If Education in Arkansas was a ship, it would be called the Titanic
February 23, 2023
I am a Baby Boomer. For you young folks in the audience, that means I am old. Our generation currently makes up about 22% of the population with around 10,000 of us a day turning 65. That means we are getting really old. By 2030, all of us will be at least 65.
I retired from teaching in 2021. I was blessed to spend my 36 year career in my hometown. My father taught there for 38 years and my mother 41. We loved it. I have three adult children but only one of them chose to go into education as a career. This last year, 20 of my fellow teachers, out of a staff of around 50 at the high school, also either retired or went somewhere else.
I share this to highlight that a crisis is looming in our state as the forewarned teacher shortage evolves to full bloom. It is well documented that in the next 4-5 years, there will be more teachers retiring and leaving the field than we currently have people enrolled in teacher education programs in Arkansas. We are also told that 4% of our teachers don’t currently hold a state teaching license compared...
It is the kind of rhetoric that is being spewed by Donald Trump and the extreme right-wing in this nation that is more dangerous to the United States than anything ISIS or any other terrorist group can do to us. Trump's simplistic yet harmful call to ban members of an entire religion plays right into the goals of our enemies and makes the nation less safe not more so.
Many are pointing to President Carter’s ban on Iranians traveling into the United States during the Iranian Hostage Crisis as a defense for Trumps bigotry. There is a significant difference between placing pressure on a nation for its policies and holding a billion people responsible for the actions of thousands. Jimmy Carter is an excellent man and took actions during the Hostage Crisis designed to pressure a government. Ultimately it failed but it was directed at a specific target not an entire religion.
Trump and the extreme right-wing of this nation are playing to the most extreme fears of our people and in doing so are helping our enemies to achieve what they could never achieve against us on their own. And that is to get us to abandon out most...
The idiocy of right-wing presidential candidates is a threat to our great nation. When you have charlatans like Huckabee preaching against service in our military and traitors like Tom Cotton appealing to our enemies to not negotiate with our President and fanatics like Ted Cruz championing the use of armed rebellion to overturn election results, the Republican Party has become the home of every fool in the nation who would prefer living in a political system like Somalia"s instead of the one created by our Founding Fathers and fine-tuned over time into the greatest nation in history.
It is a myth that has gained control of many on the Right in this country that the law is not on the side of the people. It is an outright lie to claim our nation is anywhere close to communism. The worst force to hit the USA has been Fox News because of the way it forced the news industry to become entertainment instead of informational. As a result, the more outlandish the story, the more some are willing to believe there is a secret conspiracy to overthrow our freedom by liberals. What has now happened is the most uneducated people in our country have the loudest voice in the Republican Party. When the rising tide of dumb drowns out all reason, our nation is in peril.Those who wear the badge take on a special responsibility and because they are human many fail to uphold their oath. The news is filled with stories detailing those failures. Some choose to see those stories as a condemnation of all law enforcement but I see it as a reaffirmation that our system works. In a true police state no such accounts would be published and those who spoke against those in...[More]
Twas the morning before classes, when all through the school Not a student was stirring, not even a fool. The announcements were hung by the office with care, In hopes that graduation soon would be there.
The children were huddled all snug in their chairs, While visions of tassels danced in their heads. And Susie in her mischief had her cell phone in her lap, Little Ben had just settled in for a ...long morning nap.
When out on the parking lot there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my chair to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The sun on the hood of the bright red Tahoe Gave the luster of mid-day to objects below. When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a premature day, and nine tiny John Deere.
With little ole seniors, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be a senior prank. More rapid than Eagles their mowers they came, And they whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!
"Now Cole! now, Colton! now, Aaron and Taylor! On, Eren! On,...
Power in the hands of man is always subject to abuse and corruption but only under our system of government do the people have a voice in bringing it under control. Too many hide behind flourishes of rhetoric in condemning the last, best hope of mankind which is our government. For those who have grievances against the system, and I am sure there are many, our Founders provided an effective way for the people to address and correct them. But it requires true Patriots who are willing to roll up their sleeves and wade into the political arena to make it work. Life is what we make it; not what we wish it would be. Sitting on the sidelines chanting a “Pox on both your houses” neither solves anything nor inspires others to rise up to a higher level.Grade school tactics used by the Right-wing in this country such as substituting derogatory words in the place of the correct ones in titles such as Clinton News Network or National Propaganda Radio is no substitute for ideas and fails to illicit legitimate ideas of reform from those who choose to take up such a challenge. The folly is not in... [More]
Ron Paul and his simplistic view of the world certainly doesn't scare me but his positions on too many issues are not based on reason. For example, look at his positions on healthcare. Paul rails against Obama's plan as if the government backed program would diminish the quality of our healthcare system. Yet, it was the private-market system that has been driving our country to bankruptcy sucking one out of every five dollars into its gluttonous abyss. There are certain areas which should be within the public realm; such as, national defense, police, fire, EMS, and many believe, medical. He favors allowing citizens to purchase insurance across state lines but fails to articulate how he would address the problem which has prevented it from being done in the past which deals with regulation. Currently, states regulate the policies provided within their borders but by allowing them to cross state lines that will require federal regulation. His opposition to mandatory catastrophic insurance coverage means that those of us who have insurance will continue to have to subsidize the freeloaders who do not. I agree with many of his foreign policy positions but I believe he is wrong about Afghanistan. Iran and...[More]
Corporations paying $0 is hardly fair. Spend some time examining the US Census data and other academic research and you will find a more accurate picture as to what is going on in this country. While the poverty rate is climbing in this nation as a result of the Bush years, income distribution is being amassed at the top with very little able to trickle down to the masses. The statistics tell the story powerfully. The top 1% of our population controls 34.6% of the wealth with the next 19% controlling 50.5%. That means that 80% of our nation must exist on 15% of the money supply. It is an inequality that is anti-American and reeks of a new monarchial-style society where the rich take the position that God wills them rich and the poor to live in shanties and trash heaps. Or perhaps, your ranting against the failed Communist system is merely a ruse to misdirect us from your true sympathies. It very well could be a dastardly plan to mimic various aspects of the the old Soviet style economic system where all were equal but some more equal than others. At some point, We the People, will tire...
