What's the Case for Hillary?

[Torie]

What I particularly liked (agreed with), about Krauthammer's essay, was his pointing out the real dirty little secret. The standard of living of those less educated on the Fruited Plain is stagnating, tanking, disintegrating, not because of free trade or evil, rapacious and cunning foreigners, but rather because of the information age ... and those damn robots. But there is no easy fix for that (probably no fix at all), so thus the lash out against those outside our nation, and inside our nation who shouldn't be here in Trump's world. Just demonize the other, and demonize them some more. We have seen that done in the past, and the outcomes where such demagoguery has worked,  are almost invariably most unhappy ones.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Hmm, maybe the fact that she actually has a higher education plan?

[Torie]

Hmm, maybe the fact that she actually has a higher education plan?

When she embraces school choice, and merit pay on steroids combined with firing incompetent teachers, at least for those trapped in down market zip codes where the educational choices are all bad, get back to me.

If the only issue that mattered out there were secondary education policy, and competence and temperament and so forth was something one felt free to ignore (it obviously isn't), I would vote for Trump in a heart beat. This is a really good example of why it is most unwise to be a one issue voter, now isn't it?

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Hmm, maybe the fact that she actually has a higher education plan?

Also includes support to train a workforce with the technical training that higher-tech manufacturing requires. This isn't that hard to see. It isn't Clinton selling people false hope about economies that no longer exist.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

Hmm, maybe the fact that she actually has a higher education plan?

When she embraces school choice, and merit pay on steroids combined with firing incompetent teachers, at least for those trapped in down market zip codes where the educational choices are all bad, get back to me.

If the only issue that mattered out there were secondary education policy, and competence and temperament and so forth was something one felt free to ignore (it obviously isn't), I would vote for Trump in a heart beat. This is a really good example of why it is most unwise to be a one issue voter, now isn't it?

And a fair measure of teacher competence is... what exactly?  More standardized tests?  Let's bog down teachers with the task of boosting artificial and unfair student metrics so they have even less time to, you know, teach them curriculum.  And deny them a dignified income so they're also struggling to make ends meet.

The whole "incompetent teacher" canard ignores the real problem, which is teachers and schools having no funds to provide their students the resources they need to succeed.  Too many teachers are buying school supplies for students out of their own pockets.  Too many students slip through cracks because schools can't afford the means to identify them and intervene.

But teachers are a convenient scapegoat.  Let's punish them.

[MasterJedi]

Most people aged 40+ and who have no skilled knowledge are basically done, they will just sit and bitch about it and not do anything about it, some will but not many.

Need to push people into the trades, there's a shortage of skilled construction laborers, plumbers, etc. Problem is that those jobs don't pay well starting out and take a long time to master and people don't have the patience for it and quit.

[Torie]

We are not on the same page on this one at all Beef. But it is a bit off topic, so well, another time perhaps we can debate this most important issue in more depth. Some are into measuring educational quality by the metric of inputs, others like to focus on what the output is. The disconnect between the inputs and the outputs has been quite tragic in my opinion. Heck, here in Hudson, we I think we are spending about 25K per pupil now. And the results suck.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

We are not on the same page on this one at all Beef. But it is a bit off topic, so well, another time perhaps we can debate this most important issue in more depth. Some are into measuring educational quality by the metric of inputs, others like to focus on what the output is. The disconnect between the inputs and the outputs has been quite tragic in my opinion. Heck, here in Hudson, we I think we are spending about 25K per pupil now. And the results suck.

I have many friends who are teachers and I know personally the struggle they go through and how much of student outcome is out of their control.  Especially in Wisconsin, where Scott Walker has done everything in his power to make public teachers miserable, and teachers and their unions are vilified.  So my point of view is probably biased.

[Torie]

We are not on the same page on this one at all Beef. But it is a bit off topic, so well, another time perhaps we can debate this most important issue in more depth. Some are into measuring educational quality by the metric of inputs, others like to focus on what the output is. The disconnect between the inputs and the outputs has been quite tragic in my opinion. Heck, here in Hudson, we I think we are spending about 25K per pupil now. And the results suck.

I have many friends who are teachers and I know personally the struggle they go through and how much of student outcome is out of their control.  Especially in Wisconsin, where Scott Walker has done everything in his power to make public teachers miserable, and teachers and their unions are vilified.  So my point of view is probably biased.

