Thinking Right

By Mid-South Philosopher

January 23, 2007 08:03 AM | Link to this

Good morning, Jim,

I, too, am impressed by Casey Cagle.

He appears to have an ability that the preponderance of politicians does not have…being able to “think” at a level beyond that of middle school!

The notion of the expansion of charter schools in Georgia is intriguing. Of course, the principal obstacle facing that change will be the massive opposition of the local school boards, many members of which have been entrenched in their fiefdoms for decades. Surrendering that power will send some of these school board members into apoplexy.

The notion of scholarships for special needs students, advanced by Senator Eric Johnson of Savannah, also creates some interesting points to ponder. Certainly, the introduction of competition among the delivery providers of educational services can be a positive step, but shall we concede that some schools may not want to offer these “special” services and thus opt out if other facilities are available in the district?

I was particularly interested in this part of today’s column:

The other is to recognize that some parents are quite content to turn their children over to government with the expectation that the public schools will provide everything in a child’s developmental life that uninvolved parents choose to neglect. We have an obligation to educate those children as best we can in a traditional public school setting — hoping, though, that through charters, educators will have the freedom and creativity to design schools for like-needs kids. Why can we not have some courageous legislators to introduce legislation that would hold parents, who choose to use the public schools to educate their children, accountable for certain behaviors shown by research (data driven) to be conducive to successful learning?

I am talking about such things as making sure that their children attend school regularly, showing up for student support conferences, making sure that their teenage students don’t work until 1:00 A.M. every school night at their part-time jobs, encouraging the completion of homework, etc.

Don’t tell me we can’t do it. Unless a set of parents (or more likely a single parent) is un-godly wealthy, they DO NOT pay enough school taxes each year to cover the cost of educating their child (approximately $8,500 per kid in Georgia). Consequently, other taxpayers are footing the bill.

My Dad use to tell me, “Boy, if you are going to dance, you have to pay the fiddler.” It is time these parents “paid the fiddler” by being “parents” instead of “education consumers!”

Now, that would be REAL education reform!

By TW

January 23, 2007 08:10 AM | Link to this

“…uninvolved parents choose to neglect.”

And there you have it. So, that CCT bus that runs along Delk at 6:00AM is jammed full of people who are ‘choosing to neglect’ the importance of seeing their children off to school?

Freeper morality – doesn’t cost a thing, just the effort it takes to extend a judgmental finger.

By jbmlaw

January 23, 2007 08:27 AM | Link to this

Good morning all. Forgive me, Jim, but I am hugely cynical. I am delighted and encouraged that you see glimmers of hope, even in perhaps our darkest government chasm. But after seeing our purportedly-conservative brothers in Washington talk the good talk without “walking” appropriately for the past couple of years, I am not ready to pat them on the back here. Tell our legislators to show me, please prove my doubts unfounded. Maybe there is someone in the group with a Reaganite attitude: “If not us, who? If not now, when?” In any area of life, when there is no freedom of choice, we should always expect the worst; as of now there is no measurable freedom in school alternatives or even in curriculum selection.

By KA

January 23, 2007 08:39 AM | Link to this

We talked about Cagles’s proposal in the Get Schooled blog last Thursday. I love Cagle’s proposal and would like to see the entire state public school system go to Charter a system. Overhaul the administration and delivery of education. Put academic discipline back in the teachers’ hands, and require accountability and responsibility from the students. Let those that earn their grades continue to learn and exclude the slackers and bad actors. Require the parents to participate in the process, as it is not solely the duty of the government to educate our children. The parents must model and enforce good behavior and good study habits at home.

By Van

January 23, 2007 09:16 AM | Link to this

I too am cynical of politico’s that want the government to be the solution.

Having been born during Truman’s time in office, I have seen the schools as they declined with more and more federal government involvement. First local school boards with state guidelines were allowed to control the local schools, then the guideline became mandates. When the state rules were not good enough the federal government stepped in. Today we have an education system that only answers to one “god” and that is the federal wise men.

Between the NCLB and other well meaning pieces of legislation and the teachers unions they have convinced parents that they know what is best for your child. They have convinced a whole generation that they are not capable to raise children, so why not let the professionals do it for them.

By time for the truth

January 23, 2007 09:30 AM | Link to this

A BLACK RACIST Congressional Caucus.

Doubtless this was exactly what MLK was fighting for in his visionary quest for a truly colour blind America. Just a few days after all the empty hollow words on MLK Day the black racist liberals in congress show their true exclusionist racism/bigotry in typical arrogant Jim Crow style.

A white liberal demoNcrat congressman, replacing a beaten black liberal senate candidate in a majority-black district is told take your white face and shove it boy - we don’t let your kind join us. And these black KKKlansmen and women did it through the media - not having the guts to say it to his face. Imagine the screeching and yelping and bleating if a white congressional group did this to a black congressman in this day and age.

Funny also how these same black liberal racists will apparently support a black candidate against a white demoNcrat incumbent - going against the same kind of “unwritten rules in the demoNcrat party” that run the Jim Crow like black congressional caucus.

And the silence of HYPOCRITICAL leftist liberals and blacks as ever about this vile racism/bigotry is deafening …

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0107/2389.html

Black Caucus: Whites Not Allowed

By: Josephine Hearn

Freshman Rep. Stephen I. Cohen, D-Tenn., is not joining the Congressional Black Caucus after several current and former members made it clear that a white lawmaker was not welcome.

“I think they’re real happy I’m not going to join,” said Cohen, who succeeded Rep. Harold Ford, D-Tenn., in a majority-black Memphis district. “It’s their caucus and they do things their way. You don’t force your way in. You need to be invited.”

Cohen said he became convinced that joining the caucus would be “a social faux pas” after seeing news reports that former Rep. William Lacy Clay Sr., D-Mo., a co-founder of the caucus, had circulated a memo telling members it was “critical” that the group remain “exclusively African- American.”

Other members, including the new chairwoman, Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich., and Clay’s son, Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-Mo., agreed.

“Mr. Cohen asked for admission, and he got his answer. … It’s time to move on,” the younger Clay said. “It’s an unwritten rule. It’s understood. It’s clear.”

The bylaws of the caucus do not make race a prerequisite for membership, a House aide said, but no non-black member has ever joined.

Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., who is white, tried in 1975 when he was a sophomore representative and the group was only 6 years old.

“Half my Democratic constituents were African-American. I felt we had interests in common as far as helping people in poverty,” Stark said. “They had a vote, and I lost. They said the issue was that I was white, and they felt it was important that the group be limited to African-Americans.”

Cohen remains hopeful, though, that he can forge relationships with black members in other ways.

“When I saw the reticence, I didn’t want anyone to misunderstand my motives. Politically, it was the right thing to do,” he said. “There are other ways to gain fellowship with people I respect.”

Cohen won his seat in the 60 percent black district as the only white candidate in a crowded primary field. If he faces a primary challenge next year from a black candidate, as expected, some Black Caucus members may work to defeat him.

A similar situation arose in 2004 after redistricting added more black voters to the Houston district of former Rep. Chris Bell, D-Texas.

Although House tradition discourages members of the same party from working against each other, about a dozen black lawmakers contributed to Bell’s opponent, Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, the eventual victor. Even Bell’s Houston neighbor, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, campaigned against him.

One black member who criticized his colleagues for sandbagging Bell was Cohen’s predecessor, Harold Ford.

“You have an incumbent, and you don’t support an incumbent? It was inappropriate,” Ford told Congressional Quarterly in 2004.

Cohen has won high marks for hiring African-Americans. His staff is now majority African- American, he said, including his chief of staff.

By IC

January 23, 2007 09:31 AM | Link to this

“largely exempted from state and some federal mandates.”

Roughly translated means less accountability. I’m not sure I trust public education in Georgia enough for that.

By KA

January 23, 2007 09:44 AM | Link to this

IC, I think Charter schools would take the State and local political/admin PC control and micromanaging out of education and return the professional authority to teach back to the teachers. I think a result would be teachers teaching the material and not teaching to the standardized tests that are only used for the school districts’ puffery anyway.

By harold

January 23, 2007 09:46 AM | Link to this

can we buy beer and wine on sundays yet? the legistlative session’s a wastin’!

and do we all still have to pay twice for car insurance? we all have to carry uninsured motorist coverage because of / for the uninsured, and also carry liability because of the corrupt laws of Georgia.

Why do the law abiders have to pay twice for car insurance? Why not just have everybody pay for their own insurance on their own cars? That way when the uninsured go uninsured, they are only putting themselves at risk.

Harold is tired of having to pay for two kinds of auto insurance because of uninsured Illegal Invaders: Pay once to cover everybody else, and then once again for Harold’s car in case other poeple arent’ paying their “everybody else” insurance.

Harold should only have to pay insurance on his own damn car. Harold decides to put it out there in traffic. It’s Harold’s risk. Harold does not pay renter’s insurance for people without insurance on where they live, so why should Harold pay extra car insurance because some people don’t carry their own car insurance?

Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine do your job! “No Fault” car insurance is past due for Georgia. We should insure our OWN car if we want, but nobody else’s car. Their car is their problem. Their car insurance is their problem.

With things are how they are under current corrupt law that makes us pay the car insurance companies twice to make sure we are covered and legal, other people’s car insurance (or lack thereof) is Harold’s problem. Harold does not like being tied to the public this way. Since it is mandated by law, it is a tax. It should at the VERY least be deductible off state income taxes since Harold gets no benefit at all from it.

By harold

January 23, 2007 09:47 AM | Link to this

What’s that? Casey Cagle is going back to school to get a bachelor’s degree? Well praise the lord! Harold was a little uncomfortable with a high school grad (think “Karl Rove”) being in charge of the state legislative body.

By Curious Observer

January 23, 2007 09:55 AM | Link to this

Education starts at home. When there is only one book in the home—and that a bible—how many miracles do you think a school can accomplish, charter school or otherwise?

Those who think that private schools or charter schools are the answer to the abysmal educational results in Georgia are doomed to perpetual disappointment. The state’s residents talk a good game, but in truth they put little value on education. They set up huge and impersonal education factories to process kids, but they are more interested in achieving economies of scale than in instilling the desire to learn. When the predictable results occur, they talk of “school choice” as the talisman for all the failure that bedevils the school system.

Just look at Georgia’s public teacher salary system as an example of where the state’s priorities lie. It attracts, with few exceptions, the most mediocre of college graduates. In my college teaching career, I watched with dismay as the dullest students proudly announced elementary and secondary school teaching as their career choices, while the truly bright students avoided that vocation. And the pay systems of private schools are even worse. Good luck with thinking that school choice will allow your children to avoid the problem. In fact, college students from private secondary schools tended to be the worst of the worst.

Until Georgia gets rid of the impersonal megaplexes that pose as schools, the pay system that reveals the state’s apathy, and the bureaucracy that disqualifies the brightest college graduates from being certified as teachers, we can expect more of the same. Most of Georgia’s children begin school under enormous home handicaps; we cannot expect different results merely by treating schools as so many Krogers to choose from.

By time for the truth

January 23, 2007 10:14 AM | Link to this

cheers harold for bravely highlighting just one of the major problems with the huge, ever growing illegal infestation in GA/USA … many illegals, especially the mexican types, drive (very badly) with NO licences, which is illegal, and NO insurance, which is illegal. Which sadly most cops are prevented from doing anything about by leftist or cowardly politically correct masters. So if the illegals/the uninsured hit someone/thing someone else pays, usually an insurance company. Thus the costs of illegals is again passed on in an insidious way. Yet your liberal heroes screech and get real uppity whenver this is pointed out. If there were NO illegals here insurance premiums, and car accidents etc would immediately go down. Although I agree there are some p!ss poor aggressive selfish drivers, both folks who’ve moved here, many of them with northern/mid-west accents and a good number of locals.

A couple of years ago on a Sunday at lunch time I was stationary in my vehicle at a red traffic light in a small town near the AL/GA state line and this smug blonde teenage brat actually hit me, the mommy gets out and tries to swap places with the daughter brat to stop the brat gettng a ticket when the local plod (actually a GSP Sergeant) arrived at the red light, right behind them - it was hilarious watching them explain that away.

In my area occasionally in the summer the local plod and the GSP set up insurance/driving licence “traps” to catch those driving illegally. Usually on weekends, an hour or so before sunset. But its only a token gesture which hardly addresses the root of the endemic problem.

