I can't wait for the nonfiction historical accounts of the FEMA deathcamps, or revised textbooks that accurately tell the story of how a devout group of Salem men saved the country from witches and witchcraft.
God damn I'm excited. Let's go Texas, let's get even stupider with it.
These will not be used to shoot down Israeli missiles...
It's not rare. I went to public school in a medium sized, mixed income district, in a red state, that had VT schools, and alternative pedagogy schools for creative and gifted kids. All run by the public school district.
I don't know what you think a Charter School is, but when I say educational style, I mean alternative pedagogies. Which is is how charter schools typically differentiate themselves publicly, but again, they're not mentioning out loud the other aspects that I've laid out previously.
Which is why although you say you understand what I'm saying, I don't think you really do. And maybe that's my fault for not properly articulating everything, but I'm on a phone and these comments are already way too long to properly review and manage.
I didn't say they shouldn't exist. You asked me for ideas for reform. I suggested reading real academics who study this issue, but for the sake of conversation, one of my suggestions was folding the concept of charter schools into the public education system. As in, let them fulfill they're publicly stated objective of developing alternative pedagogies schools for differently abled students, but bring them into the public sector, with all the accountability, transparency, and legal protections for all students.
To be fair, I can see you're being genuine, but not sure you understand the money and influence behind these pushes for charter schools for the past 2 decades.
I'm wondering if part of the disconnect is that your envisioning charter schools from when you were a kid, versus what they are now after the explosion they've had in the last 20 years.
I feel that you sincerely believe this movement is done benevolently, and for the purpose of educating and creating better students. While I don't deny that those schools do exist, nor that many parents and students believe that is the mission statement, that's not as relevant to the political forces driving these changes.
This movement has gained political traction in the last two decades from the same people who push vouchers, and they do it with intent to degrade truly public education infrastructure, and create publicly funded private schools for the correct social and economic classes.
Because otherwise, there's no reason why it couldn't have been done within the framework of public education, just like my old school district did.
Oh, and public education isn't failing. America has some of the best public schools in the world, and some of the worst. This comes down to a lot of factors, including the fact that schools are primarily funded by local property taxes. Meaning wealthy schools get more resources, and poor schools get a whole lot less, even if they're right next to each other.
I'm quite aware of THAAD's capabilities, including its tracking radars, at least as far as publicly disclosed information goes.
That's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about this reducing, or removing, one of Iran's primary means of deterrence against Israeli attacks.
If Israel doesn't have to worry about the threat of Iranian ballistic missiles, it frees them up for an even more aggressive course of action.
Unless you're suggesting that this means Israel can, and should, continue to directly attack Iran...?
This defense enables and emboldens Israeli aggression.
It removes, or significantly reduces, the threat posed by Iranian ballistic missiles.
That means, it removes, or reduces, any deterrent effect they have, on moderating Israel.
This is not good, but less because of the risk of American KIA, and more because of how it changes the Israeli calculus.
Yes, that first but confirms the news article.
~~And then it talks about a deployment 5 years ago for a training exercise.~~
~~These aren't brick and mortar buildings, they're mobile platforms, and mobile air defense batteries redeploy all the time.~~
~~Again, I am not closed to the idea that there was US military operated THAAD system in Israel during that attack, I just can't find any reports confirming that, or even eluding to it.~~
Never mind, I misread that last bit. I will take a look at it later when I have a few moments, thank you.
I'm not saying it can't be. I'm saying I don't believe Iran has the capabilities or stockpiles available to do so, given the other American assets in theatre, or a desire to risk killing American troops.
I suspect they're deploying THAAD because of the failures of David's Sling during the last missile attack.
Air defense systems protect specific targets, not countries. Given the THAAD's long track record under US operators, I would wager that the bases and targets that Iranian missiles hit, either lacked sufficient coverage, had poorly trained Israeli personnel, and/or were covered by David's Sling.
Of course, I could be wrong, but we won't know for many many years given how secretive Israel is on these matters.
Edit: I'm not seeing any reports of active THAAD deployments in Israel prior to this announcement, just previous deployments to Israel, including for training. But no mention if they rotated out prior to the Iranian missile strike, or that they were present for it.
