The issue of education, which is of the utmost of importance to our nations future, has struggled to make the headlines during this election cycle. Despite the lack of attention, Barack Obama delivered a key address in Dayton today outlining his educaiton policy. In typical big media fashion, the AP jumped on just one line of the meaningful speech, saying that Obama plans to double funds for charter schools. Obama’s speech calls for more innovative schools (Innovative Schools Fund) and accountable for-profit charter schools. He said, “successful charter schools need to grow and charters that arent will get shut down.” Building on that concept, he called for quality afterschool programming, summer school and extended school days.
These are truly innovative ideas that will help the U.S. play catchup with the rest of the world. We have to play catchup because the Bush Administration neglected the education system and turned their cheek by passing No Child Left Behind. The election needs to be about real issues and not cosmetic biographical fodder. Obama has a plan for education and it should be a reason to cast a vote for him in November.
An editorial in the Wall Street Journal today shows how the issue of education can be twisted to blame our public schools and then offer them no help at all:
The profound failure of inner-city public schools to teach children may be the nation’s greatest scandal. The differences between the two Presidential candidates on this could hardly be more stark. John McCain is calling for alternatives to the system; Barack Obama wants the kids to stay within that system. We think the facts support Senator McCain.
The WSJ breaks it down to the school voucher system to be the “golden ticket” to educational success. The editorial goes on to praise school choice programs in D.C. (Opportunity Scholarship Program) which is a federal initiative and Philly (EdisonLearning) a private company run effort. The numbers behind the success?
A recent Department of Education report found nearly 90% of participants in the D.C. program have higher reading scores than peers who didn’t receive a scholarship…
The number of students performing at grade level or higher in reading at the schools managed by private providers increased by 6.1% overall compared to 3.3% in district-managed schools. In math, the results for Edison and other outside managers was 4.6% and 6.0%, respectively, compared to 3.1% in the district-run schools.
These figures are made to sound exemplary, but the gains are marginal at best. Then the Journal paints Obama and the Democratic Party as threatening to kill those “successful programs” at the bequest of “uniformed teachers unions.” To top it off, the editorial points out the fact that the Obama’s send their kids to expensive private schools, not willing to wait for fixes to public education.
Not only is the articles evidence shortsighted (kids respond well to good schools that are safe and have excellent resources) but it is out of touch with reality. The issue of improving public education cannot afford to be sidestepped. The Democratic Party is in favor of increased federal funding, improved teacher salaries and more early childhood education, where the real differences are made in closing the achievement gap. While vouchers and school choice systems can help with certain students, its not a magical solution, and its most certainly in need of standards reform and better accountability standards (even the Ohio Grantmakers Forum, a large school-choice support agrees on pg 37-42 in “Education for Ohio’s Future”). The WSJ is missing the point on the debate about public education… there is no one size fits all solution and shallow observations about Obama’s children prevents the real issues from being discussed.
The debate in Congress is focused on how DADT effects recruiting and troop unity & trust. The debate seems to circumvent the real issue, one that has taken the conservative U.S. by storm since the 2000 presidential election. With many statewide bans on gay marriage enacted, some states have done the opposite, allowing legal unions between gay couples, while the entire nation confused about how to regulate sexual behavior. In my opinion, the U.S. is in danger of undoing the entire sexual revolution of the 60’s. Sexual orientation does not impair one’s ability to perform tasks. The reason the founding fathers created the separation of church and state was so no one group’s religious beliefs could be imposed upon the rest of the population. The simple existence of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ is a violation of that separation and should be changed immediately (or as soon as Bush leaves office).
The idealistic, liberal 22 year-old that I am is curious as to why the richest and most powerful country in the world has such issues adjusting to the 21st century. Maybe not all people are made to fit into our capitalist system, or some people have hate constantly flowing through their veins regardless of who its directed at, but when the media and government still show blatant signs of backwardness, its quite perplexing. So much so, that our entire value system has to be called into question.
