Vote for the future
There are a variety of referendums on each states ballots on Tuesday. The two that I am interested in is the legalization of marijuana in CA and the charter school budget in MA. What interests me about both of these are the pivotal direction that these bills (if passed) will shift us into the direction of our future.
Let’s begin with weed. The data is that there are multiple benefits from cannabis probably more than anyone realizes because it has been suppressed as a drug to do research on. Nobody ever overdosed on weed. Alcohol can reek more havoc on someone who is an abuser than weed. Legalizing weed gives states control over the product and the tax benefits are huge to the bottom line of state budgets. Just look to the Netherlands for what it has and hasn’t done.
Charter schools. As a product of the public school system I was very anti-charter school when they first came on the scene. I have completely turned around. Charter schools are giving kids a chance particularly kids who will end up in public schools that are just treading water vs truly helping their students be the best that they can possibly be. The public school system has many challenges. I am not convinced that it can be changed from the ground up after so many years of heavy handed unions taking the lions share of the tax dollars given to the school system. We live in a different world with kids use their fingers to swipe a screen at age 2. Perhaps the only way to blow up the school system is to have multiple competitors. There is no silver bullet in education and charter schools seems to have one in Massachusetts that is shining and working. By uncapping the amount of tax dollars driven towards the charter schools they will see another few thousands kids get an education they deserve. The long tail of that is huge.
If possible, close your eyes and think about what the world will look like in 10 years. We will be a more diverse country, weed will be accessible everywhere and used for many other things and sold across the counter like alcohol. The charter school system will have made some major headway and there will be more shared practices among all of them as some of those schools will prove that their curriculums are game changing. On another note we will have a different farming system, we will look at GMO’s differently, transportation will be a combination of more light rail, self-driving cars and high speed trains, suburbs will change, malls and retail will look very different, there will be a slew of new brands from food to clothing, and hopefully Pharma and other large lobbies won’t rule our Government.
I won’t continue but tomorrow is not only a vote for these referendums it is a vote for the future path we are already heading towards. One of the two candidates will win. Don’t toss your vote away by not voting for either of these candidates. Go out and vote. Regardless the many issues that people have with Hillary, she understands the future. Rolling us back into the past with borders, putting money back into coal, shutting down insurance for all and more is a big disconnect from where we are going including Trumps distain for women and immigrants and anything that doesn’t look like him. He is proven to be a man with very little intellectual curiosity, aka he doesn’t read. He is a bully and a liar. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself. The world has changed and we should be the leaders of that change not the latter. Ozzie and Harriet are long gone.
There is a great quote I saw that Jason Hirschhorn put on MediaRedef that speaks loud and clear. This is from Alexander the Great. “I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.”
Comments (Archived):
I looked at the amendments that made the Illinois ballot (Term limits and redistricting were ruled unconstitutional by judges appointed by Michael Madigan). My beef is with the phrasing of these things. It’s like something out of Ayn Rand. We ought to have a ballot initiative that says the lawyers that write these things up need to do it in language people can understand, not lawyerese.
As in laypersons talk
It’s hard for me to get on board with charter schools because ours is so bad (and it’s the only alternative to the public school). I actually had to pull my 1st grade daughter out of it and put her back into public school before she fell so far behind it became a nightmare. They also don’t have sufficient resources (nor apparently the will to put any resources toward) helping kids with issues like SPD (which both my kids have). How can a school ignore sensory and spectrum issues in this day and age?Ours was just one of many families to leave this year. (And it’s not one of the notorious corporate-run ones, by the way. Totally locally grown.)Our public school, on the other hand, has had an *amazing* turnaround *despite* white flight (which of course compounded its problems) and out performs the charter school significantly and consistently. I would recommend it to anyone (and it’s majority low-income Hispanic — completely defying the odds). Proof that solid leadership can turn around a school district when that leadership has enough funds and the support of the community.My husband is a public school teacher, and here’s what he tells me: any school can suck, private, public or charter (as we’ve learned first hand). Any one of them can fall victim to cronyism and graft. My husband works in a district with *one school* right now, in a highly populated area of NJ. It’s all about the people involved.I don’t believe that profit motive makes everything better. Sometimes, just deciding to be the best and doing that is what works. People will probably nitpick this example, but the early U.S. space program is a great example. There’s no doubt that the information age requires a serious re-thinking and overhauling of our education system. But we have to consider paying teachers what they’re worth before we can ask them to turn their way of doing things on its head. Right now teachers are stretched to the max. Sure, there are teachers who suck. But there are many more great teachers that we’re lucky to have considering how much it sucks to be a teacher right now.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c… The Glass Ceiling will be Shattered tomorrow night!
let’s hope!
.Nobody ever overdosed on weed?Lots of kids, high on weed, decided to try a more potent drug like heroin.I went to a memorial service for a kid who made that mistake. He was a beautiful young man, full of promise and with the world, literally, at his feet.He lies moldering in the ground and the factor of safety was ten seconds. Ten seconds of bad decision making while under the influence of weed. Stuck a needle in his arm while high on weed.Be careful whose kid you kill, cause it might be yours.It was a beautiful service except for how sad everyone was. How much pain was there and how many tears were shed. How avoidable it might have been.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…