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What an idiot.

Yes let's get rid of education agency rick, that there is a smart thing to do. Ugh, idiot. I'm happy he's kind of screwed now. If only we could get him off the gov. seat here in texas...

And there goes his campaign

All of his campaign supporters are screaming ENERGY at the TV.

He needs a thinking cap instead of a syrup* on his head

*Syrup = syrup of figs = wigs

'oops'

Hopefully this'll make his state position look bad too.

Melissia wrote:Hopefully this'll make his state position look bad too.

texas looks good?

Physically speaking, yes.

Politically speaking, it's nastier than... well, an unmentionable nasty thing which I can't post on this fourm.

Necroshea wrote:Yes let's get rid of education agency rick, that there is a smart thing to do.

Probably his best idea, to be honest.

I wasn't terribly excited when he entered the race, but it's unfortunate to see him crash and burn.

I don't consider myself to be a conservative, but I certainly see the merit of questioning the need for a federal department of education myself. I've an open mind on the matter, but I'm unclear why it's not wholly a state function.

Ouze wrote:I don't consider myself to be a conservative, but I certainly see the merit of questioning the need for a federal department of education myself. I've an open mind on the matter, but I'm unclear why it's not wholly a state function.

I'm still getting used to the state v nation gov. division of labor here, but isn't what Americans are teaching their children a matter for the nation as a whole? Different states putting funding and emphasis on different aspects of education will make for a yet further divided nation in the future?

Necroshea wrote:

Melissia wrote:Hopefully this'll make his state position look bad too.

texas looks good?

Beats the out of New Mexico.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

Ouze wrote:I don't consider myself to be a conservative, but I certainly see the merit of questioning the need for a federal department of education myself. I've an open mind on the matter, but I'm unclear why it's not wholly a state function.

I'm still getting used to the state v nation gov. division of labor here, but isn't what Americans are teaching their children a matter for the nation as a whole? Different states putting funding and emphasis on different aspects of education will make for a yet further divided nation in the future?

It's... tricky.

As policy goes, a national standard sounds good to a lot of people, and terrifying to others. When it comes to curriculum, the differences tend to be symbollicaly important, but practicly insignificant. Things like evolution, state history, and what literature is required/forbidden all get people fired up, but aren't exactly critical to long term success, either for the individual or the nation.

The problem is how education is funded and run. Most states are divided in school districts, which aren't even always the same as any other political boundary (my city growing up was served by four different school districts). A local school board runs the district under the state and national guidelines. The money comes primarily from local property taxes, plus extra money from the state and federal treasury.

the only reason the federal government can actually influence education is through spendings. Congress is (in theory) limited to only certain areas, with others left to the states. There is no legit legal argument to allow the Federal Government to actuall regulate education. What they can do is tax the entire country, and only give money to those states that follow certain rules. (many people argue against this sort of backdoor power, but not the nine people that matter).

I'm really not certain what the department of education does, other than hold my student loan debt (suckers). I think there's a valid point to be made in asking why we have a Federal Agency in charge of an area that the Federal government actually doesn't have authority over.

As for the liberal/conservative split on the issue, as a general rule, conservatives favor state's rights. There are a lot of reasons for that, ranging from tradition to simply not wanting to be told what to do. In practice, many conservatives want to be able to do things that the Federal Government won't let them. Gary, Indiana and Jackson, Mississippi want to cover the Civil Rights movement in very different ways, for example.

What an idiot

No argument there!

Check out this hilarious fake document making fun of his lunacy at the last debate.

Polonius wrote:As for the liberal/conservative split on the issue, as a general rule, conservatives favor state's rights.

Unless their state disagrees with them, in which case they'll go to the federal government in a heartbeat. See the gay rights issue.

The definition of American liberty is "Those freedoms that I enjoy."

...

...

...

Oops!

He's down and out already? Damn!

His campaign adds feel like Michael Bay movie trailers...

Ouze wrote:I don't consider myself to be a conservative, but I certainly see the merit of questioning the need for a federal department of education myself. I've an open mind on the matter, but I'm unclear why it's not wholly a state function.

Kansas Board of Education's decision on what to teach in science classes back in the mid-2000s is a good example of why you don't want to leave education up to the states. I don't want to be driving through Mississippi, get hit by a drunk driver, and end up in the emergency room under the care of a guy who believes he can heal me with snakes.

