Palin never fails to deliver entertainment. Letterman produced a highly recommended mash-up of Palin quotes.
I produced my own Palin mash-up. I don't know how to do video mash-up, so it's a verbal one, dog gone it.
Have fun.
"For sure" "I'm all about the position that America is in and that we have to look at" "EDUCATION" "foundationally""It is obvious to me""that, that's paramount." "You know, it's going to be a multi-faceted solution that has to be found here.""But again, it's got to be a comprehensive, long-term solution found ... for this problem that America is facing today. As I say, we are getting into crisis mode here." "We can't afford to lose.""And we will do what we have to do to secure the United States of America..""It's very important when you consider even national security issues.""Should have started doing it 10 years ago, but better late than never. It's gotta be an all-of-the-above approach" "what it is that America can and should be doing together""You betcha!"
I completely agree that EDUCATION needs to move to the forefront of the American mass conscience. I have been pushing to create a grassroots collaboration to analyze education systemically. Of course, I could break down and do the research with grant funding, all ivory-tower like. But I am trying to avoid the flaw of so many education studies, the complaint by those in the trenches that the ivory tower researchers have no idea what it is really like.
Daily Kos has what? 300,000 readers, lurkers, essayists and participants. Surely that is a big enough sample of the population. Of course I completely understand that Daily Kos readers are likely not to be a representative sample, and that those who choose to participate in the collaboration, being self-selected, will render it a nonrandom sample.
Because we are examining education systemically, everything is on the table. That means vouchers and unions and charter schools and all of it. It means all the stakeholders, educational consultants, textbook publishers, students, teachers, parents, school administrators, and more.
Please let's start a collaborative effort to brainstorm as a precursor to systemically examining the issue of education in America.
I would like to start by compiling three lists:
1. An action list of ways to put education at the forefront of our national conscience.
Here's one: Lots of letters to local editors to motivate local media to cover education more deeply and more often.
2. Identification of all stakeholders, their (possibly not-so-great) motivations for perpetuating the status quo, and their activities.
Here's one: Education consultants, loving the move toward state standards, states pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars to basically cut and paste from somebody else's state standards.
3. America's strengths, in education and in fields other than education.
Here's one: The organizational ability of the military to disseminate important information.
Let's roll up our sleeves and get to work.
Right now the two biggest stories are the financial bailout and the election. Our kids possess very little civics or financial education. What we have learned is that many of our current problems, in both arenas, occurred in a climate of public ignorance. The future of American democracy is an educated citizenry, and America does not have an educated citizenry. There is simply no excuse.