Comment Archives: stories: News & Opinion: News Blog
Re: “Lovely Warren says city schools would be her first priority as mayor”
So Ms. Warren does not want mayoral control, but besides spending $119 million dollars for education that is administered by the Superintendent, with oversight by the School Board, she now wants to have the main focus of the mayors office also being education. If education is Ms. Warren's prime focus, she should run for Commisioner for the Board of Education rather than for mayor. If we don't have mayoral control, then the mayors office has other priorities that should take precedence.
Re: “Self-serving Senate's failed gun control legislation”
Yikes! So if 90 percent of the country is in favor of background checks for gun and ammo purchases at conventions and on the Internet, which ARE NOT checked currently, meaning crazy people can purchase such weapons and show a up at a movie theater and kill people that could be my friends and family and that's democracy???
Re: “Self-serving Senate's failed gun control legislation”
The Senate took a stand for freedom yesterday. Liberals have a lot of nerve trying to "shame" Americans into voting for laws that restrict our rights and do NOTHING to prevent gun violence. These opportunistic big government socialists got a taste of what they deserve.
Obama wants to turn American into one giant Chicago, and many Americans don't want that. Despite the nauseating propaganda shoved down our throats by the liberal media. So cheers to the Senate for taking a stand against this tyranny. It may have not been a good day for Obama, but it was a good day for freedom.
Re: “Self-serving Senate's failed gun control legislation”
I don't understand why the day was "shameful" or why people are all upset with Congress. I, for one, was a little worried that they might actually shave some more of our rights in the name of "safety."
For the first time since the sequester, I'm pretty happy with the fact that Congress worked as it was supposed to: protecting the rights of Americans. Congress isn't always supposed to bow to the will of the majority. Sometimes Congress' role is to maintain the rights of a minority.
First: when was the last time Congress worked to INCREASE our rights in any way?
The history of America in the last few decades has been one of reducing the freedoms of individuals and groups who are not in the majority or in power.
Almost every decision of the Congress since at least 9/11 has been to reduce and restrict freedoms of Americans and other global citizens (Patriot Act to name only 1)
Second: why write new laws when older laws could have a significant impact on the problem IF enforcement is implemented. Writing new laws isn't the same as enforcing them.
I don't own a handgun. Maybe I will in the future, maybe not. That decision isn't on my mind, BUT, the freedom to make that decision is. The Bill of Rights isn't an a la carte menu. It exists to protect our rights and freedoms.
We have become a nation of simpering cowards responding with panic and hyperbole at every rare, outlier event that has a negative result. Why? I have no idea except that we have also become a nation that worships its children. The "safety" of the children trumps the rights of free Americans everywhere.
Not if I can help it. Hurrah for the Constitution. It's not completely shredded yet.
Re: “PETA bringing campus tour to UR”
It said it was supposed to there today 10-3. I went at 2 and didn't see anything. Has the date been changed??
Re: “What did Rhee know about cheating in DC schools?”
Any employee who whines about being held accountable for his or her job performance should be terminated. Only in the dysfunctional alternate universe of government-run "education" could such an ironclad principle qualify as either "reform" or a matter of controversy.
Re: “Could charters chew up the Rochester school district?”
Thank you RochesterParent for making the case more clearly and cogently than I generally do.
It doesn't matter if the students are picked by lottery. Simply entering the lottery indicates a higher level of "give a crap" than those who don't. Taking 3.000 of those kids out of the public schools basically reduces the percentage of students in the district whose parents do care enough (or are knowledgeable enough) to perform this advocacy for their children.
I suppose that eventually there will be 80 charter schools and what's left will be a few public schools where the students who are the worst problem children, or whose parents don't/can't advocate effectively will rot until they are 16, when they drop out to live on society's margins.
If public schools could expel problem children the way charter schools can, if public schools could claim hardship to prevent having to have a major special ed program, if public schools had the parent involvement that charter schools do, they'd be doing as well as charter schools.
I know that in some areas the charter school experiment has been a failure due to a variety of reasons, but here, the conditions I just outlined have helped charter schools to become successful enough. God knows our school has about 10 middle schoolers we would love to expel. Our school would run far better and the scores would improve immediately if we could. We can't, so we will be judged a failure for making an effort to educate some seriously difficult children who have arrived in middle school without the skills to do 5th grade work.
Let us not forget that my evaluation is tied to some extent to these children's ability to do middle school level work. I've spent my year trying to get them to that level.
Analogy: try to get a high school baseball player to be able to play in the major leagues. The kid's the right size, the kid's at his physical prime, but the kid does not have the experience or skills to do that. Is it the coach's fault the kid can't cut it in the major leagues? Or is it the decision of the person who foisted that kid on the hapless coach?
Carry the Analogy: Take a mid-level baseball team. Ship all the best players to other teams. Now try to make the playoffs. That is what charter schools are doing to the RCSD.
Re: “Could charters chew up the Rochester school district?”
I don't know if charters are good or bad per se, but you're assuming that this is a zero sum game due to our slow population growth. Every year plenty of middle class parents exit the city for the suburbs because they rightly or wrongly believe that their children won't have an opportunity for a quality education if they stay. If charters provide that opportunity then the overall pool of students within the city is larger, not smaller.