Honestly though, presidents have made bigger gaffes than this. Perry's thing is kinda a non-issue...

Seaward wrote:Kansas Board of Education's decision on what to teach in science classes back in the mid-2000s is a good example of why you don't want to leave education up to the states. I don't want to be driving through Mississippi, get hit by a drunk driver, and end up in the emergency room under the care of a guy who believes he can heal me with snakes.

Then don't drive through Mississippi.

biccat wrote:

Seaward wrote:Kansas Board of Education's decision on what to teach in science classes back in the mid-2000s is a good example of why you don't want to leave education up to the states. I don't want to be driving through Mississippi, get hit by a drunk driver, and end up in the emergency room under the care of a guy who believes he can heal me with snakes.

Then don't drive through Mississippi.

Or cross country, for that matter. That North Dakota/South Dakota/Nebraska/Kansas/Oklahoma/Texas line would become a lot more intimidating if they were allowed to completely set their own educational policies.

He should of just rolled with it when Mitt suggested the EPA.

Seaward wrote:Or cross country, for that matter. That North Dakota/South Dakota/Nebraska/Kansas/Oklahoma/Texas line would become a lot more intimidating if they were allowed to completely set their own educational policies.

...not sure if serious.

I can't imagine what sort of hell the United States was before the Dept. of Ed. came around.

biccat wrote:

Seaward wrote:Or cross country, for that matter. That North Dakota/South Dakota/Nebraska/Kansas/Oklahoma/Texas line would become a lot more intimidating if they were allowed to completely set their own educational policies.

...not sure if serious.

I can't imagine what sort of hell the United States was before the Dept. of Ed. came around.

A blistering hellscape! Before 1979 everyone in the U.S. was a sleestak.

My personal preference would be to expand the Dept of education, it pretends to be a federal program but the wealth of individual communities still significantly impacts the quality of the available education which encourages dynastic wealth and poverty (and has done that statistically for a very long time). I'd prefer an actual national school program funded and run by the federal government to the piecemeal approach being fethed up now.

Dear Texas,

We get it. You don't like big government. So, you've decided to elect incompetent people to office in the hopes that they won't be able to accomplish anything. That's totally within your rights.

However, the rest of us are sick of having idiots in charge. The last one was survivable, but this one is like a caricature of the last one. Please take him back, we don't want him.

Thanks,
The other 49 states

Physically speaking, yes.

Politically speaking, it's nastier than... well, an unmentionable nasty thing which I can't post on this fourm.

My god woman, how nasty can it get!?
lol

Perry, the same idiot who included subsidized tuition for children of illegal immigrants to texas, FFS how come people living legally in the country and its citizens need to pay up to 20k a year for tuition fees but tax payer money is used to get illegals 100k of the total tuition fees? And his argument for this insane stupidity is to "not be heartless". Gee, I guess I can be "not heartless" with someone elses money too then.
How come people havent sent that slow up in space strapped to a gigantic scud missile by now I cannot fathom. Are you getting as spineless and brainwashed as we whimpy swedes are these days?

Grakmar wrote:Dear Texas,

We get it. You don't like big government. So, you've decided to elect incompetent people to office in the hopes that they won't be able to accomplish anything. That's totally within your rights.

However, the rest of us are sick of having idiots in charge. The last one was survivable, but this one is like a caricature of the last one. Please take him back, we don't want him.

Thanks,
The other 49 states

That needed Exalting.....done!

ShumaGorath wrote:

biccat wrote:

Seaward wrote:Or cross country, for that matter. That North Dakota/South Dakota/Nebraska/Kansas/Oklahoma/Texas line would become a lot more intimidating if they were allowed to completely set their own educational policies.

...not sure if serious.

I can't imagine what sort of hell the United States was before the Dept. of Ed. came around.

A blistering hellscape! Before 1979 everyone in the U.S. was a sleestak.

My personal preference would be to expand the Dept of education, it pretends to be a federal program but the wealth of individual communities still significantly impacts the quality of the available education which encourages dynastic wealth and poverty (and has done that statistically for a very long time). I'd prefer an actual national school program funded and run by the federal government to the piecemeal approach being fethed up now.

