(05-01-2007) Bono teams up with Hillary Clinton - IOL*

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HelloAngel

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Bono teams up with Hillary Clinton


Washington - Has U2's Bono finally found what he is looking for?

The rocker and global activist will pair up Tuesday with Democratic presidential candidate Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to back legislation to expand education efforts in impoverished countries.

When Bono's Irish supergroup performed in the nation's capital in 2005, Clinton seized it as a fundraising opportunity, charging $2 500 (about R18 000) a seat to rock out with the New York senator in a luxury box.

Then as now, Bono is not endorsing her politically, just her policy stance on the issue of global education.

The two will participate in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday to tout the legislation that would add billions in US aid to overseas education programs. The bill would expand education for the estimated 77 million children worldwide who are not enrolled in primary school. The legislation, which has been offered in past years, would spend $10-billion (about R75-billion) over five years. - Sapa-AP

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?from=rss_World&set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=nw20070430215238150C576893
 
not to sound like a complete dick, but shouldnt we fix our own underfunded education system first?
 
Hopefully Bono won't jump on the Hillary bandwagon full tilt...mark my words she WILL NOT win the Democratic nomination. Obama WILL!!!
 
Yes, but dickletts (somehow Bush's VP comes to mind...:wink: )
and others....

The idea isn't to take money away from our own screwed educational system and give it to create schools in Africa and Asia, but to take money we'd spend on say constructing police training centers in Baghdad that don't have running water or doors but that cost 150 million dollars, and instead set up schools in places where the only other folks itching to do so have an anti-western agenda.

seems wise to me!

cheers all...
 
ShellBeThere said:
Yes, but dickletts (somehow Bush's VP comes to mind...:wink: )
and others....

The idea isn't to take money away from our own screwed educational system and give it to create schools in Africa and Asia, but to take money we'd spend on say constructing police training centers in Baghdad that don't have running water or doors but that cost 150 million dollars, and instead set up schools in places where the only other folks itching to do so have an anti-western agenda.

seems wise to me!

cheers all...
Click to expand...

but aren't there tons of inner city schools that are desperate for that money themselves?

while i think its extremely noble to want to start up school systems in other countries, but when i look at how fucked some of our own school systems are, my selfish side says we should use that money to fix them first.

its an interesting balance of trying to help yourself but others as well.
 
Why don't you just put your kids in luxury private schools?

Then you could care less about your own national public school system.

That's what Bono does.
 
First, Bono is not American.
Second, his main agenda is Africa.
Third, he has said many times that he does not want the money for Africa to be taken away from aid, education or infrastructure programmes in the US.
I think we are all for investing money into education in our own countries and I am sure Bono is, too.
But on the other hand, education is an incredibly important factor in developing countries and a very important thing for people there, to help them help themselves out of poverty - and in longer terms this can be a very effective measure against fundamentalism and terror.
So that's where Bono is coming from.
There will always be a collission of interests, that's what politics is about.
I just wish people would listen a bit closer to what Bono has been saying before they jump on him whenever he is doing something political.
 
Impact of Inequity
It is a well documented fact that school funding affects students' ability to succeed academically. A longitudinal study of 40,000 students by the US Department of Education ("Prospects") found that students attending poor schools, even those students who come from wealthy or middle class families, still score, on average, 2 grade levels lower in mathematics and 4 grade levels lower in reading than do students in wealthy schools.
Causes of Inequity
A report presented by the US General Accounting Office in 1997 (School Finance) found that, in the United States, the average school in a wealthy district receives 24% more funding than the average school in a poor district. It also found that disparities in funding between school districts depended primarily on three factors:
1. The extent to which the state targeted funding to poor districts 2. The state's share of total funding, regardless of whether the targeting effort was low 3. The local tax effort in poor communities
Targeting Efforts
Although unequal funding has been ruled unconstitutional in ten states, only 33 states have targeted poor districts for more funding. Two states-Louisiana and North Dakota- actually provide more state funding for wealthy districts than they do for poor districts. Twenty-five states reported making no changes in their targeting of poor districts or the state's share in total educational funding during the last decade.
State Share
The GAO found that state share was the single greatest determiner of equity in school funding. Right now state and local funding are more or less equal nationwide, but state share varies a great deal from state to state. For example, in Hawaii the state provides 98% of total funding, while the state of New Hampshire provides only 8.3%.
Local Tax Effort
Poor districts in 35 states make a greater tax effort than do wealthy districts in the same state (in other words, poor people in those states pay higher property taxes than do wealthy people). In Wyoming, for example, the property tax rate in poor communities is more than 400% higher than the rate in wealthy communities. While poor communities that taxed themselves more than their wealthy counterparts did manage to lessen the funding gap slightly in their states, generally property values in those communities were low enough to prevent a significant impact on funding disparities.
Disparities Persist
Despite efforts in many states, funding gaps continue to be a serious problem. In 41 of 50 states, poor districts receive less total funding than wealthy districts. In 14 states, including Illinois, the minimum funding per student is less than half of the state average.
Racist Policies
It is abundantly clear that the funding disparity is a racial issue as well as an economic one. African American and Latino students are consistently over-represented in those districts that lack adequate funding for education. Such is the case in Illinois. Although African Americans represent 14.8% of Illinois' total population, they make up only 2.1% of the population in the state's wealthiest county, while Illinois' poorest county is 34.7% African American.
The Federal Government and Title I
The federal government does little to encourage state's to craft equitable finance systems. The Title I Education Incentive Finance Program would award federal money to states based on their levels of equity, but the program has yet to receive funding. While Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act provides $8.2 billion annually for disadvantaged students in almost every district in the country, it has met with spurious results. Federal funding also represents only 7% of school funding nationwide, with the other 93% being left to the often-antiquated state and local systems.
Illinois
Illinois has one of the worst funding gaps in the nation. The average funding in Illinois' poorest districts is $4,330 per student while the average funding in the wealthiest districts is $7,249. That translates to a funding gap of 67%, almost three times the national average.The state provides only 33% of total educational funding and targeting efforts are low. Until 1997, little effort had been made to equalize school funding in Illinois and efforts since than have met with mixed results. In December of 1997, the General assembly passed a bill that will increase school spending by $1.6 billion over three years. The bill also set Illinois' first minimum funding level at $4,100 per student. While the minimum set forth in the bill is well above the $3,100 per student that a few of the state's worst funded schools were receiving before the bill was passed, it its actually less than the average per student spending for Illinois' poorest districts. Last spring Governor Edgar (currently ex-Governor) backed a plan that would have dramatically restructured Illinois' property tax based educational system. By imposing a 25% state income tax increase, it would have minimized the school system's dependence on local property taxes. Republicans in the state Senate buried the plan.
 