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Many on the Right miss the noble beauty of what our Founding Fathers established when they wrote the Constitution. We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Having just survived Shay's Rebellion, they knew how important it was to promote the general welfare of all of our citizens if we were to distinguish ourselves from the tyrants of the present and the past. It is not muddle-headed philanthrapy to provide social programs to protect those in a society who cannot care for themselves. It is good policy to insure domestic tranquility. The sad rallying cry of the Republican Party right now is a solid committment to preventing Democrats from raising taxes on the billionaires while screaming to cut safety net programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. History is packed with example, after bloody example, of societies which have had a small group who controlled all wealth while the masses were oppressed. Praise God, that in the United...
Not surprisingly, the minions at the Fox Infotainment Division continue to champion the repeal of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, and every other program created by the Democratic Party to protect the poor and middle class in this country. The Murdochites proudly call for increased protection for billionaires at the expense of everyone else in our nation.
Only 23% of high school students in Oklahoma could name the 1st President & now Glenn Beck thinks that the part of the Constitution that allowed Congress to tax the importation was meant to charge immigrants for moving to this country. "If a... nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Interesting questions being generated concerning the detainees at Gitmo. One of the most interesting deals with those suspects that we have openly acknowledged we tortured. The question is if charges against former President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are filed in the World Court would and should the United States honor those charges and produce the defendants for trial. If not, what would be the ramifications to our foreign policy? If so, what would be the domestic reaction to handing over even unpopular American leaders to a world tribunal?
Like millions of people, I have had a good chuckle or two at the expense of our fellow citizens who consistently have raised the alarm against Barack Obama and John McCain as secret operatives planted here to trigger the overthrow of our nation. On the face of it, our dear friends appear to have been a tad late in receiving their medication. After all, what kind of nut would think that if Obama was a plant by the Islamic extremists to enslave our proud land, the mullahs would not have named him Ralph Cramden or Joe Plumber in order to throw us off guard? And what kind of lunatic would believe that John McCain had been brainwashed by the Communists nearly 40 years ago just so that some day his handlers could use him to destroy our economy? Absurd. Ludicrous. Or is it?
Last week’s Letter to the Editor and plenty of unsupervised time on the Internet has led me to the startling revelation that our nation is at risk from a secret attack. The heroic work of the brave Alaskans who revealed Palin’s ties to the Alaskan Separatist Movement were my first clue to the puzzle. Watching her...
As I have observed this season's political parade of primaries, caucuses, and now debates, I have rather smugly recognized that the concept of a minority or a woman being our President holds no concern for me whatsoever. I am not afraid that the election of Barack Obama will lead to an Andrew Jackson style romp through the White House or if Hillary had been the nominee, I don't feel estrogen carriers everywhere would have posted bounties on testosterone carriers in a bid to control our population.
However, after having watched Sarah Palin's performances in interviews and the debate, I can tell you I am deathly afraid that stupid will once again inhabit the reins of power at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. One would think our nation's experiment with perpetual ignorance would have lost its popularity even with the anti-intelligent evangelical crowd in this country. Then again, I could be wrong. These are the people who knowingly voted for Bush twice when they disagreed with his policies and recognized his IQ placed him somewhere between Dan Quayle and a squash because he was a good Christian. They are apparently under the impression that Jesus finds intelligence and rational thought to be offensive....
Having labored through watching the Republican National Convention and their array of right-wing, anti-education speakers, I remain dumbfounded by the evangelical commitment to ignorance as a civil right. Speakers like Bill Bennett’s acknowledgement that you probably won’t find many university professor’s lining up to support the McCain-Palin ticket because they’re all liberal elitists and Mike Huckabee who steadfastly holds to the position that every major scientific organization in the world is wrong about evolution and that he and his ultra-conservative home school cronies are right because God told them so have reinforced my long held belief that Jesus is probably shaking His head at them right now and wondering whether or not mankind will ever get it.I am a liberal, hard-core Christian who believes to my very core that Jesus died for my sins and through Him I have salvation. That said, I can’t help but believe that once we arrive in Heaven, there must be some form of remediation for my evangelical brothers and sisters who simply never understood the message of our Savior. Next to our salvation, the greatest gift provided to us by our Creator is the ability to think and to reason. Yet, the more...[More]
