On Friday, May 3rd, Dillon B. wrote the blog Stage Seven: Original editorial or commentary #2 on his blog Texas State and Local Government. This blog is over Senate Bill 406. Senate Bill 406 is a bill over school marshals carrying a gun. The reasoning behind is this bill is that "implementing armed marshals in schools will reduce the likelihood of a school shooting from possible threats."
Dillion starts off his blog entry strong. He tells the reader about what he is going to be writing about Senate Bill 406, what the bill is, and what that means. I used a direct quote from Dillon's blog because it tells the reader exactly what Senate Bill 406 is.
The next paragraph Dillan tells the readers why he believes that implementing Senate Bill 406 will be beneficial to schools. He tells the readers that is will "Increase the safety of schools, making schools harder targets." He continues to persuade the reader by saying "Most people won't deliberately put themselves in a position that could harm themselves."
The next couple of paragraphs he continues to persuade the reader by saying how currently there is a limited threat to the school shooters. He uses a metaphor comparing school shooters to bobcats and schools without guns to defenseless animals. To further his argument he says "It's natural for predators to attack easy targets. Therefore, we must make our schools harder targets."
Dillon finishes off his blog entry by explaining to the reader the requirements he believes the marshals should have such as extensive training, background check and proper licensing. He concludes by saying the armed marshals will be the first defense against the potential shooter.
After reading this blog entry I was persuaded by Dillon writing. He does a very good job of persuading the reader without coming across too strong. The paper was laid out perfectly by telling me what Senate Bill 406 is, then telling me his side, then using reason and metaphors to persuade the reader.
Wednesday, May 15, 2019
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Blog Stage 7
Texas government desperately needs to re-write graduation requirements for Texas students. The education system for students in 9th-12th grade, High School, in Texas is not setting up their students to succeed. In January of 2014, The Texas Board of Education passed House Bill 5. This bill affected students who entered 9th grade in 2014-2015 and the classes after. House Bill five take some steps in the correct direction, but the Texas education system still has a long way to go.
Before House Bill 5, there was a system put into place known as the 4x4, meaning you need 4 English, 4 Mathematics, 4 Social Studies, and 4 Science courses. Along with a couple of other things like a Physical education, speech, art, and electives. House Bill 5 alters the common core a bit, by only requiring 3 math/science/social study course but it requires 2 credits in a language that is not English and cuts the electives back from 7.5 to 5. Many of these common core course that are required block up a students schedule to not allow them to take classes they want, typically only allowing 2 electives per semester. Then we expect students to know exactly what they want to do in college and excel. Where in reality 1 in every 3 students drop out of college. This leads me to the question: Would the college drop out rate be lower if the requirements to graduate High school were different?
There are a couple of ways I would change House Bill 5. First, I would divide High school into 2 parts, each part lasting 2 years. The High school system would still be the same, 9th-12th grade would still be in the same building running on the same schedule. Every student would have 7 classes in one day, for both parts. The first part would only apply to the freshmen and sophomores lasting 2 years. In those 2 years, they would be required to take 2 mathematics, 2 social studies, 2 sciences, 2 histories, 2 governments, 1 foreign language, 1 art, 1 physical education, 1 semester of speech, and 1-semester health. This would be a total of 14 credits, 7 classes each year. This is what a typical High schooler takes now.
The second part of high school is for the juniors and seniors would be centered around helping students decide on the career path they want. Students would be required to take 2 courses of finance/banking, one each year, giving real-world help like balancing a checkbook, how to build credit, what loans are and the importance of an emergency fund. 4 courses of some type of duel credit classes that count towards college common core, these could be in mathematics, history or government. These classes help students understand the course load and the level of difficulty of college. 2 courses of English, with a focus on helping students write college essays and making resumes. This comes out to a total of 8 required course. Then from the remaining 6 courses, students can explore different elective that resembles a job field like culinary, ready set teach, clinical, sales, engineering, banking, and different trades. Students would be required to try out 6 different fields, this would help the student to discover if any of these classes spark their interest to potentially work towards a career in. It would also help the students to decide if college is for them or if they work towards a trade.
The change in House Bill 5 will help Texas High schoolers to decide a career path, whether it be in college or in a trade. Allowing students to demo professions in High School would better prepare them for college. This change in House Bill 5 could result in a lower college drop out rate.