Chizip said:


but aren't there tons of inner city schools that are desperate for that money themselves?

while i think its extremely noble to want to start up school systems in other countries, but when i look at how fucked some of our own school systems are, my selfish side says we should use that money to fix them first.

its an interesting balance of trying to help yourself but others as well.
Click to expand...

I agree that it's an interesting balance, at least theoretically...
but as has been pointed out, funds for helping allow kids in africa get schooling doesn't need to be taken from our poorer schools...

I wouldn't be surprised if a large part of the differences related to funding has more to do with school culture and quality of the teachers than anything like buying more f***ing workbooks.

I grew up in the Bronx, and went to a crappy elementary school, an even crappier middle school, and then a wonderful high school (one of them NYC magnet places you needed to test into). I'd bet they all suffered from poor funding, but I don't think I ever felt like what we needed was more money to buy books, or paper, or such stuff (computers these days make stuff a little different--for me, in the 1970s bronx, it was irrelevant). But I did feel like some kids were falling through the cracks due to class size, teachers' lack of competence, and a general feeling of whocares that was the result of many factors.

Merely throwing more money at schools that have frustrated or novice underpaid teachers (unless of course the money is spent on attracting better teachers!) won't change a lot of what needs to be changed for outcomes to improve, imho.

But--and I'm not assuming that the money needs to come from our own schools because I don't think it does-- "throwing" money to just get fees paid for kids, especially girls, who can't afford to learn to read in Africa, can make a huge difference in improved outcomes I'd guess!

One of the only places where I think a relatively easy "throwing money" scheme can help inner city outcomes is investment in universal high-quality (but mostly play-based, for godsake; social and emotional development needs to happen for the academic scene to improve when kids are ready to learn the 3Rs) preschools.


Cheers all...
 
FYI, Bono's kids do not go to "luxury private schools." They go to public schools. Not Mount Temple, I don't think, but they do go to a public school.

As for our own public schools, I have to imagine that some of that American Idol cash may go to that, esp in NOLA.

As for Hillary, this FYM'er will go on record as saying that if either Hillary or Obama wins either the Prez or Veep nomination, the Republicans won't need Karl Rove's voting machine chicanery to capture the White House in a cakewalk in 'o8. It will easily be the stupidest thing they've done in a century. I hate to be cold-blooded about it, but there it is. And that's coming from a flea-bitten liberal Democrat:wink:
 
Teta040 said:
this FYM'er will go on record as saying that if either Hillary or Obama wins either the Prez or Veep nomination, the Republicans won't need Karl Rove's voting machine chicanery to capture the White House in a cakewalk in 'o8. It will easily be the stupidest thing they've done in a century. I hate to be cold-blooded about it, but there it is. And that's coming from a flea-bitten liberal Democrat:wink:
Click to expand...

I know exactly why you're saying this but what you're not considering is the amount of apathy toward the republican candidates among the republican base. All those evangelicals who supported Bush are not going to be very excited about voting for pro-choice Guliani or Mormon Romney or turncoat McCain. A lot of them will just stay home. Will millions turn out just to vote against Obama or Hillary? Of course, but not in nearly the numbers they turned out for Bush. And in a time when dems are getting a huge percentage of the independent vote, that will be the difference. Democrats won't even NEED the South.

Regarding the education issue, I think Bono does what he thinks God wants him to do. And I have a feeling God would want us to tackle problems in order of severity, not geography.
 
Last edited:
LPU2 said:


Regarding the education issue, I think Bono does what he thinks God wants him to do. And I have a feeling God would want us to tackle problems in order of severity, not geography.
Click to expand...

and that all sounds very fine and noble, but would you want to starve in order to share all your food with africa?
 
Raid, when hasn't Bono, left to his own devices, taken things too far? :wink:

Did someone mention John Edwards? The man of $400 haircuts and campaign meetings with hedge-fund managers?

A man of the people!

:|
 
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