The Tv Blog

[WayneBullet 0]

My take on the TV Blog. Who hasn't been that mad when it seems like everything is against you? Nothing makes a person more mad then when you pay somebody to do something and they do it all wrong.Some advice on the Xbox, I keep extra RCA plugs around. Mainly because all my cords behind my tv get tangled up. That way if I want to move my Xbox, I just unplug the cords and get the free one to plug into the other TV.Take on Survivor: Where do they find any of these freaks? I love the show, but really this season is really strange. It seems like they went out of their way to find 2 ends of the spectrum.20/20: I can not believe anybody watches this show anymore. The show is the most one sided news broadcast. I will never forget how mad my dad was, when Barbra Walters did a show on truck drivers. I was like 10 at the time. My dad has been a truck driver since I was 2. Barbra made truck drivers all out to be drug enduced maniacs. They all take drugs or drive until they fall asleep at the wheel. My dad now has been driving for 28 years. He has never had an accident. I can almost assure you he has never taken drugs before either.Anyway, on to the education part. Yes a lot of that makes sense. I have never been one to throw money at a problem. Usually then you make a more expensive problem. I feel lucky to have grown up in a small town in South Dakota. Computers in my school were about 1 to 5 students. Of course we had out problems too. We did not have any accelerated courses. I would have been able to benefit from those.Kinky Friedman: In theory, I think he sounds cool. Unfortunately, we don't vote people like him in. If we do, we run them off. I honestly think people of the of US want people to lie to them. Jessie Ventura had that problem. He would often tell the people of MN the way it was, then take the heat for it. All I know in this country we need to get a 3rd or 4th party as a powerhouse. Dems and Repubs are too much a like. They want to sound different, but they are just in it to make the other miserable. There needs to be a 3rd or 4th party to be the swing vote.Fatal1ty: Yeah, I saw that too. He is sick. I think he has won $300,000. I think his endorsements are much more though. I don't know if any of you have had friends that are just wizards at a game, but I have. This kid in high school would just kill anybody he played at any game. It was amazing. He would get the new madden that day, that afternoon we would gather around to play. He would beat everybody by 50 or more points. He did this with every game.So, thanks for the Soapbox DN. If you like that show onf Fatal1ty, you will love the True Life on the eating competitors. You have to see that one. Maybe you could challenge one of them to a cracker eatting contest. Check it out, you will be amazed by these people.

[dlingdling 0]

Education's a real tough issue, but you're right that NCLB is bad law. As a substitute teacher over the past five years, I've encountered it first hand:- NCLB sets schools up to fail. They are directed to increase test scores year to year, like companies increasing profits year to year, but first graders this year are not necessarily going to be smarter than first graders next year. It's not like making a widget and selling more to Wal*Mart. Education is about people who sometimes are brilliant and sometimes have difficulties. If the school doesn't increase test scores, and increase them again and again, the school gets taken over by government managers. There is no way to win.- Potential teachers are turned away. I've got a Princeton degree. I didn't know anything about teaching when I started substituting, but I tried it and learned that I'm good at it. Teachers and principals told me so, and they want me to be a part of their school's culture. I connect with kids. I can communicate with them. For a 40 year old, I have a childlike mind. Yet no principal can hire me because I have no teaching credential. Until NCLB, a principal could hire me and I could work on the staff while I got my full credential. Emergency credentialling was a strong solution to a teacher shortage. That's gone now. All teachers must fit a narrow definition of "highly qualified." Any principal who hired someone like me would lose federal funds for his school. I have a lot to learn about teaching, but I'm not willing to put myself into debt and give up 100% of my life to go back to school. A life/work balance is essential for me. I would go back to school in a minute, if I could teach at the same time. If a principal has faith that his students will be well-served with me on the staff, that decision should be the principal's, not the federal government's.- The law is based on lies. The law is based on "successful" programs in Texas, but the data in those programs were later proven to be faked and riddled with cheating.- The law has taken the soul out of the classroom. The classroom is all about test preparation now. Not learning. Not thinking. Not creativity. It's all about teaching to "standards" that will be tested later that year. It's 90% reading and math. Science is almost gone. Art is almost gone. History? Almost invisible. Kids sit in the classroom all day and read. They are being stifled in the name of tracking progress.- The law is unfunded. The law demands so much of school districts but provides no way to pay for it. Can you tell I hate NCLB?

