The Bernoulli Effect

Unless there is a major change in the MSM, "difficult" isn't the word. This ignorance will be "impossible" to overcome. I had a few things to say about Boxer's comment here. A white Senator telling an accomplished black diplomat she can't make policy decisions about war because she has no children is frustrating. That this statement only made the 18th paragraph of a routine AP dispatch is even more frustrating. That none of Boxer's colleagues have shown any form of outrage is even more frustrating than that!

Where are the protests from the equal-opportunity folks? I’ve seen the term “racist” thrown around for much less. Where are the 10,000 women marching in the streets of DC in solidarity with a successful woman being oppressed due to her gender and marital status? Perhaps we should expect lesbians to come out in force to support a woman’s right to be single and without children?

democrat, thy name is hypocrisy.

It is true that the Democrats have been the supporters of advancing and improving education, but to say they've dominated education, as if they've purposefully made our education system suck, is deceitful and ridiculous. Education spending increases due to the actions of democrats and decreases due to the actions of Republicans (just as all forms of social spending do). It must be partly due to your public education, and partly due to your cultilke party loyalties that you say "Deocrats have dominated education" instead of "Democrats have supported education."

A little old, but "educational" MSM news:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002/05/23/school-spending.htm

It touches on how some of the worst school districts (DC, NYC, etc) actually spend a lot per pupil. For years the right wing has used the argument that increasing education spending does not improve education, citing the poor results in districts that spend up to 50% more than average on per-pupil costs of education (in cities like DC and NYC) but they omit the fact that the cost of living (and therefore the cost of buying/building schools and employing teachers and staff) are double to quadruple the national average. Obviously increasing spending on education is the solution to improving education, and Democrats have supported increasing education spending for as long as we've had public schools, and of course Republicans have been done everything in their power to minimize all social spending, including education spending, just as long.

Given the overwhelming support President Bush has had in the past, and given that he still has millions of supporters today, I would have to say the following words of yours are... spot on: "I'm afraid there's a critical mass of ignorance in this country that will be very difficult to overcome."

Barbara Boxer is despicable...

absurd thought -
God of the Universe hates
efficient charter schools

parents should have no choice
keep urban poor in bad schools
.

It is true that the Democrats have been the supporters of advancing and improving education...

Supporters of advancing education? Any group who continues to champion frauds like whole language is not championing anything but their self-indulgent problem with The Establishment. If you don't agree that the education colleges and teachers' unions are dominated by Democrats, you are either a) profoundly ignorant or b)intellectually dishonest. What evidence would you accept as proof of my claim? Do you contend that you could find a faculty of any random ed college that voted along the same percentage lines as that of the generel public? Sure you could.

but to say they've dominated education, as if they've purposefully made our education system suck, is deceitful and ridiculous.

It's neither deceitful nor ridiculous to assert that that Democrats have dominated education. And I do mean dominated. The evidence is overwhelming; you may start with a comparison of voting patterns of educators compared with the general population. Or look at a breakdown of the political contributions of teachers' unions. No reasonable person can doubt that the education establishment is dominated by Democrats. As far as deliberately making our schools suck, I said nothing about their intent--that's just your emotions (and lousy reading skills) putting words in my mouth.

Obviously increasing spending on education is the solution to improving education, and Democrats have supported increasing education spending for as long as we've had public schools...

lol...

Obviously? Did you read the last paragraph of the article you cited?

"D.C. being on there points out that you can make foolish investment decisions with big resources and the kids don't benefit," said Amy Wilkins of the Education Trust, a Washington group that advocates for urban and minority students.

Emphasis mine. And of course you have nothing to say to the fact that our national averages compare pathetically to other countries who spend much less. I guess your idea of a "good education" is different than mine. I guess you've never heard of Thaddeus Lott:

When you first hear the good news about a school like Wesley Elementary School in Houston, your first fearful thought might be, "What will the education bureaucracy do to kill it off? How will they destroy it?" Wesley is a public school in a predominantly black neighborhood, whose black principal is the determined Thaddeus Lott.

