Teach for America

In class this past week, the topic of Teach for America was brought up. I knew only a little bit about this program, and after hearing both positive and negative comments about it, I wanted to learn more about it. According to Teach for Americas website their mission "is to build the movement to eliminate educational inequity by developing such leaders." Basically what TFA does is take recent college graduates, put them in urban and rural public schools, and have them teach for about two years.

Some of the positives of this program include new teachers who are eager and excited to teach in these schools. They bring fresh energy to the schools and are really committed to helping these kids. And probably even more importantly, TFA is doing something to try and help change our public school system that is failing. According to the TFA website, "8% of kids growing up in low-income communities graduate from college by age 2" which shows how much change is needed.

However, this program is definitely not perfect and not everyone agrees that it is doing that much. People argue that placing new college graduates into struggling classrooms is just a recipe for disaster. These teachers have no experience and are replacing teachers who have worked at the school for years. Whats your opinion on Teach for America? Comment below.

Violence Against Women Act

This week, I started reading about a new act called the Violence Against Women Act. This act would "authorize $659 million over 5 years for VAWA programs and include new protections for victims of domestic violence" according to this Huffington Post article. This act was supposed to be a bipartisan bill, and the Senate just passed it 78 to 22. Not surprisingly, senators who voted against the act were all Republican males. The question that I had right after I read this article was why would anyone vote against this bill, that would help countless people?

I found some sort of answer when reading a quote from a House Republican, Eric Cantor. He said, "We blocked the Violence Against Women Act because the Senate forced it on us without our consent. I'm sure women understand." It shocked me that any elected official could ever say something so horrible and just plain dumb. Hopefully, other Republicans in the House don't share this same view, and pass this crucial bill.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

Referring to the Sandy Hook shooting, President Obama said, “That was the worst day of my presidency.” Today, I found myself looking at a photo the White House released of President Obama shooting a gun at Camp David. The photo was taken on August 4^th , 2012, so the fact that it just happened to be released February 2^nd, 2013, this photo seemed like a strange thing for the White House to release.

Was the White House trying to silence anti-gun control critics by showing President Obama is just like them? If that was the case, according to an article by the New York Times, which gave a quote by Chris Cox, the Chief Lobbyist for the National Rife Association, they failed. Mr. Cox said,  “But in his effort to pursue a political agenda, he apparently is willing to convince gun owners that he’s one of us, that he’s a Second Amendment supporter.” The question now is what is President Obamas political agenda. A gun control activist or a “Second Amendment supporter?”

I couldn’t find any definitive statements from President Obama addressing his exact viewpoints on gun control. Instead, I found statements like, “I will use all the powers of this office to help advance efforts aimed at preventing more tragedies (referring to recent mass shootings) like this” and “proposals (referring to gun control laws) that I then intend to push without delay.” President Obama’s quotes use vague language and his statements don’t seem very convincing. However, this picture released by the White House speaks much more then any of his previous statements in his various speeches and interviews. What does this picture say to you and do you think President Obama will take action on gun control based off his statements?