Before House Bill 5, there was a system put into place known as the 4x4, meaning you need 4 English, 4 Mathematics, 4 Social Studies, and 4 Science courses. Along with a couple of other things like a Physical education, speech, art, and electives. House Bill 5 alters the common core a bit, by only requiring 3 math/science/social study course but it requires 2 credits in a language that is not English and cuts the electives back from 7.5 to 5. Many of these common core course that are required block up a students schedule to not allow them to take classes they want, typically only allowing 2 electives per semester. Then we expect students to know exactly what they want to do in college and excel. Where in reality 1 in every 3 students drop out of college. This leads me to the question: Would the college drop out rate be lower if the requirements to graduate High school were different?
There are a couple of ways I would change House Bill 5. First, I would divide High school into 2 parts, each part lasting 2 years. The High school system would still be the same, 9th-12th grade would still be in the same building running on the same schedule. Every student would have 7 classes in one day, for both parts. The first part would only apply to the freshmen and sophomores lasting 2 years. In those 2 years, they would be required to take 2 mathematics, 2 social studies, 2 sciences, 2 histories, 2 governments, 1 foreign language, 1 art, 1 physical education, 1 semester of speech, and 1-semester health. This would be a total of 14 credits, 7 classes each year. This is what a typical High schooler takes now.
The second part of high school is for the juniors and seniors would be centered around helping students decide on the career path they want. Students would be required to take 2 courses of finance/banking, one each year, giving real-world help like balancing a checkbook, how to build credit, what loans are and the importance of an emergency fund. 4 courses of some type of duel credit classes that count towards college common core, these could be in mathematics, history or government. These classes help students understand the course load and the level of difficulty of college. 2 courses of English, with a focus on helping students write college essays and making resumes. This comes out to a total of 8 required course. Then from the remaining 6 courses, students can explore different elective that resembles a job field like culinary, ready set teach, clinical, sales, engineering, banking, and different trades. Students would be required to try out 6 different fields, this would help the student to discover if any of these classes spark their interest to potentially work towards a career in. It would also help the students to decide if college is for them or if they work towards a trade.
The change in House Bill 5 will help Texas High schoolers to decide a career path, whether it be in college or in a trade. Allowing students to demo professions in High School would better prepare them for college. This change in House Bill 5 could result in a lower college drop out rate.
Friday, April 19, 2019
Blog stage 6
On April 5th, 2019, Estevan Hernandez wrote Blog stage 5 on his blog Estevan Hernandez Govt. Blog. The blog entry was over whether Texas should decriminalize small amounts of marijuana. Hernandez provided a strong blog entry with many valid reasons of why Texas should decriminalize marijuana.
Hernandez starts his blog off by getting straight to the point by telling the reader what to expect: “Texas has to many people arrested for minimal amounts of marijuana. I believe Texas should decriminalize marijuana.” This statement hooks the reader and makes them interested to find out why Hernandez believes it should be decriminalized. The only critique for the first couple of sentence is how many times the word marijuana is used, in the first three sentences Hernandez uses marijuana three times.
Hernandez continues by saying that legalizing marijuana would reduce the amount of small non violent crimes and how based on polls the majority of citizens in Texas support partial legalization. These facts are appealing to the reader.
Hernandez finishes his blog off by telling the readers that “A lot of people who are arrested are seeking pain relief.... and would rather smoke marijuana than get hooked on pain killers.” This makes the reader feel sympathy for the marijuana users. Then Hernandez tells the reader what the current laws are on how the have effected people who have been charges.
All together Hernandez did a very good job at telling the reader why he believes marijuana should be decriminalized. To enhance his argument he could have given more specific examples from story’s of people who were criminalized for having small amounts, added a little more information to his blog entry to make it longer, added some statistics, compared how the Texas law is different then other states, and make separate paragraphs to separate his thoughts.
Hernandez starts his blog off by getting straight to the point by telling the reader what to expect: “Texas has to many people arrested for minimal amounts of marijuana. I believe Texas should decriminalize marijuana.” This statement hooks the reader and makes them interested to find out why Hernandez believes it should be decriminalized. The only critique for the first couple of sentence is how many times the word marijuana is used, in the first three sentences Hernandez uses marijuana three times.