BTW I already told you the good news, you can NOW buy alcohol on Sundays in supermarkets - just tell them at Krogers or wherever this weekend the law has finally changed!!

By JK

January 23, 2007 10:17 AM | Link to this

Curious Observer (at 9:55) Nicely put!

By Dennis

January 23, 2007 10:18 AM | Link to this

KA@9:44 said; “I think a result would be teachers teaching the material and not teaching to the standardized tests….”

I would like to believe that, but, it ain’t going to happen.

Public schools, or charter schools paid for with public money; when all is said and done, the state/federal politicians will still want their money’s worth and some way to measure (standardized test) to be certain they’re getting it.

To think with charter schools that politicians will give up their control and things will be different is a fallacy.

None of us should/will be surprised if/when we have some charter schools that produce some good results for a FEW and then a hoopla for more charter schools.

When all is said and done, it still all boils down to money and the willingness to pay for what you want.

IF YOU WANT A SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEMS OF PUBLIC EDUCATION, THEN DO FOR THEM WHAT YOU ARE WILLING TO DO FOR CHARTER SCHOOLS.

You don’t have to be a blind conservataive not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

By Dusty

January 23, 2007 10:21 AM | Link to this

Harold,

I just read your rant on car insurance and some of it was valid. But I thought you only rode a bicycle.

By Dennis

January 23, 2007 10:26 AM | Link to this

Mr. Wooten writes; “Empower parents with choice, so they gradually come to accept their obligation to take responsibility for their children’s education.”

Pardon me, but if the parents aren’t already doing that, then I’d like to personally know why charter schools will make the difference? What’s the magic?

You don’t have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

By harold

January 23, 2007 10:28 AM | Link to this

troof, premiums will never go down. we could, though, drop liability coverage if it weren’t stupidly mandated by law. that’d result in a lower bill, at least for a bit, until insurance companies doubled our rates to keep the same amounts of money coming in.

and you have always been able to buy alcohol on sunday in georgia. it’s just been illegal for a person to sell it! krogers and publix have self-checkout machines, so they ought to be letting people purchase their own alcohol on sundays at the machine since nobody would be violating any law. they are idiots not to let people do this.

By Buy Danish

January 23, 2007 10:41 AM | Link to this

Mid-South,

The last thing we need is legislation that micro-manages things like homework assignments. Just from a practical standpoint, how many bureaucrats are we going to need to implement this Big Brother-ish idea?

We already have strict rules for truancy, and parents can be seriously penalized for accumulated unexcused absences.

KA,

I have no problem with some charter schools opening up, partly because they facilitate overcrowding, partly to accommodate those fanatics who want year round schools and longer school days, but I wouldn’t recommend that we switch to an all charter system.

Setting up thousands of autonomous mom and pop operations doesn’t seem very practical. What about athletic programs? Transportation? It needs to be about choice, and vouchers should be in the mix.

The “experts” have done yeoman’s work in ruining the schools by eliminating things like recess and over-emphasizing time spent in the classroom - which is ultimately counter-productive. I’m wary of “experts” who now think that charter schools are the magic formula.

CO,

Is it a coincidence that when Bibles were taken out of schools the schools began to decline? I don’t say that as a religious fundamentalist (which I’m not) but if kids were familiar with the King James Version they’d be well on their way to literacy.

I do agree about the impersonal megaplexes. From middle school on the schools become factories and don’t meet the needs of children. They are miserable places to spend the day. To use your analogy, I’d like a choice of Krogers and Publix.

The pay system at private schools is worse but people still choose to teach there because they prefer the private school environment. How will Higher pay solve the problems with the schools, except take more resources away from the students themselves?

We should be recruiting retired military personnel, particularly men, to teach at schools. With their pensions added to the school salaries they’d do well and their influence as positive male role models would be wonderfully beneficial.

By Dusty

January 23, 2007 10:44 AM | Link to this

Jim,

I am concerned about our public schools. It seems the more we try to improve them, the worse they get. I hope that I am wrong in that statement but it seems to be a general feeling.

What really concerns me is the “sentiments” being pressed into the brains of our college and university students. Totally liberal professors who push their politics with their subjects of study seem to be the rule.

Look at the British professor in the recent jay walking fiasco. He is teaching American students. His piece in the newspaper was riddled with disdain for our government and President Bush. And he is a history professor. I do not think these “teachers” are limiting themselves to their subject.

I do not think we are sending our children for higher education spiced with a professor’s politics. Oh yeah free speech. How far can we go with our favorite freedom? Revolution?

By time for the truth

January 23, 2007 10:50 AM | Link to this

If lazy incompetent lefty union teachers had to actually be fully accountable for their results every bloody year in the classroom, instead of smugly shoving self esteem and liberal brainwashing down the throats of the kiddies standards might improve. Also proper punishment/sanctions against thugs/disruptive kiddies need to be
brought back. Cattle prods would be my choice for those over 7-8 years old. (grin).

Removing undeserved life long tenure from bad/union teachers would shake them out of their liberal torpor and make them actually think about dramatically changing what aint working.

I see curious peepingtom asserts that money is one of major roots of the problem. Does peepingtom really think that simply doubling teachers salaries would make that much difference? Especially in the short to medium term… WITHOUT firing bad/poor union teeeechers and instigating other major reforms. Having kiddies who refuse to or cannot speak/learn English properly at home is dragging down millions of kids in the USA and p!ssing away hundreds of millions of funds on teaching them a poor level of English, thus diverting vital resources away from American kids who should always come first. There’s numerous other points to be made, but space limits what one can say.

But overall its DECADES of tried and repeatedly failed trendy lefty educational theory and practice that’s overwhelmingly to blame. Plus the systematic general liberal dumbing down of society and the dogma of the endless pathetic obsession with self esteem, the never challenge my precious prince/princess to do better or actually learn to read and write at an appropriate age level BEFORE social promotion or other gloss over the problems solutions are applied to make the teeeechers look better than they are.

