What are your views/beliefs politics-wise?

How does it sound "communistic" when I believe PUBLIC schools should be funded through a county fund, that distributes the money equally throughout based on the size of enrollment. If the rich suburbanites don't like it there are plenty of parochial and private schools that don't get government funding.

If Upper Arlington has to cut its sports teams aw well, its better than having to have Columbus South use 10 year old books and have no sports because they can't afford new books. Same with Cleveland if Bay Village has to cut hockey/wrestling out of their sports program so that East Cleveland can afford to get out of state control because they have no funds and the students are academically challenged when taking the statewide standardized testing then so be it. Those in Bay can go to St. Ed's or St Ignatius or a myriad of parochial schools up North.

The point is if the sports don't pay for themselves and have to eat "excess" funding (which some schools in Ohio have, so that inner city school can get out from under the "academic probation" and those students aren't getting even a basic education, then the whole argument of "well richer schools attract people" is bullshit when the most populated cities have schools under academic probation where the state has taken control. If the majority of the population is poorly educated your state will not be looked at for higher tech jobs. You'll have more and more people pushing brooms and more and more jobs leaving the state and even the "richer" school districts will lose their "prestige".

And when the way the state funds its schools have been deemed unconstitutional 9 years ago and the funding hasn't changed, then it is time for it to change.

http://www.schoolfunding.info/states/oh/12-11-02DeRolphIV.php3

The court directed "the General Assembly to enact a school-funding scheme that is thorough and efficient, as explained in DeRolph I[and] DeRolph II."

 

Westerville schools just cut all their sports/bands because people like pan voted down a school levy. Governor Kasich is cutting education funding left and right (while the state house voted everyone raises), so the reality is that without the townships taking action, schools will get worse. Red states are doing all they can to destroy public schooling

 

Amen, pan. We have the same thing going on here in SW Virginia. It's a scandal. The current tax allotment structure for education maintains the continuity - the rich get well educated while the poor continue to struggle on the crumbs.

It's not as if the solution is difficult, it's just unpopular with the higher wage earners.
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We have 3 high schools in our county. 1 of them serves a very large rural area with a great number of poor students and has the highest enrollment. The 2nd is a small city school which serves lower to middle class students - enrollment is somewhere in the middle. The 3rd high school serves a suburban area of upper middle class to wealthy students and the enrollment is lower than the other two schools.

The 1st and 2nd high schools were forced to shut down some sports programs, extra-curricular activities, and a few academic courses due to lack of funding, in order to keep the core academic courses. A dozen or more teachers were laid off at each of these locations.

The 3rd school suffered no such cutbacks or layoffs and in fact, were somehow able to increase their coaching staff.

How is this fair?

 

Social Security is a cast? And it last 99 weeks? What?

I think governments have a lot more in controlling economies then you've outlined.

The rest I agree with but would add... heavily regulated to them.
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Wow! Holy bat crap! Fuck we are just screwed.

 

I have never voted against a school levy. I don't like how they are funded but I have never voted against one.Why punish the kids? Guess that means Westerville kids will just have to go to Worthington or Dublin schools now to participate in sports. See if you went by my idea Franklin county would not have a bad school because that is one of the richest counties in the state.

 

As long as school funding is decided democratically, people will suffer by voting against their own best interests.

 

I'm amazed that it works the way it does over there. I had no idea. It seems to me that funding should follow pupils (and that parents should have some choice as to which school their kids go to, though they may have to arrange their own transport). I also think a county is too small an area and would still support inequalities - the educational funding area should be considerably larger, imho.

You can't make it absolutely equal, if only because parents in richer areas will be able to do more to support the school, but it should surely be the aim to do the best possible for all kids.

 

