posted
What are some of the things that Republicans, Democrats, and Naderites can all agree on?
Here's my pet policy: More aggressive tax credits for hybrid vehicles. (I think the curent credit is around $1000).
Hybrid vehicles are good for the environment and national security. Why are we so stingy on the tax credits?
Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I'm in favor of them. How do we pay for them? What do we cut?
Besides, it can easily be argued that the hybrid subsidies save less energy per government dollar than, say, mass transit subsidies would.
See - every policy has the moral question related to the desired goal, the practical question related to means to achieve that goal (including other effects the means will have), AND moral questions relating to each of the means and side effects.
quote:it can easily be argued that the hybrid subsidies save less energy per government dollar than, say, mass transit subsidies would.
That's true. I would favor a well-designed mass transit system over subsidies for automobiles, even if those automobiles were fuel efficient.
However, Americans are damn stubborn about their cars. We associate getting the first car as an important rite of passage. The Lexus preowned vehicles commercials tell us that driving a Lexus, albeit a used one, is a sign that "you have arrived."
How do we fund these tax credits? Well, I think these tax credits are investments in our national security.
quote: American cars and trucks consume more than 8 million barrels of oil daily, putting the tab for foreign crude at about $200,000 per minute
Persian Gulf countries account for 25 percent of U.S. oil imports, with Saudi Arabia providing 14.5 percent
An estimated one-third of America's $300 billion annual defense budget goes to ensure the transport of oil from the Persian Gulf
Saddam Hussein's Iraq was the second largest source of oil in the Middle East, providing 600,000 barrels daily
According to Environmental Attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, senior counsel for the National Resources Defense Fund:
If we raise fuel efficiency standards in American cars by one mile per gallon, in one year, we would save twice the amount of oil that could be obtained from the arctic national wildlife refuge
Raise it by 2.7 miles a gallon to eliminate all the oil imports from Iraq and Kuwait combined
Raise it by 7.6 mpg, we eliminate one-hundred percent of our gulf oil imports into this country
My rant has nothing to do with the fact that I want to buy a hybrid car next year. Nope, no connection whatsoever! Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Kaioshin00, affordable hybrid technology was unveiled in America just two years ago.
I can't explain why there isn't a stronger support for teachers. That is as baffling as our lack of passion for Gold Toilet Seats.
Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
For all the hoopla about "better funding for education" I don't think I've ever heard a political candidate really give attention to the problem of how we treat our teachers.
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Yes, we need more money for teachers... and jets, teachers definitely need publicly funded jets. And none of that sissy Leer crap, F-16's....And supermodels, teachers need supermodels. This is, of course, a perfectly objective assesment of the needs of American teachers. Well, at least Teachers in Anaheim named Travis.
Posts: 748 | Registered: Dec 1999
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Who would want to drive something that looks like that.
And I've always remembered teachers complaining about how much they make, so obviously someone doesn't want to give them pay for whatever their reasons.
Posts: 2756 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quote: Who would want to drive something that looks like that.
Hmmm? What do you mean? I'm totally distracted by the awesome background! It makes it look like the car is flying off the page, even though it can probably be outrun by my old Schwinn! Maybe I should get one!
And to go along with that, more training required?
Rather than more training, I would push for a system to evaluate teachers. It is not easy to do, but it is done at every University in the US. Still, K-12 teachers unions have fought any attempt to evaluate their performance. Unless some system is put in place to evaluate teachers and reward the best teachers, teachers will never gain the respect they deserve.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
I think if there was a decent mass transit system in the US people would be a lot less attached to their cars.
Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
Haha, yeah the background is nice. But what I dont like is ...errmm.. the position of the gas cap! That just looks uncomfortable to fill!
Posts: 2756 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Well here in Florida they rate schools A, B, C, etc. Shouldn't that give them some indication of where the better teachers are?
Posts: 2756 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Naw, probably just which schools are closer to middle class people and which are closer to poor people. In other words, who's getting more funding.
BTW, yes, it's hideous...but not as hideous as the SCION!
I don't even think that's a hybrid, but it's ugly enough to be one.
posted
In california, I don't think teachers are underpaid (despite my jest). For nine months work, I will start at $46,000 with a Master's Degree. You extend that for the whole the year, and I would be making roughly $61,000. That's probably more than I would have made in industry with the same degree. That's not too shabby. Now, I'm not going to get rich Teaching, but it is more than enough. Other states might be different (AZ for example), but CA (in my opinion) pays their teachers fairly (though I certainly wouldn't complain if someone wanted to shower me with riches...and supermodels).
Posts: 748 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
That is very good, actually. Hmm. When I was in Georgia (Craphole Of Education, USA) they started teachers off at a low enough income that they qualified for Welfare. Part of that has to do with the way they encouraged more people to become teachers. They offered people in Georgia a free college education if they would teach at a public school for five years after getting out. You can imagine how our teachers kinda sucked over there. Some were pretty good but way too many were really bad.
BTW, COL is probably a lot higher for you than it is in AZ, Sarfa.
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
I'm with The Rabbit when it comes to teacher training, but then we have to reevaluate the goals of public education. Because the work of educating the public has different emphases depending on which segment of public with which you work.
If you don't discuss, and come to an agreement about the goals of educating the public, money and training don't mean a thing.
posted
Have you seen how much housing costs in California? We had a job offer for 80,000 at a very cool place to work. When we researched the cost of living, we found that we wouldn't be able to afford a 3 bedroom apartment, let alone a 3 bedroom house. A house like ours in Utah was nearly twice the price. You will be working for at least part of those three months out of the year, and you may very well be required to take classes, possibly at your expense. 46,000 in California is about the same as 30,000 in Oregon or Utah.
