Today I renewed a contract for my company that will ensure that the 13 people who work on that account will continue to be employed for the next three years with the addition in the budget for a few more hires.

Today Lyle rambled and typed 1,753 words for a blog.

You decide who provides more towards the greater good of societ

It depends on what you make, Steve.

You do.

@ Randy: Why does it matter what Steve makes? Guns, butter, condoms, whatever. Are you implying he is making something illegal? Or just trying to justify a specious argument, knowing you have no argument? Do tell.

Democrats are all about crony capitalism, picking winners and losers why who get the gubmint cheese.

Steve was implying he did much more for the 'good of society' with the expansion of his business market than Lyle has done today. I would say that depends on his product. He could make singing wall trouts for all I know. Or whoopie cushions.

Welcome to the Patch, Eugene, where sock accounts are a dime a dozen for some people.

@ Randy: So you are now the arbiteur of what is good for keeping 13 American employees occupied and providing for their famillies? Even if they were making wall trouts, who are you to judge? You don't have to buy one, unless Obama takes over the company and forces you to buy one, or taxes you to support the company. That is the difference, albeit one you can't comprehend.

You and Steve seem to have elected yourselves arbiters of who is more useful to society. Fair is fair.

Way to derail a discussion of education, by the way.

Looks like we all live in the real world, and need to work in order to pay taxes so that cowards like Lyle can sit home and mental masturbate all day.

someone on the left should address his concerns about trillions of dollars spent on the war on poverty that seems to be lost.

Interesting Heather, so you support a "free home rape kit" instead of legitimate questions about a trillion wasted on education?

http://menomoneefalls.patch.com/blog_posts/the-straight-poop-on-paul-ryans-crappy-plan-to-kill-medicare#photo-11373781

Good for you Heather. Really cleans up the joint.

@Steve - I haven't read through the comments on that blog, but if I see something racist or that qualifies as hate speech, I will delete that, too. I don't see how you pointing me to Jason's blog is equal to the comment AWD made.

I did not see any "hate speech" portrayed in what you deleted. PC run amok, again?

Perhaps if AWD were to attach a "satire" disclaimer to his posts, Heather and the others wouldn't have to trouble themselves with deleting his posts. Seems to work for at least one of the Patch approved "content providers" around here.

Heather:

One doesn't have to get to the comments section of Jason's blog to find the offensive content. Take a look at the pics that Jason posted--I think that is where the 'home rape kit' comment is referring to...

I'm impressed with your productive lifestyle. I'm also impressed that you manage to get any real work done after creating all those Patch user-accounts..

Don’t make me feel older than I already do.

I will be 64 next month and I can tell you, in the 1950’s, folks went to great lengths to not be seen as “mooching”. Back then, it was pride....people rolled up their sleeves and worked and found any way they could to keep from taking handouts or charity

You are right Lyle; hard to engage you as we ignore the shiny object you try to wave in front of us.Sucks to fall flat on your rebuttal.

Tell you what, Lyle, now that you're here, we can actually discuss education.

You'll have to admit that standards have fallen in the last forty years. Why do you think that is?

Yeah, every one is lazy. Yet another of the great GOP myths -- and examples of how they hate people.

@Randy 1949...I would be more than happy to engage in discussion with you. As to your question of the reduction of education standards, it has nothing to do with education per se, but everything to do with the growing social problems. If you think about a school, especially in the low performing ones, every social problem you can think of walks through the door every day. Our expectations have changed for teachers. They are not expected to just teach any longer. They are called on to function as psychotherapists, psychologists, social workers, nannies, nurses and conflict mediators. I would speculate that there is a close correlation between school poor performance over time and the increase in poverty and social problems. The breakdown of society is being manifested throughout the school system. Compare schools in suburbia and those in the inner city; the suburban schools are not plagued with the issues that confront the urban schools. Therefore, the suburban schools out perform the urban schools on every measure. You set the parameters at the last forty years and it is no coincidence that it correlates to the decline of the manufacturing base and the move from a manufacturing society to a service and Information society. During the Reagan Recession, beginning in 1981, we lost jobs from the lower end that have never been recovered.