[tipster1964 0]

Just a quick question, is it because you lost $115000 to Patrick that you cannot afford to have an xbox in every room? LOL, save yourself the hardship and anxiety. If I want to play FCP ( I am a new member trying your site ) , trust me I can play in any room, on any TV. I need not move a thing.Mike

[dreamcaster 0]

Dear USA,Please don't invade us for our oil.Sincerely,Canadasw...I think

[eddiedean 0]

Daniels Blogs are addictive!... I check out FCP every day just to see if there's a new post, even if I dont intend to play Poker. And the fact is that ordinarily I would have no interest in the topics that he discuusess, I hate reality TV with the exception of "American Chopper" I love that show! I hate reading about or discussing Politics, I'm not a big sports fan, although lately I've been getting more involved for the simple reason I've developed a liking for gambleing and have started placing bets at a few online sports books, so I have to pay a little more attention to sports. Still most of my betting is on entertainment, ie: which movie's will do the best at the box office or who will win the grammy etc. etc. 20/20, 60 minutes, more often than not are just topics that are depressing or as WayneBullet says one sided. Anyway my point is that if Daniel ever decides to give up poker, which I'm sure he never will, and I hope he never does, he will have no problem getting steady work as a writer, unlike my self, " I have trouble spelling FCP" he knows how to tell it like it is, and is not affraid to touch on touchy subjects, and with his Gonzo style, in a way sort of reminds me of Hunter Thompson a bit, although I think he lives his life a little bit differently or does he? Anyway Daniel keep up the good work with both writing and being our Canadian Poker ambassader to the world and all your other endevers (spell check) Take Care!... EddieDean.

[All_In 0]

i had a friend at UWO who's father is a major player in world economics..20/20 did an interview with the guys's father's friend, and the way they edited it, it made the guy look like a complete idiot. basically they edited it so that everything he said ran counter to what he was really trying to say.these american shows are just entertainment. they may dress themselves up to look 'legit', but the bottom line is they want viewers, and will slant any issue in order to achieve that.i've found tat in order to try and see all sides of an issue, u need to go to multiple sources. this is why the 'net is so great. i'll read something on cnn.com, then go to al-jazeera and read the same story, but with a different angle. both have their own slant to the story, i think the truth is usually somewhere in between.

[magicjc 0]

As a teacher and a trustee to our local union here in Michigan, I feel Daniel's Blog is interesting fodder for discussion. I did not see the 20/20 episode where it seems that he got most of his information. Let me just provide a couple of rebuttals to what Daniel said:1) As far as money in education, it is almost impossible to compare the money we spend in our Public Schools (speaking of Michigan, at least) with the money spent on education in other countries. WE EDUCATE ALL. From the most gifted to the most handicapped, we educate all children. I do not know what it is exactly like in Belgium but I will guess if it is like many other parts of Europe and Asia, they are only educating the upper echelon of children who have shown the propensity for higher education. In these countries, if your family and/or IQ do not associate you with higher education, then you do not go to school after a certain age. Thank God my kids are health in body and mind, but, God forbid, they had a handicap, I would much rather have them in public school here in Michigan then in any school in Europe. At least here they will have a chance to become as productive of a citizen as they can be (which would depend on the severity of their handicap).2) As far as unions are concerned, I am a elected leader of our local union. As an elected leader, I have a responsibility to my members. My responsibility is to make sure they are treated fairly, with respect and dignity. Until you see it first hand, you would never believe how unfairly those in power treat people. I have seen people discriminated against, not because they are poor teachers, but because they are black or Hispanic or even because of how they look or dress. This is what I feel the union is for. When talking with people about my role in the union, I equate it to this. If you know the move “A Few Good Men,” you might remember the line from the end of the movie that says, “We're supposed to fight for people who can't fight for themselves.” That is what I feel any union’s role should be. It is not our role to protect bad employees but to make sure that when the bad employees are being terminated, that it is being done fairly with no prejudice.Those are just a couple of semi-quick rebuttals to Daniel’s blog on educational issues. If you are passionate on the subject, this, like politics, is an excellent topic for discussion.

