Where is the revolution?

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

That's true...the first Bush was presenting a false dichotomy. But that's not the point. The point is that kids do not starve in America. The last case of starvation in this country, not caused on purpose (someone starving themself or another by locking them up or some such) was in the 1930s. Our nation was so shocked by this at the time, that we instituted massive, far-reaching and very effective programs to make sure it never happened again. And it has not.
I think the post was about be hungry, and their is hunger in America. As a child, if I had to go home for lunch every day, my parents would have managered, but I would have been hungry.


What the left today is shrieking about can be described as "malnutrition." No doubt about that. Lots of kids whether they live in a $3million dollar house or the projects are malnourised. That's because of diet choices. If you live on nothing but Cheezy Puffs and Snaky Cakes...you are going to be malnourished. But in America, today..that's a choice.
Not really. The media has a lot to do with the choices people make. Out of a clear sky, it convinced people that they needed trucks, that water is better if it is in a bottle, and that everyone should collect coins.


Yes, I do remember when jobs were going to Japan. That, by the way, was not jobs, but production. Jobs were simply going away, here. Our heavy industries, not having been rebuilt entirely after 1945, were failing to keep up with lowered production costs and, frankly, quality in Japan.
I was talking how they sold it to us.

You don't understand much about population trends in the US today, and that's not your fault. Since our cities are no longer, for the most part, pits of heavy industry with all the problems that brings, they are being re-gentrified at a fantastic rate. With the rise in real estate prices in core cities, "the poor" (always a relative thing in the US, as people move in and out of this economic rating all the time) are being forced into cheaper housing in the 'burbs...and of course, this means that more "Welfare" is going to these suburban populations.
I see people moving because of the cost of housing now.

Welfare is not paid based upon what your neighbors drive, but upon what you can show you do/do not earn.
Yeah, what you don't earn to afford where you live. They don't send people to cheaper cities.

I should hope that "mere survival" would not be enough for most people. Yes, advertising and other images in our media play a HUGE role in our perceptions of what we should "have." This is intentional, on both the part of the advertisers AND those who produce music and TV shows and magazines and all those things that make their money from the advertising. It hardly makes sense to run an telling someone they are dirt if they do not own a Lexus on a TV show extolling the virtues of frugality.
Right. But while I frown at people taken in by advertising, how can I say it is all their fault? They have vast money, access, education, and time, to shape the state of mind they want.

How long would Toyota take out ads on such a program?

Tokie

Right, the imagemakers are in control.

[Tokenconservative]

Is that story about the "old folks eating dog food" bogus, then?

Ah, the clevery set trap!

No doubt if I answer yes, you will dredge up some single example and valiantly put paid to the eeevvvviiilll Tokie!

Our hero!

People make choices. If they choose to spend their money on lottery tickets, living them to dine on dog food, that is their choice.

What about this is unclear to you?

Tokie

[Tokenconservative]

I think the post was about be hungry, and their is hunger in America. As a child, if I had to go home for lunch every day, my parents would have managered, but I would have been hungry.

Not really. The media has a lot to do with the choices people make. Out of a clear sky, it convinced people that they needed trucks, that water is better if it is in a bottle, and that everyone should collect coins.

I was talking how they sold it to us.

I see people moving because of the cost of housing now.

Yeah, what you don't earn to afford where you live. They don't send people to cheaper cities.

Right. But while I frown at people taken in by advertising, how can I say it is all their fault? They have vast money, access, education, and time, to shape the state of mind they want.

Right, the imagemakers are in control.

No...actually, you cannot go hungry in America. Nobody has starved here since the 1930s, and when it was discovered that a few children were in fact starving, that was quickly fixed even in those far more libertarian times.

But you say that children are starving in America? Have you proof? Simply tell me where I may go to read about this.

Actually, people began buying "trucks," and the manufacturers of same responded. I remember this quite clearly. It was in the mid-80s and "the rich" were buying those Jeep Wagoneers (I think they were called) so that the trophy wife could ferry the chiluns to and from the day school. Others saw this and said "hey...cool!"

The water thing is no mystery, either. In most places in the US water from the tap does not taste good. In many places in the world, water from the tap will kill you. So was born water in bottles. Given, it's reached ridiculous heights now, where Pepsi was orderd by a court to admit that it is nothing but tap water. It IS convenient, though. Used to be (and I am old enough to remember) that you simply could not get a drink of water at say, 7-Eleven. You had to buy pop or at best Gatorade.

Of course you see people moving because of the cost of housing! That's how it works! If you can no longer afford the rent in an area whre housing pricing is going up, you have to move. And so?

I have no idea what your next statement means. Who is "they"?

Everyone is "taken in" by advertising. These people do not spend BILLIONS on this every year, and millions on the studies that show it works, and how to make it work better because it does not. You are taken in, I am taken in....everyone is. Again, it is your CHOICE to go out and spend 3x the price of gas on a bottle of tap water, or to buy a "truck." '

Would you have it some other way?

If so, what way is that?

Tokie

[blutoski]

But you say that children are starving in America? Have you proof? Simply tell me where I may go to read about this.

I would imagine the root causes of "death due to malnutrition" are similar to that in Canada: children of ignorant/negligent parents, seniors or disabled who are not ambulatory and have no assistance from friends or family or means to call for help, the mentally ill, or those with illnesses that cause malnutrition as a secondary complication.

For specific numbers, you'd have to check the CDC.

A more serious problem is malnutrition leading to disease. For example, there has been a dramatic increase in the incidence of rickets in the US in the last five years, mostly due to nutritional fads, such as cheap formula in baby diets, or outright substitution with soymilk. The former is driven by poverty; the latter by misleading advertising.

[Tokenconservative]

I would imagine the root causes of "death due to malnutrition" are similar to that in Canada: children of ignorant/negligent parents, seniors or disabled who are not ambulatory and have no assistance from friends or family or means to call for help, the mentally ill, or those with illnesses that cause malnutrition as a secondary complication.

For specific numbers, you'd have to check the CDC.

A more serious problem is malnutrition leading to disease. For example, there has been a dramatic increase in the incidence of rickets in the US in the last five years, mostly due to nutritional fads, such as cheap formula in baby diets, or outright substitution with soymilk. The former is driven by poverty; the latter by misleading advertising.

Here, you are begging the question. I've said, repeatedly that yes, you can starve in America and have cited those exercising their right to do so (various Hollywood types and others emulating them, for example...some call this a "disease"). The most often example would be children purposely or negligently starved by their parents/guardians, and yes, the mentally ill who crawl into a culvert, curl up and die.

I am talking about STARVATION in its typical sense: not being ABLE, to obtain enough calaries to sustain life. There has not been a true famine (caused by crop failures or destruction of same by weather conditions, etc.) anywhere on the planet since the last one in China in, I believe, the 1930s. Every famine since then has been POLITICAL: some group being starved out of existence by the governing political power.

There have been NO starvation deaths in the US since the 1030s (and even then, there were only a few).

When left-liberals shriek about "the hungry!!!!" in America, it's hard to figure out what they mean. Look around. Obesity and related health problems are at crisis levels among...the poor in this country. How many starving Ethiopians were ever told by a UN doctor that they needed to lose some weight or risk developing diabetes?

I'd guess the number is diminishingly small.

Equivocation, begging of the question, oversimplification, false dilemmas, etc., aside...the reality is: hunger does not exist in America.

Tokie

[drkitten]

No doubt if I answer yes, you will dredge up some single example and valiantly put paid to the eeevvvviiilll Tokie!

If he does, he will indeed be ahead, by one data point to zero.

Oh, and by the way, "eeevvviiilll" is inappropriate. Your ignorance is not a moral failing.

[genesplicer]

You are quite correct. I don't understand economics...better put, I understand that the Keynesian economics (and Malthusian) on which leftist base all their "reasoning" in these matters don't work and never did, and have been so thorougly[sic repudiated over the past hlf[sic]-century I really don't understand how some people (on the left) can continue to operate as if these are viable economic models.

No, you don't understand how "free lunch" works. First, you actually believe it's "free." Well, no...actually it's not. A "free" lunch where I live costs about $4. Part of this comes from a state fund, part from the feds. I have no problem with feeding the truly hungry, but let's call a spade a spade.


Out here, the amount we get for the free lunch is pretty much the same as the cost to us. I do understand the concept of TANSTAAFL. I am willing for some of my taxes to go to help others. Especially if it will help out society in the long run. Kids that do well in school tend to do better in society, and society improves as a result.



But ARE these kids really starving? If you teach science or social studies you might try this as an interesting little class experiment: Question: Do any of the "free lunch" recipients look underfed? Let's compare: Get some old photos of starving children in Ethiopia, bring them to your school and as a class, go to the cafeteria at lunchtime. Now hold the photos up near the cafeteria line and contrast and compare the kid in the photo and the ones in the line.


Hmmm. You said this in another response:
"No...actually, you cannot go hungry in America. Nobody has starved here since the 1930s, and when it was discovered that a few children were in fact starving, that was quickly fixed even in those far more libertarian times."

So what you are saying is "A program that helps prevent starvation works so well, we should do away with that program." That's like saying "Our military is so effective that no country has attacked us since the 1940's, therefore we should eliminate the military."


And of course you needs must rely on the SOP "worst case" scenario and ignore the fact that stavation simply does not happen in America and that your model (Little Jimmy in the car) is such a rare occurance (and so temporary when it does happen) it is statistically insignificant. You virtually cannot starve in America unless you are in a comatose state and court orders it, or you are a Hollywood celeb.


I teach about 15% of the students in my school. Last year I had 7 students that spent at least 3 months living out of their cars. One spent 8 months. Yes that's temporary, but it does point out the fact that existing can be hard for some people. And under these circumstances, it may be just a bit difficult to cook a nutritious meal.

[/QUOTE]
As a Good Leftist, you of course believe this, and believe it to be true today as well. Have you been to the homes of any of these "free lunch" kids? How many VCRs do they have to go with thier widescreen TVs? How many late model cars are parked in the drive? How does Starving Little Jimmy know so much about Halo 3!? And why does he show up for school wearing more $$ on his back than is the worth of my entire wardrobe?

This is about CHOICES. Not a lack of $$. Little Jimmy's mom has made the CHOICE that spending $60/month on cable TV (so she can watch Oprah) is more important than using that same $60 to feed her family. Now, that's not Jimmy's fault, true. But neither is it mine, simply because I make (or used to, anyway) sacrifices to make sure my kids are fed.

I don't mind feeding REAL Little Jimmies who REALLY need it. YOU don't understand that feeding kids is about $$ and power in the schools and has NOTHING to do with feeding starving kids.
[/QUOTE]

I routinely make home visits to some of our students. I have gone into apartments that could best be described as "fleatraps". I have been in these "homes" where the family of 8 or 9 has one or two filthy mattresses with a worn blanket and a lawn chair or two as furniture. Extreme poverty still exists, and it takes its toll. Are there services? Yes, but not for everybody. Sometimes there is not enough to go around. Sometimes these folks just don't know how to take advantage of the services available. That's part of the reason we do home visits, to assess what the families need and helping them find those services.



And please don't make assumptions. You have no proof that you "understand the culture of poverty" better than me. You know nothing about me, how I grew up or what I've experienced in my life. LOOKING at the "culture of poverty" from behind the teacher's desk is not the same as living it.

Tokie


Hmmm. Let's examine what I said. I said "I probably understand the culture of poverty better than most who are not in the middle of it, simply because I have studied it and deal with it on a daily basis."

I don't think I said "I definitely know more about poverty than Tokenconservative does." I said "I probably understand the culture of poverty better than most who are not in the middle of it, simply because I have studied it and deal with it on a daily basis." If you took that as a personal attack on your knowledge, I can't help that. I have studied the culture of poverty extensively. I can explain why the poor are willing to spend their last dollar on a lottery ticket and why they will not have a working car, but will have a brand-new Nintendo Wii.

The difference between us seems to be the following, I see a problem and want to help them, you see a problem and want to blame them.


As long as people need help, I will try to help. When there are fewer people to help, then society is better off...

[genesplicer]

You are quite correct. I don't understand economics...better put, I understand that the Keynesian economics (and Malthusian) on which leftist base all their "reasoning" in these matters don't work and never did, and have been so thorougly[sic] repudiated over the past hlf[sic]-century I really don't understand how some people (on the left) can continue to operate as if these are viable economic models.

No, you don't understand how "free lunch" works. First, you actually believe it's "free." Well, no...actually it's not. A "free" lunch where I live costs about $4. Part of this comes from a state fund, part from the feds. I have no problem with feeding the truly hungry, but let's call a spade a spade.


Out here, the amount we get for the free lunch is pretty much the same as the cost to us. I do understand the concept of TANSTAAFL. I am willing for some of my taxes to go to help others. Especially if it will help out society in the long run. Kids that do well in school tend to do better in society, and society improves as a result.



But ARE these kids really starving? If you teach science or social studies you might try this as an interesting little class experiment: Question: Do any of the "free lunch" recipients look underfed? Let's compare: Get some old photos of starving children in Ethiopia, bring them to your school and as a class, go to the cafeteria at lunchtime. Now hold the photos up near the cafeteria line and contrast and compare the kid in the photo and the ones in the line.


Hmmm. You said this in another response:
"No...actually, you cannot go hungry in America. Nobody has starved here since the 1930s, and when it was discovered that a few children were in fact starving, that was quickly fixed even in those far more libertarian times."

So what you are saying is "A program that helps prevent starvation works so well, we should do away with that program." That's like saying "Our military is so effective that no country has attacked us since the 1940's, therefore we should eliminate the military."


And of course you needs must rely on the SOP "worst case" scenario and ignore the fact that stavation simply does not happen in America and that your model (Little Jimmy in the car) is such a rare occurance (and so temporary when it does happen) it is statistically insignificant. You virtually cannot starve in America unless you are in a comatose state and court orders it, or you are a Hollywood celeb.


I teach about 15% of the students in my school. Last year I had 7 students that spent at least 3 months living out of their cars. One spent 8 months. Yes that's temporary, but it does point out the fact that existing can be hard for some people. And under these circumstances, it may be just a bit difficult to cook a nutritious meal.


As a Good Leftist, you of course believe this, and believe it to be true today as well. Have you been to the homes of any of these "free lunch" kids? How many VCRs do they have to go with thier widescreen TVs? How many late model cars are parked in the drive? How does Starving Little Jimmy know so much about Halo 3!? And why does he show up for school wearing more $$ on his back than is the worth of my entire wardrobe?

This is about CHOICES. Not a lack of $$. Little Jimmy's mom has made the CHOICE that spending $60/month on cable TV (so she can watch Oprah) is more important than using that same $60 to feed her family. Now, that's not Jimmy's fault, true. But neither is it mine, simply because I make (or used to, anyway) sacrifices to make sure my kids are fed.

I don't mind feeding REAL Little Jimmies who REALLY need it. YOU don't understand that feeding kids is about $$ and power in the schools and has NOTHING to do with feeding starving kids.


I routinely make home visits to some of our students. I have gone into apartments that could best be described as "fleatraps". I have been in these "homes" where the family of 8 or 9 has one or two filthy mattresses with a worn blanket and a lawn chair or two as furniture. Extreme poverty still exists, and it takes its toll. Are there services? Yes, but not for everybody. Sometimes there is not enough to go around. Sometimes these folks just don't know how to take advantage of the services available. That's part of the reason we do home visits, to assess what the families need and helping them find those services.



And please don't make assumptions. You have no proof that you "understand the culture of poverty" better than me. You know nothing about me, how I grew up or what I've experienced in my life. LOOKING at the "culture of poverty" from behind the teacher's desk is not the same as living it.

Tokie


Hmmm. Let's examine what I said. I said "I probably understand the culture of poverty better than most who are not in the middle of it, simply because I have studied it and deal with it on a daily basis."

I don't think I said "I definitely know more about poverty than Tokenconservative does." I said "I probably understand the culture of poverty better than most who are not in the middle of it, simply because I have studied it and deal with it on a daily basis." If you took that as a personal attack on your knowledge, I can't help that. I have studied the culture of poverty extensively. I can explain why the poor are willing to spend their last dollar on a lottery ticket and why they will not have a working car, but will have a brand-new Nintendo Wii.

The difference between us seems to be the following, I see a problem and want to help them, you see a problem and want to blame them.


As long as people need help, I will try to help. When there are fewer people to help, then society is better off...

[NobbyNobbs]

How come you failed to meet NCLB?

I thought the post explained quite well why NCLB wasn't met.


I wronte to her and challenged her to go shopping with me. With that same $20 I showed (in the letter) that I could in fact feed a family of FOUR for a week.


I, for one, would love to learn how to feed my family of four on $20 a week. In fact, since I actually have a family of 5 (we have a baby), I'd love to learn how to feed them on $30 a week. Please tell me how. PM me if necessary. What you write will either a) prove your words wrong, or b) keep me out of the poorhouse. Either one is fine.

[drkitten]

I, for one, would love to learn how to feed my family of four on $20 a week. In fact, since I actually have a family of 5 (we have a baby), I'd love to learn how to feed them on $30 a week. Please tell me how. PM me if necessary. What you write will either a) prove your words wrong, or b) keep me out of the poorhouse. Either one is fine.

Just move to Tokie's imaginary world.

You, like all other right-thinking conservatives, will feast nightly on rack of unicorn, washed down with triffid juice. Even the poorest people in your community will drive luxury cars pulled by flying reindeer and sleep on stacks of mattresses, disturbed only by the single pea underneath the bottom one.

Just make sure the Big Bad Teacher's Union doesn't eat you all up.

[Tokenconservative]

If he does, he will indeed be ahead, by one data point to zero.

Oh, and by the way, "eeevvviiilll" is inappropriate. Your ignorance is not a moral failing.

No?

Hmmm....in what culture?

Maybe not. I can think of some who display extremely poor manners though, "Dr" Kitten.

Tokie

[Tokenconservative]

Out here, the amount we get for the free lunch is pretty much the same as the cost to us. I do understand the concept of TANSTAAFL. I am willing for some of my taxes to go to help others. Especially if it will help out society in the long run. Kids that do well in school tend to do better in society, and society improves as a result.

Hmmm. You said this in another response:
"No...actually, you cannot go hungry in America. Nobody has starved here since the 1930s, and when it was discovered that a few children were in fact starving, that was quickly fixed even in those far more libertarian times."

So what you are saying is "A program that helps prevent starvation works so well, we should do away with that program." That's like saying "Our military is so effective that no country has attacked us since the 1940's, therefore we should eliminate the military."

I teach about 15% of the students in my school. Last year I had 7 students that spent at least 3 months living out of their cars. One spent 8 months. Yes that's temporary, but it does point out the fact that existing can be hard for some people. And under these circumstances, it may be just a bit difficult to cook a nutritious meal.


As a Good Leftist, you of course believe this, and believe it to be true today as well. Have you been to the homes of any of these "free lunch" kids? How many VCRs do they have to go with thier widescreen TVs? How many late model cars are parked in the drive? How does Starving Little Jimmy know so much about Halo 3!? And why does he show up for school wearing more $$ on his back than is the worth of my entire wardrobe?

This is about CHOICES. Not a lack of $$. Little Jimmy's mom has made the CHOICE that spending $60/month on cable TV (so she can watch Oprah) is more important than using that same $60 to feed her family. Now, that's not Jimmy's fault, true. But neither is it mine, simply because I make (or used to, anyway) sacrifices to make sure my kids are fed.

I don't mind feeding REAL Little Jimmies who REALLY need it. YOU don't understand that feeding kids is about $$ and power in the schools and has NOTHING to do with feeding starving kids.
[/QUOTE]

I routinely make home visits to some of our students. I have gone into apartments that could best be described as "fleatraps". I have been in these "homes" where the family of 8 or 9 has one or two filthy mattresses with a worn blanket and a lawn chair or two as furniture. Extreme poverty still exists, and it takes its toll. Are there services? Yes, but not for everybody. Sometimes there is not enough to go around. Sometimes these folks just don't know how to take advantage of the services available. That's part of the reason we do home visits, to assess what the families need and helping them find those services.

Hmmm. Let's examine what I said. I said "I probably understand the culture of poverty better than most who are not in the middle of it, simply because I have studied it and deal with it on a daily basis."

I don't think I said "I definitely know more about poverty than Tokenconservative does." I said "I probably understand the culture of poverty better than most who are not in the middle of it, simply because I have studied it and deal with it on a daily basis." If you took that as a personal attack on your knowledge, I can't help that. I have studied the culture of poverty extensively. I can explain why the poor are willing to spend their last dollar on a lottery ticket and why they will not have a working car, but will have a brand-new Nintendo Wii.

The difference between us seems to be the following, I see a problem and want to help them, you see a problem and want to blame them.

As long as people need help, I will try to help. When there are fewer people to help, then society is better off...[/QUOTE]

Are you on the board or committee that obtains, oversees and manages the "free lunch/breakfast" funds?

No, that's not what I am saying, but that's almost a textbook example of begging the question. And therefore your analogy is...flawed. It's too bad that these kids parents have made choices in their lives that have impacted their kids this way. Did you look into getting these kids taken away from these parents so that they could get some help? Why did they not seek aid? You have a hard time going without a roof over your head here, too, ESPECIALLY when it involves children. I live in a suburb but know of three different shelters here (in the 'burb) for women and children. Don't you have those there? Why not? If not, why are you not doing something to rectify that?

Finally, we were talking about starving. Were these kids? Straving? I have repeadtedly said that yes, lots of Americans are poorly/malnourised. That too is a choice. I can feed my kids very well from a campfire...why can't a mother or father living in a car do the same thing?

Maybe these people in these "fleatraps" should go home, then? I know a few families with 5-8 kids...they work, and support their kids. These parents have chosen alcohol or drugs over supporting their kids, and that's too bad (I am not a Libertarian). Have you gone to child services and suggested these kids might be better off elsewhere for a time?

And once again: were they starving?

_I_ wouldn't know how to take advantage of these services. But why should I? The only reason the people you are describing don't, is because they are here illegally...and you know it.

I "probably" understand the moon better than someone who has never seen it, but "probably" not as well as Neil Armstrong. You probably have a very limited understanding of poverty because you are a left-liberal. For example, you believe that poverty in America is analogous to poverty in Central Africa and that "poverty" in America is a life sentence. Working from those false assumptions, you know next to nothing about it.

The difference between us is that you are more interested in blaming others (the rich! Conservatives! White men!) for these peoples' positions in life, than you are in telling them to get their s#@t together and take care of their kids (if you speak their language). I would love to see these kids succeed in spite of their poor choice of parents, but have little regard for the parents, even when it is "not their fault!!" (it never is, is it?).

I'm glad you feel that you are helping, and maybe you are. But that does not change the fact that you have to work awfully damned hard to actually starve in this country, whereas it's not that tough to do in many other places in the world.

Tokie

[Tokenconservative]

I thought the post explained quite well why NCLB wasn't met.

I, for one, would love to learn how to feed my family of four on $20 a week. In fact, since I actually have a family of 5 (we have a baby), I'd love to learn how to feed them on $30 a week. Please tell me how. PM me if necessary. What you write will either a) prove your words wrong, or b) keep me out of the poorhouse. Either one is fine.

First, I don't have any babies, so your baby will just have to starve or you can give her up for adoption.

5 lbs potatoes : $1.29
gallon of milk: $3.99
2 Lvs bread: $1.00
1 lb jar p-nut butter: $1.29
Hot or cold cereal(generic): $2.99
2# burger: $2.78
1 # Macaroni: $1.19
1 hd. lettuce: $1.00
1# duplex cookies: $1.00
1 lb cheese: $3.49

Now, this is actually .02 over $20, but that's because I added in those cookies. Otherwise, you'd be well under $20 and could let your kids ride that little mechanical horse at the front of the store. For $30...you can eat like royalty...well, royalty in the Kalahari, but royalty nonetheless. This also does not take into account lunch for your kids as they are going to be fed for "free" at school if you have to live on $20 in foodstamps a week, anyway. Also, in the original experiment, the $20 was what a single adult with no kids who is for some reason getting foodstamps would get (in my area--Area 51). I don't know the formulas, but I would be very surprised if a married couple with 5 (count 'em!) kids wouldn't get something on the order of $200-250-worth of foodstamps every week.

Now if you REALLY want to live on $20/wk, you'll also have to try something that's a bit of a lost artform: you have to SHOP. Not just run down the aisles scooping things in. And use coupons, if at all possible. I typically save from $50-200 by using these, depending upon whether I am doing "big" or "little" grocery shopping.

If all the do-gooders in here really wanted to help "the poor," they'd teach them how to SHOP, not simply stuff their pockets with foodstamps.
Of course, if some of your weekly "necessities" are things like Camel Lights and a suitcase of Keystone Lite, or a handful of lottery tickets, you are out of luck with this plan.

It goes without saying you'll also have to give up crystal meth.

Tokie

[Tokenconservative]

Just move to Tokie's imaginary world.

You, like all other right-thinking conservatives, will feast nightly on rack of unicorn, washed down with triffid juice. Even the poorest people in your community will drive luxury cars pulled by flying reindeer and sleep on stacks of mattresses, disturbed only by the single pea underneath the bottom one.

Just make sure the Big Bad Teacher's Union doesn't eat you all up.

Triffed juice gives me gas.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

Just make sure the Big Bad Teacher's Union doesn't eat you all up.I just seen news clip that said that the D.C. school system is among the worst in the nation, even though they pay $13,000 per child, among the most in the nation. The incoming school chancellor at once, mentioned that the teachers union was going to have to be taken on, and the mayor agreed. And even though she was once a teacher herself, she said that she needed the power to fire them to set the situation right. As things stood, the process to fire bad teachers, took more than a year. Since the teachers contract had run out there, she said, instead of a room full of lawyers, that she wanted to talk with the leader of the union "one on one", he declined. Why do they see the teachers union as part of the problem?

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

Actually, people began buying "trucks," and the manufacturers of same responded. I remember this quite clearly. It was in the mid-80s and "the rich" were buying those Jeep Wagoneers (I think they were called) so that the trophy wife could ferry the chiluns to and from the day school. Others saw this and said "hey...cool!"
Television helped. I remember an ad that said "dogs like trucks" and soon it started coming out of the people around me.


The water thing is no mystery, either. In most places in the US water from the tap does not taste good. In many places in the world, water from the tap will kill you. So was born water in bottles.
Newark and New York have some of the best water in the nation, ask the Pepsi bottlers.

Given, it's reached ridiculous heights now, where Pepsi was orderd by a court to admit that it is nothing but tap water. It IS convenient, though.
I seen people with it under their sinks, how close to the tap do they have to be?

Used to be (and I am old enough to remember) that you simply could not get a drink of water at say, 7-Eleven. You had to buy pop or at best Gatorade.
Me too. Some stores are even starting to sell a cup of ice for $1.