@The Audacious Epigone...You can't compare the 1950s to the present. In the 1950s there was a surplus of jobs and the U.S. economy was filling the need of the Second World War. It has nothing to do with pride, but job availability.

@GearHead...A MS in engineering and an MBA, I don't know if I can stop laughing. I am sure you are a competent engineer and possibly a businessman, but as a human being, you just don't make the cut.

Lyle nobody responded to your rebuttal (of a rebuttal) because it was a stiffed shirt snooze fest. It really seems like you are trying as hard as you can to make us think that you are intelligent.

That, or maybe you really do find your writing interesting. Nothing against intellectual conversations but your writing about puritans and... the.. oolld soouth..Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

@Randy
Standards fall because we need to lower the bar as to allow more kids to pass. Can't have our tests be racist now can we? Think I am joking, but if more whites pass a test than a black or hispanic, libs call that test racist.

lol funny huh?

I think you're talking about college admissions tests. I wasn't aware that we had race-weighted scores for third-grade pop quizzes in arithmetic.

too many people in the wagon; and not enough to pull it. Earned your retirement? The world doesn't owe you a living, each of us have to carry our water even if we reach the magical age of 67.

@Pennypacker -- What you don't understand is that those of us who have reached retirement still work very hard. We just aren't getting paid for it. But the almighty dollar seems to be your deity.

Randall you seem to have a hard time with simple mathematics. Try multiplying something by zero and that is what you get if you don't produce anything.

@H.E. Pennypacker (a.k.a. ?).... I feel fortunate that I was able to work all the years that I did and now have time to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Did I say the world owed me? Your assumptions cut deeply into an already questionable credibility. Your attempts to insult me and others just prove how low some will go when they haven't anything constructive to add. You give all conservatives a bad name and misrepresent the conservative movement. Why don't you just admit that you're a right wing extremest?

@Pennypacker -- So Mitt Romney 'produces' something when he puts his money to work and lives off the capital gains but I don't? And why do you hate poor Ann Romney so? All she ever produced was five boys.

Your set of values is worth as much as one to the tenth power.

Where did you get that from? The Bureau of your butt?

@Randy1949...There wasn't the kind of discipline problems, but you also had parents that fully supported the teachers. Now parental support is a thing of the past in many of the inner city schools.

In which case, you seem to agree that the situation in some urban schools is pretty hopeless. The students who want to learn are hindered by the ones who don't. And what do we as a society do about that?

As a society, Randy, we increase competition in education by increasing school choice, paying excellent teachers more through merit, and firing the useless bottom-feeders in both the classroom and central office. Make teachers accountable and reward excellence. Nothing will change until society (you and me) rejects excuses.

And I continue to pay the taxes that provide you with workers able to create your products. You're welcome.

I don't own Solyndra

No one is trying to limit education to the above victim classes Vicki. And get off of this 'uneducated' business, the conservatives on the board have better resumes that Lyle and pseudo intellectuals like you.

Vicki:

You seem to be pretty closed minded when it comes to reforming our public education system. Public education doesn't necessarily have to happen at a public school.

Please open your mind to the alternatives, Vicki.

I have yet to hear any real details about these 'reforms' you guys propose, other than lower paid teachers and a return to religious indoctrination at school.

If those are the details that you are hearing, then perhaps you just aren't making an honest attempt at listening...

It follows the same theme that liberals would prefer that everyone gets an "A", that all Olympic athletes get a gold medal and that the playing field is made so level that there is no reason to get up on the morning because there is no reason to challenge one's self, and the government will provide everyone the same level of support and sustenance. For that matter, everyone could spend their entire life just blogging on the Patch.

@oak creek resident....I don't catch your connection between knowledge testing and the inferiority of the liberal mind. It has been proven that some tests were biased in favor of white participants, but the majority of those have been modified to be valid over a wide range of cultural participants. It was the liberals who pushed for the reforms. Now I ask you, what is your plan for reforming public education? For a change, please be specific.

My post was about why so many high school graduates can't seem to spell or punctuate properly -- many more than would have been the case in my generation. Many college graduates have the same problem too, judging by the what I see here on the Patch.

