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Constitutional Carry is a Constitutional Right
By Andrew Thompson
In July of 2016, the state of Idaho will become the ninth state in the Union to become what is known as a Constitutional Carry State. A Constitutional Carry State means that a law abiding citizen does not need to have a permit while carrying concealed firearms in public. While this is a victory that is celebrated among advocates for gun rights, it also raises the question as to why do states feel the need to issue permits in the first place. In the state of Michigan, in order to get a Concealed Pistol License (CPL), one must undergo training from certified instructors, then take the certificate of completion down to the courthouse and submit the application. After several weeks, provided you pass the background check, you will receive your permit in the mail. The fact that the state of Michigan requires its law abiding citizens’ to obtain a concealed pistol permit, is in itself an infringement on their 2nd Amendment rights.
The Bill of Rights includes the 2nd Amendment which reads, “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Requiring law abiding citizens to get a license is an infringement, which the Bill of Rights guarantees us. There is no requirement for citizens to obtain a license to practice any other amendment. There is no license to practice a religion or to exercise your freedom of speech. One is not required to obtain a permit to prevent the government from coming into their homes for unreasonable searches and seizures. Why then should a citizen who has committed no crimes be deterred from their right to bear arms?
If the need ever arises that a person needs to defend themselves, government bureaucracy should not stand in the way of them being able to do so. All the time, forms, and fees required to obtain a CPL could potentially deter a citizen from obtaining their permit. While many citizens would decline to carry in the first place, there are still plenty of others who would probably carry if they had their permit. By eliminating that requirement to obtain a permit in the first place would in fact allow those who desire to carry to actually carry legally, and those who do not wish to carry do not need to.
A concern associated with enacting Constitutional Carry is that now private citizens with no firearm training can carry a concealed weapon. This could cause a horrific danger to the public in the event that an untrained citizen uses their weapon against a perceived threat. Police officers are required to undergo hours of vigorous training before they are allowed to carry so as not to endanger innocents who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Mark Schauf, who is the Police Chief of Baraboo Police Department in Baraboo, Wisconsin says, “As police officers, we’re required to have training before we get our weapons and a certain number of training hours throughout the year. If we have to be trained, it would only make sense that a person in public would want to be trained as well.”
Chief Schauf makes raises an excellent concern when it comes to required training. A citizen should not be carrying a concealed weapon without being knowledgeable about the handling and operation of the weapon. They should also be familiar with situations when it is acceptable and unacceptable to utilize the weapon. This comes down to the responsibility of the person carrying the weapon. They need to take it upon themselves to obtain the training required to gain confidence in the situations that may arise. Can we trust the individual citizen to take this upon themselves to ensure that they are able to carry responsibly? While the answer to this question remains yet to be determined, more and more states are pushing to become Constitutional Carry states. It would seem logical that training does not seem to be an issue in states that allow Constitutional Carry if states continue to become Constitutional Carry states themselves.
The 2nd Amendment makes things very clear. “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” It makes no provisions for firearm training or even making people feel safe. It simply says that this is our right. The point of rights are not up for votes or even debates. Our rights are guaranteed to us and are not up for discussion.
Constitutional Carry is not a Guaranteed Right
By: Riley Carbonell
Constitutional carry is the most recent movement in gun legislation and it is quickly taking the nation by storm. In states with constitutional carry, a law abiding citizen can openly carry or conceal a firearm in public without any type of license or permit. Many states still require a permit to carry a gun in public but the movement is quickly gaining traction. Supporters of constitutional carry say that putting any requirements on possession of guns is an infringement on their second amendment rights and opponents say that it is outrageous to let people carry guns without a license or permit.
The main concern that has been brought up with constitutional carry is that any citizen can carry the gun in public without any safety training. In many states, to obtain a concealed carry license you need to not only pass a background check, but also take a certain amount of firearm safety classes. These are important not only in teaching the user how to handle the weapon safely, but also how to behave when the weapon needs to be used in self-defense. If an individual is going to discharge a firearm in a public place with other people around, they need to be trained so that they can do it as safely as possible.
Constitutional carry advocates often like to bring up the point that if more people had concealed weapons then it would be much safer to go out in public. But the truth of the matter is actually quite alarming. A study by Stanford University showed that states with “right to carry” gun laws actually saw an increase in violent crime. “The murder rate increased in the states with existing right to carry laws for the period 1999-2010” (Parker). The study also showed that homicides increased in eight states that adopted right-to-carry laws during 1999-2010 (Parker). Just by eliminating the requirement of having to take a firearm safety class in order to carry a weapon in public the homicide rate increases.
Just because someone has a legal permit or license to conceal a weapon, it does not automatically mean that it will only be used for self-defense. A recent study on gunshot fatalities shows that at least 722 non-self-defense deaths since 2007 were attributable to individuals with legal permits to carry concealed weapons (New York Times). This means that there were 722 deaths caused by people who carry weapons to try and prevent these types of shootings. The study includes many more disturbing facts about the victims of concealed carriers. “The study found that the fatalities included 17 law enforcement officers shot by people with legal permits” (New York Times). The study also showed that an unusually high number of people with a concealed carry permit used their own firearm to commit suicide.
The second amendment is the reason why many people believe that being forced to get concealed carry permits is unconstitutional. The second amendment states that citizens have the right to keep and bear arms. Many people take this to mean that any rules or regulations that are placed on gun ownership are automatically unconstitutional. In the case of concealed carry permits, the government is not preventing anyone from carrying a concealed weapon. They are just creating a stipulation that you must purchase a license and take a firearm safety course beforehand.
I understand that forcing people to buy a concealed carry permit can seem like its unconstitutional, but the truth is we don’t want everyone to be able to carry a gun around in public. Guns can be very dangerous and it only makes sense that to use one in public you should be properly trained and licensed. Imagine if we let everyone drive a car without the proper training and with a license. The roads would be very dangerous and many drivers would be very uneducated about even the simplest rules. When it comes to things as dangerous as guns and cars, the operators need to be properly trained and licensed, otherwise people can get killed.
April 14, 2016
Concealed Firearms Are Not Constitutionally Protected
By Zachary Wolfer
As a child, I was terrified of strangers. I worried that the guy next to me could have a gun or discharge an automatic weapon. Now, those fears are becoming more grounded, and more likely. In July of this year, Idaho will become the ninth “Constitutional Carry” state, allowing its citizens to carry concealed firearms without the need for a permit. This is considered a loss for those favoring gun control, and raises the issue of the danger(s) caused by allowing easier access to guns. Today, firearms can result in significant deaths and destruction with only a pull of a trigger, as seen on the news with mass-shootings becoming commonplace in our world. America needs to push for gun-violence legislation in order to quell the danger posed by firearms.
More stringent gun control is needed to curb violence. German Lopez, a journalist, identified a relationship from a multitude of studies conducted by Harvard University’s School of Public Health, between the number of guns in a community and the gun violence that takes place. Lopez found, “The empirical research shows that reducing the number of guns—by reducing access to them, or by immediately cutting the supply of them through, for example, buyback programs—would lead to fewer deaths”. We cannot let people carry concealed firearms with no training or background checks, especially when facts show that we would be safer with less access to guns. Baraboo’s Police Chief, Mark Schauf, stated, “As police officers, we’re required to have training before we get our weapons and a certain number of training hours throughout the year. If we have to be trained, it would only make sense that a person in public would want to be trained as well”. Individuals without proper training could easily hurt themselves or others. Of course, lack of background checks that are currently required to acquire a concealed pistol permit would also allow for almost anyone to carry a concealed firearm.
Additionally, Governor Kasich argues, “You could strip all the guns away, but the people who are going to commit crimes or have problems are always going to have the guns”. However, many fail to see that horrific crimes are carried out by armed people who were not criminals at the time. Cases like these are outlined in the article, “We Need Gun Control to Stop More Than Criminals” by Susan Milligan, with events such as a 12-year-old who brought a shotgun to school and opened fire, or a man in Florida with a spotless criminal record who shot and killed a man while in a movie theatre, are just two of many examples of non-criminals committing atrocities with guns. America must pass additional laws regulating guns, despite the risk of infringement on law-abiding citizens. As mentioned in the article, “Gun Control Laws”, the National Firearms Act of 1934 was created, according to the Congressional Research Center, “to make it difficult to obtain types of firearms perceived to be especially lethal or to be the chosen weapon of ‘gangsters’, most notably machine guns and short-barreled long guns”. Even though it would make it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to acquire these guns, we choose to regulate them in order to promote public safety. The risk of removing a few guns from upstanding citizens is worth it as long as innocent lives are spared.
Gun control oppositionists believe it is an infringement on our citizens’ rights, and making citizens obtain a license to have a concealed weapon is unconstitutional. As the Constitution states, “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”. The Constitution is the highest power in the U.S., and we should not try to override it.
Protecting our Constitution is every American’s duty. However, regulating guns does not violate the Second Amendment. America does not need to completely disarm our civilians, but allow for commonsense restrictions on gun access, such as the need for permits that Constitutional Carry is trying to remove. Another issue with this argument is that it no longer applies today. Our Founding Fathers never dreamed of the massively powerful and rapidly firing weapons that civilians have access to. In the late 1700s, the creators had no idea of the devastation any civilian could wreak with a few trigger pulls. We have amended our Constitution in the past, and if it is necessary to do so now, then we must.
The world is changing and advances in technology have made firearms more dangerous, creating a greater need for gun control. More states cannot be allowed to join the “Constitutional Carry” movement, as it increases the risk of gun violence. America does not need to be disarmed, but it does need stringent gun-violence legislation.
Constitutional Carry is a Constitutional right
Constitutional Carry: A constitutional rewrite
Among the “hot button” issues in America that remain off the table for discussion: gun rights remain at the top of list with abortion, immigration, and drug legalization. While the majority of authority figures are focused on more comprehensive regulations which would increase the overall responsibility for gun owners; there are those in the union pushing in the other direction. Despite the horrific mass shooting witnessed in this country on a weekly basis, Idaho in July of 2016 became the ninth state in the union to allow constitutional carry; which essentially allows citizens to carry firearms without permits or training. Proponents claim that requiring law abiding citizens to gain a concealed pistol permit is an infringement on their second amendment right. Unfortunately, this is a misreading of history. Reducing the amount of respect and regulations we place upon firearms would only result in the loss of more human life from mass shootings.
A primary issue associated with passing Constitutional Carry laws are that now private citizens with no firearm training will carry a concealed weapon. This could cause a horrific danger to the public in the event that an untrained citizen uses their deadly weapon without the experience to avoid unintended harm to others. Law enforcement officers are required to undergo hours of indepth training before they are allowed to carry so as not to endanger innocents. Mark Schauf, who is the Police Chief of Baraboo Police Department in Baraboo, Wisconsin says, “As police officers, we’re required to have training before we get our weapons and a certain number of training hours throughout the year. If we have to be trained, it would only make sense that a person in public would want to be trained as well.”
In Abby Oldman’s 2016 PBS News Hour article, a mass shooting is described as a shooting resulting in no less than four victims of injure or death. According to this definition, 2015 had 372 mass shooting resulting in 485 deaths and 1870 people left wounded. In case you’re struggling with that math ill make it easier for you; that’s more than one person killed every day by a mass shooting. Where these gun advocates got the notion there’s not enough guns on the streets I don’t know, but it’s simply not true. We need more regulation not less.
