Rick Santorum Answers Questions On Science, Education, & Global Warming

A representative from the group Skeptics Guide to the Government interviews Rick Santorum on science, education, and global warming.



H/T Lisa Graas

Teachers Unions Destroying Education in this Country? This is a Job for Superman

I recently viewed the education documentary "Waiting for Superman".  The film makes one thing crystal clear: that the main problem with our public school education system is the teachers unions.  It is self-evident that throwing more and more money into the Department of Education over the years has not solved the issues in relation to our educational system.  Our educational system is broken.

One person who is trying to change our broken education system is Michelle Rhee.  She is trying to pick up those shattered pieces, to repair them, and stand up for the kids so they are taught the skills to have a chance at being successful in their adult life.  But unfortunately the system and unions bucked her efforts. For decades the unions have been creating generations of children who will be dependent on the government because of the teachers having no clear incentive to teach well.  Maybe this is because the Democrats' are in the teachers unions pockets and they believe in Big Government and want to create an atmosphere where multitudes of adults are dependent on the government they put on a pedestal?

One of the main problems with the teachers unions is that the teachers have a total lack of accountability.  It doesn't matter to the unions if there are teachers who are incompetent and not meeting certain standards because as the head of of the NTA stated they are "against proposals that divide people".  This statement is bizarre!  She wants both good and bad teachers to be treated the same.  This type of thinking is exactly why our education system is so screwed up.  There are no incentives for being a good teacher.  I mean one would think that all teachers are duty bound to teach their kids properly.  But, I guess both the lackadaisical attitude and this I-am-owed-something attitude has spread so rampantly amongst all Democratically controlled sectors of employment that it has become quite infectious to the detriment of both past and present generations.  These teachers unions want all teachers to be treated like robots who were all programmed the same.  Couldn't they at least be all programmed to be good teachers instead of a preponderance of them sucking so bad I wonder how the heck they passed tests to become teachers in the first place?

Michelle Rhee founded an organization called Students First. Here is the website.  Their mission statement is:

Our mission is to build a national movement to defend the interests of children in public education and pursue transformative reform, so that America has the best education system in the world. 

Students First has put together some statistics which are quite alarming.

"The literacy rates among fourth grade students in America are sobering. In a recent report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, one out of three students scored "below basic" on the 2009 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) Reading Test. Among these low performing students, 49 percent come from low-income families. Even more alarming is the fact that more than 67 percent of all US fourth graders scored "below proficient," meaning they are not reading at grade level.

"Reading proficiency among middle and high school students isn't much better. On the 2009 NAEP Reading Test, about 26 percent of eighth graders and 27 percent of twelfth graders scored below the "basic" level, and only 32 percent of eighth graders and 38 percent of twelfth graders are at or above grade level."

It is going to be hard for our kids to compete in the global market for jobs such engineers, scientists, physicians, and creative entrepreneurs when according to an assesment by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development finds that 15-year-olds in the U.S. placed 25th out of 30 countries in math performance and 21st in science performance. 

Test scores have not improved in decades. "In April 2009, Education Week reported that average math and reading scores for 17-year-olds in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests have remained stagnant since the 1970s. And according to The Journal, fourth- and eighth-grade reading scores "have barely budged since 1992," despite policy and investment focused on improving overall student achievement."  

This is a serious problem which must be addressed and cannot be kicked down the road because of unions demands.  And, let me take a huge leap here and say that our public education system's priority is supposed to be about the kids, teaching them the skills to excel and succeed in life and NOT about the adults.  Teachers need to be held accountable for their job performance, like other jobs.  We cannot afford to drop the ball on this as we have done in the past because if we do the United States will no longer be a global leader of innovation for our children won't even have a clue what that word means let alone understand the concepts of hard work and responsibility.

