School Reforms

As a current high school student, the thought of more days of school as well and longer hours at school makes my stomach turn. As much as i agree that its technically unnecessary that we have summers off, people need to remember that were just kids still and need to have some fun in our lives. Having activities like dance and karate on campus would be ideal for some but a nightmare for others. Some kids all around hate school and would rather do those kinds of things elsewhere and some buinesses may even suffer too. Force feeding "fun" down kids throats will only make them puke.
What about jobs? The more hours we have to stay in school, the less hours we have to work to earn money for gas, car insurance, etc. No one is going to want to hire someone who can barely work during the week. If you take away our summers to then no teenagers will find a decent paying job all year.
Yes, there are kids who fall behind but everyone else shouldn't be punished for that. They can take summer school or get a tutor or one of the many other options out there. I feel like once people graduate and become adult they forget how they felt when they were in school, but since it doesn't effect them anymore they don't care. No one wants to be in school longer then they have to not even teachers.
This method has been used since school first began and its created great scholars, scientists, and politicians. So if its working so well why does it need to be changed? i think we have bigger issues to worry about then school reforms.

"Straw Men"

I have to agree with the author when we says that people can be very ignorant about a lot of various topics. The school board official who hated computers and characterized them as expensive toys that promoted laziness, liberalism, and pornography, should definatly not be on the school board. Each year the point of new technology is to use it to grow and make more new technology to help better the future. staying in the stone age helps no one.

I love when he says, "We are a nation of consumers who see facts as a commodity to be processed, packaged, and presented according to our tastes. Any fact that leaves a bad taste is rejected; any half-truth or bald-faced lie that conforms to our preferences is gobbled up without question." Everyone in a position of power just do what they please and don't seem to care about the consequences. Like how President Obama can have the General Electric CEO help "reform" the corporate tax structure even when they paid no taxes at all.

I agree with the argument about the new nuclear power plants that are suppose to be built in California. Senator Alexander's argument about how 'we don't abandon highways, bridges, and planes so why would we abandon nuclear power plants,' its well thought out at all. All American was really asking him was to not build them on fault lines instead of not build them at all but i guess that was too hard of a concept to grasp. Something I've learned over the years is that you can never win an argument with an idiot.