Proponents of Constitutional Carry point to the The Bill of Rights which states “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” This lead gun rights activists to claim; requiring law abiding citizens to get a license is an infringement on all of our second amendment rights. There is no requirement for citizens to obtain a license to practice any other amendment. People would revolt if there was a permit to use ones freedom of speech, or your right to a fair trial. Why then should a citizen who has committed no crimes be deterred from their right to bear arms? The problem with this interpretation of the Bill of Rights is that it ignores government’s role in maintaining public safety. As genius as the founding fathers were they were not fortune tellers. It’s ridiculous to assume that the guidance of people who lived 200 will forever be applicable to the present time. The founding fathers could not have imagined the challenges today’s leaders face. Their principle mustn’t be forgotten, rather updated to ensure their overall intention of safety is upheld over chaos.
The U.S. government has a duty to public safety and the common good. The frequency of mass shooting is no secret; regulations should be supported to ensure public health. It’s no punishment to law abiding citizen if you make laws to ensure only law abiding citizens enjoy the right to carry.
Constitutional Carry is a Disaster
Topher Stevens
Starring down the barrel of a gun, I knew it was important to stay calm. Memory fails as to what had been said to get to this point, but my life depended on my next move. After talking him down, I was able to leave my friend’s house intact but shaken. Lax gun laws failed me, nearly allowing a negligent parent’s mistake be fatal. While this and many anecdotes like it wouldn’t have been prevented by stopping “Constitutional Carry,” requiring training and background checks may. There is a push among the NRA crowd to allow carrying of a handgun in public without training or permit, calling it constitutional carry. This is harkening back to the Second Amendment, summed up as the right to bear arms. This idea doesn’t translate very well from revolutionary citizen soldiers to modern day America.
Untrained citizens carrying concealed weapons is a threat to public safety. According to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, “members of the public who carry guns risk escalating everyday disagreements.” Constitutional carry would get rid of the already miniscule amount of training required to carry a concealed pistol. While this training is somewhat expensive, it allows instructors a chance to encourage firearm safety on the street as well as at home. These safety talks wouldn’t be required under constitutional carry. Additionally, constitutional carry would encourage more people to be armed.
More guns will allow for more gun violence. If there is a possibility that the victim could be carrying a weapon, a criminal is more likely to bring a weapon. When it is likely that a criminal has a weapon, police are more likely to shoot before verifying a threat. This sort of arms race only intensifies with removal of barriers to concealed carry. Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck said “I have seen far too much gun violence in my lifetime to think that more guns is the solution.” His words are backed by many instances of everyday disagreements turning fatal because somebody had a gun. However, constitutional carry proponents say these regulations get in the way of self-defense.
Defending your family from unknown threats is the reason many people purchase guns. Requiring licensing and training could stand in the way of using these weapons to defend one’s family. Proponents claim to be the last line of defense, as police are often too late to prevent the crime. According to Arizona Sheriff Richard Mack, “police do very little to prevent violent crime. We investigate after the fact.” Proponents use this sort of fearful rhetoric to encourage gun ownership, but fail to see the dangers of their policies.
While it’s true that the 2nd Amendment ends with “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” proponents often leave out the history behind it. This amendment wasn’t designed for modern times, it was created for a time when our enemies were on American soil. It was created to allow for “a well-regulated Militia,” not an untrained mob. Constitutional carry is 225 years out of date. It’s time to move forward.
Hospital nurse to patient ratios
By Kevin Coltman
Imagine you are in a hospital as a patient with some illness when all of a sudden nature calls; you have to use the restroom. Your nursing staff previously informed you that you are required to have someone assist you if you need to get up because of the medication you are being given, the IV tubing and pump you are hooked up to, along with the nasal cannula you are wearing that supplies supplemental oxygen to help you breathe. You put the call light on to get someone into your room to help like you were asked to do but the urge to use the bathroom is getting stronger and stronger. Seven minutes have now passed and you say to yourself, I walked into the hospital; I can walk 15 feet to the bathroom. So you get up taking the oxygen out of your nose, unplug the IV pump on wheels from the wall and start walking to the bathroom when suddenly you feel dizzy and fall to the floor. Accidents like this happen all the time in hospitals all over the country. Seven minutes is a long time to wait if a patient needs something, especially if it is something like chest pain or difficulty in breathing. Nurse staffing ratios directly affect the quality and safety of patient care.
Nurses have the clinical knowledge and assessment skills to monitor their patients, but unsafe staffing ratios make it difficult for nurses to spend adequate amounts of time with each patient. The appropriate ratio of nurses to patients is critical component of quality patient care. At this time there are only fourteen states which have laws regarding nurse staffing (Nurse Staffing Plans & Ratios). This leaves staffing ratios to the discretion of each individual facility, and unfortunately budgets tend to play a key role in staffing. Healthcare employers fail to acknowledge the association between nurse staffing and patient outcomes, which make laws and regulations a necessity. Nurse staffing must be regulated to ensure optimal care because current nurse to patient ratios in the hospital setting are unsafe for patients.
Dozens of studies have found that the more patients assigned to a nurse, the higher the patients’ risk of death, infections, complications, falls, failure-to-rescue rates and readmission to the hospital, and the longer their hospital stay. According to American Nursing Association, for every 100 surgical patients who die in hospitals where nurses are assigned four patients, 131 would die if they were assigned eight.
In pediatrics, adding even one extra surgical patient to a nurse’s ratio increases a child’s likelihood of readmission to the hospital by nearly 50 percent. The Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research found that if every hospital improved its nurses’ working conditions to the levels of the top quarter of hospitals, more than 40,000 lives would be saved nationwide every year.
Nurses are well aware of the problem. In a survey of nurses in Massachusetts, 25 percent said that understaffing was directly responsible for patient deaths, 50 percent blamed understaffing for harm or injury to patients and 85 percent said that patient care is suffering because of the high numbers of patients assigned to each nurse. And yet too often, nurses are punished for speaking out. “Justin Hinckley of the Lansing state journal says, “for example, if the Safe Patient Care act limits a nurse to four patients, the employer would be forced to double the amount of nurses working on a particular unit. This would be a tremendous cost increase for hospitals. Where would this money come from? Hospitals are businesses just like any other, and they would need to make cuts.”
As the push for hospital profits has increased, important matters like personnel count, most notably nursing staff, have suffered. Increasing profits have become the number one emphasis and every decision is made based on cost saving, sometimes at the expense of patient safety.
The Michigan Nursing Association supports the Safe Patient Care Act which would regulate staffing and the nurse to patient ratios, creating a safer environment for patients and nursing staff. Legislators have a responsibility to enact public policy that enables nurses to do their jobs and keep people safe in Michigan’s hospitals. ” Mark W. Stanton with AHRQ says, “Increased Nursing staff does not decrease profit, it actually increases profit by decreasing a patients length of stay in the hospital. Better outcomes equal better profits” “Warren, the sponsor of the Safe Patient Care Act in the Senate says, “Hospitals have a duty to provide sufficient staff to ensure adequate patient care. It’s time to make progress on patient safety legislation, because it truly can be a matter of life or death.”
Reversing Charlotte’s Ordinance
By: Lyndsay Strauss April 8th 2016
Bruce Springsteen cancels North Carolina concert to protest bathroom law. Recently Charlotte, North Carolina passed a law requiring transgender people to use the bathroom of the gender that is on their birth certificate. This requires transgender men to use a women’s bathroom even though they look like a man. Many people are outraged including celebrities such as Bruce Springsteen, which is why he cancelled his North Carolina concert. By forcing people to use the bathroom that is on their birth certificate it may cause people to be confused because the person may look like the other gender. For example a transgender man may get in trouble for going into the women’s bathroom because he looks like a man but his birth certificate says he’s a woman.
Forcing a transgender person to use the bathroom of the gender that is on their birth certificate will cause them to be verbally and even physically abused. A new study from the Williams Institute confirms that transgender people face significant levels of discrimination and harassment simply when trying to use the restroom. 70% of transgender people say they experienced some sort of negative reaction when using a bathroom and 9% were physically assaulted which included being removed, hit, kicked, slapped and one respondent reported being sexually abused. Transgender people should be able to use the restroom without worrying about being assaulted.
By making transgender people use the bathroom of the gender that is on their birth certificate, they are being discriminated against. All transgenders have the right to use the restroom without feeling ridiculed or worrying about being assaulted. Non-transgenders can use the bathroom without worry so transgenders should be able to as well. To Cox a transgender woman and advocate said “This law affects us because it puts us in danger, and it’s open discrimination. It’s no different than the Jim Crow laws that we had here in the South. There are many Americans who are alive today and were alive with some of those laws before we passed the Civil Rights bill. This law is literally the same thing. And if we didn’t find that acceptable, this is not acceptable. It doesn’t matter who it’s towards. Discrimination is not acceptable.”
The people opposing the reversal of this law state that non-transgender people worry about being assaulted while using the bathroom. They worry that sexual predators will pose as a transgender person in order to enter the bathroom and rape or assault someone. Before this law was passed Governor Pat McCrory said, “…[this causes] major public safety issues by putting citizens in possible danger from deviant actions by individuals taking improper advantage of a bad policy.”
There is no data that proves transgender people assault non-transgender people in the bathroom. Florida State Representative Frank Artiles, a huge supporter of Charlotte Ordinance who also sponsored the Single Sex Public Facilities bill (HB 583), could not provide any evidence that a transgender person has ever attacked cisgender (non-transgender) people in public restrooms when pressed by BuzzFeed in February.
Charlotte’s Ordinance must be reversed because transgendered people should be allowed to use gender specific restrooms. Once this ordinance is reversed transgender people won’t have to fear being physically or verbally abused and will be in a safe environment to go to the bathroom.
Male or female is how we are born and there is no changing that. Some people do not like the way they are born so they go through a transition process and they try to become someone that they think they should be. Some are male to female and others are female to male and because of the transition, they now look and act like the opposite gender and after this transition, they will go into the bathroom that they feel they belong to and it is going to be the opposite gender they were born as. However, even though they go through a transition and look like someone else at the end of it, they never truly transition and because of this, transgender people should use the bathroom of the gender that is on their birth certificate.
To begin, non-transgender people have just as much to worry about as transgenders do. According to D.C McAllister, the Charlotte’s Ordinance has brought up serious questions about privacy, as well as safety concerns that perverts posing as transgender people could take advantage of the law to harm others (North). Parents would not want to watch their children go into the bathroom being followed by a scary person who is claiming to be transgender. The people that do that are abusing the privilege and use being transgender as an excuse to go against the law and do the unimaginable to people in that bathroom. The people that do this may think it is a free for all and they can get away with it as long as they say they are transgender.
In addition, scientifically gender is never really switched after the transition. According to an article, Sex Change Regret, “No amount of surgery, hormone injection or anything else can, or will, change the birth gender DNA. It is absolute.” If born a male, that person will always have XY chromosomes and if born a female, they will always have XX chromosomes therefore they will always be the gender they were born as whether they want to be or not. They undergo this transition because they wish to be someone else but science does not work like that. Even though they look like and act like the opposite gender, they really are the same person they were born as and because of this, going to the bathroom of the gender on their birth certificate should not be a problem.
Some people will argue that forcing a transgender to use the bathroom of the gender on their birth certificate will cause them to be bullied. According to a study done by the Williams Institute, 70% of transgender people have experienced some sort of negative reaction while using the bathroom whether they were told to leave because they were in the wrong bathroom or on a higher level they were physically abused (Study). These people are being bullied because they are trying to be who they believe they should be and they do not deserve it but people do not understand that. They are humans just like everyone else and they should be treated the same. However, wherever we go in life, there will always be people who disagree with the beliefs of others and they go after them in ways that are unimaginable.
