Texsox

Texas? Hmm, I wonder if the zero state income tax would be attractive to guys earning multiple seven figures?

We can't tax corporations because they will move jobs out of the area. We can't tax higher earning individuals because they are creating jobs. We can't tax low income individuals because they have no money, and we have to cut taxes on the middle class to get elected. We're f***ed

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 9, 2011 -> 08:44 AM) In that case, advocating for a vocational program is advocating for people to be trained for jobs that don't exist, which would be a "Fail" if that were the true reason. I believe that is only in the manufacturing and agribusiness areas.

I can only offer my opinion as to why. Standardized state mandated testing in core subjects shrinks the available electives. Many of the manufacturing related vocational programs were paths to jobs that no longer exist in the US, so why bother. The people making the decisions are all college educated. The facilities are too expensive to maintain. The programs have inherit physical risks that are absent from desks and books so insurance rates are higher. Society pressure, especially in the STEM area.

Another difference between US schools and other countries is we make an assumption that every kid should go to college. We push them into college prep programs, dress them in college t-shirts, and extol the virtues of a college education. Possibly rightfully, we have eliminated most vocational programs from our schools. Those kids who would be successful and interested in those paths are instead forced like a square peg in a round hole to be taking advanced math and English classes so they can go to college. Other countries continue the child's education, but on a different path.

Durbin's proposal seems fair to me.

And to be fair to parents, most of mine did not go to college, I'll bet less than half graduated from HS. So they have a harder time knowing what to do to help their own kids. But last year I had 105 students in four classes. In my Pre-Ap class, I met 100% of the parents at least once and probably 80% three or more times. In my lowest performing class, only 4 of 26 parents showed up for Open House or Meet the Teacher night. My situation wasn't unique. I wasn't certain which comes first, not interested in talking with the teacher or too many negative calls about their kid. I tried really hard to make every conversation with a parent positive so they would return my phone calls.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 8, 2011 -> 11:18 AM) I can't remember how relative property taxes are factored into it honestly. It wasn't an issue on Michigan City's end (we are fairly low property tax-wise) during the election, so I never thought to research it honestly. The rich schools hate it. Absolutely hate it. I'm waiting to see if it makes a difference in performance or not. We have a "Robin Hood" law that does that in a very small way. Not nearly enough to even things up.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jun 8, 2011 -> 11:06 AM) Is that in their contract already? Im sure teachers want to teach, and I hope/appreciate that they do want to, but many teacher unions would fight (understandably) if their employees had to teach longer than signed upon. From what you've told me at your school, there isn't much else that can be done besides forcing the student to stay after hours, which doesn't sound viable to me. Nope, we just do it because it is the right thing to do. Think when you were in school, how many teachers were still in the building working with students when the bell rang? It's always been that way. Staying after school for extra help is just a fact of life in schools.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 8, 2011 -> 11:01 AM) And I know with education reform in Indiana we spend A LOT more in poor communities per student than rich. Nearly 50% more at the extremes. How do they do that? With property taxes being the #1 way states pay for education, it is hard to take local property tax money and move it to poorer communities. 50% is just an amazing number. I'd like to see Texas just come close to spending the same for every kid.

QUOTE (bigruss22 @ Jun 8, 2011 -> 10:50 AM) And maybe afterschool programs like that for struggling kids may be beneficial, but to make every student go through that seems expensive and actually hurtful. Having programs that force some of these kids to get off the streets and back in the classroom or onto the court/field/etc would be a good idea, imo. The problem is finding the funding to do such a thing, but still, that would be a heck of a lot easier than fighting with teacher unions to increase the number of hours a teacher has to work each week. There isn't a teacher in my school that doesn't tutor after school. Care to guess how many kids we get to stay for tutoring? We even offer a tutoring bus ride to the front door of their home. We have kids failing, whose parents will sign a statement that they are refusing tutoring and if their child fails he will be retained. Then, of course when the kid fails, they blame th school for not teaching the kid. We pull kids out of their electives on our planning periods and conference times for tutoring and the parents (not all) come and complain that we took their child out of PE or music or whatever. There may be some schools where that is the problem, but not any in my experience. Teachers want to teach.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jun 8, 2011 -> 10:38 AM) How should we regulate parenting tex? I'm open to it. BUt I have a problem with being so dismissive of kids who aren't doing well at 12-16 years old at school. Even if they are doing it to themself at that age, I'm not sure how much weight we should put on that, because at that point the child is not going to achieve anything in life. We've seen the charts of unemployment for those without high school employment. Not regulate, but we keep pushing schools to be parents and teach kids everything from sex to filling out an employment application.

