Obama's new budget plan for 2015:

Obama Budget Plan Reflects Partisan Lines - WSJ.com

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama's 2015 budget will abandon overtures to Republicans and call for a large expansion in spending on education and job training, in a push certain to ratchet up tensions in the already-fractured capital ahead of November's elections.

The proposal—which will serve more as a political treatise than a fiscal blueprint—won't include a call to slow the growth of Social Security spending by changing how the program accounts for inflation, White House officials said Thursday. Such a change is favored by the GOP and had been included in Mr. Obama's budget plan last year.

Instead, Mr. Obama's budget, which will be released in full early next month, will propose $56 billion in new government spending on programs such as education, manufacturing and job training, which would be offset by spending cuts and tax increases on high-income earners.

Part of me wants to say "Why do this when there's no chance the other side agrees?"

But considering the other side would actively disagree no matter what (and throwing red meat to their supporters) this isn't so bad.

Dola: Who says government isn't run like a business.

Because we can't get congress to kill boondoggle projects like the F-35 (which costs 8x as much as a F-16, and can't do the F-16's job right), or sell unneeded bases (the estimation is that we have a 20% surplus of bases/airstrips etcetera at our CURRENT levels).. we can only go after soft spending..

like turfing out 100,000 men and women.

Yep. Always the soft targets.

Pentagon To Cut Army to Pre-World War II Levels | TIME.com

On any issue there will be people for or against. That is to be expected. But you'd expect that people in a position to make the decision to have a grasp on what they are debating.

Enter the esteemed state senator from Arizona, regarding Common Core:

Arizona Senate panel votes to dump Common Core


So, um, I guess he's never heard of algebra.

The word algebra is derived from the Arabic word Al-jabr. Common Core's use of Algebra is another front for indoctrinating our children into Sharia Law.

Let me guess. Every single Democrat thinks this is good and every single Republican thinks this is bad. Am I right?

No, I don't like Common Core myself, it encourages too much "teaching to the test" and makes it harder for a well rounded education in an era where there's more students per teacher.

I think that these complaints are ridiculous, but there are problems with Common Core.

:+1:

Chief amongst my problems with Common Core is that apparently of the 100-odd people who put it together, there was not a single person who specializes in early childhood development and, specifically, Kindergarten. I may be biased, given that my oldest is in Kindergarten this year (and doing Common Core), but that seems like a pretty ridiculous oversight to me.

Seems like we should study other countries like Finland-which is very low-tech yet produces-and learn from them first.

I'd only amend this a bit, some of our communities are broken. We do quite well educating middle class and wealthy students.

I'll amend this further: we do quite well educating middle class and wealthy students who are motivated to take advantage of what's on offer for them.

I was looking in the aggregate. We have a massive disparity between poor school districts and more wealthy districts. We don't have an education crisis, we have a poverty crisis.

Yeah, I can absolutely agree with that.

*Yawn*

Color me unsurprised.

One of the things which would help America hugely (at least in my area in Florida - I'm presuming its the same elsewhere?) is opening up the school choices so they're not tied by location - if a school has spaces and someone wants their kid to attend then let them, that doesn't mean they should get their kid transported to school ... they should have to do that themselves, but at least allow them the choice.

I was gobsmacked when I moved to Florida and found my kids 'assigned' to a school by the location of our house - then doubly smacked when a few years later our 'assigned' school changed to a different random one at the whim of a planner somewhere (its for this reason my kids are in private school - having the stability of a constant school and thus peer group around them is important in my opinion).

This didn't ever cross your mind when a 2000 sq foot house in one part of town was twice as much the same one in another? Sounds like your real estate agent didn't do a very good job.

But a lot of the problem isn't really about the school. Poor areas have a greater percentage of single parent homes, a greater percentage of criminal activity, a greater percentage of poorly educated parents, etc. Good schools can help those kids, but without a comprehensive approach to improve the rest of their daily lives, the school isn't anywhere near enough.

LOL :D

Don't get me wrong - my wife is American and we bought in an area with a nice school close by (we were then rezoned to a different (far worse) school 5 miles away, despite being within walking distance of the other school - go figure ;) ).

In England there is similar disparity between house prices, however the school side of things is a lesser factor because you have freedom to put your kids in any school if they have space (if they don't then hard cheddar), there is a semi-intelligent system of ranking for how spaces are allocated which is biased towards siblings being present already, family location (ie. locals first) then anyone else (if its a religious school then they can also factor that into the bias but eventually it still opens to all - in England my kids went to a Catholic school because it was the best in the area, we weren't Catholic however).

