must realize they’re not really qualified to judge them – or to make any decisions that affect them.
hspder,
So do you have kids?
If the following questions are answered in some link already provided, just point me to it. I admit I haven’t read them all.
You seem to want to play at the extreme edges of the debate. Fair enough.
Who are these professionals you keep speaking of? Who are they employed by? We both know that no-one employed by Planned Parenthood is going to to tell some pregnant 14 year old that she should consider NOT killing her kid. There is no profit motive in that.
The ex that I think about the most had an abortion at 16. Her mother was a widow who had raised 6 children on her own, all of them (other than my ex) turned out great. A couple of MDs. One PhD. One millonaire insurance agent. One a fairly high ranking state employee. The mother was a devout catholic.
When my ex became pregnant (before I knew her), she was just worried about hurting her mother. Now she hates herself because she knows she killed her kid. She knows(now, seperated from the decision) that her mother would have stood beside her and given her all of the support she could have hoped for.
How is that her mother’s fault? Her mother did everything right, other than locking my ex in her room. If my ex would have been forced to inform her mom that she was pregnant and going to have an abortion, it would have never happened. Instead, her mother would have stopped her, assured her of her love for her, helped her through the ordeal. Instead of ending up an emotional wreck who sees herself as a murdering bitch (who just didn’t want to hurt her mother) she could have ended up a productive single mother with quite a support system.
"As weeks went by
It showed that she was not fine
They told me son it’s time to tell the truth
She broke down and I broke down
Cause I was tired
of lying"
[quote]nephorm wrote:
"As weeks went by
It showed that she was not fine
They told me son it’s time to tell the truth
She broke down and I broke down
Cause I was tired
of lying"[/quote]
Man, first time I heard that song it was like a punch in the stomach.
[quote]doogie wrote:
So do you have kids?[/quote]
Why the heck is that relevant? Are my eyes and memory supposed to change after I become a parent?
Anyway, if you really must know, the answer is yes.
[quote]doogie wrote:
You seem to want to play at the extreme edges of the debate. Fair enough.[/quote]
Do I have any other choice? Apparently most people only see in Black and White…
[quote]doogie wrote:
Who are these professionals you keep speaking of? Who are they employed by? We both know that no-one employed by Planned Parenthood is going to to tell some pregnant 14 year old that she should consider NOT killing her kid. There is no profit motive in that.[/quote]
I thought I was the anti-corporate cynic around here.
No, they’re not employed by PP. At least not in California, which is the state we’re discussing.
[quote]doogie wrote:
The ex that I think about the most had an abortion at 16. Her mother was a widow who had raised 6 children on her own, all of them (other than my ex) turned out great. A couple of MDs. One PhD. One millonaire insurance agent. One a fairly high ranking state employee. The mother was a devout catholic. [/quote]
I’ll stop you right there. One story? Is that your universe of knowledge? Maybe two? Three?
I’ve been involved, at last count, in over 300 “stories”. Yes, in very few cases you can speculate telling the parent(s) might have helped. But for every case that telling the parent might have helped, there’s at least 5 where it would have made it worse.
And, by the way, why did you feel the need to mention her mother was a “devout catholic” and that your ex’s brothers seem to be successful professionals? Why is that in any way relevant? I know people that lived in foster care that are successful professionals and I know people with abusive parents that are successful professionals. Some kids just manage to pull through that kind of stuff, some don’t.
[quote]doogie wrote:
How is that her mother’s fault? Her mother did everything right, other than locking my ex in her room. [/quote]
Of course it is her mother’s fault. Not only she was not able to educate her daughter not to get herself in this situation, she did something to give your ex’s the expectation that she would be harshly judged if she made a mistake. It’s basic conditioning, and her mother was the conditioner.
The fact that your ex fully blames herself fully now is also explained by basic psychology, and is fairly typical in these cases, and in many others (rape victims blame themselves also all the time). I’m not going to lecture you on psychology 101 – I imagine you studied psychology at some point, so I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.
And nobody does everything right. People screw up every day, and parents are no exception. It is the job of professionals to screw up a little less than other people in their fields.
The argument that parental notification be required shows an inconsistancy in thought process. The medical clinic I work at requires parental notification before a minor even steps inside the exam area. A school nurse can’t even give a kid a children’s Tylenol without notifying/seeking permission from a guardian. Abortion, while I realize an emotionally charged issue, is by the morally neutral definition, an invasive medical procedure. If a care provider needs permission to take a minor’s temperature, how can the law then turn around and say no notification is required for major medical procedure? If we seek a consistant legal philosophy, parental notification should be required as a matter of course.
