Open Thread (11/9/06)

Has anyone noticed that the radio station which currently occupies FM 92.5 routinely truncates songs when they are only about 90% complete?

I find that practice to be offensive in the extreme. It's like the waitress at Denny's taking away my meal when I'm not done, or like a theatre omitting 10% of the movie to increase their througput.

The Chief tops my list of worst radio stations ever. I may have to purchase satellite radio.

Local Radio:
Listen to WEFT. At least there, if you don't like the selection, you can just make your own show...

"What happens next?"
- Liberals will attempt implement the same tired "solution" of lowered expectations, no accountability, and higher spending. When it doubt, dumb it down! What really should be done is to fully fund NCLB to give the policy a fair chance before tearing it to shreds and going back to the failed liberal education policies of the past 40 years.

Doesn't the University try to protect their "Chief" trademark? Didn't this site alter its imagery at the University's request? (I might be remembering that wrong, but I thought that's what happened.)

The radio station could claim they're named after a Fire Chief or some such thing, but that's just silly. (The Springfield station following the same format is called "Abe" ... if our Chief is named after somebody other than Chief Illiniwek, then theirs must be named after somebody other than Abe Lincoln. Abe Vigoda, maybe? http://www.sitcomsonline.com/barneymiller.html )

I could not agree more: What is the point of hearing "Brandy" or "It's Raining Men" for the 10,987th time if the "repeat chorus eight times and fade" is truncated? A travesty.

Did anyone else hear Linda Abernathy this morning saying she was going to ask the City of Champaign for a loan to make up what the taxpayers soundly defeated Tuesday? In explaining why the taxpayers did not support the increase she said they were confused. Then she went on to say if the loan did not work, she would turn it over to the State for them would raise the tax rate.

I certainly was not confused when I voted and I do not believe the State of Illinois is going to raise the tax rate for City of Champaign Township any time soon or some of the other 300+ townships in Illinois might use this method of getting funding.
Is is possilbe that Linda might be confused?

Xian, I'll once again ignore the insults and get to the point.

It sounds like you don't like what the tests are testing. What kinds of tests do you want?It also sounds like you want different expectations for different students. I agree that someone who is constantly spending time in the hospital because they keep getting shot will probably not learn as much as someone who spends time inside doing homework. However, in my view, the solution to this problem is not to have some formula such as (your needed score) = (competent score) / (number of times you've been shot + 1). I would rather give parents the control. Allow them to decide if their teacher is doing enough.

It sounds like in your case, the parents would be very pleased with how you are teaching their children. I bet they would even tell their friends about you, and before you know it, your school would get so much business they would pay you even more and give you more freedom in the classroom.

Maybe you are forgetting that I'm probably against NCLB more than you are. I understand and agree that its silly to have some single standard that all children should meet. So my accountability model is to allow parents to decide if their school and teachers are doing a good job. What is yours?

Not to jump in the middle of this Xian/Adam lovefest, but I personally think we need to keep symantics in mind here.

"Accountability" is a loaded term, used by the Right to frame the NCLB argument. Who is against accountability? No one I know. What the heck is accountability? No one seems to know.

Is "Teacher Accountability" deduced by a 14 year-old's ability to take a standardized test? Right now the answer appears to be "yes!". Is this an assessment model that would be tolerated in any private business? Of course not. This is a very lame assessment model.

Since everyone seems to agree that NCLB needs to go, then the answer switches to, "what do we do instead?" My suggestion is similar to what Adam mentioned with disgust: more money, less "accountability".

Hear me out. As a teacher, I'd be happy to have my class taped. Heck, parents can sit in this class whenever they want already. I'd even be willing to have my kids take standardized tests, and allow the world to see the results. It would be nice, of course, if I had some idea what was going to be on the test besides:

(16.8.28) Understand influences on the development of the American West.

or

(16.8.09) Indentify the practice of merantilism and its impact on the relationship between European powers and the relationship between the American Colonies and England preceding the American Revolution.

These, of course, are 8th grade standards. But whatever. Before a meaningful dialogue can be had on NCLB, folks need to become better educated about the problems. Without understanding that the test are extremely random, and difficult, and that the energy that is spent on preparing for the test is actually making our kids dumber, there is no place to start a conversation.

Private school is a non-starter for me. Private school kids rarely score higher on the same tests. Plus, market demand would skyrocket if the conservatives had their way, pushing decent private schools well out of the reach of the neediest students, who would be left with your Wal-Mart schools.

No, education is a fundamental right for each citizen. Therefore we must honestly analyze the problems in schools that are "failing" and use resources to address and hopefully eliminate those problems. Forcing teachers to abandon all creativity at the altar of test scores, and then penalizing schools that fail to meet "annual yearly progress" (thanks, Mao) is such a backward notion that it can only reduce the effectiveness of the educational system.

Other ideas are welcomed, but here's hoping Pelosi, et al rips this legislation to threads, and quickly.

If each child had $8,000 (or whatever the cost of education per child for public schools is), they would be able to purchase at LEAST as good of an education as they get from the public school. Of course, rich people can always buy more education for their kids. But the real difference would be for the poor - they would at least be able to choose between the "wal-mart" school and the "meijer" school in town. As it is now, if you don't have enough money to go to a private school or to move your family to a better city, you have absolutely 0 choice.

