Governer's Race

[EagleD]

According to wikipedia there are quite a few candidates and some yet to come. Odds are it comes down to Kay Bailey and Rick Perry in the republican race. I don't think any Dem has enough star power to win and if Kinky runs as an independent, he'll just split the left vote. Personally, I'd like Chris Bell to run again, but he won't. Next to that, it's Ronnie Earl on the left. In the primary I'm likely to vote for Kay Bailey. I don't agree with her on many issues, but much like Ron Paul, I respect the decision making. Rick Perry on the other hand...pppfffft.

Anybody interested?

[KingDL1]

According to wikipedia there are quite a few candidates and some yet to come. Odds are it comes down to Kay Bailey and Rick Perry in the republican race. I don't think any Dem has enough star power to win and if Kinky runs as an independent, he'll just split the left vote. Personally, I'd like Chris Bell to run again, but he won't. Next to that, it's Ronnie Earl on the left. In the primary I'm likely to vote for Kay Bailey. I don't agree with her on many issues, but much like Ron Paul, I respect the decision making. Rick Perry on the other hand...pppfffft.

Anybody interested?

As a conservative and a registered Republican I don't really know, I used to like Kay Bailey quite a bit, but I am not sure about her these days and Perry doesn't do much for me. Kinky is just a circus act and a waste of time. Is Ron Paul in this Race or are you just saying?

[TheTastyGreek]

Wikipedia's list doesn't include Bill Lawrence on the Republican side.

Not that I'd give him any chance of winning... But the guy is in the race.

[GreenBat]

Perry has received the endorsement of the Alaska Governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

This alone should sink Perry in Republican party. They are attempting to distance themselves from Palin. They would not even let her speak at a fundraiser, at least that's what Fox News said.

[NT03]

Mr Ed

[Mean Green 93-98]

Perry has received the endorsement of the Alaska Governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

This alone should sink Perry in Republican party. They are attempting to distance themselves from Palin. They would not even let her speak at a fundraiser, at least that's what Fox News said.

I don't think too many people are trying to distance themselves from Palin. She almost made a washed-up has-been President. There have been some issues with her choosing not to be the keynote speaker at a major Republican fundraiser. She was willing to be a speaker, but they felt that she would overshadow the keynote speaker if that happened.

[Side Show Joe]

I'll be voting for Perry, barring any unforeseen political scandal. The man signed the bill that will allow us to build our new stadium. Texas has a balanced budget. And Rick Perry is thumbing his nose at Washington. That's my kind of governor.

[EagleD]

Is Ron Paul in this Race or are you just saying?

Not that I'm aware of. I'm just citing him as an example of a conservative I don't agree with, but respect his thinking process.

[DeepGreen]

I'll be voting for Perry, barring any unforeseen political scandal. The man signed the bill that will allow us to build our new stadium. Texas has a balanced budget. And Rick Perry is thumbing his nose at Washington. That's my kind of governor.

I'm not a Perry fan, but him signing the bill that will get us a stadium is enough to get my vote.

[SilverEagle]

Mr Ed

That would certainly be a better choice than Gov. good hair. I find KBH (aka the Breck girl..thank you Molly Ivins for that nickname) to be a better choice than just about any of them.

This puts me in mind of one of the student body president elections one year when I was attending North Texas. One of the candidates listed his name as "King Bizzaro"........I voted for him.

[KRAM1]

Too early for me...not a big fan of Yay BH, but also not overly excited about Mr. Texas A&M at the helm any longer...but, signing the "stadium" bill for UNT is a BIGGIE for me and Texas does have a balanced budget...that is enough to snag my vote UNLESS a nother candiate comes along that I can really get excited about.

Interesting how all the liberal leaning folks like to throw little negative nicknames out and still jump on Palin, etc., etc. Very sad that these folks can't get a new line once in awhile. Just saying...come up with something original...it might just be funny.

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

--Anyone but Perry. He may the worst ever for education (my profession).

[KRAM1]

--Anyone but Perry. He may the worst ever for education (my profession).