Of course you see people moving because of the cost of housing! That's how it works! If you can no longer afford the rent in an area whre housing pricing is going up, you have to move. And so?
I was refering to something that wasn't a matter of choice. Certain conditions, leave people little choice.

I have no idea what your next statement means. Who is "they"?
The imagemakers behind the sellers. "Make the buyers believe they need something, whether they actually do, or not.



Everyone is "taken in" by advertising. These people do not spend BILLIONS on this every year, and millions on the studies that show it works, and how to make it work better because it does not. You are taken in, I am taken in....everyone is. Again, it is your CHOICE to go out and spend 3x the price of gas on a bottle of tap water, or to buy a "truck." '

Would you have it some other way?

Yes I would. I don't like how the "well oiled machines" are allowed to do that, and then have someone say: "its all their fault", especially considering the state of some school systems. Our children are now subject to cartoon length commericials.

If so, what way is that?

Tokie

I'll have to get back to you on that. Right now, I am more in tune with what I don't like.

[drkitten]

I just seen news clip that said that the D.C. school system is among the worst in the nation, even though they pay $13,000 per child, among the most in the nation.

Of course. Living conditions in DC, especially among the urban poor, are also among the worst in the nation. DC traditionally leads the United States in per capita murder rate -- and you expect that the schools will be top-notch?

The incoming school chancellor at once, mentioned that the teachers union was going to have to be taken on, and the mayor agreed.

Yup. That's part of the problem -- neither the mayor nor the school chancellor actually have the authority in DC to fix what's really wrong with the schools (since it's endemic to the larger DC environment), so in order to justify their jobs, they have to find something within their remit that they can "change" and do so publically so that the newspapers will quote them on it.

[Henners]

Ah, the clevery set trap!

No doubt if I answer yes, you will dredge up some single example and valiantly put paid to the eeevvvviiilll Tokie!

Our hero!

People make choices. If they choose to spend their money on lottery tickets, living them to dine on dog food, that is their choice.

What about this is unclear to you?

Tokie


Nothing. You have made your position abundantly clear, thank you.

[NobbyNobbs]

First, I don't have any babies, so your baby will just have to starve or you can give her up for adoption.

5 lbs potatoes : $1.29
gallon of milk: $3.99
2 Lvs bread: $1.00
1 lb jar p-nut butter: $1.29
Hot or cold cereal(generic): $2.99
2# burger: $2.78
1 # Macaroni: $1.19
1 hd. lettuce: $1.00
1# duplex cookies: $1.00
1 lb cheese: $3.49

Now, this is actually .02 over $20, but that's because I added in those cookies. Otherwise, you'd be well under $20 and could let your kids ride that little mechanical horse at the front of the store. For $30...you can eat like royalty...well, royalty in the Kalahari, but royalty nonetheless. This also does not take into account lunch for your kids as they are going to be fed for "free" at school if you have to live on $20 in foodstamps a week, anyway. Also, in the original experiment, the $20 was what a single adult with no kids who is for some reason getting foodstamps would get (in my area--Area 51). I don't know the formulas, but I would be very surprised if a married couple with 5 (count 'em!) kids wouldn't get something on the order of $200-250-worth of foodstamps every week.

Now if you REALLY want to live on $20/wk, you'll also have to try something that's a bit of a lost artform: you have to SHOP. Not just run down the aisles scooping things in. And use coupons, if at all possible. I typically save from $50-200 by using these, depending upon whether I am doing "big" or "little" grocery shopping.

If all the do-gooders in here really wanted to help "the poor," they'd teach them how to SHOP, not simply stuff their pockets with foodstamps.
Of course, if some of your weekly "necessities" are things like Camel Lights and a suitcase of Keystone Lite, or a handful of lottery tickets, you are out of luck with this plan.

It goes without saying you'll also have to give up crystal meth.

Tokie


I don't have cable. I don't smoke or drink. I don't buy lottery tickets (correction: my wife buys one each year on her birthday). I do use coupons, but only if it's for something I'd be buying anyway. I shop at the cheap stores, at bulk stores, and occasionally at outlets (only occasionally because they are far from me and it's not worth the gas to make a special trip).

Oh, and I don't do crystal meth.

That said, let's look at your $20 menu. I'd agree that the potatoes and the milk are about right. I'm wondering where you find 2 loaves of bread for $1. Peanut butter and cereal, no problem. 2 pounds of burgers? I don't think that will last a week, but we'll let it go. One pound of macaroni might last 2-3 days, if we're lucky. Same with one pound of cheese.

Nutrition-wise, this menu sucks. Only one source of protein (two, I suppose, if you count the peanut butter). The only fresh vegetables are a head of lettuce (mostly water) and potatoes. No dark greens, no orange veggies, no source of vitamin C. No fruit. No seafood. Not to mention the fact that eating this menu week in and week out is going to get very tiresome very quickly.

Not to mention you can't feed a family of four satisfatorily on that much food.

Some basic "necessities" that didn't make your list:

sugar
coffee or tea
condiments
lunch ingredients (we don't qualify for "free lunch", so we pack the kids their lunches.)
fresh fruit
porterhouse steaks (just kidding)

Now, you may think that something like "condiments" is a luxury, but just try having this conversation with your kids.

Junior: What's for dinner?
You: Macaroni and cheese.
Junior: But we had that last night. And the night before. And the
night before that.
You: Ah, but this time, we're having it with capellini.
Junior: That's it. I'm moving out.

Which, of course, would solve the problem.

[Tokenconservative]

I just seen news clip that said that the D.C. school system is among the worst in the nation, even though they pay $13,000 per child, among the most in the nation. The incoming school chancellor at once, mentioned that the teachers union was going to have to be taken on, and the mayor agreed. And even though she was once a teacher herself, she said that she needed the power to fire them to set the situation right. As things stood, the process to fire bad teachers, took more than a year. Since the teachers contract had run out there, she said, instead of a room full of lawyers, that she wanted to talk with the leader of the union "one on one", he declined. Why do they see the teachers union as part of the problem?

Clearly, the new chancellor is a...raaaccciiissstttttt!!!!!

Wow. I thought it was about $11k. So with an additional $2k, they are doing an even worse job...

But wait! A dozen "educators" in here, parroting the NEA line, have told us that "if only" schools had "enough" money, all problems would be solved....I'm so confused!

Where I live (about $7k/hd for high school) they have a thing they call the "dance of the lemons" where the district will simply shift a bad teacher around from school to school hoping that he or she will either get tired of this (not likely) and quit or they will be out by time (retirement). Firing a teacher, because the union will fight to retain even those found to have been grossly negligent and even criminal costs the district about $250,000.

Dollars, not pesos.

Until this union is gotten rid of, the schools will remain bad.

Tokie

[Tokenconservative]

I don't have cable. I don't smoke or drink. I don't buy lottery tickets (correction: my wife buys one each year on her birthday). I do use coupons, but only if it's for something I'd be buying anyway. I shop at the cheap stores, at bulk stores, and occasionally at outlets (only occasionally because they are far from me and it's not worth the gas to make a special trip).

Oh, and I don't do crystal meth.

That said, let's look at your $20 menu. I'd agree that the potatoes and the milk are about right. I'm wondering where you find 2 loaves of bread for $1. Peanut butter and cereal, no problem. 2 pounds of burgers? I don't think that will last a week, but we'll let it go. One pound of macaroni might last 2-3 days, if we're lucky. Same with one pound of cheese.

Nutrition-wise, this menu sucks. Only one source of protein (two, I suppose, if you count the peanut butter). The only fresh vegetables are a head of lettuce (mostly water) and potatoes. No dark greens, no orange veggies, no source of vitamin C. No fruit. No seafood. Not to mention the fact that eating this menu week in and week out is going to get very tiresome very quickly.

Not to mention you can't feed a family of four satisfatorily on that much food.

Some basic "necessities" that didn't make your list:

sugar
coffee or tea
condiments
lunch ingredients (we don't qualify for "free lunch", so we pack the kids their lunches.)
fresh fruit
porterhouse steaks (just kidding)

Now, you may think that something like "condiments" is a luxury, but just try having this conversation with your kids.

Junior: What's for dinner?
You: Macaroni and cheese.
Junior: But we had that last night. And the night before. And the
night before that.
You: Ah, but this time, we're having it with capellini.
Junior: That's it. I'm moving out.

Which, of course, would solve the problem.


LOL....last week I couln't spell capellini, now I is one!

You are right about the basic necessities. However, it's hard to factor these in simply because these tend to be "staples." The challenge was to present a reasonably "good" menu for a week on the $20.00.

Let's look at reality. I can get a 10# sack of flour (on sale around Xmastime) for about $2.00. Now, I do a fair amount of baking (yes...Tokie is a male, and yes, he does most of the cooking at his house) esp. around the holidays, but still, 10# will last me most of the year. I don't make my own bread...why bother when you can get it for, yes, $.50/loaf at the bakery outlet store. What? You thought Gucci invented outlet stores!?

So, flour, sugar, coffee, tea and most condiments fall into this category: they are things you buy maybe (MAYBE) once every 6-8 weeks. So of course I did not include 40# of Jamaican in my menu or a case of Grey Poupon to go with the brie in Junior's lunch. The same applies to "lunchmeats" (yuk). My oldest eats this thinsliced turkey-product for lunch (Buddig is a brand name--NEVER buy brand names--that you might be familiar with); will almost every day if I let her. I get 3 (count 'em!) sandwhiches per package. I pay $.50 for a package. I buy them by the gross (not really, but I will buy 20 at a time) and freeze them. Now, if Junior simply must have his brie and roast duckling sandwhiches for lunch...yeah....you gonna have some problems.

Also, as I mentioned, the actual $-amount of foodstamps your family would get would be more along about $100-$160/week where I live. So we could really go to town for that, given what I can do for $20, regardless of how desperately you'd like to prove me wrong.

Oh...and don't question my pricing. These are the prices for these products where I live (w/in a few cents either way). I am not only the chief cook and bottle washer here, but am also the company buyer. My wife shops like you do: runs down the aisle, both arms outstretched and simply sweeping the shelves into the buggy.

I don't allow her anywhere near a grocery store and haven't for years. My own shopping is just that: SHOPPING.

If you can't buy everything on my list (and yes, there's room for tweaking it to taste) for $20 in your area, then maybe you need to move. I did not say this would work at the Brentwood Vons, did I?

As for the "health" issues. I believe we were talking about starving in America. Again, however, we are discussing starting from scratch assuming a completly vacant cupboard, pantry and fridge. Of course, you would want to supplement thes basic staples with veggies and such as permitted, once your larder was better stocked over the coming weeks.

As to seafood: it's very expensive where I live, and I wouldn't normally recommend it here, anyway. If you live on/near one of the coasts, it's cheaper than beef and pork, and if you like it, add it. I once knew a guy who would buy octopus because it was "all meat, no bones." Yum.

If you were to follow my plan, by about week 6, by the way, you'd have enough in the pantry to permit you to buy a couple of steaks. Maybe not porterhouse, but then since I don't eat much meat, I really don't know what the cheaper cuts are called.

You should try meth, though.

Tokie

[NobbyNobbs]

Wow. I thought it was about $11k. So with an additional $2k, they are doing an even worse job...

But wait! A dozen "educators" in here, parroting the NEA line, have told us that "if only" schools had "enough" money, all problems would be solved....I'm so confused!



I doubt that any of the educators here (why do you put the word in quotes? Do you doubt our credentials?) are of the mindset that "throw enough money at the problem and it will go away".

Money is necessary. It isn't sufficient.

It needs to be accompanied by caring teachers, administrators who look past the bottom line, and parents who want to get involved in their kids' educations. Among other things.

[bruto]

Not if students have to still share them.


I'm thinking about a smaller, more lively version.


It should happen in more.


In high school students have about 7 classes a day, each repeating about the same thing to a new group of students. It appears to me that some of that can be done with video. Ask your questions to a real teacher at the end.

I have a feeling much of the problem we're facing now in education has to do with the urge to find smaller, livelier versions of everything.

True enough that if students have to share textbooks, that's a bad thing, but assuming that the textbooks themselves are adequate, then the answer is to provide more of those, rather than an alternative to them.

Video classrooms have been tried in some places, but I don't think they've been very successful. A good teacher is more than a talking head.

[NobbyNobbs]

I'm getting quite tired of the tone you are taking. I don't need to be talked down to. Some examples....


You are right about the basic necessities. However, it's hard to factor these in simply because these tend to be "staples." The challenge was to present a reasonably "good" menu for a week on the $20.00.

Ok, this wasn't an example, but I do need to say that what you presented isn't a "good" menu, for the reasons I outlined above. I have doubts that you read my post, for reasons I outline below.

Now, I do a fair amount of baking (yes...Tokie is a male, and yes, he does most of the cooking at his house) esp. around the holidays,

You say this like you expect me to be surprised and applaud you. I'm male, and I've been in the restaurant business for years, and I do much of the cooking at home, especially around the holidays. So bully for you.

I don't make my own bread...why bother when you can get it for, yes, $.50/loaf at the bakery outlet store. What? You thought Gucci invented outlet stores!?

Where did I imply that? We do visit the Stroehman outlet, but only occasionally, as it is quite a distance and not worth the gas money. So generally speaking, bread is not available for $.50 a loaf.

So of course I did not include 40# of Jamaican in my menu or a case of Grey Poupon to go with the brie in Junior's lunch. The same applies to "lunchmeats" (yuk).

More talking down to me. Who mentioned Grey Poupon or brie? When did I ever give the impression that I'm living high on the hog?

My oldest eats this thinsliced turkey-product for lunch (Buddig is a brand name--NEVER buy brand names--that you might be familiar with); will almost every day if I let her. I get 3 (count 'em!) sandwhiches per package. I pay $.50 for a package.

Fifty cent packages of "turkey product" simply aren't available where I live. And I won't let my children eat the same thing day in and day out...it's not healthy. They need a variety.

. Now, if Junior simply must have his brie and roast duckling sandwhiches for lunch...yeah....you gonna have some problems.

Again, with the high-class sarcasm. It's really getting annoying, you know.

Also, as I mentioned, the actual $-amount of foodstamps your family would get would be more along about $100-$160/week where I live. So we could really go to town for that, given what I can do for $20, regardless of how desperately you'd like to prove me wrong.

And what gives you the impression I collect food stamps? I don't. Never have.

Oh...and don't question my pricing. These are the prices for these products where I live (w/in a few cents either way). I am not only the chief cook and bottle washer here, but am also the company buyer. My wife shops like you do: runs down the aisle, both arms outstretched and simply sweeping the shelves into the buggy.

Again, you must not have read my post. You assume the method by which I shop, even after having been told otherwise. I use bulk stores. I use cheap stores. I use coupons and generic brands and store sales. Don't you dare presume to know what I do with my time. An apology is expected.

I don't allow her anywhere near a grocery store and haven't for years. My own shopping is just that: SHOPPING.

Again, bully for you.

If you can't buy everything on my list (and yes, there's room for tweaking it to taste) for $20 in your area, then maybe you need to move. I did not say this would work at the Brentwood Vons, did I?

I don't know where Brentwood Vons is, but I suspect you're making some swipe at the possibility that I live in Beverly Hills. And just what gave you that impression? Again, you presume too much. Way too much.




To sum up, despite your ability to buy cheaply, I find your attitude to be quite snobbish and condescending. If I had only your tone to go on, I'd be very surprised if you couldn't afford lobster tail every night.

Those who have seen me post here before know that I am not generally one for confrontations. But you sir, have really got my dander up. Congratulations. You found the buttons to push.


Edited: for multiple typos. When I wrote this, I was mad.

[Z]

OMFG, it's no WONDER T.C. can't put together a coherent argument - if THAT'S his weekly menu. No brain food whatsoever!

Now, someone ask the nitwit how to feed a family of four a PROPERLY BALANCED NUTRITIONAL MEAL on under $20. Or, alternatively, how he's going to fend off social services when they come after him for malnourishing his entire family.

Heck, it might be worth un-ignoring him just to see what silliness he has to say about that one.

[Tokenconservative]

I doubt that any of the educators here (why do you put the word in quotes? Do you doubt our credentials?) are of the mindset that "throw enough money at the problem and it will go away".

Money is necessary. It isn't sufficient.

It needs to be accompanied by caring teachers, administrators who look past the bottom line, and parents who want to get involved in their kids' educations. Among other things.

Good question. I put it in quotes because too few actually ARE educators.

We tend to pay more, per head, than most other Western nations, and FAR more than many other nations to "educate" our kids in our public schools. Yet, we consistently turn out students who simply cannot compete with these other kids. We are routinely bested in math and science, for example, not just by kids in Japan, or Russia, or China...but kids from 3rd world nations in Africa and Asia and S. America.

The money is very sufficient...overly so in most places in this country. It's the execution that is flawed. You are too busy making sure the kids "self esteem" is good and that you are teaching whatever environmental or "diversity" issue is en vogue (last year at my kids' school it was all Darfur all the time, this year its "save the trees!")to actually get any um...educating done.

This, you will blame on a host of things. The reality is, that it is easier to blather about Darfur in English class than to teach about dangling participles, or to blather about Global Warming in math than to tackle quadratics...and since the NEA has been running our schools, they've been dumbing them down steadily as a means of making the job easier on teachers.

Caring teachers is good. Competent teachers is a good thing, too.

T.K. (?)

[Tokenconservative]

OMFG, it's no WONDER T.C. can't put together a coherent argument - if THAT'S his weekly menu. No brain food whatsoever!

Now, someone ask the nitwit how to feed a family of four a PROPERLY BALANCED NUTRITIONAL MEAL on under $20. Or, alternatively, how he's going to fend off social services when they come after him for malnourishing his entire family.

Heck, it might be worth un-ignoring him just to see what silliness he has to say about that one.


Well, until my complaints are all wracked-up, it's gonna be pretty dull in here for anyone with me on ignore.

In any case...it's pretty clear that in most cases in here I am talking to people who are...well, let's just say (being kind) not terribly bright.

It's almost as if this guy, for example, believes that the menu I presented would be, once purchased the first week on your $20 of foodstamps, pressed into the next weeks' permanent record and that that, thereafter, for as long as you are on foodstamps is all you can buy.

This is the sort of rigid, non-creative, anti-intellectual thinking that has so crippled our schools.

TC

[Tokenconservative]

I'm getting quite tired of the tone you are taking. I don't need to be talked down to. Some examples....

Ok, this wasn't an example, but I do need to say that what you presented isn't a "good" menu, for the reasons I outlined above. I have doubts that you read my post, for reasons I outline below.

You say this like you expect me to be surprised and applaud you. I'm male, and I've been in the restaurant business for years, and I do much of the cooking at home, especially around the holidays. So bully for you.

Where did I imply that? We do visit the Stroehman outlet, but only occasionally, as it is quite a distance and not worth the gas money. So generally speaking, bread is not available for $.50 a loaf.

More talking down to me. Who mentioned Grey Poupon or brie? When did I ever give the impression that I'm living high on the hog?

Fifty cent packages of "turkey product" simply aren't available where I live. And I won't let my children eat the same thing day in and day out...it's not healthy. They need a variety.

Again, with the high-class sarcasm. It's really getting annoying, you know.

And what gives you the impression I collect food stamps? I don't. Never have.

Again, you must not have read my post. You assume the method by which I shop, even after having been told otherwise. I use bulk stores. I use cheap stores. I use coupons and generic brands and store sales. Don't you dare presume to know what I do with my time. An apology is expected.

Again, bully for you.

I don't know where Brentwood Vons is, but I suspect you're making some swipe at the possibility that I live in Beverly Hills. And just what gave you that impression? Again, you presume too much. Way too much.

To sum up, despite your ability to buy cheaply, I find your attitude to be quite snobbish and condescending. If I had only your tone to go on, I'd be very surprised if you couldn't afford lobster tail every night.

Those who have seen me post here before know that I am not generally one for confrontations. But you sir, have really got my dander up. Congratulations. You found the buttons to push.

Edited: for multiple typos. When I wrote this, I was mad.

Hmmm...not sure where you got the idea that was "talking down" to you. I was simply, if I recall, responding to something you said.

Actually, yours is one of the few posts I've read carefully and entirely (this will come back to haunt me, I am sure!). I agree that my menu is not at all the most healthful (that's the actual term, by the way) in the world, but it would do in a pinch to keep you and your'n from starving would it not? Anyway, the challenge was not to produce a menu Richard Simmons would swoon over, but one that would keep a family of 4 alive for a week.

I did that. By the way: where you live, the weekly alotment of foodstamp $$ would be adjusted to reflect local conditions; mine is based on where _I_ live and $20 is what a single person, no kids, would get right now.

No...I say this to avoid confusion. Many in here are sexist and love their stereotypes and no doubt hold dear their view of TC as this Neanderthal grunting in front of his stone TV while Wilma slaves in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant.

I have no idea what a "Stroehman" is. Here, I get bread for $.50/lf. It's day-old (as they say). I get it from the bakery outlet store. There are maybe a dozen of these that I know of in the metro area in which I live.

Well...you must have young children. Mine are teens, and I pack for lunch what they will eat. I try to break up the monotony. You'll figure this out as your children grow up. I learned, for example...that for some time they were simply throwing away the apples I lovingly packed for them every other day or so. Now, they like apples, but then...they just threw them out (just like your kids are doing).

Well, while I appreciate being called "high class" I can assure you I'm not.

I never said you collect foodstamps. I wish _I_ could, and have tried on various occasions, only to be told I make too much money. I don't make enough to hide the fact that I make this much, but I make too much to get anything back for all the taxes I pay in.

It sucks.

If you cannot see that you can feed your family on the $20(adjusted for your area) in foodstamps, then I can only assume that you are...inexpert in your shopping techniques, and I calls 'em like I sees 'em. That may simply be because you are decades younger than I, by the way (I am again, presuming).

Actually, I don't like lobster. I can't see paying that much to eat big bugs that populate the ocean floors like cockroaches. Or crab. I like a good piece of grilled tuna or salmon or trout or catfish, too, however. Used to love swordfish, but you really can't get endangered fish anymore unless you are say, Al Gore, and it's your daughter's wedding reception. And it's not a matter of "buy(ing) cheaply" but rather one of buying SMARTLY.

You do seem a bit dandery.

TC

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

I have a feeling much of the problem we're facing now in education has to do with the urge to find smaller, livelier versions of everything.
It seems to me that the school system is tasked with taking individual students, and giving them a somewhat basic/standard knowledge base. They can have more of anything, but they should have a minimum amount. The basic model should look something like an army chow line. Instead, each system operates like a restaurant, with some being better than others. Problem is, why should some eat better than others when the state is providing for all?


Video classrooms have been tried in some places, but I don't think they've been very successful. A good teacher is more than a talking head.So it was tried and rejected? No further look required? Even while the students have access to, and are very much into video?

[bruto]

It seems to me that the school system is tasked with taking individual students, and giving them a somewhat basic/standard knowledge base. They can have more of anything, but they should have a minimum amount. The basic model should look something like an army chow line. Instead, each system operates like a restaurant, with some being better than others. Problem is, why should some eat better than others when the state is providing for all? You've touched on a very difficult and troublesome subject here, which I think could be debated until the cows come home, but you need first of all to make sure you understand where education funding, at least for elementary and high school, comes from. A significant percentage in most places in the U.S. comes, not from "the state," but from property taxes at the local level. It's a very thorny subject, and gets into a number of very contentious issues, including the question of who should be responsible for funding education, whether education should be based on regressive taxation, and whether the discrepancy between poorer and richer districts should be not only lessened but eliminated at the expense of the richer ones. A few years ago, a group of parents from one of the poorer towns in Vermont sued the state on this issue, and the supreme court decreed that the constitution calls not simply for minimum standards of education but equality. The result has been a difficult and convoluted tax scheme, whereby the so-called "gold towns" (the ones with high tax bases, largely owing to tourism, in which there is a great deal of expensive property, but less per capita load on the education system, since so many taxpayers are non-resident) are required to pool tax revenues above a certain amount and contribute them to a state fund to make up the difference between their school budgets and those of towns which cannot afford as much. In addition, second homes are taxed at a different, higher rate. What this effectively does, in addition to raising money for the poorer towns, is to make it impossible, or very very difficult, for gold towns to "overfund" education even if they are entirely willing to pay the excess tax out of their own pockets. The scheme is almost universally unpopular, and yet nobody has come up with anything better, and I doubt they ever will as long as education is funded by property taxes. This in itself is a difficult question because the alternative of some kind of uniform state-wide funding flies in the face of local control over schools and their budgets, something few if any towns are willing to forsake. I'm not ready (or, for that matter, sufficiently informed on the details) to debate the philosophical end of this, except to say that leveling can be problematic when you chop the peaks off to fill the valleys.


So it was tried and rejected? No further look required? Even while the students have access to, and are very much into video?Education is not monolithic, and I imagine that if schools or school boards believe such a scheme to be useful, at least some would be implementing it.
I don't know what has been tried and rejected everywhere, but I do recall that back some years ago, there was a lot of brouhaha over electronic classrooms, and the idea that teachers could be replaced by TV monitors, computer terminals, and the like. The idea has been around for a very long time. Why hasn't it taken root? I'm just guessing here, but I have a feeling that if you researched it, you'd find that it just hasn't worked very well.

I was going to put in a snarky comment here, but it looked too much like an ad hominem, so I'll just say that you might look around you at what is out there on the internet, and even what appears here in these forums, and consider that even people with computers, access to the vast resources of the web, and plenty of time, do not always show signs that it has educated, enlightened or enlarged them.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

I doubt they ever will as long as education is funded by property taxes.
That's it.

This in itself is a difficult question because the alternative of some kind of uniform state-wide funding flies in the face of local control over schools and their budgets, something few if any towns are willing to forsake.
Making it all about money, ranking above anything else is said.
But the good news is this is a very rich country. It has the money, it just does not manager it well... in some areas.

I'm not ready (or, for that matter, sufficiently informed on the details) to debate the philosophical end of this, except to say that leveling can be problematic when you chop the peaks off to fill the valleys.
Isn't that what the federal government is all about? It directs (or mandates that the states direct) the money, and direction in which it is spent.

Education is not monolithic, and I imagine that if schools or school boards believe such a scheme to be useful, at least some would be implementing it.
I don't know what has been tried and rejected everywhere, but I do recall that back some years ago, there was a lot of brouhaha over electronic classrooms, and the idea that teachers could be replaced by TV monitors, computer terminals, and the like. The idea has been around for a very long time. Why hasn't it taken root? I'm just guessing here, but I have a feeling that if you researched it, you'd find that it just hasn't worked very well.
I guessing that it wasn't worked enough.

