Your insulting tone and use of profanity have ended my presence here. If Obma has the likes of you as his supporters, he is in worse shape than I thought.

The procedural format here is too cumbersome to be worthwhile. The procedure should be altered so that debate topics are presented in the form of a resolution that will be considered according to some type of parliamentary procedure and then formally voted on.

We do not have any kind of debate here. We have the same kind of free-for-all that is found on every other board on the internet. We essentially have the same arguments over and over again with no chance for any serious discussion.

Has Barak Hussein Obama bowed to the Queen of the United Kingdom? Has he bowed to the President of France or the Kanzlerin of Germany?

And you don’t get it any more than Barak Hussein Obama does. If you are President of the United States you owe allegiance to the United States and only the United States. You shake hands with foreign heads of state, you do not bow to them.

BTW: What would Barak Hussein Obama have to do or fail to do for you to conclude that his is a failed presidency?

Obama bowed to a foreign head of state. He has no concept about what his job is or what he is supposed to represent. This makes him the more dangerous than any other person to ever sit in the White House. He cannot help but fail and do so in the most extraordinary fashion.

My school year would have five 9-week academic terms with a 1-3 week break between terms. School would go 5 days a week, but I wouldn’t try to cover as many subjects as public schools now try to cover. There would be no science or social studies in grade school in order to concentrate on reading, mathematics and language arts. Middle and high school would only have 4 courses per year. Some courses would have a weekly 3 hour lab period and when a course does not have a lab period students would have an activity or study period. The amount of homework would likely be reduced because of the lab/activity period. The K-12 curriculum would only take 12 calendar years instead of the traditional 13 but because of the longer school year it would be like having 15 traditional school years. And academically it would be the equivalent of a 2 year college degree since students would be prepared to take at least 8 advanced placement exams.

“Of course money doesn't ensure quality, but it sure helps. At the very least, it can provide schools up-to-date and accurate textbooks and the materials and access to resources that can improve the education system.”

Actually, nationalizing the public schools system so that every school uses the exact same textbooks and curriculum materials should reduce the cost since schools could buy in bulk. It kills me when a private for-profit company like (@$#@^%&^$%&%(&)&$^%$#@%#&%$^#@) Wal-Mart can buy things like toilet paper in bulk for practically nothing, but the government, which should have greater purchasing power than a hundred Wal-Marts, cannot buy anything without paying through the nose.

“I don't think this is true, if the price was reasonable and the difference was made obvious, I think there would be a large market for this kind of school.”

We have a local private school here that has a boarding school component and I heard several years ago that tuition and room and board at this school was $30,000 a year. Florida offers two scholarships for private schools- one is for schools that teach the public school curriculum and which must administer the state’s standardized exams; the other is for brats that any school can take with no strings. Needless to say of the 100+ private schools in my part of Florida only a half-dozen or so take the scholarship that comes with the standardized testing- but they all take the scholarship that comes with no strings. If your child has failed a year in public school and has been diagnosed with any kind of learning disability (i.e., he’s a brat), you can send him to any private school in town with the state paying the full cost of tuition. A school taking these students can make money hands-over-fists while graduating the next generation of burger-flippers. Most parents here that would want their child in a good college prep school could not afford or would not pay to send their child to a private school (we have 2 nationally recognized public college prep magnet schools). And my experience on the net tells me that few parents would accept the 45 week school year that my curriculum would require.

Just what makes you think these people are right? I have a bachelor’s degree in biology. Darwinism (and much of the geology that supposedly supports it) cannot be tested by experimentation so in this regard Darwinism is a faith system (believing in something you cannot prove) rather than science. Furthermore, everything biologists know about the origin of life and genetics tells us that abiogenesis and the Darwinian origin of higher taxa are both impossible.

"despite it's controversy, evolution is still the closest to accurate theory on life."

Beside the point for this debate, but you know this how?

“There is absolutely no reason that in one side of the country students learn one curriculum, and on the other side another, let alone different standards and curriculum for students across town from one another.”

You’re telling me. Once when I worked for a tutoring service I had students for 8th grade math who went to different public schools and used different textbooks. And then I had 3 8th grade math students from the exact same public school who were using the same textbook but because they had different teachers they were not covering the same material since the teachers were allowed teach whatever they wanted to teach.

“A national school system would help ensure that each student is given the same opportunity and that poorer schools can be given money needed to educate the students to the same level as schools in rich areas.”

I have seen too much money wasted in public schools (and private ones as well) to believe that money spent is a good indicator of quality. Raising and standardizing teacher qualifications will do more than simply spending money will. By private industry standards public school teachers in Florida make very good money (starting salary for a new teacher with no classroom experience here is at least $30,000 a year). But at the same time I don’t see how we can expect anyone to want to work in some public schools for what teachers get paid. No amount of money is worth putting your life on the line on a daily basis outside of war and this is precisely what we expect some public school teachers to do.

“All schools should educate students to the same levels and there should be no way for a student to do less work, try less, and take easier classes while still receiving a diploma that carries as much weight as a hard-working, intelligent student.”

Ever since I got out of college I have wanted to establish a non-profit K-12 school that would have a 45-week school year and a reformed curriculum that would let students graduate with the equivalent of an associate’s degree. But I seriously doubt that there would be a market for such a school because most parents do not care.

The United States should create a national K-12 public school system with a national curriculum, national textbooks for each subject in each grade, national teacher qualifications and standardized exams for all subjects in all grades.

Furthermore, each school created for this national school system should have a board of directors consisting of the parents/guardians of the students enrolled and this board would have the power to set disciplinary standards for the school, hire school administrators and teachers and make regulations regarding religious observances.

The federal government should provide a minimum level of funding for each school (mainly $50,000 teacher salaries) and each school should be allowed to use BINGO games and lotteries as fundraisers if the school is located in a state where the government runs a lottery.

The national curriculum should not include any material pertaining to the origin of life or the history of life, i.e., evolution and creationism/intelligent design should not be addressed.

The solution to public schools with low standards is not private schools with no standards.

Neither private schools, nor home-schools in Florida are regulated by state law in regards to their curriculum, teacher qualifications, accreditation or student testing. As a consequence there are at least 100 private schools in my part of Florida and with very rare exception they are simply diploma mills for brats that cannot or will not do the work required by public schools. In the absence of government regulation private schools do not work and cannot serve as an alternative to public schools.