Tuesday, October 13, 2009

6th Period Current Event- State or Local Government- 10/16

Please post your current event for Friday, October 16 below. Your current event this week should be about state (NC) or local (Chapel Hill/Carrboro) government. Remember to include the link to the article you read, provide the topic of your article, and write at least 5-6 sentences discussing your opinion of the article. You may also use video clips or podcasts for your current event.

14 comments:

  1. Poor wake county. The board of ed has them in year round schools. It seems like the goverment gives Chapel Hill-Carboro city schools no brake. Adults are complaning about Bev Perdue or back in the dat Mike Easley. To me they do and did a nice job, its us kids who get the short stick of everything. With this in mind it was a nice suprise to learn that mid-terms had been done away with this past month. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAy.....oh we still got to do the graduation projcet.

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  2. http://news14.com/charlotte-news-104-content/school_news/616016/leaders-mark-north-carolina-s-increased-graduation-rates

    North Carolina schools have been recognized by state education leaders for their high graduation rates! State Superintendent, June Atkinson, held a ceremony in Raleigh on Monday to celebrate success in the classroom, as graduation rates increased to more than 71 percent this year around the state. That’s just over 70 percent last year! Some of the schools recognized during the ceremony include Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Orange County school districts, Wake county’s Green Hope High and Jack Britt High in Cumberland County.
    This is such a great achievement and I'm hoping we'll be able to increase our graduation rates even higher than it is now by going to school to study!!!

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  3. http://news14.com/triangle-news-30-content/top_stories/616132/naep-math-scores-show-4th--8th-graders-above-average

    A recent NAEP showed that 4th and 8th grade students in North Carolina scored above the national average. According to the article, this is a sign of huge improvements in state curriculum. However, I think that much work still needs to be done. According to the article, 8th graders scored 2 points above national average, and 4th graders scored 4. Overall, we have to face that that says pretty much nothing. Before we start celebrating "huge" improvements, we should start seeing some real results. Also, the article says, there are some huge achievement gaps that need to be addressed. I agree with this. Results showed that African American students scored 30 points lower than other students. This is a huge sign of the lack of ability of our education system to reach some minorities. We may be showing some improvement, but there is a long way to go.

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  4. http://www.wral.com/news/state/story/6213913/

    Government aid has created atleast 24k jobs, wow! It is a massive amount of jobs but it is not even close to the numbers of jobs lost. Think about all the money that is being put to waste in other states but NC make jobs for the citizens. This is important local news to those who dont have jobs right now. Big amounts of money have been used so far to fill revenue gaps in the state budget, contract for 110 highway projects and provide supplemental funds to local school districts. Awesome!

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  5. http://www.wral.com/news/local/politics/story/6217293/

    The head of the North Carolina Republican Party called for a news conference thursday afternoon concerning democratic governor Bev Perdue. Republican chair Tom Fetzer says the party is filing a formal complaint to the NC board of education about governor Bev Perdue. In August 17 flights were given to Bev Perdue during her campaign. North Carolina's ethics law requires disclosure for gifts over $200. I think this complaint by the Republican Party is ridiculous. I don't understand why they are filing a complaint when this happened in August. It just doesn't make sense.

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  6. http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/6215684/

    A junior at UNC, Courland Smith a biology major, was shot four times by the police. He was suicidial and intoxicated when shot. The police thought he was about to pull a gun and that is why they shot him four times. I think the way the police assumed he was going to pull out a gun was wrong because that is just wasting someone's life. He was intoxicated and depressed, but that does not give police the right to kill him. I think this is unfair and this problem will not happen in the future.

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  7. http://www.ncchild.org/action/content/view/1478/765/

    On Tuesday the 15th annual NC Child Health Report Card was released. The report focuses on 15 aspects which effect children's health. Some highlighted issues include obesity - which has continued to rise in children ages 2 - 18, child death rate - which is at an all time low, and the percentage of children living in poverty - which is at an unacceptably high 20%. These figures did not seem to surprise me, especially since child obesity rates are continuing to rise all across America. Also, death rates usually drop each year due to the advancements in medicine and technology. The figures on poverty were shocking. Twenty percent of children 0 - 17 are living in poverty. That is about one in five children, which is extremely high. These children frequently do not have health insurance, which poses challenges to general health. One in ten children do not have any health insurance. Fortunately, access to medical care and dental care has improved in the last year, but it is still not up to par with other states.