[Solodell 0]

I'm not sure how the whole thing was show was set up (probably to bash NCLB, because it was a Bush idea), but I always had to go to a certain school based on where I lived, long before No Child Left Behind. I'm not defending it, since I'm not going to school, and don't have children, I haven't really had much of a reason to learn up about it. However, I'm pretty sure that has nothing to do with no child left behind.

[nutzbuster 7]

Wow. Nice blog man.I got flamed a while ago posting here about how one day, while buying paint at Home Depot (I was remodeling a few rooms) I was standing in line and was wishing I was doing ANYTHING else, and then I wondered for some reason..."I wonder if Daniel has ever been inside a Home Depot let alone struggle with the drudgery of a home project?".Point is I was laughing my butt off reading how pissed off you got at your couch!, and a wall, and a t.v. setup, and some wires not cooperating. Man o man, you have no idea how much you hit a cord with that rant! It was stangely refreshing to read and know that even you, o great one, lose your mind from time to time over stupid crap. I can almost see you losin it, like damn jack RCA wires, sunnovabitch-n-dumb t.v., stupid workers putting wires in the wall, jerks, blah blah blah. Hilarious:icon_clap: Education. You are right on regarding the School situation. Others have stated very well how the attitude that "if we just had more money the problem will lessen or go away all together" is simply not true. Charter schooling is one way to get things going in a new and progressive direction, and, even though they too have their problems, I am a fan of them.Public schools seem to be, for the most part, National baby setting centers, with a few moments of brilliance. Would be nice if there was some sort of financial reward system in place that awards cash incentives to teachers that acheive superior results. And what would be wrong with offering some sort of monetary rewards to students that acheive superior results? Maybe not P.C. but I have never been a fan of the P.C. crowd.The boob tube. For some reason I have managed to miss most of the T.V. stuff this year so I can't comment on that. All I know is that the U.S. got a Bronze for CURLING! Yeahhhhhhhh, way to represent!!! Flying Tomato was cool too.Oil sands in Alberta. (I actually prefer B.C., for skiing, but Banff ain't exactly chopped liver!). It would take a monumental effort to develop the processing infrastructure to extract the oil in a safe and evironmentally acceptable way. This would hopefully come about as a result of a freindly policies and funding partnership between Canada and the U.S.. Gonna take some deep pockets to pull this one off, but it is possible. Lets hope for our sake it happens soon, and we can finally begin to ween ourselves of the Middle East Oil tit.That's all I got man. See ya around the site D. Can't wait to school your butt at the World Series this year , or, if I should make the Protoge, bow at the feet of your blessed poker Godliness . Seriously Daniel, thanks for everything man, and best of luck to you at the Bay 101!

[Royal27 0]

Dear USA,Please don't invade us for our oil.Sincerely,Canadasw...I think

LMAO!!!! Classic!!!!54 40, or FIGHT!!!!

[hime 0]

Hey Daniel, nice post. Just one thing... you pluralized "teachers" with an apostrophe. Must be that quality Canadian education!

[KingGeorgeC 0]

