I'm coaching a team and my mom is coaching TWO. This is by far the hardest board I've seen - that bad cell challenge has my team ripping their hair out. I love the research topic though. So much better than transportation, imo. Competition is Dec. 11 and I can't wait. I love seeing how other teams tackle the diff. challenges. However, Dec. 12 I am packing up the NXTs and getting every single last tiny little lego piece off my basement floor!!!

Texas - The Alamo and the main participants in it, San Jacinto and Battleship Texas (great time to brush up on WW history), cowboy culture and importance and oil and energy industry. While you're in TX visit Austin. You can find some reasonable historical reasons to go, but really, it's just one of my favorite places. :) On your drive in the South, you can visit historic Civil War sites, drive the Natchez Trace, cross the Ponchatrain and hit New Orleans. Just walking through New Orleans will give your kids a cultural experience. Ohio - Battle of Toledo, engineering and importance of Erie canal, Great Lakes (good book - Paddle to the Sea), NFL Hall of Fame. While in the midWest/Northeast, you can visit some historic Revolutionary war sites, Amish country and then Hershey, PA. New Mexico - Native American study, Spanish Missions, Kit Carson, Los Alamos and the Manhattan Project (Green Glass Sea is a good book on this for kids - not a ton of info, but interesting personal take on life in Los Alamos during that time.)

See comments above

The 100K comes from total compensation not just salary - includes health care, retirement, bonuses and other benefits. Plus this was a national average so individual states will vary.

One piece of straw in your pocket - the last straw From DOA - wear a slip (or slip like dress) with a Freud name tag - Freudian slip Paint a rock on a t-shirt. Paint a star on it. - Rock Star. Attach a leaf that dangles from the brim of a cap - blow on it when someone asks what you are - leaf blower This link has some more http://www.coolest-homemade-costumes.com/unusual-halloween-costumes.html

:iagree: Squash is a fantastic sport. Thrilled to hear that colleges still have squash teams. I wear my tennis clothes and tennis/court shoes when I play squash. Do they provide eye protection? That is the only really special piece of equipment I'd invest in. Properly fitting safety glasses make all the difference.

I think you could find plenty of people willing to teach. Several friends and I have looked into it over the years. The problem is that even if you have a degree in Chemistry and want to teach Chemistry, often times you will have to complete several useless (for your field of interest) undergrad courses to make you eligible to even start a masters of education. I looked into teaching math or econ with an econ degree and math as one of my minors. I was told that I would have to take almost a full year of undergrad classes including geography and english. To teach math or econ?!! I can understand fleshing out the core subject but why on earth would I need geography to teach middle or high school math or econ? Amazingly, the local CC was happy to have me - sans geography class. First thing I'd do (after breaking the union's stranglehold and allowing merit based employment) is eliminate useless teacher requirements. Anyone who has a degree in a subject ought to take some evaluation, classroom management, teacher skills (lesson planning, etc.), and student teaching classes for a semester and then let them teach! As far as teacher pay - actually when you look at their total compensation, they are doing quite well. Many are well over 100K for a 36 week work year. Plus many of them can work hours that allow them to be home when their kids are home from school (no childcare costs). [/url] "Add about $48,000 each for state pension contribution (30% of salary) and at least $15,000/yr health insurance benefits. Then include 15 days sick leave payable at retirement if not used, 2 personal days/yr and up to $300,000 payment to the Teachers Retirement System by the local school district if they decide to take early retirement" http://www.cdobs.com/archive/featured/top-100-teacher-salaries-for-2009-average-160000/ Parents - absolutely have to be on board. Many are, though, and can't get their kids in decent schools. Charter schools around our area and many others have hundreds of kids waitlisted - desperate to get in. Lastly we need to think about the students. They have to choose to get an education. The best teacher in the world can't make a resistant, lazy kid learn. A motivated kid can learn despite almost any obstacle - though as a society we should do our best to remove any obstacles.

Bump

Yes, I know they are not related but they are two sites that I'm looking into recently. http://www.cozi.com/homeh.htm is a calendar/organization tool that is supposed to link with your phone. I would love that, I think. Anyone tried it? Tutor.com - supposed to be a good place to get an extra job as an online tutor. I looked into it a bit and am qualified. However, when I went to just the beginning application process it asked for my SS# and birthday and address. Seemed like WAY too much personal info and got me nervous. Anyone work for them or have any experience with them? TIA

Don't know about the legalities of running it, but I would look into liability and make sure the parents sign waivers. Is there a co-op you could run it through?

