Posting Towards Gomorrah

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Spanky

And what is wrong with national testing?

You just said education is a state issue -- do you see no contradiction here?

Look, advocate for national testing standards all you want, but admit what you are doing -- advocating for a bigger role for the federal government and for unfunded federal mandates.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Uh, we don't have teacher's unions in Texas of any particular clout, and there's still a problem.

ETA: stuff happens over their objection all the time.

Correct me if I am wrong here but I believe that California schools used to be the top in the nation and now they are near the bottom. Way below Texas. You can track the decline in California Public Schools directly with the power of the teacher's unions. When I was in public elementary school in California in the 70s we took tests every year (they were known as the Stanford Aptitude Tests) and were told were we placed in comparison to all the students in the state. In addition, teachers success in teaching students was available for all to see.

If you went to public school in California in the 70s you took these tests. If you have children in California public schools you know that these tests are not given out anymore. You can thank the teacher's unions (and the Democrats for that).

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Spanky
blah blah blah teachers union blah blah blah trial lawyers blah blah blah democrats

I will comment only on your post re: Schwarzenegger's initiatives. There were any number of reasons to reject the teacher initiative, and the best ones had little to do with the specific merits of that initiative.

Initiatives are a crappy way to make law. Initiatives that were supposed to be limited to single issues have become xmas trees. Voters rarely if ever understand the initiatives they vote on. Three Strikes, for example -- study after study demonstrated that an enormous number of people thought that the law was limited to violent crimes (after all, that was what the proponents focused on), and anyone who questioned the sense, or cost-effectiveness, of jailing petty burglars for 40 years was instantly labelled "soft on crime" or in bed with Polly Klaas' killer.

Ahnold, in particular, flubbed massively by trying to circumvent the Legislature with a series of initiatives. They all tainted each other -- whatever good was in there was overwhelmed by the bad, and by the bad-ness of the tactic of, in essence, refusing to work with the Leg. (That whole "checks and balances" thing, y'know?) A single initiative to change teacher tenure rules might pass -- at least he could focus on it. But a sweeping package of legislation brought to the voters is ridiculous.

To Ahnold's credit, he learned from this -- he is a much better governor as a result of the defeat he suffered, and his willingness to learn from that defeat.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
You just said education is a state issue -- do you see no contradiction here?

Look, advocate for national testing standards all you want, but admit what you are doing -- advocating for a bigger role for the federal government and for unfunded federal mandates.

I said it was - yes. But what is wrong with gathering statistics at a national level so you can compare who is doing well and who isn't? As a taxpayer I want to know how well my state is spending my education dollars compared to other schools. If there is one thing worth spending money on it is that.

Unfunded mandate? How much money does it cost to administer tests? In addition, they should be testing anyway. And if they are testing, why not use the federal standardized test instead of the state test so we can learn more from the statistics? The only reason why the state would not want to use the standardized tests if they don't want their taxpayers to know how much they are screwing up.

If this is an unfunded mandate, the school districts are screwing up by not testing their students. It is nice that the federal government want's to throw some money in to help, but it shouldn't be necessary.

It is not like the Federal Government is telling them to provide for trumpet lessons and then not coughing up the money. They are telling them, when they test, they should use the national test so we can have a better understanding of what is working and what is not. If this forces the school to spend money on testing for the first time, then great.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
I will comment only on your post re: Schwarzenegger's initiatives. There were any number of reasons to reject the teacher initiative, and the best ones had little to do with the specific merits of that initiative.

Initiatives are a crappy way to make law. Initiatives that were supposed to be limited to single issues have become xmas trees. Voters rarely if ever understand the initiatives they vote on. Three Strikes, for example -- study after study demonstrated that an enormous number of people thought that the law was limited to violent crimes (after all, that was what the proponents focused on), and anyone who questioned the sense, or cost-effectiveness, of jailing petty burglars for 40 years was instantly labelled "soft on crime" or in bed with Polly Klaas' killer.