Allowing ebonics and hippety hop lanuage and attitudes to go unchallenged in skool is also having an appalling effect on academic excellence natioanlly and locally on kiddies lives way beyond the much needed metal detectors and armed police on campus. If you can’t even write/spell/talk properly how the hell can you ever expect to succeeed in the world. In part this is why so many colleges are having remedial English classes to teach coillege kiddies how to write etc properly.

The kulture is now so self absorbed and self centred that most kiddies have no notion of what is needed to get on … and if they do succeed academically they get the shiite ENVIOUSLY kicked out of them in san fran sicko for singing the Star Spangled Banner. JUts go into a fats food pace in Dekalb, Gwinnett or S. Fulton and observe the language skills of the kiddies behind the counter … many are as moronic as Maxine Waters!!!

By Dennis

January 23, 2007 10:55 AM | Link to this

Dusty writes @10:44 “Look at the British professor in the recent jay walking fiasco. He is teaching American students. His piece in the newspaper was riddled with disdain for our government and President Bush. And he is a history professor. I do not think these “teachers” are limiting themselves to their subject.”

That coin has two sides, I think.

For example, look at John Ashcroft teaching at a christian college in Virginia run by Pat Robertson. Just suppose some rebel/bright kid writes a liberal paper that disagrees with Ashcroft - whether that paper be about politics or religion.

“So long, kid. We don’t want your likes around here.”

You don’t have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

By DebbieDoRight

January 23, 2007 10:57 AM | Link to this

Be the solution. Try mentoring a child in your school district; or working with the Big Bro Big Sis program — these little things help to improve a child’s self esteem and to also improve their attitudes towards school and academia.

And YES I already do those things — there are a lot of you on this blog who seems to have a wealth of knowledge from life and from books; by giving back to the children in your own school district, you can become part of the solution.

By harold

January 23, 2007 11:03 AM | Link to this

dusty, harold does not only ride a bicycle. harold sometimes rides a bicycle to work. more often, harold carpools in a car. bicycling, while just as effective as car-ing but far more enjoyable, is too dangerous because the government has built a city around cars at the unfortunate exclusion of every other form of transportation and with a complete disregard for people’s lives

By harold

January 23, 2007 11:09 AM | Link to this

Israel’s President Moshe Katsav will be indicted on rape charges?

Those four w******* are lying anti-Semites!!

Harold predicts the resignations of everyone involved in the allegations and them instead blaming Jimmy Carter.

By holdingAJCaccountable

January 23, 2007 11:11 AM | Link to this

Mr. Wooten,

Help me understand the conservative point of view. My understand is that two conservative tenants are: -respect for the rule of law -emphasis on personal responsibility

I am correct here, right?

If so, why have Perdue, Cox, Cagle, et al done absolutely nothing to address the discipline problems in our public schools? What better time to learn respect for “rule of law” and “personal responsibility” than when you are young?

Here’s a statement: When teachers give students consequences, administrators must support the teachers in those consequences. The adults must provide a “unified front” so that students know rules and consequences are in place.

Do Cox, Perdue, and Cagle agree or disagree? If they agree, why have they never once made a statement similar to that?

And, if they can’t publicly support that statement, doesn’t that damage their credibility. (Yours isn’t damaged in your support for charter schools and other “outside the box” because you’ve shown some backbone)…I thought Republicans had backbone…where’s the backbone on the discipline issue?

By Dusty

January 23, 2007 11:14 AM | Link to this

harold,

try the Silver Comet Trail to “ride out” your frustrations. You can go all the way to Alabama from Atlanta. Somebody did something for bicycle riders, even if it wasn’t your way to work.

By Dusty

January 23, 2007 11:19 AM | Link to this

Dennis,

If your imagined student wrote a sensible piece without propaganda, Ashcroft would discuss it with him. I never saw him with a closed mind, even if you think so.

I think your mind is closed. If it were not, you would not be presenting an imaginary situation without basis to prove your point.

By harold

January 23, 2007 11:20 AM | Link to this

that silver comet trail is more for joggers with dogs on extendo leashes and roller bladers and fat moms and pops with fat children on walmart bicycles

for somebody to ride a bicycle to work is it useless unless somebody happens to live in paulding county and happens to work in vinings

anyhow harold aint sayin nothing about all that today. harold is tired of paying for car insurance twice on each car because other people pay zero. if harold wants his car insured, harold should pay for insurance on his car. that’s it. that’s all. other people’s cars and car insurance should be their own problems. if you get runned over by a drunk, your family gets their million from your own car insurance company, not from the drunk/illegal. how many drunks/illegals even have car insurance? hardly any! mandatory liability insurance is such a huge scam on georgians. required by law but not even deductible. how about that crap.

By Buy Danish

January 23, 2007 11:26 AM | Link to this

Dusty,

One has to wonder where “harold” works. Harold talks like a baby when he refers to himself in the third person, and cannot construct a proper sentence and refuses to employ capital letters. I’d be afraid of sending him out on the Silver Comet Trail - he might get hopelessly lost.

I wonder if “harold” is the illiterate Pulitzer Prize winner…Mike Luckovich!

By time for the truth

January 23, 2007 11:27 AM | Link to this

Rednekkks NAMBLA, curious peepingtom and other would be elitist liberal tossers on here regularly sneer at southerners and other non-lefties.

Tell us liberal clever DICKS

*COULD YOUR precious KIDS. with their modern day liberal education, DO THIS right now FOR AN 8TH GRADE EXAM … *

See just how far standards have dropped in liberal run schools - and this was done in a draughty old wooden school house with NO calculators, or slide rules, NO PC’s or spell checkers etc …

How many of us could graduate from 8th grade?

Remember when our grandparents, great-grandparents, and such stated that they only had an 8th grade education? Well, check this out. Could any of us have passed the 8th grade in 1895? This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 Salina, KS. USA. It was taken from the original document on file at the Smokey Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, KS and reprinted by the Salina Journal. 8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, KS -1895

Grammar (Time, one hour)

Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)

U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)

Orthography (Time, one hour)

Geography (Time, one hour)

By harold

January 23, 2007 11:38 AM | Link to this

how is anybody supposed to just know how much room a bushel of wheat takes up?

is this how black folk supposedly feel when taking the whitey-centric SAT tests?