We could also recognize that teaching doesn't trump parenting. And that some things are parent's responsibility. Instead, because teaching is a paid position and aprenting is not, we place all the expectations on education.

There are no right or wrong answers or we would have made those decisions a long time ago. Yes, are kids have a lot of computers, cell phones, etc. but that is the world we are preparing them for.

My students come from a wide range of economic conditions and shack is somewhat correct. There are a lot of lazy kids out there who would have been removed from most schools in other countries. Here we not only attempt, but demand that every kid be in school until 16. It really frustrates me that kids around the world are fighting for a chance to go to school, we force them to go, feed them two meals a day, and even provide school supplies, and kids put in less than zero effort. Not only are they not doing anything, but they are distracting the students around them. They can't bring a pencil or notebook but have $2 for a no uniform fundraiser and nice cell phones. To me it shows how much they value school. Give me a room full of recent immigrants, my experience tells me most will actually care and be thankful that they are getting an education. They don't think of it as a birthright.

lol you thought this was a private thread between u2

knowing this will continue will comfort me on my flights today.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 3, 2011 -> 08:12 AM) The argument is that, the way the districts are drawn, hispanics are underrepresnted i.e. there's 10,000 hispanics for every rep vs. 5,000 caucasions. The total in every district has to be close to the same. So the ratio is basically the same for every person. Any single individual will be 1 of X number, no matter which district. But we've decided that certain groups (in this case Latinos) need to be a majority in a few districts. Why?

How else can a conclusion regarding no new Hispanic districts? The map protects GOP districts. All people living in those districts, regardless of race, will have a rep. The rep will in all likelihood be a GOP. And that's somehow a problem. Why?

So what's everyone doing this summer? I have almost three weeks of training lined up. Boy Scout Camp Director training in June. Then in August two weeks of training for helping Pre-Ap students. In between five weeks on South Padre Island catching some waves and a couple weeks in Bar Harbor Maine watching whales instead of oil wells. (In Texas whales and wells are pronounced the same).

Of course I would agree that the two things you mentioned will hurt him with Dems. I can see calling him a murderer would be the hyperbole answer to the Willingham case. I'm not certain education will stick. People like lower taxes and he cut spending instead of lowering taxes. I'm even going to bet that he'll have some stat showing Texas spends over the national average based on something else. There are plenty of things not to like. But the rest of the country will be seeing someone we'll have a hard time recognizing once he officially runs.

The underlying presumption is Hispanics need a Dem representative and that the presumably GOP Rep cannot represent them. I'm uncomfortable with that.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 3, 2011 -> 06:50 AM) There's also the whole "refused to review the conviction of a man sentenced to death despite a whole bunch of expert opinion that it was bulls*** because it would make Perry look bad" And cutting education when your state already is pretty horrible in education. Conservatives love the tough on crime death penalty. It's a deterrent and all that. Perry believed in the sanctity of the legal process and the jury that convicted the man. If you don't believe in our legal process maybe you're one of those commie liberals. All those criminals, those murders who chose to attack our values and our people, who were put to death in Texas will only help him with conservatives across the US. Maybe you want some activist judge (he's kind of the final judge in this) who will overturn the work of a lot of people, but conservatives want judges that will just uphold the law. And that's what Perry did. With many conservatives, money is not the answer to education. Standardized tests and better teachers are the answer. They believe there is a ton of waste, too many administrators, etc. So losing that money will not make much of a difference. Besides it was Dem lawmakers who earlier had chosen to stop some federal funds from going to Texas because they wanted Perry to violate the state Constitution. You have to find things that conservatives will not like, and he's got solid conservative values. Perhaps they can paint him as a flip flopper from his Dem days, but I think that will be easily explained by the Dem party left him when they started catering to the far left extremists in the party.

I will say this, and remember this is coming from a known liberal, I am uncomfortable building a map along racial lines. But I guess it is as valid as along political lines. But when I read "X" district it seems wrong. Each segment of the state should have about the same number of people to be represented. The racial makeup in an ideal world, shouldn't matter.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 2, 2011 -> 08:28 PM) I think lecturing the country about your balanced budget and the evils of deficit spending when your budget is only balanced because of the stimulus is a pretty good policy point for starters. As I noted previously, I think opposig government regulation when regulation saved Texas from a housing bubble is missing the point. Using available resources to balance the budget is my preference to deficit spending like most other states. or raising taxes. How many other states received stimulus money?