Final Exam #2

             My original definition of a well informed 21st century citizen was "A well informed 21st century citizen is not just someone who is technologically advanced but also well informed politically and understands how society is changing rapidly and can adapt to the changes." I still mostly agree with this statement very strongly. A well informed 21st century citizen has their own political opinions based off true facts and not whether they received a free "I Stand With Walker" t-shirt. They are also very adapting to all of the changes that happen, whether it be technology or laws. That is where I do not believe that my last definition went far enough, was with the laws. Knowing laws, your rights, and how your government works is such a huge part in the life that we live. Without knowing these you may accidentally self incriminate themselves, or allow an unjust search of their person or home. Even if they are not hiding anything or doing anything illegal, it is just the principal of the matter.
           In short, a well informed 21st century citizen is not just someone who is technologically advanced, but also well informed politically, about our government, and has a strong understanding of how society changes rapidly and is able to adapt quickly and my views on this basically stayed the same but, I had to add one key principal.

Exam Question

Is there a need for an Education reform in America?

From my experiences, and experiences at other schools that I have hear about, I have come to a conclusion that we need to improve public education. This includes increasing the quality of teachers, increasing the quality of schools, and create parent motivation.

Quality of teachers is one of the most key ways to increase productivity and learning in the classroom. With a better teacher, kids should learn more and become smarter. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, only 29% of students were at or above the Proficient level in grades 4 and 8 while the percentage was only 21% for grade 12. These numbers are astonishing but what is even more astonishing is the percentage of those who were below the Basic level. 30% of 4th graders failed to reach the basic level, and it jumps to 40% for 8th and 12th grade. This means that 40% of those who are in their final year of public school are not at the basic level and are most likely entering the working world with very little education. Increasing the quality of teachers should improve these percentages and help improve the quality of students and give those students potential for a better quality life.

Who would want to learn in an old, beat up school that has outdated equipment? Keeping a school updated on technology and making it look nice would easily improve the students experience at the school. Also included in this, is smaller class sizes. These are very important for learning and has been proven time and time again. One of these examples was shown on ClassSizeMatters.org where class sizes were reduced in a New Jersey middle school and the failure rate dropped from 3-6% to only 1% and 80% of students had higher test scores. This is just one of the many cases that show similar statistics. With smaller class sizes, teachers are able to connect to the students better along with being able to spend more 1 on 1 time with the students if they need the help. By keeping the school up to date and looking good they can increase a students want to learn and make it as best as possible with smaller class sizes.

Parent motivation is important with anything kids want to do in life. Whether it is school, athletics, a career choice, or anything else in life, it is important to know someone is pushing you to be the best student or person you can be. A little motivation can go a long way. By giving kids goals for their grades, you can practically bribe them to do better. Rick Ackerly, a nationally recognized educator and speaker, strongly believes that giving the child a sense of entitlement and accomplishment is very important. He believes that combining fun with things that can actively stimulate the brain are some of the best things for them as well. Most important of all of his ideas, All challenges are gifts. Overcoming challenges is one of life's most important skills and learning that early will help with everything in life. Hara and Burke did an experiment in an inner city. In a short time, with parent involvement, they were able to increasing the third graders reading level by 4 months and increase the vocabulary and reading levels of all students. One specific reading test showed an 85% improvement for the students whose parents took part in this program. Parent involvement is incredibly important to everyone, especially young kids and it should be used to increase the school experience and help them learn better.

An education reform is exactly what this nation needs to improve the quality of students that we produce. This would therefore improve the quality of applicants for jobs and make people more efficient at their jobs and becoming more useful in society and able to live with a higher quality of life and have the opportunity for the American Dream. With an education reform, the United States, can truly become the country that it should and improve to its full potential.

http://nces.ed.gov/pressrelease/reform/
http://www.classsizematters.org/research-and-links-2/
http://www.parentinvolvementmatters.org/articles/the-right-to-happiness-the-root-cause-of-entitlement-116.html
http://www.adi.org/journal/ss01/chapters/Chapter16-Hara&Burke.pdf

Super PAC's political cartoon

The political cartoon accurately describes how politics are affected by 527's, lobbyists, and bailouts.

It correctly lists the 527's (Super PACs) under the money aisle. Super PACs are that are huge suppliers of money even though it is strictly indirect. Super PACs cannot directly support a candidate but often will run a slander ad towards a rival candidate to make that specific candidate lose votes. 527's are unnecessary for elections and instead those groups should be aloud just to directly support a candidate with however much money they want. There is only so much that they can say positive about one candidate and negative about the other so that the large sums of money would become greatly inefficient later on.


Lobbyists have become a huge part in politics and the political cartoon shows the PA system alerting them about a banking committee senators. Lobbyists are groups of people (interest groups) or just one person known to put ideas in people ears and convince politics one way or the other. These are prevalent in politics but there is no real way to eliminate them. They are wrong but will always be there one way or the other and if there was a way to prevent or eliminate them, I would not mind but that seems to be impossible


Only right that the bailout sign is right above the treasury. The treasury is of course in control of the money system and the bailout has become a huge topic in the political race for president between Obama and Romney. The Stimulus package from Obama was necessary due to the debt caused by the treasury for not tightening restrictions to get loans like they normally do. This made the Stimulus Plan needed even though many people don't believe so.

