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PoliGAF Thread of PRESIDENT OBAMA's First 100 Out of the Way

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H

Hellsing321

Member
Cheebs said:
For all the chicken littles out there, Obama's job approval on gallup has been dropping. From 69% approval to now 64% since this weekend.


OMG PANIC TIME..etc
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McCain has Obama right where he wants him.
 
J

JayDubya

Banned
gutter_trash said:
not this Liberatraian crap again, I scoff at Ron Paul ever since he said the first thing he would cut would be public funding for schools
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Actually it was the Department of Education. And fuck yes.

Please get out your pocket Constitution, then point to the part about the federal government providing schools, or providing money for schools.

Presuming ones agrees with the notion of public schools at all, said schools could and should get their funding at the state and local level, and preferably mostly the local level, where they could actually be more responsive to the local people forced to pay for the thing and forced to have their kids go there if they don't want to double pay.

CharlieDigital said:
Nah, I'm just very good at spotting stupid.
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There must be no mirrors in your house. How do you manage?
 
E

eznark

Banned
The school spending may provide some short term jobs (a third of it, $20 billion) is going to facilities upgrades. However, this one time federal fund will force perpetual increases in local property taxes as maintenance, upkeep and ongoing operational costs aren't covered. It's an inefficient use of $20 billion dollars.

The rest of the money, going to various programs ostensibly to help kids learn do nothing to solve any of the woes currently facing the economy.

For the most part, this is throwing good money after bad. Throwing this much money at an infrastructure as bloated and poorly run as most US public school systems are is foolish. It allows them to continue running their operations inefficiently and poorly for that much longer without making any serious changes that are needed to improve public education.

Charlie Digital said:
Nah, I'm just very good at spotting stupid.
Click to expand...

Also pretty good at spouting vitriol.
 
P

platypotamus

Member
Lateraleye said:
Most schools have enough money. It's not a coincidence that the systems with the most funding also have the worst results. The problem is administration, not cost.
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Poor administration and poor funding are not mutually exclusive.
 
J

Jonm1010

Banned
eznark said:
The school spending may provide some short term jobs (a third of it, $20 billion) is going to facilities upgrades. However, this one time federal fund will force perpetual increases in local property taxes as maintenance, upkeep and ongoing operational costs aren't covered. It's an inefficient use of $20 billion dollars.

The rest of the money, going to various programs ostensibly to help kids learn do nothing to solve any of the woes currently facing the economy.

For the most part, this is throwing good money after bad. Throwing this much money at an infrastructure as bloated and poorly run as most US public school systems are is foolish. It allows them to continue running their operations inefficiently and poorly for that much longer without making any serious changes that are needed to improve public education.



Also pretty good at spouting vitriol.
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There is always a need to keep the roof on the building, chairs in the classroom and technology and programs up to snuff, even if what goes on under the roof and in the classes is being done inefficiently.
 
E

eznark

Banned
Jonm1010 said:
There is always a need to keep the roof on the building, chairs in the classroom and technology and programs up to snuff, even if what goes on under the roof and in the classes is being done inefficiently.
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Unless you are paying people to hold on to the roof and others to act as chairs I don't see what that has to do with $60 billion in federal stimulus spending.
 
C

Cheebs

Member
eznark said:
Unless you are paying people to hold on to the roof and others to act as chairs I don't see what that has to do with $60 billion in federal stimulus spending.
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People fixing roofs...etc aren't jobs?
 
P

platypotamus

Member
JayDubya said:
Hell, poor administration is frequently rewarded with better funding.
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While I certainly grant that this is the case, I maintain "poor funding" and "poor administration" are two separate issues that may, at times, intersect, and the original quote I was responding too grossly oversimplified and perhaps even misstated things.
 
B

Barrett2

Member
JayDubya said:
Hell, poor administration is frequently rewarded with better funding.
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Pretty much. I went to one of the highest performing public school districts in Houston while growing up, though we had lower than average funding. Because our district was so high-achieving, there was no incentive to increase the funding. Conversely, the ghetto schools with 40% graduation rates had to get increasing funding just to pay for shit like metal detectors, extra cops, lost or stolen supplies, etc.

I think a lot of people wildly over-estimate the importance of increased funding to increased student performance. Just look at the D.C. district as an example. They are proposing an incentive based system where good teachers would be making > $100,000 in two years if they are willing to adopt a competitive system, but the union rejects it!! I think in a lot of circumstances, the teachers union itself is the single most detrimental impediment to improving student performance. They fight tooth-and-nail any attempt to measure and rank their individual performance, or introduce a merit-based system for teacher advancement.
 