Education....Well, I'm a HS math teacher so I've seen it from the inside. I'm also a union rep so I've seen that from the inside too. First off the first concern of the teacher's union is the teachers, not the students. It's to protect workers. Personally, the union hurts me financially. As a 'highly qualified' math teacher I could make a lot more money if I could negotiate my own contract.There is plenty of money in education. It's not spent very wisely. But if you ask the teacher's union, of course they're going to say we need more.On the subject of education. You know what I think we need? Trade schools. Our school has this idea that every kid has to be taking college prep classes. I have kids who come into my Algebra class who cannot add, subtract, multiply, or divide fractions or decimals. I have kids who do not know that 3 and 3/1 are equivalent. I have a lot of them, at least 1/3 of the class.When I first started teaching, I thought, well, if only I showed them how do these things, then of course they would understand. I’ll take time out of the Algebra schedule, review basic skills, and then we can go on to be successful students in Algebra. It doesn’t matter that various teachers have been attempting to teach these kids their basic bath skills for the past few years… if they just saw it from me, THEN they would understand.Nope. Not only did they not pick up the material… I was now behind in my Algebra.Along with the students who do not have the basic skills, have a segment of students who disappear from school for a couple months in the middle of the year. I live in a largely Hispanic town. I am half Mexican myself. About Xmas time, many migrant parents will take their kids south to Mexico for weeks if not months. It is such a problem at my school that we have extended the Xmas break from 2 to 3 weeks so that fewer school days would be missed.These students return after having missed weeks of my class. Most did not even attend school in Mexico. But now they’re in my class, completely lost. Not only do they not know what we are working on now, but they have forgotten when we had worked on at the beginning of the year.Having said all that, I love teaching, I love working with high school kids. But I can only work with what I’ve been given. Imagine giving a cabinetmaker warped knotty would and asking him to build a cabinet as well as a maker who was giving nice straight wood. I’ll do my best, but if my cabinet doesn’t come out as nice as his, it’s not because I’m a bad cabinetmaker.george

[DanielNegreanu 141]

Thanks for sharing guys, especially the teachers. I can totally understand the frustration you guys must feel, especially in trying to protect teachers in the union. I don't think unions are horrible, but I worry that the teachers union has become too powerful for it's own good. They showed another segment on a teacher who they caught sending sexually related e-mails to his 16 year old female student. Because of all of the loopholes in the union contract, they couldn't even fire him! It took YEARS to get through all of the paper work. In fairness, that has recently been changed. The thing that eats at me the most is the communist view of the union. How, in the "free" capatilistic U.S of A. can we have a situation where you CAN'T get ahead when you work hard as a teacher? Where you recieve NO rewards for being the best at what you do? It sounds communist to me. On an unrelated note, watching the episode sparked a passion for trying to do something about. I was really intrigued by the charter schooling system and have set a "new goal" for my future. Wouldn't it be great to run a school where the kids were the priority and teachers that worked the hardest at helping the kids got paid the most? In every other business it's PRACTICAL to get rid of the bottom 10% of your employees. If you owned an auto manufacturing company, it would make total sense to fire the slackers and hire new blood. If only the public schools would do the same thing with dead beat teachers who take advantage of the system.

[cfinnn 0]