Are you planning a holiday soon? I'd talk to her now and arrange for the three hours of sitting to count towards a lesson when Diva cannot sit but would be available for lessons. Otherwise, you can talk to her about "banking" those hours for a time when Diva (or teacher's kiddos) are sick and babysitting couldn't happen. Either way - yes, she needs to come up with some arrangement to account for those hours that your child already worked.

Back to the article, it does very succinctly sum up a lot of the problems in US schools. It only needed the famous quote from the past president of the UFT and later the AFT - "When school children start paying union dues, that 's when I'll start representing the interests of school children." I think he is right that school choice is a viable option that could do a lot of good. It certainly has where I live. Don't know if the teachers unions will ever be open to change. I liked Rhee's program. She wanted to give teachers two options. One -stay in the current contract, no changes. Two - Opt for a merit system. Outstanding teachers could earn much more, but no tenure and job security. I was amazed that the union blasted her for that. My DC teacher friends loved the idea and were quite ready to sign up for option 2.

Another free customizablt chore chart that we have enjoyed: http://www.dltk-cards.com/chart/ My kids like being able to pick the character on their chart. One other tip that has worked for us - make the kids responsible for marking off when they have completed a chore. We also used a chart system based on Dr. Peters Don't Be Afraid to Discipline book. It works really well for keeping track of good behavior and chores.

Sorry. You are all wrong. Halloween is evil because people hand out mini reese's pb cups and I steal them from my kids (I mean trade them for money so my children can be healthy), eat them all and gain 10 pounds! All on my hips.

Gosh yes. I often dream of the day I can send my little kiddies off, don my poodle skirt and high heels and vacuum the day away. Ahhhh, paradise. What comment blows me away? I always get the comment that since I homeschool I must be very organized!!!:lol::lol::lol: Oh, yeah. Um, just don't come in my house and open any drawer.

I find it interesting that there are numerous threads on the boards about how to stretch a grocery dollar to provide healthy meals for families, yet some people think that food stamp recipients wouldn't be interested in that. I'm pretty sure they'd like their kids to eat healthy foods. Plus, this whole debate started out with a story about people running out of money for food at the end of the month. Frozen pizza sure is easy, but it's not cheap. And while, yes, healthy food is usually more labor intensive, usually it just involves some preplanning. Trust me, my husband and I both work 2 jobs and we have to plan and coordinate schedules pretty carefully. However, we make it work because we want to stay on budget and feed our kids nutritious meals. We've read tons of books and websites to learn tricks and tips to make healthy foods fit in our busy lives. Suggesting that people on food stamps may want to learn about healthier, possibly cheaper options that would help them stretch their dollars and tricks to fit it in their schedule doesn't seem offensive to me, but that suggestion seems to have offended many on this thread. Not sure why.

That was fantastic - and so true.

Looks like a great book. Look forward to finding it and checking it out.

Exactly, it's your choice and you are happy to spend your dollars like that. Why not privately support your local arts? You and likeminded citizens can invest anyway you want. Why should the government do it? I personally do support the arts and think they are important. I just don't think that the government has any place in funding it or deciding what is or is not art.

NEA 2010 budget 155 million, NEH 2010 budget 167.5 million - a third of a BILLION dollars. For two agencies. That's a lot of gumballs!

Having worked as a fed. contractor for years, I feel confident saying that you could cut 25% from every federal budget without impacting their mission. Really, the amount of waste is staggering. After that, I'd define what the fed. gov't ought to do - what does the Constitutions state, what can only the federal gov't do... Those programs would stay. All others would get the boot - either down to state or local or all together. So many gov't functions could easily go private - NEA leaps to mind. Pretty much any grant program could also go.

Exactly. Similar to how ERs work. Even if you don't have insurance or ability to pay, they MUST treat you and everyone else has to pay more to cover the uninsured. On the other hand, do we want people to die in the street b/c they don't have insurance? Do we want people to have their houses burn down while ffs stand by because they didn't pay a fee? I think most of us would say no. So, how do we solve the free rider problem? Perhaps the fd could charge the family 500 or 1000 dollars if they put out a fire for a famliy who hadn't paid the fee. Some amount high enough to make it worthwhile for most people to pay the fee. Another option for both the fire and med. free rider problem - private charities to pay the premiums. Our gas company has an option right on your bill to give any extra amount you want to help pay for customers experiencing economic hardship. I could see the same thing on a fd bill.

