oldguystudent

Great place to see a concert. I've only been once, but it was fun. And though I haven't been, the scene when Jimmy Buffet comes to town is pretty monumental.

For the record, I live less than a mile from Pizza Hut Park and I have no idea when soccer season is.

Dude, it's finals week! You're prohibited from introducing new material with which I have absolutely no familiarity!

Agreed completely in theory, but where are all these responsible families who would joyfully take them on? This has been a big concern of mine on a couple of hot political fronts. When the existing and future foster care rolls are completely empty, we will be in complete agreement and can stand around the fire holding hands, singing kumbaya, and roasting celebratory marshmallows. I know one family who has taken in and adopted 5 "special needs" kids. The special needs being defined as either mental deficiency or severe maltreatment from neglectful parents. I hold those parents up to be complete and utter saints -- models of what society should be. I also freely admit that I am not nearly as saintly as they are. I've thought long and hard about joining their ranks, and the impact it would have on my own kid and already shaky domestic situation would be too great. I therefore cannot judge others who choose not to bring in these kids, but I can still point to the reality that there are simply not enough willing and able households to take them all in. I also fear where the line gets drawn for removing kids from their parents. I think I've mentioned on here before an infamous case in Frisco where a resident called CPS on their neighbor because they saw beer cans in the trash. If you fear a nanny state, this is about as literal as it gets. As for existing foster care, it's better than nothing, but ferrying kids around from one house to another with no sense of home or stable future really messes with those kids' heads in adulthood.

OK. Wasn't sure about that one. As to spending an extra $500 million for the uninsured children that need it as opposed to full-blown national health care, I do believe that if you and I were the people in control, but on opposing sides, we'd be awfully close to an agreement.

I chuckled at your humor and wondered if you intentionally misspelled Mark McGwire's name in a humorous attempt to show that you truly don't care about baseball.

Kaiser Commission? As in Kaiser the massive HMO known for it's stalwart gatekeeper system in health care denial? So 58% is a vast majority? Is the remaining 42% an insignificant minority of outliers? OK. Now that we're done needlessly picking apart syntax... Is this acceptable collateral damage for the profit motive?

Yes. I am kidding. How often do you see me using big grin emoticons? As for crazy ownership, I've been a long suffering Raiders fan. I don't think anybody here beats the insanity that is Al Davis. I'm convinced that they removed his brain decades ago and keep him alive only through the same animatronic technology that keeps Keith Richards going.

Pfft. Those children are the most drug addled of them all. Besides, they've got CHIP. As for the guy Harry mentioned who got denied for health insurance, he should've just shopped around more. A quick internet search from any GMG member would supercede Harry's years of experience and find him excellent health care for only pennies a day! The guy obviously is not putting in enough of his own hard work. Otherwise he would be completely immune to any of life's misfortunes. So before I get accusations of wanting some totally socialist government health care written up by the ghost of Stalin, I'll reiterate that I just want to see something available, but not mandatory for everyone. I think the current system of insurance companies, who already try very hard to dictate what procedures will and will not be approved, is every bit as corrupt as a government run system would be ineffecient. I think many here simply don't believe in consumer protection of any kind. All regulation comes from government so it must therefore all be bad. Maybe in the long run that's true, but to quote a famous economist with whom most of you vehemently disagree, in the long run, we're all dead anyways. Meh. What do I know? I'm gonna' go teach some Chinese whores how to drink responsibly now.

Clark Hunt. I mean, who owns soccer teams?

Good call.

I think there's gonna' be like a 15 year period where nobody gets into the HOF. Who the hell are they gonna' put in from the last 20 years? Edgar Martinez?

It took me a while when I moved here to figure out that that's the difference between a USD and an ISD.

Not at all sure how to respond to that one other than to ask, "Excuse me?"

Agreed with a twist. I lament the loss of the vocational track in high school. Perhaps two years of mandatory post secondary education is in order, but it doesn't need to be academic. If you can't learn in a traditional college, perhaps beauty school or air conditioner repair is for you.

BS and you know it! You trip on the sidewalk in Boston, and you'll chip your tooth in Rhode Island!

If not, then how would you classify that lady in Florida who was on life support for 20 years that Jeb Bush was fighting to keep plugged in? Right to life, but not the care to keep it going? I'm confused which is which. On the car thing, if I lived in Boston, a car would be the LAST thing I'd want to own.

