I had to watch the Bush speech tonight. I knew I would cringe, but you have to watch what everyone is saying.
It is amazing how little content we get on policies. Anyone can come out and say “I WILL GET MORE JOBS IN MY NEXT TERM”. What about this term? What have you done in your four years? Nothing good.
It is painful to hear him talk about items such as education and claim good things. “No Child Left Behind” is a fantastic slogan, but it has been a nightmare. It is a mandated program with NO funding. It is crippling schools. Just testing kids isn’t going to do jack.
What was most disgusting was hearing people cheer after Bush talked about detaining and killing people. These large speeches look and sound like Hitlers. Really scary stuff.
The sad part is that some people eat this stuff up. I hope there is enough time for real debates, and for us to get into real policy issues. When it gets to the meat, the president has no legs to stand out.
Let’s get him out. I can’t take four more years. I will have to move to Canada aye?
September 3rd, 2004 at 3:18 pm
I agree that too much of what is shown in the media has nothing to do with real policy. This is from both sides. However if you listen and watch the right places you can get a little more meat.
NCLB is not funded. That increase is a token gesture. Federal funding of education is less than 10%. The states have the burden, and their budgets have been squashed. Do you know much money it costs to run the stupid tests for every kid every year?
Standards are good. We need good standards. However standards != testing. That is what people have to understand. If you test me 100 times that won’t make me any smarter. We are going to end up with kids that are taught to the test too. I want teachers to be able to teach kids how to think. There is room for some testing, but there should be more portfolio work, and other creative things.
NCLB is a great catch phrase, but is absolutely awful. Compare the funding (24.3 billion) to the funding of the military. It is a bloody joke.