3rd Period AP US Gov't & Politics: December 2015

Friday, December 18, 2015

Schools in Virginia Shut Down Over Islam Homework

The homework assignment aimed to give students "an idea of the artistic complexity of calligraphy."

Summary:

A world geography teacher from a school called Riverheads High School in Virginia shuts down after a homework assignment that caused controversy over religion and education. The assignment was for the students to copy a complex arabic phrase, to get a sense of how intricate the language is. The phrase itself said, “There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is the messenger of Allah.” It was said that when students brought the assignment home, parents believed that this was a way of the school attempting to convert the students to Islam. The parents voiced their strong concerns, and wished for the teacher to be fired, even though the assignment was not made to influence the students’ religious beliefs. The school county was affected by the incident, and decided to remove Shahada from the course. Such a nasty backlash was coming from families through calls and emails to the school, that security was sent to the schools in the county. Eventually, several people kept their children out of the schools, which lead to the decision to close the schools down.

Questions: Do you believe the teacher’s intentions were to expose the students to the Islamic religion by having them copy the phrase, or was it randomly chosen? Are the parents prohibiting the teacher’s right of freedom of speech? How would you react to receiving the same assignment?

Link: http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/18/us/virginia-school-shut-islam-homework/index.html

Will GOP candidates’ strikingly hawkish stances alienate swing voters?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/will-gop-candidates-strikingly-hawkish-stances-alienate-swing-voters/2015/12/16/6773f610-a410-11e5-ad3f-991ce3374e23_story.html

On December 15th, in Las Vegas Nevada The republican presidential candidates gathered for their fifth debate. The debate was centralized around the topic of national security, and was full of very radical statements regarding military involvement. Below are a few of the most radical statements.

"On the campaign trail, Cruz has used tough and withering rhetoric on terrorism. He said recently in Iowa that he would “carpet-bomb” the Islamic State “into oblivion” and wanted to “see if sand can glow in the dark.”"

"I would be very, very firm with families,” Trump said. “Frankly, that will make people think — because they may not care much about their lives, but they do care, believe it or not, about their families’ lives.”"[Trump on killing the families of terrorists].

The main criticism of the debate is that the candidates were appearing to extreme. Yes, being as "right wing" as possible is one tactic to win the votes of devout republicans, but what about the swing votes? The statements coming from the mouths of these candidates will not attract voters who are not committed to a political party. The candidates are alienating themselves and only appealing to those as radical as themselves.

Also, saying all of these extreme statements to win the primary will leave the winning candidate in a risky position during the general election. Making these promises and being so far to the right, on the political spectrum, will cause less popularity in the general election because they have ignored a large audience of voters who are more in the middle of the political spectrum.

Questions: Are the candidates just trying to match up to the extremism of the frontrunner Donal Trump? Why are the candidates not concerned with winning the votes of swing voters?

Thursday, December 17, 2015

5th Republican Debate promises a Gloomy America

Summary: The 5th Republican Debate took place on Tuesday, December 15th, and national security was the central topic. All the candidates offered a variety of solutions on how to handle the crisis in the Middle East. The overall consensus, however, that with Obama in charge, America is doomed. All the candidates tried to portray the ISIS problem as the biggest crisis since World War II, making the the atmosphere of the debate gloomy.
Two candidates that were attacked repeatedly were front runner Donald Trump and establishment favorite Marco Rubio. Trump was besieged by floundering candidate Jeb Bush, who got under The Donald's skin multiple times. Mr. Rubio came under heavy scrutiny from Ted Cruz and Rand Paul on his foreign policy and his "weak" immigration policy and at times Cruz seemed to get the upper hand.
The overall winner of the debate seems to be Cruz, whose poll numbers continue to steadily rise. His hardline conservative message seems to be resonating with many Americans and with a strong performance at the debate, Cruz now can be viewed as one of the favorites.
Questions:
Are the Republicans justified in portraying America being in big trouble? Why are all the candidates trying to portray America like this? Who do you think is the most reasonable candidate on the GOP platform? And finally, who do you think will win the 2016 Republican Primary?

Some Teachers, Staff In Keene ISD Will Be Able To Carry Guns On Campuses

This past Wednesday night, school trustees of the Keene Independent School District, located in Keene, Texas, passed the "Guardian Program" on a 6-1 vote. This program allows select teachers and administrators to carry guns on the campuses of the 3 schools within the district: Keene Elementary School, Keene Junior High School, and Keene High School. Overall, the district is home to over one thousand students, which are all paired with a police officer. Superintendent Ricky Stevens, a strong supporter of the program, commented, “all the damage is really done before the police get there. What we wanted to do is do the best thing we could to fill the gap…so they [active shooter] wouldn’t have free reign.” On the other hand, the one dissenter of the program, trustee Dan Roberts, said "we should have more police officers or some other kind of enforcement,”, and that the district was moving too fast in implementing the measure. Under the Guardian Program, the school district assured that those given firearms would undergo psychological evaluations and gun training.

Questions:

Even so, do you believe that allowing teachers to have guns in schools will promote safety? Do you think that the positive effects overshadow the potential dangers? Should this idea spread throughout the country?

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2015/12/16/some-teachers-staff-in-keene-isd-will-be-able-to-carry-guns-on-campuses/

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Los Angeles Schools Shut Down

link: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-all-lausd-schools-closed-threat-20151215-story.html

Summary:
The Los Angeles area has been dealing with many issues of public safety in recent weeks because of the San Bernardino terrorist attack that killed 14 people. This fueled the conversation of terrorism prevention across the country. On December 15th the Los Angeles Board of Education received a threat depicting explosive devices as well as assault rifles and machine pistols. The district superintendent, Ramon Cortines, decided to close all 900 of the schools in the LA area which kept 640,000 students out of class. Across the country an identical email was sent to the New York Board of Education, but it was ignored because they believed it to be a fake. This has caused much controversy on how threats should be dealt with. Since then the threat was determined to be false and all schools are now back in session.

Questions: Did the LA school district jump the gun or did they make the right decision of being safe rather than sorry in light of the recent San Bernardino terrorist attack? What should politicians do to change the trend of rising mass shootings and terrorist attacks?

3rd Period AP US Gov't & Politics

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