This law does allow a provision through which a minor may circumvent the parental notification requirement using an expedited court prodeeding. That should be sufficient to ensure that girls in abusive situations are not denied access to selctive abortion procedures.
On a broader note, I have no religious objection to killing unborn babies. I o however believe that abortion is a horrendous abdication of responsiblity. I think that a child of any age above three can understand the concept of actions engendering consequences. Pregnancy is what happens when you have unprotected sexual relations. We are teaching generations of people that their actions have no real consequence. Shall we let the guy off because he was drunk when he ran down that old lady? Pretty soon we might if we don’t start holding people to their actions.
I never expected all these reponses and appreciate each person’s passionate views. The freedom to speak or write openly about one’s ideas without fear of imprisonment or the government’s threats is a blessing in America compared to other countries.
The Walnut Creek’s open forum debate was informative. The governor, in general, fielded the Q&A well. One participant brought up the issue of Proposition 13 to be the blame for teacher setbacks and Arnold basically supports Prop. 13 to protect elderly home owners. Another brought up a belligerent teacher attack on her son but does not advocate the increased tenure. Arnold’s opponents did not get the opportunity to debate the governor in person.
According to Barron’s poll website link , several propositions run a close race. Prop. 73 concerning a minor’s pregnancy was a difficult decision. As for Prop. 74. , here are my questions if anyone can answer:
a) Teachers’ union are against this initiative because they won’t get benefits or does the waiting period already grant them health and salary benefits?
b) how are unqualified, tenured teachers dismissed? This would be more of a concern for me when I see a high school math teacher repeatedly bullies her students every year.
c) I recently had a conversation with an AVP of a bank about assessing the ability of a good worker. He states that he can see quickly when an employee is unfit for a position but in his opinion, a five year interval is a good time frame to judge whether the employee performs well or not.
d) Why aren’t teaching professions respected here in America? Most students think of other career choices before teaching.
These are a few things that has been on my mind. Thank you very much everyone for participating. I’ll see if I can continue my political education on the other threads.
[quote]gold’s wrote:
a) Teachers’ union are against this initiative because they won’t get benefits or does the waiting period already grant them health and salary benefits? [/quote]
The teachers I asked tell me their biggest problem is not with benefits in general; they are really not very concerned with that. it’s with job security specifically. Which is quite understandable, because of the current situation, most teachers that do not have tenure, come June, really have no idea (and no way to predict) if they’ll have a job come August/September.
If that doesn’t answer your question, let me know and I’ll ask around for more details.
[quote]gold’s wrote:
b) how are unqualified, tenured teachers dismissed? This would be more of a concern for me when I see a high school math teacher repeatedly bullies her students every year.[/quote]
Even though many people will tell it’s hard and then quote a couple of cases where it was indeed hard and expensive (usually because the school’s legal counsel screwed up), usually it just requires a little work. You do need to build a case for it and a hearing to occur. In the case you describe, I can’t imagine how a person like what you describe would stay, since if there are multiple witnesses the hearing’s outcome is firing the teacher.
[quote]gold’s wrote:
c) I recently had a conversation with an AVP of a bank about assessing the ability of a good worker. He states that he can see quickly when an employee is unfit for a position but in his opinion, a five year interval is a good time frame to judge whether the employee performs well or not.[/quote]
Five year? Please. 2 years is more than enough. For the people that didn’t show their true colors after the 1st year, odds are they never will, or they will much later (after 5 years).
I remember reading a stat that showed that after just one year the chances of getting fired in the corporate world decrease dramatically. Most banks use that stat to weigh in credit worthiness – one year is the cutting point after which they assume you have achieved some level of job security.
Also, there are other statistics that show that teachers that go “bad” (become abusive or just plain incompetent), usually also do so either immediately or after 20+ years of teaching.
Increasing the tenure serves no real positive purpose.
[quote]gold’s wrote:
d) Why aren’t teaching professions respected here in America? Most students think of other career choices before teaching.[/quote]
Well, basically because it’s hard, frustrating, badly paid and resented. I mean, at least nurses get the big bucks, and the firemen are seen as heroes – and both deserve every cent of it (CA Nurses are actually the hardest working people in the country! Some of them work over 80 hours a week on average!). But teachers, on the other hand, are seen essentially as nagging baby-sitters that make life difficult for kids.
I believe this stems from a prevailing US culture that knowledge and learning is useless if it serves no immediate practical purpose. Teachers are the face of imposing “useless knowledge” on kids.
