Wednesday Open Thread
Welcome to your Wednesday open thread. I’m still traveling, so don’t be surprised if I’m not around. I’ve been busy being stuffed full of Southern cooking and rescuing Free Radical from “fun uncle” duty.
Christine O’Donnell may have trouble winning over the Delaware electorate, but she’s been racking up awards. So far she’s won the El Somnambulo MVP award, the most expensive campaign in Delaware history and was #1 and #9 on the most memorable quotes list. Now she’s been nominated for TPM’s Golden Dukes Award.
For Meritorious Achievement in The Crazy:
Christine O’Donnell: As TPM Reader DC put it: “A GOP candidate, witchcraft, a Satanic altar, masturbation. This was the moment when the natural world and South Park switched places.” And that’s not even to mention mice with human brains or whether the separation of church and state was really part of the constitution or not.
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX): As TPM Reader FM said, “Two words: ‘terror babies.'”There’s also “tea party” and “art director” and “government shutdown.”
Tim Profitt, Head Stomper And Rand Paul Volunteer: He came, he saw, he stomped the head of a MoveOn protester, he demanded an apology from the woman he stomped and claimed he was set up. As TPM Reader EO said, “his actions were stone.cold.f——.crazy!”
Former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO): In Tancredo’s world, Obama’s a bigger threat to America than al Qaeda and should be shipped back to Kenya. Granted, he’s been crazy for years, but TPM Reader DB thought his gubernatorial run highlighted one thing we’ve missed: “How can a person run for governor, claiming he can create jobs and shrink government if he’s never had private sector job?”
Ginny Thomas: Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas whose public affiliation with conservative advocacy groups gave people pause this year, made observers’ jaws drop after she called Anita Hill, who in 1991 accused now-Justice Thomas of sexual harassment, at an odd hour and requested an apology from her. TPM Reader DS added, “Ginny’s call clearly planted a turd in the punchbowl, embarrassing her husband even more.”
This looks like a tough category but I think Christine has a real shot. I’m on Team Christine for this one.
Why Fox, why? Fox couldn’t find enough dishonest hacks to talk down the START Treaty so they actually turned to Hollywood elite Jon Voight. For real. Media Matters documents the atrocities.
If you just finished the segment and currently find yourself wishing for those precious minutes of your life back, rest assured that we know how you feel. Being that there’s a smorgasbord of nonsense in there to choose from, we’ll just cover a few greatest hits.
STEYN: Joining me now with reaction is the sanest man in Hollywood, Jon Voight. Jon, this whole thing seems like something from another era, the idea of so much being attached to getting a treaty with Russia over a nuclear weapons. Is it even relevant to the world we are living in today?
…
After that little offering of ignorant, dismissive nonsense, the main narrative of the segment became clear: Barack Obama wants to give up U.S. nuclear might so that, as Steyn put it, “the rest of the world will love us.” If only we had Ronald Reagan to protect us! From Hannity:
VOIGHT: And now I hear Obama trying to convince the American people that if we give up our nuclear weapons, this will set a fine example and all other countries will follow suit. What a dangerous and naive notion that is. If President Reagan wasn’t such a powerful force of strength, it — we never would have seen Premier Gorbachev take down the Berlin Wall.
Renown expert on nuclear issues Jon Voight says that Reagan wouldn’t have done that except, of course, Reagan signed the first START Treaty. What a hippie!
Tags: Open Thread
(moved by anon)
Comment by nemski on 22 December 2010 at 12:24 pm:
Maybe one day we can talk about the real problem: parent accountability.
Okay, let’s talk. How would that work? What would you require parents to do?
What would you have happen to the parents if they didn’t do it?
What would you have happen to the kids if the parents don’t meet your accountability standards?
Your moving is cracking me up.
Regardless, no idea how it should work, but most of the parents in the school system are a no show – both rich and poor, black and white.
People like to say “parent involvement” and “parent accountability” but nobody has thought it through.
Oh, I’ve thought about it. Parental accountability would entail kids getting their homework done and kids coming to school well-rested would be a start.
That is a pretty lame definiton of accountability. Maybe you could call that a little involvement. Why should there be homework in the first place unless it is a project?
I think parents should be well informed about lesson plans, student progress, where they can help supplement weak areas and how. Yes, the basics need to be done also. None of that matters much if you don’t supplement your own child’s education. The schools can’t be the only place where learning occurs. All life is learning. Parents need to pass on their values.
A school has to be able to do its job when a student has an ill parent, one who works 12 hours a day, suffering depression in this economy and barely able to help themselves, or even a drugged out parent who is never home. It has to have a self contained strategy or we will never get where we want to get. 80% of parents will move the ball. You have to plan for the 20% who can’t or won’t.
As usual, David is wrong again on another subject. The problem is a lack of parental involvement with their kids education. It’s a lame, and lazy, excuse to say “you’re the teacher, you teach them.” Too many parents don’t know what their kids are studying and don’t give a damn. Teachers can only do so much.
Less than 10% of parents even bother to vote in school board elections. And on average, besides me, a reporter from the Cape Gazette, and a handful of school administrators, there might be one or two parents at a school board meeting.
And homework reinforces what was taught in the classroom. But I guess the dog always ate yours (explains a lot).
Montana can’t seat a jury to convict for carrying a small amount of pot.
The problem is a lack of parental involvement with their kids education.
I’m still not hearing any solutions.
Think it through – if the parent fails to meet accountability standards, any possible sanction imposed by the system would damage the child even further.
