John,
In further reply, the Columbine shooting is one such latch-key kid
disaster. Kids with ADD and obsessive-compulsive disorder need someone
responsible to be involved in their lives. Someone who can see them
"spiraling in" and push them out of harm's way. They can't see it
themselves, that's the nature of obsession. They need about twice the
parenting (speaking from experience) as other kids. There is no way a pair
of working suburbanites is going to manage that.
Keith
-----Original Message-----
From: John DeLasaux [mailto:jdelasaux@inlynx.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2000 1:02 PM
To: keith.jenkins@computeraccess-world.com; yrcfo@aol.com
Cc: AZIPA (E-mail)
Subject: RE: [azipa] re:Arizona's Education Mess
Keith ...
You make a very searching case, with a lot of insight into the problem.
Another facet, is not recognized by the neuvo-techie crowd, because they
are old enough to remember the REAL good economy of the 1950'. Today's
economy is perceived as wonderful, because the economic gurus say it is,
but it is really a figment of their imagination, brought on by a slick
brain-washing job.
One person (Dad) used to make enough to take care of the whole family,
working 40 hours a week with maybe some occasional overtime to help pay
for a big ticket purchase. In those days, the FAMILY income was based on
a 40 hour work week.
In today's economy, Mom and Dad both work, sometimes more than 60 hours
a week each, at a frenetic pace, living on their cell phones for greater
efficiency. They have succumbed to the new economic model of the family,
where the government claims that they "never had it so good". The truth
is, that their FAMILY imcome is a lot higher (they can afford a pair of
Beemers), but their FAMILY puts in a total of 120 hours a week, and too
many latch-key kids struggle, unloved and unattended, through their most
formative years. (That may turn out to be a very costly oversight, later
in their lives.)
It takes a concious effort to break free of that distorted model, and be
willing to live on the REDUCED income that one person can earn on the
average. Many people have seen through the twisted economic model that
the government and big corporations have been selling to for the last 25
years, but the fiction of the "great economy" continues to be spouted
unabated from politicians and economic gurus.
Solution ... get a life. The family is more important than the buck.
JD
=======================================
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Keith L. Jenkins [mailto:keith.jenkins@computeraccess-world.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, 26 December 2000 9:45 AM
> To: yrcfo@aol.com
> Cc: AZIPA (E-mail)
> Subject: RE: [azipa] re:Arizona's Education Mess
>
>
> Sometimes insight can be gained from looking at a
> problem from an opposite
> perspective. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that
> the juvenile
> delinquents in our public schools and their parents are doing
> the correct
> (functional) thing, that their choices are informed and
> rational. Given
> that, what must the world they live in look like to them? It
> seems that
> they must view the government and the society as an
> adversary. They must
> view the boundaries of their family, and not their community
> or state, as
> the defense perimeter. Do they have good reasons to think
> this? Maybe. Back
> during the Cold War, we sold our communities to get higher
> worker mobility
> and more efficient production. As communities disappeared, the many
> mechanisms to support conformity and resolve disputes also
> disappeared. I'm
> sure the cost of those losses never showed up on the decision-maker's
> balance sheets in the cost-benefit analysis phase. Now, we
> are paying those
> costs.
> During my entire lifetime, the national managementship
> (I can't call it
> leadership) has been incessantly modifying the nation to optimize the
> economy. That process helped win the Cold War, but the
> changes in the nation
> were substantial. We did away with communities to increase
> production. (I
> can still remember when a "hot topic" for columnists was
> bemoaning the fact
> that people lived right beside each other and did not know
> each other's
> names: this was new to America in the 50's). We've done
> away with some
> legal rights in a vain attempt to make the War on Drugs more
> efficient. (we
> learned NOTHING from Prohibition). We have done away with
> neighbors (Can you
> name yours?), with stable employment (My Dad was a career
> IBMer, are there
> any left?) long-term non-family relationships (Have any that actually
> function in a societal context?), and all the other benefits
> of community
> life. Having focused 50 years of effort on modifying the
> nation to suit an
> economic model, do we have standing to complain when we wake
> up one day to
> find the nation gone and only an economy left in its place?
> If all we have left is an economy, then isn't the
> family the correct place
> to set up the defensive perimeter? Aren't investments in
> modern illusions
> of "community" pointless? If our values have truly gone from
> JFK's "ask
> what you can do for your country" to the Hell's Angel's "Every man for
> himself and God against all", aren't the actions we see in our public
> schools rational responses? Can I say to a student that he
> should focus on
> Math when baseball stars make more in a year than an engineer
> earns in a
> lifetime? Can I advocate scientific education to a young
> woman who can
> shake her butt at a video camera and earn more than a Nobel laureate?
> America sets her priorities with her dollars. If we are not
> maximizing
> income, then we are the geeks, the outsiders. Keeping this
> nation alive is
> just OUR bizarre, deviant, obsession.
> In pursuit of which, Now that the Cold War is vastly
> diminished, maybe we
> should change direction. Maybe we should gather a consensus
> on what the
> nation should be and modify the economy to fit that model. Maybe the
> economy should just be a tool for meeting the nation's goals
> instead of the
> central focus of our lives.