By Redneck Convert

January 23, 2007 11:39 AM | Link to this

I see the libruls want to waist more tax money on schooling. Well, I never made it past the 5th grade and it never hurt me none. My grandson Sonny Zell George will go till he is 16, but only because it’s against the law not to send him. My boy and my dotter dropped out at 16 and they are doing just fine. All Sonny Zell George needs is to be able to read good enough to understand the bible. After that he can put his effort into making enough money to buy a trailer and a pickup.

I’m against paying teachers more. They don’t do no hard work. They ought to try rassling this beer truck along the hiways and bringing the heavy cases of beer into the store. Then they would know what hard work is.

These librul perfessers ought to be kicked out of the colleges. Sister Dusty is right, tho I hate to admit it. Colledge teachers need to teach good conservative values. I’m awful glad Sonny Zell George won’t make it in school long enough to have to listen to librul colledge teachers.

No matter how hard you try to improve the schools, us rednecks will be the ones electing the people that run the state, so you might as well stop waisting your time. We don’t beleive in a lot of schooling, so you can rant all you want. If God wanted people to do a bunch of reading, they woulda been born able to do it.

By Don't Forget to Vote!

January 23, 2007 11:41 AM | Link to this

What Wooten did NOT want to discuss today: (Go to abcnews dot com and vote!)

ABC News has compiled the unfulfilled promises President Bush made in last year’s State of the Union address.

Which policy promise do you most wish would have become a reality? -Making Bush’s first-term tax cuts permanent, - Passing the line-item veto, - Guest worker program, - Affordable health care, - Medical liability reform legislation, - Baby boomer commission, - Make the research and development tax credit permanent, - Pass legislation to ban human cloning, - Switch grass and other fuel technology, - End waiting lists for AIDS medicine in the United States

By JohnD

January 23, 2007 11:42 AM | Link to this

Dennis,

Did the fact of the “Christian School” in Virginia being private ever enter your stunted thought process? The students are there because of the curriculum not in spite of the curriculum. Do you have any evidence a liberal student would be expelled?

Why do liberals have to make every discussion take on a religious tone? A conservative is not by definition a Christian and a Christian is not by definition a conservative.

Just as fixed costs are variable and variable costs are fixed, the true liberals are the conservatives. The single belief that all are responsible for themselves and not “wards of the state” makes the conservatives those who believe in personal freedom. How much more liberal can anyone be?

By silver

January 23, 2007 11:44 AM | Link to this

Forget education, we have more pressing problems. The so called “education president” is now going to focus on domestic issues, since it is clear he is a complete failure and a fraud in foreign affairs. The headline in the New York Times today reads “Bush, at Low Point in Polls, Will Push Domestic Agenda.” Be afraid, be very afraid. We will soon have “water boarding” of welfare moms suspected of cheating a little on income. With his worthless Yalie degree, the chimp will soon be requiring every town of over 5,000 to have a minor league baseball team, since it worked so well for him, and should surely stimulate jobs growth.

By Dusty

January 23, 2007 11:45 AM | Link to this

Buy Danish,

I love your detective work. Luckovich, good guess! “harold” doesn’t get the ajc staff to correct his posts. Obviously!

Maybe “harold” will take off his training wheels soon and try the Silver Comet Trail. My long lean son loves it and he doesn’t have a dog,roller blades, or mom and pop along. Just a bicycle and helmet.

By silver

January 23, 2007 11:48 AM | Link to this

1 US bushel = 1.24445608 cubic feet

IS THIS A CONSTRUCTIVE CONTRIBUTION JIM, JUST MORE MATH JARGON?

By SILVER

January 23, 2007 11:57 AM | Link to this

Dusty, your long lean son sounds just like what we in the Army are looking for, a soldier of one. Send him to the recruiting station at Perimeter Mall, and we can have him in Iraq in less than six months. After 18 months in Iraq, we will station him in Afghanistan for a year, then maybe a covert operation in Iran. If he survives, he will be a sargent, we will offer him a chance to re enlist for another six glorious years of imposing christianity, freedom and democracy on those stinkin’ muslims.

By harold

January 23, 2007 12:01 PM | Link to this

now y’all better stop calling harold “luckovich” or the ajc is gonna realize they could make a lot of money off harold and give him a job with a really fat payczech writing a column named ‘harold says’

By time for the truth

January 23, 2007 12:14 PM | Link to this

Poor old ignorant harold … this sad car hating self confessed alkie is clearly unable to comprehend that bushels were part of the old imperial “dry” volume measurements.

In 1895 harold 14?? year old kids who passed this exam were like modern day Ivy League Professors in comparison to the modern morons who “graduate” from S Fulton Co, Dekalb, Gwinnett, etc public schools. Those who actually fail (numerous times) the current piece of p!ss modern day exit exam with its 14 year old dumbed down maths and 16 year old dumbed down English today embrace the unskilled or perhaps criminal opportunities in todays thuggish urban and very competitive suburban environments.

Rather telling is harold’s predicktable dishonesty in ignoring the rest of the exam which addresses many other subjects, including the rarefied niceties of English grammar … which has bugger all to do with whitey-centric (sic) testing.

C’est le vie.

By Dennis

January 23, 2007 12:16 PM | Link to this

Dusty said, “I think your mind is closed. If it were not, you would not be presenting an imaginary situation without basis to prove your point.”

Maybe I was the point.

Conservative schools, especially the small religious ones, get “all shook up” when their conservative values which keep people in their place, doing and believing what they’re “supposed” to do are questioned.

From Jon above; The single belief that all are responsible for themselves and not “wards of the state” makes the conservatives those who believe in personal freedom. How much more liberal can anyone be?”

I have no problem with individual responsibility. My concern is when conservatives lump every unworking person they see as “lazy”, etc.

Too many conservatives refuse to look at just how many mentally ill persons are on the streets; and it’s about to get worse due to lack of funding for mentally ill care. Then watch your prisons fill up.

You don’t have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

By jbmlaw

January 23, 2007 12:16 PM | Link to this

Dear Harold @ 9:46, clearly you have been reading some economic treatise from the 1970s, all still valid. Well done, and I fully agree with your proposed solution. Don’t know what that has to do with schools, but it was a heck of van argument.

