Here's another person who helped develop the standards...."Jason Zimba, one of the three drafters of the CCSS math standards, as admitted in an interview that the standards would not prepare a student for a STEM" Yes, when in doubt, don't just stand there.....change something! There was no benchmarking, no baseline studies, no small test rollout, no parental participation, and there are no benchmarks currently in place to determine when/if it's working or not and what will happen at that time. There is far more emphasis on writing than reading and that makes ZERO sense in a global economy. Some of the books that are on reading lists are so ridiculously inappropriate....I have to do a ton of oversight. Trying to get all states on board will be a lot slower. State's rights are a big deal IMO.
Economic trade trumps your old dog mentality. It's pointless to buy "influence" and have military bases everywhere if you do nothing with it. Just look at the ME. Boy it really benefited us.
You just don't get it. Those bases benefit us greatly. Anyone can see it. You just want to surrender international influence to China. Crazy.
Red is right that our presence overseas has benefited greatly over the years. More importantly our leaving would create a power vacuum no one can fill. It would create more problems for us than staying would cost. That is why I wonder why ole Red says we should stay out of places in the ME where "it ain't our fight". Red the cost of staying out will be greater than the cost of being involved.
I'd like to see you back that up with some numbers. Iraq has cost us $2 Trillion already. Some fights are vital to our national best interests and some fights are simply not. We cannot afford to be the world's policeman. But if we are to be a Superpower we must have global reach and those bases give us that.
We Red Iraq 2 was a blunder and NOT an example of being a policeman but trying to make changes in the fabric of a nation. However Iraq 1 and the previous 40 years of investment in arms, bases and bribery in the ME paid off well. We kept a lid on things. W's encouragement of democracy in the ME, Iraq 2 and the current president's lack of leadership will cost us. There are issues in eastern Europe with Putinism and Russian expansion (not only Ukraine but the Baltic states, Moldova and other former Soviet states. The same sort of strength and leadership we provided from 1945-1991 will be required to contain Russia. In the east Chinese expansion over oil rights in the S China Sea shows a need to stay there in strength. Some state has always been needed to keep a lid on things. It has only been our turn for 60 or so years. The brits did it for 300+.
But we don't have to keep it clean forever. Let them get maids from Mexico. Oh Yes, we had to get the gangster Saddam and his WMD's. Russia is self-containing, they are far from the threat that they were in 1945-1991. NATO is in no danger of being invaded. He's a nibbler and he's already broken a tooth in Ukraine. His reach is limited.
