Democrats flee Wisconsin to avoid vote, police searching...

[teddyv]

In the Kansas City area, there are great public high schools. You just have to live in one of the affluent suburbs to access them. The ones in my neck of the woods are some the worst in the country. Everyone is admitting that now, and KC was the centerpiece of a national experiment to throw a ton of money at a city public school system and see what it could produce. It was a spectacular, miserable failure. It's a particularly controversial point across the state line in Kansas, where the wealthy Johnson Co schools are some of the best in the nation but the school system across the rest of the state is practically shutting down. California, same issues - spectacularly bad public schools.

That is not a study. A real world situation, but it does not answer the question. Why was it a failure? I'm the first one to agree that throwing money at something rarely will improve it.

[the rookie]

That is not a study. A real world situation, but it does not answer the question. Why was it a failure? I'm the first one to agree that throwing money at something rarely will improve it.

I went the quick route because I'm lazy and didn't want to post research and data

[RabbiKnife]

I went the quick route because I'm lazy and didn't want to post research and data

It's because you are a product of the American public school system. Here. Have a government benefit. It will make you feel better because you have been abused by nasty rich people.

[the rookie]

It's because you are a product of the American public school system. Here. Have a government benefit. It will make you feel better because you have been abused by nasty rich people.

Again, laughing out loud is awkward in my work environment. Luckily, I'm surrounded by Charismatic folk that attribute it to the Holy Spirit.

[Fenris]

Again, laughing out loud is awkward in my work environment. Luckily, I'm surrounded by Charismatic folk that attribute it to the Holy Spirit.

Yeah....I really want this guy's work enviornment...am I bad to covet....?

[RabbiKnife]

Yeah....I really want this guy's work enviornment...am I bad to covet....?

It's only coveting if you want it so much that you don't want HIM to have it, too...

[Fenris]

It's only coveting if you want it so much that you don't want HIM to have it, too...

I think a happy enviornment like that is meant to be shared.

[the rookie]

Yeah....I really want this guy's work enviornment...am I bad to covet....?

You'd like it - aside from the "long hours singing about Jesus" part, we've got 8 two-hour prayer meetings a week dedicated to praying for Israel and Jerusalem. So you'd like at least 8 hours of it. And the music is great

[Firefighter]

1. Will the law enforcement and fire personnel be required to make those changes as well? If not, why not?

Because police and fire unions are prohibited from going on strike.

[the rookie]

Because police and fire unions are prohibited from going on strike.

Thread Re-railer.

[Firefighter]

My bad... you may now carry on the derail already in progress.

[Vhayes]

It's already a rapidly and increasingly uneducated work force out there. The general knowledge base of our nation is not impressive. The question is, how has the ineffective current public school methodology contributed to current conditions? Excluding "achievers" and looking at the increasing percentage of "non-achievers" and the growing nihilism that is affecting the urban centers of our nation.

Education used to be the way out of the ghetto. Either that or sports or music. That is no longer the case, not when a college education takes years to pay off.

There IS a nihilism in the 'hood. It's heartbreaking!

[the rookie]

My bad... you may now carry on the derail already in progress.

Nah. I genuinely appreciate a diligent Re-railer to snap me back into the flow of things.

[RabbiKnife]

Education used to be the way out of the ghetto. Either that or sports or music. That is no longer the case, not when a college education takes years to pay off.

There IS a nihilism in the 'hood. It's heartbreaking!

There is nihilism in the hood, in Mainstreet, in living rooms numbed by American Idol and Dancing with the Stars, in churches with 50% divorce rates and 25% teenage pregnancy rates.

Our educational systems, in elementary, secondary, and college levels, teach facts, not how to learn. As a result, whenever the technological advances of a society make a formerly valuable skill unnecessary, we are left with a generation of skilled buggy-whip inspectors.

[the rookie]

Education used to be the way out of the ghetto. Either that or sports or music. That is no longer the case, not when a college education takes years to pay off.

Then the "achievers" left - and then the "non-achievers" began defining and enforcing new cultural norms.

There IS a nihilism in the 'hood. It's heartbreaking!

It's the logical conclusion to humanism. The "black power" and "black is beautiful" movements that spun out of the civil rights movements of the late 60's were insufficient to call attention to the beauty of God's creation in glorious diversity without empowering humanistic ideas of "self". In other words, "black is beautiful" is right in that the rediscovery of the beauty of God expressed in the black man and the black woman is noble. Divorced from a biblical worldview and a Christ-centered paradigm, however, it devolves into another form of 70's "self-actualisation" and humanism. The end of humanism, logically, is nihilism.

When the ideals of Malcolm X didn't actually work in the 'hood, thug culture emerged as the dominant force - nihilism. Tupac was the Malcolm X of his generation - but instead of preaching black power, he preached (brilliantly) a different gospel - the thug overcoming adversity to make it in this world. The redefinition of nobility - from aesthetics (rediscovering african roots) to strength and power in poverty.

Sound right?