Dear Dennis @ 10:18, as you wrote, “IF YOU WANT A SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEMS OF PUBLIC EDUCATION, THEN DO FOR THEM WHAT YOU ARE WILLING TO DO FOR CHARTER SCHOOLS.” (I assume you were screaming when you wrote, ala Howard Dean, one of those moonbat things.) You have inadvertently stumbled into the real secret – we have to allow those substandard schools to fail and go out of business. Until we offer that sort of economic tough love, there will be no improvement. Perhaps I give you too much credit for your insight, but well-done for a leftist.

Dear Dennis @ 10:26, I did assume too much. You forgot to read the first phrase in the language you quoted. I fear you are unaware that there is no real choice in the system, which is the topic today.

Gosh Harold @ 10:28, be careful, you almost sound libertarian. Well said. Danish, Dusty, TFTT, and Debbie, you all write great (and even more bizarre, fully consistent, i.e., not mutually exclusive) arguments before 11 AM.

Dear Dennis @ 10:55, it sounds like its time for you to break out the aluminum hat again.

Dear Holding @ 11:11, your argument is good as far as it goes. A I understand it, Mr. Cagle’s proposed resolution addresses your argument, in that it takes the matter away from government standards, and puts it back in the realm of private decision-making, a definite plus.

Gee “Don’t Forget” @ 11:41, the way you talk, something unexpected must have happened in 2001 that changed our lives forever. Wonder what that could have been?

By getalife

January 23, 2007 12:20 PM | Link to this

Blind obedience and leader worship is patriotic….

(if you live in North Korea).

By Dusty

January 23, 2007 12:24 PM | Link to this

silver,

You must be new here. That old ploy about coming to the recruiting office is very STALE here. As I have mentioned MANY times, my son, husband and father have ALREADY served in the military. I am not elgible.

We all continue to “fight” to keep freedom and democracy in this country, as does our President. Sorry that bothers you so much.

By Don't Forget to Vote!

January 23, 2007 12:37 PM | Link to this

Gee “jmblaw” at 12:16, what does a list of the President’s unfulfilled promises from one year ago, posted by a news network, have to do with either 2001 events or the way I talk? Reach much?

By Mrs. RepubLady

January 23, 2007 12:40 PM | Link to this

Silver, yes Dusty is a hero here in her own right! She fights ignorance and traitorism here every day. All day. Whether she has anything meaningful to say or not! She’s here doggone it. She’s a patriot! I am honored and proud to get pedicures beside her each month, right after our visit to the Nordstrom and the Cheesecake Factory. You know nothing about real patriotism!

By time for the truth

January 23, 2007 12:44 PM | Link to this

Disgraced incompetent far left narcissistic

By time for the truth

January 23, 2007 12:44 PM | Link to this

Disgraced incompetent far left narcissistic

By silver

January 23, 2007 12:48 PM | Link to this

Dusty, they can serve again. Sacrafice is called for in the war against the dirty stinkin muslims, and God calls upon you and your’s to give. There is a contract job waiting for you, driving a truck from Kuwait to Baghdad, income tax free. The whole family can join up right now. Praise Jesus

By jbmlaw

January 23, 2007 12:49 PM | Link to this

Dear Getalife @ 12:20, you may add “or if you are a Clintonite.”

Dear “Don’t Forget” @ 12:37, don’t tease us, really, help us out here – what may have happened in 2001 to change our public priorities. I cannot remember anything substantial…..

By Buy Danish

January 23, 2007 12:50 PM | Link to this

Silver,

I only WISH we were “imposing Christianity” on the IslamoFascists.

Tftt,

Beware of using phrases in foreign languages.

Hey everybody,

Here’s what’s wrong with “higher education”, but Purdue and Cox aren’t at fault here:

The politically correct guide to English and American Literature.

Don’t forget 9/11,

I’ll give your question to jbmlaw a try - Maybe because we’re rightly preoccupied with fighting a difficult war on many fronts that we have no choice but to win? If we lose, won’t those other domestic agenda items be moot? Who cares about CAFE’ Standards when you’re riding around in a donkey-powered cart, dressed in a burka?

By jbmlaw

January 23, 2007 12:53 PM | Link to this

Dear “Don’t Forget,” never mind, I get it. Those are the things you expect our new, DEMOCRAT Congress to do. I think you are too optimistic – the people in control of Congress now look like a bunch of losers to me, I don’t expect to see any of this passed.

By time for the truth

January 23, 2007 12:54 PM | Link to this

HA HA HA HA … finally some long overdue sunshine is being shone on the massive mohammedan fascist financing of the narcissistic anti-semitic far leftist worst president in US history.

The increasingly senile (unless his ever more shrill, hateful political distortions are cynically deliberate) peanut chomper Karter has been bankrolled by the petro-dollars of Israel hating arabs. Although predicktably Karter refuses to enumerate all of his anti-Israeli enablers. No wonder then Karter has despicably been increasingly overtly sneering at Israel - the ONLY stable democracy in the Middle east. NOt quite as much money sloshing around Atlanta as with the UN Oil For Soddom’s Cronies bank accounts - but way more than the Braves’ annual $80 million payroll.

http://nrd.nationalreview.com/article/?q=NmVlNzc4OWI5YTc4MDY1MzhiMDM2OWRhNjgzYzk0ZTk=JRA

By time for the truth

January 23, 2007 12:55 PM | Link to this

anal obsessive envious EASILY MANIPULATED cyber stalker

By time for the truth

January 23, 2007 12:56 PM | Link to this

anal obsessive envious EASILY MANIPULATED cyber stalker

By holdingAJCaccountable

January 23, 2007 01:00 PM | Link to this

To: jbmlaw Mr. Cagle’s proposed resolution addresses your argument, in that it takes the matter away from government standards, and puts it back in the realm of private decision-making, a definite plus.

While I’d like to see an overt stand on discipline, I’ll take this as a start.

Hell, the public schools are so FUBAR, I’d take anything short of educational jihadists taking flying, not landing, flying lessons…

PS Let’s be clear, for the slow ones who don’t get satire: we are advocating only non violent solutions to the problem. But, if as liberals fear, vouchers, charters, and the like completely destroyed the public educational system, and the educational bureaucracy that went with it, and left us with rebuilding from scratch, that wouldn’t be a bad thing

By Buy Danish

January 23, 2007 01:13 PM | Link to this

Mrs. Repugnant Lady,

Regarding your asinine comments to Dusty at 12:40 where you pretend to know her shopping habits, listen up:

It is none of your business where people shop. In this country we are free to shop where we choose, whether it be at Nordstroms and/or WalMart.