I was going to put in a snarky comment here, but it looked too much like an ad hominem, so I'll just say that you might look around you at what is out there on the internet, and even what appears here in these forums, and consider that even people with computers, access to the vast resources of the web, and plenty of time, do not always show signs that it has educated, enlightened or enlarged them.
Not always, and not everybody, but enough. Sometimes these things are hard to see.
Hey! You sure that wasn't snarky?

[bruto]

That's it. Indeed, but that can has many worms in it.

Making it all about money, ranking above anything else is said.
But the good news is this is a very rich country. It has the money, it just does not manager it well... in some areas.Some? Well, anyway, you have a point, but much of it really does come down to money, or more particularly, the choice of what it is spent on and how. Even though quality of education is not entirely a matter of how much money you spend, it is the person with the purse who makes many of the decisions, and local districts are not happy to give that up, for reasons both good and bad. This is not just a can of worms, but of snakes.

Isn't that what the federal government is all about? It directs (or mandates that the states direct) the money, and direction in which it is spent.Not entirely. Federal and state governments set many standards and requirements, but leave implementation up to the local authorities, and, more problematic, they leave much of the funding up to the localities as well. There is state aid, but it covers only some of the costs. The buzz word here is "unfunded mandates," and it's one of the reasons that there is such a mess in the area of school funding. The state tells local schools "you must provide such and such a program or facility," but does not provide any way to fund it other than raising property taxes. And of course, at the moment, the Federal government is about a few other things which seem to be consuming a very large percentage of our revenues. A few days' worth of the Iraq war would put a lot of textbooks or computers or both into poor schools, but that's a whole 'nother story, isn't it?

I guessing that it wasn't worked enough. Perhaps not enough, or perhaps not creatively/intelligently enough. Who knows? Many good sounding ideas in education are hard to implement, and it's not always easy to figure out whether it's the idea that went wrong or just that it was undertaken by people not up to the task.

Not always, and not everybody, but enough. Sometimes these things are hard to see.
Hey! You sure that wasn't snarky? OK, maybe a little.

[drkitten]

A dozen "educators" in here, parroting the NEA line, have told us that "if only" schools had "enough" money, all problems would be solved....I'm so confused!

You're clearly confused. One of the indicators is that you're making stuff up.

A) I don't think there are a dozen educators in this thread -- if you think there are, name them. (Hint: a dozen is twelve).

B) No one has suggested that the only problem is lack of money for schools. In fact, I pointed out exactly the opposite w.r.t. the DC schools; the main problem is the living environment in which the chidren find themeselves, and you'd do much more for DC school performance by cutting the murder rate in the district by 90%. Unfortunately, that's not something that the schools can do, and in the absence of any effective crime-fighting methods, it will naturally cost the schools a lot of money even to mitigate the damage living conditions have done.

C) Oddly enough, the NEA's line isn't that the only problem is lack of money for schools, either. (So once again, you're erecting a straw man.) Here's a partial list (http://www.nea.org/achievement/strategies.html) of some of the things the NEA identifies as action items and needs for improving school performance (specifically for closing the achievement gap).


Make closing gaps a schoolwide responsibility
Set high expectations and provide rigorous, deep curricula
Focus on academics
Provide safe, orderly learning environments for students and educators
Use test data and other research on students' performance to inform instruction
Identify strategies and programs to increase achievement
Develop effective schoolwide leadership teams
Provide ongoing professional development for school-based leaders on effective strategies for closing the achievement gaps

How many of those look like ""if only" schools had "enough" money, all problems would be solved."



Until this union is gotten rid of, the schools will remain bad.

Oddly enough, that is probably true. Because the Big Bad NEA makes such a wonderful bogeymen, it keeps conservatives from thinking clearly about the real problem that are facing American public schools. If the NEA were to suddenly disappear, the immediately effect would be that school performance would plummet like a paralyzed falcon, but "thinkers" like Tokenconservative would find themselves with no one to blame for the mess they had created but themselves.

In an ideal universe, this would produe self-reflection and self-realization, followed by a period of rebuilding schools. But I fear that such "thinkers" would prefer instead simply to blame the ghost of the departed NEA for the mess, in the same way that somehow it's all Clinton's fault that the balanced budget of 2000 has turned into record deficits under Bush.

[Tokenconservative]

You're clearly confused. One of the indicators is that you're making stuff up.

A) I don't think there are a dozen educators in this thread -- if you think there are, name them. (Hint: a dozen is twelve).

B) No one has suggested that the only problem is lack of money for schools. In fact, I pointed out exactly the opposite w.r.t. the DC schools; the main problem is the living environment in which the chidren find themeselves, and you'd do much more for DC school performance by cutting the murder rate in the district by 90%. Unfortunately, that's not something that the schools can do, and in the absence of any effective crime-fighting methods, it will naturally cost the schools a lot of money even to mitigate the damage living conditions have done.

C) Oddly enough, the NEA's line isn't that the only problem is lack of money for schools, either. (So once again, you're erecting a straw man.) Here's a partial list (http://www.nea.org/achievement/strategies.html) of some of the things the NEA identifies as action items and needs for improving school performance (specifically for closing the achievement gap).


Make closing gaps a schoolwide responsibility
Set high expectations and provide rigorous, deep curricula
Focus on academics
Provide safe, orderly learning environments for students and educators
Use test data and other research on students' performance to inform instruction
Identify strategies and programs to increase achievement
Develop effective schoolwide leadership teams
Provide ongoing professional development for school-based leaders on effective strategies for closing the achievement gaps

How many of those look like ""if only" schools had "enough" money, all problems would be solved."


Oddly enough, that is probably true. Because the Big Bad NEA makes such a wonderful bogeymen, it keeps conservatives from thinking clearly about the real problem that are facing American public schools. If the NEA were to suddenly disappear, the immediately effect would be that school performance would plummet like a paralyzed falcon, but "thinkers" like Tokenconservative would find themselves with no one to blame for the mess they had created but themselves.

In an ideal universe, this would produe self-reflection and self-realization, followed by a period of rebuilding schools. But I fear that such "thinkers" would prefer instead simply to blame the ghost of the departed NEA for the mess, in the same way that somehow it's all Clinton's fault that the balanced budget of 2000 has turned into record deficits under Bush.

"Dr" Kitten:

A. Outside the halls of academe, when someone says "a dozen," it's not always a specific count any more than it is when someone says "a few" or "several." When one (American culture) says "a dozen" in this context, what it typically means is an unspecified number somewhere between "a few" and "many."

B. Well, one of the traditional jobs of the schools was to make the little savages they are handed into productive members of society. A high murder rate suggests that the DC schools are...remiss in that mission. At least as larger, American culture views murder and its impact on American society. I realize a "diverse" society might view it differently.

C. I may have overstated when I said "only" the lack of money. And please don't hand us the NEA official line and then shriek "see!!?? SEEEEE!!!???" That's like saying...but Bill Clinton SAID he din't have sex with that woman! What more do you need!?

I like to look at what political bodies like the NEA DO rather than what they SAY.

Of that hopeful laundry list, I'd say the only one they've even come close to is the last one, which--let's be honest--has nothing to do with the SCHOOLS and so is very easy to implement. And, all of these SAVE this last on require public funds.

So....um, while none of them have..."as long as we can soak the taxpayers for the funds!" apended, they might just as well.

You folks in here really like that "stunned" falcon image...paralyzed falcon...not the same ring.

Anyway, um...before the NEA had so much power (or existed) pre-1965 era, the schools SEEMED to do a pretty good job.

AFTER the NEA gained it's power, the schools seemed to "plummet like a paralyzed falcon." I guess I'm not following your reasoning here, based on this history.

Let me see if I follow you:
BEFORE the NEA the schools worked very well.
AFTER the NEA (gained so much power) the schools became, demonstrably, failures.
Therfore (your argument), if the NEA went away, the schools would degenerate even more.

You don't tell us HOW or WHY that would happen.

Followed by a visit to Madam "Dr" Kitten's crystal ball.

Tokie

[Tokenconservative]

It seems to me that the school system is tasked with taking individual students, and giving them a somewhat basic/standard knowledge base. They can have more of anything, but they should have a minimum amount. The basic model should look something like an army chow line. Instead, each system operates like a restaurant, with some being better than others. Problem is, why should some eat better than others when the state is providing for all?


So it was tried and rejected? No further look required? Even while the students have access to, and are very much into video?

Very good points and a very good analogy.

However, this is how the original "community" school system was set up. We now know it is flawed, but fixing that is probably not going to happen; to many competing political interests.

Video/online teaching works just fine for many students. There is no reason a combination of same could not work in a public school save the general pandemonium that is permitted to reign in public schools (lack of discipline) and the fact that the NEA would fight this tooth and nail because it would mean a need for fewer teachers (dues-paying members).

Tokie

[drkitten]

I like to look at what political bodies like the NEA DO rather than what they SAY.

So in TokedUpConservative's drug-induced hallucinations, "lines" are something you DO instead of something you SAY.

Says a lot, doesn't it?

[Tokenconservative]

So in TokedUpConservative's drug-induced hallucinations, "lines" are something you DO instead of something you SAY.

Says a lot, doesn't it?

Yeah...um....sure, "Dr." Kitten.

Tokie

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

B) No one has suggested that the only problem is lack of money for schools. In fact, I pointed out exactly the opposite w.r.t. the DC schools; the main problem is the living environment in which the chidren find themeselves, and you'd do much more for DC school performance by cutting the murder rate in the district by 90%. Unfortunately, that's not something that the schools can do, and in the absence of any effective crime-fighting methods, it will naturally cost the schools a lot of money even to mitigate the damage living conditions have done.
The murder rate has nothing to do with textbooks, computers, teaching methods, the safety of teachers, or the mental state of the students-for the most part. Its does however have a big affect on parents. Poor, and/or ducking/worried parents, may be missing from the home part of the learning experience.



C) Oddly enough, the NEA's line isn't that the only problem is lack of money for schools, either. (So once again, you're erecting a straw man.) Here's a partial list (http://www.nea.org/achievement/strategies.html) of some of the things the NEA identifies as action items and needs for improving school performance (specifically for closing the achievement gap).

Make closing gaps a schoolwide responsibility
Set high expectations and provide rigorous, deep curricula
Focus on academics
Provide safe, orderly learning environments for students and educators
Use test data and other research on students' performance to inform instruction
Identify strategies and programs to increase achievement
Develop effective schoolwide leadership teams
Provide ongoing professional development for school-based leaders on effective strategies for closing the achievement gapsThat list has to be "partical". Nowhere, in all its 3 page, is technology mentioned.



Oddly enough, that is probably true. Because the Big Bad NEA makes such a wonderful bogeymen, it keeps conservatives from thinking clearly about the real problem that are facing American public schools. If the NEA were to suddenly disappear, the immediately effect would be that school performance would plummet like a paralyzed falcon, but "thinkers" like Tokenconservative would find themselves with no one to blame for the mess they had created but themselves.
If bad neighborhoods impede parents from properly supporting their children, then we may be seeing what happens when they disappear and not fully understand what its means. Though, I have to admit, most of the things on the "partical list", recommends supporting parents. Only... sometimes it could look like blaming them.

[Tokenconservative]

The murder rate has nothing to do with textbooks, computers, teaching methods, the safety of teachers, or the mental state of the students-for the most part. Its does however have a big affect on parents. Poor, and/or ducking/worried parents, may be missing from the home part of the learning experience.

That list has to be "partical". Nowhere, in all its 3 page, is technology mentioned.

If bad neighborhoods impede parents from properly supporting their children, then we may be seeing what happens when they disappear and not fully understand what its means. Though, I have to admit, most of the things on the "partical list", recommends supporting parents. Only... sometimes it could look like blaming them.

LOL..he said "partical...." heh heh, heh heh....

Some good points. And in most cases, when you bring in the NEA, they bring with them their smoke and mirrors and play this game of sleight-of-hand: don't pay any attention to what they are doing, pay attention to what they SAY they are GOING to do!

Take the deeper more academic curriculum "recommeded" by the NEA. Big whoop. I can recommend growing back the thick, luxuriant locks of my youth, but until it happens, it's all talk.

The schools will happily show you some rather impressive goals and the curricula to go with them...the practical reality is they never (intend to) reach these goals in the classroom and they only just scratch the surface of the curricula.

That's when the other thing you notice kicks in, and they start casting about for "someone else" to blame. They trot out the local murder rate, for example "Oh, look how tuuurrrible things are in this neighborhood, why it's no wonder we can't "reach" children coming from such a place!"

Of course, the parents are always there to be scapegoated, too, even though the schools have made it very clear they do not want any parental interference (and especially any parents taking notice of the lack of teaching).

Smoke and mirrors. When the schools, in the deathgrip of the NEA show some improvement in the product they churn out, then someone might be able to look on the average teacher with something approaching respect.

Tokie

[GreNME]

Why are any of you actually feeding this 'tokenconservative' troll? His statements don't reflect a realistic conservative or liberal thinking at all, and are obviously contrived specifically to piss other posters off.

So it was tried and rejected? No further look required? Even while the students have access to, and are very much into video?

Using video as a pedagogical tactic has been tested several times, and in many variations. It just doesn't produce the results an actual interactive classroom does. This is one of the reasons you hear "smaller classrooms" being touted as a value for some schools, because the more students a teacher can directly engage and challenge on an individual basis, the more children get an education tailored to their learning styles. Televisions shut the brain off in more cases than not. Why hasn't seven pages of people posting this to you sunk in yet? Why do you keep asking the same questions without considering any of the answers supplied to you?

Are you seriously concerned about educational improvements, or are you just searching for a revolution? Change for its own sake does not logically lead to improvement, so what other ideas do you have besides sticking a screen in front of children-- something that has proven detrimental to child development-- to improve education?

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

Using video as a pedagogical tactic has been tested several times, and in many variations.
I'm going to have to see the studies done on it.


It just doesn't produce the results an actual interactive classroom does.
Of course not. So is that it? Did they say: "if it can't do it all, don't use it"?


This is one of the reasons you hear "smaller classrooms" being touted as a value for some schools, because the more students a teacher can directly engage and challenge on an individual basis, the more children get an education tailored to their learning styles.
Teachers can't follow students home. Then again, as a video, they can. The NEA are talking about training parents in teaching skills, why not send the lessons home to them as a video? They could reach more parents that way.

Televisions shut the brain off in more cases than not.
A boring video can put anyone to sleep. Advertising sure know how to keep them awake, and get their message across.

Why hasn't seven pages of people posting this to you sunk in yet? Why do you keep asking the same questions without considering any of the answers supplied to you?
I have considered what has been said to me, I disagree. I see video working in too many other places for that. Are you telling me that a history video (tuned to what is being taught) won't help prepare somebody for a history class?

Are you seriously concerned about educational improvements, or are you just searching for a revolution?
Why not both?

Change for its own sake does not logically lead to improvement, so what other ideas do you have besides sticking a screen in front of children-- something that has proven detrimental to child development-- to improve education?
I said nothing about sticking anyone in front of a screen. How about providing the school an additional source of income, through them owning supermarkets? I think that something like that can start a revolution, while aiding the school.
Say a nonprofit gives a school a store, but runs it for them. It would be like a "live classroom" for the school, where the profits go to certain agreed upon things-only. I'm thinking that if parents can support their children by doing something as natural as shopping, that they would do it. From there, all types of things can be had.

[bruto]

I'm going to have to see the studies done on it.Well, now is the time to prove the awesome power of the internet and all that technology, and see if you can find them yourself.

Of course not. So is that it? Did they say: "if it can't do it all, don't use it"? You're assuming that none of these things are used at all, which I think is mistaken. Schools are using computers and video - just not relying on them as a mainstay.


Teachers can't follow students home. Then again, as a video, they can. The NEA are talking about training parents in teaching skills, why not send the lessons home to them as a video? They could reach more parents that way. You are making a big assumption that these students will have the time, facilities, and support to utilize these videos, and that viewing videos would be a preferable option to homework. The last point might be true, but who will ensure that the students get the dibs on the home video during prime time once they get home? And what format will be used? Who is going to pay for all the tapes and disks?

A boring video can put anyone to sleep. Advertising sure know how to keep them awake, and get their message across.That's true, but I'm not sure that everything in education can be sweetened into a kiddie show and still provide the lessons we expect kids to learn. Do we really want to reinfoce the tendency of children to be advertising-driven video zombies?

I have considered what has been said to me, I disagree. I see video working in too many other places for that. Are you telling me that a history video (tuned to what is being taught) won't help prepare somebody for a history class?

Why not both?I believe that if you went into many schools you'd find that this is indeed done quite a bit, especially in the area of history, where a good deal of interesting material exists already. When my kids were in school, they certainly did get a reasonable dose of historical movies and videos as part of the curriculum. But it wasn't the whole thing (fortunately!)

I said nothing about sticking anyone in front of a screen. How about providing the school an additional source of income, through them owning supermarkets? I think that something like that can start a revolution, while aiding the school.
Say a nonprofit gives a school a store, but runs it for them. It would be like a "live classroom" for the school, where the profits go to certain agreed upon things-only. I'm thinking that if parents can support their children by doing something as natural as shopping, that they would do it. From there, all types of things can be had.That's an interesting idea, and one that I think a few private schools have managed to get into, but it requires considerable capital outlay and an assurance of honest and consistent long term management to go beyond a certain level. I don't know what the legal mechanism would be for providing such a source of income for a public school. Of course, you'd have to find someone to fund the establishment of the store, or whatever, first, as well as providing the long term management. There have been some moves toward private funding of public education here in Vermont, as an end run around the convoluted tax laws I referred to earlier, but the recipients have not been the neediest. It's an interesting idea, though.

[drkitten]

The murder rate has nothing to do with textbooks, computers, teaching methods, the safety of teachers, or the mental state of the students-for the most part. Its does however have a big affect on parents. Poor, and/or ducking/worried parents, may be missing from the home part of the learning experience.


And all the computers in the world won't improve the murder rate, which is probably the single most helpful thing you could do for the DC schools.




That list has to be "partical". Nowhere, in all its 3 page, is technology mentioned.

Well, that's good. Unlike you, the NEA apparently understand that technology is a tool, one that must be deployed appropriately and to a purpose. For example, "use test data and other research on students' performance to inform instruction" is implicitly technology, to the extent that technology will enhance the ability to test and to perform "other research." Similarly "identify strategies and programs to increase achievement" is implicitly technological when those technological applications increase achievement..

But "technology" has little place in a statement of goals -- technology is not a goal in and of itself.

As a simple analogy, I've got the complete plans for a house lying around here somewhere. Nowhere in the entire document set do the words "hammer" or "nail gun" appear! Goodness gracious, that must obviously mean that the carpenters have no idea about the appropriate use of hammers and nail guns and we must immediately start a crash program to increase the number of nail guns at the local carpentry shop!

Or, more sensibly, it means that the architect doesn't feel the need to specify how the nails (which are specified) are to be driven, figuring that the carpenters are professionals and won't be trying to push them into the boards with their lunchboxes. He also recognizes that there's no real advantage to be gained by specifying exactly what sort of equipment will be used, since the goal is not to use hammers, but to construct a house.

Schools are there to educate children. To the extent that technology enhances education, it should be used -- but there's nothing special about "technology" in that sentence. To the extent that music enhances education, that nutrition enhances education, that physical exercise enhances education, that unstructured play time enhances education, and that small furry mammals that die in cages in the middle of the term and need to be replaced by the teacher in the dead of night enhance education -- these shoudl all be used.

And to the extent that small furry mammals detract from education, they should not be. And your technological proposals have so far universally been the type that have been demonstrated in educational research to detract from education.

[drkitten]

I said nothing about sticking anyone in front of a screen. How about providing the school an additional source of income, through them owning supermarkets?

Been tried (although more often at the college level). Dedicated income streams have been around for a long time. The lottery game can be a good example of that.

The effect is simply that the government then thinks it can get away with lowering appropriations from the general fund; the net effect on funding ends up being negligible. The only way that it could be made to work (reliably) is by using something so profitable that the total income from the dediicated stream exceeded the total budget of the school, so that the government couldn't cut their contribution below zero. Or, of course, to vote in legislators who were interested in supporting school funding.

Do the math. A "typical" high school of 1000 students costs something like $10,000 per student per year, for a total of $10,000,000 per year. Normally that's a direct appropriation from the relevant local tax base or state agency. If I managed to find a revenue stream of $2,000,000 per year, what local politician woudn't jump on the opportunity to cut property taxes by twenty percent by reducing the appropriation to $8,000,000? (Remember, these are the same local pols that refuse to appropriate enough funds to buy the textbooks that you've been complaining about for a dozen pages.)

So I'd need to find a business that will generate at least $10,000,000 per year in profit. You're going to see that out of a supermarket? Let's see, if 1000 families spend $10,000 per year in groceries, that's a hundred million dollars gross revent. Average profit margins for a supermarket run about 1%, so that's a cool million in profit per year. That's a very profitable grocery store. You need to find (and support) ten of those stores for the one high school we're discussing.

[GreNME]

I'm going to have to see the studies done on it.


Evaluation in practice: identifying factors for improving transfer of training in technical domains (Barnard, & Rooij, J.C.G.M van - 2001). You can read the whole thing for a more full understanding, or just start around page 269 or 270 for the direct references.
.
Transfer of training: Action-packed strategies to ensure high payoff from training investments. (Broad, M.L., & Newstrom, J.W. - 1992)
.
Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, ed. 14, p. 237 (J. Ives, W. Straub and G. Shelley - 2002).


These are just recent ones.

Most studies I have ever seen cover this topic make it a point to never try to argue that video can provide sufficient learning. It has been long established that video learning does not provide the learner with the bases for utilizing the materials taught in the videos in a practical manner outside of the settings portrayed in the video. While someone could theoretically claim that as many scenarios as possible could be taught to make up for this deficiency, the logistical improbability of it-- especially when regarding the many permutations in the harder sciences-- leads pretty much every bit of research out there to conclude that while (interactive, not static) video can serve some purpose as a support role in education, a trained educator with the flexibility to adjust the lesson messages directly in response to the students is the optimal scenario. In other words: human teachers trump other methods.


It just doesn't produce the results an actual interactive classroom does.
Of course not. So is that it? Did they say: "if it can't do it all, don't use it"?

You're being deliberately obtuse. People have already explained to you the hurdles in cost to get interactive learning materials into schools. Many schools have such resources, but only in small quantities because they are not as cheap as you have been unrealistically suggesting. While you can assume you are accusing those of you who already have expressed that what you've suggested so far is not viable, the reality is that you have not even examined in enough depth the costs of what your "solutions" would be. You are unwilling to accept that your ideas may be flawed due to a lack of understanding of certain logistics to which you have never been subject to in any memorable manner. While I didn't see it come up in any sizeable argument against you, you don't even see the ridiculous nature of claims that $200 per computer is going to be the cost for educational facilities, let alone the production overhead for creating interactive video and updating, editing, and distributing such video even on a yearly basis.

You very well may be under the impression that people are making polar and unreasonable arguments, but what you refuse to accept is that perhaps you began this whole topic with very polar and unreasonable expectations.


Teachers can't follow students home.

I don't know how else I can express this: That's what parents are for.


Then again, as a video, they can. The NEA are talking about training parents in teaching skills, why not send the lessons home to them as a video? They could reach more parents that way.

Because the NEA is not in the business of teaching parents how to be parents. The realm of the NEA does not (and should not) delve into the realm of parenting. The single largest problem with the education system today is that too many children are coming into the school systems with an implicit expectation from parents that these children will be cared for in a parenting fashion. Schools are not parental day-care centers, they are educational facilities.

And once again you're totally ignoring the logistics. Who produces these hypothetical instructional videos? Who handles the distribution? Where are the funds to handle the costs that would be associated with creating and disseminating such a thing? Will it be federally-run or state-run? Since bookstores, the internet, or even video stores are consistent enough in presence throughout the entire country, what is the distribution model? If the videos are in DVD format, do they come with free DVD players? Taking a step back: who handles the standardization of the materials and program formatting? Who determines the curricula, and who handles the approval process?


A boring video can put anyone to sleep. Advertising sure know how to keep them awake, and get their message across.

I am trying to figure out if you are saying that as a joke or if you really are a fool. Advertising works best when it appeals to emotion and bypasses the viewer's critical analysis. A consumer who stops to think about a purchase is less of a 'sure thing' than one who simply "wants" the product. Advertising jerks the viewer out of any intellectual engagement that they had with the core program. This is evident in the huge popularity of DVR technology today.


I have considered what has been said to me, I disagree. I see video working in too many other places for that. Are you telling me that a history video (tuned to what is being taught) won't help prepare somebody for a history class?

I am absolutely saying that. Videos to not prepare a viewer to be able to handle information that does not fall within what is covered in the video. History is not a linear progression of names, dates, and occurrences. A video can only cover a few paths at any given time, and would either have to gloss over many things (which history videos do) or skip things outright (which some do) in order to fit the "history" into a video format. With history, videos are no better than just textbooks-- which are also not sufficient for learning history, because there needs to be an expert present-- at actually teaching students about the subjects. There is simply too much going on in terms of progressive, contextual, and semantical data for any video or book to be able to accurately and adequatley convey any period in history in a way that is most absorbable by the largest number of students.


Why not both?

Because we're long past the 1960's, and 'revolution' is passe. Furthermore, I honestly have not seen any indication that you have any desire at all to actually perform any of the necessary research and study into the subject of effective pedagogy or the political and logistical necessities for changing the educational systems on a federal and state level across the board. I honestly believe, with no intent to actually insult you, that you have come to a conclusion and are working out supporting arguments after the fact, while at the same time expecting every argument against your conclusion to supply you with as full of information as possible, right into your outstretched hands. Maybe you are not as intellectually lazy as your words seem to be implying, since it is entirely possible that your skills to effectively convey your conclusions in a cogent and detailed manner are not sufficient for this subject matter. Perhaps this is a subject you are rather new to, feel strongly about, and want something definite and lasting to happen in a real way.

None of that is any reason at all to hold you at fault. I think you mean well, but are very under-informed about the subject and expect everyone who disagrees with you to educate you otherwise. That is, in my opinion, "why not."


I said nothing about sticking anyone in front of a screen. How about providing the school an additional source of income, through them owning supermarkets? I think that something like that can start a revolution, while aiding the school.

Who handles hiring policy? Who handles the costs associated with shipping, stock management, advertising, insurance, and FDA compliance? Who pays for all these costs from the administrative overhead? Interestingly, this would also place on the school an added burden of making sure to meet annual regulatory audits for accounting, safety in the workplace, facility standards (for the FDA and local commissions), and more while also trying to operate a school. As you propose it, this would all be managed by a the state and local board of education-- effectively increasing their management overhead, more than doubling the administrative overhead, significantly increasing the logistical and regulatory overhead, at the very least, all for the assumed profit that a supermarket makes.

