OPP Newsletter

dkylady11

there you go government at work support drug heads and over paid sports figures and shout out Education and we wonder whats wrong with our kids today .. just don't make since to me .......

mmccarty12 Loc: Zionsville, Indiana

The arena is going to be built at a University. The children who might have attended the University are already too stupid to attend because of pathetic Unionized teachers and even worse curriculum requirements to pass. Now they are going to close schools, making it harder for the children to have a "FAIR" chance to get educated.

But the idiots in power think that those uneducated, or under-educated, children will eventually have enough discretionary money to buy tickets to see the games. Also, the new taxes that will be implemented to pay off the debt of the arena will come off the incomes and spending of those same children, so the only ones losing are the children. What do they care?

The teachers in Chicago go on strike and the hew and cry is "What about the children?" from the politicians. They work feverishly to give the Unions what they want to get the children back in school. You have got to love a priority system such as theirs.

oldroy Loc: Western Kansas (No longer in hiding)

How overpaid are the basketball players at DePaul University? I don't know many that are overpaid compared to what the schools make off their efforts.

I am very much against this Rahm Emanuel pushed thing but do think that you may not know just how much those college kids are overpaid. Now if he was spending that money on a pro team I would scream overpaid with you.

mmccarty12 Loc: Zionsville, Indiana

DePaul University is a private university of higher education and research in Chicago, Illinois, United States.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DePaul_University

Why is a private school receiving public dollars? I thought that was the purpose of hitting up alumni for donations.

How is the city going to revamp the losses from this investment? There is no reason that I can see that should allow public dollars to go to this school.

straightUp Loc: California

Not that hard to figure out... How much revenue can you get from 50 public schools? None. How much can you get from a fancy basketball arena? Plenty!

It's not just Chicago - it's America. The only country in the developed world that pooh-pooh's ANYTHING that doesn't generate a profit.

...and it's nothing new either.

I am a first generation American, my father was actually invited to this country by scouts who went to England looking for talent for the aerospace industry. When we came here we settled in a town outside of Los Angeles which was basically the center of the American aerospace industry at the time (and still is to a large extent). Almost all my freinds at school were the children of foreign engineers and scientists.

So why would a U.S. corporation want to pay for a public education system, when it can just pick up the finished products from Europe or Asia? And the American people? Well, quite frankly, the American people have just been following the corporate sermon anyway and half of them don't even realize it.

I remember how infuriated my father was with the education available to me and my brother. He used to swear he was going to send us back to England to get a decent education. Too bad he didn't.

Later in life, I did some traveling (not in the isolation of Club Med or the military either...) I noticed a drastic difference between how people in Europe and Asia view education versus how Americans view it. For sure, we ALL think education is *important*, but Europeans and Asians are willing to back that sentiment up with funding; Americans aren't.

Why?

Because in Europe and Asia, what people DO is still very important, where over here... what matters more is what people MAKE... as in how much MONEY they make.

This is why the French have an oversupply of doctors and the Germans have an oversupply of engineers, while in America the only oversupply we have is business majors - otherwise known as the "easiest path to the most money" - "hopefully".

American industries are quite happy plucking talent from more educated populations in other countries, so there's no real drive to improve public education despite all the lip service by politicians that see education as a touch point for election campaigns.

Also, before I get slammed with "American has the best universities in the world" argument... I know... Well, some of the best universtities in the world. But that's explained by the fact that unlike public schools, these top-rated universities are profit-making businesses, hence the sky-rocketing tuitions. They are also available to anyone in the world with enough money, so it falls outside the category of what a nation, or state is willing to pay to educate it's people.

oldroy Loc: Western Kansas (No longer in hiding)

Didn't your father realize that not all states were doing what California was doing? What you say here tells me that he was more worried about making money than about the education of his children. Can't you ever think about things like this?

straightUp Loc: California

We spent some time in Colorado (Martin Marrieta) and found the education there mildly improved. Then later again he moved to PA (RCA in NJ) Where my brother went to school... I was 17 so I stayed in CA with the surf, the sunshine and the hot girls ;) My father was still dissappointed with the schools in PA. So, yes, it varies from state to state, but our experience tells us that at least 3 states have education systems that fall far behind what you find in England. I've had years to think about this and I did some study in that time and from what I can tell, none of the 50 states come close to the public education in Europe or Asia, and as far as I can tell it's all for the same basic reasons.

From what I know (I could be wrong), New York has the best public education in the nation, but then again they pay the most for it too. I guess you do get what you pay for.

You are correct about my father's choice. Actually, I think it was his career more than the money, becoming a predominate figure in the industry meant a lot to him.