The Political Discussion Thread

[Coco Pops]

This is a question for Gatefan as he knows a bit about local politics, what with being a local and all lol.

What do you think of the LNP and their so called inquiry into the banking system which is just a 3 hour sit down and a chat with each bank CEO and basically a "don't do that again Johnny" and nothing more.

Why do you think they are opposed to a full royal commission into the banking industry?

[Gatefan1976]

Oh, and I will just leave this here as well............
http://www.alternet.org/education/10...unded-your-tax

[aretood2]

Let me tell you a story about a man named Jed. Poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed. ...

There is a large city nearby. Back in the 1980's, the schools were failing abysmally. The teachers, through their union president made a strong argument that in order to attract the best to the teaching profession, they had to offer above average wages.
The city administration (foolishly) went along with this, and a 40% raise was given pretty much across the board.
Fast forward to present day. This same school district now has one of the highest cost/pupil ratios in the U.S.; a tad over 20K/student per year.
For that we get a graduation rate of 45-50% in good years, and a competency rating by local colleges/businesses of under 10%. Less than 10% of the district's output is capable of either going to college or entering the workforce.

Oh, and that union president? He is still there, saying they need more money.

This isn't theory. It's not what might happen. This is real life history over 30+ years.

As I said. Welcome to a liberal/Democrat hell.

I just looked up New York State's grad rates. It's 76.8% for the 2012-2013 school year:Source Link with the previous two years at 77%. 78% in 2015 (Source Link). The rate for 2014 was 76.1% but went up to 78.1% last year (Source Link). This link (Click here) gives you a breakdown of the rates for several individual high schools. Sure there are a few as low as the 50% range. But there are many at the state average level and many that are above 80%.

The second to last link (the one about the 2015 grad rate) does mention that four particular districts have your 50% grad rates, but the other districts are doing pretty good. It seems that those two cities (which are one of the poorest in the nation) are dragging the state's average down. It seems that socioeconomic status of the community that the districts serve has a lot to do with graduation rates.

But yes, I do fault, in part, the thinking that teacher pay is enough to combat the myriad of challenges that students of low socioeconomic status face. Also, teacher pay is not statewide. It is based on school district. That is, assuming that what you said about teacher pay is more accurate than the grad rates you fed me. Because if it is as accurate as your numbers, then why should I trust your little story at all?

[Gatefan1976]

This backs up something that I've said for a very long time. Liberals process information emotionally; through the lens of what they emotionally feel should be fair or proper while conservatives process information logically based on facts and logical analysis of those facts. This is why so many of their ideas just don't work out; the real world where things have to ultimately play out doesn't operate on feelings, it operates on hard facts.
This is why Conservatives are often viewed as hard and cold. The real world we live in is in fact a very hard, cold place.

Yes, this is why the Democratic candidate is a policy wonk, and the Republican one tweets at 3am in the morning.........
Sorry, what were you saying?

[Gatefan1976]

I just looked up New York State's grad rates. It's 76.8% for the 2012-2013 school year:Source Link with the previous two years at 77%. 78% in 2015 (Source Link). The rate for 2014 was 76.1% but went up to 78.1% last year (Source Link). This link (Click here) gives you a breakdown of the rates for several individual high schools. Sure there are a few as low as the 50% range. But there are many at the state average level and many that are above 80%.

The second to last link (the one about the 2015 grad rate) does mention that four particular districts have your 50% grad rates, but the other districts are doing pretty good. It seems that those two cities (which are one of the poorest in the nation) are dragging the state's average down. It seems that socioeconomic status of the community that the districts serve has a lot to do with graduation rates.

But yes, I do fault, in part, the thinking that teacher pay is enough to combat the myriad of challenges that students of low socioeconomic status face. Also, teacher pay is not statewide. It is based on school district. That is, assuming that what you said about teacher pay is more accurate than the grad rates you fed me. Because if it is as accurate as your numbers, then why should I trust your little story at all?

Dude.
Everywhere the democrats touch is Chicago, it's just logical and factual.

[aretood2]

Oh, and I will just leave this here as well............
http://www.alternet.org/education/10...unded-your-tax

Some of those are kinda stupid fake outrage. Proms without dancing? Oh no! The horror! Quick! Someone call the army!!! While others are serious...some are just...what were you? Born today? A Christian school teaches pro-life. What a shocker (sarcasm).

[Gatefan1976]

Some of those are kinda stupid fake outrage. Proms without dancing? Oh no! The horror! Quick! Someone call the army!!! While others are serious...some are just...what were you? Born today? A Christian school teaches pro-life. What a shocker (sarcasm).

It serves multiple reasons Tood.

[aretood2]

Dude.
Everywhere the democrats touch is Chicago, it's just logical and factual.

