Addressing a nation on an economic precipice, President Barack Obama plans to ask worried Americans to pull together Tuesday night and declare reassuringly that the U.S. “will emerge stronger than before.”
Mr. Obama aims to balance candor with can-do in his first address to a joint session of Congress.
“The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation,” Mr. Obama plans to say. “Tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.”
The comments were included in excerpts from the speech that were released early by the White House.
Why does it matter what this man says?
Obama quotes:
“I don’t take a dime of their [lobbyist] money, and when I am president, they won’t find a job in my White House. ”
“Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. ”
Oh, and don’t forget that 95% of us are going to get a tax break.
What difference do his words make?
Don
Universal education through college? Even with recent grade inflation it still takes an IQ of 100 or better to do remotely well in college. That, ladies and gentleman, is the [i]median[/i]. Half the population ain’t there, and never will be. Complete waste of resources.
Some 16% of the population has an IQ below 90. These folks are children of God, but they’re gonna have problems making it through high school. It’s just not fair to them to push them into a world where they’re quite likely to struggle badly.
But universal college sounds good. Just like universal health care.
Years ago, I decided that the Europeans had a much better education system overall. I still think so. It was…..and I think still is…..school from Monday through Saturday (half a day), vocational school for those not qualified for college or university, and college or university for those who were, with financial help guaranteed.
In this country, there are students in college who have no business in being there; some can barely compose a paragraph or express themselves without using such terms as “y’know,” “like, how ya doin?,” etc.
I tutored in what many call “bonehead English” at one of our local community colleges in the San Francisco Bay area, and I wondered how it was that some of these students graduated from high school! And, sad to say, I knew of some teachers who weren’t much better!
#3: it’s fascinating how the liberals in this country embrace just about every idea coming out of Europe, but the concept of vocational education is just a non starter (maybe the teachers’ unions is behind it?). It was no coincidence that Obama chose to quote from the letter “We are just students trying to become lawyers, doctors, congressmen like yourself…” We need to see education as having a purpose behind this vary narrow range of vocations.
The irony of Bush’s wrong-headed No Child Left Behind is that it effectively turns into “No Child Allowed to Get Ahead.” Vast resources are poured into boosting the grades of kids with mediocre IQs while the top 10-20% are left to languish. As Jerry Pournelle says, we are effectively educating those whose IQs are in the 50-75th percentile…if you are smarter than that, you’re ignored. If you’re slower than that, you’re given a college preparatory education that you will almost certainly not need and will not be able to use in life.
We’re doing a disservice to about 75% of the population.
#4, Chris, you know as well as I do that not everyone can be a doctor, lawyer, scientist, or an engineer. It’s nice to have such a goal, to be sure, but for so many, that’s just not possible. There are those who just don’t have the scholastic aptitude or the necessary intellect, and that’s precisely why vocational training such as that offered by community colleges and vocational schools is an attractive alternative. I learned long ago that while colleges and universities do offer so much in theory, more often than not, community colleges and vocational schools actually prepare their students by teaching them job skills.
#3 A relatively impecunious English friend of mine is about to send her daughter off to university, and they’re both as worried about how they will pay for it as any US parent I’ve known. The guarantee of financial help for university education in the UK has been eroded in the past few decades.
I should also add — as I type these words at community college computer — that many CC students are quite capable of gaining four year degrees and are therefore intelligent enough to choose a lower cost alternative to either an impractical four year degree or two years of high cost, packed to the rafters, weed out courses at a 4 year institution.
Funnily enough, in my experience the most intelligent CC students are found in culinary arts.
I’ll pass on a statement regarding college graduates I heard years ago. (I forget who it was though). Of the ~4,000 freshman enrolled in college each year only a little over a 1,000 graduated 4 (or more ) years later. To complicate the issue my Alma Mater changed it’s name from Florida Technilogical University to Cental Florida University. The college went from supplying technical graduates to surrounding employers to a well rounded education (including football, archery, sociology to name a few). Needless to say industry had to look out of state for some well-educated engineering students.
No statements on the belittling tongue lashing Gov. Jindal took from the media on his response? Completely uncalled for, IMO, and would never have been done if it were a Democratic response for a Republican President.