It is a school that 1950s Americans of all races would recognize. Lott and his teachers maintain a strict disciplinary structure, use phonetics to teach reading, and drill students in arithmetic tables. In other words, its administration is committed to the old-fashioned basics that worked for generations, and still work.

At Wesley, fifth graders do math on an eighth grade level and read Shakespeare and Steinbeck. A teacher at the school, who happens to be white, was so impressed by the school's educational program that she transferred her two sons to Wesley.

So, how could there be a problem? Well, one's initial fear of obstruction proves justified. Sure enough, in 1991, Houston's school board tried to discredit the high-performing Wesley, whose students had outscored their counterparts in the district's suburban schools.

Obviously (as you're so fond of saying), Lott got real results without whining about money. For someone who talks a lot about critical thinking, you sure miss a lot. I guess the difference between my "obvious" and yours is that there are quite a few black people actually living their lives in Houston with a quality education thanks to guys like Lott. Real evidence counts--evidence like that fact that a white teacher would transfer her two children to a predominately black public school in the middle of one of Houston's most challenged neighborhoods.

You are in denial.

I’m not sure which is more pitiful: the incredibly dense viewpoint of the anonymous liberal post or the fact that so many buy into this excrement.

While it seems “obvious” to some that throwing more taxpayer dollars at an education system that has proven incapable of managing the funds it currently receives, it seems “obvious” to others that accountability in a failed system needs to be taken and changes proved before more funds are allocated rather than squandered.

As with most anonymous liberal comments I see, this one tends to make the point of the opposition:

“some of the worst school districts (DC, NYC, etc) actually spend a lot per pupil”

Proving in an “obvious” manner that throwing money at it doesn’t improve it.

“the cost of living (and therefore the cost of buying/building schools and employing teachers and staff) are double to quadruple the national average”

Does anyone else find an “obvious” connection with oppressive taxation and a cost of living that is double to quadruple the national average? Let’s take a wild guess at which political party runs these areas.

“of course Republicans have been done everything in their power to minimize all social spending”

One thing “obvious” is that the anonymous liberal “have been done” at public school. I guess it should be “obvious” that those of us who pay out the nose to the system find the above sentiment to be a positive aspect of a political party. This is one of the fundamental differences between conservatives and liberals: one views social services as a means to help someone become independent of government assistance and the other views independence from government assistance as a detriment. I’ll let you decide which is the “obvious” which.

Nice dig at the end, by the way: we elected and re-elected Bush, so there must be a “critical mass of ignorance”. Elitism at it’s best! Agree with you lest we be ignorant? Sorry to inform you that not all free thinkers find your pathetic arguments as “obvious” as you do.

You know, I'm a Republican. I run a business. When that business fails to perform, then we make less money. But guess what: We can't just call someone up and get more money to solve our problems. We actually have to solve our problem with LESS money than we had before the problem came up since the problem itself resulted in lowered revenues.

The result? We're forced to find good solutions on limited resources. Would we ever have found those solutions if we got an influx of cash to patch the hole? Probably not. We'd have a patch waiting to fail on us.

We need innovators in leadership positions that deal with education. We don't need people pointing fingers. We need people that will produce results regardless of adversity as opposed to simply pointing to the adversity as an excuse for failure.

Yes, I support limiting the extent to which we continually increase funds to failing schools. No, that DOES NOT mean that I fail to support education. It means that I support EDUCATION itself, not the EDUCATION SYSTEM. While it is unfortunate, it can no longer be said that those two words are one in the same.

Note: I have a personal bias that I should disclose. I worked my fingers to the bone to help raise $130,000 for an inner-city school in Chicago. I tutored kids there that were considered "slow". They weren't, but that's a whole other blog entry. But the textbooks they were using were 15 years outdated. I decided to try to solve that, so I raised money to help them buy new books.

They used it to purchase top quality caps and gowns for their next graduating class. Note: Only 2/3 of that class actually graduated.

Throwing money at the problem was a BIG mistake. One I'll never make again.