I’m quite lucky because I work for a business school, where I’m respected because I provide “useful” knowledge. On the other end of the spectrum are possibly Math teachers, so much so that there is actually a shortage since NOBODY wants to be the boogeyman.
The result? The US has some of the most math-ignorant populations in the developed world. And its quite sad, actually: math is the purest science, and an essential tool for thinking.
Of course, immigrant populations are changing that – both asians and latinos seem to embrace that educating their children properly must include teaching them how to think in general terms – but my observation is that as soon as they hit a second generation they get absorbed by the prevailing anti-knowledge-for-the-sake-of knowledge culture…
Interestingly, although for the longest of time Europe was more educated and respected teachers more, that is changing. The influence of US culture in Europe is staggering – and quite ironic considering the resistance they claim they have against it.
[quote]barbos01 wrote:
If a care provider needs permission to take a minor’s temperature, how can the law then turn around and say no notification is required for major medical procedure? If we seek a consistant legal philosophy, parental notification should be required as a matter of course.[/quote]
In CA a specific exception was open for abortion, and for a good reason. The legislators were not on crack when then opened the exception, and the reasons they did it are still there.
I’ve explained all the reasons behind it at length in my previous postings. If that doesn’t convince you, well, do what I did: do some volunteer work, talk to the professionals and see things for yourself.
And, by the way, if that wasn’t clear: I also believe abortion not only is irresponsible in many cases, it is a mistake most women will regret for the rest of their lives. And that’s exactly why I believe their parents are the last people that should be involved to tell them that: they had at least 12 years to properly educate their children; they failed, why involve them when the consequences are so dramatic?
[quote]hspder wrote:
The teachers I asked tell me their biggest problem is not with benefits in general; they are really not very concerned with that. it’s with job security specifically. Which is quite understandable, because of the current situation, most teachers that do not have tenure, come June, really have no idea (and no way to predict) if they’ll have a job come August/September.
[/quote]
That pretty much sums up the oppposition from the teacher union perspective, “we won’t get tenure/security until 5 years, instead of 2 years”. Oh well, welcome to the real world of at will employment.
Come on hspder, you asked for specific examples of how hard and expensive it is to fire a teacher and now your trying to dismiss it. Now I’ll call your bluff, give me examples of how easy it is to fire a teacher. Seriously, I gave study references and proof. You can’t snake around this issue.
Bull crap. Tenure basically equals job for life. We better have a good track record of 5 years of good student relations, grades, etc. before giving a teacher a job for life.
What world do you live in? I’m challenging you to give me specifics here again. You can easily be fired at any time in the real world of no unions and government.
Completely arbitrary figure.
Challenge the bluff again. Show me specific studies on this.
I beg to differ.
Now you starting another issue. Worth every cent of the $175,000 average salary and benefits we pay them??? Talk about a cush job. I need to become a fireman. Bull crap they are worth every cent of it. Another California union that has set up their workers in a pay paradise for life. Never mind the unbelievable pensions they get. Hopefully Arnold can rewrite that proposition for next year to kill pensions for this little piece of paradise we call fantasy land.
[quote]hspder wrote:
…And that’s exactly why I believe their parents are the last people that should be involved to tell them that: they had at least 12 years to properly educate their children; they failed, why involve them when the consequences are so dramatic?
[/quote]
After reading this paragraph, if I could Internet choke you I would. Your blatant disregard for parents is unconscionable. To say that parents are basically incompetent losers if their daughters decide to have sex and accidentally become pregnant is incomprehensible. Not only that, you basically then say that they should be penalized for their daughter’s sex act and subsequent pregnancy by not including them as part of their daughter’s life and death decision. This is the most retarded thought process I could imagine a human brain could possibly entertain.
First off, no one accidentally becomes pregnant. You have to engage in a very specific activity to conceive. Second, I do understand and somewhat agree with Randman that previously unsuccessful parenting should not preclude parental involvment in medical decisions. (The bill also has a provision exempting emanicpated minors from the notification requirement.) To reinterate, for me the main issue with this bill is legal consistancy. In our society, we do not allow minors to make major medical or legal decisions. We as a society are so willing to dodge responsibility. Yes the parents will pay for their daughters bad decision. Yes the girl will be burdened(or blessed, depending on your view point)because of her bad decision. Too bad. Bad choices beget bad things. That is the way of the world.
