B
Bruzilla
Guest
My daughter goes to Chopticon High School, and yesterday she comes home and says that she needs some help with some homework that deals with politics. She shows me the assignment sheet, and I am floored! What she had was one of those highly-biased "What are You" tests that have been floating about the Internet. Here are the questions and answers:
Education:
1. Take the Free Market approach. Provide tax credits for tuition payments or explore other financial ways to help parents send children to the schools of their choice.
2. Demand good performance from schools. Reward school districts that show improvement and provide merit pay for good teachers.
3. Increase Federal funding for programs to prevent dropouts and to help the disadvantaged pay for college.
Budget:
1. Do not raise taxes or cut military spending. Instead cut wasteful and ineffective social programs.
2. Cut some social programs and some defense projects and raise taxes.
3. Slash wasteful defense projects rather than social programs and consider a tax increase if necessary.
Foreign Trade
1. Retaliation triggers trade wars. Encourage free trade.
2. Establish trade tariffs to protect struggling U.S. industries.
3. Retaliate against nations which maintain unfair trade barriers.
Stopping AIDS
1. Aids is a danger to our society. Everyone should be tested.
2. Test only prisoners, immigrants, and people about to be married.
3. Forced testing for AIDS is impractical and violates people’s right to privacy. Concentrate on education about the disease and aiding those who have the disease.
Gun Control
1. Put no restrictions on guns. Keep the “right to bear arms” untouched as the founding fathers intended.
2. Put some restrictions on guns (waiting periods, etc.), but do not take away the right altogether.
3. Put severe restrictions on guns and in some cases take away the right to bear arms.
Drug Abuse
1. Mandatory drug testing is needed to uncover abuse in both the workplace and in schools. Also needed are life sentences for dealers and stiff punishment for those found guilty of illegal drug abuse.
2. Only test people who hold sensitive positions – pilots, workers in nuclear power plants, teachers, etc. Help those who are found to abuse drugs, but make sure they’ve gone straight before allowing them back to work.
3. Mandatory drug testing violates an individual’s right to privacy and should not be allowed. Also, penalties for illegal drug use only scare away people who need treatment. Offer counseling and education.
Abortion
1. Outlaw abortion – it is murder.
2. Allow abortion in certain cases (rape, incest, or when the mother’s life is in danger).
3. Keep abortion legal – it is a woman’s right to choose what to her with her body.
Death Penalty
1. The death penalty should be implemented – kill and be killed.
2. The death penalty should be used only in the most extreme cases (a gruesome first degree murder for instance).
3. Killing anyone is wrong – so the death penalty is wrong also.
Add up the total of the numbers you selected and this will tell you what you are:
8--------------------------16--------------------------24
Republican ---------- Moderate ------------- Democrat
____________________________________________
I called CHS and talked to the teacher who issued this assignment, and I told her that I had the following problems with this:
1. The author of this document had taken the most extreme views of a minority of the Republican party and compared them to moderate views of the Democratic party. This is an unfair comparison.
2. The use of this "test" is an attempt to stereotype Republicans and Democrats based on views that are generally held by a minority of the membership. Would you ask the question: I believe that people should work hard and support their families = being a white guy, and I believe that you should stay home, collect welfare, and bail out on your family = being a black guy? That kind of unfair stereotyping would never be condoned in school so why should this be allowed?
3. The options listed are so unrealistic and out of context that they are... just disturbing.
I had hoped that the teacher would tell me that this was just a tool that she was using to show kids how some people wrongfully try to pidgeonhole and stereotype members of other parties, but instead she told me that she gave it to the kids so they could see if they're Republicans, Moderates, or Democrats. Needless to say... I was concerned.
We had a long talk about this tool, and she admitted that she had gotten it from an outside source (i.e., the net) and that it was not a fair comparison of the parties. She also told me that she had discussed how believing in one thing or another that one party believes in doesn't mean that you can't be a member of the other party or a moderate. Unfortuantely, handing out something like this that pretends to be a point paper of who believes in what is so wrong I can't even fathom a credible teacher doing it.
