President's Speech to School Kids

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
101

[quote]Makavali wrote:
More funding for education is a bad thing? I hear gross exaggerations of students using 1970’s textbooks, but I assume those statements are founded in some level of truth - wouldn’t more allocating more money be a wise idea? I’m not entirely sure how your government gives money to schools, here it’s here a bunch of cash for purpose, spend it on only that or we’ll fire you.[/quote]

Have you read any of the links above re: Cost of Education? The problem is that most of the money that goes to “Education” goes to administrative costs, new construction, teacher salary/benefits increases, and retirement- NOT to the classroom.

I think even FightinIrish might concede that the Teacher’s Union is largely responsible for sucking up most of the money and creating many of the roadblocks in government education. Little is put into real motivation for teacher improvement or accountability.

Of all the dollars that go into ‘education’, a relatively small percentage goes into the classrooms. Even when my wife was teaching, I was paying out-of-pocket for classroom materials (ie not tax dollars).

Up here (and nation wide) in more rural areas, school consolidation (ie administrative consolidation) is being fought over. We have districts that have a few hundred kids with a fully paid superintendant staff (in the 6-figure salaries) that are paid the same as those in the bigger cities (where the salary is more warranted). What that does is add millions to the cost of education for literally just a handful of administrators and few hundred kids. Multiply that waste over so many districts in the country and you’re talking huge (billions) overhead, none of which makes it to the kids’ classroom.

I won’t even go into ‘inclusion’ laws that government schools have that waste resources (ie time/money) at the expense of other kids’ education. Because being “P.C.” is more important than “learning”.

Again, I’ll use the example of private schools where:

  • Generally, the teachers get paid less and don’t have the ‘Cadillac’ benefits/retirement packages that government teachers have

  • The cost per pupil is much less than the government schools

  • Class size may or may not be smaller (many are larger because they can’t afford more teachers)

  • More money goes into the classroom

  • More PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT

“More Money” doesn’t really matter if it’s not getting to where it should go.

Marge Simpson, Homer Simpson: Three, two, one… Happy new year!

Marge Simpson: Of school!

Bart Simpson: What are you guys doing?

Marge Simpson: It’s the first day of school.

Homer Simpson: You’re the government’s problem now!

102

[quote]K2000 wrote:
This is really sad - people who think they need to protect their kids from hearing the President of the United States speak.

Also, how weak are your parenting skills, that it’s harder to raise your kids the way you want to, because the president addressed your kids in a speech? What do you do every other day… keep your kids locked in the basement, where they won’t be exposed to the dangerous messages they get on television and (worst of all) the other children and their poisonous ideas? Have you investigated your kids’ friends, just in case they might have liberal parents?

Seriously, anybody who is wound up over this is pretty fucking weird, and needs a reality check.
[/quote]

x2. I mean really. WTF, I really don’t understand the concern, but wait, I don’t have kids, oh noes

103

[quote]SteelyD wrote:

Have you read any of the links above re: Cost of Education? The problem is that most of the money that goes to “Education” goes to administrative costs, new construction, teacher salary/benefits increases, and retirement- NOT to the classroom.

I think even FightinIrish might concede that the Teacher’s Union is largely responsible for sucking up most of the money and creating many of the roadblocks in government education. Little is put into real motivation for teacher improvement or accountability.

Of all the dollars that go into ‘education’, a relatively small percentage goes into the classrooms. Even when my wife was teaching, I was paying out-of-pocket for classroom materials (ie not tax dollars).

Up here (and nation wide) in more rural areas, school consolidation (ie administrative consolidation) is being fought over. We have districts that have a few hundred kids with a fully paid superintendant staff (in the 6-figure salaries) that are paid the same as those in the bigger cities (where the salary is more warranted). What that does is add millions to the cost of education for literally just a handful of administrators and few hundred kids. Multiply that waste over so many districts in the country and you’re talking huge (billions) overhead, none of which makes it to the kids’ classroom.