Emphasis mine. This is the problem. You're dealing with America here. The lack-of-intelligence of the masses tends to make an elegant solution like this impractical.

I'm surprised it works that way over where you are. Brevard is usually regarded as a better public school system compared to most areas in FL. I'm in Florida as well and while my county/school district maps us to a default school based on geography, it also allows us to choose which school we want our kids to go to so long as school capacity can support it.

They also have a school proximity classification where they will also support busing if your "default" school is considered close enough to your "school choice" school. Its typically like a handful of schools lumped together (at least at the elemtary & middle school levels, less so at high school level). But if you choose something outside that range, you can still supply your own transportation for your kid.

So who ends up at the "worst" schools in England if you can just choose to go to a better one?

In any debate about education I always think one of the forces working against attempts at "equality" is the fact that parents, inconveniently maybe, WANT their kids to have advantages over other kids. When you move to send your kids to a better school, you're hurting the tax revenue of the place you leave. When you put your kid in private school, you're adding to the economic disparity between kids at "good" schools and kids at the "bad" schools. I wonder if that attitude is as prevalent in other countries.

I think (but I've never really studied it so I could be far off) that in some places, school performance and displayed aptitude, rather than income and wealth, is the thing that gets you to the better schools (obviously there's some correlation between school performance and income, but there's at least an opportunity there for the best to rise up and get a better quality education). We have that kind of thing to some extent in the U.S. in terms of getting into college, but I'm not sure we'd tolerate it as a society in terms of school placement before that. It seems more we want everyone to have roughly the same caliber of pre-college education, which is tough when parents (very understandably) work against that idea.

It varies, at least somewhat.

What you're describing there is, in some places, known as "open enrollment". That term typically applies to crossing school system (i.e. city or county) boundaries. It's rather controversial, at least in Georgia, as several of the most prominent/successful HS (such as Buford) operate this way. Basically those zoned to crappy schools hate to see the "better" (for lack of a better word) students leave for greener pastures, they'd rather you stay & suffer with them.

On a somewhat smaller scale there's also school choice -- fairly limited in nearly all cases I'm familiar with -- within the same district. That's usually a situation that (rather bizarrely) allows really bad schools to take in students from better schools, done occasionally as a matter of convenience for the parent. For example, mom or dad works near Crappy School B while So-So School A is on the far end of the zoning for both their home & work.


Stipulating that I don't know the specifics of your personal situation but generally speaking school redistricting is anything but random. It may be done for space/resource allocation reasons, it may be an attempt at social engineering, it may even be simple petty personal/local politics ... but I'd say it's uncommon for it to be done truly randomly. I make this point simply to that the subject is almost always so contentious that it's tough to imagine many situations where it would indeed be "random".

Most kids who go to private schools have parents who fund (what ends up being) a pretty good local public school. I live in the Kyrene school district and the public school near me (Kyrene Sierra) is one of the top 5-10 in the state. Yet, a bunch of people near me send their kids to one of the private schools in the area. Rarely is a kid "from the ghetto" going to have his parents pay to send him to a private school. So, I think your second point is overstated. Most parents with the money to send their kids to a private school live in a wealthy area - which often has one of the better funded public schools.

That's too crazy to figure out - esp for our current education system. This call would have to be made on mostly K/1st graders and it would be very tough to know which kids have the aptitude to be good students, which ones are just a little immature/energetic (don't concentrate well) and which just had a bad day when taking a test at 5 years old. That's why we wait until High School/College for "aptitude" decisions and not middle school.

IMO, this all comes back to the parents/community. If the parents put as much value on an 'A' in a chemistry test as they do a touchdown in football or a goal in Lacrosse, they can help setup a good learning environment. The problem is (for both wealthy and poor), parental involvement can be sketchy or even misguided. There are a ton of very wealthy parents who either both work and take little role in their kids education or choose to not participate because of other priorities. There are also some parents in the poverty level needing to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, thus making parenting for school is difficult. Yet, there are single moms with two jobs who do a great job parenting their kids. Poverty is certainly a challenging factor to overcome, but real change starts with parents putting a value on education in their actions/expectations for their kids - not just words. And, this can be difficult for parents who never went to college or even consider it a viable choice for their kids.

Fretting about education in many communities in the US is like going to Samoa and complaining that very few Samoans end up being gymnasts and ice skaters. When your community/parents don't setup a viable plan for kids to achieve that goal, it's going to be difficult to make it happen regardless of governmental interference.