J

Jonm1010

Banned
eznark said:
Unless you are paying people to hold on to the roof and others to act as chairs I don't see what that has to do with $60 billion in federal stimulus spending.
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people hired to build new facilities, connect new technology, keep on teachers that otherwise would have been fired to meet budget concerns and keep programs that other wise wouldnt have been funded which require someone to have a job overseeing and conducting the programs arent stimulus? Arent keeping and creating jobs?
 
E

eznark

Banned
lawblob said:
Pretty much. I went to one of the highest performing public school districts in Houston while growing up, though we had lower than average funding. Because our district was so high-achieving, there was no incentive to increase the funding. Conversely, the ghetto schools with 40% graduation rates had to get increasing funding just to pay for shit like metal detectors and extra cops, etc.

I think a lot of people wildly over-estimate the importance of increased funding to increased student performance. Just look at the D.C. district as an example. They are proposing an incentive based system where good teachers would be making > $100,000 in two years if they are willing to adopt a competitive system, but the union rejects it!! I think in a lot of circumstances, the teachers union itself is the single most detrimental impediment to improving student performance. They fight tooth-and-nail any attempt to measure and rank their individual performance, or introduce a merit-based system for teacher advancement.
Click to expand...

If you start awarding excellent performance, sooner or later you have to start punishing shitty performance. Union teachers should be frightened.

Competition is the solution.

people hired to build new facilities, connect new technology, keep on teachers that otherwise would have been fired to meet budget concerns and keep programs that other wise wouldnt have been funded which require someone to have a job overseeing and conducting the programs arent stimulus? Arent keeping and creating jobs?
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As I said in my initial response, these increased burdens on the local economies will not be supported at a federal level beyond this one term transfer payment. Property taxes will skyrocket, those that can afford to leave will, and the system will be just as SOL as it is today.
 
J

Jonm1010

Banned
lawblob said:
Pretty much. I went to one of the highest performing public school districts in Houston while growing up, though we had lower than average funding. Because our district was so high-achieving, there was no incentive to increase the funding. Conversely, the ghetto schools with 40% graduation rates had to get increasing funding just to pay for shit like metal detectors, extra cops, lost or stolen supplies, etc.

I think a lot of people wildly over-estimate the importance of increased funding to increased student performance. Just look at the D.C. district as an example. They are proposing an incentive based system where good teachers would be making > $100,000 in two years if they are willing to adopt a competitive system, but the union rejects it!! I think in a lot of circumstances, the teachers union itself is the single most detrimental impediment to improving student performance. They fight tooth-and-nail any attempt to measure and rank their individual performance, or introduce a merit-based system for teacher advancement.
Click to expand...


i will agree that the teachers union has been an impediment at times to improving school situations, the new yorker did an excellent piece on how to improve teacher performance through new hiring techniques and new review and measurement techniques.
 
J

JayDubya

Banned
lawblob said:
Paragraph #1
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The squeaky wheel gets the grease, yeah. But Texas also initiated the ol' "Robin Hood plan" which may have had something to do with your woes.

Paragraph #2
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Of course. The entire idea of a union fails if anyone is exceptional. Just show up and produce one unit of (in this case) teaching. Anymore than that and you make everyone else look bad.
 
J

Jonm1010

Banned
eznark said:
If you start awarding excellent performance, sooner or later you have to start punishing shitty performance. Union teachers should be frightened.

Competition is the solution.
Click to expand...
Not necissarily, try getting a hold of the new yorker a few weeks back, they did an excellent article basically showing that study after study shows that if you would create like an apprentice system or use a large pool like financial firms do for hiring, by actually lowering the standards to teach from elementary through middle school because there is no solid correlation of increased education with being a better teacher (of course there are minimum standards that are necessary) where you weed out the good teachers from the bad, you can create a system where the teachers that get hired and thus get union representation are much better and have proven their merit.

the problems of course come in when you have graduates in education who spent their entire college life expecting to be a teacher only to find out they cant measure up properly, but theres always administration for those people.
 
B

Barrett2

Member
Jonm1010 said:
i will agree that the teachers union has been an impediment at times to improving school situations, the new yorker did an excellent piece on how to improve teacher performance through new hiring techniques and new review and measurement techniques.
Click to expand...

