Obama the Velcro president

[Raggz]

The president is on the hook to repair the Gulf Coast oil spill disaster, stabilize Afghanistan, help fix Greece's ailing economy and do right by Shirley Sherrod, the Agriculture Department official fired as a result of a misleading fragment of videotape.

What's not sticking to Obama is a legislative track record that his recent predecessors might envy. Political dividends from passage of a healthcare overhaul or a financial regulatory bill have been fleeting.

Instead, voters are measuring his presidency by a more immediate yardstick: Is he creating enough jobs? So far the verdict is no, and that has taken a toll on Obama's approval ratings. Only 46% approve of Obama's job performance, compared with 47% who disapprove, according to Gallup's daily tracking poll.

"I think the accomplishments are very significant, but I think most people would look at this and say, 'What was the plan for jobs?' " said Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.). "The agenda he's pushed here has been a very important agenda, but it hasn't translated into dinner table conversations."

http://www.latimes.com/la-na-velcro-presidency-20100730,0,375806.story

[dkf]

1. In a bad recession the only policy people are interested in is the one that creates jobs and lowers

The unemployment rate.

[sandnsea]

2. Health care, mortgages, student loans, the war

unemployment, green energy; it translates to dinner table conversation at my house. There isn't a thing on Obama's agenda that hasn't directly affected my kids or my extended family's kids.

I think the people who report on the agenda are so far removed from its impact that they don't know how to write about any of it in an honest and real way. Including Dorgan apparently.

[daleanime]

3. Gee, I wonder why the 'small folk' ...

haven't celebrated that 'historic' health(INSURANCE COMPANY BAILOUT)care reform?:shrug:

[sandnsea]

5. It hasn't been implemented yet?

:crazy:

[daleanime]

7. I try to be fairly polite....

so I can't use my first, second, or third response. My Fourth is-'has the bill been passed?':banghead:

[sandnsea]

10. You don't know the answer? n/t

[bluestateguy]

4. I don't do polls

It's a basically fraudulent industry.

[JDPriestly]

6. That's why trying to privatize the schools and create charter schools

is not what Obama should be concerned about right now.

He should focus on three things: the situation in the Gulf and making sure BP really pays for everything, energy independence and jobs. Nothing else really matters.

[Whisp]

8. could you please provide a source for the 'privatize schools'

school of thought I hear so often, and yet have not seen one credible/acceptable source/link that supports that.

But I don't go through every thread so I could easily have missed it.

Thanking you in advance.

[JDPriestly]

13. The companies that are sponsoring private schools are "private"

in that they do not answer to the government. Some of them are non-profits. Many of them pose as non-profits but rent facilities from for-profit landlords, use materials sold to them by for-profit companies. I see a scam.

Schools should be funded by taxes and should answer to the public. We have seen with BP's horrible crimes in the Gulf Coast area what happens when private individuals and companies go off and do big, important things without being required to answer to the regulation and oversight of disinterested public agencies.

How long do you seriously think that taxpayers will fund charter schools if the use of the money, the outcomes, the education of the teachers is not subject to regulation and oversight by representatives of the taxpayers. I assure you that the first really big scandal will bring chaos to our education system if the current trend toward privatizing, meaning charter schools, continues.

I worked in the private sector and in the non-profit sector. Charter schools need careful supervision. Might as well run them as public schools.

My preference would be to have public schools that are more like Magnet schools. My daughters attended magnet schools. They had teachers who were qualified pursuant to state law. The schools were managed by the local school district. They were public schools -- no doubt about it. My daughters really did well. They came from a home that supported them. The magnet school concept could be broadened to allow more choice for students and parents within the public school authorities. That is what I would favor. We do not need these private non-profits and for-profits coming in to do what magnet schools did very well and I firmly suspect at much lower cost.

The charter schools add yet another level of administrators. The problem with public schools is that there are too many administrators and there is too little teacher/family contact. Teachers need support, not administrators hovering over them. Let's treat teachers like the CEOs in their classrooms. That's the way it was in the one-room school days. It was the teacher and the school board. Not anything in between. That's what we need now. Reduce the number of administrators and give teachers more freedom in the classroom. Charter schools add administrators and reduce the freedom of teachers. Bad, stupid move.

I want to be sure I answer your question. A few years ago, representatives of a private, non-profit organization attended a meeting of my Democratic Club and tried to sell us on the idea of charter schools. That is how I know that the charter schools are privatizing our schools. The school district contracts the work out to the charters. Horrible idea.

The last war our troops won was WII. Back then, our soldiers pulled KP and cleaned their own latrines. They remembered pulling those duties for years. In fact, I think my own husband who served in the military in the late 1950s pulled a lot of such duties. Now it is all privatized -- and when did we last win a war outright -- WWII, right. We started losing wars with the Korean Conflict and haven't really had much luck since. Privatizing schools will lead to more corruption in education just as privatizing certain of the functions that used to belong to the rank and file military forces have corrupted the military.

[Whisp]

14. did you hear this on a news report?

I would really like to hear a source, a linked source, say what you are saying.

I hope you understand, we all tend to get emotional over things that are close to us and skew things to our way of understanding.

What/were is the report that made you so against charter schools? What made up your mind they are so terrible?

[JDPriestly]

16. I heard a speaker from one of the charter non-profits.

I have also read articles here on DU. Please check the blog of MadFloridian. He passes on reports from news media about the corruption and financial mismanagement, for example, of some of the private charter school companies.

There is a private charter school in my area. It is located in a what used to be an old shoe store. I would like to see it run as a public magnet-type school. The administration of the school should answer directly to taxpayers, to voters, not to some board of directors.