Parents generally who just put their kids near where they live - but at least people have a choice and aren't bound by their geographical location (i.e. such a solution isn't tied to income level and where you can afford to live).

If a school loses sufficient pupils then its either closed down (if there are already adequate schools in the area to take up the slack) or the government consider it a 'problem school' and one which isn't fulfilling its potential, then they'll generally try and shake up the staff and sometimes (mainly for inner city school) bring in specialist teachers who have excelled in that sort of situation previously to try and turn it around.

PS - I'm not indicating that this is a perfect setup by any means, there are flaws - especially if you're in a rural area where there aren't easy choices available (i.e. there was ONE high school where I grew up unless I commuted for half an hour).
The hardest areas for schools in the UK I've seen are those in the inner city where there are a lot of non-English speaking families which fail to support their kids education, that can lead to a fragmented schooling system where they are both trying to help the native-English speaking kids as well as ensure that the others don't fall through the cracks - not an easy situation and not one which I think is fair to rate teachers on a performance level basis for (which is another topic entirely - ie. how do you decide if a teacher or school is failing or succeeding, its not as simple as it sounds in all cases).

Thanks for the explanation - very interesting.


Sorry that was a very 'flippant' comment by me, it was far from random, I know as they did 'open' a certain amount of it for discussion and I had strong views upon it (as you can probably imagine).

There were various reasons given, however they were all from a pure budgetary perspective (they'd built a new school in an area which didn't truly have enough people to fill it so needed to ensure it was filled) and also (my belief as it was wasn't clearly stated ever - but I definitely got that impression) to try and shuffle more 'successful' kids into unsuccessful schools to try and give a more positive peer group.

Both of which I understand - however they ignore the effect of such changes on the pupils in question who have formed relationships with both tutors and pupils at their present schools, some kids will take that sort of change in their stride - however for others its a huge deal and can adversely affect their development.

Please note - I'll readily admit I'm probably over-sensitive to such things myself as both my boys have speech issues which they're learning to overcome (as did I was when I was younger) ... as such integrating into a social group isn't something which is particularly easy for them at times.

What was the previously used test like?

I know in California the old test was purely a regurgitation of facts in a multiple choice format. Also, using the very specific and simplistic state standards "teaching to the test" became the main way teachers were evaluated.

I agree, somewhat. I think the problem lies with what to do with the bottom 20-30%. I've been in urban education for 18 years and no one is even close to answering the most basic questions: what should non-4 year bound students learn, and how do we know they have learned it?

I think we'd be amazed at what takes place in a tougher school these days. Just getting kids into class, getting them to pay attention, getting them to show a basic respect for teachers, getting them to do any homework... you can spend a million dollars per student and you won't get him or her ready for anything.

I wish I knew the solution, but when you see a student pretty much refusing to take part in school, you can bet the problem lies at home. And telling parents how to parent is completely taboo in our society.

We can lay the blame for this in many places, but money is not the answer. Nor is a common curriculum. And I'm not sure there's much evidence that programs like Head Start are working, even though you'd think it would help.

How much does it really matter? I always thought the goal of education, from the broad perspective of a state or country, should be to find the best and brightest, wherever they are, and make sure they have access to the best education possible. Like anything else, easier said than done, but I'm more concerned about identifying the elite minds in the poorer parts of America and giving them every boost we can, than making sure our unskilled workers had a better classroom education. And sure, at some level, you need a competent school system to identify those elite minds, I just wonder if that's the real end game goal.

Big +1 here, and it should be noted that I don't always (or even often) agree with Arles.

To add on, though, it is for the above reason that I have reservations about nationwide school improvement programs (such as NCLB and now Common Core). Schools are varied and involvement is intensely local. Needs are very different. Applying a one-size-fits-all solution may bring up the worst performers, but it also tends to drag down the top performers, which is something I don't think we want.

In an ideal world I'd like to see a nationwide program for schools (like approach, not a mega-school-district) in the hope that it would "lift all ships" as it were, but I just don't think it's realistic, given all the factors involved. A solution which allows localities to, by and large, chart their own direction while focusing additional support on localities that are obviously failing seems more realistic. But even then you're going to run into challenges as to what "success" and "failure" are. And as we've seen, standardized testing, which is option #1 to determine success and failure, comes with its own challenges.

I don't often agree with you much either, but I agree 100% here as well, especially your second paragraph.