Hernandez continues by saying that legalizing marijuana would reduce the amount of small non violent crimes and how based on polls the majority of citizens in Texas support partial legalization. These facts are appealing to the reader.
Hernandez finishes his blog off by telling the readers that “A lot of people who are arrested are seeking pain relief.... and would rather smoke marijuana than get hooked on pain killers.” This makes the reader feel sympathy for the marijuana users. Then Hernandez tells the reader what the current laws are on how the have effected people who have been charges.
All together Hernandez did a very good job at telling the reader why he believes marijuana should be decriminalized. To enhance his argument he could have given more specific examples from story’s of people who were criminalized for having small amounts, added a little more information to his blog entry to make it longer, added some statistics, compared how the Texas law is different then other states, and make separate paragraphs to separate his thoughts.
Thursday, April 4, 2019
Blog Stage 5
The Texas Legislature meets once every two years for one hundred and forty days. During this time period, they write laws/legislature that goes out to the people to be voted on. The Texas Legislature is made up of two components: The House of Representatives and the Senate. The House contains 150 members and the Senate has 31members. The characteristics of the Texas Legislature are "stale, pale, and male" meaning that the majority of the seat holders are white older men. Are these characteristics of the Texas Legislature capable of adequately representing the citizens of Texas? No.
Texas' population is very diverse and is not being correctly represented in the Texas legislature. There are a couple of things we can do to fix that. We need younger citizens, more women, and more people of different ethnicities to run for the Texas Senate or House. But, before we can have more diversity we need to fix an underlying problem: the salary of the seat holders in the legislature. Members of the legislature only make $7,200 while in session, plus a per diem pay of $168per day while in session and couple of other factors like money for staff and offices. The total comes out to be roughly $25,000 in total. This is nearly not enough money for an average citizen to be a member of the legislature. This allows for the pale/male/stale to run the Texas legislature.
How can we fix this? A simple amendment of the Texas Constitution. Why haven't we done it yet? Because Texas citizens are in denial that there is something wrong with the system or do not even know there is something wrong. An average citizen does not know what is going on in the Texas legislature or does not care.
Here is what you need to do to have more diverse seat holders in the Texas Legislature: first citizens need to be overall more informed of what is going on in Texas state and local government. Second, we need to amend the Texas constitution to allow for members of the Texas legislature to make more money, allowing more citizens to be able to run. Lastly, younger citizens, women, and more people with different ethnicity's need to take charge and campaign to be elected to the Texas legislature. Following these steps will allow for Texas' population to be more adequately represented.
Texas' population is very diverse and is not being correctly represented in the Texas legislature. There are a couple of things we can do to fix that. We need younger citizens, more women, and more people of different ethnicities to run for the Texas Senate or House. But, before we can have more diversity we need to fix an underlying problem: the salary of the seat holders in the legislature. Members of the legislature only make $7,200 while in session, plus a per diem pay of $168per day while in session and couple of other factors like money for staff and offices. The total comes out to be roughly $25,000 in total. This is nearly not enough money for an average citizen to be a member of the legislature. This allows for the pale/male/stale to run the Texas legislature.
How can we fix this? A simple amendment of the Texas Constitution. Why haven't we done it yet? Because Texas citizens are in denial that there is something wrong with the system or do not even know there is something wrong. An average citizen does not know what is going on in the Texas legislature or does not care.
Here is what you need to do to have more diverse seat holders in the Texas Legislature: first citizens need to be overall more informed of what is going on in Texas state and local government. Second, we need to amend the Texas constitution to allow for members of the Texas legislature to make more money, allowing more citizens to be able to run. Lastly, younger citizens, women, and more people with different ethnicity's need to take charge and campaign to be elected to the Texas legislature. Following these steps will allow for Texas' population to be more adequately represented.
Sunday, March 10, 2019
Blog Stage 4
On March 8th, 2019, Rachel Bovard wrote the article Commentary: When Will Congress Do Something About The Border?, for the blog Texas Scorecard. Rachel Bovard is a Senior Director of Policy at the Conservative Partnership Institute. The CPI is an organization that provides training and education to help citizens, congressional staff, and members of Congress. Rachel Bovard is a credible author.