I should look that article up. I have become interested in this stuff the last few years. It's mind-boggling. My wife used to be a teacher at a private elementary school, and her kids were so far ahead of kids in public elementary schools in the area it was ridiculous.

Now that I live in NY and know a handful of public school teachers, all I hear are horror stories about how lazy and inept the teachers union is, and how they ruin education for students.
 
M

mAcOdIn

Member
lawblob said:
I think a lot of people wildly over-estimate the importance of increased funding to increased student performance. Just look at the D.C. district as an example. They are proposing an incentive based system where good teachers would be making > $100,000 in two years if they are willing to adopt a competitive system, but the union rejects it!! I think in a lot of circumstances, the teachers union itself is the single most detrimental impediment to improving student performance. They fight tooth-and-nail any attempt to measure and rank their individual performance, or introduce a merit-based system for teacher advancement.
Click to expand...
I am not familiar with your particular example but I could see how performance based metrics would be pretty scary for a teacher in a bad area. There are many many factors that affect a students grades or desire to learn that are simply out of a teachers hands, and while it may give us a warm fuzzy to say that all some areas need are good teachers for their students to do well, I think that couldn't be further from the truth.

I do agree that if you are a shitty teacher then you're in the wrong field, and God knows there are shitty teachers, and we do need a way to weed them out but I can see how even average or good teachers could be opposed to falling under the same scrutiny depending on what they decide to measure and for how long.
 
J

Jonm1010

Banned
lawblob said:
I should look that article up. I have become interested in this stuff the last few years. It's mind-boggling. My wife used to be a teacher at a private elementary school, and her kids were so far ahead of kids in public elementary schools in the area it was ridiculous.

Now that I live in NY and know a handful of public school teachers, all I hear are horror stories about how lazy and inept the teachers union is, and how they ruin education for students.
Click to expand...

here you go
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/15/081215fa_fact_gladwell
 
E

eznark

Banned
Jonm1010 said:
Not necissarily, try getting a hold of the new yorker a few weeks back, they did an excellent article basically showing that study after study shows that if you would create like an apprentice system or use a large pool like financial firms do for hiring, by actually lowering the standards to teach from elementary through middle school because there is no solid correlation of increased education with being a better teacher (of course there are minimum standards that are necessary) where you weed out the good teachers from the bad, you can create a system where the teachers that get hired and thus get union representation are much better and have proven their merit.
Click to expand...

I'll certainly look for it.
the problems of course come in when you have graduates in education who spent their entire college life expecting to be a teacher only to find out they cant measure up properly, but theres always administration for those people.
Click to expand...

nice.
 
P

platypotamus

Member
JayDubya said:
Now, if only they'll cut out that $650 M for more coupons out of the monster spending bill.
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It does seem even more pointless now that the deadline isn't getting pushed back. At least cut back on the advertising portion of that part of the bill... after the deadline, the people that need the ads won't be able to see them anymore anyway!
 
K

kobashi100

Banned
GhaleonEB said:
I have to say, I'm delighted that Obama's first TV interview after taking office is with an Arab network. It's a dramatic move to out to a population that has been demonized, to demonstrate that Obama will use his pulpit to do more than antagonize Muslims. It's also a nice little rewriting of the domestic media rules. The New York Times is still smarting that they don't have their traditional post-election interview from Obama. And now he snubs the entire US media to reach out to the Muslim world. It takes the filter off in a way that would never happen if Obama gave the exact same interview to CNN. It's a great demonstration of Obama's approach to foreign policy, as well as an FU to the US media.

Love it.
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maybe next time Obama is on an Arab station he could mention the he is currently giving the orders to bomb pakistan..

Funny he avoided that when trying to reach out to the muslim world.
 
H

Hootie

Member
JayDubya said:
Now, if only they'll cut out that $650 M for more coupons out of the monster spending bill.
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Wow I actually agree with jaydubya

Something is wrong here....I just don't know what. :lol
 
E

eznark

Banned
So, I posted it earlier but no one responded. You've made good faith arguments for education spending.

Please, explain the rationale behind $350 million for STD education-as-stimulus?
 
A

AniHawk

Member
kobashi100 said:
maybe next time Obama is on an Arab station he could mention the he is currently giving the orders to bomb pakistan..

Funny he avoided that when trying to reach out to the muslim world.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's really weird he did that, seeing that he said that he would on the campaign trail like for at least one whole fucking year.
 
