Odds and Ends to Finish the Week
1. Since 1980, the number of cigarettes smoked (in billions) dropped from 605.8 to 393.1.
I once heard it said that smoking would be a 20th century phenomenon. Well, not quite, but there’s definite improvement in the numbers and the decline should continue considering the price of a pack or carton of cigarettes. Just like other commodities, raising prices does affect consumer behavior. Let’s hope cigarette sales continue to be too pricey for people to start or that the cigarette companies don’t somehow subsidize lower prices.
2. The graying of America has hit the US Congress! The average age of US Senators is 60.4, up from 58.5 in 1949; US Representatives average age is 55, up from 51 in 1949. Average age of the Supreme Court justices is 66.1
Certainly the average age of the US lawmakers does reinforce the idea that social change will be slow as this generation still represents a conservative and male dominated era. The equality of females in the workplace and politics, the question of women’s choice, equality between races or gay rights will not be effectively discussed until the next generation of lawmakers takes office.
3. Parents in a Pennsylvania school district will be barred from bringing fast food lunches to their children when visiting for lunch. (Schools are being pressured to start serving quality lunches that are low in fat and address the rise of obesity in young people.)
First of all, the idea that any school can greatly affect eating behaviors of students without the help of parents and the community is absurd. Schools serve 180 lunches per year (given no early dismissals that may reduce the number somewhat). That’s around 16 percent of the meals a child may have during the course of a year (snacks not included). The other 84 percent of the time, the child may make their own “fast food” meals or the parents will treat them to their favorite high-fat, high caloric belly budding meal. Convenience food chains are abundant in every community.
If a school has to order a “ban” on bringing fast food for lunch, it’s not likely that the offending parents understand why. Don’t you know that it is un-American to limit the freedom of choice? Don’t you know that people have the right to be as fat as they want and it is part of our democracy? Good luck school administrators; let’s hope your school funding isn’t tied to the bathroom scale!
4. There’s a rise in private tutoring that is the result of more home schooling. Retired or unemployed teachers are being hired to tutor home schooled students in subject areas parents are unable to teach. Today, nearly 29 percent (1.1 million) of all school age children are home schooled and 21 percent have private tutors.
Actually, this is a time-honored practice that was once reserved for the wealthy. With an abundance of under-employed teachers, fresh from college and credentialed by their respective state, tutoring should grow and be affordable to more families.
Home schooling with highly trained teachers will challenge public schools to change. Poor reading and math scores coupled with standardized testing and fewer extra-curricular activities that involve all students will make public schools less inviting in the future.
The one key area that home schooling with a trained teacher can’t match: the socialization and diversity of groups. Isolating students from diversity and common interactions can place them at a disadvantage when entering the work environment or higher education. At least they’ll be able to read and understand a book about manners!
5. Doing nothing is a choice.
People routinely say something like, “I can’t get involved because of __________.” Doing nothing is as much a choice as drinking and eating. Not getting involved is an opportunity to generate excuses. That’s why we have crime, hunger, poverty and homelessness. It’s easy to allow those things be someone else’s problem.
Libertarians believe that government should be limited to protecting the country. They believe that social programs are the responsibility of local communities. When you consider the bureaucracy in health, education and human services and the inconsistencies of funding or leadership of programs that yield tremendous wastes of resources, maybe government should be reduced to homeland security.
GROWTH <> LEADERSHIP <> EXCELLENCE
© 2006 3 Minute Learning LLC
No comments:
Post a Comment