Wow. Meaty blog and responses.Oh, reality TV, how I love to hate you. I don't watch much reality TV except the oft underrated Big Brother, the show that started the craze in the first place. It is less manipulated than shows like Survivor and even has some real people too! (though come to think of it the black men have not come off too well on that show either. hmm.)Ok, on to oil. I think there is a huge misconception that most US oil imports come from the Middle East, whereas in fact the biggest supplier of US oil is Canada. Last year the rankings were 1-Canada, 2-Mexico, 3-Saudi Arabia, 4-Venezuala, 5-Nigeria (Iraq came in 7th with less than 1/4 of what Canada supplies). I don't think America is quite as dependent on Middle Eastern oil as the administration wants us to believe, particularly when the President has a direct financial link to the oil fields in question. To put it bluntly, America is only as dependent on oil as it wants to be. Before oil we used many kinds of fuel in our society, the only reason we're all struggling now is we refuse to change with the times. Running out of oil should be the least of our worries when faced with the prospect of what using all that oil has done and is doing to our environment. Not to veer too far off topic here, but the last ice age was caused by a 9 degree F shift in temperate. In the last 60 years alone we have had a 3 degree F shift (compared to the 1 degree shift the entire century before). If we continue this way, it's likely that global warming will be our undoing long before we run out of oil.As for the American education system, being Canadian it's all a little foreign to me. As I recall, growing up I also had to attend school according to postal code (that's the same as a zip code to all you Americans. lol). However, though some schools in our town were better than others, there were no sub-par schools at all. There was no school in our city you could go to and get a bad education. And that's where I think the real problem lies. Yes, competition would offer choices, but that's more of a quick fix, in my opinion. No Child Left Behind is ridiculous and doesn't work because there is a huge disparity in the quality of education a child receives from one school to the next, but NCLB is not the problem, it simply exposes the inherent flaws in the system itself.I will not claim to know how to fix the problems of the education system, but I will refer you to a terrific book that is much more informative than I. It's called, "Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Cirriculum of Cumpulsory Schooling" by John Taylor Gatto. It examines the numerous difficulties inherent in the current system, including how it is designed to inhibit independent thinking among its students.As for the teachers being rewarded for doing a good job, I'm all for that in theory, but in practice (right now anyway) that would mean rewarding teachers whose student achieve higher test scores. And as we all know standardized testing is deeply flawed. Those who do well on standardized tests are often no smarter than those who don't. In school I was fortunate in that I was a good tester. That's not to say I wasn't smart or couldn't hold my own, but I didn't have to work as hard as many of the other students simply because I knew how to test well. I routinely got As and Bs on tests about books which I had never read!! Standardized testing has got to change so punks like me can't slack off and still get an A. lol.I must end with the TV bashing anger-fest. I was fuming today from some nasty beats playing online for the past two days. I mean sick beats like when DN played AllTheWomen that day and kept getting rivered. But when I read, "ripping the TV off the wall" I instantly found my inner calm, realizing it's just not worth wasting that much energy on. I already lost my money, I'm not going to give up my time and energy too by staying upset. Though I can relate to needing a video game to unwind. I have a Gameboy for just such a purpose. Lucky for me, no wires needed.

[magicjc 0]

Thanks for sharing guys, especially the teachers. I can totally understand the frustration you guys must feel, especially in trying to protect teachers in the union. I don't think unions are horrible, but I worry that the teachers union has become too powerful for it's own good. They showed another segment on a teacher who they caught sending sexually related e-mails to his 16 year old female student. Because of all of the loopholes in the union contract, they couldn't even fire him! It took YEARS to get through all of the paper work. In fairness, that has recently been changed. The thing that eats at me the most is the communist view of the union. How, in the "free" capatilistic U.S of A. can we have a situation where you CAN'T get ahead when you work hard as a teacher? Where you recieve NO rewards for being the best at what you do? It sounds communist to me. On an unrelated note, watching the episode sparked a passion for trying to do something about. I was really intrigued by the charter schooling system and have set a "new goal" for my future. Wouldn't it be great to run a school where the kids were the priority and teachers that worked the hardest at helping the kids got paid the most? In every other business it's PRACTICAL to get rid of the bottom 10% of your employees. If you owned an auto manufacturing company, it would make total sense to fire the slackers and hire new blood. If only the public schools would do the same thing with dead beat teachers who take advantage of the system.

Coming from actual experience... When I first began teaching, I felt like a college athlete about to get signed by a pro club. "If you want me, you better pay me." But then, like most teachers, my actual personality took over which was more like, "I did not spend 5 years in college to get rich. I did it to make a difference in some futures and help build our next generation." (okay I didn't say those exact words but that was the general idea) I then thought that I could negotiate a better contract for myself then my union could. Boy was I mistaken. I consider myself a good teacher who has had very positive response from students but I was involved in the bargaining process for our union this past summer and I actually saw what goes on. Without getting too involved, the basic idea was that the school district wanted to take as much away from the teachers as they could. Salary, working conditions, and benefits were big targets. They wanted to reduce our health benefits just because everyone in the "private" sector was having health insurance problems. We asked them to show us some number as to their "rising insurance costs." They couldn't. They just thought it was a good time to go after them... Without sounding too egotistical, in a free market society I feel I could get a lot more money than I do now. But if I wanted to be rich, I would have gone to school to be something else. This is 9 years of life experience for me to have these views. As a 31 year old, I see the world differently then I did when I started teaching at 22 so I don't expect anyone else to see it the way I do overnight.Quickly, about charter schools, they are a great idea in theory. The problem is that many charter schools do not have to follow the same regulations as the public schools. This causes the "for-profit" company who is running it to cut as many corners to increase the bottom line. One of the big corners I am interested in is salary. Charter schools cannot pay their teachers a very good wage and pull a profit and do what they want to in the school. What they would need is a financial backer who wouldn't be in it for the profit. DN, I would love to discuss this with you further. (maybe next time you come to Michigan)

