Point of Order Ladies and Gentlemen...

...Last night I listened to Senator Obama talk about a "$4,000 per year grant" for students attending any 4-year degree program. Question 1, where is this money going to come from? Question 2, with college costs spiraling upward far above the inflation rate, won't this in effect lose value over a 4-year period? Question 3, will this apply to graduate studies and other post-graduate work? Question 4, in preparing students for college and to prevent a distillation of standards through local lunacy (i.e. teaching "intelligent design"), what is the plan for standardizing standards and curricula nationally in the K-12 system without resorting to the stupidity of "teaching the test?"

Discussion encouraged, flames ignored.

...basically reviving Bubba's old "Americorps" program.


Barack is running the Big Dawg's 1992 campaign... almost exactly... the "Man from Hope".....


...and neither Hillary, nor the Republicans know how to counter that... just like Papa Bush didn't know in '92.

...what form of public service? Military? Forest service fighting fires? Molecular biology at NIH?

...he said it was "community service" and listed things like working with Big Brother/Sister programs mentoring youth, cleaning up parks, etc.... stuff like that. He didn't say SPECIFICALLY what kind of service would qualify, but I bet you can find out if you check his web site.

big dawg credit for that? Oye.

....and it was killed by the GOP-led congress (effort led by Rick Santorum) in the late '90s.


Look... I'm a big Obama supporter... but the Clinton Americorps program was a good plan. Everything about the Big Dawg wasn't bad.


He's just become a caricature of himself lately.... and it is sad to see.

Where would he get the money? There's enough money being thrown away in Iraq to give everybody a free Harvard educate. Now throw in the restored taxes for the wealthy.

Question 2, with college costs spiraling upward far above the inflation rate, won't this in effect lose value over a 4-year period? Good point. They should tie the grant to inflation, and stop the spiralling rise of tuition. Come down on the textbook industry like an angry fist of god.

"Question 3, will this apply to graduate studies and other post-graduate work?"

I've no idea. Is it that necessary? Don't grad students already have more reliable sources of support? Stipends? TA positions?

"Question 4, in preparing students for college and to prevent a distillation of standards through local lunacy (i.e. teaching "intelligent design), what is the plan for standardizing standards and curricula nationally in the K-12 system without resorting to the stupidity of "teaching the test?""

Same way we did it before NCLB. State standards. Tell the teachers to teach to them. Let the teachers do their job. They're a far better judge of student achievement. Let the school administrators evaluate the teachers. I find the idea that their are a bunch of lazy "welfare queen" teachers just trying to get through the day and have lax standards rather insulting.

Service would be either in community (homeless shelters, veterans' hospitals, etc.) or in organizations such as Peace Corps. I know $4000 isn't a lot, but every penny helps.

As for Obama's thoughts on NCLB, he has stated repeatedly that standardized tests cannot be only indicator of student success. Accountability needs to be measured in a more diverse way. Specifically, he has stated that when you have one high-stakes test, you have teachers teaching to the test and this must stop (this was in his Tuesday night speech from Houston if you want to find the transcript). He also address many of your other concerns in Tuesday night's speech.

It's a 4000 dollar tax credit. The American Opportunity Tax Credit.

Good question about rising college costs. I don't know.

Will it apply to graduate studies? I'm thinking this tax credit is for those entering higher education, not those expanding their degrees. But I could be wrong.

As for the plan to reform K-12, I believe it's about more individualized attention to learning levels, as well as helping low performing schools instead of penalizing them.

If you really want to know, here are the pdfs:

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/pdf/PreK-12EducationFactSheet.pdf
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/pdf/CollegeAffordabilityFactSheet.pdf

...I read these documents. Like all position papers, not just Senator Obama's, they are long on the 40,000 foot level and short on specifics.

Bush43 has cut a lot of the funding for Pell Grants. I'd like to see a lot more funding for that. As it is now, to qualify for a pell grant your income has to be so low you would qualify for the poverty level. However, if you work full time and go to school, your income is to high to qualify for pell grants. With more grant funding more people could qualify for them and it would encourage more people to go to school because it would be more affordable.

In California, college/state and especially private college/university education costs have increased to an amount that is a real burden for families. $4000. a year is good, but I don't think enough for the kids that will still need to get loans to pay the rest of the expenses. Graduate degrees cost in the UC school system is scheduled to continue to increase every year over the next 10 years. I really think about this as we save for my son's college/university education. Here is an interesting excerpt from an article that talks about law school as an example but other degreed courses and increased as well:

http://www.inbusinesslasvegas.com/2008/02/15/feature1.html

"Increases generally follow the consumer price index and the whim of state legislatures.

The cost of law school in the University of California system, for example, is expected to nearly double in the next few years after that state's Legislature passed laws allowing the system's schools to set tuition at a market rate - the cost of attending comparable to private schools.

The new tuition figures at Boyd are based on comparisons with tuition rates at a dozen schools in the West identified as peer schools by the regents when the law school was established a decade ago.

All of those schools cost more than Boyd - many cost a lot more. Note: Boyd is in Las Vegas.

But most of those selected also have long-term reputations, expansive alumni networks to bank on and significantly better national rankings.

Among the schools used to calculate the new tuition levels were University of California, Davis School of Law ($28,500 a year in tuition and fees for residents; ranked 34th in the nation by U.S. News & World Report), University of Oregon School of Law ($19,596 a year in tuition and fees; ranked 82nd in the nation) and the University of Idaho College of Law ($10,200 a year in tuition and fees and ranked below Boyd).

Note: I hope Obama reviews the $4000.00 a year help and has it on an increasing scale over time because all the school tuition/expense rates will not stay stagnant over time.

The average tuition in 2008-09 for the schools evaluated would be $16,635, with the majority of schools costing $13,000 to $18,500 a year. Those tuition costs are expected to rise (significantly in the case of the UC schools because of the market rate) by the time the Boyd increase is fully in place.

The cost of comparable private law school education in this region, where tuition is not subsidized by the state, range from $18,500 at Brigham Young University (for non-Mormons) and $36,000 at Loyola Law School in California."

If you will explain where in the hell we are getting the money for Iraq then just realize that ending our service there will pay for this program and all of the others proposed. Returning to the tax structure of the 90's pays for health care

...1. the wars are costing us about 1.5 billion dollars a day. Extracting the combat soldiers from Iraq is not a simple exercise of some theatre commander blowing a drill whistle and everyone hauling ass back to Kuwait or boarding a fleet of C-130s, C-141s, C-17s, C-5s, B747s, B757s and the like, it takes an enormous amount of resources to conduct a retrograde action so we'll be paying for that for awhile (side note, he said combat soldiers not combat support or combat service support - not to mention Special Operations - measure twice and cut once and trust but verify say I; 2. The pots of moolah that make up the financing of our government are not that easily turned on or off or transferred to another program, the bureaucracy is mind numbing and it would take the better part of a four-year period to unfuck the fucked.

A better solution would be to end the free ride that corporations are getting by not paying to develop their workforce resources. Let them start ponying up their profits for an educated workforce and place heavy penalties on the use of H1B visa employees.

I haven't heard about Obama's time frame.... anybody know?