In conclusion, transgender people should have to use the bathroom of the gender that is on their birth certificate because even though they wish to change gender, it never truly changes and also because people may pose as transgender to get away with things that should not happen. Everyone was born how they were to live that life, not to change it and live it how they think they should. Yes some people do not like the way they were born and they want to change it so they go through the transition and in the end, they believe they are the person they were supposed to be. However, who we were born as is who we are supposed to be and we should not try to change that, we are who we are and we should embrace that. An unknown author once wrote, “We were give this life because we are strong enough to live it.”
Gender is Gender
By: Kennidi Milks
Ben Airola
Transgender is Gender
The rate of suicide attempts among transgender people is staggeringly 10 times as high as that of general population according to the Williams Institute. Recently there has been much debate about transgender people using public restrooms, and whether they should use the restroom of their preferred gender or the gender that they were assigned at birth. Transgender individuals face some of the highest rates of discrimination and harassment in the country. Their gender identity can cause them to lose their homes, jobs, and families. This discrimination is pervasive and infects all areas of their lives. The public restroom debate is just another way to discriminate against a group of people that already have less rights than the general population. Transgender men and women should be able to use the bathroom of their preferred gender.
To many people it looks strange to see someone that looks like a man using the woman’s restroom and vice versa. This results in transgender men and women being harassed and causes them to feel unsafe using the public restrooms of their gender at birth. These people face public discrimination every day of their lives, and they can’t even feel safe when they need to go to the bathroom. Transgender individuals deserve the rights and respect given to the general population. According to the Williams Institute 68% of transgender individuals face verbal harassment when using public restrooms, with 9% of those surveyed reporting that they were even physically assaulted.
Being transgender is closely tied to identity. It may not be possible for a man or woman to ever completely become the opposite gender, but that is a scientific limitation and isn’t reason to discriminate against transgender individuals. Being transgender is more about what you identify as and feeling comfortable as who you are. It’s important for everyone to feel secure with their own identity. Just like no woman should feel discriminated against, such as in the workplace, transgender individuals deserve to be treated respectfully as well. According to The National Transgender Discrimination Survey, though 90% of transgender people reported that they have experienced harassment or discrimination in the workplace, 78% of those surveyed stated that they feel more comfortable at work and more effective at performing their jobs, despite the high amount of discrimination they face.
An argument of those that oppose transgender people being free to use the restroom of their preferred gender is that anyone could claim to be transgender. This means that predators could use whatever restroom they wanted to in an attempt to exploit or assault others. Kaeley Triller said “…there are countless deviant men in this world who will pretend to be transgender as a means of gaining access to the people they want to exploit, namely women and children.”
I’m of the opinion that anecdotal experiences shouldn’t influence policy change without statistical evidence. The idea that men masquerading as transgender people will infiltrate women’s bathrooms and harass or sexually assault them is fearmongering. The men who would even consider doing such a thing are already “deviant men,” and there’s no statistical evidence for any increase in rape or sexual harassment due to transgender people being able to use the bathroom of the gender they identify with. Sexual assault is a terrible reality, and women do deserve to feel safe in their designated public restrooms. However, there is no reason to believe that there will be any increase in sexual assault. In fact, transgender individuals are currently much more likely to be sexually assaulted in the bathroom than women are.
All people deserve the right to feel comfortable with themselves and safe from public discrimination. Of the many forms of discrimination against transgender people, the topic of restroom use is the most current and controversial. Opposing arguments are mostly based on personal beliefs and inspiring fear. No group of people should have their rights taken away because of personal experience and belief, rather than facts and statistics. The solution I am most fond of is the passing of legislature to enable transgender individuals to use whichever gender’s public restroom they identify with. In addition to that, I think it would be a good idea to have some sort of additional punishment for sexual offenses committed in a restroom. This would allow people of all genders to feel a little more safe in the restroom, where they are most vulnerable.
Are Standardized Test Needed?
By: Andrea Watson
While I worked at a Teacher assistant I have witnessed how stressful standardized test are on both the students and the staff of these schools. Standardized tests can be a very powerful and helpful tool to show both how a school is performing and how well the students are learning the information. However the problem is how many standardized test the students today are required to take and the amount of time that they spend on preparing for the test and the test itself. Today student will have to start taking standardize test from now until the end of the year. While this may not seem like very much image sitting at a computer as a third or fourth grader for hours in some situation. This is an overwhelming situation for these children.
Our students are spending far too much time on standardized test. Students begin taking the standardized testing in the spring. Some students are spending sever hours on these test when they could be learning different things not just preparing for a test. Our students are just spending hours taking these test they are spending weeks on preparing for these test and this is wasting precious time that the students could be learning other material. As stated in Wall Street Journal “”Learning is about so much more than just filling in the right bubble,” Obama said in a video released on Facebook. “So we’re going to work with states, school districts, teachers, and parents to make sure that we’re not obsessing about testing.””
The teacher’s jobs and their performance is being judged based on these test and that is not necessarily a fair judgement. Unfortunately for teachers not all students test the same nor do they learn the same. While one student may rise to the challenge of standardized testing, another may become overwhelmed and fail. This is an unfair judgement on how a teacher is preforming because the teacher may be one of the best in her school however if she has some students that may not test as well as some other students it will reflect poorly on the teacher. As stated in the Wall Street Journal “Teachers’ unions have fought hard against one-size-fits-all tests for students being tied to their teachers’ performance evaluations. Among parents with children in public schools, 63 percent were opposed to linking teacher evaluations to their students’ test scores in a recent Gallup Poll.”
The results of the standardized test are not given to either the teacher or parents of the students in a timely manner. Standardized testing is a very helpful tool to show how schools are preforming. With the No Child Left Behind act came the standardized testing. This was to make sure students were performing at the necessary levels. This is important because it was the best way for the government to insure that the students were learning the needed information in order to make sure that they are prepared to move on to the next grade level. As stated in the Wall Street Journal, “The Obama administration said it still supports standardized tests as a necessary assessment tool, and there are no signs they are going away soon.”
The results of the standardized test are important they are not the only way for a teachers and parents to judge how well their students are doing in the grade that they are currently in. While it would be helpful to receive the test results in a timelier manner it is not necessary. As stated in the Detroit News “But when used effectively and sparingly, tests can and should be an important tool for improving education.” We as a society are putting too much emphasis on the results of these test and thus are pushing for more and more of them. If we only had one or two standardized test a year that may provide more information on how well the students are doing.
Today we spend a lot of our student’s time teaching them how to take a standardized test. This process takes up time in the classroom that could be spent on other material, and the results are holding more importance than is necessary. The results of standardized test should only be used as a way to help teachers see how to improve their methods. One way to solve this problem would be to test our students at the beginning of the year on the previous year’s work to see how much information they have retained over the summer break. Then we would test them again near the middle of the school year to see how much information they learned over the time that has been spent learning in the current grade.
How Much is Too Much
By: Kennidi Milks
According to a “Town Hall article, written by AP News,” Teenagers spend nearly nine hours a day absorbing media and despite all the new options, music and television remain the favorites. Nine hours a day is a ridiculously high amount of time to be in front of a screen or listening to music. Some students like to listen to music while writing papers or even doing homework and sometimes write down what they are listening to instead of what they meant to put down. To prevent this from happening, teenagers need to spend less time in front of the screen and listening to music and more time doing other activities.
It is said that teenagers are supposed to get at least an hour of physical activity each day. Instead of being inside in front of a screen, they could be outside riding a bike, running, or even just hanging out outside with friends playing games. When a survey was conducted, 15.2% percent of high school students had not participated in 60 or more minutes of any kind of physical activity on a daily basis. These students are denying their body the proper growth and development needed to be healthy. They are also more likely to allow their children in the future to sit in front of the TV screen or computer screen all day instead of treating their body’s right.
Multitasking is very common among teenagers. They listen to music in the shower, when getting ready for the day, and even when they go to sleep. However, multitasking is not good for us. Our brains were designed to focus on one thing at a time, and bombarding them with multiple ways of information only slows them down. Some students like to listen to music while doing homework or studying, but it has been proven to lower the quality of the work. Some studies have shown that even the opportunity to multitask, such as knowledge of an unread email in your inbox, can reduce your effective IQ by 10 points.
Online classes have become more and more common these days. This may be a major reason teenagers spend so much time on the internet. These teenagers are taking online classes so they can get ahead in their education and are getting college credit for that class. If they are taking an online class they need to be in front of a screen, therefore spending a lot of time on the internet. In fall 2013, there were 5,522,194 students enrolled in any distance education courses at degree-granting postsecondary institutions. Normal online classes require you to be on at least twice a week, so on average they may spend one to two hours a day just doing school work.
Teenagers need to spend less time in front of the screen and more time doing other activities because it will benefit them in the long run. The amount of time spent in front of a screen needs to be limited daily so they can spend more time doing other activities. The limited time will help them in the future because they will be less dependable on the internet if they ever get bored. A new study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, found children get more sleep, do better in school, behave better and see other health benefits when parents limit content and the amount of time their children spend on the computer or in front of the TV. Limited time will allow online students to stay on topic and do their homework and not go off track and end up online shopping or playing games.
Teenagers need to be limited on how much time they spend in front of the screen or listening to music because nine hours a day is a little ridiculous. What could they possibly be doing for nine hours anyway? They could be spending that time with family and friends or even outside doing physical activities. They could also be doing the schoolwork that they have that night instead of putting it off to sit in front of a screen. Limited time on the internet will only benefit them in the future.
Schools Must Send Non-Vaccinated Students Home
By Seth Johnson
Imagine living at a time in history when a cure for polio did not exist. Now picture, catching the deadly disease and spending months laying in an iron lung machine to survive. This was a reality before the discovery of the polio vaccine. Childhood vaccinations prevent certain diseases from spreading from person to person. In the State of Michigan, parents are required to provide documentation that students have received the required vaccinations prior to entering school. A medical waiver can be obtained from a family physician when a child has a medical condition that prevents a vaccination. Finally, parents have the option to sign a waiver which exempts the child from receiving vaccinations. When a preventable illness shows up in a school setting, students who have not been vaccinated are at risk of contracting and passing on the disease. Some examples of preventable illnesses include: measles, mumps, chickenpox, polio, and whooping cough. According to an article in The Detroit News, by Joerg Sarbach, “A Birmingham mother recently was upset because one of her children was sent home from school for not having all of his vaccinations.” Non-vaccinated students must not be allowed to attend school during periods of possible disease outbreaks.
Diseases that once disappeared in the United States are presenting in places around the country including the State of Michigan. Two examples showing diseases are making a comeback include the outbreak of whooping cough in Traverse City, Michigan and the outbreak of measles at Disneyland in California. Both cases included school age children and demonstrate the need to prevent the spread of diseases. The Ingham County Health Department wrote in the annual health report that the Ingham County Community Control Division confirmed 17 outbreaks in 2014. The report also stated that “the top four illness were nor virus, varicella (chicken pox), influenza, and pertussis (whooping cough). Every community is at risk for a disease outbreak when children are not vaccinated.
Some parents elect to obtain non-medical vaccine waivers instead of getting children vaccinated. Local health departments and the State have increased public awareness regarding the importance of vaccinations. Parents need to be aware of the consequences for choosing non-medical waivers. Having more children vaccinated, provides increase immunization coverage in Michigan. According to a Detroit News article by Karen Buford, “Michigan Department of Community Health epidemiologists blame lack of vaccinations for 1,300 cases last year.” The health department requires mandatory reporting for certain diseases. On a local level, the Ingham County Health Department identified an 18% increase in the number of disease investigations in 2014. In order to help eliminate disease outbreaks, non-vaccinated students should stay home from school.