Changing Educational Paradigms Must Include Stopping Unions from Having a Stranglehold on Kids' Education

For the most part, our educational system is a debacle with massive amounts of money being misallocated by school districts. Our tax dollars are going down the tubes.  During the 2002-03 school year $440 billion was used to fund public education for kids from prekindergarten through secondary school.  Unfortunately because of the misappropriation of funds in order to benefit the adults instead of the students the effects of this have produced consequences including:  illiteracy, high secondary school drop out rates in democratically-controlled areas of the United States, and in 2009 results of testing showed that ONLY 60 percent of high school students are proficient in basic science skills .  These aforementioned examples show that it is imperative that we change the educational paradigm in the United States.  One question worth posing is what exactly does the phrase "basic science skills" refer to today?  How basic is "basic"?  The fact that 40 percent of high school students are unable to pass the basic proficiency science test is highly disconcerting and unconscionable.  This is further evidence that our public schools are failing, and the teachers' unions are failing to provide children with a good education. 
The teachers union in Detroit will have nothing to do with compromising their benefits for the sake of either the school children or the city of Detroit.  The unions greedy nature may force the closure of half of the public schools in Detroit.  If the unions, democrats and President Obama actually cared about educating our kids properly they would not have been against the DC Opportunities Scholarship Program (a voucher program), and defunded it. The program was an instant hit, and according to the Dept. of Education it was working. This program in Washington D.C. was helping disadvantaged youths yet those (Democrats and unions) who claim to champion for kids quashed the program which was working.  How dare those happy and successful kids siphon away money from unions (sarcasm). 


Virginia Walden Ford is an advocate for school choice.  As an adolescent her son William started struggling with academics and eventually started getting into trouble with the law.  Then a generous next door neighbor's intervention changed the trajectory of her son's life when he offered to help pay for William to attend a local parochial school. In a matter of only months there was a major transformation: William went from being an angry kid to really enjoying the learning process. After 2 years he transferred to a charter school and graduated as Valedictorian. He enlisted in the Marines, served in Iraq, and is now working for a real estate company in the Washington D.C. area.  After seeing how much a nurturing school enhanced her son's education in the 1990's Virginia became an outspoken advocate for the D.C. vouchers bill. Unfortunately the program was cancelled in 2009 but after the 2010 mid-term elections Ford is hopeful that with the help of Speaker of the House John Boehner the D.C. voucher program will breathe new life soon. 

With all the issues in our educational system it is an absolute necessity that we change the educational paradigm in order to prevent a calamitous outcome for the United States. 




Here are two videos on reforming our educational system. The first video is a trailer for the movie "Kids Aren't cars" and the second video is on changing educational paradigms. 






RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms

Young Grizzly Slams Olbermann for 'Worst' Person Label

First my thoughts:
Olbermann, the lie teller, who practices hypocrisy quite often accuses Bristol Palin of hypocrisy since she is a spokesperson for abstinence education and just happens to be a teen mother.  I say, don't worry Bristol at least your not like Olbermann who promotes the murder of countless innocents all out of selfishness. He promotes the immorality of both men and women who claim to need a sex fix and engage in a one night stand while not taking responsibility for his or her actions.  And, no the woman or man taking responsibility does not consist of propping up, being complicit in or partaking in the act of murdering a separate human being in the mother's womb.  Taking responsibility for one's fling in the hay is doing as Bristol Palin has done and is still doing - having the child, taking care of the child by working hard to provide for her son Tripp, and loving her son with all her heart.  Murder - abortion- is NOT LOVE!!!  Murdering an innocent defenseless unborn human being is one of the coldest, cruelest, evil acts a person could do.  So you can take that and stuff it where the sun don't shine Mr. Know-It-All, selfish, arrogant Olbermoron!!! 

Here is Bristol Palin's response to Keith Olbermann as posted on The Blaze:

Recently, a left wing commentator named Keith Olbermann attacked me for being a spokesperson for abstinence education and for being an Ambassador for the Candies Foundation, which promotes teen pregnancy awareness and prevention education. He went so far as to call me “the worst person” he knows, apparently, for my efforts to educate teenagers about the real world risks of premarital sex.


