The remaining 2008 Presidential candidates

I'm struggling with that one. Obama is way out of his league in terms of foregin policy experience and understanding based on many things he has said. China is a huge concern for me. With their current ownership of so much American credit and their strength in the trade deficit, the US has a serious problem. Obama sees them as nothing more than competitors yet I see a country that arrests people for free speech, a government that burns churches, and one who encourages the killing and sale of it's female babies. I consider them an enemy in a few ways. Back in December, he had this to say about Chinese imports:

CONCORD, N.H. — At a campaign stop here on Wednesday, presidential candidate Barack Obama took a hard line on the import of toys from China, saying that he now favors an outright ban.
“I would stop the import of all toys from China. Now I have to say, that’s about 80 percent of toys that are being imported right now,” he said, but did not provide details on how such a ban would be carried out.

:huh: Okay. I realize he tried to "correct" that statement the next day but really, it's an indication to me of how his inexperience could cause lots of damage even though I absolutely agree that the US (Bush Admin) has been completely lax in it's efforts to increase quality and inspection regarding imports from China.

Here is a Q&A with Obama on China. Doesn't work for me.

Q: Given China's size, its muscular manufacturing capabilities, its military buildup, at this point--and also including its large trade deficit--at this point, who has more leverage, China or the U.S.?
A: Number one is we've got to get our own fiscal house in order. Number two, when I was visiting Africa, I was told by a group of businessmen that the presence of China is only exceeded by the absence of America in the entire African continent. Number three, we have to be tougher negotiators with China. They are not enemies, but they are competitors of ours. Right now the United States is still the dominant superpower in the world. But the next president can't be thinking about today; he or she also has to be thinking about 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 50 years from now.


In addition I don't agree with his stated preference for meeting with foreign leaders without condition. That includes Syria, Iran, and Venezuela. Conditions help to set up expectations and the concept of actually negotiating.

Obama will not have the power of some people behind him at all. In a poll of Israeli leaders on Presidential candidates he came in dead last. Perhaps it's because of this:

Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr. is the long-time Pastor of Obama's church, and Obama has credited him as being an inspiration and guiding light for him. He is a spiritual mentor to Obama and coined the term the "audacity of hope" [FONT=times new roman,times]that Obama has essentially made a theme of his campaign as well as the title of a book. [/FONT][FONT=times new roman,times]Pastor Wright is also a supporter of Louis Farrakhan, and in 1984 traveled with him to visit Col. Muammar al-Gadaffi, an archenemy of Israel's and America and a firm supporter of terror groups.
[/FONT]Wright has also been a severe critic of Israel. In his own words,

The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for almost 40 years now. It took a divestment campaign to wake the business community up concerning the South Africa issue. Divestment has now hit the table again as a strategy to wake the business community up and to wake Americans up concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism.​

Not only that, but one could make a good argument that he will be equally disliked by the Middle East Muslim community. He is afterall, a stated Christian who has attended the same church for 20 years. He also talks of the benefits of diversity, multi culturalism, etc. The Koran is in direct conflict with those "Western" values. With that in mind, he wants to "talk" to the leaders of the countries that willingly harbor radical Muslim fundamentalists and terrorists. I honestly don't know the answer for how to deal with the Middle East but I do know that "talking" isn't going to work.

I want experience yes, and I want good experience, who doesn't? So far I'm still looking for a candidate I can support rather than just the lesser of two evils. I do know that person for me is NOT Obama.

 

Okay, this was an incredibly pompous post. Teachers would LOVE to teach all the kids (though some are better with different populations than others; my specialty is gifted and talented kids--some teachers don't like to teach them, as they can be intimidating--having 140-150 IQ's, etc.)

"It's my money, and it's your job." That's nice. The old "you pay my salary" schtick, right? I pay over $500 a month in property tax as well (that's how Texas pays for public education--high property tax.) Yes, teaching "all" of the kids is our job. Some of those kids, of course, are very hard to teach. Most of that comes from conditions at their homes, more than anything else I've seen. Are their parents educated or illiterate? That's the BIGGEST thing of all--whether they are white, black, or Hispanic.

Merit based pay is also a big political selling point. It sounds really good, but all that it would lead to is having even FEWER teachers who are willing to work in the inner cities where the test scores are low--basically because of the problems of the kids at home.

I work in a suburb, and I work there because I don't want to deal with the inner city problems that I did my first five years when I taught in Louisiana (the Texas schools I'm around are far and away better than the Louisiana schools I taught in, for instance.) Merit pay would probably be a good thing for me--60% of my students are honors students. They do very well on standardized tests that test MINIMUM standards.

NCLB leaves behind the middle and upper-tier of students. It has NOTHING to do with teaching ALL students. It is paperwork, plain and simple. I'm a rater of limited English proficiency students under NCLB. I will be taken out of my classroom for four days this year to take a refresher course on being a rater, take a test on being a rater, and to rate papers that LEP students have written (I'm in the process of pulling those papers right now.) Teaching? No. Paperwork? Yes.