Opponents argue that parents have the right to choose whether or not to vaccinate children. Some parents provide many different explanations why they do not get children vaccinated. Some reasons include non-traditional health care choices, religious motives, and links to autism. In Traverse City, many parents who choose not to vaccinate children had higher socioeconomic status and felt it was a personal choice decision. Beth Olosky is a parent and day care provider in the Traverse City area. She was quoted in The Detroit News as saying: “This whooping cough, I’ve been watching very intently, because it is a very real thing and a lot of people choose not to vaccinate.” Ms. Olosky felt whooping cough spread quickly in the area because many children who attended school were not properly vaccinated.
Parents should not have the option to withhold vaccinations to children because of personal choice. Some people might consider the autism argument as a valid possibility. However, autism has not been proven to be caused by vaccinations. The Detroit News published a statement that according to Karen Bouffard, “The CDC supports the conclusion of the Institute of Medicine that there is no relationship between vaccines and autism rates in children.” Many other people support the conclusion that autism is not caused by vaccinations. Children should be vaccinated when there is no scientific or medical reason to indicate otherwise. In addition, all children who are not vaccinated must stay home from school during disease outbreaks.
Schools are locations where many children are in close proximity to each other and diseases can spread very quickly. During an outbreak, the goal is to decrease the spread of the preventable disease. The way to accomplish the goal is schools must be able to send home students. Another solution would be to have parents pay more in health care costs for children who are non-vaccinated due to personal reasons.
Setting the Phone Down While Driving Saves Lives
By Savannah Jensen
Operating nearly two tons of metal is a responsibility that no person should take lightly, especially when it has the ability to cause so much destruction. Every year, thousands of people are killed in car accidents caused by distracted driving. More specifically, accidents caused because the driver was using their cell phone. These tragedies could be prevented if more laws were created to prohibit the use of phones while driving. Laws that prohibit all cell phone use as opposed to just texting, for drivers of all ages, will stop drivers from looking at their phones to make calls or check information. Laws can be created in all states in order to stop drivers from using their phones while operating a vehicle.
First, these laws can include people of all ages. Currently, 38 states have laws to prohibit teenagers from using their cell phone while driving. However, only 12 states have laws banning people of all ages from using their phones when operating a vehicle. This is important because many states are only focusing the nations’ youngest drivers, when they should be just as concerned about the older drivers as well. According to the National Highway Traffic Administration, drivers in their twenties make up an astonishing 38% of the distracted drivers that were using cell phones in fatal crashes. While it is important to have a special focus on the youngest drivers, it is clear that even more experienced drivers make up a large portion of the people that fall victim to cell phone distractions while driving.
Next, these laws cannot just ban texting, but all cell phone use when operating a vehicle. Many states only focus on stopping texting while driving. However, drivers can be distracted by their cell phones in all sorts of ways that do not involve texting, including making calls, using GPS Systems, and checking social media notifications. According to a study completed by the US Department of Transportation, five seconds is the average time the eyes are taken off of the road when a driver was using their phone. When traveling at 55mph, that is equivalent to driving the length of a football field without looking up. While texting is one of the main reasons individuals use their cell phones when driving, anything that distracts the eyes of the driver for extended periods of time are dangerous. Laws that cut out all uses of the phone can keep eyes on the road and save more lives.
Some people believe that only drivers driving erratically while using their cell phone should be ticketed. Many people believe that they deserve the right to use their cell phone when they drive so long as they are not swerving on the roads or causing any problems. Cell phones can be helpful GPS systems, and can alert people of traffic jams that may be up ahead. Many people that have been pulled over in the states with a cell phone ban already in place have gone to court to fight it, claiming that they were not causing any problem at the time of their phone use. The problem with this, is that no person believes that that their quick glance at their phone will be the cause of an accident, until it happens to them. It only takes a split second for a problem to occur while driving that requires the driver’s immediate attention. According to a LATimes article, by Kerry Cavanaugh, the problem is that there are far too few officers on the roads to pull over every person who drives erratically. But, the fear of an expensive ticket can prevent a lot of erratic behavior before it starts. It is completely understandable why people would want to use their phones on the road, but no phone call or notification is worth a life.
Each state should considering adding these laws for drivers of all ages to be prohibited from using their cell phones while driving. While these laws do take away some of the luxuries we have come to know over the years, such as GPS and instant notifications, they have the ability to save thousands of lives every single year. So let’s save start saving some lives, and setting down our phones while we drive.
By Savannah Jensen
Operating nearly two tons of metal is a responsibility that no person should take lightly, especially when it has the ability to cause so much destruction. Every year, thousands of people are killed in car accidents caused by distracted driving. More specifically, accidents caused because the driver was using their cell phone. These tragedies could be prevented if more laws were created to prohibit the use of phones while driving. Laws that prohibit all cell phone use as opposed to just texting, for drivers of all ages, will stop drivers from looking at their phones to make calls or check information. Laws can be created in all states in order to stop drivers from using their phones while operating a vehicle.
First, these laws can include people of all ages. Currently, 38 states have laws to prohibit teenagers from using their cell phone while driving. However, only 12 states have laws banning people of all ages from using their phones when operating a vehicle. This is important because many states are only focusing the nations’ youngest drivers, when they should be just as concerned about the older drivers as well. According to the National Highway Traffic Administration, drivers in their twenties make up an astonishing 38% of the distracted drivers that were using cell phones in fatal crashes. While it is important to have a special focus on the youngest drivers, it is clear that even more experienced drivers make up a large portion of the people that fall victim to cell phone distractions while driving.
Next, these laws cannot just ban texting, but all cell phone use when operating a vehicle. Many states only focus on stopping texting while driving. However, drivers can be distracted by their cell phones in all sorts of ways that do not involve texting, including making calls, using GPS Systems, and checking social media notifications. According to a study completed by the US Department of Transportation, five seconds is the average time the eyes are taken off of the road when a driver was using their phone. When traveling at 55mph, that is equivalent to driving the length of a football field without looking up. While texting is one of the main reasons individuals use their cell phones when driving, anything that distracts the eyes of the driver for extended periods of time are dangerous. Laws that cut out all uses of the phone can keep eyes on the road and save more lives.
Some people believe that only drivers driving erratically while using their cell phone should be ticketed. Many people believe that they deserve the right to use their cell phone when they drive so long as they are not swerving on the roads or causing any problems. Cell phones can be helpful GPS systems, and can alert people of traffic jams that may be up ahead. Many people that have been pulled over in the states with a cell phone ban already in place have gone to court to fight it, claiming that they were not causing any problem at the time of their phone use. The problem with this, is that no person believes that that their quick glance at their phone will be the cause of an accident, until it happens to them. It only takes a split second for a problem to occur while driving that requires the driver’s immediate attention. According to a LATimes article, by Kerry Cavanaugh, the problem is that there are far too few officers on the roads to pull over every person who drives erratically. But, the fear of an expensive ticket can prevent a lot of erratic behavior before it starts. It is completely understandable why people would want to use their phones on the road, but no phone call or notification is worth a life.
Each state should considering adding these laws for drivers of all ages to be prohibited from using their cell phones while driving. While these laws do take away some of the luxuries we have come to know over the years, such as GPS and instant notifications, they have the ability to save thousands of lives every single year. So let’s save start saving some lives, and setting down our phones while we drive.
Kasey Hammond
Minimum Wage Increases Will Bury the Economy
There has been a major argument about minimum wage level being too low and needing to be increased at a level where people can survive without public assistance. It states in the article, Raising Minimum Wage Hurts Low-Skill Workers, that minimum wage will be increased to $15 per hour by 2022 in California. It is imperative to raise the minimum wage at a rate that will not devastate our economy. Raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour may debilitate low income workers more than they understand. It will in turn create a wave of unemployment.
Seattle started to pay minimum wage workers at $15 per hour over a two-year period. In the last nine months the unemployment rate is at five percent when it was increasing with a steady employment rate. Businesses raise the cost of their goods and services to keep up with the extra amount they are spending on payroll. The inflation is overall creating a negative impact on raising minimum wage.
Raising minimum wage to $15 will cause for an economic downturn in Detroit. Detroit is lacking of skilled, entry level workers at this time. There is not a lot of availability in the employment line for low skill, minimum wage workers and entry level candidates to pursue employment. Increasing minimum wage for low skill workers is going to cause more issues economically for them than helping them in the long run.
Imagine if you owned a small pizzeria in downtown Detroit. You have ten employees and they all make $8.50 per hour. If minimum wage is going to gradually increase to $15 per hour, you have to not only worry about the extra amount small business owners are paying out to their employees but their business tax, unemployment rates, and insurance will go up. The inflation will kill small businesses. They will either choose to let go of employees and keep the strongest workers or close their doors.
People will have a harder time supporting themselves if they are unemployed or the cost of groceries and needs go up because of the cost of wages increasing. From the article in the Detroit News, only 15% of the workers will actual benefit from the wage increase. The rest will be looking for another job.
Business owners will increase the cost of goods and services This is important because some people will make more, while others will end up losing jobs and paying more to live.
According to a study published in 2012 by the Industrial and Labor Relations Review, when the minimum wage was increased in 2006 in New York, there was 20-22 percent loss of employment for younger, less skilled workers. Eventually prices go up and wages will need to increase, it is just how inflation works. Everything is eventual when it comes to the costs of living. Gas went from 88 cents a gallon when I started driving and the highest I have paid in is $4.35. That is astounding but inflation happens in many ways. When I first started working minimum wage was $5.25 an hour.
It is important for wages to reflect the increase of goods over time. Provide a statistic, survey, or quote from an expert to back it up. Per PBS, they state that if minimum wage would have increased steadily as it was supposed to, that the minimum wage would now be $10.90 today.
Where I can see that a slight increase of the minimum wage would be good for those that work entry level positions and low skill jobs, I cannot agree that in all areas that it needs to be raised to $15 per hour. The cost of living is higher in places like New York and California. It is not necessary to change every state’s minimum wage to $15 per hour. The minimum wage that it should have been increased to at $10.90 seems a lot fairer and economically sound.
By making too much of an increase can result in a downward spiral of our economy; Per the information in the article in the Detroit news, raising the minimum wage results in detrimental effects on the job market. Studies from Seattle and New York, unemployment levels increased after the minimum wage increase.
Raising the minimum wage over time to $15 per hour is detrimental to our economy and overall make it more difficult for those living in poverty to make end meet. The best way that was suggested in the Detroit News article to increase wages is to keep growing economically. In the article it advised that in North Dakota the oil boom created a demand for labor and the starting wage was $14 per hour. Jobs that are available or created to further our economic strengths will be the best bet for our country.
Raising Minimum Wage
“More than 28 million workers would benefit from the minimum wage increase; 19 million of them would benefit directly and the ripple effect from a shifting wage structure would help the rest. CEA calculations show raising the minimum wage would boost incomes for about 12 million people in poverty, and would lift 2 million out of poverty.”–The White House Council of Economic Advisers
The minimum wage really needs to be raised because it will have many positive impacts on living standard and the economy. With a higher wage, milions of American could go toward meeting their basic needs and living expenses. “A 2013 report from the Congressional Budget Office estimated that 16.5 million low-wage workers would benefit from a $10.10-per-hour wage, including 900,000 workers who would climb above the poverty threshold.” As we can see, the cost of living has gone up. There are so many minimum wage workers who could not effort to pay their bills and foods. Also, many people have to give up their dream going to college to find a second job because the cost of education also has incresed drastically. If the minimum wage is raised, many people will beneficals. There will be more people going to college and get their degree. Families and children also get rid of hunger.
