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resedit wrote:

isaly wrote:

resedit wrote:

He seems to have done a pretty good job at preventing any further terrorist attacks on US soil.

After 9/11 there was the anthrax thing. Anything after that?

Post hoc ergo propter hoc?

The policies of the Bush administration have been very effective.
Numerous foiled attempts.

Here's a list of them -
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,335500,00.html

How many of those attempts occuring outside of the US did the bushies actually instigate or contribute to in a meaningful way?

and how many of those inside the US were overstated for propaganda purposes, Padilla, the liquid explosive in the airline lavatory thing?

Like I said, post hoc ergo propter hoc?

Nefarious wrote:

NCLB (No Child Left Behind) did bring official attention to every school.    A state and local government would have to explain why their school was scoring low on tests.

Funding of certain kinds of AIDS issues for Africa.

You have to be kidding. NCLB would have been the single biggest cluster of his administration, had it not been for all the wars. It was, and is, a freaking disaster that has done more damage to schools than good.

It was a good idea, but it wasn't implemented well - and was far too punitive. As a result, schools had to 'teach the test', or risk losing funds. A lot of schools cut everything that wasn't related to the tests to make up, so you have schools with no music programs, no school-funded extra-curricular activities, and students that still don't know smurf from shinola.

The program needs a massive overhaul, and has from day one.

bratboy wrote:

There are (or were) some big supporters of 'teaching to the test' around here.

I would be one of them.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/ … 23.article
Would be one of the reasons why.

Nefarious wrote:

NCLB (No Child Left Behind) did bring official attention to every school.    A state and local government would have to explain why their school was scoring low on tests.

Funding of certain kinds of AIDS issues for Africa.

This program is based upon the Texas implemenatation of it under Bush as Gov. of Texas. It's a failure here in both the State and Federal level. More paperwork, and since they tied test scores to funding, education isn't the important part of it. It's getting high test scores. So we have more cheating on our TAKS testing and the teachers use the first part of the school year to teach the TAKS test, which occurs in the mid-portion of the year instead of the end of the year, so what are they testing? Certainly not the knowledge of the students as it pertains to them learning the curriculum.

One item that might qualify:

The series of Supreme Court decisions striking down various torturous activity and tortured legal rationales for same by this Executuve. (Hamdan, etc.)

Last edited by daemon (2008-11-17 10:24 am)

Farmerkev wrote:

bratboy wrote:

There are (or were) some big supporters of 'teaching to the test' around here.

I would be one of them.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/ … 23.article
Would be one of the reasons why.

There's certainly a problem.  NCLB is not the solution, however.

Here's the thing with standardized tests--it's easier to devise a lesson plan around a test than it is to design a 'multiple guess' exam that thoroughly tests knowledge of a given subject.  The coverage of such tests is generally a mile wide and an inch deep.

Do such exams have a place in the process?  Absolutely.  However, the amount of emphasis that NCLB (and the pilot program that started here in Texas) have put on such testing is absurd.  If you have teachers spending weeks or even months on "test-taking strategies" unique to the 'multiple guess' form of testing, something is wrong.  This is not to mention everything else that gets ignored in the process.

I believe this sums up the trouble with NCLB neatly:

http://www.bartleby.com/73/1736.html

Hmmm... the first item in that Fox News link is Richard Reid.  Reid was not "thwarted by the US government" -- he was thwarted by fellow passengers on an airplane because he was a lame terrorist.

That's the problem with a lot of these lists -- separating actual government performance from simple luck.  Just look at the Bojinka Plot in 1995 or the Ahmed Ressam plot in 1999.

And Jose Padilla?  You got to love holding a US citizen and depriving him of due process and then not even convicting him of what you held him for in the first place.

And the Lackawanna Six?  All they found was a rifle, a telescopic sight and a cassette tape where they rambled about Allah and the Jews.  They did attend al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, this is true -- but I've seen nothing really showing an impending plot.

I'm not going further down that Fox News link.  That's the problem with these types of links -- while I can accept that the Bush administration, if I'm feeling generous, foiled a couple gravely dire impending plots, in general lists like this are infused with politics and greatly exaggerated, just like all of the color-coded threat levels that seemed to magically disappear after the 2004 elections.

I'd definitely like to see a bi-partisan vetted analysis of this subject though.

Last edited by bedstuy (2008-11-17 10:43 am)

ScifiterX wrote:

Then there were Cheney acts as VP (many of which will make it impossible to ever see what was done, making it that much harder to undo it).

What are you referring too?

sturner wrote:

Farmerkev wrote:

bratboy wrote:

There are (or were) some big supporters of 'teaching to the test' around here.

I would be one of them.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/ … 23.article
Would be one of the reasons why.

But when the test comes in the middle of the school year? This is a non-starter.

The think about NCLB that I don't get is that it grades on achievement.

Wait, what?

Well, take some 10-year-old kid who can't speak english. If they can read and write at a fourth or fifth grade level by the time they're 11, that's epic. But it's still "Fails to meet grade level expectations." School loses funding as a result. Same thing with anybody who's behind - you can't wave a magic wand and suddenly make people absorb information 4-5 faster than "normal."

IMHO, seems like you should at least grade on individual student progress.

Farmerkev wrote:

ScifiterX wrote:

Let's see his attempt to dissociate his position from both the executive branch which (despite his proclamation) is a member of and the legislative branch which he serves part of. Then there is his burying and non-recording of activities. (He decided if they never existed they won't ever be declassified and thus can't be used against him.)

So, the Constitutional muddiness of the status of the Vice Presidency and things you think he did but there isn't any record of but the none the less changed things that can't be unchanged.

Yeah.

kev...

O'Bama can absolutely retract the warrantless acts. However, over the last 7plus years, we've all been tapped w/o warrant.

No. That cannot be 'unchanged' back to never having had surveillance on us. Ever. It is a Federal Felony. "Also!"

Farmerkev wrote:

ScifiterX wrote:

Let's see his attempt to dissociate his position from both the executive branch which (despite his proclamation) is a member of and the legislative branch which he serves part of. Then there is his burying and non-recording of activities. (He decided if they never existed they won't ever be declassified and thus can't be used against him.)

So, the Constitutional muddiness of the status of the Vice Presidency and things you think he did but there isn't any record of but the none the less changed things that can't be unchanged.

The muddiness was more or less Cheney's doing. Sure there was plenty of silt for him to churn into the mud but considering it hadn't happened for the 212 year prior to him getting the job it says a lot about that situation. I'm less concerned about what's know or even just suspected about what he did and covered up I'm a bit more concerned about what his covering up keep us from knowing or suspecting. That sort of crap tends to be the political equivalent of unexploded ordinance that takes out innocent bystanders at a later date.