[chrozzo 19]

Dear USA,Please don't invade us for our oil.Sincerely,Canadasw...I think

Dear Canada,We wont invade for your oil if you agree to take Clinton, Moore, Baldwin, Rosie and Barbara off our hands for us....thanks!P.S. Love the syrup!Sincerely,USA

[jacknino 0]

The first thing I do before buying a couch or anything else is test its usability (and that means is it comfortable in all the ways I want to use it), but really what I wanted to say is get a recliner. They're very comfortable and I'm betting you could do everything you wanted to on one. Get one where the arms open and there's a cup holder and a little cubby holder underneath it. I keep the remotes in the cubby hole and use the open arm as a lightweight table (for holding papers or whatever). It also works well if you put a little table next to it at arm height.

[imasmrtazz 0]

As far as education goes, Bush really would like to have vouchers passed, so that people in substandard school districts could go to better to schools. In fact, his brother in Florida got that passed, and it was working well, but a renegade judge ruled it unconstitutional. As a rsult of not being able to get that passed, the No Child Left Behind Act was passed, trying to get these substandard schools up to speed. In fact, a lot of the language in the NCLB Act was written by Ted Kennedy, even if it was based off of a model piloted in Texas.As far as the oil situation goes, there was knowledge that the oil was in these shands, but it was VERY cost prohibitive. But since oil prices have risen, and technology has gotten advanced, it is becoming more attractive to the oil companies to invest in exploring for them. And there are also a lot of these shands in the US. The fun part will come when the enviromentalists start suing to stop this process.Oh well, enough of my pontificating.

[Waffles2003 1]

Its funny that they would compare Belgian Students with American Students. I was born in Belgium and went to school there and finished High School then went to college in the USA.I can tell you that most of my classes as a junior and senior in High School were tougher than some of the Classes in College in the USA. School in Belgium (Europe for most part) is much different, you dont do semester but rather school year. You take test 4 times a year plus homeworks and at the end of the year, you get a grade out of 100%. If you achieve 50% or better, you pass the class. However, you have 12 different classes and have to pass ALL OF THEM in order to advance to the next grade. If you fail math or English, you have all summer to study and retake the finals at the end of the summer. If you fail again at the end of the summer you have to retake the whole year again, including the classes you just passed....messed up. Another example that is worth mentioning. In my Junior year there were 3 full classes while there were only 2 in my senior year. That means that the teacher had to fail one full class of student (20-25 students) and they had to retake the whole year. Teachers are really hard on you because they want only the strong ones to advance and they dont really help the weak ones. Belgium is one of the most densed country in the world, it is the size of Maryland but yet has 11 Million People. There are not enough jobs for everyone so the strongest advance in school, the weaker get unemployment or get crappy part time jobs.

[JunkYardDogg 0]

Well...there's always someone ready to say that Ted Kennedy did it when something goes wrong. or...take Clinton. Please. That attitude usually comes from listening 3 hours a day to that famous oxy contin addict who passes as a radio personality, and a political expert. The only difference between a republican and a democratic, is democrats act like they are interested in doing things that are good for the middle class down to the homeless person. But, they are the same in reality. It’s all about how many gifts, or how much money they can suck out of big corporations to line their own pockets. To hell with the good of the country.My girlfriend got a letter, from the school board, saying her second grader’s birthday was a winner in the annual lottery. This required him to be bused to a grade school in the black area of town. Later I was telling my neighbor about his bad luck. She said she felt the same when her son was bused there several years ago. She was surprised to find that the school was actually one of the top schools in town. After his year there she continued to send him there because of the quality of the programs and teachers. The teachers and staff worked extra hard to make their school top notch because nobody wanted to go there. I guess the moral is it’s not the location of the school, but the desire of everyone involved to make it great.The big question is…why can’t every school be like that school?Have a great day.