Nope. The more money they throw at it, the worse it gets. It's a two-way street too. The feds are only one side of the coin. The school districts themselves are little fiefdoms of rank amateur politicians fighting to hold on to their administrative titles. If I had any say in the matter, I'd send all the nation's kids on a one-year vacation somewhere, tear down every school district in America, fire every employee, raise the pay for teachers to six figures, and start interviewing. All former employees would be able to apply, but none would be guaranteed a job. As for any argument of not having enough money, if you do a little digging, you can find millions upon millions of dollars that Texas school districts send back to the federal government every year because they fail to use it in a timely manner. Most of that money comes from titles I and III which are for the very students that aren't gonna' go to college. Again, I'll reiterate that it isn't the textbook companies that are coming up with all the feel good stuff you see in the books. There are three major publishers left -- McGraw, Pearson and Cengage (formerly Thomson). They send their editors out to school districts and their marketers out to state legislators. They come back and write their books based on what the states of California, Florida, Texas and New York tell them to. Subdivide that into to factions of NY/CA and FL/TX and you get some very convoluted texts trying to please both factions as well as teach to the national NCLB standards. My background was as an ESL specialist, so I'm intimately aware of the problems faced with the immigrant students. Forget for a second about securing the borders, because even if you were successfully able to do that, it would be 12 full years before you clear the school districts of the "anchor babies." Ysleta and El Paso ISDs are two of the most heavily populated districts in the country with Spanish speaking students. A third district in El Paso, Socorro, traditionally catered to the children of migrant workers out in the rural areas. Thousands of those kids have such dubious residency that there are actually special border entries in El Paso for kids walking from Juarez to El Paso to go to school every morning. But the fact of the matter is that the districts are not allowed to inquire into the legal status of those students and they are there in the schools. In fact, a student who is not here legally can make it all the way through a 4-year university without ever getting checked out. There's a group of educators in the DFW area called BEAM who meet monthly. At least twice every year, they get lawyers in their meetings to discuss advocacy programs for these students. Nonetheless, the districts have to find something to do with these kids. All three El Paso districts, prior to NCLB legislation, and led by years of research by Ysleta ISD (and San Ysidro at the California/Tijuana border crossing) showed that by allowing the students to complete their core studies in Spanish while teaching them English as a separate subject was a very successful plan of attack. Current legislation disallows this. In California, classes can not be taught in Spanish at all. In Texas, the students get two years and are then thrown into main stream English classes when they learn nothing, and the attention they require from teachers drags down the rest of the class. You can go on all you want about immigration, getting rid of everybody, sealing the borders et al, but the reality is that it ain't gonna' happen. In fact, in 1994, California voted in favor of prop 187 by a 75/25 margin to deny all public services to illegal immigrants. The law was never enacted as it was immediately challenged and found to be unconstitutional. So in the mean time, you've got these thousands and thousands of kids here. What should we do with them? I see three choices: 1) Deny them a public education and set them loose on the streets 2) Provide them with a public education primarily in Spanish (the bilingual tract) 3) Pretty much detain them in a bunch of worn out school buildings and blabber English at them all day while taking attention away from the English speaking kids (pretty much current status quo) I choose #2, but factions from both ends of the political spectrum prevent that from happening. It's a mess out there. I really do agree with UNTFlyer on this one in theory, but I think you've got to tear the whole system down and start anew if you want to succeed at it.

Gotta' pick this one apart a little bit. Have you looked at a text recently? Here's how it works. The feds give money to the states. In return, the feds impose certain standards that are put onto a test -- TAKS in Texas. Now, the state of Texas and its school districts won't even look at a book that isn't directly correlated to the standards. In more direct language, unless the book is directly written to the test, with an instruction manual for the teacher on how to teach it to the test, the state won't even give the book a sniff. When a district adopts a text, guys like your's truly would go in for in-service sessions over the summer to teach the teachers how to use the book for the test. Don't put this on the textbook companies either. They write what the states tell them to write, the editors shake their heads in disbelief, the states adopt, and the publishers laugh all the way to the bank in utter amazement that this is what the schools are buying.

If special ed and non-English speaking students were still exempted from the test, sure. The current setup more or less forces schools to accommodate the lowest common denominator. When you and I were in school, they had the college tract kids (us), the non-college tract kids (Here kid, this is an oil filter. Here's how you change it and get money), the sped kids (any comment will probably get me in trouble), and the "bilingual kids" (vamos a estudiar todos en espanol y despues se van.) Every student had his/her place and was taught accordingly. Between the misguided notion that all kids must go to college and no child should be left behind, the test has become the end all be all. I've spent many years doing workshops for teachers on what's called differentiated instruction. Translated into layman's terms, it's how you teach something like science in a class with two literate kids, 4 sped kids, and 27 Spanish speaking immigrants and 4 Somalis who don't yet know that you poop IN the toilet, not ON it all in the same classroom. It all boils down to demographics. Why do you think people clamor to live in places like Plano and Frisco? According to the 2008 MDR, Frisco has a 95% college attendance rate out of high school. I don't think the teachers here are necessarily any better than teachers in Dallas (although a LOT less nepotism exists up here), but they sure as hell have a lot better material to work with in terms of student body. Unfortunately, it is a vicious cycle, and the impossibility presented before the teachers does create a lot of teachers who just don't give a damn and coast through their careers. Pull any random teacher out of Dallas ISD and ask them exactly how many years until they get retirement benefits. They'll know to the day. ETA -- For the record, this most certainly isn't exclusive to Texas. After four years of working with Los Angeles Unified, that is the absolute LAST place I would ever send my kid.

They return Sam Dibrell? Huh?

If you win, can we invade Troy, AL on suspicion of possessing receivers of mass destruction? Is there anything you can do about the mass immigration of Southlake residents who are taking up all our UNT jobs? But seriously. Seems like your candidacy is a reasonable prospect.

Have you listed that place on the square? I don't know what it's called, but it's pretty good.

LOL! That's funny and not entirely inaccurate!

Thanks. It was fun to see my school on ESPN. Not that I'm the world's foremost expert on volleyball or anything, but that was a a hard fought back and forth battle. Baseball just clinched the Big West title today with two weeks left of league play. GOOD THINGS ARE HAPPENING FOR UC IRVINE!