Education by Nick

Everyone has always heard the saying "education is so important and a necessity in life to succeed". This is something all our parents have probably relayed to us at one time or another in our early lives. This is true to an extent. Back then, every child was told that they need to go get an education and go to college. So students had this goal and went about trying to achieve it. The problem today is that this push as we call it or thrive that is presented to our children or students does not have the strength it once did. The message is no longer strong enough to push students. I believe society itself has gotten lazy and that is why students today are not graduating and dropping out of college at rapid rates, simply because they are not influenced enough and not pushed hard enough anymore. Another major concern in education is the focus. Today, there are too many factors distracting kids from going to school and getting an education. Drugs, TV, Violence, video games, and excessive partying are causing students to be distracted which in turn causes lower test scores and lower graduation rates. If this continues, more and more students will fail college, drop out, and find other things to occupy their time which usually aren’t the best choices. We as a society need to find a way to distract students from the distractions and get them back on course with school. Another strong concern for education is the lack of funds and teachers to teach students. Today, more and more jobs in education are being terminated which means larger class sizes and less materials for students to use. This will result in less focus, less learned, and a higher dropout rate as well as failure in life. Unemployment the past few years has been the lowest in a very long time. If teachers don’t start getting paid what they should, as well as being hired by institutions, it’s our kids and grandkids that are going to struggle the most in life. We may struggle in life now without an education but if education continues to go downhill, society as a whole will fall into turmoil. I feel the videos view on education and alternatives to failure were a bit abstract. They weren’t really focused on one particular way to improve education. However, I feel that education is not simply going to be fixed by a single policy or law, but rather than a strong push by every member of society and government. No policy will fix something completely. It may help but the overall cause will not be affected.  Politics have always played into education as well. One individual voted in by the people may be strong on education where other politicians may not consider education a great concern. I think politicians over time have both positively affected education and vice versa. I believe it all depends on the politician. In my own opinion, I feel that a more centralized system of education would get kids on track. I feel that there are too many educational systems in the country that are failing because they don’t have the funds or teachers where other parts of the country have the best. I feel that id education is treated as the military, then test scores would increase in poor areas and the system of education would equal out throughout the country. Teachers should be assigned to schools just like soldiers are assigned to a particular base. This way, there is not once place lacking qualified people. It sounds a bit farfetched but if you think about it, wouldn’t poor areas of education seem to get better? I do believe that changing paradigms will benefit our society. I believe all students and members of society need a new focus and alternative in order to become more successful.

Blog 2...Middle Income Family of Four!

            I am assuming the role of a hard working citizen whose income places me in the middle class. I also have a family of four. Picking a home or a place to move to can be very difficult, especially when you are trying to consider many different factors. There are all different types of aspects to consider such as commuting time to work, how good the schools are, and how much is the cost of living. It is not easy for a household of four to find the right place to live because of so many factors to consider. My wife and I make decent money which places us in the middle class. We are able to deal with a mortgage and have a strict budget when it comes to open spending. We would like to have our kids go to good school district so the quality of the schools is very important to us and high on your priority list. We would also like to be able to commute to our jobs in less than 20 minutes. Saving gas and not having to wake up super early is very important to us. Also, there must be stores relatively close to avoid having to travel far distances for groceries and clothing.

            With the help of some models we learned in class, I would most likely chose Las Vegas, Nevada to move to with my family.  There are many reasons for my decision and with the help of different models we learned in class, we feel like this is the proper city to settle down in. What made me chose this particular area for one was the Urban Indicators. This helped me break down my decision. The Urban Indicators include housing, education, transportation, crime rate, and many others. The housing market in Las Vegas these days is very affordable. I can get a lot of property for my money and also be able to afford the mortgage. Education in Las Vegas is on the rise due to the influx of people from other cities. Las Vegas is one of the fastest growing cities in the country, so I know my kids will receive a good education. With Las Vegas becoming as big as it is, transportation is abundant with lots of public transportation and major highways for traveling. Crime is somewhat high in some areas but every city has its good and bad areas. The Concentric Zone Model was also much help in my decision. We would most likely end up in zone 4 of this model. My wife and I are college educated and want to have nice things, including a nice house. We wouldn’t want to be too far from work so zone 4 seems about right. Zone 5 would be out of the question because we want to keep our commute time down. Overall, this city seems to be the perfect place for my family of four. Most of our needs are available here and all our priorities seem to be completed.

First Blog by Nick Leiman

Hey guys, my name is Nick. This is the first time Im doing this blog thing so bare with me. Im a senior here at ASU and I also live in Avondale AZ. Ive lived here for two years now and Im orinally from New York, where I graduated HS and grew up. Yes that means I love the Yankees, Giants and Knicks, so hopefully ill meet some other fans in the class as well. My major is Criminal Justice and Im taking this class because it is a class that falls under related areas for my major. It seemed interesting enough and I also liked the fact that its a quick class this semester. Im 22, full time student, and also work full time for T-Mobile. A lot of my family members are high ranking officials in law enforcement therefore Im looking forward to following in their footsteps. I should graduate by the end of this year.

As for the first class, I was quite pleased with how it went. To be honest, I wasnt quite sure what the class was about but by the end of it, I had a clear understanding of what we are going to learn this semester. I learned a few new things so far such as the real meaning of what a policy is and how it is incorporated into our society and everyday lives. No one really thinks much about how much work goes into policy making and when I learned about the policy cycle today, it made me think about the details and steps that must be taken to create a policy. The fact that people must first identify the problem, formulate solutions, adopt, implement and evaluate a policy really truly defines policy making. The other thing I really enjoyed learning about today in class was about the different types of policies. I always for one, thought that a policy is a policy. I never quite understood that there are many policies such as distributive, regulatory, self-regulatory and redistributive. Just like anything else in this world, there are always issues with something. When it comes to policy making, the 5 critical issues is something that really came to me clearly during our first lecture. Overall I enjoyed class and look forward to our next lecture.