What you are describing is why more and more local communities are not voting tax increases for their school districts as the states cut back their funding. No one really feels like a stake holder in the public schools anymore because they are doing so many things that alienate parents.


I am hoping against hope that the Republicans will take strong steps towards a voucher program that enables private and charter schools to really take off. It's time to break the public school monopoly on primary and secondary education.

Honesty requires that I rain on your parade bucko - there won't be a day when all U.S. students wear a uniform. The public education system, and with it the means to enforce a dictate like that, is falling apart not getting stronger. Within five years the first school district will be dissolved and it could, quite possibly, be much sooner. The dream of "catch 'em young and train 'em right" that's made public education so popular for so long among people seeking to impose their views on the next generation will dissolve and it'll be the collapse of the concept of the school district that leads to that end and not an idea that clearly improves educational outcomes.

Parents will want ideas that work not ideas that sound good in theory which is the standard for school district acceptance.

Once the school district concept is punctured it'll be a fighting retreat to protect the idea by those who support the concept of the school district but they'll lose.

What'll replace the school district first is the charter school idea and that idea, necessarily, puts a lot more decision-making power into the hands of parents. Since it's being treated like dirt by the school district, along with the generally lousy educational performance of district schools especially in urban areas, that's motivated the charter school idea I predict charter schools and charter school parents will be as independent as hogs on ice and will fight like hell any encroachments by anyone. That includes dictating the wearing of uniforms. The proponents of the idea will lose because it's a "throw it against the wall and see if it sticks" idea.

So here's my prediction(s):

Within five years, perhaps as little as two the first school district will be dissolved to be replaced by a bunch of independent, competing charters.

In New Orleans 70% of public school kids go to charters. The only thing unfortunate in that is that it makes New Orleans much more likely then Detroit to go all-charter but we might catch up yet. The state Senate has a bill in process to remove the cap on charter schools in Michigan. Detroit's the "X" ring for parental dissatisfaction with 30% of public school kids in charters many, if not all, of which have waiting lists.

But it gets better.

As parents start to feel their oats they'll want even more say over how and where their kid is educated and that'll lead to an erosion of the restrictive laws that dictate school size, facilities, location and other factors. Regulators and legislator will fight it but parents will want even more flexibility and control over their children's education; the physical plant of the education system will come under attack as the schools convenient for district bureaucrats will be seen as just that and unrelated to the educational needs of children. So the centralized school building will become an anachronism. Look to see a bunch of stories about school buildings being demolished as the entire industry re-aligns.

Competition will start to bite.

As more and more charters open they won't have the performance umbrella of the rotten district schools to hide under. Merely being better then gawdawful district schools won't be as much of a selling point when there are more charters around. Charters will have to develop ideas and demonstrate results in order to stand out and they will; their survival will depend on doing so. Schools whose survival depends on innovation and results will embrace technology for the same reason every other industry and human endeavor has embraced technology - superior productivity, better results and diminishing costs.

You can see the outlines of that innovation revolution in the use of Khan Academy within the classroom - link.

Schools will not only have to produce worthwhile educational results they'll also have to demonstrate those worthwhile educational results and the more understandable and accessible that information is the better it'll serve to help the school survive. Khan Academy's unappreciated strength is in the numerous tests that are part of the web site, and the resulting graphical "dashboard" that allows parents easily and accurately see their child's progress.

But if you've got that kind of data for every kid you can aggregate the data to demonstrate the school's performance. Once schools can do that they'll have to; parents will demand that information before they make a decision and refusing to make that sort of information available will be just as bad, perhaps worse, then having lousy results. Schools that can't demonstrate they're good will be assumed to be bad.

And at that point even the idea of publicly-funded education will start to come under attack.

Here is a prediction. The news about a greek debt settlement is bogus. The upswings in the markets will turn back downward within a week.

Quote from: Dan on October 27, 2011, 04:32:27 PM
Here is a prediction. The news about a greek debt settlement is bogus. The upswings in the markets will turn back downward within a week.

I have yet to figure out how a bail out can be good news.  It is like borrowing more money that you don't have in the first place.  Some time the full bill comes do.

Exactly! As long as the Europeans keep spendimg more money than they have this isn't going to get better. The only sustainable solution is a significant spending reduction.

