Re: Normalcy Not Nostrums, Fifth Blog

Although I agree with the author of the blog Normalcy Not Nostrums in their fifth blog post about how the current funds reward system to schools are based on standardize test scores is a bad system that ultimately widens the gap between “good” and “bad” schools, I do not share the same opinion of standardize testing themselves as I think they serve as a good benchmark for gauging the readiness of students. For example, most of these standardize tests include a reading comprehension, essay, and math problem section, which are used to estimate a student’s preparedness in them pursue in higher academia.

No matter what career or occupation people decide to choose to pursue, any job requires a base line capability of being able to take in data and information and understand those appropriate subjects. This is what the reading comprehension part of the section in indirectly tests. This capability is a necessity especially if a student is planning to attend college where courses require you to be able to absorb large amounts of boring long texts to be able to relate to more complex ideas.

Math problems happen to be a very sufficient may of testing problem solving skills as you are given a limited amount of information and must try to work out a solution with pertain prior knowledge. This skill is essential in almost everything we do, problems occur not only in the professional and academic life but can arise anywhere and anytime and being able to deal with such problems with a limited amount of resource is a prerequisite to being an adult.

The essay portion allows colleges and the state to know how articulate their students are as they need to show they can get across an idea or argument under stressful and timed conditions. This is quite useful in real world such as writing emails, presenting to an audience, or just general writing communication.

I think these tests are needed so schools know what to work on with students to better prepare them for, however it should not be a determinate to how the federal funds their school as they will give the least money to the schools that need the most help. 

Ryan same as Boehner

On Thursday, July 27, 2017The Washington Monthly posted an article titled: Soon Paul Ryan will Boehner Himself 

The author of the article, Martin Longman, makes a very compelling argument that Paul Ryan will end up the same as John Boehner very soon. The article gives a great set of reasons why Longman believes Ryan’s downfall is inevitable. Longman is quite well versed in the political schematics and is very capable of explaining the inner workings of the political system to the everyday citizens, helping the reader understand his perception of the mistakes Ryan is making and the same pattern of Boehner he is repeating. The evidence he uses are very credible and flows with his argument and he presents them in a way that his audience begins to identify the same line of reasoning as his line of argument.

Just as Boehner lost his job as the speaker of the house, Ryan looks to be heading down the same path as he did. Although the two men are in different situations, they both are unable to govern the legislative branch. Boehner refused to strike any sort of deals with the democrats and failed to govern with the majority he had which led to his downfall. Ryan is now caught in the same situation but with a far more organized and defiant centrists group. These centrists are now fed up and have been disrupting the political process as much as they can such as sinking bills and decimating legislature plans as they are done with jeopardizing their reelection chances where they are mandated to take votes that are against what they believe. In addition, another difference in Ryan and Boehner is there corresponding president. Where Obama focused on trying to unite the two parties, Trump only drove them apart, putting more pressure on the centrists who in turn are becoming more organized in order to stall the system. Trump leans further and further to the right as he tries to secure the super religious conservatives to prevent his polls to fall so low where impeachment may actually become a reality. Without the democrats, the centralists, and with trump alienating more and more republicans, Ryan is incapable of accomplishing anything resulting in his following of Boehner’s footsteps which we can all easily predict where that will lead him.

Tweet results in angry article

On Thursday, January 20, 2017, the Daily Kos published an article titled Dear Senate Republicans: Your leadership has no respect for you

This article is based on a tweet from twitter about a quote by Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn who allegedly said “That’s a luxury we don’t have when asked “don’t some people want to know the plan before they vote”. This puts the senator in a pretty bad spotlight but to be fair, the quote was taken out of context as only snippets of the conversation is presented.

The author of the tweet Kelsey Snell is a reporter from The Washington Post, a left leaning media outlet which gives reason that she may be partial to democrats and hold prejudice towards Republican senators.

The article is quite short and full of the author’s own presumptions and opinion of the matter. The lack of reliable sources and facts, coupled with the heavy usage of derogatory vocabulary makes the article quite cringe worthy and seemingly not very credible. Although you can surely tell the author is very passionate, the article appeared more like an outlet for their frustration rather than professional journalism. There was definitely a better way to report the issue and the senator’s comments instead of having the stand-alone source from a tweet that was taken out of context. Instead of dissecting the issue and searching for a more reliable source such as tracing back to when that comment in what conversation, the author jumped the gun and started making allegations. The author’s intended audience are definitely liberals and conservatives frustrated with how the GOP plans on healthcare are going right now.

Democrats need a "better" slogan

On Monday, July 24, 2017 the Townhall blog published an article titled The Democrat Rollout of New Slogan Went as Well as You'dExpect, Which Means Terribly

In this article, a collective twitter posts regarding to the democrat’s new slogan is presented with the attachment of the author’s negative commentary of the matter. I have to agree with the author in that the new slogan of the democratic party is quite awful. The article alluded that the democrats spent a substantial amount of money in order to take a poll for their new slogan which resulted in “A Better Deal: Better Skills, Better Jobs, Better Wages” as their motto. The slogan sounds a bit cringey and seems that not much thought was put into defining the party as it is way too generic and vague. Its pretty ironic how liberals ridicule President Trump on his vocabulary when it’s obvious their party could use a thesaurus. A party’s slogan should represent the party’s ideals and giving a good sense of what the party is all about. Although the new slogan sends a positive message, it could have been worded “better”. The article was posted on a right leaning conservative blog called Townhall by Katie Pavlich. Being from a conservative blog, it was quite surprising and refreshing to see that the end of the article pulled back the punches on democrats and gave them credit for their plan of “taking a tougher approach” to telecom and cable companies. This professional curtesy between political parties is pretty rare and I have to commend and point out the author in pointing out the democrat’s virtue after jesting about their new motto. The audience of the article are primarily republicans and conservatives as this was posted in a right leaning blog. I could guess the purpose of the article is to take a light jab at democrats for their inferior slogan and to try to diverge the news from Trump who dominates the media with unfavorable coverage for the republican party.

Delay to GOP healthcare plan

On Sunday, July 16, 2017 the Washington Post published an article titled GOP opponents to Senate health-care bill see vote delay as an advantage

With a Republican president and majority legislative branch, the GOP has full range of power to finally modify the healthcare plan Obama instilled which conservatives have heavily criticized and openly disdained ever since its proposal. Although the Republicans have control over both the executive and legislative branch and are well in position to repeal and replace the affordable care act, their plans have been unsuccessful and fruitless thus far. Their first proposal of their version of the health care plan was hugely unpopular and generally met with discontent. Now there has been a delay to vote on the latest version of the GOP healthcare bill due to John McCain’s blood clot surgery and critics of the replacement bill see the delay as an opportunity to rally more support against it. Healthcare is one of the most important contemporary political topics that affects every American citizen and spans across more than the countries health sector as it dramatically alters the country’s and personal budgets as well. It is important to be aware of the happenings of the GOP plans as the passing of their bill may have great ramifications.