Joe wrote:
> "Michael Johnson, PE" <cds@erols.com> wrote in
> news:fsqdnQUk3-k0oaneRVn-gw@giganews.com:
>
>> stangerbanger wrote:
>>> I am not republican or democrat, I cant be, I can't think in
>>> absolutes on all the issues.
>>> What I have issues with is our current president is a poor leader.
>>> And I won't miss him when he goes.
>>> The country is in a transition period, our mostly laxidazical ways
>>> of raising our kids needs change.
>>> Now this doesn't apply to all families of course because some do
>>> great jobs. Our country still has smart people after all we created
>>> the microprocessor and the mustang.
>>> Of course now the chief designer of the mustang is Chinese.
>>> But depending on a job at Target or Walmart to raise a new family
>>> wont work, some of the jobs our dad's had yesteryear will not pay
>>> the bills today. I don't know what will happen in the future but it
>>> will probably get worse before it gets better.
>>> Better education would be a great start, lets put some of the money
>>> into that stuff.
>> IMO, we already put plenty of money into education.
>
> With the exception of teachers' salaries. They absolutely suck. The
> salaries, that is.
>
> Also, the money that goes into education in general is
> disproportionate. Some areas are awash in funds, others are
> struggling. This needs to be addressed.
I see so much money going into the school systems and it just boggles my
mind where they spend it all. The county next to us (Fairfax) have
upped the 2006 budget over the 2005 budget by 7% to $1.9 BILLION!! That
is BILLION with a "B". They are spending almost $12,000 per pupil!
They should be graduating Einsteins by the thousands every year. For
all they spend they only exceed the national SAT average by 79 points.
The starting salary for teachers is $40,000.
>> Trouble is there
>> is not enough discipline in schools and too much coddling of
>> students. Instead of requiring students to learn, we are making
>> excuses for their poor performance and intellectual laziness. It is
>> coming to the point where we can't afford to make the low cost
>> widgets that we desire. People who don't educate themselves, or
>> otherwise aren't ambitious, are going to have less than the people
>> that do. The reality is that anyone that wants to earn a living
>> making widgets will probably need to move to China.
>
> Additionally, teachers are having to become surrogate parents. There's
> certainly no funding for this, and it's not fair to the kids who do
> want to learn.
The NEA and parents are equally responsible, IMO. As soon as a parent
goes to discipline their child the teachers get social services
involved. The whole education system has been politicized at the
expense of educating the students.
> Disruptive and unresponsive kids should _not_ continue to be
> mainstreamed in with others who want an education. Screw the political
> correctness and get those kids out of the mainstream and into something
> appropriate. There's where the money is badly needed - to pay for
> programs that handle kids that screw up things for everybody else. And
> at that point, it gets into the parent(s) and personal responsibility.
What they should do is charge the parents extra taxes if their kids are
put in a special school. That would get them involved.
>>> F*ck Iraq, Iran, leave them their, if they f*ck with us again we
>>> deal them.
>> Trouble is the next time the f*ck with us might be when they set a
>> nuke off in Times Square. I don't want to sit around waiting for
>> that day.
>
> We should just give everybody 5 days to leave over there, then just
> drop a few dozen nukes. When the smoke clears, we can then annex
> everything and own all the oil outright.
Now if we were the Nazi wannabees that Hank thinks we are then we would
have already made that move and nuked France just for the feel good
factor.
>>> The jobs we lost are gone until we enter another depression or some
>>> world calamity, basically
>>> their gone forever.
>>> And maybe for a nation hopefully moving forward that's good thing.
>> There are PLENTY of good jobs available. The trouble is too many
>> people don't want to do the work to qualify for them. With just
>> minimal post high school education a person could have a well paying
>> job. Fact is that too many of the young people (and adults for that
>> matter) today just don't want to work hard and it will eventually
>> catch up with them.
>
> Instead of checks and food stamps, they should give these welfare baby
> makers hysterectomies.
There are plenty of jobs the government could give them in return for a
check. Have them pick up trash, lawn work, removing graffiti etc. I
guarantee they would find a better job in a matter of days or weeks.
>> Over the last ten years I have tried to train young people to use
>> AutoCAD and to be civil engineering technicians. I finally gave up
>> on it because most of them didn't want to work hard enough to learn
>> and I became tired of wasting my time on them. Any young person
>> today that bothers to get a college education will have a very good
>> career. Especially if they get a technical degree. Also, many older
>> people could get well paying jobs if they would spend a little time
>> getting even a minimal amount of technical education at the community
>> college of their choice.
>
> The parents of those kids are to blame, not so much the kids. Too many
> parents want to be "buddies" with their kids instead of being parents.
> A lot of today's parents never grew up. They're just big kids
> themselves, all looking for the easy way out and the good time. That's
> why personal debt is at an all-time high.
Parents can be buddies and "parents" too. I had both growing up. I
think they don't want the hassles of being a good parent. It's too easy
to buy them a car, give them a credit card and send them off to the
mall. Most kids in this area don't even have summer jobs. Flipping
burgers is beneath them. The thing is flipping burgers (or any other
crappy job) teaches a kid the value of getting a good job through
education. I know it worked for me.
> And speaking of debt, Dubya better start figuring out where all this
> money's going to come from that he's spending like it's going out of
> style.
Now this is where you won't get much argument from me. Dems, Repubs and
Dubya all spend too damn much. Short of a constitutional amendment to
balance the budget, this will never change. It doesn't matter who is in
office.