Considering the fact that your side of the aisle would like to remove the WalMart option, it is just a wee bit hypocritical of you to take a shot at Nordstrom’s.

Which makes you… a typical Liberal Jackass.

By Don't Forget to Vote!

January 23, 2007 01:20 PM | Link to this

“jbmlaw”, no those were things the President said in last year’s SotU speech. (January 2006, not January 2001). Why don’t you ask your President about his own purported initiatives if you’re confused?

By harold

January 23, 2007 01:24 PM | Link to this

harold wonders whats wrong with sounding like libertarian

By Buy Danish

January 23, 2007 01:30 PM | Link to this

Don’t Forget where you live,

Bush is OUR President and this is OUR country.

Don’t YOU ever forget that.

By Don't Forget to Vote!

January 23, 2007 01:44 PM | Link to this

Thanks, Buy Danish! That’s the most useful advice I have received all day! I’m going to write my address down right now before I forget! I bet people are always coming to you for advice.

But, what does that have to do with all that stuff OUR PRESIDENT said in last year’s State of the Union Address, for which there was no follow-through or follow-up that followed? Wouldn’t it have been better for him to do all that stuff last year when Congress was still in his pocket?

By Switchgrass Lover

January 23, 2007 01:46 PM | Link to this

Smoked some switchgrass last weekend. Good stuff. I hear the President likes it better than Jim Beam.

By harold

January 23, 2007 01:54 PM | Link to this

bush will only pledge to eat more pretzels this year, which of course we all know means he will be binge drinking some more this year

he doesnt have the cajones to tackle any real challenges. that’s why 9/11 happened in the first place.

not even Navin R. Johnson’s Mother would love him!

By harold

January 23, 2007 01:57 PM | Link to this

what do you do with all the danishes you buy anyway? If you ate them all you’d be really fat by now

By harold

January 23, 2007 02:10 PM | Link to this

maybe he will announce his resignation tonight! that’d be nice, as long as cheney resigned along with him

president peloski!!!

By time for the truth

January 23, 2007 02:18 PM | Link to this

HA HA HA HA HA …. selfish aggressive cyclists are about to get smacked with heavy fines in Cobb Co … don’t worry harold, your trusty stolen BMX bike cant ever speed like this, unless its ridin’ in the back of your pappy’s rusty old yeller S.10.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/cobb/stories/2007/01/23/1023cyclists.html

By Buy Danish

January 23, 2007 02:29 PM | Link to this

Don’t forget,

How’s this: I don’t really give a flip.

By time for the truth

January 23, 2007 02:38 PM | Link to this

Fill up the sick buckets folks and Fed Ex them to Hollywood …

Cruise is Christ DUH!!! … Jesus wept - what mindless bollocks is this??!!

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,4-2007030603,00.html

By harold

January 23, 2007 02:43 PM | Link to this

gotta love those columns drive cyclists, “They’ll go 30, 40, 50 miles per hour down Columns Drive.”

crazy how Lance Armstrong could win the tour de france time trials at 28 mph, but here on columns drive in little old cobb county we have menacing groups of spandex wearing bicyclists who, according to local imbeciel Paul McNulty, can go FIFTY mph. hmm, Paul McNulty, is that FIFTY mph in the draft of your speeding vehicle maybe? What a foolish jackarse this person sounds to be in the opinion of harold

amazing how the presumably tiny weinered feel threatened by people RIDING BICYCLES.

this city needs accommodations for bicyclists so they dont have to seek out the ONLY road in town along a river meaning very little cross traffic.

cyclist should be able to ride on any road.

rather than banning columns cycling (a quite typical ignoranat atlantan NEGATIVE response) they should be encouraging bicycling everywhere else (a POSITIVE response? WTF is that?)

it’s little wonder there is a barrage of cyclists there and on kennesaw mountain considering that bicycling is getting more and more popular but the IDIOTS in charge of this place make it harder and harder to bicycle on normal roads every time they re-do an intersection or widen a lane or add a right turn only lane or pretty much anything they do in their never ending worship of their god, the internal combustion engine mobile, at the ultimate expense of the very people who drive the things

yeah, ban cycling on one road instead of encouraging it on other roads.

harold swears to god the local politicians should all be hung like saddam they are so gaddamn stupid!

By silver

January 23, 2007 02:46 PM | Link to this

time for the truth, the truth is there never was a jesus, the character is a composite of 2000 year old jews suffering delusional behavior. The so called new testiment was written down a couple hundred years after the reputed events, based solely on word of mouth (hear say), and could not even be admitted into an american court. That said, I hope they really crucify Tom Cruise in the movie, just for the fun of it.

By jbmlaw

January 23, 2007 02:51 PM | Link to this

Dear “Don’t Forget,” @ 1:44, maybe you are on to something. We fired the last Congress for not doing those good things proposed by the President. The President ought to ask the same thing again – see if this Congress is as dumb as the last one. I think they are dumber, but I would love to be proven wrong. Not that any of your posts have anything to do with the topic of the day.

By silver

January 23, 2007 02:52 PM | Link to this

Don’t worry harold, when the oil runs out or becomes too expensive, we will not share our bicycles with the now stranded former motorists. Since it is legal in Ga to carry a pistol in the glove box of your car, is it also legal for a bicyclist to carry his mini 9 millimeter in the seat bag on his bicycle? Who knows, we might have to fight off the stranded fat motorist someday, and I sure want to be in a position to return the fire.

By jbmlaw

January 23, 2007 02:52 PM | Link to this

Dear harold, @ 1:24, absolutely nothing. Post on.

By time for the truth

January 23, 2007 03:09 PM | Link to this

Silver,

I am a proud right wing avowedly secular conservative. Ask my great (missing) chum Dana about that … Christianity is essentially a somewhat cynical, very selective, amorphous melding of various so called “pagan” rites/dogmas/traditions etc. Martin Larson in his superb (if somewhat dated) two books on the subject … The Religion Of The Occident and the updated sequel … The Story Of Christianity makes this glaringly obvious. I have both books, including a rare hardback UK first edition of the Occident tome.