Accusing me of hypocrisy is by now, an old canard. What Mr. Olbermann lacks in originality he makes up for with insincere incredulity. Mr. Olbermann fails to understand that in order to have credibility as a spokesperson, it sometimes takes a person who has made mistakes. Parents warn their children about the mistakes they made so they are not repeated. Former gang members travel to schools to educate teenagers about the risks of gang life. Recovered addicts lecture to others about the risks of alcohol and drug abuse. And yes, a teen mother talks about the benefits of preventing teen pregnancy.

I have never claimed to be perfect. If that makes me the “worst person in the world” to Mr. Olbermann, then I must apologize for not being absolutely faultless like he undoubtedly must be.

To Mr. Olbermann let me say this: you can attack me all you want. But you will not stop me from getting my message out about teen pregnancy prevention. And one day, if you ever have a daughter, you may change your mind about me.

Bristol Palin

Bucking the Party: Guggenheim Makes Plea for More Charter Schools With Waiting for Superman

David Guggenheim, the producer of An Inconvenient Truth, is bucking the Democratic Party when it comes to teachers' unions, and the educational system. Guggenheim is for charter schools and is making a plea for more charter schools with his new film, Waiting For Superman. He is also a member of Democrats for school choice. He has decided to put childrens' education first, before the welfare of the teachers' unions. This man should be commended for standing up for our kids' education and for not following lock step with the Democratic Party.


Here is a review of Waiting For Superman.

David Guggenheim, the man behind An Inconvenient Truth and Obama’s 2008 DNC bio-infomercial, has just released another film — this one a stabbing indictment of teachers’ unions and a plea for more charter schools, titled Waiting for Superman. Democrats for School Choice hosted an advance screening of the documentary, to which black clergy, New York City education chancellor Joel Klein, and National Review were invited. The school-choice cause evidently transcends traditional ideological boundaries.


Waiting for Superman intends to influence policy, yet its narrative follows not politicians, but five children. Bianca, Daisy, Emily, Anthony, and Francisco come from diverse locales — Harlem, L.A., Silicon Valley, D.C., and the Bronx — and are black, Hispanic, and white, but they share the same basic problem: Each is consigned by geography to an inadequate public school. Each wants a choice.

The stories — of Bianca, whose single black mother struggles to afford parochial school but misses the final payment that would let Bianca attend graduation, and of Anthony, who carries a picture of his dead, drug-using father as he seeks a spot at a rare charter boarding school that might keep him away from the streets, to name two — are heartbreaking. But the real message of the movie is revealed in the scenes of the adults who produce this heartbreak. Superman’s most memorable episode is the cartoon illustration of the “lemon dance,” in which school principals waltz their “lemons” (teachers who just can’t teach but can’t be fired) from school to school. The musical number would be hilarious if it weren’t so devastating. So, too, for the shots of the infamous “rubber rooms,” where middle-aged teachers sit in school kids’ chairs, playing cards or laying their heads on their desks to sleep, collecting full pay and pensions.


Guggenheim chooses one champion and one villainess. Michelle Rhee, the chancellor of D.C. schools, is energetic and assertive. She bluntly admits that D.C. students “are getting a crappy education right now,” she fires a couple hundred incompetent educators, institutes some incentive pay, and starts to turn D.C.’s schools around. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and Rhee’s foil, is on the defensive. She seems most solicitous about the egos of teachers; a speech to her union culminates in the cry, “You are heroes!” In her interviews, Weingarten reminds us what good-hearted people teachers are, and condemns school-choice advocates for demonizing teachers. She has maintained this pattern off-screen as well. “It’s in vogue to bash teachers and unions rather than celebrate the work they do to help kids,” she said, responding to Superman. “That being said, I’m a big girl.”

CONTINUED

Beat The Elites

I would much rather have an every(wo) man like Sarah Palin than an arrogant elitist like Barack Obama running this country.


The elitist mentality breeds both selfish and closed-minded people. This notion has spread rampantly through four year colleges and universities, and even to community colleges across this country. Elitism does not allow for free thought. It calls for a communistic fall in lockstep behind one another mentality that does a huge disservice to the students trying to gain a good, well-rounded college education. This has become prevalent within Catholic colleges today. I attended Franciscan University in Steubenville, OH and even though overall it is better than most Catholic liberal-arts colleges the philosophy of elitism, and specifically liberal elitism has infiltrated it from within to some degree.