We are all biased by our experiences Beef. Heck, my views have changed a fair amount since I moved to Hudson -  based on my experiences. There is nothing wrong with that really.

[Nyvin]

It's almost like this election is opening a new political fault line between "educateds" and "pre-info age" workers.     The old Republican Party is about 90% dead at this point,  once their ~80 yr old donors die off it will probably be official.  

The educateds aren't intimidated by what the world is becoming, and embrace it, while the pre-info's seem to demonize outsiders like minorities and become a lot more nationalistic.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Hmm, maybe the fact that she actually has a higher education plan?

When she embraces school choice, and merit pay on steroids combined with firing incompetent teachers, at least for those trapped in down market zip codes where the educational choices are all bad, get back to me.

If the only issue that mattered out there were secondary education policy, and competence and temperament and so forth was something one felt free to ignore (it obviously isn't), I would vote for Trump in a heart beat. This is a really good example of why it is most unwise to be a one issue voter, now isn't it?

It's not even about the specifics of the issue, though. It's literally just about the fact that she has actually spent time thinking about ways to solve problems. I mean, that's the bare minimum for being president, and Trump can't even check that box off.

As for school choice... it continues to baffle me how this idea is thrown around as some sort of silver bullet for improving education, let alone that people seem to wilfully ignore the obvious shortcomings of the proposal. Which kids are the ones who will be most able to access different options? Likely not the Hispanic kid living in Buena Park being raised by a single mom with no car and three jobs. It's a recipe for the last hope of struggling schools to flee. That's not in the spirit of what public education is and is not going to solve anything at all. It exacerbates regional differences when we should be looking at equalizing them.

Dropping magnet programs into struggling schools is a good compromise that could actually bring rich kids in and lift the whole school up. That doesn't mean universal choice, though. It means having a few targeted programs in a school district that students can get into based on a variety of metrics. Subsidize bussing to the school. Include the local students in the program. Get the schools involved in community projects.

But letting white kids flee schools with minorities is complete bullsh-t.

[Torie]

"But letting white kids flee schools with minorities is complete bullsh-t."

Thus the suggestion to start with really poor and dysfunctional school districts, where that specter will not obtain. And there is nothing wrong with a cocktail of approaches, including magnet schools, and creating a professional track for teachers, so those who are good at what they do, are very well paid, thus attracting more talented persons into the profession. We can experiment with various approaches. But let's get the ball rolling moving in the right direction. Let's do it now.

[MasterJedi]

"But letting white kids flee schools with minorities is complete bullsh-t."

Thus the suggestion to start with really poor and dysfunctional school districts, where that specter will not obtain. And there is nothing wrong with a cocktail of approaches, including magnet schools, and creating a professional track for teachers, so those who are good at what they do, are very well paid, thus attracting more talented persons into the profession. We can experiment with various approaches. But let's get the ball rolling moving in the right direction. Let's do it now.

Needs checks and balances. Milwaukee used to have a really good choice school program, it's a huge mixed bag right now, lots of very bad schools (a few excellent ones) because there is no oversight and they can do whatever they want while being in it for profit and not for the education.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

"But letting white kids flee schools with minorities is complete bullsh-t."

Thus the suggestion to start with really poor and dysfunctional school districts, where that specter will not obtain. And there is nothing wrong with a cocktail of approaches, including magnet schools, and creating a professional track for teachers, so those who are good at what they do, are very well paid, thus attracting more talented persons into the profession. We can experiment with various approaches. But let's get the ball rolling moving in the right direction. Let's do it now.

Which candidate, again, is willing to do the work and research to patch together the piecemeal plan that could begin to get this ball rolling...?

[Torie]

"But letting white kids flee schools with minorities is complete bullsh-t."

Thus the suggestion to start with really poor and dysfunctional school districts, where that specter will not obtain. And there is nothing wrong with a cocktail of approaches, including magnet schools, and creating a professional track for teachers, so those who are good at what they do, are very well paid, thus attracting more talented persons into the profession. We can experiment with various approaches. But let's get the ball rolling moving in the right direction. Let's do it now.

Which candidate, again, is willing to do the work and research to patch together the piecemeal plan that could begin to get this ball rolling...?

I'm not running.

[Taco Truck 🚚]

Hmm, maybe the fact that she actually has a higher education plan?

When she embraces school choice, and merit pay on steroids combined with firing incompetent teachers, at least for those trapped in down market zip codes where the educational choices are all bad, get back to me.