Getting paid more could also potentially boost workers morale. Have you ever ask yourself how many times you have been mistreated at a fast-food restaurant, a mall or a market? It’s not too long ago, my husband and I were at a fast-food restaurant on the Westside of Lansing. As we walked in, the cashier lady gave us a really weird look and loudly unrespectfully asked what we wanted to order. We both were really surprised by her attitude. However, we still tried to stay calm and nicely ordered our foods. By the time, she still wasn’t change her attitude. We were upset at a time, but after all we understood she might stress out or tired. Obviously, minimum wage workers have to work a lot but they don’t get paid as they are deserved. Here is one of example that I found on Mc Donald website,
“A crew member will be expected to provide customers with a quick and accurate service, both from behind the till as well as in the dining areas. Food Preparation and cooking the wide variety of food we offer involves using a broad range of equipment and tools. They need to produce orders to a consistently high standard and understand that quality control is vital. Cleanliness and Hygiene requires thorough training in order to maintain our high standards. Before they start, they learn to use a variety of cleaning utensils and chemical cleaning products along with the correct protective equipment.”
To me, it’s a lot of works for whom only get minimum wage. As we all know, every Mc Donald restaurant is always busy. The employees have to work really hard in a high pressure environment to have a quickest service for their customers. And they only get paid $8.50 per hour!
I understand if we raise the minimum wage, business owners will increase the cost of goods and services. Also, some people will make more, while others will end up losing jobs and paying more to live. According to a study published in 2012 by the Industrial and Labor Relations Review, “when the minimum wage was increased in 2006 in New York, there was 20-22 percent loss of employment for younger, less skilled workers.” However, once people get paid more, they are willing to spend more. Accordingly, there will be more jobs opened and the economy for sure will go up.
The minimum wage needs to be increased for people to survive today. The cost of everything goes up, so the minimum wage also must be raised. There will be many people get out of poverty, more kids go to school, and more college degree will be earned. An increase would also encourage people to do their job better because they would feel they are getting fair pay.
Chris Lokinski
Should the Big 10 Conference pay their athletes for contributing to a winning season?
By Chris Lokinski
Athletic scholarships are their compensation and a fair one at that. Essentially they receive a free education and in return they represent the school in a certain sport. College athletes don’t have to worry about student loans, paying for textbooks, the cost of on-campus living, and meal plans.
Serious college athletes spend more time practicing their sports and playing the game as most people spend at work each week. In other words, being a college athlete is the equivalent of a full time job. Speaking of jobs, since college athletes are spending so much time on the field or court and in the classroom, they don’t have the time to actually work, so many of them have a difficult time making ends meet. College athletes should not paid for contributing to the team on a winning season.
While the athletes are contributing to a winning season, they are also receiving scholarships to play at the college of their choice. Receiving scholarships is basically like getting paid for contributing to the team. “Student-athletes do cost the university a substantial amount of money each year. For example, a full scholarship over four years can range between $30,000 and $200,000 depending if the institution is public or private.” (Johnson)
Paying college athletes would distract the player and then they would just be worried about the money. Some college athletes become distracted with the money and fame goes to their head.
College athletes put their bodies on the line during each game. They put their bodies on the line, and are often afflicted with career-ending injuries that hand them a one-way ticket out of sports forever. Some say players should get a job for extra expenses incurred. With classes, studying, multiple practices, mandatory weight room time and game travel time, not to mention league rules, players are often restricted from outside jobs. “In the 2013 NCAA tournament Louisville player Kevin Ware suffered a horrific injury to his lower right leg while attempting to block an opposing player’s shot. Six months later, Ware was healed and back to practicing. There have been instances of players becoming paralyzed by hits or tackles on football fields or other injuries. That has ended player’s careers before they even get started. These athletes are sacrificing their bodies and physical health at a chance to play a game they they love and possibly make it to professional level.” (Patterson)
Athletes may put their bodies on the risk and their bodies are at risk for injury, but paying the college athletes would be a distraction. “The NCAA also pays salaries to its executives that would be considered high among non-profit administrators, sums that seem even higher when compared to those at the bottom of the organizational pyramid. In 2009, the top 16 NCAA administrators received nearly $6 million in compensation, including $1,145,880 for its president, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Its 2012 tax return states that the NCAA employed 86 individuals earning salaries of $100,000 or higher. Coaches are also cashing in. The top 10 highest paid college football coaches in 2013 earned a combined $46 million.”
The college athletes should not be paid for contributing to a winning team during a playing season, college athletes already receive scholarships, and also being paid could be a distraction to the athlete. Let them take endorsement money like the coaches that lead them. If the local auto parts store wants to pay a college athlete to sign autographs for two hours during a store sale, why shouldn’t the athlete is allowed to take that opportunity?
Climate Change: Fact or Fiction?
By Taylor Thrush
The idea on climate change was brought to congress nearly 28 years ago by a scientist named James Hansen. As of March 2016, a group of experts, including the now retired Dr. Hansen, warned that climate shifts could be so abrupt that humanity would have very little time to prepare for the outcomes of such changes. The United States is in the process of regulating and restricting the emission of greenhouse gases with an initiative called the Clean Power Plan. Though this plan could save the very earth humans and animals alike live on, many states that thrive on coal power and production are not happy. These states would lose jobs and see reduction in output which in turn would hurt their economies.
According to scientists, 2015 was the hottest year on record and the year before that was the hottest at the time as well; meaning that the earth is gradually getting warmer. According to the New York Times, if carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels continue the way they are now, the West Antarctic ice sheet could begin to disintegrate—causing the oceans to rise five to six feet by the end of the century—and destroy low lying island nations and costal cities within the lifetimes of children born today.
Robert Deconto and David Pollard, experts in ice sheet behavior, predict that the oceans will rise by three feet by the year 2100 even with minimal ice melting. This would cause tidal flooding in costal cities and islands. Things could get even worse, though. By 2500, Deconto and Pollard predict that the disintegration of Antartica alone would cause the sea level to rise by fifty feet. This kind of astronomical rise would cause cities such as Los Angeles, Miami, and even New York City to become lost underwater.
To make process towards saving the earth, many places emitting greenhouse gases would need to be shut down. At least 20 states in the U.S. rely on coal mining and coal fired plants for sources of income and products. In regard to the recent rejection to a bid to block the Clean Power Plan, Attorney General Patrick Morrisey of West Virginia (a coal mining state) said, “We are disappointed in today’s decision but we believe we will ultimately prevail in court. We remain confident that our arguments will prevail as the case continues.” These states do not want to see change in what they do and where their sources come from and many of them don’t believe in the very apparent climate change.
On the other hand, a lawyer for the E.P.A. (Environmental Protection Agency), Sean Donohue had this to say regarding the rejection to the block on the Clean Power Plan: “We’re not that surprised, since E.P.A. was able to show that the rule rests on a firm statutory and factual footing, and that the agency built into it ample time to allow states, regulated sources and the agency to work together to reduce carbon emissions.” The Clean Power Plan, enacted by Barack Obama himself, would inevitably end jobs centered on fossil fuels. But this plan is made to reduce such things by creating renewable energy by windmill and solar panels, which also creates jobs to replace those lost.
Climate change is real, and aggressive actions must be taken to prevent the worst from happening. With 2014 and 2015 consecutively being the “hottest year on record” according to scientists and ice caps melting at an alarming rate, precautionary measures need to be put in place. The Clean Power Plan and other self empowered initiatives are to help fix the earth and make sure that humanity can continue to live on such a beautiful planet.
Home Schooling: Not the Best Option
By Samantha Schlicklin
Lack of education, lack of diploma, lack of social skill these are all problems that home schooled children face. Poorly educated and socialized solely by their parents these children suffer in adulthood. After missing the vital time in a child’s life to develop prime skills these children will enter adulthood behind in skill level when compared to their peers. Home schooling children is not always the best option. School is a time for children to experience social situations on their own without the guidance of their parents. As well, not all parents are qualified to teach. Parents believe their child will progress faster in a home schooled society. However, with many states not requiring a home school curriculum, the parents who take on the role of the teacher have the power to decide when their child progresses through a course. Through a lack of curriculum the children are progressing to tougher subjects before mastering the subject at hand. Home schooling for most children is not the best option as it is not as quality of a school system.
Home schooling is unregulated in both who is teaching and the material being taught. Parents are not certified teachers meaning their children are only going to progress to the level of their parents. After reaching their parents abilities they will become self taught. In a school they would be able to ask their teachers questions and learn from people who have mastered the subject. They would also follow the curriculum of their peers, ensuring that they will reach the maximum standard of education before receiving their diploma. Motoko Rich from the New York Times reveals in his story “Home Schooling: More Pupils, Less Regulation” that eleven states do not require families to register with any school district or agency… Fourteen states do not specify subjects that families must teach, and only nine states require that parents have at least a high school diploma. In half the states, children who are taught at home never have to take a standardized test or be subject to any sort of formal outside assessment.
Home schooled children are not receiving the social skills learned in average school settings. Adolescents learn social skills from their surroundings. How to act in public, how to treat others, and how to make friends are all important skill. Children in a home schooled situation are not getting socialized at the same rate as their peers leaving them less socially developed. This causes the children to become socially awkward adults. As well, home schooled students are missing the diversity of world beliefs and values. The children are exposed solely to their parents beliefs, standards, and values not allowing the children to experiment with other world views. Research done by Coalition for Responsible Home Education, found that, home school graduates were significantly more likely to report “lack of clarity of goals and sense of direction” and “feelings of helplessness in dealing with life’s problems” than conventionally schooled graduates.
Some parents claim home schooling children is safer than sending them to school with all of the recent school shootings and threats to children. Children’s safety in schools is vital. When a parent sends their child to school they should have peace of mind that their child is safe. Many parents are not able to feel comfortable with sending their children to school anymore. Walter E. Williams from CNS news states, “in 2012, there were about 749,200 violent assaults on students”. But he does not state how violent these assaults were. Children in schools are just as safe. Many children are abused at home. The parents of this abuse only stop because CPS is called upon by the school. The child would continue to be abused if it were not for going to school.
For social and educational purposes children need to be entered into a non-home school system. Placing children in school systems should be every parent’s first choice. If a parent is worried about their child’s education or safety the parents should work with the school to ensure the child is getting the education they deserve with the safety that they need.
The Myth of Homeschooling Uncovered
Some say that homeschooling is a mistake and will ruin one’s academic career. In reality, students who are home-schooled score better on standardized test, move on to be successful in college, and out-prefrom all public students as whole in every aspect of academics. When people think of home school, they often think of a parent doing all the teaching and deciding what there child learns, when in actuality that is not always the case. There are several programs and academies out there that offer curriculum based homeschooling that can be accomplished online or by books.
One of the many benefits of being home-schooled is the fact that students who are home-schooled do better academically compared to students that attend a public school. According to an article written by The Washington Times, there was a study done on 12,000 home schooled students showing there academic performance. The students were tested in five major areas of academics: language, math, science, social studies, and reading. In the core subjects, reading, language, and math, the average score was that of the 88th percentile. In the other two areas, science and social studies, the average score was of the 84th and 86th percentile. All the while, students enrolled in public school score in the 50th percentile in each category of study.
Another benefit to homeschooling is that the student will be able to skip out on some of the craziness of our society. In a study recorded on a website called home school world, 73% of parents claimed to schooling their child at home due to dissatisfaction with the public school system. When walking into a school hallway, there are small events happening at every turn. There may be a fight going down because some guy “made a move” on another guys boyfriend. There may be someone selling drugs. It happens! As much as one would rather not consider this last one, it is possible there may be a school shooting. By being home schooled, one is able to avoid these scenarios while the parent knows their child is safe from some of the harmful attributes of public school.