Wow. What a courageous man. Sounds like they were an amazing family. My prayers go out to them and to all soldiers and their families. Reminded me of my favorite prayer - the West Point Cadet Prayer. O God, our Father, Thou Searcher of human hearts, help us to draw near to Thee in sincerity and truth. May our religion be filled with gladness and may our worship of Thee be natural. Strengthen and increase our admiration for honest dealing and clean thinking, and suffer not our hatred of hypocrisy and pretence ever to diminish. Encourage us in our endeavor to live above the common level of life. Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to be content with a half truth when the whole can be won. Endow us with courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns to compromise with vice and injustice and knows no fear when truth and right are in jeopardy. Guard us against flippancy and irreverence in the sacred things of life. Grant us new ties of friendship and new opportunities of service. Kindle our hearts in fellowship with those of a cheerful countenance, and soften our hearts with sympathy for those who sorrow and suffer. Help us to maintain the honor of the Corps untarnished and unsullied and to show forth in our lives the ideals of West Point in doing our duty to Thee and to our Country. All of which we ask in the name of the Great Friend and Master of all. - Amen

The evils of slavery tainted all Americans, not just Southerners. Do remember that some Northerners also owned slaves. And most Southerners did NOT own slaves. Indeed, even Ulysses S. Grant owned one slave and his wife owned 4. And neither freed them until after the Emancipation Proclamation. Kind of hard to argue that it was ONLY about slavery when a major military leader on the Union side owned a slave while fighting the war. People on both sides have argued credibly, imho, that slavery was one of many reasons why the Civil War happened. If it really was only about slavery then the Emancipation Proclamation would have happened in 1860, not 1863...and it would have freed all slaves, not just those in the Confederacy. I do not argue that slavery was not an issue. However, to blame it all on slavery is incorrect. To assume that those who argue that there were other reasons are merely glossing over slavery or pretending that slavery was just fine is also incorrect.

Two links and quotes from articles that give a state's rights POV Statements from the time suggest otherwise. In President Lincoln's first inaugural address, he said, "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so." During the war, in an 1862 letter to the New York Daily Tribune editor Horace Greeley, Lincoln said, "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery." A recent article by Baltimore's Loyola College Professor Thomas DiLorenzo titled "The Great Centralizer," in The Independent Review (Fall 1998), cites quotation after quotation of similar northern sentiment about slavery. Lincoln's intentions, as well as that of many northern politicians, were summarized by Stephen Douglas during the presidential debates. Douglas accused Lincoln of wanting to "impose on the nation a uniformity of local laws and institutions and a moral homogeneity dictated by the central government" that "place at defiance the intentions of the republic's founders." Douglas was right, and Lincoln's vision for our nation has now been accomplished beyond anything he could have possibly dreamed. A precursor for a War Between the States came in 1832, when South Carolina called a convention to nullify tariff acts of 1828 and 1832, referred to as the "Tariffs of Abominations." A compromise lowering the tariff was reached, averting secession and possibly war. The North favored protective tariffs for their manufacturing industry. The South, which exported agricultural products to and imported manufactured goods from Europe, favored free trade and was hurt by the tariffs. Plus, a northern-dominated Congress enacted laws similar to Britain's Navigation Acts to protect northern shipping interests. Shortly after Lincoln's election, Congress passed the highly protectionist Morrill tariffs. http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams120298.asp The war was fought over Southern independence, not over slavery. Lincoln said repeatedly the war was not being fought over slavery. In August 1862, over a year after the war started, Lincoln wrote an open letter to a prominent Republican abolitionist, Horace Greeley, in which he said he did not agree with those who would only “save” the Union if they could destroy slavery at the same time. Lincoln added that if he could “save” the Union without freeing a single slave, he would do so (Letter to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862, published in the New York Tribune). In July 1861, after the First Battle of Manassas (Bull Run) had been fought, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution, by an overwhelming majority, that declared the war was not being fought to disturb slavery, nor to subjugate the South, but only to “maintain the Union” (i.e., to force the Southern states back into the Union). A few months later, in September, a group of Radicals visited Lincoln to urge him to make compulsory emancipation a war objective. Lincoln declined, telling the Radicals, “We didn’t go into the war to put down slavery, but to put the flag back” (Brodie, Thaddeus Stevens, p. 155; Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, pp. 75-76). http://www.factasy.com/civil_war/2008/02/29/was_war_fought_over_slavery