Mitt Romney stated that class size does not matter. Has Romney ever set foot in a classroom besides dropping off his own children when they were little? It boggles my mind how out of touch a politician can be with the realities of real people’s lives. It reminds me of George H.W. Bush being amazed [...]
Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
Romney Says Class Size Doesn’t Matter
Posted in Education, Political, Uncategorized, tagged Class Size, Education, Romney on May 26, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
California Proposed Budget 2012-2013
Posted in Education, Political, tagged California Budget on May 20, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
In a previous post I railed about the California budget, and how we were valuing prison systems over education. In the meantime, the governor has released the May Revise of the 2012-13 Budget. The general fund expenditures are $92.6 billion. Here are how the allocations are broken down into the major components: This shows that [...]
Facebook and the California Budget
Posted in Education, Political on May 19, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Earlier this week I sat attended the Spring Institute of the Child Development Policy Institute and heard about the devastating effect the current California budget and the governor’s proposals are likely to have on education in California and early education in particular. The day after was the Facebook IPO. With the company valued at around $100 billion, [...]
Decline in Education in California
Posted in Education on April 24, 2012 | 1 Comment »
In the mid 1960ies, California was ranked fifth in the United States in per pupil spending on education. During those years, California built one of the finest university systems and community college systems in the country. People from other countries and states came to California to learn how to implement colleges. The people of California [...]
School Days Around the World
Posted in Education on April 20, 2012 | 2 Comments »
I believe the value a society or a nation places on education is related to the success of that nation. On the left is a chart of countries and the number of school days. I have collected this information from several disconnected sources and established the table. It does not show all nations, and the numbers are [...]
Time to Start Learning Chinese
Posted in China, Education on March 15, 2012 | 1 Comment »
Xinhua Net reported that there were almost 300 million people learning English in China in 2007. The entire population of England in 2007 was 51 million. Six times as many Chinese are learning English as there are people in England. I think it’s time that I started learning Chinese.
U.S. Spends $11.6 Billion Training Afghans
Posted in Commentaries, Education on December 6, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
According to USA Today: U.S. taxpayers foot the bill for training and equipping Afghan security forces. That cost was $9.2 billion in fiscal year 2010, $11.6 billion in 2011 and $11.2 billion for 2012. Construction and equipment account for about half the bills but will ebb as most forces will be housed and outfitted over [...]
35 States Apply for Race to the Top Funding
Posted in Education, Political on October 24, 2011 | 1 Comment »
This country does not have a terror problem, a war problem, a budget problem per se. It has an education problem, which is decades old and is not being addressed properly. We’re dumbing down and falling behind, and it’s starting with your infants and toddlers in early education, it continues in elementary education and goes [...]
Book Review: Outliers: The Story of Success – by Malcolm Gladwell
Posted in Books, Education on June 30, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Outliers talks about brilliance of talent or performance in our society that we regard as the ultimate success. What do the top NFL football players, the most brilliant scientific minds like Einstein, the tycoons of business like Bill Gates and top music groups like the Beatles have in common? They reached the ultimate pinnacle of success [...]
Cuts to Education in California
Posted in Commentaries, Education on December 14, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
The governor announced additional cuts to education in California. “The state cannot give what it does not have,” Brown said after expressing the same sentiment in Latin. “And there’s been a lot of obfuscation and gimmickry, and I’ve reduced that to a minimum, if I do say so. I don’t want to rely on pushing [...]
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