U.S. Education Chief Wants More Schooling

The following in italics is an AP article written about Arne Duncan's visit to the Denver (CO) School District:

DENVER—American schoolchildren need to be in class more—six days a week, at least 11 months a year—if they are to compete with students abroad, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Tuesday.
"Go ahead and boo me," Duncan told about 400 middle and high school students at a public school in northeast Denver. "I fundamentally think that our school day is too short, our school week is too short and our school year is too short."

"You're competing for jobs with kids from India and China. I think schools should be open six, seven days a week; eleven, twelve months a year," he said.

Instead of boos, Duncan's remark drew an unsurprising response from the teenage assembly: bored stares.

The former Chicago schools superintendent praised Denver schools for allowing schools to apply for almost complete autonomy, which allows them to waive union contracts so teachers can stay for after-school tutoring or Saturday school.

He also applauded Denver's pay-for-performace teacher pay system, which some Democrats and teachers' groups oppose.

"Talent matters tremendously. ... It's important that great teachers get paid more," Duncan said.

He visited at the invitation of Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, who was Denver's schools superintendent from 2005 until his appointment to Congress this year. The city's pay-for-performance plan was one of Bennet's chief accomplishments while in charge of the 75,000-student system.

During visits to two schools Tuesday, Duncan promoted education reforms proposed by the Obama administration. But he hasn't shied away from challenging Democratic positions on education since joining the Cabinet.

Last month, he said poor children who receive vouchers to attend private schools in the District of Columbia should be allowed to stay there, putting the Obama administration at odds with Democrats trying to end the program. Duncan talked up school choice during his Denver visit, though he didn't mention vouchers.

"I'm a big believer that students and parents should have a choice what school they want to go to," he said.

Bennet, greeted by hugs from teachers lining the hallways of the two schools, sided with Duncan. He told reporters he wanted to help steer any education reform proposals from the White House through the Senate.

"A change needs to come, especially in urban school districts, and it's not going to be easy," Bennet said. "I will do absolutely everything to get myself in the middle of that conversation."

Colorado, along with other states, is preparing to apply for some $5 billion in federal education grants from the economic stimulus package. Duncan said details of how that money will be awarded haven't been decided.

The U.S. Department of Education already has released $44 billion to the states. According to Colorado estimates, the state is due about $487 million for K-12 education.

Okay, now maybe it's just me, but do we really need extended school weeks and years just to learn enough to keep us from falling further down the list for best educated countries?

Years ago, we were, if not THE top dogs in education, at least in the running. Then something happened, and now we see our selves ranked somewhere in the 20s. Pretty sad for the "Free-est Nation on Earth", or "The lone Superpower" to be seeing herself in such sad shape educationally speaking.

The problem I don't think is in the amount of school we keep our kids going to, so much as it is the amount of education we are actually giving our kids. In our "feel good" society we have gone from being fierce and competitive to the "everybody's a winner" mantra. Sure, we want our kids to feel good about themselves, but at what cost? when our kids hit the real world after school, they're going to be hit hard in the face with the fact that not everybody is the winner they were taught happened automatically back in their school days.

When I was growing up, if you didn't hack it, you were held back to repeat your grade with the younger kids coming up. You went to summer school if need be, or found yourself in the Special Needs classes if your learning style warranted it. Now, the Special Needs kids were often the target of the mean "normal" kids. A stigma was attached to these classes, and God forbid we give our kids any chance to be stigmatized or harassed. These days, I see whole classes advancing, without exception, including kids who can't/don't comprehend what they need in order to continue their learning in the next grade. My son, had difficulty with a few subjects early on. He ended up spending time in the Special Needs classes for math and reading. He just needed some additional help with a little more personal attention, until he could grasp the basic concepts upon which he could build his education. Now, I am informed he is at the top of his class as far as his reading levels go. And while I applaud the effort of his school to recognize that he needed the help and got it to him early enough that he was not stifled in subsequent years and falling further behind, I can't help but notice the pace at which they teach overall.

The standard curriculum, at least in the math department is at least 1 full year behind where I was when I was growing up. As he is in the final run of his 4th grade year, his class is at the point where my class was around the end of the first semester of 3rd grade. I don't fault the kids, and I don't know that I fault the teachers, or even the specific school.

I could look to fault the Department of Education, or maybe The "No Child Left Behind" act so proudly touted as educational reform by the previous Bush administration. If we make it all so easy that all the kids look better, then the school keeps getting money, and maybe even a better share of what other districts lose for poor performance? Seems a lousy way to go to me. But then again, America has become a Band-Aid society...shore up the short term mess and look the other way, rather than look at the whole problem and decide th best way for overall longterm success. ("What? He died of a sucking chest wound? But we put a bandaid on his poor little sliced finger. What happened?")

I see us, as not falling behind other countries in our quest for educational excellence based on amount of hours spent in school, but on the amount of quality education being drilled into our kids heads while they are there. It's as though, in order to de-stigmatize the Special Needs kids, we have just decelerated our progress to match theirs, in order to make sure everyone is a winner and on the same page no matter what. We once we're on top of the world, and then I guess we just sat down in the old La-Z-boy, kicked up the foot rest and relaxed in a nice reclined position. And then we woke up from our "well-deserved, pat-ourselves-on-the-back" nap, and realized that we were slowing falling back in the pack of educational marathoners. So the slow learners may benefit, and that's great, it really is. But what about slowing down the smart ones who subsequently get bored with having to keep learning material they already know, and not advancing as quickly as they could/should be? Is that a sacrifice we are willing to make? People always argue about what's best for the kids? But is uniformity a compliment or a detriment to our children?