I don't diagree with you there, but isn't "no child left behind" a federal governement initiative? When you couple that with Perry's education policies you really get a mess on your hands. Time to allow our teachers to teach.

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

I don't disagree with you there, but isn't "no child left behind" a federal government initiative? When you couple that with Perry's education policies you really get a mess on your hands. Time to allow our teachers to teach.

---The Texas testing program is all Texas... and not a Federal deal. I supported the original TABS test [Texas Assessment of Basic Skills, passed about 1976 ] which did just that.. tested basic skills so no one could be graduating illiterates. Since then our politicians (either party) keep making it more difficult and even more crazy and testing odd topics that have little to do with most people's post high school life. They do it just to claim they are improving education.. which in fact is hurting it. Plus it is expensive and diverts money from real education.

--- I am no longer in public schools and have not been for 12 years and have no kids in school either... so I have nothing at stake... The State Testing program is awful and harmful to true education.

--- As for Perry, he has continually cut state funding which has caused local property taxes to rise... plus college tuition has really skyrocketed under him because of his decline in funding. [ He claimed they allowed colleges to set their own tuition to make them competitive... Bull-crap ... they did it to make up for what he cut from the state college budget in order to for them to survive ] He even vetoed insurance of community college instructors.... and we are very cheap to the state.... since local taxes provide most of the support... He is awful, no governor has been worse for education... college or public schools.

---No child left behind was a Bush deal... not good either... but we in Texas had this testing before he was Governor or President. He was bad for education too but not near as bad as Perry.. He just made the problem in Texas a national problem.

--Some want to think it should be used to evaluate teachers... BS. Not every teacher has the same kids with the same ability or background. If OU beats Idaho State this year 31-20, should the Idaho State Coach be fired... his numbers were not as good...... Of course he has a program that was 2-11 last in in a lower division (non-BCS) and would have played a top BCS team. The same applies to education. I want to teach in Plano and not some South Dallas district if the testing is to be a judge of how I am doing. This testing and evaluation is nuts.

Edited June 30, 2009 by SCREAMING EAGLE-66

[cwb]

66,

this is probably a simpleton question and will make me look bad for not following more closely, but where has all the money from the state lottery gone? Wasn't it supposed to save the schools?

[UNTFan23]

--Some want to think it should be used to evaluate teachers... BS. Not every teacher has the same kids with the same ability or background.

If teachers shouldn't be evaluated on how their students perform on a standardized test, what should they be evaluated on?

[EagleD]

66,

this is probably a simpleton question and will make me look bad for not following more closely, but where has all the money from the state lottery gone? Wasn't it supposed to save the schools?

I'm pretty sure money from lottery sales goes into the general fund. Politicians from both sides of the aisle did not want it to fund education b/c that revenue stream is uncertain.

[Side Show Joe]

--Anyone but Perry. He may the worst ever for education (my profession).

I'm a teacher in a Title 1 school. Perry is not the problem with education. Funding is not the problem with education.

Here is a list of the most pressing problems with education today.

1. How funds can be used and creative math: Schools have three sources of funding and are told how these funds can be spent. Money from the general school fund can only be spent a certain way. Money from property taxes can only be spent on certain expenses. Bond election money can only can only be spent on the projects they were specified for. Then the districts use creative math to appear to meet state standards like only averaging 22 students in a classroom.

If districts had the freedom to apply funds where they were needed, instead of spending them where federal and state government tells them to, hopefully school districts would stop trying to raise property taxes all the time. If we had an honest standardized formula for creating a true average for the number of students in a classroom, these districts would be exposed for cramming 30 to 40 kids in some classrooms. This is probably the biggest problem in public education, and no one really talks about it. when there are that many students in a classroom, the quality of learning really goes down. Every classroom in mt school got new Promethean boards this year. We didn't need them. The kids think they are cool, but I can't see where they have improved the learning tin the room. They cost $10,000 each, and are in about 25 rooms. I feel the $250,000 could have been better spent in other areas. In most cases I think most textbook adoptions are a waste of money. Reading textbooks and math textbooks shouldn't need to be adopted as often as the are. A little time and some duct tape can fix most problems with old textbooks. Science textbooks are constantly changing and need to be adopted regularly.