In case you're missing the point: what you propose significantly increases the size of the government footprint in terms of administrative and managerial staff, significantly increases the number of associated costs, yet provides no concrete guarantee that it will turn a significant enough profit to warrant such an increase.


Say a nonprofit gives a school a store, but runs it for them. It would be like a "live classroom" for the school, where the profits go to certain agreed upon things-only. I'm thinking that if parents can support their children by doing something as natural as shopping, that they would do it. From there, all types of things can be had.

I don't think you understand antitrust laws, among other things, which would apply to government entities as much as they apply to private entities. A nonprofit cannot do such a thing because it is against the regulations for qualifying as a nonprofit. A commercial group can't do it because it creates a conflict of interest for both the company and the local government that are subject to prosecution.

I really want to think you mean well, and are not just trolling. However, you have repeatedly outright refused to acknowledge the underlying costs and overhead for these "alternatives" you are proposing, and completely ignore any and all explanation that your basic premise might be flawed and that you need to perform more research. To be perfectly honest with you, I would agree that the current education system is not optimally efficient, and way too many kids fall through the cracks. There are loads of people who agree with that basic idea, many of them long-time educators and people who have been part of the educational system in offices or in front of classrooms or both. This is not a new issue for the vast majority of people working in or with the educational system in the US, both federally and on a state-&-local level. This subject comes up all the time in conferences and conventions. If someone wanted to pick a truly hot issue that always seems to have a lot of attention and always has relevance, this one is definitely it.

However, you have so far proposed impractical 'solutions' and refuse to accept answers for why they are impractical. You refuse to accept people who are saying the same things that experts who have spent a good portion of their professional careers studying possibilities for bettering education have said. You demand details, citations, and proofs for anything that disagrees with you, but have yet to provide a single ounce of research, peer-reviewed publication, hard data, or even relevant articles or periodical publications on the subject that you have brought up and are condemning outright. You are demanding the onus of proof fall on any who disagree with you, while not taking responsibility to follow up and support your own claims with accurate, consistent, cogent, and clear data yourself. You have yet to actually respond with practical concrete solutions, and instead continue to suggest vague scenarios of dubious viability with little consideration of logistics and absolutely zero evidence of an actual plan.

The methodology of proverbially throwing spaghetti against a wall and seeing what sticks is not a sufficient answer when you have already concluded that change is necessary. If you don't have plans or know of plans that are already proposed, then you need to go back to your rhetorical drawing board and come back when you have more concrete thoughts on the matter. At this point you are ready to condemn any disagreeing position, but have no concrete counter for the position outside of "prove it" or "show me the research" or "tell me why." No offense, but if you don't already have sufficient understanding of the point you disagree with to articulate why you disagree using more than just your feelings and emotions, using countering data as a suppliment, then you're not debating with people who disagree with you-- you're preaching.

If preaching is all you're going to engage in for this subject, then by all means let me know. I don't argue with religious folk about their level of faith.

[NobbyNobbs]

Good question. I put it in quotes because too few actually ARE educators.

Then say so, rather than insult those of us who are what we say we are.



You are too busy making sure the kids "self esteem" is good and that you are teaching whatever environmental or "diversity" issue is en vogue (last year at my kids' school it was all Darfur all the time, this year its "save the trees!")to actually get any um...educating done.

This, you will blame on a host of things.

Again, you presume what I say and do. I'm getting tired of it. I've never used the ignore function here before, but I'm tempted.





In any case...it's pretty clear that in most cases in here I am talking to people who are...well, let's just say (being kind) not terribly bright.

Again with the insults.

It's almost as if this guy, for example, believes that the menu I presented would be, once purchased the first week on your $20 of foodstamps, pressed into the next weeks' permanent record and that that, thereafter, for as long as you are on foodstamps is all you can buy.


You say you have read "carefully and entirely" (your quote) my posts, yet you continue to get tyhe simplest things wrong. Let me make this quite clear.

I don't not collect foodstamps. I have never collected foodstamps. I never plan to collect foodstamps. In fact, I don't think I've ever even seen a foodstamp. Understood?

Hmmm...not sure where you got the idea that was "talking down" to you. I was simply, if I recall, responding to something you said.

Anyway, the challenge was not to produce a menu Richard Simmons would swoon over, but one that would keep a family of 4 alive for a week.

I will go back and check, but I believe the original claim was to feed a family of 4 on $20 a week.

The implication was "continuously", not "once".

I did that. By the way: where you live, the weekly alotment of foodstamp $$ would be adjusted to reflect local conditions; mine is based on where _I_ live and $20 is what a single person, no kids, would get right now.

So $20 is to feed a single person? Now you have confused me.

In my state, you need a gross income of no more than $30,420 a year to qualify for any food stamps, if you have a family of five, as I do. I make a little more than that. I do not qualify.



I have no idea what a "Stroehman" is. Here, I get bread for $.50/lf. It's day-old (as they say). I get it from the bakery outlet store. There are maybe a dozen of these that I know of in the metro area in which I live.

Stroehman is a brand of baked goods. At the outlet, day-olds are $.75 a loaf. And it takes at least $3 of gas to get there. Not worth it.

Well...you must have young children. Mine are teens, and I pack for lunch what they will eat. I try to break up the monotony. You'll figure this out as your children grow up. I learned, for example...that for some time they were simply throwing away the apples I lovingly packed for them every other day or so. Now, they like apples, but then...they just threw them out (just like your kids are doing).

Where did I say my kids are throwing away apples? Please cite the post.

Also, I'm wondering how your kids are getting a hold of apples, as they were not on your shopping list.... :p



I never said you collect foodstamps.

Again, I have to go back and look, but if you haven't said it directly, the implications have been outstanding. An example is above. And below.

If you cannot see that you can feed your family on the $20(adjusted for your area) in foodstamps, then I can only assume that you are...inexpert in your shopping techniques, and I calls 'em like I sees 'em. That may simply be because you are decades younger than I, by the way (I am again, presuming).

Yes, presuming. Presuming I get $20 of foodstamps. Presuming I'm "inexpert" in my shopping techniques. Presuming I'm decades younger. A whole lotta presuming.




Do the math. A "typical" high school of 1000 students costs something like $10,000 per student per year, for a total of $10,000,000 per year. Normally that's a direct appropriation from the relevant local tax base or state agency. If I managed to find a revenue stream of $2,000,000 per year, what local politician woudn't jump on the opportunity to cut property taxes by twenty percent by reducing the appropriation to $8,000,000? (Remember, these are the same local pols that refuse to appropriate enough funds to buy the textbooks that you've been complaining about for a dozen pages.)

So I'd need to find a business that will generate at least $10,000,000 per year in profit. You're going to see that out of a supermarket? Let's see, if 1000 families spend $10,000 per year in groceries, that's a hundred million dollars gross revent. Average profit margins for a supermarket run about 1%, so that's a cool million in profit per year. That's a very profitable grocery store. You need to find (and support) ten of those stores for the one high school we're discussing.


Sorry, Dr, but your numbers are off. See, those families, if they were SMART, only spend $20 a week for groceries. That's $1,040,000 gross, which at a 1% profit margin is $10,400 per store. So they need to operate 1000 stores at that rate, not 10.

:D

[drkitten]

Sorry, Dr, but your numbers are off. See, those families, if they were SMART, only spend $20 a week for groceries. That's $1,040,000 gross, which at a 1% profit margin is $10,400 per store. So they need to operate 1000 stores at that rate, not 10.


Yes, but in Narnia schools are much cheaper to run, because the dryads handle the teaching for free, and literacy is optional, so no one cares if the students actually learn.

[genesplicer]

"Dr" Kitten:



Anyway, um...before the NEA had so much power (or existed) pre-1965 era, the schools SEEMED to do a pretty good job.

AFTER the NEA gained it's power, the schools seemed to "plummet like a paralyzed falcon." I guess I'm not following your reasoning here, based on this history.

Let me see if I follow you:
BEFORE the NEA the schools worked very well.
AFTER the NEA (gained so much power) the schools became, demonstrably, failures.
Therfore (your argument), if the NEA went away, the schools would degenerate even more.


Tokie


There is one slight flaw in your logic. The NEA was founded in 1857, more than 100 years before you claim. So, if the schools were so good from 1857 to 1966, and the union (Or the ATA, or the AFE or any number of other teacher unions) existed back then, what is your claim now?

Also the NEA was behind such subversive activities (obviously just to swell the ranks of dues-paying teachers) as passing mandatory education legislation and eliminating anti-black education laws...


One thing that really bugs me about the current education climate (Which was going on before NCLB, but was vastly exacerbated by it) is this concept that every student needs the same skills. If a kid is bad at math, we give that kid massive remediation until they can pass the test. I'm all for remediation to help kids, but we have gone too far. Our school has eliminated every single elective class except band. What do we have? Language! (that's the actual name, complete with exclamation mark.) and Math plus (also the actual name.) Every kid takes them except for the few kids in band.

There are other countries that have an enlightened view, as far as I am concerned. What do they do that's different? They give the minimal amount of education for various subjects, then they emphasize what the kids do well.

Us: You suck at math, so we will give you so many math classes that you grow to hate math and develop some sort of math phobia.

Them: You suck at math, but you are good in language arts, so we will give you more language arts classes to really emphasize your skills.


It's not the equalizer we have, it's an emphasizer. I think in the long run it would benefit society to have people who are skilled in different areas.
As Winston Churchill said: "We should equality at the starting gate, but not at the finish line."

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

Evaluation in practice: identifying factors for improving transfer of training in technical domains (Barnard, & Rooij, J.C.G.M van - 2001). You can read the whole thing for a more full understanding, or just start around page 269 or 270 for the direct references.
.
Transfer of training: Action-packed strategies to ensure high payoff from training investments. (Broad, M.L., & Newstrom, J.W. - 1992)
.
Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, ed. 14, p. 237 (J. Ives, W. Straub and G. Shelley - 2002).
These are just recent ones.

They are studies about the impact of educating students with video? They don't seem like it.

Most studies I have ever seen cover this topic make it a point to never try to argue that video can provide sufficient learning. It has been long established that video learning does not provide the learner with the bases for utilizing the materials taught in the videos in a practical manner outside of the settings portrayed in the video.

In other words: human teachers trump other methods.
Video would be a tool, a part of the program. The part capable of taking the teacher home. Teachers are better, but they are increasingly unable to do it alone.

You're being deliberately obtuse. People have already explained to you the hurdles in cost to get interactive learning materials into schools. Many schools have such resources, but only in small quantities because they are not as cheap as you have been unrealistically suggesting.
The president gave more than a trillion dollars in tax cuts to the rich, and has already reached a half a trillion dollars with the war in Iraq. It is also currently involved in rebuilding almost an entire city on the Gulf Coast, and most of the rest of the country is taking it all with little signs of stress. The stock market is even reaching record highs. I can go on, but my point is; there is plenty of money for anything that this country really wants to do.

While you can assume you are accusing those of you who already have expressed that what you've suggested so far is not viable, the reality is that you have not even examined in enough depth the costs of what your "solutions" would be. You are unwilling to accept that your ideas may be flawed due to a lack of understanding of certain logistics to which you have never been subject to in any memorable manner. While I didn't see it come up in any sizeable argument against you, you don't even see the ridiculous nature of claims that $200 per computer is going to be the cost for educational facilities, let alone the production overhead for creating interactive video and updating, editing, and distributing such video even on a yearly basis.
The $200 computer would allow more money to go into infrastructure.


You very well may be under the impression that people are making polar and unreasonable arguments, but what you refuse to accept is that perhaps you began this whole topic with very polar and unreasonable expectations.
No. I expected that I would be told every which way why it can't be done, knowing that, will help in getting it done anyway.

[drkitten]

I can go on, but my point is; there is plenty of money for anything that this country really wants to do.

... including stupid things. Just because the money is in theory available does not mean that it's sensibly available. I suppose there would be money for gold-plating I-95 between DC and Florida by a broad enough definition of "available," but any sensible person who looked at the issue would recognize it as a waste of money.

The funds would not be forthcoming, as there are better and more cost-effective areas to spend it.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

I don't know how else I can express this: That's what parents are for.
Well some parents don't have the time, or expertise, to do a good job. That is why the "partical list" listed trying to give them formal instruction.


Because the NEA is not in the business of teaching parents how to be parents. The realm of the NEA does not (and should not) delve into the realm of parenting. The single largest problem with the education system today is that too many children are coming into the school systems with an implicit expectation from parents that these children will be cared for in a parenting fashion. Schools are not parental day-care centers, they are educational facilities.
Right, teachers are expected to be parents, but parents are increasing expected to be teachers.
I think, that if schools increased their use of technology, and provided a way so that it can be more effectively taken home, that that would help.

And once again you're totally ignoring the logistics. Who produces these hypothetical instructional videos? Who handles the distribution? Where are the funds to handle the costs that would be associated with creating and disseminating such a thing?
What about those business solution people that UPS and others are spouting? Once the easily copied product is made, there are people who do those things.
Maybe I can get the people who distribute illegal videos, they seem quite efficient.

Will it be federally-run or state-run? Since bookstores, the internet, or even video stores are consistent enough in presence throughout the entire country, what is the distribution model? If the videos are in DVD format, do they come with free DVD players? Taking a step back: who handles the standardization of the materials and program formatting? Who determines the curricula, and who handles the approval process?
You worry too much, the thing could be internet run, with UPS handling the logistics. There are people out there that do those things already.

I am trying to figure out if you are saying that as a joke or if you really are a fool.
If I was joking, I would have said, as for you thinking me a fool, your long post about "not" seems foolish to me. Not in the information context, but in its determined "can't do" attitude. Boy, I hope you are not a teacher. Aries said that in Denmark, the government had to past a law to get the school system to use the available technology, I bet when I look into their initial resistance, it will sound a lot like you do now.

Advertising works best when it appeals to emotion and bypasses the viewer's critical analysis. A consumer who stops to think about a purchase is less of a 'sure thing' than one who simply "wants" the product. Advertising jerks the viewer out of any intellectual engagement that they had with the core program. This is evident in the huge popularity of DVR technology today.
I look at education videos on the learning channel all the time, always, I leave knowing more.

I am absolutely saying that. Videos to not prepare a viewer to be able to handle information that does not fall within what is covered in the video. History is not a linear progression of names, dates, and occurrences. A video can only cover a few paths at any given time, and would either have to gloss over many things (which history videos do) or skip things outright (which some do) in order to fit the "history" into a video format. With history, videos are no better than just textbooks-- which are also not sufficient for learning history, because there needs to be an expert present-- at actually teaching students about the subjects.
Are you saying that teachers don't skip things to fit their lessons into the short time that they have? Especially when they also have to stop to entertain questions? Teachers are geared to take their students along a given path, in a given amount of time.

There is simply too much going on in terms of progressive, contextual, and semantical data for any video or book to be able to accurately and adequatley convey any period in history in a way that is most absorbable by the largest number of students.
That is why there are video series.

[NobbyNobbs]

Right, teachers are expected to be parents, but parents are increasing expected to be teachers.

You have this entirely backwards. Parents are expected to be teachers. That's part of parenting. The problem is, teachers are increasingly expected to be parents.


Maybe I can get the people who distribute illegal videos, they seem quite efficient.

Brilliant idea. And we'll get heroin addicts to be the school nurses, and bolemics to be the cafeteria ladies, and pedophiles to be school counselors.

Are you saying that teachers don't skip things to fit their lessons into the short time that they have? Especially when they also have to stop to entertain questions? Teachers are geared to take their students along a given path, in a given amount of time.

That is why there are video series.

That is not why there are video series. Video series were not created to fill the gaps that teachers, by virtue of a lack of time, have to deal with.

Listen, should students go to school 24-7 and be fed intravenously and never have to sleep and have the most efficient teachers on the planet, there would still be material you couldn't cover. It's the nature of the beast.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

However, you have so far proposed impractical 'solutions' and refuse to accept answers for why they are impractical. You refuse to accept people who are saying the same things that experts who have spent a good portion of their professional careers studying possibilities for bettering education have said. You demand details, citations, and proofs for anything that disagrees with you, but have yet to provide a single ounce of research, peer-reviewed publication, hard data, or even relevant articles or periodical publications on the subject that you have brought up and are condemning outright. You are demanding the onus of proof fall on any who disagree with you, while not taking responsibility to follow up and support your own claims with accurate, consistent, cogent, and clear data yourself. You have yet to actually respond with practical concrete solutions, and instead continue to suggest vague scenarios of dubious viability with little consideration of logistics and absolutely zero evidence of an actual plan.
I have a plan, it only looks disorganized as I test its dimesions.
I intend to use the profits from selling the diagram at inthemath.com to give a high school a supermarket. One that is managered independent of the school, but whose profits go towards the school.
Because it is schooled owned, the neighborhood would have a good reason to shop their for their most persistent need-food. And just by doing something natural, that they have to do anyway, they put money in their own pockets. It would employ the neighborhood, and empower education.
I think of it as a store that will "eat" other stores, as it uses higher moral ground, the pride that comes with ownership, and at least equal prices with its competition. Once given a store, a school has to set aside money to do the same for the next nearest high school.
I can address every step of the way (I think away) how it can be done. First though, I am going to have to exploit the ID dedate. I am hoping that in 100 years, people will think that getting intelligent design into school, applied to connecting education to its most present, pervasive, and potent form of energy.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

You have this entirely backwards. Parents are expected to be teachers. That's part of parenting. The problem is, teachers are increasingly expected to be parents.
Look at the thread about the increase homework load.

Brilliant idea. And we'll get heroin addicts to be the school nurses, and bolemics to be the cafeteria ladies, and pedophiles to be school counselors.
It was just an example of what a "can do" attitude can do.


That is not why there are video series. Video series were not created to fill the gaps that teachers, by virtue of a lack of time, have to deal with.
That is the point, they could be.

[bruto]

I have a plan, it only looks disorganized as I test its dimesions.
I intend to use the profits from selling the diagram at inthemath.com to give a high school a supermarket. One that is managered independent of the school, but whose profits go towards the school.
Because it is schooled owned, the neighborhood would have a good reason to shop their for their most persistent need-food. And just by doing something natural, that they have to do anyway, they put money in their own pockets. It would employ the neighborhood, and empower education.
I think of it as a store that will "eat" other stores, as it uses higher moral ground, the pride that comes with ownership, and at least equal prices with its competition. Once given a store, a school has to set aside money to do the same for the next nearest high school.Well, good luck! I think you may find it harder to raise funds than you anticipate, and suggest that before you go too far you do some real research on the legal ramifications of running a non-profit organization, because it is not as simple as you might think - especially if you expect the ownership to be by a public school, and more so if you expect the community to support what is at its foundation a socialist enterprise one of whose goals is to devour the competition of private enterprise!
I can address every step of the way (I think away) how it can be done. First though, I am going to have to exploit the ID dedate. I am hoping that in 100 years, people will think that getting intelligent design into school, applied to connecting education to its most present, pervasive, and potent form of energy. That last sentence is scary in both its implication and its utter lack of both grammatical and practical sense!

The methodology of proverbially throwing spaghetti against a wall and seeing what sticks is not a sufficient answer when you have already concluded that change is necessary. If you don't have plans or know of plans that are already proposed, then you need to go back to your rhetorical drawing board and come back when you have more concrete thoughts on the matter. At this point you are ready to condemn any disagreeing position, but have no concrete counter for the position outside of "prove it" or "show me the research" or "tell me why." No offense, but if you don't already have sufficient understanding of the point you disagree with to articulate why you disagree using more than just your feelings and emotions, using countering data as a suppliment, then you're not debating with people who disagree with you-- you're preaching.

If preaching is all you're going to engage in for this subject, then by all means let me know. I don't argue with religious folk about their level of faith.

As for the rest of your argument, I believe that you have some things backwards. You, after all, are the one who began this thread with an assertion that education is not being done right, and a theory of what should be done to correct it. You are the one who is starting out with conclusions. Saying that you have not yet done good research, presented good evidence or good arguments, is not preaching: it's anti-preaching. The burden is on you, first to convince that the current way education is done is deficient for the reasons you say, and then to back it up with research to support your arguments, first that certain technological approaches have not been sufficiently tested, and that if they were they could be expected to work. Until that happens, you're just speculating. It's pie in the sky.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

Been tried (although more often at the college level). Dedicated income streams have been around for a long time. The lottery game can be a good example of that.
I know they have, and they work. I want to apply the college example.


The effect is simply that the government then thinks it can get away with lowering appropriations from the general fund; the net effect on funding ends up being negligible.
Don't let them do that. Wouldn't they be showing everybody that they are purposely keeping the system at a certain level?

The only way that it could be made to work (reliably) is by using something so profitable that the total income from the dediicated stream exceeded the total budget of the school, so that the government couldn't cut their contribution below zero.
I think that it would be better to pass a law that says that the current level cannot be lower. Besides, like with what I suggested with video, no one thing can do it all, or be expected to be.

Or, of course, to vote in legislators who were interested in supporting school funding.
Through ownership, students (through their parents) may feel the need to protect their interest through voting. And if being registered to vote were a graduation requirement, neighborhoods may grow their own political blocks.



Do the math. A "typical" high school of 1000 students costs something like $10,000 per student per year, for a total of $10,000,000 per year. Normally that's a direct appropriation from the relevant local tax base or state agency. If I managed to find a revenue stream of $2,000,000 per year, what local politician woudn't jump on the opportunity to cut property taxes by twenty percent by reducing the appropriation to $8,000,000? (Remember, these are the same local pols that refuse to appropriate enough funds to buy the textbooks that you've been complaining about for a dozen pages.)
Why on Earth do you think that a new source of income is going to go towards running what the "old gang" are doing"? You see that? He thinks that the government, (and unions, because they would of had to sign on) would just gobble up any new pie. Why not keep things as they were, and using the money on computers? You see? That are the furtherest thing from your mind. And you are a teacher... right? I think someone referred to you as "an educator"?



So I'd need to find a business that will generate at least $10,000,000 per year in profit. You're going to see that out of a supermarket? Let's see, if 1000 families spend $10,000 per year in groceries, that's a hundred million dollars gross revent. Average profit margins for a supermarket run about 1%, so that's a cool million in profit per year. That's a very profitable grocery store. You need to find (and support) ten of those stores for the one high school we're discussing.If the neighbor worked the store, some of that profit would be working people. A 24 hour store could employ 3 shifts. The executives in such a store would not get market salaries-hell, they may even be retirees who still want some action.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

Well, good luck! I think you may find it harder to raise funds than you anticipate, and suggest that before you go too far you do some real research on the legal ramifications of running a non-profit organization, because it is not as simple as you might think - especially if you expect the ownership to be by a public school, and more
Actually it could be a normal store and the school need only have its name, as long as the profits go towards the school.


so if you expect the community to support what is at its foundation a socialist enterprise one of whose goals is to devour the competition of private enterprise!
There is no way that fellow competitors can cry about being out performed, however that is done. Especially if it is under the banner of "children first". I want 2% to 5% of total purchases to go towards individual student accounts through discount keycards. Accounts payable upon graduation. I think any store in the area that can't match it, would lose customers.


That last sentence is scary in both its implication and its utter lack of both grammatical and practical sense!
I sounded good before I wrote it.



As for the rest of your argument, I believe that you have some things backwards. You, after all, are the one who began this thread with an assertion that education is not being done right, and a theory of what should be done to correct it. You are the one who is starting out with conclusions. Saying that you have not yet done good research, presented good evidence or good arguments, is not preaching: it's anti-preaching. The burden is on you, first to convince that the current way education is done is deficient for the reasons you say, and then to back it up with research to support your arguments, first that certain technological approaches have not been sufficiently tested, and that if they were they could be expected to work. Until that happens, you're just speculating. It's pie in the sky.
Right, speculating on what will/could happen, and exposing it to fire. If I took on doing all that, and worked on the stuff from the other thread, my head would explode. Besides, there is no reason to, I heard enough here. There is a good sample of some bright people here, they don't agree with me, but that only covers part of my picture.

[bruto]

I think that it would be better to pass a law that says that the current level cannot be lower. Besides, like with what I suggested with video, no one thing can do it all, or be expected to be. To pass a law requires that legislators legislate, and those legislators have to hope that what they do will not make them unelectable, unless they are planning to retire anyway. A law that level funds education at the floor rather than the ceiling will be a very very hard sell. In case you had not been paying attention in recent years, voting for higher taxes is not a popular position, and voting to maintain a rate of tax-supported expenditure in the face of new revenue or surplus is interpreted, not surprisingly, as a vote for taxes. In addition, you keep seeming to forget that a great percentage of education funding is locally levied, and this means that you would have to change both the structure of school taxation and the role of municipalities in setting their own budgets. The state can do a lot, as we've discussed already, but they cannot, at this stage, compel a municipality to put a negative cap on its tax rate for optional expenditures, and there would be a considerable revolt if they did do something so stupid. In addition, you're discounting the question of which districts will get which funding. Your scheme, even if it were practical, would not enrich all districts at once. When education funds are hard to come by, and taxes so unpopular, why would you expect the state, or anyone else, to level fund the district which enjoys extra income while the poorest districts go begging? Your idea, to work, would either be very uneven, or require that there already be enough funds to go around.

Before you get too much further with this, I really do suggest that you look into the manner in which public education is currently funded, and the structure under which it currently is administered. You know, the voters can vote down a school budget if they don't like it. And believe me, coming from the town in Vermont (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benson,_Vermont) which set a notorious record for defeated school budgets in one year (a drastically slashed budget passed on the 13th try!), they will.

Through ownership, students (through their parents) may feel the need to protect their interest through voting. And if being registered to vote were a graduation requirement, neighborhoods may grow their own political blocks.Being registered is not voting. School districts already have their own political blocs in many places. They generally do not vote to raise their own taxes when other revenues are available. See my above comment. It will take a very enlightened and unusual electorate to vote for level funding when they know that they are already paying for education out of their own pockets, through the markup on their groceries.

Why on Earth do you think that a new source of income is going to go towards running what the "old gang" are doing"? You see that? He thinks that the government, (and unions, because they would of had to sign on) would just gobble up any new pie. Why not keep things as they were, and using the money on computers? You see? That are the furtherest thing from your mind. And you are a teacher... right? I think someone referred to you as "an educator"? You're kidding, right? Public schools are administered by municipalities and school boards. They are owned by the government. The old gang owns the schools and always will. People (the same people who elect people like George Bush, remember) elect school boards, and school boards run the schools. And remember Mark Twain's still-relevant comment: In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made School Boards.[quote]



If the neighbor worked the store, some of that profit would be working people. A 24 hour store could employ 3 shifts. The executives in such a store would not get market salaries-hell, they may even be retirees who still want some action.whether or not you could get good management from unsalaried retirees is speculative at best. And the salary of working people is not profit. The profit, such as it is, is headed elsewhere, and not into the coffers of local businessmen. Good luck indeed!

