Voting: What is more important

[ZDL]

Interesting poll I saw elsewhere.

[chadbag]

There are reasons why things like "poll taxes" were instituted in earlier centuries in various countries...

[Wraith04]

The question is, how do you better educate the voters with a biased media?

[BAC]

Improve the quality of the education system. Most kids go through public education, so start there. Make sure that kids have a solid foundation in economics, history, and a very basic understanding of constitutional (and state constitutional) law. Young people are a lot more willing to "fight" mainstream media than people give them credit for, provided they're educated on the subject.


-B

[Abiqua]

Unfortunately, the public education system in this country is under the control of one end of the political spectrum. There needs to be choice in education.

[BAC]

Sure, but I'm not so willing to blame the "Left" when the "Right" is as guilty. No one political group is at fault for this. Push for change at the local level. Vote for better board members. Get the community active in pushing for education reform. The more backbone local school systems grow, the more they can tell .gov to butt out and let them start actually teaching kids. The Dept. of Education is "living" proof that the top-down approach does not work in this nation.


-B

[Wraith04]

Unfortunately, the public education system in this country is under the control of one end of the political spectrum. There needs to be choice in education.

You beat me to it. The education system needs an overhaul but parents need to start by spending more time with their kids and teaching them real values but that won't change until people can afford not to work 50+ hours a week just to survive. I think our society has been in a steady decline since the mid to late 70's. There are people that chose to teach their kids, spend time with their kids, and discipline their kids, I believe if people could do this it would turn around after we got rid of the sense of entitlement the current kids think they have.

[MarshallDodge]

There are a lot of people voting for Obama because he is for "Hope and Change." They don't know or don't care what they want but they think that something different will be better. The news media and the commercials keep telling them that they are making the right choice.

I agree with wraith. I used to place blame on public schools but now that I am a parent I realize that the blame should be placed squarely on the parents shoulders. The parents need to keep the schools accountable for the education they provide, especially with the amount of money we pay in taxes for education.

If my kids are going to succeed in this world then I need to make sure they get the best education possible from me and my school.

[ZDL]

Improve the quality of the education system. Most kids go through public education, so start there. Make sure that kids have a solid foundation in economics, history, and a very basic understanding of constitutional (and state constitutional) law. Young people are a lot more willing to "fight" mainstream media than people give them credit for, provided they're educated on the subject.


-B

Education happens at home.

[chadbag]

Education happens at home.

And at school. And on the street. And on TV. Education happens everywhere.

HOME should be the center of education, but it is not he only place kids learn, and often enough, sadly, kids don't learn much at home with 2 parents out working, kid in day care or public schools, etc.

The public education system does not need to be overhauled -- it needs to be scrapped. I will DIRECTLY lay the mess we are in at the feet of public education, which teaches are kids to be victims, that government is the answer, that we are all victims, etc. That leads back to the parents who should be counteracting all this but who more often than not don't know about it and don't know any better themselves.

The parents have the ultimate responsibility but they do not live in a vacuum and the outside world including public schools is the overriding influence unfortunately on most kids.