J

Jonm1010

Banned
eznark said:
So, I posted it earlier but no one responded. You've made good faith arguments for education spending.

Please, explain the rationale behind $350 million for STD education-as-stimulus?
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Not sure if the STD stuff is incorporated into the contraceptive stuff, but I gave an explanation at the bottom of the last page(set to 100 ppp) as to what the benefits of funding contraceptives and education on it are.

But also, it creates jobs, you need people to execute the teaching of this so it sets up a system of educators and administrators working to educate areas and schools about STDs. You got to look at all types of job creation including things for woman not just construction jobs that only really apply to men and in one type of field and since many jobs have been lost in administrative and education fields this is a way to employ some of those that are currently unemployed.

It also yields a long term benefit of decreasing STDs which reduces medical costs for a person if you avoid getting them.
 
E

eznark

Banned
I was going to read that Malcolm Gladwell article but I realized it was fairly long. Therefore, I need to know what his political leaning are. I'd hate to read the article but then have to disagree based on whatever political label he is carrying, right Cheebs?

But also, it creates jobs, you need people to execute the teaching of this so it sets up a system of educators and administrators working to educate areas and schools about STDs. You got to look at all types of job creation including things for woman not just construction jobs that only really apply to men and in one type of field.
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The money is going to the CDC, it's not going to create jobs it's going to get lost in the beaurocratic muck like everything else. Some will be siphoned off to nonsense programs.

Isn't there more efficient ways of stimulating the economy than spending $350 million on sex ed?
 
P

platypotamus

Member
eznark said:
I was going to read that Malcolm Gladwell article but I realized it was fairly long. Therefore, I need to know what his political leaning are. I'd hate to read the article but then have to disagree based on whatever political label he is carrying, right Cheebs?
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Sick burn.
 
S

Shirokun

Member
eznark said:
Jesus

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=6750266&page=1
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w14f0l.jpg


This guy raped women under an Obama administration! What is Obama's connection to this guy? What else don't we know about Obama!? How many women has Obama raped?! BILL AYERS!!!
 
J

Jonm1010

Banned
eznark said:
I was going to read that Malcolm Gladwell article but I realized it was fairly long. Therefore, I need to know what his political leaning are. I'd hate to read the article but then have to disagree based on whatever political label he is carrying, right Cheebs?



The money is going to the CDC, it's not going to create jobs it's going to get lost in the beaurocratic muck like everything else. Some will be siphoned off to nonsense programs.

Isn't there more efficient ways of stimulating the economy than spending $350 million on sex ed?
Click to expand...

Except there are extensive apparatuses in place to make sure all use of the funds is public knowledge and there are several levels of oversight to make sure the money isnt just used recklessly and does create some type of programs that either keep employees or hire new ones.

I've read the 79 page draft from the admin, but if this wasn't in the original I would need to see the full details on this funding to make any more of an opinion otherwise I will try and find it in the bill and look over it.
 
E

eznark

Banned
Jonm1010 said:
Except there are extensive apparatuses in place to make sure all use of the funds is public knowledge and there are several levels of oversight to make sure the money isnt just used recklessly and does create some type of programs that either keep employees or hire new ones.

I've read the 79 page draft from the admin, but if this wasn't in the original I would need to see the full details on this funding to make any more of an opinion otherwise I will try and find it in the bill and look over it.
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647 pages worth...I started skimming a few hours ago. I want to jump off the roof

http://www.rules.house.gov/111/LegText/111_hr1_text.pdf
 
P

PhoenixDark

Banned
Seems obvious the bill is full of junk that won't stimulate the economy, long term or short term. The question is whether the actual stimulating portions of the stimulus bill are going to work? The long term infrastructure stuff is promising but I'm wondering: to those who know more about this shit than me, do you think this bill is going to help the economy within the next year or two?
 
J

Jonm1010

Banned
I also want to say this, its arrogant to think that all the programs in place are gonna be great successes. But the logic is, its better to spread your eggs around then to put them all in one basket. You find out what works and continue with those programs and scrap the ones that dont. Its better then hedging your bets on one, two or even ten items and then having one or more fail in execution.
 
G

gutter_trash

Banned
kobashi100 said:
maybe next time Obama is on an Arab station he could mention the he is currently giving the orders to bomb pakistan..

Funny he avoided that when trying to reach out to the muslim world.
Click to expand...

Pakistan is not an Arab nation
 
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