 

i know. i did try not to be though, with the "im not an expert" intro---just airing opinions. hopefully, i'll learn something.

shouldnt be an option. should be obligitory. i imagine its more a problem of the system than individual teachers. but, i do view education in this country (pretty broad stroke, i know, with huge differences between each state and most districts) as an old government dinosaur and the teachers unions want to keep it that way. if things arent going well (and they evidently arent in many many areas) then you shouldnt keep status quo. seems obvious to me that there needs to be a way to measure the effectiveness of teachers and get rid of the bad ones. unless bad teachers jobs are valued more than the kids education

ok, its not "nice" but its true

you do realize that children of illiterate parents should get as good an education as the children of the educated parents. i could even argue that its better for society to spend more time on the disadvantaged students.

do you really expect sympathy for 4 days? you get about 3 months off a year. i hope they take it out of that.


i sorry that im coming across as an ahole. i really value teachers. id like to be a grade school one myself someday. like i said, i think the system stinks. if youre a good teacher its a tough but rewarding job. if you are a bad teacher, you get paid the same and stick around for 40 years doing a crap job---unfortunately, the result of the crappy job isnt worse return of investment for stockholders, but worse lives for 1000's of kids.

 

Compensating teachers on merit or accomplishment sounds great.... but how do you measure it? That's the biggest point. Like Stacey said, what incentive does a teacher have to go teach inner city kids when they know their job depends on how their kids do? You could have GREAT teachers that have kids that don't perform well, as well as bad teachers who have kids who do great. It depends on the student, families and many other factors as well.

The other consequence that has come up from trying to measure performance by standardized testing is that teachers now teach to the test, not to give the students the genuine knowledge of the subject. If you've got a great system to measure teacher's performance, I'd love to see it.

This should probably be it's own thread at this point.

 

China is doing a better job of being capitalist around the world than we are. They are succeeding in Africa where we've failed. It is our fault China owns so much of our debt and we've entered into that willingly. We've also chosen to trade with them despite poor conditions for their workers, few concerns for the environment, and generally less than agreeable governance practices. I wouldn't call China an enemy, though they are a threat. They don't exactly square with a lot of our concepts of right, which would give me more pause in dealing with them (Ron Paul is right on this issue as well - I sound like a broken record). I believe US production of goods has suffered because of our relationship with them.

I realize that Obama will need to rely heavily on advisers, but that in itself isn't too bothersome to me.

What is wrong with that? I believe the answer has less to do with China and more to do with what the US needs to take care of. China should not be an enemy, though that doesn't mean they should be our friend. We don't really need more enemies at this time. But the best way, IMO, to deal with China, is to right our own ship.

What is wrong with meeting with these foreign leaders? Likely nothing will come of it, but to have our new president meet with them face to face sends a message that this is who is now leading the US and this is where we stand. We can hear what they have to say face to face. Stonewalling is unnecessary as I see it. We've had years of stonewalling and arrogance.

I meant more that a large number of US citizens will be energetically behind him. I doubt Israeli leaders dislike him because of the pastor at the church he attends (that entire argument seems pretty tangential). I am pleased that some foreigners have joined the Ron Paul revolution, and I imagine many would support Obama, but the way foreigners feel about who the next president should be is really low on the totem pole for me.

I doubt we'll have a Muslim president here in the US for some time to come, so if "Muslims" are going to dislike our president because he embraces western values, there is little we can do about that. I doubt that most Muslims expect our president to be anything other than an individual who embraces western culture.

Wow, it sounds like you're happy with Bush's foreign policy. Of course we should talk to them. There is no resolution without discussion. Talking won't solve everything, but it seems much more likely to have an affect than stonewalling the Islamic world aside from our wealthy petroleum contacts.

Good luck with that. I appreciate the discussion - I need to understand the way you feel because a lot of people obviously feel the same and I'm very interested in knowing why.

Maybe it's the age gap, maybe you're too cynical, maybe you're too practical. :hihi: I know there is a lot out there I don't know and I find this election very interesting because I disagree with so many. Am I wrong... :huh: That's possible. Cheers.

 

Teachers that make an impact in poor schools, or who can keep kids at better schools performing at a higher level should get a bump. There is probably a million ways to measure success effectively. One single measuring stick across the nation, even across a school district, doesn't seem the best way to get results. I'd consider paying teachers at bad schools more because it is a less desirable environment and I'd prefer performance be considered realistically.

It is human nature to try to find a way around the rules, but I don't have a problem with standardized testing, though it isn't directly indicative of a child's potential to succeed. I like the ideas of focused programs. I like the idea of private monies giving public school teachers more incentive to perform.

The democrats will continue to push for "better" federal education programs. But so do most of the Republicans. I'm pretty pessimistic about that changing.

 

If elected, I believe quite a few people would be invigorated by Obama. This is probably one of the few areas where he has my guy beat.