The Perfect Running mate for Mitt Romney would either be a Hispanic or a woman. These are demographics that are untapped by Obama's Administration. Also, the running mate would have to have plenty of political experience and be from a vital state. Plenty of experience shows that they know what they are doing and if the state they are from has a good amount of electoral votes, it is even better. With Romney being a "moderate conservative" you really have to keep the interest of the "extreme conservatives" which is the Tea Party. These are important votes that normally always vote Republican, that cannot be lost.

Who is the perfect candidate for Romney to run with that matches all of these categories?
Marco Rubio. A man with Latino roots and someone who would actually be able to give their acceptance speech in Spanish, would give great interest for Latinos and could very well win them some important votes. Currently he is the Speaker (and member) of the Florida House of Representatives. This is good experience for later on. His good ties with the Tea Party just practically guarantees votes that might not have been won since he is seen as a "conservative" Republican. These are a lot of positives that would go in favor of Romney by choosing Marco Rubio.

Marco Rubio

The worst choice for Romney to run with would have to be John Thune.
Thune is a 50+ year old white male, which demographic majorly votes Republican as it is. Romney also fits into that same category which would seem redundant to have Thune as his running mate. He is considered "safe," he doesn't anger anyone really but does not really get anyone excited either which would hurt the Romney campaign. This seems like a useless choice to me and there are a lot better of choices that could be made to help the Romney Campaign.

John Thune

Electoral College

With a new system the Electoral College could cut out the "faulty" wins, allow for a more exciting campaign race, and allow for a smaller party to greater effect on the election.

The current system of the Electoral College is effective but not to the highest level of effectiveness that is possible. The system could be changed so that Elector votes would be proportional to the public votes. With this system the Electoral College could cut out "faulty" wins, allows for a more exciting and fair campaign race, and allow for smaller parties to make more of a dent.

 As an example, Wisconsin has 10 votes, say 70% of Wisconsin voters vote for Obama. With this, Wisconsin electors would vote 7 for Obama and 3 for Romney (If it was not even then the winning party rounds up). This would make it more accurate and cut out the chances of having Presidents who win the Electoral votes but not the popular votes. This has happened 3 times in the past and most recently in the 2000 election where Bush beat Gore not in popular vote but just Electoral College. This system would allow for a more fair way and not allow for these "faulty" wins.

There are states that always vote Republican or Democratic. Texas is nearly always Republican, so democrats know they will not win Texas and do not really fight for it. But, what if they could gain up to a third of Texas' votes and gain an extra 10 votes that they would not normally get. This would allow for a more exciting campaign race and allow for some states to get attention from the candidates that they normally never see. This would create a more exciting race from a political stand point and a public stand point and would in general get more people interested in the election.

Small parties make little to no difference in most recent elections. If the system was changed, it could promote these parties and potentially put one of these candidates into office. With Ralph Nader, the Green Party noise every single year and got some of their policies put into the Democratic or Republican plan, but since he is gone there has been nothing about the Green Party in any election news that I have seen. With the proportional system, they could turn out to be huge factors because they would certainly win some votes that they wouldn't have been won prior. A party as small as the Green Party is not likely to win the majority of the votes in a state but they can just make dents into the Republican or Democrat votes by winning a few votes in each state.

Improvements to the Presidential Election

The presidential election is currently in a good state. There are some areas that could use some improvements. One improvement that I would suggest is to have the process to get on the ballots be more similar or even be one nation-wide ballot that all 50 states would use instead of having to invest so much time and money into each and every state. This would make it easier, and cheaper, for all and could encourage more people to run for president. Secondly, I would hope for some improvements by adding a third party. This would create more options for the citizens to vote for. This would create more competition between the three parties and more competition normally creates better quality. This would then create better candidates for presidents and then help the United States even more. Finally, I would like to see a mandatory exit poll in place. This would allow for the candidates to see who favors them and who they need to attract the attention of. With this they could either change their policies to slightly attract the groups that they need to attract in order to get more views. This would also go along the lines of creating more competition and then still create better candidates. It would also be more interesting, from my point of view, to watch candidates sort of "duke it out" for certain demographics. With these changes, the presidential election would improve by the means of entertainment value, allowing more people to run, and creating better candidates.

Romney's Political Advisor

     As Romney's political advisor i would focus heavily on the 30-44 age range, and suburban living citizens. These are two categories that are always divided and could be huge categories to win for the Republicans. With those wins they could push themselves into the oval office. Focusing the majority of the campaign on these two groups would be wise. Offering events, such as parties or question and answer sessions, in order to persuade these voters and get them to vote Republican
     They would only have to focus a small amount of the campaign on whites, religious people (besides the jewish community), and the 60+ age group because those groups normally always heavily vote Republican so they are practically shoe ins as long as they see some advertising. Driving people from nursing homes or churches to the polling areas could help greatly secure these groups.
     It would be smart to put a little bit of campaigning into heavily Democratic groups to hopefully sway part of those groups back towards evenly split or even to the Republican side. First-Time voters, 18-29 age groups because those are mainly Democratic groups that could easily be partly persuaded. Going to colleges and talking to college students would really effect the votes and potentially persuade them.

     Following these plans, the Republicans and Romney could gain crucial voters and find his way into the oval office. This is a very reasonable plan and could very easily be accomplished with the funding given to the party. These gestures are simple but would go a long way in helping swing the votes to the Republican side.