[GreNME]

They are studies about the impact of educating students with video? They don't seem like it.

You should actually read them, then, instead of of just doing a Google search on the titles and reading summaries. They cover the impact of using video as a pedagogical tool and much, much more. Welcome to the big, wide world of "everything is more complicated than just one simple point."

You can feel free to comment to me on the contents of those studies when you have actually read them. Until then, please don't lie just because you wish to be intellectually lazy.


Video would be a tool, a part of the program. The part capable of taking the teacher home. Teachers are better, but they are increasingly unable to do it alone.

I ask you again: who handles the process of creating the content? It requires standardization, and for something like you are talking about no such standards exist, so they would have to be created. It requires organization, and for something like you are proposing you sure are explaining a whole lot of nothing as far as organization. It requires a video production company, all of which have not only up-front costs but residual costs due to writing and redistribution. It requires the ability to make it available to all necessary sources for distribution (this is before it even goew to the public), to which you seem to have offered even more nothing than you have for organization. It requires even dissemination, which requires that the medium (or mediums) to which you propose it is distributed need to be available to an incredibly high percentage of student, and available in a supplementary form to those whom it is not available-- this is critical, because otherwise it won't fly.

These may seem like little details to you, but to anyone who has ever worked on a project of a national scale to roll out anything, much less a specific pedagogical tool in video format, the ideas you are proposing without any logistical background makes you sound like you have no idea of what you actually want to accomplish.


The president gave more than a trillion dollars in tax cuts to the rich, and has already reached a half a trillion dollars with the war in Iraq. It is also currently involved in rebuilding almost an entire city on the Gulf Coast, and most of the rest of the country is taking it all with little signs of stress. The stock market is even reaching record highs. I can go on, but my point is; there is plenty of money for anything that this country really wants to do.

We have a historically high deficit and the market has been spending the last couple months. I won't even get into trying to explain to you how much school funding comes from state and local levels, because arguing that the country is blowing a boatload of money on other stupid things is about as credible as a child complaining they should get to do something because Billy down the street can.


The $200 computer would allow more money to go into infrastructure.
Ahh, and once again your ignorance shines through. If you don't understand damned well why a computer with a market price of $200 doesn't mean "it'll only cost the school $200," then I will explain:

I'm not sure if you're aware of it, but a computer is little more than an oversized paperweight without software to run on it. Despite what BitTorrent and Limewire might lead you to believe, most software out there geared for education actually costs money. Further, educational software needs another software called an "operating system" to be able to run on a computer. The operating system that most software that you could get for educational purposes will work on-- Windows-- costs money for licensing. Adding Windows alone doubles your $200 figure. Let's arbitrarily apply an insanely low cost to the average group of educational software, like maybe $25. Let's say also that the software packages that are bought cover the Three 'R's-- reading, [w]riting, and `rithmetic-- as well as a basic social studies or history class. That's another $100. So, just adding software to your mythical computer raises the cost 150%.

But wait! There's more!

You see, computers don't just magically talk to one another. They require something called a "network" in order to communicate. So, for schools that don't already have a working network infrastructure to handle enough computers for all of the students-- which is nearly every school in the US-- some significant retrofitting in the buildings need to take place. Given the differences in sizes of schools, I am going to be very forgiving and say the cost is going to be about $100,000 at best on average. I'm making that quote using as much of a path of least resistance as possible, not expecting all places are retrofitting a wired connection and that wireless will be used whenever feasible (though I won't get into the security problems involved with that... let's just say it isn't even close to "secure"). So make sure you multiply the number of schools times a hundred grand while we're working out the numbers.

Well, these computers aren't going to be very useful just networked to themselves, so they'll require an internet connection as well, right? Go ahead and tack on another $300 - $500 per school, which will provide all of the students online at once a connection about the equivalent of a snail's pace thanks to hundreds of computers at a time sharing a single hi-speed internet connection. While you're at it, you had better tack on another $10,000 per school to cover average costs for internet access control software and hardware (once again, I'm being very kind), to keep kids from accessing unauthorized content while online.

Who's going to handle the installation and setup of all these computers, as well as the regular maintenance and administration? Hrm, better tack on another $200,000 annually per school or about $1,000,000 per school district-- keep in mind I'm seriously low-balling here-- to pay for a sufficient IT staff and administrative / management group.

For giggles, let's say you decide that you want to go with Linux as an operating system instead of Windows. Well, right away you should probably bump your IT staff costs about 15-20% (a conservative estimate), and then you need to figure out what software you are going to utilize. Going to write your own? Be prepared to spend between $40 and $50 million for the first releasable revision, and between $2 and $5 million annually to keep it up-to-date. You'll be happy with that number, because for-profit corporations spend more than that just to cover something as simple as a point-of-sale system (yes, I have experience enough to know this), let alone a broad-ranging pedagogical software system that will be used nationwide.

The initial and residual costs will climb at least with the rate of inflation, by the way. All of the sudden, your "only $200 a computer" statements are looking like a truckload of cow manure.


No. I expected that I would be told every which way why it can't be done, knowing that, will help in getting it done anyway.

You don't get it. I'm not telling you it can't be done, I'm telling you that there are so many things you haven't bothered to think about that what you are attempting to lay out as a "plan" couldn't work because you are in no way, shape, or form prepared to actually think about the cost in terms of the scale you are proposing.

[GreNME]

Well some parents don't have the time, or expertise, to do a good job. That is why the "partical list" listed trying to give them formal instruction.

That's not the fault of the education system, nor is it the responsibility of the education system. The educational system does not exist to take over for parents when they are too busy, unqualified, unskilled, or lazy to actually give a damn about the kids. There are other organizations in government that have been created to step in when the parents are inadequate. Suggesting in any way that the federal education system needs to take up this slack is naive and quite a bit fascist. There happen to be laws in place specifically designed to keep educators out of interfering with families and family life.


Right, teachers are expected to be parents, but parents are increasing expected to be teachers.

No, parents are expected to be responsible for the well-being of their children. This happens to include having more than a passing interest in what their child learns. Plenty of parents out there are capable of this. Having the education system step in and assume these responsibilities is not going to encourage parents to be more responsible.


I think, that if schools increased their use of technology, and provided a way so that it can be more effectively taken home, that that would help.

If that technology exists and is easily distributable, then sure. Right now, it isn't there yet. The OLPC project has made some great strides in making it so, but even they aren't there yet and they've provided far more information on how they plan to implement thier system than you have.


What about those business solution people that UPS and others are spouting? Once the easily copied product is made, there are people who do those things.
Maybe I can get the people who distribute illegal videos, they seem quite efficient.

More spaghetti-tossing. You really do have no clue.


You worry too much, the thing could be internet run, with UPS handling the logistics. There are people out there that do those things already.

UPS doesn't handle "logistics" for other companies. They handle delivery. The "people out there that do those things already" all cost money, and it's money you have yet to account for and explain how it will be paid for.


If I was joking, I would have said, as for you thinking me a fool, your long post about "not" seems foolish to me. Not in the information context, but in its determined "can't do" attitude. Boy, I hope you are not a teacher. Aries said that in Denmark, the government had to past a law to get the school system to use the available technology, I bet when I look into their initial resistance, it will sound a lot like you do now.

There is nothing that can't actually be done. The hurdle is time and cost to actually get the thing done. Your problem is that you have an unrealistic expectation of the time and cost, among other things. Your little self-help aphorisms don't mean a thing compared to the realistic costs. This is ignoring the fact that some of the things you have suggested border on fascist and illegal.


I look at education videos on the learning channel all the time, always, I leave knowing more.[quote]

The Learning Channel provides premium programming (you pay for the cable programming) on a medium format that already exists using a distribution model that is more than half a century old. Their largest hurdles were worked out for them decades before they ever came into existence, and that still isn't to say that their initial costs were not incredibly high. Just because you're ignorant of the costs doesn't mean they don't exist.


[QUOTE=lightcreatedlife@hom;3028527]Are you saying that teachers don't skip things to fit their lessons into the short time that they have? Especially when they also have to stop to entertain questions? Teachers are geared to take their students along a given path, in a given amount of time.

That is why there are video series.

You must not be aware of this, but even if you took every single video you ever watched on any given subject, all of those videos together did not provide for you a full understanding of the subject. You see, program coordinators and writers also skip things to fit them into a schedule. Also, in a world where things change on a regular basis, the information that needs to be provided to educate also changes, which would require alterations to programing, from initial writing to execution, all the way down to your imaginary distribution model.

[GreNME]

I have a plan, it only looks disorganized as I test its dimesions.

Judging from every one of your posts in this thread, I'm just going to go ahead and call you a liar. You don't have a plan, you have an idea. An unrealistic idea based on ignorant assumptions, at that.


I intend to use the profits from selling the diagram at inthemath.com to give a high school a supermarket. One that is managered independent of the school, but whose profits go towards the school.

Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is? I'll gladly bet you a measly $100 that, even if you manage to not get the idea sold to some website, no school is going to accept from you a supermarket. You see, all of the logistical implications aside, a food market owned by a school district would be illegal in every state I can think of in the United States. Good luck finding a locality to create a law for you allowing an exception in your case.


Because it is schooled owned, the neighborhood would have a good reason to shop their for their most persistent need-food. And just by doing something natural, that they have to do anyway, they put money in their own pockets. It would employ the neighborhood, and empower education.
I think of it as a store that will "eat" other stores, as it uses higher moral ground, the pride that comes with ownership, and at least equal prices with its competition. Once given a store, a school has to set aside money to do the same for the next nearest high school.

And how is this to be done in major metropolitan areas that have more schools than supermarkets? How about very rural areas that have similar conditions with far more space between them? What makes you think your assumed moral high ground is going to be able to compete with the likes of Wal Mart and similar stores?


I can address every step of the way (I think away) how it can be done.

No, you can't. Just because you think you can doesn't mean you can. Everyone who has told you that your idea isn't going to work has been stressing that you have very specifically not addressed every step of the way.


First though, I am going to have to exploit the ID dedate. I am hoping that in 100 years, people will think that getting intelligent design into school, applied to connecting education to its most present, pervasive, and potent form of energy.

For someone who just finished preaching about a moral high ground, you seem willing to partake in some pretty unethical manipulation to try and accomplish what you want. Perhaps you should evaluate your own motivations before you jump too deeply into some pretty unethical practices. You won't get much support with such a petty and manipulative plan of approach.

[GreNME]

The methodology of proverbially throwing spaghetti against a wall and seeing what sticks is not a sufficient answer when you have already concluded that change is necessary. If you don't have plans or know of plans that are already proposed, then you need to go back to your rhetorical drawing board and come back when you have more concrete thoughts on the matter. At this point you are ready to condemn any disagreeing position, but have no concrete counter for the position outside of "prove it" or "show me the research" or "tell me why." No offense, but if you don't already have sufficient understanding of the point you disagree with to articulate why you disagree using more than just your feelings and emotions, using countering data as a suppliment, then you're not debating with people who disagree with you-- you're preaching.

If preaching is all you're going to engage in for this subject, then by all means let me know. I don't argue with religious folk about their level of faith.

As for the rest of your argument, I believe that you have some things backwards. You, after all, are the one who began this thread with an assertion that education is not being done right, and a theory of what should be done to correct it. You are the one who is starting out with conclusions. Saying that you have not yet done good research, presented good evidence or good arguments, is not preaching: it's anti-preaching. The burden is on you, first to convince that the current way education is done is deficient for the reasons you say, and then to back it up with research to support your arguments, first that certain technological approaches have not been sufficiently tested, and that if they were they could be expected to work. Until that happens, you're just speculating. It's pie in the sky.

Can I ask you why you quoted me and then said almost the same thing I did?


----


Right, speculating on what will/could happen, and exposing it to fire. If I took on doing all that, and worked on the stuff from the other thread, my head would explode. Besides, there is no reason to, I heard enough here. There is a good sample of some bright people here, they don't agree with me, but that only covers part of my picture.

I think that everyone here who has given you all of the information you are missing need to charge you a consulting fee. For as ridiculously obtuse as you are deliberately being, as well as an object lesson to you that the world does not operate the way you want simply because you wish it to be so.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

To pass a law requires that legislators legislate, and those legislators have to hope that what they do will not make them unelectable, unless they are planning to retire anyway.

The state can do a lot, as we've discussed already, but they cannot, at this stage, compel a municipality to put a negative cap on its tax rate for optional expenditures, and there would be a considerable revolt if they did do something so stupid.

I can't see why the system wouldn't just let an additional source of income alone? And I would love for them to try and get it. Each time they reach for it, it will show what the whole things is all about.

In addition, you're discounting the question of which districts will get which funding. Your scheme, even if it were practical, would not enrich all districts at once.
Who said it had to? It is under no obligation to be fair, at least not at first. Parents favor their children... first. Its divine law.

When education funds are hard to come by, and taxes so unpopular, why would you expect the state, or anyone else, to level fund the district which enjoys extra income while the poorest districts go begging? Your idea, to work, would either be very uneven, or require that there already be enough funds to go around.
It will be very uneven. That is absolutely certain. But no district need to be left to fend for themselves. If the model works, any school would be open to copy it. It could franchise, like Mcdonald's.


Before you get too much further with this, I really do suggest that you look into the manner in which public education is currently funded, and the structure under which it currently is administered. You know, the voters can vote down a school budget if they don't like it. And believe me, coming from the town in Vermont (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benson,_Vermont)which set a notorious record for defeated school budgets in one year (a drastically slashed budget passed on the 13th try!), they will.

Being registered is not voting. School districts already have their own political blocs in many places. They generally do not vote to raise their own taxes when other revenues are available.
I hope more resources would enable 12 graders to be able to have mock votes for the candidates that their parents are suppose to be voting on. That way they will be able to measure the impact that their votes would have had. Maybe when they graduate, they will still be pissed at anyone trying to stop them from getting another source of income.

See my above comment. It will take a very enlightened and unusual electorate to vote for level funding when they know that they are already paying for education out of their own pockets, through the markup on their groceries.
Now who said anything about a markup? If anything I said discount. Besides, where I live, homeowners are outnumbered.

You're kidding, right? Public schools are administered by municipalities and school boards. They are owned by the government. The old gang owns the schools and always will. People (the same people who elect people like George Bush, remember) elect school boards, and school boards run the schools. And remember Mark Twain's still-relevant comment: [quote]In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made School Boards.whether or not you could get good management from unsalaried retirees is speculative at best.

I really don't like all the bureaucratic goings on that they set up to ensure that things don't get done. And just how are they going to stop someone else from spending their own money?

One day, me and my brother were visiting my sister's house, and out of the blue, he said: "lets have a party" pointing to the other people she had over. I asked him how he thought our sister would agree, and he said: "I'll pay for everything".



And the salary of working people is not profit.
It is if you hire some of the residents of the worst local corner. I'm hoping to bill the city if the crime rate in targeted areas goes down.

The profit, such as it is, is headed elsewhere, and not into the coffers of local businessmen. Good luck indeed!
And that is the problem. I think it is that entropy stuff that is at the base of some inner city problems.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

I think that everyone here who has given you all of the information you are missing need to charge you a consulting fee.
Fine. I would have to pay the forum itself though... that is, if I am not crazy. Maybe get it one of those setups where individual threads can go parallel. I think forums should be connected to schools. Schools have the manpower, and need, to organize their data. And in a minute (I hope) they will be needed to argue intelligent design back out of school. When ever they ask me a question about it, I will refer them here.

For as ridiculously obtuse as you are deliberately being, as well as an object lesson to you that the world does not operate the way you want simply because you wish it to be so.
Dr Dino, L. Ron Hubbard, and that book "The Secret" have made it plain that it will if you trick it. Dr Dino got a park, and Ron got a near-mindless cult.
I am sure that my numbers will be able to put ID in school, even if I have to hand them out myself while traveling the East Coast.

[six7s]

Fine. I would have to pay the forum itself though... that is, if I am not crazy. Maybe get it one of those setups where individual threads can go parallel. I think forums should be connected to schools. Schools have the manpower, and need, to organize their data. And in a minute (I hope) they will be needed to argue intelligent design back out of school. When ever they ask me a question about it, I will refer them here.

I have read this paragraph five times and I have absolutely NO IDEA what you're on about

Do you?

Dr Dino, L. Ron Hubbard, and that book "The Secret" have made it plain that it will if you trick it. Dr Dino got a park, and Ron got a near-mindless cult.
I am sure that my numbers will be able to put ID in school, even if I have to hand them out myself while traveling the East Coast.

I suspect not

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

I have read this paragraph five times and I have absolutely NO IDEA what you're on about

What's bothering you?
The parallel thing?
Forums arguing ID?
The aim of ID in getting into school?
Why atheist would want it out?
Why students have the time and need to organize data?
Why would they want to?
I will try and help where I can.

I suspect not
I have to know where to start, only you know where, right.

[six7s]

Thanks for the offer... I think...

I think forums should be connected to schools

Which forums?

Schools have the manpower, and need, to organize their data.

OK... need is pretty much a given... but manpower? Huh? Says who? And in what context? What do you mean by the words 'organise' and 'data'?

And in a minute (I hope) they will be needed to argue intelligent design back out of school

I really have no idea what you mean by this

Who are 'they'?

Are you implying that 'intelligent design' is a good thing to teach kids?

When ever they ask me a question about it, I will refer them here.

What do you mean by 'they' and 'here'?

:confused:

[Tokenconservative]

There is one slight flaw in your logic. The NEA was founded in 1857, more than 100 years before you claim. So, if the schools were so good from 1857 to 1966, and the union (Or the ATA, or the AFE or any number of other teacher unions) existed back then, what is your claim now?

Also the NEA was behind such subversive activities (obviously just to swell the ranks of dues-paying teachers) as passing mandatory education legislation and eliminating anti-black education laws...

One thing that really bugs me about the current education climate (Which was going on before NCLB, but was vastly exacerbated by it) is this concept that every student needs the same skills. If a kid is bad at math, we give that kid massive remediation until they can pass the test. I'm all for remediation to help kids, but we have gone too far. Our school has eliminated every single elective class except band. What do we have? Language! (that's the actual name, complete with exclamation mark.) and Math plus (also the actual name.) Every kid takes them except for the few kids in band.

There are other countries that have an enlightened view, as far as I am concerned. What do they do that's different? They give the minimal amount of education for various subjects, then they emphasize what the kids do well.

Us: You suck at math, so we will give you so many math classes that you grow to hate math and develop some sort of math phobia.

Them: You suck at math, but you are good in language arts, so we will give you more language arts classes to really emphasize your skills.

It's not the equalizer we have, it's an emphasizer. I think in the long run it would benefit society to have people who are skilled in different areas.
As Winston Churchill said: "We should equality at the starting gate, but not at the finish line."

There's probably lots more than that wrong with my logic...the difference is that I've engaged in enough metacognition to understand that (not saying YOU have not...just saying _I_ have).

It is not neccesary for any organization such as the NEA to start as A and remain, throught any stretch of time, remain A. In fact, most social psychologists would argue that it is virtually impossible for a body such as the NEA to do so. That they did not, at inception, direct themselves means nothing. Which means that YOUR logic is a bit flawed, as well.

You simply cannot reasonably argue that the NEA (which dwarfs the other teacher unions both in membeship and most certainly in power and wealth) is not engaged in steering the public schools.

I am, of course, speculating as to the purposes of their actions. I prefer to ascribe to them nothing more evil than a desire to swell their ranks and (thereby) gain more wealth and (thereby)more power in our society. There is no more powerful labor union today than the NEA. They are the #1 (above board, legal) $$ contributor to the Democrats (clearly, MoveOn contributes muchmore, but as they do it under the table, using straw-contributors and what not, it's hard to measure).

The way some other countries do it is okay, but needs to be tempered. In Japan and in the remaining gymnasium system in Europe (Britain was smart enough to bail on this mess some years ago) you are identified as to what you will be at about age 13. You take tests, and they determine whether you will be permitted to go onto higher academic studies, or shunted into pipefitting or electronics assembly.

So, you'd better make damn sure at the advanced age of 13 that you know what you want to do the rest of your life and that the couple of weeks or month of testing, you don't have the flu, or aren't in a funk, or that you just don't test badly on one of those days, because someone who might otherwise become a astrophysics professor at MIT, will find him or herself unclogging stuck drains.

We should be adopting the best of BOTH systems: the freedoms of ours with the practicality of theirs. Today, high schools think of themselves as college prep...that's because the teachers want to think of themselves as sort of pre-college profs. This helps THEIR 'self-esteem.' But I don't really give a damn about some brainless teacher's self-esteem, any more than I care whether the guy changing the tires on my car feels good about himself. The teacher and the guy at the garage just need to do the job.

So what happens, today, in America to the kids who are not, for a variety of reasons, going on to college? Well, they end up in the mall, selling cell phone accessories. Used to be, they'd go into the trades--plumbing, carpentry, masonry, etc. Today, we have illegals for that. What employer is going to hire a 19 yr. old with no experience and go through the trouble and expense of training him or her when they can just hire a 30 year old illegal (saving a lot of money in other ways, too) and avoid all that expense and trouble?

It's not a good situation.

Tokie

[bruto]

Can I ask you why you quoted me and then said almost the same thing I did?

.

Confusion over who said what when, I guess. Sorry for the redundancy, but an LCL thread does that sometimes.

[bruto]

I can't see why the system wouldn't just let an additional source of income alone? And I would love for them to try and get it. Each time they reach for it, it will show what the whole things is all about. You speak of "the system" as if it were a person you can talk to. But the system will not just let an additional source of income alone, because that additional source of income would be owned and operated by "the system," and there are rules for what is allowed.
Who said it had to? It is under no obligation to be fair, at least not at first. Parents favor their children... first. Its divine law. Well, you're just plain wrong there. Read some of my earlier posts, and maybe do some research, to try to understand how, in at least one state, they are exactly, precisely, and constitutionally under an obligation to be fair. Public schools are an agency of public government.

It will be very uneven. That is absolutely certain. But no district need to be left to fend for themselves. If the model works, any school would be open to copy it. It could franchise, like Mcdonald's. Copy it how? Your entire scheme is dependent on the donation of a turnkey operation from sources not well specified. I mean, realistically, I don't think your metaphysical diagram will cover more than one supermarket! Who is going to do this? Where will it be done? Without that donation, a school district would have to raise the very large revenue needed to set up the business, entirely on speculation, and that would mean that they would have to do it through taxes, and that would almost certainly be illegal, as well as impossible to sell to the voters, especially when you couple it with your notion that this additional revenue could never be used to lower existing tax rates! Get real.


I hope more resources would enable 12 graders to be able to have mock votes for the candidates that their parents are suppose to be voting on. That way they will be able to measure the impact that their votes would have had. Maybe when they graduate, they will still be pissed at anyone trying to stop them from getting another source of income. Lots of mock voting in schools. This is very common. Whether it does any good is debatable.

Now who said anything about a markup? If anything I said discount. Besides, where I live, homeowners are outnumbered. This supermarket is supposed to make a profit, that is going to be fed into the school system. And of course they have to pay their personnel and cover other overhead before they give away the profits. This means they must mark up their merchandise. If they sell it at cost or below, they will not make any money! What the hell do you think the word "markup" means?

[quote]You're kidding, right? Public schools are administered by municipalities and school boards. They are owned by the government. The old gang owns the schools and always will. People (the same people who elect people like George Bush, remember) elect school boards, and school boards run the schools. And remember Mark Twain's still-relevant comment:[quote] I really don't like all the bureaucratic goings on that they set up to ensure that things don't get done. And just how are they going to stop someone else from spending their own money? Well, you can argue against the way things are done, and surely there are some big issues with bureaucracy, but whether you like it or not, you cannot change the way things are done without first changing the system and the laws. You cannot stop people from spending their own money, but you can stop a public agency such as a school system from taking it by setting up an illegal private enterprise.

One day, me and my brother were visiting my sister's house, and out of the blue, he said: "lets have a party" pointing to the other people she had over. I asked him how he thought our sister would agree, and he said: "I'll pay for everything".



It is if you hire some of the residents of the worst local corner. I'm hoping to bill the city if the crime rate in targeted areas goes down. The salary of working people simply is not profit, even if it is beneficial in all sorts of ways. Profit is something else. Before you get the benefit of hiring those people, you have to get them to work, and to do so at the wages you're offering. They have to be willing and able to do the work, and the employer has to be willing and able to train them and perhaps also to assume the risk of consequences if they are dishonest or incompetent. While I would not wish to be as black-and-white as someone like Tokenconservative about the status of people who are poor and unemployed, I would merely point out that some of those folks hanging around the corner are not working in supermarkets for reasons that the introduction of a new supermarket will not solve!

And that is the problem. I think it is that entropy stuff that is at the base of some inner city problems. You missed my point entirely. The profit is not going into the coffers of local businessmen because it is going into your coffers instead, and this, oddly enough, is not likely to play well with the local businessmen you so blithely plan to displace through the almost certainly unfair and illegal pressure of subsidized competition. Anyway, I don't know what entropy really has to do with it, but suggest that you stay away from metaphysics on this issue, and try instead to gain some understanding of the more mundane details of how things work.

edit to add: and with regard to your sister and the party, paying for everything may help a lot, but your sister still had to agree to host the party, and probably to clean up afterwards. Even that isn't as simple as you'd like it to seem!

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

Thanks for the offer... I think...
Assume the best... first.


which forums?
I was going to say this one, but the question forced me to think. Atheist forums are the best. Even though any life view "leans towards" whatever their name defines, Atheist have to collect data, use logic, even where it does not, can not, apply. Where is the logic behind loving someone who hates you? With all the information firepower they enjoy (and they do enjoy it, and rightly so... at least in my view) it can not cover everything. And the stuff that it can't cover, is among the best stuff in the world, "emotions". And just about anyone can tell you... "it made no sense, but I will do it again".
What's more, Atheist forums agree on the same such, not on someones emotional view.

OK... need is pretty much a given... but manpower? Huh? Says who? And in what context?
Manpower... and I guess am enlightened me should say "womenpower". Any most any school district can claim 1,000 people who have to study/pay attention to the things that it thinks are important. In the innercity, they can have that in every school. Task one class to read/study one book, and it can be taken apart in a day. Pay the students who like doing that, with an award for doing the best, along with 2, 3, and 4. Multiply by all the schools in the district... When they graduate, pay them real money. That is, if you weren't paying them while in school.
What do you mean by the words 'organise' and 'data'?
Tag what is being said, compress it. I am suggesting that even though it does not agree with me, what is up with that?

OK... need is pretty much a given... but manpower? Huh? Says who? And in what context?
Even the strong have needs. Though helping you think, is not one of them-in my opinion anyway.