Ironically, Annoyed doesn't care about facts and logic. It's what he feels...

[jelgate]

Yes, this is why the Democratic candidate is a policy wonk, and the Republican one tweets at 3am in the morning.........
Sorry, what were you saying?

If he doesn't mock veterans with PTSD, who will?

[aretood2]

It serves multiple reasons Tood.

Stop ninja'ing!

Like I said. Some were serious. Personally, I'm on the fence when it comes to vouchers. On one side, if it goes to secular private schools then it ought to go parochial schools too. But on the other hand, that's money they can use to teach specific religion which then does violate church from state edict.

The best solution is to say that Christian school can get vouchers only if it has a secular curriculum. And some way to audit expenses. But secular private schools here in the US aren't always in the up in up. There are a lot of issues that people don't hear about. From phony numbers to forced graduation rates and corruption. There are some great private schools (And some of the best are the older more established/mainstream parochial schools, and to their credit, mainly Catholic schools). But you should really look up our private school system outside of those old standouts...It's not all pretty.

[Annoyed]

I just looked up New York State's grad rates. It's 76.8% for the 2012-2013 school year:Source Link with the previous two years at 77%. 78% in 2015 (Source Link). The rate for 2014 was 76.1% but went up to 78.1% last year (Source Link). This link (Click here) gives you a breakdown of the rates for several individual high schools. Sure there are a few as low as the 50% range. But there are many at the state average level and many that are above 80%.

The second to last link (the one about the 2015 grad rate) does mention that four particular districts have your 50% grad rates, but the other districts are doing pretty good. It seems that those two cities (which are one of the poorest in the nation) are dragging the state's average down. It seems that socioeconomic status of the community that the districts serve has a lot to do with graduation rates.

But yes, I do fault, in part, the thinking that teacher pay is enough to combat the myriad of challenges that students of low socioeconomic status face. Also, teacher pay is not statewide. It is based on school district. That is, assuming that what you said about teacher pay is more accurate than the grad rates you fed me. Because if it is as accurate as your numbers, then why should I trust your little story at all?

You're looking at statewide. The suburban districts upstate are in general excellent. But these are also in general in very red districts, where Republicans rule the roost and have for decades.
Look at the Democratic strongholds of the state; the 5 large cities.

[EDIT]
Here's a nice little report published by the NY State Governor's office:

https://www.governor.ny.gov/sites/go...oolsReport.pdf

Some interesting things to note:
New York State Spending Per Pupil (Page 4)
Total Percentage Increase in Spending vs. CPI (Page 5)
Page 7, concerning teacher effectiveness:

It is incongruous that 99% of teachers were rated effective, while only 35.8 percent of our students are proficient in math and 31.4 percent in English language arts.
How can so many of our teachers be succeeding when so many of our students are struggling?

And of course, the education unions are fighting any attempt at teacher accountability tooth and nail, even to the point of sending anti-accountability propaganda home with the students.

Now, for a real treat, take a look at the City of Rochester schools, starting on page 152 in the PDF. This is the city I spoke of that gave their teachers 40% raises across the board back in the mid-eighties.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can predict some of your response; poverty, special needs and such.

Surely you can't place all of the blame for this beyond pathetic district on that.

Look at the other cities besides NYC, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse for example.

In a state where the suburban schools are generally rated excellent, it would be generous to call the city districts pathetic.

One other item of note.
The successful suburban schools are almost all in politically very deep red areas, overwhelmingly Republican, where the voters/taxpayers have very strong, active voices in education, while the failing schools are concentrated in traditional Democratic strongholds, the cities, where state law has pretty much taken control out of the hands of the voters and placed it within the (Democratic) city governments. The only voice the voter has here is who sits on the school boards, and Republicans might as well not even try to run candidates, they haven't a prayer of winning.

That speaks volumes. Not only about the quality of heavily unionized public schools, but of the overall results of Democratic ideas on a great many other things, too.

[Womble]

Political views, no matter their stripe, should not be a part of education.

And yet they are, that's part of the point. In fact, whole classes are established on the basis of nothing but political advocacy.

I did, I can't see it happening outside of religious based educational systems.

Well, it's happening in American colleges.

So, discrimination based on that which is beyond your control is equivalent to political or social or religious discrimination?
Really?

Why, yes, really. In fact, I am baffled why you would even draw such a distinction!

Should it be proven that homosexuality is not genetically hardwired but a chosen behavior, will it become okay to discriminate against homosexuals?

That was my bad, yes. I used the wrong words. I meant -progressive- Vs Conservative, not liberal/republican.
You did however answer my question.

Because you're still asking it wrong.

It's a pretty fair definition, or do you want to argue that mainstream Western Society is something else?