For the record, I do think that lower test standards for 'minorities' are condescending and demeaning. Although, have you ever taken an IQ test that is geared toward the cultural literacy of another group? It's an eye opener.

@C. Sanders...You certainly have a low opinion of people. To think that dependency is the primary motivator is wrong. Government's position is to create equal opportunity, not equal outcome. For those that are destitute or unable to meet their most basic needs; we; represented by our government, step in to assure survival. For example: how can a hungry child take advantage of the opportunity to learn.

Some of chose to take the opportunity of the Patch to raise public awareness and to challenge the vitriolic positions of the extremists of the right.

@Lyle
It shows the inferior liberal mind in that it cannot connect A-B-C, it only sees one trend and immediately goes for the racism, sexist, etc cause.

If there is an achievement gap in grade school, high school, ACT/SAT testing, why the hell would there NOT be on in workplace testing? Yet the liberal mind calls any gap racist.

That, my friend, is the inferior liberal mind. I personally believe it to be a birth defect or some type of mental illness.

@Lyle

Yah the liberal "reform" was to dumb the testing down, or to make "F"s and "D"s acceptable grades, as what happened in some recent promotional PD testing in another city in order to allow blacks to advance.

Your liberal reforms make the issue worse, and is the reason america is on such a steep decline.

My reform is to kill liberal policy and do away with teacher's unions.

Heather deleted my remark yesterday that read: "Good God, bloviating has reached a new level". Apparently a little satire doesn't work here?

You have to provide a Jason-esque disclaimer in order to be allowed to do satire around here...

It's a cowards way out, liberal coward that is. Because she cannot refute the facts. she claims "HATE SPEECH" and delete it off that basis. Cowards way out and it all comes back in the end.

@Phil ... oh, thanks for clarifying that those involved with the production, sale and distribution of goods and services which grow our economy [or keep it from further shrinking] DON'T "provide for the greater good of society"? Are you an entitled free thinker that proudly benefits from the sweat of others?

@ C. Sanders -- I beg your pardon, but quite a few people get very rich organizing the sweat of others (to the tune of several million dollars of compensation per year) and doing very little sweating themselves.

@C. Sanders...In John Stewart Mill's work "Utilitarianism" he makes a cogent argument why the philosopher is entitled to what he gets from others. (1863,Mills, Utilitarianism Chapter 5).

Thus, the question becomes who's responsible for adjusting and developing attitudes? While it may not necessarily be fair to charge the teacher with such a responsibility, educators that have taken it upon themselves to do so have met with great successes and immortal fame in the face of otherwise expected failure. Jaime Escalante (Stand and Deliver (1988)), Joe Louis Clark (Lean on Me (1989)), etc, just to name a few.

Interestingly enough, both Escalante and Clark frequently clashed with and stood firmly opposed to the dictatorial controls and influence that the teachers' unions unquestionably have on our public education system.

No matter what answers to our problems with public education that we receive from the political left, there is a dominant and overriding theme - increased public funding via taxation.

Lyle himself exemplifies this point, wherein he stated "[f]unding has always been a problem and the focus has always been to provide the mere minimum," and yet, he leaves his readers wondering what his basis for comparison is. It is a fact that the US spends more money for public education on a per student basis than any other industrialized nation in the world. And yet, we continue to experience lackluster and diminishing results.

If the rest of the world can achieve better results for less money, then clearly funding is not the problem that is keeping our system down, despite the unfounded assertions of Mr. Ruble. And people such as AWD are getting fed up with throwing away their hard earned and extracted under force of penalty/imprisonment money on a broken and ineffective system, and rightfully so.

The unions that have taken over our public schools are the biggest part of the problem. Because of the unions, men like Escalante and Clark are the rare exception to the rule as opposed to the standard, as they should be. By loading up local boards of education with sympathizers, that effectively control administrations, the unions effectively insulate teachers from the reality of the situation, and thus there is never any pressure or incentive for teachers to actively engage in proper attitude adjustment of the underachieving students. And in some cases, the union even opposes such efforts made by rogue and successful teachers like Escalante, as he personally accounts in his self-authored book. One thing that you definitely NEVER heard from Escalante, Clark, and the like were gripes about compensation, working overtime without additional pay, air conditioning, being evaluated based on student performance, etc - and yet these are the primary concerns of the Chicago teacher's union in their on-going strike/battle with the board of education and City.

