Public school teachers spent $1.3 billion out of pocket on classroom expenses in the 2009-2010 school year, according to a National School Supply and Equipment Association study. Educators indicate they spent both on classroom supplies and instructional materials. Read the full story in The Journal, a publication geared toward changing education through emerging technology. Given that bulging price tag, you’d think we were seeing peak spending for teachers, but this $1.3 billion actually speaks to a decline in teacher expenditure: from $552 in 2005-2006 school year to $395 in 2007-2008.
In a speech in Austin, Texas, on August, 9, 2010, Obama stated that “Education is an economic issue.” This proves that and then some, but he was speaking about boosting college education in the United States to put the country back on the international higher-ed map. But if our teachers are being forced to pay out of pocket expenses for services that should be supplanted by the government, how can we expect this hope on hopes of nationwide education to come to fruition.
What teacher expense assistance is there, either in the form of grants, loans, or nonprofit programs? Add any ideas here.
To further stimulate job creation, President Obama kicked off a national campaign asking for support of an infrastructure bill making its way to Congress this week. The six-year spending proposal, the majority of which will be dispensed in the beginning, is currently reported at $50 billion. The front-loading is meant to help create jobs sooner rather than later. View the full speech to the Milwaukee Laborfest, on September 6, 2010.
With the unemployment rate ticking up to 9.6 percent as midterm elections approach this fall, Obama is looking to give the Democrats a boost in the polls. It is thought that the GOP has a current advantage in these upcoming elections due to the still-high jobless numbers, the highest-ever national deficit, and waning optimism of recession recovery.
According to the Associated Press, the goals of the plan include “rebuilding 150,000 miles of roads; constructing and maintaining 4,000 miles of railways, enough to go coast-to-coast; and rehabilitating or reconstructing 150 miles of airport runways, while also installing a new air navigation system designed to reduce travel times and delays.” The plan also addresses business tax breaks, including breaks instituted by G. W. Bush, and proposes research and development tax breaks.
Is this the type of job creation the country needs? Or do you have ideas for economic stimulation that the administration should consider?
Today is a benchmark for the last U.S. combat brigade to pull out of Iraq, just meeting the September 1, 2010, deadline set by President Barack Obama at the beginning of his term in 2008. Obama has been criticized for mandating this premature troop withdrawl. But he’s set the goal for all U.S. troops to be out of Iraq by July 2011, despite the criticism. Opponents say that Iraq is not stable enough for this mass transition yet. They also claim that removing U.S. combat troop presence will leave the region ripe for terrorist activities. NPR reports , in “Not Quite ‘Mission Accomplished,’” about a country on high alert, one that just last week saw more than 60 killed in al Qaeda–claimed bombing deaths. The August 31 announcement of the Obama administration’s troop pullout is a highly anticipated moment for the president, as he seeks to strike a careful balance between encouraging U.S.(and Iraqi) citizens and avoiding the ominous pitfall of President Bush’s 2003 “Mission Accomplished” declaration in Iraq, which marked not a finality but the beginning of a costly ($53 billion) occupation of the torn nation.
Self-confessed thriller and suspense novel fans don’t fit one category of frenzied readers. Some of us perk up at the gritty doorstep of a psychological villain who follows his prey into their bedrooms, others prefer the bloody detective whodunit that tracks a vicious murderer around the world. And still other must-love-heart-stoppers can’t get enough of billion-dollar-jewel stealers and the like.
But one thing can be said about us: We are fanatics for best-of polls, getting the chance to popularize our peculiarities one click at a time.
So here is an NPR poll that ends soon: Vote now for your favorites; results will be published August 2, 2010.
