Category Archive » Ideas
If this site is about anything, it’s about creating a new, open marketplace for ideas. This blog allows us to share our own ideas and to highlight some of the most interesting from the site. (Click here to read the agenda)
This story in the Washington Post a few days ago caught my eye. Basically the gist is that one in four U.S. teenaged girls have some form of STD, mostly human papillomavirus. The slant of the article, however, is frustrating to me. The central question in the article seemed to be “Why do teenagers have sex?” Not, “Why don’t teenagers use protection?” or “Why are teenagers having sex with five different partners?” but “Why are teenagers having sex at all?”
In the last five years, we’ve witnessed a significant shift in the focus of the U.S. public education system. The shift is perhaps best illustrated by the proliferation of the public high school rankings appearing in national publications. U.S. News & World Report, well known for its university rankings, now publishes a ranking of best high schools as well. Unlike the university rankings, which take many factors into account (yet remain of dubious value), the high school ranking considers essentially one statistic: standardized test scores.
The massive movement towards standardized tests as a barometer for education has its roots in the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act. The act is a well-intentioned piece of legislation as its purpose is to improve the overall quality of American public education. It does so partially by attempting to measure schools’ success, as President Bush explained when he signed the bill into law:
The story of children being just shuffled through the system is one of the saddest stories of America….The first step to making sure that a child is not shuffled through is to test that child as to whether or not he or she can read and write, or add and subtract. The first way to solve a problem is to diagnose it. And so, what this bill says, it says every child can learn. And we want to know early, before it’s too late, whether or not a child has a problem in learning. I understand taking tests aren’t fun. Too bad. We need to know in America. We need to know whether or not children have got the basic education.
One of the most interesting conversations we have going on the site so far is about creating universal health care. Here are the facts: nearly 47 million people in this country are currently uninsured; of those 47 million, more than 80% come from working families; while in 1987, 70% of people had employer-based insurance, that number is down to 59.5%; and, finally, 40% of America’s uninsured live in households that earn more than $50,000 a year. The reason for the increasing number of uninsured Americans is simple: insurance premiums are rising at just about 5 times the rate of inflation.It’s an incredibly important issue, and our users are doing a great job tackling a lot of important questions. Some of them are skeptical:
Gagarin wants to know how we would pay for a universal health care program:
UHC would be very peachy and nice, but someone has to tell me how they’re going to pay for it, WITHOUT saying they’re going to “tax the rich people ’cause they don’t need the money” because thinking that will increase revenue rather than reduce it is wishful thinking.
Lobachevsky thinks the government might be overstepping its role:
The government should be involved in situations that individuals cannot control. I do believe that the state of our current health care system is not satisfactory, and that it requires some government involvement, but not to the extent of national health care. The national government should put its time and effort, and our money, into stimulating competition in the health insurance market as to make it more affordable to all Americans.
In my opinion, universal health care is a moral imperative. While stephendolenc compares health care to “universal cell phone ownership [and] universal fitness club memberships,” I think the comparison to public education is much more apt. I don’t believe we have any more of a right to deny an American citizen the ability to be treated by a doctor than we have to deny them the services of the Fire Department should their home catch fire. Click here to continue reading…
Hello, friends!
Welcome to For A Better America. We’re so excited you’re here. This website is really about one thing: getting more Americans involved in the political process. We aim to do this by reformulating what it means to be “civically engaged” in order to better fit the activities of 21st century Americans. With For A Better America, we’ve tried to make it fun to be engaged. We’ve asked a question that every person in this country has at least one answer for (”What would you do to make America better?”), and we’ve made the process of answering that question interactive and collaborative.
