{"id":13240,"date":"2012-01-26T00:08:47","date_gmt":"2012-01-26T05:08:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=13240"},"modified":"2012-01-25T17:48:54","modified_gmt":"2012-01-25T22:48:54","slug":"a-good-soundbite-but-a-very-bad-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2012\/01\/26\/a-good-soundbite-but-a-very-bad-idea\/","title":{"rendered":"A good soundbite, but a very bad idea"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is one of the proposals President Barack Obama mentioned in the State of the Union speech that must have played well in the White House, but would be a terrible idea<\/a> if it really was implemented:<\/p>\n

\n

Many soundbites sound good, but have very harmful consequences in the real world. That\u2019s the case for President Obama\u2019s proposal in his State of the Union Address to not allow anyone to leave school until age 18 or graduation. This proposal originated with \u201cthe National Education Association, which stands to gain from the idea a measurable boost to its dues-paying ranks, and which has in fact proposed mandatory schooling for nongraduates up to age 21.\u201d This proposal could result in an increase in school violence by bored and frustrated 17-year-olds who hate school but are forced to attend. It would also make it even harder for teachers to maintain order in dangerous schools, contributing to an exodus of talented teachers who would rather teach than be babysitters or policemen. And it could result in truancy charges and arrests for parents who fail to get their stubborn, fully-grown offspring to attend school.<\/p>\n

As one commenter notes, \u201cIf the union is really pushing something like this, I wonder how many of the members actually welcome it. How many teachers really want to deal with a 17 year old who doesn\u2019t want to be in school? The type that drop out can\u2019t be a joy to teach.\u201d Commenting on the NEA\u2019s ultimate desire to keep people in school until age 21 (Obama wants every American to attend college or at least get \u201cmore than a high-school diploma\u201d), another commenter notes, \u201cI suppose Obama would send the cops after those notoriously unproductive dropouts Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is one of the proposals President Barack Obama mentioned in the State of the Union speech that must have played well in the White House, but would be a terrible idea if it really was implemented: Many soundbites sound good, but have very harmful consequences in the real world. That\u2019s the case for President […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,79,84,10,53,13],"tags":[158,322,504],"class_list":["post-13240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bureaucracy","category-education","category-government","category-liberty","category-politics","category-usa","tag-barackobama","tag-nannystate","tag-teenagers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-3ry","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13240"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13242,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13240\/revisions\/13242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}