Think Twice ABout College

It is Friday and I’m just saying…..

·      The cost of a college education in 1980 was $11,000 (in 2012 dollars) now it is $29,000.

·      The average debt for a graduate in 2013 is $35,200.

·      Recent studies indicate that after two years in college, 45% of students showed no significant gains in learning; after four years, and 36% showed little change. Students also spent 50% less time studying compared with students a few decades ago.

·      35% of students report spending five or fewer hours per week studying alone. Yet, despite an "ever-growing emphasis" on study groups and collaborative projects, students who study in groups tend to have lower gains in learning.

·      50% said they never took a class in a typical semester where they wrote more than 20 pages; 32% never took a course in a typical semester where they read more than 40 pages per week.  (These facts from USA Today)

·      There were 1.9 million unemployed college graduates in October, according to the Labor Department, a third of them younger than 35.

·      About half of young graduates are either unemployed or are working in jobs that don’t require a college degree.  DOL

·      The median worker with a degree in counseling psychology earns $29,000…. and those with degrees in early childhood education earn $36,000

·      In 2008, 81 percent of adults thought college were a worthwhile investment. This year, 57 percent think so.

·      Nearly 30% of Americans with associate's degrees now make more than those with bachelor's degrees, according to Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce. In fact, other recent research in several states shows that, on average, community college graduates right out of school make more than graduates of four-year universities.

·      The average wage for graduates of community colleges in Tennessee, for instance, is $38,948 -- more than $1,300 higher than the average salaries for graduates of the state's four-year institutions.

·      In Virginia, recent graduates of community-college occupational and technical degree programs make an average of $40,000. That’s an almost $2,500 more than recent bachelor’s degree recipient.

·      Recent reports increasingly show that bachelor’s-degree graduates are unprepared for the workplace. According to a Chronicle of Higher Education/American Public Media’s Marketplace survey of 50,000 employers, half said they had trouble finding recent graduates qualified to fill positions at their company, saying that many lack basic qualifications such as adaptability, written and oral communication skills, decision-making, and the ability to solve complex problems. –

·      When a college is merely passing along technology as skills, they can’t always teach them what they’ll need tomorrow.  The technology they learn today will be different five years from now. -Create-Better-Prepared-Graduates.aspx#sthash.OrpdZ4h8.dpuf

·      Obtaining a college degree appears, in important ways, to be valuable because it's a reliable signal of diligence and conformity. As an individual, that's just something you should know. But as a society, we should ask whether there isn't some more cost-effective way young people can show that they're willing and able to pursue multiyear projects.

Mud, Baseball and Father's Day

 

My Dad knew how to get a baseball field ready for play after a big rain.

The St. Joseph  Little League City Championship game, played sometime in the 1950’s, would never have been played if not for Walter Dunn.

He brought in a helicopter to dry the field.

Dad knew to soak sawdust with a mixture of coal oil and gasoline and spread it on the dirt.  I can still picture him raking the flames.  He raked mud into submission and had a knack for getting 25 or 30 guys to spend an entire Saturday getting a field ready so the boys  could play.

When we moved to Savannah, Missouri, Dad brought his field-drying magic with him.

He knew where the water would stand at the Savannah Park softball field and had us out digging trenches in the rain.  We worked well into the early mornings preparing  softball fields for district championship play.

Dad knew how to do make a soggy mess into a manicured infield. Mostly, he enjoyed giving a kid a chance to play ball.

He didn’t just dry fields for the big games.  Walter had a sense that a schedule was to be honored and a game should be played.  It was the game he loved; and, what a kids becomes when he makes a fine play or blasts a hanging curve over an outfielder’s head.

I’ve saw him many times sitting in a grandstand, watching a baseball game, and picking blisters from raking mud. He was the reason the kids got to play.

I don’t have a Dad to surprise with breakfast in bed or a sentimental card.

I do have a memory however, and my Dad shows up there at the strangest times. 

There was the Memorial Day that my brother and I sat behind home plate, picking our blisters from raking mud and getting a ball field ready for play.

Neither of us had a kid in the game.  We just up and volunteered to help get the field ready.

“Field looks pretty good,” we said to each other, and then enjoyed seeing kids get to play.

My brother and I had a great Dad, and we still want to be just like him from time to time.

Our Hearts, an original song, performed by Bruce Ehlenbeck

Wow!

Missouri Public School Advocates

Mark Twain once told a story about how the Russian government had withdrawn money from the public schools in order to support its military’s presence in China. “This is a monstrous idea to us,” Twain said. “We believe that out of the public school grows the greatness of a nation.”

 Twain then went on to recall there once was a proposition in Hannibal, MO to discontinue public schools because they were too expensive. “It is curious to reflect how history repeats itself the world over,” Twain said.