But how does that fix the sh-tty parents?  I mean you can have the most perfect school in the world but if all the kids going there come from crappy homes the product is going to be sub par.

But there is no easy fix for that (probably no fix at all), so thus the lash out against those outside...

That's basically what you are doing.  Instead of focusing on the home you are expecting the teachers to do the parents' job.  Are teachers to blame for the explosion of childhood obesity?  Most of meals kids eat are at home under the watchful eye of these perfect parents who aren't to blame for anything.  What have the results been?  So you think someone who can't figure out the food pyramid is going to have a child that will have rip roaring academic success?  Kids have most of their leisure time at home under the watchful eye of their faultless parents.  What have the results been?  Are they participating in sports and physical activity and getting sunlight or are they pale zombies staring at screens?

Why is it every single metric says American parents are failing but when it comes to academics all of a sudden it is someone else's fault.  I honestly can't think of a single teacher I ever had in public or private school that wasn't good at their job.  Not one.  The liberal ones were excellent.  The conservatives ones were excellent.  The Bible beaters were excellent.  They came in different flavors.  But they were all competent.  I didn't necessarily agree with all of them but I really don't recall a single one being clueless.  Now contrast that with college and grad school and God forbid just about everywhere I've worked.  I had horrid lecturers in college and grad school and the level of gross incompetence I encounter in the wider economy is disturbing.  I have any kind of technical issue with a good or service and I am treated to multiple 2 hour phone calls to India.  Of all the sh-tbag things in this economy public and private schools were the absolute best in my experience.

[Torie]

Blaming the parents is not going to improve the situation. The issue is what to do, given such feckless parents, to mitigate their impact, isn't it?

[Antonio the Sixth]

This widespread fiction that the decline of the working class throughout the West is due to "natural" forces beyond the reach of politics, rather than the outcome of a distinctly political project, is the root cause of most problems int he modern world.

[Taco Truck 🚚]

Blaming the parents is not going to improve the situation. The issue is what to do, given such feckless parents, to mitigate their impact, isn't it?

No one is even having the conversation.  No one is standing up to the parents and saying, hey the government can't solve all your problems.  At a certain point you have to take a break from watching internet pron and read to your kids.

I support BLM but police can't raise your kids or fix your community.  Trying to ask them to do that only leads to problems.  Same with teachers.

Do you have children?  Do you know what it is like to try and get through a lesson plan with a classroom with 20+ children when half of them come from homes where no one cares?  At a certain point a teacher is going to focus on the half that pay attention in class and turn in their homework.

[Devout Centrist]

Blaming the parents is not going to improve the situation. The issue is what to do, given such feckless parents, to mitigate their impact, isn't it?

No one is even having the conversation.  No one is standing up to the parents and saying, hey the government can't solve all your problems.  At a certain point you have to take a break from watching internet pron and read to your kids.

I support BLM but police can't raise your kids or fix your community.  Trying to ask them to do that only leads to problems.  Same with teachers.

Do you have children?  Do you know what it is like to try and get through a lesson plan with a classroom with 20+ children when half of them come from homes where no one cares?  At a certain point a teacher is going to focus on the half that pay attention in class and turn in their homework.

I am the son of a middle school teacher who works in a working class neighborhood. I visited him at work quite frequently and the key to his teaching style is communication with the parents. When he makes a promise or a threat, he doesn't back down from that. If a kid mouths off to him, he will call their parents. This is combined with rewards for answering a math problem or problems correctly, caring about his student's personal lives, and pushing them to excel.

None of those are particularly unique to him, but when I've seen him in action, the most effective approach was always contacting the parents in the middle of the work day. It also helps that he, unlike several of his coworkers, devotes more of his time and effort into helping kids. He teaches special Ed and it's his personal feeling that many of the students in his class are not mentally retarded or in need of special education. Teachers pass the problem down the line because they can't properly discipline their students.

The problem is a mixture of teacher apathy and parental absence. When I say "absence", I don't necessarily mean a parent is missing from a child's life. Rather, their discipline is absent.

[Stranger in a strange land]

She isn't a fascist and her running mate doesn't support the torture of gay children?

[DrScholl]

Sane and qualified.

[Ljube]

Sane and qualified.

But vain, incompetent and crooked.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Sane and qualified.

[Rules for me, but not for thee]

3 concrete walls and one wall of steel bars.