CalArts graduate Miwa Matreyek is not just an “experimental artist,” nor is she defined by whatever head-scratching, hives-inducing reactions that term usually sparks in art purists. She’s stepped forward from behind the screen, using multi-projection art, set to melodic blips and beeps, to draw sweeping cityscapes, watery scenes, domestic tinkerings and the clashing of them all into a larger-than-life experience for the audience. All with a projection screen, a few projectors, a couple of boxes for 3D effect, and her open mind…. At a recent show in Space 1026, a collective art loft in downtown Philadelphia, she turned out the lights and turned on our minds in the blink of an eye. In scenes of skeletons and blossoming creme-colored roses cast upon her silhouette, Miwa referenced such ground-breaking artists as Frida Khalo. And in a projection of a blimp branded with the word “you,” which seemed to float above an engine-like city but was really an image shining on her black dress as she crept across the space, Miwa generates a playfulness surrounding an increasingly serious dichotomy: our souls versus technology.
From aerosol art to raw etchings, reverse graffiti artists in Durban, South Africa, cue stunning naturescapes on rough-hewn city walls in the coastal city. Inspired by a British artist Paul Curtis (aka “Moose”), these so-called scrubbers add new perspective to outdoor art, mimicking the best of those creators, the woman with the best tags ever, Mother Earth herself.
One British artist's "green" graffiti.
Video of Moose in San Francisco (yeah, it’s kind of an ad for Clorox Green Works, but just watch the clip, people):
In an unexpected move, the Obama administration has backed an amendment to repeal the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy this year, instead of the waiting for the 2011 round of budget talks, as proposed by the policy’s supporters. The person to thank for this surprising turn of events is none other than Senator Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut Independent, who drafted a compromise amendment that could put the anti-gay policy under repeal consideration in this year’s Pentagon budget authorization bill.
On May 27, 2010, the 22nd Annual Lambda Literary Awards will call upon and celebrate the freshest, edgiest, and most honored pensman to date. Hosted by the Lambda Literary Foundation (LLF), the event has balloned in size and scope since its quiet beginnings, asking pressing questions of its audinece such as, Is There, or Should There Be, Such a Thing as ‘Trans Lit’? With such a diverse community, it may seem impossible to be able to honor every outstanding artist from every genre and subgenre. But this year’s award nominees span the globe and promise to weave a community together that has much to tell. Join the conversation and attend the event if you’re in New York City.
In a recent interview, Arkansas Governor and former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee pulls out the stops to equate homosexuality with incest, polygamy, beastiality, and plain old childishness. Given that he was speaking with a college reporter, I think Huckabee must have woken that morning searching for some blood pressure pills and a bulletproof vest. But he did well holding up his conservative views for the listening co-eds. Students at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ), were also prepared for anything but a boring leftie interview, dishing out one hotplate-to-the-face question after another.
Huckabee’s aired his thoughts on gay marriage, which take a typically conservative route of equating two men or two women marrying to polygamy. Further exposing a right-wing fear with any change whatsoever, more than the real issue of allowing two people who love each other being able to call themselves “married” instead of “civil unioned” if they’d like.
Gay adoption? Outlook not so good, considering that even straight couples cannot successfully meet Huckabee’s rigorous ideals of raising children. About a recent passing of Arkansas’ ban on gay adoption, Mike Huckabee was an unwavering supporter.
“And always we should act in the best interest of the children, not in the seeming interest of the adults. Children are not puppies. This is not a time to see if we can experiment and find out how does this work?”
TCNJ reporter: So, preferable to keep them in, what, the foster system?
“No, preferable to have men and women who actually give consideration to their sexual activities that lead to pregnancy, and that they act responsibly…like grownups. In a perfect world, in an ideal world, people would recognize that having a child is a heavy duty responsibility, and you engage into a relationship with somebody sexually as a permanent commitment to that person. You don’t use that person as a sexual toy and toss them away, leaving them with the burdens of a child. That’s not mature sexuality; that’s immature, selfish lifestyle.”
True, Huckabee, people should act responsibly in relationships and during baby-making acts, but that doesn’t really solve the predicament about what to do with those children stuck in foster care who just want a place to call home but can’t broaden their options of that simple wish, because the family who wants to adopt is gay. We don’t live in an ideal world—so now what, Huckabee?
Hear Mike Huckabee’s response to TCNJ’s publishing of his statements and hear audio of the original interview, with subtitles, here: http://bit.ly/9yFVWw
