The government is truly trying to make this some kind of utopia. however as a child who has grown up in America and knows all my civil liberties I WILL NOT stand by and watch the government strip our nation of its individualism. Every person has the right to wear, say, or write what ever they please. And any person who has educated themselves about this topic knows how the sagging pants started. It began in jails all around our country because the inmates were not allowed to wear belts for fear that they would hang themselves. Now at this time many African American were thrown into jail for no reason or were wrongly accused because they were blamed for a white persons crime. Now in today's society African Americans use it as not so much a fashion statement but rather a statement of freedom. The government has not right to determine what people wear. I feel as though only in America do people have a problem with exposure in most other countries people walk around half naked and no one seems to give it a second thought. American just need to get off their high horse strip down and explore the human body. Its actually a beautiful thing.

Education and Equality: Oxymoron or is This a Reality

FCAT, Regents, and the all time favorite SAT and ACT. Every state in the United States has their own form of standardized testing. Supposedly these test are designed for the state to know how well or how poor the learning rate is. From this the government decides how much money a school receives each year. However the questions we should be asking our-self is, are the standardized test fair? How are they ranged? And how did they come up with these ranges?

When I was younger I would get such a bad headache that I thought my brain was going to explode when I was taking those standardized exams. There is so much pressure put on us students today in terms of succeeding in school. Not only do we need to excel in our everyday school life but we also must be prepared for these exams that test if we are "on track" with the rest of our "peers". when in all actuality they are not testing us against our peers they are testing us against anther group of students from the year before. Then not only do they expect us to meet the past students level but also surpass it. This is not even fair to students, they are being told to be better then these children from the year before and based on this they are going to judge if they are making progress. I do believe that a child should be tested to see at what level they are at each year. However I do not agree that one test should determine if a child will continue on to the next grade or not. I also do not agree that a should be tested against a child that may not be at the same level that they are. Children's test scores should be judged based on the progression or digression that each individual student is making.
The no child left behind act is a really nice idea. However if one was to actually read the act they might not agree with a large portion of the bill. In the bill there is a section named "Reward and punishment", in this section the government talks about school that meet or excel in these standardized test while other schools that fail to meet these standards are punished by having federal funds pulled from the school. These federal funds often pay for administration, text books, and all the other essentials to having a functioning school. Now what makes me upset about this part of the bill is that this will mostly affect lower income schools or as referred to in the bill title 1 schools. Often times in these schools there are already so little funds that there becomes a shortage of text books making it impossible for teachers to assign homework, and in class students much share books. To add to the chaos schools are overcrowded due to poor zoning plans so teachers are struggling to keep control of 30 to 50 children at a time. In my opinion this is punishment enough. But to further punish them living in a lower income neighbor hood and not being able to afford private school or a home-school teacher they take away what little funding they were receiving for not preforming up to par. I believe that schools that are excelling should continue to receive their same funding and schools that are struggling to meet the standard should be given more funding so they can try to better their academic programs and in some cases purchase books or hire more qualified teachers. In addition schools that are falling behind should be thoroughly researched as to why the are doing so poor. I strongly believe that this bill was but in place to try to hold back more and more minority students.
Education is the groundwork to having any kind of success in life. In America the government has been dipping their hands in the education system. I believe that the no child left behind act has is a form of segregation and or genocide. With this low income schools are losing funding which will eventually cause them to have to close leaving children in inner city schools all around the nation education-less, which leads to a unemployment, which then leaves them with no other means of caring for themselves but federal welfare or a life of crime. Is this really the future that we want for our nation because if left in the hands of bureaucrats this is what will and is happening everyday.