Every teacher fired at school in Rhode Island

Background: Central Falls School District in Rhode Island just announced that they were firing every teacher in the high school. Why? It's because of test scores and the amount of failing students attending there. The school board voted 5-2 on the subject, so after the end of the school year, every teacher will be out of a job. Although they said they would hire about 50% of the teachers back next year. The school is in one of the worst towns in Rhode Island with the average community income per person is $22,000. Of the 800 students, 65 percent are Hispanic, and for most of them, English is a second language. Half of the students are failing every subject, with 55 percent skilled in reading and 7 percent proficient in math, but they still made improvements over the last few years. There has been talks going on with the superintendent and the teachers and there is room for debate.

Opinion: To me it sounds like it isn't really the teachers fault here, especially in a high school. It's different when kids are learning anything in elementary because in elementary you don't have the urge to stand up to the teachers or choose not to learn, but in high school its different. Kids have attitudes and they make there own decisions on whether or not they want to learn anything. Its not the teachers fault if the kids they are trying to teach aren't learning anything. In most cases its the kids themselves that don't choose to learn. So i think the school board made the wrong decision here. Its especially hard when you are dealing with the situation the teachers are faced with... Like poverty, and Hispanics that have English as there second language. I think the school board under estimated the challenge the teachers are facing at Central Falls High.

Airstrike in Afgan kills 27 Civilians

Background: Over this past weekend NATO authorized an unjustifiable air strike that lead the the death of 27 civilian. NATO got what was supposed to be reliable Intel from an Afghan saying that there would be many Taliban leaders traveling to a destination in 3 buses. So NATO and the American commander thought this would be a perfect opportunity to take out some strong leaders. So they see on there satellites that there are 3 buses traveling, and this matched there Intel. So planes fired at the buses and took them out, when they sent people into inspect the damage, they found innocent civilians and among them four women and children. NATO apologized Monday saying the attacks were "Unjustifiable". This is the third time this has happened in Afghanistan since starting there major offensive there.

Opinion: First off, i don't understand where and who you would get reliable Intel from in of all places Afghanistan. If we don't even know who we are shooting at sometimes, why should we trust a person that says do this because i heard this was going to happen. It would be hard for me to trust any people over there besides the Americans and Afghanistan officials. Otherwise we shouldn't be relying on street Intel, and if you knew the buses where traveling somewhere, why didn't we just spy on them with the same satellites we used to locate the buses? We should have just followed them and see what happened, because if we do find out they are Taliban leaders, we could have had our jets already in the air when they find out more Intel, and still be there to strike within a minute. Plus its not like the leaders would have anywhere to hide with the kind of weapon technology America has. I think if the NATO commanders would have been a little more patient, this incident would have never happened.

War Dollars

Background: We all know we have been in war with Iraq and Afghanistan for many years now because its probably been in the news everyday. Some people don't know though, of how much has been spent on these wars. Its brought our national debt to over 12 trillion dollars with all the spending we are doing to help support the war. Some think the cause is good and the money we spent on the war has been well worth it. We have taken out many bad influential leaders out of both countries, and now in Iraq we are making great steps toward a democracy ran government over there. We are still making good progress in Afghanistan, and are fighting hard to over take Al Qaida over there. Many people believe though that the war effort is worthless though... That Congress has waisted billions of tax payer dollars which has brought made the national deficit high every year which contributes to the national debt. A lot of people believe we are doing more harm there then good which has cost many American Soldiers there lives. Congress has used power of the purse in the past to help slow down wars because they can control what war bills make it to the president. So if they feel the same and are influenced by they American people, they could really help slow down these wars and bring an end to them.

Opinion: I think that we need to pull out of Iraq with our combat troops and send help to keep setting up there government and to train Iraq troops to take over. We however need to keep fighting in Afghanistan because Al Qaida is still on the rise, and we need to take them out in there strong hold of Afghanistan. I feel our job is done in Iraq, and now we can focus more energy in Afghanistan that will in turn make the process of fighting go faster which will help the war go by faster. Then we can stop paying for 2 wars, do a great job fighting in Afghanistan, finish up there quicker which means we don't have to pay for the war as long as we need to. We can then focus on health care and social security and our economy. All the issues that we need to take care of to help our country grow stronger into the future. President Obama now is sending up to 30,000 more troops to help out saying: "We haven't seen the kinds of infrastructure improvements; we haven't seen the security improvements; we haven't seen the reduction in narco-trafficking; we haven't seen a reliance on rule of law in Afghanistan that would make people feel confident that the central government can, in fact, deliver on its promises. We've got to ramp up our development approach."

Issue #2

Spending What We can Afford

Issue #3

Social Insecurity

American's Soon to Know there fate from Haiti Judge

Background: I'm sure everyone in the world knows by now there has been a devastating earthquake in Haiti. Relief efforts have been working around the clock since its happened, and the American people have donated a record amount of money to help out. So many people have helped out and even gone down there to do what they can, well 10 Americans had the right intentions to help 33 Haitian children but they ended up getting in legal trouble for it. The 10 Americans tried to bring 33 children from Haiti into the Dominican Republic so they could transport the children back home to America where families were willing to take and adopt them. The got caught however and now they are all facing felony child trafficking charges. A Haiti judge will rule as early as today on the case, so the 10 American missionaries could get prison time for there actions.



Opinion: I think these people had the right intentions for these orphans, they just had the wrong way of going about it. They said in the article that they got permission from the kids parents to take them, but since they already had the permission, why not just go that extra step and ask the government to bring these orphans back to America where they would be accepted by families? Yes its considered child trafficking, but i think the Haitian government needs to look at the situation, some of these kids have no family left, and I'm sure most don't even have a home left, the government should just look at that and see that it is for the good of the kids. I can see where you should press charges if they took the kids against there will, but in this situation, just give the missionaries a fine. You don't need to put them in jail for trying to help out other peoples lives.