>
> MY $.02
> Keith L. Jenkins
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: yrcfo@aol.com [mailto:yrcfo@aol.com]
> Sent: Sunday, December 24, 2000 1:42 PM
> To: francine@stealthmode.com; azipa@egroups.com; mloomis@home.com
> Subject: Re: [azipa] re:Arizona's Education Mess
>
>
> I can only add one additional point to Francine's regarding
> the importance
> of
> this issue in developing a vibrant tech community -- don't think for a
> minute
> that the quality of our graduates and education system is not
> a factor for
> VC's and other investor groups in deciding what geographic
> areas to evaluate
> for investments. This is not only a factor when they are
> looking at the
> supply of quality employees but also comes into play when
> they evaluate
> opening an office here and transferring their own people with
> children to
> our
> environment.
>
> A few other observations in this vibrant debate:
>
> A number of the larger charter schools in Arizona have
> closely enforced
> dress
> and behavior standards and thus avoid the "PC" standards
> prevalent in many
> public schools. They do this be making students AND parent(s) sign a
> contract before admission. If the contract is violated, the
> students are
> encouraged to find another school or, if that fails, are
> expelled. This
> avoids much of the distracting behavior and gang activity
> that our public
> schools tolerate.
>
> On a personal note, my daughter taught in Arizona for a semester after
> graduating with a degree in elementary ed from a major
> eastern US public
> university. Her starting salary, keyed to Mesa's scale, was
> ridiculous
> compared to other opportunities for college graduates. She
> has since moved
> to Dallas, where her starting salary is 50% higher (and she
> pays no state
> income tax). In the one semester here, she was able to raise reading
> ability
> and scores significantly; Arizona should be able to compete
> for competent
> teachers on a national basis. Money spent on CLASSROOM
> acitivities does make
> a difference.
>
> Speaking of Texas, this is not a plug for their recent
> governor, though he
> has strongly supported current improvements. Their reform of public
> education started over ten years ago and included competency
> testing of both
> students AND teachers. (However, the most controversial part
> of the initial
> reform was the "no pass, no play" provision that barred kids
> who were not
> passing from playing high school football!) Over the years,
> their testing
> has moved to higher standards, but only when appropriate
> changes have been
> made to the curriculum. For the most part, public support of higher
> classroom pay has accompanied higher student performance.
> Unfortunately
> for
> Arizona's effort, our testing was based on tough standards that were
> unrealistic when compared to what is being taught in our
> schools. For this
> disconnect and the resulting waste of time and money, we must
> blame our
> state
> Education Department.
>
> As a final note (and, again, not a political endorsement),
> the person who
> headed the citizens' commission that developed the original
> Texas education
> reform standards and who then headed the implementation
> efforts was none
> other than a business person named H. Ross Perot. The
> Governor that set
> this whole process in motion was Democratic and the State
> Department of
> Education had little control over the process.
>
> John Ledermann
>
>
>
> ==AZIPA=========================================================
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> =========================================================AZIPA==
>
>
>
> ==AZIPA=========================================================
> Next AZIPA monthly meeting is 5:30pm Monday, January 22nd, 2001
> Arizona Internet Professionals Association http://www.azipa.org
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> Tempe Tech Oasis Techie Tuesday - 6:00pm, Tuesday 1/9/01
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> Strategic Research Institute Web Launch BootCamp - 1/30-2/2/01
> http://www.srinstitute.com/cx326
> =========================================================AZIPA==
==AZIPA=========================================================
Next AZIPA monthly meeting is 5:30pm Monday, January 22nd, 2001
Arizona Internet Professionals Association http://www.azipa.org
AZIPA Email Discussion List http://www.egroups.com/group/azipa
Searchable list archives http://www.egroups.com/messages/azipa
Switch between html, plain text http://www.egroups.com/myprofile
Switch among individual emails, daily digest, "read on web only"
http://www.egroups.com/subscribe/azipa
Not internet related? http://www.egroups.com/group/azipaofftopic
------------------------- other events -------------------------
Tempe Tech Oasis Techie Tuesday - 6:00pm, Tuesday 1/9/01
Harry's Place at Tempe Mission Palms, 60 E. Fifth St. Tempe
Strategic Research Institute Web Launch BootCamp - 1/30-2/2/01
http://www.srinstitute.com/cx326
=========================================================AZIPA==
==AZIPA=========================================================
Next AZIPA monthly meeting is 5:30pm Monday, January 22nd, 2001
Arizona Internet Professionals Association http://www.azipa.org
AZIPA Email Discussion List http://www.egroups.com/group/azipa
Searchable list archives http://www.egroups.com/messages/azipa
Switch between html, plain text http://www.egroups.com/myprofile
Switch among individual emails, daily digest, "read on web only"
http://www.egroups.com/subscribe/azipa
Not internet related? http://www.egroups.com/group/azipaofftopic
------------------------- other events -------------------------
Tempe Tech Oasis Techie Tuesday - 6:00pm, Tuesday 1/9/01
Harry's Place at Tempe Mission Palms, 60 E. Fifth St. Tempe
Strategic Research Institute Web Launch BootCamp - 1/30-2/2/01
http://www.srinstitute.com/cx326
=========================================================AZIPA==
