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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Explaining the terrible state of American education is pretty simple. States and localities fund and manage their own curriculum. As a result schools in rich areas, and more importantly with citizens willing to pay taxes to support them, do relatively well, to the point where they can compete with private schools. Needless to say things are a lot different in the rural South and the inner city.
As for our resistance to critical thinking, I think a large part of it is simple American stubbornness and questioning of authority. When a scientist in Germany proposes something people will take it as fact. In America people will see if they can understand it personally, and if it fits into their personal world view. If not then they begin to suspect the scientist may be up to something.
I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.My mum once went to lecture in a college in some hole in Louisiana. The person who invited her told her that the students would be of a lower level than me and my brother. For context — that was when I was in twelfth grade and my brother in ninth grade.
What I'm getting from this thread is that it's not an isolated case?
I feel like Krugman's anti-ad hominem post would be a lot stronger if he hadn't just made another post about how Sanders was 'sneering' at African-American voters. I certainly do see that kneejerk overly defensive response from Sanders supporters that he's describing, but it's looking more like a circular feedback loop of both sides trying to delegitimize each other than one-sided antagonism to me. "You're in the pocket of established financial interests!" "Well, you're a racist!" Guys. Guys. Calm the frick down.
Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.The single biggest problem with the American public education system (below the university level, anyway) is that school districts are generally funded by local property taxes. That means that rich areas tend to have great schools, and poor areas have schools that are chronically underfunded. This is a vicious cycle, as well-off families with school-age children almost always take the local schools into account when they look at places to live. Bad schools mean no well-off families moving in (and likely existing well-off families moving out), while good schools mean those people move in (or stay put, if they already live there).
A much more equitable solution would be to take all the property taxes in a state (or better yet, the country) and distribute it evenly on a per-student basis (with some obvious caveats — for example, a rural school district might need a relatively large amount of funding for transportation in order to reach a handful of widely-scattered students with bus service, while an inner-city school can rely on local public transit and doesn't need any funding for buses at all). There's also the fact that specifics of curriculum (what exactly gets taught to who, when) are largely left up to the judgment of local school districts. There are both federal and state requirements, but there's no single unified lesson plan. Common Core (and Leave No Child Behind, before that) is an attempt to fix that, but has problems of its own. I'm honestly not familiar enough with them to say how much of the complaining is valid and how much is just noise.
The American system has both very good and very very bad public schools. It's wildly inconsistent — by design, for the most part. Rich folks in nice neighborhoods take a certain amount of pride in having good schools, and they don't want their education taxes going to someone else's kids. American schools are very much locally controlled, and any attempt to change that is blasted as overreach by them damn Washington bureaucrats who want to dictate how your kids will be brainwashed to suit the Big Government agenda.
Both of these are wrong. Clinton's overwhelming wins in the Deep South didn't come from conservative voters, they came from minority voters. Sanders has done poorly among minorities everywhere, but they make up a larger part of the population in the Deep South, so Clinton won bigger overall in those states. And second, it doesn't matter who they are or why they voted the way they did, their votes count, period.
Krugman is absolutely right to call Sanders out for implying otherwise.
edited 15th Apr '16 10:51:21 AM by NativeJovian
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.Thats why reforming schools would, as a practical matter, first have to be done at the individual state level before moving up to the federal government. That way, since its likely each state would approach it differently, once the political atmosphere allows the feds to tackle it (meaning, once several states have reformed the system themselves at their level) the federal government would have several ideas on how to go about it.
edited 15th Apr '16 10:52:17 AM by FFShinra
Don't both Sanders and Clinton have extensive history working on civil rights things? Not that either of them should be free of calling them out when they make stupid statements or have issues with minorities (saying that feels so weird being a part of a minority group) but I think overall both are pretty good with this right?
They have image problems they should work on but image shouldn't detract from what they've actually done (too much, anyway).
How could that happen?
As I understand, a contested convention only happens if a candidate fails to take a 51% majority. With only two candidates, it seems unlikely.
Romney might even have a decent chance of winning the election, based on the grounds that he sat out the shit-slinging of the primaries.
A last-second switch to Romney would have him entering the general election with a clean shit-slate. He could run entirely on the platform, "I'm NOT that asshole Trump and I'm NOT that "all the things she's accused of" Hillary. Vote for me, some new guy you haven't spent the last year learning to despise!"
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.![]()
I think Romney would still have many of the same problems that cost him in 2012, but it depends on whether they get brought up.
EDIT: Plus what
said.
edited 15th Apr '16 11:05:09 AM by optimusjamie
Direct all enquiries to Jamie B GoodA last-minute switch to Romney would all but guarantee that every single Trump voter remains home in November, handing the win to the Democrats on a gold-trimmed silver platter with rosemary garnish.
edited 15th Apr '16 11:04:53 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Most people don't like it when the guy literally no one voted for gets nominated.
It's an Ass Pull in politics form.
Non Indicative UsernameDid you forget his big anti-Trump rant? In addition to that, Mitt Romney's national favorability rating is even lower than Donald Trump.
And its not hard to see why.
Liberals think he's a 1% oligarch.
The Tea Party thinks he's a Blue State RINO, especially since he played a significant role in the creation of Obamacare didn't help that perception.
Protestant Evangelicals think he's part of a cult.
And now after 2012, everyone thinks he's a loser.
The people who still like him are the GOP elite.
I'd go further than that. A last-minute switch to Romney would guarantee a riot.
edited 15th Apr '16 11:21:59 AM by Demonic_Braeburn
Any group who acts like morons ironically will eventually find itself swamped by morons who think themselves to be in good company.Oh, and no populist GOP voter would trust the party apparatus again for at least 20 years.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I don't think any voter would trust them. How on earth could the Republicans possibly spin this in a way that doesn't make it look like a refusal to do things democratically? It's not some backroom deal that can be covered up. Intentionally refusing to nominate the front runner and going for someone not even in the race would make the entire primary a farce.
The last time it happened (on either side), the candidate got annihilated in the general election.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I'm looking it up, give me a few...
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Edit: never mind, wrong one. Still looking.
edited 15th Apr '16 11:37:05 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"There was also John W. Davis, who won a brokered convention for Democrat candidate as a compromise between Al Smith and Will McAdoo, the two candidates being deliberated.
He got crushed in the election by Calvin Coolidge, taking only 29% of the vote. It's the smallest percentage by a Democrat candidate in history.
edited 15th Apr '16 11:36:44 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.You know, minorities can also be conservatives. These conservative minorities staunchly vote Democrat because they know the Republicans would just make their lives worse. That being said, all votes do count. I would justifiably be angry if the Republicans chose someone who wasn't Trump or Cruz as their nominee, even if I, myself, am staunchly Democrat.
edited 15th Apr '16 11:42:30 AM by GameGuruGG
Wizard Needs Food Badly

Those people are the ones that put the Republicans in office. They have no incentive to fix the ignorance.