I won’t even go into ‘inclusion’ laws that government schools have that waste resources (ie time/money) at the expense of other kids’ education. Because being “P.C.” is more important than “learning”.

Again, I’ll use the example of private schools where:

  • Generally, the teachers get paid less and don’t have the ‘Cadillac’ benefits/retirement packages that government teachers have

  • The cost per pupil is much less than the government schools

  • Class size may or may not be smaller (many are larger because they can’t afford more teachers)

  • More money goes into the classroom

  • More PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT

“More Money” doesn’t really matter if it’s not getting to where it should go.

Marge Simpson, Homer Simpson: Three, two, one… Happy new year!

Marge Simpson: Of school!

Bart Simpson: What are you guys doing?

Marge Simpson: It’s the first day of school.

Homer Simpson: You’re the government’s problem now! [/quote]

A terrible education is of more value than a good education which might, just might, include creationism and the absence of comprehensive sex ed. Educational instruction is no longer the priority, social instruction is. Fear the private school. Vouchers will never happen nationally. Americans can’t be trusted with such power.

104

[quote]Makavali wrote:
More funding for education is a bad thing? I hear gross exaggerations of students using 1970’s textbooks, but I assume those statements are founded in some level of truth - wouldn’t more allocating more money be a wise idea? I’m not entirely sure how your government gives money to schools, here it’s here a bunch of cash for purpose, spend it on only that or we’ll fire you.[/quote]

Steely hit on most of it, but my biggest issue is parenting. All the money in the world can’t compete with poor parenting.

Put an average teacher with 1970’s textbooks in a classroom full of kids with strong parental support and parental involvement. Then put a stellar teacher in the most modern classroom in the country and fill it with students with uninterested and uncaring parents. The kids with involved parents will almost always outperform the others. Money doesn’t solve parenting.

105

[quote]K2000 wrote:
This is really sad - people who think they need to protect their kids from hearing the President of the United States speak.

Also, how weak are your parenting skills, that it’s harder to raise your kids the way you want to, because the president addressed your kids in a speech? What do you do every other day… keep your kids locked in the basement, where they won’t be exposed to the dangerous messages they get on television and (worst of all) the other children and their poisonous ideas? Have you investigated your kids’ friends, just in case they might have liberal parents?

Seriously, anybody who is wound up over this is pretty fucking weird, and needs a reality check.
[/quote]

It is more than one speach as with the healthcare issue, there is a lot of frustration and this just so happened to be the straw.

I hate that tax money gets funneled into this liberal trap we call education in this country. You shouldn’t pay for my children to be educated and neither you nor the government to dictate what they learn. It should be decided by those payhing for it and involved.

And this whole race thing is getting old. There are generally stereotypes on strains of people for a reason. if you don’t understand statistics, probability or the science of behavior that is your problem. Don’t get offended, I mean it is actually the study of evolutionary psychology and behavior that gives a real glimpse into the predictability of human behavior.

IF race and cultutre can make you more prone to heart disease because of fat disposition, then why can it not make you more prone to violence, more prone to gang behavior, more prone to hold certain beliefs.

seriously grow up, in someone elses words.

My offsrping carry my genetic code and it is my right to raise them as I see fit anyone interferring with that is interfering with me passing on my full genetic potential and is thus a threat to the survival of my genes. that is how I view them.

My two daughters are 2 and 4 too young for school, but will taking advantage of one of the conservative private schools in the area. It only pisses me off that I still have to pay to educate someone elses children. Sacrificing resources that could go to my own genetic progeny.

106

[quote]malonetd wrote:
Makavali wrote:
More funding for education is a bad thing? I hear gross exaggerations of students using 1970’s textbooks, but I assume those statements are founded in some level of truth - wouldn’t more allocating more money be a wise idea? I’m not entirely sure how your government gives money to schools, here it’s here a bunch of cash for purpose, spend it on only that or we’ll fire you.

