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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: steve harris who wrote (101174)	9/11/2011 10:30:49 AM
From: ChinuSFO	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

I agree with all what you say. Since the military is a low hanging fruit and because a wrong decision in a spending cut for the military would not be much of an impact in this post-Cold War world, we need to start with the elimination of waste and consequently a cut in military spending. Let us also develop a new security model based on the changed situation in this post Cold war world and base our overseas troop deployment to meet the requirements of this new model. Am I advocating that the savings that accrue from spending cuts in military spending go towards the public education system which is broke? Absolutely not. Instead we need to reform our system by starting with building a new cadre of teachers whose salaries are significantly more than the salaries of existing teachers. These teachers need to be deg-reed in the subjects they teach. The curriculum should be individualized as much as possible. The existing cadre of teachers are predominantly not qualified to teach and rear a generation of students who have to take on their superior counterparts from Japan, India and China. And if we are to make the schools and our education system similar to the military, then we need to have systems in place that will prevent the induction of politics into our education system. Since education is a National Security issue similar to the military and border protection, we should federalize education and not do the reverse as some are advocating. Let us have the private and parochial schools but no tax refund for those who patronize such schools. The Govt. at best should not tax their profits if any. And no tenure. Have a centralized testing agency. If a teacher's students do not perform well for say three consecutive years, the teacher is out. Yes indeed, teachers have to "teach to the test." students in Japan, China and India are and they are beating the pants of the US students. It is time for us to learn their techniques and beat them at it. I know this is a bitter pill to swallow. But it is education we are talking about and should be placed at the same level as the military. When India achieved independence in 1947, the founding fathers of free India had several key issues they had to make decisions on. The three I know of are education, industries and health. On the education front, the leaders established the Indian Institutes of Technology, All India Institute of Medical Science and education was free for anyone who wanted it. The Govt. even subsidized (tax breaks) private schools such as Jesuit schools etc. I will leave the actions taken on the industries and health issue to keep this long post short. But suffice to say that there is a growth spurt and these two sectors are in the forefront. So addressing education issue in the US requires us to leave out political hat at the door and truly explore what it takes to support the triangular structure of education consisting of the student, teacher and the parent with the student at the apex. This is not a right wing or left wing view of education. This a view held by someone who is a direct beneficiary of the system which includes "teaching to the test."