I really have no idea what you mean by this
In order to get to where I am going, intelligent design has to get into school-or be thought to be there. I don't like it. Even if there were a God, it has not image, and it would not act, or think, like a man. But morals have to be taught in school, and atheist are not sure that they-or anything-exist. While I agree, others preceive that as a "cop out" because they "feel" things, and guess what they feel like? Exactly what they can't explain. Something not there, but very, very real.

Who are 'they'?
Not atheist.

Are you implying that 'intelligent design' is a good thing to teach kids?
NO WAY. But their school system, needs an intelligent design. I fear that religion will beat at the door until they get in, they have that kind of persistance, and faith. If too many education systems are failing when they do, a small group of people saying otherwise, will not matter. Imagine if I were for intelligent design and religious images, and were determined to aggressively donate that diagram?
And I see that me saying that I were going to drag it across the East Coast may have make me seem crazy, but I don't think I am going to need to do that. The number code is at themathcode.com. It may be silly, but it does say, what I say it does.



What do you mean by 'they' and 'here'?

:confused: They are not atheist, for the most part, and here is this forum.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

I read the thread about educational resources that Athon posted in 2005, what became of it? I saw nothing but agreement.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

Do we really want to reinfoce the tendency of children to be advertising-driven video zombies?
Of course not. But what if video at home, allowed teachers to do the "show me" part of the equation. They may even be able to set up working situations where the student had to actually show what they said/wrote, that they knew how to deal with?


I believe that if you went into many schools you'd find that this is indeed done quite a bit, especially in the area of history, where a good deal of interesting material exists already. When my kids were in school, they certainly did get a reasonable dose of historical movies and videos as part of the curriculum.
I never seen one send a video home. And this is on top of the fact that children learn from video all the time. Of course not well in most cases, but that only means that school produced (or approved) videos, are produced. If they requests/pay for them, they will come. Video is cheap, easy to copy, and the home has the technology to support it.

But it wasn't the whole thing (fortunately!)That's an interesting idea, and one that I think a few private schools have managed to get into, but it requires considerable capital outlay and an assurance of honest and consistent long term management to go beyond a certain level.
Every student would have access to the books. There could even be a percentage incentive to find any waste. No $200 toliet seats would stand a chance of getting by. And the person who ordered it, would fire themselves-or else.

I don't know what the legal mechanism would be for providing such a source of income for a public school.
A legal challenge would be a joke. "You can't take it if I give it to you? Okay, I'll give it to them. Are you saying that they can't take it? I thought the school districts were independent? Isn't that how you explained how some are very good, and some are very bad, in the same wealthy country?"

Of course, you'd have to find someone to fund the establishment of the store, or whatever, first, as well as providing the long term management.
I think there are no shortage of successful models to copy, and improve on. A school study could even get the information without having to pay for it. Who can deny children? As it turns out, plenty of people... only, few will say that on video, and video is used everywhere-except most public schools. Then again, I take that back, it is used very much, and well, for security. Of course, a student could also use it, if they showed that they knew how to do a certain something, by taping themselves doing it.

[bruto]

Of course not. But what if video at home, allowed teachers to do the "show me" part of the equation. They may even be able to set up working situations where the student had to actually show what they said/wrote, that they knew how to deal with?


I never seen one send a video home. And this is on top of the fact that children learn from video all the time. Of course not well in most cases, but that only means that school produced (or approved) videos, are produced. If they requests/pay for them, they will come. Video is cheap, easy to copy, and the home has the technology to support it.You still have not addressed the issue of who will pay for the production of these videos, who will insure that kids have access to the equipment to watch them, when they will have the time to watch them without replacing the time used for homework, and a few other issues that have been brought up more than once. Video is cheap to copy, but not necessarily so cheap to generate, at least with any degree of quality.

Every student would have access to the books. There could even be a percentage incentive to find any waste. No $200 toliet seats would stand a chance of getting by. And the person who ordered it, would fire themselves-or else. Or else what? Who are you planning to have run this enterprise? [/quote]

A legal challenge would be a joke. "You can't take it if I give it to you? Okay, I'll give it to them. Are you saying that they can't take it? I thought the school districts were independent? Isn't that how you explained how some are very good, and some are very bad, in the same wealthy country?"[/quote]It is possible to give funds to a school. It is much more difficult to earmark them, and it is not the same thing either way as establishing a business run by the school itself, whereby the school is to generate its own funding. School districts are independent in some ways, and not in others. It is not simple. You cannot solve the problems here by pretending that it is.

I think there are no shortage of successful models to copy, and improve on. A school study could even get the information without having to pay for it. How would that occur? Do you think nobody pays for studies? Who is going to perform these studies? Who can deny children? As it turns out, plenty of people... only, few will say that on video, and video is used everywhere-except most public schools. Then again, I take that back, it is used very much, and well, for security. Of course, a student could also use it, if they showed that they knew how to do a certain something, by taping themselves doing it.I'm not sure I even understand that last bit. The question is not whether or not video is available to schools but whether it's an effective, useful and productive means of educating children. You've been handed some links to studies which deal with this very issue. Time to do some studying of your own. Your ideas are old hat. See if you can find out why they have not gone further.

[Hawk one]

The way some other countries do it is okay, but needs to be tempered. In Japan and in the remaining gymnasium system in Europe (Britain was smart enough to bail on this mess some years ago) you are identified as to what you will be at about age 13. You take tests, and they determine whether you will be permitted to go onto higher academic studies, or shunted into pipefitting or electronics assembly.

So, you'd better make damn sure at the advanced age of 13 that you know what you want to do the rest of your life and that the couple of weeks or month of testing, you don't have the flu, or aren't in a funk, or that you just don't test badly on one of those days, because someone who might otherwise become a astrophysics professor at MIT, will find him or herself unclogging stuck drains.
Not only ignoring that there are vastly different school systems throughout Europe since that's a continent with a lot of intependent nations, I can guarantee you that this is pretty much completely not what it's like in f.ex. Norway. In fact, we're heading the opposite way, with the different educations of "high school" (starting at the age of 16, ending at 18-19) getting more and more generic. And it's the grades you get in this period that is important, which is mostly based on your average quality of work, and with one or two exams (sometimes none, if you're lucky). And that's 0-2 exams total, not 0-2 exams per subject.

And while we do start with different types of education at "high school" (mechanics, electricity works, medicine, music, acting), it's more of a "choose what you want", because the grades from our first ten years at school are hardly worth anything. Especially if you're choosing the "all-round" gymnasium course, which everyone can get into as long as they merely passed elementary school.

But hey, don't let reality interfere with what the strange voices in your head tells you.

[genesplicer]

There's probably lots more than that wrong with my logic...the difference is that I've engaged in enough metacognition to understand that (not saying YOU have not...just saying _I_ have).

It is not neccesary for any organization such as the NEA to start as A and remain, throught any stretch of time, remain A. In fact, most social psychologists would argue that it is virtually impossible for a body such as the NEA to do so. That they did not, at inception, direct themselves means nothing. Which means that YOUR logic is a bit flawed, as well.

You simply cannot reasonably argue that the NEA (which dwarfs the other teacher unions both in membeship and most certainly in power and wealth) is not engaged in steering the public schools.

I must agree here. The NEA is one force working to mold the schools. I think the main reason for this is the fact that it is made up of teachers, the ones who are in the schools. Many politicians who are setting policy have no clue what's going on in the schools, but hear about a "problem" and set about to correct it. Whether or not the problem is as bad as they think, or even really exists, does not really matter. All that matters is perception.

There was an interesting poll done not too long ago, where parents of children in school were asked two questions. 1. How are the schools in America? 2.How is your child's school.
The answer to number 1 showed that the vast majority thought the American school system was in big, big trouble. The answer to question 2 showed that the vast majority of parents thought that their child's school was doing quite well. This difference in perception is causing problems. What we need to do is get parents more involved, a tricky thing to do. Most parents are busy and can't spare the time they should to be involved in the education of their children. Interestingly, the more involved the parent, the more successful the child. Imagine that.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

You speak of "the system" as if it were a person you can talk to.
That is because most are. As the movie "Carter" pointed out, go up high enough, and you reach one man. Look at the leader of the world? You think he got his job on merit?
A system put him in place, but he has to answer for it. I think that a mess in Iraq, suits some Americans just fine. I just can't prove it-alone. If only there were people who find the "spice of life" in intelligent confrontation? No simple minded office holder would be able to hold out against their informed, collective, worldwide, logical opinion. That is, if it were backed by the growing resources of the very next generation. What such people tell the next generation to vote for, they will get in just a span of five years. Each new school year, adds thousands of new voters, they are just being allowed to go to waste.

But the system will not just let an additional source of income alone, because that additional source of income would be owned and operated by "the system," and there are rules for what is allowed.
Of course there are, that is now control is maintain, but it is extremely hard to allow someone to give something away. Especially if it is money.

Well, you're just plain wrong there. Read some of my earlier posts, and maybe do some research, to try to understand how, in at least one state, they are exactly, precisely, and constitutionally under an obligation to be fair.
Fair... How do we measure that? If I give computers to a school, who would think that I am being unfair?

Public schools are an agency of public government. Copy it how? Your entire scheme is dependent on the donation of a turnkey operation from sources not well specified. I mean, realistically, I don't think your metaphysical diagram will cover more than one supermarket!
One is all I need. Each market would be obligated to put aside money for the next. What? Are they going to say no? And look at the spread of Christianity as a model, it can take hundreds of years and suit me.


Who is going to do this? Where will it be done? Without that donation, a school district would have to raise the very large revenue needed to set up the business, entirely on speculation, and that would mean that they would have to do it through taxes,
That's right, without. That is why I ain't going to want to hear from the people who "could not" find. How can such people stand against such a thing?


and that would almost certainly be illegal, as well as impossible to sell to the voters, especially when you couple it with your notion that this additional revenue could never be used to lower existing tax rates!
It would lower food taxes. And as I said, the people I am interested in, don't own houses, and have yet to add their vote to the issue.

Get real. Lots of mock voting in schools. This is very common.
Not here, and not enough. Anyway, if you add seeing someone trying to give them something, and them not getting it (though I don't know how that could be) they may see a need to use something they never had. Hell, maybe it might work. Before I started voting, N.J. went to the Republicans. Hey! maybe I helped change that.

Whether it does any good is debatable. This supermarket is supposed to make a profit, that is going to be fed into the school system. And of course they have to pay their personnel and cover other overhead before they give away the profits. This means they must mark up their merchandise.
No it doesn't, it would just have to eat the profits of other stores. You know, the ones not owned (or are giving) to the school. "Give like me, or piss off your customers."


If they sell it at cost or below, they will not make any money! What the hell do you think the word "markup" means?
Make money above operating cost... why? I would actually own the store, but I don't want it. My profit is elsewhere.


add: and with regard to your sister and the party, paying for everything may help a lot, but your sister still had to agree to host the party, and probably to clean up afterwards. Even that isn't as simple as you'd like it to seem!
It turned out great. Others seen one willing to give, and they said; "what the hell". They even cleaned up.

[Tokenconservative]

I must agree here. The NEA is one force working to mold the schools. I think the main reason for this is the fact that it is made up of teachers, the ones who are in the schools. Many politicians who are setting policy have no clue what's going on in the schools, but hear about a "problem" and set about to correct it. Whether or not the problem is as bad as they think, or even really exists, does not really matter. All that matters is perception.

There was an interesting poll done not too long ago, where parents of children in school were asked two questions. 1. How are the schools in America? 2.How is your child's school.
The answer to number 1 showed that the vast majority thought the American school system was in big, big trouble. The answer to question 2 showed that the vast majority of parents thought that their child's school was doing quite well. This difference in perception is causing problems. What we need to do is get parents more involved, a tricky thing to do. Most parents are busy and can't spare the time they should to be involved in the education of their children. Interestingly, the more involved the parent, the more successful the child. Imagine that.

Teachers have a vested interest in seeing to it that the schools do what THEY want, regardless of what is needed or what parents want. It is the concentrated (teachers) vs. the diffuse interest. Remember, your kids are in school for 12-13 years. Teachers are in this industry for 25, 30 and more. And once your kids are out you tend to lose interest. The NEA does not lose interest.

I had a very interesting experience when we made the mistake of putting our kids into a public for their 4th-5th and 5th-6th grade years (all in the span of 1/2 of a schoo year, mind you). When we finally yanked them back out again (involving lawyers and such) we were assured by the teachers and the princi"pal" that we were the only parents having such issues.

In talking to other parents, we discovered that um...well, not so much. In fact, they came to us asking why we yanked our kids out and wanting to get feedback on whether they should as well and told us they had the SAME problems and were being told that . . .(wait for it) THEY were the only parents expressing these concerns at the school!

That poll was very fascinating. I am not sure what parameters it used. If someone asked me how my kids public high school is "doing" I'd tell them: not very good. But my kids have been told: your time of a teacher leading you by your hand is over. Now, you get to teach yourself. The person standing in front of the class MAY assist you, but don't count on it--this is pre-college training, that's all.

And that's just what they are experiencing for the most part. Of course, they are "good" students and not troublemakers and every teacher appreciates both of those qualities and those who really ARE teachers are more than happy to help as they can. But even their "AP" class is a disappointment, filled with half-wits there only because mommy and daddy thought an "easy" AP class would look good on their transcript, and run by a "teacher" who clearly is in over his pinhead.

Tokie

[Tokenconservative]

Not only ignoring that there are vastly different school systems throughout Europe since that's a continent with a lot of intependent nations, I can guarantee you that this is pretty much completely not what it's like in f.ex. Norway. In fact, we're heading the opposite way, with the different educations of "high school" (starting at the age of 16, ending at 18-19) getting more and more generic. And it's the grades you get in this period that is important, which is mostly based on your average quality of work, and with one or two exams (sometimes none, if you're lucky). And that's 0-2 exams total, not 0-2 exams per subject.

And while we do start with different types of education at "high school" (mechanics, electricity works, medicine, music, acting), it's more of a "choose what you want", because the grades from our first ten years at school are hardly worth anything. Especially if you're choosing the "all-round" gymnasium course, which everyone can get into as long as they merely passed elementary school.

But hey, don't let reality interfere with what the strange voices in your head tells you.


Good for Norway. Now if you can just work on that niggling teen suicide rate....

Tokie

[bruto]

That is because most are. As the movie "Carter" pointed out, go up high enough, and you reach one man. Look at the leader of the world? You think he got his job on merit?
A system put him in place, but he has to answer for it. I think that a mess in Iraq, suits some Americans just fine. I just can't prove it-alone. If only there were people who find the "spice of life" in intelligent confrontation? No simple minded office holder would be able to hold out against their informed, collective, worldwide, logical opinion. That is, if it were backed by the growing resources of the very next generation. What such people tell the next generation to vote for, they will get in just a span of five years. Each new school year, adds thousands of new voters, they are just being allowed to go to waste. I don't think that you can use the "one man" model to understand how school systems, or a number of other governmental agencies, work. Who is that "one man" here?

Of course there are, that is now control is maintain, but it is extremely hard to allow someone to give something away. Especially if it is money.
Giving away money is one thing. Your scheme is not just giving away money, is it, but setting up an enterprise that would then be run by the school system. If you want to start a foundation that gives money to schools, you probably could do that, though you probably would find limits to the extent to which you can earmark or limit the use of the donations. But the foundation would have to be entirely independent of government. Your scheme, as you've described it, is not.
Fair... How do we measure that? If I give computers to a school, who would think that I am being unfair? How you measure it is, of course, with dollars and cents, and going by the Vermont example, it's not simple and it's not pretty. If you give computers to a school, fine. You could probably do that, but that's not what your scheme, as described, is doing.

One is all I need. Each market would be obligated to put aside money for the next. What? Are they going to say no? And look at the spread of Christianity as a model, it can take hundreds of years and suit me.Where is all this money going to come from? You're proposing to set up a market which will undersell the competition, employ members of the community well enough to be measurably beneficial to society, fund additional revenue to a school, and seed the foundation of other markets. Have you thought through the economics of this proposition carefully?


That's right, without. That is why I ain't going to want to hear from the people who "could not" find. How can such people stand against such a thing? It's easy to stand against a proposition until you give a better account of how it would actually be expected to succeed. It's quite speculative, and governments are rightly expected not to speculate with the public trust.

It would lower food taxes. And as I said, the people I am interested in, don't own houses, and have yet to add their vote to the issue. Food taxes? Most states do not tax food. It's one of the few things we still get without taxation. True enough many people do not own houses, but they pay rent to the people who do, and that rent covers the property taxes that the landlords pay. Sorry to break it to you, but own or not, unless your landlord is in the business for his health or trying very hard to get into heaven, you're paying his property taxes.

Not here, and not enough. Anyway, if you add seeing someone trying to give them something, and them not getting it (though I don't know how that could be) they may see a need to use something they never had. Hell, maybe it might work. Before I started voting, N.J. went to the Republicans. Hey! maybe I helped change that. Well, every vote helps a little. Unfortunately mock votes don't, but we can hope it piques interest in the real thing, and helps students learn a little civics.
No it doesn't, it would just have to eat the profits of other stores. You know, the ones not owned (or are giving) to the school. "Give like me, or piss off your customers." You just don't seem to get it. You do not seem to understand the meaning off the term "mark up." You buy a widget wholesale for a dollar. It costs you, say, twenty cents per widget to pay your staff, put it on a shelf, keep the roof over its head, etc. Let's imagine for the moment you decide not to make a penny of profit, but you do not want to lose money on it. Therefore you must sell it for $1.20. That's a markup. Get it?

Make money above operating cost... why? I would actually own the store, but I don't want it. My profit is elsewhere. What are we missing here? You are proposing that a store generate profits that are then donated to a school. That means that after the store has paid for its stock, and after it has met operating costs, there must be some more money available to send to the school. Where is this money to come from?


It turned out great. Others seen one willing to give, and they said; "what the hell". They even cleaned up.That's fine for a party, especially for relatives, but the willingness to pay for the party doesn't automatically solve the logistics of holding it, nor does it actually obligate anybody to host it. If you came to my door and said "A dozen of my friends and I want to have a party in hour house, but don't worry, we'll buy the beer and clean up afterward," I hope you don't think that I would be under some obligation to open the door!

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

I don't think that you can use the "one man" model to understand how school systems, or a number of other governmental agencies, work. Who is that "one man" here?
Its a movie, I forgot this was an international forum. Never mind.


Giving away money is one thing. Your scheme is not just giving away money, is it, but setting up an enterprise that would then be run by the school system.
Yeah right. Why on Earth would I let the school run it? I would run it, until I write it a constitution.

If you want to start a foundation that gives money to schools, you probably could do that, though you probably would find limits to the extent to which you can earmark or limit the use of the donations.
I would take great pleasure in giving more than I suppose to. Can you imagine them locking a guy like that up?

But the foundation would have to be entirely independent of government.
Of course.


Your scheme, as you've described it, is not.
I am sorry I gave that impression.


How you measure it is, of course, with dollars and cents, and going by the Vermont example, it's not simple and it's not pretty. If you give computers to a school, fine. You could probably do that, but that's not what your scheme, as described, is doing.


Where is all this money going to come from? You're proposing to set up a market which will undersell the competition, employ members of the community well enough to be measurably beneficial to society, fund additional revenue to a school, and seed the foundation of other markets.
The money will come from the money normally spent on groceries. Now people may not sypport their children, but it is reasonable for me to expect they will.

Have you thought through the economics of this proposition carefully?
Nope. I see supermarkets, know that you don't have to be a rocket scientist to run one, while knowing someone who knows can be hire.

It's easy to stand against a proposition until you give a better account of how it would actually be expected to succeed. It's quite speculative, and governments are rightly expected not to speculate with the public trust.
Of course they do. And they allow anyone with a product, and the money for a good sales pitch, do what they want. Oh, and those people sometime steal, but somehow they have convinced some of the public that it is their fault, because they weren't watching/voting/whatever.

Food taxes? Most states do not tax food. It's one of the few things we still get without taxation.
McDonald's taxes here.

True enough many people do not own houses, but they pay rent to the people who do, and that rent covers the property taxes that the landlords pay. Sorry to break it to you, but own or not, unless your landlord is in the business for his health or trying very hard to get into heaven, you're paying his property taxes.
Yeah but most don't see it that way, they are paying rent. The fact that some of it goes towards his property taxes is not their major concern. When the landlord falls on hard times, and can no longer run the building, most people move.


Well, every vote helps a little. Unfortunately mock votes don't, but we can hope it piques interest in the real thing, and helps students learn a little civics.
Showing them the numbers can't hurt.

You just don't seem to get it. You do not seem to understand the meaning off the term "mark up." You buy a widget wholesale for a dollar. It costs you, say, twenty cents per widget to pay your staff, put it on a shelf, keep the roof over its head, etc. Let's imagine for the moment you decide not to make a penny of profit, but you do not want to lose money on it. Therefore you must sell it for $1.20. That's a markup. Get it? What are we missing here?
It will be run like any other store. It will only be require to sell at the same price as everyone else. Its advantage will be that the profits here, go to..., the other guys, don't.

You are proposing that a store generate profits that are then donated to a school. That means that after the store has paid for its stock, and after it has met operating costs, there must be some more money available to send to the school. Where is this money to come from?
Swallowing other stores.

That's fine for a party, especially for relatives, but the willingness to pay for the party doesn't automatically solve the logistics of holding it, nor does it actually obligate anybody to host it.
You got my vote, I thought against it, but it worked.

If you came to my door and said "A dozen of my friends and I want to have a party in hour house, but don't worry, we'll buy the beer and clean up afterward," I hope you don't think that I would be under some obligation to open the door!
What if I gave you $50,000?
Some lady left her dog 12 million.

[bruto]

Its a movie, I forgot this was an international forum. Never mind.


Yeah right. Why on Earth would I let the school run it? I would run it, until I write it a constitution.

I would take great pleasure in giving more than I suppose to. Can you imagine them locking a guy like that up?

Of course.

I am sorry I gave that impression.


How you measure it is, of course, with dollars and cents, and going by the Vermont example, it's not simple and it's not pretty. If you give computers to a school, fine. You could probably do that, but that's not what your scheme, as described, is doing.


The money will come from the money normally spent on groceries. Now people may not sypport their children, but it is reasonable for me to expect they will.

Nope. I see supermarkets, know that you don't have to be a rocket scientist to run one, while knowing someone who knows can be hire.

Of course they do. And they allow anyone with a product, and the money for a good sales pitch, do what they want. Oh, and those people sometime steal, but somehow they have convinced some of the public that it is their fault, because they weren't watching/voting/whatever.

McDonald's taxes here.

Yeah but most don't see it that way, they are paying rent. The fact that some of it goes towards his property taxes is not their major concern. When the landlord falls on hard times, and can no longer run the building, most people move.


Showing them the numbers can't hurt.

It will be run like any other store. It will only be require to sell at the same price as everyone else. Its advantage will be that the profits here, go to..., the other guys, don't.

Swallowing other stores.

You got my vote, I thought against it, but it worked.

What if I gave you $50,000?
Some lady left her dog 12 million.

I really don't think you have understood much here. Of course, the money spent on groceries will, presumably go into your store, but in order for your store not to lose money it will have to buy merchandise, calculate its running expenses, and then mark the price of the merchandise up to cover the purchase price, the overhead, and the profit that is the whole point of the enterprise. Swallowing other stores only gains more customers. You do not somehow end up owning their assets, and even if you did, you would not see any money until you sold those assets to somebody at a profit. You still have to sell your goods, and make your profit from the markup, or go broke.

Macdonald's food is taxed because it is a restaurant, and most states have a rooms and meals tax. Food bought at markets is not generally taxed. This is an important distinction, and if somehow you are basing any business plan on that misunderstanding you'd better think again.

Perhaps you have not explained your scheme well enough, but before, it seemed as if you were going to give this turnkey operation to the school to operate. Now you say, no, that it will not be operated by the school. So who does operate it, and how then will you ensure that it is run properly, and in the interest of the school?

The fact that most people who pay rent have not stopped to consider that their rent goes to pay property taxes does not make it not so. Your rent pays your landlord's property taxes, or the landlord goes broke. If the taxes go up, your rent will likely go up too. If rent control prevents that, then I imagine the assessment of the property will reflect that, and if it does not, then you're likely to see what has happened in many places, which is that the property will be sold and renters will be out off a home. Of course you can move if you don't like it, but not everyone has that option, and if all the taxes go up and all the rents go up or all the buildings go condo, then the only place to move is somewhere else. This effect may not be what you're seeking.

Running a grocery store may not be rocket science, but I think it may involve more science than you've yet acquired. You need to do some more thinking about this whole thing. Even if there really is a pie in the sky, all you'll get is pie. If you want money, you have to sell that pie and not lose money in the process.

p.s. please excuse if there are extra F's in this post. My keyboard is acting up, and I may not catch them all in proofreading.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

Judging from every one of your posts in this thread, I'm just going to go ahead and call you a liar.
If you start calling me names, I will have to stract calling you names, then neither of us would look smart.

You don't have a plan, you have an idea. An unrealistic idea based on ignorant assumptions, at that.
Its my dime.


Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is? I'll gladly bet you a measly $100 that, even if you manage to not get the idea sold to some website, no school is going to accept from you a supermarket.
They don't have to. I could say its theirs, give them the money-to be put where we "both" (hopefully) think it ought to go. If they resist, I will have a show to exploit, increasing the hits on the website, perhaps some buying.

You see, all of the logistical implications aside, a food market owned by a school district would be illegal in every state I can think of in the United States. Good luck finding a locality to create a law for you allowing an exception in your case.
I don't think it will come to that.

And how is this to be done in major metropolitan areas that have more schools than supermarkets?
I guess some of the local businesses, that don't match the offer, will have to suffer.

How about very rural areas that have similar conditions with far more space between them?
I'm only concerned with the city for now. This idea is not going to bring home the soldiers missing from Vietnam either.

What makes you think your assumed moral high ground is going to be able to compete with the likes of Wal Mart and similar stores?
Wal mart and similar stores will be next.

No, you can't. Just because you think you can doesn't mean you can. Everyone who has told you that your idea isn't going to work has been stressing that you have very specifically not addressed every step of the way.
I'm not mad at them, I'm going to try it anyway though.



For someone who just finished preaching about a moral high ground, you seem willing to partake in some pretty unethical manipulation to try and accomplish what you want.
What about the federal goverment admitting that it failed to stop drugs from getting into this country, yet seems determine to lock up everybody affected by it? Without drugs, that would be an unemployment problem. Oh wait, when the housing boom started, those jobs were sucked away by another federal failure. N.J. is a long way from the Mexican border.

Perhaps you should evaluate your own motivations before you jump too deeply into some pretty unethical practices. You won't get much support with such a petty and manipulative plan of approach.
I'm only being honest, would you like for me to BS you?