There is one aspect of homeschooling that everyone involved worries about and that is the social aspect. Some Parents are afraid that if they were to home school their child, their social life would be non-existent. They would not be able to socialize like a student in public school would. In public school, students interact with other students all day long, five days a week. Meanwhile, they are learning social skills that with help them throughout their lives both in college and in the workforce. This is not necessarily the case though. There are many outlets for children who are home schooled. In an article written on Coalition for Responsible Home Education, it says”We know from both research and anecdotal data that home schooled children can be well socialized, both in terms of learning the social norms of society and in terms of social interaction.” It then lists ways for home-schoolers to be involved socially. Some ways include play dates, ballet or gymnastic classes, group sports, music lessons, and homeschool co-ops.
Homeschooling has many benefits and in most cases, home-schooler’s score higher in standardized tests than those in public school. Home school students also continue excelling throughout their college career. They are able to skip some of the life’s junk that one experiences in a public school. While some say students who are home schooled lose out on the social aspect, this is untrue. There are many ways for a child to be involved in social activities and still be home schooled. Home schooling is very beneficial and can be done at a pace that is comfortable for the student.
Keep Homeschooling an Option
By Alyssa Hook
“The growth in the number of home schooled students in the U.S. makes homeschooling one of the fastest growing educational sectors” claims Mar Snyder, who graduated with a doctorate in higher educational leadership. Over the years society’s average attitude and demeanor towards home schooled students has drastically changed. No longer is a high school education good enough, but now the demand for a higher quality education is the laser point focus of today’s American citizens. Gone are the days that parent are entrusted to teach their children. People feel that inless a degree is in hand, that the individual is incompetent a teacher. Sometimes even with a degree instructors are hard pressed to perform better. However statistics show an increase in the homeschooling trend and it seems parents have been fed misguided information. Home schooling is still a thriving, viable form of education because it can provide some the highest quality education environment today’s society has to offer.
Homeschooling offers a more one on one interaction. This allows for a curriculum to bend to custom fit an individual student’s needs. According to Snyder “multiple studies have indicated that homeschooled students perform as well as, if not better than, traditionally schooled students K-12 academics”. Parents have the ability to target problematic subjects, allow more time for them to practice, and help them by giving their full undivided attention. IF they find that their child really enjoys particular subjects and excels at them they can adjust and move at a fast pace. Homeschooling allows parents to be flexible and move at their child’s pace.
Another reason parents elect to keep their children home is the lack of trust that their children will be kept safe from others. This doesn’t’ always entail school shootings, but also involves bulling mentally and physically. Parents feel institutions are inadequate at keeping children safe from such attacks and that school populations are too large to provide sufficiently. At home parents feel their children are less likely to do drugs or drink underage. They are able to be a greater presence in their lives and can be a positive influence.
Some concerns with allowing students to be homeschooled is how unregulated it is. Critics feel that unqualified people are teaching children according to their personal beliefs or opinions. There are no standard requirements in the United States when regarding homeschooled students. However, there are numerous programs that parents and students can utilize when approaching subjects that parents feel inadequate to teach. K-12 online allows students to have the advantages through home schooling along with access to help from teachers. Today’s technological advancements allow parents to give their children a quality education that is not limited by their own personal flaws.
It is thought that some type of public or private schooling is needed for any child to receive a quality education. Critics believe that kids will be unable to learn basic social skills like how to act appropriately in public.
Through all the worries and concerns, the numbers of homeschooling continues to climb. Statistics are there to back up their movement with higher averages when taking standardized tests compared to their traditional counter parts. Parents get to be more hands on and involved in their child’s life playing a more influential role. Homeschool is not for every child, parent, or family, but it has proven to be very successful for those that can manage.
Homeschooling: Unique Education
According to Research Facts on Homeschooling by Dr. Brian Ray, there are about 2.3 million homeschooled students in the United States as of 2016 and there were about 2 million during the spring of 2010. Homeschooling continues to grow in the United States for different reasons, but one being for safety. In the article Research Facts on Homeschooling, parents decide to home school their child is because it provides a safer environment for children because of physical violence, drugs and alcohol, psychological abuse, racism, and improper and unhealthy sexuality associated with institutional schools. Not only is it safer, but homeschooling provides a custom education that addresses the specific needs for the students.
Homeschooling provides a safe learning environment for the students in many ways. Some of the things that they are not exposed to are teasing, bullying, negative peer pressure, and bad influences. According to Pacer’s Bullying Statistics, 19.6% of high school students in the U.S. report being bullied at school in the past year. Parents are able to create the environment they want for their children by homeschooling them. In addition to, homeschooled students do not encounter possible weapons at school, the schools condition, and physical fights amongst students. According to Physical Fighting by Youth, about one in four high school students report that they have been in a physical fight in the past year. Homeschooled students are able to have a safer environment because they are not around hundreds of students a day, rather, they are in the safeness of their own homes that their guardians provide.
Parents are able to provide a specific education for their child and address their learning style, their strengths, their weaknesses, and their interest. Homeschooling allows parents to customize their children’s education to maximize learning. According to Benefits of Homeschool: How it could make kids smarter, having a customized education that fits the students’ needs makes kids highly motivated to learn, and thus results in kids developing a love for learning. A customized education can result in a higher GPA for the student compared to if they were in a regular school system. According to Some Fascinating Facts About Homeschool Vs Public School, homeschooled students have a higher GPA compared to public school students. Homeschooled seniors had an average of 3.46 and public schooled seniors had an average of 3.16 in the past year. Not only did homeschooled children have a higher GPA, but also higher standardized test scores. According to Research Facts on Homeschooling, homeschooled students typically score 15 to 30 percentile points above public-school students on standardized academic achievement tests. Homeschooled students are given an education that is focused on their needs and it results in higher testing scores.
Public schooled students are surrounded by numerous peers and elders throughout their school day, whereas, a homeschooled student is surrounded by a hand full of people. Parents fear that homeschooled students will not be as socialized as a public schooled student. Socialization is important for students to learn and to have as they will need it to contribute to society. According to Socialization: Homeschooling Vs. Schools, research presented at the National Christian Home Educators Leadership Conference, homeschooled students were ranked as being superior in four out of five achievement categories, including socialization. Public schooled students have constant opportunities to be socialized with their peers throughout the day, and homeschooled students can find just as many opportunities. According to National Home Education Research Institute, homeschooled are regularly engage with other people besides their nuclear families in activities such as church, clubs, field trips, and sports teams. Homeschooled students can be equally as socialized as a public school student.
Homeschooling has the benefit of a customized education for students that is specific to their needs, learning styles, and their weaknesses. Customized education is beneficial to homeschooled students and it shows when comparing standardized test scores for homeschooled students compared to public schooled students. Parents can provide more safety for their student compared to students who attend a public school. Homeschooled students are less likely to be exposed to bullying, peer pressure or negative influences throughout their life. Homeschooled students are able to have the same amount of socialization as public school students; homeschooled students just receive their socializing in a different way.
School Gardens
According to the Whole Kids Foundation “Only 2% of children eat enough fresh fruits and vegetables, and the typical elementary student receives just 3.4 hours of nutrition education each year.” School gardens were developed around the end of the 19th century to create better nutritional habits, allow kids to connect with nature, and teach responsibility and cooperation. Kids go to school to learn and to be prepared for life outside of school. This includes growing their own food and learning to make healthy food choices. For example, kids are not provided with very much education on nutrition including fruits and vegetables. Gardens should be started at schools and tended by students to increase access to fresh fruits and vegetables.
By starting school gardens kids will eat more fruits and vegetables. The daily requirement for servings of fruits and vegetables for children is between 1 and 2 cups fruit and between 1.5 and 2.5 cups vegetables according to Choose My Plate. Kids are spending most of their day in school and they could potentially have 2 meals at school(breakfast and lunch). Schools should be providing better choices of fruits and vegetables and educating kids to make the right choices. It’s important for kids to eat or at least try more fruits and vegetables because they might realize that they like them and will end up eating more and telling their families about the fruits and vegetables they grew and ate in school. Then they might get their families to buy fruits and vegetables to eat at home. Denver Urban Gardens has found that 73 percent of the students who work in the school garden reported increasing their actual consumption of produce. A Cornell study found that when the salad bar contained produce grown by students, the percentage of those who selected salads with their meals increased from 2% to 10% and on average, students ate two-thirds of their salads.
According to Jim Stigler, professor of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles, “We see a lot of lab activity in American classrooms, but teachers never seem to get around to connecting the activity to science.” This is where the garden lessons could be beneficial. Having activities in the garden, like planting seeds, can lead to discussions about the science behind growing plants. There are a lot of kids that may learn better with hands-on activities. It allows them to understand and remember what they are learning. Real life examples are important because they are like the story problems that a lot of kids struggle with. Working with actual objects keeps the kids engaged and builds a connection to the whole process. The kids get to plan what they want to plant. They plant the seeds, which grow into plants, then they produce fruits and vegetables, they get to harvest the fruits and vegetables and then the kids get to eat them. According to C.D. Klemmer, the Director of Education at the National Gardening Association, Third, fourth, and fifth graders that participated in school gardening scored significantly higher on science achievement tests than students who did not experience garden-based activities.
It will take teachers time to create a curriculum using the garden. Teachers spend a lot of time coming up with engaging lessons for their students. They also have to be concerned with preparing their students for material on standardized tests. There isn’t a lot of extra time to add in lessons about gardening unless they are directly related to what they are already learning in other subjects. It’s important because most teachers will not think they have enough time in their day to add in a bonus lesson about gardening. Plus it is difficult to come up with lessons related to gardening when you might not know a lot about gardening.
While it will take teachers some extra time to get accustomed to connecting their normal subjects to the garden, there are lots of resources out there to help them. More and more lessons related to gardens are being produced and put online by other teachers and non profits. If teachers put in a little bit of their free time into finding some lesson plans it would pay off in the long run. University of
Georgia Extension, Collective School Garden Network, Life Lab, Edible Schoolyard all have many garden lessons for different grades. If teachers really want to help their students learn in a new way, they will spend a little extra time finding lessons about how to effectively use the garden to teach kids all subjects.
According to Ramona Robinson-O’Brien, Assistant Professor of Nutrition at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, “Garden-based nutrition education programs may have the potential to lead to improvements in fruit and vegetable intake and willingness to taste fruits and vegetables.” Starting school gardens and providing support for teachers will provide the best benefits for students. This will allow students to experience growing their own fruits and vegetables from seeds and to learn how to solve real world problems.
Corrina Blake
Say No To School Gardens
Many school district are considering adding a garden to their schools. Some districts think it will help with students nutrition and allow them to learn outside of the classroom. But what a school garden is really costing the school money. According to Caitlin Flanagan, shes notes that she has found no research or other concrete evidence to support claims that gardens are beneficial for students academically. Gardens should not be started at schools because teachers do not have time for an additional curriculum and it cost to much.
Teachers do not have time in their schedules to add a new curriculum using the school garden. Teachers have a lot of stuff to get through in the course of a year and to add another thing on top of it, is just to much. A school garden is taking away time that students should be spending learning. According to Grace Clen, about 60% of African-American and Latino students in California do not earn a high school diploma, with this being said, we cannot afford to be spending students’ time tending to flowers. A schools main focus should be on what the students need to learn in the course of a year and how that is benefiting them.
A school garden can end up being very costly. There is a lot you have to put into starting the garden and that is where the cost comes into effect. A school garden can range any where from $100 to $10,000. It depends on what you are growing and how much space you develop to have a garden. According to thee article “Estimating Project costs”, although the school garden is expensive to build and maintain, if a pond is put in it could add a liability to the school and might increase insurance costs and electrical work. School need to be aware of these costs.
