American politics is so polarized....

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

The best Democrat you guys had was Feingold in my opinion - I had a heck of a lot of respect for him because he voted how he thought - he was principled.

I actually had respect for Feingold. I mean at least the guy set a results based priority as his primary priority and that was the national debt. Practically every other major Democrat just sets their primary priority at more government which isn't even results based its an ideological goal.


I also have respect for Lieberman, but I doubt many Dems on here do.

I could say the same about Republicans and "less government."

But it wouldn't necessarily be accurate. Many, many GOP politicians are very results oriented and will back any proposal that looks like it will produce better results. I wouldn't call advocating for Charter Schools(which are public) or for example Universal Health Records as officially "less government" positions.

Charter Schools are very much an ideological construct because they tend to subvert unionization (95% of charter schools aren't unionized) and promote uniforms/"christian conservative" values.

They also don't perform well:

Actually they do perform well hence why Democrats Arne Duncan, Al Sharpton, and Michelle Rhee support them. Its a purely results based pick...conservatives have more "ideological" picks at their disposal.

I couldn't post the graph from the results Stanford study (which I'm sure you've heard about) which show that while brighter children tend to do better at charter schools, average children tend to struggle. On the whole, students are charter schools perform worse on test scores. If you want a link, I'll post it.

You've shown no evidence that they perform better though. I don't care about the opinions of a fake Democrat, a centrist Democrat and a politician I don't care about.

I've seen the Stanford study. But look the highest performing inner city schools are charter schools. Its pretty much across the board true and they are minority in quantity in comparison of district run schools. And they operate with smaller budgets.

Your party is in the process of turning on this issue. You can be whatever side you want, but you will be in a very small minority of the population within a short period of time.

Evidence? Because the Stanford study shows that across the board, that isn't the case.

Nope, false. Adrian Fenty was defeated in DC based on the issue (I still would have voted for him Gray though), charter schools don't work. I went to one. There is a total lack of accountability at charter schools and they're a dumping ground for right-wing dogma.

If you look at the list of the best innercity public schools the top of the list is dominated by charter schools. That is what I'm pointing out.

Not all charter schools are created equal, but the reason why they get better over time is because if a charter school isn't doing well they either get replaced by new control and a new model or another one comes in and takes away its base of students. At least charter schools allow for different models to occur and the better one to win out. In district run public schools they are allowed to just stay $hit holes forever.

There will always be exceptions to the general rule that charter schools are an awful idea.

Where is your evidence that they get better over time? Is there quantifiable data out there that proves this?

[Wonkish1]

The best Democrat you guys had was Feingold in my opinion - I had a heck of a lot of respect for him because he voted how he thought - he was principled.

I actually had respect for Feingold. I mean at least the guy set a results based priority as his primary priority and that was the national debt. Practically every other major Democrat just sets their primary priority at more government which isn't even results based its an ideological goal.


I also have respect for Lieberman, but I doubt many Dems on here do.

I could say the same about Republicans and "less government."

But it wouldn't necessarily be accurate. Many, many GOP politicians are very results oriented and will back any proposal that looks like it will produce better results. I wouldn't call advocating for Charter Schools(which are public) or for example Universal Health Records as officially "less government" positions.

Charter Schools are very much an ideological construct because they tend to subvert unionization (95% of charter schools aren't unionized) and promote uniforms/"christian conservative" values.

They also don't perform well:

Actually they do perform well hence why Democrats Arne Duncan, Al Sharpton, and Michelle Rhee support them. Its a purely results based pick...conservatives have more "ideological" picks at their disposal.

I couldn't post the graph from the results Stanford study (which I'm sure you've heard about) which show that while brighter children tend to do better at charter schools, average children tend to struggle. On the whole, students are charter schools perform worse on test scores. If you want a link, I'll post it.

You've shown no evidence that they perform better though. I don't care about the opinions of a fake Democrat, a centrist Democrat and a politician I don't care about.

I've seen the Stanford study. But look the highest performing inner city schools are charter schools. Its pretty much across the board true and they are minority in quantity in comparison of district run schools. And they operate with smaller budgets.

Your party is in the process of turning on this issue. You can be whatever side you want, but you will be in a very small minority of the population within a short period of time.

Evidence? Because the Stanford study shows that across the board, that isn't the case.

Nope, false. Adrian Fenty was defeated in DC based on the issue (I still would have voted for him Gray though), charter schools don't work. I went to one. There is a total lack of accountability at charter schools and they're a dumping ground for right-wing dogma.

If you look at the list of the best innercity public schools the top of the list is dominated by charter schools. That is what I'm pointing out.