[cu in 4years Dan 1]

ye i can second that i get pretty pissed somtimes over very little things, and yet i dont get angrey at the table... go figure.

[econ1 0]

Argh. Of course it would be education that would induce me to post my first ever forum reply.I love you all dearly but really now!What I find most interesting is the amount of schitzophrenia going on in the attacks on our educational system (which I will in no way shape or form attempt to defend).On the one hand Daniel and others agree that money is not the problem but rather the lack of competition - on the other hand everyone jumps on the "Slam NCLB" bandwagon when the entire conerstone of the legislation is reitroducing not only competition but ACCOUNTABILITY.NCLB simply holds schools to certain standardized test scores (if anyone has a better way to judge performance I would love to hear it). It ties Federal education funding to test score performance and one of best things it does is seperate out performance standards for minority and special needs groups as well. The bootom line: if your school shows an inability to teach your kids than you will not get increased funding and in some cases you may lose funding.Isn't that precisely what you are arguing for?! As for Daniel's attack on parents not being able to choose their child's school - if I am not mistaken that is the way it has always been. Republicans (Republicans?! Oh the horror!) have been pushing school voucher programs for years to allow parents the kind of control over their children's education that Daniel is referring to. A comprehensive school voucher program would absolutely introduce the kind of competition to the system that it needs.I am so lame for posting an educational rant on a website dedicated to poker. So Sorry.PS Feel free to flame the millions of grammatical and spelling errors that I am certain exist in what lies above...Excellent critique on NCLB but what are the alternatives?I certainly feel for you on the credential issue but I would dare say that you are an exception to the rule. I am fairly certaint hat most of the individuals trying to teach without credentials are Princeton grads. There has to be some kind of order to a nationwide educational system or else the next post woul dbe flmaing Bush for allowing our children to be taught by thousands of people who are even trained to teach!The 'unfunded mandate" criticism is clever (Democrats made a wise move on that one) but not entirely accurate. NCLB does not necesarrily require schools to spend more money but simply be effective with what it already has. If any legislation that requires schools to show results is going to be criticized as an unfunded mandate how will we ever fix the system? It certainly doesn't make much sense to deluge schools with money first and then say "Oh and by the way we want to see results and if we don't we are going to...." goin to what? Travel back in time and take away the money we have already given them?NCLB is by no means perfect but it has led to improvements (and lets not forget it is only a couple of years old - if we can't give legislation geared towards changing the direction of a ship as large as our national education system how will anything ever succeed?). Bush showed guts by stepping out on an issue that has traditionally been hailed as Democrat territory - unfortunately Dems seem more content to sit back and shoot holes in legislation rather than jump in and help make our education system a success...

[Dane 0]

1) As far as money in education, it is almost impossible to compare the money we spend in our Public Schools (speaking of Michigan, at least) with the money spent on education in other countries. WE EDUCATE ALL. From the most gifted to the most handicapped, we educate all children. I do not know what it is exactly like in Belgium but I will guess if it is like many other parts of Europe and Asia, they are only educating the upper echelon of children who have shown the propensity for higher education. In these countries, if your family and/or IQ do not associate you with higher education, then you do not go to school after a certain age. Thank God my kids are health in body and mind, but, God forbid, they had a handicap, I would much rather have them in public school here in Michigan then in any school in Europe. At least here they will have a chance to become as productive of a citizen as they can be (which would depend on the severity of their handicap).

Over here the handicapped goes to special schools, which often are more expensive to run as they often have the students living at the school, so there have to be a few teachers there over night.However our public school system isnt as good as it used to be, classes are getting bigger, in the cities we have problems with immigrants, which have to learn the language first, this takes some resources away from the standard teaching. So private schools are gaining ground, due to smaler class sizes and I believe parents think that there is a better teaching enviroment

[Jonbonwolf 0]

LMAO!!!! Classic!!!!54 40, or FIGHT!!!!

2 funny! We will just move the boarder North a bit.