Re: “PETA bringing campus tour to UR”
Bill Benson,
Apologies for leaving out the date. The post has been corrected.
Jeremy
Re: “PETA bringing campus tour to UR”
I take it we're supposed to guess the date of this event since it wasn't mentioned in the article?
Re: “What did Rhee know about cheating in DC schools?”
Thanks ID for pointing that out.
Tim
Re: “What did Rhee know about cheating in DC schools?”
Tim, correction: Rhee did teach for three years - and there's a scandal there, too, regarding the testing results. That seems to have been hushed up, but her claims of her teaching excellence are suspect here as well. But Rhee had never been an assistant principal, a principal, a central administrator of any stripe (no directorship, assistant superintendent) - nada, zip - before being appointed chancellor at the age of 36.
Re: “Is support for gun control slipping?”
The left is showing it's true colors by this giant gun grab. Why not enforce the laws on the books and focus on helping the mentally ill? Because democrats don't care about safety and are exploiting this to achieve their long desired goal of disarming Americans.
Wolves in sheep's clothing.
Re: “Rochester parents want more music and arts in the schools”
Thank you for reporting on the School Budget hearing. I am a parent of a child at School 23 and I would like to restore our school's music program. Our children deserve a more robust music instruction program. Music and art are not "extras" but are vital to creating self-confident, wise, and appreciative future citizens. --GretaN
Re: “Governor proposes new anti-bribery laws”
Cuomo will try to cram this legislation through before the public has a chance to read or comment on it just like his gun control law. He even said he needs to 'strike while the iron is hot'. He has to do this and get it out of the public eye before there are any investigations into what other Democrats may be involved.
Re: “Teachers warn of the end of public education”
Conti's letter is full of empty self-pitying blather about freedom and autonomy — for himself and his ilk, of course, but not for you or your children, or for the taxpayers who pay the freight. It is the teacher unions and allied ideologues who fight tooth and nail to deny students and families the slightest degree of freedom or autonomy or self-determination. You have to laugh at their whining about the perils of conformity and "one size fits all" when they fight savagely to preserve an archaic and unproductive government monopoly.
Now they're going to quit rather than be held accountable? Pardon me, but that sounds like a solution, not a problem.
Re: “Governor proposes new anti-bribery laws”
Another example of Cuomo rushing to pass laws based upon media attention. We don't need fast laws, we need good laws. We don't need a hysterical Governor acting like chicken little. Under Cuomo NY has experienced the demise of 39,453 NY state businesses last year, Cuomo is raiding $1.75 billion from the reserves of the off-budget State Insurance Fund (SIF). Coumo can not even hold on to his democratic majority which is in the middle of a corruption scandal and “show-me-the-money culture” and “pay-to-play politics.” He has disenfranchised the Northern and Western part of New York with his SAFE Act.. He can’t make a decision, either way with respect to fracking. New York has the highest taxes in the nation, is the most indebted state, with 33 percent of income dedicated to borrowing. It is ranked as the least "business-friendly" state in the country and if that were not bad enough NY has the distinction of being the least free state in the union and is called the “Nanny State” with politicians legislating what we eat and drink. Municipal governments from Nassau County to Yonkers to Syracuse are teetering. And during Mr. Cuomo’s time in office, unemployment has risen above the national average. 9% of the state’s 2000 population left for another state between 2000 and 2011 — the highest such figure in the nation," the study by George Mason's libertarian-leaning Mercatus Center found.
Re: “Teachers warn of the end of public education”
I blogged about this a number of days ago (http://askingquestionsblog.blogspot.com/20…); a lot of us (teachers, that is) have been saying this for some time, but Mr. Conti's letter maybe will finally get some people to take the complaints seriously. Thank you, Mr. Conti.
Re: “Slaughter: train station construction starts in August”
Clint – Slaughter aside, if we want to talk about what the Framers had in mind the answer is a VERY restricted democracy. They created an executive that was elected for 4 years, not by the people, but by a group of electors appointed by states. They created a senate comprised of members serving for 6 years, again elected by the states not the people. They created a federal judiciary comprise of individuals nominated by the executive to serve for life and confirmed by the senate. Again, participation by the people was zilch.
The only involvement in the national government by those white males who were permitted to vote was the election of a House of Representatives who served for a mere 2 years.
That you view voters repeatedly electing who they wish to a public office as a “problem” is telling indeed. As telling as are the views of those who believe that democracy is better served by term limits than by continuing to permit the voters to exercise their elective franchise as they see fit.
Your disagreement with Slaughter’s decisions is well established. That those decisions were “against the interests of the district.” is of course merely your opinion. As is your belief that she and she alone wields semi-divine power to control the fiscal floodgates of federal largess.
I suggest it boils down to this. In your opinion, as in the opinion of many others, democracy only works when your party’s candidates get elected.
Re: “Self-serving Senate's failed gun control legislation”
Kathryn Quinn Thomas - that's not democracy... it's freedom.