 Now, a century later, Missouri legislators are at it again. Another day, another deterrent to funds for public education. Here are Show-Me State facts. Missouri ranking 41st among states in education funding with teacher pay at a dismaying 48th. The cause for this decline is the lack of effort at the state level. While the average state funds 46 percent of school cost, our state is at a miserable 29 percent. On the college side, the picture is bleak. College tuition has almost doubled at state universities in ten years. Ten years ago, Missouri was above average nationally in the percent of its population having a bachelor’s degree or more. Now, we have fallen into the bottom third. Today, students and their parents are being asked to subsidize the valuable research and development done by our universities as well as fund aid to disadvantaged but deserving young people.

That’s why the Missouri Public School Advocates was founded, to ensure the stability and strength of Missouri public schools, colleges and universities. No matter what well-funded, out-of-state, critics want you to believe, Missouri schools are doing good work.

Over the past 20 years in Missouri, ACT scores and high school graduation rates have gone up, while the dropout rate has steadily declined. Finally, more than 900,000 of Missouri children k-12 grades attend Missouri public schools. That’s 90 percent of school-aged children! Another 140,000 attend a public university or college in Missouri. The vast majority of Missourians are products of the public school system. We are all mostly public school graduates. When you read the negative attacks on the public schools, it should be personal. That criticism is about you. It’s about me. It’s about your friends, family and neighbors their children and grandchildren! Had enough?

 If you believe that public education is the cornerstone of democracy and are tired others trying to feather their own nest at the expense of children, it is time to stand up for public education. The Missouri Public School Advocate website http://mopublicschooladvocates.org/ has attribution for every fact I’ve written.

Please consider joining the people who love their Missouri schools and children, respect the role public education plays in and democracy, and think good schools build great communities. MPSA and public education need you now.

Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won't fatten the dog.

- Speech 11/23/1900 -Mark Twain

Jim Dunn 830 Sunset Avenue Liberty, MO 64068 817-781-9029 dunn830@gmail.com

Guns Guns Guns

Do not tell me it cannot be done!
Do not mock my efforts to try.
We can and must do something!
Do I have to repeat their names every time we talk so that we don't always have to talk about you?
Do you really care more about “what if” than “what is?”
Can we come together on something or must we stay apart for nothing?  

IMAGINE

“Imgination rules the world” ― Napoleon Bonaparte

“Imagination is intelligence with an erection.” ― Victor Hugo

“Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere.”
 ― Carl Sagan

“Because fear kills everything," Mo had once told her. "Your mind, your heart, your imagination.”
 ― Cornelia Funke, Inkheart

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.” ― Albert Einstein

“Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.” ― Oscar Wilde

“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.”
 ― Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

 “Everything you can imagine is real.” ― Pablo Picasso

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today
-JL

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.” ― Albert Einstein

Imagine the following world, which it's within our power to create: It's illegal to sell or possess a firearm--rifle or pistol--that can hold more than six bullets. And it's illegal to sell or possess a firearm with a detachable magazine. In other words, once a shooter exhausted the six rounds, he couldn't just snap in another six-round magazine; he'd have to put six more bullets in the gun one by one.
-Robert Wright

 Imagine a few common sense ideas:
• Reinstate the Assault Weapons Ban that expired in 2004.
• To own a gun, you must first have a license -- and it shouldn't be easy to get. Every citizen needs to pass written and practical tests to obtain a drivers license. Nationally, you should need a license to purchase a handgun. To acquire the license, you should be required (no loopholes e.g. gun show purchases) to pass a background check and a written examination that includes gun safety and proper storage and then the gun can be shipped to you from a licensed dealer after a waiting period. Citizens have a right to bear arms, but guns are dangerous, too. So, get a license.
-Edward DesChamps  

Imagine if:
• we encouraged the CDC and NIH from researching gun violence and the effects of gun control so we knew the facts.
• established dialogs with the gun owning community about their thoughts about how to reduce gun violence.
• strengthened regulations of gun purchases as well as limited the types of guns and ammunition that are sold to the general public. 
• we focused on holding gun owners responsible for their weapons
• changed media coverage of mass shootings to the larger problem - gun violence that claims 30,000 American lives every year.
• we could agree that the POSSIBILITY of armed insurrection pales before the REALITY of people dying in America today.
 • we expand gun buyback programs (the kind that recently made headlines for collecting rocket launchers in CA
• if there were no ads for real-world weaponry in the midst of a Call of Duty game because the industry agreed on some guideline for the game community
• if there was ready access to universal healthcare that provided care to mentally ill people.

The only thing we cannot imagine is how much we are actually capable of doing!