I bought new shoes this weekend. They even came with a new leather wallet (it was a special sale) and my girlfriend got her shoes for 75% off (partially as a result of me buying my new shoes. So she was also very happy about my purchase). :-) I needed new clothes and shoes for work and so I had a bit of a shopping afternoon, and received some very impressive deals.
I also met my girlfriend's closest friend, or at least one of them. Her friend is the sister-in-law of my girlfriend's ex-boyfriend. Interesting. We didn't "hit it off". She is a teacher, which I think is great. I really enjoy teaching, and always wanted to be a teacher on some level. I think teaching is a noble profession, and a very thankless job where one has to play politics with the administration and the parents and everyone else and doesn't receive a salary comensurate with the amount of effort they put in. I also feel that there are many teachers that are not qualified to teach and those that because of the terrible working conditions and pay, no longer really care about teaching, but merely hope to collect their paycheck and go home. Afterall, they are tenured. This attitude is not limited to teachers of course - see Office Space.
In any event, the friend brought up lack of funding. This is a problem of course. Schools often do not receive an appropriate amount of funding. Oftentimes, classrooms are held in these structures called "portables", which was a foreign word to me until I came to South Florida. Who ever heard of putting kids in little trailers and teaching them there? Talk about lack of security and terrible resources. Pitiful. The class of people our society purportedly cares about most relegated to trailer park school yards. Go team. So of course the friend's solution to this was an increase in taxes. However, no one wants to increase the taxes. Is there any wonder why?
There are so many problems with a tax increase. One, there's no guaranty that the money will actually go to schools or if it will simply be misappropriated. If it does go to the schools, what will the schoolboard actually do with it? Will they squander it? Will they hire more unqualified teachers? Will they use it to make their new boat payment? Where will the money go? How much of it will end up in classrooms? And why the heck do we need a tax increase? Florida does not have an income tax. The cities, counties and State generate much of their monies from property taxes (including something called stamp tax) and sales tax. I don't know if any of you have been keeping up with the financial market, but real estate is where it's at - property values are going through the roof. Well as these property vales have increased by about 26% in the span of one year, the government has been collecting more money, as the tax is based upon the value of the property. Seems odd that our state somehow does not have a surplus of money as a result. An increase in sales tax seems like a terrible idea as well, as it will impact an already struggling lower and middle class - as they are the classes most strongly hit by sales tax - or any consumer level tax as a higher portion of their income is subject to the tax (they are most likely to use their entire income stream to purchase consumer products).
Finally, there is no evidence that the school systems in our country really work. We seem to be having a terrible time educating our youth. World scores indicate that our students are not exceptionally successful with math, science, or reading. Perhaps this is due to teachers with lousy salaries not wanting to teach. Maybe this is due to unqualified teachers being hired and retained because they are cheaper. Perhaps it's due to the fact that schools get paid more for having special-needs students - monetarily incentivising having learning disabled students. Wow. Maybe it's a lack of parental involvement, supervision, discipline, or caring. Did this occur as a result of the failing schools or did the failing of the family unit fuel the failing of the schools? Was it a two way street, with each impacting the other? We assess our students in Florida with standardized testing. I believe this is the national movement though. No Child Left Behind and all. Statistically, you have a better chance of determining who will be successful by flipping a coin. These tests show nothing but who can take a test. However, administratively, how else can we show who will be successful? We need immediate concrete results in the age of microwaves, fast food, and instant gratification.
The friend did not like my opinion ... as my girlfriend pointed out - no one likes to be accused of being in a failed system with a bunch of corrupt and inefficient people. Police, priests, government workers, attorneys, doctors, big corporate (tobacco, Enron, Worldcom), etc. Many professions have corrupt people in them and no one likes to be associated with being corrupt or inefficient. Unfortunately, it only takes a few bad people in a large beauracracy to destroy the whole system and its credibility. For example, most people on the lower levels of Enron had no idea that there were any accounting irregularities. Hell, Wall Street didn't even know, why would the worker. However, a few greedy people found a way to make the numbers say what people wanted to hear and there we had it, a recipe for disaster. However, the people that aren't responsible for the disaster necessarily still carry the mark and the stigma for what others have done. However, in this situation, I was not saying the friend was corrupt or inefficient only that she worked in an overall system that seems to be failing (on a whole). I agree that the system needs work, but I do not think we can trivialize how terrible it is with the simple quip of "increase taxes". She didn't see it that way and did not greatly appreciate my opinion. Who the hell was I to be saying such terrible things. Like I said, we didn't "hit it off".
Schoolteachers, however, were not the only people that did not like me this weekend. There was my girlfriend's other close friend who did not like me saying that people are awkward around each other when they first start dating. My point was that they do not, necessarily, act the same way around each other in the begining as they do over time. For example, most people will get dressed up for their first date. They will not burp in front of one another. The make-up will be in place. Legs will be shaved (just in-case). The apartment will be cleaned. ... This did not appeal to her. However, in the end she relented and felt that I was right but I had definitely used the wrong word - "awkward" - even though she could not think of the correct word. The whole thing had me feeling pretty awkward. As I hadn't meant to start a disagreement.