Not all charter schools are created equal, but the reason why they get better over time is because if a charter school isn't doing well they either get replaced by new control and a new model or another one comes in and takes away its base of students. At least charter schools allow for different models to occur and the better one to win out. In district run public schools they are allowed to just stay $hit holes forever.

There will always be exceptions to the general rule that charter schools are an awful idea.

Where is your evidence that they get better over time? Is there quantifiable data out there that proves this?

Well first of all I just showed you common sense. Are you really that obtuse? There have been numerous examples of underperforming charter schools being taken over and turned into a top performer. Top performers don't get taken out or replaced. So as time goes on and high quality charter schools stay and bad ones get replaced until they improve then across the board you'll see charter schools as a group out performing the traditional public schools that aren't knocked out and replaced when they are failing. Please show me where the hole in that logic is!

[Хahar 🤔]

The whole in your logic is that it's based on assumptions that are themselves based on anecdotal evidence, whereas the counterargument is based on objective data.

[Wonkish1]

The whole in your logic is that it's based on assumptions that are themselves based on anecdotal evidence, whereas the counterargument is based on objective data.

Actually they are based on actual evidence. The lists of the best innercity public schools are dominated by charter schools. That is a fact. It is also a fact that underperforming charter schools are replaced or lose the amount of students that want to enroll. Those are both objective pieces of information.

The Stanford study isn't showing the rate of improvement between the charter schools and the rate of improvement among traditional public schools. You have to admit that if one way outperforms the other on rate of improvement a static look at current numbers is meaningless. Hence why the Stanford study can be thrown out as a useful study.

[krazen1211]

Yeah, there are  a handful of "centrists" in both parties, but for the most part, the Republican Party is dominated by it's hard-line "conservative" faction and the Democrats are dominated by...well, the Democrats aren't dominated by anyone except people who are opposed to the Republicans.

What happened to the days of "bipartisan cooperation" on issues, particularly on issues that didn't result in really bad outcomes? What happened to the influence of Congressional Committees?

Congress went from passing/debating ~$20 billion stimulus packages in 1993 and fretting about Napster/Elian Gonzalez to ~$870 billion stimulus packages in 2009 and trying to dominate entire sectors of the economy.

The latter is more difficult to find common ground on.

[memphis]

American politics isn't so much "polarized" as it is just really, really stupid and media-driven.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Could not agree more. The American newsmedia is godawful. The old fashioned network national news isn't terrible, but it's shallow. Cable news is so awful that words fail me. And then there's talk radio, which, with the exception of NPR, is so devoid of anything insightful that it is actually a waste of radio space. We'd be better off and better informed as a nation with those stations playing Britney Spears and Lady Gaga 24/7. The Sunday morning tv news shows are somewhat better, but all they do is give the politicians a forum for their talking points. NPR is easily the best news source around. Nobody screaming. Nobody feigning moral outrage. Just a clear presentation of the facts.

[courts]

American politics isn't so much "polarized" as it is just really, really stupid and media-driven.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Could not agree more. The American newsmedia is godawful. The old fashioned network national news isn't terrible, but it's shallow. Cable news is so awful that words fail me. And then there's talk radio, which, with the exception of NPR, is so devoid of anything insightful that it is actually a waste of radio space. We'd be better off and better informed as a nation with those stations playing Britney Spears and Lady Gaga 24/7. The Sunday morning tv news shows are somewhat better, but all they do is give the politicians a forum for their talking points. NPR is easily the best news source around. Nobody screaming. Nobody feigning moral outrage. Just a clear presentation of the facts.

I agree. But more to the point you guys have already won in terms of public opinion too, at least at the moment. The bulk of the country is obviously liberal on progressive taxes and entitlements and healthcare and all that. Even most of the TEA Party - no not even, especially them - don't want to actually cut the latter. If anything, they want more (although I think we can both agree medicare in particular is a giant CF of expensive subsidies and stupid so that's inevitable). The one exception there is social security with the age divide, but this is basically a social democratic country just too stupid and media driven to recognize it. And even on most social issues particularly abortion and gays and marijuana there's been an obvious shift towards american "liberalism" (no not libertarianism, there's a distinction). The bottom line is that there really isn't much serious division in terms of public opinion in this country. Liberals are just amazingly incompetent politically.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Charter schools aren't ideological? lol

[memphis]

Liberals are just amazingly incompetent politically.

No argument here on that point. It's like the left is afraid to point out their successes with Social Security and Medicare. A lot of that is that people don't want to think of these programs as "welfare," or even "government programs" because we all intend to use them one day. We've "earned" them after all. As if magic pixies came along and showered the elderly with money and healthcare. And as if the right hadn't been vehemently opposed at the outset. It's a strange mentality.