Although having a school garden would encourage students to have daily fruits and vegetables in their school meals. Schools lunches are are going down in nutritional value as the years go on. Some people say a school garden would be a way to fix that. Marika Bergsund stated, “A vegetable garden gives your school all the benefits mentioned above, with the added reward of valuable nutrition lessons on the importance and joys of eating fresh foods.” Just because children are learning about eating fresh foods does not prove that they will want to eat more fruits and vegetables.
There are a lot of set backs for building a school garden. Teachers do not want to put in the effort of a new curriculum. They already have to force so much learning into one year. School districts need to be aware of the various prices in a garden and think about the cost in the long run. A garden is not a good idea for schools, say no to school gardens!
Cutting Emissions in Developing Countries
By Sean Calender
According to MIT, major cities emit 70% of the world’s greenhouse gases while only taking up 2% of global land area. During the past few decades it has been a major goal of first world countries like the United States and many European Unions to cut their emissions down to help stop polluting the air. Developing countries are producing almost the majority of the emissions now and also have some of the highest populations in the world. What the issues at hand is, these developing countries are overpopulated and do not have the technology or the money to cut down on cheap energy and reduce greenhouse gasses. According to a Slate article by Jeffrey Ball, in the next two decades that greenhouse gases in industrial countries will continue to go down, as developing countries will double in pollutants. Industrial countries need to support developing countries in their attempt to cut emissions by giving them the technology and money.
Many developing countries do not have the technology to be clean. This is why energy companies need to step in and do their part. Implementing cost effective energy services like conventional grids or micro-grids so that the rule areas of these countries can start developing. Also, this would take some of the stress off of the developing counties government and allow them to focus on other issues they have. A MIT article states, “Enabling organic growth and evolution of energy systems over time while tapping local resources and talent are key aspects of providing robust, reliable energy to the developing regions of the world”. If this technology could be donated and set up by these big countries it would have a major impact convincing the people of the developing countries to use clean renewable energy as a source of power.
Many industrial countries like the United States and European unions have talked about how they will give money to these countries in hope of them reducing their emissions. But most of these countries have not kept to their word about doing so. Developing countries do not have the money to clean up their air on their own. They are going to need support and funding by wealthier countries to get them started. If other countries and us supported these developing countries in their attempts to clean up their air then it would give them the motivation to do so. According to a New York Times article, by the editorial bored, at a conference in Copenhagen in 2009 the United States and other industrialized countries were supposed to provide $100 billion to climate projects in developing countries but did not live up to it.
Some people believe that even if we send help to these developing countries it will not change a thing because it will still be more cost effective to burn fossil fuels. It does not cost a lot of money to use fossil fuels and most of these countries need the efficiency they provide. This is why they use fossil fuels as an energy source because it gives them a high output of energy and is constant unlike wind or solar power. They need what is the most powerful and the most efficient so they can remain functioning. According to the website Conserve Energy Future, by Rinkesh, fossil fuels are a great energy source because of Easy availability, Produce large amounts of energy, High calorific value, stability, abundantly available, low cost, and easy to set up. These benefits fit all the needs of developing countries and what they have to work with.
Even though fossil fuels do have their benefits, they are not the answer to developing countries problems. Fossil fuels are not always available for these countries to use when they need or want them. Most of these countries have to buy them from other countries and spend a lot of money doing so. If these countries were to implement some sort of self-providing energy source they would save a lot of money on importing. Then they could use this money on development of their own country to help make it better in many other categories as well. Plan and simple fossil fuels are not the answer because they are not going to be around forever. They are a limited resource that we cannot rely on to be our answer.
Developing countries need help and support from industrial countries and Energy Company’s to help clean up the air and reduce emissions. If they receive money from countries and technology from companies they can. If this happens then the developing countries will have no excuse to not become greener and be able to reduce emission. This will help give them a better living situation and overall be better for everyone.
Should Money Laundering be Illegal?
By: Mitchel Brooks
Since the time of Al capons speak eases money laundering, (using legitimate businesses to hide illegally obtained cash), has been taking place. With the invention of modern technology money laundering has become far more difficult and costly to monitor to prevent. This begs the question is money laundering even worth monitoring. Some would argue that it is worth it to catch the criminal but others would say that it is simply more trouble than it is worth, and is better off just being taxed for money.
Money laundering is able cause numerus headaches for small banks. One such way it does this according to the article, Underbanked: cooperative banking as a potential solution to the marijuana-banking problem by Patrick Tighe, bank are not able are not able to legally handle proceeds from marijuana money. This is in part because of strict anti-money laundering laws. Only a few banks are willing to provide banking to a national market of marijuana. This market according to Patrick Tighe is worth around 1.5 billion, and expected to grow to 10.2 billion. The war on money laundering is making handling business difficult.
The difficulty in handling business is in more than just simply losing potential business it also makes business complicated to operate, and exposes peoples privacies more than they may want to. According to Federal status Title 18 all business money services must be registered with the government. However, Bank Secrecy Act requires that banks report certain transactions, transactions over $10,000, and foreign accounts. These laws do make life more difficult by requiring that people tell the government about every business money service, but it also requires that people reveal an uncomfortable amount of information about themselves. This information may have been public, but it also could have been personal.
According to the article, Federal Spending by the Numbers, 2014: Government Spending Trends in Graphics, Tables, and Key Points (Including 51 Examples of Government Waste), the American deficit is at 18 trillion dollars. This would make it seem reasonable that cut backs would be necessary. The money to spend monitoring money laundering simply is not there. If the effort was instead spent on something such as taxing money laundering. The deficit would be greatly helped by a business that as DirtyDealing.org says is worth 7.5 trillion. This could essentially solve two problems with a single, but effective solution.
Money laundering does have its downsides. For example money laundering is used to cover up illegal activities. According to DEA.org 100 billion is spent each year on, “heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana.” This activity would then need to be covered up using money laundering. In addition, many of the money laundering standards were implemented after 9/11 as a result of the war on terror. This was done to catch terrorism financing. In a personal interview with small business owner and computer repairer Jill Sybrosky, she admits she feels safer that she feels safer knowing that the government can use financial records to track criminals.
The financial records are only one tool used to catch criminals. The DEA claims to use over 680 intelligence analysists all over the world, (all of work for less than could be potentially generated from taxing money laundering). They also have connections to local and international law enforcement to help aid and assist them in their war on drugs. The standards that were set for banks are numerous and confusing. According to banks are told to pay attention to complex transaction and flag suspicious activity. They are also told to monitor customer transactions based on profiles. The government must also set up guidelines and provide feedback. This means that the government is not only becoming too involved in the banking system, they are also doing it in a way that infringes on peoples privacies by forcing others to be put under a microscope even if they do not have to be.
The stresses that money laundering can cause are worth it some of the times. The efforts of multiple government agencies all trying to fight “dirty money” seems like an uphill battle in a $7.5 trillion money laundering business. The money would be better spent simply collecting on the laundered money potential. If Al Capone had paid taxes on all of money he laundered how much good could have come from his money.
Living with Gray Wolves
Alexia Elston
Professor Kendy
WRT 122
Animal species have appeared and disappeared continually since life began on Earth, it’s a natural phenomenon. However, species have been vanishing at a much faster rate due to human activities such as pollution, poaching, deforestation, and overhunting. Many people don’t think about the long term consequences of extinction. A bill was recently passed in February that allows gray wolves to be hunted and trapped in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Wyoming. This means that wolves are no longer protected under the Endangered Species Act. With the gray wolf population just starting to recover from being endangered we only have about 5,500 left in the United States according to an article from The Humane Society of The United States, and only 60,000 remain in all of North America. This may seen like to large number but in reality it is not, we once had two million some gray wolves roaming this continent according to Chicago Tribune. Gray wolves deserve to be protected, we should be restoring and preserving the endangered species, not killing them off.
Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs, Peter and the Wolf, are just a few of the many fairy tales featuring the “big bad wolf.” These stories have been passed down generation after generation. Modern literature and movies today are still telling tales of the “big bad wolf” that send shivers down your spine. All throughout history wolves have represented the dark, the grim, the dangerous and unpredictable. However, the wolf of reality is nothing like its mythological doppleganger. In fact there are many other animals that are more intrusive than the “big bad wolf.” According to an article by Lorna Smith from Western Wildlife, Elephants kill one person every four years, horses kill 20 people every year, bees and wasps whose stings kill 53 people, and dogs who kill 31 people every year in the United States. Wolves are only responsible for two human deaths in the past 60 years. Yet we continue to share our homes with dogs, ride horses, and pet elephants at the zoo, but are completely terrified of wolves.
Many people want to eliminate predators from their backyards, and it may be seen as a good thing to thin out predator populations, but in reality we need wolves and other predators to sustain our ecosystem. Without wolves we will see a change in the food chain, behavioral changes, and population explosions. When the wolf population faded in Montana’s, Yellow Stone National Park, many problems arose and the surrounding ecosystems went haywire. Species of birds were dying off due to the lack of wooded areas that were destroyed by the vastly growing moose population. The park also saw a huge increase in elk, which damaged most of the vegetation around the streams within the park. Gray wolves play a very important role in our ecosystem and when the last wolf is killed it will be too late. We have a good clue to what may happen to the ecosystem from the events in Yellow Stone but we can’t fully predict all the consequences that will follow. One thing is for sure, extinction is irreversible.
However, some farmers are happy about this bill being passed. They argue that there are too many wolves that are a threat to livestock. While it is true that wolves are a threat to livestock, there are ways to prevent wolves from getting to them. Keeping carcasses away from livestock, guard dogs, fences, and lights are just a few of the various solutions to keep wolves away. The benefits from having a healthy population of wolves outweigh the benefits farmers get from thinning the population. If we manage the population of wolves correctly and make sure they have sufficient habitat to live in, farmers will not experience these problems. Wolves wont take the risk of going onto farm land to eat livestock if they have sufficient land to hunt.
We need biodiversity to keep the current ecosystems from going haywire, so therefore we should be restoring and preserving the endangered species, not kill them off. Education about the importance of gray wolves in our ecosystem is very important to protecting these creatures.
Natalya Iversen
Writing 122
Professor Kendy
April 10, 2016
Ten Minute Rule
Imagine sitting at home, it has been very long day of school, and it is only 3 o’clock. You have to work at 4, have practice at 7, and haven’t even started your 6 hours worth of homework that is due the next day. This is the average day of today’s high school students. The National Education Association and The National Parent-Teacher Association suggests that students should only be given 10 minutes of homework per grade level. Meaning that if you were in first grade, you should only have 10 minutes of homework and so on. Many teens find themselves drowning in today’s expectations and responsibilities they find poured on to them. The American Journal of Family Therapy has found that student have sometimes been given three times more than the recommended amount. The average amount of homework a high school student receives on a daily or weekly basis is way too much when considering extracurricular activities and after school jobs that they are also expected to be a part of.
The amount of homework given to students will make them more likely to lose interest in learning or even going to school at all, causing the dropout rate to be higher than normal. Students need to be passionate about school, and if not passionate then at least realize that it is what they need to better their future. The US Census Bureau states that a high school dropout will receive an average income of $20,241 which compares to the average income of a high school graduate of $30,627.
Many necessary life lessons that you really can’t learn anywhere else come from extracurricular activities or after school jobs. When teachers assign too much homework, juggling work or practice becomes almost impossible. School should always come first, so this causes students to drop out of their activities or quit their jobs to focus on school. Education Quest writes that when you are involved in high school you are not only building your resume, but increasing your scholarship opportunities and developing stronger personal skills.
Homework offers the opportunity to practice for big tests. Students are able to practice what they have learned in school at home to prepare themselves for upcoming quizzes, tests, or exams. The Washington Post conducted a study called “When is Homework Worth the Time?” The study did find a positive correlation between time spent on homework and student scores on standardized tests.