Why? An “F” on a parental section of a report card gives a context to a students grades. “no wonder I’m getting “c’s and d’s”. My parents suck.”
What would you measure? What would parents have to do to get an A or an F?
So this is the same anon who gives Obama shit for not giving him a pony and now he just says, “What you going to do?”
Laughing and laughing and laughing.
It was a serious question, stalker-boy.
Would you take aspects of the student’s performance and assign it to the parent’s grade?
Would you count how many brownies the parents delivered to the PTA bake sale?
If a parent doesn’t lift a damn finger and the kid still gets A’s, does the parent get an F?
I promise you, teachers and school administrators do NOT want 100% of parents to be actively engaged with them. The first thing they would do is assign some kind of liaison officer to keep parents at arms length.
Okay pony-boy, here’s some thoughts: If your child gets a D or F or their interim report card, get in touch with the teacher, monitor their grades and homework assignments on the web and when you get called in for a meeting at school, go.
And Im glad to see that you have teachers pegged as not wanting to help.
Joe Buck,Jon Voight, spent many years under the paranoid impression the next “nuclear” offensive was originating in Cuba.
Tragically, he has clearly lost his mind.
And,so sadly, I would put a bullet in his head.
Great. So what grade does the parent get who never contacts the school but whose kid gets A’s? Do they get an F for their non-involvement? Try telling that to some mid-level Astra Zeneca executive with an honor student kid.
This “parent accountability” is starting to sound like heaping more crap onto disadvantaged kids who already have problems.
Teachers want to help but they will be the first to tell you they are not supported or equipped to deal with 100% of the parents.
If your child gets a D or F or their interim report card, get in touch with the teacher, monitor their grades and homework assignments on the web and when you get called in for a meeting at school, go.
Yes, this is obviously a good thing, but it does not contain any basis for a parental grade.
You still aren’t thinking it through.
Pony-boy, your leftwing tea bag negativity is showing. You’ve brought nothing to this conversation. Peace.
WDEL gives air time to CRI kook who wants to privatize unemployment insurance. Wingnut talking points from hosts as well as CRI too numerous to count. Article has wrong audio link as of this writing; correct audio is here.
“So what grade does the parent get who never contacts the school but whose kid gets A’s? Do they get an F for their non-involvement?”
Yes.
Critics of parental accountability seem to think that it needs to be perfect. That because a few outlier students will not benefit, that it should not be tried. That is a silly argument.
If parents can be pointed toward a few things that they should be doing, why wouldn’t we want to?
If it is just printing an F for parents who don’t perform Task A, B, or C during the year, that will probably do no harm, and maybe a little good, for the parents who just need a little push.
Beyond that, I guess the main effect will be to identify parents who don’t do… whatever it is you are asking them to do. (At some point you will have to figure out what that is).
Okay, once you have identified the hard core “F” parents, then what… Send a social worker to their house? Hook them up with services they may need? Or just let that F hang there and call it accountability?
on a different note – over at batshitcrazy politics – they are touting all the “red” states that have picked up seats – leading them to believe that those states will stay red and there will be more R’s in the House and Senate
But in true wing nut fashion they failed to see “who” and or “what made the bump in these numbers for reapportionment:
and they are in for an UGLY surprise (for them)
http://maldef.org/news/releases/new_census_apportionment_figures/
Looks like Latinos are the reason for the big bumps in population in those states ( up to 55%) and guess what folks – the R’s have NOT treated them so nicely. eg the recent defeat of the DREAM ACT and immigration reform.
Looks like payback time in 2012 – and payback is a puta
“Okay, once you have identified the hard core “F” parents, then what… Send a social worker to their house? Hook them up with services they may need? Or just let that F hang there and call it accountability?”
Yes. Just let it hang there. It is more accountability then we have now, and the point it to give a grade. If the parent wants to do anything with the grade is their business.
As for what to measure, there is a load of research out there. I’d keep it simple.
– Have you signed off on and returned homework, reading logs, and exams?
– Is your student well rested?
– Are you taking part in conferences to discuss your student’s progress?
I’m not up on the literature, but I’m sure there are a few basic items which correlate to better student performance.
– Have you signed off on and returned homework, reading logs, and exams?
– Is your student well rested?
– Are you taking part in conferences to discuss your student’s progress?
Right now we don’t have good mechanisms for all of that.
But actually, the RTTT money will be building systems for that called Dashboards, including a “Parent Dashboard,” which I believe will be replacing (and hopefully extending) the current Home Access Center.
It remains to be seen how much of your “parent accountability” vision will be implemented in the Dashboards, but the time to influence the design is now. You can read about it in the RTTT application, and I think there is an RFP being let out for it about now.
The in-person conference thing is a bit of a dinosaur. If every parent showed up for a conference it would shut down the school for two weeks. Conferences will always have their place, but most conferences should be replaced by ongoing real-time communication throughout the school year, aided by good web based tools to track progress (and perhaps to collect parent and teacher sign-offs).
“Well rested” is a judgment call. Not sure it is objective enough to be part of a grade.
Here’s the RFP… it is for analysis and design, and apparently the Parent Dashboards are not included in the first phase:
http://www.doe.k12.de.us/rfplisting/
So if you have some ideas for parent accountability, you can try to give some input to get your rules and a tracking and reporting mechanism built into the new system.
We ain’t gonna do it with dittos and log sheets, if that was what you were thinking.
I’m actually pretty happy with how Appo* handles this. My main point is that if the teacher’s are going to be “accountable” you need to figure out how to extend that accountability mandate to the parents.
* or how my child’s teachers handle it.