In a perfect world, what and how would you change the educational system in our country?

If there was ever to be a perfect world with the perfect education, our education would be somewhat like this. Equality for everyone to start off, money wouldn’t be an issue since everyone would be equal. There would only be one set of standards that everyone in the country would have to follow. There would be an equal ratio of students to teachers per class. And last but not least all classes would have to be challenging to the students and encourage them to pursue their studies. This is just a quick way to put it.

Yes money is what runs schools now days. Schools across the nation complain over and over how they need money to have a better education system. Yet it has been proven many times how schools really don’t need as much money as they say. Like in the video we watched today Stupid in America, it talked about a school which runs on very little money yet has outstanding brilliant students promoting from it every year. Every student in that school achieves excellence in education. And yes this is without having to spend the thousands of dollars that are spent annually on an average American student per year. What we need are teachers who can be more passionate about their jobs, teachers who are willing to take those extra steps in educating their students. There are millions of dollars spent annually on teachers who don’t even work as teachers anymore. This is due to the Teacher Unions which are formed and are very powerful. They basically run the terms and conditions’ which makes it difficult to fire a teacher. They would have to go through hundreds of steps before being fired. That is why when a teacher is found guilty of doing something offensive; they are taken out of the school but are still getting a paycheck and benefits without having to work. This angers me because this money can be used for more important stuff like purchasing textbooks and programs that can help kids in school.

Another issue concerning this country’s education is the actual material being taught at school. Yes we have 50 states in our country and because each state decides on their school standards there are 50 different set of standards in this country. In order to have a more perfect education system we need to be more equal. And in order to be more equal we should only have one set of standards for our whole country. I believe this will because then the standards won’t be set too low nor too high. By giving us more challenging and rigorous courses I believe we can also become more educated, but this should apply to all students. I do think students need to learn about all subjects, this will just help them by making them well rounded students. Yes this might sound communistic but if it was to be a perfect world this is how I believe our country’s education should be run.
-Ignacio Montor

Using specific evidence to support your arguments, are you for or against Arizona SB 1070? Provide a minimum of one argument for and one argument

Senate Bill 1070 (SB1070) is a law which was introduced in Arizona early this year and has now been signed by Governor Jan Brewer in the month of April to take effect on July 29 2010. This law has been very controversial all throughout the nation. Hundreds of protests have occurred because of this. “Mejia, who helped organize a protest in front of the state capitol Friday, is one of many student activists in Arizona organizing against SB 1070”(Grinberg 2010). Like Mejia I am against SB1070. Besides the issue of racial profiling which I am very concerned about, think about the amount of money that would be needed to train all these Arizona police officers too be taught how to make good choices on “reasonable suspicion” of someone being illegal is a huge problem. “The Republican governor…issued an executive order that requires additional training for local officers on how to implement the law without engaging in racial profiling or discrimination(CNN wire staff 2010). This extra training will be very costly, imagine how many hundreds of police officers are working in the state of Arizona. Is the state able to afford these costs? “’This training will include what does and does not constitute reasonable suspicion that a person is not legally present in the United States,’ Brewer said after signing the bill” (CNN wire staff 2010). According to this bill’ police officers can use “in tandems, vehicles that are overcrowded, dressed a certain way, and difficulty speaking English” (CNN video 2010) as elements of suspicion for illegal people. This to me is ridiculous, it’s a typical stereotype that Latinos or Mexicans tend to travel in overcrowded vehicles, and therefore I think this law is aimed towards the illegal immigrants from Mexico.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010 11:57:00 PM PDT
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Blogger Ignacio Montor said...

A reason I would give credit to SB1070 would be that it can dilute the crime rate from illegal residents and drug trafficking from the Mexican border. Yet I don’t see how this can help other states like South Carolina and Minnesota. “South Carolina and Minnesota introduced copy-cat versions of AZ's SB 1070 with 8 other states set to follow suit”(Wahab 2010). Is immigration really an issue in those states? I don’t see it, that is why I don’ agree with this bill.
-Ignacio Montor

Work Cited:
Grinberg, Emanuella. "Immigration law polarizes Arizonans." (2010). CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. 14 July 2010 .
Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com. CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. 5 July 2010. 14 July 2010 .
CNN Wire Staff, comp. "Arizona governor signs immigration bill - CNN.com." Arizona governor signs immigration bill (2010). CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. 24 Apr. 2010. 14 July 2010 .
Wahab, Nadine. "Nadine Wahab: The Battle over SB 1070." Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post. 8 June 2010. 14 July 2010 .

Tuesday, July 13, 2010 11:57:00 PM PDT
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Per our conversation at the end of class today, I want you to have a conversation with someone (parent, sibling, relative, friend, or peer). After you have your conversation, write a reaction to your conversation.

The class discussion and articles that I have read about the war in Afghanistan have helped me better understand this war. I had this conversation with my brother. He knew about the same as I did before economics class. I started off by asking him how many wars were in, he said, “Three, one with China, another with Iraq, and finally Cuba”. Then I told him how there is two wars, Iraq and Afghanistan. He thought all of that was just one huge war. I then asked if he knew why we were in war with Afghanistan, he thought it was to get oil. I further explained why and what were doing in Afghanistan. I told him about the war being on terrorism and the corrupt government. I basically put it all out there, the reasons why we should or shouldn’t stay in the war with Afghanistan.

I asked him what we should do. He said, “We should stay in the war”. He defended this point by talking about how Afghanistan has nuclear weapons and if we leave there country we won’t be there to regulate these bombs. The amount of money we have spent seems incredible to him, he couldn’t believe how many billions of dollars we have spent on this war. So to further defend his argument he talked about the money would go all to waste. He said, “We already spent all this money, so if we just pull out it would all be wasted. Let’s instead stay in this war and make it all worth it”. I then asked him, “Are the lives of about 1800 American soldiers worth the fight for another country’s issue”? He knows someone’s life is priceless, and that it would be very disrespectful to put a price on their life. The two points (amount of soldiers that have died and fixing another country’s issue) made in the question I asked him changed his opinion. He is now undecided of what is the right choice.

My impression of this conversation was excellent. I was surprised by my brother how clueless he was about this war and yet was able to defend his first opinion quite well. This conversation also led me to see the other side of the story. It opened up many different ways of seeing this argument. Overall I felt good about this conversation because I opened someone eyes to the reality of this “conflict”.
-Ignacio Montor

In your opinion, what is the most important economical issue facing the United States right now?

There are many important economical issues facing the United States right now, there is the poor housing market, unemployment, education, the two wars in the Middle East, and etc. In my opinion, the wars we are currently involved in with Iraq and Afghanistan have been the greatest economic issue. I believe these wars have been responsible for the economic issues we are facing and dealing with today. These wars also affect many other areas of our economy. If it weren’t for these wars we probably wouldn’t be facing high unemployment rates, poor house marketing, the closing of businesses, and many other issues. Not only do these wars bring upon economic issues but as well as society issues. Many families have had to cope with the loss of a loved one as well. There have been around just underneath 2,000 casualties and still counting. These are cost that can’t be repaid. So why not just end the wars?
This war has not only been very controversial, since most people have no clue why were even in it, but very costly as well. It costs our government around 6.7 billion dollars a month. That is a big setback to our economy, since most of the money we spend in the war we don’t even have. This spending puts us in a deep whole of dept. As a country our national dept is around 13 trillion dollars. I believe we have more important issues that are affecting us at the moment and should be dealt with immediately. Instead of spending our money in violence why not spend it in things that will benefit us now? We can use our money for helping those starving, education, and unemployed. Therefore I believe that the wars in the Middle East have been our greatest issue with our economy.