I'm a Liberpublican.
I believe the government has no right to decide what I can do with my body, my home and my family as long as I break no established criminal law (other than marijuana laws, which are incredibly stupid) or infringe on another's rights.
I believe those that are on welfare for any reason should be considered government employees and abide by government employee regulations, ie; random drug testing. They should also have mandatory vocational education and the government should take an active role in putting the able recipients to work. This was started but died out several years back.
I believe that our leaders need to stop being pussies and either crack down on illegal immigrants or let'em wander in. In other words, shit or get off the damned pot, already.
I would gladly pay $100 a month for a national health care program if it could be proven to be equitable and all-inclusive in its provisions. In other words, regardless of where I end up for health issues/treatment, I get the same high level of care where "no" is not heard. Although I am more libertarian than republican, our healthcare costs are ridiculous simply because of profit margins and some things just shouldn't depend on a profit. ($100 a month would save us personally about $700 a month.)
I believe the so-called drug wars are a complete waste of our money. Legalize weed, tax it, get rid of the DEA and funding for local police to bust college kids and watch the deficit go waaaaaaaaaaayyyy down. And, when the joints are produced and packaged, I would appreciate a menthol version.
I believe the president should have line item veto power.
I believe any corporation that takes its manufacturing overseas should be heavily taxed with NO loopholes. Conversely, they should be rewarded for keeping their production here in the states.
I believe the law that allows banks to trade stock on Wall St should be repealed.
I believe that if we are going to elect a leader, he should have had some experience in leading something.
I believe that voters vote with their wallets but the president has little direct immediate effect on the economy. We have had deficits in good times and bad and very few surpluses or balance budgets. However.....
I believe some of the blame for this economy must fall on Bill Clinton and his signing of the NAFTA, the aforementioned banking bill and the yahoos he assigned to lead Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and subsequently, the ill-advised policies of those two departments. Many of those sub-prime short term mortgages have come due and can not be paid. Those sub prime mortgages were given to high-risk people who simply don't have the means to continue owning those homes. It was naive to allow unqualified borrowers to borrow with the thought that they'll do better financially in the years to come. They didn't. Some did worse. How'd that work for ya, Bill? Re: NAFTA-corporations like Chrysler and GE took total advantage of the small print of the bill and sent all their production to other countries, closed stateside plants and made huge profits off the difference. Clinton thought it would work the other way, that production would flow IN, the dumbass.
I believe those that followed Clinton have or had a serious case of "thumb-up-the-assitis".
I believe it is past my bed time.

 

"8 year old gay activist meets with Michele Bachmann." That's what the headline reads.

You gotta be kidding me. This is the most pathetic, pitiful and despicable gay rights agenda ploy I've ever seen. Telling some little kid that he's gay. He's 8, he has no clue what sexual preference, sexual attraction or sexual orientation even are. Totally screwed up.

 

You can read, right? The kid said "my mom's gay and she doesn't need fixing." Not "I'm gay."

 

I have two things to say about this article/incident.

1. I think the young boy was very brave to do that - to speak up in defense of his mom.
2. It really pains me to consider the (likely) possibility that either his mother or someone else put him up to it.

Eddie, this is one of those instances where saying, "I was wrong" would be highly appropriate.

 

I think it's stupid to involve the kid in a political issue. My guess his is only politically issue is "more recess time! When do we want it? Now!" But let's at least get the facts of the story correct.

 

In the video I saw, his mom clearly put him up to it.

That said, the look of fear/panic in Bachmann's eyes was completely worth it

 

Your feigned outrage tickles me. Maybe the kid was old to say something. A child has to repeat something he was told to say to a strange lady? Oh, the humanity. And what was the cause behind the child's words? Defending basic human rights. Again, oh the humanity.

 

I don't know. It's appears to me that mom's not merely "putting him up to it" and more likely "forcing" him to do something he clearly is not comfortable doing. I'm about as pro gay/human rights as you can get. I don't think this is good for the child at all. Of course when i see little kids running around politcial events with signs and t-shirt that read "if I could vote I'd vote for____" I feel about the same way. Why not let kids just be kids and leave them out of it?

 

It's certainly not actively good for the child, like reading a classic book to them or introducing them to Legos, but I don't see it as being actively bad for the child, either. It might bring out the kid's bashfulness or embarrass the kid needlessly, but that happens all the time for kids. Did your parents ever force you to give your evil, child-hating aunt a hug during a family Christmas? That's about equal to the amount of emotional scaring we're seeing in the video.

And, honestly, it's really not any different than forcing kids to go to church, either.

 

I just watched the video, having only read the article initially.

First let me say that I think Michelle Bachmann is one crazy-assed bottom feeder, but I took her reaction to be sincere. She immediately looks at the mother in disbelief and yes, one could interpret her reaction as fear and panic at being caught off-guard on the gay issue but it really appears to me that her reaction was from the gut - an honest and understandable disbelief that a mother would put her own child out front of a provocative "set-up" rather than do the provoking herself.

It's obvious in the way MB treats the child after the incident that she didn't blame Elijah and damn well knew he was no "8 year old gay activist" She was quite kind in saying goodbye to him, not wanting to add insult to injury, I suspect.

Again, I don't like Michelle Bachmann but in this instance, she and Elijah come out the winners. The mother is for shit - righteous cause or not.

 

It's a misonomer to call political opinions "beliefs." Politics isn't (or at least shouldn't be) a religion. No one should take anything nonreligious on faith, and certainly not anything a politician says. Politics is an exercise in the allocation of power, and what the best allocation should be is a matter of judgment born of experience. Or at least it should be. At least from what I can tell from a lot of the discussion here, many people confuse their preferences for reality.

 

Try selling that one to the Republican wannabe's. They are taking their positions strictly based on religious beliefs-women's right to choose, gays in the military, gay marriage, et al, are against their beliefs and therefore, political fodder for them.
This whole process lately has made my blood pressure go up and my faith in this country go way way down.

 

ngdawg, I think you need to examine some of the pieties on your side of the aisle, too. I'm not Christian but there's some wise saying about a mote in your eye, etc etc.......