School: Americans Don’t Have Right to Bear Arms

Just a reminder that we don't do left/right politics. I've deleted a post or two.

Didn't the AG state somewhere along the line that the way to change kids thinking about guns was to "brainwash" them?
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Dajowi, can you find a source for that? It's a pretty strong assertion to make without some evidence that Mr. Holder (if he's the AG you're talking about, and not someone at the state level) actually said it.
 
Good... grief. I know he was the US Attorney for D.C. at the time, and presumably was speaking as the person responsible for enforcing the ban on handguns that was in effect, but -- that's bad.

I knew I didn't like him. :mad:

Thanks, Spats.
 
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If one looks at spending on education as a percentage of GDP,the US ranks 37th in the world, behind countries such as Tunisia (23) and Barbados (14). Looking just at the industrialized Western countries on that list, the top 5 are Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Israel, and Belgium. The US is #11 among those countries. Hardly outstanding.
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It's not about GDP. That stat is used as a straw man argument. It's about dollars per student spent. The US could be spending double the percentage in GDP and the only thing that would change would be the unions getting richer. Our educational system is as corrupt as the people in DC who run it.
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Exactly right. You can compare per student spending state by state. Some states spend vast amounts more than other states and still don't do any better. I was a state approved teacher for a while and I got out when I discovered I wasn't supposed to be teaching at all. I was supposed to be a cross between a social worker, a parent, and a day care provider.

I have two children in middle school. I'm always ready to let them get new textbooks, whatever. But if you just take the existing system and hand it more money, you won't get any better education. And I don't like the unions either and I tried not to join them when I was teaching. But it was REQUIRED. Frustrated the heck out of me since I was strongly opposed to just about their entire political agenda.

But they aren't the only problem. We could eliminate all teacher unions tomorrow and that wouldn't automatically make the schools better. Maybe the whole model is just obsolete today?

Gregg
 
Dollars spent per child can be an extremely misleading metric. It is rarely calculated the same from school district to school district, so the comparisons are rarely valid. I think a more valid metric would be to divide the number of teachers into the total enrollment. That will give you a much better idea of which school districts are really making the effort to teach and which are merely dumping buckets of money into storm drains.

I think many here would be appalled to see how much money is thrown away on massively wasteful capital projects and into ever-growing administrative spending by their school boards.
 
I spent almost three decades having children in public school.
Political indoctrination of my children was a battle I fought constantly, sometimes on a daily basis.
I got to the point where every new book that my children started they had orders to bring it home. It was eye opening.
I urge those of you who have children in the education system to do exactly the same and report back.
I'm completely confident that not one of you who do this will be able to say (or type) with a straight face that what they're being taught is politically neutral.
Ask your children every day what they learned that day in school, it's the first step.
Volunteer at the schools if you can find any time at all. I spent a lot of hours helping the teachers, they were rewarding as well as illuminating, and I found a lot of folks I was happy had a role in my children's lives.

So you know I'm serious PM me sometime and we can discuss how by the time my children were done in the public school there were 3 different administrators who no longer held their position, and two teachers who had their tenure revoked after their behavior was investigated and proved.

I didn't take any pleasure in those things and I'm certainly not bragging now, I use this as an example of two things. The actions and prejudice exist, strongly enough that in the school system which never acknowledges it's mistakes until forced, heads can still roll because the behavior is that far over the line.
Even though the deck is stacked against you, you can protect your children from it.

My children got to the point where they felt comfortable calling their teachers on this themselves by the time they graduated, I was quite proud of them.

To sum this up, don't stick your head in the sand, maybe this starts with out dated materials but I know for certain it continues beyond that.
 
I got a gem from my younger sister.

Look @ all the gun violence in Chicago... You don't need guns. :eek: What are they teaching kids these days?!
 
It's not about GDP. That stat is used as a straw man argument. It's about dollars per student spent. The US could be spending double the percentage in GDP and the only thing that would change would be the unions getting richer. Our educational system is as corrupt as the people in DC who run it.

You fix it by letting parents decide what school is best for their kids. Do that, and bad public schools would vanish. Which is why teachers unions fight and lobby so hard against any kind of voucher system. They know what would happen if parents were allowed to choose.

It's not about the kids, its about the money.

As for text books, there are only a handful of major textbook companies. There is no incentive for them to be accurate. They will get their orders regardless. And there is no reason text books should be so expensive. They are because the textbook industry is monopolistic.

It's also not an apples to apples comparison to other countries. Most other countries are smaller, not a world power, cradle to grave socialists and not a constitutional republic made up a 50 individual states. Our government tries to be everything to everybody and we end up with a system that caters to the lowest common denominator.
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There you have it. For God's sake, pull you precious kids out of gub'mint skewels. I'll answer to God for letting those tyrants mis-educate my son.
 
The only positive part of my children's experience in the public schools is that they are now trained to be able to defend their beliefs, even against those in authority over them, in a calm, rational, firm manner.
 
I had a history teacher in high school who had a doctorate in history. Real nice lady, great teacher. Encouraged you to branch out, read your own books, research your own things.