2. Administration: Administrators are too far removed from the classroom. Many of these people are academics who couldn't cut it in the classroom anyway, and went back to college because they wanted more money and away from the kids. And, there's way to many of them. They eat up far too much of districts budgets. With school districts hurting for money, they are trying to be more efficient, and cut some of these unnecessary administrators. This makes me mad, because they never should have hired them in the first place.

Place these administrator's offices in the schools where they can see what is really happening. This move would also drive out bad teacher who move on to become bad administrators. Get rid of the administrative buildings and save money.

3. Parents: Parents need to be held accountable for their children's education. Too many parents go into schools when their kid gets in trouble and defend their kid to school officials. When I was a kid my folks never sided with me when I was in trouble. They need to stop being their friends and start being their parents.

4. Get rid of the TAKS test: I see teachers all day long who spend every hour of class time preparing students for that test. Our whole idea of education is wrong. We need to focus on teaching students how to learn, so they can research, think in abstract ways and find solutions on their own.

5. Get rid of bad teachers: Some people shouldn't be teachers. There needs to be a fair way to assess a teacher's ability, that is not connected to the students ability. Almost any teacher will look good with the gifted kids.

I'm tired of rambling, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but my point is, the system itself is the problem. I don't blame Perry for working within a system the federal government demands.

For the record my school did make the Recognized category for the year.

[Buford_Julep]

Interesting how all the liberal leaning folks like to throw little negative nicknames out and still jump on Palin, etc., etc. Very sad that these folks can't get a new line once in awhile. Just saying...come up with something original...it might just be funny.

It is the McCain campaign staff that is slinging the mud all over Palin and her family, not the liberals. Palin is the liberals' favorite GOP candidate.

Edited July 1, 2009 by Buford_Julep

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

66,

this is probably a simpleton question and will make me look bad for not following more closely, but where has all the money from the state lottery gone? Wasn't it supposed to save the schools?

--EagleD (above) is exactly right... It went into the General Fund... which funds education. It may have been additional money early on but as time passed they just reduced other taxes so education wound back up exactly where it was.... It just did nothing to help education. Also the state spends a lot more on prisons that it once did as well. ..... which cuts into the amount available in the general fund for education.

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

I'm a teacher in a Title 1 school. Perry is not the problem with education. Funding is not the problem with education.

Here is a list of the most pressing problems with education today.

1. How funds can be used and creative math: Schools have three sources of funding and are told how these funds can be spent. Money from the general school fund can only be spent a certain way. Money from property taxes can only be spent on certain expenses. Bond election money can only can only be spent on the projects they were specified for. Then the districts use creative math to appear to meet state standards like only averaging 22 students in a classroom.

If districts had the freedom to apply funds where they were needed, instead of spending them where federal and state government tells them to, hopefully school districts would stop trying to raise property taxes all the time. If we had an honest standardized formula for creating a true average for the number of students in a classroom, these districts would be exposed for cramming 30 to 40 kids in some classrooms. This is probably the biggest problem in public education, and no one really talks about it. when there are that many students in a classroom, the quality of learning really goes down. Every classroom in mt school got new Promethean boards this year. We didn't need them. The kids think they are cool, but I can't see where they have improved the learning tin the room. They cost $10,000 each, and are in about 25 rooms. I feel the $250,000 could have been better spent in other areas. In most cases I think most textbook adoptions are a waste of money. Reading textbooks and math textbooks shouldn't need to be adopted as often as the are. A little time and some duct tape can fix most problems with old textbooks. Science textbooks are constantly changing and need to be adopted regularly.

2. Administration: Administrators are too far removed from the classroom. Many of these people are academics who couldn't cut it in the classroom anyway, and went back to college because they wanted more money and away from the kids. And, there's way to many of them. They eat up far too much of districts budgets. With school districts hurting for money, they are trying to be more efficient, and cut some of these unnecessary administrators. This makes me mad, because they never should have hired them in the first place.