Quote from: Dan on October 28, 2011, 03:07:58 AM
Exactly! As long as the Europeans keep spendimg more money than they have this isn't going to get better. The only sustainable solution is a significant spending reduction.

I have no problems with spending, as long as it is in cash.

Quote from: walkstall on October 28, 2011, 06:06:26 AM

I have no problems with spending, as long as it is in cash.

Remember the old quote that says liberalism is a great idea until you run out of other people's money to spend.

World War III (or IV or V or VI depending upon how you want to count...)


- Socialist unrest worldwide as all governments are strained to the breaking point to keep the masses happy with bread and circuses.  The entire economy of the planet unsupported and unstable.


- All governments have become unable - disabled? - to deal  with reality. All issues, such as "global warming," or "racism" or "illegal immigration" are inflated to an imaginary level.
All issues that may be real are devalued with "political correctness" such as the US government's incompetence in the Fannie/Freddie mortgage fiasco;  the "Arab Spring," which is an increase in the violence and chaos of Islamism and Arab despotism, not a push towards democratic franchise and justice; and the whole European debt crisis, which can only result in the fall of the EU in some form or another.


- Two of the most powerful governments with which the US has close ties are China and Russia.  Both are organized criminal oligarchies with no "rule of law."  There are many other such "allies" in the world such as the Saudi Arabian kingdom.


All of these conditions mirror the unrest and grabs for power that preceded WW II.
The most likely scenario will be some sort of attack that actually unifies the Arab/Islamist factions, which is what OBL actually believed he could do on 9/11.
This kind of conflict could start in a commonplace manner, such as a real war between Pakistan and India and then escalate as other Islamist or Arab despots try to lead their faction into Power - Turkey could try and take the forefront and call upon European Muslims to "rise up;" Iran could use the opportunity to seize Iraq decisively; Syria and  Lebanon and use the opportunity to try and take Israel.  There are many possible scenarios.


The world continues to move towards total financial collapse; governments continue to be unable to actually address and speak about reality; and much of the world continues to murder and oppress their own people.
I suspect something along the lines of "WW III" will occur in the next few years.


 

Quote from: Moishe3rd on October 28, 2011, 07:08:53 AM
- Socialist unrest worldwide as all governments are strained to the breaking point to keep the masses happy with bread and circuses.  The entire economy of the planet unsupported and unstable.

This is Europe and us to a lesser extent and it will be China just as soon as their economy falters. China is the real powder keg. When it stumbles there will be blood in the streets.

But back to your point, you hit this right on the head. Our current level of spending, supported by a seemingly never ending string of bubbles, is utterly unsustainable.

Quote from: Moishe3rd on October 28, 2011, 07:08:53 AM
The world continues to move towards total financial collapse; governments continue to be unable to actually address and speak about reality; and much of the world continues to murder and oppress their own people.
I suspect something along the lines of "WW III" will occur in the next few years.

I really don't see a WW III. I see more of a lessening of everything. More of a deflation than a pop. Maybe I'm wrong.

There is a chance we will return to our roots. Get back to a free market society. Get back to an attitude of rugged individualism. Very likely this will not happen but it is our best chance of holding our ground and remaining the America we all envision in our minds.

Quote from: Moishe3rd on October 28, 2011, 07:08:53 AM
- Two of the most powerful governments with which the US has close ties are China and Russia.  Both are organized criminal oligarchies with no "rule of law."  There are many other such "allies" in the world such as the Saudi Arabian kingdom.

The same thing could be said about the regimes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, the former regime in Egypt and Tunisia just to name a few. We don't always do a good job of picking our friends.

I still say the most likely doomsday scenario is a global pandemic that we will accidentially breed ourselves like some nasty strain of antibiotic resistant swine flu. They pour antibiotics on livestock in pig farms in a way that just puts eveloution into overdrive for those little critters.

Kills 15-20% of the population, causes a breakdown of civil society which kills another 20-30% of the population through crime, starvation and the inability to treat chronically ill people. It will be much, much worse on people in cities as the food runs out. At that point governments cease to be anything like what we recognize today and it all sorta goes 19th century in a hurry.

Hopefully this won't happen and the rational part of my mind says it probably won't. But this is the doomsday scenario that worries me more than WW III.

Quote from: Moishe3rd on October 28, 2011, 07:08:53 AM
World War III (or IV or V or VI depending upon how you want to count...)