Some professors there, as an enormous amount of other colleges call for “social justice” and call for compromise. But, in the elitist version of compromise it is crystal clear that they sacrifice their ideals, principles, and values for the sake of appearing neutral, nice, persuasive, or compromising with others.

This elitist mentality has branched out to jobs all over the world. A bunch of selfish owners, managers, and leaders have been bred all over this country. While in some professions it is self-evident that certain types of training are necessary, there are many jobs or professions where many people, like myself, are more than willing to learn a different computer program or a different line of work but because of office politics or elitist selfishness people are unwilling to help a person learn a new computer program or a different line of work. These owners or managers want a ready-made perfect individual instead of helping to give a person a step up.

Yet, These same selfish owners and managers would rather the government take care of individuals instead of helping them in a much more productive manner that could benefit the company, employee, and this country.

We need to return to being more community-oriented like in the early 20th Century. We must bring our societyback to promoting a sense of values, morality, and Godly principles instead of accepting the elitist mentality of selfishness, arrogance, and moral compromise.



Palin Populism by Michael Knox Beran:
Sarah Palin takes on the pathology of the elites.


BILL O’REILLY: Do you believe that you are smart enough, incisive enough, intellectual enough to handle the most powerful job in the world?


SARAH PALIN: I believe that I am because I have common sense, and I have, I believe, the values that are reflective of so many other American values. And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the kind of spinelessness, that perhaps is made up for with some kind of elite Ivy League education . . .


— The O’Reilly Factor, Nov. 21, 2009


No sooner had I lighted on this exchange than the familiar words of Faust — familiar, at any rate, to us Ivy Leaguers, for whom he is something of a patron saint — were on my tongue:

Habe nun, ach! Philosophie,

Juristerei und Medizin . . .

I have, alas, studied philosophy,

Jurisprudence and medicine, too,

And worst of all theology

With keen endeavor, through and through —

And here I am, for all my lore,

The wretched fool I was before.

I was, as I say, trilling Goethe when it occurred to me that Governor Palin had a point. Perhaps the Ivy League business has been a little overrated.



Everyone knows that many stupid people possess degrees from fancy schools. Many smart people don’t have them. But in a big country, it isn’t easy to distinguish the wheat from the chaff. We are obliged to rely on things like academic degrees — and on the relative prestige of the institutions that grant them — to a much greater degree than was the case in the past.


This was evident in the comparisons that were drawn between President Obama and Governor Palin in the summer of 2008. His intelligence was never questioned. Hers was, repeatedly. Undoubtedly his two Ivy League degrees (from Columbia and Harvard) helped him. Her want of prestigious education hurt her: It made it easier for those who didn’t like her to say she was stupid. This presumption of stupidity was in the air before the interviews with Charles Gibson and Katie Couric. Those interviews resembled ambushes, orchestrated by people who were already convinced that she was a moron. Had Obama — who cherishes his teleprompter — been ambushed in this way, his intelligence would have been questioned too.


Degree fetish might be a necessary evil in a big country where there are lots of candidates for jobs and no easy way to rank them. But if in the future the only means of obtaining intellectual credibility in America should be through an accumulation of degrees, the country will almost certainly become stupider.


Degree fetish fosters a standardization of the intellect: Everyone is obliged to jump over the same hurdles to get their intellectual passports. If standardization has its virtues, particularly in the hard sciences, its promise in the humanities is much less obvious; Edmund Wilson was probably right when he said that literae humaniores have suffered from the Ph.D. fetish.

But the greatest evil of degree fetish is the arrogance it nourishes, an intellectual snobbishness that stifles nonconformity and homespun intelligence. Whitman suffered this condescension. So did Lincoln, and so did Reagan. Emerson, the Harvard man, said that Lincoln was a “clown.” Clark Clifford, speaking ex cathedra for the Washington establishment, called Reagan an “amiable dunce.”  CONTINUED

H/T goes to NRO