Another problem is selecting teachers merely on the basis of the paper they hold and setting compensation accordingly. Effective teaching is much more an art as opposed to an objective science. You can have 10 doctorate degrees to your credit and still be a crappier teacher than a dedicated high school graduate with no formal higher education.

Teaching to the test is another problem. And yet, it is something that the lazy or inexperienced teachers attempt to do an a daily basis. Instead, teachers should teach for understanding, as effective test performance results from understanding.

Yet another problem is standardized testing - but not so much the content of such tests, but rather the manner in which they're administered under the pressure of timed conditions. It also makes little sense to merely test for the regurgitation of useless memorized facts, unless the student plans on becoming a professional quiz show contestant, as opposed to testing for understanding of the material, as is exemplified in the Rodney Dangerfield comedy 'Back to School' (1986).

An overly sensitive and 'pc' environment also contributes to the problem via unnecessary government regulation of public education, as many of Escalante's and Clark's methods would be considered inappropriate if not illegal today, despite the fact that they effectively produced the results that everyone desires.

While our problems may be many, they are definitely easily fixable and can be done within the existing framework and without the need to completely re-invent the wheel. If our public education system was truly 'all about the children,' as the political left and unions commonly claims, then we wouldn't have many of the problems that currently exit. No matter what system is used, so long as it stays true to such a credo, then it will undoubtedly be successful.

Good to see you, Hoffa. A good teacher has the knack of correcting errors without completely demoralizing the student. S/he leads the student to knowledge and mastery of the subject without forcing it on them.

@Randy1949 -

Thanks for the welcome back!

Sometimes force is required as the only and most effective way to get through to certain students.

See:

Class of 1984 (1982)
Class of 1999 (1990)
Class of 1999 II: The Substitute (1994)
The Substitute (1996)
The Substitute 2: School's Out (1998)
The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All (1999)
The Substitute 4: Failure Is Not An Option (2001)

@JRH....Welcome back, I've missed your input. I agree that Escalante and Clark are both excellent examples of effective educators.

One issue I feel I need to clarify with you is that my comment concerning underfunding of education was a review of the approach that many 'Old South' states employed when forced to join the public school mandate. That tradition in many locations have persisted to this day. Wisconsin was never part of that movement and has always placed education first. I don't think we would be any more effective by throwing more money at the problem. The problem rests in the community and the group we are attempting to educate. Schools are required to educate in spite of all the social problems. Where we should be working is to solve the problems that interfere with the education process. In some instances maybe something like educational boot camps.

@Lyle -

Thanks for the welcome back! However, Hoffa will continue to be sporadic at best until the situation with his family emergency has normalized.

"That tradition in many locations have persisted to this day."

I'm curious as to the hard data on dollars spent per student in southern state school districts compared to their northern and southern counterparts. Is it really still as big of problem as you're claiming it is here?

If the data does indeed back up your position, then the low spending in the south on public education is certainly being made up for by the overspending in the north and west, as our average as a nation is still far beyond every other industrialized nation on earth. And again, for spending the most money, we're still achieving mediocre results at best!

"I don't think we would be any more effective by throwing more money at the problem."

Hoffa is glad that we can at least agree that continuing to throw money at the problem will not improve or fix anything.

"The problem rests in the community and the group we are attempting to educate. Where we should be working is to solve the problems that interfere with the education process."

The problem with this is where do we draw the line pertaining to government intervention? Is the state (people) somehow responsible for bad or negligent parenting? What role should the state play to correct such a problem? Doesn't this detriment good parents while letting bad parents off the hook?

@JRH...I am sorry to hear that your family is dealing with an emergency, my thoughts are with you.

I think, that you are perceptive with your question concerning whether or not we, as a community, have the right to intervene in parenting and family structures. This is an area that we need to debate further.