I don't like the idea of a nationally run education program, especially if it means that the political ideologies of either side come into play. Think about it, we have places where a large group of people do not want to teach their kids about evolution and we have places where its mandatory to learn. Same thing with sex-education, some places are abstinence-only and others are comprehensive.

Then if you have a national program you still have to look at the quality of the students they receive, you could have the same programs and teachers I have and put different students in and their scores would still be low. It all depends on the society surrounding the school rather than the school itself. If you really want to improve education you would have to control society.

What I think we should do is follow certain examples; less topics and more depth is what we need. Kids in China cover 5 or so topics per grade while their American counterparts learn more than 20. This is effectively making the US a jack of all trades, but master of none.

America also suffers from a lack of a homogeneous population; Japanese schools have Japanese students, Finland has Finnish students, Chinese schools have Chinese students while American schools have a much larger degree of heterogeneous student populations. Like it or not but your race and culture matter when you look at education, just like everything else. This means that schools need to adjust at a local level for the demographics of their area and not just the state for their citizens. Another issue is de facto segregation that occurs at certain schools because of the surrounding population. Sometimes it just can't be fixed by busing students from the suburbs into the inner-city or vice versa in order to mix up the populations. A national program increases the chances that education will not be made to fit the student and instead would continue the same path we are currently on. Education needs to be localized in order to allow teachers to create lesson plans that will allow the material to reach the local population in ways that could be vastly different than another area, but be just as effective. As far as a national curriculum, yes we should have a national curriculum that outlines what is necessary for students to learn, but should not include copies of tests that teachers can teach. In fact I think that nationwide or even state wide tests should be lessened and that we should focus more on the cumulative grades of the student population with a test at the end of the year comparing different areas to one another. We also need to stop having huge competitions for funding from the government and instead of having funding be reward based it should be need based. If we continue to have reward based funding then we have a big potential of teachers and even school districts cheating by making tests easier for the students or even teaching the test, in fact there are cases of teachers pulling out the national or state test booklets and teaching their students the actual test. If need based funding is put into place then the worst thing we could see is a teacher not teaching in which case they would be fired for not doing their job, or teachers creating incredibly difficult tests in order to suppress grades which would need some sort of oversight to make sure that this does not happen. I would rather see a person with lower grades because a test it too hard rather than someone who passes a test because it is too easy personally, but that is just a personal opinion.

Teachers should also receive pay for the quality of the education they give instead of the time that they have been teaching. A new teacher may be an incredibly great teacher but is the more likely candidate for being fired due to other teachers having seniority over them. Similar to a professor's tenure, a teacher who has spent a longer time at a school is a less likely candidate for being fired based solely on their seniority even if that teacher is poor quality. This is where a strange balancing act comes into play, if we have competition amongst teachers in a school it needs to be regulated somehow, that regulation would have to be student performance and there would have to be a standard test for students to take to prove their level of retention. Its all very complicated in how it should be done.

Another alternative would be to rotate teachers from areas where teaching is difficult to areas where it is easier. This may help prevent competition between school districts, but it may also prevent competition amongst teachers. Or it could increase competition amongst teachers if we gamble with the idea of having poor quality teachers placed in difficult areas and good quality teachers being placed in easier areas. The rational is that a teacher would hate having the more difficult job and in order to get out of that position they would increase the quality of the education they give in order to be placed into a different area. The gamble though is that its also possible the teacher would "dumb down" their coursework or give extra credit out in order to boost grades. Again, a test would be needed to determine if that was happening.

Teachers should be hired by the federal government instead of state or local governments in order to allow this possible rotation/reassignment. Of course this also means that teachers would need to be nationally certified, compensated for travel, paid a bit more, and most likely receive other benefits to make up for the fact that there is a chance they could be relocated during their career.


As far as a national curriculum we should see an increase in the sciences and math as well arts while sacrificing history. Is history important, yes, but history has a less likely chance of creating anything new and innovative compared to science, math, or art. We need students who are intelligent enough to use scientific and mathematical methods but are also creative enough to apply them to various situations or even allow them to create new situations. Intelligence and creativity should be paramount compared to being able to regurgitate information. Don't get me wrong, I myself love history but its not going to help me create any new scientific theories.

So a national education program, no. A national curriculum, yes. Localized programs and lesson plans, yes. National tests, most likely.