Steely hit on most of it, but my biggest issue is parenting. All the money in the world can’t compete with poor parenting.

Put an average teacher with 1970’s textbooks in a classroom full of kids with strong parental support and parental involvement. Then put a stellar teacher in the most modern classroom in the country and fill it with students with uninterested and uncaring parents. The kids with involved parents will almost always outperform the others. Money doesn’t solve parenting.[/quote]

malonetd – Parenting is THE biggest issue. Even in the government schools, most often when the parents are involved, the kids succeed (in spite of the state of the system).

But, you see, in this thread, the ‘parenting’ is being mocked, poo-poo’d, and belittled.

JFit, welcome to PWI. Use the “Prof X” bodybuilding advice school of thought: Someone who is a solid 270# with 21" arms is pretty likely to ignore the ‘theory’ of a 5’7", 130# skinny-fat person with respect to how the big guy should train. My single, childless spinster Ultra-Liberal neighbor with a PhD in “Women’s Studies” from Berkeley has no end of ‘advice’ for me raising my kids. She can’t understand why parents act the way they do either…

Congrats on your recent marriage and up coming honeymoon. If children are in the picture, I can only hope you get to follow all the advice and views you hold now. My parents gave me the same blessing…

108

[quote]pushharder wrote:
FWIW, we homeschooled our two kids through the 8th grade. Put them in public high school for competitive sports. Their first eight school years are infinitely more valuable to their long term “productive members of society” status than the four years of public ed could ever be.[/quote]

Here in Idaho our high schools take homeschooled kids on their sports teams. We’re probably going to homeschool our daughter until she gets about that age, then probably private school. I’ll never be able to teach her calculus and she’ll probably be wanting to have a larger social life then.

mike

109

[quote]SteelyD wrote:
I think even FightinIrish might concede that the Teacher’s Union is largely responsible for sucking up most of the money and creating many of the roadblocks in government education. Little is put into real motivation for teacher improvement or accountability.

Of all the dollars that go into ‘education’, a relatively small percentage goes into the classrooms. Even when my wife was teaching, I was paying out-of-pocket for classroom materials (ie not tax dollars).[/quote]

That’s a cunt of a situation. Unions in general have a disgusting amount of power.

110

An initial version of the plan recommended that students draft letters to themselves discussing “what they can do to help the president.”

The letters “would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals,” the plan stated.

If Obama wants to tell kids to stay in school whatever, but this doesnt sound a little bit crazy to you people? Come on really?

111

[quote]MikeyKBiatch wrote:

If Obama wants to tell kids to stay in school whatever, but this doesnt sound a little bit crazy to you people? Come on really?[/quote]

I would imagine Stalin doing something like this in the USSR.

Next they’ll be calling him Uncle Barack.

113

…i don’t know who this guy is, a CNN reporter i guess. He says like it is though, some of you may not like it…

114

[quote]ephrem wrote:

…i don’t know who this guy is, a CNN reporter i guess. He says like it is though, some of you may not like it…[/quote]

So someone who does not want a politician indoctrinating their kids is a “birther” or “creationaist”, a “right wing nut job”.

Well I am right 100% of the time because everyone who disagrees with me is a poophead.

So there, I have made my irrefutable argument, bow to my wicked debating skills.

115

[quote]ephrem wrote:

…i don’t know who this guy is, a CNN reporter i guess. He says like it is though, some of you may not like it…[/quote]

Far left dbag and he didn’t even make sense. He clearly has a hatred of conservative Christians and he lets that hate cloud his judgement of the facts. This topic has nothing to do with young earth creationism. Useless post. Let me go find a Foxnews clip for a rebuttal /rollseyes

116

[quote]orion wrote:
ephrem wrote:

…i don’t know who this guy is, a CNN reporter i guess. He says like it is though, some of you may not like it…

So someone who does not want a politician indoctrinating their kids is a “birther” or “creationaist”, a “right wing nut job”.