I'm not saying they weren't there, but do you have a source confirms they were present during this most recent attack?
... gladiator pit?
First off, no, this isn't combat and I don't suffer from that delusion...
Secondly, I'm talking about crazy vs. crazy. I want QANON nuts, antivax moms, liberals that accuse everyone they don't like of being a Russian bot, etc.
Finally.... I'm having a hard time moving past you calling this a gladiator pit, and implying that I'm a gladiator.... Actually, what's your Twitter handle. You sound like someone I should follow.
There's nothing wrong with a school district operating different types of schools, such as VT schools...
Not one piece of my critique was about "educational styles or content", it was entirely based on private entities siphoning off public funding for schools that are allowed to discriminate, not serve as a public resource, and disregard many, if not most, of the laws protecting students and public schools.
You're conflating your experience with a VT to Charter Schools, and it's not the same. Plenty of districts run specialized schools, for both blue collar and white collar track students.
I am sure there are plenty of white papers that deal with Charter School reform, and they would have much better ideas than I do on the subject.
Off the top of my head, they could start with:
Legally requiring transparency in admissions and a publicly accountable admissions processes. No more smoking mirrors that magically result in suspiciously high achieving, upper income, and low behavioral issues student bodies, relative to the surrounding areas.
Or better yet, abolishing them as they exist, and folding them into the public education system. If their is a parent demand for differentiated and specialized advanced public schools, have an established process to do that within a school district.
Charters are already stealing public funds, so why shouldn't they be held to the same laws and regulations that protect all students?
The thing is, I would bet you that the majority of new Charter schools, like within the last 20 years, would shut their doors if they were forced into the public school system. Because student discrimination and having a publicly funded quasi private school, that keeps out the undesirables, is the point.
They're air defense operators, just like gets deployed around Saudi Arabia's oil infrastructure.
If you want to feel bad about anything, it's that this will significantly reduce the likelihood that Iran can threaten Israel with ballistic missiles.
THAAD is really good at what it does, and something tells me that the Iranians aren't going to want to waste their entire stock pile on fruitless saturation attempts. To say nothing of their concerns of killing American troops.
As in, this provides Israel even greater latitude on their quest to start a hot war with Iran, without dramatically increasing any threat to their military bases and government buildings. Well, at least not from ballistic missiles.
I don't know how your school was set up, but vocational technical high schools are often publicly run, even by the same school district that runs the local public school system.
I've never come across charter VT schools. Maybe they're common, maybe not. I just don't have any knowledge of them.
Charter Schools are generally something different, and specifically designed to cater to largely middle and upper middle class students that are heading on college track. While there are charters that do cater to low-income areas, they're still targeting kids who are on a college track, and excluding those who they feel aren't.
They're private entities that operate under a legal charter, which allows them to siphon off public education funding in lieu of charging students tuition.
And I'm not even saying there's no use case for charter schools, but I am saying is that they have been converted into a trojan horse. So whether or not they can be salvaged, would depend on legislation that prohibits, or limits, the type of behaviors I described previously.
I don't know if anything's changed in the last 10-20 years or so, but I was under the impression that Albania was country with a deeply entrenched culture of organized crime, the Albanian mafia if you will.
And isn't one of their biggest businesses, aside from drug smuggling, human trafficking?
If I recall correctly, historically, Southern Italian and Albanian societies shared many of the same social conditions that enabled the rise of Italian and Sicilian organized crime, including a long history generational blood fueds, and something similar to Omertà, the Kanun.
Both of which were social customs and informal legal structures, predicated upon the belief that there were no legitimate or trustworthy authorities that could be relied upon. Whether through corruption, dysfunction, or prejudice in Italy, or the various colonial rulers who controlled what is now modern Albania.
I think I got most of that accurate, but someone can correct me if I'm mistaken anywhere. But, it was incredibly off topic and probably irrelevant, because I'm sure none of that will have any relationship or impact on what happens to the asylum seekers and migrants that Italy is going to be sending their way.