These sorts of unauthorized flights, combined with model rockets from hobby stores and household cleaners could have created a terrorist nightmare. Where are the feds?
All of this crap is just that... crap. "Teaching for the test/compliance" is the big whine today. 15 years ago, the trend was to give everyone an A so their feelings wouldn't be hurt.
Teachers are all bent because kids aren't doing well on standardized tests, so they get pressure to raise the grades. So they address the situation by drilling the kids to pass the test, and it's obvious that the dumb kids are still dumb and the smart kids are still smart.
You have all of these people making big money analyzing these states to death and coming up with lots of brilliant ideas. At the end of the day, it means nothing because some percentage of kids do well, some percentage are drinking in the boy's room and some people in the middle are penalized/rewarded by some variance introduced by the system.
There are actually some proposals out there to build extra-national trade cities in Africa to encourage Western-style development, minus the intense corruption of African governments.
If the Congress is corrupt, than the state legislatures are a corpulent sewer of corruption and graft. Anything that takes power from them is generally a good thing.
The upside of direct election is that at least there's a chance that good Senators, not subject to the petty whims of the state houses might make better policy. State legislatures were/are generally the products of political machines and tended to appoint Senators who would advance their aims.
In the 21st century, the power of the corporations, unions and trade associations to manipulate the electorate via mass media is at least as powerful as the political machinery that the 17th amendment attempted to fight.
States like California and New York are mostly the victims of politicians in the 60's - 80's who deferred all sorts of costs to the future to make the books work. Welcome to the future.
Examples:
"No money to give raises to state workers, cops and teachers." Solution to get contracts signed: Richer pensions, bigger benefits
"Crime is out of control. Drugs are bad. Rural economies are collapsing from de-industrialization." Solution: Build prisons.
"We're enlightened and want the poor to get better healthcare." Solution: Spend more on Medicaid. (In New York, pass the bill down to the county while you're at it)
"The Mayor can't afford a 7% raise to the Police and Fire Departments. The arbitrator will give them 6% that we can't afford if we go to arbitration." Solution: Allow employees to bank unlimited sick time that gets paid out at retirement and free healthcare for life.
Yeah, sure. New York spends a ridiculous amount on education and is bottom of the pack in performance. My sister makes $85k as a teacher, and will retire making $105k on the current scale, with a pension of $65k after that.