Ahnold, in particular, flubbed massively by trying to circumvent the Legislature with a series of initiatives. They all tainted each other -- whatever good was in there was overwhelmed by the bad, and by the bad-ness of the tactic of, in essence, refusing to work with the Leg. (That whole "checks and balances" thing, y'know?) A single initiative to change teacher tenure rules might pass -- at least he could focus on it. But a sweeping package of legislation brought to the voters is ridiculous.

To Ahnold's credit, he learned from this -- he is a much better governor as a result of the defeat he suffered, and his willingness to learn from that defeat.

What a load of rationalizing crap. I am not going to vote for a bill, even though it is good, because the Governor handled it wrong? That may be the dumbest thing I have read on this board the entire time I have been here.

So if he proposed a proposition that we should feed starving orphans it should have gone down because the Governator approached the subject wrong and it was in the form of a proposition?

He went the proposition route because the legislature wouldn't act. It would have been nice to put it in a law but the Teacher Union controlled legislature and wouldn't let it through. He was forced to go the proposition route.

Either it was a good law or it wasn't. Do you really think extending teacher tenure by just two years was a bad idea? And it was all about momentum. Arnold tried to take on the Teachers Union and was crushed. And now he is a better Governor because he has decided not to take on the Teacher's Union anymore and give up on reforming education?

Where you against any of those propositions? They were all badly needed and yet the unions put in thirty five million to defeat them. The only thing Arnold screwed up was underestimating how evil the unions were and how little they cared for the welfare of the California public. And now you think he is a better Governor because he has given up on these much needed reforms and is just tinkering around the edges?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Spanky
I said it was - yes. But what is wrong with gathering statistics at a national level so you can compare who is doing well and who isn't? As a taxpayer I want to know how well my state is spending my education dollars compared to other schools. If there is one thing worth spending money on it is that.

Unfunded mandate? How much money does it cost to administer tests? In addition, they should be testing anyway. And if they are testing, why not use the federal standardized test instead of the state test so we can learn more from the statistics? The only reason why the state would not want to use the standardized tests if they don't want their taxpayers to know how much they are screwing up.

If this is an unfunded mandate, the school districts are screwing up by not testing their students. It is nice that the federal government want's to throw some money in to help, but it shouldn't be necessary.

It is not like the Federal Government is telling them to provide for trumpet lessons and then not coughing up the money. They are telling them, when they test, they should use the national test so we can have a better understanding of what is working and what is not. If this forces the school to spend money on testing for the first time, then great.

Are you saying, give your students this test and we, the federal government, are putting in place consequences of some sort depending on how the test comes out?

Spanky, come on, fess up, this is one big federal mandate you are advocating. Don't be afraid of it. But read George Will's article that you posted above if you want to know the pros and cons of the big federal program.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Are you saying, give your students this test and we, the federal government, are putting in place consequences of some sort depending on how the test comes out?

Spanky, come on, fess up, this is one big federal mandate you are advocating. Don't be afraid of it. But read George Will's article that you posted above if you want to know the pros and cons of the big federal program.

The Federal program is only a problem if you screw it up (let the Democrats get a hold of it). National standardized tests are a good idea. Full stop. Whether or not the Federal government should act on the results of those tests is a different subject.

But standardized tesing across the nation, whether or not the Federal government pays for it, is a much needed reform and there is no reason to be against it unless you have some motive other than improving the education system (like the Teachers Unions).

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Because it's a GOP state and Webb has run an evil campaign.

Evil? Huh?

As Ty said, Allen wins, but any shot he ever had for POTUS is now dead in the water.

I don't believe I said Allen wins. It's very close right now. Webb is 4% up in the latest poll, FWIW.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Spanky
You would. However, the federal government provides like three percent of the money spent on education in this country. States spend the money and set priorities. The federal government is a minor player.