Perhaps more troubling this week, is the cover of the New Yorker Magazine, depicting Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, as a pair of unpatriotic, radical Muslims. While the magazine claimed it was trying to depict the satirical side of the right-wing attempts at undermining the Democratic presidential candidate, it is clearly a racist depiction. Both campaigns, the newspapers around the country and most Americans will agree that the cover is tasteless and offensive. The truth is that we have a black man with a very good shot and becoming the next president, and many people are secretly terrified, shocked and outraged. People look at him as a black man first, and everything else second, masking the severity of the real issues our country is facing. Until we can drop the past and accept the fact that all people are the same biological species, then we are doomed for failure.
America has came a long way, from the times of forcefully removing Natives from their ancestral lands and the slave society, to today, where CEO’s receive hugely disproportionate incomes and moms drive kids around town in their 12 mpg SUV’s. We still have quite a ways to go if we want to remain on top of the world’s power structure and it should start with a critical self-examination as soon as possible. If we want to keep the American Dream alive, we should value all Americans equally and make this land a becon of freedom for all.
Yesterday, as the US and the Czech Republic signed a new missile defense agreement, Iran hardened its stance towards the west yet again. The radar and interceptor missiles are set to be deployed in central Europe to guard against attacks from “rouge states”. Missile defense sites have been an area of controversy between not only the U.S. and Iran, but also Russia who said that “elements of the US strategic arsenal close to Russian territory could be used to weaken [their] deterrent potential,” vowing to use military force against U.S. installations.
Iran responded by test firing 9 ballistic missiles, some with nuclear capability, to warn the the US, Israel and EU that any attack against Iran would be met with a fierce counter attack. An aide to Iran’s supreme leader was quoted as saying that “Tel Aviv and U.S. ships will burn” if Iran is attacked. One of the missiles has a range of 1,250 miles, able to strike Athens, New Delhi and all of the Arabian peninsula. While officials in Iran maintain that their current nuclear program is for energy purposes only, many suspect that they are attempting to build nuclear weapons.
The tension between Iran and the West is only expected to escalate in the coming years. The regime in Iran is known for its state run media, brutal secret police enforcement and lack of personal freedoms. This is nothing new, as Iran has been supporting multiple terrorist organizations, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al Queda for quite some time. Its seemingly ironic that the money from the west from oil sales often goes directly into the hands of the murders the U.S. military has spent hundreds of billions of dollars trying to eradicate. The hypocrisy that is the oil economy and Iran is one of the ugliest black eyes our civilization has dealt with to date, and there is no end in sight.
Proof beyond a reasonable doubt about global warming
This Monday kicks off the final summit President George W. Bush will attend as the U.S. representative in the economic cooperative, the G8. Expected to be at the top of the agenda is a global emissions reduction policy to slow the effects of climate change. Many believe that the G8 nations need to agree on a set of goals to curb GHG (greenhouse gas) pollution before a major treaty can be drafted, such as Kyoto in 1997. Still, there are those who believe that unless the major developing nations are at the table that no such agreement can take place. While the G8 includes large emitters such as the U.S., the real problem with slowing anthropogenic effects on our ecosystem in the future is nations like China and India, where booming growth is expected to drive pollution. The G8 created an outreach group to address the problems in the developing world, inviting China, India, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa to the table, but more needs to be done to create a global solution. Compromise must be at the heart of any agreement and sacrifices must be made on all sides.
The issue of education, which is of the utmost of importance to our nations future, has struggled to make the headlines during this election cycle. Despite the lack of attention, Barack Obama delivered a key address in Dayton today outlining his educaiton policy. In typical big media fashion, the AP jumped on just one line of the meaningful speech, saying that Obama plans to double funds for charter schools. Obama’s speech calls for more innovative schools (Innovative Schools Fund) and accountable for-profit charter schools. He said, “successful charter schools need to grow and charters that arent will get shut down.” Building on that concept, he called for quality afterschool programming, summer school and extended school days.
An editorial in the 
The 15-year old Army policy is back in the news this week as congress is 
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Iran responded by 