Now, I don't know a whole lot about Arne Duncan, other than he was the superintendent of the Chicago (IL) School District before taking this post in the Obama Administration. I've heard he's a smart, and all around nice guy..but these comments of his, to me, ring of ignorance. But then again, the government's idea of anything failing just requires more money thrown at it to make it all better. Maybe the idea of a failing educational system (or at least one thats not up to par with other countries' performances), in the government's eyes is just to make the kids go longer in the system that is obviously lacking.

I hate to say it, but exposing kids to more of a bad thing, doesnt change the bad thing into something good.

Millionaires, Tax Rolls and Tax Cuts

"Some 10 million households have a net worth above $1 million, excluding home equity, almost double the number in 2002."

So if in 6 years we can double the amount of seemingly wealthy households, how is it that ONLY the rich get richer, as many people seem to want to believe? Is it possible that people can actually find a way into this club, from a more moderate income bracket?

"Don Crane, a small-business owner in Santa Rosa, Calif., certainly sees the value of everyday saving. "We can afford just about anything," he says, adding that his net worth is over $1 million. But he and his wife both grew up on farms in the Midwest — where nothing was wasted — and his wife clips coupons to this day. In fact, most millionaires come from middle-class households, and roughly 70 percent have been wealthy for less than 15 years, according to the AmEx/Harrison survey"


"So how do you join the millionaires' club? You could buy stocks or real estate, play the slots in Vegas — or take the most common path: running your own business. That's how half of all millionaires made their money, according to the AmEx/Harrison survey. About a third had a professional practice or worked in the corporate world; only 3 percent inherited their wealth."

Hmmm....so most rich people went out and created their own wealth, and not having it all handed to them...interesting. Any particular trait that might be found amongst these people??

Millionaires are also seemingly undaunted by failure. Crane, for example, now runs a successful company that screens tenants for landlords. But his first business venture, a real estate partnership, went bankrupt, costing him $20,000 — more than his house was worth at the time. "It was the most depressing time in my life, but it was the best lesson I ever learned," he says.

When asked to list the keys to their success, millionaires rank hard work first, followed by education, determination and "treating others with respect." They also say that what they absorbed in class was less important than learning how to study and stay disciplined, says Jim Taylor, vice chairman of the Harrison Group.

Perserverance....a good quality to have if you want to be successful in this world. I suppose learning a lesson from your failures and moving on instead of complaining about how bad things are can be a big way to overcome the money trap many people fall into. Now a lot of business people may not be the nicest guys when it comes to putting their businesses together. Bill Gates, was ruthless in creating the largest software firm in Microsoft. John D Rockefeller, of Standard Oil, threatened his competition with bankruptcy, in order to buy them out and absorb them under his umbrella. These are a couple examples of how business practice isn't for the weak-hearted. However:

Most millionaires share the values of their moderate-income parents, says Lewis Schiff, a private wealth consultant and Prince's coauthor: "Spending time with family really matters to them." Just 12 percent say that what they want most to be remembered for is their legacy in business, according to the AmEx/Harrison study.

They are not all bastards in this bracket of wealth. And for those who say the rich don't pay their taxes, well most millionaires do pay taxes. In fact, the top 1 percent of earners paid nearly 40 percent of federal income taxes in 2005 — a whopping $368 billion — according to the Internal Revenue Service. On top of that, well, last year, individual Americans gave $306,390,000,000 to charity. No other country comes anywhere near us. Not as a percentage of income, GDP or actual dollars. Think about that for awhile....between PERSONAL charitable contributions and the top 1% of taxpayers, you're looking at over $700 Billion dollars that contribute to the services of our government, and to all the causes of those who have little and need help, sometimes these things overlap.

Meanwhile, during 2006, Tax Foundation economists estimate that roughly 43.4 million tax returns, representing 91 million individuals, will face a zero or negative tax liability. That's out of a total of 136 million federal tax returns that will be filed. Adding to this figure the 15 million households and individuals who file no tax return at all, roughly 121 million Americans—or 41 percent of the U.S. population—will be completely outside the federal income tax system in 2006. As President Bush pushed through his two major tax bills in 2001 and 2003, opponents focused on the dollar amounts saved by high-income individuals. What many critics have ignored is the number of people who were removed from the tax rolls as a result of the expansion of the child tax credit, which was a key provision of the President's Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. the number of tax returns with zero or negative tax liability has risen steadily over the past decade. However, it accelerated sharply between 2000 and 2004 due to the effects of tax changes during President Bush's first term of office. Despite the charges of critics that the tax cuts enacted in 2001, 2003 and 2004 favored the “rich,” these cuts actually reduced the tax burden of low- and middle-income taxpayers and shifted the tax burden onto wealthier taxpayers.

So increasingly now, we find that while the lionshare of tax rolls are held by the one singular set of Top 1 Percenters, the tax cuts, are now enabling exactly what many of the lower class people and democrats are calling for...that the rich pay their fair share...which we see, as they take on more and more of the total tax rolls. And not just the same people who have been paying for decades on their family wealth, but more and more new households add themselves to this "elite" status, from the not-so-elite ranks they came from...
They work hard to get where they are, and yet millions who have very little, if any at all, tax liability continue to complain how these producers aren't doing there part?
I find it all interesting....