Of course some parents may not care about their children, but on average, no one cares more for a kid than his parents. The parents also have a good idea of what the child is capable of, and what the child's interests and needs are. Who better to decide if a school or teacher is doing a good job with the child? Moreover, this system would not require total agreement on standards. Agreement wouldn't be required for other things either, such as how to teach sex-ed, whether or not students can bring Bibles to class, or if there is a gay kids club at the school.

This system would also reduce tensions in society on all these issues that people fight over. People can peacefully send their children to the school that represents their educational values, and the fact that the school down the road has a school prayer in the morning would have no impact on the atheist school.

Some people claim that "competition is not for kids", but that is not any kind of rational argument. The kids won't be doing the competing, the schools would. The kids would benefit from the result of the competition, which would be schools that are responsive to the desires of parents.

It is amazing... The Democrats win what they wanted, and there are very few allegations of "voter fraud", "voter intimidation", and "tally fraud"....unlike 2000 and 2004.

However, if it had been the other way around, the furor over Al Gore's loss a few years back would have been nothing, compared to the howling and whining that we'd all be bombarded with right now... with their friends in the media more than happy to spread the word.

Amazing, isn't it?

Oh...so obvious... Thank you sooo much for that lesson in how it works when the democrats win.

It works that way when any candidate wins, as long as the rules are followed.

In Ohio in 2004, for example, then-Secretary of State Ken Blackwell perpetrated massive voter disenfranchisement in the form of changing the rules for voter registration at the last minute, not providing adequate voting facilities -- almost exclusively in inner city and other largely Democratic precincts -- disallowing votes, illegally allowing polls to close when voters who had waited as long as ten hours were still in line...the list goes on, and that's just in Ohio in 2004. Other evidence is readily available and well-documented in a variety of sources, if you care to Google.

I suppose you can choose to ignore this.

As far as whether or not Webb would have conceded, your guess is as good as mine, but it's nothing more than that -- a guess.

Adam - it is my opinion that you are underestimating the change that will occur if you move away from public financing of education. Businesses, for example, often fail. Not because they don't create a good product, or the employees don't do their jobs, but for all sorts of reasons beyond the control of the business owner.

While you forsee a positive environment where change and choice rule, I forsee a disjointed world where kids switch schools 3, 4, 5 times over the course of K-12. Where traditional school rivalries in sports and academic competition disappear. Where schools are segregated by class. Where teacher pay diminishes, and teacher candidates become less and less respected.

There is nothing wrong with Wal-Mart if you are looking for a banana, but would you buy a Wal-Mart car? Do you want to wear Wal-Mart clothes? Are you the kind of consumer who buys cheap stuff over and over again because it is cheap crap, or have you realized that spending a little more to buy something of quality actually saves money in the long run?

If you make a free-market educational environment, then $8000 will quickly become bargain-basement for education. It's easy supply and demand. The demand will skyrocket, the costs will follow. It is, in my opinion, an untenable situation. The majority of families, who can't afford the extra $5-10K to squeeze into the "Target" school, or the "Sears" school will end up in the worst schools, with the worst teachers, and the worst learning.

That might be fine for you, but for the egalitarians among us this is akin to sin. If America means anything it should mean the ability to raise oneself out of terrible circumstance into a position of respectability. If we privatize education we will be taking that chance away from millions of the least of these, just to create a society where the wealthy solidify their position while the rest struggle to survive.

I saw a few weeks ago that Mr. Toeppen had tax lean placed on him by the Illinois Department of Revenue for not paying his taxes. I think it was about $40,000. I saw it in the Central Illinois Business Magzine.

Ask yourself if Walmart would be better or worse if a law was passed saying that people could not shop at Meijer. Because that's what the public school system is like.

I don't know what you have against Walmart, but it's pretty darn good for a lot of things. Where else can you get an eye-exam, and do grocery shopping while you get new tires put on your car? If Walmart represents the lowest prices and lowest quality, then I'd say we would be lucky if the worst schools were as good as a Walmart.

Of course poor people will have to send their kids to the cheapest schools. That's how it is now, only worse because there isn't even a choice among cheap schools. Only people who can move their family can get into a good school. I'm not saying that vouchers and parental choice would make things perfect or equal for everyone, just that it would be much better and give poor kids more chances than the way it is now. In other worse, parental choice is not perfect, but it's the best solution.

If you want total equality in education, you'll have to make it illegal for a rich parent to buy education for their child.

Xian, the difference in tuition between poor and good public schools is MUCH higher... the cost of a house in a good neighborhood.

We're not talking about any extra money here... simply attach the funding for education to the kid instead of the school. The improvement to education doesn't come from extra money, but by allowing parents to make decisions about their children's education.

As long as it's possible to educate children for under $8,000 per child per year - which it clearly is, there will be plenty of competition among cheap schools. Again, going back to "100%"'s comment on Walmart. There is plenty of competition, choice, and even good quality among the cheapest retailers.

I think we are just parsing words at this point. Both of us would agree that Congress passing requirements on states, then providing no funding for it, is not a good thing. Maybe the new Dem Congress will send those states some money.

I see BGC as the feds stepping into areas that should be state issues, even if the legislation/control has a conservative slant. Not allowing mercy killings or medical marijuana in certain states come to mind. Hard core federalist don't see these as national issues - the federal gov't is overriding its Constitutional authority to get involved. Education - same deal.

I think the founding fathers had a much stronger idea of states than we do today, and I wish that weren't true. Our nation could be one of very diverse values and people could choose states that matched them best. We could be quite divided as a nation of people, but when the federal gov't is only responsible for defense, the post office and interstate commerce, it wouldn't be such a big deal.