The Imperial Dominion of the South's Legislature

[Emperor SJoyce]

     Yelnoc is right, language schooling in the United States is not conducive to actually learning how to use a language. I would suggest allowing students to knock out two or even all three years of language schooling by instead spending a year in studies abroad in a country where English is not an official language. Such a policy would also mitigate the issue of limited language options in a certain community.

This is actually a really great idea (so long as we can check they actually, ya know, learned it); one of the kids at my school went to China for a year cause her dad's a professor, and has basically been bored through the rest of Chinese class. It should be added.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Love PiT's idea.

Another point: The thing about trying to tailor mandatory high school curriculums to college prereqs is that every college is going to want something different. When does it become the student's responsibility to know what he should take in order to be considered at his university of choice? Should we force three years of language classes down everyone's throat just for the few kids who want to go to a certain university? I think two years is fair.

Re: Poor quality Spanish teachers... If the language classes aren't mandatory in middle school, it should be less of a problem than it currently is in Ontario.

[Fmr. Emperor PiT]

     Testing them on whether they learned the language is quite important, & would also allow us to eliminate the non-English-speaking country stipulation. I did not think of it at the time, but that stipulation would disqualify certain languages that are only spoken in countries where English is also widely spoken, such as Welsh or Maori.

[Prez Duke]

I promise I'll contribute more once this education discussion is finished. I just have nothing of substance to contribute

[Emperor SJoyce]

I promise I'll contribute more once this education discussion is finished. I just have nothing of substance to contribute

We've got something on renaming the months and my bill prohibiting oil rigs within roughly 10 miles of the coast.

[Prez Duke]

The f**k? Renaming the months?

[HagridOfTheDeep]

I might hammer out some revisions to the education bill and see what y'all think. Get this thing moving.

Not tonight though. I feel like garbage.

[Emperor SJoyce]

The f**k? Renaming the months?

One month=1 Southern Year. 1 year has 4 months. The months shall be called Cotton, Magnolia, Yellowhammer, and Sugar.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Just want to apologize for not getting down to work on this education bill. Between coming down with a wicked cold and planning a spontaneous trip to Portugal, time hasn't been on my side.

Hopefully I'll get something posted by Monday. Hope all's well.

[Fmr. Emperor PiT]

Just want to apologize for not getting down to work on this education bill. Between coming down with a wicked cold and planning a spontaneous trip to Portugal, time hasn't been on my side.

Hopefully I'll get something posted by Monday. Hope all's well.

     Glad to hear something's coming up. I was just thinking that it is time to collate this discussion into a final bill.

[Emperor SJoyce]

I think there's a post of amendments a couple pages back.

[Prez Duke]

The f**k? Renaming the months?

One month=1 Southern Year. 1 year has 4 months. The months shall be called Cotton, Magnolia, Yellowhammer, and Sugar.

We can't do that. You see, I am still slightly angry about the last regime unwinding the changes I made to the south when I was in office - most notably when they renamed the south aka the dirty south to the imperial dominion. It changed us from a band of renegades just trying to change Atlasia into a pseudo world of warcraft type group that probably sits in the basement of our parents houses, picking at our noses while playing online games like world of warcraft.

[Emperor SJoyce]

The f**k? Renaming the months?

One month=1 Southern Year. 1 year has 4 months. The months shall be called Cotton, Magnolia, Yellowhammer, and Sugar.

We can't do that. You see, I am still slightly angry about the last regime unwinding the changes I made to the south when I was in office - most notably when they renamed the south aka the dirty south to the imperial dominion. It changed us from a band of renegades just trying to change Atlasia into a pseudo world of warcraft type group that probably sits in the basement of our parents houses, picking at our noses while playing online games like world of warcraft.

Kal's idea, not mine.

[Fmr. Emperor PiT]

     Dirty South is still a perfectly valid option by my reading. The Restore the Revolution Act was never repealed & the amendment creating the current IDS name did not claim any bearing on the old Dirty South name.

[Prez Duke]

     Dirty South is still a perfectly valid option by my reading. The Restore the Revolution Act was never repealed & the amendment creating the current IDS name did not claim any bearing on the old Dirty South name.

That makes me feel a bit better. That said, we still refer to ourselves as the IDS, which is okay if that's what The People want, but I am still holding true to my past. I will call us the Dirty South again if it isn't breaking any laws.

Oh, and I still oppose changing the names of the months

[Proud Lieberal from Northeast]

Oh, and I still oppose changing the names of the months

If you want to reject it, that's fine, since I just wanted to propose something.

[Emperor SJoyce]

Is Our Children Learning Act?

1.) TBA

2.) In an attempt to minimize time spent away from education, and in recognition of the climate of the IDS, summer vacation shall be shortened to ten weeks, with an addition week off in November for Thanksgiving, two weeks off for Christmas and New Year's, two weeks off in March or April starting on Lazarus Saturday for Spring Break, a week off in February for President's Day, and a week off in October for Fall Break during the week of Columbus Day.

