I keep seeing laws passed as a way to grade schools on the effectiveness of it teachings. There have been a number of arguments about this range from : the teachers will only teach for the test, and the students won’t learn anything, to how students who enroll during the year, transfers from other schools, will effect the score.. So it is really plain to see, at least in my view, that there are legit questions about the usefulness of this idea..
We like to score things. Students by their scores, teachers by the students scores, schools by the teacher’s scores, large corporation by their Profit/Expense score, and stock prices..
For each of these groups there is a penalty for failure.. Students might not graduate, teachers might not get renewed, schools might lose funding, and CEO might be given a “Golden Parachute”.
One area we might extend this idea to is the people who write our laws, set the budgets, and generally seem to see their job not as representing the people but, thwarting the other party.
How could we do this, and to what end..
Not long ago the Florida State senate decided the play the closure game with the state budget..
A couple of years ago the U.S. Congress was wrestling with the idea of increasing the debt ceiling. To this end they got together a group, made up of Republicans and Democrats, that was to work in unison with the President of the U.S. The did work something out. It passed the house, and the then Senate leader, Harry Reid, would not even put it before the Senate… He said his not putting the bill before the full Senate was the Republicans fault.. He He..
Now, since doing these things is part of the job they got elected for would not the failure to pass budgets be considered a failure? Like a student who does not pass his test, shouldn’t there be some kind of penalty associated with not doing their job?
Just look at how the politicians have spent so much time yammering about people’s “party loyalty”. What was this thing about a Republican Loyalty Oath? It was an oath of loyalty to the “party” not the people they represent which would be all of the people in their district.. NOT JUST THE PEOPLE IN THEIR PARTY.
Just to give you an idea of what kind of thing I am ranting about, consider this.. When President Obama was running for his current job he had a seat in the Senate.. though he was out campaigning most of the time, rather then representing the people in his state.. Was it Marco Rubio who got on one of the Intelligence committees and then missed half the briefings?
When was the last time thy passed a budget, the full one and not just a budget to keep the wheels turning because they could not get a full budget worked out?
I understand they are supposed to log in for votes, though I also understand that some of their aides vote for them.. So I have an idea.
Lets help them understand what the average worker, those little people who pay their salary, has to do. Lets give them time cards, maybe digital, that they can use to clock in on the floor.. If they miss a portion of the business day, the times the House, or Senate, is in session then, they get docked for the proportionate amount of time they missed.. and if the things such as the budget don’t pass then they can give that money back.. as they did not do their jobs..
Oh, and it should be a felony for any of their aides to cast their vote for them, if they can’t do it themselves they should get a real job.
Of course, if they ever did anything like this, they would just put an extra clause that exempted them from the law..
Whether you are a Republican, a Democrat, or even a Libertarian, if those people, in whatever district, are more interested in Party Politics then they are not representing YOU.
Thank,
That Joe Guy.
That Joe Guy 