And to read the history book for her course, you would think that in WWII the Allies were victorious only because of the Tuskegee Airman, the 442nd RCT, and Rosey the Riveter, oh, and a little bit of help from the code breakers, oh, and Col. Tibbetts was a war criminal.

As far as the War Between the States, the only reason the Union was victorious was because of the gallant charge of the Mass 54th at Fort Wagner.

No mention of the Anaconda Plan. No mention of Wade McClusky and Dick Best at Midway.

My point in this ramble is that individual teachers aren't the sole cause of the state of our education system. Some rise above thier circumstances, others only succumb to it.

If you are that worked up about your local school system, get invovled. Attend school board meetings, go to PTA meetings, heck, vote in school board elections.

In state and local government, I worked for the county board of elections. In the off year school board elections, I whopping 2,000 people and change showed up to vote.
 
Spats. . .Thanks for the video. I knew that the teachers had some good national direction in brainwashing my kids.

Hopefully the become NASCAR fans and can see that people value the NRA.
 
Please don't use that "schools are poor" bromide. Until I see that school districts are willing to open their books to the public, I'll never believe that they are poorly funded or even lacking funds. Does your local school district allow the taxpayers to see their audit report? I'll be surprised if it does.
 
It's not about the kids, its about the money.
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That might be true at some level. But I am just entering the teaching profession and I can say with all honesty I am not doing it for the money. For what it costs to go to college I could get a much better return on the investment by going into almost any other profession. I also did not spend more than twenty years in the Navy for the money. Neither profession is compensated for the actual work done. Regardless of how many people have nothing but negative things to say about kids today it is very rewarding to see just how amazing most of them actually are. What is expected of them in school is far beyond what I had to do at the same age and many of them exceed the challenge.
 
CurlyQ. Howard said:
Does your local school district allow the taxpayers to see their audit report? I'll be surprised if it does.
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You want their comprehensive annual financial report (CAFR).

Link to what wiki says about CAFRs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_annual_financial_report

From the article:

Differences between a general budget and a CAFR

The primary difference between a budget and a CAFR is that where the budget is a plan for the a fiscal period (often a year) primarily showing where tax income is to be allocated, the CAFR contains the results of the period (year) with previous years accumulations. A CAFR shows the total of all financial accounting that a general purpose budget reports does not. The CAFR contains a section that provides a comparison of period budget and actual. Additionally, the CAFR gives a detailed showing of investment accounts by category reflecting balances over previous years.

A Government budget document is a blueprint for a "specific grouping" of government agencies' spending over the course of an annual financial period. General Purpose Budgets contain both the spending categories of specified units of government, such as school districts, social services, transportation, police, fire, and park services; along with estimates of revenues expected to occur during the year, such as investment return; overrides of money from the previous year, and tax payments. They are usually more limited to the expected costs of running the aforementioned government operations through tax income as opposed to describing the status of any government fixed assets and investment wealth.
Differences between a general budget and a CAFR

The primary difference between a budget and a CAFR is that where the budget is a plan for the a fiscal period (often a year) primarily showing where tax income is to be allocated, the CAFR contains the results of the period (year) with previous years accumulations. A CAFR shows the total of all financial accounting that a general purpose budget reports does not. The CAFR contains a section that provides a comparison of period budget and actual. Additionally, the CAFR gives a detailed showing of investment accounts by category reflecting balances over previous years.

A Government budget document is a blueprint for a "specific grouping" of government agencies' spending over the course of an annual financial period. General Purpose Budgets contain both the spending categories of specified units of government, such as school districts, social services, transportation, police, fire, and park services; along with estimates of revenues expected to occur during the year, such as investment return; overrides of money from the previous year, and tax payments. They are usually more limited to the expected costs of running the aforementioned government operations through tax income as opposed to describing the status of any government fixed assets and investment wealth.

A CAFR is a report of the complete overall financial results of both those "specific groupings" of government agencies that appear in the current fiscal year General Purpose Budget and all other agencies and departments. These can be autonomous, enterprise (for example government or city owned golf courses), recycling, water, sewer, and financial management - often these agencies were created with the inception of that local, state or government. The CAFR provides information about all of these other government agencies that may have their own budgets and separate investment accounts but their financial holdings are not combined with the general purpose budget that the same government presents to the public. The CAFR, or as it is called in CANADA CanFR can be used along with a budget document to compare the organizations total financial standing to the annual general purpose budget. The CAFR is the complete showing of the financial investment and income records from all sources, that reflects what has developed over decades whereas a budget report is an inferior document to the CAFR being that it is primarily focused on what revenue is expected to be brought in and spent for just the year.

In contrast with the rules applying to governments, publicly traded US companies are required by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), to provide their Annual Financial Report (AFR) to every shareholder each year.
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Basically, from what I understand, we're talking a double set of books, one is the real deal (shows expenditures and all income) and the one for public consumption that we usually see where income and expenditures are equal.

Use your favorite search engine for more info on CAFRs and how to get (and read) them.
 
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