Teachers don't get paid enough for a lot of reasons. The more centralized the control, the more we have to pay for administrative costs. All that standardized testing? We have to pay for it. You must have school buildings. You really can't change how much they cost. You must have textbooks and school supplies. Schools have no power over those costs. The only flexible cost in education is man hours, and so that is probably where the budget is allocated last. Unfortunately, budgets are limited.
Posts: 438 | Registered: Apr 2004
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Why do people assume teachers are not evaluated? I have been evaluated just about every year.
I am happy with my salary, which, like Sarfa's, is not bad.
More training? Again, what makes you assume we do not have to have a professional development plan, monitored by the administration? We do.
We also have increasingly larger class sizes, more special education students mainstreamed, and fewer special education teachers working with those students. This year we lost eight paraprofessionals, there is no health program in the middle school, and sports, art and music are on the block or have been cut in many towns.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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You couldn't afford a 3 bedroom apartment on $80,000??? Where were you looking? I pay about double the rent here that I payed in Tucson, AZ, which works out to about $6,000 a year more (so my $46,000 is really $40,000 in Tucson). I'm only living in a one bedroom apartment (though it is a big one bedroom in a fairly nice area). If I wanted a three bedroom, the cost difference would be about $12,000 so my $46,000 would be about $34,000. Housing costs have gotten ridiculous out here, but a friend of mine and his wife (who is a teacher) are planning on buying a very nice, very expensive house in an overly inflated area (Rossmoore in Seal Beach, if you are familiar with it) and combined they make about $80,000 (maybe even a little less). Nice, three bedroom houses in Cypress, where I live, go for about $600,000. Which is a lot, but houses around here aren't moving the way they used to, so the market looks like it's peaked and even starting to come down.
Posts: 748 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:Why do people assume teachers are not evaluated? I have been evaluated just about every year.
What for the criteria for evaluation.
quote:I am happy with my salary, which, like Sarfa's, is not bad.
More training? Again, what makes you assume we do not have to have a professional development plan, monitored by the administration? We do.
My doubts aren't in the existence of the plan, but the aim of the plan. You should know better than anyone here that just because there are testing and developing programs doesn't mean that we are testing and developing what we ought to. For example, I know a lot of people who study American history and can tell me about wars and politicians and free silver and teapot dome, but can't tell me what history is.
There is something wrong there, and that's where education has somehow been confused. The problem isn't that kids don't know how to read, it's that schools aren't seminaries which encourage thinking, the attending to what calls for thought. The love of reading and math and just about everything else is a by-product of attending that which calls for thinking, you know, that quality that separates us from the beast and the machine. That quality that makes us fit to be what we are and what we have yet to become.
You have teachers telling students that Copernicus said that the sun doesn't rise in the morning and set in the evening, when sure as day, the get up at sun rise and need to be home by sunset, as if those distinctions aren't exactly appropriate to what is going on. As if the earth rotating around the sun is mutually exclusive with the sun not rising in the morning. It's both, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Attending to what incline towards thinking, and making honest judgements. For the sake of that, kids pick up a books to further them in that attention. If a light goes on your dashboard, with respect to that which makes you a driver, you attend to that light. When fifteen lights go on on your dashboard, with respect to that which makes you a wise driver, you deal with each light in due proportion. When something in the world calls for thinking, you attend to that thing, and when 15 things in the world call for your attention, the extent that you are a wise thinker, you attend to all of them in their due proportion.
The problem with pedagogy, as discussed by Paige and Bush, is that these tests are not setting up learning as attending to that which calls for thinking, but ability to generate the correct answer by rote or by formula. The ability to read a job manual, not to understand the love of literature. The danger of putting the emphasis of education on the goods it may yield is that not all jobs require thinking. The extent that children don't need to read a job manual, they don't think that they need to read.
Whereas if you build a judicious thinker, they will apply themselves in due proportion to that which calls them to thinking. ______________
Good teachers attend to their students. Helping the students attend to that which is most thought-provoking. They don't show an irrelevant curriculum because the curriculum is guided by the needs of those particular students.
But since we haven't put our aim there. We haven't taught children to attend to the harder questions, if for no other reason that the teacher doesn't have answers and there is nothing wrong with that, we raise children concerned with bubble gum, that which is interesting, the sort of thing that can freely be regarded as indifferent the next moment. It's terribly disparaging to be relegated as interesting, it's being condemned to the rank of something that is soon boring and tiresome, like a mohawk or a radio song that was only interesting the first 60 times.
That which is most thought-provoking pulls and nags, leaves a memory and calls for more thought and fills you with a sense of your rational faculty, doesn't give itself to easy answers, and who is to say that that is a bad thing. Thinking about what is truly-thought provoking leaves you with a sense of awe as it compells you to stay up late and talk about it with your friends and yourself, and makes you forget you have to go to the bathroom. That's learning. And once we start talking in these terms, we understand that the history is study of the past with regards to those things which are thought-provoking, and not merely interesting. And to the extent that history doesn't call for thought, or only illicits interest or even speaks of dates and times, it's something else and something lesser.
posted
I guess everyone can agree that we shouldn't become communist.....Until I am eligable for the position of Dictator.
Posts: 1401 | Registered: Jun 2004
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Rule #1: Right lane = slower moving vehicles, Left lane = faster moving vehicles. (Crime punishable by forcible infestation of Tse Tse flies in the underwear of repeat offenders).
Rule #2: Any commercial with CarrotTop is banned from television. Forever.
Rule #3: Camoflauge and Carhartt work/hunting wear are no longer acceptable fashion statements.
Posts: 1870 | Registered: Mar 2003
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