Place these administrator's offices in the schools where they can see what is really happening. This move would also drive out bad teacher who move on to become bad administrators. Get rid of the administrative buildings and save money.

3. Parents: Parents need to be held accountable for their children's education. Too many parents go into schools when their kid gets in trouble and defend their kid to school officials. When I was a kid my folks never sided with me when I was in trouble. They need to stop being their friends and start being their parents.

4. Get rid of the TAKS test: I see teachers all day long who spend every hour of class time preparing students for that test. Our whole idea of education is wrong. We need to focus on teaching students how to learn, so they can research, think in abstract ways and find solutions on their own.

5. Get rid of bad teachers: Some people shouldn't be teachers. There needs to be a fair way to assess a teacher's ability, that is not connected to the students ability. Almost any teacher will look good with the gifted kids.

I'm tired of rambling, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but my point is, the system itself is the problem. I don't blame Perry for working within a system the federal government demands.

For the record my school did make the Recognized category for the year.

-- Most what you say is exactly correct. (likely I am older and have seen more and know how it once was)

1.-- As I said politicians pass bills to claim they are helping education and often the opposite is true. they just want to get re-elected.

2.-- Administrators are often years out of the classroom and don't get it. Oddly people used to criticize coaches being administrators but in truth they often were not the smartest guys in the building but they had leadership qualities and often did pretty well. My gripe was those administrators and counselors that had never taught basic classes... They just did not understand those kids and where they were coming from..

3.-- So many single parent families now and not good home supervison in many of those situations or two parent families either. Parent often do not want to take responsibilty and just blame teachers when they kids are out of control.

4. AMEN --The Taks test is awful and takes away from true education especially in regular classes, not so in advanced ones, those kids will pass it anyway. the original TABS (basic skills test) served a good purpose... then the politicians screwed it up..

5.-- Bad teachers.. yes there are some.. but then again when my sons made more their first day of work in industry than I was making when I retired.... Why would they teach? Schools get what they pay for. When I quit the number of male math/science teachers had really dropped in number. Most were now women who taught so they could be with their kids in summer. Many were very good, but some were not really qualified to teach upper level classes but were assigned to them. Some middle and high school classes are being taught by people who should not be there (elementary certified) but no qualified ones exist. Schools get what they pay for.

6.-- Additional... there are so many kids that come from non-or poor English speaking families now... Often there is no parental pressure by them to achieve. Also.. I notice a big difference as time passed because TV went to dozens of channels when earlier there were very few as distractions. Toss in video games and the fact that some kids just play them constantly and pay no attention to school work.... and their learning suffers.

The best students are as good or better than ever... the average student is far worse. ... I get to teach them at the college level.

-- I find it hard to believe anyone in education can defend Perry... especially if they pay any attention to what has been happening at the state level.... also No-Child-Behind was a Bush program who had earlier been the Governor in Texas and took some of our Texas political ideas with him. It is all about claiming to do something...not really doing it. Having said that.. Bush was great compared to Perry et. al.

Edited July 1, 2009 by SCREAMING EAGLE-66

[The Fake Lonnie Finch]

I'll be voting for Perry, barring any unforeseen political scandal. The man signed the bill that will allow us to build our new stadium. Texas has a balanced budget. And Rick Perry is thumbing his nose at Washington. That's my kind of governor.

Amen to all of that. Perry again in 2010 - it even rhymes. And, I hope Chris Bell does run and get his butt whipped again. There's nothing like watching a plaintiffs' attorney get throttled in public.

[yyz28]

Amen to all of that. Perry again in 2010 - it even rhymes. And, I hope Chris Bell does run and get his butt whipped again. There's nothing like watching a plaintiffs' attorney get throttled in public.

This.

[EagleGreen]

I'm voting for the first one to wear green unless it is KBH. I wrote her a couple of times and recieved the same stamped letter each time (i.e., she blew me off).

[KRAM1]

I'm voting for the first one to wear green unless it is KBH. I wrote her a couple of times and recieved the same stamped letter each time (i.e., she blew me off).

Who knew?