I worked in the management of a non-profit for years. I think that public agencies do a better job than a lot of non-profits. Public agencies actually attract better qualified people. Non-profits tend to become "owned" by managers who in turn appoint and "own" their boards of directors. Public agencies are sometimes poorly run, but in my experience, it is far more likely that poor management of a public agency will eventually be questioned while poor management in a private non-profit or for-profit company can go on for years and not be caught.

[sandnsea]

20. MadFloridian is a woman

And you seriously need to read more than her rantings to find out about anything. She's still mad Howard Dean isn't President, that's all. Nothing is going to suit her unless Dean sends her an engraved directive.

[JDPriestly]

22. I told you to look at her news reports. You don't have to agree with her opinions.

I do agree with her opinions.

[KakistocracyHater]

24. search madfloridian's journals & posts, it's her speciality

*

[sandnsea]

9. Yeah to hell with the kids

Too fucking bad if they can't even read after 12 years of school. Who is going to take those jobs in the alternative energy field if we let half the kids in some communities drop out of high school?

[JDPriestly]

12. Increasing the number of private charter schools will not change the drop-out rate

Parents who go to the trouble to enroll their children in privatized charter schools will make sure their children finish high school.

These schools do not solve the real problem which is in the homes and specific families and communities in which these children live. The changes Obama is proposing do nothing to encourage optimism or hope in these children or their families, nothing to transmit the message "Learn and the good job will be there for you." Most of these kids are from homes and communities in which there are no good jobs. Getting an education is not important to them, because they do not see education as the path to a better life. Their families are depressed and confused. Mom and dad are fighting a lot or working all the time.

The problem is in our homes and communities not in the schools.

Changing the format of the schools will change nothing.

My mother went to a little one-room country school. She is brilliant, well educated and going strong in her 90s. She had parents who cared about her and believed in her. They taught her that she could achieve and that she would have a better future if she learned in school. Her parents were educated through high school and both taught for short periods themselves. Education has to become relevant to these children and their families. It is not. Charter schools will not make education relevant to them.

[sandnsea]

15. Oh poor folks are too stupid?

You're the problem. If you teach in a low income area, do those kids a favor and get the fuck out. In fact, if you have anything whatsoever to do in your life with low income people, do them all a favor and go get a new career.

Time after time various PUBLIC NON-PROFIT charter schools open and the exact same kids become A students. I don't know how many times this has to happen before some of you face the reality that you failed at your job.

[JDPriestly]

17. I do not teach. And you should not talk down to me.

I obtained a degree in teaching, but the only teaching I did was private -- music -- and three years at a university.

I live in a fairly low income area. My children attended public Magnet schools. On edit it occurred to me to add that my oldest daughter (now a doctor) went to a high school that had been designated as one of the worst 50 schools in the City of Los Angeles. Rubbish. My children have done really well in school and in life, just as well as my friends' children who were given scholarships to private schools -- maybe even better.

I worked for a non-profit and in another job had a lot to do with the courts including family and children's courts. Don't lecture me about education.

My children attended schools in low-income areas. They excelled and went on to excellent colleges and graduate schools.

We never had any money, but we spent a lot of time with our children and gave them a lot of security, patience and love. That is what makes a good student.

I recall when my youngest took an IQ test. It was right after we had just moved back here from Europe, and her English was poor. I was astounded at the result. It didn't seem right to me (too high). (She loves math.) So I asked her if she remembered taking the test. She said yes. I asked her what happened. She said, well the lady got to a question where she was supposed to count the boxes in a pile of boxes so my daughter started counting. She had learned patience because people were always patient with her. She had always been taught that she could do anything she needed to do and if she couldn't she could get help. So she was not defeated before she started.

So, that is why I think that the success of a child is determined in large part by the home -- by the patience of the parents. Had my daughter not been talented in math, I would have made it my job to find out what her talent was and to help her develop it. When parents are helped to deal with their children in that patient, child-centered way, the child can succeed and become what is right for the child. We don't all need to be brilliant at math. I cannot draw anything. Some people can. Takes all kinds.

I do not favor one-size-fits-all schools, but I view charter schools as the beginning of the end of public education. Before long, some charter schools will charge just a bit more than others. Then, after a while, parents will be paying an increasing share of the cost of education. That is not the American way. I support public schools that answer to publicly elected authorities.

[sandnsea]

19. So kids in low income areas CAN learn

And you sent your kids to a magnet, which is the same basic idea as a public charter.

But it's not the schools, nah, it's all you.

Unbelievable.

You got yours but you would deny all the other parents to get the same thing for their kids. You seriously think you're the only parent in a low income school who works with their kid??

Get over yourself already.

[JDPriestly]

21. The difference between a charter and a magnet is that the magnet

while both the charter and magnet schools have a lot of autonomy and can innovate and experiment, the magnets are supervised by and answer to the school district. That is what I favor.

What I don't like about charter schools is the fact that they do not answer directly to the school district authorities -- to a body that answers to the public and the taxpayers.

They are anti-democratic in their nature.

[sandnsea]

23. That's not true

I think donco is one of her districts charter supervisors. She says she has a hard time getting info from them. Well guess what, we have a hard time getting info from the supervisors office. It doesn't mean our local public school isn't accountable to anyone.

It is just a flat out lie that they aren't accountable.

How could anti-charter people possibly post about the failed charter schools if they weren't answerable to anyone?

Do you know that RTTT is not the program to turn around failing schools? School Improvement Grants are.

Do you know that $100 billion went into education in the stimulus last year? Do you seriously think the $4 billion RTTT makes the only possible difference in schools?

About 5% of schools are charters. What are these people afraid of?

[NJmaverick]

11. Yeah they got that right

[Beartracks]

18. Thankless job....

Like the Cinderella cartoon:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x327105



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[Marr]

25. Obama has sold corporate welfare as "reform" for almost two years now.

It's bullshit. Talking it up is pathetic.