3.) After-school sports, performing arts, creative arts, and/or academic activities shall be supported by the government of the IDS through an increase in funding for such activities, designed to keep children active and thus away from criminal or delinquent behaviors that may arise from them being alone/bored/unsupervised.

4.) A tax credit shall be created for personal and corporate income taxes, allowing individuals/corporations to deduct a certain amount of income taxes to donate to education, which shall go to public schools to assist in paying for after-school programs, field trips, and/or school supplies. Individuals may deduct up to $500, couples filing joint returns may deduct up to $1000, and corporations may deduct up to $5000.

5.) Regardless of school district, if transportation can be arranged by the student or their family, children may be enrolled in any public school that has not reached maximum capacity for students.

6.) Magnet schools (defined as public schools with specialized courses or curricula) shall be established throughout the region as a draw for gifted, talented, or otherwise extraordinary students, in order to challenge these students academically. A model for this system would be the Governor's Schools of Virginia.

7.) After-school tutoring shall be supported by the region for struggling students to bring them back up to grade level.

8.) Class size in schools shall not exceed a 25:1 student-teacher ratio for core academic subjects (including science, mathematics, English, foreign language, and social studies); class size shall not exceed a 35:1 student-teacher ratio for teachers not in those subject areas.

9.) Teachers shall first undergo a two-week-long observation period of several classrooms, then a three-month-period as a teacher's aide, then a year-long period as an "intern teacher", during which they shall be treated as a full teacher. After that year, evaluations of the teacher from parents, other teachers, and administrators shall be compiled in order to determine if the teacher should be hired. Review of teacher performance shall be performed every five years after date of hiring to determine whether said teacher is still performing to an adequate standard.

10.) In order to teach, teachers must hold a bachelor's degree with a major in an area related to the field in which they wish to teach, or be National Board Certified. The region shall subsidize tuition for teachers studying for a higher degree related to their chosen field (such as a Master's or Doctorate). If a teacher has their tuition subsidized by the region, after attaining their degree, said teacher must teach for at least five continuous years at an IDS public school unless terminated by school district before that time.

11.) All schools shall have Internet and computer access to a level of 10:1 students per computer available for student use at least.

12.) Schools shall be reviewed by an engineering contractor in order to assess the integrity of the building upon request of the principal or 40% of teachers; in the event that the school is found to be inadequate infrastructure-wise, steps will be taken to either fix the problems or to create a new building.

13.) An independent textbook review board, including notable professors such as James W. Loewen, Richard P. Feynman, representatives of the Atlasian Academy of Arts and Sciences, and others, shall be created to select standards for IDS textbooks and then select the most accurate textbook submitted by a textbook corporation.

14.) To graduate high schools, students shall be required to take at least three years of a useful foreign language at any level of their educational career (or can prove proficiency in at least two languages); such a language is defined here as: English (for non-English speakers), French, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, German, Italian, Malay, Chinese, Dutch, Persian, Romanian, Serbian, or Swahili (not all languages are available at all schools).

I believe this is the text as of this point?

[Yelnoc]

Back.  And sjoyce, I guess so, I'll look through it when I'm not multi-tasking...

[Prez Duke]

Does the cost of this bill matter at the state level? Like, all of these things are great, but are they practical?

[Yelnoc]

Does the cost of this bill matter at the state level? Like, all of these things are great, but are they practical?

Last I checked we are running a decent surplus with near 0 tax rates, so we should be able to afford this, though a cost estimation from the moderator team might be a good idea.

sjoyce, didn't we change something about the student:computer ration so as to not tax the resources of rural school districts?  I know there are places in South Georgia where students cannot ford graphing calculators, and I imagine those schools are nowhere near able to meet this criterion.

[Emperor SJoyce]

Does the cost of this bill matter at the state level? Like, all of these things are great, but are they practical?

Last I checked we are running a decent surplus with near 0 tax rates, so we should be able to afford this, though a cost estimation from the moderator team might be a good idea.

sjoyce, didn't we change something about the student:computer ration so as to not tax the resources of rural school districts?  I know there are places in South Georgia where students cannot ford graphing calculators, and I imagine those schools are nowhere near able to meet this criterion.

We discussed it, and I suggested summoning the SoIA. However, we no longer have one of those, so...

[Fmr. Emperor PiT]

     We don't have much of a surplus. Don't remember what it is off the top of my head, but I think it is in the area of 3-4 billion dollars.

[Prez Duke]

We have a surplus and no income taxes?

[Yelnoc]

We have a surplus and no income taxes?

Something like that, yeah.  We haven't run up a lot of expenses.

And I guess we should contact shua about this.  I will PM him.

[shua]

We have a surplus and no income taxes?

Something like that, yeah.  We haven't run up a lot of expenses.

And I guess we should contact shua about this.  I will PM him.

If you don't have income taxes, you'll need to rewrite #4.