Bovard begins her article by saying that when the Senate disproves Trumps declare for a national emergency "they will be doing so in the face of statistics that say otherwise", immediately she is drawing the reader in to be curious about the statistics. She continues to inform the reader of the statistics on the number of apprehensions at the border in the month of February, the number of adults in immigration custody, and the number of families that are apprehended at the border. After every single statistic, she used phrases similar to: "the highest number ever." After reading this article for the first time I was shocked by the statistics, like Bovard intended, because using statistics puts it into a perspective of how many families are being affected.
Next, she talks about the role of the asylum laws and how if they claim to have a "credible fear" of being tortured, they can not be deported, and have to stay in the United States until they are taken in front of an immigration judge, which can sometimes take years. Bovard goes into detail of how this can be falsified, and the statistics of how many claims there are and how many later admitted to falsely admitting.
In this article, Bovard's intended audience is border wall supporters. Her overall goal of the article is to make the readers fired up and want Congress to do something about the border wall. Bovard does a good job at influencing the readers thoughts by using statistics, but some of her wording can cause confusion to the reader.
Bovard begins her article by saying that when the Senate disproves Trumps declare for a national emergency "they will be doing so in the face of statistics that say otherwise", immediately she is drawing the reader in to be curious about the statistics. She continues to inform the reader of the statistics on the number of apprehensions at the border in the month of February, the number of adults in immigration custody, and the number of families that are apprehended at the border. After every single statistic, she used phrases similar to: "the highest number ever." After reading this article for the first time I was shocked by the statistics, like Bovard intended, because using statistics puts it into a perspective of how many families are being affected.
Next, she talks about the role of the asylum laws and how if they claim to have a "credible fear" of being tortured, they can not be deported, and have to stay in the United States until they are taken in front of an immigration judge, which can sometimes take years. Bovard goes into detail of how this can be falsified, and the statistics of how many claims there are and how many later admitted to falsely admitting.
In this article, Bovard's intended audience is border wall supporters. Her overall goal of the article is to make the readers fired up and want Congress to do something about the border wall. Bovard does a good job at influencing the readers thoughts by using statistics, but some of her wording can cause confusion to the reader.
Thursday, February 28, 2019
Stage 3
On February 18, 2019, Senator Ted Cruz wrote the commentary MAKE 'EL CHAPO' PAY FOR THE BORDER WALL on the Texas Insider. Ted Cruz is one of the two Republican Texas senators. Senator Cruz main goal for the article is to convince the reader that the famous drug lord El Chapo's seized drug money should go towards building the Texas/ Mexico border wall. Since Trump's election there have been many different theory's on how to pay for the border wall: Mexico will pay for it, the state of Texas will use their rainy day fund, the taxpayers will pay for it, and now Cruz's theory to use the seized drug money. Cruz begins his argument by starting off with a phrase that draws in the reader's attention: "there a solution here that secures the border and won't cost the taxpayers one dime." Cruz throwing in "you will not have to pay for it", could make some people who are on the fence about the border wall, want the border wall because it is costing them nothing. Cruz goes on to make El Chapo seem like a terrible person and we should want to take his money by telling the reader, how many people he killed (including "innocent teachers visiting and law enforcement"), the number of drugs he brought in, and the addiction and misery he caused. The way Cruz has structured his article makes the reader not care about the sentencing that El Chapo gets instead its focused on here's a terrible person who caused pain and misery to citizens of the U.S. lets take his money to use it for a border wall. El Chapos seized money is about $14 billion dollars. Cruz article is set up in a way to make the reader want to build a border wall with the seize $14 billion.
Monday, February 11, 2019
Blog Stage 2
On Monday, February 11, 2019, Asher Price wrote the article Texas Republicans to propose tapping rainy day fund for border wall for The Statesman. In the article, Price informed the readers that some Texas state representatives who are wanting to use Texas' "rainy day fund" to help support the border wall. This means Texas would spend $2.5 billion to go towards "to design, test, construct and install physical barriers, roads, and technology along the international land border between the state of Texas and Mexico to prevent illegal crossings in all areas." The fund that is referenced to as the rainy day fund is Texas's state emergency savings account. This account is used for small and large emergencies such as natural disasters in the state of Texas. You should read this article so you are better informed on what on the border wall movements in the state of Texas.
Monday, January 28, 2019
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