While homework offers a great chance of practice, if the student does poorly on their assignment, it reflects negatively on their grade in the class. Many teachers make homework its own category in the grading system. When the percentage of this category goes down, so does the overall grade. Should a student really get penalized for practicing what they have learned if they truly do not understand the material?
When given too much homework, students find themselves stressed out and feel like they are incapable of completing what is asked of them. Teachers should offer more in-class time to go over and review important topics instead of asking them to attempt it all on their own outside of class. Teachers should not expect students to complete hours of homework from their class alone. Teachers should take into consideration that their students should only be given 10 minutes of homework per grade level.
Why Students Must Have a Challenging Homework Load
By: Mitchel Brooks
It is the last day of class and school gets out in ten minutes. You have just a little bit longer until you can finally be done. You hear the bell ring and it is finally over, but then you realize that you have mountains of homework. This is reality for many students, but is there really have too much homework? The average amount of homework a student receives on a daily basis is necessary for preparedness. Even if some say students are overloaded. Homework is still necessary for students to be mentally prepared.
Homework offers students the opportunity to practice and prepare for test and quizzes on a psychological level. This allows students to get better grades and build self-confidence. According to Research done on 535 students, it was discovered that students positively associated homework with achievement. In addition, homework completed was related to better time management skills. This means that students doing homework can learn time management, and potentially even get a sense of achievement from doing homework.
The implication of student’s success reflecting in their homework habits goes far beyond a basic sense of achievement. According to another study done by Dr. Eric Trautwein, Truatwein found that the “expectancy for success, utility, and cost value are centrally implicated in students’ homework behavior.” This means that student’s homework reflects on the student’s self-worth. When students do poorly, or put off homework it reflects upon them as an individual, and makes them seem less intelligent and unsuccessful. However, when students do homework, and study hard they seem like a well-kept student who has potential.
Students are at times be given too much homework. American Journal of Family Therapy found students are doing three times the recommended amount of homework. The National Education Association and The National Parent-Teacher Association recommends that for every grade level a student should only receive one hour of homework 60 minutes for sixth graders, 70 minutes for seventh graders and so forth. If students were reported, having upwards of three times the recommended amount of homework it would only be a matter of time before the homework begins to take a serious toll on the students. The students would ultimately become burnt out from all of the homework.
The idea that students are incredibly overbooked and overworked is not always true. By some accounts the students are actually under worked. Students work time is largely open to interpretation Brown Center on Education Policy stated that 83% of 9 year olds, 66% of 13 year olds, and 65% of 17 year olds, reported doing less than one-hour homework a night. This means that when the 17 year olds should be doing between 100-120 minutes of studying a week, 65% of them are not even doing 60 minutes. Even when students do more than the recommended amount of studying it is still not always too much. As a Lansing Community College student I am told by counselors 12 credits is full time, and I should not do any more than this. Yet, me an many other students are doing 15-17 credits a semester to finish our degrees on time while other students are only doing 9 credits, and struggling even more. We all work at different rates so saying 10 minutes per grade is the most a student should do is unrealistic because they are all different.
Students may have at times have a lot of homework, but they should remember that they would have an equal number of responsibilities some day when they are older. If students are able to learn how to manage and complete their homework, the rewards will be worth it for the success that is achievable because of the homework. While there are differences in every students study habits and capabilities, if every student tries they will achieve far more preparedness through their homework loads.
Practice Makes Perfect
When a basketball player makes a basket for the first time, they are not instantly a professional basketball player, it takes many hours of practice and hard work for them to become a skilled player. The same thing goes for a student. When you get to school on your first day, you have no idea what to expect and generally, you aren’t too good at taking tests or completing homework. The more you continue to go to school and study the material you are given, the smarter you become. But if a student doesn’t study their books or do homework, then they will not receive good grades. Many people think that students should be limited to 10 minutes of homework per grade level, and some people even think that homework should be eliminated completely. If students spend more time doing homework, then they will receive better test grades and struggle less with school work.
While homework offers a great chance of practice, some people believe, if the student does poorly on their assignment, it reflects negatively on their grade in the class. However, a study at East Carolina University between two classrooms one with no homework and one with homework showed students in the homework-required group had higher retention rates, higher test scores (5 to 6 percent), more good grades (A’s and B’s), and lower failure rates. Homework is important because it forces students to practice their school work every day and in turn helps them with tests and other homework assignments.
Homework is necessary because it makes students more responsible and forces them to learn time management. When you ask teachers about the value of homework, they often say it teaches responsibility—to complete the task you’ve been given and return it on time. That may encourage obedience and responsibility for working, but the more important purpose is to encourage students to take responsibility for learning. When properly designed, homework encourages students to self-evaluate and reflect on their learning.
Many necessary life lessons that you really can’t learn anywhere else come from extracurricular activities or after school jobs. Education Quest writes that when you are involved in high school you are not only building your resume, but increasing your scholarship opportunities and developing stronger personal skills. If students spend all of their time after school with their nose in a book, then they won’t have time for sports or other activities. Even though extracurricular activities are important, there needs to be a balance between those activities and homework.
Teachers should offer more in-class time to go over and review important topics instead of asking them to attempt it all on their own outside of class. Teachers should not expect students to complete hours of homework from their class alone. Students and parents should realize the importance of homework and learn to persist through the work in order to learn responsibility and time management. With the help of parents, students will become more successful in school and later in life by doing homework.
Growing GMOs
By Alyssa Hook
“I don’t know what a GMO is, but all I know is that it isn’t good for you” Travis tells me. Travis is a resident to a small rural town in Central Michigan. When asking people what exactly a GMO is or what it stands for you most commonly receive responses similar to his. As organic sales sky rocket year after your people are becoming more concerned with what they are consuming. However, many people don’t understand the whats, whys, and hos when it comes to making or engineering foods. Because of it genetically modified organisms have been unfairly demonized.
Biotechnology has helped farms become more sustainable through increased efficiency and decreasing our environmental footprint. In G. Miller and Scot Spoolman’s book “Environmental Science” they discuss how bioengineers have designed plants that can grow outside of their typical habitat. GMOs today can grow in warmer or colder temperatures then their traditional counter parts. Some crops can also survive with little to no irrigation. GMOs do not necessarily increase the yield of a harvest but they can harvest faster and their yields possess a much higher quality. Miller and Spoolman mention how past corn was “about the size of your little finger, and tomatoes were once the size of grapes”. In a world who’s population is exceptionally growing, it is important to find ways to be more efficient with the limited resources we have.
GMO’s have also affected food scarcity around the world. In undeveloped countries many people can not afford meals for themselves and their families or they can not find it. Malnutrition is very common and children die way too often. Crops that have been genetically modified to resist certain pests, diseases or numerous other ailments help save money for the farmers. Crops can also be specialized to hold more of certain nutrients, vitamins, or in some cases vaccinations. Some tomatoes hold fish genes that make them resistant from freezing. This can prove valuable when considering transporting foods. Farmers are able to use less fertilizer, pesticides and their crops require less space and water. This helps cut down costs and allow them to sell for a cheaper rate. By lowering the price of food and increasing its survival range, people are able to afford it if not begin to grow it themselves.
Numerous activist have been concerned with potential drawbacks in perusing GM crops. They do not believe that it has been studied well enough and that biotech engineering needs to be put on a shorter leash. Others believe it goes against nature. People fear that we are the guinea pigs in their experiments. There is also concern with lower levels of genetic diversity developing over time as well as harmful toxins from new allergens that may develop from cross breeding with non GM crops. Genetic modification is not a short process and critics believe that more controlled field experiments and long term testing needs to be done.
Endless experiments have been performed concerning GMO, but evidence against them is still elusive. In Chris Sorensen’s article “In Praise of Frankenfood” he talks about how people’s beliefs can rub them wrong when debating the morality of GMOs. Nature is constantly adapting and changing to fit its environment. Sorensen explains that there are many similarities between biological engineering and selective breeding practices. The way you look at it can make difference. People fear GMOs because to them it seems unnatural. Critics talk about the what ifs and are preparing for a disaster that may not even happen. Looking at the here and now there are no reasons that people should fear GMOs.
Farmers and people alike should grow genetically modified crops because they help reduce our environmental footprint. Better quality crops can be produced that rival their counterparts. Farmers are spending less on pesticides, fertilizers, land, and water usages. Plants can be engineered to grow in harsher conditions making them more available to people that living in a undesirable environment. The world population is drastically increasing, and utilizing GM crops may be critical to sustaining future populations.
Growing Up GMOs
By Alyssa Hook
“I don’t know what a GMO is, but all I know is that it isn’t good for you” Travis tells me. Travis is a resident to a small rural town in Central Michigan. When asking people what exactly a GMO is or what it stands for you most commonly receive responses similar to his. As organic sales sky rocket year after your people are becoming more concerned with what they are consuming. However, many people don’t understand the whats, whys, and hos when it comes to making or engineering foods. Because of it genetically modified organisms have been unfairly demonized.
Biotechnology has helped farms become more sustainable through increased efficiency and decreasing our environmental footprint. In G. Miller and Scot Spoolman’s book “Environmental Science” they discuss how bioengineers have designed plants that can grow outside of their typical habitat. GMOs today can grow in warmer or colder temperatures then their traditional counter parts. Some crops can also survive with little to no irrigation. GMOs do not necessarily increase the yield of a harvest but they can harvest faster and their yields possess a much higher quality. Miller and Spoolman mention how past corn was “about the size of your little finger, and tomatoes were once the size of grapes”. In a world who’s population is exceptionally growing, it is important to find ways to be more efficient with the limited resources we have.
GMO’s have also affected food scarcity around the world. In undeveloped countries many people can not afford meals for themselves and their families or they can not find it. Malnutrition is very common and children die way too often. Crops that have been genetically modified to resist certain pests, diseases or numerous other ailments help save money for the farmers. Crops can also be specialized to hold more of certain nutrients, vitamins, or in some cases vaccinations. Some tomatoes hold fish genes that make them resistant from freezing. This can prove valuable when considering transporting foods. Farmers are able to use less fertilizer, pesticides and their crops require less space and water. This helps cut down costs and allow them to sell for a cheaper rate. By lowering the price of food and increasing its survival range, people are able to afford it if not begin to grow it themselves.
Numerous activist have been concerned with potential drawbacks in perusing GM crops. They do not believe that it has been studied well enough and that biotech engineering needs to be put on a shorter leash. Others believe it goes against nature. People fear that we are the guinea pigs in their experiments. There is also concern with lower levels of genetic diversity developing over time as well as harmful toxins from new allergens that may develop from cross breeding with non GM crops. Genetic modification is not a short process and critics believe that more controlled field experiments and long term testing needs to be done.
Endless experiments have been performed concerning GMO, but evidence against them is still elusive. In Chris Sorensen’s article “In Praise of Frankenfood” he talks about how people’s beliefs can rub them wrong when debating the morality of GMOs. Nature is constantly adapting and changing to fit its environment. Sorensen explains that there are many similarities between biological engineering and selective breeding practices. The way you look at it can make difference. People fear GMOs because to them it seems unnatural. Critics talk about the what ifs and are preparing for a disaster that may not even happen. Looking at the here and now there are no reasons that people should fear GMOs.
Farmers and people alike should grow genetically modified crops because they help reduce our environmental footprint. Better quality crops can be produced that rival their counterparts. Farmers are spending less on pesticides, fertilizers, land, and water usages. Plants can be engineered to grow in harsher conditions making them more available to people that living in a undesirable environment. The world population is drastically increasing, and utilizing GM crops may be critical to sustaining future populations.