General Jackassery

This started off as more of joke than any kind of reality, but I’m starting to feel more and more that I want to be involved in politics.

I know the last post was long, but if you read it, it very briefly described a gap that is developing in the ambition/motivation of American people vs. the rest of the world. I think there are a lot of drivers to this, but fundamentally this one is squezing us from both sides. Our parents have told us that we can do whatever we want to do. They’ve told us that they’ve worked really hard so we wouldn’t have to. As a result of this we don’t feel like we have to work anymore we’re already there and no-one seems to realize that you have to work to stay at the top. Actually you have to work harder to stay at the top than you do to get there.

On the other hand, our law makers have told us that Education should not be a top priority. They tell us this by cutting the funding to our schools and to research programs. They cut funding to programs that are aimed at getting our youth interested in science and technology. At the same time the current administration tells us not to worry about jobs being shipped offshore because those are just the blue collar jobs that we don’t want anymore. We don’t spend money to educate people to take over the high-tech jobs and we ship the jobs that our people are actually qualified for based on the level of education our public schooling provides, to offshore places.

What we are currently doing is killing drive and taking away opportunity all at the same time. Not to mention, promoting mediocrity in our schools. No Child Left Behind is a great concept, but we don’t need to hold back the smart students to keep them from leaving the dumb ones. The bar shouldn’t be lowered so the smart student can be mediocre and the mediocre student can be mediocre. We should raise the bar so the smart student can excell and the mediocre student can be challenged to be more then they thought they could.

As President I would do whatever it took to increase funding to programs that promote science and technology to our young people. I would institute Federal standards for education that all of the states would be forced to uphold. (This would probably piss a lot of people off, but it would ensure that all of our schools nationwide, were living to the same HIGH standards that are being set by schools in Europe and Asia.) I would set-up programs that would bolster the degree programs that teachers are going through so they were actually trained to teach and I would make sure that during the summer when the students are not in school, our teachers would be in continuing education classes to make sure they are on the top of their games. I would fund programs that provide incentive to U.S. citizens to get their Master’s and Ph.D’s and I would probably figure out a way to offer tax breaks to U.S. companies that have tuition assistance programs. If I was president, my two main objectives would be Education and a Foreign Policy that reduced our dependance on outside sources of energy.

Keeping the emphasis on education. I would alter our education system so it doesn’t promote the brain dumps that we tend to do. I would make sure that it was more of a building block type education and I would emphasize Math, Science and Reading. I think the reading skill would be more beneficial than just about anything else. If we could teach our kids to read, read fast and read well, then they would automatically be ahead of the curve. I would emphasize communication, both written and verbal as these are skills that everyone needs to be able to succeed. I would show them that engineers are not taped glasses and pocket protectors. In short, I would make sure that when a child graduates from high school he or she has the tools to make the right decision. Rather than being forced to be a business major because they never were shown anything else. I would also promote more schools that specialize in math and sciences. These are just some of the things I would do to help make our education system top notch!

In closing I heard a qoute this morning from the book, “The World is Flat.” The statement was this, “In China, Bill Gates is like Brittany Spears. In America, Brittany Spears is like Brittany Spears, and THAT is the problem.”