She says their next assignment is to write a presidential speech on "issues" from the view point of a Republican, Democrat, or Moderate. I'm going to be reviewing that assignment very closely.
Education:
1. Take the Free Market approach. Provide tax credits for tuition payments or explore other financial ways to help parents send children to the schools of their choice.
2. Demand good performance from schools. Reward school districts that show improvement and provide merit pay for good teachers.
3. Increase Federal funding for programs to prevent dropouts and to help the disadvantaged pay for college.
Budget:
1. Do not raise taxes or cut military spending. Instead cut wasteful and ineffective social programs.
2. Cut some social programs and some defense projects and raise taxes.
3. Slash wasteful defense projects rather than social programs and consider a tax increase if necessary.
Foreign Trade
1. Retaliation triggers trade wars. Encourage free trade.
2. Establish trade tariffs to protect struggling U.S. industries.
3. Retaliate against nations which maintain unfair trade barriers.
Stopping AIDS
1. Aids is a danger to our society. Everyone should be tested.
2. Test only prisoners, immigrants, and people about to be married.
3. Forced testing for AIDS is impractical and violates people’s right to privacy. Concentrate on education about the disease and aiding those who have the disease.
Gun Control
1. Put no restrictions on guns. Keep the “right to bear arms” untouched as the founding fathers intended.
2. Put some restrictions on guns (waiting periods, etc.), but do not take away the right altogether.
3. Put severe restrictions on guns and in some cases take away the right to bear arms.
Drug Abuse
1. Mandatory drug testing is needed to uncover abuse in both the workplace and in schools. Also needed are life sentences for dealers and stiff punishment for those found guilty of illegal drug abuse.
2. Only test people who hold sensitive positions – pilots, workers in nuclear power plants, teachers, etc. Help those who are found to abuse drugs, but make sure they’ve gone straight before allowing them back to work.
3. Mandatory drug testing violates an individual’s right to privacy and should not be allowed. Also, penalties for illegal drug use only scare away people who need treatment. Offer counseling and education.
Abortion
1. Outlaw abortion – it is murder.
2. Allow abortion in certain cases (rape, incest, or when the mother’s life is in danger).
3. Keep abortion legal – it is a woman’s right to choose what to her with her body.
Death Penalty
1. The death penalty should be implemented – kill and be killed.
2. The death penalty should be used only in the most extreme cases (a gruesome first degree murder for instance).
3. Killing anyone is wrong – so the death penalty is wrong also.
Add up the total of the numbers you selected and this will tell you what you are:
8--------------------------16--------------------------24
Republican ---------- Moderate ------------- Democrat
____________________________________________
I called CHS and talked to the teacher who issued this assignment, and I told her that I had the following problems with this:
1. The author of this document had taken the most extreme views of a minority of the Republican party and compared them to moderate views of the Democratic party. This is an unfair comparison.
2. The use of this "test" is an attempt to stereotype Republicans and Democrats based on views that are generally held by a minority of the membership. Would you ask the question: I believe that people should work hard and support their families = being a white guy, and I believe that you should stay home, collect welfare, and bail out on your family = being a black guy? That kind of unfair stereotyping would never be condoned in school so why should this be allowed?
3. The options listed are so unrealistic and out of context that they are... just disturbing.
I had hoped that the teacher would tell me that this was just a tool that she was using to show kids how some people wrongfully try to pidgeonhole and stereotype members of other parties, but instead she told me that she gave it to the kids so they could see if they're Republicans, Moderates, or Democrats. Needless to say... I was concerned.
We had a long talk about this tool, and she admitted that she had gotten it from an outside source (i.e., the net) and that it was not a fair comparison of the parties. She also told me that she had discussed how believing in one thing or another that one party believes in doesn't mean that you can't be a member of the other party or a moderate. Unfortuantely, handing out something like this that pretends to be a point paper of who believes in what is so wrong I can't even fathom a credible teacher doing it.She says their next assignment is to write a presidential speech on "issues" from the view point of a Republican, Democrat, or Moderate. I'm going to be reviewing that assignment very closely.
Last edited by a moderator:
Vrai... what are you doing to me!
", then they'd explain to you why all of those things are great ideas. 