Jesus was likely little more than one of very many charismatic jews from Galilee - a place I know fairly well from several trips there whilst working on various marxist kollectives kalled kibbutzim. Capernaum was not really worth the visit but Tiberias was quite nice.

Your poisonous lies and pathetic posted bollocks about Bush and conservatives are NOT undone or in any way excused by your very sound attitude to organised religion. Mohammedans believe in something actually even more ridiculously micky mouse/insanely contrived than the ‘religion of the occident’

http://www.amazon.com/Story-Christian-Origins-Martin-Larson/dp/0883310902/sr=1-1/qid=1169582216/ref=pdbbssr_1/104-8637001-5142357?ie=UTF8&s=books

By harold

January 23, 2007 03:22 PM | Link to this

troof, christians make that obvious. you dont need two of them fancypants books!

harold wonders why the imbecilic homeowners bought in that flood plain knowing FULL WELL roving groups of dangerous speed bumps (um bicyclists) have been using columns drive for 20+ years.

harold says the damn homeowners should move if they dont like how the public road to their house and that river park get used.

By silver

January 23, 2007 03:22 PM | Link to this

Gee time for the truth, I thought we could be foxhole buddies, but I guess not. Oh, Dusty, yo ho, Dusty

By time for the truth

January 23, 2007 03:52 PM | Link to this

harold … well written and well researched academic tomes only add to one’s knowledge and wisdom … I smugly and very unsurprisingly note your predicktable gleeful public disavowal of the traditional approach to learning. Cheers greatly for not spoiling or in any way troubling my existing assessment of both your innate and acquired cerebral ability/endeavours.

Without actually engaging with such such material its impossible to present a suitably HISTORICALLY INFORMED logical/credible/reasoned etc response to religious dogma.

Silver … happily I don’t share foxholes with any kind of poofs - let alone poisonous, treasonous Bush hating poofs … try rednekkks NAMBLA or aborted foreskin …

By Brian Curtis

January 23, 2007 03:56 PM | Link to this

JBM: So the last Congress was voted out… for not aligning closely enough with Bush.

Wow, that’s an impressive level of denial. Paired with your intolerance of childless marriages yesterday, I’m sensing a very wide gap between you and reality, JBM. Call and check in with us sometime, willya?

By silver

January 23, 2007 03:59 PM | Link to this

Well, time for the truth, I had my heart set on Dusty, but she apparently has dumped me apriori as it were. Where is mrs sock when I need her…..

By harold

January 23, 2007 04:03 PM | Link to this

oh, harold agrees with troof about books and their importance

harold’s just sayin’ you dont need books to recongize the christians for what they are. they copied muslims with their prophet and stole all the pagan holidays and brainwash the young and otherwise feebleminded

harold was just reading ‘trading spaces for dummies’ over the weekend. very well researched!

By time for the truth

January 23, 2007 04:17 PM | Link to this

certainly that almost passes as a suitably simplistic assessment of christianity harold, which doubtless serves you very well for the intellectually impoverished circles you move in … but for those of us who are used to a tad more rigorous argument the age old practice of actually developing a logical/factually impervious argument demands a rather more erudite effort than half a lazy snout dreamily immersed in some throw away magazine article in the medicare dentists office.

time for the truth humbly suggests that harold might perhaps (if one is not hideously drunk) glean rather more from an exhaustive pro-active study of The Idiots Guide To Cyber Bantering With Anglo-American Conservative Intellectuals.

By Buy Danish

January 23, 2007 05:02 PM | Link to this

Are we having some sort of contest to see who can post the most words without using capital letters today?

Here’s how the prize winning cartoonist, Mike Luckovich does it:

happy 2007 everybody. i’m back at my drawing board. there’s been a lot of news during the holidays. tomorrow’s cartoon is on the hanging of saddam, a truly evil man. even so, the administration managed to botch the execution, perhaps further fueling the insurgency. is there anyone out there who still thinks w and company are doing a good job? too bad we can’t fire bush like the falcons fired mora. mike

By John

January 23, 2007 05:05 PM | Link to this

Gee Harold, these Christians are certainly omniscient. Christianity is 2,000 years old and Islam is 1,400 years. The theft of a prophet 600 years before his appearance seems to lend more credence to the Jesus is God theory.

Martin Larson, mentioned in a previous post was raised in a religious home but disavowed religion in his early 20’s. Would you then expect him to author books in praise of religion or books that that would debunk his decision? I also think the book was The Story of Christian Origins not The Story of Christianity. I do agree with some of his writing on taxation but his book The Great Tax Fraud is nonsense.

Why do the Christians threaten so many here? If the Christians are all wrong on the issue, then so what? If, on the other hand, the Christians are correct, then the “so what” does not apply to the non-Christians.

As I asked earlier, why do the liberals seem to bring religion into every discussion? This was about education and the failure of the public school system. At least everyone seems to agree the public schools are a failure and the reasons are many but the liberal point of view appears to blame every shortcoming in society on Christianity. I would argue the exact opposite is true. The failures are due to a lack of faith not because of faith.

By Dusty

January 23, 2007 05:15 PM | Link to this

Hi yo silver,

whither goest thou? And what does your pagan heart so earnestly desire? Make it quick as I have just gracefully entered my humble castle and will soon depart again.

Speak, oh tarnished one, and let your witlessness be known once again.

By Switchgrass Lover

January 23, 2007 05:54 PM | Link to this

Dusty, get back over here and hit this bong! The switchgrass is burning, and this stuff ain’t cheap!

By former teacher

January 24, 2007 11:44 AM | Link to this

As a former teacher, I’ll tell you what would improve the schools: having an adult besides the teacher present in every class (and on every school bus too, by the way) - ANY adult, whether it’s a parent, a retiree, or just someone with an hour to spare. Joke around with the kids, show an interest in them, ask “What did you have for lunch,” “How’s that broken leg coming along,” “How was wrestling practice last night?” The biggest problem, and one which is not being addressed in any way by do-gooders, is classroom management and discipline. Pay a visit to your local public school one of these days and you’ll get an eyeful of what our poor teachers have to deal with. It is NOT about money, or at least it wasn’t for me.