I am not saying that government is automatically bad or does a poor job on everything. I am saying that government is not the solution to most of our problems. Come on, who knows better how to take care of you; you or some bureaucrat in the capital?
I agree, but so far I fail to see the application here.
Besides if the government is so good a fixing problems why are they giving us cash to help jolt the economy instead of simply not borrowing more money to give to us in the first place?
To say that government used well can help us solve certain problems isn't the same as saying that it will solve most or all of our problems. Personally I'd look more toward better adherence to sound religious principles than to government for that.
(OK, not school specific but it does demonstrate the principal.) Teachers are highly trained professionals and should be paid well' the problem is that they don't get the money in their paychecks or classrooms.
This money to the classroom problem depends a great deal on the school or district, but sure, as a teacher I'd like to see more too. One reason this doesn't occur is that many well-intentioned reforms (such as NCLB) require administrative time to ensure compliance (without it we're talking lawsuits, loss of funding, prosecution, etc.), time which can create more need for administration than would otherwise be necessary.
That's what I see when I volunteer in the classroom. I cannot see throwing money away in things like bilingual education, ADA facilities that no one will use, or limiting volunteers in classrooms to protect union jobs. I have seen kids educated in Spanish and after graduating not being able to find any job except the bottom of the barrel, ADA requirements tripling the cost of construction projects when there were no disabled students in the school and, mothers of students being told that they could not volunteer in the classroom because of union jobs. So I don't have much respect for educrats or their policies.
Here is where I have to disagree with you. Many people misunderstand bilingual education and its purpose. However, given what I know of language learning(I am an English teacher) it is sound in its research base. Knowledge of another language helps you to learn a second and many skills are readily transferable to their second language, English. The trouble is that there are far too few qualified teachers to implement it correctly everywhere(qualified math and science teachers are common by comparison) and that if a student comes into our system late in the game (say 7th or 8th grade) getting up to something like a 6th grade English proficiency by the time they are in high school still means they are at a disadvantage. I don't claim it to be perfect, but it does have better results than the alternative.
ADA requirements are quite reasonable, because you aren't constructing the building for all who are at the school now, but all who will come in the future. It's hard enough to have such disabilities without being socially isolated from the local community because the school excludes you and you've got to attend a school across town or 50 miles away. Yes there have been significant initial costs, but when incorporated within new building plans the costs are quite nominal. The major costs have been in adding such features to existing campuses, a cost which is obviously declining due to various schools' prior actions to come into compliance.
As for the union thing, I think I'd have to know what sort of volunteer jobs they even wanted to do before I'd feel that I could respond adequately.