More money, in and of itself, is probably not the answer, but we certainly do have instances where more money, or a change in the way money is spent, would probably help. For instance, I know far too many public school teachers who buy basic school supplies out of their own pocket, because the school doesn't have budget for it. Things like that shouldn't be allowed to happen, and yes, it sometimes happens not because the money isn't available, but because it's mis-spent on other things (by the administration, teachers, the community, etc...). In addition, there is some evidence that Head Start helps: Does Head Start work for kids? The bottom line

But yes, those are symptoms of the problem, they are not the root cause. And I think many posters have identified that the root cause has something to do with society, families, parents, communities, etc... and broaching that subject in a national conversation is just not something we do well as Americans.

A major problem is still kids being hungry and/or cold. They aren't in a great position to learn when their body isn't able to function properly.

Are you saying find the naturally best and brightest and give them a good education?

I think a lot of societies ills are fixed when the vast majority of its people are educated, to some level. However, like I said, I don't think we have any idea what that level should be. But as a citizen, I feel that my community would be cheaper and safer if everyone was well educated.

The elephant in the room is that a successful classroom comes down to how well the students respond to an upper-middle class, mostly white socialization process. Failure to accept and recognize this just means we are going to keep spinning our wheels. However, who wants to go to a parent and say your 0-5 year old needs to be nurtured and brought up in a more white way?

Really FOFC?

Federal Judge Strikes Down Texas Gay Marriage Ban - NBC News

But there is a stay order in there, so it won't take effect until all of the appeals have run their course.

Oh I know, I saw that. But it's just one more to add to the pile.

And it should make for some excellent reactions in the fundy-camp.

Has RedState blown up yet?

Brewer vetoes the religious discrimination bill.

That's the high water mark.

It's frustrating that it's presented or perceived in that manner.

I don't know what "white" means in this context. As a "white" person of a presumed stereotype, I worry that I'm not allowed to be an individual or advocate for any kind of culture. I'm just lumped in with a faceless mass of privilege. This is, obviously, the liberal white guilt many of us experience. Certainly, I have my share of it.

If that's the worst thing that happens to me, yeah, poor baby.

I can't, obviously, speak for black people (or even for white people, I hope), but my immediate reaction to this is that these perceptions do far more harm than good. We're damning black children with lowered expectations by saying it's a "white" school system they're entering.

I like the idea of a vast melting pot that can't help but absorb pieces of every culture it welcomes. We keep our individuality but we reap the rewards of everyone's strengths.

I don't know how you go to parents of black children and tell them that these are things they can do to prepare the kids for the challenges they will face. If you present this as a "white" world they need to enter, of course they will resent it.

Any ideas?

I'd love to hear (ok, read) you expand on this.

Now it's okay for schools to forbid the Stars and Stripes

Court: School Can Ban U.S. Flag Shirts for Safety - NBC News

Nice to see the courts vomit on the 1st amendment and patriotism in general.

I agree with you but it's consistent with every court decision with regards to those types of things. If it is done to create a disruption then the student can be asked to change.

I would like to see uniforms at all schools because of these exact things. Too many judgement calls, too many cliques formed by judging,etc.

Courts have been pretty consistent in saying that students have very limited rights.

So, this is fun: Optic Nerve: millions of Yahoo webcam images intercepted by GCHQ | World news | The Guardian


So it turns out all that paranoia about "hackers" watching you through your webcam were true, except it wasn't "hackers", as we traditionally think of them.


Yeah, I'm guessing 1% human rights legislation and 99% overloading servers. Good thing the NSA is building a new data center!


The "special relationship" between the US & Britain is not dead! :D


So, uh, that's creepy.


There's obviously a lot more in the article, and it is all awesome.

I don't understand how you can read that article and not understand the reasoning behind it. Unless you are sympathizing with racist assholes.

Which is fine, but just come out and say it, let's not pretend there is some selfless act of patriotism being blocked here.

This might be one of the saddest, no, make that pathetic posts in the history of the FOFC.

Truly disgusting.

I disagree Jon, there are a number of yours that qualify.

Same as TCY Junkie in the Chick-Fil-A thread. Either stupidity or blatant bigotry. Take your pick.

Seems to me that the "racist assholes" here are the ones that have a problem with wearing the United States flag IN THE UNITED STATES.

Would your opinion be different if they were banning T-shirts with liberal slogans or pro gay-marriage slogans in the name of "security"? As long as we're "not pretending", let's also not pretend this is some legal analysis. People will pick their desired result based on their politics and then fill in the gaps to backtrack their opinion from there.