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

I must agree here. The NEA is one force working to mold the schools. I think the main reason for this is the fact that it is made up of teachers, the ones who are in the schools. Many politicians who are setting policy have no clue what's going on in the schools, but hear about a "problem" and set about to correct it. Whether or not the problem is as bad as they think, or even really exists, does not really matter. All that matters is perception.
Why can't the NEA stand up to them? They suppose to know what is best. Why not go on strike, like they do for pay.


What we need to do is get parents more involved, a tricky thing to do. Most parents are busy and can't spare the time they should to be involved in the education of their children. Interestingly, the more involved the parent, the more successful the child. Imagine that.

Something new, something easy, something they do anyway has to be found.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

You should actually read them, then, instead of of just doing a Google search on the titles and reading summaries. They cover the impact of using video as a pedagogical tool and much, much more. Welcome to the big, wide world of "everything is more complicated than just one simple point."
I could search for them, but if they were easy to find, you would have slapped me with them by now. Besides, no matter what they say, I'm going to try it anyway. You can laugh when I fail.


You can feel free to comment to me on the contents of those studies when you have actually read them. Until then, please don't lie just because you wish to be intellectually lazy.
Lie? About what? You are right about the lazy part though, or is it realism? I simply cannot through ever subject. It hurts my head.

I ask you again: who handles the process of creating the content? It requires standardization, and for something like you are talking about no such standards exist, so they would have to be created. It requires organization, and for something like you are proposing you sure are explaining a whole lot of nothing as far as organization. It requires a video production company, all of which have not only up-front costs but residual costs due to writing and redistribution. It requires the ability to make it available to all necessary sources for distribution (this is before it even goew to the public), to which you seem to have offered even more nothing than you have for organization. It requires even dissemination, which requires that the medium (or mediums) to which you propose it is distributed need to be available to an incredibly high percentage of student, and available in a supplementary form to those whom it is not available-- this is critical, because otherwise it won't fly.
There are people who handle those things, right? I guess I would have to pay them-but only one time.

These may seem like little details to you, but to anyone who has ever worked on a project of a national scale to roll out anything, much less a specific pedagogical tool in video format, the ideas you are proposing without any logistical background makes you sound like you have no idea of what you actually want to accomplish.
National? Lets start locally, within walking distance, export it later.



We have a historically high deficit and the market has been spending the last couple months. I won't even get into trying to explain to you how much school funding comes from state and local levels, because arguing that the country is blowing a boatload of money on other stupid things is about as credible as a child complaining they should get to do something because Billy down the street can.
Yeah, what about that Billy. You know, even with the deficit, the war, and rebuilding the Gulf Coast, Bush still sticks to his trillion dollar tax.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

I really don't think you have understood much here. Of course, the money spent on groceries will, presumably go into your store, but in order for your store not to lose money it will have to buy merchandise, calculate its running expenses, and then mark the price of the merchandise up to cover the purchase price, the overhead, and the profit that is the whole point of the enterprise.
Just like other businesses, they manage, don't they? The number of small stores, tells me that they have to be able to support what they are doing. Wouldn't the one left, make more profit because there is less competition?

Swallowing other stores only gains more customers. You do not somehow end up owning their assets,
Through their child, better connections can be made.

and even if you did, you would not see any money until you sold those assets to somebody at a profit. You still have to sell your goods, and make your profit from the markup, or go broke.
With a near guanteed customer base, it should do okay.

Macdonald's food is taxed because it is a restaurant, and most states have a rooms and meals tax. Food bought at markets is not generally taxed. This is an important distinction, and if somehow you are basing any business plan on that misunderstanding you'd better think again.
No. I don't even know how it came up.


The fact that most people who pay rent have not stopped to consider that their rent goes to pay property taxes does not make it not so.
They can't claim it on their taxes.

Running a grocery store may not be rocket science, but I think it may involve more science than you've yet acquired. You need to do some more thinking about this whole thing. Even if there really is a pie in the sky, all you'll get is pie. If you want money, you have to sell that pie and not lose money in the process.
I was being brief, there is more to it than what I have said. Have you seen how automatic checkout is reducing overhead?

[Solus]

LCL, glad to see you're still frequenting the forums. Remember your old thread and lets hope this one goes better...

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

LCL, glad to see you're still frequenting the forums. Remember your old thread and lets hope this one goes better...
It should.

[bruto]

Just like other businesses, they manage, don't they? The number of small stores, tells me that they have to be able to support what they are doing. Wouldn't the one left, make more profit because there is less competition?Some manage, some do not. You might consider finding out how large grocery chains operate, and then try to figure out why they can charge less at retail than most unaffiliated groceries can buy their goods wholesale, and then figure out how you're going to squeeze them out. Loyalty goes only so far when people are paying for their food.

Through their child, better connections can be made.

With a near guanteed customer base, it should do okay.People will travel for food. Many inner cities have no supermarkets at all. Research this.

No. I don't even know how it came up.The subject of food taxes came up because you brought it up. It's irrelevant.


They can't claim it on their taxes.That does not mean that they are unaware. Property taxes are paid, and people know they are being paid, and any scheme you put forth that would prevent lowering them when the opportunity arises will be unpopular.

I was being brief, there is more to it than what I have said. Have you seen how automatic checkout is reducing overhead?You still have overhead, and you still haven't addressed the basics.

[Tokenconservative]

Some manage, some do not. You might consider finding out how large grocery chains operate, and then try to figure out why they can charge less at retail than most unaffiliated groceries can buy their goods wholesale, and then figure out how you're going to squeeze them out. Loyalty goes only so far when people are paying for their food.People will travel for food. Many inner cities have no supermarkets at all. Research this.The subject of food taxes came up because you brought it up. It's irrelevant. That does not mean that they are unaware. Property taxes are paid, and people know they are being paid, and any scheme you put forth that would prevent lowering them when the opportunity arises will be unpopular.You still have overhead, and you still haven't addressed the basics.


The larger the chain the more in bulk they are able to buy, which lowers wholesale pricing, which can lower retail pricing.

There's really no way to squeeze a direct-competitor of this sort out. The better approach for a small market is to appeal to the niche. We see this with health and specialty foods and with luxury foods. An independent grocer, when competing head-to-head, simply cannot outprice a Wal-Mart or some such.

Traditional "inner cities" lost markets due to crime. It's a matter of costs. When you lose more to shrink and/or other crime (burglary, robbery) make less in a day's profits (normally pretty low in the grocery biz, anyway--2-7%) you cannot stay in business very long.

Some inner cities, especially in the South, parts of the Lower Midwewst and in the West are experiencing gentrification and re-gentrification and the market for smaller speciality grocers is wide open as people with lots of disposable income who prefer to stay in their neighborhood and are not likely to travel very far (if they don't have to) for cheaper groceries are moving back into these places. Old-fashioned grocery delivery also appeals to them.

Tokie

[bruto]

The larger the chain the more in bulk they are able to buy, which lowers wholesale pricing, which can lower retail pricing.

There's really no way to squeeze a direct-competitor of this sort out. The better approach for a small market is to appeal to the niche. We see this with health and specialty foods and with luxury foods. An independent grocer, when competing head-to-head, simply cannot outprice a Wal-Mart or some such.

Traditional "inner cities" lost markets due to crime. It's a matter of costs. When you lose more to shrink and/or other crime (burglary, robbery) make less in a day's profits (normally pretty low in the grocery biz, anyway--2-7%) you cannot stay in business very long.

Some inner cities, especially in the South, parts of the Lower Midwewst and in the West are experiencing gentrification and re-gentrification and the market for smaller speciality grocers is wide open as people with lots of disposable income who prefer to stay in their neighborhood and are not likely to travel very far (if they don't have to) for cheaper groceries are moving back into these places. Old-fashioned grocery delivery also appeals to them.

Tokie

Partially true, at least. Some cities have lost their markets, not because of crime, but because of difficulty in finding suffficiently spacious quarters, and because the big chains have little motivation to move there, since they do well enough in the outlying areas. Burliington, Vermont is an example of this.

On the matter of pricing, I think our friend LCL needs to do some more research. Although many industries seem to have dropped vertical integration, perhaps because you can't put the screws to your suppliers if you are your own supplier, supermarket chains seem still to be pretty well integrated, and it's pretty hard for an independent market to beat a well-connected chain.

I'm reminded of a situation in my former home town some years ago. An ambitious young couple opened a small semi-independent (IGA) supermarket in the town, which had no market within miles. They had a pretty good little business for a while, but they did not want to be a mom-and-pop kind of grocery, and did not think they needed to provide extra services such as extended hours, credit, delivery, special orders, and the like. It was not long before they found themselves hurting, unable to afford to keep their stock up to date, etc. and they were out of business within a couple of years. As it happens, I was at the local dump's paper recycling trailer one day, when I spotted one of the copies of their computer-printed order book from IGA. Each week or so, IGA would provide a huge computer printout of current goods and prices, from which the market would order. A quick scan of the list revealed that this market was paying more for most items at wholesale than the "Warehouse Foods" outlet in a neighboring town was charging its customers. At that time, factoring in the price of gas, it would still pay a consumer to drive the 12 miles to Warehouse foods for a couple of days' worth of groceries, even ignoring the obvious additonal benefit of better selection and fresher goods. The local gas station had the same problem. They were paying more for their wholesale gas than the company-owned convenience store a mile down the road was charging at the pump, tax included! Hard to win that way.

Smaller specialty grocers can do well if they have something people want, but they will never squeeze out the big box competition, especially in neighborhoods where people's income level makes it necessary to stretch the food dollar, which are exactly the neighborhoods that LCL seems to be targeting.

[Solus]

My old high school history teacher had a similar idea about grocery stores in "low income urban areas". I think he used the term high crime instead. His idea was to build an automated grocery store. People would select the foods they wanted on a computer screen. After paying the automated teller. The food would then be brought to them from the back area on a conveyor belt. No direct human contact, all automated.

The idea made no sense, and would end up costing a huge amount to even set up. That teacher was an amusing guy though, and did know his WW2 history at least. I'm not sure what LCL is advocating but it's already sounding similar.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

My old high school history teacher had a similar idea about grocery stores in "low income urban areas". I think he used the term high crime instead. His idea was to build an automated grocery store. People would select the foods they wanted on a computer screen. After paying the automated teller. The food would then be brought to them from the back area on a conveyor belt. No direct human contact, all automated.

The idea made no sense, and would end up costing a huge amount to even set up. That teacher was an amusing guy though, and did know his WW2 history at least. I'm not sure what LCL is advocating but it's already sounding similar.
That is what I am advocating, but with a slightly different twist. Most stores operate to reduce their need for workers. I want to replace the conveyor belt, with a person pulling a cart. There will be no contact, no shelves full of food. (Though there will be a place to shop traditionally.) The shopper would pick cards representing what they want, pay for it at the counter, then have a seat and wait for their order to come up. Depending on how much they buy, they will be served something to eat. I want the market to be labor intensive, but done out of sight. Actually, sense most people buy the same stuff every month, I am hoping that they can "email it" and have it delivered.

[bruto]

That is what I am advocating, but with a slightly different twist. Most stores operate to reduce their need for workers. I want to replace the conveyor belt, with a person pulling a cart. There will be no contact, no shelves full of food. (Though there will be a place to shop traditionally.) The shopper would pick cards representing what they want, pay for it at the counter, then have a seat and wait for their order to come up. Depending on how much they buy, they will be served something to eat. I want the market to be labor intensive, but done out of sight. Actually, sense most people buy the same stuff every month, I am hoping that they can "email it" and have it delivered.

I was going to go on picking at details, but it's really pretty hopeless at this juncture. It's fun to speculate here on a forum, but I think if you're serious about your ideas, both in regard to school technology and supermarket economics, you owe it to yourself to do some more serious inquiry. I don't think you've really taken the time to figure out why so many things are the way they are, rather than the way you think they ought to be. There's no point it getting too excited about ideas if they've been tried already and discarded.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

I was going to go on picking at details, but it's really pretty hopeless at this juncture. It's fun to speculate here on a forum, but I think if you're serious about your ideas, both in regard to school technology and supermarket economics, you owe it to yourself to do some more serious inquiry. I don't think you've really taken the time to figure out why so many things are the way they are, rather than the way you think they ought to be. There's no point it getting too excited about ideas if they've been tried already and discarded.

Actually, I was hoping that you would pick. Positive suggestions would be nice, but negative ones are my bread and butter, they show me what has been used to "stop the show". Knowing that, I can either attack the problem, or know where it is coming from. Like I said, I ain't mad at anybody, even though they disagree with me. Only... you should not assume that I am have no idea what I am talking about... even though you do indeed have reason to.
I know supermarkets work, I am counting on people directing their spending towards their children, and that if my diagram plan works, I can cover the lost of a store unitil it crushes it competition. Its all about what someone is willing to do, and why.

[bruto]

Actually, I was hoping that you would pick. Positive suggestions would be nice, but negative ones are my bread and butter, they show me what has been used to "stop the show". Knowing that, I can either attack the problem, or know where it is coming from. Like I said, I ain't mad at anybody, even though they disagree with me. Only... you should not assume that I am have no idea what I am talking about... even though you do indeed have reason to.
I know supermarkets work, I am counting on people directing their spending towards their children, and that if my diagram plan works, I can cover the lost of a store unitil it crushes it competition. Its all about what someone is willing to do, and why.

Optimism can be a virtue, but only insofar as it makes the difficult things seem possible. When it deflects you from practical ideas it's a good deal less laudable. The value of your diagram and other work are far from realization, I suspect, and it seems premature to use that dream to plan for a project which at the very least would require considerable capital, and all at risk. What people are willing to do, and why, is indeed one of the big questions. I think if you wanted to do some positive good for education you might consider trying to find a way to get parents to provide them with a regular breakfast, and work your way up to more high tech problems. A small thing done well is worth more than a big one never begun.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

Optimism can be a virtue, but only insofar as it makes the difficult things seem possible. When it deflects you from practical ideas it's a good deal less laudable. The value of your diagram and other work are far from realization, I suspect, and it seems premature to use that dream to plan for a project which at the very least would require considerable capital, and all at risk.
I think ot is best to dream before you get cash in hand, a person maybe in a better position to spent it. It also makes it hard for them to back out of what they said. Besides, giving the money away is part of its selling point. Having failed to win outright (or any) approval from people who seem to know better, one, or more, of its selling points, may allow me to avoid seeing the difference. I am fully prepared to walk briskly onto the playing field, and move the goal posts as close as I need them. As long as it does not involve outright lying, or standing by something I don't believe.
It's not science, so it has to be used to teach (or inspire the teaching of) science. Anyone frown at me, I'll run up the flag of giving to children.

And moving the goal post is not always lying, sometimes they just need adjusting.

What people are willing to do, and why, is indeed one of the big questions.
That is why I choose something easy, and something they are doing already. I think the school system thinking that somehow a large number of parents are going to get involved in schools, involves too many differcult steps.

I think if you wanted to do some positive good for education you might consider trying to find a way to get parents to provide them with a regular breakfast, and work your way up to more high tech problems

A market linked to a school in the way I am saying, would be in a good position to support a breakfast program. You know, like how some markets cook the food that is about to go bad and sell it. And I think the state is doing that away. There is no way I would let them off the hook from paying for anything.

A small thing done well is worth more than a big one never begun.Even if nothing happens, it is good to kick ideas around. Besides, I didn't plan for anything else.

[bruto]

I think ot is best to dream before you get cash in hand, a person maybe in a better position to spent it. It also makes it hard for them to back out of what they said. Besides, giving the money away is part of its selling point. Having failed to win outright (or any) approval from people who seem to know better, one, or more, of its selling points, may allow me to avoid seeing the difference. I am fully prepared to walk briskly onto the playing field, and move the goal posts as close as I need them. As long as it does not involve outright lying, or standing by something I don't believe.
It's not science, so it has to be used to teach (or inspire the teaching of) science. Anyone frown at me, I'll run up the flag of giving to children.

And moving the goal post is not always lying, sometimes they just need adjusting.

That is why I choose something easy, and something they are doing already. I think the school system thinking that somehow a large number of parents are going to get involved in schools, involves too many differcult steps.

A market linked to a school in the way I am saying, would be in a good position to support a breakfast program. You know, like how some markets cook the food that is about to go bad and sell it. And I think the state is doing that away. There is no way I would let them off the hook from paying for anything.

Even if nothing happens, it is good to kick ideas around. Besides, I didn't plan for anything else.

Lots of flags out there, and little magnetic ribbons too, but after a while they're just part of the noise.

[NobbyNobbs]

And in a minute (I hope) they will be needed to argue intelligent design back out of school. When ever they ask me a question about it, I will refer them here.

Dr Dino, L. Ron Hubbard, and that book "The Secret" have made it plain that it will if you trick it. Dr Dino got a park, and Ron got a near-mindless cult.
I am sure that my numbers will be able to put ID in school, even if I have to hand them out myself while traveling the East Coast.

Sorry, I was away for a bit, so I'm a little behind. Are you seriously suggesting that we base this revolution in education on "The Secret" and getting ID into the schools?!



Manpower... and I guess am enlightened me should say "womenpower". Any most any school district can claim 1,000 people who have to study/pay attention to the things that it thinks are important. In the innercity, they can have that in every school.

Really? When I taught in the inner city, I was lucky to have 3 parents come to parent/teacher night. That's 3 out of 113.



Task one class to read/study one book, and it can be taken apart in a day. Pay the students who like doing that, with an award for doing the best, along with 2, 3, and 4. Multiply by all the schools in the district... When they graduate, pay them real money. That is, if you weren't paying them while in school.

Where is this money coming from?



In order to get to where I am going, intelligent design has to get into school-or be thought to be there. I don't like it. Even if there were a God, it has not image, and it would not act, or think, like a man. But morals have to be taught in school, and atheist are not sure that they-or anything-exist. While I agree, others preceive that as a "cop out" because they "feel" things, and guess what they feel like? Exactly what they can't explain. Something not there, but very, very real.

Not atheist.



NO WAY. But their school system, needs an intelligent design. I fear that religion will beat at the door until they get in, they have that kind of persistance, and faith. If too many education systems are failing when they do, a small group of people saying otherwise, will not matter. Imagine if I were for intelligent design and religious images, and were determined to aggressively donate that diagram?
And I see that me saying that I were going to drag it across the East Coast may have make me seem crazy, but I don't think I am going to need to do that. The number code is at themathcode.com. It may be silly, but it does say, what I say it does.

Let me see if I understand this. You want ID in the schools. The reason for this is that the religious nuts are so persistent, that they are bound to succeed and therefore we should beat them to it.

The other reason is that kids need morals and religion teaches that and that atheists are sure if morals exist.

Do I have this right? Is that really what you're saying?





Of course not. But what if video at home, allowed teachers to do the "show me" part of the equation. They may even be able to set up working situations where the student had to actually show what they said/wrote, that they knew how to deal with?

You really think that the "show me" part of education is separate from any other part? Perhaps you should find a good teacher and spend some time in his/her classroom. It's not like we set apart 15 minutes and say, "ok, it's show-me time". Education doesn't work that way.




I never seen one send a video home.

Ever wonder if maybe there's a good reason for this?





Yeah right. Why on Earth would I let the school run it? I would run it, until I write it a constitution.

I could have sworn that earlier you were advocating that the school run the supermarket.





Nope. I see supermarkets, know that you don't have to be a rocket scientist to run one, while knowing someone who knows can be hire.

No, you need to be an economist. Or a businessman. Or an entrepreneur. or a venture capitalist. But whatever it is you are, it requires at least a basic understanding of the economic and legal principles involved.




McDonald's taxes here.

As I said, a basic understanding of the economic and legal principles involved. McDonald's taxes here too. So do all restaurants. What isn't taxed are grocery stores, and only for "essential items", which includes most foodstuffs, drinks, toothpaste, etc. If you go to the grocery store and buy a notebook, it'll be taxed. If you go to a restaurant and buy a roll, it'll be taxed. But generic food shopping is not taxed.





It will be run like any other store. It will only be require to sell at the same price as everyone else. Its advantage will be that the profits here, go to..., the other guys, don't.

Before you implement this, perhaps you should do some research and find out exactly what the profit margin of your average supermarket is. You'd be surprised what a narrow line they tread....

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

Sorry, I was away for a bit, so I'm a little behind. Are you seriously suggesting that we base this revolution in education on "The Secret" and getting ID into the schools?!
No. "The Secret" and things like it show that anything can be sold. I thing the ID debate is a good way to generate alot of money. Money that can then be used to provide schools with an additional source of income.

Really? When I taught in the inner city, I was lucky to have 3 parents come to parent/teacher night. That's 3 out of 113.
I said they are available, not that they come anywhere near the school. But if they focused that shopping, for the things that they are constantly buying anyway, they can help the school and keep doing what they have been.
They have not been coming, and it does not seem that they are going to start-find a way to work around that.



Where is this money coming from?
Mine? From what I posted. The school? From grocery shopping.




Let me see if I understand this. You want ID in the schools. The reason for this is that the religious nuts are so persistent, that they are bound to succeed and therefore we should beat them to it.
No. You have to be ready to fight them- I'm going to arrange the fight whether you like it or not.



The other reason is that kids need morals and religion teaches that and that atheists are sure if morals exist.
The school needs morals, and religion teaches that, but morals should be (and are) independent of any faith. Atheist can help explain the orgins of why life behaves the way it does. The way we act, has some type of evolutionary survival valve. Not something handed down from the sky.


You really think that the "show me" part of education is separate from any other part?
No.

Perhaps you should find a good teacher and spend some time in his/her classroom. It's not like we set apart 15 minutes and say, "ok, it's show-me time". Education doesn't work that way.
If technology could give teachers more time, perhaps they could add some real "show me" time. As I said before, the military course had one where the student had to show what they knew, and write down what they saw.

Ever wonder if maybe there's a good reason for this?
Yeah, they don't have them.



I could have sworn that earlier you were advocating that the school run the supermarket.
No, how could they? They don't even have time to do what they are doing. The students could use it though, as real time, live learning.



No, you need to be an economist. Or a businessman. Or an entrepreneur. or a venture capitalist. But whatever it is you are, it requires at least a basic understanding of the economic and legal principles involved.
I think those people can be readily hired.

As I said, a basic understanding of the economic and legal principles involved. McDonald's taxes here too. So do all restaurants. What isn't taxed are grocery stores, and only for "essential items", which includes most foodstuffs, drinks, toothpaste, etc. If you go to the grocery store and buy a notebook, it'll be taxed. If you go to a restaurant and buy a roll, it'll be taxed. But generic food shopping is not taxed.
Oh.


Before you implement this, perhaps you should do some research and find out exactly what the profit margin of your average supermarket is. You'd be surprised what a narrow line they tread....
When I visit local markets, they never have all of their registers open. I think they would have them open if they were getting a larger number of shoppers. If there were a way to draw more shoppers, by making them feel that they were serving a higher purpose, that store would have more profit.
As it stands the local markets are managing to still stay open with half their registers closed.

[drkitten]

[QUOTE=lightcreatedlife@hom;3038684]
When I visit local markets, they never have all of their registers open. [/QUTOE]

Huh? Nobby suggests you look into the profit margins of supermarkets, and you burble about counting the number of open registers in a store?

Check the actual figures (fmi.org/facts_figs/CompetitionandProfit.pdf). According to the relevant trade rags, supermarkets make less than a penny and a half of profit per dollar of sale.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

Huh? Nobby suggests you look into the profit margins of supermarkets, and you burble about counting the number of open registers in a store?
Like I said, if they are functioning at half capacity, full capacity should be better. Anyway, I think you guys are missing the point, and you Dr Kitten, have already shown why. You know, when you suggested that any new source be used to support the same old bad idea.
I have already said that I am less interested in money profit, than I am with the profit that such a thing can bring a school, and the neighborhood around it. The market that I am talking about is all about focusing money spent anyway, towards the school. It is about placing jobs being done anyway, towards people in the neighborhood surrounding the school. You know, the more people working, the less not working. In the inner city, that can go a long way.
The people affected, can get the feeling of being a part of something, feel that they are a part of their own solution, using their own money, and their own effort. Easy effort, which would only involve supporting the stores, that support them. Right now, they support everybody, but themselves. The bad conditions in the cities, have always supported the good conditions in the surrounding suburbs-that is where the storekeepers tend to spend the money they earn in the city.
As a market program grows, and more high schools have/linked to markets, then two, perhaps three, more of the money of those neighborhoods would stay to better those neighborhoods. Such a thing can become a model, because the cities tend to share the same problems. Who knows, rich sports stars looking for a place to "giveback" could even give a market, put their name on it even, if they want.

Check the actual figures (http://fmi.org/facts_figs/CompetitionandProfit.pdf). According to the relevant trade rags, supermarkets make less than a penny and a half of profit per dollar of sale.
If more of the dollars flow towards a local source, there will be more pennies of profit to spend locally.

[bruto]

Like I said, if they are functioning at half capacity, full capacity should be better. Anyway, I think you guys are missing the point, and you Dr Kitten, have already shown why. You know, when you suggested that any new source be used to support the same old bad idea.
I have already said that I am less interested in money profit, than I am with the profit that such a thing can bring a school, and the neighborhood around it. The market that I am talking about is all about focusing money spent anyway, towards the school. It is about placing jobs being done anyway, towards people in the neighborhood surrounding the school. You know, the more people working, the less not working. In the inner city, that can go a long way.
The people affected, can get the feeling of being a part of something, feel that they are a part of their own solution, using their own money, and their own effort. Easy effort, which would only involve supporting the stores, that support them. Right now, they support everybody, but themselves. The bad conditions in the cities, have always supported the good conditions in the surrounding suburbs-that is where the storekeepers tend to spend the money they earn in the city.
As a market program grows, and more high schools have/linked to markets, then two, perhaps three, more of the money of those neighborhoods would stay to better those neighborhoods. Such a thing can become a model, because the cities tend to share the same problems. Who knows, rich sports stars looking for a place to "giveback" could even give a market, put their name on it even, if they want.

If more of the dollars flow towards a local source, there will be more pennies of profit to spend locally.

You have not indicated why, other than the presumed loyalty of customers, your market will perform any better than the ones already present. If they are not running at full capacity, why will yours?

You have not figured out how you will be able to provide goods at competitive prices in competition with vertically integrated grocery chains, which own and control their own house brands, their own distribution networks and their own transportation - or did you ignore my little anecdote about the local IGA and its insoluble price problem?

You have not given any evidence that you actually know how much capital would be required to establish a business of that magnitude.

You have not given any evidence that you know even a little bit about the legal ramifications of running a non profit organization, of the possibility for such a business to be operated by a public agency such as a school system, or whether you understand why a school system would almost certainly reject any plan which, if I read you right, will tie funding to the promotion of "intelligent design," or to the development of educational initiatives with which they may not agree, such as video homework.