I do, as a matter of fact. I would even question whether Western society has a mainstream culture, let alone that it's white or patriarchal. But the interesting question here is, whose terminology are you using in asking the question? Don't you see that you're phrasing it in pre-rigged "when did you stop beating your wife" terms?

What "angles" would you find fair?

That is a complex question and I'd say a range of perspective should be taught. More importantly still, the teachers should not act as if they represent, rather than inform the students about, the ideas that are being taught.

Junk science?
I think that is all that needs to be said really.

Oh, I know, no respect for the science's halo. But you know what? Not all that glitters is gold and not all that is called science, is good science. Modern-day "gender studies" are junk science just as phrenology was junk science.

I did not say at universities, I said -go into the various religions-. Let me be more clear. How many socially liberal people go into the various priesthoods? I don't think you would even crack 100 to 1 on that count. A far more fair comparison as Priests are -also- teachers rather than trying to call race discrimination or (binary) gender discrimination an equal to learned behaviour.

In which universe is that a fair parallel to public education?

Are we just?
Perhaps conservative minded people with the desire to be teachers just tend not to go into public schooling?
I would be interested to see the comparative rates between the two groups.

Again, the fact remains that the ratio worsens over time. Barring all sorts of arcane explanations, one is forced to conclude that the field of public schooling has become conservative-hostile, hence them not going there.

No, it really does not.

The depth of your argument astounds me.

More "junk studies"..............
How much time have you spent studying the junk science of religion? It, as field, certainly falls within the parameter's of what you would seem to consider junk studies, and it certainly indoctrinates people in more way than political and is dominated by conservative thought.

But religion is not science and does not lay claim to being science. You are shamelessly misdirecting the discussion with this comparison and I am forced to ask why.

[garhkal]

I don't know about that. Personally, I care more about Trump's evil than I do about Clinton's evil. Thanks to you and others like you we are going to have Hillary as a president instead of...I don't know. Jeb Bush? Marco Rubio? John Kasich? Hey even Ted Cruz seems better. Congratulations.

Hold the helll on.. You think the evil of trump (being a lecherous man but one who seems to speak about it but not act on it) is no where near the evil of Hillary, who has bold faced LIED to the people dozens of times, especially over her servers and Benghazi, and potentially has had people killed who might have been willing to spill the beans on what she really was up to?

I don't disdain conservatives, and they certainly should not be discriminated against, no one should.

Yet as i and other's have mentioned, we keep seeing story after story of conservatives getting banned from schools/dis-invited etc..

Political views, no matter their stripe, should not be a part of education.

Which i fully agree, unless said course IS politics.. BUT look at how many classes we have in colleges especially ABOUT political stuff. Though doing a quick bing search i can't find what degrees specifically have political aspects to them other than flat out 'political science' we see many that have one heck of a political bent.. Even economics degrees..

Perhaps conservative minded people with the desire to be teachers just tend not to go into public schooling?

Maybe that is cause they see what often happens to other conservative teachers in public schools..

[Falcon Horus]

Pity most of her voters imo won't care.
Just like many of us trump voters won't care about his comments from 11 yrs ago about women that was leaked.

You might not (shows what kind of man you are) but plenty do.

Trump really doesn't have the best week, and tonight he has to go through another debate. Oh man, I wish I could watch it live.

I don't know about that. Personally, I care more about Trump's evil than I do about Clinton's evil. Thanks to you and others like you we are going to have Hillary as a president instead of...I don't know. Jeb Bush? Marco Rubio? John Kasich? Hey even Ted Cruz seems better. Congratulations.

This show is even better than The Apprentice.

Should it be proven that homosexuality is not genetically hardwired but a chosen behavior, will it become okay to discriminate against homosexuals?

What do you mean "becomes"? It's already okay to discriminate against homosexuals:

"Twenty-eight. That’s the number of states where it’s not against the law to discriminate against a gay person who’s looking for an apartment, applying for a job, or buying something from a store. Five more states have protections, but with exceptions: New York, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin don’t forbid discrimination against transgender people, for example, and Massachusetts and Utah don’t protect all LGBT people in all situations in which discrimination might arise. The federal government does not protect against this kind of discrimination, either, except in limited cases. Although Democrats have proposed legislation that would change that, the chances of it successfully sliding through a Republican Congress in an election year seem slim."

Source: Can States Protect LGBT Rights Without Compromising Religious Freedom?

Hold the helll on.. You think the evil of trump (being a lecherous man but one who seems to speak about it but not act on it)...

Please read the transcript and tell me how he didn't act on any of his comments?

Transcript: Donald Trump’s Taped Comments About Women

The man's literally digging his own grave.

[SoulReaver]

The man's literally digging his own grave.

can't imagine that billionaire shovelling dirt