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Posts Tagged ‘politics’

Barack Obama’s Education Policy

18 Apr
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A while ago, I sent an email to all the people who might be president in 2013. In it, I asked :

  • What is the most important thing you would do, as president, to ensure America’s future prosperity?
  • Relative to this, how important to America’s future prosperity is the goal of ensuring all children have access to affordable education?
  • What plans, if any, do you have to ensure that all Americans have affordable access to high-quality education?

Today, the first reply came in – from Barack Obama. No reply yet from any of the Republican candidates, though I suppose there’s only one that matters now.

I’ve reproduced Barack Obama’s letter below. I’ll comment further when I get a reply from Mitt Romney, or when I’m convinced I’m not going to get one.

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Posted in Education

 

No More Money for British Maths

21 Sep
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The EPSRC, or “Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council” is the body in the UK that decides what kinds of research in the physical sciences will get government grant money. Grant money is needed for advanced research in mathematics for the following reasons :

  • This kind of research produces amazing benefits down the track, however
  • The benefits come too slowly for the private sector to be interested in funding research

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Posted in Education

 

The Math of Voting

10 May
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The Math Of Voting

The Math Of Voting

The House of Representatives in the United States Congress is responsible for creating laws that, if they get through the Senate and the President, become, well, law. the House has 435 members. The British House of Commons has 650 lawmakers. Even the Australian House of Representatives has 150 members.

 

Democratic countries deliberately choose to have their laws created by large groups of people. The idea is that special interest groups will not be able to have too much influence on the passage of laws, and so the government will truly be a government representative of the people.

Is it possible, then, that an entire democratic country could be run by as few as two individuals? Let’s see what the math says…

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Science Education And Political Choices

15 Oct
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At lunch the other day, there were some magazines on the table. I picked one up, turned to a random page, and a particular phrase caught my eye – in essence, the writer was saying that they don’t believe we should give scientists a blank check, and a carte blanche to do whatever research takes their fancy. He seemed to imply that some scientists say that we should. I don’t know if any scientists actually do say that, however, it raises an important question. Who, ideally, should decide what scientists should work on, and how much money they should get?
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Posted in Education