- Socialist unrest worldwide as all governments are strained to the breaking point to keep the masses happy with bread and circuses.  The entire economy of the planet unsupported and unstable.


- All governments have become unable - disabled? - to deal  with reality. All issues, such as "global warming," or "racism" or "illegal immigration" are inflated to an imaginary level.
All issues that may be real are devalued with "political correctness" such as the US government's incompetence in the Fannie/Freddie mortgage fiasco;  the "Arab Spring," which is an increase in the violence and chaos of Islamism and Arab despotism, not a push towards democratic franchise and justice; and the whole European debt crisis, which can only result in the fall of the EU in some form or another.


- Two of the most powerful governments with which the US has close ties are China and Russia.  Both are organized criminal oligarchies with no "rule of law."  There are many other such "allies" in the world such as the Saudi Arabian kingdom.


All of these conditions mirror the unrest and grabs for power that preceded WW II.
The most likely scenario will be some sort of attack that actually unifies the Arab/Islamist factions, which is what OBL actually believed he could do on 9/11.
This kind of conflict could start in a commonplace manner, such as a real war between Pakistan and India and then escalate as other Islamist or Arab despots try to lead their faction into Power - Turkey could try and take the forefront and call upon European Muslims to "rise up;" Iran could use the opportunity to seize Iraq decisively; Syria and  Lebanon and use the opportunity to try and take Israel.  There are many possible scenarios.


The world continues to move towards total financial collapse; governments continue to be unable to actually address and speak about reality; and much of the world continues to murder and oppress their own people.
I suspect something along the lines of "WW III" will occur in the next few years.


 

Well said Moishe.
I see it this way, not so much as a war on a global scale, but rather a collapse of the social contract that so many civilized nations have.
I see it like a tare in the fabric of all that is good, which will lead to starvation and a breakdown of trade, furthering the decay around the globe.

With that said, it truly depends on us as a people to reject socialism.
The World is tied to the dollar, if we can quickly stem the tide of despair in this Country and get people back to work, the rest of the globe will see it as a beacon of hope and will slowly follow suit.

So much depends on killing liberalism in this Country,

Quote from: Dan on October 28, 2011, 09:45:18 AM
I still say the most likely doomsday scenario is a global pandemic that we will accidentially breed ourselves like some nasty strain of antibiotic resistant swine flu. They pour antibiotics on livestock in pig farms in a way that just puts eveloution into overdrive for those little critters.

Kills 15-20% of the population, causes a breakdown of civil society which kills another 20-30% of the population through crime, starvation and the inability to treat chronically ill people. It will be much, much worse on people in cities as the food runs out. At that point governments cease to be anything like what we recognize today and it all sorta goes 19th century in a hurry.

Hopefully this won't happen and the rational part of my mind says it probably won't. But this is the doomsday scenario that worries me more than WW III.

Antibiotics don't have anything to do with viruses so that's not going to be the source of a global pandemic. Promiscuous use of antibiotics gives us antibiotic-resistant bacteria which is bad enough and the danger's been recognized with some counteractions being put into effect. As for other sources, they exist but epidemics obey laws which Hollywood can conveniently ignore.

What if the worst thing happens?

Much worse then a global pandemic or an international financial meltdown or any of that stuff? What if things just relentlessly get better? More and more people rise above the hunger level. More and more nations fall to the siren song of representative government. Violence continues its long-term downward trend. What then?

The reason I ask the question is because all that stuff is actually happening and all the various catastrophes that get all the press relentlessly don't happen.

Quote from: arpad on October 28, 2011, 06:26:00 PM
Antibiotics don't have anything to do with viruses so that's not going to be the source of a global pandemic. Promiscuous use of antibiotics gives us antibiotic-resistant bacteria which is bad enough and the danger's been recognized with some counteractions being put into effect. As for other sources, they exist but epidemics obey laws which Hollywood can conveniently ignore.

What if the worst thing happens?

Much worse then a global pandemic or an international financial meltdown or any of that stuff? What if things just relentlessly get better? More and more people rise above the hunger level. More and more nations fall to the siren song of representative government. Violence continues its long-term downward trend. What then?

The reason I ask the question is because all that stuff is actually happening and all the various catastrophes that get all the press relentlessly don't happen.

Consider the liberal mind (if you want to call it one that is).
They are always trying to make change, even if its bad, so even if we had a perfect world, they'd fuck it up out of boredom.