Petition to Stop the " National College Access Act"

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

And I thought threads like this only existed deep in the webs of my fondest memories.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

We live in a very contorted world where "nationalization" of anything with its empowering of the centralized state and bureaucracy is "necessary" for the sake of regionalizing something.

Regionalism isn't about the Federal gov't doling out the crumbs of the cookies it doesn't fancy taking for itself. Regionalism is about the preservation of powers that originally belong to the regions and minimizing the extent to which the Federal Gov't has usurped either legally or illegally said powers from the regions originally.

It is my contention that education by rights belongs to the regions, and that the Federal Gov't should support the actions of the regions to ensure resources are available and while some strings necessarily come along with this, those should be minimized. Nationalization of private property and entities is not part of that equation. The Regions can regulate said entities to service their needs and the Federal Gov't can back them up in that regulatory effort if necessary. Yet we keep getting back to "well you need to nationalize to do this, nationalize to do that". NO! You Don't!

Get outside of the centralist hive mind and consider the alternatives before making declarative statements that "this is the only way" when such is patently false.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Making AP the norm for every student with a one size fits all track is a bad idea. Ted is right, different people have different needs and it also contributes to the fat that we have a lot of people going into fields with degrees that are saturated, meanwhile we have drastic shortages in skilled blue collar trades.

This is because we have created as stigma that the path to riches is paved in shelling out huge sums for college and loading up on debt to get their, only to find the rainbow doesn't lead to a pot of gold but a pot of misery. Meanwhile we have discouraged blue collar fields and treated them as second class people with secondary needs and as if they were unimportant and don't matter.

This 4 year school bias in our school system and the effects that it has had in driving the college debt crisis as well the shortage of skilled trades needs not to be made worse, it needs to be eliminated. AP is a great program, but here again, "one size fits all", "make it the standard", "force everyone to do the same thing", "nationalize the program" it all comes from the same mindset of policy makers dictating in advance what kids should do without considering their own skills, needs and interests on an individualized basis. The end result of this standardization, this regimentation of education is going to be far more drop outs and far more poverty.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It certainly would not make sense for any of the regions to nationalize said corporation.

WHHHHHHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY??

I actually do agree with the fact that education belongs to the regions and I am trying my best to not push for an undue centralization of education in the federal government any more than is necessary for the nationalization of College Board (and ACT Inc).

I have not hidden that this is a pro-government power bill or statist bill at all. But I will 100% contest seeing this bill as a pro-centralization bill

You see this is the slow drip, the trickle to centralization right here. "I am trying not to centralize education, except for what is necessary to do x". When you aren't accounting for is the next guy that comes along and says the same thing for y and then the guy after that does it for z, then the guy after that is Xahar 2.0 calling for the elimination of the regions.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Why would different regions have different requirements? There's no reason education shouldn't be guided by national standards and priorities.

If you strip the regions of all responsibilities over time, activity at the regional level will collapse leading to a push to abolish the regions and possibly even the game itself.

The success of the game requires a balance of activity just as much as their is a balance of power. Failure to do so could result in a 2015 style redux, in which you had a radical group of centralists sparked an event called bloody July. There were many factors playing into this including too many offices relative to activity levels hence consolidation to three regions, but part and parcel to that is the activity levels themselves and thus why there was a move towards decentralizing certain policy areas to the regions, while at the same time expanding game play in foreign policy via the GM to keep everything active and balanced.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Is that the limit of your vision? Can you not see how a region could do this?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Is that the limit of your vision? Can you not see how a region could do this?

If you mean nationalization, no I don't. I cannot see how a region can perform such a nationalization.

If you mean solving the current issues without nationalization yes I do see it. But in this case, nationalization is not only a means to an end, but an end in itself as well. Quite simply, why should publicly funded colleges and public high schools depend on private corporations to decide how their students are tested?

The correct answer is: The Regions can create their own test and limit/regulate/not utilize other alternatives at their discretion.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

If you mean solving the current issues without nationalization yes I do see it. But in this case, nationalization is not only a means to an end, but an end in itself as well. Quite simply, why should publicly funded colleges and public high schools depend on private corporations to decide how their students are tested?

Why should publicly funded hospitals rely on private corporations to supply them with medical supplies?

Why should they rely on Colorox to provide them with bathroom cleaner?

A competitive, private sector market can provide these goods and services more efficiently and cheaper than having the government do it itself.

Publicly funded entities rely on the private sector all of the time, the question is thus not whether or not public entities should rely on private sector suppliers, but whether or not they are getting the service or good in the manner that fits the need and also is a reasonable cost.

If Regions aren't satisfied with the quality of the tests provided they should regulate and/or create their own. Either way, it isn't grounds to send in jackbooted thugs to steal private property for the central state to distribute the crumbs from.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

My thoughts on this are kind of scattered, but...the main thing here for me is that if nationalization is something we are doing here, then it’s at the very least something that we need to get absolutely right on one go. And I’m not sure about that here.

First of all, the move being made in this bill appears to be replacing the SAT with a new test while eliminating the AP program entirely; which personally I feel should be the other way around; the single test score is far more useless than a program which at least provides some consistent level of higher tier teaching (even if the curriculum is not done the best way). As Truman said, the main issue with AP is that it very actively encourages “teaching for the test”, which is almost never a great way of teaching. Modifying/changing the AP to fix this would be something I strongly support; eliminating it because of a belief that every single student should have to take the exact same classes at the same levels is something I believe is wrong and extremely authoritarian.

The problem with CB is technically not even that it exists or that it’s programs exist: I see it’s problems as threefold.

1. It’s a test which nearly every competitive college requires you to take for a chance at admission, and you have to take their test (or ACT’s) creating a monopoly/duopoly. For AP it’s an extremely strong monopoly as colleges in the US/Atlasia don’t really play that nice with IB/A-levels/etc. The monopolies here are perpetuated by both public and private colleges.

2. Despite this, CB/ACT etc. are completely unaccountable organizations, so the students of Atlasia are basically bound by whatever they choose to test, however they choose to hold then, etc

3. Despite being ostensibly a nonprofit, they charge high fees for their exams ($50 for SATs, close to $100 for each AP), while paying million dollar salaries to their top executives while still ending up with a reasonably large surplus (which in this case we have another name for in the business world which they aren’t really supposed to have).


I mean, if we are concerned about too sweeping a solution, a potential alternative from the federal level I propose is this: the federal goverment creates their own tear and then requires that all colleges must accept the federal test in lieu of the SAT or any other such exam if am applying student so chooses. This still allows flexibility, and allows the regions to still set up their own testing; and for those who will inevitably say “but government testing is bad” the other alternatives will still exist; while now having to actually be accoutable in order to maintain relevance. The monopoly/duopoly situation is of course completely overrun by the fact that universities must also accept the new test.

Again, my thoughts are scattered so I may say more later; this is what I have for now though.

Now lets probe to an important point, what is inducing the universities to require the SAT?