Well I am right 100% of the time because everyone who disagrees with me is a poophead.

So there, I have made my irrefutable argument, bow to my wicked debating skills.
[/quote]

…hey, at least with you he got one of them right!

117

[quote]ephrem wrote:
orion wrote:
ephrem wrote:

…i don’t know who this guy is, a CNN reporter i guess. He says like it is though, some of you may not like it…

So someone who does not want a politician indoctrinating their kids is a “birther” or “creationaist”, a “right wing nut job”.

Well I am right 100% of the time because everyone who disagrees with me is a poophead.

So there, I have made my irrefutable argument, bow to my wicked debating skills.

…hey, at least with you he got one of them right!

[/quote]

Really?

Which one?

I am neither a birther, nor a creationist and I am most definitely not right wing.

Oh, since those are the only possible reasons to disagree with him I must be one of those three?

118

[quote]MikeyKBiatch wrote:
An initial version of the plan recommended that students draft letters to themselves discussing “what they can do to help the president.”

The letters “would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals,” the plan stated.

If Obama wants to tell kids to stay in school whatever, but this doesnt sound a little bit crazy to you people? Come on really?[/quote]

I would imagine that that depends on the context in which it is presented - whether teachers focus on “helping the president”, in general, or “helping the president” in regards to his encouragement for students to set ambitious academic goals for themselves (which would make more sense, given all the other activities the plan recommends).

The portion of the recommended teaching plan for students that extends beyond the speech itself (the part your quote is lifted from) involves just that - setting goals, sharing them, and (in this case), holding themselves accountable for their listed goals.

Other parts not mentioned include encouraging students to:

[quote]-Create posters of their goals
-Write goals on colored index cards or precut designs to post around the classroom.
-Interview and share about their goals with one another to create a supportive community.
-Participate in School wide incentive programs or contests for students who achieve their goals
-Create artistic projects based on the themes of their goals.
-Graph student progress toward goals.[/quote]

Awfully sinister stuff, I agree. And I can absolutely see how you may find “helping the president” troubling, especially when it is put in context with the rest of these optional activities.

119

[quote]
I would imagine that that depends on the context in which it is presented - whether teachers focus on “helping the president”, in general, or “helping the president” in regards to his encouragement for students to set ambitious academic goals for themselves (which would make more sense, given all the other activities the plan recommends).

The portion of the recommended teaching plan for students that extends beyond the speech itself (the part your quote is lifted from) involves just that - setting goals, sharing them, and (in this case), holding themselves accountable for their listed goals.

Other parts not mentioned include encouraging students to:
-Create posters of their goals
-Write goals on colored index cards or precut designs to post around the classroom.
-Interview and share about their goals with one another to create a supportive community.
-Participate in School wide incentive programs or contests for students who achieve their goals
-Create artistic projects based on the themes of their goals.
-Graph student progress toward goals.

Awfully sinister stuff, I agree. And I can absolutely see how you may find “helping the president” troubling, especially when it is put in context with the rest of these optional activities.[/quote]

"The lesson plans â?? one plan for pre-K-6 students and another plan for students in grades 7-12 â?? provided specific activities and assignments for children to do before, during, and after the presidentâ??s speech. The pre-k-6 plan instructs teachers to ask children â??Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officialsâ?¦â?? It further directs teachers to have children consider the following while listening to Obamaâ??s speech:

â??What is the President trying to tell me?â??
â??What is the President asking me to do?â??
â??What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?â??
The plan continues, â??Students can record important parts of the speech where the President is asking them to do something. Students might think about: What specific job is he asking me to doâ?¦Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?â??"

Oh and for 7-12 kids:

“The plan asks students, â??What resonated with you from President Obamaâ??s speech? What lines/phrases do you remember? Is he challenging you to do anything?â??”

You really think this is just to help kids stay in school? Obama loves to hear his own voice, you really think he is not going to use this as an opportunity to push his agenda?

120

Those against it, do you pre-approve all the text books your kids read?