FYI, the number for the federal government right now is 8.5%, and the missing 9 billion from NCLB represents over 3% of total national expenditures on primary and secondary education -- all of it money that should be getting spent in targetted districts. So, you are likely looking at a double-digit percentage of the budget of many urban school districts.

Like I said before, a well implemented program on these lines would be better than a half-assed implementation of another program - but we don't have a well implement NCLB act.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
FYI, the number for the federal government right now is 8.5%, and the missing 9 billion from NCLB represents over 3% of total national expenditures on primary and secondary education -- all of it money that should be getting spent in targetted districts. So, you are likely looking at a double-digit percentage of the budget of many urban school districts.

Like I said before, a well implemented program on these lines would be better than a half-assed implementation of another program - but we don't have a well implement NCLB act.

I like the idea of Federal Testing. I don't know much about NCLB because it is federal. I know it has standardized testing which I like. But I am pretty sure I don't like the idea of penalizing schools that do poorly. You should penalize people, not schools. If a school is performing poorly change the staff, but don't cut off funding. I don't really know that much about NCLB, but if it operates that way I think the incentive system is all screwed up.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Spanky
The Federal program is only a problem if you screw it up ...

But standardized tesing across the nation, whether or not the Federal government pays for it, is a much needed reform ...

You mean screw it up by passing the program and not funding it? Hmmm. Don't think it was Ds who did that.

You mean standardized testing like we all had when we were in 4th, 7th and 10th grade (or whatever grades they were)? Yeh, a needed reform that has been around for years. See discussion above.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
No, of course not. I think we can assess teachers and reward those who do a good job the same way we assess and reward middle managers, whose performance is just as hard to quantify.

Teachers in dangerous, lousy school districts should get a special form of hazardous duty pay, and a different incentive system which allows them to make bonuses at lower goals, since that's the reality of the situation. The market demands we pay top dollar to those people, and they deserve it. We should allot our tax dollars in that direction above all else, since that's the real engine of our future prosperity, and would go far further toward social parity the Democrats seem to want than their idiot do-gooder programs which blow 70% of every dollar on administration costs for fattened bureaucrats.

But education is generally funded by property taxes, so how do we pay teachers in what will generally be more impoverished areas more than we pay those in richer areas?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
But education is generally funded by property taxes, so how do we pay teachers in what will generally be more impoverished areas more than we pay those in richer areas?

Serious question: if we said it was okay for female teachers to have sex with male students, do you think we could convince aggressive young women with ticking biological clocks to work cheap in the city schools?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Spanky
What a load of rationalizing crap. I am not going to vote for a bill, even though it is good, because the Governor handled it wrong? That may be the dumbest thing I have read on this board the entire time I have been here.

So if he proposed a proposition that we should feed starving orphans it should have gone down because the Governator approached the subject wrong and it was in the form of a proposition?

He went the proposition route because the legislature wouldn't act. It would have been nice to put it in a law but the Teacher Union controlled legislature and wouldn't let it through. He was forced to go the proposition route.

Either it was a good law or it wasn't. Do you really think extending teacher tenure by just two years was a bad idea? And it was all about momentum. Arnold tried to take on the Teachers Union and was crushed. And now he is a better Governor because he has decided not to take on the Teacher's Union anymore and give up on reforming education?

Where you against any of those propositions? They were all badly needed and yet the unions put in thirty five million to defeat them. The only thing Arnold screwed up was underestimating how evil the unions were and how little they cared for the welfare of the California public. And now you think he is a better Governor because he has given up on these much needed reforms and is just tinkering around the edges?

1. Fuck you.

2. A moron who simply spouts the R party line, again and again like a fucking automaton, should stop talking once in awhile.

3. The propositions, generally, sucked.

4. Read the part about "initiatives are a crappy way to make law." I rarely vote for any initiative.

5. Fuck you.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Spanky
I don't know much about NCLB because it is federal.

But please, keep spouting off about it. You are so insightful when you admit you don't actually know anything. As opposed to when you refuse to admit it.