I suppose there really are no safe topics out there. Some are just safer than others and every now and again, you still get kicked in the crotch.
I also met my girlfriend's closest friend, or at least one of them. Her friend is the sister-in-law of my girlfriend's ex-boyfriend. Interesting. We didn't "hit it off". She is a teacher, which I think is great. I really enjoy teaching, and always wanted to be a teacher on some level. I think teaching is a noble profession, and a very thankless job where one has to play politics with the administration and the parents and everyone else and doesn't receive a salary comensurate with the amount of effort they put in. I also feel that there are many teachers that are not qualified to teach and those that because of the terrible working conditions and pay, no longer really care about teaching, but merely hope to collect their paycheck and go home. Afterall, they are tenured. This attitude is not limited to teachers of course - see Office Space.
In any event, the friend brought up lack of funding. This is a problem of course. Schools often do not receive an appropriate amount of funding. Oftentimes, classrooms are held in these structures called "portables", which was a foreign word to me until I came to South Florida. Who ever heard of putting kids in little trailers and teaching them there? Talk about lack of security and terrible resources. Pitiful. The class of people our society purportedly cares about most relegated to trailer park school yards. Go team. So of course the friend's solution to this was an increase in taxes. However, no one wants to increase the taxes. Is there any wonder why?
There are so many problems with a tax increase. One, there's no guaranty that the money will actually go to schools or if it will simply be misappropriated. If it does go to the schools, what will the schoolboard actually do with it? Will they squander it? Will they hire more unqualified teachers? Will they use it to make their new boat payment? Where will the money go? How much of it will end up in classrooms? And why the heck do we need a tax increase? Florida does not have an income tax. The cities, counties and State generate much of their monies from property taxes (including something called stamp tax) and sales tax. I don't know if any of you have been keeping up with the financial market, but real estate is where it's at - property values are going through the roof. Well as these property vales have increased by about 26% in the span of one year, the government has been collecting more money, as the tax is based upon the value of the property. Seems odd that our state somehow does not have a surplus of money as a result. An increase in sales tax seems like a terrible idea as well, as it will impact an already struggling lower and middle class - as they are the classes most strongly hit by sales tax - or any consumer level tax as a higher portion of their income is subject to the tax (they are most likely to use their entire income stream to purchase consumer products).
Finally, there is no evidence that the school systems in our country really work. We seem to be having a terrible time educating our youth. World scores indicate that our students are not exceptionally successful with math, science, or reading. Perhaps this is due to teachers with lousy salaries not wanting to teach. Maybe this is due to unqualified teachers being hired and retained because they are cheaper. Perhaps it's due to the fact that schools get paid more for having special-needs students - monetarily incentivising having learning disabled students. Wow. Maybe it's a lack of parental involvement, supervision, discipline, or caring. Did this occur as a result of the failing schools or did the failing of the family unit fuel the failing of the schools? Was it a two way street, with each impacting the other? We assess our students in Florida with standardized testing. I believe this is the national movement though. No Child Left Behind and all. Statistically, you have a better chance of determining who will be successful by flipping a coin. These tests show nothing but who can take a test. However, administratively, how else can we show who will be successful? We need immediate concrete results in the age of microwaves, fast food, and instant gratification.
The friend did not like my opinion ... as my girlfriend pointed out - no one likes to be accused of being in a failed system with a bunch of corrupt and inefficient people. Police, priests, government workers, attorneys, doctors, big corporate (tobacco, Enron, Worldcom), etc. Many professions have corrupt people in them and no one likes to be associated with being corrupt or inefficient. Unfortunately, it only takes a few bad people in a large beauracracy to destroy the whole system and its credibility. For example, most people on the lower levels of Enron had no idea that there were any accounting irregularities. Hell, Wall Street didn't even know, why would the worker. However, a few greedy people found a way to make the numbers say what people wanted to hear and there we had it, a recipe for disaster. However, the people that aren't responsible for the disaster necessarily still carry the mark and the stigma for what others have done. However, in this situation, I was not saying the friend was corrupt or inefficient only that she worked in an overall system that seems to be failing (on a whole). I agree that the system needs work, but I do not think we can trivialize how terrible it is with the simple quip of "increase taxes". She didn't see it that way and did not greatly appreciate my opinion. Who the hell was I to be saying such terrible things. Like I said, we didn't "hit it off".
Schoolteachers, however, were not the only people that did not like me this weekend. There was my girlfriend's other close friend who did not like me saying that people are awkward around each other when they first start dating. My point was that they do not, necessarily, act the same way around each other in the begining as they do over time. For example, most people will get dressed up for their first date. They will not burp in front of one another. The make-up will be in place. Legs will be shaved (just in-case). The apartment will be cleaned. ... This did not appeal to her. However, in the end she relented and felt that I was right but I had definitely used the wrong word - "awkward" - even though she could not think of the correct word. The whole thing had me feeling pretty awkward. As I hadn't meant to start a disagreement.
I suppose there really are no safe topics out there. Some are just safer than others and every now and again, you still get kicked in the crotch.
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