To chime in on the teacher issue, teaching as a profession in California is severely under valued and under paid. Nevertheless, those facts do not entitle teachers to special consideration. Public sector jobs have traditionally been lower paid due to the increased job security. this has created a system where excellence is not encouraged. A starting teacher makes about $35K, regardless if he/she graduated from Harvard or East Podunk State. Compare that to a private sector job, where a new graduate would earn $40K minimum(this is California, we earn more because it is more expensive to live, a whole other issue). People go into teaching for one of two reasons: they are genuinely altruistic and don’t need the money(bless you people), or, they teach because it is “easy”. Performance is not taken into consideration. You are paid whether the children emerge morons or geniuses. This bill is an effort to introduce some semblance of accountability similar the market forces one would encounter in the private sector. If you want people to perform better, you can either pay them more,(not going to happen here sadly), or you can threaten them.
Personally I do not believe bad teachers are the limiting factor in education in this state. We have too many children who cannot speak english, and too many children who come from families unable or unwilling to encourage them. A teacher alone cannot create an educated member of society.
In the end, the problem with education boils down to the fact that everyone is gauranteed a public school education. No one values anything they don’t earn. If your choice was to pass algebra or pick onions for the rest of your life, you would definitely pass algebra.
[quote]doogie wrote:
In the end, the problem with education boils down to the fact that everyone is gauranteed a public school education. No one values anything they don’t earn. If your choice was to pass algebra or pick onions for the rest of your life, you would definitely pass algebra.[/quote]
This is very true. It’s also true that at least a part of the gap in test scores between the U.S. students and students in other countries that people are constantly bemoaning comes from the fact we make everyone stay in school through high school and don’t really have a vocational track. A lot of other countries weed out poorer students from their systems early on. I’m not saying either way is superior, but it definitely leads to a drag downward on average U.S. test scores.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
This is very true. It’s also true that at least a part of the gap in test scores between the U.S. students and students in other countries that people are constantly bemoaning comes from the fact we make everyone stay in school through high school and don’t really have a vocational track. A lot of other countries weed out poorer students from their systems early on. I’m not saying either way is superior, but it definitely leads to a drag downward on average U.S. test scores.[/quote]
I’m wondering what countries you’re refering to, since all the ones I’ve been to have a lower high school dropout rate and don’t really have a vocational track either – and poorer students definitely don’t get out.
In fact, every developed country I know tries to give students a mostly general education, with only going into more “vocational” things as late as the 4th year in college.
Even if you look inside the US, there’s absolutely no correlation between the factors you mention between different regions and states.
The reasons are cultural, plain and simple. It has nothing to do with people being kept in the system artificially long or being “forced” to go out of their vocation – it has to do with most parents not bringing up their kids in a culture of broad learning.
The problem is that especially in today’s economy, a LOT of people either have or choose to change careers after they graduate. So what you get is people that know nothing about math doing jobs that can be better performed with a scientific education, people with no liberal arts training doing creative jobs, people being promoted to managers without having studied psychology or economy, etc.
And before you answer “well, learning from books is not only not necessary, people that learn empirically are much smarter”, well, I’ll answer you this: there’s no other country in the world where people would say that.
Not that that I’m saying that’s wrong; I’m saying it’s unique to US culture, and you simply have to live with the consequences of it, rather than blaming it on something else.
We’re getting completely off topic now, if you want to continue this discussion it might be a good idea to open up a new thread.
[quote]randman wrote:
Now you starting another issue. Worth every cent of the $175,000 average salary and benefits we pay them??? Talk about a cush job. I need to become a fireman. [/quote]
So become a fireman. Just go to the nearest fire station and I’m sure they have openings – they always do.
[quote]randman wrote:
Bull crap they are worth every cent of it. Another California union that has set up their workers in a pay paradise for life. Never mind the unbelievable pensions they get. Hopefully Arnold can rewrite that proposition for next year to kill pensions for this little piece of paradise we call fantasy land.[/quote]
That is just too much. I’m through with you, randman. I could bother to actually do some more research to respond to the rest of your stuff, but the above paragraph tells me that it would be wasted. At this point, everybody that has made up their mind has made up their mind, so I’m through arguing with you. I do have other stuff to do.
I’m still wondering how the heck did you end up in California and what are you still doing here, but at this point I think that you don’t know that yourself…
[quote]hspder wrote:
I’m still wondering how the heck did you end up in California and what are you still doing here, but at this point I think that you don’t know that yourself…
[/quote]
There are actually many positives to California; warm weather year round, plenty of opportunity, recreational paradise, warm weather year round, etc. The biggest negative in California, by far however, is the politics. It is almost enough to get me to leave, almost.
Believe it or not, there are many, many more like me (clones, you could say) that think, act and vote like me. South Orange County consists of a high concentration of conservatives. Come down to South Orange County some time and you can meet us all 