Bloomberg: On Phasing Out The Local Diploma

Today I was reading the Daily News and I found this article to be very interesting.  The article talks about how Mayor Bloomberg is using the increased graduation rates to support his campaign of continued mayoral control of the school system in New York City.  Now, I don’t want to debate that topic, because it’s a whole different topic.  What I wanted to talk about the phasing out of the “Local Diploma”.  The reason I posted the link to that article is because it mentioned something I had no prior knowledge of.  Mayor Bloomberg is trying to phase out the Local Diploma.  If all goes as planned, it will be gone in 3 years.  Now you might say “hold on, why are you talking about this, why do you care? That’s the lowest diploma you can get in a NYC public school!”

First of all, let’s address the basic question here.  Why would someone want to go for the lowest diploma possible?  Usually, it’s because they keep failing the necessary Regents Exams that they need to graduate with a Regents or Advanced Regents diploma.  Now, onto why I care.  I care because for many people, the Regents Exams are the hardest exams that you will take in high school.  The Regents Exams are really not that hard, so why is this the case?  Maybe it’s the fact that this education system is managed extremely terribly.  Maybe it’s the fact that over 15,000 teachers may be laid off this year, resulting in even worse education for our students.  Even in the fist article they mention dropping graduation rates as a direct result of the phasing out of a non-Regents level diploma.  So by the time I get into teaching (and out of college) will NYC have not only will we have even worse graduation rates (it’s 60.7% now – remember this is the first year ever that the graduation rate has surpassed 60%).  Things are not looking good for whoever the next mayor will be.

All in all, this is just splendid news.  Especially because I want to be a teacher, but oh wait, I’m double screwed, because not only do I want to be a teacher in this shitty system, but I also want to be a music teacher.  Great.  Just great.  Music gets almost no funding in New York City.  The arts in public schools is basically dead.  So now I have a failing school system and no funding to look forward to.  I can’t wait to start teaching!

Bloggers’ Rights

While paroozing the Internet, I came across a page of bloggers’ rights, as defined by the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation).  The EFF is an organization which protects free speech, innovation, consumer rights, and privacy in the digital world.

Obama Endorses Continued Spying on Americans

First of all, when I heard this, to say the least, I was shocked.  I immediately checked the New York Times, and found these two articles: Article 1 (NY Times) as well as Article 2 (Global Researcher).  

Now of course, there can be many reasons for Obama to endorse this sort of a bill (to prevent more terrorist attacks from happening again), but this is really outrageous.  If Obama wants the Justice Department to be a separate entity from the White House, then why is he signing a bill which allows the Justice Department to continue to spy on American citizens?  This makes no sense.  When this blows up, it will look really bad for Obama.  I can’t believe that he is continuing the Bush administration’s policy of wiretapping members of congress without a warrant.  If Obama wants to move this country to a state of peace instead of war, why continue to spy on the American people and treat them as if they are a threat?  To me, this makes no sense.  I think that as a nation, we are losing trust in our government, and we are losing faith in the government’s ability to get the job done, whatever it may be.  Ever since Obama’s inauguration, I have had more faith in this country than ever before, but it’s stuff like this that really leaves me skeptical at the end of the day…