And of course, finally, there's the little question of where the initial investment is going to come from. Before you make too many plans for how you will distribute the fortune made from your theory of everything, you should probably find out whether you can even give it away.

The whole scheme is just an idle dream of the "if I were in charge" variety. When I was about seven years old, I read If I Ran the Zoo, and found it good fun, but it was silly even then, and the adult equivalent is sillier still.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

You have not indicated why, other than the presumed loyalty of customers, your market will perform any better than the ones already present. If they are not running at full capacity, why will yours?
I have some ideas about designs, but yeah, parents shopping to support their children is the linchpin. Its their children, its easy, I am just going to have to cross my fingers.

You have not figured out how you will be able to provide goods at competitive prices in competition with vertically integrated grocery chains, which own and control their own house brands, their own distribution networks and their own transportation - or did you ignore my little anecdote about the local IGA and its insoluble price problem?
You saying that if they know what I intend, that they would see to it that I don't get any food to operate? You mean that it is not possible for just anyone with the money to operate a market?



You have not given any evidence that you actually know how much capital would be required to establish a business of that magnitude.
I'll find out, and save unitl I can.

You have not given any evidence that you know even a little bit about the legal ramifications of running a non profit organization,
If nonprofit is too hard, just run a normal business, I'll just still do what I said with the store.


of the possibility for such a business to be operated by a public agency such as a school system,
What public agency?


or whether you understand why a school system would almost certainly reject any plan which, if I read you right, will tie funding to the promotion of "intelligent design,"
You are reading me wrong. I intend to make money on the debate, what I do with it is my own... And couldn't I funnel it through a third party? Or create a third party?

We have 10 charter schools here, they won't take it either?

or to the development of educational initiatives with which they may not agree, such as video homework.
I will stick to computers, things they like, until I get in, and then... make a few of my own... requests.


And of course, finally, there's the little question of where the initial investment is going to come from. Before you make too many plans for how you will distribute the fortune made from your theory of everything, you should probably find out whether you can even give it away.
I am going to give part of it away. And we live in a world of people searching for bible codes, messages in tea leaves, people visiting palm readers, people believing the Da Vinci codes, oh yeah, and ID debates. Besides, if nothing comes from it, where is the harm? I do not consider this year long learning adventure a waste. I may give it another year before I get started. How does that saying go: "its not the destination, but the trip?" Luckily for me, I found something that required that I take a trip, and I will still have the experience even if I don't get where I am going.


The whole scheme is just an idle dream of the "if I were in charge" variety. When I was about seven years old, I read If I Ran the Zoo, and found it good fun, but it was silly even then, and the adult equivalent is sillier still.
Idle dreams? The one thing that bothers me about the people in this forum is that they are not putting all that combined knowledge towards something... anything. Whatever became of what Athon said about educational resources in 2005? Or do you feel that beating down the dreams of people like me is a worthwhile goal? Something that wont happen here, because I actually have to fail, not just think I will. And even then, I will be back. At least I intend to do something with what I know, and what I have. If it don't work, I tried, and I learned.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

My old high school history teacher had a similar idea about grocery stores in "low income urban areas". I think he used the term high crime instead. His idea was to build an automated grocery store. People would select the foods they wanted on a computer screen. After paying the automated teller. The food would then be brought to them from the back area on a conveyor belt. No direct human contact, all automated.
Seems to me that he wanted to suck even more money out of the neighborhood, to cut out all the workers.

[bruto]

I have some ideas about designs, but yeah, parents shopping to support their children is the linchpin. Its their children, its easy, I am just going to have to cross my fingers.

You saying that if they know what I intend, that they would see to it that I don't get any food to operate? You mean that it is not possible for just anyone with the money to operate a market? Yes, it's possible for anyone with the money to operate a market. Many do. Some succeed, though many don't. It is hard to operate profitably you cannot buy the goods as cheaply as your competitors can! You really need to learn a little about how large, powerful, vertically integrated business work. Any mom and pop grocery can find a supplier willing to sell them goods. But the supermarket chains which own their own suppliers and their own regional warehouses and their own trucks, and can order merchandise from independent producers by the boxcar load rather than by the case, have an advantage that they will not share with you.

I'll find out, and save unitl I can. But will you actually find out? Is this not one of the first steps in the process?

If nonprofit is too hard, just run a normal business, I'll just still do what I said with the store. If you run a normal business, you will have to pay tax on the profits, and although if you made money you would still be able to give it away, your original plan of having the school itself take part in the management of the business would almost certainly be impossible. You need to do some research on the legalities here, and also to try to get (and perhaps express) a consistent and coherent idea of who would own and operate the business. This seems to change from post to post.


What public agency? That question was in response to the phrase, "...public agency, such as a school system." Umm....what public agency do you suppose I meant by that phrase, I wonder.


You are reading me wrong. I intend to make money on the debate, what I do with it is my own... And couldn't I funnel it through a third party? Or create a third party?

We have 10 charter schools here, they won't take it either?

I will stick to computers, things they like, until I get in, and then... make a few of my own... requests.I don't know how you expect to make money on the ID debate, but your plan sounds, as you present it here, as if you intend to try to do an end-run around legal or ethical barriers. Not a good way to start.

I am going to give part of it away. And we live in a world of people searching for bible codes, messages in tea leaves, people visiting palm readers, people believing the Da Vinci codes, oh yeah, and ID debates. Besides, if nothing comes from it, where is the harm? I do not consider this year long learning adventure a waste. I may give it another year before I get started. How does that saying go: "its not the destination, but the trip?" Luckily for me, I found something that required that I take a trip, and I will still have the experience even if I don't get where I am going.


Idle dreams? The one thing that bothers me about the people in this forum is that they are not putting all that combined knowledge towards something... anything. Whatever became of what Athon said about educational resources in 2005? Or do you feel that beating down the dreams of people like me is a worthwhile goal? Something that wont happen here, because I actually have to fail, not just think I will. And even then, I will be back. At least I intend to do something with what I know, and what I have. If it don't work, I tried, and I learned.

I suppose it's hopeless, but you put this idea forth in a forum, presumably to see what people thought of it. Many people have responded to specific points to try to explain why your ideas are impractical, but all you seem to get from that is that we're beating down your dreams. IN an earlier post, you claimed that critiques were your "bread and butter," but I see no indication that you have any intention of learning anything that doesn't agree with what you have made up already, and yes, that translates into idle dreams. Nothing wrong with idle dreams, but if you present them in public, you have to be ready to support them better than you have so far.

[drkitten]

You saying that if they know what I intend, that they would see to it that I don't get any food to operate? You mean that it is not possible for just anyone with the money to operate a market?

The only way to operate a market is to buy low/sell high. In particular, you need to be able to buy your food at a low enough price that you can afford to sell it competitively.

If it costs you a dollar to buy a loaf of bread, you can't afford to sell it for ninety-five cents. You probably can't even afford to sell it for $1.10, because you have to pay for your store as well as the wages of the stockers, clerks, and cashiers. That's elementary economics, yes?

On the other hand, if the store down the street is selling the same loaf of bread for ninety cents, then no one will buy your bread. (Why should I pay nearly 20% more than I have to?)

Wal-Mart or Giant is a huge grocery chain that is able to buy in bulk and negotiate huge discounts from its supply chain; where your grocery store may buy 1000 loaves of bread a week (at $1/per), they probably buy 100,000 loaves of bread -- and are charged only seventy-five cents per loaf. So they can afford to set a retail price that's lower than your wholesale price.

So, no, just "having the money" isn't enough to be able to open a store. You need to have the kind of connections that will let you buy cheaply enough to be competitive. You don't have those connections, and you don't have the kind of buying power to negotiate them.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

Yes, it's possible for anyone with the money to operate a market. Many do. Some succeed, though many don't.
That's what I thought. Now with that in mind, I think I would have an advantage with a neighborhood connection.

It is hard to operate profitably you cannot buy the goods as cheaply as your competitors can!
There is no way that I think that I would be able to compete with the giants right out the gate.

You really need to learn a little about how large, powerful, vertically integrated business work.
There is no way that I think that I would be able to compete with the giants right out the gate.

Any mom and pop grocery can find a supplier willing to sell them goods.
There you go, and that will be my neighborhood competition. Only, I think they are chain mom and pop stores-they all have the same color signs.

But the supermarket chains which own their own suppliers and their own regional warehouses and their own trucks, and can order merchandise from independent producers by the boxcar load rather than by the case, have an advantage that they will not share with you.
I don't need that type of party... for now.

But will you actually find out? Is this not one of the first steps in the process?
It would be if I were going up against a giant. Mom and pop just don't seem all that tough.

If you run a normal business, you will have to pay tax on the profits, and although if you made money you would still be able to give it away, your original plan of having the school itself take part in the management of the business would almost certainly be impossible.
Except for saying the store belonged to the school, hiring students and the neighborhood, (afterall, it is billed a school owned store)providing them live class time, and directing the money towards the school, there is absolutely no way I would want the school to manage anything. Why would I, they will most likely think like Dr Kitten, and only see another source of income.


You need to do some research on the legalities here,
I didn't think giving was that differcult.

and also to try to get (and perhaps express) a consistent and coherent idea of who would own and operate the business. This seems to change from post to post.
Nothing has changed, you, and others, seem determined to put me up against Wal-Mart, and have the school run things, when I have said none of that.

That question was in response to the phrase, "...public agency, such as a school system." Umm....what public agency do you suppose I meant by that phrase, I wonder.
Since I keep saying that the school is not going to run things, that they don't have the time, I thought you have to have someone else in mind. That is why I asked.

I don't know how you expect to make money on the ID debate, but your plan sounds, as you present it here, as if you intend to try to do an end-run around legal or ethical barriers. Not a good way to start.
The ID debate is about getting it into schools, do that-with a number code-and it may generate media attention to the related site. And the number code can walk into the school through the front door. Legal and ethical pale in comparision to the legal, and supposed ethical barriers, used to keep things the way they are. Did you know that some people are more likely to go to prison for doing the same crime then other people?


I suppose it's hopeless, but you put this idea forth in a forum, presumably to see what people thought of it. Many people have responded to specific points to try to explain why your ideas are impractical, but all you seem to get from that is that we're beating down your dreams.
impractical for taking on the giants, and that is the view you choose to project, even after I said that that is not what I even imagine I could do. Nor is it what I need to do.

IN an earlier post, you claimed that critiques were your "bread and butter," but I see no indication that you have any intention of learning anything that doesn't agree with what you have made up already, and yes, that translates into idle dreams.
To you, it may seem an idle dream. I have went from with what (diagram) to where (school) and will soon move to how. But even if when I move, it don't work, I can't see how what I am doing is idle.

Nothing wrong with idle dreams, but if you present them in public, you have to be ready to support them better than you have so far.I wasn't prepared to do that here, or even yet, the OP is about technology.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

Wal-Mart or Giant is a huge grocery chain that is able to buy in bulk and negotiate huge discounts from its supply chain; where your grocery store may buy 1000 loaves of bread a week (at $1/per), they probably buy 100,000 loaves of bread -- and are charged only seventy-five cents per loaf. So they can afford to set a retail price that's lower than your wholesale price.

So, no, just "having the money" isn't enough to be able to open a store. You need to have the kind of connections that will let you buy cheaply enough to be competitive. You don't have those connections, and you don't have the kind of buying power to negotiate them.

Look at this guy. When I said I was going to have a store that "swallowed" other stores, he thought I meant Wal-Mart, and not much smaller neighborhood stores. You see Bruto, he just had to find a way to disagree. I am not mad though, being warned of the tactic, will allow me to move around it quicker next time. It also shows me how far he had to reach in order to find something to disagree with.

[drkitten]

Look at this guy. When I said I was going to have a store that "swallowed" other stores, he thought I meant Wal-Mart, and not much smaller neighborhood stores. You see Bruto, he just had to find a way to disagree.

You're not reading.

You're not going to be Wal-Mart -- you're going to be competing against Wal-Mart (along with every other grocery store in the area).

And Wal-Mart has a huge advantage over you; a better supply chain, that can deliver goods more cheaply to them. This will let them deliver to the customer at a much better price, while still being profitable.

You suggest that you could successfully compete with the neighborhood grocery store. Actually, you "think" that you could. What you don't seem to understand is that the neighborhood grocery stores are going out of business in droves as well, precisely because they can't compete with the large chains. There's not enough custom out there for the existing stores (which is why they're standing around with half their lanes closed).


There is no way that I think that I would be able to compete with the giants right out the gate.

But what do you think you would be doing?

You can choose your own business, but you can't choose your competitors. If you're going to be selling groceries, you will be competing against everyone else who sells groceries, and the share of the pie that goes to the small stores is getting increasingly smaller.
So somehow you're going to move into this increasingly crowded market sector and make it profitable, despite the fact that the professionals in that space -- with much more experience than you have, are having a very difficult time of it?

You will be competing with the giants right out of the gate, whether you like it or not. The problem is, you will be competing and losing.

I did the math upthread. Even if you could get every family at your school to shop exclusively at your store -- which I doubt, as no one gets 100% market share -- you won't be able to come up with more than a tenth of the money it takes to operate the school. You've already said that you won't seek supplemental funding from elsewhere (that's the "old model"). You won't be able to draw support from the general public to shop at your store, since your prices will of necessity be substantially higher than the large chains. And even in the most wildly optimistic projections, you won't be able to generate more than a small fraction of the money necessary to run your school.

I've heard better financial plans from my ten-year old niece. At least "wait for my birthday and spend the money I get from Grandma" uses realistic income projections.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

You're not reading.

You're not going to be Wal-Mart -- you're going to be competing against Wal-Mart (along with every other grocery store in the area).
The other stores survive in the face of "the giants", so could I.


And Wal-Mart has a huge advantage over you; a better supply chain, that can deliver goods more cheaply to them. This will let them deliver to the customer at a much better price, while still being profitable.
Now, if I apply the tactics of "the giants", locally, I can get their business. The advantages I hope to have are: a school/neighborhood connection, and another source of income to float the business.



You suggest that you could successfully compete with the neighborhood grocery store. Actually, you "think" that you could. What you don't seem to understand is that the neighborhood grocery stores are going out of business in droves as well, precisely because they can't compete with the large chains. There's not enough custom out there for the existing stores (which is why they're standing around with half their lanes closed).
No, they are suffering from the fact that their are too much of them. It is Kentucky Fried Chicken and Burger King that are going out of business here.


But what do you think you would be doing?

You can choose your own business, but you can't choose your competitors. If you're going to be selling groceries, you will be competing against everyone else who sells groceries, and the share of the pie that goes to the small stores is getting increasingly smaller.
A larger part of the pie can go to the one with an added advantage.


You will be competing with the giants right out of the gate, whether you like it or not. The problem is, you will be competing and losing.
That is why it becomes necessary to take business from other people. It sounds mean the way I say it, but it is business.


You've already said that you won't seek supplemental funding from elsewhere (that's the "old model").
What? There is supplemental funding to seek? Are corner stores being supplemented?


You won't be able to draw support from the general public to shop at your store, since your prices will of necessity be substantially higher than the large chains. And even in the most wildly optimistic projections, you won't be able to generate more than a small fraction of the money necessary to run your school.
Wow, and all of this is a forgone conculsion? What, you got a crystal ball?

[NobbyNobbs]

Like I said, if they are functioning at half capacity, full capacity should be better. Anyway, I think you guys are missing the point, and you Dr Kitten, have already shown why. You know, when you suggested that any new source be used to support the same old bad idea.
I have already said that I am less interested in money profit, than I am with the profit that such a thing can bring a school, and the neighborhood around it. The market that I am talking about is all about focusing money spent anyway, towards the school. It is about placing jobs being done anyway, towards people in the neighborhood surrounding the school. You know, the more people working, the less not working. In the inner city, that can go a long way.

The only money that will be able to go directly to the school is the profit you make. And you seem to have little to no idea how little that profit really is in comparison with the operating costs of a school. If you are talking about the non-monetary profits, like getting jobs for neighborhood people, well, hell, why just not start an initiative to get them jobs in pre-existing stores? Oh, wait...McDonald's and WalMart already do that....



I have some ideas about designs, but yeah, parents shopping to support their children is the linchpin. Its their children, its easy, I am just going to have to cross my fingers.

And here's the problem. You think, you hope...but you don't know. Sure, successful businesspeople cross their fingers and hope for the best...but only after doing market research, running focus groups, securing investors, and detailing a business plan. You seem to have skipped straight to the end.



I'll find out, and save unitl I can.

Good luck with that. You're probably better off saving that much and establishing an endowment in the name of the school.


I am going to give part of it away. And we live in a world of people searching for bible codes, messages in tea leaves, people visiting palm readers, people believing the Da Vinci codes, oh yeah, and ID debates. Besides, if nothing comes from it, where is the harm?

There are multiple threads and commentaries on this site detailing the harm of allowing woo ideas to have public discourse. Read up on it.




There is no way that I think that I would be able to compete with the giants right out the gate.

Exactly. And that's who'd you be trying to compete with.



There you go, and that will be my neighborhood competition. Only, I think they are chain mom and pop stores-they all have the same color signs.

There's a popular theory that it's the demise of the mom-and-pop stores that's helping to cause neighborhood denigration. Seems like your plan is to add to that.



It would be if I were going up against a giant. Mom and pop just don't seem all that tough.

They're not. Which is why they're losing out to the giants, left and right. Your choice is to a) be a mom-and-pop, putting you at risk of losing to the giants, or b) be a giant. Either way, you're competing with WalMart, like it or not. I don't know if you realize this, but you can't control who you compete with. The market simply doesn't work that way, never has.

Except for saying the store belonged to the school, hiring students and the neighborhood, (afterall, it is billed a school owned store)providing them live class time, and directing the money towards the school, there is absolutely no way I would want the school to manage anything. Why would I, they will most likely think like Dr Kitten, and only see another source of income.

I won't harp on the money issue again, it's been overdone. As for jobs, I went into my local supermarket yesterday. Of the 8 registers open, 6 were populated by high school age students, either at the register or bagging groceries. Out front was a "Help Wanted" sign. If more high school students wanted a job there, it's available. I fail to see how opening a competing store will add more jobs.





Did you know that some people are more likely to go to prison for doing the same crime then other people?

I'm curious about two things.

1) What on earth does this have to do with the topic at hand?
2) Which people are you referring to?






The other stores survive in the face of "the giants", so could I.

No. They don't.


Now, if I apply the tactics of "the giants" locally, I can get their business. then I become one.

Fixed it for you.

The advantages I hope to have are: a school/neighborhood connection, and another source of income to float the business.

What other source of income do you refer to?






That is why it becomes necessary to take business from other people. It sounds mean the way I say it, but it is business.

Correct. Your choices, then, are:

1) Take business from the giants. You have already said you don't want to do this.

2) Take business from the mom-and-pop stores. But think for a moment, who runs those stores? Who works in them? Mr. and Mrs. Doe own the store. Their son, John, who is a junior in the local high school, runs the register after school. His friend, Jane, sweeps and stocks on the weekends. These are members of the community. The neighborhood. The very people you are trying to help. And how do you want to help them? By putting them out of business!

We had to destroy the village in order to save it.

*shiver*

[drkitten]

Are corner stores being supplemented?

No. They're being supplanted.

That's the problem.


Wow, and all of this is a forgone conculsion?

Pretty much. In the same way that it's a foregone conclusion that you'll lose money playing the slots. There are exceptions, but they're rare enough that no sensible person relies on being one.

What, you got a crystal ball?

It doesn't take a crystal ball to read the business pages.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

The only money that will be able to go directly to the school is the profit you make.
If parents support "their" childrens store, instead of the ones not doing that, there is bound to be profit.


And you seem to have little to no idea how little that profit really is in comparison with the operating costs of a school.
I guess you meant to say "store", but other stores manage.

If you are talking about the non-monetary profits, like getting jobs for neighborhood people, well, hell, why just not start an initiative to get them jobs in pre-existing stores? Oh, wait...McDonald's and WalMart already do that....
Not where I live. The "prison program" is the largest employer here. They couldn't even get jobs when the housing boom happened across the street. Yes, a lot of them are unqualified, but if the employer were able to teach people who do not speak English....

And here's the problem. You think, you hope...but you don't know. Sure, successful businesspeople cross their fingers and hope for the best...but only after doing market research, running focus groups, securing investors, and detailing a business plan. You seem to have skipped straight to the end.
It don't seem that complex, afterall, mom and pop did it. Or do you think they went to business school?

Good luck with that. You're probably better off saving that much and establishing an endowment in the name of the school.
Thanks, but I don't want to prop up the same mess, I rather make my own.


There are multiple threads and commentaries on this site detailing the harm of allowing woo ideas to have public discourse.
Yes, I got that, that is why I have been warning that something is coming.

Read up on it.
There are a lot of threads, where would I start?

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

There's a popular theory that it's the demise of the mom-and-pop stores that's helping to cause neighborhood denigration.
I think that is true, but there are no shortage of corner stores here. The majority of those stores now, are run by people who live outside the neighborhoods they sell in, and they rarely hire from there.


I won't harp on the money issue again, it's been overdone. As for jobs, I went into my local supermarket yesterday. Of the 8 registers open, 6 were populated by high school age students, either at the register or bagging groceries. Out front was a "Help Wanted" sign. If more high school students wanted a job there, it's available. I fail to see how opening a competing store will add more jobs.
Not where I live, and it seems rather odd for you to think that that is happening everywhere.


Take business from the mom-and-pop stores. But think for a moment, who runs those stores? Who works in them? Mr. and Mrs. Doe own the store. Their son, John, who is a junior in the local high school, runs the register after school. His friend, Jane, sweeps and stocks on the weekends. These are members of the community. The neighborhood. The very people you are trying to help. And how do you want to help them? By putting them out of business!
Nothing personal... its just business.

We had to destroy the village in order to save it.
That guy was right then, and I am right now.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

I'm curious about two things.

1) What on earth does this have to do with the topic at hand?

Everything


2) Which people are you referring to?
Dark people, and light people... I live in the United States, but the same applies just about everywhere.


Fixed it for you.
That don't make it true.


What other source of income do you refer to?
Playing the market.

[bruto]

I think that is true, but there are no shortage of corner stores here. The majority of those stores now, are run by people who live outside the neighborhoods they sell in, and they rarely hire from there.Perhaps you would do well to find out why that pattern of ownership exists, and why they hire as they do.
Not where I live, and it seems rather odd for you to think that that is happening everywhere.I don't think anyone said everywhere. You are also not everywhere. NobbyNobbs cited a specific observation, and if it is not in agreement with what you observe, then you might, instead of dismissing it, consider the possibility that your observations have not been extensive enough to form the basis of generalizations.
Nothing personal... its just business. But it is personal to the people involved, and all through this thread, you've assumed that one of the reasons you will succeed is not "just business," but the special good will your customers will feel toward your mission. A predatory attitude will not help that very much, I suspect.

That guy was right then, and I am right now.You do understand the context of that phrase, don't you? I hope you don't think we won that war!

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

Perhaps you would do well to find out why that pattern of ownership exists, and why they hire as they do.
I know why, it has to do with a lot of things. What matters here is that since I don't think I can change that, I am going to try and change another. It's all good.

I don't think anyone said everywhere. You are also not everywhere.
My advantage is that I was talking about here... I need only to look out the window.

NobbyNobbs cited a specific observation, and if it is not in agreement with what you observe, then you might, instead of dismissing it, consider the possibility that your observations have not been extensive enough to form the basis of generalizations.
His observation does match what is outside my window. The stores came when the "family first" cards came out. Technology and a guanteed source of income, is what I seen do it. I also suspect a loan program. I figure that I can use those same three things. I just need a way to get a loan.


But it is personal to the people involved,
I was making a joke, of course it is personal. But a market ecomony says that it is good to use just about any advantage to succeed in business. Crying ain't allowed, and is rarely payed attention to anyway.


and all through this thread, you've assumed that one of the reasons you will succeed is not "just business," but the special good will your customers will feel toward your mission.
What can I say, by accident, I went to the Million Man March in 1995.

A predatory attitude will not help that very much, I suspect.
Well see.

You do understand the context of that phrase, don't you?
Yes. Vietnam, I think a general was explaining why while they held, that the village was destroyed.

I hope you don't think we won that war!
While I think we have a great country here, that has done a lot of right, sometimes it has done wrong. Ho Chi Minh is one of my heroes. He didn't want that fight, came to the U.S. for help against the French, and did what he had to do against them both, and their friends.
He got his united Vietnam, and its capital city was named after him, though he did not live to see it happen, still, "mission accomplished".
My avatar salutes him.

[bruto]

I think a general was explaining why while they held, that the village was destroyed.



Who else would take that classic oxymoron as an operating slogan?

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

Who else would take that classic oxymoron as an operating slogan?
:D
The Defense department orders the military to attack other countries.
When was this country's last defensive war?

[wollery]

Glad to see Light is still coming up with ideas based so firmly in reality. :rolleyes:

[NobbyNobbs]

If parents support "their" childrens store, instead of the ones not doing that, there is bound to be profit.

Sure, there might be. How much profit are you supposing there will be? In your vast business experience, what percentage do you think you might be able to pull?


I guess you meant to say "store", but other stores manage.

No, I said what I meant to say. Even supposing this thing gets off the ground, and the school is willing to be associated with it, try comparing the profit you will make from the store with the operating costs of the school. One will not come anywhere close to taking care of the other.


It don't seem that complex, afterall, mom and pop did it. Or do you think they went to business school?

You miss the point. Mom and pop stores are failing right and left.

Thanks, but I don't want to prop up the same mess, I rather make my own.

You're well on the way to doing that.....

Not where I live. The "prison program" is the largest employer here. They couldn't even get jobs when the housing boom happened across the street. Yes, a lot of them are unqualified, but if the employer were able to teach people who do not speak English....

I think that is true, but there are no shortage of corner stores here. The majority of those stores now, are run by people who live outside the neighborhoods they sell in, and they rarely hire from there.


Not where I live, and it seems rather odd for you to think that that is happening everywhere.

You seem to think that where you live is typical of the country as a whole. It may be. It may not be. Why not find out? It's just as odd for you to think that what you see out your window is typical as it is for me to do so. Either way, it's only one data point.


Nothing personal... its just business.

And yet, your whole business model is "community..support...coming together to help...". This seems to fly in the face of what you are promoting.

That guy was right then, and I am right now.

I'm fairly sure I don't want someone who subscribes to this viewpoint to be in charge of anything, much less our school system.

[lightcreatedlife@hom]

Glad to see Light is still coming up with ideas based so firmly in reality. :rolleyes:
You guys have shown me that nothing is firmly based in reality, not even reality.

[bruto]

:D
The Defense department orders the military to attack other countries.
When was this country's last defensive war?

Yes, but they're liars, thieves and fools. For myself, I'd choose other models. Besides, even they know it's bull***t when they say it.