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  8. http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=7062988
    Many Fighting DHHS Budget Cuts

    The General Assembly of North Carolina has ordered the budget of the Department of Health and Human Services to be cut by $1.5 billion over the next 90 days. This will affect many people’s everyday lives and many families and social workers are protesting these budget cuts because of the huge impact they will have. Families with children with disabilities may not have as much help caring for these children as they’ve previously had. Some workers of DHHS will have to be let go, making it so there's less money and fewer people to help out families that have these difficulties. I think that the budget cut is a bad decision because of the harsh impact it will have on families. Without help and extra care, it can be extremely difficult for some families to deal with having a disabled child and so the budget cut that the state wants to implement will have bad effects in an everyday way. I hope that the protests will be successful and that the General Assembly will rethink their decision.

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  9. http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/6218918/
    This article is about how 20 North Carolina inmates are being let free due to the fact that a law years ago states different ways for them to get released early. Bev Perdue says that she is disgusted that these criminals can be set free, where they can put the citizens of North Carolina in danger. The N.C. government is trying to find any way to keep them in jail and keep us safe. I find it outragous that these criminals can be set free, because I know the tragedies they force people to go through. Hopefully, N.C. government can find a way to keep them locked up.
    Mikkie

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  10. http://www.newsobserver.com/politics/state/story/142971.html
    The state Republican Party is complaining that Bev Perdue took flights that were against campaign financing. The state is also investigating flights that former governor Mike Easley took. A consultant for Bev Perdue's campaign, Marc Farinella, said that they discovered the problems with the campaign flights and took steps to correct it. The executive director for the State Democratic Party, Andrew Whalen, said that the republicans are just trying to play games to make Bev Perude and the democrats seem like thay were the wrong choice. It seems kind of stupid to get all upset over this one little thing. Even if she violated campaign finance laws, is it really going to matter that much anyways? This happened months ago.

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  11. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g8ipIka5vtBGYaMsBI03X_j_SDzQD9BBRB0G0

    i found this article interesting because it's crazy to think about how one law made such a long time ago can come back and cause so much trouble. i really hope that they dont let any of the prisoners go, just because a law said that lifetime means 80 years. i hope that the state finds a way to keep them in, but then again some of the men in there should be able to get a second chance i'm not sure. But i wonder if the laws we make now are gonna seem crazy to us in the future lol and if they absolutly have to let them free,then they should at least be put on parole.

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  12. http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/6213302/
    So this is a story about a former East Chapel Hill High student who just recently died in a mrathon in Baltiore. Peter Curin was 23 when he died. He collapsed near the 25km mark and was pronounced dead there. Curin still has no cause of death but many of his friends back home are grieving over his recent death. His friends simply talk about the things he liked and how he acted along with how great of a person he was making everyone happy. This article really shows me how sudden things can happen in life. Something so bizzare as this just go to show that life can end and any point. Meaning you should cherish every moment and make every minute worthwhile because of how abruptly life can end.

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  13. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33365442/ns/politics-washington_post/

    This article talks about how before Obama took office as president, the promised to not only reform health care, but during its reformation legislation, it would be discused at a table televised so that the public was informed about who stood where on the matter. They are now taking responsibility for this promise. I think that this is a good idea on Obama's part because without the public knowing what is going on with its government, the United States could have a repeat of what happened on Wall Street this past year. Its is the public responsibility to make sure that there government is doing the right thing.

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  14. http://www.chapelhillnews.com/news/story/53043.html

    This article describes who's running for mayor. Mark Chilton, Amanda Ashley and Brian Voyce. Five candidates are running for three seats on the Board of Aldermen: incumbents Jacquie Gist and Randee Haven-O'Donnell and challengers Sharon Cook, Tim Peck and Sammy Slade. Also included in this article, they are asking the runner these specific questions on how they will help and what they will do to help. One of the questions was "How would you ease the tax burden while maintaining town services? What would you cut if anything?" All of them answered well but the one that had the best response in my opinion is Randee. He decided that they should have fundraisers and seperate funds for different things. I believe that if you have seperate funds for different things then you can manage the money better and also you won't get mixed up with spending too much on that. Or having too much leftover, because all that money will be for that one specific cause.

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